In which Sorel and I have The Talk

Sorel nudged me awake in the middle of the night and we went outside to talk. I could tell she was serious, but I had no way to prepare for what was coming.

“Quinn, do you like me?”

“Huh? Sure. I guess so. You’ve been a lot nicer since you’ve changed.”

“Do you think the transformation altered my personality?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re more feminine. You’re certainly less of a jerk.”

“You used to hate me, didn’t you?”

I shuffled and looked at the ground. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“And you don’t hate me any more.”

“Yes, I told you that. You are becoming a woman!”

“I know. I feel the same inside, like nothing has changed. But everything is different.”

“That could just be the curse,” I said, trying to be helpful.

“I don’t think so. That takes over my body, but it’s not a part of me. “ She takes a deep breath, as if steadying herself. “You know, you could have really made my life miserable with that curse.”

“No. Remember, you’re immune to me.”

“You’re not being honest. You could easily have persuaded or tricked the others into saying things that would have set off the curse. I know you would have done that to the old Sorel.”

“Is that why you’re being nice to me?” I asked, thinking I was finally starting to piece things together.

“At first. Then I was nice because I realized that you didn’t want to humiliate me. Because you’re a good person at heart.”

That made me uncomfortable. I did have a reputation to uphold, after all. “I suppose. I don’t mind helping you. I’m sorry about what happened to you, and I’m glad I can be here to help you.” So much for my reputation.

Sorel bit her lip, took a deep breath, then looked me in the eye and said “Quinn, I want to be more than friends. I want to be more than just nice to you.” Then she left those words hanging there. I didn’t know what to do with them.

“But…you’re really a guy…”

“Do I look like a guy? Do you really still think of me as a guy?”

I had to be honest. “No. I suppose not.”

Se leaned close to me and kissed me. It was a long, tender kiss, generous and passionate and erotic all at the same time. It left me stunned.

“I…I thought you couldn’t…”

“The curse does not apply to you. That wasn’t the curse. I wanted to do that.”

‘That was nice,” I admitted. “Really nice. But I need to think about this.”

“Take your time. But not too much time ,” Sorel said. She spread her wings, then took off into the night sky.

Things were so much simpler when adventuring was all about killing monsters and taking their stuff.

In which I become the center of a very strange triangle

Another day, and we were back in the manor. We had cleared out large patches of it, although admittedly in a less systematic way than any of us would have cared to admit. But we had reached a point now where we were guided by the blank spaces in the map, eager to fill everything in. Once more we found ourselves in the northeast corner of the map, roughly underneath the levels we had explored the day before.

Everyone seemed a little more thoughtful than usual. Ev and Aleandra seemed tired from their unicorn games of the night before. One was currently in unicorn form, being ridden by the other, but for the life of me I could not tell you which was which. To be frank, I don’t they very much cared anymore. Qual was far from his usual boisterous self. It was clear that he did not approve of the changes that the others in the party were going through, but he kept his opinions to himself. As for Sorel, she seemed determined to stay between Golem and me. This seemed to make my Golem-servant move closer, which meant that Sorel and I were touching more often than not. At one point, Sorel grabbed my hand and held on. It took me a second to realize her intent, but I eventually relaxed and let her. I could feel tension leaving her body, and I’m pretty sure the gesture put me in a better mood too. Golem tried to copy the gesture but was shooed away by Sorel.

We wandered down several corridors, filling in our map as well as we could, establishing which areas were likely fruitful to explore. We opened the door to a bedchamber, where two lovely twin girls, dressed in nothing but silk undergarments, beckoned us to join them on the bed. Boy, did they pick the wrong party. I was the only one who might be tempted, and Sorel was going to make sure I took no action. Well, wouldn’t you know it? The two lovelies turned out to be were-pigs. Irritable were-pigs, at that. We were careful not to let them bite us (who wants to be a were-pig?), so killing them took more effort than it might otherwise have.

A few rooms later, we came across a series of chambers that were hot and humid and felt (and smelt) like a swamp. We had to fight a shambler in one room and another one of those face-eating snake-men in the other. By this point our combat skills were growing more formidable. Qual had figured out how to summon a lightning bolt, and the rest of us had honed the lethality of our combat skills. Monsters like this were still a threat, but one we were more than capable of dealing with.

