Sanctum of Defilement Pt. 02

Back by popular demand (and my own whims) the second part of my VRMMO story, Sanctum of Defilement! Oh nelly, going off the deep end with this one, as our lusty protagonist comes face to face with some very intimidating drider women! Can she convince them to be her workforce? And, more importantly, is fucking a drider hot for anyone besides the most depraved monsterfuckers?!

This story features lust magic so, y'know, iffy consent so heads up if that's not your bag. Also monsterfucking, again, if you don't want to see a hot lady bang a sexy spider, now's your chance to bail.

All set? Great! Hope you dig it. The wildly enthusiastic response from places like Literotica is why a second part is out so soon. Your reviews and ratings are what's keeping this motor running! Thank you <3

***

"You there?" Chris asked, snapping Jane from his reverie. He must have drifted off again.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he nodded. Part of Jane's duties had him performing maintenance on the various drones that operated in the facility. Or, rather, he was listed as performing maintenance to fulfil the work hour quota so that the megacorp he worked for could apply for certain government grants as reward for providing a human job. In practice, it was mostly him staring at a screen as automated debugging, updating, and antivirus programs ran in sequence. Dreary work that lent itself to daydreaming...and dozing off.

"Sorry. What was the question?"

He snorted as way of response, settling down backwards in the office chair next to Jane, resting his hands and chin on the backrest. Bald, heavily bearded, and with a superb physique, one might have mistaken him for a dwarf from Planet of Perils. He was the hardware half of their maintenance team, and despite having nothing in common, they got on well enough.

"Doesn't matter. Did you get any sleep on the weekend?"

The answer, that he'd spent it playing a video game, wasn't a good one. So he lied. "Not much. Just couldn't get to sleep. Insomnia or something."

Chris smirked. "Oh yeah? Weird name. What is she, Greek?"

Jane rolled his eyes, but gave a weak smile to show he appreciated the banter. "I wish. Just eager to get this shift over with."

"You and me both, brother," Chris said before scooching the chair forward and giving the maintenance room a quick, conspiratorial visual glance. "Word is The Boss is coming down from head office sometime this week on one of those fucking surprise inspections. I'm spending half my time checking the doors for her to slip in like some kinda administrative ninja."

'The Boss' in this case was Regional Manager Penelope Alfredo, the stuffiest thirtysomething Jane had ever met. She had a very literal interpretation of company policy that she adhered to, leading often to her bossing around whatever low-level employee drew her ire. If she was descending from her mountain to inspect their warehouse, it was bound to be bad news.

"Thanks for the head's up," Jane mumbled, but meant it all the same. It sucked to hear, but there'd be no point in killing the messenger on this one. The last thing his bank account needed would be for a surprise inspection to be a genuine surprise. They cut corners out of necessity to reach their asinine quotas. Placed in between having to tell the boss her demands were unreasonable and getting caught doing something that he wasn't supposed to, he couldn't tell which option sucked the least.

All this talk of mundane realities made him long to be back in the game again. Back in Planet of Perils where, at the very least, he didn't have to worry about being told what to do.

***

"You gotta get some workers!" Honeydew said, her arms folded firmly as she watched Skari appear from thin air. The NPCs never seemed to mind that the players appeared and disappeared, sometimes without explanation. The server clock kept ticking, however, so Honeydew had been waiting for his entire shift, plus some time in bed, to get back to work.

"Watch your tone," Skari chided, "But...you're right. Where the hell can I get workers in this begotten place?"

She walked out of the ruin's confines and stepped into the great wide open nothingness beyond. Her new headquarters resided in a vast, empty wasteland. The white/gray soil underneath her wasn't quite sand, as she had previously assumed, nor was it soil. The closest thing Skari could equate it to was lunar regolith: lifeless rocks ground down over millions of years into heterogeneous material ranging from pebbles all the way down to powder.

"This land...has it always been like this?" Skari asked.

Honeydew shook her head, wildl locks waving from the motion. "Nope! The Woewaste was a direct result of your...erm...an inadvertent symptom, I should say, of your previous ascent to power. The records say you used the land's energy to supplement your already terrible, glorious strength. Drained of that vitality, it is not useful for much anymore, I'm afraid to say."

