Druid Looks Like A Lady

Serenity looks around and a wave of panic washes over her. “Wilder?” she yells again.

She walks to the entrance of the forest, looks in the best she can, then turns and yells “Lyric! Baylor!”

The two nonchalant like walks around the building giving her a raised eyebrow look. Baylor seems to be grumbling and Lyric looks as empty headed as ever.

“He’s gone, he just disappeared!” she says looking at them and then back into the forest.

The two glance at each other then back at her “What did you do with him?” Lyric says inquisitively, with seriousness.

“Me? I did nothing with him, he wandered off, I imagine down this path,” she says pointing into the forest, “I thought we can go together and see where he got off too?”

Baylor scoffs, “oh, you need our help then, I see,” he says crossing his arms.

Serenity’s shoulders slump, “I barely know the guy and I am freaking out that he is missing, and these two dolts act like I am forcing them to do something” she rants to herself.

The young girl turns and looks at them, “listen, I don’t think I have much of a horse in this race, I can walk away and never look back,” she says talking slowly and deliberately, like she was looking at a 5 year old, “but Wilder was standing here, I looked over a window to see if it was opened recently, and turned back… poof. Gone.”

She wildly flails her arms around, her eyes big and piercing.

Baylor then realizes what she is talking about, “Oh, oh.” He looks around, unsheathes his weapon. “OK, yeah let’s go in and see what we find.”

Lyric, still confused, unsheathes her weapon once Baylor does. “We draw? Wilder in trouble?” she asks.

Serenity at this point just wanted to punch her in the face, but she calmly turns and nods her head, “Yes, could be, people are going missing around here, and now your boss goes missing too?”

Lyric nods her head, but Serenity is pretty sure she has no clue.

They walk into the forest, and despite Wilder’s two groupies being less than intelligent, they can sneak pretty damn good.

After about 5 minutes Lyric gets everyone’s attention and points out a faint glow in the forest. Her dark vision is mixing with normal vision allowing her to see things better.

The group slowly approaches and they can see Wilder talking to this tall gorgeous woman, dressed in colorful rags, mostly purple, some symbols on her body and a wonderful crafted staff in her hands.

“Feel bad, not liking,” Lyric says softly in broken common.

“Wilder that rascally ol’ devil, he found the best looking girl in the town and is just talking with her, so no wonder he followed,” Baylor says, getting up from his hidden position and walking to them.

Without thinking, Serenity does the same, follows Baylor to Wilder and what appears to be this gorgeous druid woman (both failed wisdom save).

Lyric looks around and can see two creatures climbing through the trees towards them. Her gut is screaming right now that this is wrong. Why would they call this “thing” attractive, she thinks. The half wild elf looks upon the “druid” and sees scaly green skin, drooping flesh, dark evil eyes and a body that looks distorted (she made her wisdom save).

She draws her Crossbow and aims it at the Druid. Her mind is conflicted, and she does remember Wilder telling her she should not act on her own. But her instincts are rarely wrong, so she takes a deep breath and fires…

The bolt sails towards the, thing, that Lyric sees. The three that stand in front of this beautiful woman see a bolt strike her dead center, in between her cleavage (15hp – sneak attack). A brief look of pain washes over her face and like a TV station losing reception, the original visual of this stunning druid starts to change.

“Who did that…” Wilder begins to say, whipping his head back to see Lyric reloading her crossbow, behind some branches, a bush; half hidden.

The wild elf points back to the Druid, and the three look only to find this hideous looking, thing, standing in front of them. It looks like it is debating on whether or not to pull out the bolt.

Everyone’s eyes bulge and they immediately draw their weapon. “where did the hot druid go, son of a bitch!” Exclaims wilder shaking his head.

The hag then realizes her ruse is over and she lets out a cackle. With that two creatures drop down from the trees, long arms and legs, green, large mouths with many teeth. One cozies up to the hag, the other dropped close to Wilder.

