Sanctum of Defilement Pt. 02

Nothing happened.

'Maybe it was context sensitive,' she thought. Sliding down to her knees, she focused on the seed and tried again. A twinge, like pulling at a loose thread. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on that impression. The thread of magic slid from the seed, jerkily at first, then smooth as she got used to the process. It took a while, but eventually she received the prompt.

Congratulations!

You've Learned the Level 1 Nature Spell: Nature's Bounty

Increase the size and affect the shape of nearby flora. The severity can be increased by the expense of mana, but overgrowth can leave the target sickly or unhealthy if it does not have the support structures and nutrients necessary to sustain its increased size on its own.

Well that was cool! Not, perhaps, the ability to summon tree monsters like she'd hoped, but it was a start. She gave it a try, but found it required a whole new mindset. Instead of channelling her own energy, she was reaching out for that which already existed. Slender filaments of energy that lived in the shoots of bamboo-ish plantlife in front of her. She focused on one, plucking it and lifted it up. The shoot raised in tandem, raising up unnaturally fast until it creaked and groaned in resistance. She cut off her cast, leaving the shoot to wiggle from the abrupt end of influence.

While she played with the plantlife, she heard a distant groaning noise. At first, she thought it was the wind. But a second, longer noise dissuaded that assumption. She left the plantlife to its normally scheduled photosynthesis and drifted toward the source of the noise.

Stepping around a slightly larger thicket, she found a candidate. A cave. Scattered wooden trellises and tracks hinted that this was not a natural formation. Indeed, the shattered remains of a minecart near the mouth stood as silent testament to the fact. But more recent detritus, including some empty boxes that looked like they could have come from the caravan, informed Skari that this was not an abandoned mine shaft at all. It was dark, however. Abyssally so. Another loud, almost mournful moan, confirmed her hunch. She had found the culprit...and perhaps the end to her quest.

Muscle memory, or the digital equivalent, brought the spell Wisp Light to her fingers as she stepped into the dark. A pair of blue/white orbs danced around her hand, giving her enough ambient light to see at least as far as a good oil lantern would allow. Magic Trick costs in Mana, or Lust in this case, were usually low. She could have kept the light going indefinitely, given the normal rise of her libido-sourced energy over time. That would be something she'd have to keep track of in a combat situation. Should she run out of juice (metaphorically) she could be in for a sticky situation (literally). With careful, quiet steps, she padded into the cave, hoping she'd have what it would take to confront what lay ahead.

Even more evidence that the cave was unnatural presented itself as she strode further in. Her fingers trailed along the edge of the cave wall, sliding in and out of the divots and grooves carved by the tools of the workers who had excavated the rough rock. The sheer detail in the game was tremendous, she remarked offhand, then noted that these brief mental steps back from the verisimilitude of the simulation were becoming less frequent. Some moments she really WAS Skari, the Evil Overlord! She shook off her idle thoughts. It was a game, after all. Why not lose yourself in it?

Another sound. She killed the wisp light, flattening herself against the wall. It was an echo of a wail, and god only knew how many times it had bounced off the curved surfaces on its way out the cave. Could it have been the death rattle of a torture victim? A last plea for mercy?! She couldn't tell, but for some reason she doubted those explanations. She continued deeper into the cave, light dimmed to the absolute minimum.

The wailing continued, providing an auditory path for Skari to follow. It lead into a wide grotto, natural in origin but artificial in scale. Pools of crystal clear water reflected the light of clusters of glowing purple mushrooms, which sprouted in the moisture laden corners in patches where rock had become easily pliable from erosion. The other end of the cave had been carved to look like a gaping skeletal maw with stalagmites for teeth. It was from there that the moaning noises were coming, making it seem like the skull itself was crying out. Not a pleasant image to conjure, especially as Skari continued her descent into the cave's claustrophobic confines.

Only another minute into the tight bends of the new cave system when she found the source of the strange sounds.

Suspended in the air was an elf woman, naked save for a thin coating of gossamer webbing that coated her body in irregular patches. Her legs and arms were pulled behind her, and Skari soon realised she wasn't floating in the air at all. Black, furry limbs, four of them at least, held the elf in such a compromising position. Their intent was made clear when they pulled her backward, causing her eyes to roll back and her throat to let loose a pathetic cry. Briefly visible in the dim phosphorescent light of the cavern was the glistening shape of a pink, bulbous penis of impossible girth. It slid in and out of the woman as easily as an appendage of normal size, briefly astounding Skari. The owner of that monstrous organ briefly came into sight: a head floating eight feet or more off the ground, holding a pair of glowing golden eyes.

