Chapter 1 - Venom and Vigor

Cold. Bitter cold. Milo exhaled a dry breath into the air. In the dark of the ruin, it was invisible as on any summer day. He put his hand to shoulder, where a shallow cut festered. Milo hissed as he recalled the golem that cut him. Built like a knight, with narrow rapier now in Milo's grip. 

"Damn the ancients," Milo sighed, "Why's everything got to be poisoned?" He remembered his idol's words: Victory is not getting cut. Easy to say, not so much to do. Easy, so easy. Just to lay down for a moment.

"NO!" Milo roared and slapped his hand as hard as he could against the stone wall. He felt a pinch on his palm and he held it close to see in the lamp light. There were red blisters all over his hand. He held the palm close to the hot metal of the lamp, but only barely felt the heat.

"No." Milo said again, defiant. A growl from his stomach reminded him of his hunger, but he would not eat. He had rations plenty, they'd be wasted the next time, "Damnit-" He turned and wretched into the gutter of the passage.

He moved forward, trying to retrace his path through this section of the Labyrinth of Ancients: Successfully. He'd marked the way with softly glowing chalk near the ground. Everything smart enough to notice the marks wouldn't look to ankle height, unless something drew their eyes, and everything short enough to see it would be too beastly to recognize it.

"What's that?" Milo whispered, and lowered his lantern. In the distance, he saw the pale glow of a chalk mark at an intersection. He knew from the mark that he would need to turn right to continue retracing his steps. However from that direction there was a soft light: Another adventurer? Good luck. He'd trade for antidotes, his maps, his loot. He'd be able to find more if he didn't die from this. "Wait." The lamp light was stronger, but something was wrong about it.

It was blue.

Milo snuffed out his lamp wick with his bare hands, pinching it without so much as a tingle in his hands. Could his poisoned blood run colder? Was it actually possible to feel any worse than he already did?

From around the corner, a small hooded figure stepped quietly. In it's hand was a lantern. It walked over to the mark and held up the light to view the mark. The head of the figure nodded and Milo felt his gut wrench as it seized shut. His body choosing to keep the poison in him longer rather than make noise.

It didn't matter. The Tonberry snapped its head around like an owl and its cold yellow eyes saw through the darkness and met Milo's. It turned its body and held up the lamp with the blue soul fire of its last victim. The light raged brightly, the victim silently screaming for freedom and for Milo to run.

There was no running, no hiding. Milo reached into his travel sack and pulled out the one thing that could save him: An il'kothan pomegranate. The Tonberry stepped closer and draw a long knife from the folds of its robes.
 
It wasn't an actual fruit, it was a sort of material magic. Pull the ring out of it, count up to three and chuck the son of a liz as hard as you could. Then wait for the boom. The Tonberry approached yards away but still it raised the knife high, as if in the midst of a blinding charge.

The flame light had just reached Milo's face when he slipped his thumb into the ring. The tonberry plodded closer still, and stopped. It looked over it's shoulder and Milo took his chance. He twisted his thumb out the ring let out a ping as it left the pomegranate. He swung his arm around and pitched the pom like a champion bowler.  It smacked the tonberry in the head, and fell to the ground.

It did nothing, for the first second, then Milo remembered and let himself fall to the ground. He covered his head with his bag and when the Tonberry stepped over the pom.

Well it exploded didn't it? What else could it have done?

Seriously, I'm writing this scene out and doing my best to give some dramatic tension and for what? You all know he's going to live long enough to nail someone or for something to nail him. Really there's no POINT in this scene except to establish clever ways of describing a grenade from the point of view of someone who thinks their some manner of alchemy.

Ah, well, at this point Milo's ears have stopped ringing and he's thrown up again so I think we can resume our usual fantasy narrative style, yes?

Milo wiped the bile from his lips, grateful it didn't stick anywhere else. The thin plate of armor in his back was peppered with tiny metal balls. If he'd had the time, he would have picked them out and collected them for a dumb-weight. The poison though, was back was a vengeance. Milo remained on his knees, bag on his lap, puke on the floor, and Tonberry guts all over the walls and ceiling. His body was racked with a wave of icy pain: frostbite needles spread though his formerly numb limbs and felt all the worse for it.

"Hero," A voice came from the blue light. It rose from the shattered remains of the lantern. The soul travelled close to Milo, close enough to see the face of a woman, the tusks at her lips gave her away as Orc-kin. "Thank you." The ball of light passed to the wound, and Milo gasped as some relief washed over him, then the soul faded into itself, and was gone into the Mystery.

