The girl gnced between Milith and the scary dy, confusion evident on her face. Milith noticed, but the girl spoke before she could say anything, “Why are you talking with the scary dy like that?”

  “I know she hurt you, but she’s a parasite. There were things I had to know and the woman we see is innocent, the snake within not so much.”

  The receptionist giggled, “That’s one way to look at it. Met other parasites have we?”

  “A few, even some that I wouldn’t recommend removing like the Monari, they bond with their hosts in an interesting fashion. Not to mention their presence is generally beneficial, the Monari are a hundred times smarter than most humanoid species, and have amazing magical abilities.”

  The receptionist blinked, “Damn that’s an impressive brain. I imagine being bonded would be quite intimidating for the host. I can see them developing some kind of inferiority complex.”

  Milith gave her a second look, “oh you have enough empathy to realize that and you still hurt children?”

  “It’s fun! Why wouldn’t I?”

  Milith sighed, as the daughter snake shifted along her skin. It was going to need a proper host soon, she’d have to grow one, but that wouldn’t be too hard. Stepping closer, she said, “That’s cute...” then she kissed the girl. The girl responded, not yet sensing what she was about to do, not before it was too te... the other girl screamed.

  The girl scrunched her face, “Why is she screaming? Didn’t she want the kiss?”

  Milith broke the kiss, “Keep her company, I’m going to go help the others.”

  “She’s mean!”

  “Her parasite is mean, and I dealt with it,” said Milith as she left the room.

  Milith found almost two dozen other girls in the other rooms. Each room was much the same as the one the first girl was in and all of the girls had required a bit of attention. Not surprising since many of them were ter into whatever process this was.

  Stepping into yet another of these rooms, the st one on the level, she sighed as she took in the girl within. Young like many of the others, no needles in her eyes, but they were open at the moment letting her see how red and puffy they were. Milith didn’t even need to ask to know that the girl was currently blind, she’d seen enough victims to know that blinding was normal.

  Her chest was swollen and discolored, the tissue having turned a very ugly shade of purple, her nipples looked especially engorged, the tips engulfing a long barbed needle, while her skin was rather pale. A pair of needles in her thighs were hooked up to a container full of blood, hers most likely. They’d been bleeding her, it seemed.

  Milith noted a rge canister set up by the table, filled with an icky-looking fluid. There were several clear tubes connected to it, then ran into two needles inserted into her neck, four needles inserted into each boob, eight more inserted into her belly, and a final set of six pushed into the soft tissue of her bia. All barbed from the look of it to make removal more difficult. Milith also noted how swollen and discolored her bia were, the same ugly shade as her breasts.

  Just then as she was examining the needlework in preparation to remove it, the lines in her thighs closed, the blood vanishing from the clear tube and almost instantly after a pump activated flooding the other lines instantly with the icky fluid. The girl’s response was immediate.

  She screamed as her veins turned dark. A moment ter her breasts started to swell further, followed by her pussy lips a second ter. Milith had thought she’d been quite swollen down there already, but were they actively forcing the swelling? Why would they do that?

  Milith didn’t know, and didn’t care enough to look into it. Instead she focused on the initial task, working out how the needles were attached. It wasn’t too different from the other setups so with practiced ease she started working them out, starting with the two bleeding needles in her thighs. Getting the others took more time, then she finished with the set piercing her nipples, they were hooked to a different line source, but Milith wasn’t sure what the green fluid in that tube set was for.

  The moment the girl’s restraints were released she sat up, still blind, confused and clearly panicked. Milith swept her into a hug, and just held her. After a while the girl calmed down, enough that she could lead her out to the others. The others happily welcomed her, including the freshly reformed receptionist who seemed rather contrite about her actions while controlled by a parasite. Milith didn’t think she needed to apologize, her actions had not been her own.

  With the girls settled she made her way down to the nursery. Her fly had given her some information on what to expect, and she had a good idea where baby Nikyi was. Assuming she hadn’t been moved, which was a very real possibility. Her little spy hadn’t stayed to watch her after all.

  Stepping into the nursery after extracting another parasite she’d encountered on the way, she looked around. Cribs filled the space from wall to wall, in multiple rows and her ears were assaulted with the distressed cries of numerous babies. She winced as she recalled what the fly had shared with her. Perhaps due to the hour there were few Qayan around, where before there had been quite a few, now she saw only one and the other girl didn’t give her a look on entering.

  Reaching the nearest crib, she looked inside and bnched. This was worse than what the fly had shown her, at least in person. A baby girl y inside with her skin covered with numerous raised welts and bruises, she also had quite the rash. However what drew her attention the most was a long barb extending from the left side of the crib, the long thin barb was piercing the side of the girl’s head just behind the ear. A strange device at one end was spinning rapidly and every three seconds it would crackle before sending a blue energy surge down the barb into her head. Her eyes would spasm each time and she’d let out a tortured wail.

  “What in the Abyss is that for?” she commented to herself.

  A voice commented, “The modutor? Right now it is mapping her pain responses.”

