Tomb of the Merciless Devourer

Tomb of the Merciless Devourer

-- jay japes

Featuring TimeTraxx's Jungle Princess & Sidekick

Adults Only, Strong Sexual Content

1.

Follow the Jungle Princess to a lower, sunken corner of her far flung realm, and if you look close and careful, you might discover a secret structure she calls Spider Castle. It is not actually a castle. It is not much of a structure. The ruin is very ancient, so ancient that all that is left is a heap of stones, mostly obscured by the interwoven bush. A few of the larger blocks have faint inscriptions carved across them. At its tallest, the pile reaches no greater than waist high, and takes no more than a moment to walk around. You will see many spiders around the thing, if you watch for them. Then again, there are spiders all over the jungle.

"It certainly doesn't look like much," said Simon Poole. He was a wildlife photographer in his twenties with mirrored sunglasses, a dark leather jacket, a ponytail and a stubble.

"Looks can be deceiving," his sister replied, "We're on the verge of a major discovery here. I just know we are! I can feel it!" Sharon Poole was an archaeology student, slightly younger than her brother, but blonde like him and their kinship was clear in their features. She was pretty and she was short and she was excitable. Over-enthusiastic. She bounced up and down on her toes and fiddled with the straps of her back pack and her glasses. They weren't sunglasses, like Simon's. They were clunky scientist glasses. The lenses magnified her eyes. She wore an off-the-rack safari outfit with lowtop hiking shoes and bright yellow knee socks, pulled as high as they could stretch. She was a little unhappy with the shorts she'd chosen—they'd turned out shorter than she'd thought and too tight besides, so the damn things kept riding up on her. Her hair was braided and coiled neatly on top her head, with a pencil stuck sideways through the bun. As a precaution, she carried a small revolver, holstered at her side. Simon had made fun of her for bringing it.

"Well," he said, "I guess now we find out how crazy you are."

"Or not," she insisted.

"Or not." He turned to their guides. "Now show us the stone with the hand on it, if there is such a thing."

"There is, just as we promised." Sidekick pointed to the left. "It's just over this way." Then she took him by the hand and pulled him after her.

Their other guide, the Jungle Princess herself, crossed her arms and sniffed. She tossed her head like a skittish horse, making her hair fly behind her. "I still have very grave doubts," she announced in her prim manner. "It may have been mistaken to bring you to this place."

"I'm grateful for it, in any case," said Sharon and hurried after her brother. She had a feeling what was really bothering the so-called Jungle Princess was Sidekick's growing interest in Simon.

"There are eerie whispers in the wind," said the Jungle Princess, hunkering down a bit and putting her hand on the knife in her belt, "Can you not hear their mournful warnings?" Only then did she realize she was talking to herself. Sharon and the others had moved completely out of sight through the trees. The Jungle Princess straightened her stance, harrumphed and scratched her nose. She kicked a pebble in the dirt and hurt her toe. "Owee! Crap!" At least no one saw her hopping around on one leg afterward.

2.

"Why on Earth do you let her call you Sidekick?" Simon asked the dark haired girl. He hadn't dared to bring up the matter in front of the Jungle Princess.

Sidekick blushed and took her hand away from him. Made him feel like a jerk. Haltingly, she said: "My real name is ... is ... a great secret." He sensed she might have just made up that shit on the spot. Maybe not, though. Couldn't tell for sure. This girl could be tricky to read.

"Oh? A great secret, huh. Gosh. Why is that?"

"T-that is also secret."

"Oh, yes. Of course. Should have realized. Um. But still. Why just Sidekick? Seems a bit demeaning, if you'll pardon for me for saying so."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "A shaman told me, in a previous life, I was unkind and arrogant. Now I atone."

"By putting up with her. I see. Yes, that's bound to do it. Certainly quite an atonement."

"You must not presume to judge her, Man of the Larger World." Silly as it was, it gave him a nice little zing every time she addressed them that way. "The Jungle Princess follows a higher calling, and I follow her. It is our fate. It is our duty. We must protect our land."

But it's not really your land, you know. Don't you? Simon didn't say those things out loud.

