The life of Raynor the Naga

u]Chapter 2[/u]

I began my epic quest by studying this phenomonon. When I asked the local females how long this had been going on, they said that it all started about 5 years previous, and since then they hadn't had a good human. In fact due to how cranky the females had gotten over the lack of humans to eat, the other male Naga all left because the women weren't putting out. Hmm.... I sensed an opportunity here.

I then proceeded to capture some humans and begin a trial and error process of getting the lotion off of them. I'd try something then taste the human afterwards to see if they were tasty. I spent 10 years trying, but no matter what I did I couldn't mask the nasty taste that the humans had. However, the more time I spent with the humans the more I found them interesting. Perhaps they might shed light into an alternative techniques I could use to win their hearts.

Thus I set down to observing the little humans in their natural habitats in towns and villiages to see what the males did to win over their species. I had to be careful doing this, as these people were well defended around town, and the last thing I needed was to be fleeing for my life from a horde of human hunters. It was a certain day that I noticed that the males would head to the market and get a strange brown substance. Then later that day, I saw nearly all of those that did walking around in the prescence of a female! This set my mind in motion. Perhaps there might be a way...

I managed to capture one of the human males I saw and I asked him why he and all the other males were in the market. I told him that if I thought he was honest that I'd let him free, and also reward him. He told me that they were buying a substance called chocolate that the females of his kind craved, and that the males used it to win over the females. He said this stuff was only made on special occasions by the city cooks, and was very expensive. I asked him how well it worked, and he smiled at me and said it ALWAYS worked. I smiled and let him go, and I gave him my word that if he ever needed my help that only had to mark the great tree at the end of the fields outside of the city and that I'd meet him there. I let him go, and he went on his way happy to be alive.

For the next few years I tried to acquire this "Chocolate" substance that was spoken of by that human, but to no avail. The city of Ardan was far to well protected for even 50 naga to penetrate. Then one day, while doing my usual cattle stealing in a farmers field I saw that the great tree had my mark on it. I went to the spot and found the little human pleeing desperately for my help. It turned out that his mate and younglings were carried off by a harpy while they were journeying between towns. He asked that I retrieve them. I told him what he asked me to do was very dangerous, but I would be willing to try to save his family, if he could get a humans weight in chocolate by the following spring. So I set off to the harpy roost that was perhaps 20 miles away from Ardan.

I made my way to the roost through the forest, and found the roost at the foot of a small mountain. Upon finding the roost I let out my traditional challenge of the Naga and told the Harpy that I wanted the humans it had. The large Female Harpy sneered at me and told me to leave before she gutted me like a fish. Insulted I charged at her, summoning the power of the earth to me(that is what I am atleast, is an earth Naga). She leapt into the air, and came down upon me with her talons. I was no female Naga whom she might be able to boss around, I was a male Naga of the Stonetail Tribe, and this harpy would pay with her life! I would make a head dress from her wings.

I managed to dodge her strike, and in response I turned my tail into a stone warhammer and clubbed the flying bitch as she passed. I nailed her squarly in the torso, and completely caved in her ribcage. I then lifted the dying harpy from the ground, and with a great yell, I ripped it its wings off and cast it into the dust. Now calming down from my rage, I proceeded to search for the humans of the small man. Unfortunatley I didn't know what they looked like, so I took the cage that had all 20 of them, and carried it with me back to the great tree. The humans were truly frightend of me, as they had seen me easily destroy that harpy, and they must have thought that I was going to eat them. But I suppose it was their lucky day.

When I finally arrived, I saw that there was a small army of humans at the tree. I thought I might be in trouble, so I asked the human who had asked my help, to call off the humans, because there were so many that I doubted I'd be able to escape. It was about then that a human wearing a metal shell, and weilding a boom stick, stepped in front of the army, and asked for the release of the humans. I responded by telling him that was my intent the entire time, and that I had the harpy wings to prove it.

