Shayma was so much more diplomatic than I was. So much. The Hurricane was grumpy and I really didn’t blame her, but Shayma was able to calm her down enough to invite her to the petitioner’s hall. Well, invite might not have been the correct word, but at least The Hurricane agreed to come with a minimum of fuss. Fortunately for her, she didn’t actually yell at Shayma, otherwise I might well have rescinded the invitation.

“Could I get a teleport?” The Hurricane asked. “My flight isn’t as good as it used to be,” she added darkly, which certainly was part of her mood. It wasn’t just combat power that was lost to Depletion.

“Certainly. I’ll put her at the beginning of the hall. Shayma, I have a place for you in the middle of it, and I guess that’ll give you time to appreciate what I’ve put together. Probably best not to gawk in front of guests. Actually I’ll use [Link] instead of teleport. Tell her to go through the door when she’s ready.” As huge as the entrance was, I could still connect the same way. Since Primal Sources had yet to fruit on any of my flowers, and probably wouldn’t for another day or so, I didn’t quite have as much mana to play with as I’d like and the [Link] was a lot more mana efficient.

“Yes,” Shayma told her. “I will meet you inside. The door will take you there when you’re ready.”

The [Link] brought Shayma to an archway on the center pedestal of the audience chamber first, and I hastily reset it for The Hurricane since it didn’t seem like she was going to delay long at all.

“Oh, wow. I love it!” Shayma looked around at the sphere. I’d ended up making the outer walls polished black and continued the fractal design in blue, but from Shayma’s place in front of the fake core that was barely visible behind all the exposed workings of the mana dynamo.

“Good! I mean, it’s kind of your throne room, if you think about it. You’re going to be the one presiding over it if I need to talk to anyone.”

Shayma hesitated. “I’m not sure I’m really cut out to sit on a throne,” she told me.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a throne. You can have a comfy armchair instead! You’re the one who needs to be here, so I can make whatever amenities you want.”

“Maybe just a normal chair and a side table?” She suggested, tail swishing as she ran her fingers along the railing. “For water or whatever?”

“Your wish is my command.” I made as comfortable a wood chair as I could and a small table next to it, making a few notes to myself for when the crafters came. While I could make things out of some sort of generic wood, it was not tayantan tree wood, and I was very definitely not an expert at furniture. It’d be nice to get Shayma something more suitable.

The Hurricane wasn’t far behind Shayma, despite the fact that she had to arrive from the front door. Partly that was because even now she wasn’t bothering to walk, preferring to stand on her storm Affinity weapon and let it convey her along the hall. Mostly though, it was because she’d scrambled after Shayma the moment the door had closed, not even spending a minute to get herself together.

“Are you okay with this, by the way? I don’t plan to make her a Companion, that’s for sure.” Having to listen to the fourth-tier all the time would be unbearable. It was slightly harder to ignore the input from my Companion eyes and ears than it was from Genius Loci, though clearly I could manage it as I had when I’d missed Iniri’s conversation. I was still trying to ignore most of her political discussions, though even thinking about it brought her senses to the forefront of my consciousness. The poor woman was suffering through a long and stilted speech from some lesser noble or another.

“Oh, certainly. I’m not worried you’ll like her more than me, or anything.” Shayma smiled as she settled into the chair. “I think the only problem is she might keep pestering you afterward. She seemed very...insistent.”

“I’d noticed that myself!”

The Hurricane zipped through into the audience hall as we were speaking, not paying much attention to all the spectacle I’d put together. She was a fourth-tier though, and probably had seen plenty of amazing sights in Great Dungeons and mana springs. The flying sort of ruined the mood of the room, though, and made me wonder if there was anything I could do to stop it in the future. Maybe some sort of Field, though I had no idea how I could make one with that particular effect.

At least she had the good grace to touch down on the petitioner’s dais, standing on top of the pole as usual, narrowing her eyes at the faux core. “All right,” she said. “I’m here.”

Shayma responded without any prompting. “State what you wish to petition Blue for.”

“Purification,” she said, starting to add something then cutting herself off. It seemed she was on her best behavior for this, though I wasn’t sure how long that would last.

