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Chapter 7-3

Page history last edited by Anonymoose 4 years, 1 month ago

Chris' reckless low altitude flying almost cost me my lower half on multiple occasions. A few times I had to tuck my legs up toward my stomach lest they get caught on a branch and shattered, if not torn right off. My abdominal muscles were beginning to kill me and I wasn't sure I could last much longer. The wyvern's claws digging into my shoulders for the last ten minutes did not help either.

     Any higher and we'll be spotted, she had said.

We were flying as close as possible to the forest canopy that we could. Low enough that other animals, even little insects I almost kept swallowing non-stop, were desperately trying to clear out of our way. Our silhouette might be spotted by our pursuers if we flew higher, so I grinned and bore it. At least I think that's what she had said, the wind blowing past my ears rendered me near deaf to everything.

No matter how long we flew the sea of trees appeared never ending. A few tributary streams of remarkably clear water were the only breaks in the ocean of green. After flying to and fro, which felt like we were going in giant circles with corkscrews thrown in for good measure, the rising mounds of brown earth came into view. A paltry sprinkling of trees clung to their bases, but the craggy crown lay bare. This isolated gathering mountains, the tallest likely being volcanic long ago, were welcome breaks to the monotony of green. At their peaks were small glaciers shrouded in mist and no doubt served as the origin of those many tributaries. That mystery to what could feed these thirsty forests had been solved.

Chris banked her wings and mustered all her strength to rapidly gain altitude. That put us on a collision course with a thousand foot waterfall cascading down from the glacier to the foothills down below.

    “Whoa Chris, wait!” I panicked.

She didn't pay me any mind, if she could hear me, the speed she had gained didn't decrease at all. Not a hint was given of us slowing down for our final approach till the last second. Chris stopped beating her wings once we nearly reached glacial elevation and then glode us in at a head-on approach. Right into a waterfall cascading down from said glacier on the above plateau. I closed my eyes, expecting to be drenched with ice cold water before splattering against the cliff side. Yet Chris' wing span played the part of the perfect parasol and hidden behind was not a wall of igneous rock, but a quaint little hidden cave.

My feet finally touched down solid earth and nearly fell face first as my balance is still completely jumbled. The vice grip of her talons let me loose and to my surprise it was Chris who collapsed in a heap before me after leap-frogging over me. Her throat was raspy and hoarse as she desperately tried to refill her aching lungs with air. She slowly slid down onto her knees instead. I followed suit by propping myself up against a nearby stalagmite. My mind wanted to rush over to hr side, but my body had other plans slid down onto the cold and wet cave floor.

Our harmonic heaving echoed betwixt the roar of the water curtain hiding our hiding spot. I could not speak and could only hack and cough instead.

    “We ought to be fine here,” Chris said, full of energy, as she suddenly jumped back onto her feet.

It's as if that fatigue from before had been all an act. Chris looked a little more flushed in the face than usual though. Her eyes were watery and I thought I spied them quivering a bit... As if she were having a hard time focusing, but was powering through it all anyways.

    She turned about to face me with a smile and a salute with one of her wings, “I scouted this place out five days ago and I've been saving it till now. It should keep us safe for a night.”

    “A night?” I said incredulously between deep breaths. “Singular?”

    Chris scraped the nearby limestone wall with her wing's foretalons and declared, “Maybe two, but I wouldn't risk it. I wouldn't trust stone like this to interfere with scrying for too long...”

She busied herself about the cave as she almost flippantly answered my subsequent questions. It does look like she had been here before and there were a few supplies, mostly firewood, stashed around beforehand.

    “They have some potent magic users with them, and it's their territory, I've taken precautions and not slept in the same place twice. I've broken camp three times daily.”

    “I think it's about time you tell me what the hell happened while I was... gone. Were you being serious when you said ten days? You aren't exaggerating for effect, are you?”

She is known to do that from time to time, so I had better make sure. I would like to not have to wrap my head around things like magical time dilation if I could get away with it.

    “No Sir, I'm afraid not,” Chris replied with downcast eyes and her energy taking a visible dip. “You are not hurt, Sir?”

She marched over to offer me an arm to lift myself back up. The floor is wet and I certainly do regret giving into the temptation to let the strings holding me up be cut. My legs felt as though they were filled with gelatine. This cold breeze coming from the mix of the mountain air and waterfall a few feet away didn't help much either. With the adrenaline wearing off my body felt stiff and unresponsive. Chris herself was completely drenched in my stead, so I had no right to complain. Her pink hair matted against her face... The fabric of her scant clothes clinging to her skin and nipples looked painfully erect.

    “Now is not the time,” I said quietly to myself, shaking my head to chase away any impure thoughts.

She didn't appear to be on the same page, because she pulled me straight into an embrace and buried my head into her bosom. It's far warmer than I thought. I suppose it had to do with the fire burning in her belly and not long after that I could spy the mist of evaporating water steaming off her chest.

    “It will take me a moment to start a fire. It appears the firewood I gathered has become waterlogged.” Chris said, stroking the back of my head with her sharp talons. “Please let me offer my body heat instead, Sir.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw smoke billowing out from behind her lips, like habitual some chain smoker. Her whole torso felt like clinging to plug-in electric heater. I expected to get a sinus full of burning copper wire any second. Yet as quickly as she had pulled me in she pushed me back at arm length.

    “Ahaha~” she nervously laughed in her actual higher pitched voice before coughing and returning it to her lower heroic timbre. “Right, the situation does look grim, Sir. The other girls appear to have been taken captive.”

We were finally getting somewhere. Rather than risk making things anymore awkward I went with the flow.

    “By whom?” I put forward the question with the worst possible answer first.

    “None of the usual suspects, rest assured, Sir,” Chris said reassuringly. “A non-affiliated and isolated group... But that alone has made any negotiations futile. They are completely cut-off from the outside world.”

    “A group made up of monsters?”

    “Not all that uncommon,” Chris continued. “Most Imperial territory is not safe for monsters. Many monsters gather like this for mutual protection near Imperial territory or form them as enclaves... I think the proper name is a dungeon... Or that's what the adventuring types called them.”

    “A prison they admit themselves to?”

    “A honey trap more like it,” she said twirling a wing in the air with a hint of a smile. “They make them out of old ruins. Gathering up lots of gold and artifacts. To trade with, sure, but also to lure people in. Not once have I spotted another man in this region... So I'd say it's a gathering of bachelorettes. It's a dangerous game they both play with the Empire... But I guess only the monsters there consider it a game... There used to be one in the eastern Domdracverian lowlands a couple generations ago... Until it got cleared out. Most survivors fled North and then resettled westward in the Vilmheim area or fled far north to the Hinterlands.”

    “That doesn't really explain why they would be taking other monsters prisoner, like you say the others were... That does, however, explain why they wanted me.”

    Chris let out a little laugh, “You did look a little shook up.”

    “So you were watching!” I shouted and pointed accusingly.

    Ignoring my outrage, the wyvern crossed her arms and nodded to agree with her own thoughts, “That's why I prepared. Once they know you are in the area they will come after us with a lot more gusto than they were searching for me.”

    I sighed and swallowed my outrage if only to keep the conversation going, and on subject, “That doesn't explain why they'd bring the others in and lock them up... And how for that matter.”

    “I'm afraid I'm not sure either, Sir.”

    “What do you mean you don't know?”

    “I was not present at the time, Sir... I suppose I should not skip all the details...” Chris coughed and then methodically, and very dryly, began to recount events. “We did not all arrive at the same time. I arrived five hours after Minte did ten days ago. Rose and Shoshanah arrived eleven days ago.”

    “Eleven days ago? But we left Yaleria ten days ago!”

    “Ah, but Laven, you do recall we opened the gateway the day before to make sure it worked and was safe? Those two came through the other end of the gateway when it had been opened at that time.”

My head began to hurt again.

    “No more teleporting,” I muttered as I started to feel a bit lightheaded again.

