General Stories

This will be my thread for all of my short stories that I think of. My main stories are: Strange Friends, Snick, Cigarettes and Fairies, Smiling Man stories. Those stories can be found in their individual threads. Everything not dealing with those stories will be put here. As always, please feel free to critique my works.

First short story, although it might not be so short in the end, as I have a habit of my stories growing out of control Snick, I think, kind of fell on its face, but this should make up for it in terms of horror. This story is going to be disturbing, with lots of horror, blood, gore, and vore. If you like horror, this should do. If you don't, then I wouldn't recommend it.

Abyssal

Chapter 1: Into the Depths

The six of them moved through the corridors of the crumbling ruins carefully, cautious of traps or monsters that might be waiting to spring and bring death. None made a sound; it was too dangerous to do so, especially here, where the stone surrounding them might take their echos to the ears of horrors that could be waiting in the deep darkness beyond the circle of light generated by their mage.

Indeed, it was silent in this rotten underground temple, with all the impenetrable darkness and utter quiet of the deepest of caves, the darkest of ocean trenches. There was no light at all, only the weak illumination of the mage's pale blue light-ball, and even that was cut off by the thick dark at only four or five meters. It was blacker than the blackest of midnights, and far more terrifying.

It wasn't normal darkness; it pressed against the light as if it wanted to kill it, extinguish this bright intruder and rend the adventurers with obsidian teeth, swallow them up and obliterate them. It was like it was alive, a brooding, hateful monster that wished to engulf anything that was not itself and destroy it with that infinite dark.

Even though these were seasoned explorers, experienced with investigating deep dungeons and ruins for treasure, they felt the weight of that malice diffused into the very air, a kind of creeping horror that pressed on anyone who walked here. It was the oppressive pressure of dread.

One of the adventurers, a neko woman somewhere in her thirties wearing leather armor and carrying a rapier, tightened her grip on her weapon as they reached another stairway leading down. It was a spiral staircase, the worst kind in this sort of place. It was easy for monstrosities to hide right around the curve of it, waiting to attack, and the narrow space was ideal for traps. Either hazard would be nearly impossible to avoid in such a tight space. Ei gripped the rapier even harder.

Everyone was thinking much as the red-haired neko woman, the group pausing at the head of the stairs. These were no greenhorns, all with several years experience at this dangerous activity in an already dangerous land where beasts the size of trees laid in wait to devour the unwary. In this fearful land of Felarya, only the best of the best could become successful dungeon-runners.

They shuffled their positions, the mage, a chubby human woman by the name of Anyn, previously towards the front of their formation, now moving into the middle. These stairs were of a high-danger level, and without the mage all the group had for light was a single lantern and a few glow-sticks they had procured in Negav. If Anyn was killed or incapacitated, they would be lost in the dark and utterly helpless.

"Alright. Keep Anyn in the center, eyes and ears and noses and everything else you've got wide open. If you have to, take a hit for the mage. We lose her, we're all goners. Let's get going." came a whisper.

It was the leader of their group, a human-sized dridder called Will. His thick steel armor glinted in the light, the modified greaves on each of his ash-grey legs shining silvery, the same color as his hair and eyes. He was the iron spine of the group, and the nigh-unto impenetrable metal wall that defended them from the brunt of dungeon beasts' attacks with his mace and heavy shield. His feet clicked quietly as he moved to the front and began to descend.

The others stayed right with him, in a tight clump around the mage. Not one of them wanted to be outside the circle of light, out in that watching, malicious darkness. Every heart was beating fast and hard, sweat building even as the moisture dried up from their mouths. They could barely see ten feet, the light bleeding into darkness so subtly that it was hard to tell what was what or what was where.

The other neko in the group, their alchemist and potions specialist, kept right next to the mage, one hand at the dozens of small vials on his belt. Dredth always had the right chemical for the right situation, whether it was acid, poison, disinfectant, or healing drinks. Even though he could have made much money with his skills in any city, he preferred to wear shabby clothes and go adventuring.

The other two were easily the most unusual of the group, twin sisters wearing dark clothes that contrasted with their pale, narrow features but matched their dark eyes. Both carried a black yew bow and thirty arrows each, archers that could be called sharpshooters or maybe even snipers with their smooth, silent gaits and sharp eyes. They flanked the group, slightly apart from the others but careful not to fall behind into the encroaching dark.

The crew moved down the stairs, going deeper into the earth with every loop of the seemingly endless staircase. It became colder as they descended into the depths of the ruined temple, the temperature dropping until they were all chilled, not cold enough to see their breath, but close. They went down and down and down, the dark growing, the silence unmarred by anything but the subtle sounds of their feet and breathing.

"The stonework has changed." one of the unnaturally pale women murmured, running a hand along the wall of the staircase gently.

"Kiva is right. This is not like before." muttered the other.

The group looked around, and found that the sisters were right. The upper part of the dungeon had been composed of granite blocks, worn but sturdy, and held together by mouldering mud plaster. This area was carved out of solid stone, everything cut right into the living rock.

"What do you think?" Will asked the first sister, Kiva.

"I think . . . we should probably not be here. This type of work is indicative of a very primitive, very old culture. This is many times older than the upper parts, many, many times older. Older than Ur-Sagol, even. Carving directly into the bedrock, this deep . . . who knows what might be lurking down here."

Kiva, in addition to being a top-notch archer, was a decent historian and archaeologist. If she said it was old, then it was beyond ancient. Athin, her sister, was an expert with traps, both disarming them and setting them, and the two together could practically dissemble a whole dungeon. They were an enormous help in places like this.

"We keep going. I heard from a reliable source that there's a treasure down here, a special treasure."

"What kind of treasure?" Ei asked, tail twitching about.

Will's face broke into a tight smile.

"A thing well worth dying over. Something incredible."

The group finally reached the bottom of the stairs, now more than three miles underground. It was cold, and the air had a . . . strange feel to it. Not stale, as one would expect, but . . . bizarre. Like it had died, not even air anymore, with a peculiar taste to it that made the tongue want to curl up, the body to collapse. It wasn't poisonous, as Dredth tested the air with a mist of chemical, but it still didn't feel right.

Now they were in a massive cavern-hall, and even if the light could barely illuminate their immediate area they could sense the change, the sudden opening of the chamber. Anyn, taking a sip of Dredth's magic-replenishing potions, boosted the power of her light-ball and bathed everything within fifty feet in cold blue light.

Everyone gasped and screamed.


First chapter. Second one up when I can get to it. Critiques and comments welcome, as always.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

This sounds very serious it's a bit darker than the last story.

Like the characters interesting guy with potions XP

A red head neko sounds cool.

Things are about to get warped. Graphic creepiness but no vore. Constructive criticism, ect. is welcome.

Chapter 2: The Twisted Temple

The scene around them was beyond horror.

There were bodies.

Hundreds of them.

Piles of bones and half-rotten corpses, all of them covered with dust and bone-meal. Skeletons ground down to nothing but mummy-dust by the years, ancient blood encrusted blackly onto the stone floor, everywhere death and decay. It was a graveyard of uncounted years, showing the history of those who had come here and died down in the dark abyss.

Still-fleshy corpses dressed in adventurers' clothes, rotting slowly in the cold, cloth molding. Skeletons in armor, knights from some riches-hunting mission or underground battle for the treasure that lay hidden here. Bone-dust from skeletons that had long ago fallen apart, coating all of it.

This was not what made them scream and gag, not the sight of it nor the idea of these doomed, damned souls struggling to escape death, blindly crying out in the infinite darkness and trying to stay alive, to evade their fate. These were hardened adventurers, used to finding corpses in their dungeon explorations; the bodies were only a sideshow.

It was the fact that some of the bodies were hideously deformed. Here there was a skeleton with five arms sticking out all over it, there a pair of corpses fused into each other by the head and shoulders, two mouths intersecting into one warped grimace. Those were only the mildest of the monstrous malformations. Other corpses were impossible to look at, twisted things that could not be observed without the urge to vomit.

And this was only a fraction of it all, a small percentage that was shown by the light.

This buried temple room was large enough to fit a building into it, the whole thing filled with bodies piled waist-high over the whole place, covering the floor in a rotting carpet. Though there was all this death, there were no worms, no flies, no spiderwebs, not one sign of anything living. Nothing was alive in this twisted temple but the group.

W-well . . . let's keep going." Will attempted, swallowing down bile that had risen in his throat.

