<table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><br/><em>A tale?  <br/><br/>What kind of tale do you want to hear?  Knights and dragons with a prince in distress?  No?  One of the ancients then, maybe the old gods and their children?  No that won't do either.  Oh!  Here's the tale then.  The high seas, swords and spells and pirates.... What?  No?  Hmmmmph.  I thought everyone loved pirates.  Well then you must need a very special tale, let me think what would...  Ahhh, here we are.  The tale of Sophia Katos, a goddess touched priestess trained for war.  Yes, my yes, I thought that might catch your attention.  Sophia was no simpering damsel nor fair maiden, she was a warrior and sacred whore, a cleric and a light in a dark world.  I see this is the tale for you now.  It takes place in a land far away, one that had lost it's name.  Our story starts in the ruined city of Yahn'dee, once a great human kingdom, before the world fell to demons.  You've heard of Yahn'dee, right?  No, you haven't?  The once great human capital that was renamed by the demons who came to rule there...  No, I can see by the look in your eyes that you don't know what I'm speaking about.<br/><br/>Don't feel bad, this book here, it's a magic book.  It's a book that tells a thousand tales, a thousand upon a thousand tales.  I've been reading it for a hundred fifty seven years and I've never read the same story twice.  I think there must be a world where the demons poured forth from their portals and brought all of civilization low.  Somewhere where the heroes failed to win and darkness spread across the land.  Maybe it isn't some where but some when...  Maybe somewhere ... maybe...  Oh, sorry I lost my place, what was I saying?  <br/><br/>A story, oh yes, right.  Well, sit back and let me begin.  I'll start with death.  Why?  Because there are never beginnings and endings, only middles.  So to start this tale I pick a middle I like, and it starts with a death, well several deaths actually.  For the land in this story has no name, or at least it did, but it was lost.  For you see, a great evil rose up to swallow the land.  Heroes rose to fight against the darkness, but they failed, and the demons poured forth from the abyss and brought with them death, chaos, and darkness.  Maybe they could have been stopped if the heroes of old had succeeded, but they didn't.   Sit back and let me tell my tale now, maybe you'll like it, maybe you wont.  But maybe, just maybe, you'll find that you hear the story speak to you on a different level.  Maybe you'll take the story into you, become one with it... well.  There I go again gathering wool.  Why don't I just start now?<br/><br/>This story begins with a woman that would be touched by the hand of a goddess...</em><br/></td><td>(http://i.imgur.com/T2wpXgY.jpg)</td></tr></tbody></table><br/><hr/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/6t0Folx.jpg)</div><br/>The woman known as Sophia Katos was born amidst blood, violence, and fear.  Her mother had been a champion eros blade, a gladiator, renown for her skill and showmanship, as well as her brutality.  The gladiator, Helena Katos, was a legend in the gladiatorial pits of Yahn'dee.  Yahn'dee being the demonic word for 'flesh farm', a cruel joke that the demons laughed about as they raised men and women, human and elf, to be nothing more than living livestock for their perverted tastes.  The name of Yahn'dee, before the coming of the demons, had been lost to time.  But none of this mattered to the warrior Helena as she fought for her survival, and for the amusement of the demons who ruled the world now.  In time, her skill was noticed, and she was claimed by a lesser demon lord as his personal body guard and concubine.  Life as the body guard and sex toy of a demon was brutal, but certainly easier than the certain death that awaited all in the gladiatorial pits.  So Helena accepted her fate, and it wasn't long till her belly stretched tight with the spawn of her demon master.<br/><br/>Thus was Sophia, tiefling bastard daughter of Helena, was born into the world.  However the demon lord who had sired her took one look at the mewling babe, half demon half human, and rejected it.  Too weak, unworthy of anything more than a meal.  Certainly no demon of any value would consort with a tiefling.  Not when they could mate with a powerful demon like themselves, or a weak and easily malleable human.  So the child was cast into the slave pits before she could even walk.  Raised to be a gladiator, like her mother, when she was old enough, she knew only pain and warfare as she grew.  The cruelty of the human slavemasters was equal at least to the demon overlords, and as soon as the young girl was old enough, she made her escape.<br/><br/>A single young teenage tiefling fleeing from Yahn'dee was barely below anyone's notice, and most considered the wilderness beyond the walls a death sentence.  If anyone cared enough to try to pursue the fleeing girl, they failed, for she made her way into the deadly wilds.  Beset by beasts, warped by the chaos of the ever present portals to the abyss, the young girl nearly met her death several times.  It was only by happenstance that she found her way to a small caravan of gypsies, broken and bleeding, on death's door, in the middle of the wilderness.  Among these free men and women, gypsies and travelers, was a single man.  The holy man did not advertise his faith, for to do so in a demon's hearing would have been a death sentence.  Even revealing his identity to other humans was risky, for he could easily be turned in for the crime of worshiping any but a demon master.  