Thanks for, the update.

Keep it coming!  Must have Much MOAR!

trying to figure out the next part.  i have a good idea, just trying to get the details worked out.

I added a bunch to this section, so im posting this part again with the updated stuff.

Jake headed towards the front gate, and a few minutes later as he passed the castle he spotted Allandra sitting on a stone bench apparently waiting for him. She stood up and walked beside him, matching his pace. “I guess you heard the radio call, huh.” jake asked her. Allandra nodded. “I did, I was curious as to who might have come to visit you, I did not know you knew anyone in these lands.” Jake shrugged. ‘I don’t, you know as much as I do, I guess we can find out together.” A few minutes later they stepped into the heavily fortified guard building, and stopped in front of Mcgreagors desk. Mcgreagor nodded towards the corner of the room. “Shes over there.” Just as Jake started to turn Allandra leapt in front of him ripping her sword out of its sheath in a blur. “What do you want here WITCH?!” Allandra bellowed in anger. She held her hand back indicating he stay back, and took a step forward. Jakes hand slid to the butt of his pistol as he gazed across the room to the apparent threat. Mcgreagor leapt out of his seat and drew his pistol, and the two guards in the room raised their rifles at the ready, startled by Allandra outburst, but confused at seeing no danger there except for a woman holding a walking stick and a large cat sitting by her feet, next to the cat was a large well worn leather pack of some kind. Jake reached out with his free hand and grabbed Allandra by the shoulder stopping her.

Jake stepped forward. “Whats going on Allandra?” He asked confused, as he glanced at the person who had elicited such a violent response from the Elf. There twenty feet away a slim athletic looking woman with dark hair, perhaps in her late twenties sat quietly on a bench, her delicate looking hand was wrapped around what he guessed was a ancient looing walking stick of some kind. The walking stick was two or three inches thick and about five feet long, made of some kind of dark brown wood that was heavily engraved with weird symbols its entire length, on top of the stick was a large white looking ball of some kind about the size of a cue ball, even the color of it reminded him of a cue ball as well. Down by the womans feet was a enormous black cat. The cat was coal black and it was absolutely huge, its back was as high as the tall womans knees, and its head reached her thigh.

The black cat rubbed against the womans legs happily and purred, if you could call it a purr, ir was crazy loud and seemed to reverberate in his chest somehow. While it was obviously a cat, even if a very large one, the creature didn’t look like a over sized house cat to him, it was more of some kind of wild variety from the look of the tufts of fur on its ears and its short six inch long tail, sort of like a cross between a Linx and a Bobcat or something, but not quite.

The cat had large yellow tinted eyes and it stared at them with the usual bored cat expression, just as Jake was about to ignore it the damn thing seemed to wink at him. He did and double take and the damn thing looked him right in the eye and winked again, this time with the other eye. Then it turned to Allandra arched its back, stuck out its hair in the usual angry cat look and then let out a enormous horrific sounding hiss that reminded him more of air brakes on a truck than any sound he related to a cat. There was a clicking sound and he realized the animal had extended its claws out of its large paws well over two inches and was clicking them against the hard stone of the floor.

The white ball on the end of the walking stick suddenly turned a dark shade of red for a moment, but then just as quickly turned back solid white again almost instantly, it happened so fast he thought he had imagined it. The woman leaned down and patted the creature on its back affectionately. “There, there Murder, its all right, you don’t need to worry about that mean old Elf woman. She made a kissing noise and the cat relaxed, and leaned into her leg and enjoyed the scratching she was giving it. Jake wondered what kind of animal you might name Murder, an answer he could come up with was not a good one. The woman cast a little smirk at Allandra. “Allandra nodded towards the seated woman. “That there be a real life Witch Jake.” She said flatly. “A most powerful Witch in fact who has plagued the three kingdoms for longer than I have been alive, she is not to be trusted.”

“ If she is here, she brings great trouble to your door, nothing else, you would be wise to kill her now. Her real name is Juliandra.” Allandra turned her head to the side and spat on the floor in a way he took was a show of disgust of some kind. “Although I believe the Dwarves have another name for her, if I am not mistaken, I believe they call her Humberalinger, it translates roughly into The Dark Child stealer.” At the sound of that name the two Dwarf guards eyes bulged in terror, but to their credit they held their ground, their rifles snapped to their shoulders as they aimed at the woman. The white ball on top of the womans walking stick turned black for just a moment, then as before turned white again so fast it was easily missed if you were not looking at it when it happened.

The seated woman slipped out of her chair and to her feet in a single fluid cat like motion, she smoothed the long red flowing robe she was wearing with her free hand and took a step forward, Jake heard rifles being cocked. He turned to the Dwarf guards. “Stand down.” He said. The two guards held their rifles pointed at the women. One of the guards nodded towards the woman. “The Elf Princess speaks the truth Milord, if that truly is Humberalinger, we should kill her!” Jake cleared his throat. “I said stand the FUCK DOWN”! He bellowed at the top of his lungs. “You heard your commander!” Yelled Mcgreagor. ‘Lower those rifles or you will be demoted from security, to cleaning the sewers!” Jake sighed inwardly, he would be glad when they finally ran all of these Dwarves through their new basic training program, and they lerned how to be real soldiers.

The two men slowly lowered their rifles, but they looked pretty scared to Jake. “You two men step outside and close the door.” He said. The two Dwarf guards didn’t try to argue, in fact they basically flew out the door slamming it behind them with a thunderous boom. The strange woman chuckled. “Im finding the quality of your troops to be quite lacking Allandra.” She said with a smile. A quiet creaking sound indicated Allandra had a death grip on the leather wrapped hilt of her sword, she jabbed the point of her sword toward the woman. “Kill her.” Urged Allandra. “Kill her while you still have the chance.” The woman sighed heavily. “My, my Allandra, I see you still hold a grudge from what happened at our last encounter. You should really let that go dear, as it seems to be making you quite emotional as well as overly dramatic.”

“ Also, I find the way you greet your visitors to be truly appalling indeed, not at all what I would expect from a Royal Elven Princess, although I suppose Elven Royalty is not quite as refined as it once was, you’re grandfather for example, now he was True Royalty and had impeccable manners as well.” The woman was looking off int the distance as she seemed to be reliving some old memory. “Yes.” She continued. You’re grandfather knew how to show true hospitality, that man could welcome his worst, and most hated enemy into his castle and a bystander would think he had instead welcomed a treasured long lost friend into his home from the way he treated them.”

Her voice was that of a mature woman, and it had a odd accent that was totally unlike how either the Dwarves or Elves sounded when they spoke, it also had a condencending tone to it he didn’t like much he decided. Jake stepped forward. “”Ma’am, Why have you come here?” He asked. “You must have a good reason, after all, its not like we are on the way to anyplace and you were just stopping by because it was convienient for you.”  The woman turned from Allandra and ran her eyes over him slowly from head to toe, as if she were sizing up a prized bull. “No, it was definately not a convienient trip at all.” She raised her eyes up to meet his. “You must be Lord Reynolds.” She said softly. “I have heard much about you, and I can see the stories I heard did not do you justice, not at all.”

Jake raised a eyebrow at her comment, he took a good look at her as well, to see just who he was dealing with. She had a athletic build to her, and she was tall as well, easily six feet. Her lips were full and they were painted dark red, her eyes were dark brown, and her face was thin with high cheekbones. Her hair was long, black and silky and reached almost to her waist, her facial features, combined with her black hair gave her a slightly asian look. Her ears both had multiple silver ear rings in each of them of various sizes. The ear rings ran from her ear lobes up to the top of each ear, there were also a small delicate silver ring in her nose as well as her lower lip. Her wrists had silver bracelets and many of her fingers held silver rings of various shapes and sizes. Her skin was pale and creamy and she was dressed in a long sleeved dark red robe that extended to the floor, around her narrow waist was a wide leather belt containing multiple pouches and a long wicked looking dagger was sheathed on her right side.

“And you are?” Jake asked. The woman bowed slightly. “Forgive me Milord, I am Juliandra of course and I have traveled far to see you, from the other side of the mountains to the north in fact, which is not a easy journey at all.” Allandra laughed. “She lies, no one can cross the mountains to the north, there is no pass through those mountains, it is a well known fact.” The woman cocked her head slightly to the side as she gave Allandra a bored look. “Do you really think I would lie about such things?” She said simply. There are many stories about me Allandra, as you have well pointed out already to Lord Reynolds here, why don’t you tell him one of those stories where I am known for telling lies.”

Allandra glared at her, with a hate filled expression. “Well, is she known for lying?’ Jake asked. Allandra turned her angry glare on him. “The fact she does not lie makes what she does all the more terrible.” She said angrily. “Jake raised a eyebrow. “So she does not lie?” Allandra glared at him for a long moment, her face was a mixture of hate and frustration. Then finally she shook her head from side to side. “No, she never lies.” She admitted. “In fact, she is well known for keeping her word, to the letter, in fact, but that does not mean you can trust her, in fact far from it, she is a master of words and has a way of twisting things to her advantaage, and to your disadvantage.”

Jake turned to Juliandra. “Is this true? Do you twist things to your advantage?” He asked her. Juliandra raised her hands in a shrug. “Who does not try to turn events in a way that will benefit each us when they can? Would you not think someone a fool that did the opposite, and ignored obvious advantages when they saw them and came out on the losing side?” Jake nodded. “So thats a yes then?” The woman gave him a warm smile. I see you are a shrewd man yourself, and a man who has the ability to see to the heart of matters so to speak.” Jake sighed.

Why are you here then Juliandra?” He asked. The woman smiled at him. “I see Allandra has failed to teach you the ways of the three kingdoms, and how proper hospitality is given to honored visitors and weary travelers, I suppose her formal education was lacking and it is as I said earlier, Royalty is not of the same quality as it once was.” She gave Allandra another pity filled look, then turned back to Jake. “Lord Reynolds, I have come on a matter of much urgency, that im sure Milord would be most grateful to hear about. However I fear I am famished from my long journey and also quite weary. Id like to get out of these dirty clothes and into something… more comfortable, so to speak.” She said with a grin. “No, I think the story must wait until after I have refreshed myself, which a bath, fresh clothes and hot meal will do nicely.” She turned towards Allandra. “I would be most appreciative if you could make those arrangements Princess.”

Jake was not buying her bullshit. “How about you just tell me what you came to say, before I take Allandras advice and throw you out on your ass.” He said angrily, my hospitality is in direct proportion to the politeness of my guests, and so far all I have seen from you is a lot of silk wrapped bullshit. Just tell me why you’re here and stop wasting our time.” Juliandra sighed. “I appologize if I have offended either yourself Lord Reynolds, or your Princess friend here, if I did so it was not intentional, its just the result of my hunger and fatigue from my long journey. However, im afraid I must insist upon resting first, and replenishing my strength before I can tell you the message I have come to deliver. I assure you that “tossing me out” as you put it, without learning the reason I am here would be something you would live to greatly regret im afraid.” She said softly. Jake raised a eyebrow. “Is that a threat?” He demanded. The woman shook her head. “Heavens no dear boy, it is not a threat at all, as you have nothing to fear from me. It is simply a fact relating to just how important the news I bring is to you and to you and your peoples future here in this castle.” Jake was fed up. “Mcgreagor, call some of your guards and escort this woman off of our mountain please.” Mcgreagor stepped toward the woman. Juliandra sighed as if she were bored with the whole tiresome affair, the large black car by her feet let out a long loud warning growl that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Juliandra turned to Allandra. “Allandra Dear, I can see Lord Reynolds here is completely serious about throwing me out. I feel it would be a terribly Chaotic thing for him to do, not to mention how badly many of our people would feel about his failure to observe our ancient laws of hospitality our society is built upon. Its simply chaos when the old traditions are ignored, and we all know how terrible and unpredictable Chaos can be, don’t you agree?” The way she emphasized the words chaotic and chaos was like having a bucket of ice water dumped down her back, and she suddenly knew those words had not been used purely by random, Juliandra KNEW!

Allandras hand shot out and gripped Mcgreagors arm as he stepped past her, stopping him in his tracks. Mcgreagor turned and stared at her in confusion, while Jake was the boss, it was well known that Allandra was his right hand man, and she was not to be ignored or trifled with. He raised a eyebrow at Jake. “Mr Reynolds?” He asked. Allandra turned back to Jake. “I hate to admit it, but shes right Jake. It really is a serious breach of etiquette to not offer hospitality to a tired traveler who requests it. She requested our hospitality, and as such it is our duty to provide her with a bath, clean clothes and a hot meal. You really don’t want to earn a reputation for ignoring such traditions.”

Jake raised a eyebrow at Allandras sudden change of heart. “Whats going on? Why do you all of a sudden trust her?” He asked suddenly. Allandra shrugged. “Nothing is going on, and I don’t trust her at all, and neither should you. I just realized she was right about us making a serious breach of hospitality is all, the people of he three kingdoms take such traditions seriously. You can feel free to throw her out once shes bathed and had her meal, but we cant just refuse her request. Im sure if you were to get her to promise to cause no mischief while she is under your roof, we could honor our hospitality requirements, get the story from her and come out of this in one piece.”

Jake didn’t like this at all, but if Allandra thought we should play along, then he supposed he would play along. He turned to the tall woman. “Fine, I think we can offer her our hospitality then.” A wide smile appeared on Juliandra’s face. “That would be most splendid.” She said. Jake held his hand out. “Just one thing though. Im going to need you to promise, that while you are on these castle grounds, you will behave as a guest is supposed to act. You will promise to harm no one, steal nothing, and abide by my rules or requests.” Juliandra sighed and bit her liwer lip in a tantalizing way. “Well that takes away all of the fun now, doesnt it?” Jake noded. ‘Thats the point, make the promise as I stated it, or get off my mountain.” Jiliandr laughed. “Oh, you are a feisty one. Fine, I promise that while on these castle grounds I will act as a guest is expected to act, harm no one, steal nothing, and follow your rules and requests.” She gave him a seductive look and bit her lower lip as she gain examined him from head to toe again. “I do hope you will make some, interesting requests of me while I am under your roof.” Jake sighed. He could just not believe how many women seemed to be throwing themselves at him lately. He had not had as much lady attention in his entire life as he had received in the short amount of time he had been messing with this damn portal.

“Iv already got more than enough female attention already, anymore would be as exhausting, as it would be suicidal.” He said. His comment brought a smirk from Allandra, and a raised eyebrow from Juliandra. “Cavorting with humans now are we Allandra?” Jake shook his head. “No, she is my advisor, not my lover.” Juliandra smiled at his comment and nodded. “Advisor? Yes, I could see how a Elf Princess such as Allandra here would make a man like yourself a most excellent advisor indeed. Tell me Jake reynolds, do you like to read?” Jake shrugged. “Sure, although I don’t have much time to read much lately.” Juliandra nodded. “Life finds little ways of keeping us busy, true. Have you ever read any of the works of Ibold the great perhaps?” Jake shook his head. “Iv never heard that nme before I don’t believe.” Allandra shot her a glare, and walked up to jake. “The sooner we get her bathed and fed, the sooner she can tell us whats she knows and the sooner we can boot her skinny ass out of here.” She said. “Ill escort her to the guest quarters on the second floor myself, and post a guard on her room.”

Jake nodded. “Mcgreagor, send a few guards to escort them both, please.” Mcgreagor grabbed his radio and called for two men to report to his office immediately. A moment later the door opened and two armed Dwarves walked in. Mcgreagor pointed towards Allandra and Juliandra. “Please escort Miss Allandra and Miss Juliandra here to the castles second floor guest quarters, you will stay with her at all times and escort her everywhere she goes, which is limited to her room, the baths, and the mess hall to eat. Is that understood?” He asked. The two guards nodded their understanding. Juliandra raised a eyebrow. “What is a mess hall?” She asked.

“Its where everyone eats their meals.” Jake explained. “The food is actully pretty good, you will like it.” Juliandra shook her head. “No that will not do at all. What I have to say is for your ears and your ears alone. While I appreciate your hospitality Lord Reynolds, im afraid I must insist on dining alone with you. We can dine in my quarters, in say, two hours from now? Agreed?” She asked. Jake sighed. “Fine, that will work, and I will be there. He turned to Allandra. “I don’t know whats going on Ally, but your responsible for her while she is here, and I expect you to keep her in your sight the entire time.” Allandra nodded. “I will.” Juliandra walked by Jake and she headed towards the door and paused to stroke his cheek softly with her hand. ‘I do look forward to talking to you later.” She said. She glanced at Allandra. “Theres just so many things to tell you.”

A hour later Jake was on the roof of the castle, looking through the eye piece of a powerful telescope. He came up here often when he wanted to think, he also enjoyed looking at the stars as he found it relaxing. Stargazing back home while relaxing, got boring pretty quickly, as there was really not much to see without a extremely powerful telescope, that certainly was not the case here however. He looked into the night sky and was in awe of the wonders he was looking at. The three enormous moons, were the biggest attractions of course, all three of them were much, much closer to the planet he was on than the moon back home he had grown up with.


The three moons were at different distances from him, the two that were the farthest away seemed to both be about the same distance away from him, and while they were the farthest away they were both still much larger than the moon back home. Then there was the last moon, there were several things about this one that made it much different than the other two, four things actually. First, it was the largest moon by far. Second, it was the closest to him. Third, while the two farther moons moved in the night sky and rose and fell day after day, like the moon back home did, this last one did not. It seemed to stay in the same place, like it was locked into orbit somehow. That was definately strange, but not nearly as strange as the last reason it was so different. Forth, while other two moons were white, like the moon he had grown up with, this closer one was a green color. While he was no expert on things like this, he was pretty sure the green color meant there was some kind of vegetation on it, trees maybe, or even grass, hell maybe even lichen or something could give it a green color.

He had heard the Dwarves say it was made from copper, thats why it was green, from the tarnishing, hell even that was possible he supposed. There were large blue areas on the surface of the moon as well though, that he was sure were lakes or oceans. He peered at the moon through his telescope and now he could see the outlines of mountains and other formations, but even with this expensive elescope he could not tell what the green color really was, or if the blue was water. He leaned back and looked at the amazing night sky and smiled in wonder at all of it.

“I thought I would find you up here, a soft feminine voice said from behind him.” He turned to see Allandra standing near the stairs that led back down to his apartments. Jake nodded. “I love it up here, its so peaceful.” He picked up his beer and took a drink of it. “I guess your here to talk to me about the dinner im about to have with Juliandra.” He turned to see Allandra nod her head. “I am, yes. You should treat this woman as a dangerous advisary Jake, because she is exactly that, there is none more dangerous I can assure you.” He took another sip of his beer and nodded. “Ill keep that in mind, can you tell me why she is so dangerous? Does she have powers like your wizard freind Jalumner does?” I asked Jiselle and Miranda tried to read her, but they said they learned nothing, as the woman can apparently block her mind against them completely some how.” Allandra nodded. “I suspected as much, she is a powerful with, and smart too.” She paused for a moment. “No, her power is not like Jalumnars, her power is different than his, but its still magical in nature, and its definately dangerous, as is her cat, don’t turn your back on it either.” Jake raised his eyebrow. “Her cats magical too?” He asked skeptical.

Allandra shrugged. “ Maybe, I don’t know. I do know she can controll it though, its her familiar.” Jake thought for a moment, wondering where he had heard that term before. Her familiar? You mean a animal that she can control, I thought those were usually house cats, not miniature lions.” Allandra nodded in agreement. “Aye. Ordinarily, a witches familiar is  a house cat, a dog, or a bird, sometimes even a frog or snake. I believe a witches familiar is chosen in relation to the witches personality. Juliandra is not your ordinary witch though, just as her familiar is not ordinary, she is as far above a normal witch, as that cat of hers is above a normal cat.”

Jake shook his head and laughed. “I cant fucking believe that im standing here seriously discussing witches, and their habits, or that im about to have dinner with one in a few minutes.” Allandra shrugged. “I don’t find it odd at all, even small children know about witches, as they know wolves are often intelligent, hold grudges and are not to be meddled with or insulted.” Jake laughed. “Point made, im not in Kansas anymore, so watch my step.” Allandra raised a eyebrow. “I do not know what Kansas is, so I cannot comment on that, but yes, definately, “watch your step,” as you put it.”

Jake nodded. “Juliandra mentioned something about the last time you two met, as if there was a incident of some kind, would you like to explain what she was talking about?” Allandra’s face took on a pained expressions and she turned away, and looked out across the castle at the moon lit mountains beyond. “No, I don’t want to discuss it, not now anyway. I will say it is a painful memory, and it happened almost eighty years ago. I will also say, if I had encountered her anywhere else in the three kingdoms one of us would have died tonight. The only reason I didn’t attack her is, with the position I hold as your advisor, I have to put your needs and safety before my own wants.” She turned back to face him. “Maybe I will tell you about the encounter I had with her some day.” Jake nodded. “Im always here if you want to talk, thats what friends are for.” Allandra nodded. “I appreciate the offer. It is time for your dinner with Juliandra, don’t forget my warning, she is extremely dangerous.” She said. Jake nodded, and patted her on the shoulder as he passed by her and started down the stairs to get ready. “Ill be careful Ally, don’t worry.”

Juliandra opened the door a moment after he knocked, as if she had been waiting for him. He took one look at her and had to gasp in surprise as she looked absolutely stunning. She had put her long dark hair up in a thick braid, painted her lips red, and she was wearing a low cut tight red dress, that showed a bit of cleavage. she was also wearing a pair of red high heels, which made her long well toned legs look even longer, and raised her height enough that they were looking eye to eye.

Juliandra winked at him. “Its the shoes, are they not beautiful?” She turned slightly sideways and shoed off the red heels. Jake gave her a smile. “Yes, the shoes are very pretty, as are you, you look stunning.” He took her hand and kissed it gently. Juliandra raised a eyebrow and then gave him a big smile in return. “Lord Reynolds, you flatter me. I would not have taken you for a charmer, especially after the stern warning im sure Allandra gave you about me being a devil.” Jake shrugged. “I give praise when it is due, as I said, you look very lovely.” Juliandra curtsied slightly. “Why thank you Milord.” She said. Jake smiled again.” Where did you get the dress and shoes? Did you get them from Jiselle or Miranda by chance? I asked them to bring you some dressed to choose from, they absolutely love clothes and I assumed they might have something to your liking.”

Juliandra shook her head. “You are refering to the Redhead and Blonde I assume?” Jake nodded. “Yes, the very ones.” He said. Juliandra shook her head. “They kindly offered me a few very beautiful dresses to choose from, but as both of them are much more endowed in the chest area, than I myself am, I fear their dresses would have fit me poorly.” She said with a grin. The comment brought a chuckle from Jake, and he nodded in agreement. “Yes, they were both certainly blessed in that area, to be sure.” Juliandra nodded. “You are a most lucky man to have two such beautiful women as them at your beck in call.” She said. Jake laughed. “I would not say they are at my beck and call, but I agree I am a lucky man for having them both in my life.”

Juliandra nodded. ‘I can see they mean a great deal to you, and not just because they are skilled bed warmers. I must say I find this surprising, as there are few men of either race who would care for them in such a manner.” Jakes smile faded. “Do you view mixed breeds such as them with the same contempt as everyone else around here seems too?” Juliandra look surprised. “Myself? Goodness no, I learned long ago that all races are the same, they all hold the same wants and desires, they all love and hate the same things, and they all commit the same terrible crimes against their both own kind, and others. A Human is no different than a Elf, or a Dwarf, and any mixture of those races is neither better nor worse than the pure blood version. Honestly, I found your two lady friends to be charming, and their story of how you freed them from servitude refreshing.” Jake raided a eyebrow. “I have to say, your surprising me.” He admitted.

Juliandra smiled. “You mean i surprise you in spite of all of the terrible things Allandra said about me?” Jake shrugged. Honestly yes. I thought you would be a little different, more menacing and terrible, and not quite so beautiful, charming, and open minded.” Jiselle smiled again. “More flattery.” She said. “Allandra was right, I am plenty terrible.” She saw Jake didn’t believe her. Oh, don’t let the beauty, charm and open mindness fool you, they are all camoflauge for what lives beneath, they are simply a sweet attractant, that lures the unwary to their demise.” Jake blinked in surprise. “I would think thats something you would keep hidden from me, not exactly something id say if I were trying to win the trust of someone I just met, to get whatever it is from them I was after.”

Juliandra raised her eyebrow in surprise and burst into laughter. “My sweet boy, I know what I am, and I came to terms with that long ago. There is no need for me to try and win your trust to get what I want from you, because you will have no choice but to give it to me anyway, whether think me a beauty, or a monster, you will freely give it all the same, because you will not be able to resist the bait I have brought.”

Jake frowned. “You seem pretty sure of yourself, how about you just go ahead and tell me what you have to say and get it over with.” Juliandra shook her head, and walked towards a nearby table that had been set up for dinner for two, she slipped into one of the chairs and she patted the table with her hand. “Because that would be no fun at all, come and eat with me, you have no idea how long it has been since I had a decent conversation.” She rolled her eyes. “ Orc’s are dreadful at conversation.” Jake raised his eyebrow in surprise. “You have talked to Orc’s, didn’t they try to kill you?”

