by Eric Vall
At least all of this gave me a chance to take a peek for myself, though, and while my women writhed against my arm, I shifted the belt straining around my chiseled midriff.
“Holy shit!” I belted as I stared down, and my demon voice ricocheted off the wall until the whole room shuddered. “Why are there spikes on it?”
“Spikes?” Aurora shrieked.
Nulena chuckled at the look on my face. “This species enjoys the spikes, and the females need them to stimulate egg production, but obviously, it would be extremely uncomfortable for just about any other species.”
“S-Spikes?” Deya stammered. “But I cannot lick spikes!”
“I suppose I could try,” Cayla muttered with some distress.
“Change me back,” I ordered. “I don’t do spiked dicks. Make me normal again.”
“There was a life when this was normal,” Nulena pointed out, but when I leveled her with a hard stare, she smirked and raised her palms. “If you insist.”
The process of altering my body was just as uncomfortable the second time, but I gladly embraced the pain, and the second it ebbed, I checked my pants to find I was packing a totally normal dick again.
“Thank the gods,” I sighed. “Demon voice was cool, and I dig the horns, but that was a genuinely lethal dick.”
“I think the whole ensemble was fantastic,” Cayla decided. “You should have let me see your spikes! I think we know each other well enough by now.”
“Nope,” I muttered. “Not well enough for that.”
“Mason, when I am a goddess, I will find you a realm with that very same physique, but a smooth and silky dick,” Deya assured me. “Then I will do the magical heir making thing, and we can have a metal baby together!”
I smirked. “I’m holding you to that.”
“I wish I was a big metal demon man,” Aurora grumbled. “I would force so many worlds into servitude with horns like that. Nulena, what were my previous forms like? Did I at least get to have lethal breasts a few times?”
“Actually, you don’t have another form,” Nulena replied, and when she sent me a dirty grin, I furrowed my brow in confusion. “It seems Mason has a habit of attracting virgin souls.”
“Virgin souls?” I clarified.
“Yes,” the Baroness giggled. “That is to say, none of your women’s souls have existed before now. This is their first life.”
“Aww, Mason!” Deya moaned. “You blessed us with your ancient and formidable soul! That’s so romantic!”
“Is it?” I muttered.
“I’m weirdly turned on right now,” Cayla mused. “I’ve done incredibly well for myself if Mason’s the first lover of my entire existence.”
“Right?” Aurora snorted. “We’re gonna hate our next thousand lives…”
“Not true,” I countered. “You’ll probably all go on to conquer just as many worlds as I have.”
“But our virgin souls don’t want to conquer without you,” Deya said with a pout.
“You’re ascending, remember?” Cayla chuckled.
“Oh, yeah,” the elf muttered. “I’m so confused! Do I even have a soul?”
Nulena smirked as she looped her arm in Deya’s, and my women did their best to explain her fate again, but when another bolt of lightning struck the spires on the mansion, we all jumped at the deafening crack that came with it.
“Shit,” I sighed as I rifled my hair. “I just brought a god into this war. I did that.”
“We all did that,” Cayla argued. “Aurora and I practically forced you to impregnate Nulena and--”
“Excuse me?” the Baroness snorted. “I bend to no one’s will, thank you very much.”
“You bent to Mason’s will repeatedly last night,” Deya pointed out.
“Aside from his,” Nulena corrected. “Either way, Rekekis was already here, he’s just changed his plan.”
My women sobered as they exchanged uneasy glances, and while another few bolts struck the spires, I considered the town filled with allies and residents who were undoubtedly getting hammered by this storm.
“I’m gonna go for a walk,” I decided. “Check the damage.”
“You will not,” Deya informed me as she propped her hands on her hips. “Mason Flynt, there is a very mad god after you, and this is much worse than the Master! No father of my child will ever be permitted to--”
“He’s not even in a physical form,” I countered. “I’m putting mortal enemies with minions above immortal ones right now.”
