Much like the previous day I awoke earlier than normal and decided to stay awake. The time I had during the day to learn more about magic and mana was slim to none and it was something I was willing to give up sleep for.

I repeated my attempts to see how far I could look into the ember spell to determine if I had improved in the last day. The distance I could sense hadn’t changed which was expected and I retracted my senses before turning them inward. I’d had some time to think on it and after being more careful with how I was sensing the mana in my horns, I noticed that there was a slight difference between it and the mana outside my body.

The distinction was similar to the pulse I felt through myself after activating ember and, even though I had no great way to explain it, I knew that this mana was mine. Unfortunately, that mana was stuck in my horns and I wasn’t going to be able to use it until I figured out how to better control mana in general.

This left me in a no win situation. There was no way for me to move forward without exhausting myself completely before the day started and I wasn’t going to do that. I continued to go over what I had learned from Vilmar and Lindi about mana and magic before tentatively pulling at the pouch around my neck.

Vilmar had mentioned that cores were the reason everyone was able to use magic and I had two of them that I could easily look at. The question was if that was the right thing to do. There was a part of me that wanted to leave the cores where they were because it would be disrespectful to turn them into a learning tool but at the same time it was the one way I could practice without any foreseeable consequences.

Eventually I reached a decision and opened the pouch enough to take one of the cores out. I hadn’t had a great view when Armida was looking at them and took the time to really familiarize myself with the core in my hand. If I had to take a guess, the core was about the size of my eye and flawless. The core itself was mostly transparent with a single strand of color going through its center. Red seemed to be the dominate color with only small threads of black and blue mixing with it.

On a whim I tried to see if I could sense anything from the core and was happy that I chose to do so. I was able to get an entirely different feeling from this core than anything I’d sensed before and it was nice to know that there was something other than feeling raw pressure when dealing with mana. Normally mana felt overbearing to me, but the traces of mana in the core I was holding felt warm like when I cast ember.

I excitedly took the second core from the bag and tried to sense it without a second though. It was understandably disappointing then, when I felt nothing from the core. It was possible I’d made a mistake somewhere along the way that stopped me from sensing anything from this core and, while that thought helped calm me a little, I was still worried that my attempts with the red core were a fluke. The best thing for me to do was repeat the same things I’d done when looking at the first core and I opened my eyes to actually observe what I was trying to detect with a sense that was still woefully underdeveloped.

It seemed that the first core being mostly transparent was a common trait as this core was completely transparent at first glance. Because of the lack of light, it was hard to make out that there was in fact color in the form of a pitch black sphere at the core’s center.

Since I had a hard time making out the colors in this core, I made sure to hold it more towards the light coming from the doorway and rotated it to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. It was almost impossible to tell in the low light, but there were small threads of black that seemed to have started leeching outwards to the core’s surface.

I wanted to say that it was because this core looked the way it did that I was unable to sense anything from it but I was proven wrong when I felt a small divot. On closer inspection, the divot felt and looked like it had been melted away and I was more inclined to believe that this was the cause of my problems.

After taking stock of the few people left in the hut I decided to place the cores back in their pouch and rose to meet Vilmar.

“Up early I see.”

“Yeah.”

Vilmar held the hut’s curtain for me before we started to walk towards the post yard.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what were you trying to do with those cores?”

“Just trying to look into them.” I thought for a second before continuing, “Yesterday I woke up earlier than normal and tried to sense more of the ember spell. That didn’t really go so well and I didn’t make any progress on it today either.

“I don’t like being useless or feeling like I can’t do anything. I know that learning this won’t really help me now but it’s a good distraction that has the potential to be meaningful later.”

“It may help more than you think. So what did you learn?”

The two of us fell into single file to get around a small group of Deamons that had stopped to talk on their way to the post yard. Once we were past them I matched Vilmar’s pace and continued to walk next to him.

“Well, the one with the red streak in it felt warm, not so much heavy or oppressive like when I normally sense mana. That feeling was there, but it was definitely hidden by the warmth. I couldn’t feel anything from the other core though, most likely since it’s damaged.”

“In what way was it damaged?”

“There was a part of it missing. Like someone had scraped some of it off and left a dent.”

Vilmar chuckled slightly to himself causing me to give him a questioning look.

“It’s not broken Rea. In fact, that core was probably stronger than one without any marks.”

“I don’t understand. Why would something that’s damaged be better?”

The two of us took our place in line and I leaned into Vilmar to compensate for the heat I was losing to this morning’s breeze.

“Do you remember what I told you about cores?”

“Not really.” I could feel my cheeks heat up at my admission. “Sorry.”

“That’s fine. You were asleep on your feet so I’m not surprised you don’t remember. The answer you’re after though, is that when you hit certain thresholds in your skill with magic your core will slowly dissolve and reform itself. Keep in mind that I’m no mage and all of this is just what I’ve picked up from listen to others.”

“It’s better than guessing about this stuff while trying to learn it on my own.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment and I could feel the tension starting to form again.

“I’m sorry if you felt I was pushing to hard to find out what happened to you the other day. I’m just worried and there’s very little I can do except that in most cases.”

“ ’s okay. It’s not stuff I want to think about...or talk about if I don’t have to.”

“If you don’t want to talk then I’m not going to force you to. Just know that I’m here if you need me, okay?”

I nodded while rubbing my head against Vilmar’s side before another gust of wind made me start shivering.

Vilmar moved as if to pick me up but stopped when Selmet started speaking.

Despite his remarks that I was in need of training, Selmet didn’t say anything out of the ordinary after assigning Vilmar and I our tasks. He went so far as to outright ignore us and I was happy to not have my ears flicked today. There was no doubt in my mind that Selmet still remembered but I wasn't in a rush to see what met his qualifications of training.

Things were actually looking up today since I’d been given a job I had done before and was with Lindi again. This gave me a chance to finally ask her about controlling my sense of smell better so I wasn’t overwhelmed like I was at the tanning area. She had left before I did and, once I reached the sorting area, I tried to find her before I started to work.

I’d learned from my first day of sorting that the speed at which I could work was mostly depended on how often I had to identify things between trips to the rock piles. Lindi seemed to have hoped I was with her today since she was working with someone that was breaking rocks slightly faster then she could sort through them. I joined her and waited till we both needed to make our first trip to get rid of the loose stone before I asked for her help.

“Still not talking with Vilmar?”

I stopped mid bend to look at Lindi and had to duck quickly to avoid being hit by a hammer.

“Huh? Oh, no. We talked a little today. I’m still kinda mad at him though.”

“Then tell him that and more importantly tell him why. If you don’t talk with him and tell him these things he’s not going to magically learn them. It’s hard watching him have to skirt around you. You’re the only reason he’s lasted as long as he has.”

Once I sorted through the few remaining scraps on the ground, I stood and started to walk with Lindi towards the stone piles.

“I don’t want to let him know I’m still mad. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Vilmar’s a big boy. If he can handle watching over you for as long as he has, then he can handle you being angry at him for a day.”

“I just don’t understand why he won’t tell me about them.”

“About your parents?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s probably because he doesn’t remember them anymore.”

“Wait, what? Why wouldn’t he rememb- Ow!”

I tried to stop myself from tripping by hopping on one foot but failed miserably. My landing onto my arms and the rocks I was carrying was painful, but whatever I’d stepped on hurt much worse.

Lindi walked past me covering the few steps that were left between the rubble piles and us before doubling back. By the time she returned, I’d already righted myself and was busy looking at my foot trying to see what had happened.

The fact that the wound was still bleeding made it easy to find amidst the stone dust that covered the bottom of my foot. Since I could feel whatever it was I stepped on, it meant I didn’t have to worry about the problems that would have occurred if it had been fully embedded.

