“What’s the matter, you two? I’m the spoiled rich girl, so I should be the one lagging behind! Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of treasure hunter and adventurer, Lila?” Releana’s haughty laughter trailed back down the steep hillside to the kerryn and elf that were struggling to keep up.
Lila breathed heavily, sweating profusely even though she wore light clothes and a light day pack, and only carried a single slugthrower on her hip. She wiped sweaty strands of her blonde hair from her face and shot a dirty look up the incline toward Releana. “Yeah, well we all don’t have legs like yours, Miss Queen pony girl,” she muttered. Her time under Rivalle’s care as a slave was spent mostly on all fours in a latex kitty suit; not exactly the best way to build muscle or endurance. Releana on the other hand had endured those months in constant labor outside on the farm as a pony girl, pulling heavy carts, frequently getting exercised, and plowing fields; she now had legs that could crush concrete if she put her mind to it, and no fat on her body to speak of, in contrast with the chubby girl Lila had first met several months ago. Hours of hiking were nothing to her. Which was why she had the largest pack between the three of them, and why she was barely winded even with all the weight.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Releana asked, turning to regard Lila, her chin held high in that smug way she had about her, hands on her sizeable hips.
“I said we’re about due for a break anyway,” Lila replied, digging her boots in and pushing herself on up the incline. “How’re you doing, Kori?”
Behind her, Kori was breathing just about as hard as Lila, his long purple hair tied back in a ponytail. “I’m hanging in there,” he said, his voice firm, but still with a cheerful undertone. He was usually a pilot, so trekking across the countryside wasn’t exactly something he was used to, either. And despite what some of the old legends had to say, elven constitution was no better, and often worse, than other races. “Although I really wouldn’t mind taking a few minutes to rest.”
“If I’d known you two would’ve been this tired out already, we would’ve taken the grav-car with us on the ship, curse what the locals might’ve thought. Why didn’t we land closer again?” Releana asked, crossing her arms as she leaned against a nearby tree. The shoulder-length twin tails she had her hair in didn’t seem to fit her muscular build, but it wasn’t like anyone was going to argue with her about it.
“No suitable clearings,” Kori replied between breaths. “I’m good, but that thing handles like crap, so I didn’t want to risk stranding us out here with a damaged stabilizer or intake or something. It’s a long way to call for a tow,” he added with a chuckle.
Lila topped the rise and fell to her knees, panting as she undid her pack and tugged out one of her water bottles. Kori was a few steps behind, coming to a more graceful kneeling position beside her, going for his own water. Sweat glistened over his fair skin, even with the tank top he wore keeping the heat down. As she gulped at the water, she scanned down the woods on the far side of the hill, seeing a valley spreading out below that seemed to be very much untouched, what with the abundance of trees growing through the area. She dug into her pocket and pulled out the data pad, checking their distance traveled from the ship, and the approximate location of the ruins they were looking for. “It’s only a couple more miles, and it’s all downhill from here,” she said, her tail raising with excitement. “This should be simple, guys. Aclaysia is pretty out of the way, but there should be some decent treasure to grab in that old castle ruin down there. This whole area is off limits to off-worlders, and even considered taboo by the locals, so I don’t suspect it’s been looted.” That, and she was getting a feeling, almost like she could smell something valuable waiting for them. Every time she’d trusted that instinct in the past, she had come away with something worthwhile…well, except that one time when she’d nearly died in orbit when her shuttle’s engine had exploded, but that was behind her now.
“If it’s even still there; how do you even know about this place? I thought you said you’d never been in this sector before.” Releana reached around, still not undoing her pack, but plucked her own water bottle out and took a long drink.
“I read a lot of old books; treasure hunter, you know,” Lila replied with a shrug, downing more water and snatching a protein bar from her pack, tearing into it.
Kori’s ears twitched as he tilted his head. “It’s…so quiet here. Why is this place taboo to the locals, anyway? Seems perfectly pleasant to me.”
