Darkest Dungeon Dames 2: The Reef (Patreon)

I find myself haunted by the majestic view I have of the sea. I wake at night to look upon it and watch its ebony waves dance in the moonlight. It has always called to me, as if something waited for eternity by those rocky shores. This was the first time that these callings had a genuine voice. An alien but musical sound that transcends language and logic. It is was as a lure that penetrates the brain instead of the flesh. Though I knew I would be risk my life to do so, I had to bear witness to this otherworldly beauty.

-excerpt from my ancestor's diary

It took a special lot to come to the Hamlet. It offered little beyond an inn and a church for those weary from their travels. Nomads and those passing through the mountains would stop by for supplies and gossip but little else. The grim-faced folk had seen enough of the local nightmares to be disturbed by any who passed through. When the word of grim, risky work for high pay went out, Duncan Darkest found himself looking through more wanted posters than applications. They were the fearless and the greedy. The wanted and the unwanted. The mad and the righteous. He was honestly surprised at how many came through to test their skills or drive evil from this world, or simply to get a lot of money in a hurry and stay as far away as possible of the nearest lawman.

He left his previous search party to rest and recover as he gathered the second. He rifled through his manservant's list of warriors, fanatics and vigilantes. "Only four," the old local said with a half-toothed grin. "It's all we can afford in rations if we're to see profit on any of this."

"Isn't the point to clean this place up a bit? Undo what uncle put this land through?" Duncan asked as he set two aside. The woman with the falcon and the veteran of the guard with an attack dog felt like they wouldn't do much good by the shores.

The groundskeeper's smile faltered, as if remaining optimistic while delivering terrible news to a recent widow. "Your ah... uncle's wealth is not what it once was. We own the land, but the rent will only carry us so far. Especially with the... erm... reparations to the townsfolk." He cleared his throat and Duncan thought it better to not pursue the subject.

"Fine. Then these four should do it." He didn't have any definite strategy, or even a clear clue what they were up against or looking for. He had to trust his gut and provide them all the information and supplies that he could.

"Ah... wise choices, m'lord." The rather ghoulish man half-grinned again. "The abomination, the leper, the jester, and the cultist."

"I wish you wouldn't call them by that. They're human beings..." He hesitated as he tried to recall a name. He'd never gotten one from the old coot. "Er... Groundskeeper."

The withered old man smirked more modestly and nodded. "Yes, m'lord. However, if I may offer some advice... do your best to forget about that fact. It does the soul and wallet good."

Juna, Ida, Noelle and Vazet walked down the cliffside road until sand was beneath their boots. There were small canyons and high walls of out of control coral ahead. Fishermen never went far from the cliffs and kept the village's distant torchlight in sight. They feared whatever hid in the shadows or crept out of the midnight waters. It was why they had approached around noon, not that the light would do them much good once they went inside the tunnels.

"Remember to stay behind me when..." Ida shivered and hugged her skinny arms. "When things get ugly." The woman was questionably the strangest dressed among the party. She was pale with stringy blonde hair. Tall but often hunching at the shoulders, she had the look of someone once beautiful to look at. The figure and face that would have once been sculpted looked out of place with her rags for clothes, breasts sliding out into view at random missteps. Long and heavy chains hung from her shoulders and one wrapped around her arm, but they were clearly loose on her and held no binding purpose. Most clearly, a large scar circled her eye. The actual organ remained in tact, just narrowly avoided by a circled "A" that defiled her pretty face and centered the gaze her her big blue eyes.

"You'll not be fighting alone, sister," said Juna. "I shall be at the forefront alongside you, not behind." While Ida wore almost nothing, she was almost completely covered head to toe. A golden mask with precise and feminine features shielded her face while a veiled hood and long robes covered most of her body until it reached her boots. Thick leather pads shielded her limbs along with an ancient and chipped sword, missing chunks in a strangely dangerous way. It gave it almost a serrated quality, unclear what chip or spike would catch on the enemy while its sheer weight made it as much a greataxe as a sword. Despite the thick bronze armor, the breastplate was clearly custom made. It would have been impractical for anyone else to have a chestplate with such oversized bosoms. The occasional show of flesh was wrinkled and pale, showing herself to be blighted by some horrible affliction of the skin.

"All such grim subjects!" Noelle chimed in her colorfully French-tinted accent. "Why not make light while we still have light to make it with?" The jester competed with the rest for strangest dressed. The slim and flexible woman was dressed just as it sounded, an eye mask covering from the top of her nose to her lower brow. She smiled with purple-painted lips almost constantly, but it grew wider when she delivered a pun or sang a tune or even just caught a comrade's eye. The flirty woman had a strange optimism about her that the rest of them had to admit was rather refreshing. The played a lute and sang throughout their journey, to a point where you could almost forget that among her jangling silks and floppy hat was a razor sharp scythe on her belt. None asked about the bloody marks on its curved blade.

"Couldn't agree more. Learn in the light to gather secrets from the dark," Vazet agreed. The dark-skinned woman of the far East wore a dark red robe with pouches of various sizes at her belt. A ceremonial-looking tiara lined her forehead, the rest of her hair tied back into a long black braid. The group knew strange tools of the occult were all over her, from talismans to bits of bone. They knew the largest of her pack to even contain an entire preserved skull of concerningly fresh appearance.

Juna sighed as she shook her head at her company. Ida tensed and looked away from the expressionless gaze of the leper's mask. Lunatics, heretics, and abominations made her team. It would have to do, since she was in no place to judge any longer. The best she could do now was make the most of her life.

They had hardly entered the tunnels of dripping blue stone when they lit their torch. It was immediately met with a ghastly howl from deep inside the cave, somewhere between a woman in agony and a hungry jackal. They all readied weapons while the noise echoed off the walls and vanished into the open air above the sea. Then the caves sang. What could never have been the same source, as a beautiful woman's voice rang through the caves in a gentle and inviting song. It seemed to hold no words, or perhaps it was a very old and simple language.

"I think I see what made our employer so concerned," Juna mused, just loud enough to be heard beyond her mask.

"Not me," Noelle joked as she plucked her lute tentatively. "She's a bit off key, but nothing so horrifying." The group let out their breaths to sigh or chuckle nervously.

"So deeper, then," Vazet directed, nodding ahead of them. She held up the torch while Noelle finally silenced her lute. The sound of the singing voice was beautiful, but ominously out of place in such a damp and dark cove. And of course, there were the rumors.

"Did you hear the whispers of pigs in the forest?" Vazet spoke lowly.

"No. But I heard the one about the priest and the horse," Noelle whispered back.

"They said man-eating boars were loose in the woods. Those with faces of men, before the new noble cleared them out."

"Then we know the sort of terrors we may be up against." The chained beauty shivered again.

"Then we know our cause is just," Juna assured her as she rested a gloved hand on her sword hilt. "And every drop of blood we shed is for the safety of the innocent."

"There are no innocent," Vazet scoffed. "And certainly not here in these caves."

Ida whimpered and her chains rattled as she went along, glancing over her party. None of them replied to that. Noelle just flashed her a wide and pearly grin.

They went on hiking and eating as they walked. The wet sand turned to stone to make travel easier, though it was dark and dull work. "Hold." Juna raised a fist straight up in the air, which even the most untrained among them took as a cue to stop. There came the sound of strings being played... a guitar or something being plucked. Noelle held up her hands and frowned to indicate she wasn't the one behind it. Another gentle whistling joined in on some crude but sweet-sounding pipe.

