Trudging through the tunnels while looking for a way out of the underground maze is painfully tedious. At least I still have Gabby’s wedding ring. My heart skipped a beat when I realized it could’ve been lost or damaged during my dismemberment, but it’s still safe on my finger. This day would’ve gone from bad to worse if I had to spend hours searching the dark for my personal treasure.
As-is, I’m periodically getting ambushed by these annoying garbage monsters. Not literal garbage, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find such in this dump, but the metaphorical garbage of worthless trash mobs.
Webling Servitors aren't much of a threat on their own. Their diameter is about the same as a regular Slime, but they weigh much less since they mostly consist of spindly legs and aggression. They jump at anything that isn't a Webling with their fangs bared.
I can't totally ignore them because I estimate their fangs are long and sharp enough to penetrate my armor at the joints. They start leaving me alone after I dispatch the first dozen, so I guess they aren't arbitrarily suicidal or have some basic idea of waiting until I lower my guard, or they amass sufficient numbers. Hundreds of the little buggers are patrolling the underground, but they haven't unified to deal with me yet. That's the one bright spot down here.
The worst thing: killing them isn't even worth a mark. That certainly doesn't help my foul mood.
Not that Darkling Marks have been anything but garbage so far.
*Darkling Marks*
Darkling Sight
Webling Black Widow Body
Black Widow Ovipositor
Servitor Egg Production
Black Widow Silk
Webling Black Widow Scythes
Webling Black Widow Fangs
Black Widow Venom
Webling Black Widow Spider Climb
Webling Black Widow Incubation Milk
It seems like Spider Climb works without body modification. I'll select it if there's no other way out of here. I'm assuming there're walkable paths through a crevice that leads to the surface. The rest is junk unless I want to rock the 'taur' look. Even the new ovipositor is restricted to the spider abdomen, as it doesn't appear on my Cock Menu.
Fuck spiders.
Flou's upgrade is nice. It adds versatility to her kit, allowing her to convert Slime to Blood for the sake of shaping weapon constructs. The two of us should be able to work as a team if Blood Magic becomes a necessity in the future.
Olindia is back in my uterus while Flou has resumed her lingerie duties. Another happy little accident is she can create blood ruby decorations now! I've got a pair of earrings and a necklace under this armor.
Okay, thinking about that puts me in a slightly better mood.
Which is good because I have a lot of wandering around in the dark to do. There's no indication of paths, just endless caverns and rock formations in all directions. How deep have I gone?
My first surprise comes in small packages.
They're two feet tall, have four arms, a shiny black exoskeleton, and childlike features. The group I come across is laughing lightheartedly and playing together. By my recollection, the Book of Monsters calls these first-tier monsters, ‘Darklings.’ Weblings evolve from these little cuties? I pause to consider what heinous shit a poor little Darkling has to be put through to evolve into a Black Widow and shudder.
They seem to be wearing rat pelts and using rat bone tools, which explains what they eat to survive. The rats probably subsist on Harpy nest scraps. The evolved Weblings then prey on weak or clumsy Harpies, and that's the circle of life.
At least the Servitors aren't hunting these childlike monsters in droves. Rather, the spider-crabs aggressively protect the tiny bug people, sacrificing themselves to my ember spears and buying time for the Darklings to flee as I approach. I feel bad about slaying their protectors and resolve to stay away for now.
I lose track of the minutes spent searching for surface signs.
My next surprise comes from my Earth Magic. That ability gives me a weak understanding of the surrounding rocks and dirt. Not enough to help navigate, but I manage to spot a false floor. I stare at the patch of loose soil for a minute before putting two and two together.
Summoning a normal spear, I probe the perimeter of the fakery to find the edge. That done, I jam the tip in the crack and pry open the trap door. Sure enough, there's a Webling inside.
“You wouldn't happen to be the sexy kind of spider girl, would you?”
Two inhumanly large eyes open, black orbs like doll's eyes, glinting with green light in the dim, followed by six smaller ocular gems. I see a woman's face split open, her jaw dislocating to reveal huge hypodermic fangs dripping venom that sizzles on the ground where it falls. She lunges at me with four arms spread wide for a deadly embrace, her nails like claws. Servitors cover her body like armor, with another layer atop the first concealing everything below the neck. The spider-crabs leap at me as well.
A Webling Burrower.
“Nope! Nope! Nope!”
