Chapter 4

“No,” answered Sid in answer to Ava’s question about having killed the villain of the adventure. He had not killed the man although he didn’t expect the man to rise from the floor anytime soon.

“Let’s get out of here,” the young woman begged. She was anxious to leave the place where she had been held captive. Over the months, her captivity had become increasingly more threatening.

Taking a good look at her, he noticed that she wasn’t wearing shoes. In his weakened state, there was no way he was going to be able to carry her through the mud all of the way to the bank. He said, “You’re going to have to put on some boots. It’s muddy out there and you definitely don’t want to walk in it barefoot.”

“I don’t have any,” she replied looking down at her bare feet. Her captor had taken her shoes. It was meant to slow her down if she tried to escape.

“Take his,” said Sid pointing to the man on the floor. It seemed to him that the floor was moving.

Ava went over to the unconscious man and pulled his boots off him. Although she presented an attractive sight, bent over and pulling on the boots, Sid didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to remain standing. It felt as if his entire hand was on fire. His fingers on the cut hand had stopped working. He was barely aware of when Ava went to one of the chairs and sat down to put on the boots. They were too large for her, but they were better than wearing nothing. Standing up, she announced, “I’m ready.”

Stepping outside, Sid paused to pick up his staff with his good hand. He wanted to use it like a crutch, but knew it would do nothing more than sink into the mud. He pointed towards the bank and stepped off the porch sinking to his ankles in the mud. The texture reminded him of mashed potatoes.

Sid led the way to the bank with Ava following behind. She was happy to have been rescued, but she was disgusted at the muddy street. As much to assure himself as her, he said, “We’re almost there.”

When they reached the bank, Sid staggered over to the counter and emptied the two coin purses on it. He examined the collection of coins on the surface, noting that it included a couple of pinches, some quads, two shells, and even a conch. The conch was worth fifty shells. Ava looked at the coins and commented, “That’s enough money to purchase a horse.”

The bank-teller swept the coins into the bin and waited for Sid to put his finger in the hole. When Sid didn’t react, he said, “Put your finger in the hole, sir.”

“Oh, right,” replied Sid wondering why his mind felt so sluggish. He stuck a finger of his good hand in the hole. After a few minutes, the area around the hole glowed with a green light. Sid hardly noticed. The pain in his hand had spread up his arm and it now felt as if he had stuck his entire arm in a pot of boiling water.

“That’s one conch, three shells, a quad, and three pinches,” said the clerk with a tone of respect in his voice. A conch was a lot of money, representing more than a year’s wage by the average person.

Gesturing for the damsel to follow him, Sid staggered towards one of the storerooms. On the way, Sid nearly collapsed and would have fallen if Ava hadn’t caught him. Worried that he was going to die before making complete her escape, Ava asked, “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” replied Sid. He was beginning to wonder if he was actually going to make it to the storage room. It dawned on him that he could have thrown the coin purses, with coins, into the storage box and avoided wasting time with the teller.

Reaching the storage room, Sid opened the door and gestured for Ava to enter. Upon closing the door, he put his finger in the hole that would bring his storage box. A few seconds later, it appeared on the table. He opened the box and looked inside. The old sword and broken knife from his first trip were still inside. He placed his staff and knives in the box. It still looked empty despite the fact that he was slowly accumulating a cache of weapons.

Remembering that they couldn’t take anything from Chaos back to Crossroads, he looked at Ava and asked, “Do you have anything that you can’t take back to Crossroads?”

“No,” answered Ava. Her time in Chaos had been spent primarily in captivity. Whatever goods she had accumulated, Chirurgen had taken so that she wouldn’t be able to use them during an escape.

Satisfied by her answer, Sid closed the lid of the storage box. The storage box disappeared followed a briefest moment later by their transferal to the portal room in Crossroads. Barely able to control the pain, Sid stumbled through the door of the portal room. Ava followed and steadied him so that he didn’t fall.