"Sounds like harp... and flute. Stone or bone, perhaps," Noelle mused as she lifted her jangling hat to raise an ear.

"It feels... nice," Ida said, smiling for perhaps her first time since their meeting that wasn't awkward or nervous.

"But familiar. I can't place it," Juna muttered. "I haven't heard it before, but... why is it so famil-?" She took a step forward, her boot hitting a puddle and instantly sinking right into  up to her chest. It wasn't immediately clear if the pool only went that deep or if her armored breasts caught on the edge of the ground. Juna gasped and tensed up in surprise while Ida leapt ahead, taking her by the wrists and pulling.

"Here you go! I got you!" she assured, but she couldn't pull her free. "You're heavier than you look, though."

"Something's got me!" Juna's tense position showed her fear rather than her mask, jerking and kicking around below her. Something snakey and strong went around her foot before shooting right up her pants leg. Something prickly tickled her skin all the way up while a large, smooth tip thrust into her wet panties. She gasped and dug her fingers into the ground, breathing heavily behind the mask. "It's inside me! Tentacles or a tail... barbs..."

"Describing it won't help!" Noelle swiftly drew a dagger from her sleeve and slid over to the pool. "Where is it? I can't see past your great big arse!"

"I don't know! I can't see it. I just feel... all of it!" The barbs seemed to grip her leg tighter while pulling itself deeper into her womanhood. Its head expanded to fill her, pulsing with a concerningly biological heat. "It's getting ready for something!" she gasped. "Hurry!"

Vazet swiftly drew the skull from her pouch and a short, curved knife in the other. She traced patterns over it while chanting something in an ancient tongue, adding to countless lines and patterns along the dense bone. A red glow came from the water, and Juna felt its grip ease and its head shrink back down.

"I can stall it. Not stop it," Vazet warned, darting her dark eyes towards the others. "What have you all to bring to the table?"

"Just stand back," Ida sighed. She winced as she began feel the brand on her face burn. It was a failed ritual meant to bind her from doing this very thing. She grit her teeth until they grew long and sharp. Her dainty arms bulged until they were thick with muscles bigger than a lumberjack’s. Her face grew long and thick, narrowing her features as her eyes glazed over into black pupils. She shot up another two feet, but with cracking bones and stretching flesh all the while. Her loose rags fit like a tattered bikini rather than a loose dress, and the chains hugged around her bulging body. The remnants of Ida were clear, but she had gone from the dainty model’s figure to a hulking shebeast. 

With one snarl and a single sharp pull, Juna was lifted out and into the air. She easily held her up with one hand, letting them see her torn up pants and the wriggling black tentacle that hung out of her ruined pant leg. Some suction cups lines its squirming shape, each of them with several tiny sharp barbs on the inside that left bleeding marks along Juna’s thigh and calf. The sturdy woman’s legs were wet and deeply scarred and wrinkled, but that did not seem to be a result of the tentacle’s work.

“Nothing supernatural, at least,” Vazet observed. The weakening red light from her curse still made the thing glow. “A common parasite. Poisonous, I’m afraid.”

“I think I can deal with that,” Juna grunted lowly. “Now would you get it out.” Her flustered tone made her blush all to clear, mask or not.

“Nothing to fear. I know to be delicate with a woman’s… delicates.” Noelle winked through her mask at the leper as she used her knife to neatly slit the tentacle off nearest she could, just short of Juna’s panties. There was a soft squishing sound and when Juna was set back down, she shook her underwear a bit until its bloated tip fell out. With the posture equivalent of a sneer, she stomped the last of it into mush on the hard sand.

"So are we not going to address the seven-foot, horned elephant in the room?" Vazet walked over to Ida, reaching out to poke at her callous and stretched out skin. The burly, mutated woman turned towards her and snapped her sharp-toothed mouth at the hand, making the occultist pull her hand back.

"Nehhhrah," Ida snarled in warped words that came filtered through transformed teeth and thickened jaws. The vaguest semblance of human speech came through, but that only seemed to make it more uncomfortable for everyone. Ida saw their hesitation and pawed at her head as if she were clumsily trying to get something off of her. It only seemed to make the chains tense around her large and soft breasts.

"She's not quite herself right now," Juna answered for her. She took Vazet by the shoulder and urged her back away. "She'll come back to her senses shortly. For now, she is a monster that vaguely thinks it is on our side. It is best not to upset that belief."

The music came through the air again, haunting their ears as Ida raised her head and sniffed down the direction they had been headed. "Meooooargh," she moaned, saliva dripping down her lips before she shuddered. The changing process went into reverse. Her breasts puffed up and then deflated, seeming to take the rest of her body with it. The muscles shrank and tensed, veins bulging along the thicker biceps and abdomen before similarly retreating. Her face reached an uncanny valley between the pretty face and the taut and fanged one before it returned to the solemn beauty. The ragged clothes flopped back into place as her chains hit the ground.

"Was it music soothing the savage beast?" Noelle offered. "Or was it simply bored to have nothing to kill?"

"No..." Ida muttered, clearly growing more sheepish after revealing her transformation. "I only smelled more people down there. And... fish."

"Everything smells of fish. It's the bloody ocean," Vazet muttered.

"Big fish. Dangerous... I think," Ida went on, rubbing her temples as she seemed to calm down again. "I'm sorry. Things are not as clear when I'm in in such a state."

"Then perhaps a closer look is in order. It could be the missing fishermen, or these tempting musicians," Juna muttered. She bound her leg in more spare clothes before starting down the path and watching her step.

"More talk like that, Juna and you'll have me getting jealous." Noelle plucked her lute once more before she walked on, simply running her fingers along its strings.

The party was surprised by how strangely accurate Ida's scouting had been. There was a single human woman in an open cave, lowly lit by glowing coral and some holes in the ceiling that shared a few parting beams of sunlight. She was scarcely dressed in old, wet silks, leaving little to the imagination on her dark, almost gray skin. Skulls of various small animals and fish hung from her belt, and some manner of staff she held of polished stone was dotted with shells. "Another practitioner," Vajet noted with a frown from behind their cover of rocks. "Though a stray from a radical sect."

Around her were several fishmen. Some of various sizes and sexes were present, though they were all scaly and greenish blue. They had stubby legs and webbed fingers and toes, their faces bearing fish-like features like fins and gills but largely human. It made an upsetting visage, as if there was a normal human being inside of them pleading to escape.

"Looks like a revolting lot. Perhaps zey would like a private show." Noelle brandished her knife with a fancy little twirl between her fingers. The musical and nonsensical voice came to them once again, a heartfelt plea for them to continue.

"Perhaps once we find out where that damned music is coming from," Vizet growled, stomping forward.

"Someone stop her!" Juna grabbed for the foreign woman too late as she passed out of their hiding spot. Ida pulled at one of her bindings and swung it outward, a loop in the links wrapping around Vizet's foot. The cultist fell down into the sand, cutting her off while emitting only a soft sound. The witch and her fishmen looked up in one sharp motion with eerie synchronization. The group held their breath, hoping that the monsters would return to whatever garbled talk they were doing and give them the element of surprise once again. Unfortunately, a rather floated fishman started to waddle towards them with a javelin at the ready.