  She turned to the woman that had snuck up on her. She was younger and obviously pregnant, her belly looked ready to pop any day now. Milith gave her a second look, then frowned, “Modutor? Sounds like it's meant to do more than just map.”

  “Sure is! Once it’s got a map, it can start optimizing.” then the girl shifted her stance, “So who let you in? We don’t usually let non-Qayan down in the nursery.”

  Milith grinned, “I let myself in,” then she kissed the other girl. The scream drew the attention of the others, who rushed over to see what was going on. She kissed the first one to arrive, but the second realizing what was up tried to stab her.

  The knife slipped into a void where her flesh had been a second before. Milith giggled, “That won’t work!” then she kissed the second new girl, the spell activating the instant she did. One final girl turned tail trying to run, but a crack of thunder and she crumpled.

  Milith closed on the final girl and gave her a kiss as well. Her magic quickly extracted the parasite and cleansing it. The only downside of this spell was that it required her to kiss her target, but it was very effective.

  With the caretakers dealt with, she turned back to the babies. Returning to the first crib, she sighed, then leaned over the crib to get a better look at the Abyssal tech. Milith didn’t want to rush things, it was hooked up right to her brain and that was never a good thing. Thankfully it wasn’t too hard to find the abort function.

  Pressing the switch, she watched the device stop spinning and almost instantly the girl calmed. Then the barb retracted revealing that it was rather long, far longer than it looked.

  Taking far longer than she would have liked, she moved through the cribs treating each baby as quickly as she could. They would need more attention ter and she was going to have to get them back to their parents, but for now making sure they weren’t in pain and being tortured was the goal.

  Finally reaching the end of the room, she pushed through the doors into what she could only describe as the factory of horrors. It was a location she’d not been looking forward to dealing with at all.

  The pregnant girl she’d kissed followed behind her, Milith addressed her, “So any idea how I get the babies safely out of the nets?”

  She figured she might be able to fly out and cut them out, but that would be awkward. The pregnant girl however had another solution, “Um, yeah the factory keeps the babies until they hit a call button, then a baby is randomly selected and released.” she gestured off to the right, “Controls over that way. Maybe there is a way to get them all out with the controls?”

  “Well beats trying to fly up and cut them out. That would be all sorts of awkward.”

  The girl gnced up, then winced, “Yeah that doesn’t sound very safe.”

  Milith didn’t reply as she made her way to the control station with a little guidance from the young dy she’d saved. Yet she did have to agree it wasn’t safe, she’d be up near the ceiling trying not to hit it with her wings when she fpped, while trying to cut a net with her talons. At the same time, she’d be trying not to cut the babies, and when they came free she’d need to catch them or they’d go spt on the floor. It was all sorts of unsafe, hence why she wanted a safer pn. A knife might have helped, but this control panel sounded quite promising.

  Stepping over to the panel she frowned. It was certainly more advanced than most things she’d seen on Solkira. Various controls dotted the shiny surface, beled in a nguage she wasn’t familiar with. Off to the left were several empty cribs, above which Milith noted several rails leading to directly above them.

  The pregnant girl walked up, and pressed one of the buttons, then pressed a second. Turning she said, “Okay now we wait and those cribs will fill in a couple of minutes.”

  Sure enough five nets came over, and deposited their abused contents in the cribs to the left. Milith gnced at the giant floor and sighed, “this is going to take awhile.”

  Hours ter, after recruiting a few more assistants, she was back on the surface. By now she was more familiar with the Qayan idea of good childcare than she wanted to be. They were deliberately exposing them to rather nasty things, and Milith had spent a good deal of time treating them while her helpers were pulling the babies out of the damn... machines. During that time, she’d also observed the cursed things at work, dropping the babies into aquariums full of pnts, or bugs, or worse those damn jellies.

  Trust an Abyssal to pick particurly nasty ones too, the pnts were a particurly vile strain of stinging nettle, magical the long needles covered the entire leaf and the pnt responded to the thrashing baby by wrapping around it, resulting in a severe painful rash that when left untreated led to raised welts and painful swollen lumps under the skin. It would st for months without treatment as well, and she’d found the Qayan left the exposure untreated, making her job harder.

  Of course it got worse, they were also deliberately exposed to a variety of stinging insects, and biting ants. After exposure they’d been given just enough treatment to ensure they survive, leaving most of the damage intact.

  Naturally, they didn’t leave it at that, the babies were also bathed in concentrated mild and sometimes even toxic acids, which only made the conditions she saw worse.

  Milith let out a breath, the crown jewel of the bad however was the jellies, they were the most vile thing here. Their venom was a very painful paralytic, and she noted numerous issues from untreated exposure.

  “Okay, that is one facility down. What’s next?”

  The girl following her pointed down the road, “There is another nursery that way.” She then pointed the other way, “and over that way is where they experiment with some of the children.”

  “Doing what?”

  AnnouncementSorry for the long dey, I've been distracted but I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. I've got a new chapter in the works for this story, the second part to a chapter that will finish off the abyss arc. I've also started got a new project here on Scribllehub with advanced chapters on Patreon. If you have time check out Shadows of the False God. I think the story came out fairly well.