The Umbral Messiah Pt. 08

He screamed and the Drakkon took to the wing. He kept screaming - and then with a clunk, he stopped. Something glittering dropped from the cliff as the Drakkon winged away, soaring up and up. The glittering thing dropped at Sari's feet.

It was Sir Seldon's helmet. Dented and streaked with blood.

The roar that rang from the heavens shook the walls and Charlotte, her voice thick with tears, cried out. "Tanner!"

"He's gone!" Sari said, shoving her down the hole. "He's gone! Go! Go! Go!" She shouted - and shoved Zarua into the hole. The orc girl vanished within and Sari, hearing beating wings, jumped in after, staff in her hands, shrinking it down to a palm-full with a thought.

All that was left was the mute testament of the helmet.

***

Tanner Seldon's head rang as he was dragged through the air, wind whipping through the fluttering locks of his hair. He swung his sword against the iron-bars that wrapped around him, but the first stroke against the knuckle of the Drakkon simply bounced right off. The sword tumbled away and the wild confusion of light and shadow around him seemed to swallow it whole. Tanner clenched his jaw to keep from crying out - but the lurching motion of flight while being grabbed and held aloft by a Drakkon was perfectly designed to wring out at least one or two screams.

Then...

There was the plunge.

Tanner clenched his eyes shut and thought one last: Oh my Charlotte! And then there was a blast of wind, a settling sound, and he was dropped to the ground with a clatter and a clunk. He blinked, then scrambled backwards, his back fetching up against a stone wall. He saw the Drakkon looking down at him with those bright azure eyes - but then his palm felt that the stone wall ended half an inch to his right. He glanced right...

He almost screamed again.

He was sitting in a circular tower, with a bowl shaped depression, surrounded by thick crenelations with worn through patches between them. Such as the one he was right beside. If he had shufled the wrong direction, he'd have...

Down.

Down.

Down. The jungle spread out in all directions around the spire-tower that he was now trapped on. Tanner gulped, then jerked his gaze back at the massive Drakkon as it looked down at him, cocking its head. His eyes narrowed and it clacked a single clawed tip against his chest plate, which gleamed with silver runes.

"Ssssssssssssssilver," the Drakkon hissed out. Its voice...had a very high, lilting tone to it. Tanner gulped, his mouth opening, then closing. "Sssssssssssilver!" The Drakkon said again, tapping its claw against his chest piece once more.

"N-No, it's...it's technically a mithril-steel alloy," Tanner said.

"Ssssssssssssilver! Mine!" The Drakkon growled. Thin streamers of pinkish steam hissed from its nostrils and Tanner, realizing that sometimes discretion was the better part of valor, hastily undid the catches on his chest piece. He tugged it off, then set it down beside him. The Drakkon nosed it, then nodded its head, seeming pleased. "More!"

Tanner sighed.

He tugged off the articulated gauntlets, the besagews, the spaulders, the rerebraces, the vambraces, the couters, the fauld, the cuisses and, finally, his precious mithril tipped sabotans. Once the pile of glittering armor was piled up, the Drakkon hissed happily and actually clapped its forepaws together like a delighted child. Then the Drakkoen leaned forward - and then hissed angrily. Its massive nose bumped against his chest.

"Wrong!" it declared with an angry hiss.

"Wrong? What's wrong, I gave you all my bloody armor. My grandfather wore that armor into battle during the Sundering," Tanner said, too tired and afraid to be any more afraid of this strange beast. At least it's not eating me, he thought.

The Drakkon huffed, shook its head, then closed its eyes. Purple and pink light crackled and popped, hissing and streaming around its body like a nimbus of pure storm. Tanner threw up his hand, wincing as the light seemed to stab into his eyes, making them burn and sting. When he lowered his palm, he blinked.

In the Drakkon's place was...a woman.

Her hips were broad. Her breasts were huge. Her belly was cushy, showing a kind of matronly heft to her that made Tanner think about bearing and birthing children. The only things that prevented her from being like many a beautiful woman that Tanner had seen - beyond the simple fact that she was naked as the day she had been born - was the fact she was covered in fine pink and purple scales and her head had a snout, sharp teeth, and broad, frilled fins that swept away from her like a wild profusion of hair. Her tail and her wings were merely accentuated afterthoughts as she knelt down before him, grinning toothily.

