Chapter 2: Earth Stone

Kimber crept quietly through the nighttime forest, looking for a decent clearing to start a fire in order to cook the rabbit she'd caught and killed earlier. Instead, she noticed the glow of an existing fire up ahead of her. She approached with caution, but found that it was tended to by a lone figure, a young man wearing light armor. His pack of gear and provisions, including a bow and quiver of arrows, rested on the ground near him. She touched the medallion and transformed back to her human shape, then stepped out of the darkness into the clearing. The man stood, drew his sword, and said, "Ho there! Identify yourself."

"Just a lone traveler, like yourself. If you are willing to share your fire, I am willing to share this rabbit," Kimber replied, holding it up for the man to see.

"Such an offer I cannot refuse. Please, come join me, my lady," the man said, gesturing toward the fire. They erected a spit, prepared the rabbit, and set it to cooking. "If I may ask, what is your name and what brings you to these parts?" he asked.

"You may indeed," she replied. "My name is Kimber, and I seek the ruins of an ancient temple to a forgotten goddess that is said to be located in this forest."

"I am Jonath, and you have nearly found it. The place of which you speak is but another hour's travel in that direction," he said, pointing. "It has been taken over as of late by a tribe of ogres that infests these woods. I have journeyed here to exterminate them. I managed to locate their stronghold and I've been scouting the site for several days now. I dare not take on so many all at once, though I have felled a few that have strayed from the group."

"An ogre hunter, are you. I would not have guessed it from the look of you. Is the bounty on them high in these parts?" Kimber asked. Ogres were repugnant creatures, most rulers actively encouraged killing them on sight and/or driving them as far away as possible from areas settled by humans.

"Not especially," Jonath said. "Mine is a personal vendetta. Ogres raped and murdered my family, and I have vowed to spend my life putting them to the sword."

"That's horrible!" Kimber said. Now, the thing about ogres is that their cocks are covered in hard, boney ridges that make getting fucked by them extremely painful. Even female ogres find it unpleasant, so rape is the sole means of perpetuating the species. When just wanting to get their rocks off rather than procreate though, most ogres prefer to rape human women, as they are much weaker prey. Female ogres even rape human men, as it is the only way for them to have sex they can actually enjoy. The men do not take any pleasure in it however, as ogres of both genders are quite ugly and smell horrible.

"I was but a farm boy, with two sisters. My father sent me to learn basic archery skills from a master teacher, and I took to it well, but upon my return I found the farm ransacked, the house and barn burned to the ground. Only my younger sister yet survived the brutal treatment, and she followed my parents and older sister to the afterlife mere days later. I returned to the archery teacher and begged him to take me on as a long-term student. He later introduced me to his friend, a master of the sword, who similarly agreed to teach me his talents."

"No one should suffer that as a boy. At least you were able to channel your energies into something positive," Kimber said.

"Aye, and I hope that in part through my efforts, no child need suffer so again," said Jonath. "So your vocation lies in the exploration of old ruins?"

"Indeed yes, I have studied much of long-dead cultures and uncover the things they have left behind so that we may continue to learn of them, and enjoy their craftsmanship," Kimber explained.

"That's a curious medallion you have there. One of your discoveries?" Jonath took a closer look in the flickering light of the fire. The golden disc hung from a gold chain that itself hung from either side of another chain that closely encircled her neck. A circle was engraved in the center of it, and the outer ring was divided into five segments by radial lines. Each segment bore the visage of a creature. The upper segment depicted the outline of a bird in flight with its wings outstretched. To the left of the bird was a silhouette of a horse's head in profile, and to its right, that of a cat's head straight on. On the lower left was the shape of a fish, and the lower right showed the winding shape of a snake.

"It is, though I have been unable to determine where it originally came from, what lost civilization created it," Kimber said.

"So then, I propose we both enjoy your rabbit, get a good night's sleep, and I shall guide you to the temple ruins in the morning. You shall have to settle for looking at it from afar, though," Jonath said.

"As you say," Kimber replied. "I don't want to tangle with ogres of that number."

As soon as Jonath was asleep, Kimber quietly walked off into the woods. Once she was out of sight of Jonath's fire, she touched the shape of the cat head on her medallion. Her body glowed as she transformed to her cat shape. Her straight black hair fell just past her shoulder, with a cat's ears atop her head. Her eyes were yellow with vertically slit irises. She had fangs, but smaller ones than as a snake. Black fur covered her arms nearly to her shoulders, and her legs to halfway up her thighs. Her furred fingers and toes bore retractable claws and soft, pink paw pads. A matching black fur cropped top, supported from her right shoulder, covered her breasts, which were now a little larger than they were normally, though a generous amount of cleavage was visible. A black leather belt held up the black fur breechcloth, which split into two in the back just above her ass to allow space for her tail. Her dagger and knapsack remained, as always. This was the best form for night travel, as a cat she had the keen senses of a nocturnal predator, as well as excellent physical agility and reflexes, and the ability to move quickly yet quietly.