I set the cage on the ground reached over my back and pulled out the 2 harpy wings. I heard a collective gasp. The human leader then said "Friends, MAGATHA IS DEAD!" and a large cheer went up. I reached down to the cage and ripped the front wooden bars off and let the humans go. They all ran to the small army, and the human leader looked up to me and said "You Naga have performed a great deed for us. How may we repay you. Surely, there is something we can do for you?"

I thought on it a while, I asked the leader to come forward, and I lowered my hand. He stepped on and I lifted him to my face. I said "I wish to know why the humans taste so foul. The females of my kind have turned away us males for many years now. Surely there is a comprimise we might come to where the females can still get a few humans." Now I expected to have this human break into a rage at what I thought might have been an insult, but instead he thought on it. He said "Perhaps we can come to an arrangement. You see we have many condemned criminals in this nation of ours, and perhaps we can part with them... As to why they taste bad, I cannot tell you the way to conteract that for our sake. But I will give you my word that the criminals we give to you, will have there protective taste counteracted, so they will be suitable for your needs."

I told the little man "I give you my word that as long as I'm near this city, and as long as I get a steady stream of humans of say 5 to 10 a month, that I will not allow any harm to come to you or the people of this region." I stuck my finger out on my right hand the man shook it. We had a bargain. The humans would supply me with a supply of untainted humans, and in turn I'd protect the city from other big predators. I put the small man back down, and the man turned to the small army and made our bargain known. Surprisingly, no one seemed to oppose it. I guess even humans didn't mind the bad ones being killed by us Naga, if they were going to die anyway.

As I turned to leave, the man who had summoned me to the tree ran out to me thanking me. He said "you asked for a man's weight in chocolate, well you rescued the chocolate maker's daughter from the harpy, he's going to provide you with a wagon load whenever you desire it." I smiled, and thought of how a small good deed could lead to so much of a benefit. I thanked him for keeping his word, and asked him if he knew of any caves where a being of my size might make a good home near the city. It turned out that such a place existed, at the base of the hill upon which Ardan sat. I asked if I could use the place as a home, and he said it used to be a salt mine, and had been abandoned years ago after the salt ran out. He said that he couldn't see anyone opposing me using it. I thanked him, and made my way to my new home, not really knowing waht to expect in the coming days.

Well it's a part of the greater story arc. Both the dridder and Pit Naga were enemies of the stonetail tribe, and formed a temporary alliance solely for the purpose of killing off the stonetails. The stonetails being so honor bound, and traditional refused to ask for help from any of the other naga tribes, and in turn were wiped out by shear numbers. The stonetails by far are the most physically powerful and robust of the Naga(note: the magic of the Stonetails imparted by the earth is passive, as in giving them greater strength, toughness, size, and resiliance, not so much in the way flashy abilities although they can do some earth manipulation) however they also were also a far prouder group then most Naga. Their pride is what destroyed them. By themselves they were more than a match for either dridder or pit naga, but not both.

Raynor has some of these trappings, only he's learned when to swallow his pride when he needs to(too many near death experiences during his younger years). He might be considered a "pet" to the humans by other Naga, but the way he looks at it, is that he gets a warm place to live, all the food he wants, sex, and beer(his favorite food/drink). What more could a male Naga want? He's learning that he can accomplish his goals much easier by using the humans to do a lot of the work, all the while by Naga standards he lives a life of luxury. He never goes hungry, he never has to look for food, he never has to look for women(they come to him), all while only having to do what a male Naga would have to do normally, which is defend a territory and destroy other big predators. The way Raynor looks at it, is that by befriending the locals, he's killed like 80 birds with one stone.

Raynor's appearance is also interesting. He has long brown hair, that he tends to wear pulled back into a pony tail(won't obstruct his eyes in a fight), and has piercing green eyes. His skin is a lighter tan color, and his scales are dark brown, nearly black color(except his belly which is a light brown). His body is covered in scars from past fights, and he has a prominent one that runs across his left cheek. He tends to unclothed although that is changing as the humans begin to give him weapons and armor.

