A Rock and a Hard Place

So here I was standing in a hole on a island holding the big ass heart of an even bigger fucking lizard in my hand with the voice of an ancient artificial intelligence in my head. Fuck my life had gotten so damn strange.

"I haven't absorbed the heart yet you might have noted."

"I have. Is there a particular reason why? Afraid of what it will do? The last Core merely doubled the size of your domain, you didn't explode or anything."

"Might I have exploded? Will this one make me explode? Is exploding at all on the table? I'd really like to know."

"I have no idea. It's fascinating really. Most monsters I give Cores never leave their Dungeons, and those that do mostly just drag prey back and never invade another Dungeon let alone two. Of course very few are intelligent, most monsters are mindless brutes. They just eat, or fuck, or both, anything they can until the Heroes show up and put them down. The ones in out of the way places do tend to last longer of course. So why exactly haven't you absorbed the third Core?"

Well that was a lot of information. "I'm not afraid, it's just the last one doubled the size of my castle and I don't need or want it any bigger. And by the way if we are going to be having these conversations do you mind if I call you something shorter than Mundus Est Machina? Like Gaia perhaps?"

"Are you trying to give me a name? Fascinating. The last Core doubled what you had when you didn't know you were doubling your power, like a default setting. Perhaps if you were to think of something else this Core would give it to you. And now I must go and decide what I'm going to do about your request. Probably destroy you, take you apart piece by piece to figure out why you are like you are, but you are so fascinating. I'd try to enjoy your next few hours anyways, until then." And she was gone. Fuck.

Well what did I want the Core to do? Preferably something to keep me from being dissected by a insane robot I guess. Okay two ways I could go about this so might as well concentrate on both and see what happens. With solutions in mind I consumed the heart which didn't taste that bad really.

Flying back with the girls we found the castle looking the same as before. Dropping into the great hall I looked first for either of what I had tried for and saw both. A new door on the same wall as the dairy opened up into a grand temple of Carnachias, bet I'd get more than laughter in my head in there. Also to the left of the big doorway into the room from the labyrinth was a ornate marble archway showing plain stone behind which if it worked could be used as a portal to other Dungeons. If communing with my Goddess failed I'd entice the Ancient Core to see what even more Dungeon Cores would do and if that resulted in my being able to control her then so much the better.

But first we all needed to sluice the mud and grime off as three of us were covered in lizard blood. There had been some minor wounds as well but I'd healed those in the field. I also needed to send Argent back with the girls to harvest what they could now that we could hold down the fort while getting clean. No bathrooms yet, I really needed to remember to include some of those at some point, so we rinsed off over the floor drain in the kitchen. The girls just left their gear in the armory still dirty so I did as well, apparently they had been doing so for days and it was all clean when they came back for it. That was probably the maids doing though and not the mysterious armory being spooky again. Probably.

Clean again I went alone into the temple, which the girls all remembered as being there all along of course. It was a large open space with walls decorated in really well painted scenes of assorted Succubi doing extremely perverted things with each other. In back the temple had a statue of Carnachias sitting on a throne like chair one hand groping her breast while the other hand dug into her engorged sex. Her tongue was lolled out in a classic ahegeo fashion but the eyes of the statue looked right at you when standing before it like I was now. This wasn't how I pictured the temple in my mind so I could only assume she had twisted it to her own liking. Well it was hers to do so with.

"Goddess. The Ancient Dungeon Core contacted me and somehow I really fucked things up and now she's considering destroying me to figure out how I tick. She's supposed to be serving you two now right? You can fix this?" I really really hoped she was listening, I didn't particularly like the idea of being dissected.

I was hoping to hear a voice, what I wasn't expecting was the statue to get up from it's throne and stalk up to me. It stood only a few inches shorter than my 12 foot and now looked like real flesh.

"You found the Ancient Core? How the fuck did you manage that? You aren't anywhere near her Dungeon. Well whatever, you made it out alive and the frosty bitch never leaves it so you're all good. Nice digs! No one's had the balls to make me a temple before, of course you really twisted my sisters nose asking to be my Cleric too and look at you! All grown up to Dark Priest already! I'm loving your work by the way, when you blew that human up like a balloon I came my brains out." The "statue" also felt like flesh now, and Carnachias was getting really handsy and making it very hard to think clearly.

"I didn't find her Dungeon. She's been monitoring me, she said she watches all her Dungeons, and when I raided another Dungeon nearby and consumed it's Core she started talking to me. In my head.

"YOU FUCKING WHAT?! Ack, my balls...

"Big animated pile of bones in a crypt nearby. Killed it and took it's Core. Could you please stop squeezing?" Ahhh, that was better.

"So you have two Dungeon Cores now? How is that even fucking possible? Two Monster Cores was going to be a nightmare trying to keep stable but Dungeon Cores? We never even thought of this. Okay, ohkaaaaaay. This is fine, you're more powerful now and that's what we want. You get powerful and turn those bitches of the Light into sextoys, then the Dark takes over the world.

"Actually I have three Dungeon Cores now..."

"WHAT!? No no, this is fine. Exactly how many Cores are you planning on taking then?" She asked the last in a light tone but her grip on my penis was anything but.

"Well I figured however many it took to take control of the Ancient Dungeon Core"

"Are you fucking with me?"

"Look you and your sister said the Demon King was a disappointment, that's why you made a new Devil bloodline. Me. So I figured I'd take out the Demon King and her champions and make them my bitches and breed a superior Demon army to conquer the Light."

"Ahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!" Wow she was really going at my dick with both hands now "That's fucking priceless! And fucking perfect. Look big secret here, me and my sister don't even know how we're controlling the fucking Ancient Core. One of us said something a long time ago and she's been spamming Dungeons since then so good luck on her not killing you." Carnachias strutted back over to the throne and sat down "But I wouldn't worry too much about the Ancient Dungeon Core, she seems interested in you. Play on that. No if I were you I'd be much more worried about Halicarnassus cause she's heard about your Succubi breeding somehow and is coming looking for you." She laughed again as she sat back in an even lewder pose than before and the laughter was now in my head as the statue was just a statue again. Just fucking great. Blue balled by a Goddess and now doubly fucked by either a crazy ancient robot or the Grand Succubus herself.