Markus.

  Eyes wide with looming terror, the young man crawled backward, pushing against the cavern wall as a chunk of stone nded to the left of his knee, sparking the young man into motion!

  He quickly cast a 'mage barrier' on himself, straining with the focus needed for the spell as he felt chunks of stone rain down around him, some bouncing off his arcane shell while others merely crunched against the stone floor.

  "What the fuck is happening?" He cried out, almost as if someone might actually hear him, Markus gritting his teeth, even as the quakes subsided, breaths coming heavy and letting his shield fall.

  It took immense concentration and no small amount of mana to maintain, which made the ability both awkwardly rigid and immensely situational. Still, he was alive! And while he wasn't terribly excited by the prospect of more tremors, for the moment, he was at least relieved.

  That was when a strange object bloomed to life with light! The sudden cascade of radiance caused him to squint and shy away, even as the small glittering form resolved itself into a tumbling scroll that nded right in his p.

  Markus blinked, momentarily caught off guard, staring at the outright aberration that had just plummeted onto his person with equal parts suspicion and mistrust.

  S-still, given he wasn't dead, dying, or burning alive from its contact, he hazarded a hesitant grasp of its rolled parchment, carefully, very carefully, unraveling its weatherworn bundle so he might peer at what it was.

  The dungeon had undoubtedly been acting strangely, but now, things were clearly escating.

  Worse? What Markus was greeted with was something that could be called--absurdly expensive.

  It was a 'home scroll'. It was a very potent bit of enchanted spellwork that was practically considered a mandatory necessity for those delving into wild dungeons or, at least, for those who valued their lives.

  While absurdly expensive, scrolls such as these could and would save your life. And with but a thought towards its activation, the spell inscribed upon the parchment would spirit its wielder away, sending them tumbling through the void and back to wherever the magic was intended to return its user.

  Most often, this was a specified location within the local guild chapterhouse, within an equally specified room where waiting medical practitioners were on standby to provide life-saving aid for a not-so-nominal fee.

  The thing was, Markus had never known a dungeon to bestow such a pinly man-made invention onto those who delved into it. Partially, or so he assumed, because it served as an antithesis to their very nature by way of letting their prey flee. But also because he very much doubted that anyone would trust using a teleportation scroll made by something that wanted to eat you.

  Thus, the young man was somewhat perplexed and immensely suspicious of what he was currently holding, his opinions on the matter not at all made any better by the rge red and handwritten note scrawled almost hastily across its top.

  "Use me."

  Oh, heck no! Markus wasn't about to activate any form of magical object the dungeon gave him, regardless of how generous it was being! And certainly not after he read the absurd note attached to it.

  If anything, Markus was feeling rather inclined to simply get up and start running for the exit.

  That was when a second scroll fell, this time dropping on his head in an almost deliberate manner meant to possibly annoy him. Scowling, he still unraveled it, far too curious for his own good, and on it, unsurprisingly, was another message.

  "Don't be a pansy; just do it! Signed: Your monster GF."

  The young man's heart nearly came to a screaming halt, his eyes bulging a fraction as he stared at the letter, the small organ starting to pick up considerable pace!

  W-was this, could it be? Was she actually trying to contact him and meet?

  It would certainly expin the unsolicited 'home scroll' though; if the woman had wanted to talk with him, why wouldn't she have done so outside, where she could presumably track him down?

  A second thought arose a moment ter, in which he considered that she may have tried, but given how much time he had spent in the dungeon as of te, she couldn't find him or possibly couldn't find a workable moment when he was alone.

  He still had his own room, so she likely could have just waited for him.

  That said, maybe she had obligations to the dungeon and wasn't allowed to leave?

  Oh, Markus had no idea how any of this was supposed to work, but he couldn't really deny that the message was--well, personalized...

  Clearly, it was meant for him to receive. And like as not, it had only been sent because the other had already departed. It didn't expin what, by all the god's names, the tremors had been about, but did he—ugh…

  Could he really bring himself to turn his nose up at the chance to meet with her again?

  For several moments, Markus agonized over that idea, weighing the pros and cons of it all like some merchant pnning a new enterprise.

