She's a Rainbow

Koshka sighed, it had been a while since she'd thought of him. 

Really thought of him, anyway. Everyday, somewhere at the back of her mind she guessed she must think of him. But calling to mind his face, his voice. It was pleasant to be lost in memory.

"Go on girl, continue, please," encouraged Treave across the room. His little face peered out from around the canvas, his nose preceding the rest of him by some way, before he added, "but keep your chin up, no moving now!"

Koshka gave a cough and reclaimed her proper pose, her face tilted away to expose her neck and shoulders, staring up towards the corner of the tiny studio. Her arm was draped across her reclining body languidly, one knee coyly raised. 

"Well... I don't know what to say about him really. I suppose he was kind. Charming even," the ghost of a smile lit her lips, her fangs showing at the corners of her mouth, "Plenty of them are, of course. But him... he was different. You believe in love at first sight?"

Treave gave a theatrical sigh from behind his easel, and without leaning to look at Koshka to respond, "My dear I am an artist. A thousand times a day I fall in love with a sight." 

"Well then... you understand."

"Well go on then, tell the rest of the story," he said. Behind the easel Koshka could only see the feet of the diminutive artist balanced on his stool, and she heard the rattle of one brush being placed in the water pot and another retrieved.

"I spend a lot of time thinking... where was he from? Because he told me, I know he did. He lay there with me afterwards and he told me all sorts of things. What he'd seen on his travels, how beautiful Waterdeep was from the sea. That there was so much else to see out there. And he told me where he was from but... I just can't for the life of me remember."

"What do you remember?" came the calm and inquisitive voice of the gnome, and Koshka giggled.

"I remember his hair. It was black, and curly, I curled it around my fingers as he lay there. And his eyes, they were brown. Deep and dark and he looked right into you when he talked to you. I remember the exact size and shape of his... well, you get the idea. I remember so much, but not where he came from."

"And what happened?" 

Koshka chewed on her lip before she continued the story. It was so quiet in the room, the scratching of the brush on canvas. Dimly from outside the rom, the heartbeat bustle of Waterdeep noon could be heard.

"Well, I was laying there, on my bed, watching him dress. That nice sailors shirt, strapping on his belt, shiny silver bosuns whistle dangling from it. He came and pulled the covers back and looked at me, and said that I should come with him. Leave for adventure, on his boat."

Koshka studied the knots and whorls in the old wood boards in the ceiling, the tip of her tail fought the urge to twitch.

"So many say that, of course. 'Come with me! I'll leave the wife!' or 'Run away with me, I'll take you away from all this!'" Koshka smiled ruefully, and her white eyebrows tilted ever so slightly apart, "so I just laughed and said next time. He was still smiling at me when he left, and said he wished I'd change my mind. And I just lay there and thought for a while."

Koshka heard the cry of a merchant somewhere outside, the clack of boots in the streets. The creak of a cart going down the lane. 

"I dressed so fast I forgot to button my shirt properly. I remember running, through the alley down towards the dock. Knocked over old blind Albert who sells the shells at the corner by the fish market, I was running so fast."

Koshka listened to the slow brush strokes from behind the canvas for a moment, then:

"When I finally got to the right berth, it was empty. I watched it then, parting waves not too far out the harbour. Big ship it was, all deep dark wood, blazing white sails, a lion on them. The name he told me, The Bride of Brythony, on the back all in pretty gold letters. Up on the front, the figurehead was an Angel, wings and everything."

Koshka tail gave a flick, her attention returning slowly to the room around her. The smell of paint, her own heartbeat.

"I watched that ship until it was a dot on the horizon, and then until it was nothing. I never found out where it went, and it never came back to Waterdeep again. I... suppose I think about what might have happened if I'd been on it, quite a lot."

There was quiet in the room, and Koshka flicked her eyes aside to see Treave smiling at her. 

"Thankyou, dear girl. I always find it calms my models to chat, take their mind somewhere else."

As the gnome approached, Koshka raised one shapely eyebrow.

"Done so soon?" 

Treave gave a shrug.

"Not just yet, but in a foolish mistake I should have foreseen, I did run out of red paint. You're vibrant, you know."

"I've been told. Naturally catches the eye," Koshka said, rising from the low chaise lounge and its many pillows, and stretching. Treave looked up at the Tiefling and removed his tiny spectacles to clean them on his smock. 

"I do understand though, my girl," he said as Koshka bent over to begin retrieving her clothes, "Sometimes you only get one chance to capture something. I try my hardest to." 

He gestured his little arms around him. Although Treave was by far best known for his many portraits of the women of the realms relieved of the burden of any clothing, in between were curious sights captured in his colours. The light on wet cobblestones, gleaming fruit on market stalls, flapping sails at dawn. 

"There's many beautiful things in the city, Koshka," Treave said as he replaced his newly cleaned glasses, "It's a blessing when one of them lingers for more than just a moment."

Koshka smiled playfully down at the tiny figure, and placed her hands on her hips.

"You can't flatter yourself out of the models wages, by the way, little man." she said.

"Wouldn't dream of it, my dear."

Artistic Endevours

An unspecified time after Cerce arrived at the shipping town of the Foul Mouth...

-

“Easiest five gold pieces you’ll ever make,” Cerce grumbled to herself, trying not to move her mouth, which was held in a pleasant smile a little unlike her usual casual toothy grin.

“What was that my dear?” Asked Treave from across the room. Cerce couldn’t see the Gnome from the place she lay; his tiny form hidden entirely behind his easel. Occasionally the stool he stood upon would give a wobble, and his great nose would poke out to take a glance at her, mustache wiggling.

“Nothing, nothing,” Cerce said. She wanted to itch her knee awfully, and then after thinking of that for a moment, realized she wanted to itch her nose as well, and then the sole of her foot. It seemed everything itched the moment you’d been told not to move a muscle.

“It’s just...when Adam told me you were in need of my services… I’m usually called on for sort of...adventury type things, you know.”

“Oh yes! Absolutely! I have heard many a tale of the great Cerce Stormbringer in the last few months! Like wildfire, they spread,” Treave said enthusiastically as his little face popped out to gaze at her momentarily, bright eyes glinting behind his over-sized spectacles before his face disappeared again. “When I was told of you, of your tall form and your marvelous hair, I knew I had to reach out! And that skin! Oh!”

“Yes...when you reached out I expected you might have needed help, of the danger variety, or some-such.”

“Oh no, no everything is quite wonderful with me, thank-you! Extend your arm a little more over your head, would you? Elbow up, knee a little higher.”

Cerce did so, feeling the stretch in her shoulder and wondering how much longer this would take.

“Hope you’ve got a lot of green paint...” she mumbled.

“I heard from Master Iggles of the shoe-store that only last week you single-handedly protected the merchants caravan from a full scale assault in the pass outside Penryan! Incredible. So dynamic. I should have loved to have been there to watch. What a painting that would have made!”

“Yes...” Cerce murmured. It had been three poorly prepared highwaymen, but she’d not correct the gnome. She was counting on the newly inflated story getting her bought a drink or two down the Hound’s tooth later on. “Of course I was wearing my armour there.”

The little gnome gave a tut of dismissal.

“Yes well that sort of thing wouldn’t match my style at all of course.”

-

Cerce gave a sigh and tilted her eyes across the room where her great halberd was leaning in a corner, along with her new leather armour and the pink silk shirt that Adam had bought her at the festival. Close by it on the floor, she bemoaned, were her undergarments.

“Roughly how much longer-” Cerce began, and was interrupted when the door to the studio seemed to open by itself. The bustling sound of the town could be heard, and at first it seemed the wind might have blown the door open, before Cerce looked lower to see the small figure, standing barely two feet tall. The tiny Gnome peered at Cerce and she gave a chirp of surprise and instinctively dropped a clawed hand to hide the mound of hair between her thighs.

“Not to worry,” said Treave, casually. “Treave the younger is well versed in the necessities of the artistic method. Aren’t you lad?”

To his credit, the young Gnome did indeed pay Cerce no mind as she lay bare and instead spoke only to his father.

“Some friends of the lady Stormbringer are here to see her, most important apparently. Shall I see them in?”

“You bloody better not!” Cerce spoke up, sitting up suddenly, trying to cover multiple areas with only two hands.

Treave the elder gave a sigh and hopped down from his tall stool, his smock filthy with paint.

“Such is the life of a fearless adventuress I am sure! Please, best go to them, who knows what great adventure lies in wait!” he approached, gesturing grandly as Cerce got to her feet. “Will you be able to return soon? Another session or two should see our artistic endeavor to completion!”

Cerce gave an awkward smile, baring her fangs, and tried not to think about the Gnome’s unfortunate view as he stood peering up at her.

“It would be… a pleasure, of course, Master Treave.”

He clapped his tiny hands and shook them in happiness.

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” he went on as Cerce sprung to reclaim her garments.

Draped in her silken shirt and fastening the belts of her skirt and leathers, Cerce reclaimed her halberd lastly and felt like herself once again. Onto something she could hopefully be fearless about.

Treave gave a nod to his miniature son as the relatively huge figure of the Stormbringer ducked her head to leave the studio, and he gestured to the work in progress aboard his easel.

“What luck! I think I may be the first to paint a Nadyr nude in all the southern coast! I can’t wait to see the look on that fool Firkus’s face when this goes up next to another of his tiresome spread-eagled Dawn elves.”

In the Lair of the She-Beast (A Cerce Stormbringer Story) Part 3

Part 2

-

Chapter 3

The first light of dawn gave a green tint to the dark water, and Cerce watched as a broken board floated by the ship. She'd slept poorly.