Predator sense gives me an extra second to Wolf Rush and backpedal, but they're too close for spears to be effective. Thankfully, I have a new weapon at my disposal.
I pull with Blood Magic, and Flou responds. My Slime familiar surges onto my arms, becoming twin crystal blood blades, and two more pseudopods tipped with blood scythe constructs grow from my back to fight alongside me. Together, Flou and I are a whirlwind of death.
I have the Servitors' attack pattern from fighting them earlier, Slime Multitasking to watch multiple opponents, and Fast Learner to help me adapt to the sudden change of combat style. Every swing cleaves through a Servitor. Flou blocks the Burrower's claws to delay her while I analyze the monster's movements.
Then we're hacking her to pieces.
In a few exchanges, she's losing a limb at every turn until she's hissing and falling back with Servitors delaying our advance. It isn't enough. Flou launches a furry pseudopod that ends in a fleshy maw to latch onto the retreating Burrower, tethering us together while I close the distance.
In half a minute, all the Servitors are dead, and the Burrower's severed head falls to the floor.
*Unearthed the Webling Burrower – One Darkling Mark!*
This has been an incredibly frustrating few hours! I fall into a monster girl’s spider web, but instead of getting an arachnid dommy mommy, I get a sexual predator. After encountering that Burrower, it’s two strikes against spiders so far. Now how am I supposed to fulfill my erotic fantasies of getting sexily tied up???
“Argh!!!” My blue-balled cry echoes through the dark.
After what Miss Web did to me, I can't leave without checking the burrow. My conscience would haunt me.
Skulls, refuse, and the stink of death are what I find in the Burrower's den. It's deeper than I thought. There're cocoons stuffed up inside. I slice them open to find, in order, a dry skeleton with freshly molted Servitors I quickly dispatch, a picked clean corpse with Servitors in the middle of shedding, a dead body writhing with Servitor larvae (burned that shit), and the most recent victim.
Wild, fearful eyes meet mine as I cut open the cocoon. That they're not rolling with agony tells me she has a while left before the eggs hatch.
”P-please don't eat me!” The Kobold says when I unseal her mouth.
She's four feet tall, and one of the most non-human monster girls I’ve met still within my strike zone. She has red scales of varying sizes across her whole body with larger, cream-colored scales on her egg-inflated belly, breasts (no nips), and nethers. She’s totally hairless with elevated scale ridges and pseudo-horns on her scalp that give sort of the same ‘je ne sais quoi’ as hair. She has clawed hands, digitigrade legs, and a thick tail with a blunt tip. Her face has a slight snout with humanoid lips, but her eyes and mouth are very expressive and easily readable. I admire her nice thighs, curvy hips, and b-cup breasts. (I wouldn’t expect a reptile to have huge boobs, so I’m grateful for what I’m getting.)
“I'm not going to eat you,” I say after removing my probably terrifying crab helmet. I extend a hand, “Come with me if you want to live.”
“Ah... A-alright,” the petite reptilian monster agrees after some hesitation. She takes my hand.
I pull her from the dead Burrower's (now burning) nest. She stares with wide eyes at her decapitated tormentor as I lift her into a princess-carry. I take her somewhere that doesn't smell like death and smoke, then summon some water for her to clean herself.
“Those are going to have to come out in a hurry,” I say, pointing at her lumpy belly.
“I t-tried.” She blushes. “They won't come out...”
“I know. I'm guessing the bitch practically glued your butt shut. I've got a friend who can help.” Flou schlorps onto my palm in her cute, floppy-eared bunny-Slime form.
“Kyaaa!!! A Slime! Help!”
“No, no, no she's a good Slime!” I put Flou away (with her core tucked inside my nether folds) while the Kobold struggles to compose herself. “Trust me.” She looks into my eyes with her soulful opals, a glittering spark of warmth buried deep in the darkness. “What's your name? A predator wouldn't need to know that.”
Eventually, she nods. “That makes sense. I can trust you, but I j-just can't handle Slimes. A Black Slime killed my family... Oh, um, my name is Opal.”
That makes sense. A phobia isn't logical. She can't overcome her personal trauma so quickly after another horrific event.
“Okay, we can work with that. I'll just have to get them out myself. Bend over and lift your tail.”
“E-e-eh?!? W-what are you going to do?” How can a lizard be this cute? No, focus!
“Only what's necessary, you have my word.”