"Who dares interrupt our victory celebration?" a husky female voice asked.

Skari stepped forward, getting a better view of the question's source. Her lower body was that of a black arachnid the rough size of a quarter horse, but where the head would have been on the creature, a humanoid torso sprouted upward forming a seamless connection between the two halves. A toned, pale blue stomach led up to a bra made of thick, opaque webbing. She had the elf gripped like a living sex toy, suspended helplessly and impaled by the cock that pulsed and throbbed from beneath where it emerged from a slit-like protrusion where a vagina would have been had she been fully bipedal. A truly strange, depraved beast. Skari's mind conjured the word 'drider', though she didn't know exactly where she'd gotten it from. It looked like the AI had gotten creative as of late.

"I am Skari, Overlord of the Sanctum of Defilement. I have come seeking labourers." She kept her voice level, though she couldn't help but notice that the Lust metre in the bottom of her HUD was steadily rising. That had to be broken though. There was no way she could be getting excited at this depraved display...right?

"Indeed? Well, you've come to the wrong place if you want dim, diminutive workers." Her accent and verbiage were surprisingly erudite for someone who looked like a walking nightmare, Skari noted. Perhaps they hadn't always been lurking cave creatures?

From the shadows, more shapes came. Identical in form though most were in size, they flanked the speaking spiderwoman on either side, even crawling up on the walls to hang there, ready to pounce. There had to be at least eight in sight, maybe more hiding behind the first line. True numbers were difficult to come by, as the illumination was scarce and there were just so many legs.

So. Many. Legs.

"We are the Brides of the Spider God," the lead creature declared, "And we bow to no one but Him. This one and her fellows are OURS to use as we see fit." She finished pistoning into the elf, finishing herself off with a half dozen deep, passionate thrusts. Her partner squealed, and Skari watched with confused arousal as the belly of the elf bloated out until she appeared nine months pregnant. Thick gouts of seed that had nowhere to go cascaded down her thighs and gathered on the cave floor. As the spider woman's orgasm ended, she dropped the elf down into the lurid pool. She didn't seem to mind, even as the last dregs of orgasm drizzled from the deflating cock onto her heavily mussed hair.

Consciously removing her attention from the growing pool of thick, creamy cum, she addressed the lead Spider Bride. "Tell me about yourselves, then. Who are you? And who is this Spider God?"

The arachnid woman snorted. "And why should I? Why should I not treat you like this one: a passive receptacle."

Skari cast the lighting Trick onto her hand again. The orbiting ball of light returned to its full brightness, hopefully serving as a bluff to imply a much greater danger of magical power than she actually fielded.

"I am no fool," she said. "I have not come unarmed. It would be much less awkward, and perhaps less painful for both of us, if you were to treat me as an equal."

"Is that so?" the spider woman asked. The smile that followed revealed a pair of menacing pointed fangs behind her upper lip. "Well then. My name is Rakna. The item beneath me answers to 'Hole', though I believe her name is actually Chloe."

"It's Carri!" the cum-filled woman said, holding up a finger.

Rakna placed a solemn hand to her breast. "My apologies. At any rate, we are few and our appetites are plentiful. We capture those who stray into our hills and use them as we see fit. These lands used to be home to a great magical power: the Suneater. We served her eagerly, for she was the avatar of Him In Flesh. But she was defeated, by treachery no doubt, and so we were cast out. In her absence, we've claimed these caves and their environs and regularly harvest them, grabbing prey and dragging them off for impregnation, casual insemination, or use as incubators."

Skari's eyebrows raised. "The Suneater? Why, that's me! You don't recognise your former ruler?"

The spider creature made a staccato hissing noise; perhaps its equivalent of a laugh. "You are not the Suneater. You are barely tall enough to lavish praise on my genitals, let alone give orders."

Skari's heart fell. This would be more difficult than she thought. At her current level of power, these beasts might be too tough to subordinate. But she couldn't just run...

"I...I have a proposition, then," she began, voice finding its courage along the way. "I challenge your strongest warrior to single combat!"

