The Baroness' and your fault, but Emilie kept that retort far away from his mouth and instead only wore a tense smile. He pulled her up, noting the dark stain of cum on her shoulder with a slight amusement playing across the depths of his eyes. Emilie had enjoyed that and she didn't seem to have noticed if her cocky attitude was anything to go by. "Both Reise and Ferrer, or do you prefer Ana, survived the skirmish alive and mostly unharmed." His hand reflexively started to reach for the knife he had taken, a mix of caution of the Countess reaction and residual anger at what Ferrer had done. "Because she killed Alcheamie, and our way home, she's being punished." Hoping to trigger the mental suggestion he laid with his hypnosis earlier and rouse Triana's anger toward Ana and accept it. Emilie couldn't expect her to feel the sadness of his friend's passing that both he and Reise did, but they all wanted to go home. "If you can't hear them, I expect that they're done and will be back soon. We're setting out afterward. Not too much for today. Not with everyone's wounds still fresh." They were all battle-hardened so he didn't expect her to disagree and knew what being far away from a Holy magic caster or a medical tent meant. Emilie looked around the grove, trying to gauge which was the best direction to go in. On a cursory look, it was all trees to him.
Andelia frowned. "Isn't it too dangerous? Sending out people to scout the area would be far safer." She said. As Silnariel looked around, she noticed that her entire group has gathered around.
Triana scowled and but kept the retort to herself, as she was thinking deeply. They were now in the forest, and as far as they could see, there was no landmark - really, it was as if they were in the middle of nowhere. After some time, Reise returned with the Baroness - who was still tied and gagged. Her breasts and ass were covered with red marks, while her tights and pussy were wet from her sex juices.
“Well, I'd like to think that I won't screw up the spell every single time...” Silnariel shrugged “Anyway, I'll leave it for another day – I've had enough scrying for today.” She looked at her gathered servants. “Alright, tell me what you have found so far.”
Emilie raised his arm to greet his friend along with the hopefully chastened Baroness. Seeing the bruises, the Chancellor shuddered, despite just cumming something stirred inside of him, and he exactly what it was. He shifted his arms so he had them crossed over his chest, no longer hovering near the knife, but still cast a cautious glance toward Triana to judged her reaction toward seeing her ally in this disheveled state. Not that he would do anything to help her, the boots alone were mercy enough. "What a mess." He said under his breath, though loud enough for anyone with keen ears to hear. "Not sure if you two have met yet. Reise is quiet but reliable and a steady hand." Sorry, friend. One of his eyebrows raised, Emilie expected the Pale Ritter to confirm and show some courtesy to the Countess. They were all allies, for now. "Unless there's anything else, we should get ready to leave. Reise will scout ahead. While we'll follow."
The sorceress wanted to protest, but at the last moment, she held herself. "There is not much to say - we are at the swamps." She paused. "The scouts checked the area around - walking up to ten minutes into the forest, but found nothing else. This place." She waved around the smalll clearing. "Is actually the most dry area we found so far."
Silnariel grimaced. “I was afraid you'd say that. Well, nothing we can do about it.” She sighed. “I guess we'll have to camp here tonight and continue exploring tomorrow. Unless we suddenly get a stroke of luck and find a better place nearby...” It was obvious the princess did not expect such a thing to happen. She leaned closer to whisper in Andelia's ear. “Thank you for worrying about me – I appreciate it.”
As Reise stopped in front of the chancellor, he roughly pushed the baroness to her knees. "Chancellor." He nodded. "This one is rather stubborn. Maybe you could convince her?" He stopped and looked subtlely at the countess, raising his eyebrow.
Emilie went down on his haunches, staring directly into the tear strewn, but defiant eyes of the baroness. She had taken a lot of abuse already. He took her roughly by the chin, adding to it by the vice grip he held that pushed in her cheeks. "There's no resisting this." Moving his face closer and kissing her, a residual taste of Reise cum played on his senses along with her saliva. It played havoc with his nerves, sending pleasurable tinglings to his brain. He moved to the side of her face and breathed a spell of Hypnotism into her ear. "Listen to my voice, it is your voice. My servitude to the Countess is measured by my pain. The more I endure, the better I have served. I take pleasure in my servitude. I take pleasure in my pain." He whispered, barely audibly to the baroness, presuming the spell took hold. This was part of his revenge, to twist her from a noble into an eager slave. Regardless of the outcome, Emilie rose up to his feet again. "Countess. Best if you slap some sense into her? With the emphasis, it was clear he meant it literally. "We don't have any more time to mess around right now if we want to find a way home." Tugging at the suggestion he laid for her again. If all else failed, there was always tying the baroness at the end of the horse.
