by Prax Venter
The one on the left leaned back in a move he remembered, and Mark dashed in front of Abby. With a spark of intention, he formed a broad shield of ethereal energy allotted to him from the Awysai goddess of Oral Sex, and the red-hot beam of searing power from the earth elemental forced his arm back, but he was able to successfully absorb the attack.
On his right, Jezebel shifted into bear form as she flew through the air toward the surprised creatures. With a deep roar, Mark saw her completely erase one with her iron claws, as the one next to it was violently ripped in half by Abby’s laceration spell.
The beam attack ended, and Mark was about to rush in to club his attacker to pieces when he saw Sasha’s Shock Bomb sail past and stick to the creature’s head.
Mark instantly stopped and shielded his eyes before the bomb exploded. Essence from the kill entered his body, and it both felt good physically, and mentally, to be filling his pools again so soon. On top of that, they had just erased these foes without a scratch.
“More will probably be coming!” Mark shouted as he finally took a moment to look around. If he had to guess, this was an old, rotted throne room that had been filled with crude stone shelves and altars. Runes were burned or carved into the wood everywhere.
“There is only one way in or out,” he heard Jezebel say as he turned his eyes back to the suffering Vulpath woman in the glass ball.
His magic eye instantly became overloaded with emotions from her vast mind. She snapped her ice-blue eyes on his, and Mark’s head was assaulted with one loud demand to be let out of her prison.
The old wooden doors burst open, and he turned to see two more rock men running into the room only to be instantly destroyed. One by Sasha’s swift hoof to the head, and the other by bear-Jezebel’s mighty paw.
Mark forced the trapped banshee out of his head and grabbed hold of Abby, before pulling her over near Sasha. This side of the chamber appeared to be dedicated to rituals and research, and it was also a perfect place to ambush anything trying to come in.
“There were at least ten that I saw before,” Mark whispered loudly as they waited for more enemies to come check out what was causing all the noise. He heard the shuffling of pebbles on smooth stone floor outside the room, but they quickly began fading in volume as they moved down the hall. The earth elementals didn’t appear to understand what was going on, and chaos worked in their favor.
A few moments later, another shower of pebbles indicated that more enemies were coming. The doors pushed open as one rock-formed man moved straight for the glass globe while two others came in more slowly.
Sasha and Jezebel repeated their ambush attacks while Abby pointed the tip of her tentacle at the third. An instant later, the remaining creature grabbed its head while a black cloud of flickering smoke encircled his earthen cranium. Mark guessed it was her new Mind Crush attack as he charged the unfortunate creature. It brought up one of its arms to block his glowing sledgehammer, but the force was too much to hold back, and its mental anguish ended abruptly.
Its core gemstone shattered on the floor then everyone moved back to their positions against the wall near the door.
There were a few moments of silence for Mark to shoot another glance to the wispy Vulpath in the globe, and he noticed the seven or so erotic puffs of mist all hungrily pushing against the glass. He looked up to catch the eyes of the ghostly wolfwoman now pleading with him to set her free. In her, he saw endless sorrow combined with a deeply felt sense of responsibility all wrapped around constant twisting pain.
“Mark,” Sasha said, backing away from the doorway, “there are a shit-ton of bad guys coming.”
Not only did he hear it, but the ground shook as if an avalanche was roaring down the hall to grind them to paste. He looked back at the Vulpath banshee holding his gaze and made his choice.
“The enemy of our enemy is our friend, right?” he shouted as he sprinted for the globe of glass. He reached the magical prison just as he heard Sasha’s Arc Bolt discharge behind him. Hoping this was the right move, Mark summoned his magic sledgehammer and shattered the globe with a single weighty impact.
An instant of sudden silence filled the room before a ghostly, deafening screech physically knocked him onto his back. Mark rolled to his side, his lungs spasming as he tried to suck the knocked-out air back into his chest.
