General Stories

Well, decided to write a general story on the scientist who ran into Calimn earlier. Minor references to vore.

New World, New View

Dr. Wilson couldn’t believe her eyes.

Since escaping that gigantic mermaid by the skin of her teeth, she had motored down the river, been picked up by a passing ship, and was now disembarking from the Motamo River.

Initially, she had been too astounded by the great predator to realize she had been sucked right out of River X-153 by a warp and portaled to a new world, but now she saw how very different Felarya was. A long discussion with the captain of the ship, Ralm, had given her the basic idea of what this mysterious and incredibly dangerous world entailed.

Felarya, as it was called, seemed to be a massive, untamed place, almost all of it wilderness. Cities were rare, mostly huge metropolises with powerful defenses or arcane deterrents to keep away the dangerous beasts that roamed these lands. The majority of the population of sentient beings lived in these cities, with very few settlements outside of them due to the hazards of the world. Only those villages that had ideal placement, luck, and hardy inhabitants could manage in this supremely lethal world.

Felarya was so dangerous, in fact, that it had become something of a grim joke to those who knew of it. “Ten minutes in Felarya” was a term meaning “a death sentence” to many. The whole place was filled up with deadly things. There were, from what she had heard so far, carnivorous plants large enough to eat whales, poisonous plants, venomous beasts, ancient demons and ghosts, crumbling ruins full of traps and pitfalls, massive monsters, dimensional instabilities, time-warps, bandits and thugs, killer fairies, and, most dangerous of all, the giant predators.

The giant predators were not only the size of large buildings, they also were intelligent on the same level as humans. Like nearly all things here, they ATE other sentient creatures. It was a horrendous concept, but they did so on a fairly regular basis. Not only that, the general run of these colossi swallowed them whole and still very much alive. EVERYTHING that was capable of doing so seemed to feed in this manner, making for a world not only lethal to the extreme, but also the horror of a slow, conscious death.

Despite this, many people came to this deadly wilderness willingly, and folk still left the safety of their city walls to explore the vast wilds, tangled jungles, looming mountains, sweeping plains and frost-encrusted tundra, blazing deserts and endless crystal oceans. They came for many different reasons, be it wealth, adventure, fame, or some ideal, but all of them came for Felarya.

It was an incredible, absolutely amazing world. It held a kind of sublime awe, terrible and beautiful at once, an existence that seemed to be impossible, fantastical, and yet completely “there”. The atmosphere was strange here, ethereal, and magical. The air, water, earth, everything seemed to pulse and vibrate with a peculiar energy, an arcane, vital aura that was practically tangible.

Development, here, was practically non-existent. This land was the peak of nature, unspoiled but for the miniscule dots of the cities. In this world, one might walk a thousand miles and never see so much as a single house. It was old, unbelievably old, and you could feel that ancientness pervading the land, a sense of the archaic, millennia innumerable weighing on every atom.

Things were larger and wilder here, great beasts and massive trees, sprawling ruins and giants roaming the land. Magic, long impressed upon her as not existing and never having existed, was everywhere. There were mages in this place, and many creatures used magic. This was a fantasy world, full of the immaterial and the intangible, sprites and giants, sorcery and spellcraft, the arcane.

Yet, there was science, her former god, as well. High-tech items were rare, but it existed. People carried guns, used radios, knew chemistry, machinery. It was mostly in the cities, and not common, but it was there, and was used. Science and magic, existing in one place, a curious crossing that seemed to work, somehow. Truly, this was the crossroads of dimensions.

This was Felarya.

Dr. Wilson stepped off the gangway, onto the wooden docks, and simply stood there, staring the new world chance had thrown her into.

Ralm stepped up beside her, patting her shoulder.

“Well, welcome to the Motamo Docks. Not a whole lotta trade comes through here, but some does. Not far to Negav from here, just south a bit. Watch yourself, though. Just cause this is inside the Eye’s range, it ain’t safe. Thugs, yeah, but keep your eyes on those nonhuman folks. Nekos are fine, elves, sure, but you stay on your toes close to anything what that’s gotta lower half like an animal.” he warned.

With that, he went back up the gangway, pulled it up onto his ship behind him, and the vessel set sail.

Dr. Wilson was a bit disoriented by the activity going on. Her own world, Planet X-001, had people working, but much of it was scientific research taking place indoors. It simply didn’t have this amount of physical movement and effort. There were folk heaving barrels up onto gangways and into boats, carrying crates and packages containing who-knew-what, bartering, buying, selling, arguing, everyone going everywhere.

The place seemed to be a sort of village, wood and stone buildings, dirt streets, the docks a part of it, some houses even set up ON the piers, set up on stilts and attached to the docks by short wooden bridges. It seemed fairly lively, but also a bit primitive, to her, with people wearing older-styled clothes, leather, some in modern clothes but not many. Curiously, a few residents went nude, though this was almost entirely limited to the tauric folk.

It didn’t look as if the captain’s advice was going to help much, here. The majority of the inhabitants seemed to be tauric or at the very least inhuman in appearance. There were people with the chitinous lower half like that of spiders, a few with those of some kind of centipede. Several that she could see had a serpent’s tail from the waist down, perfectly human from the waist up. There were what looked like humanoids with feline or canine ears and tails, normal humans few and looking rather out of place in this mass of strange creatures.

She didn’t really know what to think of this. Humans were the only sentient beings that lived in her world, so the sudden jolt of this was quite jarring. Though she had been torn free of her brainwashing, she was still a scientist, and she wanted to question everyone in sight over their culture, biology, and so forth. Were she still caught in that lifelong hypnosis of logic and science, her scalpel hand would have been itching like mad, urging her to call up a Gravitater and get to work on dissection.

Mixed with that excitement at all this, however, was also a dose of anxiety so great it was nearly nauseating. She was in a different world, a dangerous one, with no viable way to get home. She also felt supremely self-conscious. She was standing here in a crowd of milling non-humans, and sticking out like the proverbial priest (all of whom had been detained in psychosis hospitals in her own world) in a laboratory.

“Ah, excuse me?” she tried, attempting to get the attention of someone who she could ask for directions.

No one seemed to be interested in listening to her, and most likely couldn’t even hear her over the sounds of people talking, the creak of ships’ boards, the tumult of the Motamo docks. She began to feel very lost in the middle of all this, confused, overwhelmed. The voice that came after several minutes actually made her jump.

“Miss, could you help me?!”

She turned around, looking, but saw no one who was looking back at her. Someone invisible? The possibility didn’t seem so impossible, in this strange place.

“No, down here.”

Dr. Wilson looked down, and discovered a boy . . . of a sort.

The scientist wasn’t sure what to make of this, not sure at all. The boy was no more than seven, a naga with scales the color of cherries that faded to autumn-yellow at the edges, scruffy hair going in a reddish wave that reached to his shoulders. He was wearing a shirt, ripped and more holes than actual shirt, a plain one with short sleeves that matched the yellow that colored the tip of his tail. He stared up at the doctor with wide green eyes.

Dr. Wilson bent down instinctively to the child’s level.

“Yes, do you need something?”

The voice came again, but it didn’t come from the naga boy. It came from the small creature clutched in his hand.

A woman, but tiny, barely four inches tall. The being, besides the fact that she was doll-sized, had mouse-like features, large rounded ears and whiskers, beady eyes, and a whipcord tail that was lashing about from where it emerged from between the naga’s middle and ring fingers. Possessed of dark hair and eyes, the neera was wearing nothing that Wensil could see. She was squirming about in the naga’s fist, trying to escape but unable to do so. Then the tiny woman looked up at Dr. Wilson.

“Hey, please help me! I don’t want to get eaten!”

“Oh, of course, I’m sorry! Could you let go of that lady?” the scientist asked the boy.

He shook his head, hard, and instantly voiced his refusal.

“NO! I have to feed my mother, she’s hurt. Go get your own neera.” he said, turning aside to slither around the scientist.

Not sure what to do, Wensil grabbed the child’s tail, holding him back. The effect was immediate and the response violent. The boy started thrashing and yelling, demanding in a shrill voice that she let go of his tail. He even tried to turn back and punch at her with his free hand, and bite with small fangs.

Obviously, it made for quite a commotion, and quite a few people stopped to stare. Several looked decidedly displeased, perhaps going so far as hostile. Dr. Wilson didn’t like those glares, not at all. She was already stuck in an unfamiliar environment, lost, no idea what to do next, and what she very much did not need right now was to get into a bad altercation with a crowd of locals.

“Listen, jus-just listen to me. I . . . uh, I’m a doctor, I’ll examine your mother if you’ll just give me the mouse-woman.”

Well, that quieted the boy in short order. He stopped struggling, and the scientist cautiously let go of the boy’s serpentine lower half. The people who had been staring now began to lose interest; the child didn’t seem to be in any major trouble, and they had work to do. By the time the naga and woman had talked the problem out, things had returned to the usual bustle. The boy took the doctor by the hand, then led her out onto one of the docks, to a house sitting there on stilts.