The snake-man was guarding two suits of dragon-skin armor. I saw this as a boon for me, and I took the one Sorel identified as magical. This would allow me to keep my mobility, but it would give me the protection I need to stand up in a straight-up fight, which I was doing all to often. It fit like a glove. Actually, it fit better than that. No sooner was the last strap tightened when the scaly armor sank into my skin. There was a few brief moments of intense pain, then I felt normal again. I didn’t look normal, though. The dragon skin had fused to my body. I looked like I was some kind of reptile man with glossy green scales. Sorel said it made me look sexy. Despite the plate-like scales, I could feel her every touch. I suppose it could have been worse (though I sort of missed the tiger-face, if I had to choose between them).

One more encounter pretty much put an end to the day. We found something like a sauna, where the floor was slippery and steaming hot water filled a small pool. A giant crab guarded the room, and I can’t tell you why it had not been cooked in the heat. I had said that we had all grown in our combat skills, but you could not tell that from our fight with the grab. Qual went down on the wet stone and Ev was nearly cut in half with a claw. Aleandra and I could not hit it to save our lives, and Sorel was running low on magical energy. Eventually, we tipped it into the boiling water (soup!) but everyone felt like we had earned an honest day’s wages.

Do dragons swim? At the very least, the heat should not have bothered me as much as it did. Sorel tells me that’s because I have the skin of a green dragon and that I’m better adapted to swamps. I still sweat a lot.

Golem broke out of her passivity to care for my wounds once we returned to camp. Sorel took exception to that and she began to apply first aid in her inexpert and inelegant way. Having the hands of these two identical lovelies (save for the hair) on me was a bit much, and I’m afraid I showed my enthusiasm involuntarily (I even have scales down there!). Sorel blushed and moved away. I thought that was the end of it. Then came the Talk.

In which Sorel attaeins new levels of awsomeness, and we all get our butts kicked

Well, we were determined to finish up this wing of the house, so despite our battered state and the oddness resulting from my new pet Golem, we decided to press on. It appeared as if we were in the servants quarters, so we were not expecting any serious opposition.

We chased away some rats at the top of the stairs. They ran into their holes, which led us to believe that there were rat tunnels going all through the walls. This might be a security risk, or it might be an opportunity. Since I was the likely “volunteer” to explore the rat tunnels, I kept quiet about the latter option. Maybe I’ll just buy some really big cats.

We found a loft that gave us access to the roof, but there we found some irritable gargoyles that were annoyed we found their happy place. We were well-stocked with magic weapons, so it was not as bad a fight for us as it could have been. With that said, it was still pretty bad. I got ripped up good, including a laceration in the abdomen that nearly had my guys falling out. Aleandra and Qual were both on their last legs when the last gargoyle dropped, and Sorel even had an arm mangled by a gargoyle bite. There was little question that we needed to rest and regroup.

Sorel’s wound healed itself by the time we made it outside. I know she has wings and all, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that she’s not human, since we don’t know exactly what she is. But it seems that the “live forever” part of her curse has rendered her pretty much indestructible, too. Qual immediately came up with a dozen adventuring uses for this new ability, mainly offering Sorel as our new designated trap detector. That didn’t go over well, but at least Sorel’s anger at Golem and me was redirected.

Sorel found she could also make her wings disappear if she concentrated. This makes her style options open up, and she’s also happier that now she can blend in with other humans, at least as far as drop-dead gorgeous women can blend in anywhere. And she still has the other part of her curse to worry about while she’s blending. We’re all learning to avoid any words with possible sexual connotations, but five minutes into a city, and Sorel would be frigging anything that moved.