    “Shoshanah did confide in me that it was exhausting to keep Rose still for that whole day... Something about it being disastrous if they started something called a Butterfly Effect

    “The hell it would! That's a time paradox waiting to happen,” I blurted out.

    “She did say that you would understand. It's beyond me though, Sir,” Chris shrugged.

Now I'm beginning to realize, a bit too late, why we had been denied use of the Ebon Wing's network. This isn't some form of convenient use of fast travel. It's a god damn non-Euclidean nightmare scenario that we barely missed the worst of. Chris thankfully kept the story going and distracted me with other details to worry myself over.

    “We were reunited, but you had yet to appear, Sir. The gateway had not collapsed, and we knew you were still enroute, but we had no way of knowing how long that would take. We set up camp outside the same stone ruins you are now familiar with. I volunteered to scout ahead and took to the skies... But... Well... As you saw yourself, the forest never ends. I began exploring in pie sections and going further when revisiting another section... While I was out on the third day I came back and saw the camp turned over and emptied.”

    “You were out on patrol and came back to see everyone gone?”

    “With tracks from another twenty or so monsters of all shapes and sizes,” Chris said ominously with a serious expression on her face. “No sign of a struggle. No message left either. Eventually made contact the following morning. I introduced myself, but they attacked me!”

I pictured Chris introduce herself with the usual fanfare and could not bring myself to be surprised at the results.

    “They attacked you unprovoked? I asked skeptically.

    “They said I was under arrest. I declared they had no such authority,” she said pounding her chest proudly. “I have diplomatic immunity as an envoy of the Princess of Domdracveria... And that extends to you too, Laven, Sir. Attacking you is inexcusable, so I introduced the brigands to proper justice!”

I suspected as much. A hefty sigh escaped my lips in spite of myself, but the wyvern, unflappable hero that she is, continued undaunted.

    “But there doesn't appear to be respect for any outside law here. I have been on the run ever since. My ability to scout the area has been handicapped, but I did manage to come across their dungeon. It is far to the north-east of here. That's where they are keeping the others too. I'm sure of it.”

    “The place they call The Hallows?”

    “Yes! You overheard that?”

    “They might have let slip something about taking prisoners to something called 'The Cleft'. ” I said.

    “That's all the confirmation I need to hear!” Chris said nearly jumping up and down on the spot with excitement. “We need to launch a rescue operation immediately!”

    “Against a whole den of monsters? Didn't you say they had a lot of powerful magic users a few minutes ago?”

Chris' feet glued themselves right back after that. She had gotten way ahead of herself and reality once again grounded her.

    “There might be a few risks involved,” she said while nonchalantly scratching her cheek with an absentminded claw. “But with you here now I can operate a full potential!”

    Yeah, right, a few,” I sighed.

Her eyes were glimmering and her fair skinned cheeks were flush with rosy liveliness to them. She seized my hands in her wings and began to excitedly shake them, and my whole body, up and down. Yet something was niggling at the back of mind. It had begun as something small a few minutes ago, but had grown increasingly irritating. Like a small crack in a dam suddenly bursting, the revelation came to me.

    “Hold on a second... Rose and Susan came eleven days ago, a whole day before we all left to begin with... Then you and Minte came pretty much on schedule... What about Ba'el?”

Chris' eyes shot open wide. She was taken aback and then the look on her face rapidly switched back and forth between confusion before something she too had forgotten came back to her.

    “Oh, that's right, we thought she was with you this whole time... A big part of the reason we thought you were safe.”

    “Being left all alone with Ba'el isn't exactly what I'd call being safe,” I said, deadpan.

    “You haven't seen her either then?” Chris said tilting her head inquisitively.

    “I spent a whole three seconds in that place! It felt like more than a week to all of you, but to me it was instantaneous. Not only did I not see anyone in there, I couldn't have in that short a time.”

    “I was going to ask if you were hungry,” Chris chuckled a little. “But I guess for you it's only been a couple hours since that last banquet... That's good, because I haven't had a chance to hunt for anything. I have some wild boar leftovers at site eight, but even cooked it's only safe hanging from a tree branch for so long...”

    “There's no way I could have an appetite now, Chris. I have a lot more peace of mind when I know where that little goat is and what she is up to... There's no knowing what Ba'el could be up to if—”

From out of the corner of my eyes I could sense a peculiar glow. I furrowed my brow and froze mid sentence, because it was a sensation I was quite familiar with. There's no way I could not look up and confirm it for myself. A bad idea for sure, but I could not help myself. Growing very quickly above me is a halo of strange light, the same multi-spectrum hue of that accursed space between space.

    “Laven?” Chris titled her head inquisitively to me.

She couldn't see it. Three dimensions isn't sufficient to explain that place, so you had to be right under it to see it. It existed here on a two dimensional plane and could not be seen from the side. Yet that expanse was not truly infinite, because something came from the furthest reaches and was getting larger... No, the right thing to say would be that it is getting closer. A revelation which came too late once the sound of shrieking terror which grew louder with it.

There's no way I could know at what speed it hit me at. It didn't kill me, so it could not have been that fast. It also had properties that softened the impact. Two lily white butt cheeks, thankfully very soft and pliable, collided into my face with great force. It bowled me over and laid me flat on the ground. No sooner than it all happened, the halo of strange light vanished and someone was sitting on my face.

    “Ouch ouch ouch, sheesh,” I heard a distinctive helium pitched voice, which I could never mistake, wince in pain on top of me. “What? Who? Where?”

    “Ba'el?” I heard Chris gasp aloud. “... Speak of the devil, I guess.”

    I groaned, “Please, Chris, no jokes right now.”

    “Thunder tits? You're still alive?” Ba'el replied incredulously. “Guess I wasn't out THAT long... Where's the boy?”

No words needed to be exchange on that one. I reached with my hands began to tap out on Ba'el's thigh. The way she was seated facing away from me had also made it hard to breathe and if she didn't move her ass soon I might pass out from suffocation instead of from the concussion.

When she finally scrambled off me, and I could breathe again, I rubbed the back of my head to check for blood. I sat up and saw Ba'el sitting on her knees with her little trotter hooves spread out behind her. We locked eyes as she looked back up at me. Not a word was said, the little girl reached out with her paws instead toward my face with goat irises eyes glistening. What I mistook for a moment of weakness was immediately betrayed when she got her claws on my cheeks and began to violently pull them like an over-affectionate aunt, or mother disciplining a small child.

    “You little shit!” Ba'el growled while nearly tearing the flesh right off.

She's furious, but if she really wanted to rip my face off she could have already. I also saw that goat tail of hers wagging back and forth. My fight or flight kicked in regardless and I also locked my hands on her soft supple cheeks and we began a tug-of-war.

    “Wut da 'uck yu fink ur dooin?” I shouted back with stretched out cheeks through clenched teeth.

    “'Ut up! Ut up!” Ba'el wailed back with tears now welling up in her eyes.

    “That's enough of that!” Chris bellowed sternly and plopped herself between the both of us.

With a wing on each our chests she pushed us apart and the two of us eventually separated like two stubborn strips of Velcro. Our white cheeks were now swollen red and we caressed our faces as if they have been stung by a whole hive's worth of bees.

    “You left me floating in the void!” Ba'el raged with daggers in her eyes.

    “That's my fault how?” I screamed back, indignant.

    “Oh, I don't know, maybe it had to do with ignoring stranger danger before traveling through astral space?”

    “You said it was safe!”

    “Obviously I was wrong.”

    “Then how the hell is it my fault?” I threw my hands up in frustration and screamed.

Chris couldn't keep us apart for long. We were leaning over and grinding our foreheads against one another and shooting daggers into the eyes of the other at pointblank range.

    “Because you left me there! You expect me to not be pissed? You just have to call my name three times.”

That's... Exactly what I had just done, actually, now that I think about it.

    “You never told me that,” I said, deflecting the blame.

    “What? Really?” Ba'el said casting sidelong glance at Chris.