Juliandra gave him a sly smile. “Come and dine with me and perhaps I will tell you a few stories about Orc’s.” She said playfully. Jake sighed in frustration, but he felt a tingle of excitement as well, this woman really knew how to poke and jab at him just right to mess with him, just as he wanted to be mad at her, she reeled him right back in. He figured he might as well eat with her, for one thing he was actually starving, for another he was dying to know her answer. He slid into the chair opposite to her and popped the top of a ice cold beer, he slid one to her and he opened another one for himself. Juliandra took a fork and poked at her unfamiliar dinner. Jake laughed. “Its called pasta, this particular dish is chicken alfredo, its pretty good, try it.” Juliandra scooped a bite into her mouth and chewed tentatively, then her eyes widened in surprise. “Gods this is wonderful!” She exclaimed.

They ate dinner and talked for a hour or so, but eventually Jake got tired of beating around the bush. He slid his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair. Juliandra knew where this was going. “I guess your ready for business?” She asked. Jake nodded. “Yes. I think iv been patient, and iv tried to give you what you asked for. You asked for our hospitality, a bath and a hot meal, and conversation, and I have ablidged those requests. I think its time to hear what you came to tell me.”

Juliandra nodded and smiled. “I agree, you have been most generous indeed. Okay, lets get through this. First, I have a confession to make. The message I brought you, is from the lord I serve. I was only ordered to bring you the message, I stuck the hospitality requirement onto it for my own amusement, and well, I was dirty and hungry as well, it really was a long journey.” Jake nodded. “No harm I suppose, besides I do need to be a better host.” Juliandra shook her head. “You’re a great host, but lets get to the message.”

Juliandra cleared her throat. “My Lord asked me to give you this message. “If you wish to know why your portal has stopped working, and what is required to fix it, come and find out. I await your arrival.” Jake frowned. “Your Lord Gave you this message how long ago?” He asked. “Three weeks ago.” She said. “Why, what does that have to do with anything, and what portal is my Lord talking about? Portal to where?” Jake shook his head. “Its not important.”

Juliandra nodded. “Fine, be that way. We can discuss it later, we will have plenty of time to talk on our trip.” Jake shook his head. ‘I never agreed to go with you. Id have to at least consider the offer, and if I decided to go, id need time to make arrangements before I left.” Juliandra nodded. ‘I understand, and thats a most reasonable request.” She stood up gracefully and walked slowly around the table towards him. Jake stood just as she reached him, Juliandra looked into his eyes for a moment, then she spoke softly. “ Unfortunately for you however, my Lord is not quite so reasonable. I was told to return the next morning, with, or without you.” Jake shook his head. “I cant do that. Why don’t you tell me how to find your Lord and I will come these as soon as I can.”

Julaindra shook her head. “Im not allowed to give you that information, I can only show you. If you want the answers to your question, then be ready to leave with me in the morning.” She shrugged her shoulder and her dress slid to the floor around her ankles, she stood there before him naked, wearing only her red high heels. Jakes punse races and his heart started beating faster, she was a very beautiful woman. Juliandra licked her lip in a seductive way and tilted her head towards the bed. “You can of course sleep here with me if you like.” Jake shook his head. “I don’t think thats a good idea, for several reasons.” Juliandra nodded. “Then get the fuck out.” Jake nodded, turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Julaindra shook her head. “Im not allowed to give you that information, I can only show you. If you want the answers to your question, then be ready to leave with me in the morning. You may bring one person with you if you like, but no more than one.” She shrugged her shoulder and her dress slid to the floor with a rustle of fabric, piling around her ankles. She kicked her feet free of the dress and walked around him slowly, while running her finger across his chest and back. She stopped a few feet away and stood there  naked, wearing only her red high heels and turned slowly around slowly to give him a good view of her body as she ran her hands across her breasts and down her sides arching her back as she did so. Jakes pulse raced and his heart started beating faster, as she was a very beautiful woman. He returned the favor and took a good look at all of her. She had a very athletic, lithe, well toned body, and he could find no fault with it.

Her breasts while on the smaller side, were high and firm, and both of her nipples were pierced, which was something he had never encountered in person before. Juliandra smiled when she saw the effect her naked body was having on Jake. She licked her lip slowly in a way that sent a shiver up his back, then she tilted her head towards the bed. “You can of course sleep here with me if you like.” She gave him a little seductive look that almost caused him to run and leap into the bed right then and there. He fought off the powerful urge, and did his best to keep his mind on non sexual thoughts. He shook his head. “I don’t think thats a good idea, for several reasons.” He said. Juliandra’s smile instantly turned into a disappointed frown. “Then get the fuck out.” She said acidly. Jake nodded, and walked around her and out of the room, the door slammed behind him suddenly with a loud boom. He headed to find Allandra and tell her what had happened.

The next morning after breakfast Jake walked out of the building with his arms full of equipment. He had his rifle, tactical vest, and camelback pack over one shoulder and a snow camoflauge goretex parka gripped in his other hand. He walked down the short flight of stone steps and found Allandra already waiting for him, the reins of two of the FOBs horses in her hand. The one Allandra was setting on was solid brown, and the one without a rider he assumed was for him was brown and white. Behind Allandra was a third smaller horse, this one had no saddle, instead it was wearing a pack frame, and had bulging packs strapped on each side of it. He glanced to the right and saw Juliandra nearby adjusting the saddle bags of another horse he assumed she had arrived on yesterday, her horse was solid black, and it was a beautiful animal, and behind her horse was another simular pack animal heavy with supplies. He stepped over to talk to Allandra. “No ranger this trip?” He said disappointedly. Allandra shook her head. “Nope. We are headed into very rugged territory, the horses will barely work, no way the ranger would.” He nodded, then he dropped his gear to free up his hands and slapped the full saddlebags that were strapped to his own. “You already packed for me?” He said surprised. Allandra shrugged. “Figured we needed a early start, and you move slowly in the morning.” She said with a grin. Jake gave her a frown, and strapped his parka to his saddle bags. “Oh don’t worry.” She said. “I put all of your favorite shit in there, and plenty of extra ammo and food as well. Are you dressed for where we are going? Its going to be very cold up on that mountain.” She said.

Jake nodded. He was wearing a set of polypro thermal underwear under his normal clothing, which today was a heavy canvas pair of dark brown lightly insulated tactical pants, and a heavy olive green canvas insulated tactical jacket. He had upgraded his foot wear to black matterhorn insulated combat boots, and a insulated green watch cap completed his outfit. He slipped his heavy tactical vest and camelbak pack across his shoulders and buckled it on. His weapons were the same as usual, that being his razor edged marine corp bayonet, his grandfathers 1911 pistol, and the M-4 carbine / grenade launcher he had become fond of. He removed the sword he had attacked to his tactical vest and strapped it to the saddle bags as well. Allandra nodded. “That should work.”

Jake checked out Allandra like a good battle buddy would, making sure she had everything she needed. Her clothing was more traditional three kingdoms gear than the modern gear Jake was wearing. Allandra was wearing a pair of heavy knee high brown leather boots with sheep skin edging, her pants were made from the same heavy leather and sheepskin, as was the light leather Jacket she was wearing, brown leather with sheep skin fringes. Her beautiful golden hair was tied up in a thick braid, and her head was covered with a leather sheepskin cold weather hat. Buckled around her narrow waist was her sword belt, and the fine steel swords and knives Jake had given her as gifts, she looked like a dungeons and dragons adventurer. She had added a few modern pieces to her gear though, which brought a grin from jake, and a nod of approval. While she was wearing her deadly swords buckled on her left side, on her right hip was a Ruger Vaquero pistol chambered in .44 magnum.

The Stainless steel revolver was secured in a leather cowboy rig and the gunbelt had spare cartridges all acros the back of it. She seemed to like the big bore weapons, as the gun across her back was a big bore as well. He saw it was one of his grandfathers weapons, Across her back was a Winchester 1897 trench shotgun, and across her ample chest was a bandoleer of shotgun shells, a misture of buckshot and slugs he was pretty sure, strapped to her saddle bags was the long wicked bayonet that fir the old shotgun. A few months back when he had noticed her practicing with these weapons, he had wanted to suggest she pick something more modern and magazine fed, that would be more practical for combat, and faster to reload. He had waited for her to stop shooting so he could suggest just that thing, but when he saw her shoooting he had instantly dropped that idea.

The range she was on, was set up with many different kinds of targets, steel plates, and such, but she had put up some of the heavy bayonet dummies for some close range work. He watched as she engaged the targets with her shotgun, she would blast a few and expend almost all of her shotgun ammo, stab and slash a few with the bayonet, and then start shooting again. He grew puzzled when she never seemed to be reloading, but soon realized she had been reloading. She was just so fast and smooth when she did it, it blended into her combat style and there was really no down time. She had quickly slung her shotgun and a large shiny pistol had appeared in her hand, and she began shooting that as well, the booming sound indicated she was shooting a heavy caliber, again, as with the shotgun, she would fire at a few targets, then strike them with the heavy pistol, twirling, and kicking them with her powerful legs, and resume shooting a few rounds, rinse, repeat. She was as fast reloading the revolver as she had been with the shotgun. Finally she had slipped the heavy pistol into its holster and drew her swords and went to town on the targets as well. The woman was simply deadly, and it was just not her skill with weapons, her physical strength was substantial as well. He had been shocked when he had discovered just how strong she was.

When you saw Allandra, you saw a beautiful five foot five woman that weighed about one hundred and fifteen pounds, with slim arms and legs. However, she was as strong as any man, at least any human man. Jake had won some good money when some of the guys had bet they could beat her in strength contests, after she had embarrassed them while shooting. The end result was the guys of the FOB had quickly realized to their stunned amazement that she could out lift even Herman, a six foot six, two hundred and fifty pound, weight lifter who worked in the motorpool. It was just nuts seeing tiny little Allandra helfting a barbell filled with heavy weights, and curling it easily, when even Herman’s huge self could not even curl it once.

The guys on the FOB and given her a lot more respect after that day, before she had been a cute little sexy chick they enjoyed hitting on, who they really didn’t take seriously. However after that weight lifting and shooting exhibition they treated her as a equal, and gave her a lot of respect, and while most of the guys stopped hitting on her after that due to how intimidated they were by here, some of the others had only hit on her harder as apparently that was their fetish.

Jake nodded at Allandras gear set up, and he slipped his foor into a stirrup and mounted his horse. He picked up the reins and steadied his horse, holding it in place. Allandra had insisted her get some riding practice, and along with the sword lessons, she had instructed him in horse back riding. He could ride well enough now, but he still preferred the ranger to a horse, not to mention how much more supplies they could carry in the ranger. He turned his horse around so he would be along side Allandra, he got into position just as Juliandra rode up on her own horse.

Juliandra had replaced her long red robe she had been wearing yesterday for a leather, sheepskin outfit much like the one Allandra was wearing, the biggest difference between Juliandras and Allandras outfit was Juliandras was dyed a dark blood red instead of dark brown as Allandras was. Juliandras horse had full saddlebags, and he could see a short sword, long bow and quiver of arrows strapped to her saddle bags, her odd looking walking stick lay across her lap with her left hand halding it.

“We ready to leave?” Juliandra asked. Jake nodded. “Yep, all ready. How long do you think ill be gone from home? He asked. Juliandra shrugged. “Depends, if you do something stupid and get yourself killed you will never return.” Jake sighed. “If I don’t do anything stupid, how long then?” He asked. “It took me three weeks to get here, so at least double that.” Juliandra said, but id add at least two weeks to the journey just to be safe, because of possibly bad weather.” Jake nodded, and turned to Allandra. “We have enough food for that long of a trip?” She nodded in return. “We have enough supplies to make this trip twice.” She said.

Jake turned back to face Juliandra. “Yup, were ready.

Keep up the good work,Buck.

Aye! Keep up the good writing Buck!

I added this to the earlier stuff, figured id just post this, instead of all of the same stuff.

Her breasts while on the smaller side, were high and firm, both of her nipples were pierced, and the nipple piercings had a delicate looking chain that connected the two together, which was something he had never encountered in person before, and he discovered he really like it when a shiver of desire shot up his spine. Juliandra smiled when she saw the effect her naked body was having on Jake. She licked her lip slowly in a way that sent yet another shiver up his back, then she tilted her head towards the bed. “You can of course sleep here with me if you like.” She gave him a little seductive look that almost caused him to run and leap into the bed right then and there. He fought off the powerful urge, and did his best to keep his mind on non sexual thoughts. He shook his head. “I don’t think thats a good idea, for several reasons.” He said. Juliandra’s smile instantly turned into a disappointed frown. “Then get the fuck out.” She said acidly. Jake nodded, and walked around her and out of the room, the door slammed behind him suddenly with a loud boom.

Jake chuckled as he walked away from her bed chamber and headed to find Allandra and tell her what had happened. He had found her back on the roof, having drinks with Jiselle and Miranda. When he relayed the information Juliandra had told him, Jiselle and Miranda had immediately been against his leaving. They had argued for several minutes, but Jake had stayed firm. “I don’t like this any more than you do.” He had said. “But she knows something about the portal, she knew it was not working, and the only people who knew that are sitting in this room right now. If shes to be believed she knew the portal was going to stop working almost three weeks ago. The people on the FOB from my home land will likely freak out when they find out the portal is not working, so, we had best get it fixed, not to mention its importance for resupply, we have to have that portal working, and Juliandr knows something.” Allandra didn’t want him to go either, but she knew Juliandra knew something about Jakes role in Ibolds Prosephy, she might even know where the Sword of Chaos was as well. They were going to need that sword soon, and since Julumnar had not returned yet, Juliandras cryptic message was the only clue she had to work with. However, she was not ready to tell Jake about the prosephy of Ibold just yet, or his place in it. She had heard several ancient stories about how people reacted when they were told of their place in a prosephy, and they often didn’t end well, and she could not afford to lose him, she had to play this carefully as the last thing she needed was him running back to his home world and hiding from his destiny.

Allandra had sided with Jake against Jiselle and Mirandas objections, insisting he had to make this trip with Juliandra. The two overly protective Dwarf ladies had finally given in after they had gotten Allandra to swear to keep him safe. Allandra had left soon after to get their equipment ready for a long trip, leaving Jake alone with them. While neither woman was happy at all about the situation and Jake leaving the next morning with Juliandra, they were both still extra enthusiastic in bed that night when they reminded him just what he was leaving behind.




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------



“We ready to leave?” Juliandra asked. Jake nodded. “Yep, all ready. How long do you think ill be gone from home? He asked. Juliandra shrugged. “Depends, if you do something stupid and get yourself killed you will never return.” Jake sighed. “If I don’t do anything stupid, how long then?” He asked. “It took me three weeks to get here, so at least double that.” Juliandra said, but id add at least two weeks to the journey just to be safe, because of possibly bad weather.” Jake nodded, and turned to Allandra. “We have enough food for that long of a trip?” She nodded in return. “We have enough supplies to make this trip twice.” She said. Jake pulled his radio from his belt and spoke to the base commander Jason Sutton, updating him on how long to expect him to be away from the FOB. Commander Sutton acknowledged his transmission, and signed off.

Jake turned back to face Juliandra. “Yup, were ready.  Juliandra turned her horse and led her pack animal out of the court yard ahead of them, Jake went next, and Allandra followed in the rear with their heavily laiden pack horse trailing behind her. They received a lot of waves and smiles as they moved through the city streets and towards the front gates. Even with all of Jakes people, the hundreds of Dwarf soldiers they had taken on, and a few hundred more regular dwarfs that had taken up homes and businesses in the city, the place felt like a ghost town. He guessed the place could easily hold several thousand residents, possibly as many as five thousand, so even with the five hundred or so people living in it now the place seemed almost deserted as they moved through the streets, and passed abandoned homes and businesses.

Soon they exited through the huge main gates and past their guards that were posted there. Jake got a good look as one of the work crews were hoisting one of the wrecked sherman tanks up onto the wall of the city with their crane. The tank had been stripped of everything that was not needed to turn it into a pillbox, they had removed all the running gear, road wheels, transmission, engine and such and the loss of that extra weight had allowed them to pick what was left up with their crane at one time. The rear of the tank had been cut open and a steel door installed for easy entrance, and the engine compartment had been turned into ammunition storage.

He watched as the stripped tank hull was lowered into position on the wall, where they were ready to bolt it onto the massive stone blacks that the wall was made from. Once they had it bolted down they would pour concrete around it to make it even tougher. He thought it was overkill big time, as there was nothing on this planet that he knew of which could pose a serious threat to this fortress, with its new modern weapons. Hell, they could not even be starved out, as they had the portal to bring in more supplies. The portal could only be reached by first passing through the FOB, so that was safe. Well, it wa safe even though the portal was not working right now.

He was glad he had insisted in fully stocking this place with as much gear, food and ammunition possible the very first thing, they had filled every store room in the castle to the gills, as well as several warehouses that were located in the city. The portal might be down right now, but he felt good in knowing they had enough food stored to feed all five hundred people for up to five years. This was important as he knew the traditional tactic for castle warfare when dealing with a castle that you could not destroy, was to put it under seige and starve the inhabitants out. Good luck starving his people out, he thought, as winter would arrive long before they ran out of food forcing a invading army to retreat back down the valley or risk starving themselves in the deep snow.

He saw the battered Sherman tank hull as it was set on the wall, and the cables released. The tanks faded green paint reflected the bright sunlight, and its large caliber one oh five caliber cannon pointed out across the valley facing the only road that led to the fortress.


He damn sure would hate to have to be one of the attackers that had to come up that road, and face the heavy guns of the converted tank hull pill boxes they had been building. Those one oh five millimeter cannons were brutal, as would be the thirty and fifty caliber machine guns they sported as their secondary armarments. Facing all that firepower while crossing the mile of cleared ground on the approach from the woodline, much less coming up that steep, narrow, fully exposed road would suck bad even if you had modern weapons and equipment for the assault such as a tank of your own or rocket propelled grenades for penetrating steel armor plate.

That assault would would, really, really suck bad if all you had was medieval gear and weapons, as even if you reached the top of the mountain and stood in front of the gates you would have no way break inside before you were chopped apart by the brutal machine gun fire. If a army attempted to assault this fortress, it would be a slaughter without compare, he shuddered just thinking about it. The rode down the narrow descending road away from the castle, the road was about a mile long, it was steep and narrow and fully exposed to the Castle, and offer no cover at all for any attacking force. It took them about fifteen minutes to safely navigate the treacherous road until they reached the valley floor.

The old road that led down the valley towards Dwarf Haven stretched away in front of them for over a mile before it disappeared into the thick treeline that lie there. They were not going that way however, instead they turned to the left and put the old road to their backs and headed up the mountain side. The massive mountain range loomed high above their heads and even in the heat of summer the mountains were covered in snow. Jake could see where the green tree line ended several thousand feet above them, and everything higher than that was snow, ice and rock. He tried to see a road of some kind they could follow, but there was none, he could not even see as much as a goat trail as Juliandras horse worked its way between large rocks as it worked its way slowly up the mountain.

A few hours later as they approached the end of the tree line, Juliandra turned her horse to the right and started following what looked like a game trail of some kind. Allandra had been right, there was no way even the highly capable ranger off road vehicle he loved so much could have made this trip. The trail they were following was maybe a foot or so wide most of the time, a steep wall of rock was on their left side, and a steep sheer drop on their right side, more than a few times Jakes stomach seemed to flip when he considered how far the fall would be if his horse slipped and fell. He looked down at the FOB where it sat several thousand feet below them, and got a kick out of how when he was at the FOB he thought it was located high in the mountains, that was nothing compared to where he was right now.

The white stone walls and buildings of the FOB were easy to see, and it looked like a storybook castle from this far away. He could see the vally floor easily as well, the dark green woods of the forest looked much different than the much lighter green of the mile wide grass covered field that lay between the steep mountain the FOB was built on and the thick forest. They had discussed building on that flat grass covered field, but he was wary to do so just yet, as it would be extremely hard to protect that field from attack, even with the weapons of the FOB that over looked the field. They had build some temporary worker housing on that field, and built some construction sites there as well, one of those sites was for the sawmill they had set up to cut lumber for the FOBs recent repairs. The kinds of heavy timber and beams they needed for castle repairs and defenses could not be bought from home depot, it had to be cut on site from massive trees harvested from the nearby forest. They had bought a portable sawmill at first, but it could not handle the massive logs they hauled from the forest. Instead they had used the portable saw mill to cut smaller trees into heavy beams, and they used that lumber to build a real large scale sawmill capable of processing even the massive logs the forest produced.

He knew they would have to start building on the valley floor soon, if for no other reason than to farm it and grow food. The field was about a mile wide, by three miles long, which would provide all the crops they would ever need. The field had mountains on two sides of it while the river was the third side, and the forest bordered the last side. The river would provide easy irrigation for the crops, and he was told the ground was great for crops as well, as the rocks had been removed long ago when the ground was used for farming by the Castle in the past.

There had been a few people talk to him about him either giving, or selling land to some of his employees, in order for them to build farms or homes on, as they were interested in living here full time. He had turned them down for now, but said he would consider that in the future, and let them know. He admitted it would be a great opportunity to build here on a nice piece of land, it would be something simular to being one of the first settlers of the United States. Many of those first settlers, later became some of the most powerful families in the nation, made possible because they were able to get in early and pick out a nice piece of land. He could see the appeal of that, hell it tempted him as well.

The only problem though, was he didn’t need to make a name for himself, as he was already very wealthy, and already owned hundreds of acres of farm land back home in kentucky, and he also had no desire to be famous, not to mention he was not really planning on running this place forever. There were problems with turning it over to other people to run as well. One problem with that was the portal would basically be opening into his back yard, with people passing in and out of his property at all times, as they worked their various deals, and one mistake would drag the damn government back into his life. The other problem was eventually someone would get in charge of this place and they might want to do things he didn’t agree with, just because he had no intention of taking advantage of, or even abusing the people of the three kingdoms, or stripping it of its wealth, and destroying its beauty in the prosess, did not mean someone else wouldnt decide to in the future.

No, if this place was running, he knew he had to be in charge of it, to keep it on the path he wanted it on. He had to admit that he had several times considered leaving Kentucky, for good and making his home here, putting all the bullshit of the modern world behind him, and starting fresh. He loved his country dearly, but it was definately not the same country that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the other founders had built. The values and rights that the country had been built on that had made it so great when it was founded were not the same anymore. All of those values, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, property rights, and more had been watered down so much they would be hardly recognizable by one of the founders. The Government had its tentacles into every aspect of daily life and it had a law, regulation, tax, or license for anything you could possibly want to do. Yeah, he had definately thought about leaving that all behind him, and building a new country here, that was based on the rights the founders had believed in.

“Jake, wake up dammit !” A female voice called to him. He glanced around and realized his horse had strayed out of the narrow game trail and was dangerously close to the cliff edge. He pulled the reins to the left and guided his horse back to the center of the trail a few feet to the left. He twisted in the saddle to look behind himself to face Allandra. “Sorry Ally, guess I was daydreaming or something.” She glared at him with a angry expression. “Fucking daydream when your not about to fall of the side of this fucking mountain!” She scolded him. “I promised Jiselle and Miranda I would keep you safe, don’t fucking die doing stupid shit, and make me go back and face them, I wont be responsible for breaking those girls hearts dammit!”

Jake nodded. He had done something stupid, something a noob would do on their first day. He hated feeling like a FNG ( fucking new guy). He mentally kicked himself. He glanced around and realized he could not see the FOB anymore, the green valley was gone as well, and they were not surrounded by steep snow covered mountains. They were still a thousand feet or so below the snow line, the air was cool, and brisk but not freezing. He was reasonably comfortable with what he was wearing, but it was definately getting colder, they would have to put on their cold weather clothing before they went much farther in the mountains. They had been riding for hours and he realized he was starving.

“Hey Juliandra.” He called. “How about a rest break, im getting hungry.” Jiliandra turned and laughed. “Oh, does little Jake need a break already? There is a good spot another hour up the trail, we will make camp there for the night.” She said. Jake glanced at his watch, it was only around eleven thirty. “Already?” He asked “We will still have at least four more hours of daylight if we take a thirty munite break a hour from now, thats a lot of lost travel time.” Juliandra shook her head. “The stopping point I mentioned is the only stopping point big enough for a camp site within eight hours of travel from our current position. If we try to push ahead we will be caught out like this when night falls, and stuck trying to sleep on a trail like your own now, which would be dangerous as fuck. No, we have to stop for the night early today.” Jake nodded. “Your the travel guide and the expert, we will follow your advice.”

