The harpies screeched their arrival at Avanesse to the passengers of the edirashem. Their calls grew more distant the farther they traveled down the caravan wagons. It had been a long journey since starting at Dry Gulch. Sultana Dudula and Archmage Donnu must know by now what Kanae had done and weren't at all happy about her betrayal. That was going to take some explaining. But before then, an almost insurmountable task laid ahead— facing Elaine, Jhene, and Ambrosia. Those three were certainly going to give it their all in controlling Avanesse, and possibly all of Savir.

Kanae wasn't going to let that happen. The thought of facing them, including the Ortesian led by Arnault Pyrelle, stressed her beyond belief. Which was why she was fucking her frustration away. Rather, Durok was the one fucking her frustration away.

"More! Yes! Just crush my womb with that steak of a cock! It's so good! I'm cumming again… nnnghh… My brain is melting! Aaahhhh!" Kanae didn't care who could hear and howled at the top of her lungs.

The minotaur pounded away in the missionary position with wild abandon. Kanae had given the charmed Durok a single order, and that was to screw her senseless until morning. He had been doing just that.

Even though Durok's cock should have long gone soft, Kanae made sure it didn't by casting Turn Horny to render him constantly erect. She even made him wear her Cock Ring of Hardening, which enlarged his already considerable meat stick into a colossal club.

"I love your dick…" Kanae kissed and licked him on the snout. "It's my new favorite… but Mitty's is still my number one, and Titan second… yours is… might have to be… Uuh… I can't think any more… I— hhnnghh!"

Durok no longer blew a load. He emptied his balls some time ago. His thick, fertile spunk lathered Kanae's entire body, soaked the bed, and pooled on the floor. However, his magnificent cock still throbbed and trembled, the tremors of which brought her to a quivering orgasm.

Sunlight creeped across the room from the window they left open to ventilate the steamy room. The warm rays reached Durok's face, and the fucking came to a stop. He got off Kanae and stood obediently at the foot of the bed, his legs shaky from exhaustion and going at it all night. Hot ejaculate flowed out from Kanae's gaping pussy now that it was no longer plugged up by a dick.

"Morning already? I need a moment for my legs to start moving again…" Kanae sighed.

In the meantime, she ordered Durok closer and licked his cock until the Cock Ring of Hardening could be pulled off. It returned to the usual— albeit still rather large— size and went soft.

Feeling eventually returned to Kanae's hips, and her ability to walk soon after. She sat up and frowned. The room was a mess and covered in jizz. They had fucked everywhere imaginable. It took several casts of Prestidigitation, but she eventually returned Durok's bedroom back to its original state. She also found Cockcalibur lying in the corner.

"I probably shouldn't let this out of my sight… Especially with three of the Queen-Mother's daughters in Avanesse." Kanae slipped Cockcalibur back into her pussy and got dressed.

Without even needing to be ordered, Durok threw on some new clothes, wiped himself off by a basin of water with a towel, and left to fulfill his duties as the forewagon conductor. Kanae had to get going, too. She climbed out of the window only to have her breath taken away, and not by a big dick this time.

The narrow gulch pass was behind them now that the fissured canyon which loomed over the edirashem had since opened up. They headed into a marvelous city that rivaled Bravost, the Emerald Jewel.

Avanesse, the Ruby Jewel. A gigantic palace spire in the back of the city towered over the urban sprawl, reaching as high as the canyon's upper range. From up there, just like Sultana Dudula's palace, a large jewel embedded into the building glinted magnificently from the sunlight. The high natural canyon walls provided shade for most of the Avanesse, and where the natural shadows didn't reach, canopies stretched from rooftops of tall towers interspersed throughout the city.

There were many canyon outcrops and boulders which Avanesse had incorporated into itself. Ladders and walkways connected large rocky protuberances, where homes and farms were built atop of. Giant boulders had been excavated into and used as buildings. Avanesse even had some greenery to behold. Desert grass stretched around the outer ring of the city. Gnarled trees with spiky leaves and bulbous cacti grew from crevices in the canyon, and rock climbers scaled high to harvest them.

