Chapter 31: The High Priestess of Xoth

While Gretel and Lexi polished off the remainder of their coffee and breakfast, Samantha ducked back upstairs to her room to get quickly cleaned up from her morning run. Once the party was then reassembled, they set out for the Temple of Xoth, the mage leading the way, pink hair bouncing under her wide-brimmed hat as she pointed out directions and city landmarks with her staff as the trio walked along.

At length, the temple came into sight. Built entirely of white marble, its design reminded Lexi strongly of the neoclassical architecture that had so impressed her during her High School trip to Washington DC. Lexi and Samantha both marveled at the enormous pillars and vaulted ceiling as the party climbed the dozens of steps that led from the edge of the road up to the temple’s massive entryway.

Shit! Lexi thought to herself, the sight of the temple pulling on a small thread tucked away in the back of her mind. I’m a paladin, right? So, that’s got to mean that I’m supposed to be championing some god’s cause. Fuck me, I never even thought to ask that fucking faerie about it, and SHE didn’t bother to mention anything. Still, it hasn’t bitten me in the ass yet…but I wonder if that’s about to change?

As it was still early in the morning, there were few supplicants coming to the temple to make their offerings to the goddess. As the goddess of starlight, the mage explained, Xoth’s devotees typically honored her at dusk, just as the evening stars first begin illuminating the sky. That being the case, the only human activity the adventurers observed as they entered the temple were young acolytes, bustling about busily with their morning errands and tasks.

“Excuse me,” Gretel said politely pulling one of the young acolytes aside. “We’re hoping to speak with a priestess regarding a pretty serious curse that’s been placed on my friend here by a greenskin priestess during a recent quest we were completing for the guild.”

“Oh my!” the acolyte gasped, covering her mouth in shock. She was a pretty young brunette, probably close to Lexi’s own age, the paladin guessed. Like all the acolytes, she wore a simple white robe, tied about the waist with a golden threaded cord, the robe being sleeveless to show the girl’s long graceful arms. “If it were some matter of minor healing, I or another acolyte would be happy to assist, but for something like that, I daresay only the high priestess would be of any help. If you all would please stay here, I’ll see if I can fetch her.”

“Thanks very much!” Gretel replied as the young girl bounded off, disappearing down one of the temple’s seemingly innumerable marble hallways.

The young acolyte returned barely a minute later, flanked by a very stately older woman whom Lexi immediately assumed must be the high priestess. The first thing the paladin noticed was the woman’s shock of pastel blue hair, bound up prettily into an elaborate bun with a pair of long golden pins, which was offset beautifully by a pair of luminous green eyes. Her compact frame, nearly an entire head shorter than Lexi, was draped in elegantly flowing white linen robes which highlighted her lean physique beautifully, and reminded Lexi strongly of Roman statues of Diana, the virginal goddess of the hunt. The futanari’s cock twitched minutely under her tabard as she silently wondered whether or not these priestesses and acolytes of Xoth were all vestal virgins like Diana’s had been in the antiquity of her old world.

“Greetings adventurers,” the older woman said to the party. “I am called Anya and have been given the honor of serving as this temple’s high priestess of the great goddess Xoth.”

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us so quickly,” Gretel said, inclining her head in deference to the high priestess. “Our situation is quite dire, or else we wouldn’t have come at such an early hour.”

“Yes, my acolyte here,” Anya gestured to the pretty young brunette, who bowed low and then scurried off about whatever duties she had yet to perform that morning. "Informed me of the broad outline of the issue, so I fully understand your haste. Naturally, I will do what I can, particularly as the victim is a paladin in service of the goddess herself.

Double shit! Lexi’s mind screamed. Of course we’d end up at the temple of the deity I’m supposed to be connected with. That’s so fucking typical of game logic, I should’ve realized it as soon as Gretel made the suggestion. Time to just play it cool and hope that this priestess won’t somehow KNOW that I’m just now figuring this out, and that this Xoth — whoever she is — won’t be too pissed either…

“Some such curses can be undone,” Anya continued, apparently not noticing Lexi’s internal consternation. “But it is generally the case that the longer someone had been under a curse’s grip, the more difficult its removal can become. However, enough of this out in the open here. Such talk is not meant for the ears of acolytes or, goddess forbid, any members of the public to overhear. Please follow me to a private chamber where you can explain the entire set of circumstances to me, so I can determine how best to help.”

Anya led the three adventurers to a small chamber, whose five sides mirrored the shape of the golden pentangle the high priestess wore around her slender neck. She closed the door behind them, and indicated for the party to seat themselves on the cushioned benches which lined four of the room’s walls, while she took the large chair set on the room’s fifth wall opposite the door.

“Now that we have some privacy,” the high priestess said. “Please tell me of the curse, my young paladin.”

Lexi took a deep breath, and lifted up the front of her tabard, showing Anya the bindrune which the goblin priestess had branded into the soft white flesh of her lower abdomen as the paladin’s sword ran through her chest. The high priestess’ eyes grew as wide as saucers when they traveled downward to rest on the meaty cock hanging limp between the paladin’s legs. However, to her credit, the older woman snapped her eyes back up to the cursed brand, pretending that she had somehow failed to notice that the beautiful young woman sitting in front of her just happened to have a giant cock dangling from the front of her pussy where a clit would normally be. If possible though, her eyes grew even wider, a dark shadow passing over her face, when she took in the brand.

“I know this mark,” Anya said so quietly it almost came out as a whisper. “This bindrune marks you as having been branded with the Curse of Eternal Lust — Igavese Iha Needus I believe it is rendered in the greenskins’ own tongue. Tell me now, please, how you came to bear this of all cursed brands.”

