Sanctum of Defilement Pt. 03

After a few more scattered exchanges on details, the leader of the driders wandered off, her two handmaidens in tow. Mikra was the taller one, who spoke in monosyllabic words and gave a harsh scowl to just about everyone. Lyra was the wider one, and was less outwardly hostile, though she seemed to keep her eyes on Skari at every moment. These three represented the grand sum and total of Skari's military, as they were the only ones who said no to performing physical labour. Another thing to worry about, she mused, then headed off herself to inspect the grounds.

"Are things looking to your satisfaction?"

Skari jumped. "Fuck, sorry Honeydew. Forgot you were there."

The little goblin held up her hands. "It's alright, I know I'm short. But are things to your liking?"

The overlord smiled. "Yes, things are coming along nicely. I was just about to head out to check around the outside of my tower."

The short woman clapped her hands. "Oh, you're in for a treat! Carri is doing such a wonderful job!"

***

The outside of the tower was looking a lot less dreary than it had when she'd set out to find the driders. For one, just having upright walls was a big step in the way of making the place feel less like a ruin. For another, there were the first hints of greenery around the edges of the building. Bent down over a tiny clump of leaves was the Elf woman Skari had first seen wrapped around a drider cock back at the cave. Though she was still plumped up, she was at least mobile now. She clambered back to her feet, whispered something arcane, and watched as a shrub grew up from the soil. It blossomed and became covered in fresh leaves like a time-lapsed clip in a nature documentary. When she was through, a bush that would have likely taken years to blossom swayed before her in a gentle breeze.

"Your name is Carri, right?" Skari asked.

The elf nodded, absently rubbing her enormous belly. For some reason, Skari thought that her tummy looked smaller. "Carri'aran Lethrendir. Level 4 Life Mage. But I've never heard of you. Are you a new enemy type the AI is testing out?"

Skari's eyebrows shot up. She was a player too! At first, she thought about lying and going with the idea that she was an NPC. Perhaps that would be a viable tack down the line, when she had an army of goons to stand in between her and other players. But for now, given the level of autonomy on display, it would be a fool's errand to try to keep the secret.

"I'm also a player. Being an Evil Overlord is the AI's way of spicing up the game, giving players a true test of their planning and resourcefulness. The name's..." She paused, momentarily unsure what name to use for herself. After a beat, she settled on the obvious. "Name's Skari."

Carri's look of surprise became a mirror of Skari's own from moments before. "No way! I had no idea that there were even evil character classes, let alone overlord ones. Wish I had known; I love Turn Based Strategy!" As the elf spoke, a thick glob of cum slid down her thigh. She didn't seem to notice.

"Forgive me, I wasn't really expecting you to be another player. You seemed to be..."

"Like a Lusty Elf Maiden from a bad hentai?" she said with a laugh. "Oh, sure, I'm horny as fuck. But I'm not a ditz, or I don't think I am. In real life I have a couple degrees and a demanding chem eng job. I use PoP for two reasons: stress relief, and monsterfuckery."

"Monster...fuckery?"

"Oh c'mon!" The other player gesticulated at the busty drider closest to her. "You can see how hot these sexy spiders are."

Skari blushed, or at least felt like she was blushing. "They have a certain appeal. Mostly the top halves. But...you log on entirely to get railed by monsters?"

"Well, yeah. That and cum is the perfect source of life mana, which lets me perform my magic." Her belly rubs became an appreciative pat.

Skari stared at the inflated tummy, imagining just how much cum one would have to retain to make such a large bump. As she marvelled, two pieces of information slotted together in her head like sticky puzzle pieces.

"Life magic you say? Would you be the one who was planting seeds up in the mountains?"

She snapped her fingers into a pair of finger guns. "You got it! It was for a quest I'm doing for the local Druid Coven. I'm basically rep grinding for them to get access to new spells...plus the missions take me to dangerous places to get "captured" by scary monsters."

"I see," Skari said, and sort of did. The other player's goal of just being a fucktoy for various monsters was not the kind of gameplay she would personally chose, but she'd be a hypocrite if she wagged a finger at the prospect of fucking the local monster population. The fact that Carri was a mage, however, made the elf an interesting commodity. "Will you be leaving us, now that my spiderwomen are working on a new project?"

