The Grotto

"Now?" Bianca asked quietly from behind a tree, her eyes turned on the tall, mail-clad cleric crouched down beside her. He continued to stare straight ahead over a fallen log. She glanced around the side of her tree, up the thickly wooded slope to the rough wooden palisade just visible through the trees. If the cleric had heard her, he made no acknowledgment. She waved her hand down at him, definitely within his peripheral vision.

"Can we go now?" she enunciated with deliberate slowness, helpfully accompanied by a simple pantomime.

"No," he replied distractedly after a long, irritating pause. "Not until full light of dawn. I'm afraid my powers are not yet equal to those of Sir Andreas. I can't make enough daylight to disorient them all."

"By the gods, Alessio" she inquired with a performative sigh, "why did we have to get saddled with you for this?"

"I feel my predecessor's predilection for carelessness may have had something to do with that. Although," he smiled broadly, gleaming white teeth set off against an unruly black beard, "how he managed to acquire that particular condition without breaking his vows has been a matter of speculation among us men as well." He pursed his lips to suppress his smile, though without much success. "Don't worry my Lady, I'm sure he'll convalesce quickly."

"You can take a nap if you like," Eufemia offered, lazily tracing out a faint purple circle with her fingernail that lingered briefly in the air before drifting off like smoke. "We'll wake you when it's time."

"No, that's alright Effie," Bianca replied with a mock whimper. She allowed her chin to rest on the hilt of her sheathed greatsword and turned a doe-eyed pout to her mage. "You really aren't coming in with me?"

"No I am not. The priestess did specify women pure of heart." The paladin arched an eyebrow skeptically. "What? We don't even take the vows! You don't know what I've been up to!"

"She also wouldn't lose her powers even if she fell," Alessio remarked, still scanning the forest ahead.

"Yes! Thank you!" Eufemia said with an appreciative flick of her wrist.

"Awfully convenient that I've never heard a word about this until now. Five years together - you've been holding out on me this whole time?"

"As a matter of fact, I have. I know you don't have anything juicy to offer in return, or they'd have kicked you out by now. Besides," she added with a meaningful look, "I didn't want to make you jealous."

The priest rubbed his forehead. "Remarkably free conversation for present company," he said with a slight laugh, "don't you think?"

"Do you promise not to tell?"

"I suppose I do."

"Well then what's the problem? Is a knight not as good as their word?"

"Hmm," he grunted noncommittally. A few of the nearest militiamen shuffled their feet awkwardly.

The party lapsed back into silence. Bianca idly drilled little holes in the ground with the tip of her sheath. Every once in a while she would glance about, looking for enemy scouts. Stupid, lazy gnolls. Never adequate scouts except on hunts or raids. Even if they'd remained loyal, bringing them over would have been a mistake.

At last Alessio was satisfied, though on what possible grounds she couldn't tell. The two knights advanced carefully along with three picked men-at-arms, their footfall muted by the priest's magic. Two gnolls stood guard in the closest watchtower. Rays of the eastern sun caught them from the side, lighting up their reddish fringes against the muted, black-spotted grey of their coats. They betrayed no sign of alarm until Eufemia popped out of invisibility not forty feet from the wall, her hands already weaving her spell. The creatures stared stupefied for a moment. The taller one had the presence of mind to try to turn and raise an alarm, but instead slumped back into enchanted sleep alongside its slower-witted companion.

Bianca and Alessio broke into a sprint, reaching the palisade with spearmen in train just as the mage opened the way. The remaining soldiers and militiamen now openly advanced from the tree line, provoking whooping calls first from the other towers, then from within the camp. A single cluster of tents blocked the path to a lone timber pit house at the center of the camp. "Remember! Kill the den mother first!" Alessio shouted.

The cluster of tents burst spectacularly into magical flames, sending the few confused survivors staggering off in random directions. Bianca and Alessio cut those down who fell into their path. Scattered barbed javelins began to rain in from the sides, one glancing painfully off Alessio's mailed flank. He groaned and turned about, turning his shield left and right as he called out an incantation. An orb of brilliant light, bright as the noonday sun appeared above him, dazzling the nocturnal defenders.

