How Excellia got Her Horns

Disclaimer: All characters are 18 or older. The characters in the story are exceptionally endowed. If you're not a fan of that, perhaps you should look elsewhere.

Excellia, Villeta, and Kargon are original characters belonging to Ashraam, used at his request.

*****

Excellia reflected silently on how much she hated her job.

It had been a little more than a season since the amazon princess had abandoned her homeland and departed the jungles of Lak'Tathion. She'd left to seek strength in the wider world, to face great challenges and overcome them, to earn glory and respect among her people. But the wider world had proven to be utterly disappointing. It had been nothing but one foul-smelling barbarian town after another, performing menial tasks for a handful of the metal coins they used for currency. At this rate, she would be a wizened crone before she had even a single trophy worth any real honor.

Looking inward, she cursed fate for trapping her in such a frail body. True enough, compared to the women of these barbarians, she was a goddess. Like all her amazonian sisters her skin gleamed bronze in the morning sunlight. Her long, wavy crimson hair cascaded down her back in a burning waterfall, all the way to the small of her back. She stood eye to eye with most of the barbarian menfolk, and every inch of her body was covered in toned, lithe muscle. Well, almost every inch. She was undeniably woman, with a shapely pair of orange-sized breasts and an undeniable curve to her hips. Her traveling outfit did nothing to conceal her glorious physique, originally consisting of nothing more than a wide cloth band threaded between her muscular thighs and held around the waist by a sturdy leather belt that bore furry pouches on the front and back, and the leather strap harness that held her mighty two-handed axe tight to her back. She'd added a wide, fitted cloth band over her breasts when the stares of the barbarian menfolk became intolerable.

But as lovely and powerful as she was compared to these women, compared to other amazons, particularly her sisters, she was pathetic. They loomed over her, almost seven feet tall, setting the redhead at eye-level with their full, jiggling, cantaloupe-sized orbs. While she strained and trained her body with almost every spare moment, her sisters were effortlessly muscular, bearing thick slabs of shredded muscle on every limb. As if fate was not cruel enough, her sisters never passed up an opportunity to rub their superiority in their youngest sibling's face, easily defeating her at any sport or challenge she could think of. She'd suffered under their cruel taunts and mockery for her entire life, her rage simmering with each passing moon that failed to deliver her the body she so longed for. She had the heart of a true warrior, and she longed for glory, but her body seemed destined to ruin her aspirations.

The greatest amazonian warriors, those whose great and glorious deeds inspired tales and songs that were repeated in celebration for many generations, were said to be incredibly powerful. Strong enough to crush the skulls of their enemies between their thighs, strong enough to behead fearsome monsters with a single stroke of an axe, strong enough to crush stone and bend steel with their bare hands. She'd always been captivated by such heroic women, she memorized all the greatest tales and songs. She wanted nothing more in all the realms than to become a warrior strong enough to inspire such legends, to become a great amazon. But as her coming of age came and went and her hopes of a sudden growth spurt died, she became desperate for some way to tip the scales in her favor, to gain an edge. There was one thing the warriors of legend all had in common. They all had left the jungles and found strength and glory in the world beyond. It was a crazy idea, yes, but it seemed her only hope. Of course, she might never have had the courage to go through with it if she hadn't lost her temper during a spat with her sisters and allowed herself to be goaded into making a hasty oath to do it. By the sacred laws of the amazons, an oath was a very serious commitment. She was left with two options, one, to go through with the oath and either succeed or die trying, or two, have her honor stripped from her and be exiled in disgrace.

But to her ever-growing disappointment, the land beyond the jungles was not some thrilling wilderness where adventure and danger were part of everyday life. It was almost painfully dull, in fact, all the land she'd seen thus far was boring expanses of farms and grasslands, punctuated by the occasional town, or even more rarely, a real city. There seemed to be no challenges to be found here worthy of honor among the amazons. She'd sworn to herself she'd find some sort of task worthy of her attentions after her last quest had put her in a stinking sewer, hacking the tails off enormous, mutant rats. But when her meager reward had been spent, she had been left with no choice but to take another menial task for the promised reward.

