Explicit Interlude 5.2
(This mini chapter contains explicit sexual content. If that’s not to your reading taste you can skip on to the next chapter without missing any story elements)
The meeting was over, but Claudia didn’t release my hand. “It sounds like you have a couple of hours to kill.”
“Is that so?” I replied.
“Yes, even if Raven agrees right away, it will take her a few hours to fly north.”
“I suppose you have a suggestion on how to pass this time?”
“We’ve been apart for a few weeks. You, here, with the other girls, me in Grand Rapids, I don’t think that’s an…equitable distribution of Torin time, do you?”
“True, but we are in the middle of a crisis, some might see sneaking off for a bit of hanky-panky as a dereliction of duty.”
“That’s awfully presumptuous of you Mr Carter, maybe I wanted to have a sit-down and a chat about the distribution of assets between the two cities.”
“My mistake. Susan!” I yelled out loudly to grab the attention of Stormblade Harbour’s castellan. She hadn’t left the Command hub and had been in deep conversation with one of her assistants. Her head popped up and looked over at us quizzically.
Claudia tugged on my arm strongly. “Torin, what are you doing?”
“If we’re going to discuss asset logistics then Susan needs to be included, don’t you think?”
“I wasn’t being serious,” she hissed in embarrassment. “Of course I wanted to slip away for a quicky.” Her cheeks reddened a little and her golden feline eyes risked a glance across the room which is when she noticed that Susan had gone back to her conflab with the admin people.
Claudia released my hand and thumped me on the bicep lightly. “You used Clarion’s Call, didn’t you? Told her you were just messing with me.”
“Quixbix told Quinn actually. Presumably, the fairy then informed Susan I was only teasing you. Shall we?” I held out my crooked arm. Claudia slipped hers through and allowed me to escort her from the hub.
It didn’t take long for us to reach the playroom across the hall from the rest of the living quarters. The door to the creche was ajar and Shana spotted us before we got inside. She had Dash in her arms and winked at Claudia as the door closed behind us.
Claudia had seen Shana’s reaction. “She still wants a threesome, you know.”
“Who? Shana?”
“Of course, Shana. Your first wife is almost as rapacious as the infamous Captain Carter himself.”
“True enough.” I moved in for a kiss and Claudia smoothly disengaged and slipped out of my reach.
Internally, I sighed with a little frustration. “I’m not going to have to chase you all over the room again, am I? Time is a factor today.”
“Are you trying to say I’m not worth the effort, Torin?” she answered and arched her eyebrow dangerously.
I was 99% sure that Claudia was playing, but didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. “I didn’t say that, but our leisure time is somewhat limited, a call for my attention could come at any moment. I wouldn’t want to skimp on any of the fun parts.”
Claudia skipped a few steps and threw herself onto the silk sheets of the large four-poster bed that ruled the playroom. By the time she landed on the bed, her clothes were gone. “Hmmm…isn’t the chase part of the fun.”
I’d been prepared for that answer and rather than reply verbally, I wandered along the edge of the wall, back turned to her, perusing the shelves and hooks where a wide array of sex-play toys had been arranged. One of which I tapped and sent to my inventory.
Having put on a display of feigned disinterest to allay suspicions, I turned on a heel and activated my boots. The plan was to use Dragon’s Leap to catch the spry Leonid woman off-guard. It wasn’t until I was sailing across the gap that I moved my armour and clothing to the inventory.
Claudia yelped in shocked surprise and tried to scramble backwards but she was off her feet and that hindered her usually agile response. At the last second, I splayed my arms and legs to ensure that I didn’t crush her when I landed on top. The bed had been heavily reinforced so it could handle this kind of roughhousing. The sturdy frame didn’t shift an inch.
“Personally, I prefer the catch,” I grinned down at my conquest.
“No fair,” Claudia gasped “I wasn’t ready.” She tried to shift onto her hands and knees and crawl away. Her long, tawny hair whipped around. The loose locks swished across my face almost catching me in the eye, by design, I was sure of it.
“The chase began the second we crossed the threshold. It’s not my fault it was over so soon. Don’t be a sore loser,” I admonished and grabbed her hips as she tried to slither out of my grasp.
Any escape momentum was halted by my grip and Claudia flopped face down on the sheets. “Dammit!” she growled and blew out a puff of breath that shifted the bangs out of the eyes. “What was that? Barely five seconds, getting caught so quickly is embarrassing.”
“Nobody is snooping on us, if it makes you feel any better, I can tell people you gave me the run around for half an hour.”
“That’s a kind offer, but you’re a terrible liar when it comes to sexy time. Even sweet, na?ve Fang Mei will figure it out, as for the others, they’ll know just by looking at you.”