An enormous gnoll in hastily-donned rawhide lamellar stepped up from the pit house, brandishing a pike in one hand and shielding her eyes with the other. A fireball leapt from Eufemia's fingertips and arced through the now-open doorway, erupting within the house and setting the roof instantly ablaze. The dazed chieftainess did not even see Bianca's blade until it the moment before it bit into her side. Her half-blind counter thrust went wide, and she stumbled to her knee. Bianca's upraised sword flashed with a pale, unearthly fire, and she hacked off the gnoll's head with a single stroke.

Bianca turned to survey the field. The palisade was already aflame, militiamen feeding kindling to fires started at the bases of Effie's arch. Effie herself was busy igniting nearby tents, the picked trio of spearmen loosely encircling her to dissuade any attempt on her fragile person. Alessio, meanwhile, had recovered enough to focus holy fire on the javelin throwers from within the obscuring halo of his artificial sun. Plenty of resistance to overcome, but nothing adequately organized. His plan had worked better than it had any right to.

"Hmph." The trick was to choose an enemy too foolish to underestimate, she decided.

Two great boulders towered above the far end of the camp. Their sheer walls came almost together to form a narrow pathway at the base, guarded by a free-standing wooden ceremonial gate. Bianca made her way quickly to the richly-carved gate, carefully observing her surroundings to make sure none of the enemy had followed or lay in wait. She retrieved the necessary implements from her pack and performed a perfunctory but correct ritual of veneration; a joint libation, perfumed unguent on the Earth Mother Armaiti's swollen belly on each pillar, prepared floral wreaths from the village maidens for each pillar, and throughout all a petition for fertility for the valley.

No sooner was this done than she'd moved on to the rough stony path between the boulders. The cleft ran off obliquely from the gnolls' camp, which was soon lost from view. The ground began to give way, and she found herself having to pick her way slowly to avoid slipping on the dew-slick stones. At length the path jogged west and then opened up onto a grassy ledge overlooking a large depression in the hillside.

The walls of the depression were steep and garlanded with dense, unbroken thickets of trees, brambles, and undergrowth. Downslope, the trees gave way to open ground blanketed with grasses and clusters of white flowers, occasionally alternating with patches of purple and blue. Wild apple trees stood scattered about, blooming green and white and swarming with bees. At the center lay a still, dark blue pool, teeming with frogs.

Bianca began following the stone-paved path west down from the overhang. The scene reminded her of a pool back home on her father's estate. Five years ago, her eighteenth birthday, before she'd joined the order. The bees were humming then too, around her and neighbor boy, when she'd let him... She smiled at the memory.

The path wrapped clockwise around the pool, ending in a natural grotto beneath the overhang. Carved stone posts had been driven into the ground in a semicircle around the icon to mark the consecrated ground. Bianca respectfully laid her greatsword, sidearm, and sack aside outside the ring of posts, bringing only the necessary ritual implements. A large altar of rough, uncut stone stood before the image. It was cast in bronze rather than the usual polished stone. It wasn't in the typical Ausonian style, but it was much too advanced to have been produced by rustics. This Mother danced rather than upon her pedestal, her chest supporting only a single pair of engorged breasts.

Bianca placed a new flower garland around the goddess' neck and applied scented oil over her womb. She poured two libations before the pedestal and drank the last as prescribed, accepting it as the goddess' representative. She retreated to the altar and set out the grain offering. She knelt and prostrated herself before the altar and image, intoning from well-honed memory the appropriate prayers of praise and thanksgiving.

She raised herself back to her knees. Her head swam a bit in the warm spring air, thanks to the wine. Alcohol was permitted only on the obligatory ritual occasions, a practice that did not conduce toward tolerance. Soft buzzing filled her ears, whether entirely from the bees now searching for nectar from the goddess' flower-wreathed neck she was unsure. She reached out with her mind and ignited the offerings. She watched them burn, carried off to the heavens, as she delivered the valley's customary propitiation the priestess had taught her.

Her prayers finished, Bianca prostrated herself again before the altar. She'd been told to expect a response when the fire burned out, but nothing happened. Had she forgotten some part of the ritual? Had she waited long enough? Absently she noted the buzzing had stopped, and only a soft humming remained. For a long time she knelt facedown, afraid to look up lest she ruin the ritual at the very end. Finally she convinced herself that if there were an error, she must already have made it.

