First Day in Prison

A/N: Testing something out. This chapter, and the next few that have Dusk's perspective, are gonna be in 1st person. If you do or don't like it, please mention it in the comments!

There wasn't much time spent back in Riverbend, Captain Roger opting to leave for Recuan immediately after resupplying with rations of salted hornet meat. Eve and the tribes had split off as soon as they could, as encouraged by me thanks to some whispering, and the troops from Riverbend, including Camilla's brother William, stopped there. Nearly two days of walking since the Empress fight (who would have guessed prisoners don't get the luxury of a carriage?), and I see the tall walls of Recuan approach. I'd long since polymorphed to my human form, more for my own comfort than anyone else's, as Blobby continues to act as a sort of vest or chestplate. Now that I don't really need as much mana, the slime's been satisfyingly leeching it off of me...much to the dismay of the guards assigned to watch me...except for one who ended up staring a little longer than she probably should have. Unfortunately, she must have been taken out of the guard rotation, since I only saw her once.

The two guards next to me lead the two of us through the open portcullis leading into the city. The architecture is more gothic than I would have expected, with tall, pointed roofs of the taller buildings toward the center of town and spikes along the outer walls. People rush to the streets to watch the army walk through, cheering at their victory and staring in awe at the soldiers. It almost makes me feel like they're cheering for me, but if they knew the truth, they'd probably be staring for a very different reason...

. . .

"Enjoy your stay." One of the guards gives a crooked smile as he swings my cell door closed.

I sit on the side of the bed. The evening light shines through the tiny barred window and into the room, highlighting exactly how small it is. The cell itself is maybe a hundred square feet, giving a cramped feeling I can't quite escape. That's probably the point... There's not a toilet, but there's a bucket in the corner that I suppose is my 'toilet' while I'm here.

Blobby shifts from around my torso into her usual orb-ish state in my lap. Now what do we do with you? On the way over to Recuan, I had plucked on those 'threads' that I noticed during my battle with the Empress. It's difficult to pin down exactly who they're connected to without diving down a rabbit hole I don't want right now, but throughout the entire trip, I kept messing with it. And throughout the nearly-two-day trek, one of those threads was nearby the entire time... There wasn't anything about it in my stats last night, but maybe-

The door to my cell swings open. "Well, well, well, the rumors were true." A man swaggers into the room, two more standing just outside. The one speaking has that sort of sleazy wannabe-gangster sound to him. "The newest guy in our block's a tail chaser."

I raise an eyebrow and cross my arms. "You got a problem with me?" I stand, showing I'm about even with the man in human form, around six feet tall. "Last I checked, I just got here."

"We got a problem with your kind, gaper." He aggressively pokes a finger into my chest. "Choose a side. Us," he points at Blobby, resting on the bed next to me, "or them."

I look to Blobby, who seems to shrink in on herself. "I need to pick a side?" I smirk and look back at the man. "Why don't you take that load of shit and shove it u-"

My head snaps to the side from his punch. "As I thought, chaser. I'm gonna enjoy breaking you in." As I bend down to the side from the recoil, confirming I have a bloody nose when I check it, I see the man pull down his pants, revealing a...moderately sized cock? If I'm being honest, I'm a bit biased by now, since my usual one is nearly a foot long.

I begin to chuckle, holding a hand to my nose to help with the bleeding. "You just made a huge mistake, buddy." I swing my arm up, hitting him hard in the balls.

He stumbles back as he clutches his crotch, holding back a scream. "Kallen, Monsquad's coming!" One of the two men outside the door whisper-shouts.

'Kallen' looks between him and me, his nostrils flaring as I stand to taunt him. "Why don't you run along, then? Next time you walk in here, I won't be so friendly."

'Kallen' scowls as he pulls up his pants, jogging away with the other two prisoners. Moments later, I see an actual fucking dragon chase after them! I rush out the cell door, confirming that yes, it is an actual dragon, and it turns around toward me, apparently having someone riding it. The muscle-y woman dismounts the blue and black-scaled dragon, walking toward me. "'Ey, don't think I've seen you before. You the new guy?" She closes the distance as she talks, revealing she's actually quite a bit taller than me while I'm polymorphed, around a head taller. When she glances into me cell, spotting Blobby, she nods her head. "Yeah, you're the new guy." The blond offers a fist bump. "Name's Susan. 'E's Markonath." She gestures to the dragon with her head.