The wyvern was preoccupied with trying to push us apart again, but she could muster enough to offer a little shrug.

    “You mean to tell me you went and made that pact without knowing how the fuck it works?!” Ba'el's cried, her voice becoming increasingly shrill.

    “That... That was a heat of the moment thing,” I stuttered, embarrassed. Remembering that whole incident is something I'd like to bury deep and forget about it. “Wait a second,” I said after realizing something. “Are you telling me that during that whole Yaleria incident I could have just called you out and you'd appear?”

    “I don't work miracles! It ain't going to work with that much interference... Or if the distance is too great... And it will take more mana depending on how bad either of those are, so I might not have the juice to do it.”

    “Oh, I see, it works only when convenient for you, is that it? Or else it's MY fault?”

    “Shut up shut up shut up! I've been working really hard on getting my powers back, little thanks to you. Even the minor ones. I wont put up with your disrespect, boy!”

    “We have bigger problems, please!” Chris yelled in a higher pitched voice than the two of us were used to.

Chris finally managed to pry our heads apart, which could not have been easy given the look of strain on her face.

    “Raaagh! I can't believe you,” Ba'el continued to rage. “Would it hurt you that much to maybe, just maybe, be quicker on the uptake? I lost track after fifty-thousand in there, you know?”

    “Seconds? Minutes?”

    “I don't remember. That's how long you left me in there! How long were you in there?”

    “Ten days,” Chris answered.

    “Ten? Just ten? Fucking ten!?” Ba'el said with her jaw dropping.

    “Well, it felt like only three seconds to me,” I said.

    “Three, bah, wha—I'LL KILL YA!” Ba'el eyes bugged out, she screeched and then began clawing at the air in front of my neck.

    “That's enough!” Chris bellowed and put her whole body in the way this time to keep us separated. Ba'el continued flailing like a furious, wild and starving animal; as if only a chainlink fence was between it and a pile of fresh meat. It took a few minutes and some bargaining and soothing platitudes, but the little devil eventually calmed down enough to be reasoned with. We eventually convinced her on my ignorance and she was finally ready to forgive... Yet I could tell, from the look on her eyes, she wouldn't soon forget.

    “Hmph” Ba'el huffed and clicked her tongue. “Not like I was really going to do it. You know I'd be dead too if I did?”

    “Could have fooled me,” I replied, deadpan.

    “After all—I am more than capable of being magnanimous.”

    “Pff—ha~” Chris quietly chuckled and had to hide her face behind a wing, but couldn't hide her shoulders quaking with barely contained laughter.

    “It's not as if that's the worst of it that I've ever had” Ba'el continued, oblivious to Chris' near outburst. “Immortal creatures don't spend every year waking, you skip a century here and there. A vacation in the astral plain isn't uncommon.”

    “You certainly don't act like it,” I let slip a bit of snark.

If only she did act her age...

    "You'd go crazy otherwise,” Ba'el said shooting me a pointed glare before continuing. “Why, I remember learning that lesson long ago... I think it was seven thousand years ago or so, the big fad amongst me and the girls were playing minor deities. Fertility goddess is a real sweet gig, I'll have you know. A lot of gods were missing in action and wouldn't have their shit together for about a thousand years to do anything about it. Fun times. You lounge about on a hilltop temple and they feed you everything and anything you could want. All you gotta do is make sure the rain falls and the soil is nice and rich. Elementary magic stuff. A whole little city on the riverside all in the palm of your hand. You can make a go for it and convince em to carve out their own little empire too.”

Ba'el puffed out her nearly non-existent chest full of pride for a moment before her eyes glazed over that youthful exuberance.

    “But then you take a nap for a century... Maybe two... You wake up and it's all in ruins. Your former worshipers enslaved and sent into diaspora.”

Ba'el clapped her hands over my shoulders and pulled me closer so that I couldn't help but get a good look into her green eyes. Her pointed claws were starting to hurt a little as she tightened her grip.

    “The city walls, once seven stories high, are half crumbled. All those statues long since toppled and melted down... Then the victors write all about it... How you were a vengeful god who demanded human sacrifices. Children, babies in particular, and those records stay around while your own got torn to pieces and burned long ago... And you know, you just know, it was them who were actually doing it themselves. But they shifted the blame on you.... Then for the next few thousand years only crazed sex cults and degenerate demon worshipers with a death wish keep trying to summon you into their dirty caves and dusty cellars.”

    “Why are you telling me this, Ba'el?” I said while trying to gingerly pry one of Ba'el's paws off my shoulder.

    “I had A LOT of time to reminisce, Laven...”

That couldn't be everything... So that only leaves—

    “Are... Are you trying to tell me you were worried I wouldn't be around when you got out?”

A moment of silence, the waterfall at the cave's entrance being the only thing which could be heard. Ba'el's fair face flushed red from the neck up till steam was coming out from the top. Her two horns like twin smokestacks.

    “I—wha—you—” Ba'el stuttered with her eyes darting back and forth for a bit. I watched her whole body begin to tremble, but her tail kept on wagging faster and more furious than before. It lasted until something clicked and her goat pupil eyes snapped back, she bared her fangs and wrapped my neck in her fuzzy paw-like hands. “No—I ought'a—I really am gonna kill you, you bastard!”

She didn't squeeze that tight at all. Her strength wasn't in it and all she did is shake me back and forth a bit. Ba'el was trying to hold back a smile, but a string of curse words couldn't twist it into a frown nearly hard enough. She continued to shake me and protest, but the whole thing must have been comical to watch, because Chris took her sweet time till she stomped her foot down on the hem of Ba'el's cloak and that anchored her in place. Only then could I back up out of her reach while she spun out in place like a cartoon character.

    “Okay okay!” Chris bubbled up cheerfully to counteract the souring mood. “We got business to attend to, let's go!” She yelled pumping one of her wings up into the air.

A temporary ceasefire was established. Chris tactfully changed the subject and brought Ba'el up to speed with our current situation. We had no solid idea where we were. We're vaguely further south of Yaleria, but that's all we knew for certain. Chris only had the stars to gauge where we were, but Ba'el managed to impressively confirm a more accurate latitude with little information. Now if we only knew the longitude.

The next thing we knew for sure is that we're deep in enemy territory. Our opponents are a colony of monsters who are isolationist and hostile to outsiders. Bereft of any men too, so that put me in danger. We had set them off by being dropped off inside one of their sacred places. Something about that got Ba'el's attention.

    “Sacred ruins you say? I wonder what style of architecture...” Ba'el mused to herself as she sat cross legged and listened attentively.

    “Well, I... Um... I wouldn't quite...” Chris blustered as she looked at me to bail her out of her questioning.

    “You,” Ba'el said with some residual annoyance in her voice when forced to address me. “You told the turkey here that you saw runes on them ruins... Try drawing a few that you remember. I don't care if it ain't exact. Give me a clue. Anything to work off of.”

She snapped two fingers together and with some magic sleight of hand produced a stick of chalk then tossed it my way. I looked over to Chris who shrugged back at me. Go with it the look on her face told me. If I humor the baphomet's curiosity it might distract her from whatever stick she currently had up her ass, so I went with it.

    “North Druuel,” Ba'el blurted out when I was only half way through trying to scribble what I could recall seeing briefly an hour ago. “Central Frielurn if you meant to cross these strokes three-quarters down instead of in the middle, but that would put us on the opposite side of the world where I think we are. Trees like these grow in that place...”

    “Hize Murhrar,” I said absentmindedly.

    “What? How in the hells did you...” Ba'el eyes went wide when I suddenly cut her off at the pass.

    “The Black Forest... And I've begun to believe in coincidence less and less as time goes on...” I answered while staring right back into the mystical eyes of the little goat-like girl.

Memories of my conversation with Prince Orchalen came back to me... He did offer Rose and I an invitation, so perhaps we would have to take him up on that offer much sooner than I thought we would.