“Well... what's your name, Miss Warrior Woman?”
“Oops, sorry, it's Alex.”
“Alex,” she seems to taste the word as she repeats it. “You saved my life. If it's Alex, you c-can touch me there...”
With that, Opal lays on her belly, looks over her slender shoulder at me with nervous, half-lidded eyes, and slowly raises her tail for me. Lifting the hefty reptilian appendage reveals two round feminine ass cheeks, a pristine slit with no protruding labia, and a snow-white rosebud. I'm blown away by the unexpected prettiness of her nethers.
I gulp loud enough to echo in the cavern. “I guess the blockage is all internal, then?” She nods demurely. I shrug and say, “Thanks for the meal.”
“How are you going to... Oh! A-A-Alex! What are you...? That's dirty!”
The Burrower actually cleaned after herself down there quite well. The issue is that she's too dry on the outside. That's why I'm licking circles around her pucker, spiraling in, and spearing the hole in the middle.
“Ahn, Alex! I... I can't! It's t-too much!”
Incredible, she's having trouble with even my tongue. Her backdoor is trying to pinch my oral invader in half! I withdraw, suck on my finger, and try it next.
“D-don't! I-I-I—Ahn!!!”
Her sphincter clenches around my digit, relaxes, clenches harder, and relaxes further. As a light rain of juices squirt from her bare, nubile slit, I find my finger can slide freely in her secret tunnel. So, pleasure helps her unwind?
“That feels so strange... good, but scary at the same time.”
“Breathe slowly for me. Let go of all your tension.”
“I'll try,” she says hesitantly, then obeys. After a minute I attempt to add a second finger. I'm immediately met with muscle contractions. “Ahh! Alex, not so fast!”
Opal's tummy rumbles, which I don't take as a good sign. Time to take drastic measures.
“I'm sorry, Opal, but it seems like the only way to relax you enough to extract those eggs in time is to fuck your brains out.”
I rely on my years of stage training for the junior high school play to deliver that line with suitable remorse and empathy. Nailed it.
“I-if it can't be helped... I'll have to rely on Alex to t-take responsibility.”
With her consent acquired, I say, “Then, my lady, if I may ask, back that pussy up.”
Trudging through the tunnels while looking for a way out of the underground maze is painfully tedious. At least I still have Gabby’s wedding ring. My heart skipped a beat when I realized it could’ve been lost or damaged during my dismemberment, but it’s still safe on my finger. This day would’ve gone from bad to worse if I had to spend hours searching the dark for my personal treasure.
As-is, I’m periodically getting ambushed by these annoying garbage monsters. Not literal garbage, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find such in this dump, but the metaphorical garbage of worthless trash mobs.
Webling Servitors aren't much of a threat on their own. Their diameter is about the same as a regular Slime, but they weigh much less since they mostly consist of spindly legs and aggression. They jump at anything that isn't a Webling with their fangs bared.
I can't totally ignore them because I estimate their fangs are long and sharp enough to penetrate my armor at the joints. They start leaving me alone after I dispatch the first dozen, so I guess they aren't arbitrarily suicidal or have some basic idea of waiting until I lower my guard, or they amass sufficient numbers. Hundreds of the little buggers are patrolling the underground, but they haven't unified to deal with me yet. That's the one bright spot down here.
The worst thing: killing them isn't even worth a mark. That certainly doesn't help my foul mood.
Not that Darkling Marks have been anything but garbage so far.
*Darkling Marks*
Darkling Sight
Webling Black Widow Body
Black Widow Ovipositor
Servitor Egg Production
Black Widow Silk
Webling Black Widow Scythes
Webling Black Widow Fangs
Black Widow Venom
Webling Black Widow Spider Climb
Webling Black Widow Incubation Milk
It seems like Spider Climb works without body modification. I'll select it if there's no other way out of here. I'm assuming there're walkable paths through a crevice that leads to the surface. The rest is junk unless I want to rock the 'taur' look. Even the new ovipositor is restricted to the spider abdomen, as it doesn't appear on my Cock Menu.
Fuck spiders.
Flou's upgrade is nice. It adds versatility to her kit, allowing her to convert Slime to Blood for the sake of shaping weapon constructs. The two of us should be able to work as a team if Blood Magic becomes a necessity in the future.
Olindia is back in my uterus while Flou has resumed her lingerie duties. Another happy little accident is she can create blood ruby decorations now! I've got a pair of earrings and a necklace under this armor.
