Mona yawns widely- just a bit too widely- resting one hand on top of her mostly softened stomach and arching her back upwards from a prone position, emphasizing the aforementioned stomach. "Of course I do. Always sleep well after a big meal and after a good lay. Both in one night? Better believe I slept well," the redheaded sorceress says with a grin. She flushes when he pulls himself to her, draping hands around the feline's shoulders. Her stomach rumbles, weakly but wetly, and gives Xarius a kiss with just a *hint* of human on the morning breath. Not enough to be rancid, but enough to serve as an additional reminder on top of her swollen midsection of just what had give her her present curves. Whether she felt adequately filled or "adequately filled", or if she simply agreed that it was past time to get up and face the day, she didn't hang on when Xarius pulled away.<br/><br/>"A few might. Most probably didn't," Mona assesses in a somewhat detached way. "Most of the sailors could have only had that good a night if they'd managed to execute us, and we're still here, so that's right out. Most of them are probably too worried about ending up here-" She pats her belly, "-to really have any fun. And I imagine our fellow prisoners are fine, or we'd either have fought for our lives by now or heard the screaming. So probably everything's just peachy." She lets that invocation of logic stand, instead content to watch Xarius dress from their makeshift little nest on the hard floor. The memory of her stomach's feel stays with the catboy, soft and spongy, but firm after a fraction of an inch's push in with the accompaniment of a feeling of semisolid masses moving sluggishly out of the way of outstretched fingertips- the man inside is, mercifully, dead, but while digested enough for Mona's belly to be a manageable bulge not so digested that there is nothing solid left of his remains. Only when he's fully dressed to she languidly start to slip on her old, tattered prisoner's garments, mumbling to herself, "Gotta go through that mage bitch's chest- see if she has any clothes to donate to me as well as the necklace," referring to what she hadn't taken off even in the middle of making love.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>Pain had ended, long ago. Now, there was just a vaguely dreamy, uncomfortable sloshing throughout the mage's entire body. There had been pain. She could barely remember, at this advanced state, when there hadn't been a searing pain all around her and inside her, slowly eating at her innards with every muffled cry too weak to be heard over the succubus's heartbeat, her lungs' steady expansion and contraction, and the bubbling, gurgling noises of her own body being broken down. It almost hadn't mattered when Delia went to sleep. The acid still came. Her stomach walls still patiently ground away at her flesh. She had no way of knowing just how weak Delia's belly was, compared to the fiery and impetuous sorceress a deck below- no way of knowing that other stomachs would have shown her the mercy of a quicker digestion hours ago. All the mage knew, in her pitiable state, was that she was already dead in every way that counted.<br/><br/>She couldn't feel her extremities, and couldn't detect any air around her. both were explained by a thick, stinging sludge all around her, a mixture of Delia's acids and the mage's own slowly digesting flesh. It'd pressed into her body and filled her lungs, but even that wasn't enough to bring an end to the mage's increasingly erratic thinking.  Every sigh, every happy jiggle of Delia's stomach in her sleep moved the mage's world, turning it from side to side, washing off a patch of acid-deadened skin to expose raw flesh beneath... but over time, even those flares of pain had stopped coming even though the mage was still distantly aware of her world's orientation shifting. She was, after a full night stewing inside a newly 're-awoken' succubus, simply... food.<br/><br/>As Delia rolled over, she felt the liquid sloshing around inside her stomach, and the solid body still inside it. From her meal's point of view, it was just another shift, like many that had happened overnight; she felt the shudder of her host's body ripple through her, her body soft enough that she simply vibrated a little less than the hungry chyme around her as it tried to tease her apart to join it. The poke... that got a little more of a response. She felt the finger prod into her, and felt an acid-weakened bone in her arm simply disintegrate under the pressure. She moaned- less from pain than the disorienting feeling of part of her body no longer being there. At around the same time, a little bit of 'her' drained through the bottom of Delia's stomach into the intestines, ready enoguh to start adding to the demon's figure. Were Delia in full control of her powers, she would feel that part of herself as it passed through the winding tunnels, being slowly and cruelly absorbed bit by bit... as it was, that feeling simply haunted her memory. The voice of the succubus echoed through her and around her, filling the mage's entire world. She could still understand the words, distorted as they were, and had her brain solid enough that she can understand what the succubus offers. Release, respite, and all she has to do is admit the secret in the back of her mind. She had a duty not to, of course, but surely in this extreme nobody would fault her for surrendering her secrets to shorten her life's span? Of course. She opened her mouth, and began to talk-<br/><br/>"Grruuugglrraggglglgrrggg-" she burbled, her own digesting flesh clogging her throat. She coughed, trying to clear it, but more just flowed in from... somewhere else. She couldn't make herself heard, and the mage began to panic- clawing at herself, clawing at the oozing walls around her, she tried and tried to make her voice heard... but all she could manage were a few pathetic, defiant-seeming wobbles of the succubus's plump belly, and some extremely rude gurgling sounds, despite her best intentions.<br/><br/>"Feisty, still, after all that time." Aron smiles, and gives the succubus a quick kiss. "A pity. I was going to offer to help you break her down in a very enjoyable way before we left the cabin. I suppose she'll keep a while longer, though not until we find someplace to stay in Freeport. He pats Delia's bared stomach- gently, mind you, so as not to interfere with the demoness's intended cruelty- and finished dressing before holding out his hand. "Shall we? May as well make one more impression on our Brave Crew before we vanish into a pirates's paradise."