Mean Streets

 "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." -Raymond Chandler 

The fellow named Jon Chess ran through the streets of the Dampwick Ward. The buildings were ramshackle, and the area was the most impoverished district of Boralus. Criminals and ne’er-do-wells rubbed elbows with Tidesage doomsayers and beggars. Unlike the mythical hero, Jon was both tarnished and afraid; that said, he was also resolute. 

At midnight, the killer known to the city guardsman as the Smile-Maker would practice his grisly trade, and the kidnapped Draenei priestess Vlana Starbow would be forcibly violated and her throat opened by the Smile-Maker's straight razor.  

It was perilously close to midnight.

Jon made haste though the streets and alleys, and most abroad gave him a wide berth - someone armed and moving with celerity and purpose did not promise much profit. He entered the open area near the docks, and was surprised to find the night market all but deserted.

“Ho there, fellow,” called a rough voice in Jon’s path. Three ruffians of the Scrimshaw Gang stepped from the shadows. Without looking around, Jon heard more noise behind him to both the left and right. Just over a half-dozen enemies, each armed with weapons ranging from broken bottles to knives to clubs to cutlasses and broadswords. Jon recognized the scarlet signs of membership in the Scrimshaw Gang.

The Scrimshaw Gang control much of the criminal enterprise in Dampwick Ward and hook Pointe; loansharking, smuggling, bribes, illicit drug peddling, pickpocketing, petty theft, mugging, and prostitution. Based in the Kelp Club, they controlled much of the underground commerce in Boralus.

“You seem to be in haste; bide with us awhile”, continued the leader of the mob. “We have been well-paid to… ah, entertain you with our hospitality.” The weapons being carried by his friends became more visibly brandished. 

As if summoned by magic, twin long daggers appeared in Jon’s gloved hands. He was swiftly cataloging how to proceed; a thick smoke grenade tossed to the ground, providing Jon with concealment, roll to the right, take advantage of the confusion to slit the throat of the leader’s flanking flunky when the portly leader became enveloped in a conflagration of fire.

“Our father often runs off for no reason, and explains matters later,” commented a fellow clad in green mageweave garments. A flaming rune was suspended over his short hair, dancing around his brow like a fairy in the moonlight. “He generally has a good reason, though.” Jon felt a spike of hope in his heart. His son Baron had come to help.

Before the Scrimshaw Gang could react, a crossbow bolt found a new home in the base of one of the backline member’s skull. A leather-clad fellow had fired and dropped his crossbow, armed with a Kul Tiran short boarding halberd. A huge wolf with a disreputable coat festooned with the detritus of nature growled alongside his partner. 

Jon’s other son, Bishop, and his partner wolf Mange closed in from the other end of the crowd.

“Father, leave these wharf rats to us - you have a lady to save,” said Bishop. 

Baron Chess, Dalaran-trained, raised a shield of flame. “No time to waste. We got this.” The members of the Scrimshaw Gang snarled almost in unison, and battle was joined. Jon’s smoke bomb detonated, obscuring Jon’s location as he invoked an Aarokoan cantrip, and he merged into the Shadows, wasting no time but trusting that his children were more than equal to running interference for their father.  

His heart swelled with pride even as he sprinted down the alleyway towards his rendezvous with a killer.

At the north end of the Ashvane Docks were a number of buildings used as warehouses and transitory businesses for the Commissioned Privateers whose seized cargoes were disposed of, often with no questions asked. It was not a coincidence that most privateers used the Ashvane Docks for their ill-gotten goods; the area was run by the Ashvane Trading Company, which had a long and notorious history of quasi-legal operations. Wholly spurious Bills of Lading, false Certificates of Provenance, and other forged documents were easily and anonymously available to grease the skids of commerce. The company had interests in virtually all aspects of the value chain of merchandise including weapons manufacturing, shipping, security, smuggling, and outright piracy.

It was the ideal place for a sociopathic serial killer like the Smile-Maker - he fit right in.

Jon’s destination was a building whose third floor was a small apartment with a wide patio deck. Jon felt sure that if he had a forensics mage on retainer in Kul Tiras, that he would be able to prove that the Smile-Maker abused and then killed his victims on that patio, secure in the neighborhood where people rarely looked up, and if they did, denied that they had seen anything. Often during his investigation, potential witnesses either refused to talk at all or had merely said “I did’na see nothing”.

