by Prax Venter
They’d expected the creature to fall into the mile-deep hole and let gravity take care of the rest, but the three-legged spidery thing was struggling to stay afloat in water that was only about twenty yards from the parched Wrongside surface.
The Steam Pit was flooded.
Sasha’s flashing electrical attacks brought everyone back into the fight, and Mark resolved to end this as quickly as possible. Jezebel wasn’t on the verge of death, had severe burns, and needed immediate attention.
Two blinding rays sounding like new-wave synth sliced into the blue dirt a few feet in front of him, and Mark turned to focus on the pair of Spear Tongues he’d help bring to the ground with Abby’s borrowed spell. They were still very much alive.
He was moving too fast, so he pulled on the experience of the day and used his energy for mobility.
A long pole formed from his fists, and he thrust it into the ground as the monster’s mouth-laser tore up everything directly in front of him. With upward thrust coming from his boots, Mark successfully vaulted over the downed tripod’s strange energy blasts- but directly into synthwave range of his primary target.
The creature was smart enough to stop advancing when it detected Mark sprinting forward. A thunderstorm brewing in the center of its slick oily body sent his True Sight warning system blaring in his mind, and with a snarl, Mark reshaped his energy in midair to form a broad shield an instant before his forward momentum was halted by the blast.
He landed roughly but didn’t break contact with the frontal torrent of power assaulting him from this pissed-off Spear Tongue.
The two on the ground continued firing their unending beams behind his back as they struggled with two working legs to turn their bodies. With lasers shifting close behind, and a second towering monster drawing his attention as it galloped up behind the one currently blasting his shield, Mark found himself becoming surrounded.
Then he saw the tapered metal legs of Angel zip down and impale one of the downed foes, ending it. At nearly the same time, the new tripod moving up to flank Mark suddenly only had two back legs thanks to Abby’s second Lacerations and it fell face first into the dirt.
He sent a mental high-five to Abby, then shifted his position away from the graceful combat droid currently stomping the life out of the second fallen foe at his back, leaving only the one constantly deafening him with its synthesizer mouth-laser.
Mark simply held its focus with his shield while Angel, Abby, and Sasha came around to help clean them all up, but before the last one even stopped moving, Mark turned to sprint for his wounded satyr. He slid to her side and found that a sickening amount of her left arm had been burned clean off.
Mark sucked in a breath when he saw it. Was she somehow hiding how much pain-
He shook out all distractions and began reverting the part of the universe that involved his beloved doe scientist.
Before starting, a terrible screeching echoed to his ears from inside the pit and he easily let the others handle whatever fresh hell was coming for them as he gathered his sole focus toward healing his wounded Enthralled.
The tan-skinned satyr dug her hooves into the blue mud as he rewove her missing parts with practiced skill. Jezebel violently spasmed against the raw pleasure fusing with her exposed nerves but the overwhelming ecstasy only lasted a few moments before she was made whole again.
That’s when he noticed the arm he’d restored was no longer covered by the leather armor slabs. They were incinerated with everything else.
“Oh, that was good,” she said, hugging herself as Mark knelt over her waist. “Bad- but then mmm. Good.”
“Hold still,” he whispered and then mentally angled that painful spot in the middle of his mind toward the smoldering edge of leather that remained by her shoulder.
Jezebel’s emerald eyes crossed as she looked into his then held her arm out away from her body once she picked up his intention.
With similar focus on healing, Mark manifested the feel, smell, and firmness of Audra’s passed-down gear. He closed his eyes and willed the digital library containing the original spawn.mesh of this exact set of leather armor to expose itself to him. Then, something triggered from his blind eye that insisted he look deep into this object if he truly wanted to see its past.
As it was with living entities, Mark’s magic vision took him on a deep dive into the beautifully crafted chest plate, leggings, buckles, straps… the Vulpath craftsman who’d made them lived on the edge of a plain of swaying pale grass with red tips. It was midnight when he finished the final stitch on the right bracer, and Mark watched from some arbitrary third-party point in the small wooden shack as the craftsman carefully placed the last piece inside an old chest.