“Oh, you know, the same old reasons you always hear about. Lands that are supposed to be tainted by evil, some evil tyrant taking the castle for themselves and causing strife, ancient tombs of their ancestors, that kind of thing. You hear about these kinds of legends all over the galaxy.”
Releana gave Lila a flat look. “Are you being deliberately vague or do you not actually know?”
Lila turned her head away, looking down into the valley at the distant river glistening in the sunlight. “You’d be surprised at just how tight lipped Aclaysians are about their past; there’s not a lot of records from them that get off-world.”
“So you don’t really know.”
“It’s not that I don’t know…” Lila said, “…it’s that I don’t have the specifics. You see, when it comes to human civilizations, most of them follow the same kind of patterns throughout history, so I can be reasonably sure of what the story of this place may be Also, ninety-nine percent of tombs or ruins or whatever aren’t filled with cursed treasure, monsters, or traps, so we’ll be just fine.”
“You’re not really filling me with confidence here, Lila,” Releana replied, a deep frown finding its way to her face. “Am I going to have to give you a spanking when we get back to the club for being a naughty kitty?”
Kori tittered, and Lila rolled her eyes before looking back to Releana. “We both know Alyssa will have you doming me in a show as soon as we’re back, so that’s hardly a punishment.”
“I wasn’t talking about the show. I’m talking about our own time, love.” Releana’s lips curled into a smirk.
Lila found herself gulping; Releana was really getting into that whole dominatrix persona she’d started when they had gone into hiding at Alyssa’s club. Not that she minded, certainly, but she couldn’t help but think that maybe Releana was starting to take it a little too far. Lila had known Releana long enough to recognize a playful glint in the human’s eyes, and had a good idea what was in store for her. Best to ignore that for now and try not to think about it, even if a few stray erotic thoughts had already slipped into her mind. “Anyway… let’s take another few minutes and get started back on the hike. If we’re lucky, we can be back on the ship by sunset.”
“Oh, I see how it is…” Releana replied. “What do you think, Kori? Does Lila deserve some punishment for dragging us into this?”
Kori just waved his hand dismissively in front of his face. “Maybe, but that’s for later. She’s done this kind of thing a lot before we all met up, so I trust her experience. But if it’s something that needs to happen, time will tell I guess.”
“I’ll count that as a vote for yes; that’s two to one, Lila, so looks like you’re getting a spanking when we’re done here. A nice, intense, private kind of spanking.”
“I can’t wait,” Lila mumbled, ignoring Releana’s laughter as she tugged her electro-binocs from her bag and scanned the valley, looking for signs of the ruin they were looking for. There were two rises covered in trees that were fairly close to one another that would have made good spots for a castle, and both were in the general area they were heading to. Had to be one of them, maybe both, if it was a particularly large structure. This wouldn’t be that bad at all!
A Few Hours Later…
“How can you hide a castle in a forest like this? These trees aren’t even that tall!” Releana said, snarling as she kicked a branch out of their path.
“Well, over time, stone structures are going to collapse, so there’s no guarantee it’ll be standing at it’s full height,” Lila replied, peering through the shadowed woods. They were on the second rise she had spotted earlier, having found nothing on the first one. “Plus, it’s entirely possible much of the stone was hauled off by the locals for other building projects over the centuries. It’s got to be close.”
Kori hopped down in front of them, having climbed one of the trees to try to get a better view. “I think there might be something just up ahead, maybe a hundred meters or so that way,” he said, pointing toward their left. “It didn’t look like a natural formation from what I could see. Oh, and we might get wet on the way back; saw some dark clouds coming in back toward the ship.”
“Good deal; thanks, Kori!” Lila said, smiling at him, and turning a more smug version of the smile toward Releana as she started moving through the thick brush.
“Um…is anyone else feeling a little uneasy? I mean, it’s so quiet here, and we’ve not seen any wildlife since we started down from where we had rested up…” Kori said, falling in line behind Lila.