But the man a priest of Shoni, named Braun, realized that the young tiefling, only a teenager at that time, would die without his help.<br/><br/>He took her then, and spiriting away from the gypsies, returned her to a small town deep in the woods.  There he tended her and raised her.  Under his care, she learned that there was still goodness in the world, and the gods had not abandoned this world, despite the darkness that cloaked it.  He taught her how to pray, to read, to temper her rage and her anger, to resist the demonic darkness inside of her and to embrace the light of goodness.  While Sophia had of course experienced sex, with demonic masters as well as vicious slavers, in the city of Yahn'dee, it was with her new mentor and teacher, her savior, Braun, that for the first time ever she experienced what love could be.  While she was in no way a virgin, for the first time ever, this human man accepted her and showed her that passion could be good and loving and beautiful.<br/><br/>It was then that she accepted the goddess Shoni into her heart and soul.  In the years that followed, Braun aged, as humans do.  He initiated the teifling, who had grown adept at using her innate magic to alter her appearance, into the secret order of Shoni.  She chose a guise that looked most like the humans around her, with pale skin that bore just a tint of an olive hue, bright emerald green eyes, jet black hair, and a curved appealing body.  It was one that made her popular at the church's regular orgies, and caused those around her to feel comfortable with her demonic lineage.<br/><br/>But time marches on, and Braun passed into the next world, confident that he was going to be taken into the bosom of his goddess of love and sex.  So, she carried on in her adopted father / lover / teacher's stead.  Working in the small church and manning the walls as a warrior against the long dangerous nights.  However, one night, years after the passing of Braun, something odd happened.  It was during the weekly prayer and orgy held at the church that Sophia heard a voice.  As a climax rocked her body, she heard a voice speaking to her, inside of her head.  It had a strange cadence, and spoke cryptically.  But it told her that she needed to embrace her life before.  She needed to be prepared to return to Yahn'dee, and to bring the light of Shoni, both to comfort those who needed it, and to purge the darkness where she could.  The voice promised that if she did, she would hear the true voice and feel the touch of Shoni fully upon her.<br/><br/>The voice never was far from her mind and she spent much of her time meditating on what it might mean, but with no answers.  Until one day a group of traders traveled through town.  Rough and harsh men, who were given little quarter in town and were quickly driven through the gates.  But as they passed, the cloak fell from the leader of the group.  It might have been a scar that marred his face, but recognition blossomed in Sophia's brain.  It was no scar, but a brand, a mark.  A demon mark showing ownership of the person.  It was the mark that a person was given if they willing gave themselves into servitude to a demon master.  But most of all, Sophia knew the mark for she'd seen it branded many times on the slavers that had trained, beaten, raped, and tortured her in the slave pits of Yahn'dee.<br/><br/><em>"These men will return,"</em>she thought to herself,<em>"When they return, they will not come as merchants, as traders peacefully.  They will return with fire and magic, and this town, this peaceful sanctuary, will burn.  Men and women will be carted off in slave wagons, or left as corpses rotting in the open."  </em>She somehow knew that this was true, and that this must have been what the strange voice in her head had been warning her about.  So as soon as the wagons were gone from her hearing, she abandoned her post on the wall and dashed to the church that was her home and had been for so many years.  Inside an old trunk she found several items that had lain untouched for years.<br/><br/>The beaten up spear, battered sheild, and rough armor that she'd worn as a gladiator in training.  The quality of the gear was poor, but as she hefted them, she felt a sense of purpose flowing through her.  There was more to this, it wasn't about the quality of the gear, it was about a divine purpose.  She had grown in the years, and she had no time to get the armor tailored to her.  But she'd trained in making the most of what armor she had.  So she stripped the armor apart, casting aside most of it, until she had a servicible leather kilt, studded with rivets, a leather bra that managed to contain her bountiful D cup breasts, and a leather sleeve that she managed to slide up her right arm.  It wasn't much, but somehow, she knew it felt right.  Her nipples tightened inside the leather bra and she felt a slight twinge of electric joy in her core, a flush of dampness between her thighs, and a heat in her cheeks as she strapped the shield to her arm.  Gripping the shaft of the spear felt almost sensual, erotic, and she knew that her goddess was on her side in this choice.<br/><br/>Of course, that feeling washed away as she turned to find Lim Ranar entering her private sanctuary inside the church.  The man in charge of training guards and keeping the city safe towered in the doorway glowering at her.  His rugged, handsome yet scarred face, twisted in a frown as he looked at her.  His voice was confused, but held a note of authority to it when he demanded of her,<strong> "Sophia, you left your post on the wall.  I came to see if everything is all right and I find you here, wearing... well.. what is that?  What do you think you're doing anyways?  We need you on those walls!"</strong>