Chapter 1: Batteries and Bloodlust
The air in the Squalid Goblin Market was a solid, cloying thing. It stank of damp fur and spoiled meat, undercut by the ozone-tang of unstable magic. Gage’s boots splashed through unnamed puddles, his massive frame weaving between stalls of carved bone and rusted steel. Jagged stalactites dripped black ichor from the cavern ceiling high above, and the flickering lanterns made the shadows writhe like living things.
“This is a waste of time,” he muttered, his voice a low rumble. “A battery. In a goblin market. We’re hunting a ghost-wyrm, Tori. Not assembling a godsdamned toy.”
From his shoulder, a tiny, shimmering figure kicked the side of his neck. “The ghost-wyrm can wait. My music player cannot. Two hundred years of curated playlists, Gage. Silence is a violation of my cosmic rights.” Tori, all one foot of iridescent wings and silver hair, leaned over to peer into his ear. “That stall. The one with the glowing blue bottles. Goblin looks shifty. I like him.”
Gage sighed, the sound lost in the guttural chatter of the market. He approached the stall. The merchant was a knobbly creature with one milky eye and three that gleamed with sharp intelligence. Its wares—vials of phosphorescent liquid—seemed to pulse in time with Gage’s own heartbeat. A bad sign.
“You. I need a power source. Single cell. AA.” Gage kept his hand near the hilt of the greatsword strapped to his back.
The goblin’s smile revealed several rows of needle-like teeth. “Mmm. Power. Yes. Many kinds of power here.” Its too-many eyes slid down Gage’s armored chest, past his belt, and lingered. The vials on the stall gave a sudden, synchronous throb. Gage felt an immediate, inconvenient tightening in his breeches.
A warm, minuscule weight dropped from his shoulder, traced a path down his chest, and vanished into the opening of his loincloth.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tori. Not now,” he hissed, his knees involuntarily softening.
Her voice was muffled, vibrating against his skin. “You’re thinking loud. And that goblin is staring. I’m establishing dominance.” Her tiny, warm mouth found the tip of him, and she engulfed it, her body beginning to shift and mold itself with supernatural elasticity. A full-body shudder racked Gage. Her wings fluttered against his thighs, a desperate, shimmering prison.
The goblin cackled, a wet, choking sound. The potions glowed a furious crimson.
Gage’s vision hazed. He braced his hands on the rickety stall, the wood groaning. “The. Battery. Now.” It came out as a guttural roar, half rage, half overwhelming pleasure.
Tori’s form was now a perfect, snug sheath around his erect length, her movements a maddening, expert rhythm. ‘I’ll drain you dry if you don’t hurry up,’ her voice whispered directly into his mind, a sly, sensual thread. ‘I’ve been good all day!’
He had a fleeting, absurd memory of her trying to heal a squirrel with profanity-laced encouragement. This was not goodness.
With a final, grinding growl of frustration, Gage shoved. The stall exploded outward. Glowing vials sailed through the air, shattering on the stone floor in eruptions of sizzling blue and puce smoke. The goblin merchant shrieked, cowering behind the wreckage.
“I don’t have time for this!” Gage boomed, his body trembling with the effort of standing upright against Tori’s relentless, clinging ministrations. He reached over the wreckage, grabbed the goblin by its mossy tunic, and lifted it until they were eye-to-milky-eye. “The last one. Give it.”
Tori chose that moment to shift again, her body fluttering in a specific, concentrated way. Gage saw stars. His grip tightened; the goblin squealed.
“Here! Here! Mercy!” The creature scrabbled in a hidden pouch and produced a single, slightly corroded AA battery. Gage dropped it, snatched the battery mid-air, and released the goblin, who scuttled into the shadows, hissing.
“Satisfied?” Gage snarled, stumbling away from the smoky wreckage, one hand pressed against the front of his breeches where a distinct, tiny-shaped bulge pulsed.
Tori disengaged, flowing up and out of his clothes in a shimmer of light, coming to rest panting on his shoulder, her tiny chest heaving. She looked thoroughly rumpled and smug. “Temporarily. The quality was sub-par. Distracted. You let the little bastard haggle.”
“I did not haggle. I enacted aggressive procurement.” Gage leaned against a damp cavern wall, catching his breath. The market had grown very quiet, too many eyes watching the human who talked to his crotch and kicked over stalls.
He examined the battery. It was dead. Not a whisper of a charge. He crushed it in his fist, letting the fragments fall into the muck. “It’s useless.”
“Of course it is,” Tori said, picking a stray bit of lint from her wing. “It’s a goblin market. Everything’s a metaphor for disappointment. Now I’m bored. And still musically deprived.”
A new voice cut through the dripping silence, smooth as oiled silk. “A performance, however crude. The fairy’s hunger. The warrior’s… compliance. It speaks of a deep bond.”
A figure emerged from between two stalls. Tall, slender, wrapped in grey traveler’s cloth, its face hidden in shadow. The air around it grew cold.