Even though she'd shared the rabbit that this cat form had so easily caught, it had been a sufficient meal, and she made good time to the temple. It was in decent shape, considering the age and the forest growth that assaulted it. The outside was nearly overgrown with vines, the roof collapsed in a few places, but all four walls yet stood, which was more than she could say about some other ancient temples she'd been to. Thin wisps of smoke rose through one of the gaps in the roof. She could smell the ogres and the remains of their fire. She looked in through the wide doorway. The temple was a single room, with a stone floor, an altar at the far end, and statues in various conditions positioned periodically along the walls. There were dozens of ogres, but all were asleep, mostly in the middle where they had constructed their fire pit.

She snuck inside quietly and made her way through the shadows along the side wall to the altar. Being the location of highest significance in the building, it was the logical place to begin the search for an item of apparently great significance such as the earth stone. The altar was a large slab of stone supported by two small boulders, forming a wide workspace at table height for whatever rituals or sacrifices that once took place in here. Kimber looked underneath the slab, and started clearing away cobwebs, moss, and various bits of rubbish that the ogres had clearly thrown there. One of the stone floor tiles looked a little out of place. The type of stone didn't match the others, it was slightly too small for the space it was in, and the mortar around it looked soft.

Kimber pulled her dagger from its sheath and used it to dig around the perimeter of the tile, and then to pry it up. She pulled the tile free and set it aside. Etched into the underside was the same list she had seen on the lid of the sarcophagus. Her instincts had been spot on. She reached into the hole where the tile had sat and sure enough pulled out a rock that looked very similar to the fire stone, but brown in color and bearing a different symbol. She stashed it safely away in her knapsack and started back towards the door along the same path she'd used coming in.

About halfway to the door, her fortune changed. One of the ogres stirred. Kimber leapt atop the nearest statue. Its head and part of a shoulder was missing, and she perched there on all fours, with her hands between her feet, clutching the stone figure's neck and trying to breathe very, very quietly. The ogre yawned, stood, and shuffled across the floor directly towards her. He stopped in front of the statue she had desperately and perhaps futilely used as cover, and then pulled out his cock and proceeded to urinate on it. The sound, and worse, the smell, of fresh ogre piss assaulted Kimber's senses, but she sat as still as the stone figure beneath her. The ogre gave a satisfied sigh as his stream of pee reached its conclusion, and then for the first time he lifted his gaze from the floor and looked straight at Kimber.

His face changed to an expression that combined puzzlement with the fact that he was still half asleep. He gazed at Kimber for several moments, then reached his hand up slowly and poked her with a finger. Kimber instantly sprang from her perch, leaping over the ogre's head, and ran straight for the door. The ogre shouted, "Hey! Stop her!" Kimber was confident she could make it to the door. She was fast, and the ogres had to wake up before they could catch her. The stone arch of the entrance loomed, the forest outside beckoned, and suddenly she was tumbling sideways across the floor.

She tried to shake off the hit, to get up and run again. She heard an ogre command, "Bring her to me." A gruff hand clamped around one of her ankles and started dragging her towards the middle of the temple floor. Her tail fluffed up in fear and she clawed at the stone tiles with her hands, but to no avail. The ogre that was pulling her yanked her leg and threw her the rest of the way to his leader's feet. The ogre chief wrapped his hand around her neck and lifted her up to inspect her. "Well, what have we here? You're an unusual looking creature. But definitely a woman of some kind," he said, groping her breasts roughly with his free hand. A cruel grin spread across his face as he forced his hand between her legs. After ascertaining the nature of the breechcloth that separated him from Kimber's pussy, he drew a large knife from his belt, slid it under the breechcloth between her legs, and slashed downwards, cutting it in two and exposing her fuck hole.

"No!" she cried about as well as one can while being held in the air by the neck. She reached under his arm and pulled her dagger, but the chief punched her in the stomach and her fingers opened from the shock, the dagger clattering to the floor. The ogre chief loosened his clothing to expose his hard cock, then transferred Kimber to his other hand, holding her neck from behind. He forced her face to the floor, on her knees with her ass up. He pulled her arms behind her back and held them there with one hand while his other got a grip on her hair and pulled on it, yanking her head back painfully. She knew that begging the ogres for mercy was futile, so she directed her fearful pleas elsewhere. "No, no, please oh Gods, help me!"

"Sorry, they aren't here," the ogre chief mocked as he forced his large, boney cock all the way into her pussy in one thrust. Kimber shrieked in pain. The chief began fucking her with fast jabs of his cock deep inside her. The violation aspect was bad, but the agony of the ogre cock was much, much worse. It felt like tumbling down a rocky cliff, but coming from the inside. The ogre grunted while thrusting. Kimber screamed and sobbed, tears running down her face. The protrusions on the ogre's member weren't actually sharp, but they felt like knives as they scraped back and forth along the walls of her cunt and stabbed over and over against her cervix.