Classes, amazons, and dungeon cores

They didn't lay there much longer. Now that the urgency lent by their mutual lust had worn off, lying on the fragmented flagstones of the courtyard became somewhat less than comfortable. Not to mention that the longer they remained, the greater the chance that someone might come out and discover them there. While Fenrir wouldn't have minded, he got the sense that Myrina would find it embarrassing, so as soon as his knot shrank enough to permit its removal they got up, retrieving and donning their clothing.

As Myrina pulled her shorts up her thighs -apparently amazons didn't generally wear underwear- she paused to run a finger over her slit, still leaking Fenrir's cum. "So, uh, am I gonna be showing a belly in a few months?"

Fenrir shrugged. "Right now, I couldn't tell you, but you don't have to worry about that cum. It's sterile."

Myrina blinked. "But you can't be sterile, you have like fifteen kids."

"Eighteen, actually, but you're right. I'm not sterile. I can just choose to make my cum that way if I want to, since otherwise I'd be knocking up anyone I creampied every time I did so."

Her shorts still around her thighs, Myrina stared. "You can do what?" Fenrir began to answer, but she waved him down before he could get more than a word out. "I understood you, I just didn't- Is that normal for Dark-races? Can all direwolves do that?"

"I don't actually know. I'm pretty sure most Dark-races aren't blessed with this particular ability, but there's probably some out there who are. As for my own race, I'm the only adult of my kind that I've ever seen, so... maybe?" Fenrir finished situating his sash around his waist and glanced around, trying to locate his belt.

"Wait, what about your parents?"

"It's complicated, but suffice it to say that they weren't direwolves."

After several more seconds of standing there staring at him, Myrina realized she had frozen in the middle of dressing and hurried to finish as she muttered, just barely loud enough for even Fenrir's keen ears to hear, "...What the hell even are you?"

He grinned. "When I find out, I'll let you know."

She leveled a look at him, and raising his hands in surrender, Fenrir turned to recovering his axe and its harness, still smiling.

He had left it beside the well, and a few moments were enough to sling it across his shoulder and return to Myrina's side. "My unique abilities aside, there was something I wanted to get your help with."

The amazon was still eyeing him a little doubtfully, as though waiting for some new bombshell to shatter her perception of him yet again, but she said, "Sure, I'll help if I can."

"As I'm sure you've figured out by now, one of my classes is Barbarian. But recently, despite all my training, my experience gain has slowed to a crawl, and I've been getting this feeling of ...untapped potential, maybe, in that class. You're a Barbarian as well; do you have any insights that could help me?"

"Wait, what? You have multiple classes? -Oh, never mind, of course you do. Why wouldn't you?" Myrina shook her head disbelievingly. "Any other revelations you want to knock my teeth out with?"

Fenrir laughed. "Maybe later. For now, about my bottleneck?"

Myrina eyed him for a moment longer, then seemed to give it up. "I don't know all that much about it, but it sounds like you're ready to evolve your class."

This raised Fenrir's eyebrows. "When my Assassin class evolved into Spectre, I didn't even notice right away. Do you have to do something special to evolve Barbarian?"

Myrina nodded. "Every class has different requirements for evolution. You probably met the ones for Assassin without realizing it, but Barbarian isn't so easy. Which path do you want to take?"

"I get a choice?"

"Sort of. From what I remember, your affinity with each path depends pretty heavily on how you've been using your class abilities up to this point, but..." Myrina paused and sighed. "I'm not really the person to ask about this. Normally the tribe's shaman is the one who deals with all this stuff.

"Anyway, there's a ritual that you can do to find out what your affinities for each evolution are, and then there's a trial you go through to trigger the evolution. Technically I think you can pick whatever evolution you want regardless of what your affinities are, but if you pick one you don't have affinity for you're basically hamstringing yourself since you won't be able to grow for shit."

"I don't suppose there's any chance that you know how to perform this ritual?" Fenrir asked, opening the courtyard door for Myrina to pass through.

She snorted. "Nope. Only the shamans know that."

"Okay, then what would be the best way for me to learn?"

"I... dunno. I mean, amazons aren't quite as worked up about the Dark-races as humans are, but there's no way a shaman would ever agree to do the ritual for you. Or teach it to you, for that matter."

"What if I looked human?"

"You can do that?" Myrina looked him up and down, and Fenrir could tell without asking that she was imagining him as a human.

"Maybe," he replied. "I haven't tested it yet, and it wouldn't be an easy process, but maybe. But if I did, would that solve the problem?"

"I dunno," Myrina repeated. "I don't know what they'd do if an outsider with the Barbarian class came to them. See, until you, I'd never seen or heard of anyone with Barbarian that wasn't an amazon."

