The Tower of Trials

"Good, good! I'm sure that whichever slut you fuck will be yours after just one load emptied into her cleavage, 'Master,'" she tittered to his back. "After all, who needs a wife when you can fuck a pair of breasts instead?"

Hip cocked to the side, the minotaur watched Ustrik stagger into the void and back into the real world, broken and addicted.

Of course, the nature of the tower and its ability to obfuscate the passage of time meant that hours would pass between Ustrik entering the trialsite and his subsequent exit.

In that fateful span, the others found themselves at a loss.

"When's he to return?" Mikhail murmured, glancing to Forto.

"Couldn't say," he replied with crossed arms and a sigh. "Legends say that the tower tailors its trial to each individual acolyte, but...who knows?"

The three of them idled at its entrance, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. Not much to do but wait, they figured. Ustrik had always been the one quickest to charge into battle, so his absence was almost paralytic to the remaining trio. It was almost shocking when the next to speak up had been Forto.

"There's no point in waiting," he finally said. "The Tower of Trials is possessed of a terrible magic, and it. It appears we're to face our challenges alone. If not..." He looked to his comrades. "Well. Ustrik's not returned. And proud though he may be, I doubt he'd wait too long to bark at me to enchant his axe if he was in a pinch."

He strode forward, determined. "There's no point in waiting. When I see you next, I'll be either a priest or a pauper." And with that, Forto passed into the tower, and reality dissolved around him.

Even before he saw it, he felt it. The stagnant air of the swamp gave way to balmy heat. It wasn't so thick as to be unpleasant. Far from it, actually. The sultry spice to the air was a welcome change from the tepidity of the bog, and the sights that fizzled into reality soon after were similarly pleasing to the senses.

Forto found himself in something akin to a throne room. No, not quite, though the luxury it held rivaled the palaces of royalty. Pillows littered the ground, not quite stuffed enough to offer firm support if one were to recline upon one. More suited to lounging across two or three than anything else, it seemed. It was a bit hard to tell what the room was even suited for. Light sources were nonexistent, save perhaps the dull glow of coals in braziers hanging from the unseen ceiling, but somehow, Forto didn't have to stumble around blindly. The room was just barely visible enough to navigate the pillow-dotted floor.

And a spotlight focused on the crown jewel of the mysterious lounge.

A small, circular platform found its place in the center of the room, bathed in soft, pink light. Normally, the glow wouldn't be any more impressive than that of a torch; it certainly wasn't any stronger than torchlight as far as Forto could tell. Even so, in the otherwise dim room, it dominated, not least of which due to the sight it illuminated.

Dancing in the center of the room was the most beautiful woman Forto had ever seen in his life. At least, he assumed so. All he could see was her silhouette, her body itself hidden behind a curtain separating the two. It was a testament to that silhouette that he found himself drawn helplessly forward.

Breasts, hips, waist, legs. She tantalized without showing so much as a scrap of skin, but the shadow dancing upon the veil before him teased salacious nudity. Hands above her head, she swayed her hips from side to side, rolling them in figure-eights for his ravenous eyes. Was this to be his bride?

She spoke, and her voice was music.

"Finally, I have an audience." Low, smoky, purring, her voice carried a smile and sent shivers down Forto's spine. "Rest, my husband, and allow me to soothe your nerves before I take you to heaven." She reached out to him -- as far as he could tell -- and splayed her slender fingers out before crooking them at Forto, one by one.

"You're an Apsara," he mumbled. Behind the veil, she giggled.

"And you, my husband, are well-read. I am, indeed, an Apsara." She raised her hands above her head once more, humming to herself as she swayed her hips. "Does this cause you unrest, my husband?"

"A little." Forto gulped. He couldn't take his eyes off her. Didn't really want to, either. But that was the danger, wasn't it?

"A nymph, fallen from heaven, sent to deceive." She spoke his thoughts aloud, poisonous worry made somehow palatable by her sensuous purr. "Sculpted by the gods to sate their lusts, the Apsaras were cast from paradise by their masters' jealous wives...only to tempt the gods themselves into Hell." She moaned through pursed lips, a low, needy hum. "It is rare that I find myself faced with an acolyte worthy of my attention."

She smiled, and her silhouette smiled in tandem. Glittering white appeared in a crescent upon its face. For the first time since he'd seen her, she looked...menacing. Even as she continued, her shadow's grin didn't so much as twitch.