Okay, thinking about that puts me in a slightly better mood.
Which is good because I have a lot of wandering around in the dark to do. There's no indication of paths, just endless caverns and rock formations in all directions. How deep have I gone?
My first surprise comes in small packages.
They're two feet tall, have four arms, a shiny black exoskeleton, and childlike features. The group I come across is laughing lightheartedly and playing together. By my recollection, the Book of Monsters calls these first-tier monsters, ‘Darklings.’ Weblings evolve from these little cuties? I pause to consider what heinous shit a poor little Darkling has to be put through to evolve into a Black Widow and shudder.
They seem to be wearing rat pelts and using rat bone tools, which explains what they eat to survive. The rats probably subsist on Harpy nest scraps. The evolved Weblings then prey on weak or clumsy Harpies, and that's the circle of life.
At least the Servitors aren't hunting these childlike monsters in droves. Rather, the spider-crabs aggressively protect the tiny bug people, sacrificing themselves to my ember spears and buying time for the Darklings to flee as I approach. I feel bad about slaying their protectors and resolve to stay away for now.
I lose track of the minutes spent searching for surface signs.
My next surprise comes from my Earth Magic. That ability gives me a weak understanding of the surrounding rocks and dirt. Not enough to help navigate, but I manage to spot a false floor. I stare at the patch of loose soil for a minute before putting two and two together.
Summoning a normal spear, I probe the perimeter of the fakery to find the edge. That done, I jam the tip in the crack and pry open the trap door. Sure enough, there's a Webling inside.
“You wouldn't happen to be the sexy kind of spider girl, would you?”
Two inhumanly large eyes open, black orbs like doll's eyes, glinting with green light in the dim, followed by six smaller ocular gems. I see a woman's face split open, her jaw dislocating to reveal huge hypodermic fangs dripping venom that sizzles on the ground where it falls. She lunges at me with four arms spread wide for a deadly embrace, her nails like claws. Servitors cover her body like armor, with another layer atop the first concealing everything below the neck. The spider-crabs leap at me as well.
A Webling Burrower.
“Nope! Nope! Nope!”
Predator sense gives me an extra second to Wolf Rush and backpedal, but they're too close for spears to be effective. Thankfully, I have a new weapon at my disposal.
I pull with Blood Magic, and Flou responds. My Slime familiar surges onto my arms, becoming twin crystal blood blades, and two more pseudopods tipped with blood scythe constructs grow from my back to fight alongside me. Together, Flou and I are a whirlwind of death.
I have the Servitors' attack pattern from fighting them earlier, Slime Multitasking to watch multiple opponents, and Fast Learner to help me adapt to the sudden change of combat style. Every swing cleaves through a Servitor. Flou blocks the Burrower's claws to delay her while I analyze the monster's movements.
Then we're hacking her to pieces.
In a few exchanges, she's losing a limb at every turn until she's hissing and falling back with Servitors delaying our advance. It isn't enough. Flou launches a furry pseudopod that ends in a fleshy maw to latch onto the retreating Burrower, tethering us together while I close the distance.
In half a minute, all the Servitors are dead, and the Burrower's severed head falls to the floor.
*Unearthed the Webling Burrower – One Darkling Mark!*
This has been an incredibly frustrating few hours! I fall into a monster girl’s spider web, but instead of getting an arachnid dommy mommy, I get a sexual predator. After encountering that Burrower, it’s two strikes against spiders so far. Now how am I supposed to fulfill my erotic fantasies of getting sexily tied up???
“Argh!!!” My blue-balled cry echoes through the dark.
After what Miss Web did to me, I can't leave without checking the burrow. My conscience would haunt me.
Skulls, refuse, and the stink of death are what I find in the Burrower's den. It's deeper than I thought. There're cocoons stuffed up inside. I slice them open to find, in order, a dry skeleton with freshly molted Servitors I quickly dispatch, a picked clean corpse with Servitors in the middle of shedding, a dead body writhing with Servitor larvae (burned that shit), and the most recent victim.
Wild, fearful eyes meet mine as I cut open the cocoon. That they're not rolling with agony tells me she has a while left before the eggs hatch.
”P-please don't eat me!” The Kobold says when I unseal her mouth.