"And there's no way to tell my affinities without this ritual? What if I just went ahead and undertook the trial without the ritual?"

"Well, you could, I guess. I remember the trials well enough, since whenever anyone in the tribe was ready to go through one of them the tribe would make a whole celebration out of it, with feasts and everything. But there's no takebacks, so if you picked the wrong evolution you'd be stuck with it."

"Hmm." Having now reached the bathing hall, Fenrir took a minute to think about that as they both stripped down again. He noticed Myrina stealing several glances at his crotch, but she was doomed to disappointment there, as his sheath gave very little away.

"Well, I might have to take the gamble if I want to continue growing Barbarian at all, but let's try to figure out a way to get ahold of that ritual first. If there's no feasible way, then I can think about it a bit more."

"Think about what?" came from the doorway, as Kira walked in.

"About evolving my Barbarian class without first doing the ritual to figure out where my affinities lie. Speaking of which, have you ever heard of any Dark-races with the Barbarian class, Kira?"

The busty succubus shook her head, beginning to remove her clothing with the casual unconcern characteristic of all the succubi. "Nope. Aimi and Nelith have been around more than me, though, so it might be worth asking them."

"I think I'll do that, thanks," Fenrir said, but he wasn't sure Kira heard it, since her eyes had just fallen on Myrina's slit, still liberally leaking his cum.

"Ooh, is that what I think it is?" Leaping into the pool with a splash, Kira advanced on Myrina with all the speed she could manage in the thigh-high water. Myrina looked very much like a deer caught in headlights, and she actually took a step backwards as the much smaller redhead approached, casting a desperate plea for help Fenrir's way with her eyes.

The look of betrayal that leaped to her face upon seeing his grin made him laugh, but he took pity on her, saying between chuckles, "Slow down, Kira, don't scare the poor girl."

This brought Kira's attention back to him. "So you did fuck her. Does that mean she's one of us now? Is she going to be sticking around? Ooh! Are you going to be having his baby too?" This last question was directed at Myrina again, Kira having whipped back around as the thought came to her.

"He said this stuff is sterile," Myrina managed, still regarding Kira as though worried she might try to tackle her.

"Oh, right, you can do that, can't you? But is she part of the harem now?"

Shaking his head, Fenrir stepped into the pool himself. "For now, yes. It's not the sort of relationship she's used to, but she's agreed to give it a shot. But go easy on her, okay? Just because she's willing to share me with all of you doesn't mean she's okay with you getting all handsy."

Kira ducked her head in embarrassment, backing off slightly. "Yeah, okay, message received. I guess I did get a little overexcited there, but can you blame me? Just look at her."

"Oh, trust me, I have been," Fenrir agreed, casting an appreciative glance over Myrina's body. Her face went red and her hands came up to cover herself, prompting him to continue with an amused grin, "Don't tell me you're getting shy now, when you were so proactive during sex."

"Shut it," the amazon snapped, going still redder.

"It's okay," Kira chimed in again. "Safara was all shy for a while too, but she got used to things eventually. You will too, don't worry."

"Hopefully not too soon," Fenrir added. "You're really cute when you're embarrassed."

Myrina didn't quite seem to know what to do with that, and settled for dipping entirely beneath the water for as long as she could hold her breath. When she didn't immediately resurface, Kira turned back to Fenrir. "So, boss, what are your plans for the day?"

"Well, I need to stop Mitzi's milk production now that she's no longer breastfeeding, and I also want to give her the dungeon core we collected on the way home from Eldfall sooner rather than later. But other than that, I don't really have any concrete plans. Getting ready to go visit the goblins in Apollyon is up there, since Safara's pregnancy is coming along and I'd like to be there and back before she comes to term."

"Who are you taking along?" was Kira's next question.

"Nelith for sure. I thought about taking Mitzi; it's only been a month or so since she left, but I thought she might appreciate seeing her former home again. However, I don't know whether she'd want to leave her children just yet, so that was something I was planning to leave up to her." Fenrir paused as Myrina finally came up for air, looking somewhat more composed.

When he smiled at her, she muttered, "Don't even start," and began washing herself. It made him grin even wider, but he returned to his previous topic without further comment.

"I also don't know exactly what the time relation between here and Apollyon is. I was led to believe that Apollyon exists in a separate 'time bubble', so to speak, so that while in Apollyon time wouldn't move here. But that's been disproven by the fact that when I was banished, it took me two or so weeks to come back, both from my own perspective and from the perspective of those here in Ruyanei."