Ei gave him a withering look. Any fool could see this was idiocy, going forward with evidence of a billion failures all around them. She shook her head, giving a thumbs-down to indicate her displeasure with his idea. She didn't dare speak, not when surrounded by corpses. There was no knowing what had killed them, but it could still be around, waiting, brooding, watching.

The sisters were braver, actually speaking, but they still spoke softly, as if they feared to wake the dead lying everywhere.

"We should not be here. These bodies are not natural. We should leave." they said in unison, perfectly agreed.

There others also conceded that whatever was down here, it was not worth wading through a sea of death and possibly joining it. Will clenched his fists, scared too, but unwilling to let go of this. They had spent two days getting from the overground entrance to this point, lost another team-member, an elven woman, on the trek out to the entrance. He could still see her vanishing under the furious mass of fur and poisoned claws and wicked fangs, the Kensha ripping her to shreds as the others ran. They couldn't give up now, not when they had come so far.

"You cowards. You want to waste Xa'nin's death, just because you see a few bodies? Pathetic. She gave up her life for us to get here, and you're going to spit on her memory like this?"

Anyn, always sensible, spoke out against him.

"This is more than a 'few' bodies. This is a giant graveyard, and I doubt Xa'nin would want us to become a part of this death-carpet. We're going back." the mage affirmed.

"Unless . . ." amended Kiva.

Will looked at her sharply, the others doing so as well.

"Unless . . . ?" Will prompted.

"You tell us what this 'treasure' is. Exactly what it does. Then we might move forward, yes?" the pale woman suggested, gaining nods from the others.

Will tapped one of his spider legs on the ground, making slight clicking noises as the clawed end of it struck the dark stone of the floor. It seemed he had no choice. He couldn't move on his own, so he would have to let them in on the secret of what was down here.

He had learnt the information from a ghostly creature that sometimes floated through the streets of Negav in the dead of night, in the unlit areas that no one visited after dark. It was a severed head with one eye, and it knew many, many things. It whispered to itself constantly, and told secrets to anyone who got close. Not many did, but Will had managed to stay his ground and learn of this ruined temple.

"Down here . . . there is a treasure that can grant wishes, and give the one who holds it enormous amounts of power. Imagine it. Wishes. Anything you want, now free for the having."

The group decided, after some deliberation, to press on. They had to wade through the bodies, but the promise of that prize was enough to keep them moving. That is, until they finally passed through the sea of bodies and reached a set of massive stone steps leading upward.

It was then they found the artwork.

The corpses had been horrifying, but this was far beyond that, an infinity beyond that. There were statues, twenty feet tall and agonizingly detailed, standing in sets on either side of the stairs. They were indescribably disturbing, carved of obsidian and so horrendous that no words could express how twisted they were. There was no telling whether the subject was human, animal, plant, or some other thing, so terribly were they distorted.

"Oh gods, don't look at them!" Dredth hissed, tearing his eyes away from one and vomiting onto the steps.

Ei patted him on the back as he coughed, then spat, now all of them careful to keep their eyes averted from the sculptures. They ascended the steps, and as they went higher the statues' vague forms that they observed from the corners of their eyes became more and more monstrous, making them nauseous and horrified even with only the peripheral vision.

"The . . . the slopes . . ." Anyn whispered weakly, round face going deathly pale.

The smooth slopes on either side of the steps had hideous pictures carved into them, things that were a blasphemy to life and sanity simply by their existence. A withered man with twenty legs and arms, a ball of limbs, all of them broken and bleeding. A horde of bestial children, devouring a woman alive as she screamed silently, sound locked into the stone. A man with a thirty-eyed parrot's head, the beak serrated and spiked, body multi-jointed and warped. Horror after horror after horror, each more terrible than the last.

They had become terrified, horrified, wanting nothing more than to throw themselves down onto the steps and dash their own brains out on the stone to escape this madness. Now, though, they could not stop, a demonic inertia drawing them ever upward. The slopes had fallen away, revealing that they were going up a step-pyramid, not a staircase.

What could be at the top? A sacrificial altar, waiting for new blood? A coffin, some ghoulish undead thing waiting inside for them? A giant trap? Or something worse? Maybe whatever godawful things those statues were meant to represent, some mutant abomination twisted beyond comprehension?

At the top, a forty foot square encrusted with dry blood the color of the abyss, there was . . .


A cliffhanger, lol. Have to sleep now. Have chapter three up when I can.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Well it's most definitely darker now.

Great story so far ! I love a lot your descriptions and how you take the time to set up the atmosphere

Thank you both. I kind of failed at the atmosphere buildup in Snick, so I'm glad this is doing better. Now we get to see what's up on top of the pyramid.

Chapter 3: Mummy of Agony

It was a black throne, a high backed one, carved so skillfully that it seemed to have been molded like clay right from the onyx stone of the pyramid. Despite the fact that the detail and artistry of it was superb, it was by far the most evil thing they had yet seen.

There were a dozen legs supporting it, and each was in a parody of an animal leg, all in various stages of rot and decay. A goat's leg, stone flesh melting and melting without ever melting in reality. An avian leg, nothing but thin bones that seemed as if they might shatter under the weight of the throne. The skeletal remains of a serpent's tail, looking almost like a spine. A human limb, skin peeling and full of dripping cankers.

The arms of the chair were modeled in the same way, the upper limbs of various creatures melded into a whole. The back, ten feet tall, was easily the most hideous part, because nothing of what it was made up of could be identified. It was a swirl of insanity, a mass of twisted horrors and unknown demons.

It was all melded into one, a thousand eyes, a hundred mouths, monstrous limbs that seemed to be moving, gasping and caressing nothing. Tendrils and limbs and warped mouths that gnawed without motion at the void emerged from the chair like breaching whales out of a sea of horror.

It had even these experienced folk trembling, Ei and Dredth going to their knees from the sheer ghoulishness of this horrendous chair. The others kept their feet, but only just, knees weak and bile rising in their throats. What kind of disgusting culture had carved these things, made this awful throne? What kind of abominable ruler had sat in this thing? Who or what could possibly have consented to sit in this blasphemous, twisted aberration?

They all feared to look at the seat, but when they did, they found that someone was there.

Anyn raised her hand shakily, the ball of light floating higher, and they gasped. It was a mummy, bound from head to foot. Arms pressed to the sides, legs together, not an inch of skin to reveal who it had been. Or rather, who SHE had been; the outline was female. Trapped in a sitting position for eternity, the mummy ruled over a kingdom of the dead forever. Worse than that, there were no bandages.

This woman was wrapped up entirely in barbed-wire.

A cocoon of metal wire and spines, a chrysalis of pain holding a caterpillar that would never break free to become an agonized butterfly. Ei saw that there were trails of old blood running down the outside and immediately was sickened; this woman had not been wrapped while dead. The dead didn't bleed. She had been enshrouded while still living and breathing, screaming in anguish and feeling everything right up until she had bled out.

Athin was the first to go toward the chair, breathing uneven but still remembering her job despite the fear. She examined the area carefully for traps, and managed to bring herself to look hard at the throne even if she could never, ever touch such a disgusting thing. She made a "clear" gesture, and the others slowly came forward. Will finally spoke, in a whisper.

"Wh-where is the treasure? There's nothing up here but that . . . AWFUL chair and . . . whoever that was."

" . . . There is no treasure. There never was, I think. Just a hideous temple from some ancient, twisted cave-dwellers and a trillion fools coming to claim something that didn't even exist." muttered Kiva.

"Damn that phantom. Nothing but a chair I wouldn't sit in if my life depended on it and a mummy. We came all the way down into this hell for nothing." Will growled, the leather of his gloves creaking as his fists clenched.

Ei ignored the leader, leaning closer to the barbed-wire mummy. Who had this woman been?, she wondered, and why had she been so brutally tortured? The neko swordswoman jumped slightly when Dredth looked in over her shoulder.

"I don't get it."

"Get what?" she inquired.

"This place is older than Ur-Sagol, according to Kiva, but why is there IRON wire on this woman? These people were carving straight out of the rock, so how did they have the tech to make metal?"

They both jumped when the pale woman answered from right beside them. She was so quiet they hadn't even heard her approach. She looked over the mummy, delicate eyebrows knitting together.

"I . . . do not understand this. These people, whoever or whatever they were, should not have had this quality of iron. It is rusted, and quite old. Perhaps she was placed here later? Could you check, Dredth?"

"Ah, I didn't think of that at first." the neko alchemist admitted.

He reached to his belt, slid his hand down the row of vials, and selected one. All of it happened in the space of a second. Dredth was a truly amazing potions master, able to remember how each bottle felt and what it contained. He could find and use any chemical in his arsenal in an instant, making him an invaluable support unit for their crew.