“Can you tell how deep it is?”

“No, but I felt some of it on the surface so it couldn’t have gone that far in.”

“Let’s hope not.” Lindi grumbled to herself while she took my foot from me and splayed my toes apart to get a better look at the area in question.

“Is this it?”

She gently probed the joint of my middle toe and I answered her question with a small whimper.

“I should be able to get this out. Let’s hope it doesn’t break in the process.”

Lindi paused to look at me while repositioning my foot.

“This is going to hurt a little.”

“That’s fine. I’ve had worse.”

“Right. I’m going to pull it out on three. Ready? One. Two.”

I hissed in pain as Lindi pulled before releasing my foot. Once I felt the wound close I tried flexing my toes and was happy that there was no pain when I did.

By the time I stood up, Lindi had already thrown the offending piece of stone elsewhere and started to pick up the rocks I’d dropped.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m just happy it didn’t break and that it wasn’t a piece of bone metal.”

“Me too. But my being hurt aside, what were you saying about Vilmar not remembering my parents.”

Lindi was silent for a moment while we finished picking up the stones and dropped them off.

“He’s told you how poetan is poisonous right?”

“No,” A small frown momentarily found it’s way onto Lindi’s face before her expression returned to normal, “but Grandpa said that it robs people of mental and physical strength. He also said that we are immune to it.”

“That’s such a bad way to explain it.” The annoyance in Lindi’s voice was equally showcased in her expression as she continued talking.

“Your Grandfather isn’t wrong; you are immune to it now, but when you first got here you were as weak to those effects as the rest of us. There were some days where you forgot about us multiple times. It got better as your body grew resistant to the poison and the longest stretch you made it was almost a year. Then Selmet came into the picture.”

Lindi remained silent and I swallowed the lump in my throat before speaking.

“So is everyone resistant to it?”

“Unfortunately, that’s something unique to your tribe. Even now Vilmar and I have a hard time recalling things if we try to go back more than a few months. It’s not impossible; it just takes a really long time. It’s like there’s a fog we have to search through to find what we want.

“Our memories are too malleable and it’s easy for them to be warped or outright lost in that fog. If we don’t actively try to keep the memory at the forefront of our mind then the details start to fade until the entire memory is all but unreachable. The only reason we remember as much as we do is because we go over everything that we think you’ll need to know over the entire day. It’s not a perfect practice though; both of us have lost a lot of our memories since there’s only so much time we can dedicate to remembering things about us when we’re trying to take care of you.”

I stood up from collecting iron and looked Lindi in the eyes.

“Why not tell me this then? If I’d known that you two couldn’t remember things then I wouldn’t have asked so many questions.”

“But we want you to ask those questions. If you don’t ask them then we lose our reason for trying to retain that information and it fades.”

“So then the reason he won’t talk about my parents is that? It’s faded?”

“I haven’t talked to him about your parents but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case. He hasn’t thought about anything other than you in so long that almost everything else he knew is probably gone. Anything he told you really would be just guesswork at best. Vilmar’s lived his life being wrong about a lot of things Rea; this is just one more thing that he’s terrified of being wrong about.”

An uncomfortable weight settled itself in my chest. Just how much had Vilmar had lost trying to take care of me?

“Right or wrong would the two of you shut up and work. I’m running out of room to push stone to.”

I glared at the Deamon break up rocks for us but kept my mouth shut. Once Lindi and I had enough rocks that we need to get rid of them again I continued our conversation where we had stopped.

“Thank you, for letting me know about this; I don’t think that Vilmar would have said anything unless I really pressured him and I can’t bring myself to do that. Is it alright if I ask a question about something else instead?”

Despite what I said to Lindi the weight in my chest had only gotten worse.

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

I went on to tell Lindi about how I’d been overwhelmed by the scents at the tanning area and how I wanted to better control my sense of smell. As far as I was concerned, this was something that would be required if I wanted any chance of surviving outside the fences of our prison. Lindi was fine helping me do so but said that it was going to be something that took time more than anything else.

Lindi explained that in order to do what I wanted was simple; all I had to do was ignore the other smells. The idea might have been easily said, but putting it into practice was almost impossible. I had no idea how to even single out a scent let alone ignore one. As far as Lindi was concerned this was just because I wasn’t in the right mindset and started to go into some hunter mumbo jumbo while giving me a few things to practice.

The rest of my time with Lindi was spent practicing what she told me to and asking her questions whenever I got confused or stuck. By the time we needed to head back to the post yard I’d barely made any progress but I could tell that I was at least making some. My biggest problem was the sheer number of smells around us. There were just too many of them and I was being continuously overwhelmed. I brought this up to Lindi and, while she agreed with me that it was a problem, she also thought it would make me better in the long run because of the difficulty it presented.

When we got closer to post yard Lindi stopped walking and stepped off to the side while gesturing for me to follow her.

“So, what do you plan to do in regards to Vilmar?”

“I don’t know,” I started to wring the front of my dress while thinking, “How do I bring up everything we talked about without putting us on worse terms.”

“Look,” Lindi knelt to look me in the eyes, “There is very little you can do that will truly put you on bad terms with Vilmar. Just…tell him. Be honest and things’ll work themselves out.”

“If you say so.”

Lindi rose to her feet and I followed behind her while trying to prevent my stomach from leaving my body. As we crossed the remaining distance between the hut and our places in line I began to feel smaller than normal. I caught myself reaching out for the back of Lindi’s dress before stopping myself and clenching the front of my own with shaking hands.

Once we separated I slowly made my way towards Vilmar’s scent while trying to not double back and stand next to Lindi. Vilmar was already waiting and I caught him scanning the general direction I’d come from. Once he saw me, the corners of Vilmar’s mouth twitched up into a small smile.

I walked up to him without making eye contact and took my pace in line. Vilmar shuffled his feet as I stood beside him debating with the small voice in the back of my head before proceeding to turn and hug him.

“ ‘m sorry.” My words were muffled by Vilmar’s leg and he bent to pull me far enough from him so he could hear me clearly.

“I’m sorry.”

Vilmar picked me up and started to stroke the back of my head as I began to cry.

“It’s fine. I don’t know why you’re apologizing but you have no reason to do so.”

“I-I kept asking you about things that you didn’t know. Lindi told me,” a small sob stopped me from continuing, “Lindi told me how you can’t remember anything.”

“That’s not your fault though. There’s no reason you need to feel bad about that.”

“But I do!” I buried my face a little deeper in to Vilmar’s neck. “I kept pushing for answers you don’t have and then got mad when you wouldn’t tell me anything. I’ve only - hic - I’ve only been thinking about myself.”

Vilmar continued pet me and held me closer while I sobbed into his shoulder.

“It’s not a bad thing that you’ve been thinking about yourself, it’s actually what I expect of you. You’re still a child Rea, children are supposed to think of themselves and be a little selfish. It’s an adult’s job think of others and be responsible.”

I pulled myself away from Vilmar and wiped my eyes with the heel of my palms.

“It’s still not okay that I blamed you for something that you couldn’t control.”

A low laugh started to shake Vilmar and by extension me.

“Don’t worry. It’s not the first time I’ll have been blamed for something I couldn’t control. So, are you okay now?”

“Yeah.” I briefly nuzzled Vilmar’s neck before pulling back, “If possible, can you try not to keep things like this a secret from me; please?”

Vilmar bent over to set me down causing me to whine slightly from the loss of heat.

“I only have a few things left that I can’t tell you and I’m sure that’ll you’ll learn of them before too long.”

“Why can’t you tell me them now?”