It was a rickety shack, held together with little more than mud plaster, a few wayward nails, and inertia. The wood was splintery and smelled musty; it was a miracle the place hadn’t fallen down yet. Only a ragged blanket stood in place of a door, tacked up with a pair of nails. Dr. Wilson ducked inside behind the naga child, pushing aside the blanket.

The interior was nearly as bad as the outside, nothing but a legless table propped up with pieces of driftwood, a handmade shelf with a few books, and a cot in which laid the boy’s mother.

Dr. Wilson took a sharp breath through her nose, and regretted telling the boy she would examine his parent.

The naga was beyond any aid Wensil could offer. She was sitting up, blankets pulled aside, and unclothed. This let the scientist see the whole of the immense amount of punishment this poor woman had received over the course of her life. She couldn’t be helped, not at this point, not by normal means.

She had lost both arms, one at the elbow, the other right up to the shoulder joint. She had been removed of an eye as well, a patch of heavy scarring around the empty socket that had formerly hosted her right eye. The other was still intact, a soft shade of grey-green, and centered on her guest. It was barely visible through the curtain of russet hair that hung down to her shoulders. A fire had been the vehicle of her injury, the scars with the telltale white pattering of severe burns.

“Ah, a guest? Who would this be, Cue?” asked the red-scaled naga woman.

“Mom, this is a doctor. She said she’ll fix you!” the boy responded, snaking over to his parent to hug her.

She squeezed him back gently, then sent him out of the hut, leaving only herself, the scientist, and the neera now in her hand in the shack.

“I have to apologize. My name is Til. My boy has been looking for a way to reverse THIS,” she explained, gesturing at her old wounds, “ever since I was caught in a forest fire. Obviously nothing short of powerful magic or something similar could heal me, but no matter how I tell him, he refuses to believe I can’t be fixed. A year and a half, but he’s still trying, the dear.”

“Ah, no, I’m sorry. I promised to examine you if he let the neera g-“

“My name’s Emine.” Interrupted the mouse-like being.

“- Emine, go. But, frankly, there’s nothing I could do about something like this.” the doctor apologized.

The naga shook her head with a soft laugh.

“I wouldn’t expect you to be able to. As for Ms. Emine, she’s free to go with you if she wants. I honestly don’t eat tinies anymore. It’s not satisfying if I can’t hunt myself. I have a chunk gone from the tip of my tail, so I can’t even use that to grab small things with. Cue keeps bringing them to me, thinking I’ll get better if I eat enough, but of course that won’t do anything. Here.”

Dr. Wilson took the neera as the snake-woman handed the tiny over, exceedingly careful not to hurt the miniature being by gripping too tightly. The naga just smiled at her stuttered thanks, then shooed her off. The two left, the boy looking back at them as he slithered back inside the hut at his mother’s call, and Emine was the first to speak.

“Wheeeew, that was close. You saved my skin back there, lady. Thanks.”

“Oh, uh, yes, you’re welcome . . . do you think that woman and her child will be alright?”

“Wha? I guess so. They’ve gone this long fine. What’re you worried about them for? Worry about YOU. You’re not exactly in the best place in world to look like a lost tourist. Felarya is a rough place.”

“Ah, yes, I need some help with that. Can you tell me how to get to Negav? I just warped into this Felarya place, in the Jewel River, and I’ve been here only a few weeks. I basically popped up, got caught by a giant mermaid, let go for a CD player, picked up, sailed down into the Topazial Sea and came up this river.”

“Let go for . . . ? You’re a lucky, luuuucky human. Getting caught by a pred means you’re something like ninety-five percent going to be eaten. Read that in a brochure once. Turn here.”

Dr. Wilson obeyed the neera’s order, going down a side street. The path rapidly narrowed, ending in a bottleneck alley with no apparent way forward. A dead end.

“Put me down for a minute, will you? I want to check something.” requested the mouse-woman.

Once on the ground, she scurried over to an off-color brick in one of the walls, flush to the dirt. She tapped on the brick, four times in rapid succession, then put one large ear against the stone. After a moment of listening, she knocked one time more. It was then, to the doctor’s astonishment, that the brick was pushed out and sideways, revealing a small hole just large enough for three or four tinies to get through at once, a slight orange glow of lantern light shining softly out of it.

A voice came from the aperture, a whisper so low the scientist could barely hear it.

“Password?”

“Say no to nekos.” Emine replied.

“Right. Come on in, Emine.”

“Alright. Miss, you stay here until I get back.”

The neera vanished into the hole, after which the brick was pulled back into place. Dr. Wilson, now alone again, crouched in an alley, wondered what in the world could be going on.



First part of (however many I get ideas for parts) concerning Dr. Wilson and Emine. Curious things are going on.

Felarya is Karbo’s

Motamo Docks are credited to Jaette-Troll

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

great chapter ! Mrs Wilson is a really interesting character that offer an unusual point of view
I'm curious what will happens next XP

Thank you. Dr. Wilson is a bit of a step out of my normal zone, as most of the people I show the perspective of either know when they are in Felarya and immediately accept it, or have no clue but still accept it (or get eaten).

Part 2: Tiny Problems

Emine stood, arms crossed, as the brick entryway was closed behind her. The room she stood in was large for someone her size, nearly a foot high, two meters wide, and close to two meters lengthwise. A good thing, because several dozen tinies of various species were assembled inside, standing or sitting down in small chairs composed of twigs and twine. One of those seated turned around in his chair to look back at her.

She groaned inwardly; just her luck that Alren was here.

A tomthumb man with almost an inch over anyone else here, his bleached-white hair, accented with red and green tips, made him stand out of the crowd around the podium like a lit match in the dark. His eyes, unlike his hair, remained their natural shade of icy blue. This outrageous look was furthered by his clothes; a heavy green overcoat, reaching nearly to his knees, jeans, and a red -a damn BRIGHT RED- t-shirt with the words "I can't hear you over my coolness" emblazoned on it. He looked like an idiot, no two ways about it, even wearing an earring with a fang of some kind dangling from it.

Two items of his outfit did not match the overall stupidity of what he was wearing; his boots and his gloves. The boots were actually made of practical leather, and had set of strange symbols carved into the back of the heel. His gloves were of the fingerless variety, but with padding and a set of vicious spikes on the knuckles. Anyone hit with them would certainly feel it. These protectives, too, had symbols etched into the leather.

"Well, hey Emine. 'Bout time you showed up. And you're naked." he finished, grinning.

"Shut up, Al. I got friggin' mobbed by preds on the way here. A neko stripped me, but luckily a guy stepped in. Not five minutes later I get caught by a naga kid, but I got saved again. So I'm not in the mood for your crap."

The tomthumb leaned back in his chair, a quick laugh escaping him. Emine wanted to kick the seat right out from under him, but decided instead to yank his coat off and cover up with it. When he protested with a "Aw, come on, that's my jacket.", she gave him a punch in the arm. He whined "ow, jeez", but she wasn't fooled; her hand was aching from hitting muscle so well-kept it felt like hard rubber.

"Ssssooooo. When's the meeting start? I came all the way from Negav to be here, and I've got stuff to do, ya know?"

"I'm sure hitting on every girl you think is hot can wait. You never come to half these meetings anyway."

"It's a long way from Negav, Emine. Although it's nice to be able to talk to chicks on the way here. Did I tell you about when I went into the neko quarter and-"

"-got a neko woman to kiss you without eating you? Only a few hundred times. Now shut up. The meeting is starting." she reprimanded.

Indeed it was. A younger tomthumb woman was making her way up to the podium, people who were standing easing out of her way awkwardly, trying not to lose their balance over an occupied seat or someone's foot. After a minute of getting past the crowd, she stepped up behind the stand. She took a second to clear her throat, gaining the attention of those not already paying it, and started.

"Everyone who is here . . . is lucky. Tinies are as close to the bottom of Felarya's food-chain as it is possible to be for a sapient being. To those of you here, you are survivors, and I commend you for that. But for each of you here, there are many who never make it. We have many predators. Some are just animals and carnivorous plants, and that is normal. They have no choice; they MUST go on their natural path . . . BUT then there are those who have a choice."

Hushed, disapproving mutters filled the room.

"I am speaking of sentients that eat us. Nagas. Dridders. And particularly nekos. These people have no excuse for doing this. They are thinking creatures that should know better, and should have the moral integrity to refrain from eating other thinking creatures. But they keep doing it. Do you know why? . . . I'll tell you why." she continued, pausing for a pressure build-up.

"BECAUSE WE LET THEM! We have thus far only accepted that we were food for them. No one questioned it actively, as a community, in any great numbers. We acted like food, and so we have been treated as such. We can't let ourselves do this any more! We need to say, "No, I am a thinking, living, feeling being, and I am NOT food.", and we need to back those words up with action!"