The sorceress knelt down, scooping up a handful of unsorted rocky material. Unfortunate. Perhaps she'd made a mistake in making this her base of operations. She'd done it in haste, after all.

"What was here before I arrived?" she asked. At her goblin servant's confusion, she added: "The long sleep, it continues to addle my memories. Pay indulge me, Honeydew."

She nodded. "Of course! Well, this land was much like the northern jungles from what we can determine from the evidence and from written accounts. Vast tracts of dense, almost impassable foliage, filled with beasts of all size and description. It was the perfect place for your fortress, my Queen, as the forces of...stricter perspectives on morality had a difficult time making their way to you."

Skari stood, letting the regolith slip from her fingers. "Indeed? I suppose that I should consider the security situation as well as the worker shortage. I wonder if I have some means of defending myself..."

For the first time as Skari, she checked her inventory menu. The woman who was, who still is, Jane the human had almost forgotten that she could do that. With a mental click on the upper reaches of her vision, a series of boxy menus dominated her view. The largest was a paper doll version of her body, arms and legs splayed like the Vitruvian man. In annotated slots around her simplified form, her equipped gear's properties were listed.

Head: None

Body: Ruined Raiments of the Relegated Regent

Neck: None

Hands: None

Waist: None

Feet: Heels of the Heirarch

"Next thing I do," she muttered to herself, "Is finding some armour with less alliteration."

Weapons: None

She had no enchanted jewellery, no potent magical arms. Whatever else the former Skari had stashed here, tomb robbers had destroyed or carried it off in the years since she'd been interred. Or at least, the things on the surface had.

"How deep did your team dig?" she asked the former halfling. "Could there be more stuff to find down there?"

"We managed to excavate the first layer of material from the ruin, which is where we found you, oh Queen! There may very well be more levels underneath, but without workers to help, it might take a while to find out."

The sorceress sighed. It seemed like everything was coming back to the stark reality that, at the moment, her imperium had a population of one. Two if she counted herself, but it wasn't like she was planning on doing any of the grunt work herself. If she was going to get anything done other than pacing and flicking through her stat pages, it would need to be with some manual labourers.

Among the notebooks and parchments they were able to find in the tents of the archaeologists' expedition was a local map. Unrolling it out on one of the field tables, Skari felt the information slide into her interface to be called up later. Nevertheless, her eyes roamed the original copy, finger drifting over landmarks as she clucked her tongue in absent thought.

North and East of them was more Woewaste. The cartographer had taken the time to include a little cartoon ram skull to imply how verdant and fruitful any exploration in that direction would be. West reached into a mountain range, which would at least be a change of biome, if not an easy terrain to traverse. South held real promise. And, naturally, real dangers.

"What is this place here?" she asked, tapping the land labelled 'ELDERBREKT'.

"Elderbrekt is the one of the seven halfling cantons, and the most recent to be established! It's not terribly exciting, I have to admit. It's based around that volcano there, the Mouth of Terror? Turns out, the soil is incredibly fertile! Lovely hard working people there. The only problem is, well, this." Honeydew traced a path up from the canton to the charicaturized fortress that stood in between their current position and this source of labour.

"I'm guessing that's not just a tourist trap?"

"Unfortunately not. That is the home of the Sentinels of the Pitiless Gaze; an order devoted specifically to watching for your return."

She looked down at herself, currently returned. "I'm guessing they aren't very good at their job."

Honeydew shrugged. "It's been decades. All the people who fought you in life have long since passed on. Their kinfolk manage the defences now, but the truly ambitious or noteworthy are all off applying their skills elsewhere. They are still dangerous, as any militant order of fanatics is. But perhaps they've been resting on their fancy name for too long."

"Indeed," Skari agreed, "The last thing I want to do is alert my presumptive jailors. I suppose our road takes us to the mountains after all."