My hands roved over her soft, pert behind and admitted. “The bonds between us go two ways. Hiding things is difficult.”
Claudia lifted her butt off the bed, her tail flicked up and curled around my ear, tickling it. Her back arched and she looked back at me. “Well, what are you waiting for? You’ve caught your kitty, aren’t you going to mount her?”
The musky scent of lust wafted from between her legs. As a dungeon core, Claudia was no longer beholden to the biological inconvenience of coming into season as she used to be, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t imitate it if she wished. Which she very clearly did.
“It would be impolite to dive straight into the main course when there are so many sweet appetisers to try first.”
I waited just long enough to get an answering grin of delight from Claudia before lowering to her gently swishing rear. My hands traced striped patterns up and down her legs, pressing firmly enough to leave a temporary mark. Her prehensile tail, not a natural feature for a cat or a feline humanoid, ruffled through my thick black hair in encouragement and removed itself from getting in the way of access to the honeypot.
With a light rap on her firm buttocks, I manipulated her ass into position and opened her legs up for inspection. Her pouting lady lips were already a little slick from precum, and I let the tip of my tongue run along the edges teasingly. Claudia quivered, pushed her ass back and tried to spear her cunny onto my outstretched tongue, but I was wise to such a move and pulled back, keeping up the tease.
“More,” she whined.
“Soon,” I whispered.
The tonguing had started just above the hood of her clit on the left side and had slowly edged up the left labia, stopping briefly to give the perineum area a quick kiss and suck before heading back down the right side. Claudia whimpered softly the whole time and then gasped with delight when the tip of the tongue finally invaded the hood that covered her throbbing clit and started to flick back and forth.
“Fuck, that feels good, Ungh…you’ve done this before.”
A few times, but I couldn’t answer with my mouth area already occupied.
Unexpectedly, Claudia levered the front half of her body up. “Lift me, I want to suck your cock.”
The only thing better than toying with a lover’s pussy, is doing it while she is doing the same to my dick. No further encouragement was needed, and I straightened my back into a kneeling position and hauled Claudia’s rear up with me, only losing contact with her lady parts briefly.
The catwoman’s claws scraped along the silk sheets and parted them, leaving a neat line of rents in the smooth cloth. Her hands came to rest on my thighs. She spat on the head of my cock to give it a little extra moisture before her lips enveloped the head and started to suckle. Her tongue roved over every inch of the helmet and toyed with the eye at the centre.
My arms wrapped around her waist just below the sweet curve of her sexy butt and her thighs rested on my shoulders leaving my face planted firmly in the mound of otherworldly delights.
However, turnabout is fair play and if Claudia was going to spit on my dick, she should get some of the same treatment. Lowering her down a couple of inches, I parted her butt cheeks and half-spat, half-dribbled a wad of saliva on her asshole. Summoning a beaded butt plug I’d snatched from its place on the wall, I lubed it up in the spit and pushed the toy into Claudia’s ass. There was a little muscular resistance that gave way with a bit of pressure, and the toy slipped into the ‘forbidden’ hole.
Claudia tried to pull back and say something, but I just thrust my hips forward a little and my cock followed the withdrawing mouth. My hips could go further than her neck and Claudia gave up and chose to flex her claws on my thighs, not enough to draw blood, but I certainly felt it.
And then she did something that completely caught me off-base.
Claudia moved her head forward and deep-throated my cock which I was not complaining about, but she also shifted one of her hands around my glutes and before I could react, dipped her thumb into the crevice of my butt and shoved it up against my chocolate starfish.
She did retract the claw before breaching attempting to breach the forbidden zone.
“Whoa!” I yelped and slapped her ass smartly. “Naughty Kitty, I didn’t shove anything up yours dry.”
Claudia removed her thumb which hadn’t gone very far and patted my butt fondly, her point made. I should have warned her before shoving a toy in her ass.
Lesson learned. There were limits to the brevity excuse.
I flopped down onto the side, and we lay there pleasuring one another for several more minutes, the games of one-upmanship forgotten in the haze of lusty enjoyment. It was much easier to toy with Claudia’s breasts in this position, not needing to hold her up and I did like boobs ever so much and it was difficult not to fondle them constantly when they were so readily available.
The soulbond was indeed very helpful and soon we synched up perfectly, knowing exactly what needed to be done to enhance the experience for the other. It also assisted in the mutual decision that the time for foreplay was over, bringing on the main event. Claudia released my cock with a popping sound and rolled away, her body still a bit wobbly after a leisurely orgasm.