<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>An hour or so after the harpy cried out his warning of land nearby, it came into view for those bound to the surface of the ship. A low, green-covered, conical mountain, rising out of the sea with seemingly no warning, and even at this distance there's the faint haze of smoke that resides over most large towns. More details come into view as they approach; Freeport was a mishmash of wooden and clay buildings clinging to the land with little evidence of forethought or planning, simply placed wherever their owners liked. The harbor itself was all any sailor could ask; broad, mostly sheltered by a half-circle of shallow sandbars poking just over the land with lanterns to warn the unwary, and placid even on a windy day. That harbor, perhaps two or three miles across, has a floating education for naval aficionados. Everything from long canoes to stately pirate ships with their black-and-white banner above a proud man of war with dozens of long cannon crowd the harbor, with merchant ships not unlike their own as a dominant subspecies. Keener eyes reveal that the harbor is active even underwater, as fish... no,<span style="font-style: italic">not</span>fish, not really... swim in loosely organized schools underneath, some scavenging for dropped treasure, some scavenging perhaps for unwary men overboard.<br/><br/>Long, stone and wood jetties impale the harbor at intervals, providing a place to tie up and load and unload cargo and crew. There's enough open spaces that the prison ship's crew, made doubly nervous by their location in an infamous den of iniquity and at the mercy of hardened and ravenous criminals, have no real trouble navigating their ship in alongside one and tying up alongside. With that, a gangplank is lowered, and the party is... free to go, more or less, at least pending holding the crew to the bargain and selling most of their haul for liquid cash. Not that that was the only source of gold to live on, merely the most convenient. The seaside is clogged with two things- shops and bars, most of which have a rickety-looking second story and completely indiscreet advertisements for fleshy pleasures so forthright that even Delia's cheeks glow with surprise. Pleasant surprise, and one that reminds her a little bit and in a little way of home, but surprise. Thirst of many kinds was in abundance by the water's edge, and most of the buildings there are particularly ramshackle.<br/><br/>Moving inland, the land is on a gentle slope upwards to the green jungle-clad mountain that looms softly over Freeport. The higher one goes, the cooler and drier the land, but the harder it is to clear jungle to build. No wonder, then, that distance from the water serves as a useful proxy for wealth, with a few isolated splendid manors dotting a trail perhaps a mile inland and a few hundred feet above the sea, with more upscale houses drifting imperceptibly into cheaper and shoddier apartment buildings as the sea's gentle rustling grew louder. More inns, of course, and other shops inland- but not so accessible nor as blunt about their purpose as the seaside lane. There are few roads, simply trails of beaten dirt that amble along ridgelines and old forgotten paths in looping curves that had to have driven would-be architects to distraction including one that runs all the way along the seashore off around a curve into what seems like the wilderness itself.<br/><br/>Aron clears his throat. "The good news is, nobody's going to charge us customs, or inspect anything. Slaves or corn, nobody here much cares what we haul. The big merchants and would-be pirate kings get their cut by levying protection fees on merchants, so we'll simply be getting a little less than we think in sale and having to pay a little more than we expect to buy. Could be worse," the drow assesses. "I remember most of the main players from a few years ago, but in a town like this things shift dramatically, so I wouldn't trust my own knowledge for life and death. There's usually ready work to be found here for almost any talent, though. Killing, sailing, singing, whoring, scholarly work, the town itself has an appetite."<br/><br/>"It is not orderly," Chira rumbles ponderously, balanced nearest the gangplank and looking at the town dourly.<br/><br/>Mona giggles. "Sure, but you'll have a horde of merchants beating a path to your hooves offering you a pretty penny for bodyguard duty... maybe not<span style="font-style: italic">you</span>, though," she says to a dour and chastened Garth. "Bit of a goody-two shoes aren't you?"<br/><br/>Aron slips his arm inside Delia's, as though he were a courtly escort. "I haven't any doubt that I could find a good contract to end some unfortunate soul's life within a week at the outside, though in Freeport death is even cheaper than life. We are all fugitives in the same metaphorical boat, if not the literal one anymore, so I intend to stay at least somewhat close to some of you for self-protection."<br/><br/>The redheaded mage- now clad in Delia's dinner's clothing and necklace, which is only a little tight around her still-swollen stomach, laughs. "Why not? Not like I have other pressing appointments. I heard rumors that the Imperials were gonna burn this place to the ground-"<br/><br/>"-they've tried. The remainder of the landing force got chased into the center of the island, and nobody's heard from them since. There are beastkin in the jungle, and most don't want to go too far in there. The usual suspects insist there's vast golden cities there and treasure overwhelming, but the evidence says most treasure seekers end up *as* a chest, not finding chests full of gold." The drow smiles- he's got a parasol, shielding himself from the worst of the sun. "Still, there are merchants to sell to, merchants to buy from, it's usually fairly easy to pick up some side work for quick cash... we're far likelier to die of violence than boredom, singly or together."<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>((Thanks for the patience! Sorry, sorry about the delays. XD You are now debarked in Freeport, and the, um, prologue is over. >_> You can go shopping and sell things and buy things, though I'll be abstracting that quite a bit; just tell me what kinds of things you want and I'll make the rolls in the background to get your prices for buying and selling. There's odd jobs available for the asking in a dozen places, bars of international repute in some cases, and lurking in the background is how to start solving the mysteries that sent you here in the first place. You have lots of options for what you CAN do, and whatever you come up with I am likely to be able to take and integrate into my own broad plans; if you've got nothing in mind, I have a few things to fix that, too. ^_^<br/><br/>First thing is NPC companions. You can invite any, all, or none of your companions to remain at your side, and their chance to accept will be determined by a random roll, their current Relationship with you, and a few secret factors! Any other short questions you have before introducing yourself to town, ping me on Skype and I will do my best to answer.<br/><br/>Second thing? LEVELING UP. It's been long enough OOC that I feel like it's time to get you two a level even though not much has happened, IC...<br/><br/>Finally, opening post has been updated a bit!))