The Adult Story Hub

The sun again rose in its magnificent golden splendor across the lands of the Kingdom of Light, it's rays gently caressing the King's palace, arousing the members of the court out of their nightly slumber, until the castle itself swelled and quivered with the renewed passion to set about the day's tasks, which was sure to end in a climax of satisfaction of a job well done.
The King, however, preferred to sleep in, letting the others carry on the business of the Kingdom, so that by the time he did stir, he needed but to stamp the royal seal on whatever had been decided upon. This was the proper way to run a Kingdom. By not taking on the details of day-to-day running of the Kingdom, he could never be accused of being a tyrant, and Kings who are not tyrants are rarely overthrown. Yet this morning he was roused early by a most impolite banging on his chamber door.
"Ugh ... who is it?" the King growled, bleary-eyed as he stirred from his bed.
"It is I, Joy, your Right Hand of Virtue!" came the reply from the other side of the door.
"Bloody well figures," the King grumbled. He sighed and forced himself to rise from his bed, grabbing a robe and closing it around his thick frame. "Enter!"
Joy let herself in, looking quite harried. In one hand she was carrying another slightly singed, dark parchment, it's seal of the Dark Lord still intact upon it. The other hand held a simple white scroll.
The King eyed the parchment. "Another missive from the Dark Lord, eh?" he said.
"Yes, your Majesty," Joy said, wrinkling her nose as someone else might do at an open sewer. She held it out to him, gripping it by only one corner, and only with thumb and forefinger. "Forgive me for not opening it and reading it first, your Majesty."
The King smirked and took the letter from her. Joy hastily shook her hand and wiped her fingers on her robe with a look of disgust, as if she had touched something slimy. He gave her an odd look, glancing over the letter as if expecting gobs of goo to be covering it. When he found nothing, he shrugged and proceeded to break the seal and unfold the letter. "Ah, this describes what they intend to do to Sarah today because I failed to bring down the Barrier."
"Oh, my ..." Joy said shakily, looking about to faint anyway.
"Hrm ... a bit cramped, that would be, yes ... " King Beneficus muttered as he read the letter. " ... now those would be rather nasty ... not the brightest brutes in the lot, either ... wonder how they got so many of them ... heh, that will be a work-out, aye wot?" he chuckled. He folded the letter up and tossed it aside.
Joy looked deathly pale, her eyes wide. "Is it ... i-is it as horrible as I believe it is?"
"I sincerely doubt that," the King said with a small smile.
Joy appeared to relax. "Oh, good, your Majesty," she said. "Perhaps they have decided to go a little easy on her."
What the King did not tell her was that he did not think it was as horrible as she believed because she was incapable of believing anything that horrible. Nevertheless, it was nothing that he felt his daughter could not deal with, reminding himself that she once "entertained" the entirety of the ceremonial guard. "So is that all, Joy?" the King asked.
"No, your Majesty," Joy said in a more somber tone of voice as she took the scroll in both hands. "I am afraid there is a problem."
"So long as it is not with the Barrier ..." the King said warily.
"Oh, no, your Majesty!"
"Still up and as strong as ever?"
"Indeed, your Majesty."
"Jolly good. Then whatever this is, it can't be all bad."
"Oh, but I am afraid it is," Joy said. She unrolled the scroll. "I have had a great deal of trouble trying to create your Army of Light."
"Ah, yes, my army," the King said with a small smirk. "And what have you managed to scare up?"
"Not much, I fear." She turned her eyes to the scroll. "30 swordsmen, 18 knights, 10 archers, 2 wizards, and one catapult. A small one."
"Hrm. Only one catapult, eh?"
"A small one, your Majesty. And that's only if the catapulter's rash clears up."
"Huh. Well, I suppose that will have to do, then."
Joy stared at him. "But, your Majesty ..."
"Yes, Joy?" King Beneficus said with an ingratiating smile.
"That is not enough! We need more. You must issue a call-to-arms!"
The King frowned. "You wish me to conscript an army to fight the Dark Lord?"
"I am sure once you tell the people what we need it for, they will ..."
"Think I've gone bloody daft is what they'll do!" the King declared. "No, Joy, what we have will just have to do."
Joy sighed. "All right, then," she said. "I have no choice, now, do I?"
"Er ... no choice about what?"
She rolled up the scroll and tucked it under an arm. "I must personally lead the army into battle."
The King blinked. "Come again?"
"With such a small army, your Majesty, the only way they can succeed against the evil forces of the Dark Lord is if they are led by someone like me, so that they may be blessed with the benevolent influence of the divine."
