by Prax Venter
Mark poured the last of his load down Vale's throat and the rest of his stored essence into her.
Ahnix slowly pulled her arm out of Vale's meaty pussy with a loud slurping noise, and Mark got up off of Vale, pulling his dripping cock out of her mouth. Her long tongue was still wrapped around it, and he had to shake her loose.
Her eyes were closed, and she just laid there, shaking.
"I think we broke her, "Ahnix said from on top of Vale's snake half.
"Muh. The suhh..." was all Vale could manage to say.
"Remember when I did that to you?" Mark asked, laying down next to Vale and placing his head in her armpit. Ahnix crawled up and snuggled in on the other side, licking pussy juice off her arm.
"Yeah. You really know how to use your gifts, Lover." Ahnix looked over at Mark around the stunned naga's huge tits. "I have honestly never felt pleasure on this level before."
The naga wrapped her arms around both of them and held them tightly against her sides.
"Mmm- Mine," Vale mumbled, and then drifted off to sleep.
The warm fire, the snug embrace, and the sexual exertion pulled both Mark and Ahnix down shortly afterward.
- 11 -
Bright light streamed through Mark's eyelids and pulled him up from his deep and restful sleep.
The warm mass of flesh pressed against his body indicated that Vale was still asleep next to him. He cracked open an eye to see Ahnix sitting on the couch, already dressed in her tight leather armor, scrutinizing the obsidian key they had found last night. Mark disengaged with Vale and got up, trying not to step on the slumbering naga.
He pulled his clothes from the mantle where they had been set to dry, got dressed and joined Ahnix on the couch. She continued to turn the key over in her furry fingers.
"Mist's gone," she said, after a moment. Mark looked around the brightly lit room and was surprised he didn't put that together himself.
"I see that. Figure out what hole that goes into?"
"No, but it looks pretty. Mind if I hold onto it?" she asked, looking at him, pulling her eyes from the mysterious key.
Mark gave her a gentle smile. "It's yours. I doubt we'll ever know what the key unlocks anyway." He stood and stretched. "We should get moving. You wake the sleeping snake-girl, and I'll go up and look at the lay of the land from the lighthouse."
Ahnix nodded and tucked the key into her tight, leather tube-top.
Mark made his way to the door that led to the stairwell and pulled it open. It was dimly lit but a lot less creepy feeling than the day before.
He looked over his shoulder before going in and saw Ahnix crawl over to Vale where she slowly and carefully began to lick one of her large, jet-black nipples. From personal experience, he knew the naga was in for an amazing ascent into consciousness.
He quietly closed the door behind him and climbed the spiral staircase that led to the top of the lighthouse. Sunlight spilled down on him and grew brighter the further up the spiral he continued. It took longer than he expected, and his legs were starting to get tired, but he eventually made it to the small deck at the top.
There was a large iron cage that served to hold logs for a massive bonfire in the center and a walkway that extend out around the top of the tower. He pulled himself up the last step, put his hands on the wooden railing and looked out onto the clear blue waters that stretched out forever.
The morning sun was behind him, and the long shadow of the lighthouse stretched down to the ocean's sparkling, blue waters. The impenetrable fog from the day before was completely gone, and Mark could see for miles in every direction. He looked to his left and could barely see the thin sparking line of the Vull as it dumped into the Amethyst Deep ocean. He looked to the right and scanned the never-ending beach as it continued north from the lighthouse for any sign of the tear Donovan had told him about.
He suddenly wished he brought Ahnix up here with him, her keen senses always perceived things just outside his reach. He squinted and did notice there was a flicker in the distance that could be a blob of glitching corruption.
Mark walked around the deck and looked down at the town below. It was much smaller than he thought it had been last night.
Beyond the smattering of buildings were rolling fields of green grass where the bright sun cast long morning shadows across the landscape.
He turned back to the spot near the coast that looked like it could be a tear and tried to gauge how far it was. Using the distance of the Vull River, he guessed it they would be there by about noon.
He put a hand over his stomach and realized he was getting hungry. He also realized he wasn't the least bit hungover. That was good wine indeed. He wondered if perfectly aged Moonstone wine was worth anything, but it was too late for such musings as both bottles were now empty. They would have probably have been broken in combat or by jostling, anyway.
He certainly enjoyed sharing them with his girls. It had been a good night.
Mark took a deep breath of the crisp and rejuvenating ocean breeze that was much stronger this high up, and his thoughts turned to his new shield ability. He wasn't even aware he had use of an impervious bubble, but it made perfect sense when he willed the barrier into existence around Vale.
He remembered the little helper fairy telling him to experiment and wondered what other abilities he had that he didn't even know about.
Knowledge was still something he needed the most right now.
He sighed and made his way back down the spiral staircase. When he got to the door, he heard Vale's voice and paused a moment to listen.
"...do you mean? They mostly get in the way. And do you know how much my back muscles hurt sometimes? I'd much rather be sleek like you, especially in combat."
Mark got the idea and smiled. He pushed open the door, and both Ahnix and Vale turned to look at him. Ahnix had two furry hands under one of Vale's breasts, holding it up slightly.