While she took a second to recover, I plumped a few pillows built a little backrest against the headboard and lay back. Claudia looked up at me, her golden eyes still hungry for more and I crooked a finger.
“You want me to ride you?”
“Yeah, and I’ll pull at that toy while you do so if you’ll let me.”
Claudia hadn’t removed the plug from her ass and nodded before she crawled back over to me on hands and knees, back arched like a cat. Her long tongue gave my genitals another lick, balls to tip, and then she clambered over me.
The long legs were spread over my hips and when she was in position, I grabbed the base of my dick and held it still while Claudia arranged herself over the top. Slowly she lowered herself, her arms were still a bit wobbly, and it took a couple of tries before my length parted her pussy lips and half the shaft slipped into her velvety depths.
Claudia’s hips rose and fell a few times as she worked my big cock deeper until it reached a comfortable depth, then she relaxed against my body. I enveloped the lithe woman in my arms, our lips met and hungrily devoured one another. When the kiss broke, Claudia pressed her forehead to mine, gripped the headboard behind us and started to piston her pelvis with greater velocity, grinding her hips into mine, breathing deeply from the added exertion.
With one hand, I supported her back and as promised slipped a finger into the ring of the beaded butt plug and gently pulled it out a little. I didn’t even need to do much more than hold the toy in place, the frantic movement of my lover’s body as she eagerly lanced herself on my cock did most of the work.
“I take it back,” she gasped. “The ass toy was a…a…a great idea.”
“I had a feeling you would approve…eventually.”
Claudia rode my cock with verve and great skill, and it tested my willpower to the very limits. Technically, I was in full control and could hold out indefinitely. The problem was, Claudia was doing such a good job, I didn’t want to.
“Let go, I’m ready to join you,” she crooned her tail beating out a steady rhythm on the mattress of the bed.
That was all I needed to hear, and resistance faded. With hands on her waist, I thrust upward a little further than before, the aching flex coursed from the base of my balls and through the whole of the shaft as it stiffened like iron. And then came the heady rush of orgasmic ecstasy as everything twitched and flooded Claudia’s cunny with pearly seed. The walls of her vulva tightened and constricted milking the pumping shaft of every drop of sticky juice.
Claudia collapsed into my arms, and we rode out the cresting tsunami of pleasure together. The soulbond linked us and created a feedback loop that heightened the experience to another level. Two pairs of hips slammed against one another in unison until there was nothing more to come. Only then did we relax into a sweat-covered rest, bodies entwined.
“Oh my God, that was fucking epic,” Claudia whispered in my ear. “The best yet.”
“It will only get more intense as the bond deepens. I have a couple more tiers of soulbond improvements to go.”
“Bloody Nora!” she swore, another one of my lovers who had picked up that affectation from me. “How will we ever get anything done with sex this good.”
I didn’t say it but the word which popped into my mind was necessity.
Necessity had been the driving force behind much of what I’d done since the Darkwyrlds had arrived. But for the next few minutes, at least, I could forget about that. I kissed Claudia’s forehead fondly and caressed her softly as we enjoyed the afterglow. The chaos outside would have to wait for a short while.
Chapter 21
The cold air ruffled my black hair and flattened it back against my skull. It wasn’t a cold day but at this altitude and the speed with which we were flying, it felt positively frigid. Thanks to my frost harmony, the wind chill factor didn’t bother me.
Nor did it affect my travel companion, Raven.
Her scarlet-tipped white wings stretched out wide to either side of us. It was a long way down and the blue of the lake had given way to the greenery of Wisconsin’s landscape.
Another wave of vertigo swept through me.
I would probably survive a fall from this height thanks to the armour I wore and the pool of Hit Points I possessed. You couldn’t fall faster than terminal velocity, after all, not unless you were propelled. However, the landing would seriously hurt me and some of the damage would bypass Hit Points and be applied directly to my Health.
Survivable, yes, but a fall would leave me badly weakened.
I’d never been great with heights, not to acrophobic levels, more of a natural dislike for a yawning chasm of emptiness that you could fall into. The kind that made your balls shrivel up into your gut to escape the inevitability. Flying in planes never had this effect on me, but then you weren’t outside a plane
The trip would have been so much easier if I could have been chest to chest with Raven, my back to the ground where I wouldn’t have to stare at the fall.
You can imagine how well that suggestion went down which is why I got to enjoy the current view. As did the suggestion of me wearing a parachute. Apparently, the wind resistance of carrying me was bad enough and she couldn’t, or I should say wouldn’t, handle the extra bulge.
To be fair, the joke I cracked about Raven handling my bulge right after she said that probably didn’t help convince her to see reason. Hey, if you’re going to lay up that sweetly expect to get dunked. But it did mean the current less than ideal situation was partly my fault.