"Ah ... right," King Beneficus said, though he was dubious about what kind of divine influence she truly had, considering that she was assigned down here rather than in afterlife. She was, after all, not quite a real angel. The job of guardian angel was not exactly a highly sought-after position, from what he knew. "Uh .... you're quite sure you want to do this?"
"Yes, your Majesty," Joy said. "Angels have traditionally led the charge against all manner of evil forces. There has never been a case of an army led by an angel losing the battle."
"Is that so?" the King said dubiously.
"Indeed, your Majesty. Now, if you will excuse me, I must prepare the army and myself to march on the Dark Lord's Tower of Doom by daybreak tomorrow. By that time, your daughter should be safely on her way back to the Kingdom."
"Ah, good," said the King in a neutral voice. "I take it that Smeltap as set out already?"
"/Smidlar/, your Majesty. Yes, he has. He should be at the Tower by dusk."
"Ah. Smashing. Well, run along, Joy, and good luck."
"Thank you, your Majesty," Joy said with a small smile before ducking out of the room.
The King shook his head as he closed the door to his chamber. He had to admit that the girl had spunk. She really took all this guardian angel stuff seriously. A real credit to her kind. He was sure he would miss her after she was gone.
Not that he necessarily expected her to be killed. It was simply this: the Barrier was not coming down for anything. Everyone that wanted to leave the Kingdom on this silly lark seemed to miss the point that when one leaves the Kingdom, the only way back in is to lower the Barrier for the person to pass. And the King had no intention of doing any such thing, not after the Dark Lord has been harassed not by just one lunatic who was daft enough to want to marry his daughter (which was reason enough not to let him back in) but by an angel-led army.
He sighed. Oh well. He could only hope that the Dark Lord would eventually give up and stop "torturing" his daughter.
Princess Sarah could feel her heart pounding in her chest, each beat punctuated by a dull throb of lingering ache from her nipples and sex, both of which still appeared slightly red from the torture she received the day before. The only sound was that of her own ragged breathing as she struggled to contain the panic that threatened to rise up from deep within her mind, and the occasional creaking noise of the heavy chain above her head as she swung slightly back and forth above the stone floor of the dungeon chamber.
This time, the Princess had been given no explanation of her fate that day. The incubus simply refused to speak to her at all, reserving what little words he did speak for his guards. She had been taken from her room to this chamber, where she had been forced into a very slim, circular cage. So cramped was the cage that she could only remain standing straight, barely able to lift her arms. The cage was lifted from the floor by a heavy chain, suspending her in her tiny prison several feet in the air. Then, Inferno and the two guards had simply left her.
It could not have been more than a candlemark since she had been imprisoned in this manner, yet she already ached to stretch her limbs. The cage was so confining that it became a fear in and of itself, rather than anything they might do to her. She could feel a dull ache in her nether regions, where the tender flesh of her sex still throbbed with lingering discomfort from her torture the day before. She kept glancing towards the door, expecting perhaps the Dark Lord's torturer to return with some new form of torment. Or perhaps they simply intended to leave her this way, trapped and helpless, until she begged for someone to release her.
Princess Sarah uttered a short gasp as she was surprised by a heavy metallic thud from somewhere beneath the floor. The next moment, her cage began to shake, making her heart leap into her throat, as a loud rumbling noise drowned out the sound of her own breathing. Looking past the bars of her cage, her eyes opened wide in surprise and renewed fear as the floor split and began opening beneath her. A breath of warm yet clammy air wafted up from the yawning opening, making her shift restlessly in her cage, her nose wrinkling as a pungent, musky odor was drawn into her nostrils.
Her cage jerked abruptly, dropping a handspan, banging her against the confining bars. There was a metallic clinking sound as her cage was lowered into the dark pit that had opened up beneath her feet. The air grew quickly warm around her body, the odor permeating her nose so strongly that she strained her face against the bars in a vain attempt at finding fresh air. She panted, feeling as if she were suffocating, as the smell of old perspiration and unwashed bodies grew ever thicker, the air more cloying and sticky, until her own body was bathed in sweat.
Princess Sarah's heart thundered, and she first glanced up in distress at the receding dungeon cell, and then down in despair towards whatever was awaiting her. The air seemed to become a miasma around her, the steamy air clinging to her naked body, coating it in a sheen of clammy moisture mixing with her own. She could see little but an undefined dimness below her, and darkness immediately surrounding her.