    “They are Elven runes on even more ancient Elven ruins,” Ba'el said crossing her arms and pouting a little now that I stole some of her thunder. “Elves didn't always live in tress, you know? They once built cities like men... Can't say I remember when that changed. Somewhere between seven thousand and six thousand years ago.”

    “If this is the Black Forest, that would mean we really are a long way south,” Chris said with her usual excitability creeping back in. “We're only a few leagues from the south coast and the Free Ports not much further than that!”

    “Some good news for once,” Ba'el harrumphed. “We shouldn't waste anymore time and get this show on the road.” She said, rising up with the clopping of her two hooves on the cold and wet limestone floor.

Chris titled her head as if Ba'el had spoken Greek instead. Ba'el noticed and let out a massive sigh.

    “You are here, he is here, that means you should be able to transform now, right? I know you can carry him. I don't weigh much at all. The three of us can take a high altitude flight straight to freedom. Shouldn't take more than a couple days... Ah, don't worry, I know I know... I can magic up something to keep him from passing out due to the cold and lack of air to breathe.”

    “You want to run away?!” Chris' voice screamed several octaves higher pitched than usual.

    Ba'el dug her pinky claw into her ear and winced in pain while replying, “I was afraid you'd say that.”

    “Ba'el—?” I said as if ready to chastise a child.

    “Now you two listen here!” Ba'el erupted into anger. “You might not like it, but I'm going to be the voice of reason here. I know full well the two of you want to be the cavaliers and rush gallantly into the thick of it. You think now that I'm here your harebrained idea stands an infinitesimal better chance... Well no. No it doesn't!”

Chris, still red in the face, puffed out her chest and prepared to reply, but got shut down by Ba'el who wasn't finished yet.

    “I ain't letting myself get caught then locked up in cell. Not even with the likes of you lot instead of alone for who knows how long!”

From that perspective, the prospect carries a lot more weight with her than with us. Both Chris and I felt that empathy sting in our chests.

    “So here is what we do: We fly out of here, go to the Free Ports, settle in, then ask for help. We come on back and then we break your friends out of the clink. We might not have to fight if we gather up enough firepower. Doesn't that sound like a much better plan?”

    “You want to leave our comrades behind!?” Chris raged and looked ready to pop off as she swooped in and leaned down, way down, to make direct eye contact with Ba'el.

    “You think you are being so selfless,” Ba'el said then spat on the ground between them. “What a great chance to be the hero, right? Wanna keep that impression going as long as possible, yeah? Maybe think a bit more than that, will ya? We got this guy to worry about!”

Ba'el said, gesturing with her chin and pointing a claw toward me.

    “You could have stuck around and gotten the royal treatment in dragon land. We could have all laid back and enjoyed being waited on hand and hoof with the corpse princess... But you have places to go, things to do. And I don't imagine letting yourself get caught is going to work out well with any of that... Unless it's now of all times you want to be strapped to a chair and be used as a semen donor and single-handedly turn this outpost into a monster metropolis! Because in case you didn't notice, the five of us can't imprint enough of our own mana to have anymore girls back off, Mr. Incubus Lord. You are in for a real treat if you let those sex starved virgins have a go at you! You thought your growing fan club of horny skeleton girls back in Yaleria was a disaster waiting to happen, wait till none of us can help you, or there's no royal authority to keep you safe!”

Neither Chris nor myself could get a word in edgewise now.

    “How about we all listen to aunty Ba'el for now and actually do the one smart thing we can do?”

Now it's time for me to deflate that blimp before it got any higher off the ground.

    “There's one problem, Ba'el,” I said and calmly, letting loose a hefty sigh before continuing. “Rose is the one with all the Free Port connections. Without her, the three of us have nothing.”

She looked at me and didn't flinch. At least not at first. Her head slowly swiveled around to face Chris.

    “Aren't you on a diplomatic mission? You wouldn't shut up about it before.”

    Chris shrugged, “That's to open relations.”

    “Which means there's no embassy to crash at...” I interjected. “And Domdracveria is still a vassal of the Empire on paper. What do you think the chances are the Free Port higher ups welcome the envoy with open arms?.. Face it, without Rose we have no foot in the door with the Guilds... And more important than that, no bank account. Without her the three of us haven't a single coin between us. Fat lot of help that will do us in the Free Ports of all places...”

The little devil cast her eyes downward. A hundred calculations going through her head a second. She stoked her tiny chin between her fingers, but her pink lips curled further and further into a frown by the moment. After what felt like a whole half-minute, the girl clutched the sides of her heads and ruffled her hair in frustration; twin-tails flying about every which way. If it were not for that one detail her idea would have been too sensible to ignore. She's realizing that, and true to her nature, grows agitated by having to admit defeat.

    “We're all gonna die,” Ba'el said, deflating.

    “Nonsense!” Chris bumbled back into the picture and took a heroic pose. “The three of us are more than capable.”

    “You can't handle their airborne yourself, what the hell do you expect me to do?” Ba'el snapped back. “We can't take him with us! What are we going to do, leave him here, all alone and vulnerable? One of us stays here and the other goes off all alone on a fool's errand and gets captured herself?”

All three of us fell into silence for a time. We were at another impasse. Our situation was better off than before with only Chris and I, but we didn't have enough manpower to seriously think about staging a rescue the other three.

    “How do we know they are still alive anyways?” Ba'el finally had to ask the most pressing and obvious question.

My heart would have sunk even deeper if it were not for the quick uptake from Chris. She fished out a golden trinket from deep within her cleavage: A palm sized golden ankh.

    “Shoshanah gave me this to keep in touch as I was scouting last week, before they were all taken away.”

Ba'el trotted over and plucked it from the claws of Chris. She tossed it back and forth for a bit between each hands like it were a hot potato... And it was, because smoke began to rise from her hands where it touched her. She winced in pain and grumbled under her breath all the while. Satisfied by her strange idea of an inspection, she tossed it my way for me to snatch out of mid-air.

    “It's pure magic alright,” she sighed with disappointment and blew air into her palms to soothe the pain they were no doubt in. “If this is still around that means she is too.”

    “You could sound more relieved,” I said accusatorily.

    “Good news for you, because with this all you need to do is get close enough and the communication line opens back up... Too much interference for it now.”

    “That means we don't have to fight them at all... If we can sneak in instead,” I mused. “Maybe fight our way out... The six of us have a much better chance at that than the three of us alone.”

Chris hemmed and hawed likely thinking of putting into words her discontent of not taking the more valorous high road of direct confrontation.

    “I flew near the entrance and didn't hear a thing though,” Chris said, surprisingly insightful compared to what I had expected.

    “That means we need to go in deep,” Ba'el added. “And I know just the ticket. Thanks for the idea, boy!”

The little devil's lips peeled back to reveal her fangs in a mischievous grin... That she then slowly trained directly onto me. I hate that I could read this expression.

    “It's something I have some experience with... I might have lost a great deal of my former powers, but getting this one back was a cinch. Forty years of experience with it and fooling some of the best in the business.”

From the palm of her hand, Ba'el conjured up a glowing magic circle. Its intricacies, the magic runes inscribed between the inner and out ring, were quickly lost as she had it spin like a disk player till it became a green circle of light. She lifted her arm high up into the air and placed the object of light like a halo atop her head. Finally, she pointed down, the halo expanding and contracting over the contours of her petite body all the way to the floor. Her silhouette became radiant white. It contracted here and expanded again there, but when the white light dimmed someone else entirely was left standing there. Chris and I watched the whole show with stunned silence.

I recognized the girl right away. It's Isabelle, the quiet girl back from the Orphanage back in the Northern Marches. Every monstrous detail had vanished. Little hands and actual feet. No horns on her head, normal ears and no tail. Her cloths had changed to a decently modest (the biggest surprise of all) white linen dress and leather clogs. Her hair is now black hair instead of the odd white with the brown tips. Somehow it had also braided itself into pig tails instead of the usual loose flowing twintails. She's also a few inches shorter, but the lack of horns on her head might make that look even more pronounced.