He dripped a little of the yellowish fluid on the wire, then watched carefully. The maroon of the rust and dried blood slowly changed color, wisps of smoke coming off as it did so. Dredth watched in astonishment as it went from red . . . to white. According to that bleached-bone color, this metal was over three thousand years old, older than his chemical could predict and show. It could even be as old as this temple.

This metal couldn't be iron, even. It should have rusted away long ago. He reached down, replacing that bottle and taking out another, one that would reveal what kind of metal this was. He let a droplet fall. It turned a spot of the metal a hue not even found in nature, a psychedelic shade that made his head ache just looking at it. Whatever this wire was made of, it wasn't anything normal. It was most likely metal from some far-off planet, or from so deep in the earth that no one had yet discovered and named it besides whoever these people had been.

He guessed it was the second, with that incredible age reading from his previous test. He told the others about it, and Will became interested. Perhaps this was the treasure, this strange metal wire. Certainly some scientists in Negav or off-world would pay much money to be able to examine a completely new metal with unknown properties. He was looking at the wire when he noticed something.

There were scratches on the rock, bloodied, in parallel sets of five or four. Many people, scrabbling at the stone, dragging themselves along until their fingernails broke and their hands bled. Something had compelled them to do so, to continue up here even after seeing the horrors below. He looked closely, and came to a realization.

All of the claw-marks were going towards the base of the chair.

These people hadn't been trying to get the wire, nor the dead woman. Those skeletal knights below hadn't been battling over some measly scrap of metal, or over the corpse of some long-dead empress. Those rotting adventurers hadn't come through this ruined place for that. Though the throne was made of stone too hard to be scratched, the bloodstains on the floor in front of it suggested that the people who had managed to make it this far had laid at the base of it to die, worshipping the abomination until the instant they died.

It was the throne.

"The chair. I bet if you sit in it, it gives you power. Or maybe sitting reveals the real treasure, hidden somewhere else."

"You can't be thinking about sitting in that . . . MONSTROSITY!" hissed Dredth.

"I am. Help me move this woman. Careful of the barbed-wire. No knowing what kind of diseases and things are on those spikes."

No one moved. Will couldn't blame them. They were a great team, but he had to admit that this was out of their league. It was probably out of his league, too, but if you didn't push your limits, you would never grow. He took ahold of the mummy gently, careful not to let the spines prick through his heavy leather gauntlets, and lifted her from the chair. He was very strong, years of being a warrior and wearing heavy armor giving him strength, and though the combined weight of the woman and the wrapped barbed wire was quite heavy, he managed. He gingerly moved her, saying a prayer for this poor, tormented woman as he turned to put her do-

Fresh blood, bright crimson, gushed out from between the tightly wrapped bonds. He dropped her instantly; dead people didn't bleed like that, and their blood wasn't that bright. She was still alive in there. By sorcery, no doubt, but still alive and trapped in that tangle of agony. He began frantically trying to wipe off the blood that had stained his armor and clothes, made his hands scarlet.

And he had just picked her up and probably increased the pain.

The others were standing in a circle around the fallen corpse, stunned into stillness and silence at the realization that this person was living and feeling inside that hideous cocoon. A moan came from the mummy, causing everyone to take a step back in horror. They were not horrified by the fact that the woman was making noise when she should have been dead, but because it was coherent.

The mummy spoke.


There we go. They find a tortured, barbed-wire mummy in a demonic throne at the top, and find out that she is alive. Comments and critiques are appreciated.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Crickey well that's weird for some reason I wanted to throw that geezer down the stairs. Disturbing the dead honestly that's doesn't bode well. Macbeth with the blood hmm?

Great story so far. Looking forawrd to see where it's all going.

It gets creepier from here. Oh, and there is vore and gore here. Hardvore. Either way, critique as you like, and comments, ect. are welcome and appreciated.

Chapter 4: Inverted Crown

"Who is . . . there?" came the question.

Whoever was trapped in that torturous bind had a beautiful voice. It was soft and feminine, gentle, sweet and pleasant to the ear. It made her being trapped all the more terrible. So terrible that no one could say anything back, unable to respond to her hesitant inquiry. For several second there was silence. Finally, Ei knelt beside the fallen mummy and spoke.

"We are a group of adventurers. I don't know how you're alive, but we'll get you out of there. Don't worry." she assured, her tone soothing.

"Out? Of this wrapping? Please don't. I couldn't bear it." the mummy replied, a pleading cadence entering her voice.

Ei had to resist the urge to hold this tortured soul against herself. The woman was hurt so badly she was afraid of being released. There was no doubt cutting her free of the barbed-wire would be enormously agonizing, but she had to be freed somehow.

"We'll do it as gently as we can. Try not to struggle, alright? Here we go . . ."

Ei motioned for Dredth to came closer, and the neko nodded, immediately knowing what she wanted him to do. He quickly slipped a pair of heavy gloves out of his worn green backpack, the thick leather-rubber kind used by alchemists to deal with strong chemicals and sharp objects, and put them on. He knelt beside Ei, then attempted to work his fingers into the tangle of wire.

He tried and tried, but the barbed bonds were too closely looped, too tight for him to pull it apart. Not only that, the spines were still excruciatingly keen, points so fine even through the rust that they dug into his reinforced gloves painfully. After nearly a minute of fighting to tear the wire apart, he gave up.

"Gah, I can't get any purchase! We can't cut her out, either. It's just too damn tight."

Will's hands clenched, and there was a thud of a fist striking the opposite palm.

"If who ever did this is still alive, I'll kill 'em. Nobody should have to be in that kind of situation." he growled.

"Get in line." Ei muttered.

"Who are you, miss?" asked Dredth, ears perking forward with anticipation.

"Me? I think . . . I was . . . a ruler. I was very powerful, ruling over my kingdom underground. We built such wonderful palace. You might have seen it farther up. The places where there are bricks is the old palace."

"What happened? Who made this horrible temple and artwork, then? Who made this godawful throne?" asked Anyn.

Now everyone had huddled around the living mummy, listening with great interest. They all wanted to know the answer. What could have created this disgusting display of death and insanity, far from the light? A race of blind, crawling things that gibbered in the infinite dark, eventually breaking into the upper halls and slaughtering the inhabitants? A long-dead people who's chambers had been discovered by accident and driven the upper residents to madness and carnage? Something even more sinister?

"My crown . . . was inverted."

"You were overthrown? By whom?" pressed Kiva.

"Not overthrown. Inverted. That is how the Master wanted me to be."

"The Master?"

"Yes. I must obey the Master. Everything down here was made for the Master. The Master twisted us, made us warped." she gave.

Every one of the group trembled at the thought of someone or something so hideously evil that they could tear down and enslave an entire kingdom. They shivered even more, though, at the way the enshrouded ruler spoke of this "Master". It was not bitter, angry, or even tinged with the slightest bit of sorrow. It was reverent, worshipful. It sounded as if she were talking about a god, an idol, someone so far above humanity as to be divine.

"Who is the Master? One of your gods? A single God? A king? What?" Will asked, eager to find the culprit of all this so that he could take his mace to the "Master's" head.

"No, no, the Master is none of these things. The Master is . . . the Master. Ah, and could you put me back in the throne? I need to keep her warm and bloody for the Master. The blood is the important part. It makes the throne happy."

Will was again the one to speak up.

"When will this 'Master' be back?"

"The Master is already here. Can't you tell? It's in the air. The Master's miasma. The urge to die. This wonderful, chilling aura. This poison in every breath we take. Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?" she cooed.

"Holy . . ." choked Dredth, and he vomited again, turning away as he heaved up what seemed like everything he had ever eaten and more.

Even Kiva, the hardest of their crew to effect, dry-heaved a few times. Someone or something had utterly broken this woman, snapped her will and made her grovel at their feet. The idea of one entity willing and able to cause all this horror was inconceivable. The creeping rot in the air of the temple seemed to grow thicker, chokingly so, at the mention of itself, making her want to spew her guts up just like the neko chemist. She wanted to get OUT of this place.

" . . . Could you put me in the throne now? She will become unhappy if I don't keep her wet with blood."

"The chair. What happens if you sit in it?" Will queried.

Anyn glared at him. He was still on about that DAMNED seat.

"I think she would like that a lot. She is very powerful, but very sleepy."

"Powerful? Could it get you out of that cocoon of barbed-wire?"

"She could, I think. She is the Master's favorite seat, and we did not make her."