Then out of the sodden air she heard noises from below her. A nearly unintelligible, muttering in guttural, growling speech, punctuated by animal-like grunts and snorts. Princess Sarah tensed, her eyes wide as the sounds grew more distinct, and the smell grew increasingly musky and overpowering, making her feel lightheaded. She dropped her eyes downward slowly, afraid of what she would see, and when her gaze did penetrate the dimness, her breath caught in her throat.
Below her, lit only by feeble, flicking torches, was a large natural cavern. Shuffling around the bottom of the cavern where creatures that made her spine tingle in icy fear. They were cave trolls, large, brutish beast-men with hulking man-like bodies of frightful strength, yet with large-browed eyes that held little if any true intelligence. They were creatures driven purely by need, such as food and sex. And from the many large bones scattered about the ground, picked completely clean, it was obvious that of the two, food was not going to be a major concern.
Princess Sarah panicked as her cage approached the top of the chamber, moments away from being seen. She looked around her desperately for a way out. She pushed at the bars in front of her, her cage comprised of two pieces padlocked together. The locks would not give, and she succeeded only in making sufficient rattling noises that one of the trolls below her grunted an interrogative and glanced up.
"/FEMALE!/" the troll bellowed, pointing a thick finger upwards.
"Oh gods!" Princess Sarah cried.
The shout had attracted nearly a score of the horrible creatures, all clamoring around under the hole in the ceiling of their world through which the cage now steadily descended, many taking up the same chant. They piled into each other in a frenzy, pushing and elbowing each other aside, growing more rowdy and excited as her cage dropped. As she drew closer, she caught a glimpse of their increasing lust as thick, bulbous phalluses rose to stiffness between their legs, veins along their length pulsing with obscene anticipation.
"No!" Sarah cried. "No, please!"
Her cries went unheeded, the beast-men groping their beefy hands at the air, catching the bottom of her cage, causing the Princess to gasp as she was tossed about like a feather in a windstorm, banged against the bars on one side and the other. As she dropped further amongst the mass of now manic, sex-crazed trolls, they groped frantically at the bars of her cage, their small brains trying to understand exactly how they were supposed to get at this delectable female that that was dropping atop them. Sarah shrank back from them, terror in her eyes, flinching when one managed to touch her with a single, rough finger.
Finally the trolls grew frustrated, and they resorted to what they knew best: brute force.
They grabbed the cage by the bars on either side and pulled. The bars held, yet the padlocks, under Princess Sarah's horrified eyes, cracked, bent, and then snapped completely, the cage flying apart into two pieces.
Princess Sarah made a desperate lunge for freedom. A huge arm caught her around the waist, and she was pulled into the seething mass of beast-men. Huge hands the size of her head grasped her by the hips, lifting her into the air. She looked behind her, and saw the grotesquely thick and pulsing rod that lay between the beast's loins, and the look of pure, animal-like lust in the creatures dull eyes.
The Princess screamed as the phallus impaled her, stretching her intimate folds as it sank into her helpless body.
The sun beat down unrelentingly upon the parched lands, a cloud of dust rising high and wide behind the thundering hoof beats. In the distance, the heat shimmered from the endless sands and scrub, broken only by the occasional cactus and bleached bones of an animal or hapless explorer. The road itself was little more than a bare strip through the scraggly desert grasses. Directly ahead, the land fell away abruptly, and the road simply ended.
Smidlar the Brave straightened up in his saddle and pulled back on the reins. He slowed his faithful steed as they approached the cliff edge, the dust slowly settling in their wake. He brought the beast to the very edge and turned him sideways, bringing him to a halt. Casting his steely gaze downward, he looked into the yawning chasm that was Devil's Canyon. From the canyon floor rose craggy spikes of solid rock. In cracks along the edges of the canyon grew small clumps of spiny, dark green plants whose needles held the deadliest poison known in the lands. Far below a narrow stream tricked through the deepest depths of the canyon, stained a vile green color from the stinging acids secreted by the dreaded eelsharks that inhabited its waters.
Smidlar smiled, finding in himself no fear as he gazed upon this natural gauntlet of hazards too difficult for all but the most powerful wizards to cross safely. He lifted his eyes further, shielding his eyes with his hand, as he looked past the canyon to the far side, where even the meager vegetation of the desert gave way to vast wasteland. Far in the distance, shimmering and dancing in the thermals, rose the erect form of the Tower of Doom. Here again, he found no fear within his heart, even as he considered the ultimate aim of his quest.