“Because if I need to tell you these things it means you’ve regained a few memories that you’re not able to handle well. That, or you’ve not lost your memories in over a week. What I can tell you, however, is that we need to stop talking since it looks like roll call is about to start. Although,” Vilmar stood a little taller while looking around the post yard, “I don’t see Selmet anywhere which is strange. Something important must have come up for him not to be here.”

“Good. I don’t like him. He keeps flicking my ears and looking at me like Adamo looked at Ieva.”

Vilmar placed a hand on my head and started to scratch the inside of my horn eliciting a few purrs.

“I don’t like him either. You need to be careful though, Selmet didn’t get his position because of his strength.”

I nodded before pushing my head up into Vilmar’s hand.

The new Demon in charge of roll call seems to have been given the job in a rush as it took him almost twice as long to reach our position. By the time he reached us, I’d yet to hear him give out any strokes and was hoping that I wasn’t going to be split up from Vilmar or Lindi again.

When the Demon stopped in front of Vilmar and I, he paused to rifle through the stack of disorganized papers in his hands. He continued to flip back and forth through the pages before stopping and looking up at Vilmar.

“Name.”

“Vilmar.”

“Right.”

The Demon started to flip through the pages again while muttering Vilmar’s name under his breath. The entire time this exchange happened, I stood next to Vilmar purring softly as he continued to scratch around my horns.

“There it is.” The Demon looked back up at Vilmar, “You’re in sorting; breaking rocks until the next roll call.”

Without waiting for an affirmation from Vilmar the Demon moved past us and started to flip through the papers again before guessing the next Deamon’s name. Vilmar started to walk off and I followed behind him.

“Vilmar?”

Instead of responding, Vilmar gestured for me to keep following him as we walked away from our places in line. Once I caught up with him, I pulled on Vilmar’s pant leg and tried to keep the panic out of my voice.

“Vilmar? What do I do?”

“It’s fine. Just follow me for now. It isn’t the first time this has happened.”

I kept pace with Vilmar and saw that Lindi was waiting for us near one of the huts.

“And?”

“She was over looked again. Where did you get assigned?”

“Food preparation. Want me to take Rea with me?”

“Could you?”

Lindi nodded and Vilmar turned to look at me.

“Would you be fine going with Lindi again?”

“Couldn’t I go with you instead?”

“You can if you really want to but it would be best if you didn’t. If Selmet finds out that you came with me he’d likely have us whipped.”

“What? Why?”

Vilmar rubbed the top of his head and for a moment I though I wasn’t going to be given an answer.

“There were times in the past where I took you with me even though you got assigned a different job. You were…too young to leave alone and at that point in time Selmet would only go after me. I’m not so sure that would be the case anymore.”

“I…I don’t want to be whipped again.”

Vilmar looked like he was about to say something but I cut him off.

“But I don’t want to leave you either. Is there really no way to do that?”

Vilmar started to respond only for LIndi to interject and cut him off.

“Sadly, there’s not. Vilmar’s gotten on Selmet’s bad side one too many times and the chance of Selmet not getting angry is pretty much nonexistent.”

I sighed and dropped my shoulders and ears in defeat.

“Fine. I’ll go with Lindi.”

Lindi placed her hand over her chest while gasping dramatically.

“I’m not that bad am I?”

She crouched to look at me.

“Come on pip-squeak, it’s not that long and you don’t have to do anything. Think of it as a break where you get to collect your thoughts.”

“Nope,” I puffed out my cheeks, “I’m going to help no matter who I go with.”

“Sure you will. Vilmar, you’re fine with this right?”

“Yes. It’s for the best I don’t take her with me.”

“Off we go then.”

Lindi stood and we parted ways with Vilmar before heading towards the same hut as last time.

While I kept quiet, Lindi continuously tried to break the silence by telling me about different things related to hunting. By the time we started to peel poetan, she had moved on to talking about some of the hunts she had participated in. It was easy to tell that Lindi enjoyed telling me these store and the energy she put into doing so helped keep me engaged despite my general lack of interest.

About the time Lindi finished the story she was telling, she made a comment that reminded me of a question I had been meaning to ask.

“So you’ve definitely hunted a lot and in doing that killed a lot of animals.”

“Yep.”

“But how does that tie it to the level I saw when I identified myself? Does that increase when you go on hunts?”

“Not quite. Our level is determined by the experiences we’ve had, our age, and what we’ve learned.”

I scoffed at Lindi’s response.

“I’ve learned a lot of stuff since waking up and I don’t think I’ve gotten anything from that.”

“You’re thinking about this the wrong way. The level is just a way the spell catagorizes what you know.”

Lindi sat the contents in her hands and started to gesture with them.

”Take the practice you’ve been doing to better control your sense of smell. You’re not great at it but the better you get the higher the skills’ level will be right?”

“Right.”

“Well anyone can achieve the level of being average, but it’s when you pass that, that the 'rewards' come. Plus there’s not some glowing light or voice that tells you that you’ve leveled up. It’s a part of life; it happens naturally as you grow physically and as a person. The only real reason to care about it is because of our ability to evolve at certain levels, but those levels are really just different points of time as we grow into adults.”

“Couldn’t you level up faster to reach those evolutions sooner?”

“Nope. You’re level will stop increasing before you’d get to that point. Until you’re an adult, age is really the sole factor in determining level. It’s not a steady consistent growth either.”

I thought for a moment before an idea came to mind.

“What about dungeons? Wouldn’t beating one of those do something?”

“What do you know about dungeons?” While she questioned me, Lindi returned to peeling poetan.

“Grandpa said they were places of knowledge but other than that? Nothing.”

“He’s not wrong. But there’s a little more to it than that. Dungeons are rare and they’re also very dangerous but not for the reasons you’d think. You’ve tried sensing mana outside your body right?”

I nodded.

“And how was it?”

“It sucked. It’s heavy and makes me feel like I can’t breath.”

“Dungeons are worse than that. I’ve only been to two of them and one was very small. However, the mana in the larger one was so thick I could actually see it, which is normally something only highly skilled mages can do. There was only one person in all our tribes who could do that.”

“So what else? Why would that make it dangerous?”

“Well, that choking feeling you have while sensing mana, it becomes real. Anything that can live in or near a larger dungeon has to be skilled with magic or incredibly strong to resist those effects and that’s not counting the dungeon’s guardian.”

The mention of a guardian perked my interest.

“What are the guardians?”

“They’re horrifying.” Lindi shivered and I could see her draw in on herself. “Creatures of magic and mana that hunt you down until you either make it to the center of the dungeon or it kills you.”

“Couldn’t you just leave the dungeon?”

“Maybe.” Lindi’s response was slow as if she was thinking, “but that’s assuming you can escape before you’re caught. The worst thing is that most times there’s nothing in these dungeons. It’s as if they’re just there to collect mana and corpses.”

The bitter note that Lindi ended on made me hesitant to ask more, but she had said that I was supposed to be asking her and Vilmar questions.

“Could you tell me about it? About the dungeon?”

After a brief moment of silence, Lindi took a breath and spoke.

“At the time, I would have been a little older than you are now. I’d only gone on a few hunts and most of the time I was only there to watch. My tribe was in the process of migrating with the goire for the winter and we’d just finished setting up camp for the evening. We still needed to collect food for the following day so the few groups we had that were in charge of hunting set out to try and get a few extra goire to go along with the little we’d be able to forage from the edible plants that hadn’t died yet.

“I was allowed to come along and possibly make my first kill if we managed to find more than two goire to take back to the camp. Finding a goire was easy enough and we followed it until it joined with a few others before going in for the kill. We were able to get what we had set out for and it was decided that we had enough light that I could finally be a part of the hunt. All but three of us went back with what we already had and we started to look for tracks of anything large enough to be worth hunting.