"You have a good sleep, Vale?" Mark asked, walking into the room. Ahnix's tail flicked around behind her, dropped Vale's tit, and let her arms fall to her sides.
"Yes, Master. I still can't believe what you did to me last night- both of you." She looked down and smiled at the impassive cat-girl.
"Good. Get those melons in their holsters. We've got some beach to put behind us. I think I saw the tear, and it should take us half the day to get there."
Vale packed herself into her leather harness and picked up her shield. Mark attached his crossbow to a loop on his pants and picked up his canvas bag, tossing in the handful of gold coins from the chest. While he had it open, he rooted around to see if they missed a bit of jerky or even one of those bland vegetables from the desert. Other than two, nearly full waterskins, a set of flint and tinder, and a few coins, there wasn't much in there.
Lack of food wasn't an emergency yet, but they needed to keep an eye out for something to eat.
Maybe they could get some fish from the ocean, somehow. He thought about the fishing poles stored back on the riverboat they ditched and wished he had thought to take one.
Ready to move out, they left the lighthouse behind and continued north down the beach.
The sun was bright, and the day was clear, and Mark looked at the two beautiful women moving along the beach with him to either side.
"Ahnix, did you pick a badass new ability?"
She looked over at him with her small frown and half-lidded, big eyes. "Doom kick is only a single target ability. You enhanced it into an area-of-effect attack yesterday, and I liked it. I picked Assault Rush. I can instantly strike one target five times or five targets one time."
"Oooh." Said Vale, from Mark's other side.
"What about you, Vale?" he asked.
"Perfect Cover from the Shield Warrior path. It's kind of like Ahnix's teleport but with much shorter range, and it can only be triggered when one of you is attacked."
Mark could tell why she picked that. When Ahnix took the attack meant for Mark's back yesterday, things could have ende
d badly if he didn’t have his heal ready.
"Great choices, both of you. And I guess I can put up protective bubbles now. We are becoming a force to be reckoned with."
They continued down the beach for a while, and Vale veered off towards the ocean to, "Look for the prettiest seashell." Mark and Ahnix walked down the beach, side by side, and he took another deep breath of the salty ocean air.
Ahnix broke the silence and spoke quietly. "You can't see your own ability path, can you." It was more of a statement than a question, and he looked over at his stoic cat-girl as she continued to look forward.
"No, I can't."
They walked a few more steps and then she said, "And you can't see ours either."
Mark had a sinking feeling where this was going. "No. "
"Then when you say we can pick our own abilities, it's only because you are forced to."
The sinking feeling in his gut turned into a free-fall of dread. He stopped walking and faced her.
"Yes, but I-” he was cut off by one of her furry fingers on his lips. He looked deep into her eyes.
She took a moment to look deeply into his, then spoke quietly, gently pressing her finger to his mouth, "You have never once given me reason to distrust you, and if you had lied to me just now I might have... been upset. But you didn't." Ahnix took her finger away from his face and continued, "I truly believe you are a caring and honorable man, and if you could suddenly see our paths you'd continue to let us choose for ourselves. But do not hide anything from me again, Mark. Especially something as important as this."
He nodded, and she leaned in close to kiss him to make it clear that they were all good, but before their lips touched, Vale let out a shriek from the shoreline.
They both turned to see the naga get grabbed from behind by two huge, disturbing, fish-like creatures. Vale was grappling with them as they tried to pull her into the ocean.
Ahnix teleported away instantly, and appeared in the water directly behind the far one and became a flurry of claws quickly slicing into its guts. One was already down, and Mark was still trying to figure out what the hell they were.
The other fish creature let go of Vale, and, as it took a step back to face the new threat, Mark's brain finally made some sense of what he was seeing. It was like an unholy mix between a fish, a crab, and a man. It had a fish head and body but was held up by four, armored crab legs. The fish body bent upwards its huge lips gasping toward the sky. It seemed to bend like this so the four muscular, human arms attached to its front side could grab onto any anything in their reach.
And the massive abomination was currently reaching for Ahnix. She had surprised the first one with her sneak attack combined with the new Assault Rush, but the second one was very much aware of her presence.
If it grabbed her and pulled her under, there wasn't much they could do. Mark acted before thinking and created a bubble around Ahnix. Its huge, muscular arms tried to encircle her, but the bubble prevented any contact.
Vale quickly slid backward a few feet, pulled her shield off her back and pointed at the creature. She sang the eerie melody triggering her Hateful Sting ability, and the creature stopped its attempts to get at Ahnix. It started to glow with a red hue and used all of its hands and legs to turn and charge up the beach towards Vale.
As soon as the creature turned away from Ahnix, she moved to attack its side like she had done the other sea monster. The moment she moved, the bubble went down.
The creature was fast, and she had to sprint out of the water to catch up. One of its arms reached out to grab Vale's shield, and another went for her face.
The naga slammed her shield into its upturned head, and its many arms went limp, stunned for a moment. Mark pulled out his crossbow and quickly fired a colorful shot right into its side. The thing was huge and hitting it with his unreliable ranged weapon was much easier than hitting the skeletons.