"HELLLLO HELLO HELLO!!" Noelle burst out from behind the rock, fingers dancing across her lute like a weaving spider. "A guest! A guest! What a pleasure to have some new audience for my show!" She twirled and jangled her floppy cap before taking a low bow that offered her neck and cleavage both. "Lady Noelle of the Tres Faux courts, for your listening pleasure! Now, are there any birthdays in the audience!?"

The crusty fishman gawked at her with his wide mouth. Of all the things its pea brain might have expected, a welcoming court jester was the last of them. Even if he knew what one was. "No? No one?" Noelle asked, jerking her head back up and tilting it like a puzzled bird. The witch hissed something darkly and the rest of the fish folk gathered their weapons to approach her. "I guess not. Then I suppose that makes this a SURPRISE PARTY!"

She twirled around once again, dragging her skilled fingers across her instrument in a long and twisted note. The monsters cringed at the sudden off key, enough that Juna could charge around the corner and smash her massive, broken blade into the gawking fishman's neck. It chipped off several scales, but the force proved worse than the blade as it was send toppling head over tail away from them. That had taken effect by the time Noelle had turned back around, knife and scythe in hand and a manic grin on her face.

"What's the matter!? Are you not entertained!?" she roared dramatically, prancing and juggling her blades from one hand to the next to some unheard rhythm.

One of the female gillmen shrieked and hurled a shard of shell towards Juna, but Ida's chain whipped through the air and send it flying well off course. "I've seen worse than you," the scarred beauty snarled. "I've BEEN worse than you!" She and Juna charged at the scaly creatures, their crude weapons drawn when the sea witch stood up on a large stone.

"Outsiders! Non-believers! They do not hear the song of the sea!" she shrieked in her cracked voice. She threw up her hands, breasts bouncing beneath her arms as a blackness opened in the ground like a hungry shadow. Rather than swallowing, it lashed out with jagged black tentacles, crooked and barbed like a child poorly drawing tails. They hardly seemed real, but they still hold of Ida's leg and yanked her off her feet.

"Not this again!" she cried, clawing at the sand as her chains jangled closer to the darkness. She dug in her toes to resist the pulling, the tip of the tendrils smearing black sludge on her skin. She seemed about to be swallowed up when another tentacle emerged. This one was red, and clearly defined with suckers and finer hues of purple and green rather than the misshapen thing that pulled on her. It plunged from the ceiling of the cave in a more fiery abyss to the black one, crushing the clutching tentacle into shards of obsidian.

"You know, just because you leave the circle..." Vazet stepped out from behind the rocks, weaving her hand around her glowing human skull. "Does not mean you cannot learn from us. Really, quite sloppy."

The gray witch bared her teeth in a snarl, raising her wand again and calling out more black tentacles. A second red one plunged down to smash them in one sweep. Vazet smirked across the battlefield when she suddenly leapt out of reach of a slashing, barnacle-coated cutlass. "I specialize in the ethereal troubles!" she called to her comrades. "If you ladies would be so kind..."

Noelle pranced past her before sliding along her knees along the wet sand. She slashed with both of her blades across the attacking fishman's knees, getting a wet gasp from it as it collapsed to the ground. She planted a food on the back of its head as she raised her knife. "No need for applause!" she boasted before sticking the blade into its brain and wiggling it around for good measure. "All tips are appreciated!"

Another of the scaly women slashed across Juna's front with her blade. Much of it scraped harmlessly off of her breastplate, but some caught on the joint by her shoulder. While the blood splashed out, Juna seemed to ignore the wound completely as she grabbed the fishy bitch by the throat and rammed the head of her sword through her guts. Blackish blood and unknown organs spilled out as she heard the vengeful howl of another two coming at her. Her first victim still had a deathgrip on her blade, marking her snarl behind her mask.

"Pride and arrogance walk close beside each other," Juna hissed to it like a poetic threat. With a massive roar of effort, she brought both hands to her sword and hefted it overhead complete with its impaled enemy. She smashed both sword and fish creature together on top of the first opponent, using the first one's corpse as if it were the head of a hammer. The second came in and drove a twisted dagger-like weapon into her side. Juna ignored it again as the blood coated her white silks and gold-colored armor. She tossed her doubly-occupied weapon aside and grabbed her attacker's half-fish maw. With a grim growl, she twisted until its strange neck bones crackled and its narrow lips let out a hissing squeal. When it released its weapon to claw at her wrists, Juna brought a hand beneath its hunched belly and simply suplexed the monster into the sand. "My time left is precious," Juda snarled, lifting her mask and spitting on its body. "Do not make me waste it."

Noelle hopped and dove through the cave like the belle of a bloody ballroom, cutting deep into their scaly hides while making herself as slippery a target as possible. It was slow for how quickly she moved, but it was whittling them down. Ida strangled one to death with her chains before another slimmer one sprang from the shadows, pirhana-like teeth gnashing at her face. She shoved the chain into its mouth, a few of the sharp but brittle teeth clattering out of its maw but still snapping at her. She finally brought the butt of her palm under its chin, lifting its head up as her pretty face stretched and warped just enough for her mouth to widen and teeth to grow thick. She bit its throat out and shoved the corpse away before quickly spitting out the meat and black blood in disgust.

Vazet's was some other sort of battle. They waved their hands, weaving the cracks and threads of reality in some unseen maze. "You resort to calling to the depths," Vazet sneered at her gristly nemesis. "Those reaching from above will always reign supreme."

"You still thing in three dimensions? HA!" A black tendril reached out of one of the walls and tore open Vazet's top. Her bouncing brown breasts spilled out into the murky air, but she grabbed the appendage that assaulted her. Red veins shot through it until it burst into nothingness, her other hand causing several smaller tentacles to erupt from beneath the witch's skirts. She gasped as they wriggled inside her, Vazet's one hand delicately moving her fingers to guide it as it probed inside.

"They taste your weakness," Vazet hissed as the corrupted spellcaster shuddered and shut her eyes. "Your body and mind are too pathetic for It to even see."

"Shut your whorish hole!" the witch snapped, clearly struggling to focus. She lashed out again, a black tentacle wrapping around Vazet's leg and arm. She remained unmoving, letting the alien limbs stuff themselves into her throat and up into her robes. Even with the wet suckling sounds coming from her throat and vagina, she stared unshaken at the fallen sorceress. She even started to moan, spreading her legs and welcoming their dark touch while the witch squirmed and panted weakly. The red tentacles began to vibrate as the mad woman felt them coursing deeper into her, not just her pussy but her stomach and chest.

Vazet opened her mouth wetly sucked on the tentacle before biting off its tip. She sensually licked her lips as the black limb retreated. "You look to control the Abyss, not welcome it. That is why your kind fail." Vazet pulled aside her lower robe, revealing the bulge in her lower belly to show just how much she had taken inside her. The witch stared in horror just before she shrieked madly, arching her back as the red tentacles lifted her completely off the ground. They started to pump in synch, turning the witch into a one-woman orgy while the occultist watched the black one shrivel and retract modestly.

"As much as I'm one to watch," Noelle cut in above the muffled orgasmic screams of the fallen cultist. "Are we quite done with her?"

"She mentioned following the song," Juna confirmed as she ripped her blade from a froggish creature's belly. "I think that is direction enough for us."