“What was that? Sorry, got distracted by that amazing ass of yours, Kori,” Releana replied.
“Probably some kind of predator keeping things away,” Lila replied rather dismissively. “We should be able to handle whatever it is if it even shows; probably nocturnal, I’d figure. I don’t smell anything weird, so we’re good.”
Kori responded with a somewhat nervous chuckle. “Well, I guess I’ll be the worried one here then and keep my ears peeled for any big nasty critters trying to sneak up on us.”
Despite Kori’s worries, it only took another handful of minutes before they had located the structure that Kori had spotted, a moss and vine covered wall, stretching almost a thousand feet in both directions. However, unlike the towering castle wall they were expecting, this one was only about ten feet tall, with rusted wrought iron spikes poking out the top of the thicker columns that were placed every thirty feet or so.
“Were Aclaysians known for being short? Cause this doesn’t seem like much of a castle wall to me,” Releana said after they had all stared along the length of the wall for a few seconds.
“Ummm…no, they’re normal humans, almost exclusively” Lila replied, bringing a finger to her chin. “This isn’t a castle wall by any stretch of the imagination.” Lila approached the wall and pulled away some of the hanging vines, then scraped away some of the dark green moss. “In fact, this is brick, uniform manufacture, too, not handwrought.” She crouched, and pulled away some of the thicker growth near the ground, revealing some larger, gray stones, far more etched by time, and with irregular sizes. “Now these are more typical of what you’d think of for a castle wall.”
“So what does that mean, exactly?” Kori asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Nothing too exciting,” Lila said, standing as she shot a grin at Kori. “Just that there’s a more modern wall built atop a much older foundation. Hey, Muscles, mind giving me a lift?”
Releana’s lips turned downward as she narrowed her gaze at Lila. “You’re going to come up with a better nickname than that or you’re gonna get it.”
“Promises promises,” Lila replied. “Just give me a lift so I can take a look. You can whip my ass for insolence later if you really have to.”
“Glad you’re so agreeable,” Releana said, her frown turning back to her typical smug grin, stepping up beside the wall. She adjusted herself so that she had one side to the wall, then brought her hands together and intertwined her fingers.
Lila wasted no time in putting her foot into Releana’s hands, and the muscular human woman likewise wasted no time in propelling the Kerryn upward. It didn’t take much effort for Lila to grab one of the iron spikes and pull herself upward to peer over the wall. Though she wasn’t sure what to expect on the other side, what she saw didn’t really surprise her. There was a lot of open space, or at least, there had been at one time, now most of it was overgrown with trees and brush, along with at least two larger buildings she could see. A smaller building was off to their left, around the corner of the wall, beside a growth-covered gate.
The larger building took up most of the view inside, and was actually quite a bit taller than most of the trees surrounding it, three stories above ground, but still well below the much older trees around the outside of the wall. The bland, rectangular construction, uniform room sizes, and handful of closed doors along the wall that faced her told her it was either a school or a hospital, though the metal bars over the windows said something else. She also spotted a few larger, gray stones poking through the overgrowth around the base of the building.
“So, what’re you seeing?” Kori asked after a few moments.
“It’s a more modern building, abandoned for a long time, but it’s probably some kind of reform school…or maybe a crazy house. There’s a gate around the corner down that way,” she said, pointing down the wall. “Good news is there are more stones like the ones on the wall’s foundation, so I’d put money on there being a way into the old castle’s cellars in there. And once we find a way into those, we’ll find what we came after.”
“Well, what’re we waiting for, then? Let’s find whatever shiny thing there is and get out of here! You coming down or what?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lila replied, easing herself down from the wall and dropping to the ground before she turned to face Kori and Releana. “Seems pretty simple; we just need to find a way down into the old cellars and then we can track down where our treasure is.”
“If it’s even actually there,” Releana said, arms already crossed beneath her large breasts. “If they had a school or a hospital here, they probably found whatever it is hiding down there a long time ago.”