The small set of islands they'd come to were pleasant looking, green and shady and filled with small inlets and tiny untouched beaches. For all purposes they seemed a nice place to lounge on rocky sands, away from the mainland, but a knot of tension was lurking in Cerce's gut that wouldn't shift.

The crew of the Adamas ate quickly and sparingly, and around the ship proceedings were underway above and beyond the usual. Cerce watched, chewing on a hunk of salty dried pork, as rows of metal poles were brought up from below deck and placed in lines facing out from the middle of the deck. Nasty looking hooks tipped the end of every pole, and some crew were smearing a foul looking concoction upon the barbs of the poles they manned.

Earlier, Tom had overseen the unrolling of a great net from the topsail, that now hung a dozen feet above the deck like some great hammock in the wind.

"It's for the flyers." Tom declared as he saw Cerce staring up at the net. He came over to stand by her side. Tom had advised Cerce carry her weapon with her from the moment she awoke, and he too was already strapped for war. Beneath his jacket, his normally bare chest was instead covered by a dirty red boiled leather breastplate, decorated with chainwork around the upper body. At his hip was a long curved saber, and he absently tapped on the bronze hilt as he spoke. The blade was unscabbarded, and the metal was an odd whitish hue.

"Merrow attack three ways. Flyers don't really fly, of course, but you'd be fooled. They get up a speed and jump like devils out the water, come down on you with rocks, shells, rusty old blades they stole from the last poor fucker to sail by. Then the lurkers, they usually come last, when you're trying to regroup. Remember, it's not safe in the hold. Never put your back to the hull."

"And the third one?" Cerce asked. She ripped at the meat and touched her fangs with her tongue. Tom gestured to the sides of the ship.

"All the rest. They'll come up the sides, and you better be ready for them, because they'll be ready for you. They're smart, they're not animals. But they don't parlay, and they won't listen if you try to talk to them."

Cerce just nodded. The quiet was stifling, regardless of the wind on her face.

"You need a breather, get as close to the mizzen as you can, get up to the rigging. Even the little ones are heavy as hell, they can't pull themselves up. Or get behind Ben."

Ben the Black was hanging from the rigging, staring down into the water. From his free hand dangled one of his axes, swinging back and forth.

"Not too close behind, mind you."

As the ship sailed between the islands, there was a weight that came down upon Cerce. It was familiar, and she gripped the shaft of her halberd firm. She'd felt that weight before. The moments in the quiet before it all kicks off. It always reminded her a little bit of Belerion. Of her dad's smithy, and her old friends, the ones she'd never see again. Everything had been calm then, before everything happened all at once.

Tom pulled a little green flask from his belt, one she hadn't seen him drink from before, and took a quick swig. He went to replace it to the spot on his belt, before he instead offered it to Cerce.

"Here, little sip. Little, yeah?"

Cerce nodded and took a quick pull. The liquid tasted like pineapples and fire and Cerce couldn't help but cough and heave a deep breath as she handed the flask back. She felt a tingle down her throat and a shudder ran through her body, right down to her fingertips

"Strong, is what it is." Tom replied, replacing the flask and taking up his sword.

There was a moment of absolute silence aboard, with just the creak of timber and the splash of waves, before an explosion of noise rocked Cerce's senses. 

Pirates yelled as a shape sailed over the side of the ship fast as a bird in flight. As the great shape flew over the ship, an enormous curved conch dropped from it and shattered to the deck, sending hundreds of fragments of razor sharp shell across the ship. 

"Look lively lads, the ladies have arrived!" yelled Red Tom. The pirates gave a roar of assent. The longest and wildest scream came from Ben the Black, who brandished an axe in each hand, his eyes rolling madly. Tom raised the hilt of his sword up before his face and whispered a word to it. Cerce wasn't sure what happened, but the blade suddenly become painful to look at, her brain discordantly insisting that it was moving whilst she could see it was held still. 

Two pirates hurled themselves aside as a coral spear came shattering into the deck, splintering into pieces, followed again by another high sailing shape. This one came slightly lower, and both the shape and the huge projectile they carried landed snatched in the net supported by the mast. The figure within thrashed wildly as it turned to look down at the men below it. 

Huge wide eyes, black and empty, peered down from a sloping face. She bore no nose, but a mouth filled with pointed little teeth gaped. Her top half was that of a lithe and slender woman, her flesh a deep red, and her belly pale. Her breasts were so close to that of a human woman's that it seemed some grotesque imitation. At the waist, the body continued into a thick and powerful fish tail, her fins flashing in the early sun. 

The Merrow looked down at the pirates below her and screeched. As one, three pirates jerked up their spears and pierced the Merrow through. She was barely dead when the ship was rocked by impact. There were yells from below as the last pirates still readying themselves for war rushed up.

The first of the attackers swarmed over the side of the deck starboard side, a tall and angular Merrow bearing a blue head fin and white nipples pierced through with brutal barbed fishhooks. Her small and circular mouth bore a ring of teeth that pointed inward, and her long snakelike body reared up to lurch at the nearest pirate, a rusty scimitar swinging. More soon followed, clawing up the side of the ship and rearing up on powerful torso muscles, some as small and lithe as children, others twice the size of a burly deckhand. 

A startling rainbow of colours, the Merrow swarmed the deck. Blue and red, white and black, their claws gripping the shafts of coral spears or lugging great shells to hurl like cannonballs. Each was decorated or adorned with warlike jewelry and trophies, necklaces of teeth and bones, jagged metal rings, bangles and piercings. Some had the flesh of their arms or breasts tattooed in black ink with patterns and designs, the markings of their tribes. Not one was identical, and together they swarmed towards the crew of the Adamas, blades and teeth flashing. As one, a row of pirates knelt, yelled a joint command, and raised the long spears to meet the oncoming surge. Spears bit into multicolored flesh and tore bellies, and the pirates rallied to take up more spears from their placed spots. The fast movers made it, but the slightest hesitation was pounced upon. One pirate was snatched up in the arms of a muscular Merrow with a great white fin atop her head. Her powerful arms twisted his shoulders revoltingly out of place. The pirate screamed, and she slapped him into the ground where he went limp as a cloth doll. Picking him up, the Merrow effortlessly lifted the unconscious pirate over her head and tossed him into the waiting teeth and claws of her sisters in the waters below. 

Rising at the fore of the ship was a long and sleek Merrow, the size of Cerce, whose shoulders were armoured in gleaming coral pauldrons. From her head hung white sinewy tendrils that dragged to the boards of the deck. Her scales were a blinding silver, reflecting the light of the dawn like a blazing torch, and the flesh of her long stomach and soft underarms was the rainbow shine of gleaming pearl. Raising one arm high, The Silver One brandished a gleaming coral spear, and gave a screech that echoed over the sea.

The Merrow warriors moved unlike anything Cerce had encountered before. So much of their body's weight was in their lower halves, that they swayed almost drunkenly at will, listing and leaning from side to side yet able to dart up and forward with immense force. The first Merrow who rushed at Cerce had bulging eyes and horrid white flesh, translucent in the dawn light, and she lashed with broad strokes of a curving hook gnarled with barnacles. Cerce backed up a step, then a second quickly as the Merrow lurched forward, arms raised high to bury the brutal weapon into Cerce's gut. Cerce's knee came up to meet the thing's midsection, and twisting her hips, Cerce kicked out a boot into the underside of the Merrows flat jaw. The bones within crunched audibly. Continuing her momentum, Cerce let the cool black metal of her Halberds shaft slide through her hands, snatching it tight at the last moment to swing the heavy blade into the Merrow before it could twist or lean. The monstrous swing bisected the Merrow completely and buried itself in the chest of the next one that was approaching Cerce from the other side. Launching another high kick up at the face of the new attacker, Cerce tugged her halberd free, leaving a huge gash that promptly emptied the entrails of the Merrow across the deck. The smell of the Foul Mouth market at dawn filled the air. 

A few feet away, Tom gave a great yell as he leapt towards a broad red Merrow with a rust crusted metal gauntlet strapped to her arm. Tom was an agile combatant, ducking and weaving with his whole body, and the blade he carried practically sang as it rattled off the side of the Merrow's gleaming coral helmet. With a spin, Tom turned and launched forward, spearing his opponent through the chest. His blade cut so clean and so deep, the cross-guard met her collar bone, then neatly slid back out without the slightest difficulty. Tom nodded to Cerce.

"You'll never smell a fresh fisherman's catch the same way again girl." He laughed. Cerce had no time to choose or to focus, she simply had to move to the next warrior who lashed across the ship towards her. The deck of the ship was already a complete bedlam of clashing bodies, Merrow slithering across the boards to clash their weapons with pirates who danced between the rusty hooks and coral spears.

There was blood across the deck from slashes, bites and cuts that the crew had taken, gashed faces and smashed teeth. Several men were gripping injuries with spare hands as they fought, or bearing distressing read stains that were growing across their shirts. Tom's men were doubtless skilled fighters though, and it was clear they'd tangled with Merrow before. There was a handful of the seafolk warriors down and gurgling on slit throats and pouring thick oily blood from sword wounds. Crawling over their dead or dying comrades, the Merrow continued the assault. 

Ben the Black fought like a man possessed. Leaping from the rigging, the man came down screaming upon two Merrow, an axe in each of his calloused hands. One after the other the axes lashed into the scaled bodies, again and again Ben's arms pumping, cleaving hands from wrists and deep into heads. When the two Merrow he'd fallen down upon were nothing but a bloody ruin, he immediately moved on, his chest heaving with deep breaths.