Serenity remembers her guardian always telling her, the first to strike almost always wins the battle. She rips out her Khopesh blade with a “shing” sound and slashes at the closest enemy, the choker that dropped next to it’s master. A sound of a precision blade swinging and hitting nothing but air is heard. “Damn, damn!” she mumbles to herself, knowing she just got a little too excited.

Baylor watches as the new girl whiffs, pulls out his weapon, he turns to the other creature that seems to be creeping up on Wilder. “I’ll show her how it’s done,” as he lunges for it and drives his rapier deep into the creature. At first the skin bent and turned but with the force he drove it in, the sword goes all the way to the hilt (8hp of damage). He gives Serenity a cocky look that made her shake her head.

The wiley old vet sees Baylor taking care of the Choker, he takes his favorite sword out and goes for the now nasty looking hag. Unfortunately the Choker creatures have a long reach, and it hits Wilder hard in his side (7hp of damage) but worse yet, it almost bowls over Baylor to grapple Wilder (who failed his savings throw). “This escalated quickly,” he mumbles a bit, eyes getting bigger not expecting any of this.

Baylor catches his balance only to see his boss get hugged by this nasty smelling choker, “smooth move diarrhea,” he says with a bit of snarkiness, only to get a fierce glance from Wilder who does not look happy.

The creature that has him tied up chomps onto the old thieves shoulder, making him wince and yelp a little (15hp of damage). “You don’t want any of this, I’m old and taste of gristle.”

With all the action going on, Lyric aims again for the Choker next to the Hag, because Serenity knew enough to get out of the way for her. But the Hag is in too close of combat with Baylor and Wilder. Lyric carefully fires and the choker saw if coming a mile away. With its wild long arms it swats it out of the air.

The hag seeing the one man being handled by her lovely, she takes a few steps over and attacks Baylor who just turned to meet her hideous gaze. The green monster swipes hard and Baylor tries to dodge, but he was not quick enough. The claws rip through a bit of his arm and through some of his armor as well (5hp).

The other choker watching his master attack Baylor decides to try and stay by her side. It was a mistake as Serenity was in range. The young Assassin swings her bluesteel weapon and rips through the creature unsuspectingly (7hp of damage). The creature makes a weird cough sound, lunges forward and does not even turn to look.

Even with the injury it attacks Wilder, just hitting over the head with its tentacle (4hp of damage). Wilder rolls his eyes a bit, thinking he would rather be drinking or fucking instead.

Smelling blood in the water, for lack of better terms, Serenity dashes to the creatures left, flanking it. She leans in with a slash but took a bad angle, the blade glances off the creatures skin. “Rubbery ugly slimy bitch!” she yells a bit, getting frustrated.

Baylor scrambles around from the hit, and swings at the Choker holding his boss. It rips through the arm, almost cutting it off, and he finishes it with a plunge of his sword (10hp). It shrieks, croaks, groans and then releases Wilder. It collapses with a big splat.

The hags eyes bulge, she lets out a shriek, “no!!!” Anger washes over her face as she turns back to the battle.

With the other choker just in reach, the now freed Wilder lunges for the creature, dipping a good portion of his sword into it’s chest (5hp). It twirls a bit, weird dark blood splatters out from it.

Still hidden, and seeing the Hag come into view more, Lyric has her crossbow already reset. Unseen by the Hag, the wild elf fires her crossbow and it hits the undisguised creature right in it’s left boob. From the hidden area, it hits hard, making the creature stammer back and gasp a bit (critical with sneak attack 24hp of damage).

Serenity watches this and shakes her head, “Lyric thinks two plus two equals banana, but she sure can sling a bolt damn good.”

With some rage and fury, with a sickening cackle, she brings her hands up and it catches Baylor, her claws digging deep into the man (9hp of damage) lifting him off the ground. His eyes get big as pain shoots through his body.

Again, Serenity situates herself apart from the remaining choker. Taking a much better angle, she slices and this time her aim was true. Her blade rips from the top, to the lower part of its neck area (9hp). The head flails for a second, as its arms do. It didn’t have a chance to make a noise as the body oddly collapses like a skin that lost it’s water.