  "On one hand, we get to umm—well, we get to see her again!" Markus enthused, fingers curling around the scroll even as he spoke. "On the other, we get teleported into a vat of acid and turned into vapor, all at the hands of the dungeon, and for its presumed amusement."

  At this point, Markus was reasonably sure that the Taeldrian dungeon was, if not already awake, then very much in the process of it.

  This meant that it had at least some form of mild sentience, the scope and limitations of which were rather broad and specutive from a strictly academically inclined standpoint.

  He'd read many books expining, in no small detail, how the concept of dungeon sapience was not just frankly absurd but so asinine that any who might cim as such should be forced to subject themselves to invasive research upon their clearly broken and horribly confused minds.

  Yet, by contrast, nearly just as many shouted their own opinions on the matter via ink and paper, ciming that the unenlightened simians they didn't precisely disagree with if only because to do so would validate what they saw as the thoughtless drivel of monkeys; found the entire idea that dungeons weren't intelligent to be utter hogwash and insulting besides.

  Honestly, if you wanted to piss a room full of schors off with one singur question and potentially watch an entire library burn down from the issuing conflict, you merely had to loudly procim one side of the argument or another.

  Markus had heard it was actually so bad that in most pces of learning, the debate of dungeons was outright banned and relegated to confined and dedicated spaces where nothing valuable could be destroyed.

  It made many professor's jobs rather tricky when it came to that sort of thing, his own having danced around the subject when it had inevitably been asked.

  Offering a subsequent warning that if the comedian who'd prodded him, that if he wished to know more, then he should sit in on one of the scheduled and known to be somewhat dangerous debates and let himself formute his own opinions on the matter.

  As for his current predicament, Markus found that he was rather torn over what he should do.

  Still, his heart, the far louder and, more importantly, allied partner of his lower half, won out against his mind's cynical defense against the tide of justifications it was downed by.

  The truth of the matter was that Markus desperately wanted to meet with the strange girl again... and what was a little danger when his possible—ummm, well, ‘significant other’ didn't quite match up, but a potential lover?

  Whatever. What was a little danger when posed against his desire to be intimate with a shapeshifting maneater that had, by her own admission, come within a finger's breadth of already eating him?

  It was insane!

  It was honestly pretty confusing.

  And yet, Markus couldn't really deny what he felt, what he—shamefully lusted after.

  It was distressingly embarrassing to recall how many nights he'd sat alone in bed while touching himself to nearly every aspect he could remember of the nightmare. Words, teasings, monstrous body... it didn't matter which part of her appeared, only that she did.

  Thus, accepting that he'd already chosen what to do, Markus took the first scroll in his hand and slipped a modicum of his magic into the activation rune.

  The young man found himself enveloped in a momentary twisting of reality, the world slipping away like splotches and runny paint as that st moment of his awareness was a snapshot and held in pce, rapidly distorting before a new image was superimposed upon the st.

  Suddenly, he was blinking again, his mind struggling to keep up with the shift in spacetime.

  He almost fell over, even though he was seated, Markus needing to reach out with his hands and steady himself on the floor as that not-so-familiar disorientation made his head spin without end.

  Markus hated teleportation!

  Not only was it not fun, but it was wildly dangerous for those who didn't know what they were doing!

  Obviously, the mere existence of a home scroll implied the destination was already set; however, there were plenty of stories one could read about all the various ways that improper spellwork could result in one's gruesome demise.

  And when dealing with spacial magic, the odds of something terrible occurring were consistently higher than one expected!

  Only the true masters of the arcane arts messed around with space and time, and even then, they often chose to ignore it rather than becoming yet another statistic.

  Fighting back the urge to vomit, a sharp and mewling cry and subsequent whimper of despair immediately took Markus right to the height of concern!

  Had that been a woman that he'd just heard?

  "Mmmmhhhhmm Mmmmfffhmm!"

  Oh, oh dear, but that wasn't precisely what he’d name ‘terror and misery’ that he was hearing, now was it?

  All of a sudden, Markus felt his ears burning with embarrassment. And while he hadn't directly partaken in an activity that might elicit such a sound, one merely had to exist within adult society to have heard the sounds of a woman's moaning pleasure...