The Silver One pointed her spear and gave a guttural screech, and Ben the Black faced her, his arms wide, axes extended either side of him.
"Oh yeah, yeah you got the right idea love," he said. Ben's speaking voice was quiet and cold. He talked to himself, not to the Merrow who stared him down.
The two warriors launched at one another in a flurry of movement, Ben taking a heavy step forward and leaping, axes swinging, and the Merrow rushing forward low, her muscular tail bringing her up to meet Ben with speed.
Her spear thrust missed the leaping pirate's gut by inches, and as her nimble shoulders dodged his first swing, Ben followed the momentum through by cracking his skull into her forehead with a sound like a splitting watermelon.
The Merrow reeled, her senses rattled, and Ben immediately pushed the attack, kicking up a filthy boot into her lower abdomen and swinging again with his brutal axes. One of his axes finally caught the Merrow commander in the side of her torso and she shrieked, losing her grip on the spear, she grasped at the burly pirate with claws. Dragging them both down to the deck, they rolled in the blood that coated the boards.

Clamping his thighs down either side of the Merrow's torso, Ben locked himself in a straddle above his opponent, and his elbow snapped back repeatedly as he pummeled at the keening Merrow's face with fast jabs, ignoring the claws that were rending the sunburned flesh of his shoulders. With a last punch Ben sent the Merrow's head crashing back against the deck, and her arms flopped to her sides.
Ben half sat up, his bloody face split with a grin filled with chipped teeth and madness in his wide white eyes.
"Got me a lively one here boys!" he yelled into the madness around him. Leaning forward to where the silver warriors heavy breasts were heaving, he promptly placed his mouth over a pearly coloured nipple and sucked on it loudly.
With a cry of rage, the Silver One lunged up and crunched down with a mouthful of razor teeth on the side of Ben's head. Her long body roiled and threw the pirate from where he straddled her, and tilting her head, she spit Ben's severed ear to the deck. After finding his feet, the pirate gave a hoot of laughter and, blood pouring down his shoulder from his maimed head, rushed straight back towards the snarling silver woman warrior, their matched screaming lost in the smash of bodies and scales and clashing steel and cracking coral.

Cerce's feet were spread wide in her usual stance, and it helped her retain her balance on the unfamiliar ground of the deck as she swung her halberd around to take a blue Merrow in the side as it weaved towards her, tongue out. The creature was cleaved neatly in half by the weight of Cerce's halberd, the humanoid top half flying to the deck to writhe while the serpentine lower half flopped entirely of its own accord on the deck.

Ducking under the swipe of another Merrow that rushed towards her, long jaws snapping for her face, Cerce shoved out her weapon to jam it into the gut of her attacker. The silvery Merrow doubled over in pain, tongue hanging from her great mouth, wide glassy eyes rolling on either slide of her sloping head. As the Merrow began to rise, Cerce jerked forward her forehead to butt the thing in the face and while it reeled in surprise, she sent it tumbling tail over tits over the side of the ship with a great shove of her armoured shoulder.    

More Merrow claws appeared on the deck, dragging bodies up and over onto the ship, and with them was coming a chant, a battle song that began to rise from the mouths of many of the aquatic warriors. With the aid of a few already aboard, a great Merrow with purple rubbery flesh was being pulled from the depths. As she crested the side, massive muscular arms rose, and an awful horizontal jaw wide as a longbow appeared. Huge breasts dangled to the deck as she finally crawled aboard, the entire ship leaning under her weight, dragging behind her a sinewy eel-like body as big as a draft-horse. In one arm the creature brandished a curved metal club that was clearly a repurposed anchor, green with barnacles and brown with rust. Beyond her huge mass, more Merrow appeared, every one of them some new horror from the depths. Pirates roared and there was another surge in the defense.     

Near the fore of the ship Cerce found Red Tom at her back once more, his arms moving as he engaged a slender little Merrow with vibrant orange and white flesh. She was stabbing at the pirate captain with quick little jabs of a rusty old blade, and Tom parried each neatly and skillfully, and with a quick feint stepped forward and put his blade clean through the little Merrow's gills. She gripped at her throat and, eyes bulging, came crashing dead to the deck.   

The pirates were giving as good as they got, organized into a line but slowly being pushed back. The slow slug-like approach of the great purple siege Merrow was pushing them back, her huge wide mouth open and a deep gargling warble echoing from behind thousands of needle-like teeth. She brought her anchor club overarm and with a great crash put a hole the size of a man into the boards of the deck. One man tried to get behind her, and with a brief roll of her massive body, she struck him in the hip with her tail, sending him flying clean over the rail towards the sea. 

"We're about to get crushed, Tom," Cerce said frantically. Tom brushed fish guts from his blade onto his filthy trousers and nodded.

"We bite at them till the last dog dies, girl," He snarled. 

Cerce looked around, the battle raging aboard the deck obscured most of the view from the ship, but the island they had drifted nearest to kept drawing her attention. 

"The cove. What's in there?" Cerce asked, pointing. The crashing waves partially hid the little sheltered cove from sight, nestled as it was in the grey cliff rocks.

Red Tom followed the line of her arm, and gave a great shrug.

"Dunno, sea cave. There's thousands of them. Too shallow. Not big enough to hide a ship in, not worth knowing."

"We'll see," said Cerce.

She tugged roughly at her boots, pulling them off and letting them fall to the deck. She next went at the straps of her armour, the heavy metal pauldron, and soon threw off what she could struggle loose from. 

Red Tom turned his back to Cerce, swinging his glimmering blade and taking the hand off a bright blue little Merrow that was slithering across the deck towards him brandishing a broken chisel. The creature let out a hideous gargle of pain and threw itself overboard.

"You go in there, you're dead, greenie. It might look shallow but those waves will smash you to shreds against the cliffs. If the 'maids don't chew your tits off first anyway."

"Got an anchor haven't I?" Cerce said, as she threw down her clothes to the deck and hefted her halberd.

"You'll fuckin' drown!" yelled Tom at her back, as Cerce took off sprinting. Hefting the halberd high she planted it hard onto the deck with a mighty crack, vaulting over the side of the ship at speed. Hair flailing, she flew fifteen feet from the ship before she hit the water with a crash, and instantly began sinking into the dark.

-

Part 4

In the Lair of the She-Beast (A Cerce Stormbringer Story) Part 2

Part 1

-

Chapter 2

Three days aboard a ship was intimidating, but would at least be comparatively relaxing, Cerce had thought. Her usual fare was days of travel by road, aching legs, tortured feet, chapped arses, and chafed thighs.

Turns out the sea wasn't too much more comfortable. The 'cabin' Red Tom had promised her proved to be a corner of the central hold sequestered off by a curtain hung from a rope, creating a private area just about large enough to curl behind in a makeshift cot while sweaty pirates snored and farted two feet away on the other side of it.

Breakfast was usually cold meat and boiled beans that Cerce ate cheerfully on the deck, looking out at the blue waves with endless wind chapped lips and watery eyes. The Foul Mouth was far beyond sight anymore, and only the vague shadow of the southern coast of Cornubia still visible on the horizon as they traveled east along it. The sky was bright, with patches of sunlight peeking down through the white clouds, and Cerce's skin began to darken slightly as she spent afternoons basking on deck.

Red Tom was occupied completely for the first few hours of every day, surprising Cerce with his activity and the amount of energy at which he threw himself around the ship. The Captain had an eye on everything, and while she'd known Tom a few years, Cerce had never before seen him in his natural habitat.

When the sun was at its apex the crew settled somewhat, and took time to entertain themselves. For the first day or two the crew were standoffish and Cerce found herself excluded. She'd pass time watching the men work, trying to figure out the intricacies of the rigging. Occasionally she'd flick through the little book that Adam had given her when she'd told him she was taking a trip, but had trouble making much sense of the flowery prose. Something about horses and pretty girls in dresses, but Cerce had never been much of a reader.

She'd find moments to chat with Tom and watch the waves go by in the evening, and he reminded her that the crew may be a surly lot, but they were his boys and soon they'd come around. He assured Cerce that though they might have not shown it, they were likely thankful to have a woman on board to spice up the usual scenery a little.

After a couple of days the men of Adamus did indeed warm up a to the presence of the Nadyr. Cerce found herself playing card games with cards so rat eared that the crew knew almost every one from the tears and folds alone. This led to arguments over who'd won a round pretty much every round, with handfuls of coins being tossed back and forth moment by moment. Occasionally something comparatively worthwhile like a shiny apple or a measure of rum was tossed into the winner's pot and everyone would get quiet and pretend to know what they were doing for a round or two. Cerce lost a  bone necklace she'd made in her days on the road, but won a hammered copper ring she'd taken a shine to and, out of jewelry, anted up a show of her tits instead. Cerce had also found an appreciation for the filthy jokes that seemed to make up a lot of the banter during the ship's work hours, and if nothing else, learned a thing or two about the acts a Penryan girl would allegedly perform given the right circumstances. There were the inevitable contests of strength and other manly prowess, and Cerce almost got her shoulder dislocated arm wrestling Ben the Black. Later, some of the crew took turns trying to lift Cerce's halberd, and then it was her turn to giggle as half failed to lift it at all, and the ones that did stumbled around trying to wield it like a toddler with a broadsword.

It was after a game of cards one night, when Cerce was stretching by the bow that Red Tom approached her and handed over a cup of the rich, sweet mead he kept in the cabin.
"Oh, the good stuff is it?" Cerce asked. Taking a sip. It was thick like honey and went immediately to her head.
"Wanted to see how you were coming along. Taking a liking to the sea life, Stormbringer?"
Cerce shrugged, leaning over the deck to peer down into the water. The water this far from shore was darker than Cerce had ever known it to be, a blackness so complete it looked almost solid.
"Still get shivers down my spine sometimes, but it's not too bad. Ship's cosy."
"Isn't she?" Red Tom grinned, clearly a few cups into his mead himself, "Nothing like it really, being out here. I see you been getting on with the lads."
Cerce nodded and smiled,
"Yeah actually, for a bunch of crazed known thieves and murderers, they're pretty good to know."
"Only the best on this ship, greenie."
"So tell me about the Merrow, what do you know?" Cerce asked, sipping from her cup.

