Chapter 21

“How can we help?” Kal asked as he and Kashka joined Captain Scarlet on the docks.

“If we had time, I’d have ya stick yer cock in every one of my girls to calm their slutty asses down. Roka’s in heat so bad I can smell it,” she growled at the mage. “But if you’re here to help, which I appreciate, start grabbing boxes unless you can magically float all this onto the ship.”

“I can’t do that, but I do have a couple of ideas to speed things up. Let’s try the easiest but probably least likely to succeed first.” He held out his arms toward the pile of cargo, “Give this all to me.”

“Like fuckin’ hell I’m—”

“It’s only for a few minutes, and I swear I’ll give it back. As long as it’s rightly and properly yours to give, this should work.”

Scarlet shook her head. “That’s a problem. Some of this is bought and paid for by others. We’re just deliverin’ it.”

“Okay, so that idea is out...” he said as Roka walked down the steep gangplank and gave him a smoldering look full of promise. Picking up one of the larger boxes, she made her way back onto the ship. Two crewmembers, the otter and silver fox, followed her onto the docks and together picked up another large box before carefully making their way back toward the ramp. Kal stopped them and drew the featherfall rune on the side of the box.

“You only have a few seconds before the spell ends,” said Kal as the spell pulsed.

“Uh, thanks,” said the silver fox before continuing on.

Kal watched in confusion as they seemed to be straining almost as much as before he cast the spell. Realizing what he did wrong, the mage jogged over, stopping them again.

“This thing’s fucking heavy,” growled the otter, “What do you need?”

Kal answered by drawing a strength rune over the sleek monster girl’s back and activating it, then doing the same for the fox. This time, their eyes widened and they shot him beaming grins before jogging up the gangplank with their cargo.

“What was all that about?” the captain asked as Kal returned.

“The first spell made the crate extremely light, but as they walked away, I realized it didn’t affect the crate’s contents. So the only thing actually lightened was the box itself. The second spell boosted their strength for the next few minutes.”

“I’ll need you to teach Tavorah that one.”

“Not to call her out, but she probably already knows it,” he said while drawing another strength rune in front of Kashka. The cat picked up another of the larger crates, but its size made it too unwieldy despite her enhanced strength. Picking up a box more suited for her, she jogged over to the gangplank and leapt, with the box, over the returning otter and fox before continuing onto the ship. A few seconds later, Kashka launched herself over the deck rail and landed nimbly on the pier beside the supplies. The fox and otter stared for a moment before grabbing armfuls of supplies and repeating the cat’s stunt.

As they leapt the ship’s railing and landed back on the docks, surprised shouts followed them along with curious peeks over the side of the boat to see if they were okay. Kal asked the two to wait a moment until Kashka arrived.

“You don’t want this spell to end as you are running up the ship’s ramp with your hands full. I’ll need to refresh it every few minutes,” he said, stepping up to Kashka. As he drew the strength rune, the cat glanced at the other girls and lifted one side of her top. Grinning, she presented her breast as a target for the spell.

Kashka pushed her breast into his hand after he cast the spell then pulled her top back into place before picking out the next piece of cargo. As Kal stepped over to the fox and otter, he found they had both pulled up their tunics in a similar manner and wore grins nearly identical to the cat-girl’s. After refreshing the strength spell and giving each girl a quick rub, he sent them on their way.

“At this rate, we might be loaded by midnight,” said Scarlet.

“Midnight?” asked Kal, looking at the quickly disappearing pile of goods on the pier then up at the sun to see it was only late afternoon.

Scarlet pointed at two large wagons pulled by teams of draft horses that stopped in front of The Scarlet Bitch. “These are just the first few. So, yes, midnight.” Six men holding onto each cart’s sides dropped to the ground and immediately began shuttling the wagon’s contents to the existing pile of supplies.

Kal got an idea—

“Shelve it, mage,” said Scarlet. “I can see in your eyes what you’re thinking, and we are not taking a chance on pissing off the dockmaster’s porters by having a handful of my magicked girls keep pace with a dozen of their men. Relations are tense enough because of my crew’s nature. I’m not letting you make it worse.”