"Doesn't that mean that time moves the same for both planes?" Kira asked, rinsing out her hair. She had stepped deeper into the bath to wash it, and now the long silky locks pooled around her, floating at or near the surface of the water in a manner which Fenrir found to be oddly beautiful.

"Indicates, sure, but it's hardly definitive. It could be quite a bit more complex than simply 'does' or 'doesn't'. But back on topic, I hadn't decided on who else I was going to take with me, partially since there's a lot I don't understand yet about how the travel between planes works. Having been banished last time, I ended up way out in the wastes, but then to come back I had to travel to the center of Apollyon and the cathedral-city there that I told you all about. So I'm inclined to think that when I go back using the Key instead of being banished, I'll end up back in that cathedral, but I won't know until I actually do."

"You've been to Apollyon?" Myrina asked.

There wasn't much surprise in the question, leading Fenrir to believe she'd already heard about it from the other girls, but he responded, "Yes. Back when you were being rescued from the slavers by Kira and company, I was in Apollyon, searching for a way back after Elmeria had banished us both. I'll tell you the whole story sometime; it's quite the tale."

Myrina nodded slowly. "I'd like that. I've heard bits from the others, but never the whole story."

"You're in for a treat, it's amazing," Kira spoke up. "Hey boss, can you let me know when you tell her? I wouldn't mind hearing you tell it again."

"Sure," Fenrir smiled. "If enough people want to hear it, maybe we can make an evening of it. I do need to bring Tsavani up to speed as well anyway."

"What about Saeko?"

Fenrir took a moment to consider that. Across from him, Myrina pricked up her ears, clearly even more interested in the answer than the one who had asked.

"...Yes, she should probably know about at least some of it as well. I'm not sure it'd be wise to tell her everything just yet, though; I get the sense she's holding something back herself."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that. She has a hidden motivation that she doesn't seem to have shared with anyone. I don't know what it is, but until I do it'd be foolish to trust her too much."

"You think she'd betray us?" This time it was Myrina who asked the question, her brows deeply furrowed.

"I hope not. With any luck, it's something innocent, such as family she wants to protect or something like that. But with all of you to protect, I'm not going to hand a potential enemy too much information about myself and my plans, even if I don't really believe she is one."

Myrina subsided, her eyes down as she finished washing herself, the tension never leaving her brows. While he could see Kira was no less cognizant of it than himself, she turned the conversation into other channels and the rest of their time in the bath passed pleasantly enough. Particularly for Fenrir, as once she had finished washing up Kira insisted on helping him get clean, which naturally included as many inappropriate touches as she could get away with.

Fenrir responded in kind, of course, and the only thing that kept it from devolving into another round of sex right there in the bath was the call to breakfast. After all the activities of the morning, not to mention the night before, the great direwolf was far too hungry to postpone his meal, so to Kira's visible disappointment he let her go after one last tweak of a nipple and set to drying himself off.

After breakfast Fenrir sought out Mitzi. He found her in the nursery holding sway over her young brood, who were doing their best to inject as much chaos into the place as they could. They mobbed him the instant they saw him, and he was forced to spend some time playing with them before he could continue to where Mitzi sat watching in between taking lessons in needlework from Lilli.

Not that he particularly minded. Any excuse to play with his children was a good one in his eyes, especially with how quickly they were growing. The goblins were already old enough for games with defined rules, and he spent some time teaching them the basics of dodgeball, using yarn for balls.

After joining them for a game or two, he excused himself and continued on to where Lilli and Mitzi sat watching. "Is that a game you played in your youth, Master?" Lilli asked, smiling up at him.

"Once or twice, but I mostly watched others play. I was too sickly to play much myself at the time," he answered, returning her smile with a quick kiss. "Mind if I steal Mitzi from you for a bit? We have some things we need to handle together."

Lilli chuckled gently. "As though you need my permission. Go right ahead, I'll look after the children while you're gone."

Smiling, Fenrir scooped Mitzi into his arms. She smiled back, hugging as much of him as she could reach her arms around as she asked, "You're going to stop my milk?"

"Yes, and give you the dungeon core. I mentioned wanting to do that soon, remember?"

"Mitzi remembers. Where are we going?"

"To find Safara and Nelith. I expect they both would like to be there for this."

"Okay." Mitzi settled back against his shoulder, waiting comfortably while he sought out the aforementioned girls. Both immediately agreed to come along, though Safara took a quick detour to grab quill and paper.

While they waited in the maternity ward for her to arrive -Fenrir made a mental note to set aside a room specifically for experiments such as this later- the direwolf set Mitzi down on one of the beds. "Why don't we handle your milk problem now? Better to have that done before you absorb the dungeon core."