Sure enough about a hour later the narrow game trail reached a wide rock ledge, that even had a small trickle of melting ice water running down the mountain nearby that would be perfect for replenishing their water supply. The roack ledge was not huge, but it was big enough to camp on and a lot damn nicer than sleeping on the trail would have been. The rock ledge was about forty yards long, and about ten yards wide. He led his horse over to the rocky cliff face and dismounted. He took the reigns and attached a carabiner to them and wedged the carininer into a crack to keep his horse from wandering. He did the same for the rest of their horses.

He helped Allandra unload the pack horse, as well as remove the saddles and gear from their own horses and started to make camp. He walked back through the trees and took a pee break on the steep slope and then started picking up firewood from among the trees, which was awkward while wearing all of his gear, but he was not quite ready to take it off just yet. He started his wood pile near a circle of stones that someone had built a fire in recently, he supposed this was where Juliandra had camped herself a few days ago when she had came through here the first time. He made about ten more trips for firewood and finally stopped when he had a sizable pile of wood stacked up. Next he started arranging his gear and he pulled out the tent he and Allandra would be sharing and while Allandra was gathering firewood he assembled their tent and put their gear into it, the things that would not fit into the tent were covered by a tarp, then he started working to get a fire started.

He glanced over and noticed that Juliandra’s horse’s were tied to a tree branch, but she was no where to be seen, in fact he had not seen here in at least fifteen minutes. He glanced around at the scattered trees that grew on the steep slope but saw no sign of her, he figured she could not have gone far, as there was basically no where to go really, hell maybe she had to pee or something. Allandra returned a few minutes later carrying a skinny rabbit its head a bloody mess. “Whats that?” He asked. “Dinner.” She grunted. “He didn’t see a bow, and had heard no gunshot. “How did you kill it?” He asked. Allandra shrugged. “With a rock.” She said simply. “While you were doing the woman chores and building the camp, I found us food.” She said. Jake rolled his eyes. “Since when is making camp a womans job?” He asked. Allandra shook her head. “Its always been the womans job.” Jake sighed. ‘Well iv always made camp, its freaking camping, its not gender specific.” Allandra nodded. “Keep telling yourself that.

A moment later Julianda walked around her horse carrying three rabbits of her own.” She glanced around and nodded. “Nice rabbit Jake.” She then turned to Allandra. “You made a very pretty camp Allandra.” She said in a way that was a insult. Allanra shook her head. “I killed the rabbit, Jake made camp.” Juliandra snickered. “Making camp is a womans job.” She said. Jake sighed. “No its not dammit. Its just making camp, its all camping, making camp, setting up the tent, killing rabbits, its all the same.” He said grumpily. Juliandra shook her head with pity. “Putting up a tent and gathering wood is for women, killing dinner is mens work.”

She glared at Allandra. “I see you have not taught him much about the ways of the three kingdom’s, although I don’t see why im surprised.” She said sarcastically.” Allandra shrugged. “Hes not very easy to teach, try it if you don’t believe me.” She replied. Juliandra shook her head. “Im not teaching anyone, im just here to guide you to my Lord, ill drop you with him, and then I can get back to my usual acticities.” Jake fed small branches to the fire. “Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and tell us who your Lord is, you hauled us all the way out here, you might as well.” Juliandra shook her head. “I told you I cannot tell you, you will learn his identity when you stand before him, and not before.” Allandra began skinning her rabbit, and Juliandra started working on hers as well. Jake pulled out a granola bar and started munching on it while he got the fire going, once he figured it was going well enough, he retrieved one of their pots and made a spot for it, and started heating water in it.

Buck, first post to this story.  I think you're doing a great job.  The story is very interesting, and well written. Keep it going.

Not to be nitpicky, but it's actually Quonset hut.

i hate to repost the same chapter again, but i added more to the same chapter... i did make it longer as well though.   the next update after this one will be all new stuff.


The old road that led down the valley towards Dwarf Haven stretched away in front of them for over a mile before it disappeared into the thick treeline that lie there. They were not going that way however, instead they turned to the left and put the old road to their backs and headed up the mountain side. The massive mountain range loomed high above their heads and even in the heat of summer the mountains up there were covered in deep snow. Jake could see where the green tree line ended several thousand feet above them, and everything higher than that was snow, ice and rock.

They were headed up the side of the mountain in the direction of the high pass which the Orc’s migrations were supposedly used when they came across the rugged mountains in the North east, to enter the valley where the FOB was located. Jake had tried to listen to as many myths and legends of this place as he possibly could, because he knew those old stories often held fragments of truth to them. He had heard in one such myth that long ago there was supposedly a road that led past the ruins of Camelot and led up the mountain to the high pass that was located there.

It had been used by traders and travelers to use when they crossed the mountains in the old days, but he could see no sign that any such road had ever existed. The traders and travelers had stopped coming one year in another story, and shortly afterwords the Orcs had appeared, they came over the mountain and flooded the valley with murder and mayhem, destroying many of the towns and villages that were located there. Eventually a massive fortress was constructed at the foot of the mountain, as well as a smaller one in the pass all in order to keep the Orc hordes out and protect the people of the valley. Lord only knew how long ago that had been, camelot had stood for a thousand years protecting the valley, until the inhabitants had all disappeared suddenly. He didn’t know if the story of a smaller fortress that was located in the mountain pass high above camelot was true or not, as none of his people had ventured that far out to seefor themselves.

He had ordered everyone to stay within two miles of camelot for safety reasons, until they had at least completed their FOB. The last thing they needed was to attract a enemy to their home, which was highly likely considering the enormous riches Jakes people had in their mountain fortress. He didn’t want anyone out exploring until they had finished the FOB and were fully ready to defend their new home, at that time they could consider sending out some exploration parties. He figured they would be done with the defenses by the time he returned from this trip. After the strange disappearence of the inhabitants so long ago, the castleof camelot lain empty for hundreds of years at least. With no Army of soldiers to defend the mountain pass the Orc hordes had taken advantage of the situation and had again flowed into the valley unhindered. Their rampaging, pillaging, murdering and raping went almost completely unchallenged.

The result of those murderous Orc rampages was two of the three races, Human, and Elf, had simply abandoned their towns and farms that were previously located in the valley, and fled far to the south to escape the murderous Orc hordes. Those two races built heavily fortified towns when they rebuilt far down the valley and those town fortresses combined with the increased distance the Orcs had to travel to reach their victims had kept everyone reasonably safe. The Dwarves however refused to live near Humans or Elves, and had constructed a new home in a well hidden and heavily fortified valley where they were safe from the Orcs, and the other two races as well.

He tried to see any hint they were following a road of some kind, or even a trail or something but there was none such path as far as he could tell, they were simply blazing their own trail. Juliandras horse worked its way between large rocks and boulders as it worked its way slowly up the steep mountain side. He looked out across the nearby river and was pleased to see herds of animals grazing in the grass lands on the other side from him. Off to the right about a mile away he saw a large herd of Buffalo that easily numbered in the thousands, near the river were dozens of white tail deer were grazing, off to the left he saw another herd of what he thought were Elk. Something large moved near the rivers edge and when he looked closer he saw several massive grizzly bear as they were apparently trying to catch fish out of the icy cold mountain water. He loved the huge variety of wild animals he got to see here, not only was there a wide variety of them, there were also large numbers as well which made it easy to see some kind of wild life if you took a few minutes to look. While he had big plans for expanding camelot, He knew he would do everything in his power to prevent anything that would harm the animal populations, such as over hunting, or reckless distruction of their environment.

A few hours later as they approached the end of the tree line, Juliandra turned her horse to the right and started following what looked like a narrow game trail of some kind that ran off to the east along the side of the mountain. Jake spotted a tall stone nearby that had off runes carved into it. The weird stone was made from white stone like Camelot was, it was about two feet thick, and stood about six feet tall, he thought it was probably a trail marker that marked this trail they were turning onto from the main one. He thought that was interesting information, as it meant Juliandra was not just blazing her own trail cross country, she was instead following a existing trail network.  He guided his horse down the narrow turn off, and a few minutes later realized Allandra had been right, there was no way even the highly capable ranger off road vehicle he loved so much could have made this trip. The trail they were following ran among the scattered high alpine trees and brush that grew at this elevation, and it was maybe a few feet or so wide most of the time as it passed between large rocks, trees and boulders. The slope of the mountain above and below the trail they were on varied from a steep angle most of the time, to a complete cliff that fell away to a several thousand foot drop occasionally.

They were currently in a area with extremely steep drops, and Jakes stomach seemed to flip when he considered how far the fall would be if his horse slipped and fell. He looked down at the FOB where it sat several thousand feet below them, and got a kick out of how when he was at the FOB he thought he was high in the mountains, that was nothing compared to where he was right now.

The white stone walls and buildings of the FOB were easy to see, and it looked like a storybook castle from this far away. He could see the vally floor easily as well, the dark green woods of the forest looked much different than the much lighter green of the mile wide grass covered field that lay between the steep mountain the FOB was built on and the thick forest. He could still see the large herd of buffalo from even this far away, but the other animals were too small in number to be seen anymore. From up here it ws easy to see why Camelot had been built in the location it had been. Looking down from where he was currently, the valley ran up from the south and then it made a almost ninety degreee turn as it turned sharply away to the east. The river flowed along the east side of the wide valley floor, from here until far past Dwarf Haven from what he was told however when it reached camelot the river flipped to the opposite side of the valley as it turned to the east. The end result was, the wide and deep river that flowed out of the mountains, cut this side of the valley into a mile long narrow strip of land before it widened again.

One the east side of the valley was the river, and on the western side a sheet wall of rock that formed the base of the mountain Camelot had been built on. The area of land someone decending from the mountain pass would have to pass through was only a few hundred yards wide as it passed the castle, creating a natural bottle neck about a mile long, and the perfect spot to intercept invading forces, such as Orcs.The strip of land opened quickly past the fortress however, giving them a wide flat open field about one mile long by three miles wide before it reached the forest. The opposite side of the river had much more flat open grass covered land, except for strips of trees that followed the river banks, and trees close to the mountains, the ground on the other side of the sider was all grasslands that extended for many miles off to the east, and it would be ideal for farming and such.

They had discussed building on the flat grass covered field at the base of Camelot, but he was wary to do so just yet, at least until they had the FOB completed. The field at the base of Camelot would be extremely hard to protect from attack even with the weapons of the FOB , while the the opposite side of the river would be all but impossible to defend. Part of the problem was there was no easy way across the river just yet. There were a few boats, but those were basically just bass boats, and pontoon boats he had brought here for fishing, and maybe a little exploration, they were almost useless in moving heavy equipment or large numbers of people across the river. To accomplis that they would have to construct a bridge across the river before the would be comfortable expanding in that direction. He already had what he needed to build the bridge though, at least a floating bridge. He had done some research and discovered that the military made floating bridges built across small boats, or pontoons, which could surprisingly even support heavy vehicles such as tanks. He had gotten lucky, and found just such equipment being sold as surplus scrap and he had bought all of it, as well as plenty of steel cable and everything else needed to build their own pontoon bridge when the time came, that time was coming soon he was pretty sure.  

They had build some temporary worker housing on the field below the FOB and had built some construction sites there as well. One of those sites was the sawmill they had set up to cut lumber for the FOBs recent repairs. The kinds of heavy timber and beams they needed for castle repairs and defenses could not be bought from home depot, it had to be cut on site from massive trees harvested from the nearby forest. In order to accomplish that safely and quickly, he had invested in the needed equipment, such as a sawmill, logging skidders, track hoes, tractors, and a ton of large chain saws. It was a interesting operation, they first bought a portable mini saw mill, and while it was too small to process the large trees, they used it to cut amaller trees into lumber and timber, which they used to build the large saw mill, which could handle the massive trees that would provide the heavy timber for the castle repairs.

If the portal didn’t come back online soon so they could resupply on food, he knew they would have to start building on the valley floor, if for no other reason than to start farming it to grow food as well as crops to make biodiesel. Argoth had been pestering him about farming for months now, as he had already lined up dozens of farmers who were both eager and prepared to relocate here to establish farms, all he had to do was give the word and they would be here within a week. He might well give that order soon depending on what he learned on this trip. The field at the base of Camelot was about a mile wide, by three miles long, which would provide all the crops they would ever need he was pretty sure. The field had mountains on two sides of it while the river was the third side, and the forest bordered the last side. The river would provide easy irrigation for the crops, and he was told the ground was great for crops as well, as the rocks had been removed long ago when the ground was used for farming by the Castle in the past. If they needed more land, across the river lay tens of thousands of acres of grassland ideal for farming.

Interest in farming had not been limited to just the Dwarves either, here had been a few of his own people talk to him about him either giving, or selling land to them in order for them to build farms or homes as they had no interest in returning back to the United States. Some of them just wanted a real home to live in while working at the FOB, while others wanted to leave their job at Camelot and take up farming full time. He had turned them down for now, but said he would consider that in the future and let them know. He admitted it would be a great opportunity to build here on a nice piece of land, it would be something simular to being one of the first settlers of the United States. Many of those first settlers, later became some of the most powerful families in the nation, made possible because they were able to get in early and pick out a nice piece of land for free as homesteaders. He could see the appeal of that, hell it tempted him as well. One thing though, there had to be some kind of plan put into place before he just gave away land to settlers or farmers. One thing that had to be considered, was roads and public access for example, there had to be a plan in place. Also, he would have to figure out how much land to give each person, what was fair? Should he make people buy the land? Rent the land? How much should he charge if he sold it? Would it be useful to reward people with land for good performance? He knew that had been done when the United States had been settled, as military officers and soldiers were often rewarded with plots of land for their service. It was something interesting to consider.

The only problem though, was he didn’t need to make a name for himself by getting in early, he had already done that part. He was already very wealthy, and he already owned hundreds of acres of farm land back home in Kentucky, although he supposed it would hurt nothing to make himself a simular sized farm on this side of the portal, it would especially be useful if he ever decided to settle down here, or if he had a son who wanted to years from now. He was not really planning on running this place forever. However, there were many problems with just turning it over to other people to run as well. One problem with that was the portal would basically be opening into his back yard, with people passing in and out of his property at all times, as they worked their various deals.

One mistake would drag the damn government back into his life again, which was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. The other problem was if he gave up contol eventually someone would get in charge of this place and they might want to do things he didn’t agree with. Just because he had no intention of ever taking advantage of, or abusing the people of the three kingdoms, or stripping it of its wealth, and destroying its beauty, did not mean someone else wouldnt decide to in the future if they got control of things.

No, if this place was running, he knew he had to be in charge of it, to keep it on the path he wanted it on. He had to admit that he had several times considered leaving Kentucky, for good and making his home here, putting all the bullshit of the modern world behind him, and starting fresh. He loved his country dearly, but it was definately not the same country that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the other founders had built. The values and rights that the country had been built on that had made it so great when it was founded were not the same anymore. All of those values, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, property rights, and more had been watered down so much they would be hardly recognizable by one of the founders. The Government had its tentacles into every aspect of daily life and it had a law, regulation, tax, or license for anything you could possibly want to do. Yeah, he had definately thought about leaving that all behind him, and building a new country here, that was based on the rights the founders had believed in.

“Jake, wake up dammit !” A female voice called to him. He glanced around and realized his horse had strayed out of the narrow game trail and was dangerously close to the cliff edge. He pulled the reins to the left and guided his horse back to the center of the trail a few feet to the left. He twisted in the saddle to look behind himself to face Allandra. “Sorry Ally, guess I was daydreaming or something.” She glared at him with a angry expression. “Fucking daydream when your not about to fall of the side of this fucking mountain!” She scolded him. “I promised Jiselle and Miranda I would keep you safe, don’t fucking die doing stupid shit, and make me go back and face them, I wont be responsible for breaking those girls hearts dammit!”

Jake nodded. He had done something stupid, something a noob would do on their first day. He hated feeling like a FNG ( fucking new guy). He mentally kicked himself. He glanced around and realized he could not see the FOB anymore, and the green valley was falling away as they turned to the north up a smaller side valley, and they were now surrounded by steep snow covered mountains. They were still a thousand feet or so below the line where the tree line ended, so they still had trees around them, which he found comforting, even if they were scattered far apart much of the time. The air here was cool, and brisk, perhaps around fifty degrees or so. He was still reasonably comfortable with what he was wearing, but it was definately getting colder the farther they went into these mountains. They would have to put on their cold weather clothing before they went much farther.

He took in the rugged beauty of the mountains and sighed contentedly, he loved this place. A screech above got his attention and he spotted a large eagle flying above him as it searched for prey. He ran his eyes over the mountainside across from him and spotted some big horn sheep moving across the rocks, not far away from the big horns were a group of mountain goats. This narrow valley had a small river at the bottom, and he got a glimpse of it, as well as several more large grizzly bear fishing for their dinner. He took a mental note to keep his eyes open, as a grizzly could kill him as easily as any Orc, or Necromancer could.

They had been riding for hours now and he realized he was starving. “Hey Juliandra.” He called. “How about a rest break, im getting hungry.” Jiliandra turned and laughed. “Oh, does little Jake need a break already?” She lughed and then shook her head. We cant stop here, but, there is a good spot another hour up the trail where we can stop. We will make camp for the night there.” She said. Jake glanced at his watch, it was only around eleven thirty. “Already?” He asked “We will still have at least four more hours of daylight to travel in if we take a thirty minute lunch break a hour from now. If we stop for the night now, we will be losing a lot of travel time.”

Juliandra shook her head. “The stopping point I mentioned is the only stopping point big enough for a camp site within eight hours of travel from our current position. If we try to push ahead we will be caught out on the side of the mountain on a narrow trail like this when night falls, and being stuck on a trail like this in the dark is not a good option, its also dangerous as fuck. No, we have to stop for the night early today.” He thought about what she had said for a monent and realized she was probably right, as she was the only one of them who had traveled this way before. He nodded in agrement. “Your the travel guide and the expert, we will follow your advice.”

Sure enough about a hour later the narrow trail they were following widened out when reached a wide rock ledge. The hooves of his horse made loud clomping sounds as he rode it across the solid rock of the ledge the trail had led them too. He spotted some ancient looking rock walls nearby and realized this was likely once a well traveled path and the travelers over time had built some kind of stone shelter here. There was not much to the shelter, it was just four stone walls about head high that created a large room of sorts with a fire pit in the center. There was not much to the shelter, but on this exposed rock ledge, located high on the side of this mountain it would be a godsend in bad weather, and probably make the difference between living and dying, should nasty weather roll in suddenly. The stone walls would keep freezing wind off of you, and would also reflect the heat from a fire to keep you warm, and from the look of the ruins it had probably had a roof on it at one point in the past, which would have kept most of the rain off of you as well.

There on the far end of the ledge a narrow stream of water a foot wide flowed down the mountain, across the ledge and disappeared over the side. It was not much but it would be more than perfect for cooking and replenishing their water supply, the water was crystal clear and ice cold. The rock ledge was not huge, but it was big enough for several dozen people to camp on at once and it was lot damn nicer than sleeping on the trail would have been. The rock ledge was about fifty yards long, and about twenty yards wide. He led his horse over to the sade of the mountain farthest away from the drop off and dismounted. He took the reigns and tied them to a branch of a scraggly tree that was growing out of the rocky mountain side to keep his horse from wandering off.

He helped Allandra unload thir pack horse, as well as remove the saddles and gear from their own horses and started to make camp. He took the horses bridles off and hobbled their feet so they could not wander off. He put out buckets of oats for them and when they were done feeding he gave them water as well.

He carried all of their gear into the stone shelter and stacked it against the wall close to where he planned to sleep. The inside of the shelter was not huge, each wall was maybe fifteen feet long, which created a fifteen by fifteen foot square room, in the center of the room was a firepit made from a circle of stones about three feet across. He left the shelter and walked back through the trees and took a pee break on the steep slope and then started picking up firewood from among the scattered trees and brush, which was awkward while wearing all of his gear, but he was not quite ready to take it off just yet. He started his wood pile in the corner near a the fire pit and noticed there was the remains of a recent fire in it.

He supposed this was where Juliandra had camped herself a few days ago when she had came through here the first time. He made about ten more trips for firewood and finally stopped when he had a sizable pile of wood stacked up. He took a axe and cut some long poles from a few small trees and laid them over the stone walls making a frame work, then he pulled a large nylon tarp out of their gear and tied it across the poles creating a roof of sorts. It might not be water proof, but it would definately keep most of the water off if it rained tonight.

Next he started arranging his gear and he pulled out his bed roll and laid it out in one of the rooms corners where he could best see the door way. He then took off his heavy ammo filled tactical vest and camelbak and laid everything out next to his bedroll, he laid his stood his little rifle in the corner where it would be out of the way, but easy to reach, then he started working to get a fire started. He stepped back out to get some small sticks for kindling and glanced over and noticed that Juliandra’s horse’s were tied to a tree branch, but she was no where to be seen, in fact he had not seen here in at least thirty minutes, not since he had started working on the camp site, Allandra was nowhere to be sen either come to think of it.

He glanced around at the scattered trees that grew on the steep slope but saw no sign of anyone, he figured they could not have gone far as there was basically no where to go really, and if they had got into a fight with each other, he would have heard something. Hell women liked taking friends to the bathroom, maybe they were off peeing or something. Allandra returned a few minutes later carrying a skinny rabbit its head a bloody mess. “Whats that?” He asked pointing at the rabbit. “Dinner.” She grunted. “He didn’t see a bow, and had heard no gunshot. “How did you kill it?” He asked. Allandra shrugged. “With a rock.” She said simply. “While you were doing the woman chores and building the camp, I found us food.” She said. Jake rolled his eyes. “Since when is making camp a womans job?” He asked. Allandra shook her head. “Its always been the womans job.” Jake sighed. ‘Well iv always made camp, its freaking camping, its not gender specific.” Allandra nodded. “Keep telling yourself that.

A moment later Julianda walked around her horse carrying three rabbits of her own.” She glanced around and nodded. “Nice rabbit Jake.” She then turned to Allandra. “You made a very pretty camp Allandra.” She said in a way that was a insult. Allanra shook her head. “I killed the rabbit, Jake made camp.” Juliandra snickered. “Making camp is a womans job.” She said. Jake sighed. “No its not dammit. Its just making camp, its all camping, making camp, setting up the tent, killing rabbits, its all the same.” He said grumpily. Juliandra shook her head with pity. “Putting up a tent and gathering wood is for women, killing dinner is mens work.”

She glared at Allandra. “I see you have not taught him much about the ways of the three kingdom’s, although I don’t see why im surprised as from looking at that lone skinny rabbit you’re not much of a hunter either.” She said sarcastically.” Allandra shrugged. “Hes not very easy to teach, try it if you don’t believe me, and this is not exactly a game rich environment, I was lucky to find a rabbit, much less many rabbits.” She replied. Juliandra cocked her head to one side. “I guess thats why iv got enough rabbits to feed us all, because theres no game around. Also, Im not teaching anyone, im just here to guide you to my Lord, ill drop you with him, and then I can get back to my usual activities.”

Jake had been feeding small branches to the fire as he tried to ignore the womens bickering, but tht last comment had gotten his attention. “Yeah.” He said. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell us who your Lord is, you hauled us all the way out here, you might as well.” Juliandra shook her head. “I told you I cannot tell you, you will learn his identity when you stand before him, and not before. I cant wait to see the look on your faces, that moment will make this entire tiresome trip worthwhile.” She said. Jake sighed. “Fine, have it your way.” Allandra began skinning her rabbit, and Juliandra started working on hers as well.

Jake pulled out a granola bar and started munching on it while he retrieved one of their cooking pots, he carried it to the small stream of water and filled it half way up, then brought it back and made a spot for it on the fire. He dug through their food supplies and found a package of instant wild rice with herbs and spices. He dumped it into the water, along with pieces of rabbit Allandra and Juliandra handed to him. ‘Rabbit and rice soup sound good for dinner?” He asked. Allandra nodded. “Sounds great.” She said. Juliandra wrinkled her nose. “Whats rice?” She asked. Jake held up a few of the rice grains that had spilled on the ground. “Its a grain, that grows in swampy ground, its really good, I think you will like it.”

Juliandra didn’t look convinced. “Did you run into any trouble out here?” Jake asked. Julaindra shrugged. “I didn’t encounter any more, or any less danger out here than I encounter any where else.” Jake nodded. “Thanks, thats helpful.” Juliandra nodded. “No problem.” Allandra rolled her eyes at her comment. “Why don’t you stop being a bitch for a few minutes and offer some useful information.” She said, which brought more snide comments from Juliandra. The two women began bickering again and Jake sighed heavily. “Its going to be a long assed trip.” He thought to himself.

Dinner turned out great, and even Juliandra complimented Jake on his cooking. There was enough that everyone ate their fill, and they had extra left over for breakfast the next morning. The bickering started up again when Juliandra made a snide comment towards Allandra, they two ladies were going at it as he was putting away the spices he had used to flavor dinner. It was finally getting dark, and since he was kind pretty worn out from a day of horse back riding Jake figured he would just ahead and go to bed so he could both get a good nights rest and escape the endless bickering. The temperature had dropped quickly as the sun set and he started shivering even in here close to the fire as he was. He decided to start wearing his polypro thermal underwear,so he stripped off his clothing and slipped into the silky military thermal underwear.