The edirashem crested a small hill and began its descent into Avanesse. Kanae spotted the many large wagons and caravans parked orderly in front of the city, each uniquely different from each other in design, quantity, and people. If all of these carried soldiers into Bravost and Elusis, neither would stand a chance against such a massive force. Doubly so, since Avanesse was being backed by Ortesia and Temptation. She also recognized Edirashok Zayn's edirashem, whose caravan was one less large wagon short after losing one in Vanuis. He only had four left since Riley's betrayal.

Kanae's pussy throbbed reminiscing how much Zayn had fucked her when she was… transformed.

"Damn it. I had sex all night and still can't stop thinking about it?" Kanae groaned.

She was about to join the others back at the noble's residence when an gargantuan shadow pulled across the city. Kanae looked up. The ziggurat Jhene had made off with from Vanuis. Its savage and foreboding presence, as well as succubi overseers in the sky, floating high above Avanesse gave her the creeps. There were people trapped within, forcibly used as batteries to power the temple.

Back at the mansion, everyone was downstairs in the living room getting ready to depart. The tension was thick. As Kanae looked upon her companions, she knew that each of them had something they wanted to get from here. Alicia wanted Claudia back, and to pay Ambrosia back for what she did. Edina sought the Necronomicon from Riben Crow. Kris came all this way from Artaggon to get her hands on the stone keys in Jhene and Elaine's possession. And Petyr had a bone to pick with Arnault Pyrelle.

Kanae eyed Renya, who was the only one without a stake in this fight. Although, her getting to Elusis did hinge on their survival. The dark elf caught Kanae staring and flashed an easy-going smirk. She twirled her signature flintlock pistols before stowing them into a holster under her crimson coat.

"I never thought I'd have to use this skill for as long as I lived." Alicia incanted Demon Form and her succubi features all but vanished.

"It's not so bad. Think about how many places you can infiltrate!" Kanae did the same but with Human Form.

The two turned Edina, who looked very much like a succubus and wielded the all too distinguishable Pillar of the Damned.

"What? I'm only a half-succubus! I don't have a spell that hides them. Best I can do is this." Edina threw a hood over herself.

"Can you at least get rid of your staff? Literally everyone will know it's you," Kanae said.

"Not my baby!" She gasped harshly and cradled her staff. "But fiiiiine."

Edina snapped her fingers, and an abyssal portal ripped open in front of her. She chucked the staff in, then zipped the rift closed. Now the next problem on the list…

Kanae and Alicia folded their arms at Petyr, who had donned her full suit of dragonscale armor.

"I'm not taking this off," Petyr said.

"You're shining brighter than a lighthouse. After Sultan's Wake, anyone that got away on Levain's edirashem will know who you are." Kanae sighed into her hand.

"Good. Like moths to a light. I'll reacquaint them with my flyswatter, too." She hoisted her warhammer onto her shoulder.

To Kanae's side, Alicia brandished a knife dripping with venom. Petyr rolled her eyes and returned upstairs to get changed. She came back down with just her maul, a simple tunic, and an angry face.

They left for Odika's manor as a group. His edirashem was the last of ten to arrive in Avanesse. One of his guards who recognized them led to Rasheena in the basement lift. The leader of the resistance looked a lot more harried than usual. Stress made the already dark bags under her eyes darker. The single thick braid on her back swung like a pendulum as she spun around, doling out orders to her people.

When the crowd finally dispersed, she finally turned her attention to them.

"Good of you to check in with me before leaving. The timetable has shifted. The Meeting of Sands is taking place tonight. Odika is well on his way into the city to join the other edirashoks," Rasheena explained.

"Are we putting the plan into action now?" Kanae asked.

"No." She shook her head. "An inside source tells me Cerberus plans to make a public declaration of war from the palace tomorrow. Then the following day, a wedding will be held between him and the succubus named Elaine. Kanae, you and whoever among your compatriots you can spare, will join me in sneaking into Isha Palace to capture my nephew while he prepares for the ceremony. It is when he will be most vulnerable. I'm worried about that floating structure above the city. Is there anything we can do about it?"

"We're not so sure about it either. I say, best leave it alone for now. If we do something that causes it to fall into the city, you will have more problems to worry about," Alicia said, and Rasheena reluctantly agreed.