She sat up and looked at the statue. The bees were gone. Odd. She suddenly realized she couldn't hear the frogs croaking anymore either. A sliver of dread wormed its way into her heart. Slowly she turned to scan the depression. Her eyes shot back and forth between the woods and the pool. Nothing she could see concealed, no movement apart from a few water-logged pieces of driftwood bobbing at the water's edge. And no movement from the animals either.

The humming continued. Not from bees, but from where? Her head felt heavy. Black and yellow stars began to drift in from her peripheral vision, pulling her down, down into sleep. She recognized the enchantment. With a trained effort of will she snapped back to attention and pushed her exhaustion aside. She needed her weapons, right now.

She sprang to her feet and leapt out toward the circle of stones. The 'driftwood' leapt with her. Shaggy stalks dripping with water, broad as saplings, planted themselves by the pool and heaved a great, misshapen form out of the water. Bianca unsheathed her greatsword and swung it blindly, lodging it with a sickening thud into the thing's wrist. No cry of pain followed. It withdrew its arm to its chest, wrenching the sword out of her hands. Only its chest, as there was no head or neck. Broad shoulders sent out long hairy arms, spindly-looking despite their bulk by comparison with the immense torso stretching back into the water. The chest opened, revealing a single giant eye that gazed at the wound.

Over the humming came the sound of cracking and grinding as innumerable segmented, flexible tentacles peeled off from the creature's hide. The eye closed. Bianca retrieved her shortsword and held it, blazing with holy light, before her. With alarming speed the beast was over her. A trio of tentacles reached out to restrain her, which she sliced off with ease, leaving smoking, charred stumps twitching at their joints. The eye opened just a slit to look at them. To her horror, the stumps shimmered red and started to rapidly regenerate.

Suddenly the beast relaxed its legs, allowing its body to fall almost to the ground and knocking Bianca flat on her back. Strong, sinuous limbs wrapped around her legs, gripped her by the thighs, and dragged her, screaming defiantly, to the muddy shore. It held her down and arched its snakelike back, bringing its chest down directly over her face.

The eyelid cracked open and Bianca took her one remaining opportunity, slashing at the creature's unprotected organ. It jerked its eye out of range at the last second. The main arms lashed out and seized her by her wrists, holding her arms painfully immobile. Her greatsword still hung lodged in its right wrist, apparently doing nothing to restrain its strength.

The eye opened wide. Morning daylight glinted off its ruby-red iris, but its pupil seemed to swallow it. The humming filled Bianca's head again as it gazed into her eyes. Distracted by her struggle to escape its arms, she neglected to direct her full will against the enchantment. Her head swam and felt irresistibly heavy, and she allowed herself to fall limp to the ground as stars swam in and overwhelmed her vision.

⁂

Bianca awoke in pitch darkness. The air was fresh and warm and smelled faintly of honey. Her head dangled freely, but she didn't dare look up lest she give away that she was awake. Her chest and upper arms, stripped of their armor, hung suspended by unseen bands. Her buttocks and thighs, naked of faulds or cuisses she noted unhappily, rested on a rounded, semi-rigid surface. She wiggled her toes. Still in her boots, but the feet were fixed in place.

She lay motionless for a while, running over scenarios in her head. She would have to risk some light, she concluded. No way to plan if she couldn't see. She whispered and wove her spell as subtly as she could, calling an orb of dim light into being in front of her. Immediately dozens of eyes opened, on tendrils and stalks and buried in knotted walls.

"Shit."

She was in a small chamber, smaller than her cell at the convent. The walls were composed of flesh-like purple and burgundy trunks, with fleshy boughs and branches all intertwined. Soft violet light now shone from every side. She sat on a slanted segment of a ridged trunk that dove into the floor just in front of her. Her greaves were encased in hard shells that bound her calves tightly to the trunk.

She tried to stand but succeeded only in lifting herself a few inches. A large eyeball in the roof sprouted on a thick, flexible stalk and turned to face her. Again she tried to sit up and wrench her arms out of the entangling vines. The eye merely observed as she strained and twisted futilely until she was red-faced and short of breath. She sank back onto the trunk.

"What do you want?" she growled, not expecting any response.

From behind, she felt a warm, slimy tendril press against her sacral triangle and turn down into her undergarments.

"Gods dammit."