They had plenty of supplies; the fleeing halflings had seen to that. Distantly, Skari knew that she wasn't in danger of starving or dehydrating within the game, but there were rudimentary fatigue mechanics that would drain her of stamina. The last thing she wanted would be to encounter a party of nosy adventurers and get obliterated because she forgot to top up her food metre. So she packed enough dense chunks of a sourdough like brèad, dried meats and berries, and several waterskins for a journey of at least three days. All went into a haversack that was likely too big for a halfling, but fit perfectly on her own back.

She thought about bringing Honeydew, but decided against it at the last minute. The stout halfing turned busty goblin would make for a poor pack mule, and her expertise would be better served back at base. Skari instead marshalled her best Almighty God-Queen voice for her instructions.

"Your first official mission as my architect is to draw up plans for my tower's reconstruction. I care not for its original design, change it as you see fit. So long as it has a throne room to appropriately fit my grandeur, I will be content. Leave plenty of room for expansion, however. I have grand plans for this place."

Honeydew stood stock still with mouth agape. "You mean...I can design whatever I want?"

Skari made a face, dropping back to her regular tone and timbre. "Well, I'll get final say. I'm the megalomaniacal tyrant here. But yeah, go nuts."

With that, she headed off into the West. Toward danger...and her future.

***

Travel could take several forms in Planet of Perils. The fastest, and one available to every player character regardless of circumstance, was the Recall. Setting your resting location to a particular area gave one the ability to (after a brief casting time) teleport back to it. It was great for snapping back to a quest giver or returning to town after a dungeon to log off. Or extract you from a potentially precarious situation that you'd rather not experience. Before she left, Skari had made sure her Recall location was set. Turns out, her sarcophagus counted as a rest stop!

Then there were the more esoteric forms, open to magic users and those with the pockets to hire them. Quick travel portals cost reagents, and could only send you to places where you'd already been. Then there was the most expensive option: wormholes. These could send you anywhere, including places you'd never been, but required both the cost of the spell and a trained mage to open and hold the portal open for you.

Last but not least were the more mundane forms of travel. By foot, by mount, or by conveyance. These were the slowest, but often the most economical. Since Skari had no money, no locations explored on her map, and no mount, it was travelling by foot. And so, the Evil Overlord, the soon-to-be ruler of the land marched, heels clicking with every step.

The path was easy at least. The landscape may have been dreary and desolate, but its lifeless state spared the ancient road from destruction by fresh growth or the elements. A long, sunbaked brick path led into the west with only occasional detours, slicing through clusters of ruined structures that jutted out of the ground like off-kilter gravestones. Occasionally, Skari found signs that she wasn't the only one to be travelling this way. A broken wagon wheel, an abandoned campsite, even some smashed glass from a bottle or jar hinted at travel on this ancient road. It might have been unlikely, but it was possible that she might encounter someone during her travel, and she decided to be ready for them sooner rather than later.

Without weapons, she'd be forced to rely on her magical abilities. As a Corruption specialized Evil Overlord, her powers apparently relied on her Lust metre, not a pool of Mana like other spellcasters. Determined to test how this might work, she mentally clicked on the Grimoire button in her HUD. A book flashed into existence before her, detailing a number of Zeroeth Level Spells, or Tricks. Many of these were shared between the different magical classes, giving them some base level utility even before their specialisations were taken into account. These included, but were not limited to:

Trick: Elemental Spray

Trick: Identify

Trick: Magic Mouth

Trick: Minor Telekinesis

Trick: Wisp Light

God only knew why Magic Mouth was always included. Some decent options otherwise, but not a lot of punch. She'd need more if she was going to stand up to any larger threats in a fight.

The moment she tried to page over to the First Level Spells, however, a tooltip appeared.

*Tutorial: Overlord Magic*

As an Evil Overlord, you have access to a wide variety of magical spells. Unlike base player classes, however, you do not passively gain powers and slots as you level. Instead, aside from an array of Tricks and the Class Discipline spells which you receive, you must take any additional magic you may want or need from another source. You can choose to Learn It, which takes longer but leaves the source intact, or you can Drain It, which empties the source of its magic but is much quicker.

After dispatching the information, she saw that indeed her only spells were Corrupting Essence, Corrupting Aura, and Corrupted Libido.