"Okay," the tiny goblin agreed readily, pushing her chest out into his hands. "Mitzi is ready." Then as Fenrir prepared to begin fleshcrafting, she laid a hand on his arm. "Can you make me ...bigger down there too? Mitzi wants to be able to take more of your cock when we have sex."

"Hmm. Well, I don't know how much more room I'll be able to give you, considering that you're already very small to begin with, but I'll do what I can. But first..."

Fenrir cupped Mitzi's breasts in his palms, enjoying their soft warmth, and reached within himself for the spells he would need. From the corner of his eye he saw Nelith grinning at them and flashed her a knowing look before going back to his task. She also knew a thing or two about wanting to fit things where they hadn't before.

Safara arrived before he finished and promptly took the opportunity to question both of them closely about what fleshcrafting was like. As he stopped Mitzi's milk production and also increased the size of her boobs a bit more just for fun, Fenrir detailed as best he could what the process was like for him.

"Wow," Safara breathed as he shifted his hands to Mitzi's stomach in preparation for lengthening her vaginal canal.

"Have you ever tried using it to, say, heal a cut or something?" asked Nelith, who had been an interested listener.

"Not so far, no." Fenrir paused for a moment, feeling out what that would be like, and his eyebrows rose at the amount of magic the spell asked of him for it. "It seems I could, but it would be very expensive mana-wise. Even more so than doing actual fleshcrafting."

Safara nodded as if she had expected this. "Magic is like that sometimes. It's almost as if spells don't like being used for anything other than their intended purpose."

"I see."

There was a moment's silence, then Mitzi spoke up. "Is magic alive then?"

Safara shook her head. "Not exactly. Runic magic is very formulaic in nature, but instinctive magic -like your fireballs, Nelith- is a little different. You can stretch and mold the spell to an extent. If we take Nelith's fireballs as an example, she can change the heat or the size of them, or even alter how fast they're launched, but the more she changes them, the more mana they'll take and the harder it'll be for her to maintain control.

"Fireballs are a very simple spell, though, so there's not that much you can do with them to begin with. Something like healing magic, on the other hand, has to do a lot more. Knitting flesh, muscle, and bone together is an extremely complex process, and stronger healing spells actually have to create the missing material on the spot. Sounds a lot like what Fenrir just described, right?" Safara gestured towards him, smiling, and the other two nodded.

"But no one who's tried to use it for any sort of fleshcrafting has ever had any success, not even people powerful enough to move mountains with their magic. In the more extreme cases, the spell outright failed, and in the less extreme ones the best they could do was heal back the wounds they had made exactly as they had been, which of course is precisely what the spells were intended to do. The spells seem to refuse to change anything about the person they're healing, even if it would be much easier to do.

"People have tried all sorts of things to get around this limitation, but it doesn't seem as if there's any loopholes. Even if you can make an instinctive spell do something it wasn't meant to do, you'll pay the price for it one way or another."

"Doesn't surprise me, honestly," Fenrir said, finishing up with Mitzi. "There you go. I'm not going to be fitting my whole cock into you, but I should be able to get quite a bit deeper now. And you're still going to need to milk yourself to get rid of what you've already stored, but you shouldn't produce any more. Well, unless you get pregnant again."

He turned to Safara. "Another question for you. Being a goblin, Mitzi is technically capable of gaining a class, like humans and other Light-races. Currently she's unclassed, though; do you know how she would theoretically go about gaining a class if she wanted one?"

"Well, you probably know that not all humans are classed either." Fenrir nodded, and Safara continued. "For most, if you train in a discipline, you'll eventually get a class related to it. Not always; some classes are unique and have special requirements, and occasionally someone will already have a class at birth, but that's rare. Most times, you have to train for the class you want."

"I see. Then giving Mitzi the dungeon core probably shouldn't mess with her ability to gain a class." Fenrir turned to Mitzi, who had been fondling her boobs with obvious satisfaction at their added heft. "Ready, Mitzi?"

She looked up, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Yes, Mitzi is ready."

Taking the dungeon core from his pouch, Fenrir placed it into Mitzi's outstretched hands. It had fit easily into his palm, but the much smaller goblin needed both hands to properly grip it.

She held it for a long moment, looking down at its smooth black surface, then the glow coming from the core brightened. Ribbons of dark red light rose off of it, dancing along and around her arms towards her torso in liquid streams. Once they reached the main trunk of her body they swirled around her before finally sinking gently beneath her skin.

