"Wha- Flora, not now!"
"No, for real, those grapefruits look like they're ready to burst, all taut and rounded and veiny, just saying. Hey, you know I wouldn't have a problem helping you find somewhere warm and tight to put it all." The gnome waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Fey blushed and glanced back at the guards relieved to see they hadn't overheard. She moved her back legs uncomfortably. She couldn't see for herself but judging by the slightly uncomfortable tightness when she shifted her hips she suspected the gnome wasn't trying to pull one over on her.
"I- it's okay, I'll be fine."
"Hmpph. Suit yourself."
The merchant jumped back on his cart and moved on through the gates leaving the guards looking impatiently at the band. Ellaria stepped forward and produced a bronze metal plate from her bag of holding.
"Adventuring band. Bronze plate."
The guard took the plate and eyed it carefully.
"Funny looking band. Not often you see a gnome, a pregnant person, and a centaur trying to make a living in a line of work like adventuring."
"We manage well enough," said Ellaria.
"Yeah, fuck off you nosey prick!" catcalled Flora.
Ellaria whipped around and glared at the gnome who drifted behind Fey innocently.
She turned back to the guard who was giving her a sour look.
"Ah, sorry about that. Gnomes."
"That's three silver for entry."
"What? That's daylight robbery! No one pays that much!" said Ellaria visibly scandalised.
"Pay it or don't, that's your problem. If you make a fuss there's always the question of public indecency laws and whether or not they really apply to centaurs. I rather suspect with the wood your friends sporting over there that you won't much like which side the law takes, centaur or not."
Ellaria's eye twitched but she grudgingly produced three silver coins and slapped them into the guard's hand. She brushed past him and marched into the city, the band followed in her wake.
"Wow, haven't seen Ella get taken for a walk like that in a while, not often you see blood get milked from a stone." Observed the gnome as she drifted overhead.
"Ah, maybe I should pay for that with my own money Ella, it's my fault I'm like this."
The elf waved her words away. "It's fine. You got your affliction saving Flora and on a dungeon dive as part of a band. If anyone was injured I'd use the band's funds to help get them healthy again if needed, that's just part of being a band, mutually looking out for each other." She eyed the gnome floating nearby, a finger up one of her nostrils. "Right Flora?"
"Uh, yeah, looking out, sure."
The elf shook her head and led the band down the bustling cobbled street they had emerged onto. The air was filled with the scent of food as stalls and shops lining the edges of the cobble tried to flog cheap grub to passers-by. Rich meaty pasties, freshly baked bread, spiced wines, strange spitted monsters roasting over braziers, all competing with the more isolated aromas, the incense of a perfumery, the distant stench of a tannery, the burnt tang of a blacksmith.
It wasn't an unpleasant environment but it was a little overwhelming. Fey eyed the crowd as she passed, it was busy but not overly busy, still, it was enough to make Fey feel uncomfortable. She kept spotting gazes crossing her lower half and pausing momentarily in surprise. Once a female lupine stopped in her tracks and her mouth fell open staring at Fey, her nose twitching at the air. It took her husband literally dragging her away by the arm to get her to move, even then she resisted and tried to follow after the centaur.
Fey felt herself throb at the attention and her balls become tighter still.
Soon enough Ellaria gestured to the side and they turned down a smaller dirtier side street. As they turned the corner a woman who Fey strongly suspected to be a prostitute eyed Fey meaningfully and then winked at her. She blew a plume of smoke Fey's way from the pipe she was smoking and Fey was inundated with the ashy scent of tobacco mixed with cheap perfume. She wrinkled her nose as Vivi who was still sat atop her let out a cough.
"Whores huh? Hey, that's a way we can make a few coins Fey, there must be a bucket load of birds looking to get the rocking of a lifetime in this town."
"You're not whoring me out Flora!"
The side streets they followed got progressively more cramped until they turned into one particularly dingy one where a large bald human wearing a brown cloak was standing in the middle of it. There was no one else around.
He turned to the band and smiled.
"Hello lovelies. Nice day out isn't it?"
Ellaria paused. "If you don't want to be burned into a puddle of molten flesh I suggest you move human."
"Now, now, there's no need to be rude."
The man glanced to the side and three more men slunk from a nearby doorway to surround the band.
"Before you go any further human you should be made aware that we are adventurers with all the abilities that entails. I was not joking when I said I would burn you."
"Huh, funny that, I suppose the Adventurer's Guild is only a few blocks that away, would make sense that a lot of adventurers would pass through here."
Ellaria narrowed her eyes.
"Someone told you we were returning from a dungeon. You're waylaying adventurers to mug them of their loot before they get back to the guild. How utterly disgusting."
The man frowned. "Smart one. Doesn't matter. Drop what you got or forfeit your lives."
Ellaria snorted. "Too bad for you we didn't get anything. The dungeon was a dud."
"Really? Not sure I believe you. That's a dimensional bag on your hip, you could be hiding anything in there, a cart full of gold, a griffon egg, anything, hell the bag itself is worth a pretty penny."
"Try me."
Ellaria snapped her fingers and fire roared to life above her fingers, the flames roiling and coiling in the air like a bag of snakes.
"Ooh, scary. I bet you love to make them scream. Too bad you didn't think one step further and ask why we would even be able to target adventurers such as yourselves."
The man raised his hand and curled his fingers into a fist. Ellaria's flame abruptly winked out.
"Shit, that assholes an anti-mage!" cried Flora a moment before her levitation gave out and she crashed to the ground in a heap.
Ellaria stared at her flameless hand in dismay as Fey's hooves tapped nervously on the ground behind her.
The man drew a broadsword from his side and held it ready as he stepped forward.