This time, she had been charged with the chore of retrieving stolen good from the kobolds inhabiting the Dam-Kobol mine outside of town. According to the man who'd charged her with the task, the mine was actually named for its founders, Daniel Kobol and Richard Dam. It's common name had been changed to the 'Damn Cobalt' mine by some bitter, unemployed miners when the veins it had been built to follow were fouled by Cobalt deposits. Then, once again, the name had changed to the 'Damn Kobold' mine after a warren of the small, scaly creatures had breached into it from below and rapidly moved in to occupy every nook and cranny. It seemed whenever the kobold numbers reached a certain threshold, their subterranean supply lines were unable to support their numbers, and they were forced to start raiding nearby settlements to make up the difference.

And so here she was, staring at the entrance to the mines. She'd been promised a gold piece for every kobold she slew, plus the value of any supplies she retrieved and the profits from any other items or materials she could retrieve from the mines. She sighed softly, and tugged at the rope harness attached to the rented mule that hauled a now-empty cart, pulling the beast toward a weathered hitching post by the mine's entrance. The gave the beast a pat on the side of the neck as she tied the harness to the post, then turned to the archway leading into the mine. She reached behind her, undoing the buckles that held her heavy axe on her back and bringing it to bear, hands tightening on the red leather grip, broad, arcing blades gleaming. She hoped she'd be able to at least enjoy the task a bit. At least there was real fighting involved, it had been too long since last she'd drawn blood.

She crept into the mine cautiously, advancing with short steps, keeping her eyes peeled as she entered. Immediately, she could see the evidence of kobold habitation. Tiny sleeping chambers crudely hacked into the stone walls, honeycombed to accommodate as many as possible at a time. Piles of garbage in the corners. Racks of mining equipment, crudely modified to accommodate tiny kobold hands. But as she passed passage after passage, she found no kobolds. Even the traps the kobolds were so famous for were apparently inactive. Perhaps that was the trap? To lure adventurers in, then activate the traps and leave them with no method of escape? No... the tiny, scaly beasts were cowardly, they wouldn't want to trap themselves in with an angry adventurer...

It took her a moment to realize the dull thumping she was hearing in the silent tunnels wasn't her own heartbeat. No... it was drums. Finally, some sign of her prey. She listened carefully at each intersection of tunnels, following the echoing, distant sound at each turn. The sound grew louder as she got closer, and she found her heartbeat mirroring it, stepping faster and faster as her excitement grew. She was getting closer and closer to the source. Soon, she could hear a chorus of voices, a rhythmic chant spoken in the kobold's harsh, hissing dialect of draconic, thousands of voices as one. She felt her lips curl into a wicked grin. Her anticipation grew. What would she find when she came upon the source of the sounds? Some manner of gathering, obviously, but what? A ceremony to some dark god from the depths? A celebration of some foul accomplishment? A ritual with cruel intent? The sound still grew, louder and louder, and her pace continued to quicken. Could there be something truly dangerous at work in these mines? If she could be the one to stop it, that would certainly be a glorious achievement. A fitting start to her legends, perhaps. Soon the sounds were all but deafening, a roar that echoed and amplified through the stony tunnels, matched only by the sound of her pulse, adrenaline surging with each beat as she prepared for glorious battle.

Finally, she rounded a beam and spotted the first one of the little beasts. It had its back to her, facing an archway opening onto some massive cavern. It was clad in rags, the simple garments draped over its scrawny, bony frame, its rusty-red scales dull and lacking luster. Its snout was hanging open as it chanted, pumping a fist into the air, its attention clearly rapt on whatever was happening on the far side of that arch. She barely paused in her swift strides, her mighty axe coming across low and quieting the chorus by one voice. Her grin grew wider. First blood in a battle was always a heady rush. A lone amazon warrior against an army of lizard creatures. Surely that was worth a telling or two.

The chamber was larger than she'd expected, an amphitheater of some sort, a huge dome centered on a stone altar in the middle of a wide, flat center stage. All around it, roughly hewn stone steps served as the seating for what looked to be the entire warren of kobolds. The entire cavern was lit by a brilliant ball of light, hanging in an iron cage suspended from the ceiling by a thick black chain. Its light illuminated a scene of darkness. A green-skinned female of some sort nearly buried beneath writing kobold bodies. A sacrifice of some sort! She had to stop this, before it could go any further, before they could hurt that poor woman or complete whatever they were trying to accomplish.