Will turned to sit in the throne, hurrying to get this tortured, broken empress free . . . and swore vibrantly and as loudly as he dared in this abyssal temple. His dridder half prevented him from getting into the chair. Why in the world hadn't he seen that BEFORE? Idiot, idiot, a thousand times idiot, he scolded himself.

Dredth, a sickened but determined look on his face, went up to the throne. He felt ill just looking at this monstrous thing, but he would force himself to sit in it if it meant he could help the woman bound in shredding metal thorns. He heaved a little at the sight of the blood puddled in the seat, distinctly shining in the light of Anyn's illumination ball, but eased himself into it anyway, face going a ghastly shade of green as he felt the blood soak into his trousers and making the yellow fur of his tail sticky and scarlet.

For the barest millisecond, he thought he felt the throne SQUIRM beneath him, as if it were alive, and he imagined he heard, right beside his feline ears, a quiet sound of pleasure. Then the sensation was gone and he was sitting down fully in the throne. It was surprisingly comfortable, despite being stone, and had a peculiar fee-

"OH GODS, DREDTH, GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT CHAIR!"

A moment later his life was snuffed out.

* * * * *

Ei watched in horror as the "throne" writhed, metamorphosing into a giant demoness the size of a small house. She was sitting cross-legged, hands on her knees, back straight, still in a semi-chairlike position, the neko potions master seated in her lap. She completely dwarfed him; even in her position his ears didn't even touch the undersides of her breasts, and had she been standing she would have been close to thirty feet tall.

Her skin was ebon, the same pure-black shade as the throne had been, her back-length hair the color of nighttime, lips an ashen grey, as were the whites of her eyes. It wasn't like a human "black", but a shade of pitch not found in mortal skin, more like obsidian than anything else. The only thing about the demon that possessed any sort of color were her eyes; they were twin slits of magma-hued orange-red, serpentine and looking down at the neko in her lap with a kind of lazy hunger.

"OH GODS, DREDTH, GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT CHAIR!" Ei screamed, trying to warn the man.

She saw him begin to rise, but it was far, far too late.

The demoness curved her back, leaning over, and bit the alchemist right in two.

She chewed languidly, exposing double rows of horrendous onyx fangs that would make a shark faint, gore running down her chin. Her bored expression was at odds with her actions; she was eating the neko man as if it were nothing, as mundane as eating a bag of potato chips because there was nothing else to do. The demoness tilted her head back and swallowed the bleeding mass of masticated flesh that had once been a caring, pleasant alchemist, then glanced down at his remaining lower half. After a moment of consideration, she picked up his legs, flicked them casually into her gaping maw and swallowed them whole.

The entirety of Dredth's death took all of ten seconds. Nobody moved, frozen in place by the shock of it. A CHAIR had just turned into a demon, eaten a man they had known and worked with for close to fifteen years, and was now idly picking bits of him out of her teeth with a razor-sharp claw as long as a sword. And she had done it so . . . normally. It hadn't even been a meal, just a snack because she was bored. So. Very. Casual.

The demoness wiped the blood splattered over her lower half and chin off, then carefully licked it off of her fingers, long, black, agile tongue seeking out every last tidbit of neko while avoiding the keen edges of her nails. Her half-lidded eyes roamed over the stunned adventurers, giving them all the same hungry, appraising, glazed gaze she had given Dredth, and she licked her bloodstained lips.

"I want more."


Well, there was a reason the mummy referred to the throne as 'she'. The 'throne' isn't a throne at all but a demoness. Big time trouble for the group, and the first serious carnage in the story.

On a side note, care to have a seat?

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

I didn't see that coming well if they where not thinking of running before I wonder if it's gonna cross there minds now? :p
Well there doomed it's been a good read with what looks like a bloody finally. But will the heroes be able to fight a demon time will tell.

Protip : never sit in a demonic-looking throne occupied by an alive and tortured mummy in a twisted temple of horror XD

The story is really quite captivating, it's very well described ^^

Thank you both. More vore and gore and horror in this chapter.

Chapter 5: Escape

"Ahhhhhh. That was a nice nap." the demoness yawned, stretching slowly.

"H-h-h-hol-hol-holy . . ." sputtered Will, the head of his spiked mace moving in little circles from his intense shivering.

"Hmmmmmmn?" she grunted, giving the dridder a bored glance.

"Everybody RUN! To me! Anyn, light as bright as you can get it! Athin and Kiva, keep the mage safe! Ei, grab that mummy if you can! If you can't, leave her! NOW, do it NOW!" he bellowed.

Instinct combined with practice took hold as the group moved in perfect unison, automatically filling their roles at his shout.

The portly mage brought her hands up, lightball flaring so bright it was painful, bathing the whole of the pyramid in blazing blue incandescence. The light caused the demon to gasp, covering her eyes and flinching backward, falling onto her back from her sitting position. The illumination also revealed a scene of horror.

There were twisted bodies and warped skeletons all over the ziggurat, the remains of those who had died trying desperately to claw their way up the slopes in the dark, unable to find the stairs in the blackness but also unable to stop attempting to reach the throne at the top. Clinging by rotting or bone fingers even in death, suspended forever and eternally climbing this horrendous monolith, they were even more distorted than the bodies below. No limbs, too many limbs, eyelids fused together, no eyes, ten eyes, no skin, animal or plant parts, all a whirl of sickening mutations.

The group immediately ran down the stairs, nearly falling several times, descending from the pyramid as fast as they could. Ei snatched up the mummy, shockwaves of adrenaline erasing the pain as the barbed wire cut into her, and flew down the steps faster than she would have thought possible while carrying a metal-wrapped empress.

Everyone was dashing along, trying to keep up and in the enlarged circle of pale light as they shot down the staircase, the task growing more and more difficult as the mage began to tire and her lighball began to shrink. Ei, despite the panic driving her limbs, was falling behind, the mummy and the pain of the spines stabbing into her even through her leather armor slowing her down.

The bound woman, too, was making matters worse. She was squirming like a spider-cocooned insect, blood gushing everywhere and drastically reducing the reliability of Ei's grip on the woman as well as the neko's footing. What was far more disturbing were the sounds the tormented woman was making. They weren't sounds of pain or even discomfort, but of pleasure bordering on ecstasy.

It made the swordswoman want to vomit uncontrollably and sob at the same time. This half-dead empress had been so terribly twisted by the 'throne' that had caused all this that she was actually ENJOYING this agony, held so long in the throes of anguish that the pain had been inverted. It seemed that monstrous demoness "Master" warped everything she touched.

They were nearly to the bottom when the light wavered fitfully for a moment, then went out.

There was a burst of shrieking and cursing from all parties, and the sound of falling. Ei tripped in the blackness, no longer able to see and tumbling down the remaining stairs, thrashing as she slammed into the steps and bounced down them painfully. Red and blue fireworks went off in her head as the back of her skull cracked against the stone floor at the bottom of her fall, and it knocked the wind out of her for a moment.

The clattering chaos in the utter midnight of the underground temple ended a second later, the shouting and din of the team rolling down the steps ended. For a short time the only sound were the groans of hurt and the noise of the people shifting and trying to rise. Finally, a coherent voice emerged from the gloom. It was Will. He had a pained cant to his language, panting and grating his teeth audibly.

"Augh . . . Ah . . . Everybody okay? Head count, but whisper. We don't know if that demoness is coming yet, but you can bet your backside she'll get around to it sooner or later."

"Ei, here."

"Kiva, here."

"Athin, here."

" . . ."

"Anyn? . . . Answer me, Anyn. Where's our mage?"

There was only silence.

"Get the lantern, Kiva. We need to find our mage."

There was the noise of rummaging in a knapsack, and after a moment ruddy light bloomed in the darkness. For a moment everyone had to shield their eyes, having been in the dark for several minutes, but slowly their eyes adjusted. Ei immediately wished they hadn't lit the lantern at all.

Anyn was lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, neck turned at an impossible angle, a thin dagger of splintered bone emerging from a gruesomely bent forearm. Her eyes held no trace of life, that normally quiet, serious gaze empty. That was why the light had been snuffed out; the mage's life had been cut short by an unlucky fall, at just the right angle, that had snapped her neck and broken her arm.

Will, too, had not escaped the tumble unharmed; one of his legs had been twisted badly, a clear fluid dribbling from the second joint in it. He could walk, but he wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. The pain was obvious on his face, pale and sweaty, lips pressed so thin they almost disappeared. He had lost his shield and a pauldron in his fall, but he still had his mace gripped tightly in his hand and the majority of his armor was intact.