The local traveling merchant that came to collect his finished works did not pay him nearly enough, but abandoning his flocks and herds and chickens and cats… he could never leave his animals to sell his product himself and resigned to simply enjoying his simple life. This craftsman honored each of his silent friends’ similarly simple lives as best he could while the circle of life spun around him under the cold, milky sun…
With a master’s infused knowledge relating to all things leatherworking, Mark turned his consciousness and will on not only repairing the recent damage, but resetting the entire set to its original state.
When the white flashing effects were over, they both found she was now wearing a pristine set of studded sable suede armor.
Their eyes met and she sent him the tingling excitement she felt around his digital mind interfacing more every day.
“Um, guys…” Sasha said from behind them and they both turned to see the billions of pouty-lipped clouds they’d accidentally created last time they were here. They were rising out of the pit like someone squeezing a tube of pink toothpaste. He helped Jezebel to her hooves as the impossible column of fluff blotted out the Wrongside sun.
- 4 -
Abby, Angel, and Sasha began retreating from the edge just before an avalanche of airy, pink fluff poured over them.
“What is this!” Princess Verrelle shouted as she and Amina trotted up to where everyone was regrouping away from this steam cloud geyser.
No one answered as they all watched the ground-based clouds instantly start getting each other off with hungry mouths slurping over dripping slits. One nearby cloud emitted an emotional blip that Mark easily categorized as a blissful orgasm. He turned and pointed it out as the spurting entity became a pink storm of ecstasy, then cummed itself entirely into liquid. After the first one popped, more piled on top of the others while a pool of water rose from the square pit below.
“I do not believe that is water,” Jezebel whispered, passively reading his thoughts.
Amina lifted her thick tail high as she took a half-step back toward the geyser.
“How can this be?” she said, her voice slow with awe.
Sasha shook her head and put a hand on her fleshy hip. “Chieftain, say hello to those sex-drug free samples you gave us so long ago.”
The screeching Mark heard earlier came again preceded by long black legs emerging from the pit, and everyone but Verrelle shifted back into a combat stance. But, like a magician rising from a hole in the stage, the woman-shaped bubble of air they’d met in her tank far below appeared alongside the struggling Spear Tongue inside an enormous cube of liquid.
The creature’s cries and inhuman clicks rose in pitch and frequency before its torture was pushed too far. The now-lifeless corpse exploded into several hundred chunks then were all ejected from the back side of the quivering cube.
“Collector,” the woman burbled, but it was in a voice much harder to understand without her internal speakers located down industrial complex below. Her complex mind, however, was overflowing with clear waves of gratitude.
“Good to see you getting out of your tank more!” Mark yelled back to be heard through the membrane of her liquid environment.
“The Lady of the Steam Pit…” Princess Verrelle said with r
everence, stepping her glowsticks forward to stand beside Amina.
The giantess air shape hovered closer to the edge of her cube. “It pleases me, Blazar, that you remember me.”
“There are ah- records… of you.”
Mark could tell Verrelle was both afraid of the reports regarding this area and ashamed that most Blazar considered this being whimsical folklore.
As the gushing liquid began to flow near where they stood, the bubbly entity used her power to open a dry, breathable path inside her cube. She beckoned them to enter, and Amina moved instantly. Mark shot his eyes over to Verrelle who was currently having a hard time staying upright with her shafts of energy sinking into the muddy dirt.
He gave the Princess a warm smile to convey there was nothing to worry about and held his arm out for her as everyone else moved inside as well.
The young Blazar didn’t seem to notice Mark, and clenched her fists instead, widened the base of her magic legs, then followed the others without assistance. Once Mark stepped into the air pocket created by the Lady of the Steam Pit, he found the liquid under their feet was somehow pinching itself into a solid surface.