“Blue is amenable to that, but there will be a price.”

I wasn’t going to do it for free, and since I didn’t want another Companion nor did I want to make a Bargain, it’d have to be a more normal transaction. I’d been thinking it over and I figured there were two things she could do for me. “Mostly I want her to be available for escort duty the next time you go somewhere,” I told Shayma. “Plus I think she could probably give some pointers to Annit. Wind and storm are pretty close Affinities, aren’t they?” Although it might be a trial for Annit to get along with the Hurricane long enough for that. I’d leave it up to her if she wanted to try it.

“As long as it is a price I can pay.”

“It’s quite simple. Blue merely wants you to escort me at a future date, and provide some training to another Classer in his employ.”

“Simple but that’s more of an ask than you think.” She crossed her arms and looked unhappy. “I’m Haerlish's fourth-tier and I can’t be stuck here for years or months or even weeks. Plus, I’m not going to fight another mage-king even if I am immune to depletion.”

“I guess that makes sense, but yeah we’re not going to be fighting Tor Kot, we’ll let the Adamant Fortress do that. I’m thinking she can escort you to wherever that last cube is and maybe make a distraction while you take it.” Unfortunately, so far as I knew locating the final piece of the Fortress was up to Shayma. Nobody else had [Seeker]. “I’m thinking maybe a week from now for that?”

There was, to one way of thinking, no need to need to delay even that much. Shayma was healed up, I couldn’t think of many things we could do to prepare that wouldn’t take a long time, and while we hadn’t had any discussions with Iniri or anyone about it, it was the next logical step. Yet, Shayma had only just finished healing her arms, and real people couldn’t just keep going forever. If there wasn’t some incredibly urgent need to go immediately, a few days off to rest, refocus, and reorganize would be worthwhile, plus I was hoping the crafters could make her some new gear. She was still wearing what I assumed was scavenged clothing from the city.

“Blue suggests the escort will be needed in one week.”

“Fine. I accept.”

“All right, then I guess we do this thing.” I wasn’t going to let her into my core room, so I hastily put together another chamber. Not that I was lacking in space. I chose one at random and swept it clean, making the walls the same polished onyx as the audience chamber with blue highlights.

“Blue accepts as well.”

“Yes! Finally! Gonna get me some dungeon sex!” The Hurricane instantly shifted from dour and grumpy to sparkling and excited, which made me have second thoughts about agreeing. I already thought she was a little bit crazy and anyone whose mood shifted that quickly was either bonkers or faking it.

Nonetheless, the moment I built a [Purifier’s Breeding Station], those concerns seemed a lot less relevant. Proof that despite being far more in control than before, such things still affected my mind. “Do you want me to put you near Annit and Keri?” I asked Shayma, weaving a Link through an archway I was putting together in front of an ecstatic The Hurricane.

“Ooh, yes! I haven’t seen them in a couple days.” Shayma’s eyes lit, and I felt really bad for the fact that I hadn’t made sure the three of them had regular contact. Keri and Annit may not have even known she was still alive, closeted as they were in the healing ward. So Shayma went through one archway, and The Hurricane through another.

In deference to the fourth-tier’s professed appetites, I’d structured the breeding station more like the first one I’d ever created, a sort of iron maiden of black flesh and wriggling tendrils. I thought it might have been too much, but the moment she spotted it her eyes flashed and her clothes disappeared. Actually disappeared, all at once in an instant, the loose robe vanishing to somewhere else. It had to be either a Skill or some strange item. She cackled gleefully and plunged her pole into the stone floor, leaving it quivering there as she hurled herself at the station.

Fortunately for my sensibilities despite her size she was well enough formed, with wide hips and breasts that, on her frame, gave her a fair bust. Her skin betrayed more of her mystic blood than her hair did, veins of green spreading out from her spine like lichtenberg lines, the rest of her an ash-grey. Without her clothing, even her face was the same dull shade. The only points of color other than the markings on her back were her nipples and the inner part of her sex, which were both aquamarine, like her hair.