A voice flitted out of the crowd, loud but hesitant, a moth emerging only to duck away when attention turned its way like the beam of a flashlight.

"How? Even if we could get every tiny in Felarya to make an army or whatever, it's not like we could fight them."

The neera nodded at that, acknowledging the problem, and then addressed the issue.

"A difficult question, but with a simple answer. We even the odds. I have a very special guest here with me, a scientist who thinks she may be able to help us with this problem. Ms. Aven?"

No one could have predicted what happened next. The neera speaker's shadow, cast back onto the wall by the forward lanterns, began to twist and change, peeling away from the wall as it metamorphosed. Translucent grey moth wings spread out as the dusk nymph emerged, dark skin and darker hair seeming to soak up the light that played on it as if she were a black hole. Though, the light pulled in was released again as a faint crimson aura that tinged the air around her for several centimeters. Eyes of the same color squinted against the lanterns' ruddy light.

"Could you turn those lamps down, please. It's a bit bright for me." were her first words to the tinies.

Not a single person so much as twitched. Everyone was frozen, with confusion, with fear, with astonishment. Emine herself was so shocked that she could barely feel her own limbs, the only sensations the clench of fright in her stomach and the disbelief ringing in her head. She found herself gripping Alren's leg so hard her knuckles turned white. He might be a jerk, but damn if his size wasn't a comfort now. He was a big guy, strong, and he had those spiked knuckles of his. If anyone here could take a dusk nymph, it would be him.

As the neera announcer stepped down and began to dim the lights, Emine worked her mouth, trying to get the words, "Do something, Al." out but unable to. All the moisture in her mouth had dried up, her throat constricted by fear, and as it was she could do nothing but make hoarse, almost inaudible whispering sounds. She was still trying to speak when the fairy preempted her.

"Oh, please don't be alarmed. I have no intention of harming any of you, none at all. I'm only here to discuss the matter of your problem. I'm sympathetic to you all, and I may be able to do something about this dilemma." she reassured.

Her words were absolutely sincere. The fear that had swept the room at her appearance died down, helped along with the repeated assurances of the previous speaker that she was trustworthy. It took some time to get everyone calmed, but soon it was once again quiet in the room, and the fairy spoke.

"Now, as you all are aware, I'm sure, the vast majority of fairies in Felarya have an intrinsic ability to temporarily alter the size of other things, including living organisms. However, this size alteration is not a permanent change. There are limitations in the range of change, as well. I could grow any one of you to perhaps four or five feet tall, but this would most likely only last for perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. Longer, if I stayed close to you, but eventually your own magic field would unweave the spell on its own."

"However, I am currently working on a way to make you stay that size, for months or possibly years at a time. I'm researching the alteration of physics in sections of the Miragia Forest and Deeper Felarya, but this could take quite some time. I believe I can do it, though. If the cir-"

She was suddenly cut off as Al hopped up onto the raised platform on which the podium stood and leaned onto the speaking stand casually. Emine blinked, looking over at the now-empty chair beside her. Wait, when the heck had he gotten up? She switched her attention back to the stage as the tomthumb began talking.

"Well, I hate to interrupt a lady while she's talking, 'specially one so exotic and, if I may, damn hot, but I need to say something quick."

The neera woman groaned. Why was Al so stupid? Not only was he interrupting, he was trying to hit on a fairy, and a dusk nymph, at that. Most important discovery in the history of all these meetings, and here was Alren making a fool of himself in the middle of it all. She had to admit it wasn't a total surprise. He was a complete moron on so many levels she had no idea where to start counting.

"Now, I don't know about you guys, but I think this is all a little . . . eh, how would I put it? . . . oh, yeah, RETARDED!"

"Now, see here-" the fairy began, but he kept going, voice overriding her protests easily.

"What the hell, guys? Growing? Permanently? Ya oughta be ashamed! 'Oh, ^&*%, I'm too small, I need to get bigger!' You don't complain like that. You suck it up and deal with what you got handed. You should be proud that you're tinies. And if anyone screws with you, beat the crap out of them. No matter how big they are, if you know what to do and don't go 'oh, I can't hurt them, they're too big', then you CAN hurt them. So do what I did. Suck it up and beat 'em down." he finished, holding up a pair of clenched, spiked-knuckle fists.

Always one for a dramatic exit, Alren then brought one hand down in a chop and split the podium right down the middle. Theatrics done, he jumped down from the raised area of the room and swaggered out, shoving the brick door open himself and vanishing outside. Emine, with a sigh of disgust, followed.

* * * * *

Dr. Wilson had been sitting on a crate in the alley, nervous and giving awkward waves to the people who occasionally glanced down the alley to give her a raised eyebrow or suspicious squint, for nearly half an hour now.It was making her decidedly uneasy, and that unease showed when the brick suddenly was shoved aside. She jumped a bit, and hurriedly stood as a tiny man came back out.

He looked perfectly human, unlike Emine, who was on his heels and looking annoyed, except for the fact that he was just a bit short of six inches tall. Wearing a red t-shirt with something too small for her to see at this distance on it and jeans, he looked like a citizen from a picture taken in the "unenlightened era". He glanced up at her, raised an eyebrow, and turned as Emine snapped at him.

"Why are you such an idiot, Al? Jeez, the figgin' PODIUM, Al." she complained.

"I know, awesome, huh? Split that puppy right in half. You think it was too much?"

"Every time you do something -ANYTHING- is too much. Now, this woman helped me out with the naga, so I'm taking her to Negav proper. And I want YOU to help me find a place for her to hole up until she can buy her own place or something."

With a grin, the tomthumb shrugged in acceptance. He then looked up at Dr. Wilson and winked.

"I know just the place for you to chill. Time to pay a visit to an old friend of mine."



There we are. Well, feel free to comment and critique.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Nice chapter
Things are sure getting interesting with this unexpected guess. I'm curious what their plan is ^^

Abyssal Epilogue: God of the Depths

There was no noise in the blackness, no sound. It was more than mere silence, however; it was so powerful and pervasive that it was terrifying. It was not so much a lack of sound as anti-sound, an antithesis to noise that ate away at the heart and mind. Nothing made the least bit of sound, the least bit of movement. Nothing dared to attract attention, the stones frozen with fear, the rotting corpses and skeletons cowering, even the dust refusing to stir for fear of being noticed by what dwelt in the depths of the ancient temple. The air itself seemed more like stone, immobile, an atmosphere that threatened to crush all breath from the lungs.

The dark was worse yet. Even more so than the silence, it was not a lack of light, but the polar opposite of it, blackness that seemed impossible, far too heavy and far too alive to be natural. It devoured everything, every scrap of light, sound, motion. It filled every crack in the mortar that lent cohesion to the stone blocks that comprised the upper halls, caressed every twisted curve of the monstrous statues in the lower reaches, encased every malformed body and mutated skeleton in gloom so deep it could not have possibly existed in nature. A void, and in its center was the Master.

The entity was in the form (he, she, it, they) used most of the time. The dark hid the sight of it, and that was a fortune upon the world; that shape was so terrible that a human mind would have been driven to instantaneous insanity by seeing it, animals turned rabid in a second. Unnatural in every way possible, a blasphemy against all of reality, it waited in the darkness for the end of eternity.

It had known when Quole had died. The group had left the temple, taking the empress with them. Neither action was of any account. The Master, the abyssal god that had lived in the deepest caverns of this place for millennia innumerable, had lived in absolute darkness and silence for untold years, did not look at the world with human eyes, nor did thoughts anything like a human's run through the void behind the being's mind. The adventurers were no more than gnats, less than gnats, and not worth the effort of scouring from the face of this world.

It could have destroyed them in the temple, obliterated them in an instant, and it still could. It could exit the temple, covered in darkness, and rush across the land like a stroke of black lightning, kill them just with a touch, and return, all in moments.

There was no need, though. They held no significance. They were nothing. There was also the assurance that such movement, such action, would attract attention from the watchers of the world. The abyss was tolerable because it never took action, never moved, never took sides. It was terrible, unnatural, immensely powerful, but it was also completely amoral, neutral, and impassive.

So it stayed where it was. As it always had been. It watched, waited, and did nothing.

Such was Abyssal, god of the depths.



The Master's name is shown as Abyssal. Looks like Ei and her crew aren't going to have to worry about having a dark god on their case, at least. Closure of the Abyssal series. Comment as you like.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Just finished reading part 4. I loved the demonic giantess. Sweet story so far

It's a great conclusion
I really like how you described the God and how you choose him to just let them go. Somehow it makes him even more menacing and scary

Thank you both. .

Back to the main story, we get a better look at Emine, Al, and a new character, as well as a couple old ones. There is vore and some blood here, so avoiding this if you actively dislike it is recommended. Comments and the like are welcome and appreciated.

