116. Punishment
Blood stains the sand as Feathers stands up, dripping from her fingertips and pumping from between Peanut's legs. The ex-cheif looks to have passed out, which is some mercy.
Feathers looks down at him for a long moment, before picking her glaive up. She swings it through the air in a long loop that ends with the tip of the blade under Peanut's chin.
“Anyone else say I no chief? Anyone else say they not joining us?”
The crowd is silent.
She holds position for five seconds, her eyes slowly drifting over the crowd. Each Longtooth goblin she meets the gaze of drops their eyes. Each of your goblins sits just a little straighter. Finally, she snorts and shakes her head.
“You all Redscale goblins now.”
You accept the system message, and you can nearly feel your Fame reserve swell. Each of the new recruits is weak, but twenty one sets of five fame is still over a hundred.
You have to fight the strange sensation of your soul wanting to belch. The hundred fame from just moments ago is totally dwarfed by the amount you've just been awarded.
You don't have much time to digest the development however, as your victorious greenskin gestures you down into the pit, scuffing at the floor until she finds a fist sized rock.
“Heat please. He no bleed out. He live.”
You pause for a second, eyeing the still unconscious Peanut. It's not your preferred outcome – you'd rather just kill him.
You breathe fire on the stone, keeping your flames in a tight lance, till it glows cherry red. Amanda summons a skeletal snake which lifts the stone in it's mouth and vanishes beneath the bloody loincloth.
Peanut wakes up, briefly, to scream at the sound and smell of bubbling flesh, only to choke on his mouthful of blood and bits. The glaive spins, the flat of the blade catching him in the temple and sending him back to dreamland.
You turn to your kobold team.
“Take him out of the lair. To the forest maybe, I don't really care.”
Jack salutes and Sienna nods, before they speed off – presumably for something to drag him around with, but as you said, you don't care. You trust they'll do the job, and that's all you need.
You catch Amanda's eye.
“Can you get the goblins set up? Explain they'll need names, show them around, things like that?”
She nods at you and strides away.
So different from the Meek and Kind adventurer you once met.
Then, with all the immediate issues delegated to your maximum ability, you turn to Feathers and bare her to the ground.
She gets half a laugh out as you pin her to the sand as you shower her in kisses. When you pull away her eyes are sparkling. The crowd, not yet corralled by Amanda, catcall and holler.
“That,” you kiss her again, lingering, “was amazing. You destroyed him, utterly, and made it look easy.”
“Was easy,” she shrugs with a smile.
You lean in for another kiss but are stopped by a small cough. Sapphire slips under your arm as you raise yourself slightly, and sits on Feathers' hips, her back against your chest before she leans down and captures Feathers' lips in a kiss of her own. When they finally separate both are panting heavily, and Feathers' eyes are slightly glassy.
Sapphire turns to you, twisting to look you in the eyes as her hands start to fiddle with the edges of Feather's outfit.
“Empower her.”
You nod, and after getting a weak thumbs up from a increasingly distracted Feathers, purchase a Combat Empowerment for her.
The physical changes are minimal – her eyes, already a golden yellow, now posses flecks of your own ruby red; and her hair has a slight red sheen in the light.
But when Sapphire pulls back from another kiss, a tongue of flame curls out of Feathers' mouth, embers dancing in the air between them as Sapphire's hands vanish beneath the gobliness' clothing.
You try.
You really try to contain yourself.
You're better than this. You know you are.
“That's hot.”
Feathers' glassy look of pleasure vanishes in an instant, replaced with an exasperated scowl. Sapphire lets out an anguished moan, like a wounded animal.
You snort, then start to laugh. After a moment or two, they join you, Sapphire sitting back against you and smoothing Feathers' clothes down, causing her to pout playfully – Her own hands are still firmly on the kobold's ass and show no sign of moving.
“That was awful, sir.”
You snort again, and nuzzle the side of Sapphire's head.
“I know. And you know you don't have to call me Sir all the time, right?”
She rolls her eyes at you. “Don't change the subject. And yes. But in public it stops the others from thinking what we do in private stops us being professional when needed... and in private I know you like it.”
You look down at the two of them beneath you, Sapphire's small hands apparently having naturally gravitated to Feathers' breasts.
“Yes. It would be awful if Bulwark thought we were being unprofessional.”
Your kobold shakes her head with a smile, then shifts backwards. You don't complain as you're gently ousted from your position, allowing the two of them to stand.
Sapphire takes Feathers' hand in her own, and you are treated to the sight of your bad-ass, murderous, rage filled goblin barbarian become a blushing mess as Sapphire whispers something in her ear.
Sapphire reaches up and cups your jaw, placing a small kiss against your lips.
“You'd better come and find us tonight.”
“Not now?” you ask, in a certainly not disappointed tone.
Sapphire shakes her head. “You have things to check up on, lair things to do and goblins to name. I'll be keeping Feathers well cared for, don't worry. She deserves some pampering. And now you get to spend the rest of the day, doing lots of wonderful admin – counting stones, talking to goblins, working out patrols and gathering schedules... while imagining all of the depraved things I'll be doing to our green girl. And you get to look forward to joining us in... oh, five or six hours.”
Feathers gulps, her eyes wide and her fingers flexing as if grasping for something, but her arms remain at her sides and her back remains ramrod straight.
“Don't worry,” Sapphire purrs, “I'll make sure there's enough of her left for you to have your fun too. We'll see you la-ter, sir.”
You watch them leave, Sapphire leading the larger gobliness by the hand, because as much as you'd rather follow them, Sapphire did have a point. You do have a lot to do, to fully integrate the new goblins.
Then a thought occurs to you, and you shout just as they vanish around the corner.
“This isn't to do with admin, is it? This is because I made that stupid PUN!”
Hand holding? How LEWD!
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