In which most of the party goes furry, and I get my own Sorel to play with

One benefit of a day off is that I found the stable door in the east wall, mostly overgrown by brush. We cleared it away and had another access point. Before we can open the door we hear what sounds like a fight coming from within, along with the screams of horses. We charge in to find a unicorn and a nightmare locked in combat. We were used to things being not what they seemed in the manor, so we watched for a few moments. Then, however, Qual, Ev, and Alaindra began to change. They grew and their bodies elongated, and before two seconds had passed all three of them had become unicorns. Sorel and I just stand there stupidly and watch as the four unicorns proceed to completely gore the nightmare to death. Its body instantly burned to ash a second after its chest stopped heaving. Gradually, the drawrf and the two amazons morphed back into their usual forms, but the girls were in completely different armor. Now they wore golden plate that was perfectly molded to their bodies (down to their immense bosoms). Atop their shining helms was a unicorn horn on each. Turns out that because they were virgins (ha!) they were rewarded by the gift of lycanthropy, only now they were were-unicorns. They seemed pretty pleased with this. Aleandra whispered something in Ev’s ear and they both started grinning wickedly. I don’t want to think about it. Qual was pretty bummed about things by this point. From his point of view, if he’s going to get changed into a horse, he should at least get something cool out of it. I told him to be patient. He’s going to wind up a bimbo sooner or later. He laughed, but he looked a little worried, too.

Ev and Aleandra seemed to think it was great fun “playing unicorn” with each other. One would transform and give the other a ride, and then later they would switch. Since one wound up carrying both bow and poleaxe, it was growing increasingly difficult to tell them apart. I mean, if I were turned into an exact copy of someone, I would do whatever it took to keep my individual identity—tattoos, a haircut, new clothes, whatever. But Aleandra has been training with a bow and Ev has been sparring with the poleaxe. They always dress alike. It’s as if they want to forge a single identity between them. On the plus side, they seem to have an almost psychic link in battle, and the two of them are far more lethal together than they would be separately. On the down side, Ev has started to cop Aleandra’s belligerent attitude towards anything with a penis. And those are increasingly hard to find in our party, so I take the brunt of it.

Our path took us north through the carriage house, where a ghostly procession stormed past us. These apparitions are horrible for my nerves. I get all ready for a fight, only to have the threat disappear. It’s almost as if the house is mocking us.

We found some stairs going up. We seemed to think it was important to clear the upper levels before everything else, so we decided to explore above. We entered a dining room that had a mummy in the middle of cooking something in a pot. He ignored us for a while while he finished his stew. Then he tried to drink it. That’s when we decided to attack (see what I mean about this place getting to you? It’s next to impossible to know when an encounter is dangerous and when it’s just a bizarre event). Ev and I took a beating, but we avoided contracting mummy rot, so I score it a victory.

The next room had one of those freaky apparitions, a ghostly woman who accused us of killing her son. Nothing lootworthy. The next room, though, was some kind of prison where a half-man, half-bear was chained to the wall, dying before our eyes. Suddenly the chains in the room sprang to life (and there were a lot of chains in the room. They were too slow to grab the Amazons, Sorel, or me, but they grabbed Qual and lashed him to the wall. The chains put a bear-shaped helmet on his head. We cut him down before they could do further damage, or so we thought. Qual took of the helm and smashed it to bits. It should have occurred to us at the time that this was an unusual display of temper for the Dwarf.

We found stairs going up, but it was immediately apparent that a secret door concealed half the level from our sight. Even without Ev’s elven eyes, we found it without too much trouble. There was a library, full of magical books. Sorel, to her credit, did not rush inside. There was a stuffed sabre-toothed tiger in the room which *surprise!* came to life just as we decided to hack it to pieces in order to prevent it from coming to life. As usual, it was a straight up fight, and that brought out the best in us. We all knew our roles and set to work…and then Qual turned into a bear. In a way, I guess he got his wish to turn into something cool. But unlike the girls, who seemed to keep control of their wits when they became unicorns, Qual just went completely berserk when he transformed. He ripped the tiger apart (after I had already done a lot of damage, mind you). Then he turned on me and nearly mauled me to death before we could calm him down again. We were both freaked out by that little episode. Qual wanted to rid himself of that curse, while I saw certain advantages in his condition, if only he could control it.