    “Good afternoon, Mr. Laven,” the girl bowed politely, with a voice soft as a dove and with arms folded submissively in front of her.

She stood back upright she quickly slapped a pair of round thick lens glasses which nearly obscured her eyes beneath entirely. She couldn't keep that act up for long though, because a creepy, and all too familiar, smile spread across her face. She then slipped up real close and began to trace her finger in circles over my chest with a flushed face and husky voice.

    “Thank you for being there for all of us, big brother... I would do anything for—”

My senses returned to me when she was about to reach down further than my waistband. I grabbed her by the wrist and coughed.

    “You actually look like an eleven year old like this,” I said.

    “Ahahaha~” Ba'el laughed, her real voice coming through this fake appearance, then she pulled out her hand and retreated out of arm's reach. “Relax, I'm just teasing you,” she giggled and stuck her tongue out at me.

With a snapping of her fingers she glowed a radiant white once more and all the baphomet features grew out of the silhouette and she returned to normal.

    “Ta~da~” Ba'el cheered.

Chris gave an enthusiastic applause, but without the hands to make it sound proper at all.

    “Elementary stuff,” the little goat boasted while puffing out her near non-existent chest.

    I rubbed my chin and asked that which cut right through her hubris, “Is the little girl form all you can do?”

    “Shut up!” Ba'el screamed and stomped her hooves. “There are limits, you know? You can't fundamentally alter your form willy nilly!”

    “Which is why you can never make yourself not flat as a board?” I said, sneering.

This was a dangerous game, but letting her ego run wild could be just as bad. I could hear Ba'el's teeth grinding from this far away.

    “It's called polymorph and it is a classic... Monsters use it all the time to infiltrate human settlements.”

    “All the time?”I asked then crossed my arms in front of my chest.

    “Yes. Why do you think something like the Inquisition exists at all? An army of monster girls on the prowl is one thing another army can keep in check... But what if some succubus on the hunt for a husband slips into a town with humans being caught unawares. With their pants down, if you will. The really skilled can hold the disguise right up until the trap is sprung.”

    “Ahahaha~” Chris laughed nervously.

    “More restrictions?” I probed some more, but honestly curious now.

    “It would be better to show him,” Chris said.

    “Geh—” A guttural noise came from Ba'el who went stiff as a board. “Why don't you?” Ba'el noticed my confusion and clarified. “You've already seen the spell in action... Sort of. Chris transforming into her wyvern form. It's form of high polymorphism. Natural too. As you can surmise, however, the form is singular. No flexibility at all and with limited utility. Not at all suited to the purpose of true polymorphism”

    “You two are going all over the place,” I said throwing up my hands in resignation.

    “Grrr, fine, I'll do it!” Ba'el snarled and then replicated the transformation from before into Isabelle.

Her cheeks were rosy red this time and she goose stepped her way robotically and stood in front of me. It's strange to see human eyes with that kind presence behind them while still looking up at me with that embarrassed face.

    “Touch my head,” she muttered under her breath, with Isabelle's voice.

    Not sure if I heard that right, I had to ask, “Touch what?”

    “Touch. Me. On. My. Head,” she said, now with Ba'el's voice coming, full of venom, from this child's mouth. Through clenched teeth with clenched fists she commanded me, “Rub my scalp.”

Now I'm completely lost. I cast a sidelong look at Chris who watched intently, flushed redder than before, but had the presence left to nod at me to do it. I had anticipated some sort of trap at first, but eventually reached out slowly and surely with open palm. Ba'el shut her eyes tight and her whole body went as rigid as a plank of wood. I ignored her odd behavior and did as I was told.

Silky strands of black hair sifted through my fingers and the warmth of her heat seemed feverishly hot to the touch on my finger-tips. I tussled her braided pigtails and her hair became increasingly unkempt. Ba'el made the most peculiar sounds as if she was attempting to resist something. Without warning, the light shined from two horns which materialized instantly with a pop. Had my hand been in the wrong spot they might have impaled my hand on them. I instinctively pulled my hand back and Ba'el threw her hands up on top of her head swearing like a sailor. With a serious of comical pops her disguise fell like a series of dominoes, one feature at a time, till she reverted back to everyday Ba'el.

    “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” she cursed with a face twisted in abject embarrassment.

    “Monsters can't hold a human form when excited,” Chris said between Ba'el's more colorful cursing.

    “Especially if it's contact from someone she—” Chris was about to say before the little devil broke a speed record to cover the wyvern's mouth with her paw.

    “Shut the fuck up!” Ba'el screeched and bore her fangs. “Ahem,” Ba'el coughed loudly to further drown Chris out and then took control of the conversation. “As you can see, the best have difficulty under certain circumstances. The more someone tries to alter their form from their original, the less stable it is. Milk Cans here, like with other dragonkin, can assume their form from before the current Monster Lord... But as you might not have known—mmph?”

Ba'el was stopped mid explanation as Chris is the one to be flustered and wrap her wings over the petite girl's mouth. They were both now struggling to gag the other and wrestled for control over who would be able to speak at all. It continued for a bit with me standing here awkwardly, dumbfounded, now more lost than before.

    “Hey, quit it!” Ba'el squirmed and got an arm free to push Chris away by the face.

    “It's better left unsaid!” Chris protested and struggled to get the small, but improbably strong for her size, girl back in her grasp.

    “She can't number one or two!” Ba'el managed to squeeze through a headlock and blurt out.

    “Gah!” Chris' face went pale white.

    I rubbed my throbbing temple between my fingers and sighed, “What?”

    “In wyvern form, like the other dragon transformations, the girls can't eat, they can't sleep, they can't piss and they can't shit. They certainly don't got the parts to do it either.”

Knockout blow. Chris nearly passed out standing and she went fully white as a marble statue from sheer mortification. Ba'el easily pried herself free in the chaos and brushed the dust off her shoulder and flipped her twin tails back over her shoulders.

    “That's why it's so temporary a form,” she explained. “It takes a lot of mana to transform and maintain. On top of that they can't gather any more from eating, sleeping or fucking... The Monster Lord did a real number on all monsterkind when she made em all girls... Even the dragonkin who are not supposed to be under her thumb. Then again, there's a long history of dragons polymorphing into humans and living among them for kicks... Maybe that's why they can still turn into dragons now... Do you know how much trouble humans with dragon blood in them can cause. Wait, you know all about Domdracveria, so you get the gist of it. Now imagine the damage a few monsters disguised as human women can do”

    “Does any of this have a point, Ba'el?” I started to get irritated and had to ask.

I stole a glance at Chris who appears to have somewhat recovered. She's sitting there all alone with tears in her eyes and a thousand yard stare though.

    “Some monsters, like the dragonkin here, can assume a truly monstrous, temporary, but powerful form. With a little magic other monsters can polymorph and spend some time on the other side... Monster girls are still very limited. A monster in human form cannot replenish her mana, so she'll periodically have to drop the disguise to regain it. That's when she is vulnerable and what the Inquisition is on the lookout for... She also cannot maintain it when she finally gets her man. You've seen that before. A man polymorphed on the otherhand....”

I tore my eyes off Chris and faced the mad grinning devil. It's the look of a villain very proud of herself. I put the puzzle pieces of our conversation all together and there's only one solution.

    “Oh no,” I said shaking my head.

    “Oh yes,” Ba'el said circling me like a predator around the campfire.

    “You cannot be serious,” I said, backing up toward Chris, so that she might yet rescue me from this insane loli.

    “Here's the plan: Chris does what she does best. A full frontal assault. In wyvern form. A feint attack. In the midst of all the chaos you and I slip in. We get Susan's ankh within range, find her and then bust the rest of your friends out of jail. We either slip out in the chaos, or fight our way out. Maybe even negotiate our way out with a show of force and some threats here and there.”