“He did seem a little testy about a manifest and some tariffs when we spoke to him. Said something about not sending the biggest woman on your crew.”

The captain threw her head back and laughed. “I meant with the city in general, not the dockmaster specifically. That was his way of saying, ‘please send Roka.’ He just makes a fuss like that because he’s expected to. The first time she delivered the tariffs, it caused a bit of an uproar, but after years of doing this, nobody really cares.”

“Then why does he want Roka?” Kal asked as the bovine in question walked down the plank, making it bounce with her weight.

“The man loves big tits, and no human woman is going to compare with those.” She said, pointing at the cow-woman’s bouncing globes. “As ‘penance’ for causing such a disruption, she lets him fuck her tits. He marks off a couple of items on his copy of the manifest as rejected and lets Roka keep the extra tariffs as pocket money.”

“Whatever works, I guess,” he said to Roka, who stopped and listened to the last part of the captain’s story.

The bovine laughed. “The first time I took him the tariff money, the way he stared at my chest had me so hot I dropped to my knees and begged him to fuck my tits.” She pulled up one side of her shirt, showing him one of the subjects of their conversation. “Who do I have to fuck to get some of that magic strength? The girls are loading stuff faster than I can put it away.”

“Mage, continue what you are doing, but do it on the ship so you can magick Roka and whoever else is loading and storing. Cat ... Kashka, we lost one of our riggers to her mating season. While there’s daylight, I want you to learn as much as you can from Ratt,” she said, pointing to the rodent-type monster girl crawling over the sails.

As the captain greeted the porters and began marking off incoming goods on the parchment in her hand, Roka, Kal, and Kashka made their way back onto the ship.

“How did you lose one of your riggers?” Kal the cow-woman as they stepped onto the main deck.

“Dorli is a mantid. While mating, her partner has a fair chance of losing their head,” the bovine explained. “When she comes into season, she goes bandit hunting for expendable males. I feel sorry for the girl. She never keeps the eggs from those pairings. Says she’s waiting for a man who will love her before letting one hatch.”

“Removing your lover’s head is a strange way to show your love,” said Kashka.

“It’s part of the reason she doesn’t keep the eggs from mating with bandits. Dorli’s ancestral memory showed her that a man she loves and loves her back has little risk of dying while mating. She also says that children born from such a union have less urge to kill their mate. She doesn’t want to bring a brood of man-killers into the world,” said Roka as they stopped in front of the pile of supplies Kashka and the other two delivered.

“Good for her then,” said Kashka. “I guess this means I don’t need your strength spell anymore, she sighed, looking upward.

Kal reached out and ran his fingers lightly over the fabric covering her nipple. “You can always come back and pretend I cast it on you.”

“Ratt is going to keep you busy and shove ship’s rigging into your head for as long as the light allows,” said Roka. “Don’t expect any breaks.”

Kashka got a quick hug and kiss from Kal before leaping upward and running up the mast to where Ratt waited for her.

When Kal looked around again, Roka, the otter, fox, and a few other crewmembers were standing in line with one side of their shirt pulled up.

“I understand this is the price for your strength spell?” the first mate asked, grinning.

Kal chuckled. “No, there is no price. That was just something she started,” he said, pointing at the cat above his head.

“Oh good,” said a smiling monster girl as she put her shirt back down. She appeared to be a kind of brown-furred rodent with a very thick tail, but Kal couldn’t tell which species she might be. He did notice her stomach looked off before the fabric covered it.

“Don’t mind Wonna,” the silver fox said. “She prefers women.”

“It’s not like I only like women,” Wonna replied, though the smile never left her face. “I’ll just be sharing my turn with him.”

“Enough talk, we have work to do,” said Roka, leaning down a little, so her breast took up most of Kal’s view.

The mage drew the strength rune and activated it before sinking his hand in the supple flesh in front of it. Roka shivered as he rolled and played with her nipple for a moment before moving to the next girl.

The first mate’s shirt dropped back into place as she flexed and posed for a moment. Looking down at Kal, she affixed him with a mischievious grin. “You can cast this on yourself, right?” she asked. Kal held up his bracer, and a rune similar to the one he drew glowed. “I think I’m going to really enjoy this trip,” the bovine muttered as she picked up a crate under each arm and carried them belowdecks.