With that, Serenity moves back behind the hag to keep an eye on her and to make sure she stays out of the way of Lyric and her Crossbow.

Baylor disengages with the Hag, but his grip on his weapon has gotten soft. He raises it up to strike and the rapier flings from his hand, wiggling across the forest floor, a good ten feet from him. His eyes bulge a little, but wince with the pain of the hag hits.

Serenity meets eyes with Baylor for a moment and she gives him a “really?” look and head shake.

Wilder can’t do much other than chuckle. “What was that? Smooth move what?”

“Diarrhea!” Lyric yells a good 15 feet away from the fray.

With that exchange the old thief stabs the hag right into the gut, giving her a wide eyed look, “you looked so much better just a minute ago and I ain’t even drinking!” (8hp)

Lyric moves and tries to get another shot off, but between trees, branches and her companions fighting she just doesn’t have a good shot. “bullocks!” she exclaims.

The young Assassin drops her sword, grabs her bow and strings up an arrow. She pulls back with all her might as the hag is looking at Wilder after his attack. A quick loud “ping” sound pops off Serenity’s bow. The arrow strikes true, it lodges into her left eye and shatters into 3-4 pieces inside the skull (rolled a 20, 13hp of damage).

The hag instinctively reaches for her eye, but by the time her hand reached her head, she was collapsing with a hideous shriek and a thud on the forest floor.

With the bow still aimed at the now dead hag, Serenity looks around to make sure there is no more creatures.

Wilder glances down at the hag, “I think she got the point, don’t you think?” He chuckles looking around with a goofy smile.

“That was terrible, don’t make me attack you,” Baylor says with a lifted eyebrow, dusting himself off, looking at his wounds that are hurting right now.

Lyric brings down her crossbow and walks to the party, dopey look on her face. “Quick to fire, my wrong Wilder, felt bad, nasty looked bad.”

Serenity wrinkles her eyebrows, looks down trying to figure out what the hell she just said. In the meantime, she puts her bow back, grabs her Khopesh and sheathes it.

“It is OK, my dear Lyric, you did good. Saved us from who knows what really,” he says putting his arm around her.

Baylor starts for his Rapier somewhere on the forest floor, grumbling about how the battle took a turn for the worse for him.

Lyric walks from Wilder to Baylor to see how he is doing. They smile at each other, as they both start looking for the missing rapier.

The young Assassin squats at the hag, she wrinkles her nose. She starts to look her over when she feels a hand on her shoulder. With uncanny reflex speed, she rips a Karambit (dagger) from her wrist sheath and brings it up, only to have it blocked by Wilder, eyes huge.

“Whoa, whoa, girl, just me,” he says with a slight, nervous chuckle. “I for one am glad you stuck around, you come in very handy.”

Serenity smiles, puts her dagger back, and looks at Wilder. “The staff is the only thing worth anything really,” handing it to the old thief.

Their eyes meet and for the girl she smiles a little, and that’s it. But for Wilder it hits him a bit different. The beauty of this girl, her smell, the feel of her skin, her skill in battle… it kind of hits him, and he feels butterflies form in his stomach.

“Indigestion?” Serenity asks giving him an odd look seeing him starting to flush.

Wilder nods, smiles and then looks over to his right hand man.

Baylor finally finds his sword, sheathes it and heads over to the other two with Lyric.

The old thief cuts off the head of the hag, much to his displeasure. He puts it in an odd looking bag, then again in a normal burlap sack. “Man, I hate that part.”

“We should look for her, or it’s, abode, I bet there is some loot, or I mean possible survivors there,” Serenity suggests to the group.

They all exchange glances and nod their head in agreement.

“Yeah, survivors, check for that,” Wilder says with a bit of muse beckoning the group to start looking.

Part Two

After about a half hour of looking for the obvious, Lyric yelps a little and there is a distant thud that can be heard.