Sally looked over at Sid with dismay. He stood swaying, white faced, sweat covering his entire body, and his left hand covered in a white cloth that had turned bright red from blood. His left arm hung limp and useless to his side. She gave forth a little yelp and ran to him. Gesturing to Ava for help, she said, “We’ve got to get you to the healing chamber.”

He allowed her to lead him to the healing chamber, stumbling as he walked. The incredible pain had spread to his chest. If the two women hadn’t been holding him up, he would have fallen. Even as Ava helped Sally, she watched Sid with wide eyes barely able to believe she had finally been rescued.

Ava knew a Hero had died trying to rescue her and she felt guilty about his death. Her captor had been furious about the public exposure the Hero had brought down upon him. He felt that the people in town were looking at him with expressions of disdain. Even he had become convinced that he couldn’t be much of a man if he had to hold a woman hostage to get her to marry him. With each refusal to marry him, he had become even angrier.

Chirurgen had told her that if he couldn’t have her, then no one would. At that moment, Ava became convinced he was going to kill her before the week was over. After the death of one Hero, the odds that a Hero would come to rescue her had been slim. When she’d heard the fighting outside her door, she believed that it had nothing to do with her. Then Sid had called out her name. Her heart had fluttered as relief spread through her.

Ava bit her lip afraid that her Hero would die. She prayed that he would recover and watched as Sally stripped him of his clothes. The sight of his naked body sent a thrill through her despite the fact that he was so weak. Sid was not a pale wraith of a man even when injured so severely.

When Sally removed his bandage, blood started dripping to the floor. The wound was a short slit that gaped swollen, red, and angry. It wasn’t natural that such a small wound would bleed so much. Afraid of losing him, she wrestled him into the healing chamber. Peaceful oblivion settled over him when the door closed. It was several hours later before he sat up in the healing chamber feeling like his old self.

“I’ll never be able to watch another action movie without laughing at the ridiculousness of it. I’m going to go to Hollywood and cut every screenwriter there. Maybe that way the Hero won’t run twenty miles after getting shot or stabbed,” groused Sid. He looked at his hand expecting to see a huge scar, but there was nothing. It was as though he hadn’t been cut. He flexed his fingers and was pleased to see that everything worked correctly. Aloud, he said, “Wow, I’m impressed.”

Sally entered the room, feeling guilty that she hadn’t been there when the chamber had opened. She grabbed his hand and examined it with concern. Relief spread over her face when she saw that it was healed without a sign of injury and he was able to flex his fingers. Feeling much calmer, she said, “You made it back.”

“Yeah,” replied Sid. The amount of pain and the blood loss didn’t quite jive with his experience of cuts. He expected some pain and some bleeding with a cut of that size, but not quite so much. Puzzled, he asked, “Why did it hurt so much?”

“The knife was poisoned,” answered Sally. After placing him in the healing chamber, she had waited to put Ava in the other chamber until after the diagnosis of his condition had been displayed. When she saw his physical condition displayed on the console, she was shocked nearly senseless. It was a miracle he had lived long enough to reach Crossroads.

At the surprised look on his face, she explained, “It had a venom on it that is both a neurotoxin and an anticoagulant. It paralyzes by causing all of your nerves to fire rather than suppressing them. If he’d hit your arm, you’d have lost use of it almost immediately.”

“It hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt,” said Sid. The memory of the pain was still fresh in his mind. In a way, it was a relief for him to know that he wasn’t a wimp that couldn’t take such a small cut.

“It would have killed you eventually if it hadn’t been for the healing chamber. I didn’t know about it until I put you inside it,” answered Sally feeling guilty about the fact that she had sent him off on this adventure unprepared for such a possibility. The villain had been even far more dangerous than she had thought. She was relieved that Sid hadn’t gone on this adventure on his first visit. In hindsight, it was hard to believe that she had referred to it as a simple snatch and run.