How many men in the past have come to this point, he wondered, wishing to take on the Dark Lord, only to turn back because there was no apparent way across the canyon? There were no towns anywhere this far out into the desert, no major trade routes, nothing for many, many leagues in either direction. This was the only road to stretch into the wastelands around the Dark Lord's stronghold. Yet here it came to an abrupt end, and as he focused his gaze to the other side, it picked right up at the other cliff edge and wound off into the distance towards the Tower. Yet somehow the Dark Lord's minions had traveled across these same lands after they had kidnapped the Princess. How did they get across?
"How indeed," Smidlar said with a smarmy grin as he dismounted. He stepped up to the edge and gazed across to the other side, then down into the chasm. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a small stone near his foot. He bent down and picked it up, hefted it in his hand a few times, then threw it into the canyon.
It sailed in an arc from his hand, but instead of falling into the chasm and out of sight, it suddenly appeared to bounce off something unseen, roll a few arm lengths, and come to a stop, hanging apparently in mid-air.
Moments later, the illusion spell broken, the rope-and-plank bridge spanning the chasm shimmered into view.
"Quite clever, Mallevelus," Smidlar said with a smug grin. "But not quite clever enough."
He pulled himself back up into the saddle, gave his horse a kick and a jerk on the reins, and slowly guided him across the creaking bridge.
Inferno was in a much more pleasant mood as he headed up to the Dark Lord's chamber, having witnessed the Princess' initial moments in the dreaded Troll Cave. He wished he had thought of using it sooner.
Just short of the chamber, his master's voice came booming forth from the open door.
"And now, my new subjects, you are entering a new era, an era that will be filled with promise. A promise of endless misery, unrelenting toil, and utter despair for all of you until the end of time! Insert maniacal laughter h ... oh ... " He began laughing, thunder shaking the rafters.
Inferno's lips twisted into a small smirk as he climbed the remaining stairs and entered the chamber.
The Dark Lord stopped laughing and looked back down to his parchment, catching sight of the incubus out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, Inferno, just the man," he said, turning towards him. "Here, give an ear to this next part and tell me what you think ... (ahem) And do not think for a moment that your suffering will someday insure a better future for your profanity!"
Inferno raised an eyebrow.
"For my rule is absolute and timeless, and your children, and your children's children, and your children's children's children, and your chi ..." the Dark Lord paused and scratched his head. "Hmm. Now why would I be concerned about how their descendants swear?"
Inferno stepped up to his master and snatched the parchment from his hands. "I believe that's meant to be /progeny/, my Lord," he said patiently.
"Ah! Yes, that makes so much more sense."
"And if I may be so utterly bold, my Lord," Inferno said gently, "as to suggest that you stop at children's children."
"You think so? I do want to emphasize the point, you see. Their descendants having as bad a time of it as they and all that."
"Indeed, my Lord, but going all the way down to children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children is a bit much. You don't want to lose your audience, after all."
"Quite right, quite right." The Dark Lord scratched out a few lines with his quill. "So, Inferno, how fares the Princess?"
Inferno smiled evilly. "I believe, my Lord, I have things quite in hand."
"Excellent, Inferno, excellent! Did you rape her then?"
Inferno had to really concentrate to refrain from bristling. "No, my Lord, I did not," he said curtly. "And, frankly, I truly do not understand why that is considered the be-all and end-all of torture around here."
"Oh, well, if you feel you can't do it because ... well, you know."
"Know what, my Lord?"
"You know ... your, ah, orientation."
Inferno clenched his teeth. "My Lord, must we go through that again?!" he thundered. "I have made it quite clear what my /orientation/ is!"
"Of course! Certainly!" the Dark Lord said quickly. "But if it was a problem, I'd understand, that's all I'm saying."
Inferno took a deep breath. "Should we perhaps check in on this Smidlar person, my Lord?" he said with a steely voice of forced calm.
"Hmm? Oh, yes, good idea." Mallevelus stepped over to his farseeing mirror and waved a hand over it. The mists swirled within and an image of the golden-haired man appeared. He stood at the edge of a chasm, dismounted from his horse, looking across its depths.
"Devil's Canyon," Inferno said.
"Think he'll figure it out?" the Dark Lord said with a smirk.
"I could not say, my Lord," Inferno said. Which was true. He could not say what he wanted to say, which was that he hoped he would puzzle over it for a few moments, shrug, and then turn back.
"Ah, look," Mallevelus said, pointing.
The man had picked up a stone, and after a brief pause, fired it straight ahead of him into the chasm. Inferno sighed as he saw the stone bounce, stop, and the bridge appear. /Bugger,/ Inferno thought. /A clever one. Just what we need./
The Dark Lord chuckled wickedly. "That's right, Smidlar the so-called Brave! Come to me. Come to my domain. Come meet your doom!"