Nearing the long, two-story warehouse that was almost the entire way across the Ashvane Docks, Jon mounted the stairs two at a time. He leaped atop a stack of barrels, and from the top of those, leaped to the covering rooftop of the second floor. Handy widows provided Jon with a ladder-like scaffolding to climb to the peaked rooftop of the second floor. 

He sprinted across the rooftop. The building he sought was now running in parallel with the building he was on, and Jon saw his chance. He ran down the roof edge, and leaped into the air, firing a Gnomish-made wrist harpoon. Less than a foot in length, the flanges of a grapple fell into place as the mithril-wire reinforced spider silk cord followed the grappling hook. Jon saw the grappling hook embed itself in a cargo crane arm attached to this destination, and triggered the mechanism for the harpoon device to retract the cord. The harpoon grappling hook held, and Jon was dragged forward. He dropped the device just as his hands found purchase on the waist-high perimeter fence of the deck area. He vaulted the fence and landed on the deck.

The Smile-maker turned to face him as Jon landed, perhaps fifteen feet away. The fellow was Kul Tiran, and had a mass of muscle forged by long days of slinging heavy crates and barrels on and off of ships. He stood a good head taller than Jon, and his shaggy hair, unkempt beard, mustache, and porkchop sideburns made him seem for all the world like a bear walking on two feet. He was clad in sea-leathers such as any Kul Tiran mariner wore. One of his hands gripped his trademark weapon, a straight-bladed Syndicate Dagger. The other hand was wrapped in the hair of his current victim.

Jon had discovered that the Smile-Maker had been purchasing blue-skinned “foreigners” - either Ren’dorei or Draenei women - from slavers. Slavery was technically illegal in the Alliance, but there were many places where the word “indentured servant” and slave were interchangeable, with forged indentureship agreements. Just up the Ashvane alley, so to speak.

His current victim had been an Emissary of the Light named Vlana Starbow, come to Boralus to heal the sick and feed the poor and indigent, much to the stern disapproval of the Tidesages, who otherwise had a firm hold of Kul Tiran spirituality; the official position of the Tidesages was that if something unfortunate happened to the Alliance Interlopers, that was just too damned bad.

The Smile-Maker had stripped his victim and drugged her to the gills to keep her pliable and quiet. Mercifully, she had lost consciousness and hung almost lifeless in his grasp.

“A knight comes to the rescue,” cried the Smile-Maker, bringing the knife to her throat. “Jon Chess, isn’t it, aping the fashion of Kul Tiras honest sailors? The lickspittle lackey of that Dalaran bitch who stole the Admiralty.”

“Jaina Proudmoore is every inch a Kul Tiran,” Jon said, drawing both his daggers. “As for my clothes, they have the advantage of being comfortable, given Boralus weather.” Mornings in Boralus were often cold and wet, with thick fogs that often did not burn away before the noon hour.

“Well, closer, little man… let's dance,” taunted the Smile-Maker. “I’ll have to clear my hands of this…baggage first though. Shame, too… I hadn’t quite had the chance to enjoy the foreign slut the way I did the others.”

“Well, put her down and I’ll put my blades down,” offered Jon. “That way once you kill me you can enjoy her afterward.”

“That is the first smart thing you’ve said yet,” smirked the Smile-Maker. “You first.”

One by one Jon let his daggers clatter to the deck underfoot.

“OK, your turn…” Jon started to say but was interrupted by the glove of ice that had instantly formed around the Smile-Maker’s knife, hand, and forearm.

“Wrong Dalaran bitch,” came Alia’s commanding voice from the rooftop, standing in front of a teleportation portal. “He’s MY lickspittle lackey, thank you very much - I just let Jaina borrow him!” She turned to Jon. “Take him.” 

The Smile-maker dropped the Draenei and reached for a weapon, but before he could draw it Jon’s flintlock pistol barked with its loud voice, and the ball tore itself a doggy door hole in the Smile-Maker’s throat.