He then crawled into his sleeping bag and lay his rifle next to him so he could easily reach it. He reached up and turned the coleman lantern off plunging the room and bickering women into darkness, the only light left came from the flickering camp fire. “See Juliandra said as she pointed in his direction. “Jake went to bed to escape your incessant bitching.” Jake rolled his eyes and lay his arm over his face, then he used a skill he had honed to razor perfection while in the military, the ability to sleep anywhere at anytime. He was snoring soundly a few seconds later.

Jake found himself laying in a confused heap, the cold stone of the firepit was stabbing him in his ribs, and he realized he was clutching his M-4 against his chest. His head was foggy from sleep and he fought despirately to figure out what was going on. He lay there in the dark not knowing what had awakened him so abruptly, his rifle clenched tightly in his hands as he listened. Suddenly there was the terrifying roar of a enraged animal, that sent shivers of fear up his spine it was so close and so loud and vicious sounding, a instant later five gunshots rang out, five loud booming reports that were so close by he could feel the concussion in his chest. He rolled to his feet and flashed his weapon light around the small room, seeing Juliandra throwing off her blanket, he flashed the light on Allandras bed and panic shot up his back as he found it empty. He sprinted out of the room barefoot wearing only his thermal underwear.

He exited the doorway and spun to the left in the direction the gunshots had came from and his blinding weapon light illuminated the dark fur of a massive animal just steps away and directly in front of him, his brain screamed GRIZZLY, and he almost jerked the tigger on his rifle, dumping its magazine into the beast on full auto, but stopped himself at the last instant as his finget tightened on the trigger when he realized Allandra was in the way of his gunfire. She was being attacked by the huge bear! He suddenly realized, the bear was making a growling noise as it chewed on her bare naked leg, and she was beating its head with something heavy to fight it off. His heart was already pounding heavily from the adrenaline dump the surprise gun shots had caused, but the sight of Allandra in front of him covered in blood, and being mauled by the huge bear made his heart flip flop in panic.

He fought against the panic despirately as he knew he had to act right now, not freak out. Suddenly he realized that the bear was not moving, and the growling sound was not coming from it but was coming from Allandra, as she ruthlessly beat against the bears head with what he realized was her heavy stainless steel revolver. She was half sitting, and half laying on the freezing stone ground in front of him, she was dressed only in a sports bra and panties. The huge blood soaked grizzly bear was laying across her legs and she was beating its head with her blood soaked pistol. Jake jabbed the barrel of his rifle into the bears eye socket, and knew it was dead when it didn’t flinch in pain. He looked closer and saw half of the huge animals skull had been blasted away apparently by the powerful Buffalo Bore ammunition he had given her for her forty four magnum.

He flashed his weapon light around them making sure there were no more threats, and when he found none he slung the rifle across his back and squatted behind Allandra. He called her name a few times before getting within her reach, to let her know he was behind her. The last thing he needed was her to cave in his head as she had done to the bear. He grabbed her arm and with difficulty stopped her from hitting the very dead bear any more. “Its dead Ally. Your killed it, your safe now.” He repeated it several times and pulled her in tight and held her against his chest and rocked her.

She struggled against him, but weakly. She at least stopped making that damn weird growling sound, as it was freaking him out. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her past Juliandra, Juliandras face had the look of surprise on it, and maybe, disappointment? He took Allandra to his bedroll and laid her down and he searched for his first aid kit, calling to Juliandra as he did so. “Juliandra, get the fire going again, and bring me some water!” He said urgently. From behind him he heard a heavy sigh. She will be fine, im going back to bed.” She said. Jake spun on her and yelled at her. “Get the fire going you fucking cold hearted bitch ! He bellowed at her as loud as he could. “And fill that bucket with water, right fucking now, act like a fucking human for five seconds and be useful.” Juliandra stared at him, and gripped her walking stick tightly enough that her fingers were white. “No one talks to me like that.” She said angrily. “If my master had not ordered me to bring you to him alive, I’d….” Jake grabbed the grip of his rifle and swung it around. “say it.” He used. “You would what?” Juliandra glared at him for a moment not moving. Jake broke the silence. “If you don’t do as I ask, right fucking now, you will be going back to your master, all by yourself.”

He said flatly. “I wont associate with someone who refused to help one of my people who is injured. You can tell that to your master as well.” Juliandra glared at him a moment longer, then she threw her odd walking stick onto her bed roll and starting throwing firewood onto the dead fire and angrily stabbing at the hot coals, the fire flared a moment later as some of the smaller pieces of wood caught fire and she stood up, grabbed the empty water bucket and stormed out of the room. Jake knelt back down to tend to Allandra, he expected a smart aleck comment from her rearding how he had just treated Juliandra but there was none. Her eyes were staring straight ahead like she was looking at something a thousand yards away, and she was shivering badly.

Her bloody pistol was still gripped tightly in her hand, and he carefully pried it out of her hand, and lay it aside. He grabbed one of his clean t shirts just as Juliandra returned with the bucket of water, she dropped it roter t splash all of everything, then she turned and stoped back to her bedroll, and lay down and pulled her blanket over herself. Jake ignored her stupid ass, and dunked the t shirt in the freezing water and started wiping the blood off of Allandras arms, hands and legs. He feared what terrible injury he would find, and worried if he would have the ability to care for here way out here in the wilderness. He wiped away the blood and sighed in relief as amazingly he found only a few minor scratches on her milky skin.

He wiped the blood from her face and she acted as if he was not even there, she seemed to be shivering even harder now, which didn’t seem even possible. He whispered to her, and wiped her long hair from her face but he could not get a answer from her, she was deep in shock apparently. He knew he had to get her warm, and make her feel safe. The fire was building nicely, and there was plenty of wood piled onto it, but that was not enough. He walked to her bedroll and grabbed her blanket, and brought it back, next he positioned her on the center of his sleeping pad, he covered her up with his blanket, and put her blanket on top as well, then he stripped off his clothes until he was buck naked.

He sat his rifle within easy reach and he crawled under the blankets so that he faced the room and his back was against the stone wall. Allandra was facing him and his rifle lay just behind her back, its grip just inches from his hand, he pulled her freezing shaking body into his arms and held her tightly against his naked body. Her long golden hair was pressed against his face and he enjoyed its softness, and was amazed that it smelled of wild flowers, he kissed her shoulder, and talked softly to her as he rubbed her back gently with his free hand.

He held her like that for a long time as he kept a watchful eye on the room and held her protectively. A while later her body felt a lot warmer, and she had finally stopped shivering and shaking in his arms, her breathing had gotten much deeper and she started making a puring noise. The noise scared him for a moment, but then he realized she had fallen asleep and was simply snoring, which he took as a good thing, he held her tightly against himself for a long time.

Jake woke up instantly when Allandra moved. He opened his eyes and found her wide awake and staring at him, hiw arms still wrapped around her tightly. She gave him a quzzical look, and raised her eyebrow at him. “And, how exactly did we end up naked like this?” She asked him. “Jake shrugged. “You were attacked by a bear, remember?” Allandra nodded. “I remember a bear attacking me, what I don’t remember is how you ended up mauling my naked body.” She said. Jake shrugged again. “You went into shock, you were unresponsive, freezing, and shaking. I had to get you warm, so I had Juliandra build up the fire, and I stripped naked and got into bed with you to use my body head.” Allandra stared at him. “Dos that excuse work with Human women?” She asked him skeptically. “Because it sure as shit is not convincing this Elf woman. I refused to join your little harem, so you decided to just take advantage when the opportunity presented its self? I thought you were my friend Jake, I would expect juliandra to betray me, but you?” She said with hurt in her voice.  

Jake felt a pain deep in his heart from her words. He would never betray her or take advantage. Like that, he tried to back away from her. “Hey, im sorry Ally.” He said. Allandras strong arms held him in place and he could not get away. She grinned at him. “Im just fucking with you Jake.” She said tiredly. She kissed his nose, snuggled tightly against him and lay her head against his shoulder. “Don’t you dare move, im comfortable, and warm.” Jake rolled his eyes and snickered. “I cant believe you just did that dammit. Do you know how worried I was?” He asked her. Allandra nodded. “I remember some of it, I remember the bear surprising me when I went to go pee last night. Luckily I took my pistol with me, it just popped out from behind a rock three steps in front of me, huge fucker, scared the shit out of me. I snapped off a shot and back peddled but tripped and fell. It came after me and I emptied my gun into it, I guess I got some good hits in, or I would not be here right now.”

Jake nodded. “Yup, you head shot it, then you beat its brains out with your empty pistol. Thats when I found you, and took you to bed to clean the blood off you and warm you up.” Allandra nodded. “I remember being so, so cold, I thought id never be warm again.” Jake smiled. “Im glad I could help.” Allandra rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you really worked hard rubbing your naked body against mine all night.” jake started to argue, but just sighed instead. “Hey, did I hear you call Juliandra a fucking bitch last night, what was that all about?” She asked. Jake shrugged. “I called her a fucking cold hearted bitch, because she refused to help when I asked her to build up the fire to get you warm, and get some water to clean the blood off you.”

Allandra raised a eyebrow. “Really now? Im surprised she didn’t try to kill you for saying that, she has killed men for much less than that from the stories iv heard over the years.” Jake nodded. “She wanted to for a moment, im sure of it, I honestly thought I was going to have to shoot her. Apparently her master, as she put it, wants to see me pretty badly, otherwise, I think she would have tried to kill me last night.” Allandra raised a eyebrow. “She really said, Her master.” Allandra asked. Jake nodded. “Why, is that important?” Allandra nodded. “Its significant, yes. A Lord is someone you typically serve by choice, and you can typically refuse to do some things if it strikes your fancy. A master however, well, lets just say you don’t typically have much choice in the matter of serving or refusing.” Jake shrugged again. “Maybe your right.”

Juliandra interrupted them. “Oh shes completely right about me not being able to refuse my masters wishes. Because if I could refuse him, id have killed you last night Jake, id have killed both of you and went on my happy little way. Had I don’t that however, id have ended up as dead as the two of you within a month at best, as my master does not tolerate failure.” Allanra turned to stare at her as Jake answered. “How did you end up with a master? I want to know who your master is!” He demanded. Juliandra laughed. “I tire of this question, you will find out, when you find out, and not before. Now, you and your Elf whore get dressed, we have a long way to travel today, I want this trip finished as soon as possible, and I so dearly hope you displease my master and he allows me to kill you.” She grabbed her pack and walked back out.”

Allandra turned back to face Jake. “This trip gets better by the minute.” Jake nodded, he ran his hand down her naked back and rubbed the small of her back gently. “We ought to stay here in bed just to spite her.” He said with a grin. Allandra rolled her eyes and acted offended, but the twinkle in her eye said something quite different to him. “Don’t you get enought sex in your life already?” She asked. She kissed him lightly on the lips and crawled out of the bed, her face took on a horrified expression when she saw her bloody pistol lying nearby. She scooped it up and glared at him. “You didn’t clean the blood of my baby?” She demanded angrily. “I cant believe I was actually considering sleeping with you. As if !” She carried her bloody handgun back to her bedroll pulled out her cleaning kit and began scrubbing at it furiously with a oily rag.” Jake felt a thrill run up his spine as he replayed her words about considering sleeping with him in his head. Maybe this trip was not so bad after all.

Thanks Buck.

Seconded!  Keep up the good work.  Don't go letting the little thing called Life get in the way!

Buck hope all is well. Seems like a good time to write, hint,hint.

@zoe17


heres some good stuff.

Heres another 4600 words.


Jake hauled his gear out and started loading the horses, he went to get the horses some water and got a good look at the dead grizzly in the day light. The damn thing was simply massive, its paw was the size of his chest, and its claws were almost six inches long. If Allandra had not had her pistol last night, and if she had not made such good shots on the bear, he had no doubt the out come might have been a hell of a lot worse. He mentally kicked himself to be a lot more aware on this trip, hell, a gigantic grizzly might be the least dangerous thing about this trip by the time it was over. He worked with Allandra and the two of them working together, they managed to roll the thousand pound plus monster over the edge of the cliff, Juliandra refused to help and sat nearby on the back of her horse with a sour bitchy expression on her face.

The huge bear slipped over the side of the cliff and he watched as the massive carcass tumbled down a thousand feet of cliff, and become wedged in the rocks at the bottom of the valley. He didn’t want that dead bear laying around this camp site and attracting more bears, or other predators as they would likely be coming back this way in a few weeks, he also didn’t want it spooking their horses when they rode past this spot in a few minutes on the way out of camp either.

Jake learned over the next week that even though the trail they were following looked like a seldom used game trail, it none the less had a well established system of camp sites that were set up approximately eight hours of travel apart. Some camps might be a hour closer or a hour farther than eight hours of travel but they was usually because those were the closest safe areas a camp could have been constructed. This told him that this trail they were following had at one time seen a great deal of use. He had spent the night in six of the shelters so far, and all were built basically the same as the one he had spent the night in that firsr night when the bear attack happened. There was usually a structure of some kind built from stone that offered at least some protection from the elements, a fire ring for a fire, and a water source as well most of the time.

The trail had carried them higher into the mountains, and They had been forced to start wearing their cold weather clothing. Jake had added a pair of brown insulated tactical pants, and a snow camo goretex parka, as well as a insulated watch cap. Allandra’s cold weather clothing had been pants and a jacket constructed from heavy brown leather, with sheep skin lining, her outfit reminded him of something a Bomber crew wore in world war two. Juliandras clothing was much like Allandras, except juliandras clothing was died blood red as her other clothing had been, apparently blood red was her favorite color.

Juliandras attitude had grown more and more hostile the longer they had traveled together, and it had gotten to the point where Jake and Allandra had simply stopped talking to her completely, as any question asked, much less any attempt at conversation was usually completely ignored, and if she did answer she was so bitchy and hateful to them it resulted in verbal fights, and the verbal fights had almost turned physical several times as well, which resulted in him and Allandra simply ignoring her. They let Juliandra ride by herself several hundred yards ahead of them by herself, and they followed riding close together so they could talk. The most annoying thing about this trip to Jake had been, that even though they had been traveling for over a week, one of the FOBs helicopters could have made the same trip in a few hours at most. He was not looking forward to the two week ride back home, but unfortunately there was no way to contact the base for a helicopter pick up, because the mountains blocked their radio signals from reaching that far.

Allandra hissed at him. He turned his head to see what she wanted, and she gave him the signal to stop. She slipped off her horse and tied its reins to a near by scraggly bush, then she pulled her shotgun from its scabbard and moved to stand beside Jakes horse. Her eyes never left whatever she was looking at. “Whats up Ally?” He asked.


Allandra kept her eyes on the rocky mountain side. “Somethings not right.” She said simply. “I cant explain whats is wrong, I just know something is wrong, theres danger here, im sure of it, get your horse secured and arm yourself.” She urged quietly. Jake slipped off his horse and had his horse secured and his rifle in his hand within ten seconds. He watched as Juliandra rode slowly away from them. “What about Juliandra?” He asked. Allandra spit on her ground. “Who cares, fuck her. She deserves whatever she gets.” Jake sighed heavily. “Dammit Ally, we still need her to get the answers we need.” He took in a deep breath and let out a loud piercing whistle that made Allandra jump in surprise, the whistle echoed off the mountains and Juliandra spun in her saddle and looked back at them. Jake waved his arms trying to get her attention.

Juliandra stared at him as he waved at her and he swore could see her roll her eyes at him even from over two hundred yards away. She used her hand to make a gesture Allandra had told him was the three Kingdoms version of the middle finger, and she turned around and urged her horse forward. Jake sighed again. “So much for trying to warn her.” He turned and looked at Allandra. “You sure theres something wrong?” He asked. No sooner than the words left his mouth than a roaring sound echoed through the valley, and all around them there was a flurry of sudden movement from a hundred different places all along the trail they were riding on. Allandras shotgun boomed beside him and he turned to see a large man armed with a copper axe go flying backwards over the rock he had just sprang out from behind, a second one leaped through the air at her with a club clenched tightly in his hands.

She expertly ejected the fired round and pumped in a fresh round and slam fired the shotgun direcly into his chest, the man fell in a gurgling heap at their feet. Allandra smashed the shotguns stock into the mans throat visciously and he lay still. The man was wearing tattered dirty clothing, and he stank badly, his face was hidden by a rag, Jake supposed was for warmth from the cold air. Allandra ripped the rag away from his face and Jake found himself looking at the ugliest man he had ever seen. Allandra spat on the body in disgust. “Its a half blood Orc.” She said in disgust. “Its the result of a Orc raping a human woman and impregnating her, they are pretty rare as the woman usually dies in the rape, many more die sometime during the pregnancy, and the few who survive that die in child birth. I didn’t think these things exhisted anymore, the last one I saw was almost a hundred years ago.” She glanced at the huge numbers of figures that had erupted in the sudden attack. “Gods, are all of them Half Orcs?” She breathed in shock. She nudged jake into action as she racked a fresh round into her shotgun and blasted another Half orc that had appeared within shotgun range.  

Jake didn’t have time to say anything, he raised his rifle to his cheek and flipped the safety on his rifle from safe to fire, he looked through the ACOG that was mounted on his rifle, he put the green chevron on the back of a half Orc running at Juliandra with a raised sword and he gently pressed the trigger. The rifle bucked against his shoulder and the man pitched forward onto his face. Juliandra spun at the noise and saw the man just as he fell, she glared at Jake and raised her weird walking stick in the air and seemed to be screaming gibberish, the round ball on her walking stick flared a bright red, and flashed like the flash on a camera, the red flash was blinding in its intensity. Juliandra turned towards a group of men who were charging her and she screamed more gibberish, all of the men in the group suddenly stopped their charge and began screaming and clawing at their skin, their screams were blood curling, speaking of unimaginable agony, they fell to the ground and a moment later stopped moving completely. She turned to the nearest attacker and did the same thing.

Jake had to pull his attention away from her and worry about his own safety as attackers were closing on his position as well, one thing was obvious though, the great bulk of the attackers were farther up the trail closer to Juliandra where the ambush seemed to have been focused, only Allandras sharp Elfen senses had saved them from stumbling ino the center of the ambusht. He rapidly shot five or six men who were near him and focused his attention back on protecting Juliandra, picking off attackers left and right as they charged her position. Allandra shotgun boomed above him on the steep hill side as she carried the attack to their enemies.

Suddenly Allandra screamed at him. “Jake archers, get down !” He instantly dropped behind a nearby boulder just as dozens of arrows ripped into the area around him, he head a horse scream in pain behind him and a instant later a heavy thud told him the horse was down. He glanced toward Juliandra and saw she was taking archer fire as well, and well aimed arrows were keeping her pinned down behind a rock as a group of attackers moved toward her. He started to stand up to help her, but something hit im hard in the shoulder, causing him to drop his rifle as his arm went numb. He frantically grabbed at the impact with his free hand, and felt a cut in his tactical vest, and he realized a arrow had hit his shoulder, but had been stopped by his chainmail shirt. He picked up his rifle in his left hand and awkwardly started firing at Juliandras attackers again.

The roaring sound got louder and he realized it was coming from up hill from him, suddenly Allandra dropped behind the rock next to him, her hands rapidly reloading her shotgun from the bandoleer of shells that was across her chest. Jake looked over the rock towards the roaring and his stomach flipped at what he saw, charging down the mountain from above were hundreds of attackers, they were slipping among the bounders carefully to avoid falling on the treacherous mountain side, but they seemed to be covering the distance between them quickly. Jake dropped his empty magazine, and reloaded, and began picking of attackers as they exposed themselves, he had a bad feeling suddenly, and he slipped to the edge of the trail and peeded down the steep incline towards the valley floor. Instantly he saw movement and he realized there had to be at least a hundred more attackers climbing up from behind him, he picked off three or four of them and his rifles bolt locked back again forcing him to reload.

Allandra grabbed him by the shoulder roughly. “We cant stay here.” She yelled. ‘There are just to many of them. She pointed back down the trail the way they had came. “We have to retreat, its our only chance, once we put some distance between us, you can pick them off with your rifle.” Jake looked back towards juliandra to get her attention, but realized she was too busy to communicate with, she was swinging her short sword as she hacked at her attackers, she was winning just now, but dozens more were only a few steps away from her. “We cant just leave her!” Jake said angrily. Allandra shook him painfully, then she let go and blasked a attacker that had climbed onto the trial behind them. The powerful shotgun blast flipped the guy back off the trail in a spray of blood and gore. She turned back to jake. “If she had not been such a cunt, she would be right here with us, and not out there in the middle of the ambush, she fucking made her bed, let her lie in it.” Jake shook his head, and began shooting at the attackers that were closing on Juliandras position. He needed to get closer as he could not see them all from where he was at.

Above him a group of ten or so was bunched up and he fired his grenade launcher at them, sending them a high explosive present. The forty millimeter grenade exploded on the side of the boulder he had been aiming at, and sent thousands of tiny pieces of red hot shrapnel into their faces and bodies. Seveal of the men died instantly, several more were horifically wounded, while the rest were stunned from the explosion and were bleeding from dozens of small wounds. Jake shucked the launcher open and dropped the empty case onto the ground and slipped a fresh one from a pocket on his vest into the breech and shucked it closed again. He jumped over the roack and ran towards Juliandras position as Allandra screamed angerly at him from behind, a moment later her shotgun boomed several times.

Jake killed a half dozen men as he shot from the hip as he charged down the trail towards Juliandra, he saw her fighting despirately against several men, her sword was stuck in the guts of one, even as another raised a war hammer to smash her head in. He stopped running and snap shot the guy with his rifle, the man dropped his war hammer and fell to the ground at about the same time Jake leaped behind the rock beside Juliandra just in time to dodge a flight of arrows. The arrows clattered into the rocks around them, and Juliandra spun violently and chopped at his throat with her gore covered short sword. Jake raised his rifle and blocked the blow with his rifles barrel. He yelled her name but  she drew her gore covered sword back for another deadly strike, this time to stab him in the chest. His left hand lashed out as fast as a cobra and slapped her hard across the face, even as he fired his rifle with his other hand a instant later killing a Half Orc that was about to throw a spear at them.

Jake yelled at her again. “Its me jake dammit, im here to fucking help you dammit!” Juliandra blinked in response to the painful blow, and seemed to see him for the first time, she nodded her head in recognition, then stabbed at him with her sword faster than he could react. Her sword shot past his ear and something hot and wet splattered across his face, he turned and found himself face to face with a Half Orc, Juliandras sword buried in its neck, the creatures brutal looking mace fell from its lifeless hands and she ripped her sword free in a spray of gore. Juliandra smiled at him, her beautiful face splattered with Half Orc blood and gore. “That Elf bitch dead?” She asked hopefully.

Just then off in the distance Allandras shotgun boomed as if letting her know Allandra was still alive and well, and Julaindras smile faded. “Of course.” She said in disgust. Juliandra leaped onto the back of a near by Half Orc stabbing it ruthlessly in the side and back, the creature screaming in pain and terror as she rode it to the ground stabbing all the way. “Holy Fuck.” Jake thought to himself. “She has to be the meanest fucking bitch of a woman who ever lived.” A shiver shot up his spine as he realized Allandra had been right on the money about her, and he could not wait to be rid of this woman. He rouned the rock they were behind and gasp at what he saw, hundreds more Half Orcs were tearing down the mountain side towards them, every last one of them was roaring in anger, and waving a weapon of some kind as they rapidly closed the difference between them. He spun around and saw hundreds more were just seconds from climbing onto the trail from below, when that happened they would be attacked from all directions at once, he didn’t see how they were going to fight their way out of this.

Suddenly a heavy weight smashed him to the ground next to the boulder, he fought frantically to free himself and to strike at his attacker, but then Juliandra yelled into his ear. “Be still Idiot, im saving you, not attacking you. Behold !” She said gleefully. “My master has arrived!” Jake felt a massive wave of fear flow over his body suddenly, like a wave of ice water had just hit him. He felt his bladder release and hot piss soaked his pants. He fought to get free, but Juliandra had all the leverage as he was stuck in a crack with her full weight upon his back. He screamed in terror, as the air temperature around him plummented fifty degrees in seconds, he could see his breath. The Angry battle cry of the charging Half Orcs changed suddenly and turned into terrified screams of terror, and a instant lather a ear shattering roar blasted across the land scape like a shock wave, Jake fought frantically to get free, he had to escape! Suddenly everything went dark around him.

