Chapter 66 – The Red Den

"You’re back!" Vel called out as soon as she saw me and wasted no time running over to give me a big hug. "How did it go? Did you get directions to the Red Den?"

"Yeah, it went quite smoothly. I found a friendly shopkeeper who was more than happy to help me out and point me in the right direction when I asked for help." I said as I returned my girlfriend's hug with a sneaky grope of her slender butt, but she didn’t seem to notice. That’s just how sneaky I was about it. Well, either that or she was used to me casually feeling her up.

"Really?" The young elven woman gave me a suspicious look as she pulled away from the embrace. "Is asking for help really all you did?"

"Why, what did you think I was going to do?" I teased her, knowing full well what kinds of things she might have expected me to do.

"I don’t mean this in a bad way, but given how well I’ve gotten to know you over these past few days, I assumed you were going to do something that would live up to the name of your class. Something slutty or maybe just perverted." Vel casually explained, as if her girlfriend going off and doing something slutty with a random stranger was not a big deal to her.

"Oh, how little faith you have in me." I played around, pretending to be offended but overplaying it to the point it was clear I wasn’t being serious. "After everything I have done for you and everything I have done to you, is that all you think of me as a slut and a pervert? And what of you, my little blue friend? Did you also think I was going to go and blow some random guy in return for getting the directions we needed?"

Saph let out a gurgle of agreement. Apparently, both Vel and they knew me quite well. "You’d be right then. I was actually planning to find a store that wasn’t being frequented much, so I could give the shopkeeper a quick blowjob in exchange for directions. However, he was quite friendly and gave me directions without much of a fuss, so I didn’t suck him off in the end. Although, I did flash him my tits as I left as a sort of thank you."

"Yeah, that sounds more like you." Vel chuckled as she pulled me in for a quick kiss, which I turned into a more in-depth one, accompanied by a bit of above-the-clothing fondling and groping. Of course, Saph got a bit involved in that last bit with their tentacles.

After a few seconds of this, and no doubt drawing more than a few eyes from the passerby's on the street, I pulled away from my girlfriend's lips to find her cheeks flushed, clearly just as aroused as I was. "What do you say to all three of us heading a little deeper into the alley and having a bit of fun?"

"I umm…" Vel hesitated for a moment before clearing her head so that her arousal wouldn’t cloud her judgement. "As much as I would like to have some more fun with you and Saph, do you mind if we go to the Red Den first before we do anything? I’d much rather be somewhere safe and sound before doing anything that might leave us… exposed."

"Sure, anything you want, baby." I responded, completely understanding why she might not have wanted to do such a thing right now, especially when the worries over her father’s safety were still fresh in her mind.

Fuck, now is not really the time to be thinking about sex. I should be more considerate of her feelings and not let my own arousal and pervertedness rule my every action.

"Thank you, Eve…" Vel said as she leaned against me, letting her head rest on my shoulder.

After a few seconds of letting her stay there and finding comfort in my closeness, it was time to move on and head toward our destination. "I can tell that neither of you is accustomed to crowds as large as this, so try and stay close to my side at all times. The Red Den isn’t that far away, so it shouldn’t take us that long to get there, but on the off chance that one of you gets separated from me, try and make your way there on your own, or come back to this alley if you can't find it." I explained before I went into detail, repeating the directions that the shopkeeper, Ryan, told me.

Once both Saph and Vel were clear on how to get to our destination if we got separated in the bustling crowd, it was time to head out. Thankfully, though, neither of them actually managed to get separated from me. Both of them took up positions right behind me, practically standing in my shadow, as I navigated through the crowd and down the market streets. Occasionally, I would feel a pair of slender elven hands grab at my shirt, making sure to hold onto me when the crowd got too thick for Vel’s comfort.

In time, the crowd thinned out as we entered what was the main thoroughfare of the city. Although there were still many people on the streets, it was nowhere near as crowded as where we just came from. This was partly because of the fact that the street here was much wider than before, but also because there was no dungeon occupying the space.

Not only did the dungeon in the middle of the market square back there attract much attention, but the fort-like structure that housed the dungeon entrance took up a lot of space, turning what would have been an open market square into a rather crowded area. This thoroughfare, though, was different.

From the looks of it, this street ran the whole way from the main set of city gates, winding through several other gates into different districts before heading straight towards the crystal palace looming above all. The street itself was as wide as a highway back on earth, but instead of cars, it was mostly travelled by people and the occasional horse or carriage. It was so wide, in fact, that there were small strips of grass, bushes, and trees forming a line down the middle of the street.

Navigating our way from here was much easier than in the busier part of town, and soon enough we found a specific store that Ryan pointed out to me, a store that straddled the alleyway leading to the Red Den. Upon reaching that alleyway, all three of us turned down it without a moment of hesitation. Although I did wonder for a couple of seconds how a renowned establishment like the Red Den could be hidden away in a shady alley like this.

Was that Ryan guy lying when he said the Red Den was the most renowned brothel in the kingdom, or could this be some kind of trap? Did he lie and give us directions to a place where we would get jumped by some shady figures looking to mug us or worse?

As concerned as I was about the shady alleyway that we were navigating our way down, all those concerns fled my mind the moment we made the last turn and laid eyes on the building that could have only been the Red Den.

The alley widened significantly here, but still, the building in front of us seemed cramped in between the backs of the other, outward, street-facing buildings. The building was built with large blocks of white stone, adorned with several ornate flourishes and even a few rounded pillars around the entryway, which actually remind me of pictures of the white house back on Earth.