“It was…an accidental discovery, one I wish we hadn’t made. The other two I was with had been through this particular forest several dozen times before and knew it very well, but it had changed within the last year. I had never seen a dungeon, I only knew about them from the stories of the occasional traveler we traded with.”

“Though I say it was a dungeon, it was more of a temple surrounded by a thick wall. All of it was made from golden stone and was seemingly untouched by the snow and fallen leaves around us; it was…enchanting, enticing even. The other two knew to stay away from it, but I was young and didn’t know the real dangers at the time.”

Lindi took a breath before continuing in a much lower tone.

“I…had wanted to be like the people in the stories that the travelers had told me. To conquer the dungeon and become a hero like those in our own stories. So…I entered the dungeon when the other two weren’t looking.

“I knew, I knew immediately after passing through the temple’s gate that I’d made a mistake. I tried to turn back, to leave, but, when I went to walk through the gate, I couldn’t. I was trapped with no way out. By this time the other two had discovered I was missing and saw me as I tried with no avail to pass through the invisible barrier.

It was terrifying, to see them on the other side and knowing that if they tried to enter and help me that they too would be stuck. What was worse, was when the two of them walked away from the area I could see through the gate. I though they were leaving me behind.”

At this point Lindi was fully focused on what she was saying and I did my best to avoid having my attention drawn away by the flicking of her ears of the fact that she had started to rub her right wrist.

“They hadn’t though. They were looking for another way into or out of the dungeon but the gate was it. I don’t know what they had decided as they looked for another way to free me, but only Daumantas, my teacher, entered while Jokum left. He said that Jokum was going to go back to get help while the two of us were going to try and find a way out of the dungeon. I’ll never know for sure, but I don’t think he expected either of us to get out.

“Having Daumantas there helped me not panic more than I already was; he was to me what Vilmar is to you. He looked around the area between the gate and the temple itself for someway to get out from the inside but eventually it was clear we were going to have to enter the temple.

“The temple was fairly straight forward with only a few ways to go most ending in an empty room. They were dark too, no light except from the small window and a layer of dust covered everything almost as if the temple had been left untouched for years. Both of us chose to go to these rooms first because we knew they were empty. The one path we hadn’t taken smelled of old cloth and campfires so we knew there was someone, or something, there.

“Eventually, we were left with no choice but to go to that room. It was different; filled from floor to ceiling with books and at it’s center was the dungeon’s guardian.

“That was the fist time I saw a dungeon guardian. At first I’d expected something monstrous or beastly like in the stories, but it was a beautiful statue of living gold. That’s not to say it was normal. It had three faces on it’s head and a set of arms for each face to use. We were ignored at first, allowed to look at it as it read with two faces and filled the pages of another with the last. It wasn’t until we started to look around the room that it looked at us and even then it continued to ignore us as if we were beneath it, at least, until we tried to take one of the books from its shelf.”

Lindi licked her lips to rewet them and repositioned herself before continuing.

“ ‘Just put it back when you’re done. No need to leave things a mess if we can avoid it.’ I don’t think I’ll ever forget how calm and melodic its voice was and how it still chilled me to the bone. It was inhuman. Daumantas took advantage of the situation better than I did since I was in shock at the time. He asked if it was possible to leave and the guardian answered without ever looking up from its work. It told us that we could indeed leave, but it came at a cost.

“It said we were lucky to have asked before reading anything since the more we learned while there the higher the cost to leave. It gave us a choice, give it one of our lives or take its challenge. There was no way I could kill Daumantas in a fight and even if he was willing to die to let me leave, he was smart enough to make that the last option. But he also knew dungeons better than I did and wasn’t keen on challenging it. So I asked. I asked it what the challenge was.

“That caused the statue to stop what it was doing and focus its full attention on us, on me. Simply put, it wouldn’t tell us, even if it was willing to let us go if we failed it’s challenge. It said it would reward me either way, for being brave even though I was afraid. So we challenged it.”

“I don’t know what Daumantas’ challenge was since it separated us. I was taken to one of the rooms and given a book and told to read it from end to end. I told it I didn’t know how to read but the guardian wasn’t fazed. It assured me I would be able to read the book even if I didn’t know the characters in it and left after telling me to open the door when I was done.

“Time in that room wasn’t right. The sun would set and rise through the window several times in just a few seconds, but the dust in the air just hung there frozen in place. I’m not sure how long it really took, but when I finished the book I did as I was instructed and opened the door. It led into the book room even though that should have been impossible since I’d been led through half the temple to get to the room I just left.

“The guardian again broke from its work and questioned me on what I had read. So I told it what the book was about to the best of my ability and understanding. It seemed fascinated by my words and the other two sides of it worked fervently to copy down everything I said word for word. By the time I finished it seemed overly pleased with the results and told me that I had finished its challenge far above its expectations. Daumantas entered through another door hidden behind books and the guardian started to tell him about how I’d passed its test; that the ideas of children were always more interesting than an adults’.

At that point it told us we could leave but as we started to go it stopped me. It pulled a small piece of gold from its body that it then flattened and opened to create a band before putting it on my wrist.”

Lindi stood and started to place the peeled poetan in a pot to boil them.

“We were able to leave through the gate after that and it wasn’t until later that I found out we’d only been in the temple for at most a half hour. Jokum hadn’t even returned to the camp to form a rescue party yet. His words were called into question when we arrived shortly after he did but the band I’d been given was enough proof to put those doubts to rest.

It took me a year to figure out that the band actually did something. If I wore it, the hand it was on wouldn’t be burned by fire. Seemingly useless and it wasn’t going to do me any good when our fighting with the Demons started six years later.”

The two of us worked in silence for a few minutes before I broke it.

“So, what about the other dungeon? You said you’d been to two and that guardian didn’t sound that scary.”

Lindi froze in place.

“The first dungeon, it’s far away, so much so that I don’t know if I could find it again even knowing where it was. The other one? It’s here; under this mountain. It was found in a ravine after we’d been digging for over three years. The Demons, they sent a few of us in at first before going in themselves. We had to mine the dungeon of its resources, a blue stone that felt like holding mana in your hands.”

“So why are they still not mining it? Did they get everything from it?”

“No. No something much worse than that. You see, we woke the dungeon guardian. And this dungeon was not like the other one. This one had no problem letting us come and go because it wasn’t trying to keep us in; it was trying to keep the guardian in. That guardian was nothing but rage and anger. We were in its territory and it wanted us out. So it hunted us until it reached a point where the Demons were afraid to send us in. They even sealed off the passageways that lead to the ravine. Almost a third of the deaths that have happened at this camp were inside the dungeon. We lost so, so many people. But, I wasn’t one of the people sent into the dungeon during tha time, I only know from the few that made it out how bad it was.”

Lindi continued to cook as the conversation died again and it wasn’t long before the topic turned to different things like my current progress with controlling my sense of smell. I was given a few more tips but overall I didn’t feel like I’d made any steps forward. We continued to talk and before long it was time to head to roll call again before having our final meal and being done for the day.

This day had been more stressful than the last few but a few good things had come out of it. I still wanted to try and make up more with Vilmar even though he seemed to think we were fine. Once I separated from Lindi, I tried to use what she had taught me to find Vilmar through smell. I was only successful in singling out his scent in the mix but it was better than I’d ever done before. Having finished with my practice, I made my way over to Vilmar before taking my place at his side.