The other three go running over to where they heard the sound and there is Lyric holding her head, in a dry mud hole that has some make shift, half bark, half wood door on the far side.

“A gold piece says this is the hags, what did you call it, Abode?” Wilder says snapping his fingers. He jumps down into the pit that was about 6 feet deep and the other two join him.

Serenity steps in front and draws her arm across to stop anyone, “easy, easy, if this is her abode, then…”

Baylor’s eyes bulge a bit and he says somewhat angrily, “this is not your call, we get the same share of the loot as anyone, how…”

Wilder shoves Baylor a bit making him stop and catch his balance, “let the girl talk will you?”

“As I was trying to say, what are the chances she has anymore of her little friends here? Just hanging out. I have not seen one since, but who knows what she has curled up at her bedside or waiting to pounce,” the beautiful young woman says, remembering her guardian telling her over and over again; be prepared, never let your guard down.

Lyric quietly unsheathes her weapon and Serenity gives her a look, nod and a smile. Lyrics face perked up and smiled back.

With the dexterity of a veteran assassin, Serenity pulls out her daggers in her wrist sheath, twirls them a bit and looks at the party. They look at each other then Wilder snaps too, realizing this is his call.

He walks to the door, checks it for traps, and finds none. Slowly pulls open the door, it skitters across the dry mud floor base of this hole. Wilder waits for a terrible smell or a creature to come bounding out. But got neither.

“Smells like incense in here,” he says nodding his head a little, then taking out his sword, heads in slowly and quietly.

The inside is extraordinary. It is about 25ft x 20ft, almost completely circular. The floors were a bit dirty, but polished cobblestone. The walls, albeit a bit rough, still wonderfully crafted. The center has a brazier that has a place for a hanging pot, though none are apparent in the room, it also lights and heats the place. Then around the center, up against the walls are tables, chairs, a couch, chests and shelves. Books, nick nacks, some food, ingredients all around.

The four party members have all made their way in, eyes a bit wide from seeing the cozy little place.

“Are we sure this is hers? It looks awful nice, and I don’t see any dead bodies laying around,” Baylor says quietly.

Then without warning (they all failed the passive perception roll) one of the hags’ creatures falls on top of Serenity. The girl had just enough time to look, put her arm up. With that, the creature took a bite out of her arm (3hp). She tumbles to the side, and the creature hops off and slides to the far wall. It’s eyes large seeing 4 unfamiliar faces in his “home.”

Lyric lifts her crossbow up, “bye bye wiggly wonker,” she mutters and she lets the bolt fly (rolls a natural 20, 18hp of damage). The bolt sails right through the eye socket, through its pea brain and out the back. They here a thud, as the bolt is now lodged in the wall. The creature did not even have time to yell, or gurgle. It just reaches for its eye and clumsily collapses on the floor.

Serenity hisses a bit at her wound, just some bite marks across her forearm. She takes the shirt she ripped apart previously and ties the teeth marks up for now.

“Lyric, you are amazing with that crossbow!” the young Assassin professes, then with a bit of playfulness, “wiggly wonker?” she asks, glancing over to Lyric.

Baylor and Wilder chuckle at the comment.

Lyric is looking at Serenity, smile washing over her face. She then tilts her head, tucks some hair behind her ear and shrugs her shoulders.

Wilder is now looking up seeing that the center of this tree-house goes up a good 20-25 feet. Roots and branches are through the packed mud and dirt above. Light shines through some areas.

“That is where they can get in and out I am guessing,” the old thief says pointing upwards.

Everyone glances up and nods. Wilder directs Lyric to keep her eye on the ceiling. Took him 5 minutes to explain it to her, but she finally figured it out. She gets her crossbow ready and is looking up.

After looting the place, they end up with 5 platinum, 22 gold, 40 silver for coins. Some ingredients that Wilder can sell off, some clothes that are pretty nice, a few gems, a couple potions, a few raw looking daggers and a staff that is ornately crafted.