The realm of the Jungle Princess was actually a wildlife preserve, a big natural park. Only a few very small indigenous tribes were legally entitled to live inside it. Obviously the Jungle Princess didn't see things that way. Simon was still unclear why the local government tolerated or ignored her, as they seemed to do. It might have been that she did a better job against poachers than they'd ever managed, at least according to some sources. Others contradicted those, claiming she made no significant impact. What other reason might explain it? Perhaps her growing legend had become a boost to tourism.

He wondered where Sidekick originated from. An equally intriquing puzzle. She looked a little Asian, possibly. He wasn't certain. Couldn't narrow it down any more specifically. Her accent, unlike the Jungle Princess, seemed British, kind of. Closer to that than anything else he was familiar with. In contrast, the Jungle Princess talked the exact same as a Midwest sorority girl. Maybe Sidekick was of mixed descent. Maybe not. It didn't really make a difference. She was super cute, wherever she came from. He liked the shy, somewhat sad quality she had. Simon also liked the headband she always wore, the way it made her hair frame her face, and then there were those funny boots of her that weren't really boots. They didn't cover her heels or her pretty toes. He thought they were called buskins, if he remembered right. He could have looked it up on his phone if the signal was any good out there, but it was not. The Jungle Princess didn't wear them; she just went entirely barefoot all the time. Somehow it didn't seem to have callused up her tootsies as much as you'd expect.

He wasn't fond of the Jungle Princess's brash bossiness. That girl always demanded to be the center of attention. It was a shame Sidekick let her get away with her cocky horseshit all the time. But the absolute worst thing about the Jungle Princess was how goddamn smoking hot she was. Personality wise, she was a real piece of work. Not at all likable, and not very bright either, and neither of those facts prevented you from being attracted to her. Not fair. As drawn as he was to Sidekick, Simon knew if the Jungle Princess decided on a whim to crook her finger at him, he'd let the smug smirking bitch lead him into the bushes without a moment's hesitation. He'd do anything she told him to with no argument. Wouldn't mean he hated her any less or that he wouldn't still want to hook up with Sidekick. It was just this goddamn Jungle Princess had a body that was too perfect to deny, whatever the circumstances. Actually it wasn't just her body. It was something more. Something in her face, something in her nature. Like a magical aura. It was almost sickening, how captivating she was. She wasn't nice or smart or funny. She was arrogant and bossy and deluded. Perhaps rather seriously. Simon wasn't sure about that part; she might actually have some kind of bizarre mental condition that made her live the way she did in the middle of a jungle like a character from some comic book or a trashy old B movie. None of those facts protected you from falling under her spell. She just radiated sexiness in every direction, and that radiation was lethal. If a guy stood too close for her longer than a couple minutes, he'd fall down on his face in the dirt. And of course she acted entirely oblivious to it, all that raw power she had.

Simon kept his distance from her as much as he could. He didn't talk to her if he could help it, just to Sidekick. Tried not to ever even let himself look directly at her. Last time he did, the afternoon before, Jesus Christ ... a breeze happened to blow by, and for a split second it had made the front flap of the Jungle Princess's loincloth sweep up to the side. She had nothing else beneath it. Normally a loincloth has cloth cupping the crotch. Hers did not. It was just a pair of loose flaps suspended separately from strings around her hips, one shielding her snatch and the other covering her ass crack, but only so long as it didn't jostle around too much, or get nudged aside by the fucking wind! So right there, without meaning to, with no preparation, he found himself gazing at her pussy.

The image was burned into his memory vivid enough he could almost count the hairs on it, if he wanted to.

That night in his tent he'd jerked off with that picture in his head. He'd done it twice, in fact, before he could get to sleep. Even if he hadn't glimpsed her pussy, it probably would have been the same. He could have got himself off thinking just of her ears or her ankles. It was altogether horrible.

"Here is the stone you want," Sidekick said, crouching down (she was careful to keep her knees together and hold the flap of her loincloth as she did). Simon and Sharon hunkered on the other side of it. This stone lay apart from the rest of the pile, flat to the ground, half-sunk into it. A large hand was carved into the top, fingers spread wide. It was a skeleton hand; Simon hadn't realized it was gonna look like that. If Sharon had mentioned that detail before, he'd missed it. She didn't seem surprised. She was jubilant.

"This is it. Just like the book said. Help me pry it up."

"There's no way we can shift this block," said Simon, "It's much too heavy. We'll need tools. We'll need to dig under it and—"

"Ha!" Sharon exclaimed, "Teach you to doubt me."