Part 3: Unexpected Guests

Dr. Wilson was trying to look in a hundred directions at once, mouth agape and eyes wide with awe.

Negav was incredible.

There were cities in X-001, of course, a few even larger than this, yes, but Negav was something unique. It was huge, resting on a massive hill in a sloped metropolis that changed structure and style as it spread out to the gigantic walls. The barrier completely encircled the bastion of civilization, made of solid metal and seemingly impenetrable, guarding it from the jungle like a massive shield. Besides being several hundred feet tall and nearly as thick, the wall was defended by heavy weaponry.

Squat steel cylinders rotated slowly, the operators inside scanning for any sign of danger, dual barrels gleaming with a deadly shine that promised violence to any predator that came within range. Turrets the size of small cars stood vigil, massive rotary guns loaded with ammunition that could rip holes in the thickest armor as if it were paper. All of those glinting barrels searched with cool, calculating, dangerous eyes for a target, anything that might wish harm on the great city. Unlikely that anything would, given the Isolon Eye was wide open and watching just as intently, but they still stood, waiting, watching, ready for any threat. Nothing would get by the wall's defenses without a fight.

People flowed through the gates, most coming from the massive ring, made of stone and a swirl of multicolored light in the center, on their way to trade or engage in other business in this city. To the stream of folk coming from the dimensional gate, there was also the smaller flow that came from the north, along the road that led to Nekomura and, farther on, to the Ascarlin mountains that nourished the city with their much-valued bones. And then, once in a great while, there was the rare droplet that came in without the use of the road at all. Lost and bedraggled or hardened and experienced, these folk were those that had managed to survive the wilderness of Felarya proper, the untamed reaches where there was absolutely no guarantee of safety and anything at all could happen.

The scientist, Emine and the tiny man who had introduced himself as Al in her labcoat pocket, walked in through the main gate, marveling at everything once she had passed through to the other side. The buildings of Negav's lower tier were in an older, simpler style than most of those she could see farther in, but very solid, most constructed of stone with wood as additional support and wood or slate shingles. A great many were inns or taverns of some kind, and there was an unbelievable number of shops selling a wide variety of goods. There were bookshops and armorers, grocers, open stalls selling everything from food to magical items to spices to souvenirs. The place was a whirl of sights and sounds and smells, every sense picking up a thousand stimuli from a thousand sources.

The people were just as varied as the wares being sold and traded all around her, wearing clothes that were vastly different from each other, some in leather traveling clothes meant for trekking through the wilds, others in heavy robes, others clad in armor, from iron to the rarer modern body protection made to stop bullets rather than blades. Though most were humans, nekos, or inu, a hybrid occasionally went by, but they were as uncommon here as humans seemed to be at the Motamo docks.

Wensil was snapped out of her wondering at everything by the sharp voice of the neera woman.

"Welcome to Negav. Impressive, isn't it? Turn here."

"It's absolutely incredible!" the doctor exclaimed, following the path indicated by the tiny.

She wove through the crowds of people, some buying or bartering, others walking to their own destinations, the whole place buzzing with the activity of an entire metropolis filled with lives. Talk filled the air, voices of all kinds, rough, heavy voices of seasoned adventurers, the shouting of merchants and storekeepers, friendly and eager for a customer, the calm flow of conversation, the sounds of Negav's lower tier. Scents competed with the noise for space in the air, spices, oil, food, drink, all of it mixed together but all of it distinct.

"Oi, you missed the turn!" Emine barked, tapping the larger woman's leg to get her attention.

"What? Oh, of course! This is just such a new experience for me." the scientist admitted, a tad sheepish as she backtracked to go down the right street.

With Emine and Al's instructions, it wasn't long before she was standing in front of a large hole, some four meters in diameter, that stood between a pair of small apartments. A spiral staircase made from something akin to concrete corkscrewed downward into the ground, leading to Negav's underground areas where the poorer citizens lived, and where most of the maintenance went on. Lamps of an indeterminate kind ran down with the stairs, matching their pace to provide light. Dr. Wilson gulped at the sight of it.

Emine caught the flux of her throat and raised an eyebrow.

"I-I'm a bit unnerved by tight spaces. I've always preferred field research to office work because of it. I considered asking to have it erased with a special Dream-helmet session, but it didn't effect my performance outdoors, so I left it alone." she explained, slightly apologetic in tone.

"Not a problemo. Lith just got an apartment up here. It's the one on the left. Not classy, but it's better than her old one." Al chuckled, nodding to the flat adjacent to the underground entrance.

Emine was groaned; Why did it have to be Lith that he had picked? She wasn't like Al. Al was just annoying. Lith was bad-tempered, drank too much, and the fact that she was a neko was a cherry on top. She was a mercenary, freelance, and good at her job. Whether she had acquired her attitude from working or just had it to begin with was anyone's guess, but it was something of a joke in taverns and bars close to her home. At least, it was until she walked into the establishment. Then no one said so much as one word regarding her temperament. Getting chucked headfirst into a wall was no way to end an evening.

"Al, you need better friends."

"Aw, come on, Lith's a cool gal."

"She's also a drunkard and a jerk and a neko" Emine pointed out, buckling down as Dr. Wilson knocked on the door; this could get ugly.

In fact, the situation that decided to emerge was not ugly at all. Lith Kingshore was rather nice-looking, tawny hair down to her shoulders and fur covering her ears and tail of the same color, a sharp nose, and clean, classic features. Her occupation had lent her an athletic build, and fairly impressive muscles. A set of scars were the only thing that disturbed this, but they seemed to fit her anyway. Four knotted white trails, left by the claws of some beast, arced across her belly at a diagonal, running from her left hip to her ribs on the opposite side. The other was a sword or knife wound, cleaner and thinner, that traveled from her collarbone down along the curve of her right breast, all the way to her navel; at some point someone had tried to gut her.

Dr. Wilson could see all of this mainly because of one thing.

Lith was wearing only a pair of shorts and a belt with a pistol in the holster. She was clearly neither fully awake nor fully alert, bloodshot eyes turned from yellow to pumpkin-orange, hair everywhere, tail and ears drooping. The doctor flinched when the neko spoke; her breath could probably get people drunk from across the room, there was so much alcohol in it.

"Wha-? Who 're you?" she muttered, clearly not happy to have been bothered.

"I have these two tiny peo-"

"Gah, not so $^%&ing loud! My head is pounding, and I have the worst hangover . . . jeez, you'd think I'd be immune or something by now . . . Tinies, you said? I didn't order any tinies . . . Ah, what the hell, how much?" she sniffed, rubbing at one of her eyes.

"Oh, they sa-"

"Arrr . . . too loud. How much?"

Dr. Wilson, flustered at this and confused, said the first thing that popped into her head.

"Ten."

"What the hell kind of business you running? Ten skevols for two tinies? That's #$%@ing highway robbery, is what that is." the mercenary retorted.

"Fine. I'm hung over, I'm pissed, and I'm starving." she grunted after a brief silence, walking back into her apartment to look for money.

Emine took the opportunity to recover from the shock and snapped up at the human.

"What are you doing!? You're not selling us to her to eat!" the neera hissed.

"I don't know what I'm doing at all! Drinking is prohibited in X-001. I don't know how to deal with her." the scientist whispered back, somewhat fearful the neko would hear her and take offense.

Though Emine turned her eye heavenward and prayed for salvation from people with no common sense, Alren seemed to be taking the new predicament as an enormous joke. He had a look of barely-restained laughter on his face, and it only increased when the neera beside him hit him on the arm. Emine was still rubbing her bruised knuckles when the neko came back out with a handful of coins.

"Eh, ten, there you go." she muttered, flinching at the clinks of the skevols as she dropped them into Dr. Wilson's pocket, ignoring the hurried denials that came from the scientist.

Then, before Wensil could stop her or explain, she took the two tinies and lifted them to her waiting mouth.

Emine now felt real fear trail chilly fingers up her back, knot her stomach. Lith was still half-asleep and in a bad mood, and that meant she wasn't going to pay much attention to who she was eating. Emine she didn't know, and probably would have eaten in any case, but Al was a close friend of hers. If she didn't wake up and recognize him, they were both going to end up in her belly. She yelled, waving frantically and pointing at Alren, squashed against her in the neko's hand, trying to draw the predator's attention to him. Lith simply looked annoyed at the noise and opened her mouth to put them in. The neera felt a surge of dizziness as a wave of alcohol fumes washed over her.

"Ahem. Let me take care of this, Emine." Al laughed.

"Oh &^%$"

Alren squeezed an arm out of the neko's grip, then wound up, muscles bunching enough that they were visible even through his heavy jacket. He took careful aim as they approached Lith's mouth, then shot his fist out at the mercenary's chin so fast his arm became a green blur.