She lit her lower lip, eyes rolling to the side as she thought. "Maybe...I have been thoroughly plowed by driders at this point, might be interested in changing it up a bit."

"Might I convince you to stick around?" It was a little early into Skari's overlording career to be enlisting other players into her plans, and she had no intent on trying to keep her captive or anything against her will. But perhaps...

"That depends," Carri said, folding her arms, "Are you intending on bringing in a panoply of slutty monsters for me to bang?"

"Uhh, maybe?" Skari said, a little embarrassed. She had been accruing some rather saucy assistants lately, but to have the goal spoken aloud made her slightly self-conscious. "I mean, if there's a non-attractive monster I likely won't turn them down, if that's what you're asking. My goal is to build an empire, and that'll likely be done on the backs of various creatures I can bend to my will."

"Is that so? Well, I do like the whole 'will bending' thing. Tell ya what: I gotta log for the night. Next couple seshes I'll hang around the place, maybe work my magic and give you some greenery out here. God only knows you need it. If you don't conjure up anyone interesting, we'll go our separate ways. Bring some new monsters around...then hey, maybe we can talk a more permanent alliance thingy. Fair?"

Skari nodded. "More than. Talk to you soon?"

"Hopefully." With a wink, the cum-bloated elf blipped out of existence, leaving a tiny puddle of jizz in her wake. She was a strange one, Skari thought to herself, but she certainly embraced what she loved. That was admirable in its own way. With nothing she thought she could do before the Lair finished, she logged off, became Jane again, and got some food and water into her while she waited for the build time to elapse.

***

Jane stared at his hands. One was wrapped around an Italian deli-meat special sandwich with the tangy mustard he liked. The other idly fondled himself, lost in lazy circles around his own dick. The problem was that he didn't remember making the sandwich, nor did he remember unzipping his pants and getting to half mast watching...what?

He realized he was sitting at his computer, the 2D monitor he kept for side hustle projects opened to about a dozen tabs of porn. Hardcore monsterfucking porn, the likes of which his browser history had never seen. On screen at the moment was an elf, not unlike Carri in appearance, getting pumped to the brim with thick orc cum. He blinked. The memories of his actions came to him, but he couldn't recall making the decisions. It was like he'd been on autopilot and only now returned to manual control.

While finishing the sandwich, he closed the tabs one by one. Some were pretty wild, but he ended up bookmarking a few for future 'perusal'. He snorted, trying his best to play it off casually. Maybe he was more tired than he thought.

*Ding!*

The alarm he'd set for when the throne room finished had gone off. He hesitated for a moment, hand hovering over the neural jack. Maybe he was spending too much time in the game...

***

Reentering the world, Skari found herself back in the large stone room that she'd left. It was now enclosed, however, rough cut blocks placed as a ceiling. Large braziers burned around huge support pillars to give the rooms its illumination. The walls were bare, for now, but complete. Empty doorways led off to the outside, but there was plenty of room for expanding outward. Arranged in two parallel lines next to the pillars, the driders stood with hand over breast in their version of a salute. Briggy and Honeydew also gave their respects, but a little less formally. The goblin doffed her helmet, and the Brider...well, Briggy said the word "yippie!"

"Overlord Skari Suneater," Rakna pronounced, trying to reassert a suitable level of gravitas, "May I present to you: your throne."

While the room itself was functional, the throne had more time and attention paid to it. The stone was a different colour to the rest of the construction, reminding Skari of the slate colour of the drider cave than the ruins the rest had been cut from. It had a curved shape, with a backrest that looked like four large stone digits stretched out until they resembled a grasping claw, both armrests being "thumbs" giving the whole thing an eerily uncomfortable appearance. There was something *wrong* about the throne, and that meant it was perfect.

She ran her fingers along the smooth stone, which they'd carved with unsettling Gigerian curves. "With this act, I formally reclaim the mantle of Skari the Corruptor, and bring forth a new age of corruption upon this world!"

With enough pomp and circumstance, she settled down onto her throne, and waited for the system to recognize her majesty.

*ERROR: Lair Systems and Options Unavailable!*

"Wait, what the fuck?" she mumbled, deflating. Mentally leafing through the warning, she read aloud to herself.