The two of us talked about what Lindi had told me and I pushed myself into his side as the winds started to pick up again. The added warmth was welcome and when Vilmar started to scratch around my horns I was content to not limit the volume of my purrs. We stood like this for a while until roll call started and even then I only paid attention when I noticed people were being set somewhere.

It was clear from the voice calling out names that Selmet was absent again and the process seemed to slog along like it had eariler in the day. I wasn’t wholly concerned with this until I heard why people were being sent away; there was another party happening tonight.

When the Demon calling roll got closer, I pushed myself as hard as I could into Vilmar’s side while trying to suppress my purrs. Vilmar stopped scratching and left his hand where it was in hopes of calming me. The contact helped and I could feel myself start to shake slightly when the Demon reached Vilmar.

Once again, papers were turned and Vilmar was accounted for. He stepped away from me causing me to whimper and my distress only increased when the Demon looked and me and then at a second smaller piece of paper.

“Rea?”

I nodded and the demon took a piece of charcoal and wrote something about halfway down the paper.

“You’re part of the delmatas tonight. Just follow the others if you don’t know where to go.”

I nodded again and took one look over at Vilmar and the equal amounts of distress his face was displaying. I whimpered before turning to join the rest of the people heading to the party. As much as I didn’t want to go, I also didn’t want to end up on the post or have Selmet find out I’d been stepping out of line again. There were at least a few reassurances that I was able to give myself since I knew that there was at least on person that would continue to be a friendly face. I also was prepared for what was to come and how to better handle it.

The entire walk to the hall I continued repeat that everything was going to be okay as I fell in behind a few other Deamon women in order to not stand out. Just like before, our entryway was at the back of the building and wound through the kitchen. I was looking forward to seeing Merix again since he had helped me a great deal last time. I wanted to thank him now that I could speak again and was disappointed to find that the kitchens were empty with no signs of recent use.

A growing sense of unease started to settle over me as I walked through the kitchens and towards the side room that I’d been prepared in last time. As we got closer, I moved to see around the women in front of me to get a better view of the steady stream of people entering and leaving the room. I found myself struggling to take full breaths as the total lack of clothing on the women leaving the room sunk in.

I joined the small line leading into the room and was soon enough removing my own clothing before standing there unwilling to leave. A few passing glances of what I thought might be pity caused me to shrink in on myself until a Deamon woman started to walk in my direction. From her scent I was able to tell it was the same woman that had helped prepare me the first time I was here.

“Why are you here?”

“I was told to come here at roll call, to help with the party.” My voice faded to a whisper, “But this isn’t a party, is it?”

“It is a party, just not the type you should be at. Someone must have made a mistake, Selmet’s too possessive of you to ever let you attend one of these. Come with me.”

She made her way out of the room and I trailed after her while trying to avoid attention or wandering eyes.

“What, what type of party is this?”

“It’s a delmatas, not that that means anything to you. Just a second.”

We stopped next to a pair of male Demons filling small bowls with liquid from a cask before giving them to the waiting women and letting them into the room.

“Wait your turn like the rest.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

The demon being addressed sneered as he replied.

“Sure looks like it is though. Stop wasting my time and get in line.”

“I’m here because of her.” I was pulled out from behind the woman and subsequently tried to move behind her again to remain hidden. “She not supposed to be part of the delmatas.”

Both Demons looked me over before muttering ‘Selmet’s’ and turning to talk with one another for a moment. The hand holding me in view was loosened and I slipped out of its grip to move out of sight again.

“Was she on the list?”

“I don’t know. She said that she was told to come here during roll call, but without Urik or Selmet in charge I’m thinking that there was a mistake.”

“Narciso, you want to go double check or want me to do it?”

“You go. I’ll keep getting them ready for the delmatas.”

The Demon on the left walked off as the other continued to repeatedly fill the bowls and have the women in line drink from them.

“If I owned you, I would beat you for talking back like you just did.”

“You don’t though.”

“No, but despite that, Natalia seems to like sending you to these and then not showing up herself.”

“You know as well as I do that I’m here as her substitute.”

I moved a step back to avoid the Woman’s tail as it started to twitch sporadically.

“Still, not much difference in replacing one whore with another if they both willingly spread their legs.” A nasty smile appeared on Narciso’s face, “Though she seems to prefer putting your head there instead of a good man.”

“Maybe if any of you were actually any good she wouldn’t want me over all of you.”

Narciso chuckled darkly, “Oh I’m going to enjoy using you tonight. It’s always a treat to see you beg for a dick like a bitch in heat.”

A quiet growling started to come from the woman I was hiding behind making Narciso laugh again.

“Growl all you want kitty cat, I’ll be turning them into moans soon enough. It’s a good thing you’re an obedient pet or else things may have gotten a little too rough for you tonight.” He paused while looking her over, “Speaking of, you two still need your collars.”

“I needed to make sure she was supposed to be here first before putting one on her.”

“But that’s no excuse for not having yours on. Your tongue may get a lot of practice with Natalia, but it’s not going to help you here. At least, not until the delmatas starts.”

At this point the woman’s tail wrapped itself around her leg as she stood there silently. We continued to wait as women slowly made their way past us into the main room each drinking the contents of the bowl before entering.

“Well, it looks like we’ll be getting our answer here.”

I turned and saw the other Demon making his way towards us.

“And?”

“She’s on the list for tonight.”

“Is Selmet coming to this delmatas? He normally avoids them.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. She’s on the list so she goes inside as far as I’m concerned.”

Narciso turn to us, “You heard him. Finish getting ready and get in line.”

The Deamon woman nodded before turning and pushing me towards the room I’d left my clothing in.

“Sorry, I was hoping they’d made a mistake.”

“It’s fine; thank you for trying.”

“You won’t be thanking me by the end of tonight. Here.”

She placed the same collar from the last party around my neck before doing the same for herself.

“What, um, what’s you name?”

“Hm? Does it matter?”

She started to head towards the line and I followed.

“Kind of? This is the second time I’ve seen you and the second time you’ve helped me.”

“Do you really want to know it?”

“I’d like to.”

“It’s Eirini. Though I don’t see why you care. We’re just numbers to the Demons.”

“But I’m not a Demon and you’re not a number to me.”

“Welcome back you two. Nice to see you waited in line this time.”

Eirini simply glared at Narciso while accepting the bowl from him and downing its contents in one swig. She handed the bowl back and walked through the door into the main room leaving me alone.

A bowl was passed in my direction and I hesitantly took it and sniffed the liquid. It smelled of alcohol and somethings else that I couldn’t place. I wasn’t looking forward to the taste and took a small sip anticipating it to be bitter. Instead I found that it was overly sweet and I quickly emptied the bowl while enjoying the flavor. The empty bowl was returned to Narciso and I made my way through the door, stumbling as my feet responded slightly slower than I was expecting them to.

Just like last time, the Deamon women had lined up on the wall beside the entry door. As I made my way towards Eirini, I took in the lack of furniture in the room and how all but the edges of the room were now covered in a thick yet soft padding. The room was also warm, nearly to the point of being uncomfortable, something which I didn’t mind since I’d rarely been warm recently. There was also a pleasant smell hanging in the slightly smoky air, which I noticed was coming from a censer in each corner of the room.

By the time I’d reached Eirini, I’d started to trip over my own feet every few steps and had even fallen down onto the padding once. Forming a cohesive though was more difficult than normal but not to the point I was concerned. Once I was next to Eirini I stood against the wall, fidgeting every so often as my skin started to feel prickly.

It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling, more like an itch that I wanted to scratch, but I left it alone not knowing if it would become painful if I tried to do something about it. As we stood there, I caught myself sliding down the wall a few times and leaned into Eirini in order to stay upright.

