Chapter 71: Shoria
I take a look at the map that Leopold had provided. It was again one of the smaller kingdoms, this one with a shore. I did the portal sky hopping to locate myself in the place, and went back to our home.
This is almost dining time already. I go to our back yard, and go talk to Varr. I tell him that we are going to travel for a week, starting tomorrow.
Morning light spills softly into our manor, painting the room in honeyed gold. I, Marcelo, sit on the edge of the bed, the ghost of Siratra’s absence still clinging to the air. But then they come – my dragon women in human form and Cecilia, my human firebrand – moving like a warm tide to drown my sorrow. Ruby’s enthusiasm leads the charge as she straddles my lap, her heat seeping into my skin. "My lord, let us remind you," she breathes against my lips, her hands already unbuttoning my shirt with tender urgency.
Shandon presses against my right side, her steady presence anchoring me. "We’re your mate sisters," she murmurs, lacing her fingers through mine. "Siratra left... but we choose to stay." Her kiss on my neck is a vow. I grip her hip possessively, my thumb stroking the dip of her waist – this is mine.
Opal kneels before me with queenly grace, her dignified hands massaging my thighs. "You deserve worship, my lord," she intones, her palms sliding higher until her fingers graze my hardening cock through my pants. I guide her hand firmly, claiming control even in tenderness. "Show me, Opal."
To my left, Aquamarine hovers, cheeks flushed with shyness. "M-my lord?" she stammers. Then, like lightning, her demure mask shatters. She drops to her knees beside Opal and takes my cock into her mouth without warning, sucking with filthy, wet pulls that make my hips jerk. "Gods, you surprise me," I growl, fisting her hair as she deepthroats me with shocking skill.
Behind me, Cecilia’s laughter is dark honey. "Poor, wounded villain," she purrs, her breasts pressed against my back as her hands slide down my chest. "Let us heal you." She guides my hand under her skirt, and I find her soaked, her folds swollen. "Feel how wet we are for you, Marcelo."
The bed swallows us in a tangle of limbs and devotion. Ruby sinks onto me first, her tight cunt sheathing my cock in slow, trembling inches. "You fill me, my lord," she whimpers, riding me with deep, rolling thrusts – enthusiastic yet tender. I grip her hips hard enough to bruise, controlling her rhythm like a conductor.
Shandon kneels beside us, her fingers working her clit in tight circles as she kisses me. "We missed your touch," she gasps against my mouth. Opal’s elegant fingers trace Ruby’s spine before circling Aquamarine’s nipple – a poised architect of pleasure. Aquamarine surprises again: she leans over to lick Cecilia’s pussy with noisy, lewd strokes while maintaining eye contact with me. "Do you like watching me taste her, my lord?" she dares, her tongue swirling.
Cecilia arches against the sheets. "Yesss–fuck! Your little shy dragon devours me, my villain!" Her hips piston against Aquamarine’s face. I thrust harder into Ruby, spurred by their obscene duet.
"Switch," I command, and they obey instantly – a well-loved symphony. Aquamarine replaces Ruby on my cock, shuddering as I impale her. "Oh god! Deeper, my lord!" she keens, her shyness incinerated by lust. Cecilia straddles my face, grinding her dripping pussy against my mouth. I tongue her ruthlessly, savoring her salt-tang and the way she grinds against my jawbone.
Opal and Ruby kiss beside us, fingers entwined in each other’s hair. Shandon strokes my chest, whispering, "We’re yours. Only yours." The certainty in her voice unravels something in my chest.
When release crashes over us, it’s a shared tide: Ruby screams as Opal pinches her nipples; Aquamarine drenches my cock in hot pulses; Cecilia convulses against my tongue; Shandon gasps my name. I roar as I empty myself into Aquamarine, the pleasure a white-hot lance through my grief.
They collapse around me – Ruby’s head on my shoulder, Aquamarine’s hand over my heart, Shandon’s leg hooked over mine. Cecilia traces my jaw, her smile wicked. "Still yours, my villain?"
"Yes," I rasp, pulling them closer. "And you’re all mine." The dawn bathes our sweat-slicked bodies. Siratra is gone... but this warmth? This devotion? This is my true hoard.
I am refreshed when we go down for breakfast.
