by Dave Qymlore
"Then why are your eyes full of fear, just like the rest of the group?" asked Selena. She'd been quiet just like the others had asked, but didn't show any sign she was going to let the weaker women be bullied without having her say.
Ronel stood up and walked over to her, grabbing the stocky woman by the arm. "I think we've just had us a volunteer to find out if there's anything waiting down there. Any nasty beasties, maybe even a ghost or two." He actually laughed, but the sneering expression on his face didn't give off even the slightest hint that he found this genuinely funny. It was full of sadism.
"You know what? Fine," she said with a raised voice.
"Please keep your voices down," said one of the battered slave women. She hadn't said much at all until then, but the panic was rising in everyone.
Selena got up and shook her arm free of Ronel's grip. "Get off me you stupid pig. I'm not afraid, unlike you. If this pussy won't be a man and lead the way to what might actually be a safe place for us to hide, I guess a woman will have to do it."
Ged turned and saw that Feyra was stealing sideways glances at him. She didn't mean to imply that he was not brave, but she was quietly hoping that he would step in and show them all that honor was not in fact dead yet. She had come to think of him as a good man who would be willing to risk himself for the greater good of the group. She'd also started to find him quite attractive.
"No, I'll go. It's no doubt just an empty mine that was used in the building of whatever these ruins had once been. If there is an underground network of tunnels, there's a good chance the slavers won't want to risk a lengthy search. Maybe they'll go back empty handed rather than risk getting lost or losing their wargs. Let's just hope we come back out ourselves." Good wargs were hard to find and even harder to train. Ged stood up and walked away into the darkness. Selena didn't hesitate to follow him.
The encroaching beasts, the slaver's deadly hunting wargs, could be heard even closer now. It was clear they were making a path straight for the ruins.
"We're not going to last ten seconds if we wait around out here anyway," said Feyra encouragingly to the other women. I think it's best if we all take our chances with the unknown, however dark and frightening it seems to you. Come on..."
So they went toward the black opening in the rock, hoping they weren't marching into a deathtrap. The chances were good they could get themselves lost in there, but hopefully only enough to avoid being tracked.
12
Thanks to their magical link to their surroundings, Lothar and Harmony had been aware of the group of battered, filthy people since they had come to the ruins surrounding the entrance to the dungeon realm. That cut their sex short unfortunately, but Lothar was almost finished anyway. After the dungeon core had fired a load of his seed up the lovely fairy's asshole, they went back to the core chamber and looked at the looking glass.
"They don't seem to be any danger to you," said Harmony. "But there are a good few of them! Easy souls for my master."
"I wonder where they came from though. Those clothes are barely better than potato sacks. And they look practically starved, except for a few of them. The men, and two of the women, seem to be strong enough."
"I understand that you still have strong emotional connection to your lost mortality. I beg you to remember that you are not one of them anymore. Letting yourself be swept up in mortal concerns can make a god ... weak. Sorry to say it."
"No, I'd rather you were honest. Hmm, if I had to guess, I would say these are slaves escaped from work settlements."
"If they are on the run, hopefully there are men looking for them. You could very well gain a lot of new power from all this, master." Harmony was elated and showed no signs at all that she empathized with these poor wretched.
Lothar was particularly interested in one of the women. The one who had clearly been better taken care of than the others. She was stunning in her beauty, although it was less pristine than Harmony's. No mortal woman could have such perfection, but sometimes complete perfection itself was a floor, where it seemed cold and unattainable. Yes, he was still clinging to his mortality with these thoughts, but Lothar had been a living, breathing man of flesh and blood his whole life. He was far from having no humanity left. And the way the fairy talked about these unfortunate people as though they were pigs awaiting slaughter reminded him of just how different the two of them were; despite Harmony's human appearance, apart from the wings.
And still, Lothar understood there would be hefty prices to pay if he wanted to be a successful dungeon core. He just didn't anticipate that his first victims would be so helpless.
13
The group of slaves moved into the entrance of the dark opening. There was nothing they could see through the blackness. "What I wouldn't give for a lantern right now," said Ged as he lead the group into the blackness.
The slaver's dogs were closing in. Their growls and panting could be heard now. It was likely they were already inside the ruins. Ronel became fidgety and pushed his way to the front of the group, almost knocking down a frail young women as he did so. "Alright, that's enough of your showboating horse shit, Ged. You can step aside and let me take the lead. This is where there might be actual danger, after all."
"You selfish prick," said Selena. "You just want to get ahead and leave the weaker women here to distract the dogs." She bit her tongue, quickly realizing that she had just destroyed the hopes of much of the group and frightened them even more than they already were.
Ronel ignored her and pushed his way into the opening. "This seems pretty harmless," he said as he looked into the opening. He turned around to face the others as he said this, and his eyes went wide with fear while he looked behind the others. He didn't say anything, not even to warn the others of what he'd seen, not that they had to guess or even turn around to know it was the slaver's dogs. In an instinctual act of selfish self-preservation, he shoved Ged as hard as he could and knocked the man down on his ass. This caused Selena and two of the other women to practically go ass over tits too.