 

Love is in the Air Part III

The bitter cold of the wind made the bones in Snow FitzSilver's body ache. The trip on griffon-back from Stormwind to Booty Bay was long, and the winds could freeze a man's blood to ice in the dead of winter.

Snow woke up feeling stiff and cold in an alleyway where he had encountered the succubus Darynn and been given... a preview of his payment if he could find out the information she desired.

Unfortunately, Snow was not precisely sure how to proceed and whether or not his promised payment was worth that much effort. Snow was a very young man, but his innocence had been lost some time ago; pleasurable though his encounter with the succubus had been, it was not worth spending an inordinate amount of time. On the other hand, succubi had decades, perhaps centuries, of practice... Snow shook his head to clear it.

What amazed him was that he had fallen asleep in the alleyway climax; taking a post-orgasm nap was not unheard of, but in an alleyway, on the cobblestones and the cold? That made Snow suspicious that the sayaadi had used some magical compulsion in addition to her sexual skill.

Snow's task was to find the alchemist who had sold the compulsive colognes and perfumes for the Crown Chemical Company so that Darynn could obtain a sample. The Crown Chemical Company was a front for a renegade Forsaken alchemist's plan, but adventurers had foiled whatever that plan had been and destroyed the stock of the elixirs which had made the wearer very erotically compelling. 

Unfortunately for Snow, goblins had invented the concept of the "limited liability corporation". New ones sprung up and collapsed all the time. Fraud and chicanery were more common than not in Goblin business, with "take the money and run" often the rule rather than the exception.

Snow did have an advantage. Before heading to Booty Bay, he had sought advice from "Uncle Jon" - Snow's adopted guardian Griffonclaw was the elder half-brother to Jon Chess, a professional private investigator and widely-traveled Agent of Cheese. He had given Snow the name of a contact Snow could use, and a letter of introduction. With that in hand, Snow had hired a griffon and headed south.

Originally named Blackwater Cove, the area was originally occupied by humans, who were slaughtered by trolls. The trolls, in turn, were dispossessed by goblins of the Steamwheedle Cartel, who founded Booty Bay to act as a center of commercial operations. The city is run by Baron Revilgaz in conjunction with the Blackwater Raiders and is open to Alliance and Horde alike as neutral territory, keeping the city and area clear of the depredations of pirates such as the Bloodsail Buccaneers. 

The griffon landed safely, and Snow took advantage of the nearby side entrance to the Salty Sailor tavern, where he found an empty table and signaled for a server. 

"Hello! I am Zixxy, your server. What can I getcha?" said a pretty goblin ser4ver in a short sarong.

"What would you recommend? asked Snow.

"Gilnean Fizzy Water, Thistle Tea, and Tropical Sunfruit Juice" she informed him.

"Sounds delicious. I'll take that," confirmed Snow.

Zixxy returned shortly with a tall glass containing his drink, and a sporty little umbrella.

"That's four silvers" she said, setting the drink in front of Snow.

"Here you go,: said Snow as he laid a gold coin on the table. "I'm looking for a friend, a guy named Stavros DarKovin. Any idea where I might find him?"

"I have no idea, but you might ask Nixxrax," she said, pointing a disreputable-looking goblin fellow out to Snow while deftly scooping up the coin. "He's one of those guys who knows everyone." She batted her eyes at Snow. "I just know big tippers," she said, winking at Snow.

Snow smiled at the not-so-subtle hint. "Keep the change."

Snow rose from his chair, and took a sip of his drink. He approached the fellow that Zixxy had pointed out.                                           

(WIP)

Snow Art

 

Love Is in the Air, Part II (Smut warning)

 

The Slaughtered Lamb tavern was quite crowded, and the white-haired fellow who stood just inside the door let his eyes adjust to the smoky dimness of the lights. The seedy pub was located in the Mage district of the city of Stormwind, and was something of a base of operations for the the city's warlock community. In days past, warlocks had run afoul of Stormwind law and been subject to vigilante action by the Scarlet Inquisition and others, actions often overlooked by the constabulary.  After the defeat of the Burning Legion and the heroic roll played by the Black Harvest and other warlocks, the Alliance forces allowed Warlocks to openly practice their arts, although discretion was still a wise safety precaution; old prejudices died hard after so many years of war with the Burning Legion and it's agents.