Tom drank liberally from his own and blew noisily out of pursed lips.
"Well, I know they aren't usually anywhere near the west, for a start. Come in all shapes and sizes. Most about the size of a man, or smaller. Up north in Dumnonia they say there's huge Merrow, big as ships. Sounds like sailor talk to me though."
"Like Shakka?" Cerce asked, "I heard a lot of stories in the bar."
"The She-Beast of the South? Yeah, she's meant to be big. I know people who say they've seen her. Queen of the Merrow. Mostly rumour though, still. Most of the ones I've seen have usually been out near the east island. You ever been to Exenar?"
Cerce shook her head, her white hair flying in the sea wind.
"This is the furthest I've been from Cornubia, right now."
Tom shrugged, "It's nice out there if you like the heat. Good food. But yeah, they got Merrow all over the waters out there. Locals been fighting with them over patches of coast all along the island for years, way back since the bloody shattering. Adamas been in a couple scraps with them over there, paid work. Always trying to find a way to get rid of them. Even poisoning their own waters to try and drive them out, everything. Probably why the Merrow fight so nasty."
"Who fights nice, Tom? Tell me that." Cerce smiled.
"You know what I mean, you go into a fight ready for a fist in the gut or a nutting, don't you? Merrow, it's claws, teeth, they make weapons out of coral, oof, gets caught up in your guts, shatters to pieces inside you. Proper nasty stuff. Why do you think I dragged you along on this?"
"Because you want to see me locked in a vicious fight to the death with some bare breasted Merrow right?"
"Partially, but mainly because you're bloody nasty yourself in a fight, Stormbringer, and I like that in my friends."
"Thanks Tom, that's sweet of you."

They both finished off the mead that remained in their cups, and Cerce gave Red Tom a nudge.
"Speaking of friends...tell me about Captain Revan. How do you even know him?"
Tom tipped his head back and gave a bark of a laugh. Cerce pushed on.
"I wanna know! How does the most respected guard captain on the south coast get on so well with...well, you! Revan's almost put a rope around my neck about three times, why isn't he firing burning arrows at your ship any time you're in sight?"
Tom clapped Cerce on the shoulder.
"Wib wasn't always such an uptight sod, is why. Before someone rammed that stick right up his arse, Wib Revan was quite the adventurer. Back in the day we were something of a team."
"You and Wib? Side by side?" Cerce asked incredulously.
"And a few others. Barr of the Isles, biggest bastard I ever met, bigger than most orcs. Lady Crayne, finest knight for leagues, blonde hair like sunlight. Couple other comers and goers over the years. We were quite the party back then."
Cerce was shaking her head in disbelief. Tom nodded, his eyes a little lost in the memory.
"There was a lot to do after the war. We needed heroes then. Soldiers gone wild, bands of brigands, rogue orcs who'd ignored the treaty. We chased one or the other across the island for years. Bloody good days, them."
"So what happened?"
"Ah, everyone gets old don't they? Can't live the adventuring life forever. Work slowed down. Wib settled, found his little Elven bride, got himself straight. Barr died from an arrow wound gone bad. Crayne and I rumbled pirates in the Foul Mouth for a few years and...well...one of the ships just looked real good one day. Rest just came with the territory."

Tom looked about his crew, and gave a smile. There was a rustle of commotion going on, and a few of the men had produced instruments.
It wasn't practiced, it seemed to come naturally, reedy whistles placed to chapped lips, a rickety little fiddle, and a plain little drum beat with a calloused hand. It started to echo out over the waters around the ship. Clinging to the rigging by the mizzen, a tall deck hand with long brown hair was the first to raise his voice and start singing.

Now when I was a young man
We lived near the sea strand
And my folks kept a tavern called the Admiral's head
And old salts by the fireside would tell of the sea's wide
The far foreign shores
And the lives that they'd led

After that, it filled the ship. Every voice suddenly raised as one, and Cerce jumped in surprise as Tom joined in at full volume, a song every one of them clearly knew by heart. The ship seemed to swell with it, voices raised, arms swaying.

And it's up and away in the mornin'
O' the tears my poor mother has cried
But the sea it had called me
And you may say I'm balmy
But I went to her just like a bride
And it's up and away in the mornin'

Cerce was smiling, watching the musicians play, the bodies standing upon the deck, swaying in the rigging or emerging out from the cabins below to join in. Tom gave a gesture to them proudly. He leaned in closer to her to speak as his crew continued their song.
"Friends are what you make of them, Cerce. First time I met Ben the Black, we were hunting brigands terrorizing a town. Ben had been burning whole buildings for a handful of coin. He almost put his axe into my head. That big scar on his chest? Wib gave him that. Damn fine with a blade, Wib."
Ben was among those hanging from the rigging, his mouth open wide, roaring along with the rest of the crew.

And it's up and away in the mornin'
And though we may never come home
We'll think of it often
Til' the day that our lead weighted coffins
Get tossed in the foam
And it's up and away in the mornin'

"Where'd you see yourself in another ten summers? Twenty? You and your friends. Shacked up with true love, raising a little one?" Tom asked.
Cerce thought of her group of friends. The little party they'd become. The thief, Adam, the mercenary, Carnaby, the bartender, Jiera. Where they might be headed.
"Maybe, I can see it for one or two of us. Happy ending. Or maybe in the dirt, or disappeared without trace."
Tom gave Cerce another clap on the back.
"You want my advice, be the one who sails off into the seas at the end. Not the one left behind."
Tom finished up his drink and began to walk to his cabin, over his shoulder he said to Cerce as he left.
"Sleep if you can. Not long after dawn we reach the waters where it happened."

Cerce watched the men partying well into the night. Some of the songs she knew, and she joined in whenever she could. Her voice carried across the sea along with the light from the lanterns, making the ship seem a strange little pedestal of brightness in the middle of endless night.

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

Part 3

'Up and Away' lyrics by The Poxy Boggards!

In the Lair of the She-Beast (A Cerce Stormbringer Story) Part 1

Prologue

The night breeze moved across the wide wooden deck, strong enough to add a chill to the air but not to steal the words from Reyes and Obie's mouths as they sat overlooking the passing water.
Obie passed the little flask back to Reyes, and the elderly sailor took another quick sip of the rum before he continued.

"I mean, it all depends where you been in the past really, doesn't it? I got the job 'cause I sailed with old captain Hereford for twenty years, up and down the coast. I knew every port, every customs man, every old inn that welcomes sailors, and I got that job 'cause I'd been part of the rigging crew on the state ship as a young man, doin' the circle past Zenance and back every week. You ask me, when we get back to the Foul Mouth, go talk to the lads up at customs. You make friends there, it'll get you places."

Obie nodded solemnly. 'Decades of back-breaking hard work' hadn't been the advice he'd been hoping for. He scratched his hair, unwashed and matted with weeks of seawater.

"Yeah... I mean, just want to see something new I guess. Always wanted to see the south isles."

Reyes was staring off into the dark seas stretching out before them. Black waves were slapping quietly past the side of the ship, the horizon clear and empty.

"You want adventure, you'd be better off on a pleasure ship, boy. You want to see beautiful sights or do you want to get paid?"

"Well, both; don't I?" Obie shrugged.

"Then you should get yerself on a pirate ship boy," he gave a snarky laugh, "Riches an' the women of the southern islands. You know, I hear one of those islands down there, fruit trees everywhere, an' all the women wear nothin' but as a hat to shade their eyes, all year round."

Obie snorted, not half as outrageous as most of what Reyes had told him though. Obie reached back for the flask. As he turned his gaze out to the sea, a face stared back at him from the water.

Wide eyes, black. Glistening skin. A wave crested over the face, and it was gone.

"Reyes, you...you see that?"

"See what, kid? Beaches of beautiful women? Lots... I once found myself on..."

Obie cut him off, pointing into the sea.

"No, there was a girl, in the sea there."

Reyes nudged him,

"It's been a while, I know, believe you me you get to the point where you'll be able to find a nice pair of tits in the knots in the planks above yer bunk."

Obie stared into the black waves. He wasn't the type to have his eyes play tricks on him.

"Let me guess, big blue eyes like that girl in the bakery shop you're always talking about?"

"No, black eyes, black and horrible."

Reyes went silent. He found his feet and leaned over the deck, peering down into the ocean. His old eyes darted left and right suspiciously.

"Couldn't be, not 'ere. We're too far west."

Obie tugged at the old man's ragged shirt.

"Too far west for what?"

"Never you mind, stay 'ere, keep an eye out. I'm going to knock on the captain. You see anythin' else you scream," Reyes said as he turned and began striding across the deck, "an' I mean you scream like a bloody banshee, you hear?"

"Reyes, what are you doing? Captain'll go radge if you wake him up now; it's not dawn for hours..."

Obie shook his head, watching the old sailor go. He turned the flask in his hand, only a drop left. He tilted the thing back the whole way and felt the last sliver of rum snake down his throat.

When he turned his eyes back to the black seas, the faces were watching him. Black glossy eyes staring back at him, glistening faces, scales, teeth.

He thought he saw three at first, then five, then he couldn't count anymore.

Obie screamed.

Chapter 1

Cerce stood peering out into the gray fog that was sweeping in over the sea. Mornings in the Foul Mouth were always drenched in mist and fog, slowly boiling off throughout the morning as the sun rose drearily behind the perpetual clouds.