Raynor I guess is what you'd call a sophisticated Naga, a real renassaince man. His hobbies include cave carvings(his cave is an old saltmine currently being renovated), designing human houses, fighting other giant predators, reading, chess(he has human sized figures and moves the pieces for the humans he plays against), and is the apprentice to the brewmaster at the brewery(He loves beer). To read(Naga are farsighted which makes seeing the small text very difficult), he has a pair of magnifying spectacles that are the size of the windows on a normal human dwelling, and usually hires children to turn the pages for him(bribes them with the chocolate the cholate maker gives him), since his fingers are too big to manipulate the pages. He is currently learning to write, and uses the feathers off of his harpy wings as quills. He doesn't use paper, but uses large linen sheets for letters. He's hoping to teach other Naga in the area how to read and write in the hopes of keeping a correspondance with some that are far away(a 10'x10' bedsheet is moveable by a human courier, and is quite portable by Naga standards).

I'll start writing the next chapter, but it's just I wanted to lay a bit more backstory onto Raynor so he's easier to understand.

Yeah typically females of snakes and such are bigger, but a large part of that is because male snakes/spiders are shortlived. For example often times male spiders are eaten after mating. Here is what I'm sort of suggesting as the Naga male lifecycle.

1. Naga Males and Females are about equal in numbers when born.
2. Naga Males and females are about in equal numbers when they reach there growth spurt.
3. Naga Males at young adult hood, are completely outclassed by the bigger males, and are forced into the more dangerous parts of the world, where they have to survive mostly on their own.
4. By the time the Naga Males have grown large enough to challenge some of the established males, about 2/3 of them are dead from other large predators/starvation.
5. These newly matured males then must challenge the established males for territorial rights(some die doing this), and acquire trophies from other large predators in order to impress the females on their strength and prowess(Raynor mostly dodged this once he figured out about humans, but he still experienced the exile to the more dangerous areas, he simply found a safer way to win the female favor).
6. The surviving males which pass these challenges are then able to breed, which by this point only about 5-10% of the originals are still alive.
7. In general the males grow faster and larger than the females, but typically never live to reach the extreme sizes raynor has(or that really ancient females reach), since eventually they are going to be killed in battle.
8. Males establish territories, within which multiple females might live. The females tend to come and go however, so the females that might live nearest might not be the ones he breeds with. The job of the males is to ensure the safety of the territory from rivals and other predators. From all of the years of "big game" hunting they do, they spend much of there tme when not pursuing the ladies, hunting many of the giant predators that wander in(spidergirls, harpies etc.).
9. The bigger the mature male, and more skilled in combat he is, typically the fewer of these big predators will want to enter his domain. This in turn makes the region much more attractive to females, especially those in heat.
10. The few males who live a long time like raynor(<1%), grow to colossol sizes. They tend to have huge territories(raynors is technically massive since not only is he defending it, but so is an army of humans) Hence why in so much of the world male Naga are so rare. A young male would be torn in half by one of these guys if he tried to do anything but pass through.
11. The final situation is that the vast majority of the good territories(prime places where most of the Naga like to live) have only a few old(500+ years) running them. The decent territories have the mature males (300+ years), and the dangerous places the young. The prime realestate is where most of the females live, but the decent territory is in the less populated "routes" between Naga friendly zones(area that aren't controlled by fairy and such). The young males have to eke by on the outskirts of spider territory, or even in spider territory or other hostile zones. As the males mature because by 500 years age growth slows down considerably, the males that reach the late 400s begin to challenge the established males for dominance in the prime territories. This is typically done once a year right before the females come into heat. These battles can be epic in scale, as sometimes 2 lesser males might form an alliance to oust an established male for breeding rights in the highly female populated areas.

Now with all of that said, the females often have a preferred male they like, so they often don't even mate with the male who controls the region she might live in, but head over to the next territory to visit friends, and give the resident male a booty call. The females also are not "ruled" by the males by the males in any means. The land is "ruled" by the males but nothing more. If the male is an asshole, he might find that the resident females either turn on him and drive him out(or in rare cases kill him), or that they'll turn away any females who might want to mate with him(deny him the nooky usually gets positive results).