The massive bulk of the Ice dragon dropped out of the low hanging clouds like a dive bomber, it was focused on the swarm of movement on the hillside and just as the dragon fear hit the swarm of Half Orcs, the enormous creature opened its massive maw and a powerful torrent of super cold ice breath belched outwards at the Terrified Half Orc army. The creatures that were hit directly by the dragons terrible ice breath were the lucky ones, as their death was instant, as their bodies frozen instantly as well, they froze so quickly their now frozen solid bodies simply exploded in a shower of frozen meat chunks. The creatures who were only partially ht by the dragons terrible breath were the worst off as they had entire limbs frozen, or even half of their body, while still bathed in the terror of the dragon fear. The massive dragon flew across the mountain side breathing its terrible ice breath, when it reached the end of the Hald Orcs, it made a tight turn, and raked its ice breath across the Half Orcs that were clinging to the side of the mountain below the trail, many of them chose to leap off the mountain side and fall to their death rather than tangle with the dragon.

Allandra had sensed the dragon a few moments before it had appeared from the low hanging clouds, she didn’t know what it was, she just knew something terrible was about to fall upon all of them. She had no time to warn Jake, so she did the only thing that she could, she dove into a deep hole in the rocks and remained motionless. The fear had hit her a few moments later, but she fought it with all she had, she had to remain still, it was her only chance of survival. The terrible cold had hit her a moment later, and she thought she might fall victim to the dragons ice breath for a few moments, but then she realized she might survive after all.

Jake opened his eyes and discovered he was laying on the ground, and staring up at a fucking real as shit dragon. He thought he must be dreaming or something, his head hurt and the world was spinning around him. He heard voices, and realized Juliandra was kneeling at the monsters feet, and it seemed to be speaking to her. She nodded and stood back up, and Jake realized the dragons knee was the height of her head, the damn thing had to be fifty feet tall at least. The dragon seemed to look directly at him for a moment, he made a girgling wheezing sound he for some reason felt was a damn laugh. Then the monster leapt into the air, and began flapping its massive bat like wings, ice cold air was blown over his body as it clawed its way back into the sky, it was at that point he realized that the dragon was holding a dead horse in each one of its massive claws. The dragon disappeared over the top of the mountain, and Juliandra stood over him.

She still held her gore splattered sword in her hand, and he realized if she tried to kill him at that moment, he probably could not stop her, he was too exhausted to move. Julianra gave him a disgusted look. “You pissed yourself.” She said in disgust. Jake groaned in pain and exhaustion. “I don’t even feel bad about it, after what I just went through. He groaned. Juliandra laughed and nodded her head. “Dragon fear has that effect on people.” She reached down and held out her hand to help him up. He gave her a quissical look. “Your not going to kill me?” He asked her. She shrugged. “Oh, if it were up to me, id run you through right now.” She said. “Unfortunately, my master demands you be kept alive for some reason.” She resheathed her bloody sword, and grabbed his arm in both hands and hauled him to his feet roughly. Then she turned back towards where they had left their horses, and yelled. “I know your alive you fucking Elf Bitch, get your ass over here and help Jake, as im not dragging his ass.” Jake collapsred onto a large rock to rest.

Jake spotted movement and suddenly Allandras golden hair poked out from behind a rock, a minute later she walked up to them, Jake noticed she had peed herself as well, Juliandra laughed at her. “Pissed pants, my, my.” She pointed back up the trail they had been following. “My master said to head to the next camp site, its a hours walk. He will leave our dead pack horses there for us so we have our supplies. We are to wait until his men arrive to fetch us, and bring us to his home.” She turned her back and walked away from them. Allandra dropped heavily beside Jake and leaned against him. “I warned you she’s a bitch from hell.” She said. Jake nodded, and then he laughed. “If I could go back in time to last week, I think id shoot her ass just like you asked me to do that first day. Allandra nodded. “Told you so.” Jake nodded. “Yeah, you did.”

The two of them made their way back to where they had left their horses, they helped to support each other as they carefully picked their way between the rocks. They passed dead bodies as they walked, some of the bodies were from people they had killed in the battle, while some others were frozen solid from dragon breath, there were a few paces that were covered with what looked like red snow, where frozen bodies had simply exploded from the intense cold, like a soda left in a freezer, it was a surreal experience to be sure. They soon found themselves looking at the bodies of their dead horses. Each of the horses were filled with multiple arrows from the recent ambush, the poor things had probably been killed in the first minute of the fighting. The pack horses were gone, taken by the dragon, but their horses had a lot of important gear still on them as well, and they could not just leave it behind. The got the saddles and saddle bags free and sat down to rest a moment. Jake sighed heavily. “Why didn’t you warn me about dragons?” He asked. Allandra shrugged. “There was nothing to warn you about, the damn things were basically myths, no one has seen a Dragon for hundreds of years.” She explained. Jake nodded. “Yeah, well they appear to be back, now what can you tell me about them?” Allandra told him everything she had ever heard about dragons. Jake nodded. “Well, that can be useful, do you think this is the only one, or do you think there are more of them?” Allandra took a sip of water from her canteen. “I don’t know how many there are, but I do know the one we saw today was one of the smaller ones.” Jake raised a eyebrow in surprise. “Seriously? This was a small one? How the hell do you know that? The damn thing looked huge to be.” Allandra nodded. “Aye, it was fearsome enough to be sure. There are well documented stories in the Wizard archives though, that describe a dragon swallowing a team of horses whole with a single bite.”

“You saw that dragon pretty close up, was it big enough to swallow a single horse whole, let along a entire team of horses?” She asked him. Jake sighed and slowly shook his head. “Regretfully, no. It could probably eat A horse in one sitting, but it would have to chew a little. Shit.” He exclaimed. “I was just sitting her thinking I could probably come up with a way to keill the one today, maybe. I don’t have a clue though how to kill one two or three times bigger than this one. How did they kill dragons in those old stories?” He asked. Allandra shook her head. ‘They didn’t kill them, they stayed far away from them, and kissed their asses when they could not keep away from them.”

“ The only stories I ever heard of a dragon being killed, were stories where another dragon did the killing, apparently dragons have politics, gossip and such just like people do, and sometimes it ends badly.” Jake found that last part very interesting. Allandra stood up and slung her saddle over her shoulder and kicked him. “Get your ass up.” She said. “We will be lucky to get to the camp site by dark, we don’t want to be out here at night, I don’t think those Half orcs will be coming back anytime soon, not after messing with a Dragon, but the bodies can easily attract other things, id rather not be here to find out.” Jake climbed to his feet and slung his own heavy saddle and saddle bags over his shoulder, and started the long walk tot he next camp site.” They talked as they walked to pass the time. “Jake, did you notice that Juliandra was reasonably nice to us, right up until that bear attacked me, then she pretty much became a total bitch afterwards?”

Jake nodded. “Come to think of it, yeah, thats exactly what happened, what are you thinking?” Allandra paused a moment before speaking. “I think she drew that bear in some how, and had it attack me, thats what I think.” Jake raised a eyebrow. “She can control animals like that?” He asked in surprise. Allandra shrugged again. “Hell if I know, I know shes powerful though, and she has powers, would it surprise you if she could control animals?” Jake thought for a moment before answering. “Hell no.” He admitted. “A woman being able to control animals is not even in the top ten of surprising things lately. I thought she needed us alive.” Allandra shook her head. “She never said that, she said she needed YOU alive, I think you could have brought more people with you, I just think she limited you to one, so you would bring me with you. Then she used something as a weapon that would not be easily traced back to her, because she knew you would probably refuse to come with her, if you thought she had killed me.” Jake nodded. “It fits, we will have to keep a sharp eye on that evil bitch.”

Now that was a great update. Thanks, with all the Covid I have to deal with, reading is nice.

Jake and Allandra stumbled into camp exhausted just as the sun was setting. Juliandra was sitting beside a campfire and eating, she barely acknowledged them as they walked by her. Jake found the supplies from their pack animals thrown into a heap, the pack animals were no where to be seen, but the large blood smears on the ground and the packs told him the dragon had likely kept the freshly dead horses for its dinner. He moved everything inside the stone shelter that was there and set up his bedroll, he was too tired to cook anything so a mre military ration would have to do. He ripped into the meal and discovered he had gotten a sloppy joe mre this time, which was one of his favorites. He smeared the sloppy joe meat paste on a piece of wheat bread and chewed happily.

He looked over at Juliandra took a drink of water from his camelbak and cleared his throat. “You serve a dragon?” Juliandra nodded. “I do, yes.” Jake scratched his head. “how exactly does that work?” He asked. “The same as serving a King does.” She replied. “Except far less forgiving. Hecktarlumger, my master, is a most strict task master, and he does not tolerate failure of any kind. Something you had best keep in mind when you interact with him.” Jake nodded. “Ill keep that in mind. Why didn’t he just talk to us now, instead of requiring another week of travel to reach his home, and how did he know we were being attacked?” He asked.

Juliandra took a drink from her water skin before answering. “He knew we were under attack, because I told him and luckily he came to our aid in time, without him we would have been killed by those disgusting Half Orcs.” Jake nodded in agreement. “No argument there.” He said. “Why not just talk to us now though, why make us wait?” Juliandra looked at him like he was a dullard. “Because he is a Dragon, and he does as he wishes and does not answer to us. Who are we to question such a magnificent creature as him? That dragon is four thousand years old with the knowledge of the ages at his command. We are mere worms next to such a being.” She said. Jake shrugged. “I was only asking. You mentioned he was sending his men to pick us up? When will that be?” He asked.

“My Lord said they would be here in about three days, and to be ready for their arrival. Fair warning though, Hecktarlumger’s men are all Orcs.” Jake stared at her as if she were nuts. “Orcs?” He said incrediously. Juliandra nodded. “Yes, Orcs. Calm yourself though, They are not the same wild, rabid, savage, Orcs you have likely encountered in the past. While my Lords Orc troops are indeed every bit as fearsome as those wild Orcs are, they are also highly intelligent, and follow orders well, they do not like being compared to wild Orcs though, and tend to take such comparisons badly, so refrain from doing that, unless you have a death wish.” Jake nodded. “Ill keep that in mind. The Orcs that serve your dragon, are they civilized orcs, as in tamed wild ones, or are the wild Orcs civilized Orcs that escaped and turned wild?” Juliandra glared at him. Hecktarlumger is not my Dragon, or a pet.” She said angrily. “He is a Lord, and a mighty King and ruler of vast lands. I will not tolerate you besmirching his name or disrespecting him in my presence.” Jake held up his hands in surrender. “I appologize.” He said. “I meant no disrespect at all, what about those Orcs though?” She glared at him for a while longer, but finally she spoke. “From my understanding, eons ago before recorded history Orcs were all intelligent creatures. They looked much like humans just larger and stronger, not at all the grotesque creatures you see today. Those ancient Orcs worshipped the first dragon to be born into this world, the mother Dragon know as Sharlifren. Some say the Orcs were created by the mother Dragon to be her servants, the Orcs worshipped the mother dragon for many thousands of years as she gave birth to other dragons.”

“ Some of the Orcs grew resentful at having to serve the mother dragon and a violent revolt was born between the faithful and the unfaithful as they were called, in the end the mother dragon crushed the rebellion, but she gave the Orcs the chance to choose which side they wanted to be on, the onces who wished to serve her would be permitted to remain in her kingdom, while the ones who were unhappy would be permitted to leave and go forth and build a new home for themselves. The Orcs divided, the faithful returned to her kingdom, while the unfaithful began leaving to the wilderness to build their own home. The mother dragon suddenly called out to them in anger, that death was not good enough for them.”

“ If they chose to abandon her kingdom of enlightenment, to live in the wilds, then so shall they abandon their enlightenment and live as wildlings, and all Orcs would bear the mark of betrayal for all eternity to remind them of what happens should they betray their dragon betters. She cast a curse upon the Orcs that twisted their features into the grotesque creatures you see today, while the faithful Orcs features were twisted, they retained their intelligence to serve, while the unfaithful Orcs had their features twisted, and they lost their intelligence t be ruled by their base instincts as punishment.” Jake blinked in surprise. “That story is true? That mother dragon had the power to do those things?” He asked. Juliandra nodded. “dragons are not just large lizards, they are creatures of magic, the most powerful creatures of magic in fact, they are highly intelligent, very old, and have spent eons learning and growing their powers. Something you should remember well.” Jake nodded. “Ill definately not forget that.”

Allandra had heard everything Juliandra had said from her bed. She had heard a few fragments of that story, but never knew the full story Juliandra had just told, it answered a few questions, but created many more questions. She worried about the Dragons role in all of this. From Juliandras cryptic comments about chaos the day she arrived at camelot, she must assume that the ancient dragon knew of the Prosephy of Ibold, and apparently also knew Jake was the one mentioned in that prosephy. That did not explain why the dragon wanted to see Jake however. Did the dragon wish to stop the prosephy, or to help it along?

Did it know where the sword of chaos was? What did the creature want with Jake? The only reason she had encouraged him to go back with juliandra was they were at a standstill, she had no clue how to advise him further at that point, and apparently Juliandra knew things she might not. She never knew a dragon was involved, if she had she would have steered Jake away from this trip with Juliandra. She had studied a vast amount of history under Jalumners tutorage as she was growing up and pretty much every story she had ever heard about dragons were quite simular, and they all revolved around dragon politics.

In all of those histories Dragons were highly intelligent, extremely cunning, ruthless, and did not care about anything at all, except things that impacted Dragons in some way. They would launch incredibly complicated schemes that sometimes took centuries to unfold, all to gain some slight perceived edge over other dragons. Everything dragons did was for power, or to gain a advantage over their dragon rivals. If this dragon knew about the prosephy and Jakes roll in it, the only reason it wished to meet with Jake was because the prosephy and his role in it was going to impact the world of Dragons either in a good way, or a bad way. She just didn’t know which. The only thing she did know, was apparently the Dragon did not want Jake dead, because if it wanted him dead, it could have easily have killed him earlier today when it attacked that small army of Half Orc’s.

She had breathed a huge sigh of relief when the thing had saved their lives and flown away without harming Jake. She was confused about her feelings towards Jake, for a long time he was just a job to her, a obligation she had to meet, perhaps like a marriage your parants had arrainged when you were a child. You might not care for the man, but you upheld your obligation to commit to the marriage. Her relationship with him might well had started out as a commitment or obligation, but it had grown into much more. Her pulse raced when she was near him, and her mind had impure thoughts about him as well. She had come dangerously close to giving into those dangerous thoughts the other night when she had woken up to him holding his naked body against her in his attempt to warm her up after the bear attack.

She could not give in though, not if she cared about him, the phosephy was clear about her role in it, and it was clear about her fate, she could not become involved with a man she cared about, only to be taken from him shortly after. She sighed heavily as she watched Jake sitting by the fire talking to juliandra, he was so different than anyone she had ever met before, the man had a heart of gold, and a belief system completely different than anything she had ever encountered in her life. He cared more about others than he did himself, and he would help the people of the three kingdoms no matter the cost to himself, just s he had helped Jiselle and Miranda, and the hundreds of dwarves he had given a home to in camelot.

She pushed her womanly feelings away, and put her analytical mind to work again trying to figure this problem with the dragon out. The dragons behavior indicated it wanted to help him some way, or wanted something from him, unless this was just some crazy Dragon plan that had nothingat all to do with the prosephy, and was just using it as a way to lure him out to its stronghold for some other agenda. She lay there long into the night trying to solve the problem, but when she finally fell asleep from exhaustion she had no answers.

Three days later the Dragons men arrived They heard them before they saw them, the mountain valley echoed with the thunderous noise of a hundred horses  clomping feet and the rattle of armored men. They came over the rise of a hill soon after, the glitter of highly polished armor shimmered in the bright sunlight and just a Juliandra indicated, they were all Orcs. There were approximately one hundred of them, and they were all riding horses, which was something he had never seen a Orc do before.

Their horses were huge draft horse animals simular to Clydesdales, the animals were huge and muscular, which was necessary as a regular horse could not support a Orc as the typical Orc weighed around five hundred pounds most of which was muscle and stood around seven and a half feet tall. The other unusual thing about these Orcs was they were all wearing identical uniforms, blue clothing and polished copper armor, and their clothing and armor was in good repair and clean. Usually your typical Orc seemed to wear whatever they got their hands on, and they put no effort into cleaning themselves much less their clothing or gear and wore their filthy clothing until it basically rotted off their bodies.

The Orc soldiers rode carefully along the narrow trail, and their leader rode forward and dismounted in front of Jake, Allandra and Juliandra. Jake took in the guys outfit, he was wearing heavy black leather boots, and trousets of some dark blue material with a stripe up the outside of each leg. He was wearing a dark blue long sleeved shirt as his base layer, and over that he wore a heavy copper breastplate and across the breast plate was painted a dragon. His shoulders were protected with interlocking armor plates made from copper, and there were copper plates strapped to his forarms, as well as over his thick meaty thighs. Dark leather straps with silver buckles held the armor onto his heavily muscled body, around his thick waist was a thick leather belt that held a sword and long dagger. His head was protected with a full face metal helmet, that had plumes of feathers attached to it.

Three other Orc soldiers led spare horses over apparently for them to ride. The Orc soldiers took the piles of gear from beside the shelter and began loading it onto the spare pack animals and saddling the riding horses. The Orc commander walked to Juliandra and did a fist to chest salute, then he removed his helmet. The mans voice was deep and gravely. “Commander Juliandra, it is good to see you again.” He said. Juliandra actually smiled at the Orc and she smacked her fist into her own chest in a return salute. “High Commander Blogdroth, the same. I am surprised to see you out here.” The Large Orc commander shrugged. “Our Lord Dragon Hecktarlumger wanted to make sure your party was retrieved without incident, so I came to ensure there were no problems.” He turned to Jake and nodded. “Commander Juliandra would you introduce us?” The Orc asked.

Juliandra nodded. “Of course High Commander.” She pointed to the huge Orc officer. “Allow me to introduce High Commander Blogdroth, Commander of the Royal Dragon Dragoons.” She nodded to Jake, and then Allandra. “This is Jake Reynolds, the Leader and Commander of Camelot.” The Orc nodded. “Pleased to make your acquaintence Commander Reynolds, it is good to hear ancient Camelot is once again protecting the people of the three Kingdoms from the Orc Hordes from the wastes.” Jake nodded. “Pleased to meet you as well Commandra Blogdroth.” Juliandra turned to Allandra. “High Commandra this is the Elven Princess of Alasia. Her highness Allandra Quintilla, of the house of Quintilla.” The huge orc gave her a slight bow. “Your Majesty.” Allandra gave the Orc Commander a curtsy in return. “Commander Blogdroth. I must say that you and your men are a most welcome sight. I feel much safer knowing there are such fine warriors as you and your men protecting us on our trip.”

Commander Blogdroth smiled. “Your Majesty honors us with your praise. I assure you that you could be in no finer hands, and we will indeed keep you safe from harm.” He gestured behind them. “We have brought you fresh horses for you, if you would please get mounted, I would like to depart as soon as possible. The next way station is a long ride from here and I would like to get there before dark fall tonight. We will leave a spot in the center of our column where you will be best protected.” Jake nodded. “Of course commander, we will be ready to go in a few minutes.” The Orc nodded, and turned to Juliandra. “Commander Juliandra, I would like for you to ride up front with me, so we can catch up on things so to speak.” Juliandra turned and looked at Jake and Allandra. “”Commander, I suggest we take their weapons for safe keeping, they wont need them with all of our soldiers to protect them and we would not want any unfortunate accidents during the trip.”

Jake started to say fuck that, but the Orc Commander spoke first. “No, we will do no such thing Commander Juliandra. Our Lord Dragon Hecktarlumger himself told me we are to treat Commander Reynolds, and Princess Quintilla here as our most honored guests, they are to be treated as visiting royalty. He gave her a stern look. “So they will be retaining their weapons.” Juliandra nodded to the huge Orc. “Of course High Commander, I meant no disrespect of course.” The Orc commander nodded to Juliandra. “Then you had best appologize to our guests right now.” The stern look on his face left little doubt he was completely serious.

Juliandra nodded, and she turned to face Jake and Allandra. “I hope you both will accept my deepest appology for the misunderstanding, I meant no offense.” Jake nodded. “I suppose I can let it slide. What about you Allandra, do you accept her appolog?” Allandra sighed. “I suppose so, this time.” She said. Commandra Blogdroth nodded and turned to face Juliandra. “See to it there are no further, misunderstandings Commandra Juliandra, as any such disrespect to our honored guests will be dealt with harshly, and reported to our Lord dragon upon our return.” He said firmly.

He turned back to Jake and Allandra. “If you should need anything during our trip, please feel free to ask any of my men.” Jake nodded. “Why thank you Commander, that is very kind of you.” He gave Juliandra a shitty look, and turned to mount his horse, Allandra winked at her and followed close behind Jake. Jake and Allandra mounted their horses, which was not quite so easy as they were huge draft horses like the Orcs were riding, and not normal sized horses. The long column of armored riders moved out in single file and as Juliandra passed by them beside High Commander Blogdroth she shot them both a sour hateful look. Jake and Allandra fell into the center of their formation and headed away from the camp site. The sour butt hurt look that had been plastered on Juliandras face had given them both had been enough to lift their spirits considerable, apparently Commander Blogdroth had dealt with her before and well knew her bitchy disposition, and had no tolerance for it. Commander Blogdroth had become their new favorite person.

Great update.  The story is really developing well.  Now for the obligatory MOAR!!!!

i should be posting another update later today.

im trying to get as much done on the story as possible before i have to start going outside again and work on my outside projects, once i start those outside projects it will be hard to find the time to write.

But, But, But you're not SUPPOSED to go OUTSIDE!  There be Corona Cooties out there!  You're SUPPOSED to stay INSIDE and write for US!

heres a better description of the dragon. i cant believe i didnt do a better job describing it.





Jake opened his eyes and discovered he was laying on the ground, and staring up at a fucking real as shit dragon. The intense fear he had felt only moments ago was gone, his body hurt all over and while he still feared the fearsome creature before him, the fear he felt now was cautious fear, not the blind terror he had felt a few moments earlier. He thought he must be dreaming or something, his head hurt and the world was spinning around him. He heard voices, and realized Juliandra was kneeling at the monsters feet, and it seemed to be speaking to her. She nodded and stood back up, and Jake realized the top of the tall womans head was no where near as tall as even the Dragons knee.

He took in the terrifying creature and studied it as best he could. The damn thing had to be fifty feet tall at least. It had a massive head that was quite simular to that of a T-rex, just a lot bigger, its head was the size of a volkswagon beetle. The creatures mouth was filled with long wicked looking teeth at least a foot long, its mouth was large enough to swallow a mule whole with but a single bite. Its eyes were large and a bright flourscent blue color, its pupils looked like the pupils of a snake.

It had a long thick muscular neck, and its body was thick and muscular as well, the Dragons had two enormous bat like wings extending from its back, the wings were a dark blue color and looked a lot like a bats wings, consisting of a bony structure that had skin stretched tightly across it, each extended wing was the size of a parachute. The Dragons spine had long wicked looking spines protruding from it, the spines ran from just behind its head all the way to the tip of its tail, each spike was as thick as his thigh and at least three feet long and came with a sharp wicked looking point. The creature had four thick muscular legs that ended in wicked looking talons, with long nasty looking claws, finally its tail was as long as its body was, the end of the creatures tail had a large bony knot the size of a big beach ball with multiple wicked looking bony spikes several feet long protruding from it.

The Dragons skin was extremely rough looking, and its skin was covered in some sort of plates, or large scales, the texture of the Dragons skin reminded him of a cobble stones, lastly its skin had a light baby blue tint to it, it looked sort of like glacier ice to him. The Dragon moved slightly to the side and its belly plates make a loud squealing sound like fingernails on a chalk board, he realized this was from the Dragons belly scales rubbing against the granite rocks it was sitting on, its scales must be made from some extremely hard material. The creature looked around the hillside at the carnage it had caused, and it pointed its head at the sky and let out a deafening roar, its talons gripped a boulder and its long wicked claws gouged deep furrows into the stone.

The Dragon whipped its massive tail from side to side and the large spiked ball on its tail smashed into the ground like a wrecking ball, smashing several small bounders as it impacted against them, sending rock fragments flying across the mountain side.


The dragon seemed to look directly at him for a moment, a long black forked tongue as thick as his thigh flicked out several feet a couple of times, its nostrils flared and it blasted out freezing cold air in his direction as it exhaled. The monster made a gurgling wheezing sound he for some reason felt was a damn laugh. Then the monster leapt into the air, and began flapping its massive bat like wings, ice cold air was blown over his body in powerful gusts from the monsters flapping wings, each wing flap made a loud thumping thunder like sound that echoed across the mountain side, as the enormous creature it clawed its way back into the sky, it was at that point he realized that the dragon was holding a dead horse in each one of its massive claws, it twisted its neck down and its huge mouth ripped off one of the horses head and neck with a splatter of blood and gore and swallowed it whole. The dragon disappeared over the top of the mountain, and Juliandra stood over him.

I rewrote some of the stuff from yesterday, and added onto it some.


He turned back to Jake and Allandra. “If you should need anything during our trip, please feel free to ask any of my men.” Jake nodded. “Why thank you Commander, that is very kind of you.” He gave Juliandra a shitty look, and turned to mount his horse, Allandra winked at her and followed close behind Jake. Jake and Allandra mounted their horses, which was not quite so easy as they were huge draft horses like the Orcs were riding, and not normal sized horses. The long column of armored riders moved out in single file and as Juliandra passed by them beside High Commander Blogdroth she shot them both a sour hateful look.