She'd arrived at the docks early, and had been watching the many jobs unfolding around the galleon. Adamas wasn't the biggest ship in the bay, but it was well known. Most of the other ships around had probably chased it at some point.

She swallowed, trying to unseat the deep feeling of dread that was gripping onto her guts with tight little claws, and continued what she had been saying.

"I mean I like the sea, don't get me wrong. Grew up in Belerion. Used to sit for hours down by the coast, watching it, when I was little. Just don't much like being at sea. As soon as I can't see the ground beneath my feet. Something about that feeling..."

Cerce gave a roll of her shoulders and cringed.

"Fear of the unknown, greenie," said Red Tom Flint as he came clomping over the gangplank to grab another sack of provisions. His long black hair jingled and glittered with the dozens of assorted coins, bones, and bits of junk woven or matted into it. Tom's white shirt was open to bare a lean, hairy chest and the edges of various tattoos.

He stopped before Cerce, and spread his hands wide, red painted nails miming claws.

"The feeling that, just out of sight, in the inky depths, there's eyes and teeth and gaping, stretching maws waiting for you. Waiting for some unseen horror of the deep to engulf you whole like so much shrimp."

Cerce inclined her head. Her thick white hair was blowing in the sea breeze, and although most of her frame was strapped in leather armor, goosebumps rose on her bare arms.

"Well, yeah. Pretty much. No one likes the idea of getting eaten."

Red Tom gave a smirk and slapped her on the side.

"'Course we don't. That's why every sailor has those fears, and we all get over them. For the most part."

Cerce followed Red Tom up the plank, her heavy halberd resting over her shoulders. Red Tom tossed his hair and looked back at her as he went on.

"When you're actually out there, you mostly forget about the existential dread of the great black unknown when you start dealing with all the other shit. Like dying of thirst, mold, getting sick all the time, losing a hand to a rope burn gone nasty, some nutter castaway leaping aboard in the night to steal your salvage and cut your nuts off while you sleep, you know."

Cerce nodded, "...I guess."

Red Tom's crew were making the final checks before they set sail. A hardy dozen, bare chests and sun ruddied skin to a man. Cerce didn't know any of them personally apart from their Captain.

As she walked, her boots stomping on the gnarled wooden deck, she strode by Red Tom's first mate. Ben the Black was sitting on the deck cross legged. His whole body was practically a knot of muscle, and he whistled to himself as he ran a whetstone over the blade of a little handaxe.
Cerce let her gaze stay on him for a while. Ben bore a freshly shaven head, a ragged blonde beard, and a chest that was a patchwork of scar tissue. From what she'd heard, not so long ago being anywhere near a port would have got Ben a good hanging. Ben looked up suddenly, the whites of his eyes a rheumy yellow, and gave a toothy smile to that set the back of Cerce's neck to tingling.

Red Tom gave her a nudge, and pointed off down the jetty where silver guard armour glistened as a tall figure made his way towards the ship.

"Our charming benefactor arrives." Red Tom yelled, loud enough for Wib Revan to hear as he came to a halt before the ship.

The Captain of the Guard put a hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the emerging sun.

"Captain Flint." Revan acknowledged.

"Red Tom, Wib. It's Red Tom. Going to be joining us on our merry way?"

"Afraid not, Tom, no time for sailing. The Foul Mouth needs me here."

"That is a damn shame, we could always use another one to mop the deck."

Revan didn't smile, but he didn't grimace either. He strode up to the side of the ship and placed his hand upon it.

Looking up, he met the gaze of Red Tom and Cerce.

"I have missed your wit, Tom." Revan said.

"You too Wib, whatever happened to us?"

"I grew up, Tom, and you became a professional pain in my arse."

Red Tom put his hand to his chest,

"I'm glad I still have a special place with you, me old mate."

Revan pulled a rolled up paper from his jacket, and waved it towards the pirate Captain.

"The map you asked our friend to draw. He managed it, but it is a bit shaky."

Red Tom dropped from the ship down to the pontoon, and the whole thing rocked under his weight, nearly sending a deck hand staggering into the drink. Revan didn't so much as wobble.

Red Tom took a glance at the map, squinting up his big brown eyes a moment, before turning the thing on its side and tilting his head the other way.

"You really think it was Merrow done this?" Red Tom asked, "You don't see them out this far. They stick to the eastern islands. I'd bet money it was a ship that put the blades to them. Been a while since we seen the Boneshaker, might be back in business."

"I'm well aware of the proclivities of local pirates, Tom, I chased one in particular for eight years."

"I always could run faster than you, family man. How's the wife by the way?"

"Regardless," said Revan immediately, "the bodies we pulled out of the ship were torn apart. No human did this."

Red Tom folded the map and stashed it somewhere in his spacious trousers.

"Well, that's why they, and by they I mean you, pay us the good money. If it's pirates, we know how to deal with 'em. If it really is a rogue pod of Merrow. Well, we know how to deal with them too."

 "You're my best man on the job, Tom. Don't mess it up."

Red Tom have a chuckle as he climbed back aboard and sent his crew swarming for their posts with a wave of his hand.

"Wib, you of all people should know how hard Red Tom Flint is to kill. And thanks to your far reaching connections, we have the Stormbringer."

Red tom gave Cerce a hearty clap on back that had her grabbing for rigging to steady herself.

"And if all the stories are true she single-handedly smashes mountains in half and blasts lightening from her eyes. Isn't that right?"

Cerce gave a shrug and nodded down to Revan.

"Thanks for this, Wib."

"Captain Revan." The Guard Captain corrected, and gave Cerce the slightest of nods.

"Alright you hairy bastards! Time to get sailing!" Yelled Red Tom, raising an arm in the air. The crew sprang to it.

Red Tom noticed Cerce's clear apprehension, and gave her a nudge.

"Come on Stormbringer. What you worrying about? Worst things happen at sea don't they?"

-

Part 2

Southern Promises (A Cerce Stormbringer story)

"First trip to the saunas Madame Stormbringer?"

Cerce cringed in disgust, her hand fishing on her belt for her coin purse. 

"Ugh, Gods. Please, just Cerce, and yes. Always wanted to," she said, her halberd standing on the floor and resting in the crook of her elbow. The massive bladed head almost touched the low wooden ceiling, and the slim doorways made Cerce duck on reflex. 

"Well, we're marvelously happy to have you here, Miss," the perky attendant continued. She was a foot shorter than Cerce, with deep olive skin. Her clothing was immaculate, but the perpetual humidity that gave the bathhouse their dreamy state left the girl's hair a frizzy mess. 

"Would you like one of our private rooms, or will you be enjoying the communal booths?" 

"Private, please, that would be lovely," Cerce nodded. 

The girl turned around a small stone tablet bearing chiseled markings, and Cerce squinted at it.

"Are those prices or temperatures?" she asked in shock. The girl nodded warmly and gestured to the entrance behind her. 

"The private rooms are complete with massage and oil treatments, applied by our finest specialists, of a gender of your choice!"

Cerce flicked the coins in her purse around, seeing if any of them might spontaneously duplicate.

"You know what, I'm not much for the hands on treatment, show me to the public rooms."

"Of course!" 

The tiny hallways were a mix of marble and dark wood, low and without windows in any direction, which Cerce found simultaneously both warmly inviting and disconcertingly claustrophobic. The air began to thicken with moisture, Cerce's flesh already warming to the touch of sweat, and by the time they came to the women's dressing room, it was a toasty temperature that was almost soporific. 

"Nothing is to be taken in with you, so I am obligated to remind you. Please no clothing, personal items or..." the girl eyed Cerce's belt and signature halberd warily, "...bladed objects in the rooms."

Cerce smirked and nodded. 

"I wasn't planning on shaving in there." With a twist of her wrist, Cerce spun the shaft of her halberd, the huge head swinging a perfect rotation before snapping still in Cerce's grip. The girl gave a nervous laugh and backed away. 

"Well we're very pleased to have you Madame... Miss." She gave a low bow and was gone through the mist. 

Cerce exhaled slowly. Relearning the shallow breathing necessary not to cough and splutter in the humidity. The heat was a warm comfort, but her clothes were already getting uncomfortably present, and she unstrapped and slipped out of her boots and shirt quickly. 

Placing her things in one of the room's many little wooden cabinets, she glanced around for somewhere to put her halberd. Finding none, she eventually slid it upright behind the corner cabinets, the glinting blade mostly obscured by polished wood. She nodded proudly at her clever concealment of a major magical artifact in a public bath house, and slipped out of her remaining clothes and undergarments. The towels were reassuringly warm, but their petite design didn't have women of Cerce's build in mind. She wrapped it around her chest to find it hanging barely to her navel. She decided instead to simply hold it. 

Cerce's feet were silent on the stone floors as she trod lightly to the sauna rooms, at the corner she briefly stopped and shook out her hands, wringing the sudden anxiety of public nudity out of her fingertips. 

"You always wanted to do this. All the beautiful people do this. It's good for the muscles," Cerce whispered to herself, the same mantra that had got her the whole walk there in the first place. 

Cerce stepped into the labyrinthine saunas, and smiled.

It was a beautiful interior, elegant stonework decorating the floors and ceilings, fabulous filigree in every corner. Cerce strode down the centre aisle, passing doorways on both sides.

Wide baths stood in the center of each room, steam billowing from them as women of all shapes, colours and races lounged in them like forest nymphs. 

There were wider rooms with smoothly carved wooden benches to sit or lie on, rows of hot coals in the center on metal trays with coiling legs. The air was so thick with steam in these rooms that the occupants were almost hidden from view. Women were chatting, laughing, some even snoozing. The atmosphere was dreamlike, verging on surreal. 