"Your pardon, my Lord," Inferno said quickly before his master could begin laughing diabolically again. "But would it not be easier to simply snap one of the ropes of the bridge from here and send him to his doom now?"
"Oh, come now, Inferno, where is your sense of sport?" the Dark Lord said. "Anyone can do that!"
"Well, you could time it to send him into the water," Inferno suggested. "He might survive the fall and then you could have the pleasure of hearing his screams as the acids in the river slowly dissolve him."
For a hopeful moment, it appeared the Dark Lord considered this. But then he shook his head. "No, Inferno, I much prefer for him to meet his demise at my hands. So much more satisfying that way."
Inferno inwardly sighed. "As you wish, my Lord."
The Dark Lord waved away the image in the mirror, causing it to go dark. "It will be awhile before he gets to the Tower," he said. "More than enough time to continue practicing my speeches. Care to stay and listen, Inferno?"
"Ah ... no, my Lord, I have urgent business. Organizing your army and such, you see."
Mallevelus grinned wickedly. "And tending to the Princess, no doubt. Oh, how I envy you, Inferno!"
"Indeed?"
"Quite so. You know, I was quite the torturer myself in my day, I'll have you know, before I became the Dark Lord. Sometimes I quite miss that, you know? To hear the screams you know you've inflicted directly yourself. It just gives one a real sense of satisfaction, a job well done."
"Er, yes, well," Inferno said, shifting nervously. He hated it when his master waxed nostalgic like this. "Perhaps the next Princess we take you may ..."
The Dark Lord sighed dramatically. "Oh, hellfire, you know there won't be a next time, not after I conquer the Kingdom of Light. There won't be any more princesses to kidnap any longer." He looked at Inferno. "Perhaps I should avail myself of this opportunity with Princess Sarah ..."
Inferno made a face. The last thing he needed was the Dark Lord trying his hand at torturing someone whom he fancied. "I do not think that would be wise, my Lord," he said carefully.
"Well, why not? I can't be /that/ rusty at it!"
"Oh, not at all, my Lord," Inferno said quickly. "In fact ... ah, you may be too good at it."
Mallevelus paused. "Too good, Inferno?"
"Too good, my Lord."
Another pause. Then a small smile came to his face. "Well ... I was rather ruthless, you know."
"Certainly, my Lord."
"Never granted anyone any mercy whatsoever."
"Of course not, my Lord."
"And we do want her to remain alive, certainly."
"Definitely, my Lord," Inferno said. "And might I remind my most Dark and Diabolical Master that even though there will be no princesses, there will most certainly be buxom young underground resistance leaders."
"Yes. Yes, indeed!" the Dark Lord exclaimed, his eyes glittering. "And they are frightfully tougher than a mere princess!"
"And you certainly want a challenge, my Lord," Inferno said with a small smile.
"Right you are, Inferno! Oh, as soon as I am done with my speeches, I must start thinking up all sorts of fiendish tortures for those resistance leaders. What a grand time we'll have, Inferno!"
"Indeed, my Lord," Inferno said with a sly smile, recalling fondly the reaction of the Princess as she was dropped into the Troll Cave. "Indeed we will."
The only thing that prevented the Princess from screaming until her throat shattered was the fact that a bloated troll phallus had been thrust into her mouth. The troll held her tightly by the hair, forcing her head to bob up and down on his thick manhood. Behind her, another troll grunted in glee as he violated her from behind, his body pounding against hers mercilessly as his thick beastly flesh drove hard into her intimate tunnel.
She had already climaxed twice, streams of troll-seed dripping from her sex, her body shaking with a wanton lust that was almost a match for the trolls that were methodically raping her. After her first climax, the caves had echoed with her screams, the throbbing paroxysms from her sex so intense from the tightness of the troll's phallus in her tunnel that she saw stars dance before her eyes. Now she rose again, the nub of her womanhood pressed against the rod of brutal invasive flesh in her sex.
Suddenly the phallus in her mouth seemed to explode, shooting hot globs of his sticky seed into her mouth, so much that it was impossible to contain it all, dripping out around her lips and down the side of his manhood.
"Mmmph!" Princess Sarah cried in a bubbling nasal whine as she felt as if she were drowning in his seed. With a loud grunt, the beast-man let go of her and withdrew his now less-engorged member from her. More seed dripped from her mouth before she could tilt her head back and swallow, panting to catch her breath, crying out stridently as she rose to another climax. Yet at the moment she was about to reach her crescendo and let out another scream, another troll seized her by the hair and plunged her head onto another phallus waiting to be sated.