Then the coward Ronel turned and sprinted into the awaiting darkness of the opening in the rock. The others followed, while Feyra helped the fallen women to their feet, which left them at the back of the group. A scream rang out from inside the cave, and it was that of a man. But it was so terrified and filled with pain that it was a high enough register to sound like a woman's.
Ronel's scream was cut short by a bloody, bleating sound. By the time Feyra and the others who'd been pushed down had made their way into the entrance of the cave, and their eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to make out what happened, they had started to wish they'd kept running instead of heading for the ruins.
It was hard to tell how deep the pit was. Ronel's writhing body was impaled half a dozen times: through his chest, his neck, his shoulder, each of his legs, and through his groin. One of the women vomited and several were crying, gagging on their bile, or both.
"A spike trap!" said Ged. "This must be the entrance to some ancient tome or something. Whoever made this place may be long gone, but that doesn't mean it's unprotected."
The dogs were now visible in the outside ruins, and they were coming straight for the cave entrance. "We don't have time to be afraid now," said Ged. "Here, look!" he exclaimed, noticing the moss and thin, vine-like flora that was growing on the walls of the passageway. "If I can just ... there! Do as I do, women!" Ged found a way to bypass the deadly spike pit by stepping on tiny sections of jutting out rock where it had been hewn on the passageway floor. He almost slipped several times, but there was no time to be careful.
"I can't do that!" cried out one of the women in utter dismay. She began to collapse to her knees, but was supported and held up by those around around.
"You must," said one of the others. "Come, we'll all make it."
"I'll go next," said Selena in a show of encouragement. She made it across as easily as Ged had, using her short yet dense muscles and low centre of gravity to her advantage. Wh
atever she'd been doing in the slave camps, it must have involved a lot of physical work. And she wasn't enough of a looker to have been a sex slave.
Feyra helped the other women across one by one, and with everyone guiding and watching out for each other, no one fatally slipped up. One of them made the mistake of looking down at Ronel's mutilated corpse, oozing with blood and reeking of what must have been his voided bowel and punctured guts. She shrieked and had to close her eyes for a moment to recollect her will to go on. But she too made it. The entire group managed to get over the pit of spikes.
14
"What do we do now?" asked Selena, standing up at the head of the group beside Ged. Feyra, the only other one in the group who wasn't almost losing it, had decided to spent her efforts giving comfort and support to the weaker of the group. She knew that it often took a great strength of will to give compassion when there was so much danger around.
Ged tried to look ahead, but the slim amount of light the bright moon afforded them had begun to fade now that they were well into the passageway. "I say we hold up here and hope the spike trap does in with their beasts, then we can hope like the hells that the slavers give up."
The wargs came in hot, steely legs propelling them forward with a reckless abandonment that only came came when a creature lost their senses to sheer bloodlust. The first of the beasts barreled straight into the pit and wound up skewered with a high pitch yelp that reminded Feyra too much of the sound a frightened puppy would make. She had to tell herself that these were mindless killing machines, not pets. More importantly—it was either the wargs or them.
The rest of the pack followed into the pit without even noticing it. They were unable to think enough to stop and investigate. Once they caught wind and sight of the huddled group of slaves down the passageway, all they could do was charge forward.
"Thank the gods," said Ged.
"They went this way!" shouted a man from outside of the cave entrance. The slavers had been following close behind after all, so hiding was out of the question. "What the fuck?!" shouted the same man as he ran up to the pit and stopped himself before toppling into it. The pit was big enough that there was still plenty of room to fall to his death. The bodies of Ronel and dozen or so wargs that were impaled on the spikes would not cushion the fall, although they might have slowed his body just enough to make death slower and even more painful.
It was hard to see what the incoming group of slavers were doing, or make out any details at all really. Then something whooshed through the air and Feyra felt something sting her cheek. It was an arrow or bolt. "They're firing at us!" she shouted. There was no point in trying to be quiet and hide now.
"Drop to the floor," said Ged, more quietly so that the slavers wouldn't overhear this good advice.
One of the women cried out in agony and started gurgling like her mouth was full of treacle, hitting the ground against her own will with a crossbow bolt in her throat. She didn't move much after that, but her desperate gulping continued, along with stifled whimpering and heavy breathing from the rest of the group of slaves.
"Aim low! They're on the ground!" shouted one of the slavers from the entrance of the passageway.
"Shit," said Selena. "Come on, this is useless." The woman got up without another word and began urging the others to follow. "Well come on, there's no point lying down and dying now."
"Do as she says," said Ged as he followed. The rest did too. Another of the slave women was shot. It was too dark to see where but she began limping. Feyra tried to help her along but another bolt hit the woman, this time in the back. She was done for.
Feyra didn't know how many more they lost, or who, by the time they came to a bend in the passageway that allowed them cover from the crossbow fire. "Oh, why didn't we just keep moving?" she asked herself.