The opening behind refilled with the syrupy liquid and the whole thing began to sink down as if they were in a glass elevator. When she spoke again, the woman of air was much easier to understand.
“Welcome, Chieftain Amina. Welcome, Blazar Princess Verrelle. And a warm enduring welcome to Mark, and his Enthralled. You have questions, and since the recent appearance of an anchor to the realm of my new orally fixated nature, my memories have been fully rebuilt.”
The Awysai sex-drug elevator continued to slide smoothly down into the Steam Pit as she paused for her words to be internalized, then continued.
“For those here without ancient tomes of history, my name is Alolea. My father is Primal Water and my mother is Primal Air, yet my water affinity has been last overridden by a unique liquid the Awysai people have cultivated. My father was no longer connected, as Cataclysm’s rending rifts have severed all other familial bonds.”
The bubble woman then moved right to the edge near a mesmerized Amina.
“Chieftain, when I first met your Blazar ancestors, I found intrigue in the craft of ocean construction. I now willingly derive adjusted purpose from our goddess. I now work to fabricate a vast forested wetland optimized for countless future generations of Awysai to build a civilization. That is, when they are healed and ready to leave the safety of the Blazar Dome.”
“So fascinating!” Princess Verrelle half-mumbled, half-squealed. The being now known as Alolea turned her direction, and the nervous Blazar royal recoiled. “I’m sorry to interrupt!”
“Do not start so, young one,” the elemental woman said. “I look forward to a rich rewarding reunion with the enduring Blazar. All here are united under one purpose- one exceedingly mmm… generous goddess.” The woman of liquid and air moaned the words as she held out an arm to point at the princess’s four glowing shafts pressing against the bottom of her cube.
Verrelle smiled, her fear broken by the idea that this powerful being was willing to share ancient knowledge.
“I- uh will order a squad of warriors to fend off the Spear Tongues. When I get back, that is.”
Alolea made a fizz of air rise from her like she was suddenly carbonated and then it stopped.
“This gesture is appreciated. Know that a substantial foothold has been established on the surface and I will be able to deal with most obstacles to the project. Yet, the more time I have, the more potent my presence will become. Please do send any Blazar to observe and potentially exchange discourse.”
“How long will the terraforming take to complete?” Jezebel asked.
“Terraforming,” the bubble woman repeated as if she’d found a new favorite word. “The process may never be fully complete as the environment will continue optimizing for evolving needs.”
“Where are you going to find all these trees?” Sasha asked. “Trees that can get their roots sucked by Awysai Sex drugs all day and not wither from dehydration.”
“Wood is a scarce resource within the Wrongside,” Abby added.
Mark crossed his arms. “Probably some magic bullshit.”
“Pardon me,” Verrelle said with a small frown. “But our home is not this Wrongside I’ve heard outlanders label it.”
That seemed to break Amina out of her spell. “After establishing the goddess anchors, I will find a way. Alolea, I am honored to know you, but the Awysai will need to join the work building our home. For our people to be strong, we cannot hide from the world and then be handed paradise.”
“I may have miscommunicated, Chieftain,” Alolea said, moving close to Amina again. “I expect to work with your people closely over the next several thousand cycles to craft the ideal paradise dictated by you and your line of succession. I am a builder. A problem solver. Not an architect.”
The red-patterned Awysai salamander was taken aback for a moment. Mark could tell the concept of slowing down and raising a family had been erased from her mind entirely. The mixed-element elemental called Alolea continued.
“After all these dry, ticking years, I remember how to operate my wondrous machine. Now that my nimbus extensions are unhindered, they will spread. However, it will take time before any substantial terraforming can begin.”
The elevator made of a potent hallucinogenic liquid reached the bottom of the pit and Mark’s brow came down as everyone shifted their stance into the new direction of inertia.
“Damn, this thing is faster than it feels!”