The whole group of spider people laughed in their sinister hissing way, the cavern suddenly sounding like a nest of vipers. Skari swallowed. This was not going how she had envisioned it.

"You? A single human woman? How droll, how rich! Well then, "Suneater", I propose you face the most fearsome of our number: BRIGGA!"

The spider creatures parted. Some shrinking to the sides, others climbing the wall itself with impossible grace. In their wake, a colossus emerged. If the others were the size of horses, this was the size of a moose. Her upper body sported a muscular chest and arms. Her breasts were equally impressive, held in place by an elaborate webbing top that left her toned stomach exposed. Her white hair went down to her earlobes and hung wild and unkempt, with a frankly impressive set of eyebrows. The most impressive aspect of her anatomy was her cock, which stood over a foot long and thicker than Skari's fist. She cracked her knuckles.

"Happy to fight this little thing," Brigga said, sporting a fanged grin.

"The terms are this: if you beat our champion, we will at least hear out your proposal-"

Skari shook her head. "No, this is all or nothing. If I win, you join my faction for...six months," she said, ballparking a number off the top of her head, "If you feel unsatisfied, that your needs are not met, then you can go your own way back to these dank caves, harassing travellers."

Rakna paused to converse with the other spider women. "Very well, agreed. But if Brigga wins, you will serve as our magical battery and seed bank for the foreseeable future. Your body corrupted and bloated out, mind locked in unending rapture. We may choose to let you go, but I doubt at that point you'll ever want to leave."

High stakes then. And she hadn't even fought anyone with her new powers yet! This could be a dumb move that lost her this character for the foreseeable future...or maybe, just maybe, it was the right kind of self-delusional confidence.

"Deal!"

As soon as the word left Skari's lips, Brigga stalked forward, her many legs clacking with little whip-crack sounds with every step.

"I'm gonna wear you on my dick like a decorative sock," she said. And suddenly, this entire plan sounded a lot less appealing.

"I'm gonna warn you," Skari said, stutter-stepping back from the leviathan in front of her, "I'm not going to hold back!"

Brigga snorted. "Funny. I was just about to say the same thing about you!" She swiped with her colossal forelimb, and Skari barely had enough time to duck. It was time to bolt!

She fled back the way she came, her movement surprisingly fleet given she was wearing heels. Instinct told her that she was dead meat in a confined space no matter what spells she had to throw. Her only hope was that grotto she'd passed earlier. On the move, she called up Elemental Spray spell in her hand. If she concentrated, she could open up the menu that specified which element to use as damage. Fire, poison, ice, all had their advantages. But something compelled her to wonder...could she use her Corruption power instead?

As soon as she had the thought, a new option appeared in the menu.

Corrupting Spray

Level 0 Spell (Trick)

The caster projects a cone of Corrupting damage, causing basic damage plus increasing the target's arousal. Upon reaching 0 HP, instead of being injured, the character is rendered defeated, and is mechanically helpless before you.

Talk about emergent gameplay; that was exactly the kind of spell she needed! Pouring her lust into her fingers caused the spell's colour to switch from a neutral white to a brilliant violet. Brigga was going to be in for a sur-

SMASH. A huge pillar-like leg smashed into the wall so close to her head that the breeze from the motion messed up her hair. Shot full of adrenaline, she put away the menus and gunned it, finding herself in the large cavern with the glowy mushrooms. Perfect. Wide open, enough room to move, with stalagmites to help keep her distance.

"Come back here, two-legs!" Brigga howled, taking another swipe with its colossal foreleg. Skari rolled out of the way, coming to rest on her knees. The spider found that amusing. "That's a good place for you!"

The nascent overlord responded with a derisive laugh of her own. She held out her hand, forming it into the shape of a gun, and fired. The spell went off, sounding like a potato gun TWUMP. A cloud of purple/pink light fired out in the shape of a heart. It slammed into Brigga's web-covered chest and...

...and...

It took off a smidge of health. A tiny, fragmentary slice off of a giant health bar.

"Oh fuck."

"You got that right," Brigga said, and resumed her pursuit.

Skari left a torrent of profanity behind as she ran for the far edge of the grotto, hopping over an underground stream and landing with all the grace of a collapsing shelf. Perhaps heels were not the best option after all. Recovering from the fall took crucial seconds, seconds that she didn't have to spend.