Cerce momentarily stood before a lean Dusk Elf with a shaven head, emerging from within one of the rooms, who unashamedly gazed at Cerce's figure from ankles to eyeballs, and then liberally in between. She had the most sultry eyes Cerce had ever seen, and Cerce moved on, blushing red with surprise and flattery. 

She noticed a few girls whispering, one even pointing, as she strode through the steam. She stood taller than most of the women within the saunas, her green skin stood out, but it was hardly surprising, Nadyr were a rare sight anywhere in this part of the country. A lot of the women here tended to the litheness of the rich youth or the pillowy curves of older women, but Cerce didn't see any others with her build. 

Not many warriors hereabouts, needless to say. Perhaps she should try the men's saunas instead.

Settling on a room near the back of the hallway, where the air was its thickest and the rooms less populated, Cerce stretched her towel onto a low bench and slithered down upon it. The heat was luxurious, so completely enveloping and tangible that it was practically womb-like. 

Letting her gaze run down over her body, Cerce smirked inwardly to herself. This was a new experience for her. Her father had been very clear since she was a little girl that there's only two times a women needs to be naked. One is when she's bathing. The other she'd apparently never need to think about and that was the end of that. If he'd known she swam nude in the lake outside town he'd have given her the hiding of a lifetime. 

Cerce found herself sliding down in the seat, her long legs stretched out before her, her arms lying palms up on the wood beside her. She'd got the familiar hang of the shallow breathing, and was sleepily closing her eyes. She let the warmth of the room hold her, felt it soak into her pores, her hard muscles.

Maybe they were right, she could do with relaxing more often.

She wasn't sure how long she was there in that realm between waking and dreaming. For a moment she felt like she must have been asleep, and just for a second she thought she was back in the heady atmosphere of her fathers forge. It was a heartwarming thought.

Cerce roused somewhat at the movement of a woman nearby. She cracked an eyelid to observe her dark skin, like a shadow in the steam, as the woman added more water to the coals.

"Oh, your skin is just beautiful..." the woman murmured as she sat back down a few feet away. Cerce smiled and whispered a thanks. Cerce's pale green skin always got a mixed bag of reactions, and this was a pleasant one.

When next she spoke, the woman's voice had changed direction.

"And your hair, oh I feel so plain between you. Such a vibrant colour...oh and it's natural! How lovely," the woman cooed.

The voice that came back from the depths of the steam had an accent Cerce couldn't place.

"My father...named me after a pretty flower. Said my hair was just the same colour..."

Cerce felt an awful chill deep in her gut at that, and she cracked an eyelid to look across the room.

The steam obscured the other woman at first, but as Cerce's eyes adjusted fraction by fraction, she began to see the slim figure sat across the room. Long legs, pale as a corpse, bony hips, a skinny waist taut with muscle. The aforementioned hair was a shock of bright purple, collar and cuffs.

Cerce's blood ran cold as she looked into the yellow eyes that mirrored her shock and recognition.

Protiya.

Cerce started at the sight of the assassin, jerking up in surprise, and inadvertently took in a huge breath of hot air that gave her a coughing fit. The girl sitting across the way jerked her bony shoulders forward, bared her teeth and hissed. The girl's arms straightened, planting her palms flat on the seat, and with a serpentine roll, Protiya lifted her behind, her knees kicking up and extending her legs, launching her feet with her entire weight behind them into the metal coal tray in the center of the room.

With a spray of blazing red that lit the room, searing coals showered the seat, scorching Cerce's skin and sending the other woman present scampering for the safety of the hallway.

Cerce brushed the coals from her flesh and rushed forward like a bull, smashing the small assassin up against the wall and bringing her fist back with a snap to strike at the girl's face.

Protiya wriggled out of Cerce's weight, her head slipping below Cerce's incoming strike, her clenched fist hitting the wall and smashing a chunk from the woodwork behind.

Protiya shoved out with her shoulder into Cerce's gut and pushed her back, Cerce dancing backwards, attempting to avoid the steaming chunks of coal that littered the floor.

Cerce looked at the floor a glance too long, and the assassin came forward, jabbing her sharp little fists into Cerce's gut, crashing up under her ribcage. The girl was small, and light, but hit fast and accurately, and Cerce roared as she swung her fist backhanded at the girl's head. Protiya ducked back and weaved just out of the Stormbringer's reach, her purple hair bobbing.

Cerce had pictured fighting naked a lot. There was something otherwordly and glamorous about the naked woman warriors of legend. Cerce had envisioned spinning and striking smoothly and fiercely, free of restriction.

Turns out, it wasn't anything like she'd pictured. She felt far more aware of her nudity than she had imagined, was significantly less graceful than even if she had half her gear on, and without being held in an appropriate garment, Cerce's tits seemed like they were good for nothing but getting her killed.

Protiya didn't have any of the awkwardness about her that Cerce felt. The girl held herself in a tight combat pose, her cold eyes alert and weighing Cerce up for weakness. Cerce had never seen the assassin robed in anything less than her full armour, her body covered in claws and blades. To get in close with Protiya was a death sentence, the girl was practically made of knives. In Cerce's experience, combat with Protiya was a perpetual game of keep away to stay from brutal blades. Naked, it was another story. 

The assassin was a slight girl, younger than Cerce, and lighter by no insignificant amount. The girl had rakish limbs, long and deft, and a body made of hard angles. Her hipbones were jutting edges angled around a flat stomach. The girl had scars, much like Cerce did. No real winners like Cerce's neck though; Protiya was instead covered in innumerable little cuts and marks on her deathly pale skin. The lack of serious scars gave the strong impression that no one had ever stuck the girl worse than the most glancing of blows.

Protiya spun, her whole body twisting, kicking up at head height with ease, and Cerce fell backwards across the seat as she bent to avoid the flying heel. Cerce gave a screech and twisted frantically as her behind came into contact with the spilled coals. Her knees came down hard on the marble ground as she lurched away from the searing rocks, and she looked up in time to see Protiya disappear at speed down the hall.

Cerce roared and gained her footing, rubbing her burned arse with the heel of her hand. Her blood was pumping, throbbing in her ears, and the dreamlike qualities of the sauna had turned her battle energy into an almost drunken rage. She knew the assassin was no match for her without her numerous blades, and women screamed and darted out of the way, clutching towels or hands about their bodies, as Cerce thundered into the hallway and sprinted after the assassin with long loping steps.

The girl was fast, and a damn sight more nimble than Cerce was. Coming to the changing rooms, Protiya made a neat and clean leap over the low chairs one by one and twisted to her side as she ran to slip through the thin doorway leading towards the lobby without the slightest hesitation. When Cerce came to the same room, she vaulted the first bench and overshot the second by a foot, stumbling and smashing her shoulder against the wall with a thud that shook the room. Cerce's eyes darted around the room for her equipment, but the drunken feeling refused to leave her head. She rubbed her eyes. There was a shriek from the entrance hall; Cerce knew she had seconds to catch up or lose the assassin, never getting another chance to catch Protiya unarmed. Cerce took a deep breath and made the questionable decision to follow with what she had on.

The girl who had greeted Cerce was cowering in the corner of the entrance lobby as Cerce thundered by and leapt out the front entrance of the saunas into the glaring light of day. The sun pierced her eyes like fire, and Cerce found herself momentarily blinded, but soon got her bearings when the noise of voices raised in alarm reached her ears. Cerce spun and darted in the direction of the commotion, her bare feet warm on the cobbled stone streets of The Foul Mouth's market district.

The market was filled with people, and the gap left in the crowds by the fleeing assassin was clear as day. Faces were turning in confusion, and excited or fearful conversation turned to shock as the naked Nadyr sprinted by, arms pumping, green skin bright in the sun. Faces flew by, jaws hanging open in surprise or open mouthed appreciation.

Cerce saw the assassin up ahead, her pale flesh catching the sun. Protiya chanced a look back over her shoulder, and her face hardened when she saw the pursuit. With a leap, Protiya vaulted onto the side of a small market stall, bounced up above to the low overhang, and began hopping from the wooden constructions with light, quick skips. A portly proprietor stepped out into the center of the street to yell after the girl, and Cerce collided into him so forcefully that he and the pot he carried was sent flying to the ground feet away. Cerce dodged the shattered shards of the pot and continued on, trying not to lose her momentum. She vaulted a low cart of dried meats without looking and crashed through three Orc women in elegant robes, sending them flying.

Cerce gave a yell, both out of anger and warning to anyone else who felt like standing in the middle of the causeway this morning. The crowd split, and over the flat ground ahead, Cerce's long legs gained ground.

A long market stall with hanging furs displayed from wooden posts lay at the corner of the marketplace, and Protiya leaped to it, readying herself for a running jump onto the high walls of the closest stone construction. Cerce saw the girl brace to jump, and threw herself full force into the support beam of the fur stall. The temporary construction crumpled immediately, furs falling, and the assassin tumbling with it.

Cerce came at the assassin as Protiya fought to extricate herself from the ruin of the stall, and the Nadyr timed it well. She stretched back with one arm, and brought it forward right as she came within arm's reach with the purple haired girl.

Her fist took Protiya in the ribs like a sledgehammer, and the girl was taken fully off her feet to land on her bare arse in the center of the causeway, winded and clutching at her gut. Cerce launched a kick at the girl's head, but Protiya flipped herself to her front and then to her feet in a swift sweep of her legs.

They faced each other for a moment then, Protiya in a low crouch, her arms spread wide, Cerce standing straight and tall, fists balled at her sides.