"Fix it," she said, nodding confidently.

Tanner gaped at the Drakkon. "You're a girl!?"

"A woman," she purred. "Fix it."

"Fix wha-" Tanner stammered, then yelped as she grabbed onto his shoulders and pinned him onto his back. Her eyes glittered lustfully and Tanner barely began to process what that might mean before she had spread her thighs and placed her cunt above his head. It was, like the rest of her, lightly scaled, a thin slit of rubbery flesh peeking between the lines of scales. It dripped with glowing pink fluids - like the normal arousal of a woman but ratcheted up to an astounding degree. Her musk tingled in his nose and Tanner reached up, trying to push her away, his palms sinking into her cushy scaled rump, feeling the weight of her and unable to actually slow anything.

Her pussy pressed to his mouth, covering him with her arousal in a single moment as she crooned happily. Her thighs tightened and Tanner felt a terrified flare of confusion rushing through him. Then fear. Absolute fear. Because he couldn't breathe. Her knees tightened and she hissed hungrily - and Tanner realized that he had to do something or he would be suffocated. His tongue darted out and he tasted the warm pink of her fluids - tingling along his tongue. His eyes closed and the tightness around his throat relaxed a bit as the Drakkon churred under her breath, her tongue lolling from her mouth as she started to rock her hips against him.

Tanner's palms cupped her ass, squeezing her firmly as his tongue began to sweep along her cunt, tasting the strange tingle of the pink fluids dripping from her, buzzing along his tongue. It was the strangest nectar he had ever tasted from a girl - and shamefully, Tanner had to admit he enjoyed it more than he expected. He enjoyed it...more than Charloette. His fingers gripped firmer, reveling in the expanse of the draconic rump he could grip as he continued to tongue and drink, moaning as his nose ground against her clit.

Every tongue brought more fluid.

Every droplet he swallowed made his brain feel...

Fuzzier.

Happier.

A faint pinkish haze filled Tanner's eyes and they slowly closed as he started to devour her more eagerly, his hand sliding up, one palm squeezing the base of her tail, finding that she quite enjoyed that, from the happy moan that escaped her muzzle. She bucked her hips slowly against him as the haze grew thicker and thicker. Tanner drew his mouth back, opening his lips and spreading his tongue out, so that more warm, pink juice dripped onto his greedy, greedy tongue.

"Yesssss," Tanner hissed, licking his lips closed.

If asked at that moment, Tanner wasn't sure if he could even remember Charlotte's name.

It became moot as the Drakkon reached down with a clawed palm, cupping the back of his head and grinding his face against her cunt as she hissed and moaned, muffling any thoughts he had with her arousal. "Yes! Yes! Eat me, little broken human. Eat me. I fix. I fixssssssssss!" She hissed in pleasure and her thighs tightened and, once more, Tanner faced suffocation. But this time, his brain was filled with such strange, confusing euphoria that he simply did not care about the squeezing of her thighs as another spurt of her juices drained down his throat. Then she was sliding away, leaving him to lay on his back, her wings fanning out.

"More later," she said, then, with a flash of pink light, she exploded into the form of her massive, flying shape - and swept out of the nest, winging away. Tanner panted, softly, pink fluid dripping down his chin.

"Huh?" he asked, dazed. He sat up.

Wind howled.

"...how the hell do I get down from here?" he whispered.

The uncomfortable truth seemed to be that he wouldn't.

***

The dark passageways beneath the ruins of Rauros were clearly of Chanti construction - they bore all the hallmarks. But most importantly, they were quiet and they were isolated. There was time enough for Zarua to pause, glance back, then shrug as Sari took Charlotte in her arms. In the quiet, she held her and hugged her as Charlotte buried her face against her shoulder. She trembled and wept, and then whispered, softly.

"How can we ever...how can we succeed like this?" She whispered.

"I...I don't know," Sari said. "But...we have the crystal." She nodded, lifting Charlotte's chin with her finger, so that their eyes met in the darkness of the small tunnel. "We have the crystal and we're ahead of the Corpse King. If we can get to the Reliquary and get off this island...we can do it." She stepped back, slightly, since the urge to kiss Charlotte was overpowering...though Sari knew that Rana would say otherwise, Sari would never be so ghoulish as to kiss a girl while she was grieving her fiancee.