"Agreed." Vazet wove her hands around again and the tentacles slammed the cultist into the ground with a sickening crack. The black and red lights vanished from the cave, leaving just the women and the scaly corpses. The high-pitched song came again, slow and mournful this time before it faded a moment later.

"That thing is started to get on my nerves," Ida grumbled, scratching nervously at her scarred cheek. "Neither part of me likes it... or likes it too much."

Noelle wiped her blades off on her tights, letting the red hide the stains as she pulled out her lute again. "You're off key, you tasteless eel! Zis is a real melody, I tell you!" She strummed out a quick tune that mocked the song's rhythm while turning back to her comrades. "It's true what zey say, then? You can tune a piano, but you cannot tuna fish."

"That hurt worse than the fish knives," Ida groaned, but Juna laughed.

"Fish knives. I get it," the leper mused.

"How can you two be so lighthearted after all this?! What if we had died?!"

Juna patted the disfigured woman on the shoulder with a firm glove. "Be as the cherry tree, sister, for it cannot ask of its or whys." Ida rubbed idly at the scratches left behind by the flailing fishmen before glancing down at Juna's bleeding side.

"Should you take care of that?"

"Care of what?" Ida pointed at the stain on her robes, making the mighty woman nod after a moment. "Hmm. Yes, perhaps."

"Can you not feel that?" Ida asked. She started to reach for the knife when Juna caught her hand and lead it away.

"Let's just say I wear white for a reason. The sun is going down anyway. We may as well set up camp here."

They quickly unloaded their supplies, Noelle filling the cave with her echoing tune. The occasional echo of the siren song came their way, but it was lost in Noelle's lute and soft singing. However cracked and broken the jester was, her songs of home and legendary loves did put their minds at ease.

"Just burn it shut like the others," Juna grumbled.

Vazet lifted her cloak to check the wound and frowned at the sight. "It goes deeper than that, I am afraid. How long have you been doing it like this?"

"Not long," Juna sighed. "I just haven't been doing it very well."

"I can see that!"

"Not all of those are battle scars. Some are just... illness."

"I see. Is that why the...?" Vazet gestured around her patient's mask.

"Somewhat. I'm not contagious at this stage, but you see this?" She unbuckled her cloak and unwrapped her top, baring the deeply marked skin. It was as if pruned by the bath, but hard and calloused from neck to hips. "That's everywhere. The mask is more for you than for me."

"Aha. Well, this should sting, but make things much better when you're done."

"Pain doesn't register like it used to," Juna mumbled grimly.

"This isn't a pain of the body." With that, Vazet pressed her skull to Juna's back. The leper gave a loud gasp and arched her back, her large, naked chest thrust out into the air. The red of Vazet's magic ran through her veins, making her heart pound rapidly. It wasn't even a sense of fear or excitement; it seemed as though some deep and powerful force was squeezing her heart by hand. It filled her entire body, pulsing and throbbing without any sense of anything truly entering her. It filled her from the inside out, making her moan as if hoping that the sensation would escape through her voice. Her eyes rolled back as she fell to the ground, but Vazet readily thrust a sleeping bag under her head to catch her.

Then it faded. Juna almost felt empty in a way before that strange warmth faded. "That went well. Everyone reacts to it differently," Vazet noted casually despite the wrenching of her teammate's soul and entire body.

"What was that?" Juna asked, shuddering once again before she tried to rise.

"Think of it as the opposite of nothingness. When the void becomes so concentrated that it becomes creation. This is the way of the Abyss. It casts its emptiness into our world only to understand us."

"So it destroys so it can learn?" Juna asked warily.

"Have the doctors not begun to dissect corpses?" Vazet asked with a shrug.

"So what is this Abyss trying to learn?"

"We cannot know. We cannot comprehend their outsider's wisdom whose minds as as stars to our candles." She thought for a moment. "Nor do I care. What they offer is reality and knowledge, so who am I to decline?"

"A sane person," Juna chuckled as she clumsily picked up her top. She would be numb for a little while now.

"And if I said it may cure your illness?" Juna paused at that. "You took to it very well, as I said. What doctors and the childish wishes of the church cannot do, the secrets may lie in the darkness."

Juna was quiet behind her mask, looking at her white clothes with the blood stains on them. She looked at her muscled arm and the indentations in her skin that went as deep as a thumbprint in mud. She thought of seeing her sister again. "Perhaps when we are gone from this place," she decided as she tied her cloak back on. "I think we have enough darkness as it is right now."

"Indeed." Vazet sat up and took a bite of her jerky. "As you say, I am no stranger to the darkness. I am rather awake after all that. I shall take first watch, if that's alright."

While the rest of the women settled down for bed, Vazet sat on a flat rock and polished her skull. The runes and carvings she had left in it started to fade unnaturally as she ran an oiled cloth over the surface. The empty sockets stared back at her, the orange-red light inside flickering gently. Vazet mumbled nigh-forgotten words as one hand held the skull steady. She stared into the speck of light inside its dark insides while her other hand went between her legs. They traced past her carefully trimmed bush and the tattoo of a red tentacle. The ritualistic markings looked as if it had wrapped around her knee and vanished inside of her. A passing glance suggested it simply implied entering, but Vazet could not forget the day of the deeply intrusive tattoo. She owed much of her life and wisdom to The Abyss. However much she had screamed, the body was the least that she could give to it. She could still remember the needle inside of her when she touched herself along the inky tentacle's path.

Then there was the witch. Feeling the outcast cultist sending her abysmal limbs inside of her had been thrilling, but it was a fraction of the day she had been touched by the abyss. Naked and freshly marked around and inside her privates, her master had slit the throat of a sacrificial slave. The deep and dark ritual for wisdom and power called a darkness that swallowed the apprentice, and Vazet felt a strange and massive eye on her. It filled her body and soul, filling her so deeply and completely that no man could ever match such mind-numbing pleasure. Strange appendages that felt bigger than her entire body somehow fit within her, pulsing and probing so that the sensations seemed to replace her own heartbeat. Vazet vaguely remembered screaming, or at least trying to. Her mind was so overwhelmed that she couldn't register much beyond impossible size and force coursing through her pussy, ass and mouth. One of the elders joked that it looked like she was being fucked in her lungs by the noises she was making. While she was woken up numb and sore in a pool of her assorted fluids, she had been enlightened. She had felt and survived its crushing gaze, a portion of its power now within her.

The memories that ruled her libido helped her finally orgasm, her juices coating the tip of the tentacle tattoo. She finally removed her fingers and smeared a simple rune onto the skull. It was a shortcut that they had taught her for simpler spells, where any warm bodily substance could do in place of blood.

"Cast your infinite eye around us," Vazet whispered as she laid out the map they had so far. She placed the skull on top of where they were and folded her hands. "See what we are destined to see." The skull started to rattle, then slid sluggishly in one direction.

"Noelle? Your turn."

The jester snorted as she woke abruptly, grabbing her lute and raising it like a club. "What eez...!? Oh. I thought it was just another ugly nightmare," Noelle laughed. The cultist frowned and shoved the lantern's handle into Noelle's chest. "I kid, but of course," Noelle giggle as she took the light from her.

"It seems that's all you do sometimes," Vazet grumbled as she curled up in her pack.

"Ah, do not be ze stick in mud!" Noelle chimed. "I shall play you a lullaby to see you to bed. One so sweet zat you'll wonder if you will wake up."