Jake and Allandra fell into the center of their formation and headed away from the camp site. The sour butt hurt look that had been plastered on Juliandras face had been enough to lift their spirits considerable, apparently from the abrupt way Commander Blogdroth had dealt with her he had spent some time around her before. He well knew her bitchy disposition, and apparently had no tolerance for it. Commander Blogdroth had become their new favorite person.

That would be the last day they saw the sun for a while, as the nest week of travel was done under grey depressing skies. They rode for three more days along narrow twisting mountain paths that led ever upward and on the morning of the forth day the trail led high into the snow covered mountains. The air grew thinner and the horses labored to breath the thin mountain air, blowing out great clouds of vapor. The air grew much colder and Jake was shivering even under his modern insulated clothing. The clouds were heavy and grey and he felt like he could reach out and touch them they were so close. He didn’t think he would ever see the sun again, but not long after they actually rode through the low cloud cover. Visibility dropped down to mere feet and he could barely see the ground, much less the horse in front of him, just as he wondered how the riders in front of him were able to see the trail through the thick clouds and fog, he spotted something by his foot.

He glanced down and could see what looked like a thick chain, running along the right side of the trail, he glanced to the left and saw a simular chain running down the left side of the trail. The chain ran for a dozen yards or so, and then ran through a thick stone post that was around six feet tall, the stone posts and the chain made a fence which had apparently been erected a long time ago from the look of it to guide travelers. A gust of air blew some fog away and he realized he was only feet from a thousand foot drop on the right side, he gripped his saddle tightly, realizing even as he did so if his horse slipped over the edge, he would likely be gone before he could leap free. The chains were a bright green color which indicated to him they were made from copper, each link was as thick as his wrist, the damn chain weighed many tons from the look of it.

Just as he didn’t think he would ever see the sun again, his horse passed above the cloud cover and he found him self looking across miles of cloud cover from the top side of it, as if he were flying above the clouds. Blinding sunlight shined down on them now that they were free from the low handing depressing clouds, but the air was so thin up here the sunlight brought now warmth. He had only experienced bring above the clouds like this while flying on a airplane, doing it on a horse was as exhilerating as it was terrifying. The chain fence ran as far as he could see, and they followed it for a hour in the bright sunlight. The line of horsemen traveled for a hour above the cloud cover, when suddenly he realized the line of horsemen was heading downwards, it was the first time he had ridden downhill in almost two weeks, they had just crossed the north eastern mountain range, the one Allandra had said was uncrossable.

He rode for a hour down through thick cloud cover again reassured by the chain fence, and not long after the exited the cloud cover, the clouds were a few feet over his head as if he were in a cave. The trail decended quickly and started to widen, a while later the trail was now twenty feet wide and paved with flagstone, which allowed the horsemen to ride side by side comfortably, Allandra moved up and began riding beside him. A few hours later a enormous white rock face appeared on their right side, above the road to their front, it looked like a gigantic white canvas and someone had used it as such. There on the huge rock face of the mountainside was a massive dragon carving. The dragon carving was easily three hundred feet high, and perhaps five hundred feet long, the damn thing was larger than Mount Rushmore’s carvings easily. The detail of the dragon carving was incredible, he felt as if the massive stone carving was actually looking at him, and a shiver went up his spine. He took it this gigantic dragon carving as a warning, indicating you were now entering into the realm of Hecktarlumger the Dragon.

 They were riding through a high alpine forest now, evergreen trees were all around them and the ground was covered in thick grass and colorful flowers, the white stone of the paved road stood out against the green of the grass as it decended for miles in front of them down the valley. After a few miles on this much better road the valley began narrowing sharply, and at the narrowest point they came to a massive stone wall that completely blocked the road ahead of them. The wall was fifty feet tall, and it ran from the cliff on the right to the cliff on the left, it completely blocked all access from this direction, and it was obviously there as a border control or something. The base of the wall had a deep moat on this side, and in the wall was a tall wooden door, which he thought must be the bridge for the moat. Sure enough the tall wooden door decended on thick chains and when it was down completely it formed a narrow bridge across the deep pit.

The bridge lead to the entrance through the wall, and a huge, massive green tarnished copper grate covered the entrance through the wall. The massive metal grate began inching upwards at their approach, and by the time they got to the wooden bridge the heavy copper portcullis had been fully raised. The wall had arrow slits cut into the sides of the wall for archers to fire through at a attacking enemy. The top of the wall had several dozen armored men who were holding crossbows, the kept a watchful eye on them until they had passed through the wall. Jake took a look into the moat as his horse clomped across the wooden draw bridge, and he had to gulp at what he saw. The moat was at least a hundred feet deep, and the bottom of it looked to be covered in ten foot tall copper spikes, the spikes were set close together, and many of the tall metal spikes hd skeletons impaled onto them, several of the bodies looked very fresh.

They passed through the thick defensive wall, and several stone buildings and soon it was far behind them. A few hours later the road decended sharply into a narrow rocky valley maybe thirty yards wide, the road like this for a while with sheer rock walls on each side of them, he thought he saw soldiers at the top of the ravines walls, which made sense as this would be a good defensive point, where arrors could be shot, or rocks or burning oil dropped on attackers. They soon exited the narrow valley and the valley ahead of them opened quickly and became many miles wide, it was also flat as a pancake as well, and covered in bright green grass lands. There in the center of the grasslands must be their destination. Jake studied what lay before them, there a few miles ahead of them in the center of the valley was a massive walled city, it was enormous, and it was breath takingly beautiful with many tall buildings, and delicate stone spires rising high above the city.

They rode towards the massive city gates but surprisingly turned to the left just before entering through them, they followed a road that lead around the cities tall defensive wall. The outside of the city walls were covered in detailed carvings of dragons, and battle scenes depicting fighting dragons, as well as many other facinating creatures, he recognized many of them, but there were quite a few he had never seen before. It was incredible to look at and he could spend days just looking at these wonderful stone carvings, they must have taken decades to carve, hell maybe centuries he realized suddenly. The land outside the wall was flat grassland, with the nearest tree was a mile away. He was pretty sure this ground was kept clear of trees for defensive purposes, it would have been impossible for any force to approach near the city without being spotted. They traveled like this for a while, working their way around the huge city, this side of the valley started getting rocky and a high cliff came into view ahead of them. The road turned and led towards the rocky cliff face, and after a while jake realized there was a cave opening in the base of that cliff. He was pretty sure they had just found Hecktarlumger’s home.

When they got closer he realized the cliff was covered in a massive carving of a dragon, as big as the one they had seen earlier today high up at the border, which confirmed to him that this was the dragons lair, just as in fariry tales back on earth, dragons apparently liked living in caves. There were a few stone buildings off to the side of the cave opening, but this area in general was wide open, probably to give the huge Dragon room to enter and exit. The ground was paved with marble, and decorative plants and trees grew from planters creating a beautiful park like setting around the cave. Off to the right there appeared to be a large area surrounded by a stone wall, he saw something moving and realized he was looking at the heads of buffalo, as they apparently grazed behind the stone wall.

He didn’t have to guess what those buffalo were for, a dragon likely eats a lot of meat daily, the smell of cooking meat came to his nose and he realized there was a long line of stone to the left that looked like outdoor stoves of some kind, even as he looked he saw what looked like a entire buffalo turning slowly on a spit over a open fire. It was a huge cook out, his stomach runbled at the delicious smell of cooking meat, but he had a suspicion the meat was not being cooked for their supper. The area around the cave mouth looked like a park, it was well tended and spotless. A Orc Soldier took his horses reins and Jake slipped from the saddly landing lightly on his feet, a moment later Allandra stood beside him.

Commander Blogdroth walked up and indicated they should follow him. He walked along the smooth white marble of the court yard and that marble paving extended into the mouth of the cave. They followed the Commander inside the enormous cave mouth and back into the depths of the mountain. It quickly became apparent this cave was not natural, well it might have at one time been natural, but it had definately been made larger by mining, and many years of chisels. The ceiling were high and arches and it reminded him of a church in here, the walls and ceilings were covered with dragon carvings and murals, and the floor even had a beautiful dragon mosiac pattern laid into it. There were statues of Dragons, and various other things lining the edges of the massive room. They walked for what seemed like a long time through the massive cavern, it gradually got smaller and smaller as they went deeper into the mountain. The main tunnel they were following twisted and turned and had hundreds of smaller side tunnels who lead who knew where, the tunnel opened into a wider cavern and the temperature increased from cold, to warm and humid. A bright ray of sunlight a hundred feet wide fell in to the center of the room from a hole in the cavern ceiling lighting up the huge room in a warm and friendly way.

There off to the left side of the cavern was a body of water the size of a several olympic sized swimming pools, the water had steam coming off of it. Commander Blogdroth pointed towards the steaming water. “Those are the hot springs, they are used by guests for bathing and relaxation, you will be staying there, in our Lord Dragons guest quarters.” He walked towards the right side of the cavern and Jake realized the entire right side of the cavern had buildings carved into the living rock There were doors and windows and beautiful columns of rock, the doorways held beautifully carved wooden doors, colorful draperies filled the windows as well, it was like a small town was build in the wall of the cavern. Commander Blogdroth pointed towards the center building. “Those are the guest quarters where you will be staying, there is a lavish apartment set up for each of you for your stay here. The building to the right is for your dining pleasure, and the building to the left of your quarters is for entertainment, it has alcohol as well as performers for your entertainment.” Jake nodded. “It is a amazing set up, I have never seen anything like this before.” He admitted.

“Nor have I, and I have been to many castles and palaces of the three Kingdoms. Please give your Lord Dragon Hecktarlumger our compliments.” Commander Blogdroth nodded. “You can tell the Lord Dragon Yourself, you are to meet with him tomorrow morning. I will come to escort you to him tomorrow after breakfast. Lord Reynolds, your and Princess Allandras apartments are on the top floor. Your saddle bags and belongings have already been placed in your apartments. Dinner will be in a few hours, which gives you plenty of time to enjoy a hot bath in the hot springs. If you need anything, feel free to ask the servants, they will see to your wishes.”

Jake nodded. “Thank you Commander Blogdroth, and Thank you and your men for escorting us here safely. You and your men are as professional as any soldiers I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of them.”  Allandra nodded. “Aye Commander, I thank you as well for your protection, and must also compliment you and your men for your professionalism.” Commander Blogdroth nodded. “I appreciate the compliments, and have to say I take great pride in My Dragon Dragoons, no finer soldiers exist.” He nodded to each of them. ‘I must take my leave, until tomorrow then.” He turned and walked back the way they had entered. Jake turned and gave Allandra a smile. “How does a hot bath sound?” She nodded enthusiastically. “Heck yes!”

i cleaned up the stuff from yesterday and added a bit to it.

When they got closer he realized the cliff was covered in a massive carving of a dragon, as big as the one they had seen earlier today high up at the border, which confirmed to him that this was the dragons lair, just as in fariry tales back on earth, dragons apparently liked living in caves. There were a few stone buildings off to the side of the cave opening, but this area in general was wide open, probably to give the huge Dragon room to enter and exit. The ground was paved with marble, and decorative plants and trees grew from planters creating a beautiful park like setting around the cave. Off to the right there appeared to be a large area surrounded by a stone wall, he saw something moving and realized he was looking at the heads of buffalo, as they apparently grazed behind the stone wall.

He didn’t have to guess what those buffalo were for, a dragon that size likely eats a lot of meat daily, the smell of cooking meat came to his nose and he realized there was a long line of stone to the left that looked like outdoor stoves of some kind, even as he looked he saw what looked like a entire buffalo turning slowly on a spit over a open fire. It was basically a huge cook out, his stomach rumbled at the delicious smell of cooking meat, but he had a suspicion the meat was not being cooked for their supper. The area around the cave mouth looked like a park, there were decorative trees and bushes, statues as well as a fountain and stone benches, it was well tended and spotless. A Orc Soldier took his horses reins and Jake slipped from the saddly landing lightly on his feet, a moment later Allandra stood beside him. Several Orcs began removing their saddles and saddle bags, in just a few moments they had finished and carried them away along a side path, most likely to where ever they would be staying tonight.

Commander Blogdroth walked up and indicated they should follow him. He walked along the smooth white marble of the court yard, the marble paving was highly polished and spotless, the smooth marble flooring extended into the mouth of the cave. They followed the Commander inside the cave mouth and back into the depths of the mountain. It quickly became apparent this cave was not natural, well it might have at one time been natural, but it had definately been made larger by mining, and many years of chisels. The ceiling inside the cavern was high and arched, the cavern walls and ceilings were covered with carvings and murals of Dragons, and the floor even had a beautiful dragon mosiac pattern laid into it.

There were statues of Dragons, and various other things lining the edges of the massive room. Large oil lamps mounted on the walls and in stands on the floor lit the interior with soft flickering golden light. The large cavern gave way to a slightly smaller tunnel, and they followed it deep into the mountain, the carvings and murals continued, giving the feeling of a holy place,r dragon church or something. Jake realized this was probably pretty close to the truth as these Orcs likely worshipped this dragon as if it were a god, something he had best keep in mind as he remembered how angry Juliandra had gotten when she thought he was disrespecting her Lord Dragon.

They walked for what seemed like a long time through the massive runnel as it twisted and turned into the depths of the mountain, it gradually got smaller and smaller as they went deeper. The main tunnel they were following twisted and turned and had hundreds of smaller side tunnels which lead who knew where, while the side tunnels were smaller than the main tunnel they were in now, they were still large enough for a semi truck to easily pass through them, digging this place by hand must have taken centuries. The tunnel they were in suddenly opened into a much wider cavern and the temperature increased from cold, to warm and humid. A bright ray of sunlight a hundred feet wide fell in to the center of the room from a large hole in the cavern ceiling lighting up the huge room in a warm and friendly way.

Jake glanced up and noticed bright beams of light coming down from above and being reflected around the room. He looked closer and realized it was reflected sunlight, the Orcs were using brightly polished copper mirrors to reflect the sunlight down to help illumnate the inside of the cavern, the reflected sunlight brightly illuminated the carvings and murals and was in fact quite beautiful.

There high on one cavern wall a waterfall fell into a pool of water, the water ran in a small stream through the center of the room, and steam was coming off of it. They walked across a small stone bridge and looked down into the crystal clear water.  Commander Blogdroth pointed towards the steaming water. “The water flows from a hot spring, it cools as it flows and by the time it reaches the pool on the other side of the room it is just the right temperature for a hot bath, the pool is used by guests for bathing and relaxation. Hemotioned towards the far side of the cavern and Jake noticed some kind of building. The Commander gestured again towards the building. “ You will be both be staying there, in our Lord Dragons guest quarters.”

He walked towards the right side of the cavern and Jake realized what he had seen was not a building that was built in the cavern, instead they had carved a building into the living rock of the cavern wall. There were door ways, windows, balconys and beautiful columns of rock cut into the stone wall. The doorways held beautifully carved wooden doors, colorful draperies filled the windows as well, it was like a hotel had been build into the wall of the cavern. Commander Blogdroth pointed towards the center building. “Those are the guest quarters where you will be staying, there is a lavish apartment set up for each of you for your stay here. The building to the right is for your dining pleasure, and the building to the left of your quarters is for our entertainment, it has alcohol, concubines, as well as performers for your entertainment.” Jake nodded. “It is a amazing set up, I have never seen anything like this before.” He admitted.

“Nor have I, and I have been to many Castles and Palaces of the Three Kingdoms, there is nothing like this anywhere I have ever been. Please give your Lord Dragon Hecktarlumger our compliments.” She said. Commander Blogdroth nodded. “You can tell the Lord Dragon Yourself, you are to meet with him tomorrow morning. I will come to escort you to him tomorrow after breakfast. The Commander gestured across the cavern to something Jake had not seen before, over on the far side was what looked like a large stone platform, which was brightly decorated, and brightly lit by dozens of oil lamps, and heavily carved as the rest of the place was. A dozen heavily armed Orc soldiers stood guard around it. “That, is the Lord Dragons throne.” The Commander explained. Jake noticed a huge wooden door set into the stone wall behind the throne, he had a suspicion that would lead to the Dragons lair. The Commander stopped and gestured towards the guest quarters before them. “Lord Reynolds, your and Princess Allandras apartments are on the top floor, your saddle bags and belongings have already been placed in your apartments. Dinner will be in a few hours, which gives you plenty of time to enjoy a hot bath in the hot springs, you will find the hot springs on the ground floor, you are the only guests at this time, so you will have the place to yourselves. If you need anything, feel free to ask the servants, they will see to your wishes.”

Jake nodded. “Thank you Commander Blogdroth, and Thank you and your men for escorting us here safely. You and your men are as professional as any soldiers I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of them.” Allandra nodded. “Aye Commander, I thank you as well for your protection, and must also compliment you and your men for your professionalism.” Commander Blogdroth nodded. “I appreciate the compliments, and have to say I take great pride in My Dragon Dragoons, no finer soldiers exist.” He nodded to each of them. ‘I must take my leave, until tomorrow then.” He turned and walked back the way they had entered. Jake turned and gave Allandra a smile. “How does a hot bath sound?” She nodded enthusiastically. “A hot bath sounds wonderful.” She sighed.”

Kick ass update!  I wonder what the next episode of "As The Wyrm Turns" will bring for our Adventurers? Stay Tuned!

Nice work.

slight update.

the blood red clothing juliandra wears, ( the commander wears red now too as well ) the blood red clothing is how devoted dragon worshippers are identified. i have added bald headed, red robed monks to the caverns and grounds as well, who tend the cavern and polish the stone carvings and such. he cavern is actually a shrine for worshipping the ice dragon, and there is a entire religion build around dragon worship. they see the dragons as gods. ill drop a new update with the rewritten stuff, as well as a lot of new stuff probably monday or tuesday at the latest.

He didn’t have to guess what those buffalo were for, a dragon that size likely eats a lot of meat daily, the smell of cooking meat came to his nose and he realized there was a long line of waist high stone to the left that looked like outdoor stoves of some kind, even as he looked he saw what looked like a entire buffalo turning slowly on a spit over a open fire. It was basically a huge cook out, his stomach rumbled at the delicious smell of cooking meat, but he had a suspicion the meat was not being cooked for their supper. The area around the cave mouth looked like a park, there were decorative trees and bushes, statues as well as a fountain and stone benches, it was well tended and spotless. He watched as dozens figures tended the grounds of the area as well as tended the cooking meat.

The figures tending to the chores all had bald shaved heads and all wore blood red robes that closely matched the Commanders and Juliandras clothing in color. Jake was starting to see a red clothing theme here, he would later learn that the blood red clothing that the Commander, Juliandra, and these monks that tended the gardens wore was how devout Dragon worshippers were identified. A Orc Soldier took his horses reins and Jake slipped from the saddly landing lightly on his feet, a moment later Allandra stood beside him. Several Orcs monks that wore the blood red robes began removing their saddles and saddle bags, in just a few moments they had finished and carried them away along a side path, most likely to where ever they would be staying tonight, he supposed.

Commander Blogdroth walked up and indicated they should follow him. He walked along the smooth white marble of the court yard, the marble paving was highly polished and spotless, the smooth marble flooring extended into the mouth of the cave. They followed the Commander inside the cave mouth and back into the depths of the mountain. It quickly became apparent this cave was not natural, well it might have at one time been natural, but it had definately been made larger by mining, and many years of chisels. The ceiling inside the cavern was high and arched, the cavern walls and ceilings were covered with carvings and murals of Dragons, and the floor even had a beautiful dragon mosiac pattern laid into it. There were more of the red robed monks moving throughout the cavern, most were either polishing the stone carvings, scrubbing the floor or performing some other cleaning chore. All of them eyes him suspiciously as he walked past with the Commander.

There were statues of Dragons, and various other things lining the edges of the massive room. Large oil lamps mounted on the walls and in stands on the floor lit the interior with soft flickering golden light. The large cavern gave way to a slightly smaller tunnel, and they followed it deep into the mountain, the carvings and murals continued, giving the feeling of a holy place,r dragon church or something. Jake realized this was probably pretty close to the truth as these Orcs likely worshipped this dragon as if it were a god, something he had best keep in mind as he remembered how angry Juliandra had gotten when she thought he was disrespecting her Lord Dragon. The red robed monks were seen all over the place as they walked, some were cleaning, some were hauling things, others were teaching classes to groups of other red robed individuals, there had to be hundreds of them at least.

They walked for what seemed like a long time through the massive runnel as it twisted and turned into the depths of the mountain, it gradually got smaller and smaller as they went deeper. The main tunnel they were following twisted and turned and had hundreds of smaller side tunnels which lead who knew where, while the side tunnels were smaller than the main tunnel they were in now, they were still large enough for a semi truck to easily pass through them, digging this place by hand must have taken centuries. The tunnel they were in suddenly opened into a much wider cavern and the temperature increased from cold, to warm and humid. A bright ray of sunlight a hundred feet wide fell in to the center of the room from a large hole in the cavern ceiling lighting up the huge room in a warm and friendly way.

Jake glanced up and noticed bright beams of light coming down from above and being reflected around the room. He looked closer and realized it was reflected sunlight, the Orcs were using brightly polished copper mirrors to reflect the sunlight down to help illumnate the inside of the cavern, the reflected sunlight brightly illuminated the carvings and murals and was in fact quite beautiful.

The left side of the cavern had a hole in the wall about ten feet off the floor and water was pouring through that hole and falling into a pool below it ,the water ran in a small stream through the center of the room, steam was coming off of the water. They walked across a small stone bridge and looked down into the crystal clear water that was flowing past under them. Commander Blogdroth pointed towards the steaming water. “The water flows from a hot spring, it is boiling when it exits that hole in the wall, its so hot the monks lower metal baskets of meat and vegetables into it to cook them, do not fall into the water on the right side of the cavern, it would be quite fatal. The water cools considerably however by the time it reaches the bathing pools on the other side of the cavern, it is just the right temperature for a hot bath at that point, the pools in that area on the right side are used by guests for bathing and relaxation. He motioned towards the far side of the cavern and Jake noticed some kind of building. The Commander gestured again towards the building. “ You will be both be staying there, in our Lord Dragons guest quarters.”

He walked towards the right side of the cavern and Jake realized what he had seen was not a building that was built in the cavern, instead they had carved a building into the living rock of the cavern wall. There were door ways, windows, balconys and beautiful columns of rock cut into the stone wall. The doorways held beautifully carved wooden doors, colorful draperies filled the windows as well, it was like a hotel had been build into the wall of the cavern. Commander Blogdroth pointed towards the center building. “Those are the guest quarters where you will be staying, there is a lavish apartment set up for each of you for your stay here. The building to the right is for your dining pleasure, and the building to the left of your quarters is for our entertainment, it has alcohol, concubines, as well as performers for your entertainment.” Jake nodded. “It is a amazing set up, I have never seen anything like this before.” He admitted.

“Nor have I, and I have been to many Castles and Palaces of the Three Kingdoms, there is nothing like this anywhere I have ever been. Please give your Lord Dragon Hecktarlumger our compliments.” She said. Commander Blogdroth nodded. “You can tell the Lord Dragon Yourself, you are to meet with him tomorrow morning. I will come to escort you to him tomorrow after breakfast. The Commander gestured across the cavern to something Jake had not seen before, over on the far side was what looked like a large stone platform, which was brightly decorated, and brightly lit by dozens of oil lamps, and heavily carved as the rest of the place was. A dozen heavily armed Orc soldiers stood guard around it, and a dozen or so of the red robed devout were filling the oil lamps and polishing the stone platform as well as the stone dragon carvings.

“That, is the Lord Dragons throne.” The Commander explained. Jake noticed a huge wooden door set into the stone wall behind the throne, he had a suspicion that would lead to the Dragons lair. The Commander stopped and gestured towards the guest quarters before them. A red robed figure approached them and Jake was surprised to see it was a Female Elf, apparently the Elf surprised Allandra as well from her expression. The Commander gestured towards the red robed female Elf.

This is the woman who tends to the guest quarters.” The woman aproached and the Commandra gave the woman a friendly smile. “ Kendralia, so good to see you again.” The Elf woman smiled in return and curtsied slightly. “Commander, may the Dragon Lord bless you.” She said warmly. The Commander smiled. “And he bless you as well.” He replied. The Commander turned to Jake and Allandra. “Kendralia will take care of your every need while you are here. I must go however, I will return at breakfast to take you to see the Lord Dragon, so please be ready to leave at that time.”

Jake nodded. “Thank you Commander Blogdroth, and Thank you and your men for escorting us here safely. You and your men are as professional as any soldiers I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of them.” Allandra nodded. “Aye Commander, I thank you as well for your protection, and must also compliment you and your men for your professionalism.” Commander Blogdroth nodded. “I appreciate the compliments, and have to say I take great pride in My Dragon Dragoons, no finer soldiers exist.” He nodded to each of them. ‘I must take my leave, until tomorrow then.” He turned and walked back the way they had entered.