"Uh, Dusk." I hesitantly bump her fist with my own. "Were you just riding him?"

She chuckles. "Yeah, 'appens when 'e needs to take someone somewhere in a 'urry."

The dragon, also having approached, speaks up in a guttural tone. "It's only because you're slow." Now that I'm seeing him up close, Markonath seems about as big as a horse, but a bit shorter and more stout. He must be young. He holds his head around my own eye-level. "Did those scum hurt you or-" He gazes inside the cell, seeing Blobby, still on my bunk. "Why, pray tell, do you have a slime with you?" He shakes his head, raising it above my own. "Susan, this is a waste of time. A slime-lover doesn't count amongst our number."

I raise my hand and step in front of him, blocking his way. "Now hold on! What's wrong with slimes?"

The dragon growls. "They're the simplest life forms in the realm. In many ways..." He glares at Blobby.

"Well, this slime is different! She's actually intelligent, for one!" I cross my arms.

Susan reaches out and rubs Markonath's head. "Now now, you know what it's like when people judge by appearances. Anyway, we heard a...monster lover, was admitted today." She then says under her breath. "...we really need to come up with a better name for that..."

"Word really travels fast, huh?" I shake my head. "I guess you're our welcoming party?"

"You could say that. Thought we'd introduce ourselves before the racist goons showed up." She gestures behind her, seemingly referring to Kallen and his goons.

Markonath squints his eyes at the blond. "Don't act like you're entirely with us, either." He clears his throat. "Now, if you're coming with us, we don't have long before sunset, so let's go." He walks around me.

I turn to look after him before glancing back at Susan. "What happens at sunset?"

The strong woman claps my shoulder as she walks past. "A good friend wakes up. You'll want to get on 'er good side."

I stare after them, snapping out of my confusion when Blobby begins climbing up my leg, wrapping herself around like a chestplate again.

. . .

Without asking many questions, I had followed them. Upon approaching our destination, a few more monsters seemed grouped together with another human outside one of the cells. The brown-furred minotaur among them waves us down. "Hey! You found the new guy!"

Susan speaks up. "Was there any doubt, Xerxes?" When the distance closes, she continues. "This is Dusk, and...what's the slime's name?"

"Uh..." I look at Blobby through God's Eye, but there's still nothing where her name should be. "She has one, but hasn't told it to me, yet." I rest my hand on her 'strap' on my shoulder and massage it. "But yeah, I'm Dusk, nice to meet you all."

The blond nods, pointing to each of them in order. "Anyway, this is Xerxes, Essraya, Belinda, and Eric."

Essraya, a green verdure with flowers in her bright pink hair, but otherwise very human-looking, waves from some kind of large pack on Xerxes' back before wrapping her arms around his neck again. "Pleasure to meet you, Dusk." She has some wrappings around where her breasts...are? would be? It's difficult to say from this angle. Xerxes himself just has some loose pants, much like Graul was wearing before. Graul...I'm gonna kill him next time I see him...

Belinda looks mostly human, except is holding her head in the crook of her arm. Her free arm waves excitedly, but her head gives a tired, monotone voice. "Welcome to prison. Can we please get on with who's going to take care of Mona tonight?" She's got a full set of normal clothing, and the only differences between her and a normal human would be her detached head and her sickly pale skin.

Eric, the only other human here and covered in bruises, waves his hands in frustration. "I don't know what you want me to say, Bel! I don't get why you guys think I won't die in there! I was in recovery for a week last time I tried!"

I look between them. "I'm sorry, what's going on here? Who's Mona?"

Belinda speaks up again, lifting up her head to be more eye-level with me. "Demona is a gargoyle. She turns to stone during the day, but by the time she wakes up at night, she's hornier than a succubus. Most of us take turns helping her, but-"

"It hurts!" Eric rubs his arms, looking to me in a panicked way. "She's a fucking sadist!"

Now that I take a better look at everyone, Susan and Xerxes have bruises, too. Essraya might have bruises, but I remember something about some pretty good regeneration for them, and if Belinda has any bruises, she's good at hiding them. "Uh, maybe we can help?" I weakly raise my hand and shoulders.

"No." Markonath growls from next to me. "You're a stranger. She was very clear about it being only us to...help her."