“Hey, you can’t know everything,” said Sid turning his attention to the distraction that was Sally’s body. He didn’t even know what to call her outfit, but it was the sexiest thing he had ever seen. Now that he was feeling healthy, his cock reacted in the predictable fashion.

Sally smiled at seeing his reaction to her. To her it was an honest compliment of the highest order, since in Cassandra men didn’t get erections just from looking at a woman. Tilting her head, she said, “Ava is ready for you.”

“Looking at you drove all thoughts of her from my mind,” replied Sid overwhelmed by her beauty. Her concern and expression of worry for his welfare sent sexual thrills through his body.

“Well, let’s get you clean and fed so you can drive her to sexual heights few women of Cassandra have ever known,” she said with a smile. Praise from two women about his sexual prowess wasn’t enough to establish a reputation throughout Cassandra, but it was a good start.

“I fear that I didn’t really take a good look at her. If I recall correctly, she’s a red head,” said Sid trying to remember what Ava looked like, but drawing only a fuzzy memory of her.

“Yes, she’s a red head. A very pretty one at that,” commented Sally as she led him out of the room by the hand. She looked forward to teasing his body to a high state of sexual arousal during the bath. Ava, concerned about him being able to perform, had requested that Sally attend to them during her experience with Sid in the bedroom. She giggled at the idea that Sid would need any help performing in bed.

After preparing Sid for his tryst with Ava, she led him into the bedroom where Ava was relaxing on the bed. At the sound of their entrance, she had turned and looked at the pair. Her eyes widened at the sight of his hard erect cock unable to believe that he was already erect. She glanced over at Sally and saw the wide grin on her face. She couldn’t help wonder what kind of man he was that he was able to get so excited and remain that way without coming.

Sid took a moment to examine Ava wondering how he had missed her obvious beauty. The redhead, the bright patch of red hair between her legs left no doubts that she was a natural redhead, was lying on the bed. She had not meant to look sexy, but her relaxed pose was the epitome of sexy. A lock of her long hair curled around her lush breast drawing attention to her puffy pink areola topped by a small hard nipple. Her fair skin, lightly freckled, looked as though it had never been touched by the sun and begged to be caressed. Her red lips, parted sensuously, demanded to be kissed.

The reaction of seeing her had the expected effect. His cock throbbed at the idea of making love to her. Seeing it, Sally smiled and winked at Ava. Pressing a hand against his back, Sally pushed Sid towards the bed as she said, “Give her pleasures she has never dreamt possible.”

Grinning, Sid approached the bed and climbed onto it. On hands and knees, he crawled to her like a cat stalking a mouse. The aggressiveness of his approach sent thrills through Ava. Her eyes widened in amazement that a man could or would take such an active role in sex. In a soft voice, she said, “Oh my goodness.”

For the next thirty minutes, Sid kissed and stroked every inch of her body. For a while, he played a game of connect the freckles with his kisses. It was a game that sent shivers through Ava, bringing her to a small orgasm that took them both by surprise. Sid followed that up with attention to her breasts, stroking the nipples with feather-light touches before kissing them. When he gave her a little love nip, she gasped as another orgasm took her by surprise.

Sid took his time so that he could fully enjoy the experience. He lost himself in her body, exploring every crevice. By the time he reached her pussy, the scent of her excitement hung heavy in the air. It was amazing how wet she had become in anticipation of being entered. He lapped at her juices like a kitten at a bowl of milk. His tongue explored every complex fold of her pussy. The outer lips, swollen in excitement, spread open to reveal her inner lips. The entire area was coated with her juices giving her a flavor that he appreciated and desired.

Ava gasped each time she came until he brushed his tongue over her clitoris. Her gasps turned to screams that only got louder when he finally entered her. With each thrust, she screamed out her pleasure unable to believe that a man was able to provide it and in such quantity. Her pleasure reached a crescendo when he came. It was so intense that she lost consciousness. Her fair skin had changed from white to red demonstrating a full body sexual blush.