Downwards

“Let’s head downwards. Something killed that rat, it definitely was not Ratty, and I don’t think I want to meet it. If she went to a lower level, I don’t think she’d have gone very far, so we can head back up if we don’t see anything soon.” you say, making a decision.

Jitter nods, shakily, and the two of you walk around the cistern to head down the path leading to the stairway. The steps are worn and uneven, and you have to be careful to maintain a steady footing. The stairs are a spiral, going down, and down, and down into the depths, winding tightly around a central shaft of open air. You pass three levels blocked by collapse or ancient, unyielding doors, but finally you arrive at the bottom of the shaft and find an open hallway greeting you with stagnant air.

As you proceed through the hallway, there are no signs of rats, spiders, or other creatures—everything is purely, utterly silent. You and Jitter are, as well; it feels as if even the slightest sound might bring some horrible fate upon you. This is deep into the catacombs, far too deep for you to be safe in, far deeper than you thought these tunnels went. Six levels below Ondell… you must be hundreds of feet into the earth, deeper than even the vermin of the rest of the catacombs are willing to venture. You are almost of a mind to run, but… if Ratty is down here, then she may need your help to get out.

You walk onward, prowling carefully, checking the rooms you pass for any sign of Ratty… and then, suddenly, right as you were about to risk a whisper telling Jitter to head back, you see something. The light of a small fire is reflecting off the walls up ahead, from the open door of a side room. Someone must be there, and since rats and spiders have no need of fire, there’s a solid chance this is Ratty! You might have found her at last...

You and Jitter look at each other, then you both rush forward, eager to find her and get out of this horrible place. When you get to the door’s empty frame and look in, however, what you see surprises you. Sitting across the small, ornate brazier containing the fire is a human. A very pale, very thin human, in ornate and flowing robes that look utterly ridiculous on their thin and bony frame. They stare at you with large, pitch-black eyes that do not reflect the fire, and their horrible, emaciated lips smile far too broadly as they look at you. Their eyes meet yours—they speak a single word in a language you do not know, and your heart becomes leaden, your limbs numb, and you cannot look away from their eyes. Then, they address you in a terrifying, emotionless voice.

“You should not have come here, oh young one. Small one. Morsel of life. You are nothing but a meagerness in the face of its hunger. Our hunger. My hunger. Yet this offering is accepted. I-we-it accept you.”

You can't look away from its eyes, no matter how hard you try—but your mind seems **** to try to do anything. In a vague and disaffected sense, you can feel Jitter pulling on your arm. He yells at you, but you can’t hear what he says. He screams at you, and pulls harder, but you can’t muster an ability to react. And then you do not feel a pull, do not hear a yell, and you feel more utterly alone in that moment than you have ever thought was possible.

The human rises from their sitting position, and almost flows towards you rather than walking. As they draw close, your Perception is finally good enough to give you an automatic pop-up.

Zino the Lasting, Level 20 Forgotten Cultist

Monster, Human, Explicit, Miniboss [Roaming] [Unique]

There is the vaguest sense in the back of your your mind that you are truly, truly fucked. Your mind feels like it’s thinking through lead, and your eye cannot look away. Your only hope is that they will kill you, so that you respawn in your lair safe and sound. It—Zino—moves closer, until they grab your arm and their hand—the touch does not burn like a demon or chill like an undead, but it completely lacks the warmth of a living thing. It feels like nothing but a tightness upon you, and you cannot muster a will to resist as this thing leads you onwards, down the hall, until you find yourself in a room that clearly was once a grand chamber; it is large and round, with an ornately-carved obelisk in the center, covered in etchings and artwork you can't make out.

“Once, this place was blessed of life and what preserves. There were others. We who lasted, and who hid, and who were trapped. Now there is only I-we-it and I-we am-are close, so close to dust and ash, as all others who were like I-we once are now.” There is almost a hint of sadness in their voice, but you find their bizarre speaking patterns hard to follow.

Zino leads you to the obelisk and, seemingly without effort despite their skeletal frame, hoists you up and chains your limbs to rusted manacles. They pick up a rusted ornate dagger from the ground, and rather than killing you as you had hoped, they cut away the ragged excuse for pants preserving your modesty, exposing your ensheathed cock and fuzzy balls. Tossing the dagger away, their thin fingers move to cradle your sack, yet you can feel nothing but the pressure of their touch.

“The font of life… it has been so long since one as like you has been here, someone so easily entranced, so effortlessly enthralled, yet so full of what preserves. I have grown thin, we have waned, it is hungry. With you, I-we-it shall last and be restored again. Blessed forever are I-we-it-you, morsel. Harden.”

You do not understand what is happening. Your cock rises out of its sheath at their command, contrary to everything you want, and it tenses in the cool, musty air. Unbidden arousal floods your veins, as their hand wraps around you and begins to stroke, the unfeeling tightness of their grip moving up and down your shaft, stimulating you despite the dull horror in your mind as to what is happening. As you begin to pant and moan involuntarily, they raise a tarnished silver chalice to your cockhead, and as you finally cum, they carefully collect every drop of seed.

As you watch, still unable to process fully what is happening, Zino speaks harshly in the same language from earlier, and raises the chalice to their lips, drinking your freshly-milked semen—and before your eyes, you see a bit of fullness re-enter their lips and some of the gaunt wrinkles in their bony face disappear. They lower the chalice and speak again in the strange language, before addressing you.

“The hunger thins for a moment—you are accepted truly. I-we-it will last and you will last with us, for as long as you are what preserves, and when you are not, you will be as I-we-it are… it will bless you as it has blessed I-we, in return for how you have gifted it as I-we once did. Rejoice in your blessing, morsel. Rejoice…”

Days pass. Centuries. Years. Weeks. Decades. You have no way of knowing. At some point, you know another person was added to the obelisk, and another shortly after. Your mind is too clouded to recognize them, but in the back of your mind, you feel like their cries of ecstasy are intensely familiar as you are all milked of your orgasms—of what preserves—by the steady hand of the cultist. Zino alone tends to you all, and they are young again, their once-skeletal frame now an otherworldly, androgynous beauty hidden by the ancient robes.

Since you first saw them, your mind has never been free of its unbearable dulling, a dulling renewed and strengthened every time Zino’s pitch-black eyes catch your own, but increasingly you begin to feel… hollow. Like there is little else remaining to you, and you can feel that your orgasms are decreasing in volume. Zino speaks to you of how you have almost given all of what preserves that the gods blessed you with, and their inscrutable tone sounds almost proud of you. Soon, you are promised, you will understand. Soon, you will know the words Zino speaks before and after they consume your blessing.

And then… and then you-we-it will never die.