As she leaned into her next step, a pair of iron limbs lifted her off the ground.

"Gotcha!" Brigga said with an air of triumph, keeping Skari's arms pinned. The "Suneater" legs thrashed in the air uselessly, and a dreadful feeling of inevitability washed over her. Perhaps this encounter was not the best idea for her first battle. Maybe she should have grinded some skeletons or something. Maybe a dungeon filled with giant possums would have been more her speed. Maybe she wasn't cut out to be an evil overlord...

Outrage exploded in her mind. No! That's bullshit! She was an overlord goddamnit. She was Skari Suneater, bane of...whoever the fuck she wanted to be the bane of. And right now, it was this spider woman! The spell still crackled in her hand. It could cast corrupting power, which was her specialty. If only there was a way to amplify it. The game responded to her curiosity about using corruption magic before. Could it possibly...

She concentrated once more, focusing on the magic in her hand. She focused on the growing lust in her heart. Brigga was attractive, even with the spider bits. Especially with the spider bits if she was being honest. The strange body shape tickled dormant monsterfucker tendencies in her heart. She shut her eyes tight, feeling every inch of those powerful, muscular arms. The press of Brigga's breasts against her back as the drider lifted her fully off the ground. A powerful, feminine creature in need of someone to show her just who the hell was in charge in this situation.

The energy in her hand glowed brighter. She could see the light through her shut eyelids. It pulsed with her heartbeat as more corrupting power flooded in. More depraved thoughts, about what she wanted to do to Brigga. Make her bow. Brighter. Make her beg. Brighter.

"What is...what is going on? Give up, you lost!" she screamed, shaking Skari like a ragdoll. But she kept her attention on her lust, the source of her power.

"Funny," she said, placing her spell-charged hand onto the stomach of her assailant, "I was just about to say the same thing about you."

She cast the spell, heralded with the crack of a cannon several times louder than her previous cast. Brigga staggered back, letting Skari go as her legs snapped out to catch her before she could collapse. Skari's own stance was shaky. That burst had just about sapped her reserves, the Lust bar at the bottom of her HUD bumping up to empty. She'd need more, a lot more, to try that again. She'd need time to catch her breath.

Her eyes fell to the clumps of phosphorescent fungus around the grotto. Did mushrooms count as flora? Only one way to find out! She reached out with her newly learned nature magic. The nature magic threads were different, but still present. But she needed an alternative source of lust!

With a touch of reluctance, she reached under her clothes and started to fondle herself. Brigga was still dazed, but managed to recover just in time to see Skari stroking herself off.

"You dare mock me?!" she seethed.

"You're the funny one," Skari shot back, keeping her attention locked on Brigga's busty frame. She really did look quite fetching in that web top. What she wouldn't give to put her dick between those tits...

Steadily, her Lust level ticked upward. Brigga barrelled ahead, but found that her rearmost leg had been caught on something. She looked back to see one of the glowing cluster of shrooms had grown out and around, encircling it. The spider woman shook herself free, only for another cluster to capture a leg on the opposite side. Skari pushed her Lust into the spell, and the fungi gained a much more phallic shape than before.

"What is...what is this trickery?!" she said, sudden panic filling her voice. Skari noted that the more she struggled against the mushroom restraints, the lower her health got. They weren't doing direct damage, of course, but they were charged with corruption magic...

"You have a bondage fetish, don't you?"

"N-no! Don't be silly!" Brigga said, her laugh sounding much more strained, "I'm half spider, how could I p-possibly be into getting restrained!" Her prick, previously hanging low, had puffed itself back up to full mast now.

"You do! You're totally getting off on this!" Skari said, giggling to herself. She kept up the effort to contain Brigga, channelling her lewdness into more mushroom growth. They twisted, wrapped, and tangled as many of the spider woman's limbs as they could grab. And any time she shook them loose, they would ensnare another limb. All the while her health dropped as the willingness to fight back dwindled. Feeling confident, Skari approached the squirming spider, staying safely away from those powerful forelimbs but getting into teasing range of Brigga's enormous cock, now painfully erect. With a mischievious twirl of her finger, a long, spindly growth of shroom wrapped itself around the throbbing spidercock. With slow, careful movement of her hand, she was able to coax little bursts of growth into a primitive stroking motion.