“That would be wise,” Nulena agreed.
“No,” Cayla refused. “Deya is right. Mason, if you’re going out there, all of us are joining you. We can’t protect you if you keep us all contained, remember?”
“What are we going to do?” Aurora sighed. “Shoot the clouds for him?”
“I will guard him with my immortal soul,” Deya decided.
“Noooo,” Nulena and I both cut in.
“Deya, stay here and learn about the limits of your current life until you can recite it in your sleep,” I ordered.
“Mason, it’s not safe for you to leave,” Cayla insisted.
“I’ll shield him, don’t worry,” Nulena said as I looked her way. “What happened today is my mistake. I visited my brother’s domain this morning to see if our child affected it, and he was waiting for me. When I tried to escape, he latched onto my soul and followed me to you, but I have been shielding you ever since Nemris brought you back.”
“How is that supposed to help now?” the princess scoffed.
“Cayla, Nulena has been guarding all of us for months,” Aurora reminded her. “She clearly has our best interests in mind, and I think we can trust her to know the limits of her own brother’s powers.”
“Thank you,” the Baroness sighed. “Rekekis knew I would go straight to Mason, that’s why he followed me. However, even I am shielded at this point, so while he has an idea of where to find Mason, he’s no better informed than the Master is. Neither of them can locate your precise position and attack without walking into Falmount and finding you themselves.”
“Is that why Rekekis is working in storms?” Aurora asked.
Nulena nodded. “It’s his best chance of affecting all of your plans when he can’t find you. It complicates your strategies, and increases the number of opportunities to force Mason to act fast. When Mason acts on impulse for the sake of his followers, he causes more destruction. Moments like these are an ideal time for him to become vulnerable to Rekekis’ hold.”
Deya sent me a nervous glance along with my other women, but I tucked her under my arm before she could get too concerned.
“Listen, this has been a stressful day with a lot of information coming to the table,” I admitted. “I understand you’re all nervous, and I’m not going to pretend this isn’t a big deal, but just because Rekekis knows me well enough to push the right buttons, doesn’t mean he has the upper hand. It’s true we don’t know enough about the situation, but I do know he hasn’t caught me yet, and Nulena isn’t going to let us down. Besides, I’m not going into the village on a destruction binge, I’m going out to check the damage and help with repairs. We can’t halt everything we’ve been working toward over this. We have to stay focused and roll with the punches, or both the Master and Rekekis win.”
“I agree,” Aurora muttered, and the other women reluctantly nodded.
“Nulena, how likely is it that there’s no end to this storm?” I asked.
“It depends,” Nulena replied. “As Nemris said, our child prevents him from enacting his ultimate will, so his powers are hindered. If he expects to use these storms when you march on the fortress, he’ll have to conserve his strength at some point.”
I nodded. “Okay. I need to make sure the town’s alright and keep everyone moving forward with our preparations for the siege. The rest of you, stay here and train until I figure out how to proceed. Nulena, help Deya understand her fate so I don’t have to keep her locked up for the next thousand year
s.”
“Yes, Mason,” Nulena said with a nod.
“Please, be careful,” Aurora added.
I kissed all my women goodbye before I stopped upstairs to change out of my torn clothes, and then I sealed the top of my atrium off and dug a drainage system through the floor to let the two feet of water out. I spent ten minutes double checking that the riggings for the lightning rods were still secure, too, and once I was positive my women would be safe at the mansion, I took a deep breath and stepped out into the storm.
Falmount looked like a swamp with murky water flooding the lanes, but the hungover guests had cleared out by now, and my residents dragged themselves out of the streets, too. Some of them only made it to their porches where they sprawled under awnings, but others anxiously watched the lightning bolts flashing through the windows. From the looks of it, my mansion was getting hit the hardest, though, which helped ease the sense of guilt blooming in my gut.