After eating it, we portal to the forest close to Shoria, the city where Akiko has her inn. The city is very busy, but instead of carts and people, most of the traffic entering and exiting are luxurious carriages. We stand out, just by entering on foot.
We stay in line, and enter with the guild’s mithril tags. The guards scoff, but they let us in. The city is a big one and it has a shore to the sea. It is very close to Big River’s delta, but there is an elongated low mountain between the city and the river. There is a big port section closer to the estuary. There is another small mountain, and the city continues around it, to reach the sea once again. After this mountain, there is a bay that the city mostly follows. At the connection to the sea I can see the top of a metal crate. Possibly to stop the influx of underwater monsters.
The sun is shining, and the sea water is beautiful. There are some beaches in the bay, most of them only available for nobles, and some of them are open only for higher nobility. The farthest one is apparently the one open for everyone. The level of luxury is different in the three kinds of beaches.
From what I gathered, most of the money for the city is actually obtained by the low nobility that visits here. They have some money to spend and high nobility tend to bring their own servants, their own structure.
Peasants tend to not travel too much. The exceptions are merchants and adventurers, but the latter ones that make better money, the mithril tag ones, have low nobility status. One of the big things about this city is that is both close to sea and the river, and traveling by boat is a lot faster than horses. There are a lot of places that has a short traveling time to this city.
We enter the city, and the merchant section of it is focused on beach attires and swimming devices, like buoys, sunshades, towels. The food stalls are serving mainly sea food, like calamari, fish, octopus.
We enter the noble district showing our tags. There are several restaurants, again mostly focused on sea food. The more elaborate ones announce monster meat, like giant squid, killer whales, dire lobster and the like. I get curious about this.
“Cecs, what is *the* monster meat in seafood? The equivalent of dragon meat?”
“Oh, that would be kraken.”
“Yes, legends are that it is even tastier than dragon meat, my lord.” Says Opal.
“Wait – are you suggesting that you might try to hunt one, my lord?” Asks Ruby, excited with the idea.
“I have no idea. I would have to check if I could kill one first. Don’t dragons hunt them?”
“No, my lord. Krakens are actually stronger than dragons, specially in the sea.”
“How big are they?”
“I don't know. It is said that they are bigger than an elder, my lord. And because they reside in the sea, hunting them is not really feasible. Even for us.”
I keep wondering at how many levels I might get with something like that. I would need to strategize, though. I would need something that could penetrate the skin all the way to the brain, and then explode or do a heavy damage. I wonder if my spike railgun works underwater. I also wonder what the sonic boom is going to be like underwater. I am zoning out when Cecilia calls my mind back.
“So, my villain, are you going to hunt down the strongest monster on the planet for your girls?”
“You really are a bad influence, you know that, right?”
She puts a finger to her mouth, doing a sexy pose. She looks at the dragonesses, and does a face, and slaps Shandon on the shoulder. Shandon tries to do a sexy pose by holding her breasts together, as if she was naked. I feel the lack of comfort. Aquamarine tries some air licking. Opal and Ruby don’t do any better. I start laughing, and kissing each of them.
“I am going to think about it.”
Cecilia is happy. The dragonesses resigned, until she calls the dragonesses to the side. They form a huddle, and Cecilia explains what is in the undertone. When they break the group, the dragonesses are a lot happier.
I can’t help but increase the laughter. I extend my arms, they all get close, three on the right, two on the left, and we start walking, looking at things around. After walking a little bit, we finally find Akiko’s inn.
It is completely different than the previous one. There is a lot of movement around, employees and clients alike. We go to the front desk, and we register for a room. One gold coin a day for the room alone. Another silver per person for meals. I pay in advance.
“Where can I find Akiko? I wanted to give her a hello. I am an acquaintance.”
“Who do I say is looking for her?”
“Tell her it is the honored guest from Vaporvale, the adventurer, along with the wives that eat a lot. A lot. That’s an important detail.”
We wait for a little bit, when Akiko appears from a door behind the counter.
“Honored guest! Long time no see! Please come, please come!”
She directs us through to a restaurant. We sit on a table that had a ‘Reserved’ plaque. She directs us to sit, and a waiter immediately comes to serve us.
“Good evening, madam, sir, ladies. Do you want the menu, madam?”
“No need. Bring us 83 portions of fried megalodon steak.” She turns to me. “Is this the right amount, honored guest?”