Athin and Kiva were settled into tense crouches, bows out and ready, each with an arrow nocked and eyes scanning the impenetrable night all around them. The mummy, having fallen from Ei's grasp in the tripping, was lying off to one side a few feet away, half-in and half-out of the dim light of the lantern. She was lying in a slowly spreading puddle of blood, curling and uncurling. Ei pulled her closer, trying to ignore the empress' pleased noises and keep from pricking her hands on the barbs. Everyone huddled closer to the lantern, afraid of the ravenous dark surrounding them.

"Ugh. Well, now we know who the Master is. That throne. Ah damn, Dredth . . . Anyn. Damn it all." he growled, covering his face with his free hand.

Athin, usually so quiet, spoke up.

"No crying. It hurts, but there will be time to grieve later. We have to get out of this place first."

Ei had been about to let out her sorrow and fear with tears, but she held it in. The archer was right. They had to concentrate on survival first, or they wouldn't live to give the two a proper burial aboveground. That demoness was still out there in the blackness, hidden, probably watching them in the silent darkness, a set of tiny, trembling figures outlined by the weak light of the lantern that would stand out in the inky abyss like a beacon.

"The Master? That throne? What foolishness. She is only the Master's chair, nothing but a favorite seat. Her name is Throne, in fact. Or that is what the Master calls her."

Will's mind strained at its tethers, his sanity nearly knocked out of his skull by the announcement. That demoness wasn't the Master? Who was, then? Who could possibly subjugate a demon like that flesh-eating monstrosity? He decided that it didn't matter; their only concern now was evading the throne-demon and getting out of here in one piece.

"Let's escape while we can. We need to work our way back up to the surface without getting picked off. Stay as close as you can to the light, but make sure not to block it out with your body." Will ordered, taking up the lantern and holding it above his head.

They began to move, slowly because of the dridder knight's injury, trekking back through the sea of dead bodies and rotting skeletons. Though they strained their ears, there was no detectable sound to indicate the demon was following them, no tumbling or thudding sounds of corpses being shifted aside by giant clawed feet, no noises but their own. Will suddenly turned, lantern swinging and the crew scrambling to stay in the disrupted light.

"Ei, leave that mummy."

The neko glared at him, ears going flat and tail lashing.

"I'm not going to. I can at least save one person out of all this." she hissed.

"You're going to get us killed! We can't move as fast as we could with that lady dragging us all down. Look at her. She's a bleeding mess, we can't get her out of that barbed-wire, and she's so screwed up I don't even think she WANTS to be released."

"He's right. I must stay and serve the Master. And the pain feels good, since the Master twisted me so that I could like it. You just have to accept it and think about it the right way."

Ei finally broke and dropped the wrapped, warped woman, going on her hands and knees to sob, unable to hold it in. It wasn't just the words, it was EVERYTHING, this whole situation. The leader was injured, three teammates had been killed in the space of two days, they were in the dark with only a measly little lantern as a light source, a demoness stalking them from the infinite shadow, and still with the mysterious, invisible, and terrible Master somewhere out there in the black void of this hideous temple.

Kiva rubbed her back gently, helping her back up.

"Come. Leave the empress to her own devices."

"I can't. There must be a way to tear that wire off of her and help her. I . . . this is something I have to do." Ei responded.

Will, apparently inspired by her conviction, snorted with a kind of incredulous but amazed acceptance.

"Alright, Ei, you've proven you've got the guts of a real hardcore heroine. Just don't try to hold on and fall behind if that demon woman attacks. 'Cause we WILL leave you behind."

Ei understood.

"You got it, Will. And you'll be eating my dust if that happens." she laughed.


Well, now they've lost their mage and main source of light in this black abyss, plus they've got a demon-chair-lady on their tail, AND they haven't even MET whoever or whatever is responsible for all this. Critiques and comments are appreciated and welcome.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Odds of survival falling into singal digits

I would give you 1000/1 odds on that for there survival

Cool story so far very dark atmosphere despite it being dark the amount if chunks they spew is worrying. Soon they will have to resort to spitting.

Yeah, people tend to vomit quite a bit when in a mass grave of warped bodies and artwork too horrible to be described. I don't think there'll be any more of that, though. May edit a bit of it out.

Edit: fixed

As for the odds of survival, it currently is something very close to zero. And that lantern isn't going to last forever . . .

As it is going, they will be lucky if just one of them survive ^^;

Chapter six. With a demoness on their heels and only a weak lantern for light, the heroes/heroines are in a desperate situation. Oh, and there is carnage and horror here.

Chapter 6: Shadows

They moved as quickly as they could with Will's twisted leg, a fast walk, the dridder hobbling along with a grimace of pain. He held the lantern high, keeping an orb of weak orange light about ten feet across on the team. Their shadows stretched out into the dark, tethering them to that blackness, somehow menacing. They stood out in a ring, spokes in the wheel of light cast by the lantern.

Their own shadows seemed like enemies, betrayers that now had them encircled and beset on all sides by the voracious night that surrounded them. They still greatly feared the dark, both in and of itself and of what it might be concealing from them, what might be lurking in it. The demoness was out there, and whatever monstrous being the "Master" was, almost assuredly watching them, easy to spot by their lantern, in the deep darkness.

They were nearly to the staircase that led into the upper halls when a voice came from somewhere off to their right. They all turned as one, slowing but not halting, trying to determine if the sound was approaching them in the blackness. The lantern swung about as Will twisted to face the source of noise, the group's shadows dancing and flitting about like bats as the light source changed.

It was the demoness' voice, a lazy drawl that contained equal parts sloth and boredom. She sounded sleepy, lethargic, and if they hadn't known the fearful beast behind it, it might have been lulling. As it was, the flaccid murmur was terrifying, doubly so because they could not see her.

"Weeeeeell . . . You all seem to be in a liiiiittle bit of a pickle, eh? That lantern won't last forever, you know. Out of oil, out of light, out of luck, out of life." came the whisper.

It was disturbing to the extreme, the disembodied words drifting out of the abyss with no sign of their owner. Everyone tightened their hands on their weapons, even if they knew it would be nigh unto impossible to fight the demon with raw force. She was too big, and if she rushed them like as not it would be over in moments. They might get lucky, but the chances against them were astronomically high.

The demon continued.

"I'm not happy that you took my source of blood. Or that you kept calling me 'it'. I'm a woman, regardless of how much I change my shape. Give me back Gajahl, and I might play with you rather than eat you all."

"Go to hell." Will snarled.

"I wish I could. I'm not from this world, but I bet its Hell is nice. Sadly, though, there's no such thing as off-time with the Master."

"Why don't you leave us alone. We never did anything to you."

"You took my blood-bank away from me. I have orders, too. 'Stay here, follow my words, and be my seat.' The Master's exact words. And I'll be absolutely dead if I disobey."

Kiva, bow aimed into the dark in the vague direction of the demoness' voice, spoke quietly. She was one of the more cautious of the group, and certainly the most cunning. There had to be a way of persuading this monster to leave them be.

"What can we give you to let us go?"

"The mummy empress and . . . well, normally I would kill you but as I'm feeling bored a nice bit of something entertaining. Maybe if you can get me all aroused or hot under the collar I'll spare you. Talking, sex, or fighting, take your pick. I'll warn you now, I'm not easy to please in any of those categories."

"If we refuse or don't satisfy you?"

"Then this is the end of the road for you all, simple as that." was the spine-chilling response.

The group was no longer moving, and they were silent. Each option for survival had different nuances, different skills, and different consequences. The best speaker among them was Kiva, logical and with great intelligence. In terms of the second choice, the only one with experience in women was Will.

With fighting, it was a tie between Will and Ei. Will was stronger, more armor, and he could use webbing to blind and slow with entanglement. However, he was injured, and Ei was faster than he was even if he had been unimpeded by his wound. She was wickedly accurate and blindingly quick with her rapier, an expert duelist and able to whittle slower opponents down to nothing in short order.

Ei was about to set the tormented empress, Gajahl, down and step forward when Will walked past her, handing Athin the lantern and moving to stand at the edge of the light. They were silent as they realized what he was going to do. He pulled two glow-sticks from his pack and bent them both, sickly green phosphorescence coming forth as he shook the long wands a few times. They were barely enough to illuminate a yard of space around the dridder knight.

"You guys go on. Head up the stairs as fast as you can, get out of this place and head for Negav. I'm best for this job, and without me you'll be that much faster, if you carry the mummy between two people. If I win, I'll meet you back at the gates of Negav. If I don't, then at least I'll have bought you some time. And don't you stop for anything! Even if I'm screaming like a stuck pig behind you, DO. NOT. STOP."