Vazet gave the jester a strange look, gauging if it was well wishes or a threat. Noelle had already slid her mask over her eyes, flashing her a crooked smile as she started tuning her instrument. She made good on her word, playing softly until all her comrades slept. She plucked out a few more lively tunes to entertain herself, toying with a few variations on old favorites.

"Let's see..." she mused about an hour into her watch. "Hands in the air' rhymes with 'just don't care...' c'est magnifique!" She paused in her work as she heard the melody creep out of the depths of the reef. She growled like a territorial dog as she slashed her fingertips across the strings from a jumbled series of notes.

"You again?! I will not have you stealing my spotlight, nor my audience!" She played more rapidly, plinking the strings sharply as if sending the notes flying like arrows.

"You again?! I will not have you stealing my spotlight, nor my audience!" She played more rapidly, plinking the strings sharply as if sending the notes flying like arrows. She wasn't sure what in particular unsettled her about the song, but she plucked quick and sharp until her fingers bled. Only then did the voice seem to fade away.

Noelle grumbled and went back to her more tame strumming as she curled up on her rock. "You're all welcome for not letting it haunt your dreams... or whatever it wanted."

Noelle soon shook Ida awake. "Hey. Jangles. It's your shift."

The scarred woman jolted awake and blinked at her in a daze. "What? Me? Why me?"

"Because it's you or Juna, and I don't much care to find out what our golden-masked friend's morning breath is like." Noelle chuckled as she jingled her way into her blankets.

"I mean, you trust me with this?" Ida asked warily.

"Enough to wake everyone if things go wrong? Certainly. Just... if you hear anything calling to you, try rattling your chains. Maybe it will think it's a ghost. ...unless it's a ghost! If it's a ghost, don't rattle! Then it will think you're trying to talk to it and come over. ...bonne nuit!" Noelle tossed her jingling hat off and flopped down onto her pillow, leaving Ida to shudder and huddle over by the fire.

She spent the time muttering to herself, holding out as long as she could before she realized there was no good way to tell time down here. Adventuring was a lot more nerve-wracking and yet boring than she had expected, but at least it was away from anyone who would recognize her. She fed the fire a few branches and let it die down before she went to get Juna.

"I think it's your turn," the scarred beauty told her. Juna grunted and nodded, ensuring that her coverings were on tight before she went over by the fire. When she looked back up, Ida was simply sitting on her blankets and watching her.

"You said it was my turn," Juna reminded her.

"Yes... but I don't feel like sleeping."

The leper's mask watched her for a moment longer. "You mean that you're not tired?"

"No. I just... well, the beast was dreaming. I'd rather not go back to that."

Juna sighed and patted the bit of log next to her. Ida sat down beside the leper as she leaned on her heavy sword. "Don't worry. I already know what you are."

Ida tensed up so sharply that her chains clattered off each other. "Okay, NOW I'm worried!" she squeaked.

Juna laughed and shook her head. "The brand's a dead giveaway when you know what it means. The change could be a number of things, especially with our tentacle-loving friend around, but that was the real tell even before that." Her low voice raised slightly as it came out clearer. "When healing those of ill mind and body, forget not those of evil and harlotry. Mark them as Abominations and burn them as witches, for they are forever unclean."

Ida cringed. If Juna knew the scripture, she was likely faithful enough to know all that it implied. "It's not my fault," she muttered sheepishly. "I would hear this voice and have these visions. The local church of the Light found out and tried to the devil away, but it was too much... now it shares my body, and I don't know where it stops and I start! I try to wish it away, but...!"

Juna raised a hand and gestured for her to calm down. "Zealots, most likely. I knew as many preachers who would talk you through it with meditation as there are ones that would try to burn and whip it out of you."

Ida gave her a puzzled look. "Oh. I'm... frankly shocked that you were okay with this. Most religious sorts would at least spit at the sight of my mark."

Juna sighed heavily. "I am not here to judge. Only to make peace. For others and myself." The chesty leper looked over the room and shook her masked head. "And as our friend says, there is nothing holy here to begin with."

"I see. So my brand, it doesn't...?" The abomination shuffled in her seat. "It doesn't disgust you at all?"

Juna paused for a moment before she removed her mask. Like Ida, there were remains of a pretty face. There was a weary look to her sharp but sunken green eyes, and her full lips were wrinkled and cracked. Her pale skin looked like it was burned rather than rotten, and it was pulled too tight to make her tendons and muscles stand out more distinctly in strange patterns. Her cracked lips slowly formed a small smile. "My family's ancestors held the belief that scars were endearing signs. They showed one who had worked for their place in the world." She set the old and broken sword aside. "Though I'd gladly do without them to be left somewhere else."

Ida found herself resting her head on the armored woman's shoulder. "It's not so bad. It just shows your age."

"I'm twenty-seven."

"Oh..."

That got a coarse laugh from the leper as Juna patted Ida on her loosely-covered thigh. She had taken to reading early, and given the limited amount of actual written materials going around at the time, she was left with teachings of The Light and some poetry. Despite all her exposure, she could hardly see a reason to burn the woman. The brand was certainly noticeable, but it failed to drown out her attractiveness.

"I guess we're just a bunch of lonely weirdos in a hole," Ida sighed.

"Then let us make it a bit less lonesome." Juna took Ida by the chin and tipped her head up into a kiss. Even though she welcomed it after a long time in solitude or hiding, it felt strange to the thin blonde. Juna's lips were thin and dry, which made the presence of her warm tongue that much more noticeable. Juna removed her thick gloves, finding that Ida did not pull back from the kiss. She opened her mouth to yield to Juna's lead, letting her brush back the blonde hair that partly veiled Ida's face and scar.

That seemed to elicit an especially deep moan from Ida. Juna smiled gently as she cupped the shuddering girl's face. It reminded her of the handmaidens at her castle who had entertained her when she was putting off finding a husband to carry on the bloodline. There wasn't much hope for that now, so she decided to enjoy the moments she had left. She shed both gloves and watched Ida with her dark green eyes, brushing her hands through her hair and across her face.

"I don't..." Ida mewled as her breathing grew more rapid. "This isn't..."

"It's alright. You are a beautiful sight like a winter sunrise, and things of beauty are too be admired." Ida shuddered as if the flattery were completely foreign to her. Juna continued to play her part as a the slow and steady aggressor of the two. She ran her hands down Ida's sides, running her hands beneath the chains that hung off of her so she could rub over her breasts. Her hands continued to venture down, vanishing beneath the scrappy gown she wore.

Ida instantly stiffened, her mouth hanging open as she took deep breaths that made her chest bounce up and down. "Ohhhh! Careful! Please..." Juna hesitated as her strong but scarred fingers rubbed the edge of the outcast's labia in case she had true objection. "Please don't stop."

They were both delighted by what they found in each other. Ida found herself lost in the watchful leper's eyes, her strong fingers working wonders inside of her. The scarred and callous digits made such intricate patterns that the ridges teased her clitoris several times with each stroke. She was soaking wet in moments, leaning into the big woman's breast and letting out whining moans.

Juna found the virginal abomination easily excited by any sort of touch. She loved to explore her with her free hand while the other tended her lover's groin. Ida's body seemed flawless, but her eyes always stayed on the damaged face. Ida ended up having her shuddering orgasm just a short minute into it when Juna started to stroke across the scarred flesh of her face.