She's four feet tall, and one of the most non-human monster girls I’ve met still within my strike zone. She has red scales of varying sizes across her whole body with larger, cream-colored scales on her egg-inflated belly, breasts (no nips), and nethers. She’s totally hairless with elevated scale ridges and pseudo-horns on her scalp that give sort of the same ‘je ne sais quoi’ as hair. She has clawed hands, digitigrade legs, and a thick tail with a blunt tip. Her face has a slight snout with humanoid lips, but her eyes and mouth are very expressive and easily readable. I admire her nice thighs, curvy hips, and b-cup breasts. (I wouldn’t expect a reptile to have huge boobs, so I’m grateful for what I’m getting.)
“I'm not going to eat you,” I say after removing my probably terrifying crab helmet. I extend a hand, “Come with me if you want to live.”
“Ah... A-alright,” the petite reptilian monster agrees after some hesitation. She takes my hand.
I pull her from the dead Burrower's (now burning) nest. She stares with wide eyes at her decapitated tormentor as I lift her into a princess-carry. I take her somewhere that doesn't smell like death and smoke, then summon some water for her to clean herself.
“Those are going to have to come out in a hurry,” I say, pointing at her lumpy belly.
“I t-tried.” She blushes. “They won't come out...”
“I know. I'm guessing the bitch practically glued your butt shut. I've got a friend who can help.” Flou schlorps onto my palm in her cute, floppy-eared bunny-Slime form.
“Kyaaa!!! A Slime! Help!”
“No, no, no she's a good Slime!” I put Flou away (with her core tucked inside my nether folds) while the Kobold struggles to compose herself. “Trust me.” She looks into my eyes with her soulful opals, a glittering spark of warmth buried deep in the darkness. “What's your name? A predator wouldn't need to know that.”
Eventually, she nods. “That makes sense. I can trust you, but I j-just can't handle Slimes. A Black Slime killed my family... Oh, um, my name is Opal.”
That makes sense. A phobia isn't logical. She can't overcome her personal trauma so quickly after another horrific event.
“Okay, we can work with that. I'll just have to get them out myself. Bend over and lift your tail.”
“E-e-eh?!? W-what are you going to do?” How can a lizard be this cute? No, focus!
“Only what's necessary, you have my word.”
“Well... what's your name, Miss Warrior Woman?”
“Oops, sorry, it's Alex.”
“Alex,” she seems to taste the word as she repeats it. “You saved my life. If it's Alex, you c-can touch me there...”
With that, Opal lays on her belly, looks over her slender shoulder at me with nervous, half-lidded eyes, and slowly raises her tail for me. Lifting the hefty reptilian appendage reveals two round feminine ass cheeks, a pristine slit with no protruding labia, and a snow-white rosebud. I'm blown away by the unexpected prettiness of her nethers.
I gulp loud enough to echo in the cavern. “I guess the blockage is all internal, then?” She nods demurely. I shrug and say, “Thanks for the meal.”
“How are you going to... Oh! A-A-Alex! What are you...? That's dirty!”
The Burrower actually cleaned after herself down there quite well. The issue is that she's too dry on the outside. That's why I'm licking circles around her pucker, spiraling in, and spearing the hole in the middle.
“Ahn, Alex! I... I can't! It's t-too much!”
Incredible, she's having trouble with even my tongue. Her backdoor is trying to pinch my oral invader in half! I withdraw, suck on my finger, and try it next.
“D-don't! I-I-I—Ahn!!!”
Her sphincter clenches around my digit, relaxes, clenches harder, and relaxes further. As a light rain of juices squirt from her bare, nubile slit, I find my finger can slide freely in her secret tunnel. So, pleasure helps her unwind?
“That feels so strange... good, but scary at the same time.”
“Breathe slowly for me. Let go of all your tension.”
“I'll try,” she says hesitantly, then obeys. After a minute I attempt to add a second finger. I'm immediately met with muscle contractions. “Ahh! Alex, not so fast!”
Opal's tummy rumbles, which I don't take as a good sign. Time to take drastic measures.
“I'm sorry, Opal, but it seems like the only way to relax you enough to extract those eggs in time is to fuck your brains out.”
I rely on my years of stage training for the junior high school play to deliver that line with suitable remorse and empathy. Nailed it.
“I-if it can't be helped... I'll have to rely on Alex to t-take responsibility.”
With her consent acquired, I say, “Then, my lady, if I may ask, back that pussy up.”