Having pressed myself against her, I noticed that there was a slight layer of sweat on her from the temperature of the room, not unlike what I was forming myself. The close contact meant that I was able to easily pick Eirini’s scent out from the others in the room and I found that it was more alluring than anything I’d smelled up until this point. With the extra body heat and Eirini’s scent I found myself become almost giddy and started to rub the area between my horns against her leg.

As I rubbed the top of my head against Eirini’s leg while purring happily, I felt my body warm up even more with the majority of the heat concentrated in my lower gut. The more I rubbed myself against Eirini, the more ragged my breathing became as the warmth in my gut spread out causing an itching sensation between my legs. It reached a point where the itching started to become overly annoying and my purrs started to be accentuated by tiny whimpers since I didn’t know how to stop the itching feeling.

During this, I’d become fully reliant on holding onto Eirini’s leg with both arms in order to keep myself upright. The longer I held onto her, the tighter I needed to hold as our skin became slicker from our sweat and my legs unwillingly supported less of my wieght. My purrs had slowly dissolved into only whimpers and whines of distress as the itching reached unbearable levels. I found myself panting in order to meet my body’s demand for air and it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the sensation of something dripping down the inside of my legs.

Eirini wasn’t unaffected either as her breathing had become increasingly ragged the longer we stood against the wall. It seemed she was equally affected by our contact and she placed a hand on top of my hand to stop me from rubbing it against her. She started to scratch around my horns, which felt nice, but the feeling only caused the itching and heat in my lower body to become worse.

“Looks like they’re about to get started. You’re going to need to let go now.”

I whimpered in protest as Eirini pulled my arms off of her and helped me lean against the wall so I didn’t fall. I tried to look around the room but doing so made my head spin causing me to stare at the ground in hopes of making the room stop upending itself. As I watched my feet struggle to hold me up, I felt my face heat up because of the small puddle between them. My eyes drifted to either side of me and I noticed that I wasn’t the only one to have have wet the ground underneath themselves.

The longer I had my head pulled away from Eirini, the more dominating the combine smell of sweat mixed with different attractive scents became. I noticed that I was focusing on the different scents trying to find either my own or Eirini’s without any results and I wasn’t sure why I tried. Once the spinning stopped I slowly lifted my head and looked at the other side of the room.

Where our side of the room had Deamon women lining the wall, the opposing side had Demon women in a similar state of undress. I scanned the other wall and noticed both Heirmess and Armida were among the unfamiliar faces. As I looked around the room, I felt my mind becoming more and more clouded while my body became uncomfortably hot and the itching demanded that I do something about it.

I started to fidget in place and, in doing so, lost my balance against the wall and slid down it. The cool stone of the floor and lower wall helped take the excess heat from my body and that in turn calmed the itching down, but I didn’t like being so close to the ground where everyone else seemed to tower over me. I struggled my way back up the wall into a standing position and started to pant again as the heat returned. It escaped my notice when it happened, but another smell had added itself to the mix and upon taking a breath of it I started to salivate uncontrollably and forming a coherent thought became a struggle.

A loud slam startled me, causing me to fall again, as the doors on the other side of the room opened and Demon men filtered in. I watched as the men started to disperse around the room, walking around looking at the Demon women like cattle. The men approached some women who would in turn drop to their knees in an eerily similar manner to what Ieva did for Adamo. This continued as more and more Demon women were chosen until the men started to come over to our side.

With the number of people in the room more than doubling, it became even hotter and my panting became more intense to try and compensate. My focus shifted to trying to remain quiet as the desire to both express my discomfort and remain hidden fought with each other. The influx of Demons on our side added a musky smell to the mix of scents and I started to gag from the reminder of the last time I smelled it.

The combine effect of over salivating and the gagging caused me to feel like I was choking and I stumbled over to Eirini in an attempt to drown out the other smells with her scent. This time when I latched myself onto her leg and buried my face in her side she didn’t push me away which caused me to start purring deeply again. My purrs almost immediately returned to whimpers and whines as the influx of Eirini’s scent caused my body to heat up and itch uncontrollably again.

A hand was placed on my shoulder and I was pushed away by Eirini. I looked up at her but my vision swam causing me to lean against the wall before sliding down it. Until my vision steadied itself, I was without a way to tell what was happening. The room was too warm to distinguish things with my thermal vision and, unless I was pressed against the person, it was almost impossible to pick out individual scents from the mix.

My vision steadied enough that I was able to see Eirini had dropped to her knees and was servicing Narciso with her mouth. I wanted to move myself closer to hide behind her but my body wasn’t readily responding. Every time I attempted to move, my body would spasm slightly and I would loose control of it again. To make matters worse, I felt like I was on fire and the increased heat only served to heighten the itching to maddening levels.

I had to stay where I was in a gradually spreading puddle of my own creation as various Demons cast the occasional glance at me before moving on. None of them seemed to want to concern themselves with me and I was grateful that I wasn’t being chosen since I wasn’t sure I would be able to mentally handle what would be required of me. The Demons that had started sooner than the ones around me had moved further into the room and were now actively moving against their chosen partner.

Soon enough the Demons around me started to do the same thing with their respective partners. I watched as Eirini was pushed down and flipped onto her stomach by Narciso before he raised her waist so her knees supported her back half. Her tail moved between her legs like it was trying to prevent something, but Narciso kept pulling it out of the way until it wrapped around her leg. With that done, he placed a hand on Eirini’s rear and used his other hand to guide his penis to her groin. As he slid himself into her, Eirini let out a mix between a moan and a mew until the moaning took over as Narciso began to slam his hips into her.

What Adamo told me came to mind and I suddenly felt the need to empty my stomach. My only saving grace seemed to be that the Demons were ignoring me as if they were waiting for something or someone first before jointing in like they were with other women.

These thoughts were all brought to a halt when the smell of blood cut through all the other scents in the room. I started to look around to find the source but only succeeded in dizzying myself again. Despite my vision swimming to the point I was getting nauseous, I continued to try and locate the only two people I knew that had this particular smell. As I repeatedly failed to find either of them, the idea of having Selmet or Adamo use me like Eirini or these other women were being used sparked more panic in me, especially seeing the end result of being used by Adamo.

My mind simply stopped working when I finally saw Adamo slinking around the room. I watched as he patrolled the room as if looking for something until he finally looked in my direction. In an almost lazy fashion he changed the path he was walking to make his way over to me with a predatory smile on his face. When he finally reached me, he crouched and watched as I fought with my body to move away from him.

“Well this is a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

I glared at Adamo and tried to respond but found that my mouth couldn’t form any words leaving me to hiss weakly at him.

“Now now, that’s not very nice. Don’t you know that you shouldn’t behave like that?” He paused for a second while thinking, “Though I suppose Selmet hasn’t had the time to retrain you yet. If I remember correctly, he’s been rather…preoccupied these last few days.”

I tried to speak again only to have my tongue lull uselessly around my mouth.

“I don’t suppose you know why you’re here do you?”

Adamo waited a moment for a response and I hissed at him.

“I expected as much.” Adamo shifted himself into a sitting position and pulled me off the wall into his lap. “But it would be a shame not to take advantage of this situation wouldn’t you agree?”

I whimpered in response before mewling quietly as any movements I tried to make only ended with the limb in question spasming slightly.

“Hm, I think we need to give you a little release first; then we can move onto the real fun.”

A hand slid down my body and between my legs and I started to whimper frantically while doing my best to escape. Adamo had no problems ignoring my attempts at freedom since they amounted to nothing more than small fidgets and proceeded to spread me open before forcing a finger into me. The jolt of pain caused me to yelp and then squeak as my body released all of the heat inside me. My head swam and I started to pant in order to catch my breath but the uncontrollable trembling racking me made breathing a chore.