Probably for the fiftieth time during the flight, I checked the buckles and straps on the harness that connected me to the reluctant pilot. It was something retrofitted from some para-sailing equipment that had been left in the old town.
“How many times have I warned you to stop fidgeting!” Raven snapped her hot breath ticking the back of my ear lobe.
Her mouth was only a few inches from my ear, but I still barely caught the snarled admonition due to the whipping wind and the speed we were travelling. I gave her a thumbs-up and faked like I thought she was asking if I was okay. It was probably my imagination, but it was like the heat of her anger warmed a bubble of air around us.
That could have been her flaming sword reacting to its mistress’ emotions, though.
“I should just drop you; this is not worth what Trisha offered,” she grunted. The complaint was difficult to hear but I caught the gist.
Now this did put the wind up me a little. To describe the fee we were paying Raven for what was a glorified taxi service as steep was a serious understatement.
Gold, ships, and passage.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Raven had hired a large number of the remaining mercenary companies to assist in her one-woman war with the Liberation Army in Texas. I wasn’t about to complain about that, it likely reduced the number of companies that attacked Stormblade Harbour. But mercs needed to be paid and Raven’s little helper, a man named Glastos, had insisted we help fund the campaign to the tune of thirty percent.
They’d wanted fifty but Trisha had talked him down to thirty.
On top of that, we were to deliver ten of the captured mercenary ships once repairs were completed.
They’d wanted Darik Scargiver’s mammoth ship as part of the deal, but I’d put my foot down and forbade it. It was by far the largest and most heavily armed of the captured fleet and I wouldn’t hand something like that over to a group likely to turn on us if the wind shifted.
Instead, Trisha bargained Glastos down to free passage through the gate in Stormblade Harbour. A way to get off-planet for the merc parties when their contracts expired. A gentle reminder that we held the only working plexus gate and could choose to charge whatever we pleased was enough to convince Glastos that it was a fair substitute for Scargiver’s vessel. That and the implied threat we could inform the mercs that Raven was the daughter of the man who had extorted them in the first place, and she’d been paying them with that money. In part, at least.
That little truth-bomb smoothed away any remaining snags in the negotiations.
Raven didn’t care, of course, or more likely didn’t understand that the mercs might not take too kindly to this news, but this Glastos fellow got the message loud and clear. He was a smart guy; I might have to see if I could lure him away after this was all over.
Reminiscing and examining recent history only distracted me for a fleeting moment. To pass the rest of the time and get my mind off being dropped by the unstable personality carrying me, I ran another sweep with my dungeon/waypoint sense.
How are we doing Quixbix? I thought to the imp. He could use the semi-regular sense pings to track our progress. Using what we already knew to triangulate our position.
<All good, so far. The glorified chicken woman’s sense of direction is pretty good, though I suspect she is simply angling for Lake Winnebago and will then turn south. We should be above that lake in a few more minutes.>
Once the imp pointed it out, I could see the large patch of blue off in the distance. My eyesight was incredibly keen and spotted the grey of the urban sprawl that was the town of Fond du Lac too. It meant we were less than an hour from the planned drop-off point. That moment couldn’t come too soon.
***
The branches of trees whacked against my face as Raven dropped from the sky like a bolt of lightning, aiming for the centre of one of the few copses of trees that dotted the landscape. The only real cover available.
She insisted the sudden and speedy drop from the sky was necessary to maintain an inconspicuous arrival. However, the marshland was replete with many kinds of birds, it had become a favourite resting spot for Canadian Geese according to a guidebook Susan had provided me with before departure.
Since the Darkwyrlds and the placement of spawning crystals, there were many more colourful and dangerous fowl that now called the marsh home. A ‘bird’ of Raven’s size carrying what looked like a body would not have appeared out of place to any observers.
“Unclip yourself,” she demanded the second our feet contacted terra firma.
If I hadn’t been protecting my face from the branches and leaves, I would have done so already. The catches were easy enough to undo and it didn’t take long before I could wriggle out of the harness and disconnect the makeshift umbilical cord between us.
“Thank you for your assistance, I and the rest of the world won’t forget it. Even if your bedside manner could use some work.”
Raven glared at me.
“Are you still thinking about handling my bulge?”
Yeah, I couldn’t resist taking a second shot with that one.
The look of fury was oddly chilling in its intensity. Without a word, Raven bent her knees in the Superman pose and then pushed off the ground wings flapping powerfully and she was gone.
“She didn’t scold or wish misery and misfortune upon me this time. I would say that is definite progress. I’m growing on her.”