I managed to take that in before she slammed into the breeding station with enough impact that I could feel it strain the dungeon-flesh and almost certainly hard enough to bruise her, fourth-tier or not. Though I had a lot more control over the [Purifier’s Breeding Station] than I’d had when I’d first started, it seemed the form I’d chosen had a mind of its own because several looped coils snapped out to pin her limbs before I thought to do so, suspending her midair.

Her lust flared through the link, as intense as the first time I’d built a breeding chamber, and she melted against the restraints as they wound down her arms and up her legs. “Oo-ooh yes, lock me in here! Fuck me forever!” She babbled. Though I hadn’t intended to initially, I followed her desire by closing the ‘door’ of the breeding station. The light from the outside chamber was cut off, and she nearly orgasmed just from the sight of it, wetness dripping down her thigh. Apparently she really liked the idea of being imprisoned in a dungeon’s breeding station.

Even though I hadn’t really planned to, her mood infected me and the next tendril I made was a breeding tendril, a thick and ridged cock sliding between her spread legs. She whimpered as it slid against her slick pussy, which was the only noise that interrupted her constant stream of words. “Oh gods I can feel it and I can feel it feel me this is amazing and it’s going to split me in half and it will be so good and -”

I shut her up by shoving a breeding tendril into her mouth. She moaned and immediately started sucking, tongue playing with the ridges on it as she slurped. Even that didn’t actually make her quieter, just muffled what she was saying as she tried to talk and suckle at the same time. Her entire body clenched with eager anticipation, and I could feel it, her burning need to be taken and filled and used.

Drawing one of my breeding tendrils against her folds, I wet it on her own arousal before starting to ease it into her, only to be met by a wave of discontent. I freed her mouth to find out why. “- just teasing me, fuck me godsdammit, break me in half, don’t just poke me and -” I shut her up again, thickening the cock she had in her mouth while I drove the other one into her with a single thrust. I still held back a bit, worried about hurting her, but that turned out to be needless. Not only was she so wet that I drove into her with unexpected force, but her fourth-tier constitution meant that when she squeezed down on me I realized I was the one who might get hurt, not her.

Satisfaction and pleasure surged from her as I hammered the breeder into her pussy, giving her a rougher treatment than I’d given anyone else so far, but despite that I could tell that she wanted to be filled more. She was leaking wildly from both her mouth and pussy, slobbering and dripping and moaning as I stretched them both to my satisfaction, but that wasn’t anywhere near enough to satisfy her. I pressed a third breeder against her ass, feeling her excitement jump another notch, writhing against the bonds. The tiny entrance resisted me a little, but her hunger to have me inside her could not be denied, so I drove into her without mercy, cock slick with some dungeon-biology lubricant.

She came instantly. I wasn’t expecting it, and the rush of pleasure overwhelmed my last reserve at treating her too roughly. Instead of tensing up, she hung limp as she shuddered, milking all three breeders and making happy crooning noises around the one in her mouth when I sped up. Her pleasure cascaded into mine and crested as I came the first time, marking her insides with my cum and make her moan happily, swallowing it all with careless greed.

The feel of it just made her hungrier, I could feel it raging out of control as even in the throes of orgasm she only wanted more. Thicker, harder, faster. Without even thinking about it I forced a second breeder into her pussy, and she melted into the bonds holding her. Her grey flesh went nearly white as I stretched her in different directions, making her moan in hoarse pleasure from the strain. By now each thrust was rocking her back and forth against the bonds, filling her sloppy holes while her mouth worshipped me. Her breath panted through her nose, clearly not giving even the slightest thought to relinquishing the breeder in her mouth as she licked and sucked with frantic abandon.

The force I was using would have brutalized someone lower-tier and she wasn’t anywhere near satisfied, wriggling as I fucked her. Then my tendrils slammed against the entrance to her womb and she squeaked, the feel of that contact like an electric jolt through her system sending her into a toe curling incoherently burbling orgasm. I couldn’t understand what she was mumbling as she trembled but I could guess she was begging for more.