"Will-" Ei began.

"FOR THE LOST QUEEN! SINERIAAAAA!"

Then he was gone, rushing out into the dark with the warcry still echoing through the vast recesses of the dead temple.

Athin and Kiva took the entrapped empress from Ei, wincing at the pricks of barbed-wire but mostly protected by their thick, sturdy leather clothes, and the three took off at a rapid jog, nearly a run. Ei held the lantern high, her free hand on her sword even though this meant the light flailed about wildly as she ran. She thought about looking back, to see the green star in the dark that would show her where that stupid, suicidal, and unbelievably, incredibly brave dridder was. In the end, she didn't take that backwards glance.

* * * * *

Will had grown up in a village in the Dridder Forest, and he had been taught very early on of two things. The first was that Sineria had been the greatest Queen the dridders had ever had or probably ever would have, if the monarchy was reestablished. The second had been that being a great knight, with an unbreakable sense of honor, was the best thing he could achieve in his life.

Now he was living that second part, had been since he was strong enough to bear a mace and armor. He had formed his team, selected each of them because of their skills and sense of duty, and become a dungeon-runner. Fighting off beasts, avoiding traps, questing, all of it for something wholly unrelated to gold or treasure.

That phantom head in Negav had given him this.

'In the warped temple you will find the tomb of the lost ruler.'

He had taken it to mean this place was Sineria's tomb, the goal he had been searching every abandoned castle, labyrinth, and ruin for his whole adult life. It had been why he had become a treasure hunter, but it seemed that it was all for naught. In the end, it hadn't been the Queen's resting place. It had been a horrendous, blasphemous underground terror, a mass grave filled up with evil so great and venomous it hung in the air like a choking toxic fog.

He charged through the dark, angling away from the stairs, towards where he had last heard the demoness speak. He held his mace high in one hand, the glow-sticks high in the other, roaring and beginning to feel the powerful fighting rage build up in him. Many dridders felt this fury when they fought, a strong berserk pulsation that heated the blood to boiling and dulled pain.

The demon was waiting for him, sitting cross-legged and head propped up on an elbow, twin slits of furnace flames shining in the pitch-black void as she watched his valiant charge through half-lidded eyes. A lax smile spread over her face like the red of blood growing on fresh bandages.

"You chose to fight. And alone. I'll commend you for that, even if you're going to be dead soon."

The immense frenzy of battle was revving up to full speed, powering his limbs and incensing him like a shot of adrenaline. None of that mattered, though, when facing something so huge. The demonic lady, stood, her upper half vanishing into the gloom, and swung a foot at him. He avoided the kick, slamming his weapon down on her foot. The mace smashed into the member, spikes digging into the flesh.

She hissed, withdrawing her leg and attempting to gut him with her razor toenails again. He repeated his maneuver, right in the same spot, trying to cause her as much pain as he could. He knew it was futile, that in the end he would be slaughtered, but at least he could go down fighting and having gained even a few seconds of time for his teammates to escape. It would be his redemption for bringing them down here in the first place, leading them into this deathtrap. He would die with honor.

* * * * *

The onyx-skinned shapeshifter was squatting over the remains of the dridder she had torn apart, idly toying with his intestines.

She wondered if she could make something out of them, maybe a bracelet or necklace, but of course they would, as they were innards, rot quickly even in the chill of the temple. She really didn't do things like this, but she was unbelievably bored. She had been sitting here in the dark for millennia, most of the time as a chair, and with absolutely NOTHING to do. Century after century in total darkness, an eternity of listless, mind-numbing ennui.

It was the Master, of course. The Master could sit in her throne form for decades at a time, never even moving, the twisted black cogs of the Master's mind working in silence. She had to stay very still while her Master was thinking, which was rather diff-

"Throne."

The voice was everywhere, nowhere, so loud it was painful and yet as silent as a shadow. It had no gender, neither male nor female, but at the same time it was both, and ageless. No inflection to it at all, not even the vaguest hint of anything resembling emotion. It was animal cries and human screams, leaves rustling in the wind and the imperceptible noise of roots growing through the soil. It was everything and everyone who had ever existed, and it was nothing and nobody.

It was the voice of the abyss, the voice of the Master.

She instantly morphed into the hellish throne when (he,she,it,they,we,you) spoke. It had become a reflex to (he,she,it,they,we,you)'s presence, an ingrained reaction. She felt the Master sit down, and nearly died from the intense, overwhelming feeling that hit her. She was more sensitive to touch when she changed shape, making every contact a caress. An ordinary person sitting in her produced a pleasant feeling akin to a massage.

The Master was another thing altogether.

It felt like the whole of existence had just placed itself in her lap, and it was so alien a sensation it was agonizing. It felt like she was going to be utterly destroyed, an infinity of people and animals and plants and objects and innumerable things right there. It hurt so much it felt good, and felt so good it hurt. The throne shuddered in the dark, the red serpent's eyes high on the chair's back rolled up in the sockets.

"What form should I take, Throne?"

"Stay . . . this." was all she could manage, caught between death and life.

"You will go mad."

"Nek . . . o." she groaned, at the edge of insanity.

Suddenly the intersection of agony and ecstasy was gone, and she regained herself. Now there was only a single entity sitting on her, her demon's eyes tracing the outline of a neko in the gloom. She couldn't tell the colors of the ears, tail, hair or bare skin, but she could tell from the nude figure that the Master had chosen a female form, a shapely body with long hair that reached down to her back in a straight, smooth cascade.

The demon wasn't fooled. The Master could turn into anything, and was female, a woman, only for now. She could be a man an instant later, or a hermaphrodite, or wholly asexual, anything. The Master was every gender, some that didn't even exist, and no gender. Only her form determined the reality. Now, she could be called 'the Mistress' or 'her', but one blink and it could be 'him' or 'it', or even 'they'.

"You left your place on the pyramid."

"You gave no orders to stay there."

"I did not give you orders to move."

"Forgive my insolence." she apologized pleadingly, a whine like a beaten animal to her tone.

She was terrified of the neko in her seat, deathly afraid and completely obedient. She had been free, once, a long time ago, but then she had found this chamber while digging through the earth in the shape of a demon worm. The Master had presented herself as a child, a little girl, and ordered the demoness to make a pyramid and artwork for her. Called Quole then, the shapeshifting demoness had laughed and tried to kill the child.

She had ended a broken, beaten, half-dead heap on the cold cave floor, bleeding ichor all over. Then she had been tortured, tormented, twisted, inverted, and had finally submitted. She could not defy this monstrous being.

"I do not forgive."

"Please." she begged, but she knew it would do nothing; the Master felt no pity, no mercy, no emotion even remotely human.

"It is irrelevant that you ask pardon. My other slave has been taken. Go and bring her back."

"And the others?"

"Not needed."

With that, the neko got up, and the demon went off in search of the empress.



We get an insight to the demoness, Quole, and why she's hanging out in such a dismal place. A first glimpse of the terrible Master, as well. Critique as you like, ect.

Felarya is Karbo's

Not sure who Sineria belongs to, but credits to them.

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

That's cool, The master sounds infinite and ancient. But still a child.

The hole business with the master brings up flashbacks to "manos the hands of fate". Lol

Cool story so far, tons of gore. Should think about writing a Doom novel XP

It's really such a diferent tone than what you usually write. it's captivating, really dark but not overly done ^^
I really loved you decription of the demoness'sensation of the master and the redemption of that brave Will..

Thanks for the praise, you two.

Now for chapter seven. Quole is on the group's trail, and who knows what the Master is up to. There is vore references and gore here, so avoid if you actively dislike it. Constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated.

Chapter 7: Bell

They were rushing through the upper halls now, moving as quickly as was possible while carrying the wrapped Gajahl. They tired, of course, even with the adrenaline pumping through them, but at no point did they stop.

They alternated between running and a rapid walk, catching their breath and switching off with their passenger, Ei and Kiva, then Kiva and Athin, then Ei and Athin, a rotation to make sure someone each turn was able to regain the strength in their arms.

The three wished, several times, that Dredth was still alive and with them, there with his helpful smile and an energizing potion to urge them onward. They wished for Anyn to be here, lightball bright and face thoughtful, calming them. They wished for Xa'nin with her slightly haughty but gracious demeanor, her double pistols with explosive rounds ready for anything. They wished for Will, the iron wall that had defended them until the very last. They wished for everyone to come back.