"Ka-BLAM!" he roared, face one huge grin as he socked the neko.

One would think that nothing would have happened, a tiny hitting a neko, but something certainly did. The glove on his hand turned from simple dirt-brown to lurid scarlet, glowing like a heated piece of steel. Lith's mouth snapped shut as her chin attempted to reach her eyes, teeth coming together so hard that the 'click!' of enamel impacting enamel was clearly audible. The neko's eyes shot wide open, instantly alert and homing in on the tomthumb in her hand.

"Al?"

"In the living flesh. Man, kinda close there, but I had you covered. Striker gloves, baby! Gotta love 'em."

“Nagh, stop yelling. Jeez, Al, you’re like a hangover yourself, except worse cause there’s no booze. What the hell are you doing, letting yourself get delivered to a neko by some random human? You losing your touch?”

“Nah, I’m putting her up with you for a while. Oh, and did you get my bike fixed up?” he asked, cheerfully disregarding the mercenary’s protests that he was being too noisy.

“Wha-? . . . Gah, I’m starving. Hang on a second.” she mumbled, manuvering Emine so that she could eat her without including her friend.

“Ka-BLAM! AGAIN!” came the jovial shout, accompanied by Lith’s jaw attempting to dislocate itself and leap off her face.

“WHAT THE HELL, AL!? That *%&^ing hurts!” Lith snarled, rubbing the pinprick bruise beginning to darken her chin.

“No eating my friends.” he chuckled, still with all the humor in the world.

“You should have said something, then, not tried to put a hole in my jaw . . . Ah, whatever, at least I’m awake now. It’s too early for this.”

Emine, shaking a little from nearly being consumed, found her tongue. The words came out somewhat jittery and uneven, but they still had a bite of contempt to them.

“It’s the middle of the day. Lazy, drunk cat.” she finished, muttering the insult under her breath.

One of Lith’s leonine ears flickered briefly, but a raised fist by Al cooled her down quickly. He had gotten his gloves from an old treasure trove, who knew where, and they let him punch hard enough to cause quite a bit of pain. She let it go, and pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand instead.

“Umn . . . I haven’t gotten your bike fixed, and I’m short on room right now. My sisters are both here, and three friends of Cherry’s.”

Al’s eyes lit up; Cherry was an adventurer, just like himself, and always had tales to tell. She was actually Lith’s half-sister, and her name wasn’t actually Cherry, but she was seen as a full sister and had the amusing-annoying nickname to prove it. As for Shen . . . she was a wild one. She looked a lot like Lith, but more powerful in build and a lot more scars. She had aspired, when younger, to be a “monster hunter”, but a few narrow escapes, a few dozen scars, and a few conversations with a chilotaur had finally managed to beat down her passion for chasing and randomly attacking things that could kill her. Now she was following her older sister in the mercenary business, though she was part of a group rather than freelance.

“Great! Dr. Wileson-“

“Wilson” Wensil corrected.

“-here will hole up with you guys for a couple days, ‘til we can figure a place out.”

“Al . . . Ei’s kind of off her game right now, you know. Her team got wiped out. Everybody but the twins.” the neko intoned softly.

Alren’s face immediately switched from a smile to a subtle frown, attitude instantly doing a three-sixty turn. Emine was surprised, seeing that kind of look on him. He was generally either amused or smug, and concern didn’t seem to fit well on his visage. That worry increased as he asked about the details, but Lith just shook her head. The doctor was motioned inside as the mercenary carried the two tinies into the apartment, and Wensil looked around the place as Lith pulled the lock to. The main room was a decent size, wood floor covered by a single carpet, a pair of matched couches, and a musty secondhand armchair that had seen better days. A single lamp hung overhead on the low ceiling, illuminating the five already seated.

The first was a large, well-muscled neko woman that was obviously related to Lith, wearing thickly padded clothes that indicated she usually wore heavy metal armor, a jerkin and quilted pants with a small hole in the seat for her tail. Her eyes were darker than Lith’s, more amber, but that and her physique were the only things that prevented the two from being virtual twins.

Ei, the other neko, was shorter than her half-siblings, not having the same mother, and had a much different fur color. Her familial nickname was obvious, now; her hair, ears, and tail were all a dark copper, not quite the color of brick but very close. Her armor was still on, hard leather with softer joints for maximum mobility while still protecting from slashing or stabbing weapons to a reasonable degree. A sheathed rapier hung at her side, turned so she could sit properly, a simple cord-wrapped hilt with a basket guard. She looked tired, the scientist noticed, exhausted, as did the two black-clad archers sitting on either side of her.

Easily the most bizarre of the room’s occupants was the woman seated in the old armchair. She was pleasant enough in terms of demeanor, a kind face with dark hair and olive skin, warm eyes the exact same color as chocolate, and a lovely figure, covered by a towel. Far more disturbing was that the towel was absolutely soaked with blood, dripping crimson everywhere. The lady, too, was red, trails of bright scarlet running from the innumerable wounds etched into every inch of her body, head to toe. The injuries were still fresh, but already beginning to repair themselves due to Felarya’s miraculous healing properties.

Despite this, the woman seemed not at all distressed, actually flexing her hands and smiling softly as the ragged cuts reopened and pain flickered through her. Gajahl prodded one of the especially deep punctures. The Master had used (his, her, it’s, their) ability to rearrange flesh and bone with a touch on the lost empress, and now her nerves translated injury and pain as pleasure. Each time she moved, the thousands of lacerations on her body gave her a tickling sensation, nothing more. She stood up, holding the towel to preserve her modesty, as the guests entered the room.

“Welcome. I beg your pardon for my appearance, but I was just now released from my wrappings. I was informed it took a set of heavy steel-cutting shears to get me out.” she apologized, indicating the thing lying on the floor next to her, sitting in a pool of blood and dripping the same substance.

It was a blob of blood and rust encrusted barbed-wire, split open down the middle. It still retained a vaguely human shape, though somewhat deflated, and jagged metal points were evident, the brighter gleam of cut metal indicating where the shears had done their work. It gave the appearance of a blood-stained chrysalis or perhaps a shed snakeskin, empty and desolate. Dr. Wilson had done many dissections, but even she felt a surge of nausea at the sight of that tangled mass of spines and agony. Al, staring at the woman in silence for several seconds, only offered a few words.

“Wow, you’re gorgeous. Marry me?”

Emine practically broke her knuckles on his shoulder.

“RETARD!”



Bit longer than most chapters. Introduction to Lith and Shen, Ei's half-sisters, and we actually get to see the mummy from Abyssal without her wrappings.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Quite a captivating read. And it's nice to see a story focused (to some extent) on tinies.

I reall liked this one
I thought the moment where the poor Dr Wilson responded " Ten " was hilarious, such a way to make the situation more complicated and spicier XD
And good job on making the junction with the empress. I wasn't expecting this

Thank you, guys.

A slow chapter, so don’t expect much to happen. Lots of explanations and similar things. A bit more on Lith and Al. References to vore and some descriptions of blood/gore with Gajahl.

Chapter 4: Tales

“Marry you? Hmn, you’re rather small . . . but I’m sure it could work out. I’d need to know you better first, though. My name is Gajahl.”

“Alren Aven Adrax. Treasure hunter and all-around super-tiny,” he introduced, showing off with a double flex of miniscule but admittedly impressive muscles.

Emine just slapped her own face. Why, dear gods, why? Why did she have to know this idiot? Al was basically THE GUY, that one individual that you never wanted to be within five miles of if you went out of the house. He was a magnet for insanity, drawing ridiculous events seemingly out of nowhere. Better yet, he reacted to them with the enthusiasm of an excitable eight year old. How he was still alive with his attitude was really something of a mystery, magic gloves and boots or no, but here he was, continuing to annoy her for three years since she had met him.

It wasn’t enough, though, not nearly enough. He was also, in his own words, a ‘lady killer’. He would try to attract the attention of any girl he considered good-looking, and not just tiny women either. Al was a firm believer in equality; race and size were completely disregarded in his compliments and other attempts. Ei was sure, in fact, that Al had gotten a neko to kiss him. He would have walked right up and turned on the charm. He would probably try to romance a giant harpy, if he could get her attention. Unlikely, but she had no doubt he would try his level best if he came across one. For Emine, it only added to the annoyance.

The empress, though, seemed amused by it, a small smile appearing on her face. Shen, the larger neko, was also rather jovial about the attempt. She stood, walking over to Lith, and took the tomthumb from her older sister, laughing. She sat back down, placing the tiny man on her knee to talk with him, as Dr. Wilson took back Emine and took a seat on one of the sofas, next to Shen, the lacerated woman on her right in the armchair, and the three adventurers opposite of her. Ei, the red-head neko, looked up at her hung-over sister.

“Huh. Lith, I’m going to tell the whole thing to you all. You might want to take a shower and get some clothes on first, though.”