“Yes, actually.”
She looks back at the waiter.
“Bring some fries before, and my wine.”
They serve us some very light, sweet and fruity wine, almost a grape juice. We drink that with some chips, and there are some sauces to dip the chips in.
“So, Akiko, how have things been going? Is this inn all yours?”
“Yes, honored guest. We moved in after that incident in Vaporvale, and the guild helped a lot. I was told to thank you for their help. Business has been well if you pay attention to what clients want, and work hard.
“After just a couple of months, we expanded and improved the quality of the restaurant. Now we are branching out to another village, close to here, that is going to be the future pretty soon. All thanks to you honored guest.”
“Actually no, it is all thanks to yourself.”
“Always humble. I wish my Hikari could have married you, but then you already have so many pretty wives.”
I giggle a little. “I sure do. The prettiest. But tell me, I was wondering if we could have the same agreement as we previously had over in Vaporvale… We bring in the food, your restaurant cooks.”
“Sure, that is acceptable. I still wonder what kind of meat you provided, honored guest.”
I giggle again.
“Don’t worry. As I mentioned already, I am an adventurer, and a good one at that.”
“I wonder if honored guest would be interested in selling some of that meat to us. Your stay, food, everything would be free.”
“A question before that. What are the best dishes around? Among all the restaurants, what is the best meat served?”
“That would be the giant squid, honored guest. It is a very hard monster to kill, but generally when one is captured, it sells to a lot of places. Those are big monsters.”
“Does that go bad?”
“No, but it has to be kept in a closed place, otherwise it gets dry.”
…
“Back to the meat, honored guest. Would you sell some of that to us?”
“I would right now prefer to do the same deal we did in the past. I bring our ingredients, and we pay for the preparation. Is this doable?”
She sighs.
“What a pitty. Of course, honored guest. I will uphold the agreement we have.”
“Thank you.”
We chit chat a bit, she explains to me how she managed to provide different dishes based on her culture, and that attracted a lot of people. Their inn was now famous around these parts. Hikari was now about to marry the son of a baron, but his family wasn’t too happy with it. Although they have now way more money than the baron, he wanted his first son to try to reach for a the daughter of a count or higher. She told me that the boy's parents were insufferable, but she pretended not to notice.
I asked if Hikari wasn't around. She told me that she was managing the construction of their second inn. Akiko was really proud.
I mention to Akiko that we were going to stay for a week, that there were also some renovations happening at home. I joked that we were kind of expelled from our own home by the working crew.
Akiko asked what happened to Siratra, and I told her that Siratra had left us. I don't know her whereabouts right now. She gives an apologetic reply, she never thought this would happen.
After having lunch, the girls splurge on the desert. It is really wonderful. The food is tasty and well prepared. We just got kind of used to mana on our steaks. The megalodon tastes good, but not nearly enough mana to satisfy the dragonesses.
We go to one of the lesser nobles’ beaches. It has a lot of people, but there are still spaces around. I see the eventual adventurer here and there, they are identifiable by their mithril tag around the neck. There is a shop nearby that is selling some bikinis and beach stuff, and the girls go inside, led by Cecilia.
I go inside as well, and I choose a pair of beach shorts, surprisingly close to Earth's. It has a couple of differences, such as having places to hang small bags from. I also acquire a cloth to place on the ground, and a sunshade.
Meanwhile, the girls get their bikinis. Cecilia is the one excited with it, and after a couple of talks, she gets the others excited as well. They pay with their own money. While most of it is in the safe to avoid having it stolen, the dragonesses tend to have some money on them now. Cecilia helps with explaining the values of things, or bargaining for some thing or another.
My jaw drops when they get out of the shop. Their personalities complement their bikinis, and having something hidden sometimes makes it just the better. Five personalities, five bikinis, five bodies, all of them perfect. My girls, my goddesses. Cecilia gets closer to me, leaning forward.
“Nothing? No comment? Should we even be bothering with the bikinis?”
“You all look amazing. I forgot how to speak for a minute.”
She turns back. “See, sisters? Told you.” And she smiles.
We go to the sand, and pick a place to stay. I use my foot to dig a couple of holes on the sand, placing the sand from it in a small little mountain behind, kind of creating a backrest with the sand. Some people look at me like I am crazy, but a couple of adventurers actually try to do that as well.