He saw Sasha helping Abby get to her feet, and choking the doorway was a sizeable pile of rocks and sand that had been an army of earth elementals a moment ago.
“Freee!” the ghostly Vulpath shrieked in a spidery voice that made Mark’s eye throb and his mind shy away from his ears. He sat up and assessed whether they went from one insurmountable danger to another. With a twist of his intention, he readied a powerful heal centered on the floating wolfwoman phantasm a few feet away and was happy to see the wispy undead spirit light up with the bright red of a potential weakness.
Mark’s focus shot downward as one of the oral-sex clouds touched the banshee’s hovering withered foot in its attempt to pleasure her, and she reacted immediately by morphing her arms and tattered sleeves into ghostly scythes. With one swift swipe, she instantly annihilated every one of the clouds they’d brought with them, and their pink mist remains swirled around the ghost woman as if she were a heavenly body with celestial rings. Mark was transfixed.
The motes of dust spun faster and faster until her snout stretched open wider than it should before the creature that had to be known as The Dreamcatcher inhaled the steam pit entities as if she were eating their souls. After the last speck of pink mist was consumed, a surprised ethereal moan escaped her lips as her white tatters and pale fur became stained with splotches of pink. A bright-red flash blinded Mark as red bolts of energy burst forth from the translucent Vulpath monster and dispersed into the air around her.
When he could see again, the pure-white banshee was transformed. She now had a physically tangible top-half, as if she were a nude Vulpath genie. Sleek black fur covered her slender stomach and small breasts, but her face was patterned with stunningly placed red markings. He noticed small red horns and a misty suggestion of pink, feathery wings beating behind her.
Bear-Jez stepped in front of Mark and let out a low growl as Sasha and Abby moved up behind him.
Mark got to his feet, keeping his focus on the potentially dangerous creature hovering before them. He felt the AIs bonded to his heart prepare to strike, but he held up his hand, signaling for them to wait and see what the wolf-ghost-demon would do.
The stunning amalgam of monsters snapped her red eyes on his and spoke.
“If I wanted to harm you, we wouldn’t be talking. Thomellia and I owe you four a debt, and not consuming your lives is payment rendered. Now, tell me what you’ve done to me, and I’ll reward you by continuing to starve myself.”
Her voice was calm and completely different from the shrieking from before, pleasant even.
Mark dismissed his weapon and told her the truth.
“Honestly? If I had to guess, you ate the souls of oral-sex-infused living clouds from another dimension… And then transformed.” He shrugged then continued with questions of his own. “What is going on up here? What were these earth monsters doing to you?”
The floating creature looked down at her fur-covered hands as she explored her newly formed body. Her hands came down to brush over her dark-red nipples and shuddered under her own touch.
The oddly stunning specter turned her focus back on Mark.
“Perhaps it is time someone knew the truth of what happened here...” She seemed to be speaking to herself. The floating creature took in a deep breath and let it out before continuing.
“In life, I was Queen Ki Thomellia. My love, the disgusting bastard, was a renowned earth Elementalist and used his Stone Speaking ability to commune with a powerful entity within the earth plane. Soon after, she came boring into our world… under our home. And the king decided to copulate with her.”
The creature’s voice slowed to a growl at this po
int, and Mark felt throbbing energy radiating out from her. The others felt it too, and they all tensed for anything. The reshaped Queen of Thomellia continued.
“The earth-beast appeared at court, mid-day, suckling the abomination spawned from their adultery and demanding King Thomellia abandon his kingdom to stay with her and their child, underground.
“My husband, to his credit, said no. But it was futile. The king fully realized his error at the end as he fought to destroy the powerful elemental woman, but the nigh-immortal being of stone and gems obliterated him and swore she would take vengeance on all of Thomellia as payment for the slight.
“I was murdered the same day I learned of his loathsome betrayal… by the adulteress herself. Such grief tore at me- such panic for my children… My spirit called out to the winds of death as the light left my eyes. The ancient powers of air answered and chained my soul to the top of this mountain with the power to seal Lapia, the Imperatrix of the Earth Plane, from entering this world and harming my people. My price was undeath and the irresistible compulsion to consume souls of the dreaming so that I may linger and protect the rest.