"And yet, I am naught more than a demon to your Holy Church. Another monster to be made humble, another monster who seeks to tempt men into the pleasures of wasteful sex. To ensure that the race of men falls, as all who climb too high must fall." She leaned forward, and her shadow's smile vanished. Hands on her knees, she turned just slightly to the side to offer her profile to Forto. Her breasts hung from her chest, heavy and full and assuredly bare. The swell of her rear promised similar softness.

Forto had seen succubi before, and she was unlike any he'd laid eyes upon. They were crass, aggressive and unsubtle in their sexuality. Tits bloated and wobbling, caricatured, hips wide enough to bruise a man's lap with the ferocity of their lovemaking. But she was...perfect. Even through the veil, he could see that. Not so slender as to leave men wanting for more, not so large as to approach grotesquerie. Curvaceous, hourglass perfection. The feminine ideal, crafted by men to please them. So effective as to enslave them.

"Are you afraid, my husband?" She murmured. Forto blinked, jogging his thoughts from the fugue they'd slipped into. Even as she spoke, she didn't pause her slow, sensuous dance for a moment. "I will admit, such fear would not be unfounded." Side to side, her hips swung like a pendulum. Her body writhed before him like a serpent, undulating in lazy waves. "My sisters and I were the ones to bring about an end to the age of gods." She let her head fall back, reaching to cup her breasts. "I have made deacons my slaves. They did not respect my power as you do, my husband, and they suffered accordingly. Though they would say," she said, a smile upon her voice once more, "that they did not suffer for even a moment."

"The punishment I mete out, my husband, is exquisite."

"It is that which laid the gods low."

"That which even the pontiff of your Holy Church fears the promise of."

"That which would leave a man hungry, wanting, ravenous forevermore if he should taste but an instant thereof."

He was hard in his robes. Forto had been listening, spellbound, watching, ensorcelled. Couldn't even shake his head to try and snap himself out of it now.

"But I am not unkind, even to those who fail to pay me the respect I deserve. After all, they fall to their knees in worship in the end." She paused, and the smile returned, shimmering upon the veil between them.

"My husband."

She stopped, finally, frozen mid-step. One leg brought up, crooked and forming a cross with the other. Her foot dangled, suspended just off the ground.

Forto realized after a moment that he had been holding his breath as soon as her dance paused. He'd sat down at some point, palming himself through his robes. He'd abandoned his staff somewhere in the haze on the outskirts of the room. Did it even have walls? It didn't matter. Only she mattered. When she spoke, he listened.

She spoke.

"Do you fear me, as I am to be feared?" She was still as a statue, but that grin widened on the veil.

"Will you submit unto me and gain a lover who has lavished gods with pleasure and left them drunk by her presence?"

"Or will you try, as all before you have tried, and force me to submit?" Something about her voice changed. She wasn't purring anymore. It was kind of a low, sensuous hiss. She clicked her tongue, capped it with a soft moan.

"Are you truly beholden to your own carnal urges? Is your spirit so weak as to succumb to the curiosity of what I do to those whom I enslave?" His cock seemed to stiffen at that. "Do you think you could defeat me, make a slave out of me?"

"All men do, you know." Gauzy fingertips brushed his cheek, but he didn't look away from her frozen silhouette. Phantom lips pressed a kiss to his cheek. Another pair wrapped around the head of his cock, bobbing on his length. He saw nothing. He felt everything. "It's why you're men. You think that you are gods. That you are untouchable. Your foolish, wonderful pride."

"Maybe you could do it." Her voice was right in his ear now, hissing, purring, tempting. His hands were at his sides. After all, the hands pawing at his body were exquisite, far more skilled than his could ever hope to be. He could get used to this. "No one's ever come this far, have they? Look, an empty room, empty save for you. And me. Maybe it's destiny."

"The gods fell for me. But maybe you're different. You must be." Lips pressed against his, and even if he couldn't see anything but her shadow on that silk-thin veil, he felt the heat of her body, the tender caress, the greedy squeeze, pump, stroke of her hands. "You're different. This is destiny. Surely you could tame me. And besides."