Athin directed them through the maze of halls and stairways, innumerable turns and steps, glancing at her map now and then but mostly operating on her incredible photographic memory. It was part of the reason she was so good with traps, able to remember all the schematics for each type with ease. It was a saving grace to have her in this labyrinth.

Soon they were only a mile down, then half a mile, then a quarter, nearly to what was indicated as an exit on the map. It wasn't the one they had come in through, but at this point it was the closest and that was what they needed.

Gajahl, as they rose through the levels of the old palace, became more and more frustrating to them. She was still making those noises of enjoyment, bleeding from within that bind of barbed-wire, but now she was also talking. The words were disturbing.

"Throne will be coming for you now. The Master will have told her to come get me and kill you all. Perhaps the Master will make you into . . . ART"

That last word had a tone of reverence, and excitement. It was like she had said "you will be happy forever" with absolute sincerity, melodious voice soft and awed.

"Art? . . ." Ei muttered to herself, frightened of what that might mean but curi-

(Twisted bodies in the dark, molded into horrendous shapes not seen in nature)

"Oh . . . %*^&. We need to go faster!"

The voice that came out of the blackness behind them was in agreement.

"Oh, you very much need to go faster. Although I'd rather you slow down so I don't have to spend energy following you. I'm just lazy like that. AND I'm starving. That neko man, mage, and dridder were barely even an appetizer."

"Leave us alone! Go away and crawl back into whatever disgusting hole you came out of!" Ei snarled, blade at the ready.

The were still pushing forward, no caution anymore. There was no more room for caution. They couldn't fight the demoness, and their only thought was to get out of here, out of the dark and into the fresh air, the sunlight. There, at least, they would be able to see, even if the demonic woman followed them into the light, they would have a chance.

Kiva and Athin would be able to finally put their bows to good use once they had a visible target, and the arrows they carried were barbed as well as highly poisonous. A single scratch was enough to make a human deathly ill, and four or five darts into the demon, unless she was immune to Spine Beetle toxin, would put her down within a few minutes.

There was no guarantee they would live through an aboveground fight, but here in the dark, in the monster's home, they had no chance at all.

Suddenly the large tunnel they had been running down opened up, the stone-block walls falling away as they reached some kind of large chamber. They rushed onward, not daring to stop with the demon hot on their heels. She didn't seem like she was going to immediately attack them, for some unknown reason, but they were sure that lull would only last so long.

"THIS IS IT! This is the main entrance hall, the old cathedral!" Athin cried out, joy in her words.

They ran to where the doors were, a blazing star in each heart, waves of light moving through them as their hope grew and grew. They might die in the end, but they would die in the open air, under the bright, beautiful sun. Ei could already feel the warm, humid jungle air, the gentle breeze, the warmth of the sun on her skin and cherry pelt. They were going to make it!

They reached the exit . . . and all gave voice to the most completely hopeless, utterly devastated cries of distress this place had ever heard.

The door was there, a set of double doors made of worn granite, creepers partially hiding the intricate designs carved into the stone. They had a pair of large iron rings that served as handles and knockers both; this was a newer section of the palace, from Gajahl's people, who had iron, and not the lower, far more ancient portion below that had been carved long before metal had ever been discovered. This part was much more wholesome, the chilling, vile miasma of the deranged temple not here, the air fresher and the stonework more advanced.

Not a bit of this mattered, because the doors were fifty feet tall and probably weighed well over a hundred tons.

They heard the demon chuckle behind them.

"Whoops."

"NO!" Ei screamed, dropping the mummy and hurling herself against the unyielding stone of the doors.

It was over, all of it. The lantern was nearly out, barely bright enough to show the seam of the door's meeting, illuminating only five feet with a weak pumpkin light. Another minute and the oil would be all gone, and they would be left, trapped, in the gloom. It was not completely dark here, a tiny bit of ambient light from the occasional crack in the stone walls, but it was still too dark to see anything but vague outlines of objects, and only for about ten feet.

Kiva sat down, a hand rising to cover her face, and gave a long, resigned sigh. She was going to die, and there was nothing she could do about it. Athin, breaking from her usual quiet, sobbed in the dark, and her sister held her gently as she cried. Kiva rubbed her back soothingly, and closed her eyes. She could go with her family in her arms, at least, and able to comfort each other to the last.

The lantern's light, their hope, faded, and at last was extinguished.

* * * * *

Quole, or, as she was known now as 'Throne', waited until the lantern had been dark for a few minutes before she moved in closer, steps nearly silent despite her size. It had been amusing to watch them run, tiny things scurrying in the dark blindly to escape her, only to be halted in the end. Now it was time to devour them, and return to her Master with Gajahl in hand.

She spoke to them in the dark, now able to clearly see them with the minute amount of light, and able to tell colors now as well. She slid by them, teasing them with what she knew would be, to their weak mortal eyes, nothing but a breif glimpse of a huge obsidian shadow, a darker form in the deep shadows.

"You all seem to have rotten luck, don't you? You picked the wrong temple, the wrong thing to take away with you, wrong chair to sit in, wrong exit to go for. You lost your mage by a freak accident, even, just bad luck all over. Fortune's a real jerk sometimes, isn't she?"

The only response was crying from one of the women embracing each other, silence from her sibling, and panting snarls from the neko still pounding desperately at the doors.

It was futile. It took close to thirty humans working in tandem to open even one of of the double doors. Quole could shove them open, but even she, as huge as she was, had to strain to do so. A lone person of human strength had absolutely no hope.

"So, how do we do this? You can pick how you want to go. Chewing, or not. Fast, or nice and slow. Maybe a little fun beforehand? I'll let you decide. I'm not really cruel. I just get soooo bored that I have to screw around with my food to keep my brains from turning to mush. So, who's first? Volunteers? Aaaanybody?"

"Go screw yourself!" the neko hissed.

Well, I got bored of doing that a long time ago. Couple hundred years and even THAT isn't much fun anymore."

"You're a sick, sick, SICK monster."

"I feel quite healthy, actually. Now then. Who should I have first, and who'll be dessert?" she mocked.

* * * * *

Ei drew her sword, and turned to the voice of the demon. If she was going to die anyway, she would inflict as much injury as she could before going down.

"I'll take every bit of you I can cut off with me, you monster."

"Well, go ahead and try, but I'll tell you now that even if you get me all excited I'm not going to spare you. Master's orders, unfortunately for you."

Kiva and Athin, alarmed at this sudden turn of events, stood up and grabbed the neko, just before the swordswoman attempted to charge the demoness. They pleaded with her not to do anything foolish, and held her back as she roared at the demon hidden somewhere in the gloom. The neko calmed after a few minutes at their quiet, whispered begging, and the three huddled together to decide their fates.

Quole waited patiently, twiddling her thumbs carefully to avoid cutting herself on her nails, until they finally stood and faced in her general direction to speak to her.

"I want to go fast, and chew. I don't wish to feel the pain of burning alive in stomach acid." Athin announced, looking decidedly ill but holding firm.

"Slow, and please don't chew. I'd rather hold on as long as I can." Kiva said.

Ei took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. Then she looked up and resolutely faced her demise, ready for it. She would go down, but at least she got to pick the method.

"A 'little fun' first, then swallowing slowly. If I'm going to die, I can at least enjoy it as much as is poss- FOR THOSE WE HAVE LOST! FORWAAAARD!"

The demon's red eyes went wide as the neko rushed her, taking out a lit glow-stick as she ran. There was no technique to it, no strategy, nothing but a blind charge full of senseless, completely unadulterated fury. It was just like with the dridder, a nearly identical scenario right down to the similar battlecry. It was as asinine as a mouse attacking a bear head-on, full of violence and speed and raw aggression.

Quole simply leaned over and picked the woman up, trapping her arms so that the neko couldn't stab or slash at her fingers as she was lifted. The demoness brought her close to her face, casting a greenish glow over her visage, and smiled at the struggling, cursing neko in her fist with the horrific, ragged-toothed grin of a shark.

"Well, that wasn't very smart of you." the demon chuckled.

"I could say the same."

An instant later a pair of barbed arrows went into Quole's eyes simultaneously, right into those lurid scarlet pupils that so resembled a snake's.

The shapeshifter instantly dropped the neko with a scream of pain. The cat-woman twisted with all the natural grace of her people and landed on her feet, rolling to take the impact more easily. There was a grinding pop as her left ankle was dislocated from the distance of her fall, but it was a small price to pay for life. Their plan had worked perfectly. With Ei providing the light on the demon's face and a distraction, the two archers had been able to pinpoint the demon and put out her eyes with their impeccable sharpshooting skills.