Serenity, is looking at a chest with a raised eyebrow, and that doesn’t go unnoticed by Wilder, “you have that look in your eye, honey,” he says walking over to her.

Baylor and Lyric exchange quick glances.

The young Assassin looks to Wilder, “honey? really? Serenity. Will be just fine,” she says looking back down to the chest.

She squats and is running her hand across the floor.

Wilder than sees it, “oh, this gets moved a lot, doesn’t it?” he says with his eyebrows raised.

The two of them pull on it and it unveils a trap door. They exchange glances and the old thief shrugs his shoulders. He looks the door over, its not locked, its not trapped. He opens and a waft of air that smells of death, decay and mold. It goes down about 8-10 feet, a ladder on the far wall to climb down.

Everyone coughs a little, but they all stop once they hear a noise. All of their eyes are big.

After a minute, they can hear a mans voice, “just kill me, please… get it over with I beg of you…” and then a female voice, “I’m tired of hearing your shit, shut up already will you?”

Wilder looks at Serenity and Baylor and he motions for them to drop in. “This is going to hurt a little, but we have too…”

The old thief takes a deep breath and down the hole he goes. (rolls a 6 for acrobatics) Wilder hits the floor, tumbles and yells a bit, twisting his ankle.

Serenity chuckles a bit as she is heading down next, her Kurumbits in her hands at the ready. (rolls a 17) She lands, tumbles to one side, then jumps up, crouching, both daggers drawn. The smell is almost overwhelming. “You are the clumsiest thief I’ve ever known…” she mutters with a smirk on her face, realizing she has not known any really before him.

Baylor goes to jump, his foot gets caught on something and he heads down face first (rolled a 2). Lands hard making him gasp (takes 3hp of damage).

This underground room is hastily carved out from mud, roots and limbs. It is about 20 feet by 20 feet. To the left is a pile of what looks to be bodies. To the right is a cauldron, possibly a limb of the hags last victim hanging out of it. Straight ahead is two people strung up, one badly beaten and barely alive. One woman who is naked, her hair a mess, a black eye, bruised face, she is very dirty but seems to be in decent shape for the most part. The man has half a shirt on, his face looked to be a punching bag, but it seems a good portion of his chest and shoulder has been sampled on by the hag and her little pets. Adding to that there are slashes and bruises all over his body.

Serenity bolts over to the people and starts to cut them down.

Wilder hopping on one leg is looking over to Baylor who’s face is now that of mud, dirt and some stones. The thief lets out a hearty laugh and shakes his head, “that was as graceful as I have ever seen!”

“Fuck that hurt, this place sucks!” Baylor exclaims, hurt and embarrassed. He starts to wipe the crap off his face and armor.

The party gets the two out of the underground death chamber, to the nice circular tree-house. Serenity gives them some clothes they found to put on.

“Who, who are you people? What are you doing here?” the man says stammering a bit, drinking from the water skin Serenity gave him.

Wilder is on a chair looking over his ankle, “well we are not the high flying trapeze artists apparently,” he says with a chuckle and then a frown as he feels his now swollen ankle.

The woman is somewhat frantic now, “where is the other hag? She could return at any moment!”

Serenity then passes her water skin to the woman, “No, that hag is face first dead in the forest about a half hour away from here.”

Taking a drink and coughing a bit at that comment, she looks at the four of them, “I don’t believe you…” she shakes her head defiantly.

Wilder shakes his head, walks over to a table nonchalant as the woman is drinking the skin. He looks to see everyone is out of range. In a blink of an eye, he unsheathes his sword, and rips through the neck of the woman in one violent motion. Blood spurts everywhere as the party flinches and ducks. The rescued man’s eyes bulge and he stumbles, falls and pins himself up against the wall.

Lyric is still looking up, glances down and nods. (Baylor, Wilder and Serenity fail the wisdom save, Lyric passes)

“Yeah, another nasty nasty,” she spouts, in the wild elf’s brand of broken common.