  Oh god, what was he about to find around the corner?

  Idly, Markus began fidgeting with his hands, unsure if he should—leave or stay or head towards the utterly sacious sounds arriving down the cavern and from just around the bend, but.

  "Mmmmmph! Mhmhm, mmhmm... MHHHMMM!"

  Something twitched beneath the young man's robes, something that had him utterly mortified!

  Worse, he felt like a genuine lecher just standing there, creepily listening in on the muffled wails of pleasure that had his face bright red as a cherry tomato!

  Maybe he should leave, c-clearly, there was already something going on, and he—

  No!

  W-whatever was happening around the corner was, well, hadn't he been invited? Didn't he get the scroll that had not just told him who sent it but that had also teleported him right to their doorstep?

  Markus, he—he couldn't leave, could he? Mmhmm, if he did that, he just knew he'd regret it, possibly for the rest of his life.

  Yet, what would he do if there was more than just the monster waiting for him? It was already so hard with just her alone, but if there were to be others, then...

  Ugh, he'd have really preferred if this was a more private affair!

  B-but, beggars couldn't be choosers, and if he tried to leave now, would he ever be given the opportunity in the future?

  Marshaling his courage, Markus swallowed deeply before running his hands through his hair to comb it the best he could.

  Squaring his shoulders and exhaling deeply, he put one foot in front of the other and headed around the bend.

  Without question, Markus could have taken a few educated guesses towards what it was he might find. And yet, the actual reality of what he found himself confronted with had him outright freezing solid with paralyzing panic born of his own assumptions!

  Seated at a modest wooden table, her bare feet kicked up and bobbing to a tuneless song, was a strikingly beautiful young woman with long golden hair, bright blue eyes, and the most angelic and pure features he'd ever seen.

  Everything, from her serene and rexed expression, to the almost supernatural radiance of her hair, even right down to the soft and healthy glow of her toes, all of it was shockingly devastating.

  The slight twitch of her long and snowy ears gave away the question of her heritage as if her ethereal beauty hadn't already alluded to the woman's possession of fey and magical blood.

  And, when her captivatingly innocent and pure gaze fell upon him, vivid eyes rising from the book she was reading to regard him with momentarily piqued interest, it was all Markus could do not to feel small and unworthy in her presence.

  Yet, there was much more to the scene than the presence of what one might be able to rightly herald as a true beauty of the age.

  And while the elven woman was enchanting to the point of bewitchment, her effect on him was somewhat combated by the sheer absurdity of what was happening.

  While the elf was sitting at the table, kicking her feet and clearly enjoying a good read, her free hand was lifted up and raised slightly in the air, a sort of silken glove snugly fitting across each finger, from which sparkling strands of—something glittered in the roaring firelight.

  What was stranger was what was happening to her immediate right, or Markus' right and her left.

  Yes, while the elven woman was spellbinding to behold and would doubtless make her way into his fantasies for the rest of his life, it was the existence of yet another individual in the room that captured his attention and held it there, unwilling to let go.

  There was, what Markus thought, looked to be a human girl that was hanging from a cocoon of bright white spider silk.

  The woman in question was reasonably tall, with rather exotic and attractive features.

  Grey eyes, bck hair, a slight dusting of freckles that were just barely visible against skin that was shaded in a manner not typical to those who called the city home.

  He'd, of course, seen others with simir tanning and pigmentation to go along with eyes that could be called almond-shaped, but they were few and far between amidst the old imperium's fractured states.

  Instead, it was much more common, or so he understood, to run into such individuals the nearer one got to the western archipego and the merchant kingdoms that ruled the seas without equal.

  Yet, just as the elf, the woman who found herself bound, gagged, and copiously drooling from her bindings, was an undeniable standout among her people.

  One who possessed a decided cuteness about her more rounded facial features.

  Bizarrely, while the woman who was cocooned didn't seem at all surprised that he'd just walked around the corner, her counterpart found her brows rising ever higher with each passing second.

  "Markus?" She half asked, half demanded, a brilliant gaze narrowing a half second ter as her gcial attention gently drifted to the bound girl not far away. "Abby..." She muttered a moment ter…

  The gears in her mind were moving so quickly she might have even understood what was going on before his next breath, an entire conversation's worth of expressions briefly flitting across her face.