He was surrounded by her. Breasts mashed up against his arms, his chest, but it wasn't just that, it was her hands, fingers laced with his, squeezing them tight as she rode him. But she was sucking him off, tongue rolling around the head of his cock, mouth as practiced as a whore's. She was riding him, she was fucking him senseless. She was kissing him, he was-

He was different. A little voice, whispering in the back of his mind, purring, gasping, moaning. He was different. He was special. He could tame her. Submit to a demon. Never, not even for a moment. He was a man, a priest of the Holy Church, and that meant that he was to be an avatar of the gods and subjugate the profane Female in all of Her iterations. He was different, and he would show her as such.

"I-" He mumbled, blinking blearily at her shadow as sensations all but overwhelmed him. Hips, tits, lips, ass, grinding, sucking, mashing up against him. "I-"

"Yes, my husband. Say it. Say it, and fall, as all have fallen before me." She hissed, two pairs of arms unfurling from her sides, even as her foot hovered just above the ground. "Foolish, proud man, thinking with his thick, throbbing cock. Stoked too hot and cracking at the slightest touch."

"Do you submit by your own will?"

His eyelids fluttered, and he was about to cum, he could feel it. His balls clenched down, and his cock throbbed in his robes.

"I duh- I do not."

The phantoms vanished. Or they seemed to, at least. He had never seen them, so their disappearance could only manifest as a sudden, cold solitude.

"You do not submit by your own will," the Apsara repeated, and the veil finally fell.

Her lips moved, plump, black, curling at their corners with a smile, but he didn't hear her speak. He'd lost himself in her eyes, gorgeous, bottomless amber, ringed with kohl. Her skin, flawlessly smooth, soft, the color of caramel and honey and cocoa, blended and drizzled over curves that promised endless pleasure, perfection distilled, voluptuous. Her belly, smooth and lacking a navel, her thighs, her legs, her feet--

Her foot finally touched to the ground again, and it was as if something inside him changed. Like his mind had shifted to the left. Like his thoughts would never be quite right. Ever again. Forto grunted, and he looked to her six arms.

Six arms? No, it was. Oh.

Oh. It was more. More of her. Two more stepped out from behind her. Two more of her, and they approached, sinuous, predatory. They walked with the unmistakable gait of women who knew just how breathtakingly gorgeous they were, who knew that they were going to take the stupid, horny man in front of them and claim him. His heart. His mind. His everything.

Forto couldn't speak. He couldn't move. Not with divinity so close to him. No, he just kind of fumbled uselessly for words as the duo of Apsarae approached him, his cock uselessly, traitorously stiff in his robes. They laid themselves beside him, one on each side, and traced two slender fingertips over his body. Their touch dissolved his clothes, and soon Forto was naked before them. Before Her.

"You could have been my husband." She carried her glittering, pearl-white smile on her voice. He smiled with her, not truly hearing her words or the message behind them. "You could have had everything."

Her twins pressed up against him, cooing, murmuring sweet, wordless nothings against the shell of his ear. One kissed his jaw. The other kissed his collarbone. Both of them stroked his cock, sliding their palms up and down his length.

"Instead, you will have nothing." The veil raised once more, and her shadow began to dance. Her hips swayed. Her breasts jiggled. Her spine curved, and her body followed. Eyelids drooping, Forto giggled.

"You will be trapped in heaven, imprisoned for all time by perfection, and you, the idiot-god of male pride, will blindly, slavishly obey your cock's every whim. And your cock," came her voice from everywhere at once, "obeys me."

But Forto wasn't really listening. Hard to listen when you were blissed-out and riding the wave of luxurious pleasure that he was, and the twin facsimiles didn't seem to plan on letting up their pampering any time soon. When one hand drifted away from his pre-drooling prick, another slid up to take its place. If one pulled away from his side, it was only to better adjust her position pressed up against him. And all the while, they purred and cooed into his ears, driving thoughts from his mind with every touch, every sibilant hiss, every inch closer to sweet, blessed release.

Release that would never come, as it turned out. Forto didn't care. Didn't even think about how he was long past the limits of his endurance, because there was something so gradual about it all that meant he could bear it -- no, that he craved it. Perfection was to be savored, and if he could savor perfection forever, wasn't that something like heaven? Attended to by angels, worshiping a goddess ad infinitum, pleasure climbing higher and higher, straining towards an ideal he'd never...quite...reach.

A trickle of drool crept down his chin. It wasn't long before one Apsara smeared it into his skin with a kiss, giggling. Time lost meaning. Words lost meaning.

Forto lost himself in pleasure and, though he couldn't say it himself, would have done it again.