Several mages and ogres were already sloshing their way around the village to help with the effort of redirecting the flood, and I decided to spend the next hour digging out trenches and building barricades with the Terra Mages.
Once we worked out a system to keep most of the market accessible, we raised the foundations of the homes onto pillars so they wouldn’t flood as well, and I sent a few crews out to check on the fields my farmers had just broken ground on this week. Then I helped alter the ogres’ feasting cave to keep their fires from being submerged, but since the training fields were a mud bath, I sent my Defenders back to the Oculus to continue training there instead.
Overall, the residents in Falmount were quick to pull together and do anything they could to help out, but while they worked with determination, I could hear how unnerved they were becoming as the storm didn’t even let up for a single moment.
The mages huddled in the pubs and shops talked about never seeing storms like these until the last two weeks, and most of the Flumen Mages couldn’t seem to influence the torrential downpour at all. They settled for swapping reports they’d heard from their relatives around Illaria instead, and as I heard their endless ideas of what could be the cause, I steadily became more anxious.
Every corner of Falmount buzzed with the sound of my residents and allies wondering amongst themselves, and I worked harder to keep my mind busy, but whenever I saw a jagged bolt of lightning course through the treetops, it was clearly heading directly toward the western woods. This realization made my chest clench with every jagged bolt, and I finally had to trudge off beyond the training fields since my blood pressure refused to level out.
I didn’t stop walking until I came to a small earthen hut in the northern woods, and the yard was enclosed by a ten-foot wall made of whole trunks stood up on end. The storm still battered the muddy yard here, but it was abundantly clear from one glance that the weather this far from the mansion wasn’t nearly so aggressive as it was only five minutes south.
Then I knocked on the gnarled wooden door, and when Haragh appeared a few moments later, he furrowed his brow to find me standing there like a drenched dog.
“What happened to you?” the half-ogre grunted. “Ye’ got that crazy-eye look again.”
“Nulena and I are having an immortal baby,” I informed my friend, and he stared at me for a few beats before he shuffled aside and motioned for me to come inside.
Inside, the hut was quaint with stone furniture and a large central hearth, and dried herbs dangled from the ceiling in the kitchen along with freshly plucked chickens. The small round windows illuminated the homey place while rain pattered against the panes of glass Haragh had formed, and Taru had something delicious stewing on the fire as she sent me a small smile and offered me a chair.
“Thank you, but I think I’ll pace,” I told her. “I need to move around if I’m gonna explain any of this.”
“What’s the matter?” the ogre woman asked, and her honey-sweet tone sliced straight through me as her brown eyes met mine with total acceptance.
So, the words just came tumbling out all at once.
“I got a spectra pregnant, and her god-brother wants to kill me for it, so now I brought his wrath into this war, and my baby’s gonna take over his domain and most likely possess the souls of mortals to wreak havoc on one realm after another, and there’s nothing I can do about it because I’m only a mortal. Plus, my love apparently inspired two women to unravel the fabric of the universe recently, so that’s in the back of my mind, and I feel like I decimated innocent worlds, but I really didn’t. I just have no control over my immortal women, and that seems fair, I guess.”
“The hell does any of that mean?” Haragh snorted, but Taru sent him a pointed look.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Taru suggested. “What is a spectra?”
I spent half an hour trying to break it all down as the rain continued nonstop, and Taru quietly listened to everything I had to say while she stirred her stew now and then.
Haragh’s eyebrows were stuck in a strict line as he watched me wear a circle across his hut floor with my pacing, and he didn’t say a word while I rambled on about cosmic disorder, immortal lovers, and the rules of domain inheritance. Then I touched on the complications of latching onto souls versus destroying them instead, and even though I didn’t understand it all myself, I tried to specify the circumstances of vulnerability to a god’s hold in my particular case.
When I finally came to a stop beside the central hearth, my hair was sticking out in every direction from how many times I’d clutched it in panic, and I knew I was more wild-eyed than ever as I glanced at my half-ogre friend.