Several sets of windows, along two stories, lined each side of the walls running away from the entryway until they hit the walls of the buildings, penning the structure within the alleyway. Each and every one of these windows was obscured on the inside by a thick crimson red curtain, which had some sort of lighting behind, projecting red tinted light outwards a few inches, giving the windows a radiant glow to them.

In front of the building was a pristine garden, at odds with the rest of the alleyway. A few metres away from us, the dirty cobblestones of the city street gave way to lush green grass, a handful of hedges and even a small apple tree. How such vegetation grew when the surrounding buildings practically blocked out all the sunlight was beyond me, but I figured it had something to do with the kind of class skills a gardener might have.

A thin set of marble stones marked the walkway leading through the garden to the porch and entryway of the building. As Vel wandered behind me staring at the garden and the overly ornate building, she couldn’t help but have a slack-jawed expression plastered on her face.

"This is not what I was expecting. What kind of place do you think this is?" She said in awe, reminding me that I had yet to share the fact that I learned that the Red Den was a brothel. That said, I wasn’t planning to tell her now as I wanted to see her reaction to what was inside first-hand, so I just shrugged.

After a few moments of slowly walking and being in awe of this strange, hidden sight, the three of us made our way to the front doors. A set of two huge, white wood doors stood before us, and for a moment I considered knocking, but I quickly realised that was stupid. This was a place of business, not a private residence. Surely, people would come and go as they pleased into the public areas of the establishment, and there would be security or staff to prevent people from going further into places they weren’t allowed to just wander into without permission.

As such, I pushed the set of doors open with only a slight amount of hesitation and worry that I was making a mistake. Luckily, my logic was correct as the doors opened up into what looked like the reception area, at least judging by the benches lining the walls. Not including the door we just came through, there was only one other way out of this room, a set of matching doors standing opposite the ones we had just come through. To each side of that set of doors stood a muscular man, dressed in strangely modern black suits.

To the right of these men and the door they were guarding was a desk with nothing at all on top of it, but behind the desk sat a woman who immediately gave all of us a charming smile. This woman had short red hair, cutely freckled cheeks, and a pair of piercing emerald eyes. However, my eyes weren't on those features of hers for long because my attention was quickly drawn to her ample chest as her breasts, which were almost as large as my own, had quite a bit of cleavage on display thanks to her skimpy, crimson red sequin dress.

Seeing all three of us enter this reception area and shut the door behind us, the two men, who I could only assume were bouncers, or at least security guards, gave Saph an odd look. However, the woman at the desk didn’t even bat an eye and spoke up in her most professional tone.

"Welcome to the Red Den, I am Arriana, the hostess for this morning. Would I be amiss to assume that this is your first time visiting our establishment? If so, you might find that we operate a little differently from other establishments of our kind. If you need a quick run down on how we operate and what we offer, I would be happy to help you out."

As soon as the red-haired beauty of a woman started talking to us, Vel slunk behind my back, reminding me of how shy and anti-social I was once upon a time. Since it was apparently up to me to do the talking, I stepped up to the desk and said. "Ah, yes, this is our first time here. First time in the city actually, but we are not here to patronise your establishment as much as I would like to try out a few of the things you have on offer. We are here to meet with Sophia Varsen."

"The Mistress?" Arrianna cocked an eyebrow as she opened a drawer from behind the desk and pulled out a small notebook, which she began flicking through, but held it up in such a way that I was not able to see what was written on its pages. "Do you have an appointment with the Mistress?"

"Ah, no we don’t… It’s kind of an urgent thing…" I responded, but the slowly forming frown on the woman’s face as she put the notebook back down prompted me to explain further if I wanted this to actually go anywhere. "Her brother, Damien Varsen, was the one that sent us here, and as I said, it is an urgent matter that brings us here to speak with her."

"Damien Varsen?" She gave me a curious look. "Sir Damien has not been seen within the city for somewhere around twenty years, not since his father was murdered and he and Kehlana… disappeared…"

Arriana trailed off as her gaze focused on the young elven woman doing her best to shyly hide behind me. The expression of realisation on the red-haired woman’s face was blatantly obvious as she put two and two together without having to be told anymore, something she would have only been able to do if she had seen Vel’s mother before, but to do so she would probably have to be around the same age as Damien, yet she didn’t look that old. No, Arriana looked like she was in her late twenties at most.

Makeup can be good at making someone look younger, and she’s clearly wearing more than a little, but it's not that good. Could it be a skill… Wait no, if she works here in a brothel, she’s probably not just a receptionist and most likely has a class with charm as its main stat. Could this be the kind of effect a high charm stat has on someone? Does it make her appear younger and more alluring to me? But what if someone is attracted to more mature appearances and not youthful ones? Could charm influence peoples’ perception on an individual, case-by-case sort of situation? I really need to ask someone who knows how this actually works.

While I was deep in thought, pondering over that, Arriana turned towards the bouncers standing by the door. "Paul, could you be so kind to escort these three to the Mistress’s office? She will want to see them right away, no matter what you interrupt her in the middle of."

"Are you sure, Arriana? Monsters, even bonded monsters, aren't normally allowed inside. Not to mention their weapons." He cautiously responded back, not realising what was so important about the three of us to allow for such a thing.

"I’m sure the Mistress will be willing to make an exception this one time."

"Very well," Paul, the bouncer, nodded his head to the receptionist before turning to the three of us. "Please follow right behind me and don’t stray."

With that, the muscular man turned and walked away from his post, pushing the doors he was guarding open as he guided us into the heart of the Red Den.