As this was happening, the core in Mitzi's hands grew smaller and smaller, until it was gone entirely. For a long moment after the last of the light disappeared within her, Mitzi sat still, clearly processing what had just happened to her. Then she raised wide eyes to meet Fenrir's gaze.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Mitzi feels... different," she said softly, reaching a hand out to take hold of the one he extended to her.

"Different how?"

"I not sure. Stronger, better? Hard to explain." She murmured something in Gobbish, then raised her eyes to his again. "There is something in Mitzi now that wasn't there before."

He checked her over with God's Eye.

Mitzi
Female Goblin
Unclassed
Status: Amazed
Abilities: N/A
Kinks/Fetishes:
loves cumplay – like all goblins, responds to power - like all female goblins, loves being pregnant
Disposition Towards User:
still curious about what he is, particularly now that she's seen the variety in his followers – fully trusts in his ability to keep her safe - especially pleased that he gives their children affection and attention

On the surface, not much had changed, but when he looked deeper Fenrir thought he could see what Mitzi was talking about. She was tougher overall, especially in her resistance to mental effects, and there was something, a pool of some sort, deep within her. There wasn't much of it, but it looked much like the dungeon core had felt, and it was linked to both her mind and her pool of mana.

"What did it feel like, absorbing the core?" Safara asked, eyes sparkling and quill at the ready.

"Warm," Mitzi answered simply, using Fenrir's hand to help her get down off the bed. "Like being hugged by magic."

Safara waited for a few seconds more, but when Mitzi didn't elaborate further she asked, "Is that all?"

"Mitzi doesn't know how to explain better. Sorry." She gave the elf an apologetic shrug, and Safara was forced to sigh and let it go.

Fenrir glanced down at the notebook she was holding, seeing the writing which stretched halfway down the page, and smiled. "It seems you got quite a lot of notes in any case."

In between adding still more notes, Safara nodded. "It's the first time any Light-race has had a good opportunity to witness a dungeon core being absorbed." She flicked the page over, showing him another filled to the bottom with more notes. "I also got a lot on fleshcrafting, so thank you for that, E'nas."

"You didn't know about that already? Dungeon cores I can see, considering that only a Dark-race could be compatible with a core, but fleshcrafting is hardly something that's bound exclusively to Dark-races."

"Well, so far as I know, it's not, but there are very few people throughout history that have been recorded as being able to fleshcraft. It's known that elder dragons are often able to, but they're not known to share their knowledge freely, so there's very little actually available on the subject."

"And it's not as if there's many Dark-races that can fleshcraft either," Nelith put in. "Usually only super powerful people, like the Demon King and his inner circle, and often not even them. Fleshcrafting is really rare if you're not a dragon, Chief."

"Makes sense, I suppose," Fenrir nodded slowly. "Well, shall we get out of here and back to business? I'd like to get started on preparations for visiting Apollyon again so we can establish trade with Shazrak's tribe. I want to do that and be back before this one" -he brushed a gentle hand over Safara's swollen stomach, making her smile- "decides it's time to come out and see the wider world."

As they exited the room, the direwolf looked down at Mitzi. "If you start to feel strange at any point, send someone to tell me immediately. There might be long term effects."

She nodded, face serious.

"And Mitzi, did you want to come along to see your old tribe again? I understand if you'd rather wait until another time, considering your children and that it hasn't actually been all that long since you left, but I thought I'd ask just in case."

She considered it for several long seconds. "...No, Mitzi will wait this time. I would like to go back sometime, but I don't want to leave my children yet."

Fenrir nodded. "You're coming along," he told Nelith.

She smirked. "Not even making a pretense of asking?"

Fenrir smiled in return. "Would you prefer I did?"

To his surprise she actually considered the question seriously. "...No, actually. Well, I would sometimes, but sometimes it's kinda hot to just be told what to do. If you have a fault, it's that you're actually too polite, Chief."

Bah humbug. Once again, over a month between updates. 'If it's not one thing, it's another' seems to be the theme of my life recently.
But it's not all been downsides. For example, just recently over on QQ one DaginaVestroyer69 (what a name, by the way) offered to merge the two images I had been using for Myrina, and after a bit of back and forth we landed on something which was pretty spot on to how I originally imagined her. I've updated it everywhere her image appears, and you can also view it right here.
So, in this chapter, we get some more Myrina, a discussion about what's going on with Fenrir's Barbarian class, and Mitzi finally gets that dungeon core. Not much happens, though; it seems they're going to need more cores for anything exciting. But there is a bit more lore scattered here and there throughout the chapter as well.
Fenrir's now focusing on the upcoming Apollyon trip, so you can expect to see that before too long. Who wants to lay wagers on whether the trip will go smoothly? Also, who do you think Fenrir ought to take along?
Enjoy!