Scarlet looked up at the moon. “Before midnight, nicely done,” she said, checking off the last of the items on the list in her hands as Roka grabbed a barrel destined for the galley. “Have Tavorah deliver supper to me in my quarters and add an extra setting for our guest. He will be dining with us,” she called after the bovine.

“What about Kashka?” Kal asked.

“Ratt invited her to eat with the crew. The night before we sail, the girls usually down a few pints to relax before setting out. I bear no responsibility for her condition in the morning. I warned her we sail at high tide tomorrow morning, and I expect her to be helping Ratt, no matter how much her head hurts.”

The mage chuckled as Kashka confirmed her words. Ratt’s invitation hinted at more than just food on the menu tonight.

“Just so I know what to expect. Is my service to the crew starting tonight?” he asked as they climbed the stairs beside his room to the quarterdeck and the door to the captain’s cabin.

“Yes. Tavorah has been itching to finish whatever you started when she was checking you and your friend over earlier.”

“And you?”

“I won’t say no, because I am curious what all the excitement is about,” she said with a glance at his crotch. “But Tavorah is my lover and craves the attention of men far more than I. You are there for her tonight.”

Captain Scarlet’s cabin was larger and more luxurious than the guest quarters. Thick glass windows made up the rear wall except for a couple of support timbers. There was little to see through them but the reflection of the moon off the waves, broken by the distant sea wall.

The desk in the middle of the room faced away from the windows, and everything on it either had a slot, like the inkwell, or was held down, like the stack of papers pinned under a strip of flexible wood.

“I would have thought a captain would prefer to watch the ocean,” said Kal, looking at the desk.

“I thought the same thing when we took over the ship,” she said, lifting the stick and tucking the bill of goods under it. “I even moved my chair to the other side for a few days. But once we were underway and I sat down to look at the previous captain’s records, I understood why the desk faced away. The ship began rocking side to side, and something about the shifting view as I tried to read made me seasick. It hasn’t happened again since I moved the chair back.”

“You said Tavorah is your lover. Didn’t I see her scrubbing the decks earlier?”

“She was,” said Scarlet, “She is also my navigator since she knows the stars better than anyone. But Tavorah hasn’t always been my lover. The first couple to share my bed got a little too big for their britches and thought they could push the crew around because they were sleeping with the captain. After the second one cut ties with us, I made a rule that if you wanted to share my bed, then you also accepted a demotion to swabbie. Being my lover comes with plenty of benefits, such as eating the best food at the captain’s table, sharing the most comfortable bed on the ship, and having the captain’s ear. I felt it fair if they were getting all of that, then they give up something to maintain balance.”

A long table took up most of the left side of the room with place settings laid out for more than a dozen guests, while the captain’s bed and wardrobe were on Kal’s right. Behind the table looked to be some sort of closet. Scarlet hung her hat on the back of the chair at the table’s far end before flopping into it.

“The privy’s behind me if you need it,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “Don’t drop anything down the hole. You’ll never see it again. When not joining me here, you will take care of your business at the head. Roka explained the head to you, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Kal. Picking up one of the wooden plates, he discovered it slotted into a matching hole carved into the table to keep from sliding around. The mugs also had their own cutout, and the eating utensils rested in a shallow pocket with a cloth napkin.

“Did she mention that we will be taking on more crew once we leave harbor?”

“No, she didn’t,” he said, putting the plate down. “Should I be worried?”

“One of them may be a bit of a shock, but we’ll worry about her if she decides to join us. I mention them because one is a squid girl. Her job isn’t the most glamorous, but she can create strong jets of water out of thin air and uses it to help the girls stay clean. She’s also a lusty squid and often asks for favors from the crew for what she does. Most of us girls don’t mind, but she has a tendency to slip things in the back way, so I thought I’d warn you,” she said as the cabin door opened.

“The woman is obsessed with asses,” said Tavorah as she carried in a tray of food. Kal appreciated that most of its contents looked to be lighter fare, things that wouldn’t sit heavily in his stomach given the late hour. “I think she could live happy the rest of her life attached to Roka’s.”