As the headless woman falls to the floor, it slowly changes over to another hag, green, saggy skin, worts and all.

Serenity wipes off a blood splatter, “whoa, how did you know that?”

“Experience my dear, experience,” wilder says wiping down his blade and sheathing it. “I put two and two together. First off, the last two people that went missing were male, not female. Made no sense that there was a female in decent shape down there. Second, there was another ornately created staff in the tree-house portion, I don’t think she would have more than one staff at the ready. Thirdly, she wasn’t scared really, in fact was yelling at this jamoke over here. Fourthly, wait, fourthly? Anyways, she was worried about the “other” “hag” coming back, with a tone of voice that was more curious than afraid, not to mention she called it a “hag” and to be honest the average person wouldn’t really know what a hag was. Finally her reaction when you said the hag was dead put the cherry on top for me,” Wilder said, rambling on, while standing, testing his ankle a bit.

The rescued man is staring at them, shaking a bit. “I am just a man, I am not a creature or hag or whatever,” he says scared out of his wits.

The young Assassin smiles at Wilder, for the first time, impressed and a little jealous she did not put some of those signs together first.

After a few more minutes of looking around, Serenity does the best she can to bind the wounds of the injured man, they head out. Baylor is marking some trees to find the tree-house again for the authorities. After about 15 minutes they find their way out of the Forest, by the house they were investigating.

The party walks around the house only to find a few guards and Camden, lead guard of Swanley Crow. They are in conversation and quickly turn to the party as they emerge from the side of the house.

“Dammit Wilder, where have you been? I was gathering men to go look for you!” The lead guard yells, somewhat red faced, “you could of alerted…”

Camden started to walk over and skitters to a halt, seeing one of the missing residents walking with the party. “You. Found him? You found, them?”

Wilders eyes a bit wide, giving him a look, and he nods his head, “unfortunately, most of them I only found parts, but we did manage to save this one,” he finishes thumbing in the direction of the rescued man.

One of the guards walks over, takes the man by the arm and is leading him away.

“What happened?” Camden asks, looking back at the old thief.

Wilder explains to the lead guard what happened and he seemed to be thrilled with the results. As the group was heading out of the front yard, a group of four guards head into the forest to follow the trail Baylor left.

The lead guard guides them back to the town hall, and Wilder heads in alone with Camden. He walks out, big smile on his face.

“Open up, daddy has some treats!” the old thief says, and it makes Serenity cringe a little, it was a bit creepy.

Both Baylor and Lyric open their pouches and it looks like he drops in a good 10-15 gold into each pouch. Wilder looks at Serenity and she just shakes her head. Baylor goes to say something, as though he wanted to take her share but decides against it.

He nods and the old thief moves the group to their horses, on the road and back to Breakwater Wharf.

Part Three

It was a beautiful day, and the ride was pleasant. Baylor was rubbing his neck a little from his fall, still bleeding a bit from the hag attack. Serenity had to jump on Lyric’s horse, because Wilder was carrying the rest of the loot and the hags head. The wild elf grabs Serenity’s hands and brings them around her waist. “Tight hold, slip not” she blurts out, looking back to the young assassin. Lyric is staring out into space and Serenity was wondering how she is even controlling her horse.

Eventually they make it into Breakwater and back to the “dolphin” as Wilder’s group likes to call the tavern.

It was late afternoon now, everyone was getting hungry and the thief orders a few to go cook some grub. Looks like the party was starting early, people already drinking and hooting-hollering.

Serenity sighs, sits down in the corner and is tending to her wound. Baylor heads upstairs, mentioning something about a bath. The young assassins eyes light up a bit with that.

Wilder makes his way over to the girl, sits down, pushes a mug of ale her way. “You did good today, you did damn good,” he says sincerely and giving her a warm look.

She shrugs her shoulders, and peers into the mug. She wrinkles her nose and that makes Wilder laugh a little.

“Why did you not take your cut of the reward, there is still more, especially with the money coming in from the reaper and blade,” he says raising an eyebrow, “you going to say no to that too?”