Lexi relayed the conclusion of her party’s attack on the goblin village to Anya, telling the high priestess everything about how she slew the goblin priestess, and of the pink haze which came over her almost immediately after. And, while Lexi was able to tell Anya about her dissociative loss of bodily control that accompanied what she termed the “pink haze,” Gretel and Samantha supplemented her story with their own accounts of Lexi’s behaviors while apparently under the curse’s grip.

Although Lexi was completely mortified at the frank way in which her companions discussed the distinctly sexual effects of the curse, Anya was mercifully professional about the whole thing. Somehow the high priestess of Xoth managed to keep a straight face when Gretel talked about the almost demonic fervor with which Lexi had fucked the unconscious young noble boy, and Samantha described Lexi trying to fuck her armpit while the monk had carried the paladin over her shoulder out of the tavern.

At length, Lexi and her friends completed their account, leaving the high priestess engrossed with her own quiet contemplation for a moment, as she digested all of the details with which she had been presented.

“Your stories,” Anya said slowly. “Fit the descriptions of the curse that I have read. Although I would hardly consider myself an expert in the field of goblin curses, my knowledge on the subject is probably the most complete that you’ll find within the city’s walls. That said, what I can tell about the curse is only partial in nature, and some of this will be necessarily speculative, given the paucity of information we have about greenskin religion in general, but of their vile deities’ curses in particular.”

“No need to hedge things that much,” Lexi said with a weak smile. “Anything you can tell us is going to be something we didn’t know before, so I’ll count that as a win in my book.”

“Bless you child,” the high priestess said, the gloom clearing from her face for the first time since seeing the brand. “With that kind of attitude, I think you’ll just yet find a way. But as to the curse itself, my understanding is that it serves to periodically inflame the victim with an overwhelming and uncontrollable lust, which can only be sated through orgasm — with the victim being completely incapable of any non-sexual thoughts or deeds during the period when the curse is fully activated.”

“That definitely fits what we’ve seen of it so far,” Gretel said, nodding in agreement.

“I concur,” Samantha chimed in solemnly. “When in the grips of the greenskin curse, our leader was completely consumed and insensible.”

“What I’d like to know first off,” Lexi said. “What do you mean by periodically? Like, just how often am I likely to lose all control of my body and start trying to fuck the first wet hole–”

Realizing the casual vulgarity that had inadvertently slipped out in front of the priestess, Lexi slapped a hand comically over her mouth, her face burning with embarrassment. Again, Anya presented as if she had heard none of the vulgarities, but simply gave Lexi a straightforward — if soul crushing — answer to her pointed question.

“Unfortunately,” Anya responded. “The periodicity with which the curse activates itself is most likely progressive. I say most likely because I am not entirely positive, but based on certain aspects of the bindrune’s composition, I do believe that to be the case. What this means is that the longer you remain marked with the brand, the more frequent these incidents will become. After the initial casting with the boy, it only recurred once yesterday, correct?”

Lexi nodded nervously, a thin sheen of sweat had formed on her brow.

“I would expect,” the high priestess continued, nodding. “That you’ll most likely experience two incidents today, then three tomorrow, and so on. With curses like this, the eternal component is really two-fold, insofar as it is both theoretically applied to you for the rest of your natural life — unless it can be removed — and also in that it eventually results in you being inflamed with the curse’s lust unendingly as the daily recurrences gradually transform from a sequence into a continuum.”

“Theoretically being the operative work,” Lexi said, her inner computer scientist’s mind transforming the priestess’ description into the kind of graph she would have seen in a calculus class back on Earth. “Assuming that I don’t want my waking life to be eternally consumed with unceasing and uncontrollable lust, how can we remove the curse?”

“That,” Anya said, once again looking downcast. “Is going to be a problem. Typically, only the caster can remove a curse, but since this particular curse was cast through the goblin priestess’ death, it make the question of removal particularly problematic. The best thing that I can think of is to seek out a holy relic.”

“What’s a relic?” the paladin asked.

“Relics are holy artifacts which have been blessed directly by the gods,” Anya explained. “Depending on the deity who anointed the object in question, such relics can possess tremendous powers, be they good or evil.”

A shudder ran through Lexi as she envisioned cursed — rather than blessed — relics lurking for unsuspecting adventurers in the bowels of the underworld inhabited by their greenskin foes.

“Thankfully for your case,” the high priestess continued. “I believe that there may be a relic within your party’s grasp that could have the power to lift this curse.”

“Really!?” Gretel blurted out loudly, leaning forward onto the very edge of her seat, her face aglow with excitement. “That’d be amazing! What is it? Where is it?”

“I believe I can do better than merely telling you there whereabouts of this relic, my young mage,” Anya said, smiling indulgently at Gretel’s outburst. “I am all but positive that the temple is in possession of a map which I would be happy to loan to you ladies. And if you are able to retrieve this particular relic and return it to its rightful home here at Xoth’s holy temple, I promise to do everything within my power to use the relic’s might to strip this curse from the paladin.”

“Deal!” the mage said eagerly. Lexi, stunned by the knowledge that there was at least a hope of light at the end of this particular tunnel, nodded her agreement, clutching her hands together nervously. Samantha clapped a reassuringly strong hand on Lexi’s shoulder, giving her an affirming squeeze of silent support.

“Excellent then,” Anya said, clapping her hands together. “I’ll have an acolyte fetch the map, and go over what I know of the relic’s location.”