“I don’t think so…I’ve got a feeling it’s still there, and it’s a feeling I trust,” Lila replied, already starting down the wall toward the gate, the other two following a few steps behind. “Muscles, need the ‘chete!”
Kori flashed a grin at Releana as the bigger woman’s steps faltered and she let out a low snarl. “Okay, kitty, you’re just asking for it now.”
Lila didn’t seem to have heard her, or intentionally ignored her as she rounded the corner of the wall. Kori just shrugged, looking back to Releana. “She’s set on her prize I guess.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Releana replied, raising both hands up in front of her. Releana smirked as she started forward again. “I’ll just file that one away for later.”
At the gate, Lila was already tugging at some thick vines and overgrowth, finding little success. She blew out her breath and turned to Releana. “Care to make us a hole?”
Releana made a deliberately slow show of removing the machete from her backpack, the long blade actually looking a little small in her impressively muscled grasp as she tapped the flat against her other palm. She looked down her nose toward Lila, a cool glare forming on her face. “You can ask better than that.”
Lila tilted her head and sighed. “You’re really doing this right now?”
“Ask nicer,” Releana said, slapping the flat of the blade against her palm.
Lila muttered something under her breath in her native tongue, then clasped her hands together and looked up to Releana. “Please, Mistress Releana, would you please open the gate for your humble slave?” Better to just get it over with and stroke that ego a little…
“You should’ve gotten on your knees, but I’ll take it,” Relena said, looking quite satisfied with herself, stepping up to the gate. “You look good on your knees.” She brought the machete up and started hacking at the vines.
Kori chuckled as Lila stepped back and shook her head. “She’s not wrong, you know.”
Lila shot him a knowing grin. “You’re just saying that cause of that blowjob I gave you the other day.”
It took just a couple minutes for Releana to cut the worst of the vines and overgrowth, and once she had, the big girl grasped the gate and pulled, the rusty hinges protesting loudly as she swung it open, echoing slightly ominously in the quiet of the courtyard. “That wasn’t creepy sounding at all.”
“You get used to that kind of thing when you’ve done this enough,” Lila said, stepping by Releana and into the courtyard. Now that she was inside the gate and could see from another angle, there were at least two other buildings on the property, though neither one was as big as the main building she had first spied from the wall. She glanced over at the small, overgrown building by the gate. Though she couldn’t see too much of interest inside, the placement of the door and the large opening at the front made it look like a security station. She continued further in, stopping on a partially clear area of ground, or rather, pavement, to consider the buildings.
“Where to now, Lila?” Kori asked, coming up beside her. His ears twitched, and he turned to look back out in the direction they had come. “Sounds like thunder, so that storm is definitely getting closer.”
“I’m thinking.”
Releana came up behind her, leaning down beside Lila’s head as she tapped the flat side of the machete blade against Lila’s rear. “Need some inspiration?”
“I’m fine, thanks; just trying to work out an idea of the old foundations based on the building size and orientation,” Lila replied, concentrating on the structures and working hard to ignore Releana’s apparent need to dom her.
“Oh,” Releana said, blowing out her breath. “You’re no fun.” For about a minute none of them said anything, but then Releana’s head whipped around toward the security station, bringing the machete up in front of her as she turned to face it. “Who’s there?”
“What?!” Lila and Kori said at once, spinning and looking for whatever Releana had spotted.
“You two didn’t hear that? With your ears?!” Releana said, looking between them and back at the small building. “I heard something move in there, and it sounded like someone said something.”
Kori peered into the frame where the window used to be, ears shifting as he tried to listen closer. “What did it sound like they said?”
“I don’t know….it was in Common, though…maybe…’no trespassing’?”
“Really? That’s kinda…appropriate,” Kori said. “I don’t hear anything, and it doesn’t look like there’s anything inside.” He dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a stun gun, and started moving cautiously toward the door.
Lila sniffed at the air as she too stepped closer. “I just smell vegetation and sweat. Nobody’s there; probably a ghost, or just an echo.”