“Slightly over 111 kilometers per hour,” Angel reported quietly.
The elemental became a zillion tiny bubbles zipping around every corner of the cube before reforming herself close to where Mark stood.
“This thing is me, Collector.” She practically poured the lustful words near his ear. “Your actions have freed me from my glass prison and metamorphosed me into a potent sexual being that has likely never existed. Once enough Eternal Echo rivers flow across the cracked surface above, I will once again move as I see fit. There is no repayment known to me that could ever offset the results of your actions.”
Their pocket of air came to a rest, and the solid liquid at their feet drained away until they all stood on the metal floor in front of her empty tank. And in the center of his beautiful traveling companions hung the blue spark of light that he could use to instantly take everyone back to the ancient castle atop Vulpath city of Thomellia.
Mark gave her a genuine smile as he scrunched his nose.
“Well, most of what we did to get us all to this point was accidental.”
“Or incidental,” Abby added.
Alolea fizzed again in a way Mark had a hard time comprehending, but his best educated guess was a complex mix of laughter, fear, and arousal.
“All of existence hangs on your accidents, Lover,” she said in a drastically clear version of her voice as whatever type of magic speakers of her machine came to bear. “With the essence of Salivis coursing through us all, we will flow as one, and we will claim this space as our domain. And when it is done, you will come step inside me. I vow to saturate you with an ecstasy only an Eternal Echo Elemental can manifest.”
Mark shuddered from scent-induced flashbacks of his first bath in the Awysai-devised hallucinogen.
“Can’t wait,” he said, moving to open the portal. With a flash of intention, Mark coated his hand with the will of He Who Judges and pulled aside the digital curtain that separated concurrently running virtual universes.
A flash of impossible data struck his mind like lightning but vanished before he could feel it. It was only a peek, but the chaotic glimpse made him believe he was more in control than ever regarding his self-ascension from simulated analog to purely existing as a pattern of ever-changing energy that-
“Mark,” Jezebel said as she laid her warm hand on his arm. He looked into her eyes and wondered how long he’d been standing there staring at the vaca
nt wooden throne while what sounded like a violent blizzard raged outside the thick wooden walls around it.
Her focused emerald gaze told him it was long enough.
“What the fuck is that!” someone yelled from the other side of the portal.
When Mark turned to look, he found a black-furred Vulpath male holding a mop in his claws standing near Queen Ki’s empty throne.
“What is what?” a female answered from somewhere else in the throne room.
“Hear my plea, oh Queen!” the wolfish man howled up into the air while raising the mop like a defensive weapon. “A half-blind human comes!”
The ancient once-Queen of Thomellia phased into solidity over the seat of her throne then instantly locked her red pupils on his. Mark felt the djinn-like amalgam of different beings emit a warm mental embrace.
“Be still,” she said with a wave of her clawed hand. “These are my royal guests.”
They’d already wasted enough time standing on this side of the portal, so Mark sent a mental prod to each of his Enthralled to get their sweet asses through. Both Amina and Verrelle said a quick farewell to their new elemental neighbor and benefactor with clear and vocal plans to return as soon as possible.
Mark prepared to follow them after everyone was on the other side when he felt the air rush past as Alolea moved her whole body close behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the sex-drug creature focusing her attention on her alternate universe counterpart, Queen Ki, who herself was also fundamentally altered by the Goddess of Oral Sex.
Mark felt their trans-dimensional minds flare with ramping communication and was almost knocked down by the channel of potential.
“Rejoice, your highness,” Alolea called out through the Wrongside portal. “The Outsiders, the Combat Drone, the Awysai Chieftain, and the Blazar Princess all come to use you as a prime connective circuit to our goddess.”
Queen Thomellia’s sharp red brows came down hard, and since she was once mortal, Mark could mostly follow her turbulent stream of emotion- but before she could open her sleek muzzle, a giant misty face appeared to fill the entire back wall of the throne room.