There was silence in the crowd, people staring in eager anticipation. Cerce's fingers hurt, her cheeks hot with anger.

"You killed my friend," Cerce said. It didn't come out as an accusation. It came out as a sad statement, the emotion bubbling up behind it threatening to spill out of Cerce's eyes.

Protiya shrugged, a darkly unconcerned smile on her face. Her yellow eyes were darting around, from Cerce's gaze to the area immediately around, seeking assistance, something to use. When her eyes met Cerce's they lingered there for a while, and the women stared at each other. The assassin slowly spread her arms, her palms spread as if in supplication, she bowed forward ever so slightly, and with a swift jerk of her hips, fell forward onto her knees, grabbing up a splintered piece of timber and swinging it around at Cerce's head.

Cerce was ready for her; she raised her left arm, and the wood cracked painfully across her forearm, splintering into pieces as it connected. Cerce's right arm came forward, and the girl tried to lean back, but Cerce's reach was too great. Protiya squawked as she found herself gripped by the throat and lifted from her feet.

The muscles in Cerce's shoulder were tight with strain as she lifted the girl higher, raising her kicking feet further from the ground. Protiya's arms lashed out, but her nails came a few inches too short to reach Cerce's eyes. Her skinny legs kicked out, striking ineffectively at the green thighs and hips that stood sentinel in the ruins of the marketplace.

"Without your knives, you're just a little girl," Cerce whispered. She pulled back her fist once more, and watched as Protiya's eyes stared back at her. Suddenly the yellow orbs darted across Cerce's shoulder.

Cerce turned in time to see the three guardsmen rushing at her. She went to yell at them, and felt her whole weight shift. Protiya flipped her legs up Cerce's arm, her thighs locking around Cerce's neck, and sending both of them crashing to the ground.

The guards were yelling for the women to cease the commotion, and clamored over with their shields up and hands on the hilts of their swords. Protiya brought her elbow down hard on Cerce's shoulder, eliciting a yell of pain, and extracted herself from the Nadyr's grip.

In a blink the assassin was up and to her feet, her knuckles cracked across the face of the nearest guard, sending him to the ground clutching his bleeding nose.

Cerce fought to her knees, and found herself forced back down under the weight of the two guards that piled down onto her. The chill of polished steel crushed the air from her lungs, and the guard that shoved himself into her face was yelling at her not to struggle.

"DON'T LET HER GET..." Cerce snarled, before an armoured knee found her gut and winded her. Her face was shoved into the ground under the hard metal elbow of a guard, and she glimpsed Protiya darting away, a ghostly naked form disappearing into the alleys.

Cerce cursed silently to herself, and suddenly felt the energy fall from her limbs. The bloodlust dropped, and all at once her entire body ached. 

-

They'd held her there on the ground for some time, the guardsmen. Cerce had tried to raise her voice to ask questions more than once, but had given up when she'd been shouted at to keep quiet. It was a while longer before there was a sharp exchange of words between the guards, and they straightened up to attention. 

Shambling to a seated position, Cerce watched a very worn but very well polished pair of boots step into place before her. The toe on the left gave a few slow taps. 

"Cerce," came the voice of the boot's owner. 

Cerce cursed, it had to have been him. Who else? 

"Hello Wib," Cerce said, and looked up into the face of the captain of the guard.

He stood before her, tall and straight. One arm was at his side, while the other cradled his rolled green captain's cape. With two fingers, he made a little motion for her to stand. Cerce slowly rose, her arms awkwardly crossed to conceal her body.

"You smashed three stores in the market," Wib said. Much like the rest of him, Wib Revan's voice was not unpleasant in any way, but for some reason nothing about it put Cerce at ease.

"Yes," she nodded, her eyes on the floor. Her bare feet were covered in dust. 

"You, and I say this literally, ran over an Orc diplomat and her entourage, on their peace tour from Redroov Mountain." 

Cerce's mouth stretched wide into an apologetic cringe. 

"...yes...?" 

"You are completely naked in the center of my town."  

"Look, Wib, I..." Cerce began, exasperated. Wib stamped his boot so hard and so fast it made her flinch. 

"You will address me as Captain Revan, Cerce. You are hereby under arrest for noise disturbance, assault, damage to merchandise, destruction of private property, destruction of city property, and public indecency. Put your hands on your head."

Cerce gave him a withering stare. 

"You heard," Wib said. Cerce exhaled noisily through her nose as she removed her hands from her front to place them atop her head.There was a multitude of remarks from the gathered onlookers, about equally disparaging and exalting in flavor. Cerce looked for it, but not even the ghost of a smile touched the Captain's face. 

One of the guardsmen at Cerce's back gave an appreciative whistle, but the look that Revan shot the man was positively chilling. 

Wib stepped forward and wrapped Cerce from collarbone to thigh in his captain's cape, its gleaming emerald shone. 

"Thanks," Cerce muttered.

Wib gripped her arms and pulled them down tightly behind her. He gestured down the street ahead of them.

"Don't thank me, Cerce, I'm taking you to prison." 

-

Six hours later, as Cerce sat in her cell watching the moon rise through the barred window, she heard familiar boots coming down the hall. 

Wib strode up to the bars of the holding cell, and stood looking at Cerce in silence for a moment.

"The...other woman involved in the incident this afternoon. You called her Protiya?"

Cerce nodded slowly. "She's the assassin that killed the Marquis in Zenance last year, and the Duke's daughter in Truronia, the one with the jewels? And...Alton Hart."

"Who?"

Cerce sighed. "No-one. He was no-one."

Wib didn't nod, just made a brief incline of his brow to show he'd heard.

"If that's true, it's a shame she escaped. But she's not an inconspicuous individual, the guardsmen shall be looking for her from now on."

"Good luck with that," Cerce snorted. "So what's going to happen to me, Wib?"

The captain of the guard motioned for the gate to be opened. 

Wib met Cerce with a steely gaze as she stood to meet him. In his arms were a pile of black, purple, and blue that made up Cerce's boots, skirt, shirt, and all assorted accoutrements.

"I myself, don't understand it," Wib began. His handsome face looked Cerce over, and he seemed to be truly considering his words. "You are a foreigner, a troublemaker, a rare species many find frightening. You carry around the very weapon that we were told stories about to scare us as children."

He offered her the pile of clothes, Cerce took them and held them to her chest. She made no move to don them yet. 

"Yet the people of the Foul Mouth love you, Cerce Stormbringer. Every one of the store owners I spoke to denied you had any fault in the escapades today. One insisted you were doing your duty protecting them." 

Cerce shrugged, genuinely stunned.

"I offered the Orc emissary to have her clothing replaced at our cost, but instead I found a woman quite thrilled that she'd seen you in action. It appears your story has traveled."

Cerce hadn't even traveled half the distance north to the craggy peaks of Redroov Mountain. 

"You come with a legend, Cerce. It's not just the halberd, it's you." Wib sighed. He turned, and with a gesture sent his men off down the hall. 

"Dress, and be out of here. The weapon is where you left it. One of my men tried to lift it out of the corner and it fell on him. He was trapped under it for fifteen minutes."

Wib stared into space for a moment, then strode off, leaving Cerce alone.

She donned her clothing quickly, slipping on her boots and belting her skirt on. By the time Cerce strode down the halls and into the front office of the city guard, Cerce stood straighter, taller, and was quite ready to forget the events of the afternoon.

Wib Revan was seated at a low desk in the entrance room, a wooden cup of milk on his desk before him, and an open ledger in his hands.

"Sixteen men arrested at the docks over counterfeit coins, three men and an Orc in custody over on Cowie street regarding illegal scrumpy brewing, and the Stormbringer with her undercoat out in the middle of the market district." Wib looked up at Cerce with a raised eyebrow. "Not awful for a summer day in the Foul Mouth really."

A guardsman popped his head through the door and called to the captain.

"Your wife is here sir, shall I?"

Wib waved him in without looking up.

"Yes, yes, let her in." Wib placed down the ledger and looked up at Cerce as a willowy form in a flowing floor length red dress filed in.

Cerce's eyes widened a little, as the woman strode over to Wib and without comment, began massaging his shoulders.

"Glad you're okay, sweetheart," Wib said to the woman, reaching up to his shoulder to touch her black skinned hand. Wib gestured at Cerce with a casual flick of his hand.

"You're off the hook for now, Stormbringer. But stay out of the market district for at least a week. You want to chase assassins, you call the city guard. Is that clear?"

Cerce nodded slowly, trying to avoid the gaze of the familiar Dusk Elf with the shaven head and sultry eyes that stood over her husband, her pleasant smile shining across the room at Cerce.

-

Two helmeted guards parted to let Cerce leave, watching as she stepped out of the guard office and into the afternoon light of the Foul Mouth. They waited till she was out of earshot.

"I thought she'd have a tail."

"I was just about to say that."

"You see the fur on her? Like one of them long haired cats!"

"Like silk. Wouldn't mind giving that a pet."

"Not half."

They watched the passers by in the street for a moment, sweating in their armour.

"I don't think we're gonna have another day like that for quite some time."

The other guard nodded sadly, and they watched the tall white haired head of the Stormbringer disappear into the afternoon.

Carathis (Art)

Two beautiful takes on Carathis, by Alexandra Kronz

Carathis (Art)

Lovely piece of Carathis by the extremely talented Sweeney-Boo

Review: The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

I have spent so much time so deep in a gritty fantasy world these last few weeks that I never knew if I’d find my way out again. The world of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is so huge, and so complex, that it’s almost daunting at first. There’s so much to explore and such a huge world to get lost in you don’t know where to start. You just have to ride off on your trusty horse, Roach, and immerse yourself.