Ahnix had caught up and started to rip into it with her claws. It took only slightly longer for her to slice it to death this time as she was just using normal attacks.
The creature dropped to the sand before Mark's crossbow recharged.
"What in the hell was that?" Mark called out, walking over to his girls standing in a pile of fish and limbs.
"Lunch, I'd say," Ahnix said, licking her small lips. Vale just stood there her arms drooping at her sides, staring down at the sea monsters. Mark could tell she was a little shaken from almost being dragged into the ocean by creatures as large as she was. He walked up to her and ran one of his hands down the small of her back until it rested on her wide, scaly hip. It felt smooth and warm.
"You okay?" he said, looking up at his giant beauty.
"Yes. I just... wasn't expecting that. I found a really neat shell and my back was turned- Thank you for saving me, again." Her charcoal gray cheeks turned rosy pink.
Mark gently patted her thick rump. "We watch your backside. You watch ours. And boy do I enjoy watching both of your butts'."
He looked over at Ahnix who was starting to carve out hunks of meat from the horrible fish creatures with way too many arms. "You seriously want to eat these? They have human parts."
Ahnix looked up at him with those big exotic, half-lidded eyes of hers. "Then don't eat those parts. Vale, could you go gather up some driftwood? Unless you want to have monster sushi?"
"No, no, no. I'll go get us the wood," Mark said, holding up his hands.
It didn't take as long as Mark thought it would to find enough beached wood for a small fire, and before he knew it, they were roasting chunks of fish that actually smelled pretty good.
By the time Ahnix passed him a handful of charred, greasy meat his empty stomach won the battle, and he took a tentative bite. The tender fish flaked off into his mouth, and he quite enjoyed its buttery flavor. Vale had no problem packing in pounds of it, and Ahnix did actually eat most of hers raw.
The sun was high in the clear blue sky, the sand was soft and warm, and their bellies were full. Mark considered just curling up with his girls and taking a nap, but the thought of more crazy fish things dragging them under the deep ocean made him stand up instead.
"You beautiful beach babes ready to move on?"
They both got up and made ready to continue their journey down the beach while Mark kicked sand over the fire. Each of them took a swig from a waterskin and washed their lunch down with sparkling, clear water from the Vull before moving out.
The rest of the trip down the beach was uneventful. This time they stayed together, away from the shoreline and in a few hours they could clearly see the enormous white-noise tear out in the ocean.
As they got closer, Mark noticed rocks barely sticking out of the water, arranged to make a path right to the enormous tear out on the water.
By the time they reached the first bolder leading to the supposed Water Temple Mark could feel the strange uneasiness he always got in his guts when he was around the swirling, white noise mess of corruption.
There were a few more hours of daylight left before the sun set, so they decided to just go for it. Mark and Ahnix hopped from rock to rock, while Vale was long enough to arch her long body over the gaps, always touching at least two. The massive stones they were crawling on must have been truly humongous as the further they got out into the ocean the deeper the water looked until all they could see was a deep, blue void below them. All of them continuously scanned the waters for more of those many-limbed fish creatures, but nothing ever reached up to grab them.
It was further out than it looked from the beach, but they finally arrived at a large, filthy stone slab. It was made of marble, and some of the broken ornate columns gave the impression that this was once a beautiful structure. Now it was covered with rotten seaweed and slime.
Mark could tell that there was much more to the structure beyond the swirling mess of chaos and corruption that filled his vision.
Mark walked up to it and stood looking into the swirling chaos only inches from his face. The last one
was tough, but he got through it. He told himself he'd get through this one too.
Mark looked back at his Enthralled beauties, waiting on the huge slab of dirty marble, watching his back. He gave them a 'thumbs-up' and then turned back to the tear, quickly thrusting his hand inside.
Again, pain lanced through him, and it was like he had his arm in a nest of hornets, but he clenched his teeth, thrust his other arm in and tried to focus on closing the tear. He needed to bend it to his will, just like he had done before, but the pain in his arms was excruciating, and it didn't feel like he was making any progress.
Last time, the boat was moving forward, and he had no choice but to beat down the barrier facing him or lose everything.
Mark called on the strength of every fiber in his being to close this tear and shoved his head in like he did before. The pain enveloped him like a never-ending blooming flower, its petals impossibly just opening and opening forever, except the petals were razors and his brain was the garden.
He screamed and forced all of his will on bringing it to an end- and nothing changed.
He must have been surrounded by infinitely expanding pain for hours, days- he couldn't tell anymore. It never stopped, and he was losing the ability to think at all. Who had put him in this horrible world of constant agony? Why was this happening to him? He felt the last parts who he was starting to slip into the chaos and torment surrounding him.
Then something grabbed him and pulled him out. He hit the wonderfully solid ground, and a different, real, dull pain echoed in his side. He looked down at his hands, numbness buzzing all along them. He remembered something similar from long ago; he was hungry and stopped at a large colorful box. He talked to someone, a woman- she made the box obey her and prepare food for him.
He reached out to open the metal door and get his food and- *BZZZT*.
Mark blinked his eyes and found he was face to face with Ahnix, his regal and exotic cat-girl.