Ged remained silent at that remark, but it was certain he was beating himself up for his plan to drop to the floor to avoid being fired upon. "We should keep moving, whether we can see or not. It didn't take us long to get by that spike trap."
Feyra began to add her opinion. "I think that—" when she felt a hot glow, the darkness melting away like snow falling into a midsummer's heat. There was a searing yet beautiful white light and then she was standing inside a well lit room made of large slabs of stone. A demonic looking knight in full plate armor, with bull horns on the helmet, made her sure that she'd been killed by a crossbow bolt and was now in the underworld, and not in a good place there either.
Then she saw the most beautiful woman she'd even laid eyes on. And she had wings like a fairy from the stories she had been told as a little girl. Her flowing red dress was lovely, made from what must have been the finest silk in all the world.
"Are you sure about this?" the winged woman asked the demonic knight.
"Yes, it's the only right thing to do."
15
"What ... I ... who ..." said the filthy woman, still enchanting despite looking like she had been dragged through the muck. "Am I dead?"
"That's just what he said," replied the beautiful women, now gently fluttering near the high ceiling of the impressively build stone chamber. It was nice and warm there, even though there was no hearth or visible means of keeping the room warm.
"Don't mock the poor woman," scolded the demonic knight. His helmet suddenly disappeared and the face beneath was strong, a chiseled chin and cold assessing eyes that made Feyra feel naked when he gazed upon her. But he was smiling and if she had been made to guess there and then, Feyra would have had no choice but to decide that he meant her no harm.
"What happened to the others? Please, I need to help them. Is there any way you can stop the slavers from getting to them?" asked the woman. The fear drained away from her face as she turned attention to a selfless cause.
Lothar's instinct was to jump immediately to the woman's aid. There was no good reason why he shouldn't. The slavers would give him a great boon if he could kill them. But if they decided not to risk continuing into his dungeon...
"Do you think the slavers will follow you into my dungeon?" he asked her.
"Dungeon? Your dungeon? I don't understand..." she scrunched up her pretty face for a moment and then shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. "Yes, I think they will do just about anything to make sure we don't best them. Why would you want them to though?" She got to the point, a quality Lothar found endearing in women, who had a tendency to carry on talking without getting their meaning across.
"That is none of your business, girl!" interjected Harmony. It seemed that she had been biting her tongue but couldn't help herself from telling this mortal woman off.
"I, I didn't mean—" started the woman.
Harmony walked over and whispered in her dungeon core's ear. "Please, master, I don't suggest listening to her pleas. If you give in to the requests of any random trash that blows through, I fear it is going to be a difficult path to power. A weak dungeon core can easily become a dead one when people realize they can take advantage."
"It's not your place to say," whispered Lothar back. "But I don't disagree ... It's just..."
"You want to fuck her? I really don't blame you. She is gorgeous and I'm sure a slave girl like this is obedient and skilled in the arts of pleasing a man. Why not just force her to stay then?"
Clearing his throat, Lothar said out loud to the woman, "I will help your comrades if you agree to one thing: remain here with me as my concubine."
"You want, I'd have to ... No, no I did not escape that slave camp and come all this way just to become your captive. None of us would choose that."
"You'd rather you all risk death?" asked Lothar.
Harmony chimed in. "Look here, girl." She gestured at the looking glass. "The slavers retreated when they saw the magical energy's light come from inside the passageway."
The frightened young woman walked over to stand beside Harmony, openly amazed at the looking glass. "What kind of magic is this?"
"Never mind that. Look at what it s
hows you, stupid girl. Look at the danger your precious slave friends are in now. Are you really willing to let them be killed, or I'm sure worse, recaptured and taken off to meet whatever punishment your kind is given for daring to forget your place?"
They were now gathering just outside the entrance and discussing what that bright light could have been, and regrouping. They were clearly shaken by the deaths of their entire pack of wargs, and suspecting it might not be worth the possible losses should they decide to continue the chase.
"I am willing to do whatever it takes to keep my freedom. They would not wish for anything else."
"Very well..." said Lothar as he walked over to stand behind the two gorgeous females.
The slavers finished reloading their crossbows and began to creep quietly back into the cave entrance, easily going around the spike trap. The slaves could see none of this since they were around a bend in the passageway, on top of it being very dark.
The woman turned to face Lothar, then dropped to her knees and looked about to start sobbing, but quickly held back her emotions and took on a stone cold facade. "Very well," she said, looking up from her kneeling position before Lothar and Harmony. "I will do whatever you want."
"Good girl," said Harmony smugly before rolling her eyes and turning back to the looking glass to observe.
"I won't let you regret this," Lothar told her. "Now get up, and I will help your friends."
16
"What the fuck should we do now?" Selena asked for what seemed like the tenth time. Ged was a patient man, but he was getting tired of telling her that he didn't have the foggiest idea what that bright light had been, nor where Feyra had disappeared to.