Inferno faced the three barrel-chested guards as they stood more or less at attention before him, looking at their master with baleful eyes as he paced back and forth before them.
"Now, I want you to listen well," Inferno told the one in the center. The guard blinked, as if in surprise. "You are to make sure all entrances to the Tower are covered come dusk. Put extra men on it if you need to. I want nothing getting in without us knowing about it. Do you understand me?"
"Uh ... yeah," the guard grunted, blinking stupidly. "Jus' one ting."
"Yes?"
"Why you tell me?" He jerked a beefy thumb over his shoulder. "Him captain of guard."
Inferno rolled his eyes. "Oh, bloody hell," he grumbled. "With those sodding helmets I can't tell one of you from the other. Look, do I have to repeat what I just said or did you hear it?" he said to the real captain of the guard.
"Uh ... no, I heard," the captain grunted. "Jus' one ting."
Inferno sighed. "Yes?"
"Wut you want us ta cover them wid?"
Inferno blinked. "What??"
"The en-ter-ran-ces," he replied. "Wut do ya want 'em covered wid?"
Inferno slapped his forehead. "I meant, don't let anyone in the Tower!" the incubus shouted in an exasperated voice.
"Oh! Yeah. Okay."
"I want someone in every corridor," Inferno said. "And unless there's an intruder in the Tower, you are not to leave your assigned corridors! Is that clear?"
The captain of the guard grunted something that sounded like an affirmative. At least Inferno hoped so. "Fine. Any further questions?"
"Uhh ..."
"/Yes?/"
"We's wuz wonderin'," the guard began.
"Oh, now /there's/ a first," Inferno said sourly. "What?"
"Dooya tink we get ta rape da Princess again?"
The other guards grunted and nodded.
"No, I don't think so. Not anymore with this one."
There was a chorus of "awww" from all three.
"You sure?" the guard persisted.
"Yes, I'm sure!" Inferno said hotly. "Why do you care, anyway?"
"Well, uh, it's like y'know, one of 'em jobapoirks."
Inferno blinked. "A /what?/"
"Jobapoirks. Like, uh, when ya torture her an' stuff. Extra stuff. More'n yer pay."
Inferno puzzled this for a moment. "You mean ... job perks?"
"Yeah! One o' dem. We should get dem, y'know, fer doin' good."
The incubus grumbled. /Great, he can't tie his shoes, but he can negotiate employment contracts,/ he thought. "Look, I'll think about it, okay? Maybe later. If you, uh, do a good job. Now, carry on."
He turned and walked away from them, shaking his head. He lamented now having concentrated so much on the quality of their manly equipment and so little on their brains. Surely if he had been a little more choosy in his hiring, he could have acquired guards with marginally more intelligence than this!
Inferno entered the corridor that went past the front entrance of the Tower. He walked over to the tall iron gate, standing just to the side of the "No Soliciting" sign as he peered between the iron bars, and between the two massive boulders laying as silent but deadly sentinels on either side. Looking past the boulders, he watched a small bird perched upon the branch of a tree, chirping merrily. An insect buzzed past the beautiful, bright-blue plumaged bird, causing it to lunge after it, flying from its perch with a quick burst of movement from its wings. It dived and quickly caught up with the little bug, snapping out its wings into a graceful dive as it snatched the insect in its beak. As the bird made short work of its snack, it flew between the two boulders.
/WHAM!!/
With a deafening sound of thunder, the two boulders smashed together, throwing dust and pebbles in all directions. A single blue feather wafted up on a thermal and out of sight.
Inferno allowed himself a small, self-satisfied sneer as the boulders slowly separated, the crushed remains of the bird no more than a stain on the smooth surfaces of the boulders. Surely even the King's Champion would not get past that. Surely even the likes of Smidlar the Brave shall not pass these deadly sentinels without feeling their crushing embrace.
But then he remembered the trick that Smidlar used to get over the bridge, and his smile faded slightly. Oh, but anyone can think of that! Certainly. No one need read a book to know that trick.
The barren wastes that lay in the Forbidden Lands past the chasm became craggy and broken as the sun began to slip towards the western horizon, the road twisting and turning insanely hither and yon, the path so narrow and the rocks along the sides so sharp that Smidlar had to slow his steed to a slow walk, letting him pick his way cautiously lest the poor beast break his leg. All the while, the Tower of Doom thrust up towards the sky in the distance, as if taunting him, enticing him to come closer to the pure evil hardened within its stones.