Releana laughed, turning to Lila, and then her smile faltered. “Wait, you’re serious?”
Lila glanced at her, but kept her attention mostly on Kori as he stepped inside the security station. “Oh yeah, completely. Ghosts don’t do much but startle you, and oftentimes you’ll get echoes of the past if there’s been a lot of strong emotions or tragedy surrounding a place. Nothing to worry about, though. You get-”
“-used to it,” Releana said, finishing Lila’s reply and shaking her head.
Kori came back outside a few moments later. “Nothing in there but what’s left of a desk and some frames for security monitors I think, and an old chair, well, besides this.” He came up to them and held out a yellowed, triangular chunk of plastic, which appeared to be part of an ID card. “Looks like you were right, Lila, it’s an asylum.”
Lila looked at the card, most of it illegible but for the larger, bold text across the top. “‘Castlewood Hospital for the Mentally Insane.’ Yep, I got it right…”
“Nut house, huh? Any particular nuggets of wisdom from the great treasure hunter about how to deal with that?” Releana asked, looking over the buildings with a new hint of uncertainty on her face. For such a big, strong, dominant woman, she was certainly getting jumpy.
Lila shrugged. “Not really; it’s like any other tomb or old building. If it’s haunted, expect to see things out of the corner of your eye, hear disembodied voices and footsteps, and maybe even see full body apparitions. They’ll startle you and maybe even outright scare you, but they won’t hurt you. Some particularly strong spirits may be able to move objects, so that’ll get your heart pounding if you’re not expecting it. They’re incorporeal, though, so they might even pass through you; they can’t grab you and you can’t grab them, but you’ll feel really cold if they touch you. Let’s just see if we can find a way down and we’ll avoid the upper floors completely. Easy, simple.”
“Okay…” Releana said, scratching her head and rather reluctantly sheathing the machete after looking at the blade, as if she had hoped to use it to defend against ghosts. “Lead the way.”
“Maybe we should split up?” Kori said, looking up at the buildings. “I mean, there are three buildings and three of us, so it will save time if we do that.”
“No way! I’m not splitting up in a haunted asylum!” Releana replied.
Lila stopped in her tracks, already heading toward the main building. “Seriously, the ghosts aren’t going to hurt you. They’re not even part of this world anymore; they’re more like shadows of the past, like recordings of times long gone. Sheesh. Kori’s got the right idea, though.”
“Oh, come on, Lila!”
“Releana, calm down, okay? You’ll be fine. Look, how about this? We split up just out here and we each take a building, and try to find an entrance to the basements. Look through the windows, try to find a maintenance access door, that kind of thing. If we don’t find anything then we’ll meet back up here in like 20 minutes and start inside together. Sound good?”
“I don’t like it, but I guess it’ll be fine…” Releana plucked her comm from her pocket, looking at the time, though her nerves were obviously still on edge. “Twenty minutes, right?”
Lila nodded. “Right. You take the building to the left, I’ll take the main one, and Kori will take the one to the right. We don’t have sat-signal out here, but the short-range comms should still work. Just call if you need help. Trust me, I’ve done this thing since I was a kid.”
The muscular human woman nodded and blew out her breath. “Alright, alright. I keep forgetting you’ve got over a century on me. You kinda sound like a real expert sometimes, you know that?”
“Thanks?” Lila replied, not sure if that was a compliment or not, but she shrugged. “Twenty minutes! See you two soon!”
And with that the trio split, one headed to each building.
Hope you all enjoyed this opening chapter! The following chapters will be published approximately weekly going forward, but will be for subscribers only! If you want to keep up with the story, and read the more spicy content, make sure you sign up as a member! There’s no charge, so don’t miss out!
This looks like it’s going to end well for them~ Glad you’ve managed to get something on paper, and I look forward to the rest!
Oh yeah, totally going to end well, nothing bad could possibly happen here 😀
Thanks for reading! Next part should be up this Sunday!