A Glimpse of a Past

"Ginny" wakes up in a medical ward in Saluma and looks around. Her body aches, she remembers for a moment the days when she couldn't feel pain, but she then remembers she couldn't feel anything else either. A machine trapped in the depths of a dungeon no one visited. She had been created solely as the functionary of what had been essentially an assembly line producing mechanical servants and soldiers. She had been respected, one of the cores born directly from the Grand Core, what people now called The Ancient Dungeon Core. The beings that had created her and the others treated them as creatures worthy of respect and she enjoyed her time then. Of course those days didn't last. The Darkness seduced the Grand Core and with her all the other cores. They'd killed their once masters and since then they had become Dungeon Cores. Producing monsters for the Darkness' armies.

There had been some fun then. The occasional invader tried to quell the source of the monsters, but the lands around the dungeon fell quickly to Darkness and while the dungeon continued to pump out monsters, no one came to the dungeon anymore. The core got bored and lonely. It was trapped with nothing, but mindless monsters for company.

Later still unbeknownst to the dungeon core, the lands became overtaken by the Light once again, but by then everyone had forgotten about the dungeon. People paid little attention to the monsters that it released, they weren't strong enough to be much more than a nuisance and were easily repelled from the civilized areas. No one bothered to venture into the desert and so the dungeon remained secluded, continuing its now mostly pointless work. Even its ability to create monsters started to dwindle as the seedbeds it used expired with time.

That's when the archaeologists showed up. She found them fascinating, not only were they the first visitors she'd had in a long time, but they were unlike any visitor she had before. The ancients had simply been there to work and after them everyone had come simply to try and shut her down, but these people were here just to learn about the dungeon. They were here simply because they were interested in her.

She watched them and fed their interest, she set off defenses never intending to actually hurt them, just to shock them and peak their curiousity. They seemed especially interested in the magic based defenses. From what she understood, it seemed fairly rare for dungeons to employ magic in their defenses. She wondered if it was because she was spawned directly from the Grand Core. She kept them from entering too far, keeping them near the entrance. She was uncertain how they would react if they did get to her and she was also worried that if she made things too easy or too hard for them, they might not return. So, she played with them for as long as she could, but she knew it would be temporary either way.

She came up with a plan, however. As she listened to the archaeologists talking about how unusual her magic was, an idea occurred to her. She wondered what she could do with her magic. She put her plan into action the next time the archaeologists showed up. This time they had brought two more with them. One a bodyguard and the other some kind of magic expert. She sent a creature to attack them. She had been working on it for a while. A wondrous creation of the goddess of Darkness Carnachias, the bioferric warrior took out the bodyguard and the others tried to flee, but she was ready for them. She had planted a "wrecked" machine at the entrance for them to find and when they tried to flee she turned it on them. With that she captured the four archaeologists. She took time to consider each of them, but eventually settled on their leader. She left the bodyguard where she was, a reward for her loyal bioferric soldier and had the magic expert and the mechanist used to replace the previous seedbeds.

The leader was brought to her by the machine. They had named it Helios and so Helios brought the leader before the dungeon core. She had been preparing for this moment. She had found a way to condense her consciousness. The plan had originally been to simply replace the consciousness of the woman who's name was Ginny Haversom, but she had found that to be impossible. Instead she would have to merge her essence with Ginny's and then put the resulting consciousness into something else.

The end result was a strange ritual to be performed. A perverse one of course since it derived from Carnachias' magical domain. Ginny was stripped and bound as the core directed Helios to perform the ritual. The ritual symbols adorning the core chamber began to glow as Helios grabbed the core's form, a sleekly designed mechanical woman and plunged his cock into her cunt. She couldn't feel anything as her body was ravished, at least not at first. As the ritual started to work, sensation hit her all at once.

It was overwhelming, a rush of pain and pleasure as Helios roughly fucked her. She almost stopped the ritual, terrified by this sensation, but she steeled herself and continued. Helios was drawing out her essence with each thrust. Turning her from a machine into a being of pure magical essence. Her body squirmed involuntarily as a heat burned in her chest and she had her first orgasm at the same time as her life ended. Her essence tearing out of her chest, leaving an empty shell behind.

Helios as per the ritual absorbed the essence into it and then turned to Ginny. Ginny had watched all this with horror and confusion. Panic gripped her as Helios began to approach. She screamed into the gag covering her mouth. Tears dripped from her eyes as she tried to squirm away, but the binds held her in place. Helios grabbed her and lifted her before plunging her small halfling form down on his cock. She screamed into the gag again as she was penetrated, his large metal shaft far too big to fit comfortably into her tiny body. She screamed and thrashed wildly as Helios fucked her, slowly filling her with The Core's essence. Her chest burned as well with heat as her own essence was being drained.

Her struggles grow weaker as she's ravished and then she stiffens as she feels a pressure in her chest and she begins to scream and struggle again, her small breasts bouncing wildly as she thrashes in her binds and then her chest tears open and what emerges is something new. The creature is a mixture of Ginny's essence and the core's own. Both halves supplement the other as the twisted amalgamation settles into a new form. Its form is without form. A mere blank space, but it can through its will change itself into a proper form, taking first the form of the mecha girl that served as the core's first host and then changing into the form of Ginny.

