Boots of Booty | ONC 2023

Part 1

1. Research

The library lurked in the bowels of Ompex's Tower of Wizardry like a dusty corpse with ribs of tall bookshelves. A cluster of candles illuminated a table at the library's center like a glowing heart. Amid a semicircle of open volumes, the old man mumbled to himself and flipped parchment leaves. The hours slipped past. A few of the candles sputtered out.

The old man gasped. His tall wizard hat shifted, then fell forward. Its fall suffocated two lit candles. Through good fortune the hat did not catch fire, but soot and wax impregnated the fabric.

Ghomarck paid little attention. "This is it!" he crowed. He bent his head even closer to the aged description of magical artifacts and he traced the faded line of runes with his finger.

He straightened and the wrinkles in his forehead deepened. "A circlet of subversion? How could he? How did he dare to trade away something so dangerous?" The wizard blew air through his lips. "He must not have known its import. The fool."

Light flooded the gloomy book repository and its door boomed open. Journeyman Ee flapped in. So short was she and so vigorous her habitual movements that her robes always flapped. "Master Ghomarck!" Tension squeezed her soprano voice into a frightened squeak.

"Not now," grumped the wizard. "I'm busy."

His dismissal only served to accelerate her reply. "Master Ghomarck, it's Ter-Ferras the high mage."

The old man raised his head and frowned ferociously at the journeyman. "What about him?"

"He's dead, master. Ter-Ferras has been murdered."

2. Coitus Interruptus

"We need to do more of this," Séa said, between coos of delight.

Tash trailed fingers along the paladin's bare, muscular rump as it squeezed and relaxed in a hypnotic cycle. The pair entwined amid useless twists of bedclothes. Light from the window glowed upon their coupling. Currently, their legs interlaced and they pressed their enflamed, leaky vulvae together. Their coordinated circles sent wave after wave of clitoral pleasure singing through their nervous systems. Their hearts pumped with the slow burn of sexual heat and they panted between tender kisses.

"Hmm?" Tash murmured. "What do you mean? We've been bumping our mice for, like, half an hour, now."

"I know! Isn't it great?" Séa closed her eyes and rotated her hips a few more delicious rounds. "But I meant more sex and less, um, riding around and getting saddle sores."

Light brown braids spiraled around the paladin's head to lightly frame her bland features. Muscles rippled in her arms and shoulders as she writhed high on a plateau of ecstasy. Her massive thighs competed in girth with Tash's trim waist. The rogue's black hair flung loosely behind her on the bed to reveal ears with slight points. A dramatic scar sliced through eyebrow, forehead, and cheek of her olive skinned face. Delicious dew misted her face and the skin between her breasts.

Lightly, she slapped Séa's ample buttocks. "Mmm, you big softy."

The paladin opened her gray eyes and gazed into Tash's browns. The rogue quivered and caught her lower lip between her teeth. "That look," she whispered. "Gets me, every time." She squeezed Séa close and ground her hips with sudden urgency.

The room swam in a miasma of breathy moans. The world around them dissolved into an indistinct haze of vibrant bliss. The universe burst with wetness the temperature of body heat, the color of flushed roses, and the scent of honeydew poured atop ambrosia.

They clung to each other, skin on skin, vibrating with shared euphoria. Gradually, they melted into a sweaty heap of careless, boneless limbs. Between languorous caresses, the rapt eye-gazing continued.