“Or yours,” said Scarlet.

“Or mine,” the elf said as she set the tray into its matching cutout and began dividing the contents among the captain’s, Kal’s, and her plates. As the elf tried to take her place across the table from the mage, Scarlet grabbed Tavorah’s tunic and dragged her down into a kiss.

“I’ve missed you,” said Scarlet before letting her go. “Please, Kal, sit and have a bite to eat. You’ve done more than your fair share today.”

“More than you might realize, Red,” said the elf, catching her breath as she sat down. “Roka asked earlier if I knew the spell he was using. When I said yes, she asked why I didn’t use it like he does.”

“I admit the question crossed my mind too,” said the captain.

“I just ... can’t. I don’t have nearly as deep of magic reserves. I may be able to cast the strength spell a half dozen times, but then if someone got hurt while loading the ship, I’d be useless. I really have no idea how you can keep up,” she said to Kal. “I didn’t know any human could regenerate magic so quickly.”

“I do have some mana crystals that help.”

“Those must be some impressive crystals to cast a strength spell over and over like that.”

“They nearly cost me my life,” he said, rubbing where the mana golem’s spear pierced him. “But since I got them, I think it was worth the risk.”

“Can I see?” Tavorah asked, leaning forward and begging with her eyes.

Kal chuckled. “Normally, if I saw that look, I’d be thinking what kinds of favors I could get from you in return. But I think I have already agreed to do whatever you want, and I believe there’s a lot of overlap in what we want. Ria, come out, please.” Kal gave both women a stern look as the avatar faded into existence. “If you try to take this from me, then Ria will take it back. If you attempt to kill me and take Ria, she will disappear and return to my women on the other side of the world. Understood?”

Scarlet sat up in her seat, scowling. “I don’t like—”

“No, Red,” Tavorah interrupted, putting a hand on her arm. “If his mana crystals are that extraordinary, he has every reason to be cautious.”

The captain frowned and muttered, “Understood.”

Kal reached into the pouch on his hip and pulled out one of the depleted crystals. Tavorah choked when he laid it on the table, unable to believe what lay in front of her.

She looked up at Kal, “You said mana crystals, as in ... you have more?”

“Three like that on me, and more in her,” he answered, pointing at Ria, “but uncut.”

“You have four of these?” Scarlet asked. Kal glanced over and saw the captain wasn’t looking at him but was studying Tavorah’s reaction. “How much for one of them?”

The elf blinked as her captain’s request wormed its way past her shock. “Red, that shard of crystal is worth more than this ship and all the crew sold back into slavery combined.”

Scarlet raised a skeptical eyebrow at the nondescript gem. “Not that I’m going to argue with you, but how?”

“My love, I’ve been alive for five centuries and only a handful of times have I seen mana crystals larger than that. He is the only person I’ve known to have more than one.” She sat back in her chair. “And here you sit with four,” the elf whispered in disbelief.

“What she’s saying is that crystals this size are already rare, and flawless crystals like these are extremely rare. But finding both together in the same crystal is almost unheard of.”

“They can’t be that rare if you have four,” said the captain.

“That’s because of where I got these from, and I wasn’t lying when I said it almost killed me.” He pointed at the crystal on the table. “I pulled the spear these four were cut from out of my chest. Aside from being an inferno with very little breathable air, where the mana crystals grow is well protected.”

“You can grow crystals?” asked Scarlet

“You said spear made from mana crystal?”

Kal nodded in response to both questions. “Specifically, a spear created by a mana crystal golem, left there to protect a cave filled with them as far as my light could reach.”

Tavorah sat back. “How could I have never heard of such a cave before?”

“Because it’s deep, deep underground where it’s hot enough that creatures accustomed to such temperatures have a difficult time coping.”

“Then how did you get down there?” the captain asked.

“First, let me ask you, do you know any monster girls whose touch lets you breathe underwater?”

“Yes, two at least.”