All by herself, she made the stone flip aside, revealing a stairway.

"We will need torches," said Sidekick.

"No, these are better." Sharon handed out flashlights from her bag.

The Jungle Princess had at last ambled up behind them, craning her neck to peer down the hole. "What have you found?"

"Let's go down and see!"

3.

The stairway twisted and twisted, then deposited them into quite a massive cavern, split in half by a fast moving stream with a narrow bridge arching across. On the far side awaited a sarcophagus. It was ringed with several thick columns, and atop each crouched a stone lioness.

"Wow," said Simon, taking photos every direction. "You were really on to something, sis. Can you translate the inscriptions?"

"Easy," she answered, "It's only two words. They read 'Doom' and 'Death', over and over. Come on now! Help me with this lid."

"Wait," said the Jungle Princess, "You should not disturb the box. Take heed of the words!"

"There's nothing to be afraid of," said Sharon, "Warnings of that sort are quite common across cultures."

The Jungle Princess was not convinced. "I should not allow you to do this." Even so, she didn't stop them. She didn't assist either. Simon thought she just wanted to keep her hands from getting dirty, helping with the lid.

A skeleton was uncovered. He wore a green crown, very crude looking and corroded. He was also encircled with chains, and there was a wide blade thrust through his rib cage.

"What sort of weapon is that?" Sharon asked, mainly talking to herself. "Is it a sword or more like a spear? It looks as if it's made of crystal."

"It catches the light strangely," Sidekick remarked.

The crystal blade seemed to have begun glowing inside. The glow was purple and it swirled as it strengthened. Simon couldn't think how the beams of their flashlights could have created that color or the patterns of motion. He assumed the facets of the crystal were splitting up the light and bouncing it around somehow but gosh, it was eerie. It looked alive.

Sharon reached for the weapon's handle.

"Don't!" Sidekick said, and caught her wrist.

Sharon giggled and tried to shake her off. "Just what do you imagine is about to happen?"

And that was when the stone lionesses came to life and pounced from their columns.

4.

The Jungle Princess ran for the stairs with one of the monsters hot on her heels. As she was going over the bridge, at its highest point she glanced over her shoulder to try seeing where the rest of the group had got. And then, like an idiot, she tripped and fell off the bridge, splashing face first into the ice-cold stream. The stone lioness dived in right after her, closing its jaws around her ankle.

She was lucky, though. She happened to be wearing a beaded ankle bracelet that day. The teeth of the monster snagged on the bulbous beads, instead of piercing into her flesh. Then the Jungle Princess was able to slip her foot from the anklet and free herself. The lioness sank to the bottom of the stream. It would have taken her with it, if it could, but its chance was past. It flailed its paws; that made no difference. The thing could no longer pursue her or save itself; it was too heavy.

"Ha!" thought the Jungle Princess, and then she kicked for the surface. Took longer to reach than she'd expected. When she broke through finally, gasping and sputtering, she found herself in absolute darkness. The speedy current of the stream had already swept her along a considerable distance through the caves. Blind as she was, she would have to find the shore and then follow it back to the others. If any still survived.

Of course there was no point worrying about that until she got herself out of the water. Which was going to be hard. When her groping fingertips found the side of the stream, the rock turned out too smooth and slippery for her to catch hold of. And all the while the current was dragging her further and further along. On top of that, she was very cold. Beginning to shiver all over, her teeth started chattering. Now, already, her hands and feet were turning numb. Her annoyance and frustration shifted very suddenly into fear. Soon that increased to outright terror.

What if she couldn't get herself out? Could this be the ignominious end of the Jungle Princess?

5.

Sharon didn't run like everyone else. She wasn't gonna let anything chase her away from her discovery. Turned out bringing her little revolver hadn't been foolish. She pulled it out and blasted away at the attackers, shattering their stone heads. In just a few seconds, she'd destroyed every lioness and eliminated the threat. Quite a thrill, actually.

Cost all her bullets, though. She'd used up every one. Her spare ammunition was all still in the box she'd bought it in, back in her tent at their camp, a full day's hike away. But it was all right. The monsters were vanquished. They were safe again, surely. Time to get back to business.