“Meh, I don’t plan on going out.”

“Well, I guess the shower’s optional, but at least put a shirt on. If Gajahl weren’t here, Al would be staring.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t. Last time I did, she got ticked off and tried to eat me.” the tiny snickered.

“Better friends, Al.” Emine sighed.

“It’s all good. No nomming ensued. I just got my earring out of it.” was his reply, indicating the piece of jewelry.

Lith rolled her eyes. Her tongue slid sideways in her mouth, rubbing on her right fang. The point of it was no longer there, a small chip missing from the tip. Al had punched the end of it off, and didn’t she thank him for that? Being the over-the-top sort he was, the tiny had made the bit of the tooth he had punched off into an earring. Also being the over-the-top sort he was, he often claimed to other tinies that he had killed the neko he had gotten it from with his bare hands. Given that his gloves turned his fists into what amounted to miniature bullets, quite a few tinies believed his story, and he had something of a reputation among them. Especially the girls.

Which reminds me, she thought, I need to figure out where the hell my shirt went. She vaguely remembered taking it off last night to ball up and throw at some random person who had broken in (and broken a limb when she booted him out the second-story window he had climbed in through), but where it was now she had no idea. She trudged up the stairs at the back of the apartment, shuffling down the upper hallway and rubbing at her eyes as she looked for her shirt. He head was aching, pulse beating in a steady rhythm as a tight band around her temples, and everything seemed too bright and noisy. Gods, how she hated hangovers.

She went by the small bathroom, and decided to give up on her shirt in favor of a shower. Some hot water sounded nice. She liked drinking, but it was absolutely hellish once you woke up. Keeping sober, though, was something she always made a point of when actually out on a job, whether in Negav or out in the jungle. Sniffing, she ditched her pants and climbed into the shower. She kept her gun and belt (which had been around her middle rather than through the pants’ belt loop) though. She went nowhere without at least one weapon on her. She kept a gun on her at all times, only sleeping or bathing without one, and even then she had one under her pillow or on the sink next to the shower. Right now, though, she was too tired and hung over to bother with that, so she just left them on. She’d clean the gun and dry it later.

The hot water that came a moment later after she turned the shower knob was heaven. It cleared her head quite a lot. She opened her mouth, letting the water fill it before swishing around and spitting it out, now mostly rid of nasty thickness and bitter taste that had been lingering on her tongue. Now somewhat awake and feeling like she had more brains than a used handkerchief again, she put her mind to work on the deal with Ei.

Her sister had come to her house in the early hours of the morning, pounding on her door for a good twenty minutes before Lith had woken up out of her stupor and managed to find the doorknob. Ei and the twins had come in, battered and looking exhausted, clothes torn, dragging a squirming, bloodied mummy wrapped in barbed wire along behind them, too tired to carry her anymore. After getting Shen to come over with a pair of steel-cutting shears, it had taken up until five minutes ago to get the woman out. The whole thing was confusing as hell, and Lith still wanted an explanation as to why her apartment had suddenly been invaded. Oh, yes she did . . .

Alren was waiting for Lith to come back, along with the others, for some fifteen minutes. Where was that neko? Finally, he hopped down off the couch. His boots flickered red when he landed on the floor, absorbing the impact that should’ve sent a shockwave of splintering pain up his legs, possibly broken them. Man, he loved these things. He had found them hidden away deep in a dungeon sized for tinies, a very long way away from Negav. The boots let him fall long distances as well as kick hard enough to shatter inch-thick glass. The gloves essentially did the same thing, lending him a punch like a tiny cannon shot and negating the impact of it. The only thing he didn’t like was that it took a few seconds for them to recharge. Having to wait when he wanted to go into a flurry of fists was irritating to the extreme.

He sprinted across the carpet with a yell of “I’m going to go see if Lith is still alive”. The stairs stood before him, a series of shoulder-height cliffs made of dark wood. He took a breath, then jumped as hard as he could. He sailed forward, landing on top of the first step fairly easily; he had climbed these steps before, and his athleticism lent him quite a bit of leaping power. He scaled the rest of the stairs well enough, if slightly slowly, one at a time. His physical strength became evident here; he had little trouble hauling himself up the steps, and he was barely breathing hard by the time he reached the second floor.

Being a tiny is tough, but Alren Adrax is even tougher, he thought, grinning as he left the defeated stairs behind and went down the hall. He didn’t see Lith, the only sign of her a grey tank-top sitting, balled up and smelling like sweat, underneath a discarded bottle of what seemed to be whiskey or possibly scotch.

Al shook his head with a chuckle. Emine’s dislike of Lith was unfounded. The neko drank plenty, yes, but she wasn’t a drunk. Drunks were addicted to the stuff. Lith was in no way an alcoholic. She drank, but if she wanted to stop she could at any time, and she never drank so much as one drop of beer while she was working. It was just that most of the time she preferred to go through life with a slight buzz, reserving outright drunkenness for nights when she was in a particularly bad mood or special occasions. As for her temper . . . well, that was just how she was.

He noticed the bathroom door was open and steam slowly drifting out of it. Al went in, spotted the neko’s pants lying on the tile, and snorted. She’d forgotten to take her gun and belt off. What was she trying to do, ruin her pistol? And after he’d talked the gunsmith into selling it to her for practically nothing. He shoved the plastic curtain aside and looked into the shower. Yep, there she was, sprawled out and sitting up against the corner, fast asleep. The hot water had probably put her to sleep. Like he had suspected, she still had her holster on, gun still in it, both with water beading up on them and eventually rolling off. The shower smelled like wet fur; she hadn’t even put on some shampoo and scrubbed up.

“Jeez, Lith. Do I have to hold your hand for you to take a shower or what?” he muttered.

He glanced arou- ah, that would do. He stepped into the massive torrent pouring down from the showerhead, the drops pummeling him like fists, but he shrugged it off, walking over to where a bar of soap was sitting on the tiles. He stepped back a bit, framing the snoring neko with his hands for a moment, then nodding with a, “yep”. He then punted the soap at the sleeping mercenary. With nearly no friction, it shot across the floor and hit her hand, the one that was helping keep her sitting up. Her fingers jerked, automatically adjusting . . . and she put her hand right onto the slippery bar. Of course, the cake darted out from under her hand and left her with no support. The neko’s face smacked into the tile a second later.

“Wha-!” Lith yelped, waking up as her cheek hit the floor.

“Well, welcome back from dreamland! If I were an enemy, you’d be dead. If I were a giant naga, you’d be in my stomach. If I were a-“

The tomthumb had to duck as she picked up the shampoo she had forgotten to use and chucked the bottle at him. She snapped at him to stop being a peeping-tom (all the more appropriate because of his race) before getting to her feet and finishing her shower. Al just laughed, of course, and went off to tell everyone else she was on her way. Lith huffed with annoyance, but she didn’t mind as much as she indicated with her actions. Alren was a good friend, one she had known for several years, and she had a hard time getting truly angry with him. Plus, if he hadn’t come, she probably would have slept for a couple hours and bumped up her water bill. And, of course, she still wanted to find out what was going on with Ei.

It wasn’t long before she was clothed in a set of tan shorts and a grass-colored t-shirt, back downstairs and seated on the couch beside Dr. Wilson. Audience fully gathered, Ei finally began her tale of horror and death.

Dr. Wilson listened to the entire thing with wide eyes. Good Science, there were things like that in Felarya? She felt no incredulity at the story; she had seen so much that defied logic already that disbelief no longer seemed like a viable option. The demon and temple sounded terrifying enough, but this ‘Master’ creature, even if only referenced and never seen, stretched the limits of fear to the breaking point and beyond. It seemed like this being could manipulate flesh and blood with a touch, meld it like putty and do who knew what else. Gajahl, on that matter, elaborated as she could.

“Well, the Master can do many things. The Master can change gender and age and race and species and anything else in an instant, and can do the same to others by touching them. The body is clay to the Master, and the Ma-“

Ei interrupted, voice strained as she snapped, “Master, Master . . . just call the guy ‘him’ already.”

The red-haired neko didn’t want to be nasty, but she had been trekking through Felarya for days, carrying the empress and constantly worrying that some creature would catch them. Nothing had, thank the gods, but listening to Gajahl talk about the mysterious entity the whole trip with all that fear had frayed her nerves down to twine.

“Uhm, the M- he can switch genders, so I can’t say ‘he’, really. Would you accept ‘it’ instead?”

“Yeah, that works.”

“Well then, it can treat the body like a clay model, and mold the flesh and bone and organs however it wants. Like me. I used to be a man.”

Alren, sipping something from his wineskin, choked.

The others, had they had drinks, would most likely done the same, but as it was they simply stared.

“Wait, what the &*%^!?” Al coughed, wiping his mouth with a sleeve.