Chapter 3

It took me some time to get used to all of the smells and sounds the permeate from a human settlement of this size, but over time things took on a comfortable level of familiarity. Within about 3 months, my cave was finally set up to my satisfaction, as myself and a group of human artisans finished renovating the salt mine. After the renovations were completed(I still had to get water here, so for the time being I bathed in the nearby lake), I set about to learning more about my surroundings, and more about the humans. I had been doing oddjobs for farmers, and had learned a considerable amount about what it took to produce the cows that I liked to eat. Typically a farmer would give me cow or two, in exchange for doing some job on his land, pulling stumps, making irrigation ditches, or on occasion helping to raise the roof of a barn. These jobs were interesting to me, as it seemed like everyday I had something new to do. One farmer being unable to give me a cow, taught me how to play chess as a form of payment, and now I'm a hopeless addict. After driving the poor man insane trying to play him more often, I decided to make my own board with human sized pieces out of salt rock. Now I typically invite guests over for a good game(of course I move the pieces since they are too large).

It amazed me how many things were going on, then one day I found myself drawn to an unusual scent. I followed it around, and found my way to what I later learned was the Brewery. I looked over the walls, and found that there was a human who was bustling around in a large open aired building pouring materials into metal cnotainers. I asked hime what he was doing that was producing such a wonderful aroma. He yelled up to me "Making Beer!". I had no idea what beer was so I asked the man brewing. He responded "It is the nectar of the gods, given to man to make him happy.". Surely, this most be a sacred concoction if it smelled this great, so I asked the man if I could have some. He said "I'm sorry son, but you'd drink me dry. But there might be a way.." I listened intently, as I wanted to try what it was that he had contained in those underground barrels. "Tragedy struck us about 2 years ago when a Spidergirl stole the copper we were going to use for another still. Wiped out the whole caravan I'm afraid. If you could recover that metal, then I'm sure we might come to an arrangement." Well I thought, it's too bad that wasn't at Magatha's Lair, but I did know of the location of another harpy, but it would be a good hike. "I'll see what I can do", I told the brewer.

I then went back to my cave and decided I'd try to win over a pretty female Naga that was one the way to the spider nest. I went into my cave and took my cage full of 5 criminals(I tasted one just to make they tasted like a human should taste ), and the vat of chocolate from the chocolateer that he had given me just days ago to celebrate the completion of my cave. I was going to see if my plan could work. You see, even with the supply of good humans that the people of Ardan were giving me, it wouldn't be enough to satiate the appetites of the females in the region, but if I could make them into something extra special with this human female favorite called "chocolate" maybe I could keep the females from leaving this region and have all these ladies to myself. I also took my chess board and playing pieces(the chessboard was 50'x50' square piece of cloth), and put them into a sack(I thought maybe I could coax a game or two out of the convicts in the evenings when I stopped to rest). I then loaded the humans into the sack also(they stayed in there small wooden cage), this would keep the people from seeing me carry them off, since some of the humans weren't all that happy with the idea.

So I started my journey. I wandered past the fields of farmers, many of them waving to me, one of them even gave me a cow on the promise that on my way back I'd help him fix the roof on his house. I eventually made it to the small defenes outposts the humans had about a mile or two from the jungle. I let the humans know I'd be coming back in about a week or so, and started my trek through the jungle.

I missed the jungle sometimes, the feel of the trees as they brushed againste my scales, and the smells of course. I suppose that when you aren't exposed to something all of the time, you gain more appreciation for it. I spent the better part of the afternoon making steady progress through the woods, only stopping to give water and food to the criminals(I wanted them to be extra fresh). At nightfall I stopped in a clearing, to rest. I got my chessboard out, and asked if any of the criminals wanted to play? They all looked up at me with angry looks on their faces. "Be that way." I said, and I put my chessboard back, and put everything back in the sack, and slept for the night.