“You’re like a small fountain and I can’t say I don’t enjoy hearing your cries of pain and pleasure. It reminds me of when Ieva still had some spirit left in her. But what about you? Still with me?”

I mewed quietly and Adamo leaned in to listen before humming to himself. He seemed to think it was enough because he quickly removed his finger causing me to squeak and convulse slightly under another wave of spasms. My legs closed reflexively as a small groan escaped me from the sudden soreness I was feeling across my body. Despite the soreness, my body seemed to be responding better to my wishes and I started to struggle against Adamo’s grip.

“Ah, ah, ah. I know you’re eager to move on to the next part but it’s important to clean up any messes you make.”

The finger that was just inside of me was brought to my mouth and pressed against my lips and I did my best to keep my jaw clenched shut to deny it entry.

“Tch, this is why I prefer an already trained ginga.”

The arm around my waist was moved so Adamo could bring his free hand up towards my head before he wrapped it around my throat and started to squeeze. I began to struggle more violently against him, using my claws to scratch where they could reach, but failed to draw blood due to the lack of strength in my limbs. Only a few seconds passed before I finally opened my mouth to take a breath allowing Adamo’s blood covered finger in.

I bit down as hard as I could with seemingly no result and was forced to taste my own blood and the sweet liquid that had left me. Adamo loosened his grip on my neck enough that I could breath while moving the finger in my mouth spreading around the taste. A finger eventually strayed too far back and I gagged resulting in him finally releasing his grip around my neck. I gagged again as Adamo dislodged his finger from my throat and then started to cough once I had the air to do so.

“This all could have been much easier if you’d just done what you were supposed to instead of resisting. It can’t be helped though. At least we can move on now, can’t we?”

My continued squirming finally gained me freedom and I hissed at Adamo while crawling away from him. I pressed myself against the wall and continued to hiss, but Adamo just looked on with an amused expression.

“You don’t get it do you? Where are you going to go?”

I took a few glances around the room causing my head to swim again but discovered that the few escape routes I could have used were gone. To make matters worse I hadn’t actually gained any distance from Adamo and he could easily reach out and pull me back to him if he wanted to. With this realization my hisses turned to whimpers making Adamo’s grin grow even wider.

“See? No way out.” He patted his leg, “And being obedient is the best way to assure you don’t get hurt. Now come on.”

After another look around the room I concluded that I really had no other options and pushed myself off the wall and began to inch forward. Adamo’s patience with me seemed to have run out as he reached out and grabbed ahold of the collar around my neck before pulling. The action was enough to send me sprawling with a yelp and I landed on top of Adamo’s lap with my head between his legs.

The sudden motion dizzied me and I closed my eyes to help stop the spinning sensation. As the rocking faded, a musky smell and heat against my face jump-started my mind. Adamo had moved his hand to the top of my head and was now stroking it, which caused me to mewl any time my horns were rubbed against. The close proximity had caused me to heat back up and the added motion was making the itching return even worse than before.

I began to pant again in an attempt to cool myself off and started to whimper while trying to get out from underneath Adamo’s hand. He gave me a little leeway before I was unable to lift my head anymore and was left looking directly at his erect penis.

“You know what to do. I’ve already shown you once and neither of us are going to be happy if I have to show you again.”

Adamo tightening his grip to painful levels was the only incentive I needed to lower myself enough to bring him to my mouth but not into it.

“Go on then. I’m not going to wait forever.”

I opened my mouth slightly before closing it again and instead gave the tip of his penis a tentative lick in hopes of delaying the inevitable. The grip on my head loosened and I knew I had bought myself a little bit of time. Unfortunately, it meant I need to continue licking Adamo and in doing so his taste started to become overpowering making me whimper quietly in protest. Most of my attention was focused on the head of his penis since I was trying to avoid getting any closer to it then I needed to and Adamo seemed content with this until after a few minutes had passed.

“Right, you’ve delayed enough; get sucking and remember, no biting.”

With another quiet whimper I opened my mouth and proceeded to fill it with the head of his penis. As much as I wanted to bite down I didn’t, it would only end badly for me if I did and I instead did my best to apply the minimum amount of effort I could get away with. Adamo caught on immediately and proceed to push my head down further so I was forced to take some of his shaft in to my mouth as well. At this point I was struggling not to gag since the tip of his penis was prodding the back of my throat and started to fight to empty my mouth.

Adamo let me raise my head to the point of almost emptying my mouth before pushing me back down again, this time even further than before. This back and forth repeated with me slowly loosing ground until Adamo finally forced his entire length into my mouth and down my throat before holding me down so I had no way to free myself. I started to struggle as the lack of air from having my throat blocked made me panic. The hand was lifted from the top of my head and I pulled myself off of Adamo and started to cough while taking large gasps of breath.

“If you just did this by yourself we wouldn’t have these problems.”

I whimpered in response and started to pant as the heat in my body made itself known again. Adamo placed his hand back on my head and lowered me to where he wanted before stopping and holding me in place.

“Keep going. You remember what I told you?”

I nodded weakly while trying to get him to take his hand off of my head.

“Then do it. I’m not going to help this time and you’re not to stop until I tell you to.”

After a few tugs Adamo released my head and I was left to do as he instructed. Knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to drag this out without getting hurt, I took Adamo into my mouth as far as I was comfortable with before bobbing my head and sucking.

“There we go. It’s nice to see you can be trained quickly.”

I continued to raise and lower my head, focusing on the chiming of the bells on my ears instead of the taste in my mouth. Despite doing what he wanted, Adamo would occasionally tell me to go faster or suck harder. It was even worse when he told me to go lower and I did what I could without choking myself much to his delight.

Adamo gradually grew larger and finally placed his hands on my head to hold me in place while he released himself inside my mouth. The bitter liquid was once again nearly too thick to swallow but I didn’t have anywhere else to let it go beside in. As Adamo finished, he slowly lifted my head from where it was leaving my mouth filled with the final dredges of his excretion. Free from him, I tried to spit out the contents of my mouth only to have Adamo close my jaw and instruct me to swallow. I whimpered but complied since I had no other choice and started coughing lightly once I was released.

“Get on my lap.”

I did as instructed and tried my best to keep myself away from Adamo and the extra heat he was giving off since I was already overheating. Adamo seemed to know what I was trying to do and pulled me against him, causing me to quickly heated up to severely uncomfortable levels. My panting grew desperate as I tried to cool myself off while the steadily worsening itch made me begin to fidget in place. Soon enough my pants were punctuated by whimpers as nothing I was doing was alleviating my problems.

Adamo seemed to have been waiting for this since he began to rub my lower stomach making the heat and itching increase exponentially, further increasing my desperation. I quickly reached a point where my whimpers were replaced by little yelps of panic and Adamo only seemed more incited to hold me in place and continue his kneading. My struggles against Adamo increased and I started to curl in on myself as my muscles began to contract on their own.

Just as quickly as he started, Adamo stopped rubbing my stomach and instead reached between my legs and penetrated me with twice as many fingers as before. I squeaked in response and my body finished curling in on itself as all the heat that had been build up was released. My body continued to shake uncontrollably while Adamo removed his fingers and once again brought them to my face. I didn’t even resist when he pushed them into my mouth and spread my blood and the sweet liquid around to clean his fingers off since I was too focused on trying to breath.

“Ready for the next part?”

I didn’t respond since my mind was still trying to organize itself and simple continued to pant and shake quietly.

“I didn’t break her did I?”