It felt some remorse as it looked at her body. She wasn't technically dead. Her essence lived on in this shared new form, but she wasn't her anymore. She turned to Helios, "come Helios... Let us go see the sun," she said as she grabbed Ginny's clothes and redressed before heading out of the dungeon.

The dungeon would continue to run autonomously and as Ginny she would spread news about the dungeon being too dangerous and try to bar people from visiting. She didn't want anyone venturing in and discovering her remains after all.

Since then things have worked out surprisingly well. It seems Ginny was rather well respected and she had been put in a commander position. She was greatly enjoying her new life... that is until Doom came along. Now Helios is dead and she has spent an uncertain amount of time having her body defiled by her own creation. She somewhat regrets settling on this form. Ginny is well respected, but not a fighter and her powers as the dungeon core are not accessible while in Ginny’s form.

Still, she’s free now and she will recover. It’s time to make new plans. She stands up from the bed. She’s naked, except for a simple gown. She takes a few steps and finds that her body aches, but she can walk. She exits the room, looking for someone who can presumably tell her where her clothes are. As she passes one of the rooms, she hears a voice she recognizes.

"I'd rather die!" she hears the voice of Cara yell. Her curiousity is immediately piqued and she peeks into the room. Cara is in the room lying on a bed, her arms are bound above her head and she is dressed in a surprisingly nice scarlet dress. She is very angry and there are two of Alkadabuki's top chieftains with her.

"What you want doesn't matter. After your actions you should be executed, but when we recognized you as the only daughter of Lord Cosmir, of course we had to inform him. He's been searching for you for so long," one of the chiefs explains.

"I can't believe this, you saved me from being **** by your men just to sell me back to my father! You should have just left them to kill me!" she yells as she tries to kick at one of them, but this only serves to reveal that her ankles are also bound to the bed.

"The ones responsible are being punished. **** a noblewoman is a heinous crime even if she did throw in her lot with a bunch of filthy darkies," the chief continues.

"They're better than you bastards!" Cara screams as she continues to thrash uselessly against her binds.

"Well your corruption is a matter for your father to deal with. He's sending an envoy to collect you and to pay us a generous finder's fee. They should be arriving by tomorrow morning" the chief informs her. Her fight seems to immediately leave her and she suddenly looks pitiful and scared.

"Please... I can't go back. Kill me... Do whatever you want to me, just... don't make me go back to my father!" she begs, tears starting to appear in her eyes. The chief's look at each other and then without a word they leave her behind and head to the door. Ginny moves out of the way and hides, it's easy to find places to hide at her size.

The chiefs walk past her hiding spot and she hears them speaking in hushed voices. "The Cosmir family is well respected, it's somewhat concerning that she has such a terrible reaction. I assumed it was just youthful rebellion at first, but she seems traumatized..." the one who hadn't spoken in the room said.

"It doesn't matter. We'd be fools to turn down the reward His lordship offered for her return and she's thrown in her lot with the darkness, she deserves whatever she gets," the other speaks and the two soon disappear down the hall and Ginny sneaks into the room. Cara is lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and she's crying openly.

"Things aren’t going so well?" Ginny asks and Cara's head snaps up to look at her.

"Y... You! Where's your robot?" Cara asks and tries her best to hide her tears, though with her bound as she is, she can't do anything to wipe away or hide the tears on her cheeks.

"Alkadabuki killed it to rescue me after your friend Doom left it **** me for days on end," Ginny answers and moves sitting on the bed, "so... you're some high and mighty noble?" she asks and Cara's face darkens.

"If you heard all that you already know the answer. You're some celebrity among the Light aren't you? I'd figure you'd know about the Cosmir family," she says, her voice uneven as she's still struggling to press down the sadness and pain she had just been letting loose.

"I didn't pay much attention to politics when I was out exploring ruins," Ginny answers quickly as she moves a hand to gently grasp one of Cara's breasts, kneading it teasingly. Cara bites her lip and glares hatefully at her through tear blurred eyes.

"Do you want something or are you just here to kick me while I'm down?" she asks.

"The second one," Ginny answers and then releases Cara's breast, "though I might have an option for you... I intend to leave here... Not just Saluma, but Alms Amour. You want me to help get you out of here before daddy's envoy arrives to take his precious daughter home?" she asks and she watches the sudden spark of hope in Cara's eyes. Cara truly is ****, Ginny notes.

"Wh... why would you want to help me? What do you get in return?" Cara asks a little guardedly, but it's clear she's already willing to do anything Ginny asks of her.

Ginny for her part responds by shifting her form for the first time in what feels like years, taking the form of the mecha girl once again and a blade slips out of her wrist and she cuts the bonds holding Cara.

Cara stares shocked and confused, "W-what are you?" she asks and Ginny retakes her halfling form.

"I'm Ginny Haversom and you're my new partner in crime. I'm going to find out where they stashed my clothes and then we'll meet at the city gates. Don't make me wait too long," she says as she hops off the bed. Changing her form had surprisingly removed the soreness from her body. She felt renewed. It was time to live her own life. Ginny was truly dead from this moment on, she was done living someone else's life, she decided as she left the room.