The verdure raises a finger to her chin, looking up into the air. "I'm pretty sure she meant that as in the group, not us, specifically. Dusk here is like Susan and Eric, by the looks of it, so she should be fine with them."

The blond raises her hands. "Please, do not compare me to Eric."

"Hey!"

The headless (or maybe 'just a head'?) woman sighs as she gazes to the nearest window, seeing the light fading from view. "She'll have to forgive us. Or maybe she won't, I don't care." Her own(?) hand karate chops her on the head, causing the head to wince. "You should be hitting Eric, not me. He's the one chickening out."

"Hey!"

Xerxes reaches over and claps me on the shoulder, guiding me through the cell door that Essraya opens with an outstretched...hand? vine? I'll need to get better at that. "Good luck, new guy. And don't cum inside her."

As the door closes behind me and locks, I realize that this cell is much more like solitary confinement than my own, with solid stone walls and a thick, if dented, metal door isolating me from the outside. At the edge of the room, I see a statue standing with its face mere inches from the small window, eye level with it in the seven foot high room. Wings are curled up along its back and a rocky tail extends from its rear to touch the floor. I walk around to its side, eying its mostly feminine form. She's got an eight-pack? Geez... "Hey," I pat the blob on my chest. "I'm probably gonna need some help here." I check to make sure the door is closed before dropping my polymorph. "Remember when you restrained Camilla a few nights ago?" Blobby shakes up and down. "Would you be willing to do the same, here?" She pauses, but shakes up and down again. "Thanks."

Using my extended arm as a bridge, Blobby crawls over and begins wrapping herself around the statue. As she does, I can see the rock start to crack and flake off the surface, the limbs of the beast in front of me flexing as the slime stretches and wraps around them. Soon, the eyes gain a more organic - if still creepy - black hue, and the neck flexes enough to turn to me, her nostrils flaring. Her tongue shoots out and licks her lips, causing more of the flaky rock to fall away. As I step back, she gains more range in her movement, first taking a step toward me, and then pouncing!

I'm pinned to the ground, and I'm glad I pulled down my pants a bit before, because she immediately impales herself on my dick. Despite the stone texture of her body, she's surprisingly wet, soaking my rod and squirting the liquids around with every thrust. Gradually, as Blobby does her work of binding the gargoyle, her arms retreat behind her, emphasizing her mid-sized bouncing bust. Her torso bends back as her pussy clamps down on my cock, and she's surprisingly flexible for a being made of rock. As I push myself up, her back lowers even more, her head almost touching the floor. As my member exits her love tunnel, slimy strands of precum connecting us, she begins to resist the slimy bonds holding her.

"Don't worry, you'll get what you want...just on my terms." I plank over her, lining up and thrusting my dick into her, and she stops pulling apart the straining slime. I glide my hand up from her hip, sliding along the rocky surface until I reach her breast, cupping it with my palm. I give it a squeeze, noting the firmness, but also a surprising amount of flexibility, of the mammary in my grip. Almost every part of the living rock has this same amount of flexibility.

I quickly feel the pressure of orgasm building up. It's not like with Eve, where my member remains outside her body and she hugs it. The confining cavern of her snatch strains my continually-hardening penis. Even with her juices flowing, it's like rubbing one out with a wet rock that happens to bend a bit. Despite that, I quickly feel the pressure of orgasm coming. Remembering Xerxes' warning, I pull out, my semen shooting out all over the gargoyle woman.

However, it doesn't seem to satiate my partner. Demona pushes herself up, stretching Blobby as the gargoyle rubs her vagina against me. "Not done, yet?" I exhale heavily, then lower my hand onto the grunting and moaning woman's cunt, rubbing it vigorously. "How you holding up?" The slime doesn't answer the question directed at her, likely due to the strain on her body. I play with the edge of her folds, causing Demona to shiver as she continues trying to thrust onto my dick. I take my other hand and begin pinching her nipple. Within mere moments, the dual sensation leads the gargoyle to scream and spasm in my grasp, falling limp and crushing Blobby.

I sit back and pant, taking a moment to polymorph myself back to a human form. My slimy companion quickly reforms herself on top of Demona and sips up all of my cum as I hear the door unlock. It swings outward, and the group of monsters I'd just met, along with Susan and Eric, peek in.