As she burst through the arch into the yawning chamber, she let loose an exuberant war cry, bloody blade raised, ready to bite flesh once again. Reaching the top layer of stairs, she planted a boot, and swung her axe low and wide, across the neck level of the first kobolds, who were still blinking, confused by her appearance. Chaos erupted in the crowd as the blade separated three heads from their shoulders in a single mighty swing, their bony bodies offering little resistance to her strength. The crowd panicked, scrabbling away from her as the chant and drum beat splintered, the realization of an adventurer's arrival spreading through the hundreds of tiny beings gathered. There was a moment of stillness as the crowd hesitated, but a sharp cry rose over the babble, a hissing command spat by some sort of leader. The tide of bodies hesitated for a moment, then closed on her in a mad wave of scrabbling claws and teeth. She shifted her grip on her axe, and pushed off, rushing forth to meet the tide, pulse thundering in her ears as she screamed another terrifying war-cry.

---------------

The afternoon sun shone down from above as the amazon emerged from the mine one final time, grinning broadly. In one hand, she led the rope lead of her mule, whose saddle-bags were heavy with the last load of goods recovered from the mine. Excellia's bronze skin was splattered with drying kobold blood, covering almost her entire body, either in tiny droplets thrown airborne by the violence that drew it, or in wide splashes of crimson sprayed from the more deadly wounds. She seemed entirely unconcerned with her appearance, having only bothered to wipe clean her face and her gleaming steel axe. Couldn't let her favorite weapon become dull, after all. As she emerged into the sunlight she pulled the mule up beside the cart and began to shift its load from the saddlebags to the cart, silently reflecting on the glorious carnage she'd wreaked in the mines. Now THAT was a battle.

"You've, uh, got something there." Came a female voice as she worked, and the amazon glanced up from her work to the maiden perched on a pile of grain-sacks in the cart. She was clean, compared to the amazon. Her green-skinned figure was, in fact, entirely bare of anything that might conceal her luscious curves, from her wide hips and perfectly shaped ass to her full, emerald tits, capped with forest-green nipples. To Excellia's eyes, she looked like a goblin, her three-foot height and green skin seeming to fit the mental image she had, and the black hair with a shock of purple not being entirely unexpected. However, she seemed to have some unusual traits that she couldn't quite place, such as a short pair of curving horns, one of which had the tip broken off, or the long, flexible, black tail that swayed behind her, it's heart-shaped tip pierced by a handful of silver rings. At the moment, she was sitting upright on the stack of burlap sacks, her generous rear squished out on both sides under her weight. One hand pointed to the amazon's backside.

Excellia blinked, looking over her shoulder, but couldn't quite see it... She reached behind herself, grasping blindly until they closed on something thin and cold. Pulling it off the furred pouch on her belt, she brought it around to look at it. She smirked as it was revealed to be a severed kobold arm, claw-like fingers gripped into the fur of her pouch. She tossed it aside and shook her head. "Stubborn beasts, aren't they?" she muttered as she went back to loading the cart.

The goblin woman rolled her eyes. "Maybe in some places, but not where it counts." she muttered, somewhat bitterly.

The amazon shook her head. "Yeah they didn't put up too much a fight to stay alive, huh?" She replied, loading the last of the goods into the cart and beginning to lead the mule around to the front of the cart.

The goblin gave an unreadable smirk at that comment, then leaned forward, resting her chin on her palm and her elbow on her knee. "You know, I never really thanked you for getting me out of there. I'm don't think even I could have taken all of those little pricks. So, thanks." She offered, surprisingly casual for the recipient of recent rescue.

The amazon grinned, flashing a bright smile as she took on a heroic pose subconsciously, pausing in her task of harnessing the mule. "I'm just glad I arrived in time to rescue you." She replied. Then she paused for a moment, a look of curiosity crossing her face. "Out of curiosity, what were you doing in those tunnels in the first place? You must have known they were dangerous." She wondered.

The goblin sighed. "I was supposed to be making a trade, but the damn lizards changed their end of the bargain." she replied. "I needed the Cobalt from the mines, and the mine didn't have any kobold women... So I arranged an exchange of services." She explained, then sighed, pouting her pair of plump, purple-painted lips. "Then the pricks gathered up all the men in the warren. Seemed like you arrived just in time to spare me from the worst of it." She added, nodding to the amazon.

