The Floor of Beasts

When we entered into the new floor, its denizens were already waiting for us.

Five Beastmen stood on one side of Matrowyn’s fountain. The term Beastmen of course being unbearably reductive as at least two of them had the swinging tits of a woman. They were a wide variety of animal-human hybrids from goat to snow leopard. Each of them bore crude armor and a nasty looking axe. They growled and shouted insults across the room to their neighbors.

Grokhan’s gifts were opposite of them. Ten goblins stood behind two large and muscular green monsters. These were orcs. There were plenty of them in the dungeon I grew up in, but it’s clear that constant contact with humans had civilized the ones I grew up with. These were snarling hacking creatures who shouted infidelities across the milky pond.

Behind them, and behind the goblins was a large creature I could only recognize through reputation. An orge. A mountain of muscle and fat, somewhat yellowish in color like hogs hide stained with turmeric. It towered over everything, fully eight feet tall, and half as wide. I’d suspected that the ogre would be the boss of this level, but apparently not. His fellows kept him far at the back. It’s easy to imagine they didn’t want him flying into a rage by being at the head of their group while the two parties shouted. Ogre were famed for being dumb and quick to anger, of course making them the favored children of Grokhan.

“Oh you got more goblins.” Cyrus said, hiding behind my leg.

“There he is.” The male orc said. He and his female counterpart got on one knee. “Holy Herald we welcome you!”

The Beastmen bowed, showing their own form of respect. “We thank you for the opportunity to fight for this holy ground.” Said the snow leopard, a fetching example of a female.

“There will be no fighting.” I tell them sternly. “An enemy of the faith is coming to kill us all, and we must work together to stop it.”

“It is a disgrace!” An orc barked. “Working with our natural foes.”

“He’s right about that.” Sapphire muttered. “What are we doing here?” She asked Ruby and Melli. “He’s summoned an army down here. Do we think he’s not going to use it after this is done?”

“Well I mean.” Melli looked to me nervously. “He probably is. But you’ll be gone by then.”

Sapphire gasped at the callousness of that, even though it was the very deal she herself had agreed to. “We can’t just let him….”

“He just brought a dungeon back to life!” Melli cried out, suddenly raw. “What are you going to do to stop him?”

Actually it was Dorothy who had done that work, and calling the army on me was still an option. But I didn’t want to contradict her, not when she was helping me out.If they wanted to think I was too powerful to oppose let them.

“Let’s focus.” I said turning to my brutish solders. “This is Cyrus.” I say gesturing to my little buddy. “He’s going to be leading you in the defense of this floor. You follow his every command as if it were my own.”

“A goblin?” One of the orcs scoffed. “Holy one, you ask too much.”

“Cyrus, kill him.” I snapped.

“Awww.” Cyrus dropped his head, and started walking forward.

“What?” The Orc gasped, and stood up.

“It’s classic evil overlord leadership.” I say calmly. “You kill the first person to question you.”

“I meant no offense…”

“Cyrus is my second in command, you insult him you insult me.”

The Orc nodded his head to Cyrus. “I meant no offense… lord.”

Cyrus looked up at me. “Do I still have to kill him?”

I was a little disappointed that neither the orcs or beastmen questioned whether Cyrus could kill the orc. They couldn’t have known he had a freakin’ laser, but they must have known he could do something terrible if I trusted him so. “We’ll put his life on probation for now.” I looked to the beasts. “What about you lot? Does Cyrus need to beat someone’s ass for you to acknowledge him as the alpha?”

“We are being punished.” One of the beasts whispered to the leopard.

“The we will bare it!” She hissed back. “No lord, your word is law in these halls. We will show you the might of the senate and you will see sense in our claims then.”

“I look forward to it.”

I moved to the fountain and bent down. “The fact that you were willing to fight in this holy fountain concerns me.” I dipped my hand in the milk. “To desecrate it with your blood.” I brought my fingers to my lips, a thrill ran through my body, purely chemical. I had to be careful around this stuff or I might go crawling back to Matrowyn one day. It was so good!

“Forgive us lord but it is not holy to us.”

The orcs snorted in agreement.

Ah.