“When you live in an environment that is deadly for your fragile, human lover, it’s a handy ability to have. It’s also a very potent ability. I have swum through molten rock with the aid of a fire salamander-girl. Just imagine for a moment how hot that was, yet I only felt warm. One of my mates offered me similar protections when we visited the cave.” Seeing the skeptical looks on the women’s faces, he continued. “If you don’t believe me, I recommend using your lie detection spell, and I’ll repeat myself, but I can promise you it would be a waste of time.”

“If I could, that is,” Tavorah sighed. “Loading the ship means twisted ankles and smashed fingers to take care of. I’m out of mana for another few hours.”

“I’m surprised,” said the mage. “I thought elves were the paragons of magic and harmony with nature. Unless there were a lot more scraped knees than I’m thinking, I wouldn’t expect an elf to exhaust their magic so quickly.”

“Well, you said you wanted to learn about elves, and this is as good of a time as any,” said Tavorah before taking a deep breath. “Even cursory research should have told you we reach maturity about as quickly as a human but don’t start looking to have children until we are past two hundred. Since we are so long-lived, such traditions were necessary to keep our numbers manageable. A thousand years ago, around the time the first monster girls appeared, everything changed. Like the orcs, goblins, and kobolds, elven women stopped getting pregnant. It seemed only the magic-resistant dwarves deep in their mountains were spared of this curse.

Decades passed, and a group of bandits captured an unfortunate elven adventurer. They used her mercilessly for three days before she freed herself and killed her captors. Upon returning home, she discovered she was with child.

“The elven nation’s leaders demanded she terminate the pregnancy and not bring a bastard half-blood into the world. The researchers and scholars noted this was the first elven pregnancy since the appearance of the monster girls and that she needed to be studied in hopes of ending this curse.

“The maiden told them all to keep their noses out of her business, gathered the money from her adventures, and left.”

“Good for her,” said Scarlet, raising her mug before downing it.

Tavorah took the captain’s mug, Kal’s, and her own to the small barrels hidden behind the cabin’s door for refills. “When she finally gave birth ... the babe was an elf. The little girl looked nothing like a half-elf, aside from a couple of small inherited traits the new mother attributed to one of her captors. Even a finder spell instructed to seek the nearest human or half-elf pointed elsewhere. By all standards, the child was a full-blooded elf,” she said, passing out the drinks and taking her seat again.

“As you can guess, this caused an uproar among the elven nations. When we stopped having children, some began watching the orcs and goblins, both of which had realized by now they could only reproduce with human men. For elves, the idea of mixing blood with any other race was, to put it kindly, disgusting.”

“Kindly,” the captain snorted into her cup.

“But the elves were caught in a conundrum,” Tavorah continued. “Half-elves before this time were considered freaks. Better killed in the womb or drowned at birth. Yet here was a little girl with a human father but born an elf, just like the monster girls and monstrous races. Many elven women decided they wouldn’t lower themselves by having a child with a human, but that number dwindled as the centuries passed.

“Now, here’s the part you won’t read in your books. New elves, like I am, have only around half the magical power of the older true elves. Thankfully, this applies to the second generations and the few third-generation new elves out there as well. We were worried that if our magic halved each generation, soon we would be nothing more than long-lived humans.”

“In a thousand years, you only have three generations?” Kal asked.

“Tavorah smiled, “Most monster girls are on a two-year cycle before they can get pregnant again. We believe that ours is around a hundred times that, give or take a few decades. But our numbers are still low, new elves are scattered without a nation to call home, and pregnancies among us are so rare it’s proven hard to study.”

“Wait ... you were exiled?”

“Not me specifically, but my mother accepted exile to have me. True elves will not tolerate half-bloods, no matter what the magic tells them. But it’s only temporary, and we new elves understand that. In a few centuries, maybe a millennia, the true elves will be old and unable to defend their nations. When that time comes, we new elves will band together and simply walk into the cities they denied us. If we don’t, then they, and we, risk losing the elven nations to outside invaders. By then, enough true elves will have died of old age they won’t have the numbers to expel us.”

“And I’ll be in the afterlife lookin’ down on her as she becomes the queen of some elven nation sayin’, ‘I fucked that,’” said Scarlet with a giggle that showed she was feeling the wine in her mug.