The mage smirked. "Of course I worry about you princes. If something happened to you, your mother would arrange us a meeting with a barber. He would cut us a little out of the top - right at the level of our necks." She answered with a little sarcasm, but also worry for princes.
[+50 for successfully hypnotizing the countess] To Emilie's surprise, the woman manages to push out his influence with such a strength, that he stumbled at the recoil. It required either great skill or incredible luck - chancellor suspected the later. The woman glared at him with fury - it seemed that it won't be easy now to hypnotize her in this state, now that she knew what Emilie was doing. As countess slapped her, obeying Emilie's instructions and suggestions, the baroness looked at the chancellor with suspicion.
Silnariel nodded in acknowledgment before moving on to more important issues. “Anyway, everyone is back, correct?” She asked as she looked up through the trees above, trying to guess the time and how long they had until sunset.
(forgot about the reward for defeating succubus) [+500 for defeating succubus] Andelia nodded. "Yes, everyone returned." As the princess checked the sun, she noticed that it was halfway through the sky. It was noon.
“Hmm, it's earlier than I though... Alright, have everyone take a brief rest while I try scrying again. I didn't want to do it so soon, but under the circumstances it's necessary – we can't afford to waste our time exploring around blindly.” Silnariel sighed. Hopefully this time things would go better...
This time, everything went swell. As she started scrying the area, she noticed that the swamps were rather large - and inhabited by a number of creatures. It stretched rather long - but was not that wide. The problem was that on the east side it was cut off by mountains, on the west by sea. It would take days to reach either north or south end. There were a couple of human villages - one of which was raided by amazons at this very moment. There was a village of Snake skinned Naga slavers. The princess noticed that all of them were Futas, some enjoying female human slaves. There were also goblins, roaming the swamps. The vision ended.
“Well, that's not good...” Silnariel sighed, then looked at Andelia. “This time I managed to learn about this area. Let's gather the others.” Once everyone had gathered close enough to hear her the princess addressed them, sharing what she had learned about the area before telling them what they would do next. “That's all I was able to discover,” she finished “I believe it would be best if we stay away from the locals for now and not interact with them unless absolutely necessary. Once we have settled here and established a base of operations we can see about meeting them. But for now I think it will be best if we go west, towards the sea. Does anyone have any suggestions or objections? If so, you have permission to speak freely.” She waited to hear if her servants would have anything to say. If not, they would head west, with Silnariel and Andelia in the middle, the peasants around them, and the four guards positioned at the front, back, and sides, on the lookout for danger.
Few women shuddered at the mention of Amazons and Futa Nagas. Silnariel knew what would be on their mind this night, when they will be pleasuring themselves. "Why not make camp here?" One of the guards asked. "While not the best to live in, it's quite a defensive position."
The princess shook her head. “That might work in the short term, but it's not a good idea in the long term. It limits how much we could expand, it limits what resources we will have access to, and it leaves us at a disadvantage against enemies that are more familiar with the swamp than we are. And then there's the fact that we don't know what sort of creatures prowl the swamp at night.” She explained, leaving out that the damp swamp would limit the effectiveness of Andelia's fire spells – there was no need to make it seem like she favored the redheaded sorceress more than she already did. “I don't know what we will find when we reach the sea, but my hope is that at the very least we will be able to catch some fish. Hopefully exploring north and south will be easier along the coast than in the swamp.” She explained her reasoning.
As she finished speaking, one of the peasants spoke. "How long it will take us to reach the coast?" She paused. "And shouldn't we prepare somehow for the travel?" She asked.
Silnariel shrugged at the first question. “I really can't say – I am no expert at traversing swamps, plus we need to be careful as we walk, to avoid any more quicksands or deep holes hidden under the water. It also depends on the vegetation – there might be some spots that force us to go around them, slowing us down.” She replied. “As for preparations – do whatever preparations you deem necessary. I suppose some long branches could be used to check the ground for any unseen dangers and to help us find a path that is relatively firm and easy to travel. Nothing else comes to mind right now, but if anyone has any suggestions – I will listen.” She paused and looked up. “Remember to look up, too – there might be dangers above us, not just around and below us.” I wish we had known ahead of time we would end up in a swamp – then we could bring along someone to help traverse it. But alas.