The guilt they carried flickered to life for a moment - Sari could see it in the way that Charlotte looked aside.

Sari shook her head slightly. Focusing.

"Lets break this down into steps," she said, quietly. Her hand took Charlotte's and squeezed. "We have to find the Queen and free her and kill Trjokar. I think that most of the orcs here would be glad to see her back, right?" She glanced at Zarua, who nodded slightly. "We do that, and we can get to the Chanti ruins. We get to the Chanti ruins, we can use the Queen's ships to get us home, even if the Drakkon damaged your uncle's ship. We can do it."

Charlotte breathed in, closed her eyes, then nodded.

"We can do it," she said, then sighed out. "We can do it." She put her hand to Sari's cheek, gently. "You're really amazing, Sari. With you, I feel like we can do anything." She said, softly. Then she leaned in. Her mouth almost touched Sari's lips, and the tingling almost contact was nearly enough to make Sari lose control. She drew in a shuddering breath as Charlotte forced herself to take a step backwards. Her cheeks burned. Her hands shook.

"When we get back home, I'll have you knighted," Charlotte said, her voice firm.

"You can do that?" Sari asked, following after her. "For some peasant nobody orphan?"

"I can!" Charlotte said, trying to sound as if she had some of her good humor back. "I'm from the House of the Falcon. The last of their heirs, you know." She smirked, slightly. "In fact, that's why I'm on this expedition in the first place." She said.

"Really?" Sari asked. "I thought it was because Lord Menelag wanted his niece involved in something life threatening and exciting."

She shook her head. "No, no, the Falcon Born are in the anti-prophecy to the Umbral Messiah. So long as I'm health and can bear children, then there's always a chance the Umbral Messiah will be stopped by me. Or my child." She rolled her eyes so obviously that Sari could tell she was doing it from behind. "So many of my tutors were sure it would be my son. I swear I started to learn magic just to spite them."

"Okay, do you two want to shut up now?" Zarua asked - but in a tone of voice that sounded more curious and less irritated. "Because we're almost at the place."

Sari nodded.

Charlotte whispered, softly. "What is the place?" She asked.

Zarua pushed open a stone covering that blocked off the corridor, revealing that it had led to a secret door that opened up into a chamber. The chamber itself was brutal Chanti architecture on a grandiose scale - but it was also intimately familiar to Sari. She had seen one of similar make - but significantly smaller. Rather than merely one pool, this chamber had half a dozen, stretching out under vaulted ceilings that seemed to go off forever. Mist wafted here and there, while the air filled with the sounds of...

Giggles.

Laughs.

Smacking sounds of flesh on flesh, and scampering feet.

The mists parted and Sari gaped.

An orcess, her body ruby red and glistening with moisture, her breasts bared and her nipples tipped with golden wire. A trio of goblin girls, sleek and flat chested, their tails bouncing as they hurried along between the baths. An orcish man, burly and fat, laying back in the pool nearest them, his hairy back on display as he sighed happily. Two orcish girls dressed in very thin towels that clung to their bodies, walking hand in hand, their purple and gray skin glittering with moisture. A goblin male and another goblin male standing near a pile of coals that let out hissing spurts of steam periodically, absolutely casual in their complete nudity as they spoke to one another. The mists swirled back and forth, while Zarua stepped from the secret door, gesturing Sari and Charlotte forward.

The door shut behind them as Charlotte whispered.

"Oh," she said.

"Well, come on, get naked," Zarua said, tugging her own simple breastband off over her head. "We want to blend in."

"W-We...won't the...King?" Sari stammered, not sure what it even was she was trying to articulate.

"King Trjokar's men are thin on the ground down here," Zarua said, casually. "They think its indolence. Once he has more support, he might actually shut it down. Till now, we can get through it fine. If you dress casually." She grabbed onto Sari's tunic and jerkin - which were already feeling overwhelmingly stifling. "Got it?"

Sari slowly looked over at Rana, who was beaming at her with the hugest, most shit eating grin on the entirety of the planet.

"Don't you dare say anything," Sari whispered.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Rana said, while a orc girl with a chubby tummy and breasts the size of Sari's head walked through her body as if it wasn't there.

"Well, Sari?" Charlotte giggled. "When in Rauros..."

And with that, she tugged her top open.

TO BE CONTINUED