I take a look at the line of stores at the end of the sand, and one of them actually rents chairs. I get 6 chairs from them, it is 2 large coppers per chair, per day. The chairs are made of metal, they fold. I ask them who made these, and the salesman answered that it were dwarves, of course. I have to leave one gold coin as deposit for each chair, that is going to be given back when I return the chairs by the end of the day, in good condition.
I bring the chairs over to our spot on the beach. Opal and Shadon lay down on the towel over the sand under the sunshade. Muninn and Huginn are in the middle of them. They are leisurely cleaning their feathers with their beaks. Cecilia, Aquamarine and Ruby are sitting in the back. I decide to have a dip in the sea water.
The public in the water is mixed up. Some adventurers are swimming, there are some kids and their mothers or maids with buoys. I skip over a wave, and swim a little, just a little further than I can reach the bottom with my feet.
I am kind of floating, kind of paddling in the water, remembering of my days in the beaches of Rio. The water here is crystal clear. I can’t help but wonder how they process the city’s waste, that was a big problem for several beaches there.
When my mind drift back and I stare at the girls, I see that there is a group of guys around them. I pay closer attention, these guys have mithril tags around their neck. Cecilia is actually calling the guards, that get close to see the situation. The guards point to the mithril tags all around, and leave. I could go over there, but I don’t bother.
One of the guys is circling around, getting to their backs. I wonder why these morons are trying to force themselves even a little over people with same power level. It’s not like they are superior, not even in tag level.
I start laughing. The guy behind Ruby tried to reach for her breasts. She grabbed his hand. Now the guy is on his knees, holding the offending hand with other one. Probably crushed. Some more friends of his are now creating a circle around the girls. This is about to turn into a bloodbath. I don’t care anymore, those guys have no business trying to touch my girls.
A larger group is getting around. They are mithril adventurers as well. They get between the predators and my girls. The crowd starts going away, one by one. A lot of guys are trying to talk to my girls. I am really happy to see that these guys are not given the time of day. After some time, Ruby starts shooing them away, as if they were a bad smell.
I go back to them. I kiss each one on the lips, both to reward them, and to mark my territory. I can feel the angry looks all over, from those guys that tried to push it over them as well as the other adventurers that helped.
I sit on the chair that was left empty, in the back, overlooking my whole family. The breeze feels nice. It feels like a day out on the beach with the family, except that now I am among the parents, not the kids.
The very last thing missing would be kids trying to get ‘tatuí’ from the sand close to the water. It is a crustacean that kids pick up like beetles, but they dig themselves in the sands, close to the waterline.
When I look down, the two dragonesses that are laying down are now on their stomachs, and looking at my face. They are both smiling. I touch my face, and I realize I am smiling as well. Cecilia and Aquamarine are looking at me with a side eye. Ruby is oblivious to the whole thing, trying to clean the spot she was touched with some spit and rubbing.
We all enjoy a couple of hours of peace in the beach, deliver the chairs back, and head to Akiko’s inn. Before we go up, I talk to the attendant on the counter, and she takes me to the kitchen, so that I can give then the meat to be used in our meals. After that, we get a surprise, Akiko bumped us into a better room at no cost.
The girls decide to dress up, and I dress up as well to go to the restaurant. The clients are mostly lower nobility and mithril adventurers, but everyone is using low tones, the place seems on the fancy side. We sit down and eat, and we flavor the steak with a different cooking than Roberta’s. She is good, but it is nice having something different once in a while.
After that, we go to the driking room, where nobles in particular like to have a sip of some liquor and talk about the news. Of course, the main news are about the earldom of Riverstride. The earl and his wife disappeared, no one knows what happened. The kid is going to inherit it, but an uncle is going to administer it until he becomes of age. I keep listening from a distance.
Someone in the conversation brings up some weird news that have been circulating. A baron that died in a duel over in Ironhold, the sheer disrespect they have for noblehood, for allowing a noble to loose his life in their territory. The news about the missing bishop and cardinal also missing. Another noble says that he is going to invest more in security, and the other ones agree that it is a good idea.
Me and the girls keep chit chatting, the nobles don’t pay much attention to us, probably because of our tags.
After that we go up to our room, to have a good night.