"I take it that you enjoyed it," Juna said with a crooked smile. She had to lift her fingers out of her to check and be sure that she came, licking some of it off of her thumb.

"Oh yes..." Ida panted as she leaned into her cleavage like a startled child. "Yes, please! Yes... no... ohhhh fuck!" It almost sounded like a second orgasm was coming when she started to grow. Ida's face twisted from her bliss into horror as her features twisted once again, sprouting her horns and filling with muscle and fangs to fill out her scrappy dress. Ida began to clutch at her face and recoil, but Juna wrapped her arms around the growing, growling girl. She had meant to hold Ida against her, but the hulking woman was even stronger than she thought. She still backed away, but dragged the leper along with her as she held on tight.

"Easy, child. I've got you," Juna grunted as she held onto her body, burying her fingers under the chains to keep her grip on the spasming monstergirl. Even when the abomination snarled and thrashed, she kept a grip until she wrestled it back to the ground. "Stay calm. Think of birdsong in the springtime," she urged, quoting part of the meditative chants they'd taught her to deal with the illness and the pain in the early stages of her disease. "You said yourself that you don't know where one ends and the other begins. That means you are in the beast as much as it is you. Just control yourself."

The beast gave a few low, gravely breaths, but with the transformation finished, she stayed on all fours like a battle-ready wolf. Juna still held on until the beastly woman snorted and rubbed her fanged face against the leper's hand. Ida sniffed at the fingers that still had her cum on them. "Nnngrum..." it grumbled like a monstrous purr.

"There you are," Juna chuckled gently. "So you're the one that pulled me out of that sinkhole." She slowly release the abomination, Ida squatting down with her long and muscular arms on her knees. There was still that pretty girl's face with the burn scar, if slightly stretched and broadened to house the bigger teeth and horns. The muscles came with larger breasts, adding one more sort of unconventional beauty to the woman. Her eyes blinked back vacantly, the pupils too big and making them look dark and animalistic. Ida padded forward until she straddled Juna's leg, her still-wet groin resting on her knee.

"I see. So you just wanted some attention as well, eh, girl?" Juna chuckled. She touched the thick thigh and had just started to rub when the abomination perked up and looked around. She sniffed at the air and let out a loud and twisted snarl that neither an animal or woman seemed quite capable of on their own.

"What was that!?" Vazet scrambled out of her bedroll, pulling the skull out from her bag. "Why is the monster back out!?" Noelle got right to her feet in one fluid gesture, a slightly disturbing contortion that planted her feet and rose while she produced her sickle. 

The abomination seemed tense, mostly in the matter that she was stock still while looking out at the tunnels. Ida's muscles still pulsed as if they were naturally working overtime just to hold the woman together in this state.

"Nothing's happened," Juna insisted as she replaced her mask. "Ida had to change and I think she heard something."

"Well we certainly will if she keeps making a racket like that," Noelle hissed. Ida let out a small whine but kept herself vigilant. The jester paused and sniffed the air as she replaced her mask and hat. "I smell sex and candy here," she muttered dryly. "Were you honestly...?"

Vazet sneered at them as she pulled her clothes back on. "With the creature? While you were on watch?!" she accused.

"And you didn't even wake me to let me watch!?" Noelle added in exaggerate offense. Vazet just rolled her eyes and stayed focused on the other two.

"Our eyes stayed on the tunnels. Nothing came," Juna said grimly.

"Phrasing," Noele cut in. Then came the song once again. The haunting melody cut through the camp loud and clear. Noelle froze on the spot, drawing her dagger and touching it to the wall like before as an improvised tuning fork. "Tabernaque!" she hissed hatefully. She hurried to sling her lute across her back, rapidly cursing in Franq.

"What is she even saying?" Juna snapped as the jester seemed too caught up in checking her things to reply.

"She's saying it's not an echo," Vazet replied as she tied her robe shut, puffing up her tan-colored breasts beneath it as she pulled out her knife. "It's found us. If your stupid pet hadn't made such a racket..."

"Just be glad that she's here now that we need her," Juna snapped sharply, hefting up her broken blade. "We resisted the siren's song so long that it came to us. Now do what we were paid to do!"

Sure enough, Ida growled as the siren emerged. There were two slithering creatures on either side of her, things with green, snake-like lower bodies. They had bloated faces like half-inflated squids, small mouths lined with needly teeth. A few stubby tentacles grew around where its hips would be, and strange, almost circular blades in their hands and barnacle-covered slabs of old wood were ready in their hands.

The siren herself was as her voice suggested; otherworldly and beautiful. Her skin was smooth and flawless, so long as you didn't count being blue as a flaw. She shone despite the lack of light in the room, from her slick mermaid tail to her perfectly sculpted face. Her eyes wide and nose and mouth tiny, she had a distinctly classical beauty that seemed unnatural compared to the flabby fishmen beside her. While the fishmen slithered, she walked on pale and graceful legs and wore nothing except for what equated to a very large handkerchief covering her privates.

The blue woman sang at them; to call it speaking felt insulting for how she gestured and shifted her melodious voice. The siren looked at them blankly, as if waiting for something. Juna looked back at Vazet, who shook her head. She didn't understand its language either. Its voice just echoed in their heads, like it got stuck between their ears. "Noelle," Juna hissed. "Try to play it something."

"Not my most pleasent audience," Noelle grumbled. "Something about it looks off."

"It's a beautiful naked woman in a cave surrounded by fish," Juna snapped quietly. "Of course it's off! But it's not speaking a language, it's just singing. So... try to communicate."

Noelle cleared her throat and took out her lute, strumming across the chords. The siren paused and looked at her curiously, so she hit a few more notes. As she started to play a simple but skillful rendition of Narry's Delight, the siren seemed to change. The lovely features melted away to show a face that, while vaguely female, had a mouth that was wide and full of needly fangs like an angler fish. A glowing antenna hung over her huge and milky eyes, and claws grew from her fingers. A long fishy tail replaced its legs and pushed along the sand like a strange snake. It still had the blue skin and her large and shapely breasts, which somehow just added to its monstrous appearance.

The siren blinked its large eyes in confusion before it let out a loud piercing note, pointing accusingly at Noelle. Her two hulking fishmen

"Everyone's a critic," Noelle huffed as she slung her instrument across her back to draw her weapons. Juna intercepted them quickly, letting her sword deflect one of their circular blades while the other sliced across her shoulder. They didn't stop their charge, barreling into her and pinning her beneath their flabby bodies and stench of dead fish. They started to claw and stab at her, opening more wounds at her arms and denting her armor as she kept their attention her.

"HRAAAUGH!" Ida was on them in a flash, grabbing one by the back of its neck. The snarling beast of a woman lifted it off of Juna and hurled it upward, smashing the fish monster into the ceiling before spiking it back into a muddy puddle. It slithered back up while it whipped its tail to trip Ida to all fours, but she moved just as naturally in that position as she tackled it into a wall and started to bite and claw chunks out of its scaly hide.

Juna wrestled with the other, trying to keep its sword hand away but it smashed her across the masked face with its shield. Some blood ran down from under her mask as she stared back into its big red eyes. "I am already dying, you monster," she snarled. "You can do no worse to me than nature already has."