"Who the hell is this fucker?" I'm surprised to here an alto, gravely, panting voice come from the woman I just had sex with, sounding like she'd smoke a pack a day. "And who let a slime in here?" She swipes at Blobby, splatting her against the wall.

I activate God's Eye, first confirming Blobby's okay, and then checking Demona's stats. How is she sane right now? "I-I'm Dusk... That slime is a good friend of mine..."

. . .

I sit at the table in the cafeteria with my new 'friends', our table illuminated by candlelight. "So you can't smell?"

Demona crunches on the rock candy in front of her, her eyes now having a human pattern, albeit her pupils are still black. She had donned a brown leather vest with the top of the back cut off to accommodate her wings, and a skirt at her waist. Her vest remains open at the front, giving everyone a decent view of her breasts, but still covering most of her bust. "Can't really taste much, either."

Belinda doesn't have a dinner meal, instead just having her head on the table and her body bobbing back and forth to some inaudible tune. "Gargoyles don't have great senses, other than sight and sound. But I'm more curious about you..." She squints inquisitively.

"Yeah, what kind of monster can turn into a human?" The gargoyle talks with her mouth full, and everyone at the table pauses from the shock. Susan and Greg visibly shift in their seats as they all look to you.

I raise your hands. "Hey, can we keep a lid on that? If news spreads about my ability, then who knows what kind of chaos will spread? How'd you even figure out anyway?" I point confusedly at the headless (or head?) woman.

"Only three of us have come out of that room without visible bruising. Essraya can regenerate quickly, I don't bruise, and Demona is the one causing the bruising. You don't have any bruises, and your broken nose from before healed, so you were hiding something." Her body points to me in a dramatic, almost anime fashion.

"Okay, yeah, you're right. I'm a monster, too." I whisper to the table. "Is there a problem with hiding that?"

Belinda's body slams her hands into the table, her head giving you a dirty glare. "Yes, there is. It upsets the natural order. Monsters are monsters and humans are humans."

Susan turns her gaze back to her meal of meat and potatoes, clearly upset. "She's right. Line's there for a reason."

I wave my hands in frustration, still whispering. "What, the line put there by the very gods that decided to remake me and give me the ability to look human?"

Essraya speaks up from her large pot-like bag of soil that Xerxes had been carrying her around in. "Everyone, please calm down. Bel, you've told me you still want to be human again, even after embracing the fact that you're one of us, now. Susan, we've talked about this. It's why we took you in to begin with. Now, regardless of Dusk's reasoning, we all agreed to accept any monsters that are placed here." She also has no food in front of her, making me imagine that she uses photosynthesis.

"Raya's right." Xerxes looks up from his plate of hay and meat. "New guy's got his reasons, but I think we'd all take the chance to blend in more if we could. Linda, sit down." He sets his meaty hand on Belinda's shoulder, applying a bit of **** to guide her as she crosses her arms.

The meal continues in silence for a bit before I speak up again. "Wait, do your head and body have different names?" I try to remember Susan's introducing...them(?) to see if she used two names or one.

After an uncomfortable silence, Essraya speaks up again, softly clapping her hands together. "They're the same person, but when separate, they can seem quite different. If we need to talk about them separately, we typically use Bel for her head and Linda for her body, but Bel can also refer to both as its own nickname. Linda typically has a harder time hiding her emotions, so is more...dramatic, but Bel tends to have this dark and gloomy aura around her."

Bel glares at the verdure as Linda turns to the side. "I resent that statement." Linda then picks up Bel and attaches the bodiless head to the headless body, twisting side to side a bit before they're attached. Belinda shakes her head a bit, her raven hair shifting back and forth. "I'm going to bed. Dusk...don't be an idiot."

A few moments after she leaves, Demona chuckles, having finished her meal. "Yeah, she hates you. She can't even sleep."

I sigh. "Can't please everyone."

Essraya claps her hands together again. "She does have the right idea, though. It's getting late, and we owe our new friends a tour of the Facility tomorrow."

We finish our meals, and head back to our cells, with Markonath, as silent as he's been, helping me get back to my own.

A/N: Hey! Just so you know, this chapter is going to be released alongside side chapters over the course of the next week or so. These side chapters are not - or at least should not be - required to understand the main story, but will provide more characterization and lore to characters and world itself. I'll be making more of these interludes in the future, especially during arcs where lots of time passes between chapters in the main story.