Milo nodded once, then he fell against a part of the wall that had neither puke nor Tonberry dripping from it, and let himself sleep. He didn't notice the light green blur that moved toward him, or had the mind to care.

---

Milo awoke (surprised?) to the sound of a fire and something like water and wind. He lurched, but hissed as his body ached. It wasn't the ache of poison though. It was muscle burn from a triathlon of running, climbing, and golem fighting. His shirt was gone and he felt a bandage on his shoulder. He felt this, because his eyes were still closed.

When he opened them, he found the sight most appealing. The wet sounds had been tongues on flesh, the windy sounds had been muffled gasps. Two IL-Kothos women were embracing one another just on the other side of the fire.

Both had the long smooth faces their kind are known for, and their 'fin ears' shuddered in turn as their companion kissed and licked at tender patches on their smooth skin. The one on top was a darker blue-green, almost teal, except that from her chin, down her neck, and over her wide breasts: she had snow white skin. Milo couldn't see much of her partner, except that her skin was a light, almost aquamarine, shade.

"We woke him up after all," The kothos on the bottom whispered; she relaxed on a cot and stretched her arms above her head, and though they looked more lithe than bulky, Milos understood they held more strength than his. "So sorry for that 'hero'." She said that with a sensual sort of smugness.

"Not a," Milo found it hard to speak, "Hero." The Kothos on top leaned back to a seated position on her friend's lap, the pair exchanged a glance, the sort that says volumes between friends. The one on top (need a name for her? Suggestions? No?) got to her feet and walked around the fire, giving her friend and Milo a show with the way she closed the gap with grace and ease.

Milo saw that her only clothes were leggings that went up to her thighs, but did not hinder her toe-claws, and long fingerless gloves that did the same for her arms. Milo could see where the fire-light illuminated her womanhood. Between her legs, he saw her friend across the fire, smiling at him or her friend's ass (both actually).

The standing Kothos brought her legs together and crouched in front of Milo. Her knees pressed her breasts out, but her arms wrapped around her knees to keep the breasts contained, but his pain and injuries could no longer prevent that oh so infamous biological reaction. The Kothos in front of Milo let her smile broaden, but remained polite.

"What is your name?" She asked him. He managed to say, but his mind is clouded, "Milo? That's a soldier's name." She didn't say it with a laugh. She gently touched the bandage with the side of her soft finger. Milo flinched and she unfolded her knees on either side of his lap. "My name is Chelix," she thumbed over her shoulder, "That bum's Tisi."  Tisi flashes a rude gesture after her introduction. "How did you come by that pomegranate." Her voice sounded gentle as she placed her hands on his uninjured arm and his neck. Milo could feel her skin against his pulse.

She was interrogating him.

"Stole it," Milo admitted, "I ran across a group, two levels up, Orks and an Ex-Crusader," That narrowed it down to hundreds. After the first few years, nearly ever Crusader dropped their banners in favor of ending the senseless bloodshed. "I helped them out of a monkey's jar," The trap that makes you give up on an artifact, or sacrifice one of your teammates. "For a price," He admits.

"That's hardly theft," Tisi speaks up, "More like spirited bargaining,"

"I still feel bad for it," Milo tilted his head as much as he could with Chelix's hand on it, "Glad I did though; it saved my life." Then the memory of the Tonberry turning resurfaced, "Unless you were about to do that yourselves?" From across the fire, Tisi held up two more, albeit smaller, pomegranate devices.  "Oh."

"I'd say using one that size was overkill," Chelix starts but Milo interrupts.

"No such thing," He growled, "with Tonberries." Color ran into Chel's face and she pressed her bare breasts against Milo's skin.

"Exactly," She breathed into his ear, "No about the antidote we did use on you, and the bandages,"  Chel smirked and with the hand on Milo's neck, tilted it up and slithered her tongue out to kiss Milo's flesh, just under his ear, "Not a fair trade, taking what you've found." Milo's pulse rocketed and Chel laughed, her hands keeping him still. "So, I suggest an alternative," Chel whispered into his ear.

There's a cough from behind her, Chel frowns and Milo collects himself enough to see Tisi, now beside Chel. Her hungry eyes fixed on the bulge that has stretched out Milo's pants.

"Oooh." Chel coos and drags a finger down from Milo's neck, one of Tisi's hands replacing it, and as that hand hooked into the edge of his pants and pulled them down, Tisi's face lowered and her long blue tongue crept out, and was slapped on the tip, as Milo's cock sprang out. "Ha!" Chel laughed, but Tisi recovered, catching Milo's cock with her tongue alone. "Mmm, cut meat." Chel meant Milo's circumcision, but he flinches at something else.