Kendralia smiled at Jake and Allandra. “Lord Reynolds, your and Princess Allandras apartments are on the top floor, your saddle bags and belongings have already been placed in your apartments. If you will follow me I will take you to your rooms.” They followed the woman into the guest quarters and up several flights of stairs, she stopped in front of two doors directly opposite from each other.

“Dinner will be in a few hours, which gives you plenty of time to enjoy a hot bath in the hot springs, you will find the hot springs on the ground floor, you are the only guests at this time, so you will have the place to yourselves. I will be close by at all times to see to your needs, so if you desire anything, feel free to call out and I will hear you.

Jake turned and gave Allandra a smile. “How does a hot bath sound?” She nodded enthusiastically. “A hot bath sounds wonderful.” She sighed. Jake changed into a thick white robe he found in his room and headed down to find the hot spring, which turned out to be pretty easy actually. There was a open doorway near the bottom of the stairs and he could feel the heat coming from the open doorway. He walked down a short hallway and sure enough, when he exited another doorway there before him was the hot springs. He glanced around at what lay before him and realized someone had put a enormous amount of work into creating this place. He was in another smaller cavern that was apparently cut into the living rocl of the mountain behind the guest quarters. There not far away was the main water channel that carried the water from the hot spring,  it flowed into a crack in the far wall and disappeared from view.

They had cut another channel into the stone floor to divert hot water in this direction and they had cut a dozen small rectangular pools for people to bathe in. The hot water entered one end of each pool, and then exited the opposite end, so fresh water was always circulating through the bathing pools, which was pretty smart he thought. Wood partitions had been built around each pool that formed a room, to offer privacy for guests to bathe. He walked to the nearest pool and walked inside the open doorway. The rooms walls were covered in brightly painted tapestries featuring well endowed naked women bathing. He stared at the intriging bathing scene for longer than he meant to, he finally pulled his eyes from the tapestry realizing it had been far too long since he had made love to a woman.

He looked around and was amazed that the floors were highly polished and had a beautiful mosiac of a blue Dragon laid into it with small tiles, nearby were fancy carved chairs and benches and a nearby table was heavy with fresh fruit, sweet breads and what he thought was likely some kind of alcohol. He poured himself a small bit of the dark brown liquid and took a sip,the taste was agreeable and from the way it burned his throat he knew it was just what he needed. He filled his glass to the top, then grabbed a plate of fruit, the jug of liquor, and a extra glass and set it beside the pool of hot water. He slipped off his robe and laid it over a chair next to a pile of towels, and gingerly stuck a foot into the hot water. It was just the right temperature, he slipped into the pool and discovered that it was about waist deep and a raised stone bench just under the surface was just the right height for relaxing in the hot water, he sipped his drink and waited for Allandra.

Allandra sat on her bed deep in thought, she never meant for it to come to this. She had expected to follow Juilandra a few days to meet her Lord, get the answers they needed and head back home. She would have never guessed in a thousand years the blast womans Lord was a dragon! She sighed heavily. Dragons were known in the ancient scriptures as being very dangerous to deal with, the problem was a Dragon was not motivated by the same things people were, combine that with them being so very old, highly intelligent and it was nigh impossible to know their intentions.

Thats not even counting them often being extremely brutal as well. She had encouraged Jake to come here because of Juliandras hint about the Chaos Sword, was that a mistake? She had come to realize to her dread that the dragon could take many directions with this sword business, it could tell Jake where the sword was because it wanted him to have it, or it could murder him to prevent him from ever combining with the ancient blade, either one was a possibility, or it might have just been a ruse to lure him here, which was not a good outcome either.

She brushed her thick golden hair away from her face and grabbed a bottle of something from the refreshment table and poured herself a drink from the table in her room and took a deep drink of some kind of strong liquor it burned as it went down her throat. She shook her head against the taste and grimaced, then she refilled her glass and drank deeply of it. She considered the situation from each side carefully and she realized the die had been cast, and for good or bad tomorrow they would have their answer, she wondered if Jake knew the danger he was in. The thought of something happening to him sent a stabbing pain through her heart, a feeling that was new to her, she had never felt this feeling before, when she thought of Jake she felt a strong mixture of Fear, Guilt, and, well powerful desire.

She feared losing him, she felt terrible guilt for manipulating him, and the desire, well that was obvious. She realized she had been lost in her thoughts for white a while, she forgot about meeting Jake! She found the bathing robe and slipped out of her dirty travel stained leather armor, on a near by table she found some perfume and slipped some across her neck. She pulled the robe tightly around her slim form, downed the rest of her glass, poured a generous helping and drank that as well and headed down to the bathing pool.  

Jake was relaxing against the side of the pool as she walked in, his back to her. She stood there watching him, the way the muscles in his shoulders and back moved as he turned to pick up his glass sent a shiver down her spine. She realized that though she knew not what tomorrow might bring them, she knew tonight she was going to embrace life for the first time in a long time. She cast off her reservations, her duty as a Princess and as Jakes advisor, she cast it all off and let herself go and to just embrace the moment, and live as a woman for once. Jake heard a noise behind him and turned his head slightly and saw it was Allandra. “Hey Ally, come on in, this water feels fantastic.” He gestured to the side. “ I have a glass for you, and some fruit to snack on until dinner.” He slipped forward into the deeper water and let the hot water come up to his neck, he dunked his head under and stood back up waist deep in the hot soothing water. He heard Allandra step into the water with a soft splash, the splashing water moved closer and he was surprised when her slim muscular arms slid around him from behind, he felt her soft naked breasts press against his back, her hard nipples rubbing against his skin and she kissed him deeply on his neck, sucking and biting on it gently. He turned slowly around until he was facing her and she slipped forward, wrapping her long legs and arms around him, and held him tightly for a long moment. Jake held her for a long time, she was wearing some kind of perfume and he liked it very much, and then pulled his head back and looked into her eyes. “What are you doing?” He asked her. Allandra shrugged. “Im putting aside all my obligations and responsibilities and doing what I want for once.” She said.

Jake nodded. “Your sure this is what you want?” She kissed him deeply on the mouth and ground her crotch against him passionately. Jake sighed happily as he returned her kiss and pulled her tightly against him. He caressed her breast with his right hand and gripped her firm butt with his left squeezing it affectionately, Allandra let out a long sigh of happiness at his tough as if she had been wanting him to do that for a very long time now. She reached down between them and gripped his manhood, causing him to groan with desire. He pulled her tightly against him, pressed her back against the edge of the pool and made love to her right thee in the water.

Kendralia had finished setting the table a few minutes ago, the table before her was heavy with roasted meat, cooked vegetables, sweet meats, sweet breads, fruit and more. She had gotten everything ready and rang the dinner bell to summon their new guests. Earlier she had seen the Human man come down to the batheing pools, she had to admit, that he was handsome even for a human, he was solidly built as well. She could tell the Elf woman had strong feelings for him just by the way she looked at him when she thought he was not looking. She smiled at the thought of young love, the anticipation of wanting someone, and not knowing if they wanted you in return.

She had seen the young Elf woman come down a while later, she had passed by her in the hallway and when she did she had caught a whiff of the Love elixer on her. She had smiled at that realizing that the woman had decided to throw caution to the wind and make her move on the man she desired. She had drank from the love elixer and given herself over to the feelings that it brought out, she knew that the woman was helpless against her desire as she went out in search of the human man. The love elixer was a powerful potion, it was mostly a kind of alcohol, the achohol helped relax the person drinking it, it lowered the persons defenses and allowed the secret ingredient to work. The secret ingredient in the drink was made from the hormone sac of a wild animal found only in the hills around the city, apparently it existed no where else in the world.

This particular creature was a dangerous carnivore that emitted powerful sex hormones designed to lure in its prey, any animal that smelled the creatures powerful hormones was aroused to the point they would walk into the creatures grasp to mate with it, the creature of course killed the victim. The love elixer as it was called was kept in the guest quarters as visitors enjoyed drinking it to enhance their sexual experiences, it allowed them to forget their worries and just enjoy themselves. Kendralia heard someone coming and a moment later the Elf woman Allandra and the human man stepped into the room with a sly look on their faces, the woman was positively glowing. The human nodded to her. “I appologize for being late to dinner, it smells wonderful, and we really worked up a appetite.” He said. He looked at the woman beside him and smiled at her lovingly. “We kind of got preoccipied while we were bathing.” Allandra nodded. “Just a little preoccupied.” She leaned in a kissed the man tenderly. “I hope to get preoccupied some more later tonight.” She said. The man laughed and kissed her back. “Ill see what I can do.” The woman laughed. “Im sorry, Kendralia, forgive me for my bad manners, I don’t know whats gotten into me, the food simply smells amazing.” The man nodded in agreement. “It really does!”

Kendralia smiled at the couple. “Oh its not bother, I am just glad you two enjoyed yourselves.” She smiled warmly at the woman. “Do not worry about your manners, I understand, the love elixer is quite powerful, its understandable. I hope your both hungry.” The man raised a eyebrow. “Love elixer?” The woman cocked her head to the side. “What love elixer?” Kendralia nodded. “The one you drank earlier before you went bathing dear, I could smell it on you when you passed me in the hallway, I assumed you drank some to help give you the courage to make the moves on the man you loved.” Allandra shook her head. “I didn’t drink anything except some of that liquor that wa sin my room.” Kendralia smiled. “Was it in a blue bottle?” The woman nodded. “Yes, but what love elixer are you talking about?” She asked confused. Kendralia nodded. “Yes, the Blue Dragon Love elixer, its a popular attraction our city is well know for, its highly sought after.” The woman shook her head. “No, never heard of it.” Kendralia gasp. “Oh dear.” She took the woman by the hand and led her to a chair and explained the love elixer to her.

Allandra raised both eyebrows in shock. “You mean you keep a bottle of rape in every room, and don’t have a label on it?” She said angrily. Jake just looked confused. “Are you saying she was drugged?” They both started talking rapidly and Kendralia slammed her hand on the table to get their attention. “It is not a rape drug, it contains powerful phermones, which puts you in the mood so to speak, while its very strong, it does not force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.” Jake turned to Allandra and looked into her eyes. “Ally, were you thinking about me before you drank that stuff?” He asked.

Allandra nodded. “Yes, and I have had strong feelings for a while about you for a while.” Kendralia nodded. “See, it only helped you to lose yourself in the moment, not force you. I can see you love this man very much, tell me, would you take back what just happened between the two of you if you could, now that you know about the elixer?” Allandra quickly shook her head. She looked at Jake and smiled. “NO, in fact I wish I had done it a ong time ago.” She kissed Jake and he kissed her back. Kendralia smiled. “Good, now that we have that behind us, please eat before your dinner gets cold !” They sat and enjoyed the delicious meal as they talked, there were many different foods they had never seen before and most were delicious. They headed up to bed right after dinner and Jake grabbed Allandra by the hand and pulled her into his room. “Show me where the bottle of rape is.” He said with a grin. Allandra squealed and ran past him and dove onto the bed head first. She reached over to the table by his bed and picked up a blue bottle that had a dragon painted on it. She took a deep drink and held the bottle out to Jake. “Come get you some.” She said huskily.

Keep it up!  Great writing so far.  Can't wait to see what happens next!

Thanks Buck.

i have someone working on a book cover, ( its Zack3g girlfriend, and she can draw ! ) going to have a black and white drawing done.  its not easy trying to describe to someone what you want them to draw, so i sent them this stuff to help them draw it. its also not easy finding models for this, as they will basically be copying it/ using them as templates ( with enough changes to avoid copyright problems ) and what i want needs to be in the picture to get it right.

heres the basic layout im going for...allandra on the cover, with sherman tank fighting a dragon and a castle in the back ground.

Attached File


here are the models they are going to use for the cover. allandra will be a combination of these three women. the first is her body, sword in her left hand and russian sniper rifle on her right shoulder. going to copy the russian sniper rifle from the second woman, and change the first womans face a little to look like a elf / the elf woman pic,

Attached File

Attached File

Attached File


Attached File


back ground castle

Attached File


dragon. think we will leave the dragon a little blurry / surrounded by fog / mist / smoke like this one is, vs a sharp detailed drawing.
Attached File

here are a few of Zack3g girlfriends drawings. shes drawing my book cover. shes super talented, crazy amazing.

Attached File


Attached File



Attached File

Sweet. Keep it up Buck. I will buy a book.

Commander Blogdroth walked into the dining room the next morning where he found Jake and Allandra having breakfast, Jake was feeding grapes to Allandra as the Ocr Commander approached. Jake spotted him and gave the man a wide smile. “Good morning Commander, please join us!” He gestured towards a empty chair on the other side of the table. The Commander shook his head. “I would not want to interrupt your breakfast, it seems, intimate, if im not mistaken.” He said Allandra nodded. “It is intimate, but you would not be interrupting, please, sit and eat with us, our hostess Kendralia has prepared quite the feast for us, far to much for us to eat by ourselves.” The Orc Commander paused. “If you are sure im not interrupting, the food does look delicious.”

Jake kicked the chair out with his foot. “Don’t be silly man, join us, eat up !” Commander Blogdroth nodded and slipped into his seat in a rattle of armor. Kendralia enter the room and a smile lit up her face when she saw him. “Kort!, um, I mean Commander Blogdroth, so good to have you join us for breakfast this morning.” She said shyly. Allandra did not miss a beat, she raised a eyebrow and gently poked Kendralia with her finger in a teasing manner. “Kort it is?” She gave her a silly smile that made Kendralia blush bright red. Commander Blogdroth noddedand actually smiled at her. “Good morning Kendralia.” He said pleasently. Kendralia curtsied slightly. “I will bring you your usual, just a minute.” She fled the room in a way that made Allandra chuckle. Jake grinned at the Commander. “I think kendralia likes you a little bit.” He said.

The Commander flashed Jake a grin. “We have been known to spend time together on occasion, yes. I would ask that you not say anything about this, as relationships between members of the Lord Dragons household is frowned upon.” Jake nodded. “Your secrets safe with us.” The Commander nodded. “I thank you for your descretion, and since we are speaking of dalliances, it seems you and your lovely Elf friend here are a bit more, friendly towards each other than you were just yesterday. Did something change?” Allandra nodded. “A bottle of rape happened.” She said with a smirk, which made Jake choke on his fruit juice he had been sipping. The Commander frowned. “Rape? That is a serious accusation, the penalty for rape in the Lord Dragons realm is death.” He said seriously.

The Commander gave Jake threatening look. Light female laughter from behind them broke the mood suddenly. Kendralia slipped a plate of food in front of the Commander and she patted his shoulder affectionately. “Oh, Kort, there was no rape committed silly man, the Elf princess is speaking about the Love Elixer. Apparently she drank half a bottle by herself not knowing what it was, when she found out, she refered to it, and I quote. “As a bottle of rape.” Allandra blushed bright red this time, and Kendralia winked at her enjoying the turn about. She gestured towards Jake. “Lord Reynolds here benefitted from her mistake quite nicely, when she found him batheing in the hot bath not long after.” Kandralia laughed again, and The Commanders stern serious expression turned to one of surprise and he let out a booming laugh himself.

He turned to Jake and clapped him on the shoulder in admiration. “I can see by the looks on your faces you are most pleased with the results, yes?” Jake turned and smiled at Allandra. “Yes, id say we are most pleased.” Jake said. The Commander wrinkled his brow in thought. “Did you not mention you had a wife or two back home already? Will this not cause problems for you at home?” He asked. Allandra answered for him. “Normally it probably would, but Jake has the most wonderful woman folk at home waiting for him, they are close friends of mine, there will be no problems.” Kendralia raised a eyebrow. “I would not be pleased if one of my friends were to bed my man.” She said frankly. Allandra shook her head. “You do not understand, Jakes ladies, Jiselle and Miranda had been trying to lure me into their shared bed for some time now, they want to sleep with me as much as they wanted me to sleep with Jake here.”

“ They will be thrilled by the news, I assure you.” Kendralia and the Commanders eyes widened in surprise. Kendralia looked a little surprised at her answer but the Commander nodded and elbowed jake in the ribs slightly and gave him a nod. Kenralia rolled her eyes, and spoke with heat in her voice. “I saw that Kort ! It figures the thought of such a thing would appeal to you!” Allandra noticed that while her voice had ice to it, her eyes were still warm and had a twinkle in them. She didn’t think the news of Jakes little harem bothered her nearly as much as she acted like it did. When Kendralia moved past her chair a moment later and she casually let her hand brush against the bare skin of Allandras shoulder she knew she was right in her accessment.”

A deep rumbling noise traveled through the stone floor they were standing on, and the Commander pushed his plate away. “The Lord Dragon comes, please make your last minute preparations, we hve one hour before he arrives.” Jake nodded and pushed his plate away. He kissed Allandra on the cheek. “Lets go meet us a Dragon.”

Jake and Allandra quickly cleaned themselves up and made their final preperations for the meeting. Allandra was wearing a beautiful dress, and Jake had no idea where she had gotten it from. The dress was white and covered in delicate looking lace, it was made from a soft silk like material and it clung to her form in a tantalizing way he enjoyed very much indeed. The dress was low cut enough to show off a generous amount of cleavage, and it went all the way to the floor. Her hair was done up in a fancy looking kind of french braid looking thing, a braid was made on each side of her head and when it reached behind her head it formed into one thick braid that ran down her back, more of her hair had been braided in the front in a way that made her look like she was wearing a crown. Her lips were painted red, and she was simply beautiful.

“What are you staring at?” Allandra asked him. Jake smiled. “Im staring at the most beautiful woman in the Three Kingdoms.” He answered honestly. Allandra blushed slightly at his answer. “Why thank you.” She said. Jake nodded. “Where did you get that dress?” Allandra smiled. “Kendralia insisted that I wear it, she said the Lord Dragon had given this dress to me as a gift.” Jake nodded. “Well, you look amazing in it, it looks like a wedding dress.” She nodded. “Yes, it does doesnt it?” She looked his outfit over. “Not exactly dressed for a formal event are we?” Jake shrugged and looked down at what he was wearing. He had brushed off his black combat boots, put on his cleanest pair of brown tactical pants, and had finished off the ensemble with a od green sweater, he had on his grandfathers pistol, but was leaving the rest of his gear behind, not that it would do much against this Dragon if it decided to kill him, so why lug it along? “Its all I had to wear, apparently the Lord Dragon didn’t gift me a dress like he did you.” Allandra laughed. “Times almost up, We need to get going.” Jake nodded and escorted her out of the room.

The two of them followed Commander Blogdroth across the cavern towards the massive wooden door set in the opposite wall. Several dozen red robed true believers were gathered in their assigned places around the Throne platform, along with several dozen Orc dragoons dressed in polished armor. The Commander stopped next to a beautifully carved wooden arch that was adorned with beautiful flowers, and indicated they both stand together under the arch, jake turned to his left and discovered that Kendralia was standing close by them, dressed in a plain red dress, and on the other side of her was that bitch Juliandra. When Kendralias eyes met his she looked extremely uncomfortable and turned away from him seemingly in shame, while hatred burned brightly in juliandras eyes as she glared at him and Allandra.

Jake whispered to Allandra. “Something weirds going on, did you see how Kendralia looked at me?” Allandra nodded. “I saw it. I don’t like it either, but its not like we have any choice in the matter.” She reached down and grasp his hand in hers and squeezed his hand gently to reassure him.

The Commander turned and nodded towards the red robed true believers and a drum beat began sounding, a moment later several more drums joined in and a loud thumping rhythm began playing. Several armored guards began laboring to swing open the massive wooden doors, and with great effort the huge doors swung open and hit the wall behind them with a booming thud that echoed across the cavern, the tunned that lay behind the open doors was pitch black, light seemed to refuse to enter the doorway.

A few moments passed and suddenly the dragons Massive head came out of the darkness, Jake realized there was something weird about the light in that doorway, as the dragons head looked like it was emerging from a pool of ink, instead of a shadow. The massive dragon emerged from the darkness, took a half Dozen steps into the cavern, and coiled its massive body onto the throne platform. It rested its massive front claws over the edge of the platform, and then it opened one massive paw open and set a narrow rectangular box on the floor in front of it. Jake suddenly realized that the dragon was not blue anymore like he remembered it from a few days ago, its body now was shiny and black like a Indigo snake, the black color made the creature even more terrifying, he was just glad it was not emanating the terrible fear he knew it was capable of radiating.

Everyone, the Red robed true believers, Kendralia, Juliandra, The Commander, and the Soldiers all dropped to one knee and bowed to the Dragon. Allandra squeezed his hand and she knelt onto her knee and pulled him gently with her until he was kneeing as well. The Dragons voice grumbled. “Rise my children.” Everyone took to their feet, and gazed at the Dragon with a look of pure love, something which kind of creeped Jake out, these people really did worship this thing like it was a god of some kind.

“You disapprove of my people worshipping me as a god?” The Dragons voice echoed through the cavern, like a boulder grating on stone. Jake blinked in surprise as he realized the Dragon was staring at him and was apparently speaking to him, was the thing psychic? Allandra turned her head and stared at him with fear in her eyes. Jake squeezed her hand gently shook his head. “No, Lord Dragon.” He said. “I do not know your people or your customs, if your people wish to worship you as a god it is no concern of mine. From what I have seen and heard its obvious that you are a powerful being with the wisdom and knowledge of the ages, so who am I, a mere man to decide what is, and what is not a god?”

He knelt back onto his knee bowed his head, and hoped like hell he had not offended this Dragon. “If I have offended my Lord Dragon by a deed or thought, I offer my deepest appologies to you and your people Lord dragon.” He remained kneeling for what seemed like a long time. The Dragons huge black forked tongue flickered out several times and disappeared into its mouth. A thunderous grumbling sound emitted from the creature, which he thought was a chuckle.“You speak wisely for a human, something I find rare in your species.” The dragon grumbled. “ I feel you meant no disrespect, please rise.” The Dragon said.
“
I am pleased that you, Jake Reynolds, Lord of Camelot and son of humans, and you Princess Allandra Datildamore Quintilla, Princess of the Elven Nation of Alasia and Daughter of Elves have answered my request to come and meet with me upon this day.” The dragon looked at Jake and Allandra, tell me, both of you, what motivated you to come here and meet with me this day? The truth please, lies will not be tolerated.” Jake nodded. “I am here because your representitive Juliandra, told me that you had a answer as to why the portal from my world had stopped working.” The Dragon nodded. “Truly spoken, and I have that answer you seek.” It turned its terrible gaze upon Allandra next. “Why did you come Princess?” It grumbled. Allandra met its stare. “I came to help Jake find the answer to the portal, as its important to him, and what is important to him, is important to myself as well.” The Dragon waited a moment. “Tell the rest Princess, he deserves to hear it, there are no secrets here this day, except for dragon secrets of course.”

Allandra turned and looked a Jake and she squeezed his hand, he was alarmed to see a tear roll down her cheek and she looked scared. “Whats wrong Allandra?” He asked worried. “Speak Princess, you try my patience.” The dragon rumbled. Allandra sighed heavily. “I also came here because Juliandra indicated she knew something about the the Prophesy.” The Dragon nodded. “There it is. The truth, I can see from the humans expression he knows not of what you speak, why have you not told him of his place in things?”

Jake squeezed Allandras hand. “Whats he talking about?” he asked. Allandra swallowed nervously and looked at the Dragon. “Please Lord dragon, do not force me to do this.” The dragon shook its massive head. “You had your chance to tell him on your terms, you will now tell him on my terms, do it.” Allandra nodded. She turned and explained the Prophesy of Ibold to him. Jake stared at her in shock. “Thats why you befriended me?” He asked her. “Thats why you became my friend, because you think im some chosen one, to deliver your people, and your required to guide me??” Allandra nodded. “Thats how it started yes, but thats not how I feel now.” The Dragon grumbled. “Jake Reynolds, show me the mark of the winged skull you carry upon your body.” Jake looked at the dragon confused. “Show you the what?” He asked.

Allandra squeezed his hand. “He wanted to see your tattoo.” She urged. Jake yanked his hand out of hers and pulled his sweater and tshirt off over his head angrily explosing his bare chest and his airborne tattoo. The Dragon gazed at him for a moment and nodded in approval. “It is the same as the one of Prothesy.” The Dragon watched their body language, Allandra was wracked with misery and Jake filled with anger, and the creature laughed. “Human and Elf, put aside your petty hurt and face facts. Fate has thrown you together in this, you had no chance at all in the matter. “

“Jake Reynolds, the Elf loves you, it is plainly written on her face, she will not deceive you again, even the deception that makes youso angry was done out of love for her people, nothing else, her intentions were pure.” He turned to Allandra. “Princess Allandra, This human might be angry, and justifiably so by your deception, but his heart is filled with love for you as deep as your own, you will not lose him over this. How you both got to this juncture, what lies were told, or truth omitted matters not, you are here now, and you are in love, just as the Prophesy fortold you would be” Allandra raised her eyebrows in surprise. “The Prophesy said nothing about the princess and the one with the mark falling in love, I read it all, and it never said that.” The dragon laughed.