"Access to system options and menus unavailable until Core is reconnected...The hell does that mean?"

Helpfully, another text prompt appeared in answer.

*All Lairs require a Core to operate independently of the Overlord's own abilities. As you have your own energy reserves, so must your Lair. This Lair's Core is no longer responding and must either be repaired or replaced.*

"Well...damnit. That was anticlimactic."

"If I may, your Depravity?" Honeydew asked. At Skari's nod, she climbed up to the dais. "The records we found on the exact mechanics of how your previous incarnation's lair worked are sketchy; she didn't exactly write that kinda stuff down. We do know, however, that the source of the Tower's evil lay in a chamber deep within the structure. It was there that the Four Heroes of Legend ventured to defeat it forever...but not before it swore revenge on them and their lines in perpetuity."

Skari massaged her chin. "You're saying the Core is, was, alive?"

Honeydew nodded. "We even have an idea of what it looked like but...you're not gonna like it." She fished around in her little fanny pack and pulled out a journal. Flipping through the pages, she opened it up and turned it over so Skari could see.

"You were right," Skari said, staring at the parchment laid out before her. "I don't like this."

Someone had hastily sketched the image in charcoal, like they were trying to capture the images of a nightmare before it faded from memory. The medium made the details of the ghastly entity indistinct, vague. What was clear was that there was a skull-like visage caught in a black void, caught between swirling pools of liquid malice. Appendages with a dozen fingers each reach toward the viewer, as if they could pierce through the paper and pull her in. And given this was a world of magic and the image was sufficiently terrifying, it was hard to persuade herself that this wasn't a real possibility.

Rakna loomed over Calliope's shoulder. "I'm surprised you don't remember this, of all things. It seems...indelible."

"It certainly looks like the Core of an evil overlord's lair," Skari agreed. "But...how do you know this is accurate? It might just be mythmaking. I mean, if nobody alive has seen the Core, how are we to know this isn't just an effective piece of propaganda I put out to keep people from messing with my tower? Or maybe the Heroes embellished to prop up their own legend?"

Dead silence. Not so much as a placating nod. She was on her own with that line of thought.

"At any rate," Rakna cut in, "Now that construction of this room is complete, we will proceed to excavating the collapsed tunnels beneath our feet. Assuming it's just the entrance that is blocked and not the entirety of the subterranean complex, we should be clear to investigate momentarily. How do we proceed?"

Skari took a moment and called up her stats again. Her current goon squad consisted of Rakna, her two handmaidens, and Briggy, if she could be coaxed into not thinking about dick for a few hours. Having no idea what to expect, she decided to bring all four down into the tunnels with her. Half measures weren't going to get her anywhere. She had to be bold, decisive.

"We go in, claim the Core, and frag anything that gets in our way."

***

"Clear below!" One of the larger worker driders shouted as one of the last hunks of old masonry came crashing down. It hit the already fragment-strewn ground with a weighty thump, shattering into a dozen smaller pieces and sending a cloud of dirt and dust into the air. They could see through now into the passage beyond, though more rocks would have to be pulled to allow ingress for her driders. As the workers prepared another heave with a webbing block and tackle, Skari gazed into the pitch dark of the revealed tunnel entrance.

"Good thing I got that lighting cantrip," she said to herself, bringing the basic spell to her fingers. Rakna frowned at the display.

"A light that bright will spoil our darkvision. I...insist," she said with a hiss, choosing her words carefully, "That you stay behind us as we venture."

"Fine by me," Skari said, meaning it. If that thing in the illustration that Honeydew showed her was real, it'd be putting several large spiderwomen in between her and it.

Another hunk of stone crashed to the ground, and Rakna skittered forward to exchange words with her handmaidens. Behind her trundled the much less nimble form of Briggy, the former warrior turned mount. She sported a harness and saddle getup that had been hastily converted from some of the loot the driders had sequestered over the years. Skari knew better than to ask what had happened to the horses. Calliope was there too. She sat on one of the already displaced stones, kicking her little heels against the shattered masonry as the Driders plied their new trade.

"You coming with us too?" Skari asked Honeydew. The goblin laughed.

"Oh, absolutely not. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrified of you and if you threatened me, I'd jump into a sea full of sharkgirls. But I'd much rather be up here, in the nice sun, with a compass and a level, making sure your Lair continues apace. The faster you connect the Core, the faster we can get back to doing the fun stuff!"