“Time stretched for decades, and I took quiet solace in the fact that my children had safely absconded from this place. However, the bastard child of Lapia and the late King Thomellia eventually returned, and I was not prepared to notice a half-Vulpath demigod enter my domain.
“Aurum ambushed me. She prevented me from consuming the souls of the dreaming for years in an attempt to starve and weaken me… My cinching, twisting gut tore me apart. I could perhaps have suffered no more than another decade of increasing agony before my seal on the earth portal faltered, and Lapia would be free to destroy every living thing on this mountain… Then you shattered my shell. And turned me into…”
She looked down her body again, but this time focused on the absence of anything but pink billowing mist past her bellybutton.
“Are you still able to protect Thomellia?” Jezebel asked.
“I’m uncertain.” She paused, and her red-and-black eyes rolled up into her head for a few seconds, and then she focused back on the armored satyr. “Either I can, or she isn’t trying. I can destroy Aurum’s animated gem-men as she creates them. However, as she is technically of royal Thomellia blood, I still cannot affect the king’s illegitimate daughter herself.”
Ki returned her eyes to her claws as if she couldn’t get over the fact that part of her was solid again. “Only this time, I am no longer physically defenseless against her.”
Mark sucked in a breath and puffed out his cheeks as he blew it out.
“That is an epic and tragic tale, your highness, but I don’t suppose you know where any red crystal shards are around here? Should be six or so… two were brought here recently.” He raised his eyebrows, hopeful that she just had them in a drawer like her Wrongside counterpart.
“Crystal shards?” she said, floating forward and inspecting her claws again. “Any coins, gems, crystals, or anything of real value was stolen by Aurum’s constructs. I can feel her pacing in her chasm now, probably fretting over her failure.”
“Can you tell us where she is?” Mark asked, disappointed that this goalpost was moved yet again. It was going to be years before they found them all.
The Vulpath demon queen snapped her red eyes on Mark. As the remade spirit considered him, her long pink tongue came out to lick the length of her muzzle.
“Will you kill her?”
“Uh, maybe. We’re after the shards.”
“That is enough,” she said after a nod. “Search down into the catacombs until you find a dark corner with a glittering hole. The way to Aurum’s lair is coated in gold.”
The Vulpath demon-ghost swallowed hard as she brought her furry hand to her lips.
“Now go, before… I eat your souls.” The creature’s red brows furrowed as she turned away from them, and her uncertainty allowed Mark to see deeper into her complicated mind.
Inside, she was similar to the entity inhabiting Marla’s Towering Stacks, and Queen Ki Thomellia’s direct thoughts were beyond Mark’s ability to follow, but she was much closer to his level. Mostly, it was suppressed terror surrounding the nature of her transformation, and Mark felt as if he could take some of that pressure off.
“It probably has something to do with oral sex,” he said, and she spun back around, the shadowy wisps of her wings leaving trails of pink mist as she turned.
“Explain yourself.”
“As I said, it’s a long story, but those cloud-thing souls you absorbed earlier were infused by The Goddess of Oral Sex. If you are looking for answers, I’d start with burying your new face in someone’s genitals.”
All his Enthralled turned to look at him as the demon queen narrowed her eyes.
“Leave, Collector, before I extract your life essence through your cock to test your theory.”
Her voice warned of grave danger at such lewd suggestions in her noble presence, but Queen Thomellia’s red eyes twinkled with inner joy. He helped her name some of the mysterious cravings swirling within, and she was anxious to test the rules of her altered curse. With a slight bow, Mark turned to leave the ancient and dusty throne room. When they were far enough away, he looked over his shoulder and smirked at the three beautiful creatures following behind him.
“They’re going to start calling her The Wet Dreamcatcher.”