    “Y-you were telling me a few minutes ago that bringing me along wouldn't work. That it would put me in danger,” I stuttered, unable to keep my cool as I could feel the pressure bearing down on me from the intensity in Ba'el's eyes.

    “That's why you I use polymorph on you,” Ba'el said wriggling her fingers excitedly. “Better than an illusion, I can disguise your scent too. They'll not suspect a thing.”

    “You said you couldn't change forms that drastically!”

    “Ah~ha,” Ba'el laughed mirthfully. “But Laven, you are forgetting your scriptures. Where did the first woman come from? The rib of Man, of course. A monster girl cannot polymorph into a man. For cosmic reasons beyond us all? Likely, but for sure because the Great Chain of Being is a river that flows downhill! There's a loophole, however, because the reagent to overcome polymorph's limitations is right there in your sternum. All that's necessary, in compliance with cosmic law, to make a woman. Ah~Is that the problem? Don't worry, the spell ain't gonna consume it or anything. They'll come back when the spell wears off.”

    “None of that makes a lick of sense, Ba'el!” I yelled skirting around the campfire to keep it between my self and Ba'el. "You showed me how unstable it is. I know that look in your eye!"

    “Stop being a pussy, Laven,” Ba'el said cracking a smile even wider.

    “That's exactly what I'm trying to do!”

     “It's not that uncommon for couples to try it at least once. Specialists in transmutation make a living out of it in monster controlled regions. It's got a reduced lifespan, compared to the human disguise, but it's a lot more stable while it lasts.”

    “I'll pass. After the nun disguise incident and you forcing me into your—shoes—I'm going to pass. Veto. I call veto!”

    Ba'el continued to ignore me and meander into more storytelling, “Like the old story goes: A fertility goddess once cursed a man to become a woman for seven years due to a grave sin he had committed. Years later the gods were in an argument over who enjoyed sex more: Man or woman? So they asked the poor sap with firsthand knowledge. What did he say? While a man enjoys a singular part greatly, a woman enjoys several.”

    “Not interested!” I cried out, but my voice started going hoarse from shortness of breath trying keep out of this she-devil's reach.

    “If you want to save your girlfriends you'll get your ass over here, right now.” Ba'el said leaping over the fire and I only barely managed to dodge out of the way. “It'll only last a day. Not like it is permanent or anything.”

    “I'm serious Ba'el. Cut it out,” I snarled, but no matter how angry I got, the devil wouldn't relent.

    “It's far too late for that now, Laven,” Ba'el squared her shoulders and stood up tall. “You are at least two steps behind, amateur that you are!”

    “Chris, a little help maybe?” I cried out for help, but got no reply. “Chris?”

She ought to have been right behind me, and she was, but much closer than I had thought. A great weight pressed itself upon my back and on top of my head. A pair of wings wrapped themselves me in a bear hug and lifted my feet a bit off the ground.

    “Laven~” came a husky coo right next to my ears.

    “C-chris?” I pleaded with shaky voice.

Heavy lusty breathing and a slick tongue traced my ear and sent warm shivers throughout my whole body. My body sunk into the soft pillowy mounds of Chris' chest that turned my taut and ready for action muscles to mush.

    “Ha! If you had planned on putting up a fight you would have chosen the battlefield more carefully,” Ba'el said and looked up at me with an irritatingly smug expression. “Did you not notice it yourself? The poor girl here is suffering from a demonic silver overdose. She tried suppressing it, the little professional delusional she is, but even her iron willed ranger act can suppress so powerful an aphrodisiac for so long.”

I tried to struggle, but the more I wriggled the deeper I fell between Chris cleavage. Every movement served to spur on Chris excitement more than ever.

    “A little sleep spell here, at the right moment to render her half awake, and here we are,” Ba'el said while tracing a magic circle in the air from the tip of her index claw. “Since magic has a hard time getting its roots in you, the amount of mana I'm going to need is more than usual. We want this transformation to last for twenty-two hours, not twenty-two minutes. Chris will need to fill up on her reserves to transform long enough for us to do our part too... That's while we'll get all the juicy lifeforce we'll need right from the spring. Have at it, girlfriend!”

Under a powerful suggestion spell, the wyvern had been waiting for that signal and hummed with delight. I cursed and I screamed, but to no avail. Chris pulled me down with her as she sat seiza style. I felt the back of my head rest on her soft thighs and played the part of the perfect flesh pillow. She slipped a claw underneath her top and pulled it up around her collar. Gravity tried its best, but they were as beautifully shapely as they were massive. Her nipples were swollen and engorged with blood to the point they looked more like pink erasers.

Ba'el snapped the fingers on her other hand and with some prestidigitation my shoes, socks, pants and underwear flew away leaving me half naked. Freed from its constraints so suddenly, my penis stood at attention and reported to the ladies for duty. I still had some presence of mind to struggle and try getting back up, but a massive breast came crashing down on my face with its nipple aimed directly for my mouth.

    “Ahn~” Chris shook when my teeth made contact with flesh. “Laven~”

She had no hands to work with, but Chris made due with her wing's membrane. Textured like leather, warmer than body temperature with all the blood filled capillaries, she wrapped it around my engorged member. With the heat and the pressure she squeezed tight gyrated to cause warm hip melting friction.

    “She's got good technique, “Ba'el nodded in approval while she busied herself with crafting her spell.

Having my mouth full I could only angrily huff and puff through my nose and growl, but the slightest brush of my lips and teeth against Chris' nipple caused her whole body to sway to and fro with ecstasy. She's much more sensitive to the smallest stimulation than normal. It's as if the slightest tickle of air when I exhale is like a feather teasingly dancing across her soft pinkening flesh. With her free wing she kneaded her breast and cupped it underneath to always make sure it stayed put where she'd get the most stimulation out of it. When she experienced her first orgasm, long before I could feel myself approach mine, I could feel it as her whole body quivered.

My head on her lap made it felt like an earthquake. And with an earthquake comes flood waters, the back of my head getting soaked as her nether regions became slick gushing out from her pussy. That alone would not be enough for Chris' body which was still coursing with demonic energy from silver poisoning. It sought other ways to manifest. My tongue tasted the intoxicating sweet and creamy liquid leaking straight from the nipple. I almost coughed it up, but it slid down my throat like molten hot super sweet silk.

    “Now you don't see that every day,” Ba'el whistled in awe. “I guess it had some minor mutagenic effects. “Dragon's milk. Never thought I'd see the day.”

Chris is lactating. A steady stream and tainted by demonic energy. It tasted like strawberry milk and my brain fried trying to endure it. If those silver darts had drugged Chris, the thing I was swallowing now hit my system like cocaine water. Not surprising to me at all, the usual side effect of this demonic mana caused my dick to swell at least an inch larger. Had Chris had not been wrapping it up tight it might try and enlarge further.

Reason had taken a back seat and my body moved of its own accord now. No longer concerned with escape, but instead reaching up and grabbing hold of Chris bare breast. Massaging it, tugging it and trying to empty its contents. Chris raised her free wing to her lips and bit down on it to stifle her moaning which grew wilder and unhinged.

It did not take either of us long to reach our limits. Chris face became slovenly with her tongue hanging limply out of her mouth and her eyes glazed over with lust. I continued to suckle and greedily ingest what I could get. The more I drank, the hotter and larger my member grew and my testicles swell in preparation to shoot out my load. I groaned like a wild beast when the moment came and Chris howled like a banshee. Our bodies slick with sweat and nearly melting together. Pulse after pulse as my lower body clenched like a closing fist.

Chris unwrapped her wing from my cock which had been stained white all over. Vicious and gliding across the leathery membrane, the girl used it as a funnel to let it trickle like a waterfall into her open mouth. Refusing to let a drop go to waste she traced her tongue across its surface like a cat grooming her glossy fur coat.

    “Finished? So am I. My turn!” Ba'el shouted for joy, the green magic circle she had been drawing from scratch now complete. “Sit him up, if you would be so kind.”