“So, what do I do?” I asked.
Haragh cleared his throat. “Alright, I’m not gonna say ye’ messed up, but I do have a question.”
“Go for it,” I replied.
“You say this spectra loves ye’,” the half-ogre began, “but given the result of all this, have ye’ considered maybe sendin’ her on her way? Lettin’ Rekekis hash out his own problems with her?”
“Absolutely not,” I answered. “Haragh, I don’t care that Nulena’s a spectra, and her brother can honestly kiss my ass. She’s amazing in ways I couldn’t even explain, and I love everything about her. I’m happy we’re having this child, I just kind of wish I hadn’t pissed off this god when it means all our troops could end up in the crosshairs. I mean, this is the God of Destruction. Of all the gods to piss off this week…”
Haragh nodded. “Just checkin’.”
“Mason, you’re a good man,” Taru sighed. “I know you only want to do what’s right, so I think you need to be honest.”
“Totally,” I agreed. “How do I tell Rekekis to kiss my ass without increasing the wrath, though?”
“No.” Taru smiled. “I meant you should be honest with your troops. They’ve stood beside you and put their faith in your leadership this far. If you know the dangers they’ll be facing are greater than they’re aware of, it’s your duty to inform them of it.”
“She’s right,” Haragh grunted.
“I know,” I admitted. “I can’t send them to the fortress and pretend I have no idea who’s watching. Granted, I don’t know how much he’s capable of at this point, but how am I supposed to explain any of this to our troops?”
“Keep it simple,” Haragh suggested. “Just the basics, yeah? Baby, god, danger, unintentional.”
“And do it today,” Taru added. “The sooner you inform them of what you know, the more likely it is that they’ll join you in this struggle, rather than see it as a reason not to trust you. With so much at stake, you can’t risk losing their support.”
“Shit,” I muttered as I rifled my hair for the hundredth time.
“Better clean yourself up, too,” Haragh snorted. “Don’t want to be lookin’ like a lunatic when you’re already soundin’ like one.”
I chuckled as Taru let out another small sigh, and I nodded in agreement.
Then I did my best to sort myself out as Haragh headed ba
ck to Falmount with me, and I chugged five pints down at the pub while the half-ogre gathered the residents and allies in the square. I chugged another two after that, though, since my nerves still weren’t up to the task, but once I had a solid buzz under my belt, I met my generals in the pouring rain.
Haragh led the way onto the platform that was still mounted on the far side of the market, and even though everyone in the crowd looked soggy and hungover, they gave me their undivided attention as I stepped forward and raised my voice above the storm.
“Alright, I’m just gonna dive in,” I announced. “I know we’ve been struggling to make sense of these storms ever since the ambush at the tunnels, and the sudden change in weather today is concerning. I was concerned, too, but shortly after the storm hit, I, uh… found out what’s going. Which is a positive thing! It’s always better to know what you’re dealing with than to not know, right?”
Kurna had his brow furrowed when I glanced at my generals, and I shifted uncomfortably as I turned my attention back to the drenched residents all waiting for me to continue.
“Sooo, the thing is, we all had a hell of a night celebrating, and I’m glad we did,” I continued. “We should celebrate! I don’t want anyone to get the idea that this means we shouldn’t celebrate, because I have no regrets. I’ll just say that outright. No regrets. Well, except I wasn’t quite prepared to address the dangers resulting from my actions, but that’s neither here nor there.”
Half the audience looked around at each other in confusion, and Haragh cleared his throat as he leaned in to mutter in my ear.
“Stick to the basics,” the half-ogre reminded me.
“Right,” I agreed. “Anyway, the point is, this storm system is not as random as it could have been. It’s actually being formed by a god named Rekekis. You might know him as the God of Destruction, and unbeknownst to me, he’s got a sister… who I got pregnant. All of this came to light a couple hours ago, and as you can see, Rekekis is not too happy. He, uh… he definitely would like to kill me now.”