“Foolish Elf, your people think themselves superior to Humans because of how long your life is compared to their own, you have longer to learn the ways of the world, its history and remember things most have forgotten to the ages and you think yourselves wise because of that. The Elf’s life span is as long as that of twenty humans, but the Dragons life span is a thousand fold that of a Elf’s, I spoke to Ibold when he was alive.” The Dragon gestured towards the guest house they had spent the night in. “Ibold wrote his prosephy in that very guest house you stayed in last night. It was I who told him to publish but a fraction of that prophesy, as it was too important to publish all of it. I know all of it. “It was fortold that the Elf would Love the marked man, and the marked man love the Elf, and who try to deny you are in love?”

Allandra shook her head and turned to look at Jake. “No sire, I do not deny it, I truly love this man with all my heart.” The Dragon waited then grumbled. “Speak truth human.” Jake sighed heavily. “I am in love with her too.” He said. The dragon shook its head. “As if that were ever in question.” The Dragon glared at the two of them. “ I called you to me, because the signs have shown me that events are unfolding in the world which will soon require the marked man to take action.” Jake looked surprised. “Me? What am I supposed to do? I guess the Prophesy has a schedule for me to follow or something?” The Dragon hissed in laughter. “Nay human, Prophesy’s are never that convenient, the Prophesy which concerns you, only says that you will usher in a a golden age for the three Kingdoms, you need only to follow your heart in the matters to come to accomplish that.” Jake caught that last statement.

Lord Dragon, you said the Prophesy that concerns me, you mean there is more of it, and it concerns more than just the Three Kingdoms? Wait, the Prophesy concerns you in some way doesnt it? Thats why you brought us here, you want to kick this thing off, because it benefits you in some way. Id like to know how, I mean id like to know the entire Prophesy since it pertains to me, and you already said you know all of it, much more than Allandra who is supposed to advise me.” He said. The Dragon looked closely at him. “Yes, you are quite clever are you not Jake Reynolds? I will admit the Prophesy does concern me in some way, however, I will tell you nothing more about it.”

“ I have brought you both here to give you the needed tools to begin your quest, and to have a fighting chance of succeeding, nothing more. The Prophesy says you will somehow blunder your way through it on your own, it says nothing about you needing to know the Prophesy.” Jake glared at the Dragon. “You owe it to me to tell me all of it, if what your saying is true, theres no reason I should fear you, you cant kill me if you want the Prophesy fulfilled. The dragon suddenly roared a fearsome roar that made everyone in the room tremble in terror, Jake and Allandra had fallen to their knees and covered their ears in pain and terror of what the fearsome god creature might do next in its rage, they were helpless as babes against a bear in the face of this creature. If it decided to kill them, nothing they could do would even slow it down.

“Be warned human ! The marked man or not, do not forget for a moment that I am a God ! We are not more equals than the bird and the worm are equals, do you understand?” Jake looked up from the floor and nodded slowly. “Appologies Lord Dragon, I am sorry for my outburst, im just frustrated and confused from this crazy prophesy mess, its beyond my comprehension, im only a human after all.” The Dragon laughed. “No, you are not, most men would be, but not you. Nothing about this confuses you or is beyond your comprehension at all. Your mind is different from other humans, and most other creatures for that matter, I think very little can confuse, you, its almost as if you have experienced life beyond your years in some way, your thoughts remind me of a dragon in that way. Strange, I shal have to ponder this.” The Dragon looked hard at Jake. ‘Know this human, though you may be irreplacable in fulfilling the Prophesy and I cannot kill you, there is no such thing protecting anyone else you care about, something you had best remember well, do I make myself clear?

Jake sighed heavily, at that moment he mentally just gave up trying to out think this thing, he just wanted to hear whatever it had to tell him so they could get the fuck out of here. The Dragon saw the change in him and nodded in approval. “Good, let us begin, ask your questions.” Jake nodded. “Juliandra said you knew why the portal had stopped working, do you?” The Dragon nodded. The Portal has times when it simply stops working for various amounts of time, sometimes only a few moments, sometimes hours, sometimes days, weeks, or even months.” Jake looked surprised. “So it will just start working again on its on?” The Dragon shook its head. ‘Not this time, this is different, and mentioned in The Prophesy, its the only time it mentions the portal.”

“And Lo, the marked man will find his way home blocked. To return to the home in which he was born, he and the elf , their two hearts beating as one, must travel to the metal monument, slip the wedding blade of chaos into the eye of the beast, only then will the doorway be open once again.”

Jake was lost. “What does it mean our two hearts beating as one? Whats a chaos blade, and where is the metal monument?” The dragon grinned a toothy smile. “The metal monument is a ancient monument described as a metallic tower, it lies deep in the land of the wild orcs. For your two hearts to beat as one, is a ancient saying describing marriage. The Chaos blade is the Chaos sword, and for it to be a wedding blade, it must be given as a wedding present.” The dragon nudged the box at its feet, which I have here, to give to the newly wed couple.” Jake gawked at the dragon as did Allandra.

“We have to be married?” Jake asked stunned. ‘The Dragon nodded its massive head. “The prophesy says you must be married to succeed in your quest, so married you shall me. Who better to marry a husband and wife than a God.” He nodded towards Allandra. “Your bride already wears her wedding dress, I have the wedding present here at my feet, Kendralia there will be the maid of honor, and Commander Blogdroth the best man. All we need is the food and ale, speaking of which. Bring on the wedding the Dragon roared.” Behind them was a commotion and jake turned to see dozens of Orcs carrying tables heavily laiden with food and drink in their directionm in moments they had the tables set up, and muscians with musical instruments ready to play.

Jake turned back to face the Dragon. “You intend to marry us right now? You cant be serious?” The Dragon leaned closer to him, and menace filled its voice. “Deadly serious.” It breathed.

Now we are cooking. Thanks Buck.

Indeed!  "Cooking with gas" per the old saying.  Keep it up

Jake turned back to face the Dragon. “You intend to marry us right now? You cant be serious?” The Dragon leaned closer to him, and menace filled its voice. “Deadly serious.” It breathed. It nodded at Kendralia. “Give them the wedding ornaments.” Kendralia nodded and scurried quickly to Jake and Allandras side. She kept her eyes lowered as she stood in front of them. “Im sorry.” She Whispered. “I had no choice in this.” Kendralia pulled two identical delicate looking silver necklaces out of her pocket, they were made from multiple individual strands woven together in a intricate pattern, she slipped one over each of their heads and placed it under his shirt against his bare skin. The necklace hung down his back a equal amount as it hung down his chest, as if it were balanced there, instead of hanging all down the front like a normal necklace did. The necklace was warm against his skin, insread of cold as he expected, he assumed it was warm from Kendralias pocket. The Dragon stared at them for a long moment, its flourscent blue eyes seemed devoid of feeling, then it blinked and sighed.

Know this Human and Elf. I take no joy in forcing you into this union, such a union is a holy union between two souls and none should interfere with such things, if the fate of so much did not depend on you both, I would never do such as this, however it does, and I must as time is short. Even us Dragons believe that marriage and love between two beings is a holy and sacred thing, and it should never be forced, I began the preperations for this wedding the day after Ibold wrote his prophesy all those thousands of years ago. The wedding ornaments you wear here today were long ancient even then, created by a long extint race of powerful beings who lived before even the Dragon mother walked this land It took me centuries and much pain and effort to locate a set to use in the ceramony today, so understand I am very committedd to performing this ceramony today, do not test me in this.” The Dragon sighed. “but know this and take warmth in the knowledge I am blessing you with. This ceremony and accompaning spell I am about to cast, it cannot work if you each do not truly love each other, just as a marriage cannot exist without love, neither can this spell bind you without it.”

“If you do not love each other deeply, then the spell will simply fail, and I will allow you to return to your old life, as two unmarried people. Marked man or not though, you cannot survive the trials of the prophesy without wedding the Elf guide, and the marriage must be a true one based on the strength of the heart to count. However, if the spell succeeds and you leave here wed, as husband and wife, it is not because I forced you, it is because it is your two hearts deepest desire for you to be as one, and you would have wed eventually even without my interference. Take comfort in knowing you will leave here married to your true love, and the special ornaments you wear will bind you to each other for the rest of your lives, in ways others can only look upon in envy.” The Dragon paused for a moment as it seemed to think, then it began again. “If you refuse to take the vows though, I shall kill you both on the spot, because unmarried you will be useless in serving the Prophesy, and I will have to wait until the next marked man emerges, no matter how long that should take.”

Jake sighed. “Gee, thanks.” He said sarcastically.. Allandra wiped a tear from her eye. “Please do not force me to do this.” She pleaded. “If you know the full prophesy, then you know my role in it, please do not put me in this position.” She said miserably. The Dragon nodded. “I know of what you speak, and I am sorry. Know this though, prophesy is not always what it would seem, and even though you know the words of the prophesy, often those words are not what you think. Such has been my experience.” Jake interuppted. “What are you talking about?” He asked. The Dragon looked at the pleading look Allandra was giving it. “This is not for me to tell, let us get to the ceramony.

Allandra was thankful for the creature not revealing her secret, but she glared at it all the same. “You know what you are doing is wrong, fate shall repay you one day for your actions you take today.” The Dragon nodded. “I fear you are correct Princess of Elves, but I must do this task all the same, I can only hope the blessing this will bring you both will outweigh the offense I am committing against you.” The Dragon took a deep breath and spoke aloud. “Human and Elf join hands.” He turned to the rest of the room and nodded. “Begin the ceramony.” Instantly the musicians began playing their instruments, and a drum was hit in a slow rhythm, the dozens of bald red robed monks began a chant of some kind and a dozen or so armored soldiers moved behind them apparently to remind them they were not leaving here without this ceramony being completed.

The dragon seeing Jake and Allandra had joined hands nodded and closed its eyes. The Dragon seemed to be deep in concentration, it began humming to itsself an whispering some odd sounding language. The Dragons black shiny hide began changing in color, it quickly turned a dark blue color and the blue got brighter and brighter, until it was the color of glacier ice, the Dragon opened its eyes and its eyes blased a bright orange now. It continued whispering in the odd language, Jake thought the necklace around his neck was growing warm, and but it must be his imagination. The air around them seemed to become electric, you could feel energy in the air, you could taste it, he had never experienced anything like this before. It was sort of like how the air felt before a huge storm erupted, but many times stronger.

The dragon stopped its whispering and it stared at them both. “I the Dragon known as Hecktarlumger, here today call upon the ancient ones to bind together this Elf Princess Allandra Datildamore Quentilla, in the ancient rite of marriage to this Human, Lord of Camelot Jake Reynolds, also known as the marked man.” The Dragon looked at them both. “Repeat after me.” The Dragon would say a few words and pause while Jake repeated those same words.

“ I, state your name, do hereby take Allandra as my one true wife, I wish to be bound to her in body and spirit all of my days, I will freely share all that I have equally with her, even my very life, I wish my love for her to grow stronger as we grow old together. I will love, hold, treasure and protect her for all of my days, in good times and bad, in good health and disease. I will be her loyal husband, her friend, her lover and father of her children, I will do nothing to harm her body or soul, any harm I bring her I wish upon myself ten fold. I shall never betray her love or trust, and I vow to put her before all others. So I swear it. Algonthoranum.” The Dragon nodded. Jake swore the necklace and ring were getting warmer.

The Dragon turned to Allandra “Repeat after me. I, state your name, do hereby take Jake as my one true husband, I wish to be bound to him in body and spirit all of my days. I will freely share all that I have equally with him even my very life. I wish my love for him to grow stronger as we grow old together. I will love, hold, treasure and protect him for all of my days, in good times and bad, in good health and disease. I will be his loyal wife, his friend, his lover, and the mother of his children. I will do nothingo harm him body or soul, any harm I bring to him I wish upon myself ten fold. I shall never betray her love or trust, and I vow to put her before all others. So I swear it. Algonthoranum.”

The Dragon nodded. “It is finished, you are now bound as husband and wife, till you die old together in each others arms. I need only complete the ceramony with the final word of closing to make it complete. Allandra shook her head. “Thats unlikely as my lifespan is twenty fold of Jakes, growing old together is impossible.” The dragon shook its head. “You will indeed grow old together, as you vowed to share everything with each other, even your life. Your life force will be shared with him, while you lose some of your great life spanto him, his human life span will grow longer to match yours.” Allandra blinked in surprise. “What?” Jake interrupted. “You said if the ceramony works, how do we know if it works?” The Dragon smiled a terrifying toothy grin and spoke a single word. “GRADITORINIUM !” Jake blinked in surprise, and looked around expecting something, as did Allandra. He shrugged. “I guess it didn’t work.” Suddenly the necklace he was wearing blased hot as fire, he screamed in pain and tried to pull it off, but it would not budge, it felt like it was glued to his skin. The necklace was burning into his chest and he despirately tugged at it, but it would not come free, but then it slipped through his fingers like it was liquid. Allandras screams of pain got his attention and he turned in a panic to see his experiencing the same thing as he was. He saw her grab for the necklace and saw her hand pass through it, the necklace appeared to be drops of metallic liquid like mercury, it seemed to soak into the skin of her chest and disappear. In a panic he ripped at his shirt and caught a glimpse of the last few drops of his own necklace vanish into his own skin. He turned towards the Dragon and screamed at it in a rage. “What did you do to us!?!” A moment later darkness took him and he knew no more.

Jake opened his eyes, his entire body hurt, and he felt like he had been beaten, he thought of Allandra and for a instant was in a panic about her safety. Suddenly he felt a warm safe feeling and somehow he just KNEW she was close by and she was safe from harm, he didn’t know how he knew it, he just knew it as certaintly as he knew he was alive. He tried to sit up, and multiple hands helped him to his feet. He realized they were still in the wedding ceramony and everyone was looking at them. Allandra was being helped back to her feet as well, and his hand instinctively found hers, the touch of her hand instantly calmed him. He turned to look at her and the look of amazement that was on her face told him she felt the same thing he was feeling. “How is this possible?” He asked her.


She simply shrugged in response. Jake gawked at the exposed skin of her neck where her dress left it uncovered. The necklace was gone from where it had been around her neck, but it had left something behind. He stepped coser and gently touched her chest. “Does it hurt?” He asked her. “Does what hurt?” She asked. He looked closely at her skin, there, around Allandras neck where the necklace had been was now a silver tattoo in the exact same interwoven pattern the necklace had. “Your tattoo.” Jake explained. Allandra pulled his shirt down and examined his nexk. “You have a silver tattoo as well, in the exact shape of that weird necklace.” She said. The dragon spoke. “I can see from the silver wedding tattoos you both bear that the ceramony was a success.” It said with satisfaction, im sure you can both feel a change within yourselves, as well as feel what your husband or wife is feeling. What you have both just experienced was very rare even in the time it was conceived, it was something reserved for royalty. I hope it helps heal the harm I caused by forcing you to marry each other here today.”

Jake turned back to face it. “We did what you asked, or rather what you forced us to do, are we free to leave now?” The Dragon shook its head. “There is one more matter to.” It used one massive talon to slide the box beside its feet across the room in his direction. Several soldiers ran out and grabbed the box and carried it to Jake. They held the box so he could examine it. “Whats this?” Jake asked suspicious. “Your weding gift.” The Dragon explained. “Open the box and take the sword in you hand, and your free to leave.” Jake looked at the Dragon skeptical. “Thats it?” The Dragon nodded. “Thats it.” Jake flipped the box open and looked inside. The box was lined with red padded cloth, and laying on the red fabric was a long beautiful sword, it was made from a silver looking metal of some kind, and it was around four feet long in all from hilt to blade tip.

The swords hilt was made from a black material of some kind, and its guard looked a lot like the kind a calvary saber had. The back of the guard had a odd engraving of some kind, of some weird symbol he had never seen before. Jake reached for the hilt and Allandra grabbed his hand stopping him. He could feel her worry and concern coming off her in waves, like heat from a fire. “Don’t.” She warned him. “If you touch the Chaos sword it will change you in ways we cannot imagine, you will never be the same again, and you can never be free of it.” Jake nodded and pulled his hand away, and he looked back at the Dragon. “I don’t want it, why don’t you keep it.” The Dragon laughed a terrible laugh that runbled through the huge cavern. “You will take the sword, now, or you will die.” It pulled its upper lip back revealing its wicked teeth, a sure threat. Jake nodded, and reached for the box and tried to take it from the soldiers. “Ill take it.”

The soldiers refused to release the wooden box. “The Dragon shook its head. “Nice try, take the sword by the hilt, and your free to take your wife and walk out of here right now, refuse, and well, you know the rest.” Jake sighed in frustration. ‘Fuck it.” He grabbed the sword by its hilt and yanked it out of the box, it felt much lighter than he thought it would, he admired the blade as the masterful work of art that it was, the scabbard was heavily engraved with strange looking runes, that were expertly cut into the metal. He pulled the blade from its sheath and nodded at the razor edge of the blade, the blades edge was completely free from any defect, the sword looked like it had been forged yesterday, it looked brand new. He slipped it back into the sheath and turned back to Allandra. He could feel the worry and fear rolling off of her. He smiled and held the sword out. “Its ok, see, its just a sword.” His hand suddenly glenched tightly around the hilt so hard it was painful, and he was not doing it by choice.

He tried to let go but could not drop the damn thing. He looked at his hand and was terrified to see that some of the metal of the guard liquified into something that looked like mercury, the liquid metal flowed across his hand and when the metal touched his hand it felt ice cold to the touch. He stared at it in terrified facination for a moment, but then the pain hit him, the place the liquid metal touched him burned as if a hot poker had touched his skin. He grabbed the guard and tried to pull the swords hilt out of his hand, but he could not let go of it, to his horror and liquid metal vanished into his skin, leaving no trace it had ever been there. His hand suddenly opened and the sword fell to the floor with a clatter. He felt fear radiating from Allandra and he turned to her. “Its ok baby, im ok, see.” He held out his unharmed hand and showed it to her. Allandras face was filled with fear though.

The massive dragon nodded. “It is finished. You are both free to go anytime you wish, you are free to honeymoon here in the guest house tonight if you wish, but you must leave in the morning.” Jake spun on the Dragon. “Theres no way in hell were staying here tonight, were leaving right now.” He turned back to Allandra. “Lets get our shit and get the hell out of sheep.” Allndra gave him a funny look. Jake caught what he just said. “I mean, lets get out of sheep! Um.. sheep the hell out of here!” He panicked and kept trying to finish the sentence. “I want to bork the shit dog out of this weasel. I mean I want to weasel this stink.”

“ Jesus Chris what dinkle is pickling me?” Allandra moved quickly to his side and touched his forhead. “Jake baby, your burning up with fever!” He turned to the Dragon and gave it the middle finger, and a moment later his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed. Allandra scooped him up in her powerful Elven arms and carried him back towards the guest house at a run, she despirately wanted to get him away from the Dragon. She turned and screamed behind her. “Kendralia! Get your ass over here and help me with him ! “ Kendralia startled from where she stood, she curtsied towards the dragon, and bowed to it, then she turned and ran after Allandra.

Allandra sat beside Jake’s unconscious body all night and half through the next day. His skin burned with fever and she kept cold rags against his burning skin to cool him. He moaned and thrashed as if he were having night mares,and she could feel what he was feeling, she could feel fear, anger, terror and more, the feelings she felt from him threatened to overwhelm her, but she had to be here for him, and she fought the emotions down. If she could feel his emotions, then he must feel hers, she did her best to radiate calm, and love, hoping it would help, and almost as soon as she starting doing that he quit tossing and moaning, and became calm, but he still would not wake up.

She watched as something, seemed to move under his skin, like a worm moving just under his taunt feverish skin, she was horrified by the look of what she was seeing. It moved too quickly for her to do anything the first time, she pulled her knife ready to attempt to cut it out at the next opportunity, but that opportunity never came. The worm appeared again, but before she could strike at it, it broke apart into a dozen smaller ones, who each broke into dozens of more even smaller ones, they wriggled over almost every inch of his body, then suddenly they were gone. She was terrified for him, oh god how could this have happened to her husband?!

“Her husband! She was now Jakes wife, never in a thousand years would she have guessed this would have happened on this trip. She had held back her feelings so successfully up until now she had completely fooled herself as to just how much he meant to her. The full weight of her feelings flooded into her heart and she wept first in joy, and then in sorrow at the thought of losing the man she had just found. She wiped at her tears and held his hand tightly in both of hers and prayed to every god she knew to bring him back to her safe and whole in mind and body. Kendralia tried to bring her food, but she refused, when she offered to sit with Jake so she could sleep, Allandra had screamed at her and chased her from the room, and locked the door behind her. She was so tired, she lay her head against his bare chest and listed to his slow steady heart beat, while sending him her love.

Jake found himself staring at a ceiling, his eyes felt too large for his head, and he had a slight headache, but within a few moments it was gone and he felt amazing. He felt a weight on his chest and looked down to see a tangle of golden hair and realized Allandra was laying next to him in bed, her head on his chest and she was snoring lightly. He stroked her hair lovingly and kissed the top of her head gently. Suddenly Allandra raised her head and stared at him with eyes bleary with sleep. “Oh gods Jake, your back !” She said happily. She wrapped her arms around him and started sobbing with gratitude.

Thanks for the update.

@zoe17
@GreenGiant

How does the story line read?

Great so far!  Keep it up, frequently and with the Craftsmanship you have displayed so far!  You seem to be just getting good and started on this Epic Tale. There is soooooo much more to tell.
Does Jake change into a massive jerk from the effects of the Sword of Chaos?
What happens to Allandra because of the Prophesy?
Do the Orcs become an ally or a deadly enemy?  The Dragon Lord?
Does Jake get the Portal working or is he stuck in the Three Kingdoms for the rest of his (now longer life)?
What do the ladies back on Earth think of his marriage to Alandra?  How does it effect them?
What about the Dryad / Tree Spirit?  Does she get pissed?
Does somebody kick Juliandra's ass for being a Grade A Beotch?  Does she serve another purpose in the quest?

All this and So Much MOAR in the Next Thrilling Episodes!  Same Elf Time, Same Elf Channel!

Story is great, just need more of it. To be honest reading gives me a few minutes of escape from all the CV-19 crap.

Thanks ! i appreciate the feedback !

thanks !   im working on it.

No update right now, just a comment.

i like the story line i have right now, i think it reads pretty decently. remember though, this will be a series when its finished. im going to keep writing as i have been, and pushing the story forward, BUT, when i EVENTUALLY reach a good stopping place, im going to go back through the entire story and add a LOT more meat to it and a LOT more details and side adventures, for example. if i did that right now, the story line i currently have would probably be 2-3 full books with the meat added to it. by meat i mean loads of extra details, relationship information, build ups, descriptions, side stories, short adventures monster attacks etc.

im mainly working right now to get the basic story line / main adventure stuff created, i think the end result will be a decent series, but its going to take me quite a while to finish it, as i said, this is not one book, its going to be a entire series of books, the first series will revolve around Jake, allandra, jissele, miranda and emily... while the second series will take place in the future, and revolve around jake, allandra, miranda jiselle etc kids and grandkids as adults. the second series will probably happen when jake is either close to retirement age, or several years after he dies.

im having fun with it.

if you guys have any suggestions for story lines, adventures, and such feel free to toss something out. i have a long term HUGE discovery planned, but i dont want to spoil it for you guys. i will have to go back earlier in the story though to seed some weird small things, which will hint around at the bigger discovery.

there will be a hint towards the big discovery pretty soon when jake gets back to the FOB, and has a doctor check him out in relation to whatever the sword, and the weird marrage necklaces did to him / them.

Yo, Buck, got anymore of them updates?

@buck19delta

not right now, been busy working on my man cave project. ill try to work on it this weekend a little bit. :-)

Methinks I detect a bit of a pause in thine continuance of this Tome My Good Sir.  Please rapidly commence continuing of your Tale!  Bringest the Moar Monsters some, well, ..........MOAR!

ill try to get something out asap. been busy. we hauled home 5 tons of coal a few days ago, last week i was insulating and putting up walls in my man cave, i have a mini split ac unit I need to install, now my woman has me working on flower beds, i picked up 10 cross ties and 2000lbs of mulch yesterday, and need to build flower beds on the back and side of the house. Fun, fun.

Been thinking about the story though, and stuff for the new updates.. remember. EVERYTHING iv written so far, is just rough draft stuff. Well, it's the result of 2-3 PREVIOUS rough drafts. Lol. But it's still in rough draft form.  I think it's pretty good for a rough draft.

I think it will be a ok story / series when I eventually finish it.


You guys have been pretty quiet lately, thought you lost interest in it, or I made it suck so bad you dumped it. Lol

No, I have not lost interest. Just did not want to bust your balls.