"Well, shit," she said to no one in particular. Even as a healer class she had more firepower than that! Well, fine. If she was going to defend herself in a pinch, it'd be down to her Tricks. Specifically, Elemental Spray.

Elemental Spray

Level 0 Spell (Trick)

The caster projects a cone of elemental damage, causing basic damage plus an additional effect according to the element chosen. Burning damage for fire, slowdown for ice, etc.

That had some potential! It was a catchall basic attack for spellcasters, allowing them to do the damage of a common-level crossbow while inflicting various elemental effects, depending on the option chosen by the user. She defaulted to a poisoning effect, which provided damage over time. With her unencumbered state, she should have decent mobility. Enough to ping enemies at range and keep her distance while they melted into gooey bits.

As the first of the hills approached, the road raised to meet it, going from a gentle grade to a switchback path that looked like a falling hazard just waiting to happen. She continued up, conscious of her fatigue bar dropping with every step of inclined progress. Skari wouldn't feel tired in the physical sense, but her progress would slow as that bar filled.

She broke out the water and food half way up the journey, resting to fill her status back to normal. It gave her a chance to gaze out at the land she'd just travelled through. Rolling dunes, blasted ruins, and craters that looked like a great hand had come down and gouged the earth. Not a pleasant country to live in, perhaps, but beautiful in a way. 'Magnificent desolation', she thought the quote was. Those words fit these Woewastes to a tee. And running through it was the singular thread of road on which she'd travelled. Perhaps that could be the start of something...a great reclamation of these lands into something more. Far from being forlorn and abandoned for all time, these wastes could be but a blank canvas for some great work to come. Her work.

Reaching the crest of the hill, she found further evidence of travellers, and much more immediate proof at that. Three wagons lay smashed, either on their sides or cleaved apart into half a dozen loose pieces. Baggage, chests, and crates all lay in scattered heaps, their contents tossed through and emptied, leaving only that which did not concern the assailants. No bodies, but evidence of a fight beyond the state of the carriages. Slash marks where swords dug into wood, arrows jutting from crates, and discarded weapons testified to the fact that whoever ran this caravan hadn't given up its treasures without a fight.

"Whatever ruffians caused this," she mused, "Might be formidable allies. Or dangerous foes." She wondered for the first time if she was prepared for this kind of thing. After all, Elemental Spray wasn't exactly top of the line kit. Even lower level player characters had questing gear to give them an edge on their foes. She was beyond that, leaving her with little more than her simple raiments to keep her safe. Virtue wouldn't have put her in a situation she was totally helpless in, of course. Would she?

Beyond the lip of the hill, the land had recovered a bit. Its stark inhospitality tempered by small growths of scrub brush, of little sickly cacti pushing up from the soil. In a few decades, perhaps a century, green life would return to this area. In the meantime, however, it only served as a potent example as to the blunt stubbornness of nature in this world, and any other. Perhaps she could take some lesson from that, she pondered.

While examining another copse of plantlife, this time a long reed-like growth that resembled bamboo, she noticed something. Glittering at the very edges of her perception was a sense that there was something strange about this particular growth. She looked through the reedy plants, one by one, looking for the source. Finding nothing, she instead pawed through the soil. Buried at the dead centre of this growth, she found her answer. It was a rounded pod, similar to a seed but the size of a baseball. Something about it told her it was magic. She cast her Identify spell on it, and watched as a puff of sparkles turned into an information sheet.

Item: Seed of Renewal

Level 4 Nature Magic Conjuration

Description: An object infused with a potent amount of regrowth magic such that it can bring life to even the harshest soils. Lasts for 3 + the caster's level months, but the effects can be permanent if supported by non-magical growth techniques.

Nature magic? That must mean another spellcaster is responsible for these plants! Maybe even another player. Still, this served as a chance to test out her Overlord class' ability to "take" magic from other sources. Her initial idea was to just drain it. It was just a seed, after all. But then she thought of that big glowing Level 4, and second guessed herself. Whoever had cast that spell was much more advanced than she was. It would be a bad idea to make too many enemies this close to starting out. Instead, she chose the more laborious option and cast Learn on the seed.