Noelle's floppy hat suddenly came into view as she pounced on the fishman's back, swinging in a frezy of sickle and dagger at its head and shoulders. "Mosh pit!" she cackled with glee as her blades ripped out chunks of scales from the recoiling monster. Juna was startled enough to wonder if it was possible that Noelle had started to find her bloodlust to be more of a passion than her music (and if that was a recent change or not).

The fishman thrashed and gurgled, unable to dislodge her but not shedding much blood from its thick hide. "Come on! I 'ave 'ad overcooked cod that cuts easier zan this!" Noelle growled. The creature finally wisened up and slammed itself backward into a cluster or coral. Noelle screamed as the rough surface slashed through much of her clothes, releasing the creature as it lurched away from her. Another strange language hit its ears as it looked back at the chanting Vazet. Her patterned skull's sockets flashed before a black hole opening in the ceiling, wrapping around its fat neck and lifting the monster off the ground.

"Does that look tender enough for your liking?" the cultist called.

"Appetizing as can be," Noelle hissed, leaping back up and burying the tip of her sickle into its eye and brain in one stroke.

The siren had backed away from the fight, singing softly and reclaiming its beautiful form from earlier. Her eyes darted over the group before they settling on Ida, who had just finishing biting out a chunk of her fishman's stomach to completely rip it in half. The siren moved swiftly across the battlefield and sang more rapidly, finally stroking a hand across the abomination's cheek. Ida stared back at her for a second before hearing the voice, old and familiar. Older than language and deeper than instincts. It knew what she wanted more than Ida herself, and she told her what it was: kill them all.

Whatever the siren was, she was old and powerful. She knew that people listened to her, and that only the strange and dangerous did not. Those of her kind served her loyally, and the mortals would come to her and drown themselves or others to feed her. Her voice found things inside of them to twist and bend to make them trust her, even if their minds didn't tend to last for every long after.

She could see things in their auras; the woman in the old mask had iron in her mind, full of quotes and chants that took up too much space to get a solid grasp. The darker human could barely be seen by her, as if something else was already living inside her. The colorful one was a twisted maze of thoughts and urges that made it too difficult to pick which part to start with. The giant one, though, was just right for corruption.

With an echoing howl, Ida pounced across the battlefield and raked her claws across Vazet's chest. The foreign sorceress cursed and recoiled, instinctively trying to protect herself. The dagger was knocked from her hand, but her practiced grip on the skull remained. She cringed at the sight of a glowing crack near the jaw. "Not now," she muttered. "Just a little longer."

"Zat is IT!" Noelle flung her knife at the siren, who darted around it with unnatural grace. The jester kept storming after it, glaring wildly at the fishy beauty. "I am tired of your spotlight-stealing, mocking little raven of a voice! I am going to rip it out of you vith my bare hands!"

Juna had gotten back up, grabbing Noelle by the arm to cut off her charge. "Noelle. We need to stop Ida," she ordered firmly. The jester just pulled her arm free from the leper.

"To ze hells with your monster! Stop ze conductor and you stop ze music." She went after the siren once again, taking a wide swipe as the creature kept singing and dodging around it.

Vazet released a few bursts of magical force that knocked Ida away, but they only slowed her advance. Her swings were clumsy but with tremendous reach and strength. Ida finally burst forward in one huge tackle, smashing Vazet's back into one of the rocky walls. There was a brittle crunch of bone as she dropped to her knees, clutching her ribs with one hand while the other protected the preserved skull.

"Ida!" Juna grabbed the abomination in a full nelson, wrenching her off of their spellcaster. "I've got you, girl. Take it easy," she urged. Ida just thrashed and snapped, trying to turn and get at her captor. Vazet ran a hand across her skull and mused more ancient words. Juna started to feel that strange warmth and ache as her skin stretched and mended itself once again. "Much appreciated," she called back before using her renewed strength to swing and slam Ida down to the ground. She didn't notice a few sparks spitting out of the skull like a struggling campfire.

Ida's claws still dug at the sand, trying to dig her way out from under Juna. "Not leaving me much of a choice here, beautiful..." Juna released one of her arms, sliding it instead between the hulking woman's legs. She started to stroke against her pussy, Ida's breathing heavy but her struggles slowing. "There's a good girl. You remember, right?" Ida's arm lashed back lazily, scratching a few fresh lines of red in Juna's skin but she ignored it. "We just need to get that voice out of... Noelle!"

"Busy!" The jester gave another flustered swing, but the siren darted around her blade. She swiped harmlessly at the air, but Noelle remembered that the proportions of her illusion were not quite the same as some invisible claws scraped across her stomach, shedding more blood through her crimson clothes.

"We need a song! Fight the music!"

"Not now, you plague-addled idiot! I'm almost..."

"Encore!" Juna called instead. "Bravo! More!"

Noelle hesitated before forming another manic grin. "Well... if you insist," she purred before drawing her lute. She saw the siren falter as she bounded back and started to play. She faltered as her wounds caught up to her, but she leaned up against a stone pillar to keep playing.

Ida started to calm further, to the point where she shuddered and started to shrink back to normal. Vazet leaned up against the wall and wove another spell, tracing the runes and wincing whenever the blade hit a crack or chip left by the fight. It was a delicate instrument, and she kept holding her breath to await what backlash might occur. She breathed heavily as she felt her wounds start to seal up in that familiarly strange sensation... only for a new, gaping wound to open on her arm. She cringed as she realized that while the Abyss could manipulate flesh, it didn't necessarily understand it.

The siren reverted to its monstrous form as Noelle played more frantically. It howled out a shrill note and lunged for the mad musician, but Juna rushed over and lunged her sword in the way. It was big enough to act as much like a shield as a weapon, and the monster's fine claws chipped off on the contact with the hard old metal.

"You've charmed your last, fiend," Juna threatened.The siren tried to retreat when Ida shifted her face partially into her beastial state. She let out a low gurgle and spewed a spray of acidic green sludge from her mouth. The siren faltered and left her an easy target as a red glow surrounded it thanks to their chanting sorceress. The siren looked too the dungeoneers and cooed out more of her song, just to have it rhythmically interrupted by Noelle's melodic recital of Long Forgotten Souls.

With a warbling last bit of song, it realized it was beat. The inhuman enchantress made a break for it, slithering past the strumming jester to head towards one of the tunnels. Vazet moved the quickest and was the closest among them, giving a gentle caress of her enchanted skull. "No! This ends now!" she bellowed with authority. She drew her knife and spilled a squish splash of blood across the skull, which seemed to trickle down its browned surface at a surprising rate. It was almost as if it were hungry.

A great void opened up above the siren's sought tunnel, and several black and red barbed tentacles plunged down around her. The siren howled and thrashed, but the appendages made quick work of ripping her to pieces. Not even blood was spilled, as it seemed to tear apart like chunks of stone rather than flesh. Dark energies poured from the cracks in its statuesque body, ushered into the portal by the tendrils.

Then came the cracking. The chips in Vazet's skull spread into dark, glowing lines in across the smooth bone. "No!" Vazet whispered. "No, it's not the time! I'm not ready!" The cracks seemed to advance on their own just as the tentacles finished with the siren and turned to her. A long and sharp one lashed out and wrapped around her injury arm, getting a scream from the foreign sorceress. The shout only seemed to encourage the alien force as another thicker tentacle rammed down her throat.

"Oh no! We have to-" Ida started, but Juna caught her by the arm. The abomination froze, looking back at the gold-clad woman. Juna just shook her head. "You think we can fight a dark god after all this?" she asked solemnly. "Look away, child."