  "A-apologies for interrupting!" Markus squeaked, now fully taking in the situation…

  The copious amounts of sticky fluids that dripped from the bound girl.

  The puddle of her excitement that was already pooling across the floor.

  The modest and perky but mortifyingly exposed breasts that, oh boy, looked as though they were cmped and being tugged on by the nipples, all by what appeared to be more glittering thread…

  Steam might very well have started billowing from his ears as, with the flick of a finger, the cocooned girl squealed with delighted agony!

  Her already straining breasts found themselves truly tugged upon as they each stretched up and away from her, the entire cocoon shivering and shaking with the debaucherous depravity of it all...

  He made to turn, now understanding this was a bit more intense than he bargained for, but didn't manage a step as a much more familiar voice called out…

  His mind fshing back to the moments when a massive hobgoblin had seated him down and very nearly devoured his still-beating heart.

  "Don't you dare leave. Not until someone tells me what's going on."

  As much as he was embarrassed, that utterly brutish and distressingly attractive accent had his legs locking right up, regardless of what their owner was telling them to do!

  The damned traitors even turned him right back around, forcing Markus to confront the absurd situation with little more than the stern and heart-thumping command of his 'monster girlfriend...'

  "Abby..."

  "Mmmmhmm?"

  "Why is Markus here? I'm pretty sure I told you I would find him when I was ready."

  "Mmmmhm, mhmm—HMHMMM!" The girl's moaning voice hit a screeching crescendo as, with but a second flick of a different finger, the bound woman began crying and moaning with ecstasy!

  Her cocoon shaking violently from side to side, even as the elf grinned with momentary malice, abruptly clenching her fist and causing the other girl to let out a sharp, nearly inaudible keening.

  Things got so much worse when Markus felt the telltale rumble of the dungeon as it trembled as if to match the tied-up woman's ecstasy!

  He could hear more stones dropping in the distance, even as the girl let out a genuinely abhorrent wail of delight, her eyes rolling into the back of her head while the cocoon simply started vibrating back and forth with tiny little jitters.

  "Ugh, you've been a bad girl Abby... And I'm not going to bother cutting you down, so if you don't get your little pixie butt down here right now, that's the st taste of our pytime together, no matter how much you beg for it."

  "Mmhmmmhmmm!"

  Markus really wasn't sure if the girl's reply was a whine or some unintelligible attempt at confirmation; however, after a brief moment, there was a fsh in the air before a genuine anomaly appeared before them.

  This was significant for any number of reasons, chief among them being that, outside of the actual and now extinct elven societies.

  Not, of course, to be confused with those more commonly referred to as ‘elves,’ but who were, in point of fact, 'demi-humans.’

  No, pixies were naught but stories.

  It was said that, for every elf, there was a pixie and that the two species were not just symbiotic with each other but actually bonded.

  When the true elves died out, back before the desotion, so did the pixies. And while it was documented that true elven blood never diluted, hence the astonishing resurgence of their lineage, that crucial missing half, once watered down by humanity, seemed to be the very same that had once brought their fey kin with them into the world.

  To see a pixie was, as it happened, not said to be good luck but rather, great misfortune as the tricksters were far from friendly with those without the touch of fey.

  And yet, research showed that one of the many forms that 'dungeons' were known to appear as, were pixies.

  This possibly meant that Markus was looking at a genuine full-blood elf—or that he might very well be now confronted with the avatar of an authentic being of true power.

  Yet, ughably, this mythical creature, once descending from the air to hover shamefully and demurely before the golden-haired beauty, not only shared many of her features with the bound woman in the cocoon but could even be said to look bashful and embarrassed as she floated before her possible mistress.

  Awaiting some form of judgment that, though it sounded outright depraved, might very well have exited the tiny girl just a little too much.

  "Why is Makus here?" The monster asked, or elf, or hobgoblin, human—hmm, it was getting hard to keep track.

  Maybe just a shapeshifter? No, it wasn't quite familiar enough, given their retionship.

