Chapter 1: Home is where the Hearth is

Osa, Ekina, and Quivina were all at the river swimming in the nude. Adunbi was standing by on guard, half watching his sisters and their attendant as they bathed, and half watching for voyeurs. From the distance they hear screaming and see smoke rising up from the direction of the village. Adunbi turns and runs toward the village as the three women rush out of the water and quickly dress. Osa is first to follow Adunbi, simply wrapping her dashiki around her waist and running bare-breasted after. Ekina and Quivina aid each other and then follow in the direction of the town.

When Osa arrives, she sees her village aflame, bodies of villagers rent and mangled, with a trail of orange skinned human-like creatures laying across what is left of the village. In the middle of it all is Adunbi, his skin of stone and blades of aglow with war magic, batting several dozen Orangemen. Their claws and fangs seemingly have little or no effect on him, while his short spears slash their flesh with ease.

Osa turns towards the river begins to summon an explosive turret of water that will fall on the village and extinguish the fires, which draws the attention of a pair of the Orangemen. Focused on her spell, Osa fails to notice the threat rapidly closing in on her until the rain starts, but by then it’s too late. One Orangeman slaps her across the chest and face, knocking her down and causing her to lose focus, the waters splash down on the village in an uncontrolled bombardment causing more damage than she wanted, but putting out the majority of the fires. The second Orangeman scoops her up and starts to carry her away.

As Ekina and Quivina step from the trees, Ekina chants an incantation and makes waving hand gestures causing a tornado to erupt and starts assailing the Orangemen, picking them up into the air and slamming them into the ground with lethal force. The only Orangeman unharmed is the one running with Osa on his shoulder. That one finds it’s running impaired by a pair of Quivina’s arrows impaling both its legs. As it stumbles to the ground, it loses its grip on Osa and they both go tumbling.

As Osa tries to scuttle away from the Orangeman, he reaches out to grab her and pull her back to him. This causes her loosely wrapped dashiki to be pulled from her, leaving her naked to the world. The Orangeman cringes as the blades of Adunbi’s short spears pierce through his lungs and the yellow ichor that passes for blood is coughed up with its last breaths.

Adunbi looks at his sister before falling to the ground. Osa notices that his body is covered in welted scratches that seem to be injected with poison. She says the incantation of light healing, licks her fingers, and runs them across the scratch marks on her brothers body. As she does, the welts wither and the scratches fade, but still Adunbi does not seem to get better. Ekina and Quivina arrive at their side, asking questions about Adunbi. Osa explains her belief and tells them to go check for survivors.

Osa recites the incantation for curing poison then begins sucking Adunbi’s flaccid cock. The more she sucks, the fermer it gets, and the more stable he becomes. Osa continues sucking until her brother’s rock hard cock erupts in her mouth. But what comes out is not her brother’s sperm filed sexual fluids, but rather a poisonous orange ichor, that she spits out with disgust. Adunbi awakens as his body recovers its strength, Osa stands and helps him to his feet. Adunbi points out that she’s nude, and she retrieves her dashiki and properly wraps herself with the aid of her brother.

Adunbi and Osa join Ekina and Quivina in the search for survivors. From a village that had over 5000 people, only 197 are left. Most of the children and women of breeding age are missing, any men if fighting age were killed even if they were not armed and fighting. The elderly were ignored unless they fought back. A few families may have managed to hide or escape well enough to be safe, but they are not among those present. Even the goats were taken.

They spend the next few hours digging through the ruins searching for supplies and are joined by two dozen more survivors who managed to escape and returned to look for survivors and supplies. Their total number is 221 people, half being elderly (over 55 years), and a dozen children (under 15 years). Ekina casts a spell that ripens the food in the fields, then helps Quivina and the women harvest everything they can, Osa tends to the children, while Adunbi and the men scour the wreckage of the buildings for anything of use and pile up bodies in makeshift pyres.

An hour before dark Osa and Ekina lead the survivors in walking away from their previous homes. Adunbi and Quivina stay behind to light the pyres and cover the rear of the caravan of pedestrians from any dangers that may pursue them.