From that much I was staring to get some prickles from various [Skills], like [Soul Perception], but I was too lost in the drowning sea of Mildred’s hunger. She wasn’t anywhere near satisfied anyway, so I drove a third breeder into her insatiable pussy and a second into her shockingly needy asshole, feeling her excitement as I stretched her beyond what I thought was healthy or even possible.

She shivered and moaned and bucked in pleasure as I fucked her with six cocks at once, feeling that even that wasn’t enough for her. Now with each thrust I drove the cocks as deeply as they would go, making her twitch with fervent desperation, squeezing hard over me until I came too. With even more seed soaking into her, filling her from both ends as it poured inside, [Soul Perception] became even clearer, but I could barely care about that.

Mildred hung there in total darkness, trapped inside the breeding chamber with the flesh of it binding her in place, hanging her in the air while I forced myself into her every hole, and still she wanted more. If anything the overwhelming sensation of it only fed her desires, her body clamping down against my motions and forcing me to push through it, her strength competing against mine just to fuck her properly. Even with that, she just pressed back hungrily, trying to force more of me into her.

Since she wanted more, I graduated from ridges to more exotic things. If I could change the shape of my tendrils, why not give her the full experience. I drove my cock into her throat, forcing her to draw breath between each thrust and getting another wave of approving pleasure from her, then changed the ridges to studs, raking and tugging at her insides. She wriggled, wanting only more, so the studs expanded, hardening to tease her more thoroughly. Small mouths bit at her whenever I bottomed out, teeth nipping at the most tender points inside her. She still wasn’t satisfied, wanting me to give her something more extreme, and that was enough to make me pull back slightly from the heady lust and realize something was wrong. I was wrong, almost fully consumed by her twisted needs.

It was only then that I noticed her hit points were dropping. In fact I’d apparently already done more damage to her than she’d taken in the first elite fight. Suddenly I realized that just because she wanted more didn’t make it a good idea to give her more. Dungeon breeding instincts were perfectly happy to fuck someone forever, and Purifier didn’t stop me from hurting her because she wanted it. She was either twisted enough or needy enough that I could literally fuck her to death and no instincts would stop or even warn me.

I almost stopped. I couldn’t, not entirely. I was still compelled and lusty and wanted to finish this, but I stopped ravaging her. I’d gotten way more extreme than I ever wanted to from her influence, so I pulled way, way back. I had known I shouldn’t touch the crazy. She whimpered as I slid all the extra breeders out, but I made it up to her. One pressed tight against the entrance to her womb, one stretched her ass, and one filled her mouth as I brought in extra tendrils and wrapped them over her, covering her head to foot, but especially wrapping tight about her breasts and clit. Then I made things vibrate.

I wasn’t subtle about it, either. Even if I absolutely had gone overboard before, she clearly wanted things rough and I was betting she’d never felt a vibrator, let alone had them pressed against every erogenous zone she had. Even the one one on her lower back and her feet. The pleasure jolted through her clit, and she strained against the enwrapping tendrils as I stimulated her breasts, forced into a sudden orgasm as I swept the vibrations along her body in waves, in toward her clit. The numb bruising that I’d given her turned into a sweet ache that only served to heighten every throb and shiver.

She squeezed around me and didn’t stop, trembling and panting but not willing to be satisfied with simple pleasure. I wasn’t going to hurt her any further though, and so I just kept the vibration going, stimulating her directly, keeping her wrapped in dungeon-flesh and piping in air so she could breathe while I played with her clit and her nipples. The breeders kept her filled for orgasm after orgasm as the hunger slowly shifted into pure, white-out bliss. Still, the vague fuzz I could see with [Soul Perception] refused to crystallize as her inner flesh shivered and squeezed hard enough to hurt, but even that felt good against the backdrop of the sheer intensity of her need for me. But that feel of her around three of my cocks trembling and wanting, was itself torture as it refused to turn into an actual orgasm.

I was feeling desperate when, nearly an hour in, she abruptly sagged as the continuous, forced orgasm overwhelmed her. Finally I was allowed to come, instantly flooding her with my seed as the breeding window appeared. The fuzz crystallized into a concrete light, running through her body.