Jezebel made a quiet hushing noise then giggled as she looped her arm through his. She flicked her emerald eyes around the cold stone hallway as they walked.
“What if she hears us?” she whispered.
“Momma Bear’s right,” Sasha said with a mock-serious tone. “That lame joke wasn’t worth death-by-blowjob.”
Mark’s blind eye informed him that she was lying, and he turned to face the playful sex-demon.
“Isn’t that exactly what succubi do?”
The blonde bombshell with metal legs began to sway her hips as she exposed one of her fangs to him.
“Oh Mark, I’d stretch out my deep soul-sucking to last many years. I’d bring you to the edge over and over, mmm… and over. One quick pop wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.”
Abby nodded. “Sasha’s death is preferable.”
Mark’s eyebrows came down as they came to an intersection in the stone hallway. He stopped, and his team stopped with him.
“Anyone want to guess which way leads to the catacombs?”
No one did, but Sasha said she had a good feeling about making a right, and since she had the best direction sense, they followed her judgment. The old castle held many long, dark hallways and after retracing their steps out of the second dead end, Jezebel bent down to pick up a pebble from the ground.
“I feel so stupid,” she said as she held the stone near Mark’s glowing mace. “We just need to follow the bits of rock. I bet there’s a trail that leads straight to this hole we’re looking for.”
And she was right. After they decided to take the path with the most pebbles scattered on the floor, and many pitch-black staircases later, they found the Thomellia Royal Catacombs.
- 4 -
“Someone took care of all the skeletons already,” Mark said as he eyed the dormant and cracked bones littering the floor of the Thomellia royal catacombs.
The narrow hallways and grave niches carved into the walls reminded Mark of their adventures with Loa and the multi-armed restless dead. Most of the interred along their path appeared to have risen from their final resting place when the elementals came through, but some piles of rotting bones remained unanimated in their alcoves.
After a few minutes of following the pebbles, he wished some of these clawed Vulpath skeletons would rise to fight them. They could always use more easy essence. The train of thought led him to consider their current branch in the Crystal Heart shard questline. Were they strong enough to handle this half-god creature called Aurum?
He swung his mace to inspect an offshoot path to his left and illuminated a portion of the tomb tha
t appeared coated in a thick layer of mirror-smooth gold. He stopped.
“Looks like we’re about to find out…” Mark said out loud, completing his thought.
“Everyone have their recall charm ready?” Jezebel asked as she gazed into the pitch-black portal punctured into the back of the alcove.
Mark reached his hand into this right pants pocket and rubbed the plaster teleportation device between his fingers. He nodded and saw Abby pat the one she had tucked into her swimsuit top. The things must have had some magic preventing them from triggering during combat or unintended jostling, or they’d have been broken twenty times over by now.
“Hey Jez,” Sasha said, getting the satyr’s attention, “you know a lot of sciencey stuff, right?”
Jezebel frowned. “You could say that.”
“At what temperature does gold melt?”
Mark turned back to the gold-coated tunnel. The thick layer of smooth metal made him think of frosting for some reason.
“About 1,064 degrees Celsius,” the research AI answered.
“And how hot is lightning?” Sasha asked, raising a dark eyebrow.
The armored satyr couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, only 30,000 degrees Celsius or so. Although your Arc Bolt skill might not replicate real-world thermodynamics, I would be surprised if your ability wasn’t-”
A flash of light blinded them all as Sasha conducted a surprise test on the rich, lustrous metal coating the way forward.
“I require warning,” Abby growled, and Mark let out a short laugh as he blinked away the spots.
“Seriously,” he said. “You know I’m half-blind already…”
Jezebel didn’t seem bothered and was the first to clomp over to the point of contact and measure the results of the experiment.
“It’s melted, no doubt. Now let’s hope this Aurum can be similarly melted.”
“Hold on now,” Mark said, putting up his hand. “We aren’t melting anyone until we talk to them first. Or they attack first.”