It was easy to forget from my time growing up, but Bellowyn’s religion was basically a collection of many disparate religions patched together by her grandeur. In my little hole we worshipped the mother, and gave honor to her children. To these beasts their god was the child, and they honored the mother. It was the same for other religions too. Hell the main pantheon of gods in heaven were birthed from a single entity, a being so reviled even Bellowyn hadn’t slept with it. Which is to say when it comes to worship people pay little mind to genealogy.

“Hmmm.” Was all I had to say to that. I walked through the pool of milk. My mages took care to walk around it. “So if the orge isn’t this level’s boss I wonder who is?” On either side of the chamber was more rooms and passages for use by each of the level’s factions. I have no doubt a hero would have to plunge through both to open the boss door, but it would open freely for me.

“You are of course.” Ruby said, as she maneuvered around some goblins. “You are the master of this dungeon.”

“I was just about to say that.” Sapphire said. “I swear I just heard someone say that.”

“What is that?” Melli asked me.

“What?” I looked around.

“There’s someone else here with us.”

“Yeah.” Ruby agreed. “I can just barely hear him talking.”

“Whispering.” Sapphire correct.

“It’s a girl.” Melli corrected.

“She’s here but she’s not.” Ruby went on.

“She’s here, and you own her.” Melli nodded.

“It’s a man.” Sapphire corrected.

“Yes. He’s here and you own him.” Ruby continued.

“You own everything in here.” Melli corrected.

“Yes.” Sapphire agreed the three of them swayed slightly.

“Ummm… okay.” Looks like Mendaxwyn was doing his job. It was a little disturbing but interesting to see play out regardless. Ah hell, it was pretty hot! I wonder how long that effect would take to completely bend someone to my will? Sapphire would be a good test case for that. Since I hadn’t made as much progress with her as I had the others.“Anyway…” I gripped the handles of the boss room and opened her up.

Inside was a circular stone room, not nearly as spacious or grand as what Mox had been given. It was rather simple.

Inside was an oversized pink grub, sitting in the middle of the room like a lap dog. “Ah yes.” I said to myself. “The bug.”

It was already the biggest bug I had ever seen. Honestly bigger than any bug had a right to be, but it didn’t look like the end of the world. It would of course grow the more I fed it, but it was quite a humble beginning.

“What is that?” The mages moved into the room with me. We left a quivering Cyrus to organize his troops.

“It’s a bug.” I said. If they were nervous about me now, wait until they learned I had an apocalypse beast. I approached the ugly thing and it came scuttling towards me with these fat, chunky legs. It had big eyes, and little mandibles and aww shit it was kind of cute.

“Master.” It said directly into my mind.

“Ah. So we already have a connection.” Usually summoning one of these things is what fulfills the bond. Other times you need a blood sacrifice.

“Master.” It repeated. Not the acme of conversation.

“How is that thing a boss?” Ruby asked.

“Good things come in small packages.” I said defensively. “But seriously can you fight?”

“No fight.” The queen emoted back to me.

“Excellent.”

“Do you guys hear that?” Sapphire grunted and looked around.

“What?” Ruby asked, putting her hand on her sister. She’d found clothes at some point, and put them on.

“Aaah.” Sapphire winced again and put her hands over her ears. Then she looked at the grub. “It’s that thing!” She called out, and then started stomping towards it.

“Woah.” I put my hand out to stop her.

“It’s trying to worm inside my mind!” She said, louder than she had to, over an invisible tune. “I can feel it worming around in there.”

“Woah for real?” My first intinct was to let it continue, for science… and sex. But of course I never got to have any fun anymore. “Stop.” I commanded the beast.

Sapphire visibly relaxed, and staggered back as the noise in her head died down.

“Than you.” I let the pink grin and it seemed to shiver and purr at my touch.

“This is fucked up.” Sapphire spat. “We’re leaving. We can’t do this. That thing isn’t right, none of this is right.”

She stomped to the exit, but stopped when she realized her sister wasn’t coming. “Ruby!” She gestured for the girl to come.

Ruby blushed, but hiked up her skirt to show her sister her newly branded pussy. “Sorry sis, but I already sold out.”