<Yeah, the silent treatment is always a great sign of improving relations.>
The imp’s doubt dripped from the tone of his voice.
I decided to drop the topic. “How close are we to the target?”
<Raven was true to her word. It’s two clicks west.>
“Clicks? What’s with the military parlance? Have you been hanging around MacDonald too much?”
<Maybe I’m trying to impart the gravity of the situation because you seem to be cracking jokes as if this is some big lark. The bloody fragment who despises the very ground you walk on happens to be a couple of miles to the south. Oh, and there is a secret channel that connects the pair of you that we know very little about and could mean that it has tracked your every movement and despatched a brigade of soldiers to kill you. And you just gave your only ride out of here every reason to fly the fuck elsewhere as quickly as possible.>
“Is there?”
<Is there what?>
“Is there a brigade of soldiers closing in on this position with the intent of killing me?”
<No, not that I can see.>
“Then quit worrying about problems that haven’t happened yet and never will…probably.”
With that confirmation, I started to make my way through the small thicket of tree cover and head towards our target.
<You are not filling me with confidence. The range of my vision is limited. Just because I can’t see them now doesn’t mean they aren’t on their way.>
“What happened to the cold-hearted imp who would walk me into an early grave if I didn’t satisfy his bloodthirst.”
<That was for the weak and unworthy. Besides, you’ve grown on me, like mould. It’s enjoyable having you as a porter, being part of the Shattered Storm is fun. I don’t want that to go away. I’d miss it.>
“Miss canoodling with Quinn, you mean.”
<Yes…wait, no. That’s not it at all.>
“Sure, Quix. Enough with the doom and gloom. We’re on a mission to save the world. Real life hero shit that we’ll never get credit for because we are far too modest.”
The imp snorted his disagreement. To the modesty part, not that lack of credit which was unfortunately all too true.
“It’s dangerous, yes, but some risks are worth taking. This needed to be done, and it needed to be me. Nobody else can claim the waypoint.”
<Claudia could, you should have sent her instead.>
His response caused me to stop and almost trip with surprise. “She’s not a fighter,” I argued. “If she ran into trouble, chances are low that she would win.”
<And the worst that would happen is that we’d have to wait for her avatar to reform. She can’t be killed unless you destroy the core crystal.>
To be honest, I should have expected this argument earlier and was thankful nobody else thought to bring it up. I think most people forget that the Ana and Claudia they interact with are just extensions of the dungeon core’s mind. Their real crystalline forms are safe and sound in the heart of their respective dungeons.
I started moving forward again and reached the edge of the treeline revealing the cattail marshland and stepped into the open, hunching down to use the reed stalks as cover. “That is not true.”
<What? What do you mean it isn’t true?>
“At least, I suspect it’s not true. Ashli and the fragment have displayed an aptitude or ability to manipulate and alter dungeons. Bend, even break the Darkwyrlds rules they operate under. We can’t rule out that they might be able to cause permanent harm to a core through their avatar. The two are still intricately linked. When the time comes to strike, I don’t plan on bringing Anastasia along either. It''s too big of a risk.”
Quixbix was silent for a while, and I covered a few hundred metres before he spoke into my mind again. <You’re right. Damn it, but you’re right. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.>
“We’ll put it down to the strange effect the fragment has on the Framework. If you weren’t intrinsically linked to me, you might be as in the dark as Dean and Violet.”
<Fair enough. One thing’s for sure, though. Ana is going to be supremely miffed when she finds out she has to stay behind.>
“Ain’t that the truth.”
The conversation died down and centred on navigation after that. I had to ping the waypoint sense a couple of times to reorient. The marsh was tricky to navigate with patches of boggy areas that had to be avoided lest you get stuck in the mud.
There were plenty of nesting birds and insects that I tried to avoid disturbing with limited success. I also ran into two creatures that resembled the prehistoric Terror Birds but were half the size.
The fight certainly got the blood pumping, but was something I could have done without.
Especially as one of them managed to latch onto my forearm with its large, hooked beak. It would have broken the bone if not for the quality of my dragon-scale armour. Nevertheless, there was extensive bruising that would take a few hours to fade away leaving me in pain until then.
Shortly after the dwarven terror bird incident, I hopped over a stream to the opposite embankment and found an old tree with grey bark that had seen better days. There were almost no leaves on the gnarled and twisted branches. My mind flashed back to the vampiric trees we’d once encountered.
“Nothing is trying to mess with my head, right? Make me think we’ve entered a haven of plenty.”
<No, you’re in the clear of foreign mental influence. But you’re right about this tree seeming to be a bit out of place. And we’re also almost on top of the waypoint dot. Do you think it’s a marker?>
“One way to find out.”