The lift reached the top, and its doors opened for them to shuffle in. Rasheena descended into the sandy canyon surface with them. Before they even reached the bottom, she whistled sharply to a carriage and startled the slumbering stagecoach, who whipped the eight ronoas into drawing closer.

"I have hideouts all over the city. Hopefully, the accommodations of the one we're headed to will be to your liking." Rasheena opened the carriage door for them to enter, then hopped in herself.

"Traveling with us for once? Figured you were going to go off on your own," Kanae said.

"I'm more wanted than any raider in every Avanessi city. There is a bounty on my head that will elevate anyone who brings me in dead or alive to the status of edirashok and three wagons. That is a reward that sets one and their family for an eternity. But even though most of the city is after my life…" She pulled the curtains aside and gazed out the window with a warm smile on her face. "I am glad to be home."

Their carriage entered the jam-packed streets of Avanesse. People were shoulder to shoulder, chest to back. Every intersection had a harpy directing pedestrians and vehicles from a watchtower, like a traffic light back on Earth. The city surface was very uneven. Retaining walls were a common sight, and some entire districts sat elevated over others.

Despite the presence of Ortesian high elves and succubi, the citizens of Avanesse were in high spirits. Their sultan was going to have a wedding soon. It was a cause of celebration, and people drank themselves into a stupor in the streets. At one street corner, a band of mages used magic to give a show and drew cheers.

Crowds suddenly parted from the streets. Kanae shrunk back into the carriage as a group of succubi paraded bound and gagged slaves for all to see. Words like 'traitor' and 'non-believer' were inked onto their bodies.

"Warnings not to stand up against my nephew's puppeteers." Rasheena snarled.

They crossed a natural stone bridge to a separate section of Avanesse. Water rushed past below in man-made canals. It came from a single source from the north— a large body of water, an oasis, that surrounded the seat of the Sultan of Avanesse, Isha Palace.

Rasheena directed everyone's attention ahead to a district called The Claw. Part of the canyon wall jutted out in the shape of its namesake over the section, shrouding the entire area in a darker shadow than the rest of the city.

"The governor in this part is loyal to the cause. We're safe from the prying eyes of Ortesians and cultist succubi here," Rasheena explained.

"In this part?" Kanae raised a brow.

"Avanesse is enormous, as you saw. This city is headed by three governors, each overseeing their own district. The Claw, The Commons, and The Royal Grounds. Needless to say, the latter two are blindly loyal to my nephew. I wouldn't put it past them being under the thumb of a succubus."

Buildings were more dense in The Claw. Some made their homes in cabins cobbled together in dark alleyways between townhouses and taverns. The streets were surprisingly spotless, if not for the thin layer of sand and rocks. Instead of bazaars at every plaza and avenue, food vendors set up shop on the curbs. They grilled meat, roasted whole animals on a spit, made fruit bowls, and more. Passersby tossed them a few coins, then grabbed something to eat before going on their way.

The carriage stopped in front of a mid-scale bar, a two-story building with an open terrace up top. Fanciful music from a stringed instrument played inside, and Kanae almost had a traumatic reaction from thinking Labelle might be here. Some people loitered outside, smoking from cigars and minding their own business.

Rasheena hopped down and beckoned them to follow. The smokers became animated at once to confront them, but once she pulled her hood back, they backed down. A beastman woman sitting on the steps into the bar looked up and grinned.

"Well, look at that. You might look a little different, but I recognize the red-skinned succubus anywhere," the beastman said.

"Hm? Are you two acquainted?" Rasheena cocked her head.

"Romira." Alicia clicked her tongue. "I know Elaine helped you escape. I recognize her darkness magic as the same spell used on the carriage. Shall I humiliate you again?"

Kanae reached for lust hanging on her waistband. Romira and her gang were behind the assassinations of the East Saviran Trading Company's members. Alicia and Edina had defeated her in The Diamond during the banquet, but Romira had escaped.

"Relax! If you're with Rasheena, we're on the same side this time. That time was nothing personal. Just business. And I have a new contract. Let's try and get along, yeah?" Romira sneered, levelling a dagger in Alicia's direction.