Sapphire gasped again, and shook her head. “No, you can’t.”

“We always wanted people to treat us different. And now they will.”

“They’ll kill you!”

Ruby looked around. “With what I’ve seen these past few days, I don’t think they can.” She nodded, now more sure of her decision. “I think this is the next big thing.”

Sapphire looked to me, her eyes were once leery, but now they were hateful. “You turned my sister against me…” she raised her staff. “I can’t forgive that.” She waved her staff and with a burst of magical energy sent a cloud of razor sharp snowflakes blowing my way. They were however a sad display when compared with what the sisters had been able to conjure up yesterday. Still plenty adequate to kill me though.

"Firewall!" Melli shouted, and brough her staff up. In an instant the room was alight with a long and tall of flame that easily extinguished the snow.

Sapphire gasped surprised to see her spell countered so easily. She took a step back, and looked to the exit.

Melli took a step forward, and the wall moved with her. Sapphire took another step back, and in this way was quickly coralled and pinned into a corner of the room, between the fire wall and the brick wall. "Throw your staff through." Melli commanded.

Sapphire did, and I managed to catch the staff with a flourish. I handed it over to Ruby and Melli extinguished the wall.

"Well that complicates things." I sigh, putting my hands on my hips.

"Don't hurt her." Ruby demanded.

"I'm not gonna hurt her." I sigh, and shake my head. "She's just doing what she thinks is right." I spot some of the beastmen coming to investigate the noise. "But I can't let her ruin things with Celeste." I turn to Ruby. "I'm going to keep her in the prison until the fight's over. Once you fulfill your end of things, I'll let her go."

"I guess that's fair."

"What?" Sapphire called out. "Ruby what's wrong with you, come to your senses!"

"What's wrong with me?" Ruby sputtered. "You tried to kill him in the middle of his own dungeon! Did you think we were going to run past all the guards and traps?"

Sapphire shook. "I was just trying..."

"Try shutting up for once, and let me handle this." She turned to me and ignored further whining from her sister. "You promise not to hurt her, and to let her go?"

I thought about it. "I may have to give her something to make her forget. If she's not going to play ball, she's too dangerous to let go."

Ruby nods again. "That's even better. You'll know she won't betray you then. Okay, deal." She held her hand out.

Cute. I already had her soul, but this was nice too. "Deal."

Ruby +4 Cp ( 8 corruption) 204 total

I gestured to the beastmen. "Take her to the prison."

"What? Ruby? Ruby!" Sapphire struggled and shouted as she was grabbed and hauled away, her sister watched clearly distressed.

"So annoying." Ruby sighed, and shook her head. Ruby +3 Cp ( 11 corruption) 207 total

"Can you go with her?" I sent the message to the queen who was still watching from the floor. Sapphire might as well have doing something useful with her time, testing out the powers of my new pet seemed like a worthy goal.

"Can't leave room." The little bug sent back.

Ah, of course. She was this floor's boss. She was limited to the boss room.

I guess the apocalypse would have to wait. She wasn't ending any would from this room, at least not yet.

"You can eat people's minds, is that right? Turn them into drones controlled by your vibrations, or pheromones?"

"Eat." The bug responded, sending me feelings of wet flesh slapping, and lovers moaning.

"Not what I meant." I sighed. It was trying to tell me that it fed on sex, my sex specifically. The more I had the fuller she'd grow. "That's your power though right? You can enslave things to your will?" All of this conversation was happening silently. Melli and Ruby were therefore **** to watch me have an intimate staring contest with an oversized bug.

"Yes." The bug buzzed. "Show." She turned to Ruby.

"No no." I said out loud. "No more of that."

"This thing is creeping me out." Ruby swallowed hard.

"She's just a larva." I said, petting the thing. "She's not going to be ending anyone's dungeon run for a while."

"It looks like there's more." Melli said gesturing to the door guarded by the queen.

"Three floors." I say admiring the thought. "We've hit the big times."

"If the Kingdom finds out about this, they'll send someone to burn it down to the ground. No dungeon is allowed to get this big."

I smirk, and head to the next level. "Melli, she's already on her way."