The demoness had her hands clapped to her ruined eyes, howling and thrashing around the cathedral, slamming up against the walls and door in her agony. She had not been altered by the Master, as Gajahl had, to be able to enjoy great pain of this nature, and these arrows not only hurt in themselves but also burned in a different way. Tearing anguish was spreading across her face, some kind of poison.

She blindly kicked about, stomping around the cathedral in hopes of crushing the puny, vicious little creatures that had done this to her. She couldn't see, and they dodged around the room to avoid her, able to track her motions by the roars of pain and noise. She shattered many of the stone pews in the hall, scattering shards of rock and benches everywhere in her sightless fury.

At last, in agony from the poison and exhasted, she grabbed onto the great iron bell that hung at the front of this place, right behind the altar of some long-forgotten god. She thought to rip the thing from its chains and heave it into the hall in an attempt to crush at least one of the adventurers, but she could not.

It was nearly as big as her, huge and simple and heavy, and she did not have the strength, in her dying state, to tear it down, much less throw it. She slid halfway down, still clinging to the huge bell. There was also the fact that she might accidentally kill that tormented empress, and she didn't want that. Not only would that be disobeying the Master's orders, but she liked the woman.

The mummy had been her only friend down there in the dark, the only one to talk to. She was a very kind person, and pleasant. She did not bear ill-will toward the demoness, never had, and been very good company. She sat in the demon's throne form when the Master no longer needed to think, and kept her damp with blood without a single protest. She had been a quiet blessing in the solitude of the abyss, and Quole regretted having to leave her all alone.

She slumped down even farther, pushing the bell back with the weight of her massive body, the venom already taking effect. They had gone right into her eyes, those arrows, and the toxin was going straight to her brain from there. Death crept up on her, sensation fading, all the tension going out of her as her grip on the support of the bell loosened.

Finally, she slid to the ground, and released the iron watchman of the cathedral.

The bell tolled as she died.

* * * * *

Ei heard the bell ringing in the dark, a deep-throated sound that reverberated and echoed through the hall. It was so powerful a tone that it shook her ribs in her chest, and she felt it pulsing through the floor. They had done it. The demon was dead.

More than that, in her death-throes the monstrous shapeshifter had knocked the doors half-open, letting in a great shaft of sunlight.

They all took a deep breath, staring into the blazing sun even if it was blinding and burned after their time in the dark, taking in the wondrous clean air and the smells of the outside. Loamy jungle soil, richly earthy, vegetation, humid warmth, all of it bright and incredible after their ordeal. They saw the giant trees outside, swathed in the green and brown of leaves and vines, the worn cobblestones, half-sunk in the ground and covered in moss, that made up a long-ago road to this place, and the wonderful blue sky up above it all.

They now cried for their companions that had not come up through the dark journey to share this moment of triumph with them. Will, Anyn, Dredth, Xa'nin, tears for all of them dripping to the cool stone floor of the cathedral. But they had survived, and they were still alive to keep going and carry those lost four with them in memory.

They stepped forward into the sun as one.



Well, there we are. Three (four if you count Gajahl) got out of it alive.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

This was the most unique short storie I have read, very dark not knowing where the next step would lead. As always meticulous quality in the writing. Nothing came out rushed or half assed, got to know the plite of everyone involved. Even felt happy for the shape changer finally getting to escape eternal torment.

"May you walk where no shadows fall. In all the dark places you must walk."

Mhh epic escape here
but I doubt it's finished XD

Another story. A rumor I put up wound up growing into a whole tale, so here it is. Has extremely minor references to vore.

Everyone's Cup of Tea Café

That was what it said above the door, the letters swooping and elegant, carved into the wood of the oak sign. There was a teacup, beautifully rendered right down to the barely-visible wisps of steam rising from its contents, also carved there, just below the letters.

The building itself was rather quaint, a one-story Victorian affair that modeled the old coffeehouses of that era, stone shingles and brick combined with wood. There was a small flower garden on either side of the mahogany door, full of unusual and large blossoms that looked and smelled lovely. Behind the small restaurant was an orchard with several types of fruit tree, both small and massive, separated from the huge jungle trees by a tall fence.

It was in a sort of sparser area of trees, less vegetation here than elsewhere, and only a dozen miles from the Negav-Nekomura road's northern curve. One side was up against the gleaming waters of the Shard River's southern bank, a long dock extending out into the blue expanse for aquatic customers.

The café, in fact, looked quite normal, other than being out in a primordial forest. At least, until one approached it. The café was sized for people as big as office buildings, the top of the doorframe some hundred and twenty feet up, absolutely enormous. The polished brass doorknob was nearly as big as a boulder, probably twelve meters above the ground. A human would have no way to open the door.

Not that a human would need to; there was another, regular-sized door right beside the large one, and another for tinies beside that one, the smallest barely ten inches tall with a doorknob no larger than the head of a pin. Once one opened any of these doors, the inside of the eatery presented itself.

It was just as pleasant inside as outside, smooth, well-polished wood floors and tables, cushioned chairs of a variety of styles and shapes to suit the anatomy of any species of patron. Large windows, three of them set in various areas, let in quiet, warm sunlight, blueish curtains made of some kind of silk pulled back to allow in the sunshine.

Everything was made with the customer variety in mind, a raised area with steps leading up to the plateau for human-sized folk, and another, even smaller one for tinies. That wasn't to say the place was segregated for size, however, this merely a precaution to ensure no one got stepped on by accident. Anybody could sit anywhere they liked, although they would have to request to do so and have the help of one of the staff to accomplish it.

The sheer range of species and sizes here was incredible, giant predators and smaller folk, tinies, anything race-wise from humans to dridders. Regardless of size or type, anybody who could obey the house rules was welcome. Of course, there were some who just couldn't.

"Do you serve nekos?" asked the giant naga, a younger female with dark hair and grey eyes.

The waiter shook his head. A giant, he was dressed smartly in a professional's red vest, black thread-bowtie, white undershirt, and black pants, all of it made of dridder silk. He had a thick beard, slightly grey from his travels outside Felarya, and droopy, dark eyes.

"We don't, Miss. As customers, yes, but not as food. You can ask the cook for a live meal, but sentients aren't on the menu. Animals, fruit, beverages, dessert. Cooked or raw as you like."

The snake-woman looked disappointed, but she didn't push the matter, instead going for a roasted duiker and water. She hadn't ever had anything cooked before, but it was neat to experiment, after all. The giant wrote it down on his notepad, then went over to a small window that opened in the wall to the kitchen. He told the order to the giant hydranaga chef (or was it chefs?), and then turned as a bell rang. He went out a side door, to the docks; the bell was attached to a string hanging in the river for any water-going patrons to pull.

On the raised platform for human-sized (or slightly larger/smaller) folk, the small gekkota waitress was taking someone else's order.

"Right-o, four pieces of chef's specialty pie, two teas, coming up!"

She then yelled the order into a large metal bell set in the wall, a system of tubes taking her words to the kitchen area run by the human chef who dealt with normal-sized dishes. The tomthumb waiter had a similar system to deliver messages.

Amazingly enough, no one was eating each other. In fact, several customers had deigned to dine with larger folk that would normally be their predators. There was a neera having a heated argument with a neko sorceress over the nature of magic artifacts, and a fairy had dwindled down to human proportions to speak with a smaller naga about gardening.

It was partly an enchantment, one that reduced (though did not eliminate) the urge to eat sentients, and another was the giant dridder proprietress watching it all from a dridder-adjusted stool in one corner. Nobody wanted to upset HER. She was a mage, a good one, and she didn't take kindly to customers attempting to eat other patrons in her place of business. She was the one who had made the rules tacked up beside each of the entrances, and scattered here and there on the walls of the room.

" One - No fighting or manhandling other customers
Two - Please request to be seated in larger-scale or smaller-scale areas by a member of our staff
Three - Special orders can be submitted to your waiter
Four - No eating other customers, or attempting to take them outside to eat
Five - Bringing in outside food, sentient or otherwise, as well as drinks, is prohibited
Anyone in violation of these house rules will be removed from the café immediately"

It was quite peaceful as a result, and the overall mood was one of rather pleasant calm. Just another day at Everyone's Cup of Tea.



Just a quirky idea I got. Feel free to comment.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Lol combining a tea house with a very foreign coffee shop XP

I like it sounds like a great plot device :p

ohh I really liked the hydranaga chef idea ! XD

Thank you two. May expand on this idea later, but I don't have the characters all mapped out yet.