Shinead Sidhe, provisional Clan Head of the temporary Swift Arrow Clan wasn’t having a good time.

That perverted extra-Arkadian was indeed building up his harem! Of course, he found a Vampire and a Kobold within the borders of the Domain! Shinead couldn’t even remember when a reptile was last spotted in the East, and that Traveller just happened upon one within a month of arriving! A female reptile, mind you! Probably the only female Vampire – or Vampire of any gender – was now warming his bed!

Most likely.

Probably.

Maybe.

That other pervert – the Little Sister, that is, it was hard to differentiate between so many depraved perverts around – seemed quite clingy with the Vampire, however.

They were obviously waiting for a few horses, mules and donkeys to be delivered! That was… sooo… what was the word that went beyond perverted?

Shinead just shuddered to imagine all those perverted depraved depravities those four were doing all along. All those fangs and long tongues! The tangled limbs and genitals!

Shinead felt dirty just thinking about all the exercises they were doing without her. Very dirty.

She needed a bath.

But she had to settle with the next best thing, interrogation, and light torture. The captured criminal was already tied up excitingly… ehmm… securely, so she should start with a bit of light flogging to show him, who his mistress was. There was probably a candle somewhere too…

She had so many ideas to have some fun with the submissive one… ehmmm… extract information from the captured criminal, but that damned Vampire just had to “help” her! The criminal just spilled the beans, lentils, peas, carrots, onions, and every other vegetable there was in a well-stocked farmers market.

Damn.

She still needed that bath…

At least she was promised an outlet for the next day: hunting and exterminating! She wasn’t quite sure, how and why that bunch of idiots couldn’t determine what kind of monster they were supposed to hunt. She knew! Not just because she was more or less local, but knew the difference between the two kinds of lizards, where each one lived, and what kind of threat they were. At least the local prince or hunter should have provided that kind of information!

She was about to complain to the perverts when the Little Sister signaled her to remain silent.

How DARE she?!?!

Oh, wait…

Was this some kind of setup for that annoying Traveller? A test? Does he even have a Hunting Licence? Proper identification parchments? Probably not. Shinead somehow forgot to tell him to get the parchmentwork in order.

Hehehehe.

This will be so much fun!

Fun it was, indeed, despite the perverted cur of Little Sister signaling her to let the Traveller take the lead. Shinead tried nonetheless to goad him into some common mistakes (she was prepared to throw his pet reptile under the cart the first chance she got), but he somehow proved to be marginally competent. Almost as if he knew all the cliches of how parties usually fell into traps.

Burning the field was a nice touch, Shinead approved. One of her superiors did exactly that kind of accident to the fields of one of the Empire’s nobles. It was glorious! There was even a poem – short as it was – and a small painting about that accident! He was immensely proud of the tattoo he got – Flames of Destruction for causing an accident with at least one hundred fatalities with only fire. He was the only one with that tattoo in the whole Clan, and one of only three Shinead knew of elsewhere.

Even better was the Traveller's face when he was confronted with the absence and need for proper identification, authorization, and permissions! Well done, perverted Little Sister! If she wasn't a cur of other races but a proper Red Elf, she would have received a tattoo for that accident!

While the Traveller was trying to become the drunken pig he already was, and his hangers-on went to do unspeakable and indescribable depraved, perverted things with each other (was the drunken pig planning to join them at a later time or just watch?) without involving her, Shinead retired to her room too. She had some ideas about how to get rid of the Traveller, the Little Sister, and that vulgar bloodsucker already. It involved ropes, whips, and a few other funny… ehmmm… painful implements.

For now, however, she had a meeting with Mr. Woody. What an irreplaceable and ingenious piece of magical engineering!

Not long after they started the pursuit of the monkeys that killed her Clan, the very first problem surfaced. Their Traveller failed for some reason to put a leash on his reptile – Shinead could not understand why he kept it around, to begin with, probably because he was a pervert – and was fined in short order. Of course, we started whining and complaining.

The campground guard was right nonetheless. Dangerous animals should be put on a leash! Or put down, not to endanger innocent residents of the Domain! To be frank, even the Traveller himself should have been put on a leash, gagged, and shackled. So Shinead… ehmm… the Little Sister could parade him around like the good dog he was.

No constant whining, complaining, voicing his stupidity, and doing only perverted and depraved things when his mistress allowed it. How the Little Sister could tolerate such extra-Arkadians, Shinead could not understand. Their Traveller was supposed to be marginally intelligent – even with the harem, he was obviously building, his constant whining a complaining – what kind of insane dumbasses the other would be?!? Shinead was sure, she would kill them off in short order (maybe after some binding up and whipping and other… stuff), and wouldn't even make an effort to make it look like an accident.

Oh, wait, that was exactly what the Little Sisters were normally doing.

Saving innocent Elves from perverted extra-Arkadians doing idiotic and depraved things.

Maybe she needed another meeting with Mr. Woody.

After visiting the next town, she was certain, she needed that meeting.

The Traveller was ambushed by Glitter Elves! It was… funny! Hilarious! So satisfying! It wasn’t anything special though, the Glitters were just as playful as they usually were, but the Traveller was scandalized for some strange reason. He was whining and complaining about completely normal nakedness, completely normal playfulness, and completely normal toll-paying. He was offended even by the simple fact that Elves had and should have more rights than other species! Why shouldn’t they? They were the oldest species on Arkadia, the most advanced, the most intelligent, the most… everything, basically!

No monkey, greeny, or reptile could even come close to the greatness of the Domain!

It even had bureaucracy!

Aqueducts, sanitation, roads, medicine, education, public baths, safety, order, and peace, the Domain had everything! What did the other species have?

They were living in dirty hovels without proper roads, no baths (well, they didn't have a need for personal cleanness, so the absence of baths was understandable), and no real medicine, or education! That village the Traveller bought her to was a good example of the difference! They didn't even have canalization!

Elves were just superior.

That night the perverts – that is the Little Sister and the Vampire – retreated into the bushes to be perverts, leaving the other perverts – that is the Traveller and the reptile – behind to let them be perverts and also leaving Shinead behind. Probably for the Traveller to have his ways with her.

No chance!

Shinead volunteered for a patrol to get out of the clutches of all those perverts. She could not wait to finally rid Arkadia of those four. how the times and morals had fallen that the Domain allowed extra-Arkadians to roam its forests freely, curs to work for the Office and Bureau, insane Vampires to enter, and reptiles to exist! It was clear, that the Red Elves had to ramp up the occurrence of an accident.

That she was forced to work with such undesirables was an affront. What next? Adventurers? Those purchasable mercenaries without any loyalties but to themselves? In the Domain, they were a part of the Agency for Infiltration, Counter-Infiltration, Problem-Solving, Monster-Control, and Active Archeology, and as such, officials, but even so, they had a bad reputation. Shinead heard, that in other states they were just glorified grave robbers, bandits, murderers, and burglars. Why someone would trust such criminals, Shinead simply could not understand. No epic poems, novels, paintings, or statues were ever created about adventurers!

Working with them? No way. She would rather ask a random Elf standing around in a guest house. Her current underlings weren't ideal as it were. Ainmire had to be left behind to represent the Clan and ensure at least a minimum for the Clan's ultimate survival or memory if she failed. The others were… expendables. As soon as their value dropped below the cost of being tolerated, they were as good as dead.

Shinead only needed to find that cur to have her revenge and the epic art for the fallen.