Milo gasped, as the tongue coiled and squeezed just under the head of his cock. It coiled twice before it stopped, and Milo swore under breath. Tisi's other hand ran along a rough scar on the underside of his shaft. Milo met Tisi's sympathetic gaze, then she swallowed his shaft in earnest.

Chel, missing this had brought her free hand to Milo's, and guided it to the soft entrance to her sex. Milo finally broke a smile, and for a moment Chel wondered why. Then Milo's fingers started to dance over the smooth outer flesh and she had a brief thought, then he entered her and she let herself enjoy. His thumb rubbed left and right over her clit, his pinky teased that crease on the inside of her thigh, his ring finger stroked and circled the taint between her sex and anus, and his fore and middle fingers began their search for the Kothon 'G-spot'. Kothos females have all sorts of 'textures' inside, Chel felt like cool liquid silk, dancing and kissing with his fingers.

Remember Milo said he defused traps? Consider briefly if he's alone in this dungeon its by choice, and hes traveling along routes SO trapped, you can't afford to have a large group with you. So he's really good at traps, which means he's got VERY clever and strong fingers. Back to the sex.

"Fsssssha!" Chel hiss-moans in her own language, Tisi looks up and redoubles her efforts. Milo groans loudly, but it doesn't through off his game. In fact, he smiles down at her. Their eyes lock and challenge accepted, as they say.

Tisi tongue wraps and pulses around Milo's shaft while her lips tug and tease at the base of his cock. Milo's fingers meanwhile continue their many pronged attack on Chel's womanhood, and she's more than willing to let him.  His fore finger presses into a fold, and Chel moans, not in rapture, but in that witheld disappointment of 'so close'. His middle finger presses deeper, and Chel's grip on Milo tightens as her hands, and her sex, squeeze him tightly.

He feels a cool wetness over his hand and sees the runnel of juices going down his hand. Chel pulls Milo's hand from her dripping lips and kneels beside him as Tisi unwinds her tongue from Milo's cock. Her tongue dances in front of his mouth like a serpent and Milo leans forward to wrap his lips around the tip, and suckle on it.

Tisi moans as she moves closer, and slides more of her tongue into Milo's mouth. He sucks and swallows and squeezes with his lips, as his tongue dances over the longer guest in Milo's mouth. By the time their lips meet, Tisi's is tongue fucking Milo's throat. Her tongue pressing to one side at every other moment to give him a short chance to breath through his nose.

and Chel has Milo's cock all lined up under Tisi's waiting sex: One hand on Tisi's ass and the other at the base of Milo's cock.

"I think that's enough to qualify for 'Buisness'." Chel says suddenly, squeezing both of them brusquely. Not breaking their deep mouth fuck, both of them glare at Chel, "So let's write this off as 'Pleasure'." She finishes, with a weak smile. Tisi rolls her eyes. Milo, despite the pain in his shoulder, takes Tisi's hips with both hands and slams her down.

Her sex was as wet and cool as Chel's but Milo reeled as the texture, like hundreds of kissing nubs, gripped, rubbed, and tugged at his cock.

"Ribbed for YOUR pleasure," Chel whispered into Milo's ear. He knew he wouldn't last, not with Chel's whispers and Tisi's texture, but neither would Tisi, the way she desperately clung to him, moaning into him. Milo wrapped his good arm around Tisi's back and started a strong slow rolling of his hips.

Tisi' matched his rhythm and as Chel started to sing, and play with herself. Her voice in their ears, the feeling of being inside one another, Milo came first, and Tisi a moment after. Milo felt the familiar heat of his cock spurting thick ropes of cum into a waiting womb, but in his throat there was a symmetrical pulsing, as Tisi's tongue released some fluid straight into his stomach.

He recalled tales of Kothos women bearing poisons within their body, unleashed during sex with unwary men (or Twiceborn orcs) Milo pushed Tisi onto her back, going over with her, and with both hands held her against the soft cot. He felt no pain his his shoulder and his arms felt as strong as they did after proper bed rest.

Tisi smiled as she began to pull back her tongue and when it cleared his lips, Milo's tongue gently followed it, kissing into Tisi's mouth. "Sorry." He whispered when they unraveled their lips from one another. Tisi just shook her head and smiled; Chel's cool hands pressed down on Milo's back, and without another word the three curled up together and slept.