I moved forward and circled the dying tree. On the opposite side, out of sight and hidden in a fold of the tree’s bark was a small pedestal made of white marble streaked with green. A familiar sight indeed.
I fumbled around the top until I found what felt like a button and depressed it. The sound of stone shifting intruded on the buzzing of insects and the cawing of waterfowl. A staircase of descending marble steps fell away from where I was standing and circled the circumference of the grey-barked tree.
We had found the entrance to the waypoint.
It was time to go down and claim it.
Chapter 22
With the Goresteel Greatblade gripped in both hands, I headed down the twisting staircase, the blade poised and ready to strike at anything which could be revealed. The feel of the marble beneath my boots was familiar if not exactly welcoming. I’d been down into the warren of Pandaemonium a few times in the past. It was eerie and off-putting.
After two circuits around the central column, the base of the stairwell came into view.
The décor of the tunnel here was different from the earth-brown, dirt floor of the tunnel network beneath Stormblade Harbour and most of Michigan. Instead, it had the same colouring and texture as the tree marker up above, grey with streaks of charcoal running through it. From the reading I’d done, that was not unusual, the material the connecting tunnel network was made from did change. Now we looked to be inside the hollowed-out roots of a gigantic tree.
Apart from the material, nothing else was different. There was sufficient, if subdued, light to see clearly. At the bottom of the stairwell, the column had an indentation perfectly sized for Claudia’s dungeon shard. Opposite the column was the waystation. There was a foul stench that emanated from within and assaulted the nostrils. The sparse furniture within was in a state of disarray. The bunks had been pulled away from the walls and smashed to pieces.
It was hard to tell from a glance, but somebody may have tried to use them as makeshift barriers. A few tentative sniffs revealed that the nasty smell was rotten meat. A scent which was eerily familiar from an earlier campaign.
Without taking my eyes off the ominous sight in front of me, I stepped off the last marble step, retrieved the shard from my inventory and slammed it home into the indentation in the column to claim it.
*** You have tried to claim the Horicon Marsh Pandaemonium waypoint. This region is currently controlled by the Hooved Horde and dedicated to Carnax the Cloven-Hoofed. As they are an external force, not native to Pandaemonium, this prevents you from claiming the waypoint at this time. ***
*** Expel the Hooved Horde from the nearest habitat and try again. ***
The message flashed in my eyes and was quickly followed by a quest notification.
*** Culling the Cloven-Hoofed 5 (Fx3)
You believed you were done with the Hooved Horde, but they weren’t done with you it seems. The success of your last quest and the theft of the Pandaemonium Portal they invested so much energy into was merely a setback for the carnivorous herds. They might not be able to create portals, but they can still enter the network through pre-existing waypoints. Your quest reward might have barred them from the Michigan section of Pandaemonium, but Wisconsin and Minnesota received no such protections.
The Horde learned their lesson from Belshgar Bastion and have adopted a patient approach instead. Building their forces, extending their reach out of sight, and waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
But those are worries for another day. What you are interested in is the habitat a few hundred metres down the tunnel where the Hooved Horde has established an outpost. Fight your way in, destroy the Blood Shrine at the centre and break their hold on the area. Only then can you claim this waypoint and summon your forces.
Success: Blood Shrine destroyed.
Rewards: 16,500 XP, a Shattered information crystal, and future quests in the chain.
Failure: If this quest goes incomplete the rest of this quest chain will remain locked and unavailable. ***
“Bloody Nora!” I snarled out in a low voice.
An addition to this blasted quest chain was the last thing I needed right now. Heeding the snawfus’ sage advice, I’d put Culling the Cloven-Hoofed and the Hooved Horde in general in my rear-view mirror. Left them to whatever they got up to in the wilds of Ontario.
Everything made sense now. The smell of rotting flesh assaulting my nostrils came from the Horde’s grisly trophies and the fetishes they manufactured from the bodies of their victims which they insisted on hanging everywhere. Once I knew what to look for, I could make out several of them nailed to the debris of the waystation’s bunks.
Piper’s words came back to haunt me. That the exploration of Pandaemonium hadn’t pressed into Wisconsin’s borders. This is why we hadn’t picked up any hints of the Hooved Horde’s growing presence in Pandaemonium. They had to stay out of the tunnels which connected to the Upper Peninsula because I stole their portal. And we hadn’t investigated the network that fat north because there was nothing out there except for mobs and trouble. We had plenty of those back home and didn’t need to seek out more.
It wasn’t all bad news.
The Shattered Goddess must have had a hand in crafting the quest. The description provided a fair bit of information that was only tangentially related to the quest itself. Useful for me but also an unwanted distraction which was part of her modus operandi.