Excellia nodded, trying to seem knowing despite her growing confusion. Not much of what the goblin said made sense to her. What did a lack of women have to do with anything? Maybe they wanted her as an indentured servant of some sort, to do 'womanly work' like cleaning and laundry. That would certainly fit with the backwards nature of menfolk outside the jungles. Or maybe they'd just wanted a sacrifice and had lied to the woman to lure her in with her defenses lowered. Ah, well, it didn't really matter. Kobolds are stupid creatures, she shouldn't expect them to make sense. She shook her head, tightening the last strap on the mule. She glanced back to the goblin. "What would you need Cobalt for, anyways?"

The goblin grinned, and held up a hand and snapped. There was a soft popping sound, and a puff of black smoke that swiftly cleared to reveal a tiny rectangle of parchment covered in black text. She offered it to the amazon with a small flourish, holding it between two small, green fingers. "I'll let my card explain for me." She commented with a grin.

The amazon took the card and examined it carefully.

Blacksparks's Black Magic

"Supplying all your alchemical needs since 522"

Potions, Elixirs, Distillations, Oils, and Creams

Strong, Fast, and Safe*!

ASK ABOUT OUR PERMANENT SOLUTIONS!

Villeta Blackspark, owner, proprietor, master alchemist, sorceress

The card seemed straight-forward, though she wasn't sure what that little star next to safe was. Maybe some sort of accent? She looked over it one more time before she paused. "Black magic?!" She demanded, turning to the goblin, dropping slightly into a battle stance.

The green woman waved her hands in front of her shaking her head as she leaned back in surprise. "It's just a catchy name! No evil stuff involved, I promise! No need to get all axe-happy." She desperately tried to reassure the amazon.

She frowned slightly, continuing to regard the goblin a little warily as she moved to take the mule's lead and started down the road. There was a tense moment of silence. "So... You needed the Cobalt for an ingredients or something?" she finally spoke up.

Villetta let out a sigh of relief at the knowledge she wasn't going to end up like the kobolds back in the mine. She grinned and moved to the front of the cart to better address the red-haired woman. "Exactly. And to show my gratitude for your timely rescue, I'm willing to offer you some of my stock as thanks." She explained.

Excellia was curious, she had to admit. And it would be nice to have some spare healing potions around on her travels. She couldn't let her quest be put to an end by a lucky hit from some pathetic bandit, after all. She tucked the parchment square into her belt pouch. "Well... what kind of stuff are you offering?" She inquired, hesitantly.

The goblin shook her head. "Well, I've got all kinds of potions and elixirs an adventurer might want handy. Healing potions, obviously. Elixirs that make you stronger, or faster, or tougher. Distillations of elements that release a flash of energy when they break open. Oils that can make your weapon cut through stone. Creams that... well, let's just say they're great for entertainment purposes." She listed off on her fingers, pausing as she mentioned the last item. "You're over 18, right?"

Excellia looked lost in thought for a moment, not really listening to anything after the line about elixirs. "Stronger...The card mentioned permanent solutions?" She asked, the very beginnings of an idea forming in her mind.

---------------

The laboratory was dark and quiet, the only sound in the space the rhythmic drumming of the rain on the windows. Hundreds of glass bottles occupied almost every flat surface, filled with liquids of almost every color and description. Red, blue, green, pink, orange, clear with flecks suspended in the liquid, some even made of many colors swirling around one-another, never mixing. Toward the front, they were displayed and labeled carefully, some resting in stepped wire racks that displayed rows of vials appealingly, others in flat-bottomed flasks and resting directly on the shelves. But toward the back, it was a much more chaotic jumble, hundreds of differently-shaped glass structures interconnected by winding tubes or delicate spouts. Some sat above now-cold burners, others over mystic circles, some tubes running between softly-glowing crystals or etched with runes.

The silence was broken as the two women burst through the door, dripping wet from the rain, and slammed the door shut behind them. Glass tinkled softly against glass with the shock of the slamming door. The naked goblin darted deeper into the laboratory, shivering with the cold and wetness, rubbing at her shoulders for warmth. The amazon, in contrast, seemed unconcerned with her wetness. Sudden rain was not stranger in the jungles, and at least she was washed clean of all the blood. It had been starting to itch as it dried. The goblin gave a triumphant laugh as she managed to find a couple of towels, and quickly started to dry herself, tossing one to her taller companion. As they two women dried themselves, they commiserated over the sudden summer downpour, chatting aimlessly about the weather and luck.