In a half stupor, and under the effects of suggestion, the wyvern held me up. Chris hugged me tight as she took a seat on a nearby rock and held me tight from behind securely between my thighs. My legs were jello, my hips were caught in the vice grip of her slick muscular thighs and my arms bound from being hugged. Chris, in her intoxicated state, continued to take deep breaths of air around my neck, entranced by my male scent. I'd come out of this with a lot of hickies for sure as her lips kissed my shoulders and neck.

Ba'el plopped herself right down on top of my lap and cuddled her back up tight against my chest. My cock had yet to purge itself of all the excess demonic taint and so it was still engorged and incredibly sensitive. I could do nothing but make nonsensical guttural grunts and moans in protest. A part of me, still deep down inside, knew where this is going... But the body is short sighted. It got enough freedom from Chris' bear hug only to wrap themselves around the devil, embrace her and pull her closer. She giggled with delight and ecstasy in reply.

    “Sorry, boy, but you'll have to due with—this!” she said as she positioned her body in such a way that my dick stuck out through her thighs.

My body tried adjusting itself to stick it straight into her own drooling pussy, but I didn't have the freedom of movement to do so. By muscle memory alone it must remember how tight it was and perhaps that's the one thing which would wring the taint out of it in one go.

    “Uh uh uh, not today. Sorry!” Ba'el teased as she pushed herself further back and locked her lithe little thighs tighter and locked my penis in place.

Ba'el's twintails twirled around and her girly scent filled every cubic inch of air in front of my face. It's enough to placate my body. I tilted my nose down and combed it across her fair white skin. A mohair paw reached up and caressed the side of my face which pulled my lips down toward hers while she tilted her head up. If my body was being driven to drive out the evil of this demonic silver taint, the evil this little girl spoke with every breath had it seeping back in as quickly as it left. My hands took hold where they could and massaged her small chest and bunched up what little fatty tissue I could cup in my hands. Her breathing became heavier, because they were just as sensitive as the massive knockers cushioning my back.

Our tongues tied and all our arms grabbing hold of what they could, the baphomet began to rock her hips back and forth while squeezing her thighs together. How I had not passed out after not coming up for air in so long baffled me. There wasn't enough reason in me to care anymore. I groped what I could, running my hands down to her ample womanly hips and plunging my fingers into her red hot folds. Her lips curled with mischievous delight while hotter air escaped out from the nostrils of her cute button nose. She enjoyed the sensation as much as she enjoyed debasing my ever so serious self to this level of debauchery.

All three of our bodies mingled together into one singular mass of man and women. Chris fast approached another massive orgasm while enduring many small ones from simply holding me tight and huffing in my musk. Ba'el and I swapped saliva while I groped her all over and pinched her tiny clitoris between my finger tips. Only when I could feel myself reaching my second massive orgasm did Ba'el pull back and focus on my crotch. She soothed my cheek with one, but prodded the tip of my penis with her claw. We both basked in the glow of the green magic circle spinning above us. At the last moment she reached down with her other hand and seized my balls in the palm of her hand and began to roughly juggled them between her undulating fingers. I moaned uncontrollably when she squeezed down tight right at the climax and ribbons of white shot out of my dick.

I watched as it didn't stop. My testes were unpooling as a long thread of semen connected my dick and the glowing green circle. Ba'el held one end in her fingers and guided it into the grooves between all the illuminated runes. The dull green became neon bright. Meanwhile, I felt an unending series of orgasms as an improbable amount of cum kept shooting out of my pulsating penis.

    “There's no way—there could be—that much in there—” I groaned between moans of euphoria.

It only ended when Ba'el had finished infusing her circle with the raw lifeforce-mana she pulled out of me. She held about a foot length for herself which she held up and then sensually dropped down her gullet like a strand of cooked spaghetti. She exhaled puffs of hot steamy air while licking her lips. Her green eyes glowed in the dark as she looked back at me with a smug look of a conqueror on her face.

    “Now for the best part,” she said with a smile and eyes wide with sinister glee.

She uncrossed her legs, leaped off and landed on her hooves a good distance away, arms spread, like a dismounting gymnast. A flick of one paw to empower the sleep spell and put Chris out like a light. Another to lift me up by glowing green bindings around my wrists and ankles. She held me up as I hung there spent, crucified.

    “Operation Yuri Garden, begin!” she yelled as she cast her other hand forward and bid the magic circle go.

It lazily hovered above my head and stuck itself there like the halo above Ba'el's head before. Next it dropped down like a guillotine's axe and passed over my body. My body turned white and became a featureless silhouette as it passed. I tried to let out one last protest, but nothing came out in spite of me screaming my lungs out. It finally reached my feet and stayed there, hanging in the air below me as a platform I could have stood on if it were solid instead of light.

With bated breath, the little devil's nostrils flared, fangs flashed and her eyes widened to take it all in when she flicked her wrist and bid the magic circle make a second pass. A thousand tiny fingers prodded my flesh as it passed by. It felt like a snail's pace, but probably took no more than ten seconds to go from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. I felt parts of my mass shift from one area to the other. I retained the white glow, but the silhouette had changed. I could look down and watched it happen, but after my feet shrunk away and my legs become lithesome and feminine I cast my head back and stared at the ceiling instead. The sight had caused my heartbeat to painfully accelerate and bring me nearly to panic.

A shower of green particles of light, not that unfamiliar from embers off an exploding firecracker going off. That white cocoon of light turning green before disintegrating and floating away into the air before vanishing shortly after. It's such a sudden transformation that my mind could not take stock fast enough. A tickling of hair hanging in front of my eyes was first among many. My hair had been cut rather short, so there's no way it could have fallen in front of my eyes. Thankfully it blocked my vision and prevented me from taking in the rest all at once.

    “Now this is a surprise,” Ba'el said and looked absolutely shell-shocked herself. She trotted closer within arms reach and reached out to touch me. “I expected a succubus or something bais, but this is—ack!”

Something, from somewhere, hissed angrily and wrapped itself around her neck. I'm suspended a little into the air, so she had been down there a fair distance, but now she's hanging in the air right alongside me. I raised my head and some locks of hair fell out of way and I got a good look at her.

    “Laven, calm down!” Ba'el croaked like a frog as she tried desperately to pull at some sort of black with muted purplish highlights thing wrapped around her neck.

The head of it came rising from behind her shoulder. Some sort of horned snake with burning violet eyes. It opened its maw complete with razor-sharp fangs dripping with what looked like poison soaked saliva.

    “I didn't think you were into asphyxiation play, Laven.” Ba'el continued to croak. The snake's scales coiled tighter and she could barely get words out as her pale skin began to turn blue and purple. “How daring and—ugh—unexpected, but I give. I give. Safe word—ack—Safe word!”

I watched as the snake had no intention of stopping. It reared its head back, jaw dislocated with its dagger fangs dripping and ready. A second later and it would come bearing down on top of Ba'el's head.

    “STOP!” I cried out, in a voice very much unlike my own.

My throat tingled and that was a clearly feminine voice coming out of my mouth. I could feel my throat tingle in the aftermath. Although I could not yet feel it with my hands restrained, the feeling of a sudden lack of an Adam's apple could be the cause. Obeying my commands flawlessly, the snake stopped mid-lunge. It rocked its jaw back into place and tasted the air with its tongue as it glared at me.

    “Let her go,” I commanded, still feeling uneasy with the sounds of this voice.

It obeyed immediately and uncoiled itself from around Ba'el's neck and let the little girl drop back onto the ground. She cursed and nursed the discolored skin with snake skin indentation. I watched as the snake slithered through the air out of sight and disappeared behind me, yet I could still hear it and I could certainly still feel it. My heart skipped a beat as I retched my head around and indeed still see it there. It bobbed its head back and forth and seemed content to ignore me while its eyes and tongue scanned its surroundings. I followed the length of its body till I saw where it's attached.

    “My ass!” I shrieked.