Again, she shrugs her shoulders, looking back at the thief.

“Well, fine. You don’t seem much for trinkets and jewelry, so… this you are not giving back,” he says, pulling out an all black dagger, the finest craftsmanship and it is a bluesteel zinc coated blade, near indestructible. It has ridges on the backside and the handle is perfectly woven with leather. “I won this in a bet a long time ago, always wanted to use it but never have. I think it could fit your fighting style.”

She tried to hide it, but it showed. Her face lit up, smiling, as she takes possession of the black dagger. The wiley ol thief slides over the small scabbard that is precision made and marvelous. “This is something her guardian would of used,” she thinks to herself. She balances it, and it’s perfection.

“Thank you. I will not be returning this gift, it is beautiful,” she says softly, still looking at the blade and leather work.

He nods, “I see your eyes lit up when a bath was mentioned, you can use mine out back,” Wilder says pointing past the counter and to a back door. “I won’t peak, honest.”

Serenity gives him a suspicious eye, but does not hesitate too much, she is accustomed to taking daily baths and she hasn’t taken one in a few days. She also wants to get her shoulder and forearm wound cleaned up.

The young woman heads back into a room, that is apparently Wilder’s. Humble furnishings, a bed that is disheveled, a few things on the ground, an empty mug or two. She walks to the slightly ajar door and she finds the bathtub and a compost toilet.

The Assassin glances around and after a minute figures how the water system works. It’s a pully system that brings water into the very large rod iron bottomed tub, with a porcelain top. Under neath is a line of coals and sticks to light to get it warm. After the bath was warming up, she undresses and turns to a mirror.

Looking over her shoulder wound after unbinding it makes Serenity wince a bit, but it is actually healing quite nicely; just a little tender. She then looks at her forearm, and frowns, thinking how dumb she was, not checking the room better.

She puts out the flames, and checks the tub and it is a perfect temperature. Just then the door opens. With stealth like reflexes, the young assassin lunges to her clothes, grabs a Karumbit and aims it at the intruder.

Lyric takes one step farther into the room, gingerly, wide eyes and closes the door.

Putting the blade back and somewhat covering herself, “Uhh, Lyric, I was taking a bath?” the assassin says giving the wild elf a look.

She gives the young woman a look back, walks to the basin, puts down some towels. She then takes a vial and pours a bit of liquid in the bath. The room suddenly fills with an absolutely wonderful smell of flowers and citrus.

“That happy smells!” Lyric says, wide eyes and smiling. She starts to take off her armor and clothes.

Serenity chuckles at the comment and furries her brow thinking, “happy smells” is oddly correct.

By the time she realized it the assassin was standing next to a naked wild elf, dipping her hand in the big tub. Lyric nods and steps into the tub, she gets situated and leans back. Then looks up to the young assassin, who has never been naked in front of anyone in her life, hell, she has never saw anyone naked either.

Lyric tilts her head, “tub, clean, water no waste,” she spits out, and Serenity is still contemplating.

“ahh, hell,” she climbs into the tub, the water was almost soft from the liquid, the smell was relaxing and the young woman leans back and sighs. She starts to clean herself a bit, cupping water and putting it over her wound first.

Suddenly Lyric moves forward and is now inbetween Serenity’s legs. Lyric is tilting her head, she brings a sponge out of the water, “clean?”

“Uhh, thank you,” she says grabbing the sponge, but Lyric does not let go of it. “umm, thank. you?” Still, the wild elf is not letting go.

“wiffle around, rub there,” Lyric says, making a circle motion with her hand.

Serenity can only guess she wants her to turn around so she can wash her back, “Ok, I will, wiffle, around.”

She turns, water sloshes a bit, and Lyric starts to clean her back, her shoulder and the wounded shoulder, but oddly enough she was very light with that area. Serenity has never felt anything like this, always alone, never anyone around to talk, touch or experience things. Lyric is all but done with her back, then grabs Serenity’s arms and gently brings her back into her.