Gage was instantly upright, his greatsword sliding into his hands with a metallic whisper that echoed in the cavern. All prior discomfort vanished, replaced by a lethal, focused calm. “Speak your business.”
“I have information,” the figure said, its unseen gaze seeming to rest on Tori, who had gone very still. “About the ghost-wyrm you hunt. And about what it guards. A treasure not of gold, but of silence. A void where no song, no spell, no… whisper of pleasure can exist.”
Tori’s wings went rigid. “A Null-crag,” she breathed, all humor gone from her voice.
The figure gave a slow, approving nod. “The fairy knows its lore. The wyrm nests upon it. Your quest just became more interesting, did it not? For a price, I can show you the path.”
Gage looked from the mysterious stranger to Tori, whose amber eyes were wide with a mixture of dread and fascination. The market stink faded into the background. The job was no longer just a job. It was a threat to the very essence of his chaotic, buzzing, iridescent companion.
He hefted his sword onto his shoulder. “Start talking,” he said, his green eyes hard as stone. “But if this is another dead battery, I’m not paying.”
The grey-wrapped figure didn’t move, but the air grew colder. “The price is not coin. It is… observation. A token of your unique partnership. Something genuine.”
Gage’s knuckles whitened on his sword hilt. “You want a show.”
“I want confirmation. The Null-crag negates all magic, all connection. What I saw earlier was a bond that exists in the spaces between. Prove it is not mere convenience. Prove it is worth my risking the wyrm’s ire.”
“This is creepy as hell,” Tori whispered into Gage’s ear, but her tone was thoughtful, not scared. “Also, he’s basically asking for a tip. Just… give him what he wants. We need the intel.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Gage muttered from the corner of his mouth. “He’s a sketchy phantom in a goblin market.”
“And I’m a three-hundred-year-old fairy wrapped around your dick five times a day. Sketchy is our brand. Pay the man.”
Gage’s jaw worked. The information was critical. The mention of a Null-crag changed everything; it wasn’t just a monster hunt anymore. It was a threat to Tori’s very nature. He let out a sharp, frustrated breath that fogged in the sudden chill. “Fine. Talk. We’ll… provide your confirmation.”
The figure gave a slow, deliberate nod. “The wyrm’s lair is not in the mountains, but beneath them. The entrance is a tear in reality behind the third waterfall of the Weeping Sisters, east of here. The path is guarded by shades that feed on doubt. The Null-crag is a spire of black stone at the heart of the cavern. Its effect radiates outward. The closer you get, the more it will… unmoor you.”
As the man spoke, Tori nuzzled Gage’s neck. Her tiny hands worked at the laces of his breeches with practiced efficiency. Gage stiffened, trying to focus on the words—third waterfall, shades, doubt—but her fingers were deft and insistent.
“The wyrm itself is blind, but it senses magical signatures. A fairy’s light will be a beacon. You must—”
Gage’s thought process shattered as Tori plunged into his open clothing. Her tiny form, already shifting, conformed to him in one smooth, warm slide. This wasn’t like the playful, distracting market episode. This was deliberate, hungry, a claiming. Her mouth was a hot, perfect circle, her body a rippling sheath of impossible pressure.
“—extinguish all active enchantments before descent. The silence there is not empty, it is… absorptive.”
Gage groaned. The sound was low, torn from his chest. His head fell back against the cavern wall with a dull thud. His sword tip dipped, scraping the ground. The informant’s words became a distant buzz, competing with the roaring in his ears and the exquisite, tightening rhythm Tori established. She was fucking him with her entire body, a tiny, devastating piston.
“The spores… in the lower chamber… cause vivid hallucinations of one’s deepest…” The man’s voice droned on.
Gage was losing it. Pleasure coiled tight at the base of his spine, a live wire about to snap. His muscles corded, his free hand clutching at rough stone. Tori’s wings fluttered in a frantic, ecstatic pattern against his stomach. He could feel her own tension building, her tiny form swelling slightly around him as she fed on his rising climax.
“…and the final chamber is accessible only by…”
The coil snapped.
Gage came with a ragged, roaring shout that echoed off the cavern walls, startling nearby goblins into silence. It was a massive, wrenching release, his entire body bowing. His face twisted, a mask of utter, overwhelmed pleasure, eyes squeezed shut, teeth bared. Waves of sensation blotted out every other sense—sight, sound, thought.
For a long moment, there was only the pounding of his heart and the warm, pulsing tightness of Tori, who now clung to him, sated and swollen, humming with contentment.
Gage slumped, breathing in ragged gasps. The grey-wrapped figure stood perfectly still, its head tilted.
Blinking sweat from his eyes, Gage growled, voice hoarse. “Start over. From the waterfalls. I missed… half of that.”
The figure let out a sound that might have been a sigh. It might have been amusement. “The third waterfall of the Weeping Sisters. The tear is behind it. Shall I continue… slowly?”
On his shoulder, Tori stretched, a tiny, satiated smile on her face. “See? Payment rendered. Now listen up, big guy. This part’s important.”