She reached once more for the glowing crystal spear. Later on she would wonder if she'd been thinking clearly. Maybe she'd been in shock, a little bit. Maybe something else had taken hold of her. She hadn't reacted to the strangeness of the lions as strongly as she should have. Statues aren't supposed to come to life. Sharon should have freaked out more about it. Instead all she could think of was getting her hands on the spear.

Her brother shouted, "Wait, Sharon! Hold on a second!"

She didn't.

She seized the thing and a buzz raced up her arms. Still, it was a pleasant buzz. She grit her teeth, planted one booted foot and the rim of the box, and with a heave, pulled out the spear. There was a flash and a crack of thunder. The whole cavern shook. Half the columns around them toppled over, and the ones that didn't fall still got scary cracks across them. Her brother was almost squished under one of the goddamn things, but thankfully Sidekick reacted quick enough to pull his ass out of the way.

"Hey, where's the Jungle Princess?" Simon asked. "I don't see the crazy bitch anywhere!"

Sidekick punched his arm. "Don't disrespect her like that!"

"I'm sorry, I'm just ... worried. What if another pillar landed on her?"

Sidekick shook her head. "She was chased by a lioness across the stream. She'll come back to us after she's dealt with it."

"Dealt with it? How the fuck is she gonna manage that?"

Sidekick only shrugged with exasperating coolness.

Then his sister shrieked. "Simon, look at the body! Look at the body!"

Holy crap! The skeleton in the sarcophagus had sat up, shaking off his chains, which fell to pieces on the floor around him. Simon couldn't tell if the creature had broken them or if they'd fallen apart like that just from age. He realized his mind had centered on that trivial question rather than grapple with the reality of a reanimated corpse.

Who now stood tall, adjusting his crown. Smoke whirled around him and new flesh took shape over his bones. In just a few seconds, his body was entirely restored. He had shiny golden skin. No hair. His facial features did not appear African. He reminded Simon, of all people, of fucking Jared Leto. Except bald and much bulkier. And, well, golden. So shiny in fact that Simon could see his own gawking face reflected on the torso, with Sidekick's beside him.

Because the man had nothing on except his ugly crown, it was very difficult not to stare at his junk. Especially when he stepped out of his sarcophagus and made it sway. This fucker was ridiculously well endowed. But then, he would be, wouldn't he? Guy rebuilds his body after untold thousands of years, he's gonna make sure he ends up nicely equipped.

"Behold," he declared, "I return to claim the world!" He did not speak English; the sounds he made reminded Simon very much of Jabba from Star Wars. Somehow, regardless, they all understood the words inside their heads.

"Who are you?" Sharon asked.

He did a double-take. "How can you not know, you who have set me free? Did you act in ignorance? Poor fools. Abase yourselves before me! I am the Merciless Devourer!"

Simon didn't realize Sharon's gun was empty. "Shoot him! Shoot him! Just shoot this asshole!"

"I can't," she said, weeping, "I used all my bullets on the lion monsters."

"They were guardians," said Sidekick, "They were meant to prevent this from happening."

Simon snorted. "Why the fuck was it so fucking easy for us to come down here? Why didn't anybody put a proper lock on the fucking door?"

Sidekick gave him another of her fatalistic shrugs. "Perhaps it was a test. And we have failed."

Since he couldn't think of anything else to try, Simon scooped up a couple big chunks of rock from the ground and chucked them at the Merciless Devourer as hard as he could, aiming for his face. "Devour this, asshole!"

The demon laughed, very fucking pompous, and snapped his fingers. The rocks dissolved to powder while they were still flying through the air. Then the broken chains scattered on the floor all came to life, rearing up like tentacles or serpents. Busted and corroded as they were, some lengthy segments remained. Three separate pieces raced across the floor toward each of them.

Simon said "Fuck with this" and tried to run. Sharon tried to kick and stomp on hers. Sidekick just sighed and hung her head, putting up no resistance as her piece of chain slithered up around her legs and then trapped her arms against her sides.

Simon's chain tripped him from behind, then coiled around him as he struggled swearing on the floor. Sharon did succeed in fending off her chain, but then when she backed against one of the surviving columns, another chain took her by surprise, whipping around from its other side. It didn't catch her arms or legs, but nonetheless looped her tight beneath her breasts and pinned her to the pillar. "Oh Christ! He's got me! He's got all of us!"