“What other changes occurred among the new elves besides the loss of magical ability?” Kal asked.

“Increased libido, a strong preference toward human mates, and climaxing from human seed. The things you expect from monster girls.”

“That’s it?”

“As I said, I’m essentially a full-blooded elf except for those few differences.”

“Do you have any children?”

“One. My daughter lives on the southern continent, and this will be her two-hundred and thirty-ninth summer. I will say that if you are up for it, I may be interested in another. I’m curious if your magical abilities can be passed on.”

“My children are still too young to answer that.”

“Fuckin’ hell, I’m the only one here without a kid,” said the captain.

“You could see if Kal would change that for you,” Tavorah offered.

“Nah. I already ate my gondas leaf, and a sailing ship is no place to raise a kid. There’s a reason all those other boats out there are filled with men.”

“Have you thought about expanding?” Kal asked. “Maybe taking on another ship and starting a fleet? You might be able to stay on land as they grow up and run things from there.”

“Eager to put a baby in me, are you?” Scarlet chuckled as she got up to refill her mug. “Ships are expensive, and I’ve been saving my gold in hopes of selling this boat to Roka and retiring with my beautiful elf over there. Speaking of which, are you sure there’s no way I can get you to part with one of those crystals? Free passage between Calfera and Azumbaho for life, and I’ll let you bend me over and fuck me any time during the voyage?”

Tavorah looked scandalized, “Red, what are you saying?”

The captain downed the contents of her mug, ignoring the elf as she refilled it at the spigot. “I’ll even let you fuck me in the ass if that’s what you’re into.”

“What?! You hate having anything in your ass.”

“Hush, elf. I saw how you looked at that mana crystal. If a cock in my ass is what it takes to get one for the woman I love, then so be it.” Scarlet took a big gulp of her wine before saying, “By the way, I quite like the feel of your tongue in there.”

“What’s gotten into you? Why are you drinking so much? And why are you acting like this?” Tavorah asked.

Scarlet sighed and looked down at the wine in her cup as she swirled it around. “Hearing you talking about getting pregnant ... it just reminded me there are things you want I can’t give you, no matter how much I love you.”

“That’s not true,” said Kal. “Even if Tavorah decided she wanted me to father her child. You would be a participant in her conception, and she would be your daughter, not mine. I would only lay claim to her lineage. But that’s something to discuss after a lot more thought and a lot less wine.”

“What about the crystal?”

“Still no deal,” said Kal, “but if you think about expanding your fleet, I might be interested in buying a portion of your business. As you make your rounds back to Calfera, just send a small percentage of your profits to me.”

“For one crystal that only she can use? I don’t think the girls will go for the expense of buying another ship.”

“What about fixing one up? The Scarlet Bitch was once a slaver’s vessel and must have been in good repair when you acquired it. Have you considered liberating another slaver, or maybe a pirate ship?”

“My girls aren’t fighters. We run from pirates.”

“But for the next few days, you have a mage and assassin aboard who just took out the remains of The Kraken’s Teeth. Unless pirates are taking on magic-users or exceptionally skilled fighters, we could make short work of a thirty- or forty-man crew in one night. Just think about it.”

“We’ll answer that question if we encounter any.” She looked at the mage and Tavorah. “Are you two going to fuck or just sit there? I didn’t invite you into my cabin to chat. I invited you to make her scream.”

The elf looked over at Kal, “As wonderful as that sounds, I think she needs my attention more than I need yours.”

“I understand, but it’s obvious how much she loves you, and she did bring me in here for you specifically. Your captain may not appreciate if I left before giving her what she wants.”

Tavorah smiled as she rose from her seat, “You may be right,” she said, taking Scarlet’s mug and setting it on the table before pulling the captain into a deep, soulful kiss.

As the women made out, Kal put the crystal still on the table back in its pouch then looked at the avatar still sitting on his shoulder. “You’ve been quiet,” he said, keeping his voice low to not bother the elf and captain.

“I’ve been waiting for you to put your mana crystal away. I’m still a little pissed at her for what she did to you earlier. But obviously, you and your dick have forgiven her, so I might as well too.” She kissed him on the cheek, “Call me if you need me.”