“I was a man. I was crippled, too, an emperor that ruled mostly because of heredity. My right leg was gone, and I used a crutch to get around. Then the warden in the newly excavated lower dungeon told me the prisoners kept there had started acting strangely, mutilating themselves with nails and teeth, going mad, slamming their heads into the walls until their brains were spilled and they died. Needless to say, it was disturbing, but for some time I did nothing. Rumors started up about the place, that it was haunted, that it was cursed. Guards saw things, shadows and impossibilities.”

“They saw dead prisoners, their skulls shattered, get up and move, even though necromancy doesn’t work here. They said they weren’t risen dead, that they really were dead, but there were ‘things moving them, like puppet strings, that were oozing out of the ground, tentacles’, as one man attested. Still I did nothing. I think, maybe, that I was afraid. But then guards started to vanish, and prisoners, too. It was so bad towards the end, no one would go down there.”

“Eventually, I did go down there. I had to literally threaten my own bodyguards with beheading to get them to come with me. The halls were empty, and there was no light, all the torches burnt out. Our own lights couldn’t seem to penetrate the gloom there, but it was enough to see.”

“I can do it no justice with words, but I can tell you it was more terrible than you can imagine. There were bloodstains on the walls, on the floor, splatters of it here and there, trails leading to nowhere and vanishing into the ground. There were nail-scratches on the stone, and broken nails, shattered bits of enamel where they tried to hold onto a cell’s bars with their teeth. Despite all this, there were no bodies. Not one. The most that was there was a gobbet of flesh where someone had clawed pieces of themselves off as they went insane.”

“W-we didn’t see . . .” Ei trailed off, at a loss for words.

“You came in through a different hall, one that was made afterwards. You would never have made it to the temple if you had gone through the prison. The M- it left pieces of itself there, strange tendrils that live in the ground and use bodies as puppets. They reach up and coil around the wrists and ankles, the neck, and use them like bludgeons. You would have been buried under corpses.”

Kiva felt her stomach clench at the image that involuntarily came.

“We went down into the deepest parts of the prison without seeing a soul, living or dead. We came to the end, but there was nothing there, just the wall of the dungeon and old blood. We all were fearing for our lives, by then, and I cannot tell you how frightened I was. I had no idea what was going on down in the depths, bodies vanishing, people disappearing, the prison turned into a nightmare. We were going to go back when our lights went out. All of them.”

“I knew then that something was down there with us, in the pitch dark. The air had turned . . . dead. The torches had not gone out on their own, not all at once. They had been extinguished by a force none of us could see. We stayed there, not daring to move, not daring to breathe, for many minutes. Every moment I expected to . . . have something grab me, or to hear the guards screaming in the black. Each one of us was frozen with terror. And then . . . the Master spoke.”

“ ‘I am the abyss. Serve me, and I will be your Master for eternity.’ was what came out of the void, and when my captain refused, all my bodyguard was slain so quickly there was not one scream. Then I was all alone in the darkness. I told it that I would serve it, and then it touched me.”

“My leg, the one that was missing, was squeezed by . . . and it came back . . . touched my . . . and it shriveled, inverted . . . chest kneaded into a new shape . . . and my nerves . . . twisted so I could feel pain as pleasure . . . My people . . . I can’t remember what happened to my people . . . I remember Quole . . . Throne . . . so cold down in the dark . . .”

From there, Gajahl’s coherence fell away to glazed eyes and mumbled nonsense.

Everyone looked deathly pale.

Lith felt fear like she had never experienced before stir in her. She had seen and heard of some terrifying things while working as a mercenary, but that . . . ? Gods, no wonder Ei, Kiva and Athin were so shaken. Lith couldn’t even imagine having to fear a horror like that, lurking in the dark and maybe following her . . . watchi- Lith shuddered, stopping the thought. She was going to give herself nightmares.

The empress (emperor?) at last came back to herself, and stood up.

“I think I’ll wash this blood off. It’s beginning to clot up and turn sticky.”

She left the rest of the group sitting in stunned, disturbed silence.



Wow, I actually didn’t plan on this suddenly turning dark like that. In any case, critiques are welcome.

Felarya is Karbo’s

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Great chapter it's nice to learn more about this strange being. I just hope they don't come to regret having pulled her out of that temple, I have some bad feelings about this XD

General Stories, I've gotten up to the part we know Gajahl IT'S A TRAP! and the trap goes to wash off the blood, for the reasons described in Catch as Catch Can.
Clever glowstick counter-ambush, there. Quole must've been really blinded by the glare not to see it coming: I thought she could see in darkness. Well, old age (or ages of old) will do that to people's brain.
Abyssal reminds me a little of my own Mekkis, but that's a horse of a different color.
Interesting things this woman gets to witness, heh. That tomthumb does look like an annoying customer.

It took quite some time to get this fully planned, but here is the new chapter of the General stories main line. No vore, but some gore. Comments and critiques are appreciated.

Chapter 5: Specter Street

Dr. Wilson felt somewhat shell-shocked by all this. Her initial shock of suddenly being in a completely different (and dangerous) world had worn off somewhat on her way to the Motamo docks, but now it was back again. Every time she managed to convince herself things could not possibly become more astonishing and unbelievable, they did, and the repeated surprises were threatening to overwhelm her. This Felarya seemed almost like a dream to her, impossibility after impossibility piling up like snow in a blizzard.

She reached for one of her coat pockets, the one that held a small, code-sealed box about the size of her hand. She pulled it out as Ei began talking to her two comrades in a hushed voice. The tomthumb man was still talking to Shen, Emine on the burly neko’s knee beside him. For the most part, he was lamenting the fact that Gajahl had been a man before. The tiny seemed to a mix of heartbroken and ashamed.

“I can’t believe I proposed to a guy! Well, former guy, now a really hot chick, but . . . no one that curvy deserves to have been a guy in a past life! What if somebody figures out I said that!? I’ll never be able to go after a lady again! I may not even be able to be a lady-killer! MY LIFE IS OVERRRRRR! FFFFFFUUUUUU-“

Emine, for her part plugged her large, mousy ears and rolled her eyes. Shen attempted to calm the tomthumb down with assurances that there was no way he could have known, and that Gajahl was, technically, a woman.

“That doesn’t matter! I’M RUINED!”

“Well, no one but us knows about it. We aren’t judging you.”

“Unless someone tells the whole town . . .” Emine muttered.

“I’ll punch your head off your shoulders,” was the instantaneous response.

“Yeah, fine. I’ll keep your gayness secret,” the neera snorted, drawing another string of protesting shouts from her fellow tiny.

“I’m going.”

Everyone suddenly started at Ei’s announcement. She rose up off the couch, flanked by her two fellows, and all three of them went for the door. Dr. Wilson, chewing the small, bitter tablet she had extracted from the sealed box, blinked at the abrupt iteration and movement. A second blink accompanied what happened next.

Lith got up, placed herself in front of the door, and stood there. Blocking the exit with her body, she looked absolutely serious, arms crossed and face firm. Ei and the twins halted, but they, too, looked completely serious about leaving. The red-haired neko stepped up to her sister, tail twitching furiously and ears slightly lowered as an indication of how firm she was on the subject. Lith’s posture was just as hard, but her ears were erect and practically rigid.

“Move.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“Where?”

“None of your business.”

“I’m your sister. Being nosy about your business is my business.”

“I want to go settle something.”

“You going to go kill somebody?”

“Maybe.”

“Make sure to do the job right, then. I expect them to be nothing but bloody ribbons. And get into the news, at the very least.”

With that, Lith stepped aside, allowing her sister to pass by. Ei opened the door, but paused at the threshold, glancing back at those in the main room. Alren, ever supportive, just gave her a grin and a thumbs up. The rest simply looked back at her chill eyes, Dr. Wilson muttering a quick, “Oh dear. Surely that’s not legal?”.

“I’m going to Specter Street.”

Then the door swung shut and the three were gone.

“Ahhhh. I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your clothes, Ms. Lith.”

Gajahl, now cleaned off and looking a little less like a human sacrifice despite the multitude of lacerations still scoring her pale skin, came down the stairs. Dressed in a tan tank-top and shorts that were a bit too large but belted on, she looked quite a bit better than before. Seeing the grim looks around the room, she hesitated.

“Did something happen?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

Alren burst into tears.

“Why did you have to be a guy before!?”

Dr. Wilson fell asleep, her tablet taking hold, before anything else was forthcoming.

* * * * *

Specter Street, as it was called, was in the middle tier of Negav and, unlike the other avenues, completely empty. While the adjacent streets were bustling with people going about their business, headed for one place or another, this boulevard was had not one single person walking through it. The stretch of cobblestones, ending in two T-shaped intersections, was barren of any kind of life. Not even homeless folk sat on the worn doorsteps, and no criminal would attempt to hide here.

After all, not much of anyone wanted to disturb the dead.