I spent more time in this world than I have in a game for a long time, a truly scary amount of time in fact, but now that it’s over, and the Wild Hunt has been defeated, I find myself thinking I wish it hadn’t ended already.

The more you play The Wild Hunt, the more exciting it becomes. The story starts with our hero Geralt of Rivia tracking his lost love Yennefer of Vengerburg across a broken no man’s land between two clashing empires. You ride through green plains, chasing giant soaring Griffins and hunting down bandits, and get to know the plight of the common man on the street whose life is shattered by the war, in ways both simple and huge. From mothers weeping over sons lost in the endless battles just over the horizon, to merchants getting rich from selling the belongings of the dead, everyone has an agenda here. It’ll be hard to go back to playing other RPGs after this, when the simplest quest has so much thought behind it. A quick example from the games very start: a Dwarven blacksmith in a rural hamlet has been forced to make weapons for the enemy Nilfgaardian invaders camped nearby. He had no choice in the matter, but one of the local human population used it as an excuse to commit a race hate act against the Dwarf, and burn his smithy down for being a traitor to his country. You find the arsonist, he’s just a hateful drunk who lost his family in the war. Does he deserve to hang for the crime if you turn him in? Will he commit more acts of aggression against undeserving people if you let him go? Regardless, if the Dwarf is assisted by Nilfgaard in repairing the damage done, the locals will hate him anyway. 

The sort of depth found in this little side quest is all through the game, with complex stories and lives touched upon in every little facet. Those who’re familiar with the previous Witcher games know to expect to confront issues with your own choices, issues like war, politics, sex and racism alongside the expected quota of slavering monsters to dispatch with your swords.

This is the final story in the world of the Witcher, and it has a lot to live up to. Seven books and three award winning games worth of characters and storylines have come to a head here, with a lot to do, and no time is wasted. From adventuring among the hills of Kaer Morhen with Vesemir and the other Witchers of the School of the Wolf, political intrigue with old enemy Sigismund Dijkstra, and guerrilla warfare alongside Vernon Roche, you’ll meet almost every character you remember, or forgot entirely, from previous incarnations of the source material. This can, of course, be overwhelming for some gamers, with a bit of a cutthroat attitude to lore present, and not much explanation given to times when the audience, especially English speakers who still haven’t had three of the books in the series translated yet, may have no idea who some of these characters are. This is noticeably present with the game's dominant story thread, the pursuit of Geralt’s ward Ciri. The complex relationship between Geralt and Ciri, and indeed Ciri and the majority of characters in the game, can be difficult to follow for those no well versed in the source material.

Not that the story is difficult to enjoy without this knowledge, of course. When characters are greeted as old friends or hated enemies by Geralt, it’s easy to take in stride and go along with it, as the subtext of dialogue is sharp and well written, without the need for distracting exposition or details. Indeed, it’s probably a lot better to simply wonder what a characters past might be than have a novels worth of prior plot-line shoved at you in awkward expositional dialogue. 

All the favorite characters have returned, with Geralt himself remaining exactly as Dandelion continues to describe him: Gruff, violent, yet possessed of a heart and humor like none other. Favorites proudly return, like the king of take-no-shit Dwarven one liners, Zoltan Chivay, and the endlessly patriotic Vernon Roche. Another enjoyable facet is that even amongst all the returning characters we know and love, the minor new characters are standout too. Like the inexplicably likable Nilfgaardian General Morvran Voorhis who’s just friendly as hell in a story that seems to be going on without him.  

The character I felt that, regardless of prior knowledge, we all needed to know more about, and indeed, should have seen more of in the game, was the emperor of Nilfgaard himself. To give him his full title, Emhyr var Emreis, the White Flame Dancing on the Graves of His Enemies, is the enigmatic despot behind the events of the second game. Where the average fantasy story would cast Emhyr as the clear villain, Geralt’s complex history with Emhyr places him in a unique position within the grey area of morality.

Masterfully voiced by Charles Dance, Emhyr is a brilliant character, equally supremely confidant and tortured, demanding of subservience yet righteously just. Each time Geralt met with Emhyr at his grand palace (after being washed and shaven and taught to bow properly in His Eminence’s presence), I enjoyed the scene, and wanted to see more of him and Geralt’s interesting interactions.

The same attention to character really can’t be said for the stories main antagonists however. The titular Wild Hunt, a foreboding army of semi-mythical Elven warriors, aren’t present enough to really seem significant. A huge part of the games run time is lived in fear of them, either running from them, chasing them, or searching high and low for information about them, but when we actually get to meet them, they aren’t all that impressive. There are some moments, like seeing what a Wild Hunt General does when he has a lot of drinks and an entourage of eager Succubi, but the majority of the Hunt, indeed even the arch villain Eredin himself, are absent in screen time as well as real personality.

The standout villains of the piece are without a doubt the secondary ones, the trio of sisters known as the Ladies. Three brilliantly creepy figures straight out of an old European fairytail. Either stunning naked young women one moment, or shockingly disgusting malformed crones the next, these three are by far the game’s most striking and memorable antagonists. They are introduced in an incredibly eerie scene talking to Geralt through a sinister weaving depicting their playful fairer selves, and yet the voices do not match the lovely faces we’re seeing by any stretch of the imagination. Each one has such brilliant, grotesque personality, I would have been happy to see the crones as the dominant villains all their own. 

The more I played the Witcher 3, the more I wanted to. It gets bigger as you go, with the world expanding from one rural hamlet to moving freely between an open countryside, with villages, cities, and swamplands to explore on foot or horseback, to mountainous Nordic islands that you can transverse by sailboat. As you explore in your search for Ciri, you’ll find yourself picking up Witcher contracts along the way, hunting down monsters for pay. Be it following the steps that led to a gruesome murder of a young woman, and summoning her angry spirit to lay her to rest, or following the bloody remains of a ruined miners camp to a Troll’s cookpot, many of these contracts are wildly different in style and scope. Some have great red herring twists, and some can be solved by simple dialogue alone (or by careful application of a bit of coin here and there).

There’s a string of new mini games to test yourself at, like fist-fighting or horse-racing, and an extensive card game, along with a seriously infectious card collecting aspect to it that swiftly becomes a serious habit. I can’t tell you how many times I ran into a new character, be told they were a powerful druid or a storied warrior, and immediately asked myself ‘But will they play gwent with me?!’

The whole game style has evolved significantly on from the Witcher 2, to be a little more RPG than action, almost a blending of the styles of the first and second games. Character development is more in depth, with many paths to take along the way, and far too many to reach out into in a single run. By the time you reach the endgame, you’ll only have enough attribute points to explore one of the five possible branches, and probably only half of it at most, so your Geralt may be wildly different from your friends. Geralt’s signs have been retooled significantly, making each one of major use in their own way, and some so good that an entire character can be built around use of one sign and its various abilities. Each sign now has multiple uses and upgrades to branch into, leading for a bit more variety in your spell-casting than in previous games.

Combat itself is also a whole new beat from the last game, with AI being a bit sharper, and a lot less vulnerable to hacking and slashing like a madman. Enemies dodge and weave, and counterattack, and you’ve got to be quick on your feet to dodge swipes and claws from monsters, and similarly quick to block and parry melee attacks from human opponents. The game is merciless on the harder difficulty settings, and it’s good to see a lot of rewarding ways to explore approaching combat than just pounding ability points into sword mastery.

Throughout your journey to find Ciri, you also get the chance to live through fragments of her own adventure trough her eyes, letting you play as Ciri in these scenes. These are a fantastic change from the gameplay as Geralt, as each character plays quite differently. Geralt is strong, efficient and methodical, whereas Ciri is impulsive wild, and incredibly powerful, and the game-play works as such, with Ciri moving at great speeds, teleporting around the battlefield in flashes of green light. It takes a moment getting used to at first, but soon you’ll love the chances you get to play as Ciri. CDProjekt Red have promised a wide assortment of downloadable support to the Witcher, and any such content featuring more time to play as Ciri would be incredibly welcome.

Any game this huge is not without its flaws, and the Witchers are all fairly merciful in the long run. I’d have loved more interaction with Eredin. For the final villain of a story this huge, he just wasn’t complex, and curiously enough, in a series that prides itself so much on breaking fantasy clichés, Eredin was very much the stock ‘dark lord’ archetype and not much more. 
Some curious issues seem to pop up in what I can only assume comes from the censorship of the game for the North American market. It doesn’t change the game at all, but certainly impacts scenes in an awkward way. Don’t have a character be told to strip naked, comment on the act of stripping naked, and then act as if they’re naked in the scene, when they are actually wearing underwear through the whole scene. It’s just weird, and makes you feel as if you’re playing an edited version.  

Some graphical bugs seem present too, but these end up simply being hilarious more than anything else. Occasionally the AI will bug out during a cut scene, and a character or object will turn up where it clearly isn't supposed to. In one choice example I encountered, during a heartfelt exchange between Geralt and Ciri, Morvran Voorhis wandered into the background where he stood there photobombing the drama for a while, before wandering off again to god knows where. It was great, but nevertheless ruined the moment somewhat. 

Upon finishing the Witcher 3, I realized I'd spent a long time lost in that world. I'd hunted down dozens of monsters, helped Elves and Dwarves and Halflings and a man named Dudu, I'd foiled political plots and battled dimension traveling Elves on a frozen pirate ship, and slept with as many sorceresses as I could. I would have tried to sleep with Dandelion too if they'd let me. I've played all three games, two of them several times over, I have lovingly read Sapkowski's original novels, and I even met a very beloved friend on the Witcher forum years ago. After I'd done all that, I still want more, and that's the best thing I can say about the world of the Witcher. I just don't want it to be over already.