The following day, I arrived at my destination. I could detect a female's scent in the breeze, and I knew I was in the right place. I announced my presence, and asked if I was welcome to enter her lair. I hadn't been in this neck of the woods for a few years, and it pleased me to see that Spira was still here. I had only met her a few times on my wanderings through this region, but I found her to be one of the few pleasent females that didn't seem so moody from the lack of humans in her diet. I didn't hear a response for a while, and just as I was about to announce again, I saw Spira come out from behind a grove of trees. She was another rarity among nagakind like myself. She was an Air Naga. Lithe, thin and beautiful. With pale skin, yellow hair, and eyes like the sky. Literally the opposite of me, but I think that is partly why we liked each other's company. She was a free spirit, and I was more... well down to earth.

She greeted me, and we began talking. She said she was suprised I was still around, as most of the males who had come through left, when they found that many of the ladies weren't all that welcoming. I smirked and told her that it was too bad for them, because they didn't know what they were missing. She cocked her head and looked at me, wondering what angle I had. She knew that I had been up to something. She asked "So what's in the bag, and what is it that you are holding in your hand?" I opened the bag, and pulled out the cage of humans, and my chess board.

She crossed her arms and looked at me seriously, and said "Do you really think I'm going to eat those?". I just smiled at her, and lifted the lid off of my vat of chocolate. I told her to trust me, and I pulled a scraggly looking human out, dipped him in head first in the chocolate vat, and put him in my mouth and swallowed him. The other humans on the ground started freaking out, and I had to admit that human wasn't bad when it was combined with the chocolate. The female, seeing that I didn't wretch the little guy back up, bent forward to smell the chocolate. She said "That actually smells quite nice. I wonder how it tastes?" So Spira reached her finger into my vat of chocolate, and gave it a taste. I could tell by the look on her face that she liked it. I then said "These humans aren't like the normal ones, I've got my ways of removing the bad taste from them. These are genuine prime human." She looked up at me, and said "Are you pulling my tail? You mean that it wasn't that brown stuff covering the taste?" I said "Nope. I said try one for yourself, I even went through the trouble and removed the shell(referring to what the humans called clothing)."

She reached into the cage, and pulled out a human. She raised it to her face, and the little guy started franting wiggling around, and she stuck out her tongue and licked him. She must have been expecting to experience the extreme nastiness of the typical human of this area, but instead she got the flavor of old. She smiled, and put him in her mouth and started sucking on him. I thought she was gonna pull the skin right off the little guy, but she must have fondled him in her mouth for a good minute before finally swallowing him. She looked at me sensually, and said "You don't know how long I've craved a good human... You've made a girl so happy." I then reached down and grabbed out another human, and dipped him completely in the chocolate and dangled him above her mouth. She reached up with her tongue and pulled him into her mouth. The chocolate seemed to do the trick, as she appeared in complete ecstasty. She played with the human for about 5 minutes before finally swallowing all the while her eyes were cloased and she was letting out a soft moan. After swallowing I could tell she was aroused sexually. Something in that chocolate got her warmed up. She looked at me hungrily, and literally attacked me, and the next few hours were a blur.

When it was all said and done, I was sore, the humans were all gone, and I my body was covered in chocolate. meanwhile Spira had her head resting on my stomach sound asleep. I thought to myself, I haven't had a reaction like that in my entire 800 years of life. As I shifted around, Spira woke up, and looked up at me, and gave my stomach a quick kiss. I said "I guess you really like my chocolate covered humans..." She looked up at me and smiled, and said "They were great, the chocolate just compliments them perfectly." Then she said "I really hope you come by more often, but not too often, as I don't think I'm going to be able walk straight for the next week." We proceeded to talk while we recovered from our post-sex exhaustion, and I asked her if she'd like to play a game. She gave me a look that said "I'm beat, can't we just cuddle.", I said it wasn't "That Game", so I spent the rest of the afternoon teaching her to play chess, and found that she was a fast learner, and before that evening was over, she was actually beating me. We spent the night together that evening, and the following morning after a bath, I told her I'd be back in a few days to pick up my board and see her. With that I waved goodbye and began to continue my journey up to the spider nest.