It was with relief that Smidlar saw the road straighten out before him, but it was short lived, for now the smell of sulphur came to him, the breeze suddenly blowing the heat from a furnace against his face. Sure enough, from up ahead, he saw a bright red glow stretch out like a river across his path, but instead of water, this river was filled with molten lava.
As Smidlar approached the flowing stream of molten rock, his eyes followed the road to its edge. There, a bridge of smooth stone, like hardened lava, stretched in a perfect arc across the incendiary river, more than wide enough to accommodate his steed and hold them a safe distance above the deadly liquid hellfire below.
Smidlar gave a small smirk as he stopped his horse a short distance from it and dismounted. He walked up to the start of the bridge and tested one end with his foot. It felt quite solid under his heel. He took a few steps, ready to leap backwards if anything happened. The bridge remained still.
He backed up to shore and scratched his chin. He glanced around him and chanced upon another small stone. Smiling to himself, he picked it up and chucked it towards the bridge. It struck it at a point about a third of the way across, and then skipped and rolled forward until it came to rest more or less in the center of the bridge.
A great rumbling sound arose, causing his horse to whinny nervously and back up further from the edge. Thousands of cracks appeared on the bridge, radiating throughout the center span, until the entire bridge broke apart and collapsed, great chunks of rock falling into the lava and sending small plumes of liquid fire into the air. After a short pause, the lava appeared to change direction, rising in two narrow steams on either bank, curving back in towards each other. They formed an arc over the molten river and instantly hardened into a solid bridge once again.
Smidlar laughed. "Jolly good, Mallevelus, but still not good enough!" he said with great mirth. He looked off to either side, his gaze tracing a path along the lava. Finally, he spotted what he was looking for in the distance, downstream of where the bridge trap stood: A steep cliff filled with many large and precariously balanced boulders on the other side of the molten stream.
"That should do the trick," Smidlar said with a grin as he mounted his steed once again. "I will wager that a well-thrown rock should bring that down and make a nice crossing for us!"
He gave his horse a kick and steered him down towards the cliff.
/Bugger,/ Inferno thought as he peered into the Farseeing Mirror.
"Heh, a wily one, isn't he?" the Dark Lord said with an evil chuckle.
"Only because he has read the book, my Lord."
The Dark Lord frowned. "Book? What book?"
"101 Uses for Small Rocks and Stones, my Lord."
The Dark Lord blinked. "Really? There's a book on that?"
"The stone to dispell the bridge-out illusion, page 32," Inferno said, ticking off items on his talons. "Using rock to test for trap on stone bridge, page 45. Tossing stone to start landslide to ford river, page 62."
The Dark Lord waved a hand of dismissal. "No matter. No book will help him one jot when he confronts me in my own domain! And then, this tower shall live up to its name, /for it will indeed be his Doom!/"
He raised his arms and laughed maniacally.
"I'll go check on the Princess, my Lord," Inferno muttered, though he was barely heard over the thunder.
Princess Sarah felt every intimate area on her body ache, ever muscle in her body strained with the contortions into which she was forced to satisfy the unquenchable lust of the cave trolls. The needs of these creatures grew no less intense the more they molested her. Indeed, they grew yet more demanding, each one becoming more and more impatient waiting for a fellow troll to be done with her, until finally she had been pinned to the floor with no fewer than three of the brutes atop her, one spearing her sex, one mashing her breasts over his manhood, and the third with his flesh rod impaled in her mouth.
Yet even this was not enough to satisfy them. Each of her hands was curled around a massive troll phallus, stroking them as quickly as her fingers would go, the trolls grunting and urging her hand even faster. Her body was splattered with troll-seed nearly everywhere, her nose thick with its heady odor.
From the corridor far above her, just outside the door that led to the chamber in which she had been placed, the Dark Lord's Right Hand of Terror observed the Princess through the Seeing Eye orb mounted just on the wall.
First he saw how her mouth sucked eagerly, and how her hips rose against the troll's raping phallus. He clenched his claws into fists.
Then he heard her moans of lust. His teeth ground together with a horrible metallic-like screeching noise.
Next he heard her muffled moans of ecstasy as she approached another climax. His eyes blazed white-hot and black smoke began to pour from his ears.
And then he saw how she gulped down the troll's seed when he climaxed in her mouth. He began to shake with rage.
Finally, the troll at her mouth left her, and the Princess threw her head back and screamed at the other troll, "/Oh gods, oh gods, don't stop! DON'T STOP!/"
"/AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!/"
Inferno rammed a fist into the glass orb, shattering it, its released energies crackling around him as bolts of green lightning. He then kicked viciously at the solid metal door to the chamber, breaking the lock and sending it cracking off its hinges. He grabbed it with his hands and hurtled it against the far wall of the corridor with a deafening clang that echoed up and down the corridors of the Tower, twisting it into an almost unrecognizable lump of metal.