Ida cringed and turned as she was told, but Noelle watched with a warped smile. The barbed limbs tore off Vazet's clothes, wrapping around her until she saw more tentacle than flesh. The woman let out labored moans as they seemed to seek out and fill her holes like a massive squid making itself at home. The cult had been clear that the power was never theirs. It belonged to those of The Abyss. That she only let it exist in the world for short periods and guided it with her will. The things there would become accustomed to her, see her as one of their own. This was the same problem as when she was mending her wounds; the creatures understood what flesh and bone was, but not what it could do or what it could withstand.

Vazet choked on a scream as one tentacle gagged her, drilling deep into her throat. It filled her pussy until she could feel it somehow wrap around her heart. It was like her first exposure, but this was even more intense. It felt as if every nerve of her body was being filled and plucked at the wanting entity's will. The last had filled her to the brim, but now she was being flooded by it. The thing that saw galaxies at a time wouldn't have a grasp of how much her womb could handle now that her conduit had broken.

There was a pop as the skull finally broke into shards. There was a euphoric screech that echoed through the tunnels. There was a noise like the tearing of time and space moving backwards that was especially odd to hear. With that, the tentacle withdrew and Vazet fell to the ground like a naked ragdoll.

"What a way to go," Noelle tutted as she strode over. She nudged Vazet with her jingling toe, but the woman just rolled over and stared lifelessly at the ceiling. "Genuinely fucked to death. I've seen worse happened to better people." Juna was unreadable behind her mask, but she grimly went to the remains of the siren. Rather than gore, it looked like pieces of a marble statue of a beautiful woman halfway into becoming a fish. Ancient letters were carefully etched across parts of its skin; spells or perhaps ancient history. Gems were buried into its eyes and rare metals made up the fingernails and teeth to make them shine in the strange torchlight.

"These are good materials," the leper reported. "Noelle. Ida. Come and gather up all the pieces you can. I'm sure our employer would appreciate the return on his investment."

"Why us?" Noelle asked, but she trotted over anyway. "You're the big one with the big honking sword."

"I have my own load to bear." Juna went to Vazet, tossing one of her spare cloaks over the naked woman. She set to work divvying up their supplies into one pack before slinging the corpse over her shoulder.

"Oh, leave her," Noelle scoffed as she shoved the jewel-eyed head into her bag. "Gold weighs less than corpses and are much more valuable."

"Well I doubt she'd want a Light-blessed funeral," Ida muttered as she stuffed the diamond-clawed hands into her pack. "But I don't imagine she wanted to let crabs pick her apart in a tunnel either."

Noelle groaned and rolled her eyes. "You are all mad. You know zat?"

"Yes," Juna and Ida answered in weary unison as they finished up their grim work.

They returned their findings to Duncan Darkest; the enchanted siren statue, assorted trinkets and pearls found in the caves, and the body of Vazet. He thanked them and paid them a portion of spare gold before the groundskeep quite merrily took the corpse to a burial plot. Duncan had assumed that it was for his ancestors, but the various unmarked graves told him that it was just as likely for burying secrets and victims as relatives.

Over the next few days, Noelle used most of her gold in distracting herself. It was just her way. She drank and joked around the gambling table until she had wasted most of it. It was all a game, after all. A throw of the dice or a petty way to pass the time. It always calmed her to think of everything like that. She was good and wasted when she went back to the streets, but from her prancing step and strange attire, nobody could really tell. She was heading to the smith to see about a new scythe when she passed by Juna. She nodded in thanks to the bearded old man as she took back her heavy breastplate, wrapped up in a white shawl. A few thick bandages were still wrapped around her covering sleeves.

She considered striking up a conversation, but she found the words wouldn't come together. Nothing seemed right when she thought about the nights they'd spent together on that awful journey. She had only just washed the smell of blood and fish out of her hair, after all. The drunken jester sight and took off her mask, sitting on the edge of the murky old fountain in the middle of town. She had always felt that the things which couldn't be said could always be sung. She strummed her lute and released her melody to fill the square as Juna went passing by.

"Life is a tale that ends in death

But it has failed to claim me yet!

So fill it full with wine and sex

and hope that you die with lots of debt!"

Juna smirked under her mask as she walked by. Vazet wasn't the kindest of women, but she had been reasonable and had helped save her life from the wounds she had failed to notice. She had even offered to try to cute her illness. Now she would never know if it was even possible.

Juna asked around until she found her way to the sanitarium. The hospital was run by a grim-faced nurse who spoke little, and it was cool and quiet there. Just what she needed. She went and visited the room as directed, where Ida was slumped into a chair looking out the window at the sunset.

"It's not a seaside view, I would hope," Juna joked quietly. Ida giggled softly and shook her head. The big leper moved in and knelt beside her, patting the slender woman's hand. She seemed calm, if tired. "I heard you signed yourself in."

"They don't care about the church here," Ida mused. "I told them I was feeling manic-depressive with some mild lunacy. They have some... wonnnnderful potions here."

"Potions? Ah. I see... well, whatever it takes to relax around here. Speaking of..." Juna set out a small golden tray, opening her pouch and lighting some incense. "I hope you don't mind if I do some reflection. I think it'll take my mind off of the nightmares."

Ida yawned and nodded. "Of course. If you'll be quiet, I'll be quiet."

"It's a deal, my lovely." Juna went into her meditative state, chanting and muted whispers that came out softer than a breeze. Her armor was back on, though the sword would take some work. She had only meant to replace the chunks of metal missing, but when she realized how much gold she had, she decided to see if they could restore the sword to its former glory. Best to be practical rather than glamorous, if she was to keep up this ugly line of work.

She woke up from her trance somewhere in the middle of the night. She felt a weight on her, and looking down, there was the monster. Juna jumped for a moment, but lifted her mask to rub her scarred face and sighed. It was only Ida. She had turned while she was out of her mind, her huge body resting at her feet with her fanged head laid on her lap. The feral Ida grunted and shifted, but Juna stroked a hand through her hair to calm her back down. "There now, little one. you're safe. I've got you. There's only us monsters here." She sighed and looked out at the half-shaped moon as she pet her lover. Finding Ida and killing the siren seemed to be the only good things to come out of the whole journey so far.

"It's only been a week and people are reporting incredible results. The fishermen are bringing in great hauls of fish, and I even saw some children splashing down on the shore without a care or danger to be seen.

"We did lose our first, however. Vazet, the one that my groundskeeper referred to as 'the dirty foreign occultist.' He buried her in the family plot, but I sent out some extra gold to see that she had a proper tombstone unlike half of the mounds of dirt out there. If she died in my service, she at least deserves to be remembered. I had a local scholar look over the markings on the statue, and after a lot of study he reported that it was some manner of arcane ritual based on legends of making wives and beauties from stone or clay. I'm not sure what deviant tastes my uncle had, but it's clear that he had done some truly unnatural things to sate his lust and boredom. I can only hope his misdeeds don't bring me or those I've employed down the same awful path.

“The only path of redemption of the family name (and thankfully, human decency) is to undo and unmake all that he brought upon this town. Now that the seas seem to be cleared, I think the woods need a proper clearing. The beasts that call themselves men feed off the weak, and I think a visit from someone strong should put a stop to them.”

-from the diary of Duncan Darkest