Nancy wanted me to succeed, but her mind was fractured, and the manifestation of that damage could be self-destructive.
The crystal reward would be something from her. The capitalisation of Shattered suggested it would be data coming directly from the Goddess. Although she could be mercurial, there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be an empty info crystal smashed into several pieces.
The sound of scuffed movement from the waystation grabbed my attention. By swearing out loud I’d given away that somebody had entered the tunnels. I shifted into a readied combat stance in preparation for the attack.
Without prompting Quixbix tried to assist.
The change in my demeanour must have tipped the goatmen off that the ambush attempt was a bust because they gave up on any attempt at concealment, brayed loudly, and shoved the broken bunks out of the way.
Quixbix was right, there were six of them. These were slightly larger than those I’d seen before, the horns perhaps an inch longer. A sign that the buggers were a bit more experienced than the creatures I’d fought at Belshgar Bastion. The rusty armour and crusted blood smeared over their furred faces and everything they wore hadn’t changed though.
Capronid x6 (One Alpha)
Grade: S Level: 15
HP: 1,360
XP Value: 4,400
Information: Capronids or Goat-folk are a monstrous species that live and move in herds. They are dedicated to the god Carnax the Cloven-Hoofed. Their herds typically merge when they meet and when they encounter other cloven-hoofed monster species. These mass gatherings are referred to as the Hooved Horde. The destruction wrought by the Horde is devastating and will continue until either the Horde is comprehensively defeated and scattered to the winds or there is nothing left for them to destroy and consume.
Unlike the animals whose likeness they bear, capronids are exclusively carnivorous, consuming the flesh of those they slay and offer in sacrifice to their ever-hungry God.
This herd has been separated from the Horde and is currently understrength.
The analysis confirmed the greater experience, but even at level fifteen, six weren’t a genuine threat to me. I kept the waypoint column at my back and let the monsters come to me.
The creepy yellow eyes with rectangular pupils were focused on me and the sextet lacked co-ordinated discipline. The first came charging at me with a large mace, I dropped my shoulder and let the beast’s momentum skewer it on the tip of Goresteel’s blade. With a shift forward, I put my shoulder into the capronid’s breadbasket and flipped it over my back, sawing the edge of the sword through its guts as it somersaulted and landed hard on the marble steps with a pathetic bleat.
I left the disembowelled capronid to its fate and took a step forward to intercept the blade of the next. After knocking its initial swipe out of the way, a swift backswing sliced through the thigh above the knee and forced it to half jump-half fall away. Number three fell victim to the Cold Feet cantrip holding it in place and allowing me to swing high and half-sever its head from the body. The tough spinal cord prevented a full decapitation, but it was a killing blow, nonetheless.
The back three paused and observed the fate of their overeager brethren. Half-head was dead outright and fell back in an awkward slump, its hooves still held in place by the mounds of thick ice. Gutless panted, tongue lolling out and tried to rise, but slipped on its viscera and the movement only managed to hasten its inevitable demise. The one I lamed shuffled further away favouring the badly injured leg.
“Who’s next?” I taunted the beasts.
The biggest of the capronids sniffed the air warily from behind a meshed mask that covered its snout; its strange eyes fixated on me. The beast growled and spat a wad of phlegm in disgust. “God stench!” This one had the largest horns, their twisting spiral poked through the hood of an impressively disgusting cape made from the flayed skin of one of its prior victims.
I took the statement about God stench to be something negative. Carnax and the Shattered Goddess were rivals within the pantheon of Chaos. It was the primary reason the godling had prompted his monstrous followers to get mixed up in my business in the first place.
“I suppose that means an alliance to fuck over a mutual enemy is out of the question?”
The largest of the goatmen spat again and used the sign of disrespect as an opportunity to give an almost imperceptible gesture to its fellows. I spotted the attempt at subterfuge and wasn’t caught unprepared when the three fighting-fit capronids tried to jump me as a group.
Killing the three of them when they attacked together was a little bit trickier. The cape-wearer dual-wielded a pair of serrated short swords and came at head-on, while his two lackeys tried to flank me on either side. Gutless was still alive, just, and tried to help by clawing at an ankle but his wheezing gave him away and I raised the boot up and out of the way.
A charge of Dragon’s Breath would be the quick and easy way to deal with these bastards. However, with an outpost to take down solo, I wanted to keep those in reserve for the time being. Almost surrounded, I had to take a few hits while striking down the two flankers. Nothing that I couldn’t recover from with a short rest. The majority of the wounds came from the cape-wearer and his two short blades. He was actually quite skilled.