  For her part, the pixie appeared to grind her little legs together while floating, tiny wings fluttering with wild abandon, her voice sounding right on the verge of whimpering, even as she spoke. "I thought it was a good time to bring him in on things..."

  "To bring him in? Hmph! Abby, I thought we agreed we'd leave him out of all this?"

  "I'm not going to hurt him! I—actually, have been kind of sort of already using him for—you know, the pn."

  The elf simply rolled her eyes, shaking her golden head with a genuinely exasperated sigh of exhaustion... "Do I even want to know?"

  "It's nothing bad! I've been helping him! W-well, him and his team. I just sort of thought, after I got Connor on board and sent him out to go do his thing, that I'd need a kind of second angle to make sure people were chill with what I'm doing!

  “S-so," The girl quickly added, seeing how the elf's eyes were narrowing with each passing breath, "I decided, who better than someone who is already kind of involved! You know, shower him with a bunch of cool stuff so he becomes super popur and a kind of idol, then, I was going to lead them to my new floor and have them show everyone how amazing the loot was—oh fuck!"

  The nervous rambling that arose from the pixie as she blurted out her pn was only accented by the growl that escaped the elf.

  Then, the tiny woman screamed at the top of her lungs, body plucked from the sky and held aloft, even as the other woman began rapidly flicking the fingers of her gloved hand, the trapped human and fey both screeching out in maddened euphoria, voices converging as one.

  "I can't believe you'd pull this shit! Seriously," The elf scoffed, not actually sounding that angry as she continued to coax twin shrieking wails of orgasmic bliss from the doppelgangers, a genuinely terrifying tremor rocking the very foundations of stone beneath their feet.

  "I said there was one person I didn't want to have all mixed up in this mess, and you go and involve him anyways, right behind my back!"

  "I-if you're talking about me, t-then, she's just been sort of making me and my team extremely—well, rich." Markus piped up, trying to project and sound confident and assured.

  But truth be told, there was a lot of—stimution for his straining erection that wasn't at all making this easy for him.

  "Oh, don't worry; I know this looks like a punishment, but she's actually a fairly repressed but very freaky little sub…." The elf chuckled, waving his concerns away. "This is honestly more of a reward than anything else, but it makes me feel better by doing it, so who cares?"

  So saying, the girl grinned at him, offering a full-mouth glimpse of a somewhat familiar array of gleaming and savagely sharp teeth that immediately put Markus in familiar waters.

  How such a predatory sight could possibly console his warring confusion was, perhaps, just a slight glimpse behind the curtains of precisely what this woman had done to his psyche.

  "Now." The monster continued, her expression twisting with delighted insanity. "For your penance, you're going to sit and watch whatever comes next, and I swear, if you vanish or try to disappear without my permission, I won't y a finger on you for an entire month."

  "But that's not—" The pixie mewled, all but rubbing her entire body against the hand that held her, the woman's rger and human form writhing to match her movements as her captor approached the cocoon.

  "Oh, I never said you couldn't touch yourself!" The elf smirked, reaching down to start working on the more private regions of the woman she had bound.

  Markus had to look away; too improper was the brazen hedonism before him that, even when he did crack one of his eyes to watch, it was only through a small slit that he stared on in fascination.

  The elf pushed the petite pixie onto her human counterpart's dripping lower lips, then, through a process he couldn't quite catch, the elf secured the small fey girl in more webbings, in effect, binding the pixies face and body to the human's nethers.

  There was a truly unrestrained moan of erotic depravity that tried to escape the bound human's lips, her eyes so wide and surprised yet filled with lust and carnal fervor that Markus honestly couldn't tell if she was horrified, in love, or simply a raging pervert...

  "Okay, remember, no moving until I come back for you—assuming I don't forget." The elf whispered, gently caressing the bound woman's cheek, who desperately tried to push into her touch with all the adoration of a lovestruck puppy.

  Then, she turned, seemingly finished with her saciously horrific artwork, sucking her fingers of any lingering fluids before staring at Markus with her full attention. "Well, clearly you're involved now, so—I guess, congratutions! You found me—again…"

  "W-were you not going to let me?" Markus demanded something wrapping around his heart and twisting like the cold hand of death was trying to reap his soul for the afterlife.