There's a snake attached to me ass! Or rather, the snake IS my tail. A living tail with half a mind of its own. Speaking of asses, the sight of a rather rotund one below where the snake attached directly into the end of my spine had my blood turn cold. I pulled at the restraints at my wrists, but didn't see anything I liked there either. My left hand, from the elbow down, was a paw. A large human-like lion's paw. Without any sense of symmetry, my right hand from the elbow down, was purplish-black and reptilian like human claw. Looking down, I saw long strands of platinum blonde hair resting over my shoulders and chest. I couldn't see my feet. Partially because of a large pair of breasts were in the way. Mostly because there were hooves at the end of my legs instead of feet. Up my legs, hugging it like a pair of thigh-highs, complete and covered with fine goat fur.

    “Baaaaaaaa'eeeeeeeel!” I screamed, like a disgruntled 50's sitcom husband, and it actually shook the whole cave.

    “I do good work,” Ba'el sneered with her classic smug expression. She had finished nursing her sore throat and stood back up. “I did not expect this form, but I think I can piece together—whoa!”

My snake tail went in for another bite, but Ba'el was quicker on her hooves this time. She jumped back out of range and then with a snap of her claws slapped a cage of light around the snake's head. She muzzled it and it began to writhe back and forth. It's wild flailing sent nerves right into my own brain and I could feel its pain. I had to concentrate and put it under my direct control. It stopped mid air and retreated back to a neutral state behind me. No different from a cat's tail, really.

    “Another reason why I really like you. You are a fast learner,” Ba'el said and flashed a warm smile as she meant that to be genuine praise. “Take a look yourself,” she said while manifesting a mirror out of thin air next.

This was the biggest shock of all and nearly sent me over the edge into madness to see it all at once. A woman's body, a human body, with a mishmash of bestial extremes at its edges. A monster girl is what I saw. It's face exactly what anyone could expect if I had a twin sister who could moonlight as a cover magazine model. A clear family resemble which made dissociation that much harder to accomplish. Lithe jaw, button nose, beautifully shaped cheek bones, full lips. One of my eyes was still blue, but the other's iris is stained blood red. Both pupils were catlike. I no longer had ears on the side of my head, but rather a pair of rounded lion's ears. They twitched independently of my thoughts toward any subtle noises they heard going on in the background. My hair had lengthened and taken on a feminine cut. It kept falling in front of my eyes, and clinging to my cheeks, if I turned my head wrong and it started to piss me off. To top all of that off, a pair of sweeping back goat horns, with a bit of a curve half way, stuck out of my scalp.

That would not be embarrassing enough, because my state of near complete undress didn't help. Barely a scrap of cloth to speak of. Instead, something made out of metal which was shaped to resemble bone. A thong bottom that rode up my ass cheeks, strained around my now flared hips and hung low to barely cover my pubis region. These breasts were enclosed in a harness which strapped across underneath the breasts, connected up the sides and then formed around my collar bone and up to my neck. Tufts of platinum blonde hair, with dark tips, stuck out around it, probably to look like a lion's mane.  They squeezed the bloody G-cups(?) into place and were covered in a thin layer of white cloth from the outside in. Leaving all the flesh in the middle, between the nipples, bare. Located at the solar plexus was some sort of blue gem, right above my heart. It glowed bright and I couldn't shake an unnerving feeling looking into its crescent moon shape.

    “You are going to pay for this,” I fixed my eyes onto Ba'el.

    Not moved by my intense predatory stare, the baphomet dismissed me with a wave of her hand, “You'll thank me later. This will work. You'll see... Before that though. Let's make sure there are no issues. Can't have obviously male lifeforce leaking out from underneath, or this is all for nothing.”

Free to approach at her leisure Ba'el stuffed her hands down, what I'd have to call, the bikini thong bottom. I immediately felt the shiver go throughout my whole body at the sensation. A renewed look of confidence spread across the devil's face.

    “A perfect polymorph, if I dare say so myself,” she said while flicking something which at first felt like some foreign body sending signals of pleasure straight to my brain.

I thrashed and resisted, but couldn't break free. I growled and shot murderous glares at Ba'el, but that smug expression didn't abate. The foreign feeling soon subsided and my brain began to receive the signal no differently. It's as if she had taken my tadger in her hand.

    “Structurally, they are rather similar, did you know that? Of course for this one you have all the sensation of your own monster condensed into half-an-inch. I'm actually really envious.”

I grit my teeth and tried to fight it, but the body had already begun to adjust and recognize the signals being sent to it. Pants and moans escaped out of my mouth that I did not want to hear. I didn't want to close my eyes either, least I imagine they are indeed coming from someone else and I allow that to entice me further.

    “Laven~” Chris voice cooed out from behind.

A full frontal assault was not enough and so Chris had to wheel around behind and hit me in the rear. She wrapped herself around me like before, but this time she had a pair of breasts to cling onto. My top came flying off and the white flesh tipped with pink, barely distinguishable white breast meat, were let loose. Now my whole body from hips up to my shoulders writhed and tried to resist. Chris payed me for earlier and took a chomp down on my nipple and that alone had my back bend back and nearly put me over the edge.

    “Ah~” Ba'el grinned and taunted, “Those nerves are new though, aren't they?”

Fear began to overtake me as I dreaded what it would mean to be brought to orgasm like this. Tears welled up in my eyes, but the two of them were too engrossed and exploring this form which had been thrust upon me. I clenched my fists and tried to ignore the sensation, but the pain didn't go away.

    Wait.... Pain?

There had been pleasure until now, that I could not deny. But I felt a sudden sensation of heart burn overtake me. My chest felt as if it were on fire. I looked down and saw the gemstone embedded into my chest glow and shine radiant blue light. All other sensations dulled. A great deal of power was concentrating there. I needed to let it out. It might immolate my heart and kill me if I didn't. Yet I didn't know how. In the end, I had to let go and allow it to pass and go where it will rather than stop it.

That pain in my chest subsided and suddenly erupted from my lower back, right above my butt. The flesh erupted and with the sound of tearing bone and flesh, a pair of black-purplish wings spread to full length. The howling which filled the whole cave must have been something frightening, because the lusty and intoxicated monster girls before me were shaken to their senses... A moment too late though. My new wings beat once, twice and the third time a pulse of energy radiated off me like the concussive force off an explosion.

Chris went flying backwards and crumpled into a heap, exhausted and out like a light. Ba'el fared worse and slammed into the opposite wall, back first. Her face contorted in pain as all the air in her lungs were expelled, and when she peeled off the limestone wall, coughed futilely winded. With her focus gone, the restraints failed. I felt the cold ground against my feet... hooves. I didn't want to admit it, but experience from before was handy in not falling flat on my face when trying to balance on them.

All that energy from before is now gone, but a pair of dragon wings replaced them. Odd that they were attached where my kidneys were instead of on my back proper, or shoulder blades. They didn't appear to have the strength to take flight, but they flapped as I willed and folded behind me when I wished... Going through tight doors might be a problem now... And not because of my hips, which had worried me a bit before.

    “I... Really... Outdid myself... This time,” Ba'el wheezed while sitting back upright.

My eyes focused on her with razor-sharp precision. The clopping of my hoof feet echoed menacingly throughout the cavern as I got within pouncing distance of the mischievous little imp. Ba'el noticed too and the color drained from her face. She began to scoot away as I started approaching faster and faster. Like a cat closing in on a mouse.

    “Now, let's not be hasty. This is for the good of—”

I flexed my paw-hand and much like a switch blade, the retractable claws came out with an audible snikt! The clawed tips of my dragon arm, that I likewise flexed, were no less formidable and sinister. My new friend, the dragon snake, hissed and bore its fangs while it swayed back and forth behind me like a cat's tail.

    “Like I said before—” I said in this girl's voice I still couldn't get used to. “—Payback time.”

Ba'el ran out of room to scoot away. Her back now up against a the wall. She let out a shriek as I kicked off the ground and pounced.

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