The fellow had been sent a message, which simply specified a time and place. While cautious, the fellow was also very curious; a curiosity which had landed Snow FitzSilver in hot water several times before. 

Snow looked over the assortment of disreputable types and street rats. Having spent so much of their career in the seamy underbelly of society, warlocks were an eclectic lot, consorting with hirelings of a less savory reputation. Many warlocks also dabbled in necromancy, and while warlockry and trafficking in demons was now above-board, many of their assistants, minions, and collaborators still pursued borderline illegal activities.

Snow was about to turn and leave when a woman in a full cloak and hood stepped up and took his arm. "Shall we take the air, Snow?" asked husky contralto voice. 

"Nothing would give me more pleasure," assured Sniow, guiding the woman outside. Together the two of them slowly walked together with no fixed destination, their voices low and intimate to keep their conversation private.

"Master FitzSilver, my name is Darynn, and I need you to find someone fro me, someone who probably does not want to be found," explained Darynn.

"Very good. What is this person's name? Profession? Habits? General region?" asked Snow.

"That is part of my problem; let me explain," began Darynn, "During the last Love is in the Air celebration, some coercive magical wares were sold by the Crown Chemical Company. There were brewed and supplied by a renegade Forsaken alchemist but he was defeated before his plans -whatever they might have been - were realized. Most of the coercive wares were confiscated and destroyed... but the recipe for them was almost certainly devised, or at least known, by the head goblin in charge of alchemical products for the company."

"That might be a problem...," said FitzSilver.

"Yes, I am aware. Goblin companies are created and dissolved as swiftly as a summer snowfall, and it has been some months... what I am looking for is a sample of the perfume that they used, the one causing an irresistible lust in anyone fortunate enough to catch the scent."

"I see... well, I don't see, precisely, but that is of no matter. I assume that the pay will be commensurate with the effort?"

"Of course," replied Darynn, pulling Snow into a deserted cul-de-sac. She found a dark corner, offering some discrete concealment, and dropped her hood and cloak, allowing Snow a visual feast of her physical form.

The sayaadi was pink of skin, with glowing azure eyes and dark, luxurious black hair. Her tongue, slightly forked, wet her lips as she parted her lips. Sharp canines, resembling more a vampire's mouth than a human's, gave her lovely face a predatory cast. Her wings were carefully furled behind her, obscuring nothing of her firm, high breasts encased in a leather corset top. Her hips and the delightful apex of her thighs were covered by soft dark mageweave panties, and the material was thin enough that Snow could see her cunt lips and clitoris pressing against the soft material.

Darynn dropped to her knees. "Let me give you a retainer, so to speak..." she said, chuckling as she unlaced the front of his leather pants. "After all, I want you to do a thorough job, so I think that it is only fair that I do a thorough job." She exposed Snow's hardening cock to the night air. "I do so much love the taste of a virile man's hot, sticky seed..." she hissed. His cock was almost touching her lips as she wrapped her hand around it; she had contemplated just giving him a teasing hand job, but she had not had a taste of cock juice in weeks, and she found her own desire for the taste of spunk in her mouth causing an ache in her loins. 

She began slowly brush the cockhead against her lips, her forked serpentine tongue coming out to brush against the sensitive skin of his glans. she took another breath and began to lick Snow's cockshaft. She wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock and lowered her head, taking his hard cockmeat into her wet, eager mouth. Her head began to bob, and Snow moaned at the sensation of her warm, wet, silken mouth. 

Once more Snow moaned, and Darynn matched it with a sultry moan of her own. The resonance of her moan vibrated through Snow's delighted cock, and he slipped his fingers into her hair, enjoying the texture of her tresses. Darynn loved having her hair pulled while pleasuring a partner with her mouth; gentle, loving sexual pleasures were for mortals. She wanted, no craved, rougher treatment; she wanted to be treated like a toy, a sexual object to be used for pleasure like the slut she was. 