/"GUARDS!!/" he bellowed.
Two of the slow-witted beasts arrived at his side, then backed up a step as they felt the furnace-blast heat that was the incubus' fury.
"I want you to get the Princess out of the cave," Inferno snarled to them. "Get her up here, get her cleaned up, then take her to sodding room, and ... and ..."
"Rape her?" suggested one hopefully.
"/NO!!!/" Inferno screamed, casting a deadly gaze at the guard.
The guard's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, stone dead. Another dutifully took his place. "Den wut to we do wid her?" asked the replacement.
"You will take her and ... then you'll ... and ... but ..." Inferno clenched his teeth and then let go with another loud scream of frustration. "/Do nothing to her! What does it matter?! Nothing works on her! Do you hear me? Do nothing! JUST FUCKING LEAVE HER THERE!!/"
Inferno stomped away in rage, venting his anger on another passing guard by setting him on fire.
Just as the last sliver of the bloated red sun disappeared over the distant hills, Smidlar the Brave and his noble steed climbed to the top of a hill, watching as the Dark Lord's edifice of evil rose boldly erect over the crest of the hill, stretching long into the yielding sky, thick with the evil contained within its hard walls. Scattered around them lay the crumbling ruins of a long forgotten prosperous kingdom not unlike the Kingdom of Light, forever destroyed when the vile and foul Lord Mallevelus seized its throne and turned it into his own vision of hell on earth, obliterating all trace of the former goodness of these lands and earning the name of the road on which they traveled, the Road to Ruin.
"We are here at last!" Smidlar declared. "Yes, my trusty steed, therein lies the Foul One himself, the coward who so callously holds the fair and pure ..."
The horse snorted.
" ... Princess hostage. And so, what to do first? How to assault such a stronghold of most malevolent evil, hmm?"
And then the King's Champion touched the small pendant around his neck and grinned a most clever grin, and when he spoke again, he spoke loudly and clearly.
"Why, by waiting until the cover of darkness, that's how. It would be sheer madness to attack such a place now, even with the paltry light of dusk." He swept his gaze across the ruined landscape. "Ah, there we go."
He nudged his horse into a leisurely walk across to a pile of fallen marble columns. Several of them had collapsed in such a way that they formed a small, enclosed area. He dismounted his horse and urged him into the protected space, giving him an affectionate pat on his flank. "There now, my loyal companion," he said. "Now here we stay and wait. We wait until /full and complete darkness/ has descended upon these lands, and /not a moment sooner/. Until then, we rest."
Smidlar the Brave, a small smile still etched in his face, turned towards a sheltered corner where several of the columns had converged as they fell so long ago. Into this small niche he crawled, another column forming a ceiling over his head, as he squeezed into a space that was not much bigger than Princess Sarah's cage. He looked off to the side, where a wide triangular gap lay between the ground and the fallen pillars.
He glanced in front of him. His horse stood near the opening of the niche, blocking line of sight from the only direction that was open. His smile broadening, he slowly unclasped the pendant the Lady of Lesser Virtue had given him and placed it gently on the ground.
He waited, cocking an ear towards the Tower.
The Dark Lord's lips curled into an eager, malevolent smile as he gazed into the farseeing mirror, just as his quarry disappeared into the stony niche. "Smidlar the Brave," he said with an amused sneer. "Smidlar the /Fool/ is more like it! Little do you know I have been watching and hearing everything you do or say! I now know your entire plan! And to think, it was all because you trusted a woman, a woman who played to your most base desires, your most primal lust. Try as you might, Smidlar, but you cannot escape the fact that you are a man, only a man, with all the weaknesses of a man, and now when you enter my domain, I will be ready for you, /and I will destroy you!/"
The Dark Lord Mallevelus lifted his arms and looked up towards the ceiling, and let loose with his loudest, his most evil, his most satisfyingly diabolical laughter of his life. The thunder was again called down from the heavens, bright green lightning cracking, the booming reports echoing through the chamber and the Tower, and rolling across the ruined lands.
The thunder came to the ears of Smidlar the Brave as well, shaking even the mighty stone columns that formed his protection. He grinned, then quickly flattened his body against the ground and shimmied out through the space below the columns. As soon as he was on the other side, he leapt to his feet and bounded away, running back towards the road and the main entrance into the Tower.