The young assassin was in heaven and just kind of went with it. She leans back into the wild elf, as she is cleaning her front, her breasts, her arms and was dipping for the middle region when Serenity sits up suddenly.

“OK, I can clean that part myself,” she says with a nervous laugh, turns to face the very naked and surprisingly, very beautiful Lyric.

The wild elf smiles and nods her head, she then hands the sponge to Serenity.

“Oh, your turn?” she says, figuring fair is fair, might as well clean her, wiffle around then.”

Lyric turns around and Serenity starts to clean the Wild Elf off. She can see some scars here and there, a funky tan line from the armor and clothes, being outside and all.

When her back was all clean, slowly, Serenity takes her arms and brings her back into her, they are both leaning back into the tub. Lyric sighs, and Serenity is very tense, confused and oddly enough, excited.

She starts to clean the rest of the wild elf, and before she could stop, Lyric grabs her hand with the sponge and dips it in the middle region. The Wild elf leans her head back and almost snuggles into Serenity. A soft moan and a shiver from Lyric makes Serenity’s senses go off the charts. She read a few romance novels, looked over books about anatomy, but this… is something she never dreamed would happen.

After a few minutes, Lyric turns and faces Serenity, grabs her face and softly kisses her.

The stunned Assassin, not sure what to do, leans into the kiss. Her first kiss, and it was pretty incredible. The scent was intoxicating, Lyrics body was so soft, and her lips were like magnets to hers.

Serenity’s mind is racing, her first encounter of any kind and it was with a woman? She thinks to herself. The two lean back, Lyric on top. The water sloshing about, as the Wild elf starts to make her way down Serenity’s neck.

It finally hits the young woman, and she realizes this is going to turn into something, well, more. She knows she is not ready for it.

She takes the wild elf’s face, brings it up to hers. Instinctively she kisses her, it was a wonderful kiss, she could feel it in her toes. Then pulls back.

“Lyric, I would want to take things slow. I have never, you know,” she says to her tub companion, looking her in the eyes, forgetting about Lyrics intelligence level for a moment.

Lyric tilts her head and oddly enough it seems she understood. The wild elf kisses Serenity’s forehead, turns back around and leans against her. The assassin wraps her legs around the wild elf. The two snuggle in the tub, splashing a bit and even giggling.

The two exit the tub, drain it, towel each other off and head out, hand in hand.

Wilder is at his dresser, a large bag of goodies in front of him, he looks to be counting coins. He glances over and double takes. “Well, well, I hope I am not interrupting?” He says with wide eyes and an ever growing smile.

Serenity lets go of Lyrics hand, and starts to blush.

Lyric tilts her head, “no bother, clean clean now!” The Wild elf bounds out the door back into the bar room.

“Didn’t see that coming,” the old thief says in a playful manner, giving the young woman a look from the corner of his eye.

The young assassin shakes her head and quickly leaves the room.

With the success on today’s job, the extra reward money and the loot they found, it was an all out party. Drinks, food, yelling, laughing, a few fights and people getting drunk, real drunk.

Serenity was feeling tired after the good meal, and the bath. She heads for the stairs only to get her hand grabbed. She turns and it is Lyric looking at her with puppy dog eyes.

“I’m tired Lyric, heading to bed ok?” She says with a soft smile.

The wild elf nods her head, looks down, still holding her hand. A few awkward moments pass.

Lyric then looks up to Serenity and without warning, with her other hand takes the wild elfs cheek, brings it to her and she kisses her deeply. The young woman is running her hand through the wild elf’s hair. The sensation was amazing, the adrenaline, the excitement. It is all too new for the young woman and she is starting to really enjoy it.

After a minute of kissing, they pull back realizing the bar room was now dead silent. Everyone’s eyes were on them, mouth to the floor and somewhat shocked.

“Show’s over!” Serenity yells, squeezes Lyrics hand and heads up the stairs.

End Chapter Three