Beyond the library lay an artist’s studio, a room I wish I had never visited. There was a huge lump of clay, roughly human sized and shaped but without features on one side of the room, while on the other, a skeleton appeared to be painting a portrait of it. It threw a canvas over its work before we could see it. Naturally we tried to smash the skeleton, but it kept reforming and trying to shoo us out. I took the canvas off the painting, and the skeleton crumbled to dust.

That’s when things got weird. The clay thing animated and picked up the palette and brushes and gave them to me. Then it blocked the door until I started to paint. I was at a loss as to what to do, until I saw Sorel. The light coming through the window made Sorel look sexy and angelic at the same time. Inspired, I started to sketch her form. Somehow, the brush knew what to do. I’m no artist, but each stroke of the brush made the painting into an exact likeness of Sorel, almost as if I were looking at a reflection of her in the mirror. She seemed happy to pose for me, but the others were on guard in case any threat should materialize. Then, in less than ten minutes, I was done. No painter had ever captured such loveliness with such precision. I turned the portrait around so that Sorel could see it, and that’s when the clay thing changed until it became an exact duplicate of Sorel, wings and all.

Well, Qual wants to cut it in half right off the bat. It panics and runs behind me, seeking protection. That’s when Sorel gets pissed off and wants to kill it also. But it doesn’t do anything to threaten us. Instead, it seems perfectly happy to follow me around, smiling at me with Sorel’s angelic face if I so much as look at her. So, over the objections of Qual and Sorel, we decide to allow her to tag along. After all, we decide, she might be important later. And the Second Sorel seemed perfectly content to carry things for us, though she apparently knew none of Sorel’s magic and she seemed incapable of speech.

Aleandra said something like “Well, Quinn, at least you have a Sorel who will play with you now.” Sorel got unbelievably pissed at that, and from where I sat, it was a pretty rude thing to say, and I said so. We decided to call the fake Sorel something else and cut her hair, to keep them distinct. So fake Sorel became “Golem,” and it was a shame to lose that sexy long blonde hair, but I figure it was for the best.

In which I am an unwitting victim of my own mojo

Note to readers: I will be able to resume illustrating this story in a few weeks. I would like to create images of Sorel and all the lovely ladies of this quest in Poser. It takes me a while to create something I'm happy with (I really dislike the image I did of Aleandra and that will be one of the first things I upgrade), and with work, I just don't have the hours I need to do graphic work.

We made a strategic decision to take a day off to rest and heal. Qual went back into town to stock up on healing potions. Ev and Aleandra went somewhere where we could pretend they weren’t having some wild kinky Sapphic sex. That left Sorel and me to fend for ourselves. I was still pretty badly hurt, so I took it easy, taking a walk along the cliffs. Sorel went to practice flying. By accident (yeah, right) she soared on an updraft near where I was walking, gliding just a few yards away from the Cliffside trail.

“Do you like me?” she asked.

“Yeah. Well enough, I guess.”

“You didn’t used to.”

“No, not really,” I admitted. “You acted like a spoiled brat. You’ve been different since the change.”

“Really? In what way?”

Man, I hated where this conversation was going. “Well, you’re a little kinder to people. And you go out of your way to be helpful. And of course you have a vagina now and everything.”

“Does that freak you out? That I’m a woman?”

“Not really, I suppose. But if I was in your place, I think I would be a complete mess.”

“Quinn, I am a complete mess.”

“No you’re not. Sure, you cried and stuff, but that’s because of this sex curse that is on you. That would drive anyone nuts. On the whole, you’ve handled it better that anyone possibly could.”

She looked sincerely grateful. “Thanks. I’m getting used to it. Being a woman, that is. Not the whole insta-whore part of it. That’s terrible. I don’t know why you don’t effect me, but I’m glad I have someone to talk to who doesn’t set me off.”

“Yeah, it’s just as well,” I admitted. “I’d probably take advantage of it and use it to humiliate you. I never would have the opportunity to get to know you and…” Oh, hells. Why did I say that?

She flew closer to me and touched down gracefully, as if she had been doing it her whole life. In an instant, she leaned in and gave me a light kiss on the lips. Before I could react, she stepped off the cliff and soared away.

I stood there stupidly for quite some time. I had no clue how to think about what had just happened.