Once the two flankers had been taken care of, the footing became difficult. Gutless had finally bled out too and the dead bodies made manoeuvring treacherous. Dragon’s Leap fixed that, I hopped back a step and then pushed forward and shocked the alpha capronid. Even with his extended horns, there was enough room to clear him and not collide with the tunnel ceiling. Mid-leap, I switched to two ice blades and performed a twist like a vaulting gymnast and drove both blades deep into the alpha’s back before it could turn around and face me.
The primary fight was over, but the true danger was the lamed one.
At the same time as the alpha’s coordinated attack, the wounded capronid started to limp away, caterwauling loudly for all he was worth. A few thrown ice daggers, lodged into the back of the good knee, curtailed its escape and I ran down the corridor and finished the grunting creature off. It had only managed to shuffle thirty-odd metres, things would have been riskier if one of the unhurt ones had tried to make a run for it.
With the killing done, I bent low over the body and strained my eyes and ears to catch any sign that other members of the Hooved Horde had reacted to the commotion.
“Anything Quix?”
<My vision is still on the fritz. I can’t see anything. It’s difficult to refocus every time the range alters, and the range is changing almost constantly. I hate it down here.>
I felt a twinge of the promised headache pulse from behind my eyes as the imp attempted to utilise his spying technique. “I don’t recall it being this bad the last time we came down here.”
<It wasn’t, there was still some shifting, but it was more manageable and to be frank, you didn’t need me to keep an eye out for you then. Once Claudia inserted her shard, everything stabilised. This could be a side-effect of that, though I’d bet everything in your treasury the Blood Shrine is the source of the greater difficulty. Carnax is a chaos god, and he doesn’t like you.>
That made sense.
I spent the next couple of minutes looting, then dragging the corpses out of the root-like corridor. As mobs, they would fade away and disappear in a few hours, but if the Horde were patrolling the area, I didn’t want to make it easy for them to figure out that something was wrong.
Keeping with that theme, I sealed the staircase back to the real world and removed the alpha’s disgusting cape, gore-covered chainmail shirt, and meshed snout covering. As rank as the items were, they would be useful as a disguise. My 6’ 6” frame was big enough to pass for a capronid if you didn’t get too close. To complete the look, I sawed off the horns and poked them through the holes in the cape’s hood.
The poking-horns part of the grisly costume wouldn’t last more than half a day. The horns had been part of the mob and would be reclaimed by the Darkwyrlds to fuel future mob spawning, but the cape had been made from some poor unfortunates who crossed paths with the alpha in the recent past.
With the disguise finished I performed a quick search of the waystation which didn’t turn up anything else useful.
But it did give me a moment of contemplation.
I didn’t know how deeply the horde had penetrated this region of Pandaemonium. The quest had referred to an outpost in the closest habitat which I assumed was in the direction the injured capronid had fled.
What remained unclear was if this was the edge of their territory or if the other habitats in the area had similarly been overrun. I only needed to purge the nearest outpost to this waypoint to claim it. The danger was that if I were surrounded then the local force could call for reinforcements. Subterfuge rather than a ballsy full-frontal assault ought to be the play. Hence the vile disguise, I’d been working on.
Either way, Wisconsin was fucked with a capital F. Even if this was as far as the Horde had reached, then they’d infiltrated a good two-thirds of the state, maybe Minnesota too. Not to forget the Wisconsin army had a run-in with what was left of the Hooved Horde when they held the Upper Peninsula. And the monstrous faction seemed to be the grudge-bearing types.
The freshness of the cape was a sign that the Hooved Horde had been performing raids on the surface world. I doubted there was anybody left roaming the wilds of Ontario that the alpha would have encountered. It was much more likely to be somebody local. Although I couldn’t rule out the disposal of slaves, the Horde in Belshgar Bastion had collared thousands to work for them.
If the fragment’s activities weren’t such an imminent danger, I’d be tempted to just let nature take its course. Horrific as that might be for the locals. Another option was to tell Howson and deposit him and his men in these tunnels after they were done with the fragment. The Wisconsin soldiers might have surrendered but they were unlikely to switch loyalties once the fragment was defeated. The Shattered Storm had butchered thousands of their comrades in arms, and soldier types didn’t forget or forgive that kind of thing easily. There was a big downside to that. First, it would reveal Pandaemonium’s existence and potentially hand control of a big portion of it to a faction who bore a grudge against me.
A moral conundrum that could be resolved after the fragment had been dealt with.
Thinking of the fragment, time was still a factor, and I couldn’t afford to hang around here any longer. Donning the rusted chainmail over my dragon scale and flipping the hood of the disguise up, I made my way towards the habitat.