"Gotcha."

But Calliope wasn't finished. "And remember: you must return the Core to its alcove in the central chamber. That's the only way the Lair becomes fully operational."

Skari made a face. "How the hell am I going to make a monster like the one from the drawing cooperate in being hooked up as a power source?"

The goblin shrugged. "You're the Overlord, oh vile one, I assume you have some ideas. Look on the bright side: it might just be a big orb!"

Skari muttered under her breath. There were plenty of Power Cores in Planet of Perils' myriad dungeons. Giant glowing spherical MacGuffins needed for puzzles to unlock doors or even summon extra hard monsters. All the players had to do was slot them into a little divot in the wall or on a plinth and they activated. But...how do you do unlock a door when the key is an eldritch horror?

"Are we going in there, Mistress?" Briggy asked, grabbing Skari's attention. Her normally peppy demeanour was reduced to a vague enthusiasm, her gaze not leaving the hole leading into the darkness.

"There's a powerful item I need in there. I intend to seize it."

Briggy nodded shakily. "O-okay. But promise we'll leave if whatever's in there is too scary."

Skari raised an eyebrow. "Haven't you lived your life in a dank, dark cave?"

"That's different. That was OUR cave. I've never been in there before! And now that my thinking's all squishy, I dunno if I'm mean enough to beat whatever we find in there."

It was then that the overlord noticed the shaking in Briggy's hands. Skari clasped them both into hers, pulling the suddenly timid monstergirl close.

"You're my breeder, and that means I keep you safe. I don't know what's waiting for us down there, but I know if we face it together, it won't stand a chance." Skari waited for a sign of affirmation from the brider, and when she received it, let her voice slip to a lower register. "And afterwards, I'll give you a reward for being such a brave girl." Her hand traced the outline of Briggy's slit, making her shudder with something other than fear.

"Mmm...okay, together!" she declared, her resolve clearly steeled. The others in their party, Rakna and her two companions, were already waiting by the newly excavated hole. Time to figure out what exactly lay at the foundation of her evil lair.

Far from the dank cave that the driders had inhabited, the tunnel they entered was practically sterile. Air that hadn't been breathed for decades filled Skari's simulated lungs, and once again, a part of her mind reeled at how authentic the simulation could be. It was getting harder and harder to see the seams in the construct. Something she was wondering might not be the best thing for her.

Her. Skari thought about the pronoun. Intellectually, she knew she was Jane. She was...Jane was...a man. But just like the game's edges were knitting together, so too were her two identities. To test this, she thought about rejoining the game as her old character Asclepius, the male healer Jane had played for so long. The thought was unpleasant, like wearing someone else's dirty laundry. That character wasn't hers anymore. It might not even be Jane's. It was...

She shook off the thoughts. That could wait, the real world could always wait. There was adventure to be had. Mystery! Action! Slutty spidergirls! All the good things that life should be about.

The collapsed and chaotic rock forms faded away as they pressed forward, blending into the chiseled, artificial stone forms of what looked like an ancient tomb. Long corridors stabbed down at 45 degree angles into the earth, lined with alcoves of ancient pottery or empty sconces where touches may have once been held. The driders made the descent down the steep slope without apparent notice, where a part of Skari thought she might trip and tumble ass over teakettle into the abyss.

Briggy must have sensed her hesitation. She matched speed and interlaced her fingers with Skari's own.

"Don't worry, I got you!" she said in her bubbly voice, return the favour from before. Skari smiled back.

The descent levelled out, leaving them in a large hall. Doorways leading off into other areas lead off in staggered succession on either side of the hall, with the room itself serving as a hub of sorts. Chiseled inscriptions denoted where the corridors lead, though some were more helpful than others. 'Archive', 'Portal Alcove'...

"Laying Creche?" Skari asked aloud.

"Where egg laying monsters go to incubate and warm their eggs. Usually inside a willing participant." Rakna explained.

"Ah, yes, of course. I remember now."

"Indeed. Now here is something promising..." The lead drider touched the stone underneath the farthest door. "Armoury. Definitely worth investigating." Rakna said, heading in that direction. Her handmaids dutifully followed.