Outside the tower, Mikhail and Ritten had taken to a game of tiddlywinks a few minutes after Forto's departure. To speak truthfully, neither of them had really liked Ustrik or Forto; the latter was too brusque to hold a conversation, and the former was too sanctimonious to hold a conversation worth having. If the brute and the brain wanted to charge on ahead, citing valor or duty, that was fine with them. After all, it wasn't as if there was a strict time limit on the trial being passed or not, was there? No. So Mikhail and Ritten intended to take their sweet time about it.

Of course, taking one's sweet time carried a few caveats, one of which being that time tended to pass. As the sun crept below the horizon, Mikhail set about starting a campfire. The wood around was a bit sparse, but he'd managed to find a few good branches. The alternative was just sitting around in the dark. Even if there weren't demons about, there were beasts to worry about. A fire was a necessity to ward them off.

Ritten did his part by watching.

"You ever have a meal in the bush?" Mikhail looked over his shoulder at the thief, raising a knife and offering a smile.

Ritten had not.

"Ah, well, you're in for a treat. Not saying it's fit for a king, but." He turned his attention to the ground. He found a stick, picked it up, and discarded it. Too soggy to burn. "Well. Hunger's the best seasoning."

Ritten's stomach grumbled.

"I don't know how you want to do this, but what I was thinking," Mikhail continued, "was to get some shut eye, maybe take a piss, and head in. Dunno how long a trial could take, so. Figure it's best to be well-rested."

Ritten agreed.

Mikhail clicked his tongue, looking over his shoulder at Ritten as he walked. "You don't talk much, do you."

Ritten didn't.

"Suits me just fine," Mikhail finally admitted, smiling at Ritten. Flat ground meant he didn't really need to watch where he was going...

...except when he stumbled headlong into the tower's entrance. Ritten had reached out and mumbled something unintelligible, going so far as to start to stand up, but it hadn't been quick enough for Mikhail to stop. With a yelp of shock, Mikhail fell into inky blackness.

Ritten sat down again.

For all its intricacies, the portal was apparently not so complex as to safeguard his dignity. Mikhail never found his balance in the flash between the swamp and...wherever he was. He landed flat on his face with a grunt, arms splayed out in front of him. Self-righting, it seemed, was not a priority of the portal's creators.

But that wasn't important. What was important was figuring out where he was. A ranger, first and foremost, knew his battlefield. Mikhail scrambled to his feet, knife pulled from its sheathe. Ground was soft, softer than stone or metal. No grass, but the roots -- and, higher still, the tree trunks -- made one thing very clear: he was in a forest.

That being said, it was unlike any forest he'd seen before. The trees climbed high enough to render their tops little more than swaying pinpricks in the distance. Still, their leaves -- which came in shades of blue, green, and purple -- flitted down from the heavens to cover the ground.

What was strangest, though, wasn't the flora. It was the fauna. More accurately, its apparent absence. Silence was the most dangerous thing one could possibly hear in the woods, Mikhail considered grimly. Animals weren't stupid. They didn't dawdle when deadlier beasts were afoot, and if the forest was silent, then-

"Gah!"

His attentions turned elsewhere, Mikhail didn't notice...whatever it was that had bitten him! His ankle burned with sudden, stinging pain. No blood -- barely a trickle, at least -- but the two pinpricks left behind by his apparent assailant worried him. A quick measurement with his knuckle confirmed his suspicion.

This was a snakebite. More than a snakebite, this was a venomous snakebite. That tingling numbness wasn't going away, and he sure as Hell hadn't felt it before. Mikhail looked around. A glimpse of the serpent would offer a clue as to how he would set about treating the bite, but...there was nothing.

Nothing except for the demon hovering in front of him.

Eyes wide in shock, hand clapped over her mouth, she was the picture of cultivated shock. And apparently wet dreams, given that her proportions seemed to be plucked from the idle fantasies of lonely teenage boys.

Breasts straining against her top and hips similarly testing the fabric trying to contain them, she was openly, obviously, unabashedly a succubus. Normally he heard of succubi attempting to conceal their demonic nature, but she wasn't lifting so much as a finger to hide her horns. Or her wings. Or her purple skin.

"Ohmigosh!" She chirped in a voice sweeter than a songbird's. "You're hurt! You've gotta! A!" She clicked her tongue, crossing her arms under her bust and rolling her eyes. "A watchamacallit. Ah!" Her expression lit with the realization. "A bite! On your thingy! Your ankle!"