  "I—mmmhhhm, Markus, look..." The monster began heading his way, even as watery tears began threatening his gaze.

  She hesitated once closing the distance, seeing his utterly shattered expression before she sighed, running a hand through her hair as she did so. "You're a—good kid. And, honestly, I sort of felt bad about what I did, which is crazy considering all the fucked up shit I've gotten up to but whatever, I still felt a bit guilty. Probably something mentally weird to do with my ex, but it really doesn't matter."

  She reached out, pcing a delicate hand on his shoulder as Markus lunged forward, desperate that the brutal truth waiting right behind her next words wouldn't come to pass.

  He shoved himself into her chest, arms wrapping around her while wishing it would all go away, that he wasn't about to hear something that would only have appeared in his very worst nightmares after their second meeting.

  "Fuck—don't cry..."

  "You're breaking up with me!"

  "We weren't ever! Jesus fucking christ. Seriously? Do you really understand what it is you're chasing after?

  “I'm a completely psychotic bitch! And I fucking love it. I'm also a cannibalistic monster! I squished one of your friend's heads right before your eyes.

  “I've killed and tortured so many people I can't even keep track! Eating most of them all, of course, stealing their possessions, dreaming of hunting down their loved ones to devour them as well, and all while not losing a wink of sleep."

  The monster paused, letting out a small sound of annoyance as she lifted his chin, forcing him to look her in the eye. "You don't—deserve to be ruined by me, Markus. Trust me, just get out while you still can and don't look back because, if you stay, I honestly don't know if I wouldn't accidentally kill you.

  “Ha! You know what? It might not even be an accident! That's how cracked I am! …And it's only getting worse..."

  This st part was spoken as a whisper, something concerningly dark bleeding through her voice before, like a snap of a finger, it was gone.

  She looked at him with equal parts pity and weariness, like part of her was, in fact, exhausted by the nonsense that had taken over her life, but, at the same time, a far more vocal part of her absolutely adored the madness that had consumed her.

  As for Markus, well, all he could do was swallow and refuse to let the woman of his dreams go, even as he doubled down and spoke the words he knew would convince her! "I love you!"

  "You don't love me."

  "I do!" He reaffirmed, almost squeezing her with desperation. "You're all I think about, the only one who cared! Not my parents, or friends or teachers; nobody did what—you've done."

  "Touch your dick?"

  "Make me feel like I'm actually worth something!" Markus growled, wanting to scream at the monster if only it would let her understand!

  It wasn't some absurd fetish or animalistic attraction, even if it was there. No, he couldn't even expin it, and maybe it wouldn't make sense, even if he could.

  Yet, was that so wrong? Did it need to mean anything else than how she made him feel so—warm inside?

  The woman stared at him for several long moments, not an iota of an expression bleeding through her mask of contemption.

  Then, abruptly, Markus found himself pushed to the ground, his arms windmilling, even as he colpsed on his rear with a jarring jolt to his back!

  He felt the wind momentarily leave him as he gasped, but that momentary panic of air loss ultimately paled in comparison to what transpired above him!

  A horrible symphony of crackling pops echoed through the air as the elven beauty that had stood before him began stretching and distorting with terrifyingly fascinating jerks!

  The firelight flickered as though sensing the cosmic nightmare that was crawling through reality, shifting its form, which was cast in shadow, long and dark as polished obsidian...

  Massive armored legs began forming, one by one, extending, lengthening, looming over Markus as he began to shiver, staring up at the domineering abomination that twisted into existence right before his eyes.

  Then, he was being plucked from the ground, long and slender arms with far more strength behind them than should ever be possible, treating his person with all the strain of lifting a newborn baby.

  "This is your fault by the way." The elegantly cultured atrocity against nature itself, stated, her mesmerizing features enrapturing him as she held him at arm's length so he might take in all of her divine and horrific glory. "I was going to let you go, let you leave and live your life and be normal.

  “Now,” She continued, predatory eyes narrowing on him with dark desire. “Hmph! Well, you best perform for me, Markus, because I tend to get—snacky when I'm not satisfied..."

  Madmcgee