The tendril was covered in soft, waving little nubs that tickled her underside as they guided its advance. The tentacle pressed into and massaged her anus, perineum, and fourchette in turn. She muttered a curse as the tip lingered there for a while, turning in tiny gentle circles as if considering whether to enter her. Mercifully, it moved on instead, gliding over her inner lips and picking up some of the juices that were already beginning to flow. She felt her face blush bright red.

Tiny tentacles began to sprout from her bonds and explore her body, lightly tracing patterns on her neck, belly, and lower back. More adventurous shoots crawled up her flanks and down her collarbone, underneath her gambeson. They encircled her rather large and heavy breasts, softly squeezing and groping them. Her nipples stiffened involuntarily and she shifted slightly despite herself, causing her vulva to grind against the nubbed tentacle and her nipples against her bandeau. In response to this success, the shoots around her breast rapidly engorged, swelling to the size of vines, and sending off fresh trace-work shoots of their own.

Wherever on her body the tentacles managed to make her tremble, or rock, or grind, or gasp, or make little struggles to escape too-effective caresses, the tendrils would engorge and bloom. Soon all her most sensitive areas had attracted focused attention: her breasts, the outer curve of her ribs, between her shoulder blades, those spots on her neck and her butt. The big tentacle underneath her, meanwhile, had taken up residence on her pubic mound, the tip looping back around to her clit. A pair of tendrils retracted her clitoral hood, exposing her to the tentacle's ministrations.

Bianca found herself being carried along slowly but surely toward climax. With great effort she headed things off, still at a high pitch but in no immediate danger of orgasm. The humming started again, at first only in her head, distracting her from her resistance. But then it spread to the tentacle below, making it vibrate intensely as it pressed up against her asshole, her perineum, her inner lips, and her clit. Her breathing came heavy now. Her muscles were tense. Sweat dripped from her face. A suction cup sprouted from the tip of the main tentacle and slid over her clit, sucking gently and vibrating.

Bianca came hard, flushed and trembling. Her pussy, with a mind of its own, was grinding in short, forceful thrusts against the rough phallus encircling her, as if trying to scratch away some horrible itch. It took about ten seconds to regain enough composure to try to tamp things down. She grasped some nearby tentacles to steady herself, pushed herself down, and forced her hips to sit still while the spasms subsided.

The tentacles rested, giving her time to catch her breath. Her breaths were coming slower now, the last aftershocks receding. The great eye must have gone in for a closer look while she was distracted, for it now had to withdraw part-way into the ceiling to rear back and look again at her face.

Bianca could feel that she was covered in sweat, little beads dripping down and stinging her eyes. It had been warm in the chamber before, but now it was like a sauna. Sweat dripped from her chest, back, and belly. Somehow, from somewhere, a pleasant, sweet-smelling breeze rose to cool her face and body. A pair of tendrils reached up from her neck and wiped the sweat from her eyes.

"Um... thanks," she said, trying to conceal her anger. "I guess. Can I go now?"

The eye drew closer and studied her for a bit. Faintly, Bianca could feel it poking around in the back of her mind. Subtly. She never would have noticed without her training. Her eyes narrowed. At length it seemed to be satisfied and withdrew to its former place.

"Please, may I go now?" she asked with as much civility as she could muster. After a brief pause, the eye shook itself back and forth firmly.

"Shit."

The main tentacle now released her clit and withdrew. The tip now lay directly against her slit. It curled itself inward, shallowly penetrating her labia and slowly pushing forward.

"No!" Bianca shouted ferociously, "Not there!"

She clenched as hard as she could, expelling the tip, and then angled her hips to pull away as far as possible. Any hope of escape depended on preserving her virginity and with it her powers. With a heroic effort she struggled against the vines holding her right arm. Unprepared for sudden effort, they first loosened, then slipped, allowing her to wrench an arm free.

Purifying flames burst from her hand as she thrust it forward. The great eye pulled back in alarm, too late, bearing fresh scorch marks in the shape of her hand. The free vines holding up her chest and arms released her as the eye jerked away, leaving only her legs bound. Gravity now worked in her favor and brought her burning hand into contact with the carapace encasing her left leg. What seemed solid and hard immediately melted at her touch into hundreds of tiny tendrils unwinding up and down her calf.