Specter Street was something of a phenomenon among those living near it. Kids would hang out near it, dare each other to take that one step into the forbidden territory. Of course it was almost unheard of for anyone to actually take that dare. People told frightening tales about those who did go there, about those who disappeared down that path and simply didn’t come back. Parents often threatened their children with “I’ll send you to Specter Street if you don’t behave!” and, since the street was quite real, that threat often worked.

Ei halted just before reaching that invisible line that marked the beginning of the avenue, the twins stopping with her.

“You two didn’t need to come with me.”

Kiva was the one who responded.

“Yes, we did. We were part of the team, too, and we want revenge just as much as you do.”

“Alright. As long as you know what’s what.”

“We know.”

The three, with a deep breath, walked into the street.

Instantly they felt the temperature drop, the warmth sucked away and their exhale shown as plumes of pale mist. Pale forms flickered in and out of existence all around them, brushing by. Some of them noticed the living among them and nodded, or frowned with confusion. After all, this was a place for ghosts, not people. Still, none of them seemed to be upset about the intrusion, and continued to go on. A few floated through the living beings, causing goosebumps to instantly roll in a wave over their skin, tiny hills springing up in the wake of the chill. Ei managed to flag down one of the aware ghosts, who drifted over with a look of friendly interest.

“Can I help you?” asked the phantom, a lean man wearing adventurer’s clothes.

“We’re looking for a specter. The one that drifts around Negav at night. The floating head.”

“Ah. That guy. He should be here, somewhere. Be careful not to go into any of the buildings unless you’re invited in by a normal ghost. Sometimes the nastier spirits hang around in them. You could get killed.”

“We know.”

The three continued on down the street, misted breath trailing behind them, and asked a few other aware ghosts if they knew where the spirit was. Each time a more definitive answer was given, eventually leading them to a derelict shop. The sign above the door, one of the old hanging kind composed of heavy wood, was hanging by one chain and the paint peeling. Even so, the words that indicated the store’s name were still legible, if only just.

Watcher’s Eye

Oh, this was the place, alright. Will had mentioned a “special source from Specter Street”, and the Watcher, as this specter was called, was known to give cryptic advice to those few who could stand their ground when they met him drifting about at night. Ei swallowed, but a reassuring pair of hands on either shoulder and a tight grip on her rapier spurred her courage. She shoved the door open, flinching as the rusted bell above shattered the utter silence of the dusty, empty shop with its harsh chiming.

The place was as dead as the one who lived here, hollow, burnt remains of charred furniture lying about, the ancient, unused bar splintered and fallen into disrepair. Spiderwebs hung in the corners of the ceiling, on the blackened chairs and tables, dust lying decades thick on every surface. It was also gloomy, deep shadow spilling over the walls and crawling blindly under the barstools. Only a single light shone in the place, a candle floating in the air. It hovered in the center of the room, the flame glowing a pale blue rather than the yellow-orange of normal fire, and cast a ghastly luminescence over a small section of the former tavern.

The candle was floating at eyelevel, and right beside it was the Watcher.

Blood dripped slowly and steadily from the ragged stump that had been the neck before death, and the sanguine drops vanished from existence as they fell. The head drifted in the air, no body to be seen, no support to be seen, either. Hair the color of snow hung down low enough that some of it was stained red from the dribbling blood, obscuring the face but for one glaring eye. The gleaming iris was the same shade of blue as the flame illuminating the ghost, the pupil a slowly swirling mix of red, black, and green. The whites were not white at all, instead a dead black that was interspersed with crimson veins that pulsed with red light.

Ei felt her legs tremble, and her two fellows shook behind her. The gaze of this phantom seemed to be sucking up everything that she was, everything that she knew, her secrets, her desires, her fears, absolutely everything about her. That eye was the black hole of thought, gleaning every scrap of information that fluttered around the living’s bodies, absorbing it. The phantom knew who they were, what they were, and, of course, what they were here for.

They were here to try and kill it.

“Nothing can defy the blade and bow like death, the slave of both, and the master of all.”

A second later the head was split right down the middle, Ei flicking her sword to cast aside the blood on her blade. The movement was unnecessary; the liquid was already fading out of reality, as was the head. The neko swordswoman drew in a shuddering, tense breath, then let it go in a long sigh that was steady but just as much an indication of her catharsis as the shuddering inhale had been.

Kiva and Athin were just barely fast enough to catch her in time. The neko was nearly to the floor before the twins managed to jump forward and grab her under the arms. Her face halted a mere six inches from the floor, her breath sending a wave of dust outward. The two archers helped her back up, putting her arms around their necks for support.

“Finally. Now we can get on with our lives. Killing that bastard that sent us all to our death was wha-“

“Death is dust, and dust cannot be cut by any blade.”

The head had returned now hovering behind and to the right of the three, still staring at them with all the rabid intensity of an insane owl. Ei started crying, at last out of the fortitude to hold in her accumulated grief. The twins, unable to use their bows while holding their comrade up, could do only one thing. Pale necks extended, raveling out and twisting around to put their angular faces right up to the ghostly head’s own.

“You killed our team,” they said, in nearly perfect unison.

“The fool who sees that which is his joy may not see what is there, and see what is not there.”

“Will wasn’t a fool!” Athin hissed.

That single eye absorbed the words, and the head began to fade away. The hair was the first to disappear, showing that the other eye . . . was stitched shut. Black thread wove through the corrupted lid, the flesh a nauseating mix of purple and yellow. There was a bleeding line that ran from the base of the neck to the top of the head, an indication that Ei’s slash had been not wholly ineffective, and accurate. The right half faded away next, taking with it the stitched eye and sliced cheek that hung in an extended smile. The twins, though the wanted to let off at least a parting shot with their bows, could do nothing but watch, necks slowly retracting, as the specter’s left half vanished into the dark and the air, leaving only that unblinking, multihued eye hanging in the air like a psychotic moon.

“Death is not the end of life, as long as life is left behind.”

The eye disappeared soundlessly, fading away without a single trace left behind.

The twins at last drew their heads back into a position resembling a human’s, then helped Ei get back out of the empty shop. As the door shut behind them, the turquoise flame of the candle went out, and the stump of wax left behind dropped to the floor with a slight, barely audible thud. The ghosts continued to move about, ignoring the living trio that slowly went back to the exit, leaving the world of the dead behind.

Warmth flooded back into the three as they stepped back onto the adjacent avenue, the chill that had settled deep into their flesh fading away as the sun brought back the heat of life.

“I guess that didn’t work so well,” Ei admitted, straightening and removing her arms from the twins’ shoulders.

The neko wiped away some of the tears that still lingered on her face, sniffing back the residual grief and releasing the last of it in a slow, even breath. Then she looked at the twins, head swinging right and left in quick succession.

“I didn’t know you guys were Nemesises.”

“We try not to advertize that. We’re exiles from an assassin group.”

“You could have said something over the, you know, eight years since you joined our team.”

The three laughed, then headed home.

* * * * *

Lith was drinking a cup of something vaguely resembling coffee (albeit mixed with whiskey) when her half-sister came back in, twins on her heels. Emine, Gajahl and Shen, who were all trying to get the doctor awake and failing miserably, looked up as she entered. The ruler was the first to approach the three, and drew all three into a hug, or at least, as well as one person could take in three people for a hug.

“It’s okay.”

The adventurers seemed unsure of what to do in this situation, so they awkwardly attempted to pat the empress. After a last, hard squeeze, the woman released them. Alren, stretched out on the couch’s armrest, waved at them.

“You make them bleed?” Lith asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“Yep. Dripping all over the place.”

“Well, now the only thing left is t-“

“What!? Where’s the boat at!?” Dr. Wilson shouted incoherently, suddenly jerking awake and making everyone else jump along with her.

After a moment of confusion, the scientist realized she had been dreaming and pulled her thoughts back together. The relaxation tablets that most scientists carried around to help with the insomnia all of them suffered tended to do that to her. She looked around, a bit embarrassed, and apologized for the sudden scare. Lith, stretching and getting up, went over to the sink. She dumped the remainder of the coffee out, then rubbed her ear between a thumb and forefinger.

“Well, now that we’ve got this crap cleared up, all that’s left i-“

“WELCOME BACK PARTY FOR CHERRY, KIVA AND ATHIN!” Al cheered, instantly up and arms in the air.

“Not what I was thinking, but why the hell not.”

Dr. Wilson wasn’t sure what to do, so she decided to take a second tablet and call it a night.

It would be nearly the next morning before anyone else joined her in sleep.




Well, that’s the finish of the main storyline, although these characters may show up again in later tales. Thank you all for the support and comments.

Felarya is Karbo’s

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated, as well as Specter Street.

hehe poor Alren XD

That was a great conclusion I think, tense and striking. And I really liked that idea of the specter street
Great job ! ^^

I really like Specter Street! Very atmospheric.