She swirled her inhumanly long and agile tongue around his cockhead and shaft, taking him deeper into her mouth. Unlike mortals, she had no gag reflex to fight. She sucked his cock in deeper and deeper until her lips were buried in the rough hair around the base of his cock. She flexed her throat muscles around the length of Snow's cock, and she was gratified when he began to move, tentatively at first but then with decisiveness until the cock was fucking the sayaadi's throat. Darynn purred; that was more like it! This is what she was made for, what she craved, ad she exulted in the pleasure she gave, the pleasure that she controlled. 

Darynn tasted it first; the taste of precum leaking from, his cock into her mouth. Salty and bitter, it was a taste that acted as a harbinger of what was to come. Snow's orgasm almost caught him by surprise as his cock convulsed once, then again. The third convulsion carried with it the wave of his climax, and Darynn had her own series of mini-orgasms as she received rope after rope of sticky sweet cum. She rode his cock with her mouth and tongue, collecting the spunk in her mouth as most of it went straight down her throat and into her belly. 

When Snow's motions ceased and his once-proud cock shrunk to its former self, Darynn pushed cum with her tongue, cascading over her lips, down her chin, and onto her breasts. While Snow watched in a daze, she played with the cum, rubbing it into her breasts, neck, and face. "If I had more time, I would suck that magnificent cock hard again, and give my cunt a taste; I love taking cum in my mouth, but I especially enjoy a cock filling my belly and then playing with it with my fingers, inside of me," she informed him, a hungry look in her glowing eyes. 

"You will find out what I need to know, and come back for your payment, yes?" teased Darynn as she shrugged back into her cloak and hood.

Snow snoring softly was his only reply.

Love Is in the Air, Part I

The Ren'dorei woman named Tyanna Blackwood was in her office, balancing accounts when a knock came from the closed office door.

"Come," she called, not even looking up from her ledger.

Darynn the Sayaadi

"You give the best commands, Mistress," laughed the sayaadi. "But we don't really have that much time.. besides you never take me to your bed."

"Darynn, we've talked about that!" admonished Tyanna. "It is no reflection on you or your appeal."

"Then why have you banished me?" whined the succubus.

"I summon you every day, hardly an exile!"

"You summon me to do laundry and housework! That is worse than banishment!" exclaimed Darynn. "Especially after you forbade me to... ask for a little help."

Tyanna rolled her eyes. "Enslaving my butler was not an acceptable solution, and we still haven't been able to find a decent replacement!"

"It's not my fault you insist on them having free will," sneered Darynn. 

"Enough - the subject is not open for debate!" said Tyanna.

"You don't see the irony of enslaving demons to obey your commands but denying us the right to do the same?" sighed Darynn. 

"Oh, I see it - I just don't care. The Burning Legion was a very costly lesson, and only a fool would give you the freedom to wreak more havoc," admonished Tyanna. "Did you need something or just want to needle me?" Tyanna's sayaadi never missed an opportunity to kvetch to her mistress.

Darynn sulked, mumbling as she returned to the seemingly endless list of chores that still needed to be done. "She doesn't appreciate me at all!" whined the succubus, feeling sorry for herself. "Just because she's given up on love... it would be just and fair if karma made her fall in love with someone unsuitable...a gnome, perhaps, or a stuffy paladin!"

Darynn pondered as she folded laundry; at least the Mistress allowed her to use magic to do the washing, especially Tyanna's lingerie. Tyanna was the designer and owner of the best lingerie business in the Alliance, relocating her Silvermoon establishment to Stormwind after her transformation from Sin'dorei to Ren'dorei and subsequent exile. 

That gave the succubus an idea... perhaps karma could use an alchemical assist? Darynn recalled last year's Love is in the Air holiday, a celebration characterized by sweet flowers, perfume, and sharing gifts with loved ones. There had been a sinister plot is afoot involving some shady goblins - if that was not redundant - and some alchemically-altered perfumes and colognes; they made the wearer quite interested in... carnal adventures, freeing them from inhibitions and stoking their libdios to a white-hot frenzy. 

If only the plot hadn't been thoroughly crushed by a bad of adventurers... a bottle of that perfume would be just the thing to inspire Mistress Tyanna with the right attitude to be more appreciative of her own sayaadi. Darynn continued folding while giving it more thought. What she needed was to find the goblin alchemist who had created the perfume for the Crown Chemical Company.

Darynn had a good idea of who she might convince to help her, too...