Breeding options:

Rejuvenate: Restore some health, stamina, mana: 10 biomass, 2000 mana

Revitalize: Restore the body to prime condition

Purify: Removes all forms of depletion by replacing all of target’s energy with dungeon core mana reserve: 31,300 mana

Affinity Modification: Shifts target’s primary mana Affinity: 31,300 mana, 79 Source of desired Affinity.

Affinity Addition: Adds Affinity to target’s mana: 31,300 mana, 79 Source of desired Affinity.

When I selected [Purify], I watched very carefully. All that mana encapsulated the crystalline threads and forms inside The Hurricane in an instant, showing me that I was missing most of what was there. To judge by the outline it was monstrously complex, and as The Hurricane started glowing, the Skill or whatever it was actually started making alterations. I couldn’t even follow the speed, let alone the detail, so I knew I had no hope of doing it myself, but I could at least try to understand.

It seemed that [Purify] needed access to the soul, and it needed whatever channels were opened by intimacy. Sex that actually satisfied. It made me wonder if I shared some heritage with succubi, or, well, incubi in my case. I would have to ask to see if those existed in this world.

That wasn’t the only component though, because her Purification timer was more than an hour. It was an hour and a half, and the only explanation I got for it was a notation next to it reading [Fertility Penalty.] As explanations went it was better than most the overlay gave me, since it meant that yes, being female was required, at least for how I worked, and that the ability to bear children was somehow involved. Given that The Hurricane was, so far as I understood it, somewhere in her fifties despite how she looked, having children would be incredibly difficult. Since there were stories of sacrificing firstborn and the like, I wondered if this ability somehow fed off of the potential for children, whether biological or metaphysical.

Unfortunately I doubted many people would be able to fill me in with more than speculation, even Ansae. Soul magic was generally banned and I could see the various reasons for that, especially given the ridiculous complexity of whatever [Purify] was doing. Trying to do this manually would be like trying to perform heart surgery with a spoon. While blindfolded.

[Soul Perception] advances to 6.

Despite all the work that it was doing I couldn’t see any noticeable difference until right before the timer ended. Then, suddenly, all the encapsulating mana coalesced and I had a glimpse of the finished Soul-work. The Hurricane’s soul was a lot brighter and more complex and, if I had to guess, more complete than it had been before. There were more lines, more branches, and more connections, though the overall shape hadn’t been changed much. There seemed to be some subtle difference at the edges, but I couldn’t pursue that as the perception vanished with the timer.

The [Purifier’s Breeding Station] dumped her unceremoniously on the ground as it vanished, something which I’d completely forgotten about. Apparently that was enough to rouse her, and she staggered to her feet, wild-eyed.

“Wow! I mean, wow! That was the best thing ever!” She giggled, staggering over to lean against the wall. One hand slid down between her legs, where her gaping holes still drooled black seed. “Ooh, I’m going to be feeling this for a while, mmm. I love it.” She tottered over to the weapon she’d left driven into the stone and leaned on it, flexing fingers and toes. “Oh yeah, this Purified thing is amazing. All my Skills are back! Even…[Cloud Dancer]! I forgot about that one, got eaten at level one. Gotta try that one out.”

She grabbed the staff and dashed for the [Linked] archway. I didn’t even think to turn it off, just watching in amazement as she popped through and jumped on top the staff, zipping back out of the entrance hall with renewed speed. The Hurricane took off into the sky, still completely naked and whooping at the top of her lungs.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize she wasn’t coming back.

I had been so stupid. I’d known The Hurricane was unstable and full of things I didn’t want to deal with, and in just trying to Purify her I’d nearly killed her because she was so messed up. I’d thought maybe it’d be useful to have her on my side and for that I’d gotten not only what was in hindsight a fairly horrifying experience, but also a complete brush-off for what she owed.

I hadn’t realized that whoever was inside the breeding station could have such an effect on me. Clearly I needed to be a lot more careful both with who I agreed to Purify and how I did agreements. [Tempered Wisdom] and common sense both agreed that I had to hold The Hurricane to account somehow for breaking an agreement with me, and I had to make sure nobody did it in the future.

I’d have to take things more seriously from now on.