Adamo shifted me around in his lap before pushing a finger into me, causing me to yelp and spasm again. He removed it just as quickly and had me clean it off before laying me on my back. I started at the ceiling with unfocusing eyes in a puddle of my own creation and continued to spasm while Adamo repositioned himself. He eventually moved me so my back was against the wall and I let out a small gasp from the sudden cold.

“You know what time it is?”

I whimpered while shaking my head and swallowing the drool that had build up to overflowing levels. Adamo spread my legs while positioning himself between them.

“It’s time of this,” he gestured to his penis, “to finally go where it’s supposed to go.”

My body twitched as Adamo rubbed himself against me and I questioned how something that large was supposed to fit inside me. I started to struggle but only succeeded in spasming. Adamo slid himself along me again before stopping with my hips against him and the head of his penis resting on my navel.

“Here we go.”

Time seemed to slow as my vision focused to just Adamo’s penis sliding down to enter me. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on something other that the pounding of my heart in my ears. Adamo finished his descent and pressed himself against me making me yelp in pain and close my eyes as his tip spread me wider than his fingers had. I kept my eyes clenched waiting for the pain I knew was about to come but was instead met with the continued sensation of Adamo being barely inside my entrance.

I whimpered quietly before cracking one eye and seeing that Adamo had stopped to talk with someone. A moment later Adamo removed himself from me and sat me down as the conversation turned into an argument. As my senses returned to normal, I looked to see who Adamo was fighting with and had never been happier to see Selmet. Free from Adamo’s grasp, I curled in on myself and watched the two fight in a state of shock. It was clear that Selmet wasn’t here to participate since he was fully clothed and the tone between the two made it clear that they were both extremely angry. I didn’t pay attention to what was being said and instead on the fact that I’d just bare escaped having myself skewered. The words ‘list’ and ‘property’ were thrown back and forth between the two as their arguing increased to the point I thought there would be violence.

Eventually they reached some sort of conclusion and Adamo walked off while Selmet bent down and picked me up. His grip was loose and, afraid I was going to fall, I dug my claws into his clothing in order to hold on. Selmet didn’t seem to care about my claws and stood to his full height before walking towards the door. The rise in elevation made my head spin again causing me to whimper and close my eyes. Be it from the whimpers or the tightened grip, Selmet began to stroke the back of my head while reassuring me that I was okay. I responded by gripping tighter and burying my face into the crook of his neck in hopes of drowning out the smells that had filled the room.

The close proximity to Selmet meant I was struggling to stay cool and I started to pant and fidget as the itching came back. Selmet simply readjusted me in his arms before opening the door to the kitchens. As the door shut behind us, the sounds of the main room were almost instantly muted and an icy silence took its place. Selmet had stopped speaking in favor of making sure he didn’t drop me while getting out of the main room but resumed once he continued moving down the hall.

“You were never supposed to be at a delmatas. I made sure you were never on the list which means that someone else put you on it. It’s a good thing that you have people that care about you or else I wouldn’t have known about this till after the fact. It even happened on the worst night possible.”

Selmet sighed deeply, adding another sound to the hall besides his footsteps and my erratic panting.

“But you’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. Here we go.”

Selmet knelt down and took a seated position before starting to pull me off of him. My body still wasn’t fully responding to me meaning Selmet had to unhook my claws from his clothing before removing the limb from around him. I started to whimper again as my grip on Selmet was slowly undone since it was the only thing stopping me from dropping to the ground. Selmet shushed me while saying that he wasn’t going to let me fall and moved my feet onto his legs so I had something to stand on.

Selmet slowly untangled me from him and as more weight was placed onto my legs they gave out. I yelped expecting to fall but didn’t since I was still leaning into Selmet. He placed a had on my back to help me stay standing while he finished unhooking the last of my claws before letting me slid down him into a heap on his lap. The heat and itching had gotten worse again leaving me to pant and whimper in distress since I couldn’t cool off.

“Let’s deal with this then we can get you back to Vilmar. How does that sound.”

I mewed in agreement as Selmet turned me to face the same direction he was. I could hear him rub his hands together before they were both placed on my lower stomach causing me to squirm from the sudden increase in heat. My whimpers became frantic since I was severely overheating but Selmet continued to move at the same pace despite the urgency in my whines.

A hand was once again slipped between my legs but instead of going into me, the fingers began to message the area around my entrance. Selmet systematically moved his fingers higher until they rested on a small nub. He pushed against the nub, squeezing it against my body, and I squeaked before releasing all of the built up heat. My body continued to convulse for a minute and I struggled to think about anything other than the fading heat.

Selmet let me remain in his lap until my breathing returned to normal and I found that my body wasn’t heating up anymore despite the close contact. I continued to spams but the lack of any whimpers meant Selmet focused on undoing the collar around my neck once again giving me free range of motion.

“Let’s see if we can get you standing.”

Hands were placed under my arms and I was lifted up, my feet flailing slightly until they gained purchase on Selmet’s legs. I was held in place until my legs stopped shaking and was then slowly released to see if I could stand. Without the added support, my legs gave out and I landed against Selmet as he caught me only to prop me up again. This process continued until I was able to stand, albeit unsteadily, while holding onto Selmet for balance.

Once I was standing, Selmet rose to put the collar away and then went over to the pile of clothes in the corner to find my dress. I didn’t let go while he did this and instead was taking small steps to make sure I could still hold onto him and not fall again. After acquiring my dress and the pouch I’d wrapped in it, Selmet tried to redress me but ran into problems when I wouldn’t let go of him.

This led to him sitting again so I could collapse into his lap while he dressed me. I let out a satisfied purr once I had my dress back on which only intensified when Selmet began to scratch around my horns. Selmet let me stay where I was for a while before picking me back up so I was standing again. After we were both up, Selmet tried to get me to walk a little under my own power. I made it a grand total of three steps before losing my balance and grabbing onto Selmet’s leg and mewing weakly. Selmet reached down and continued to scratch around my horns earning my typical reaction.

“Looks like were going to have to wait for a little more of the incense to leave your system.”

I purred a little louder in agreement before nuzzling my face into Selmet’s leg. After a minute of standing, Selmet tried to see how well I could walk again and I was able to move as long as I was holding onto him for balance.

“Good enough. Let’s get you back to Vilmar.”

I purred even deeper as we slowly started to move towards the outside of the building. A rush of cold air hit me when Selmet opened the door to leave and I whimpered while pulling myself against his leg. Selmet lead me outside and once I was fully in the cold I began to feel sick. My whimpering increased until I finally turned away from Selmet to empty my stomach.

The occasional bout of vomiting interrupted my whimpers and at some point I started to shiver. I continued to vomit until nothing was left inside me and the entire time Selmet stood over me rubbing my back. When I finally finished vomiting my head felt clear and my limb were responding to me with only small delays.

“Better?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Think you can make it back to Vilmar on your own?”

I though for a moment before standing to test my balance and decided that I could probably make it.

“I…I think so?”

“Off you go then. I have some unfinished business to take care of.”

With that Selmet walked back inside and, if I was to guess, was most like going to confront Adamo again. My shivering hadn’t stopped and it made taking good steps difficult so my progress was slow. I struggled to find the correct pathway back at first and had to think for a while on how to correctly get to the huts. Even then, the ever-invading cold and my slightly unresponsive limbs made the walk back feel far longer than it was.

There were times where my feet didn’t step like I was expecting them too and I ended up tripping and having to wait for my body to regain enough strength to stand again. At some point I started to see my breath in the air and I began to wish for the warmth sleeping in a group provided. After what felt like hours, I finally pushed my way through the curtain that separate our sleeping quarters from the rest of the world.

There was a slight increase in warmth, but, until I was actually against someone, it wasn’t enough to stop me from shaking. I stood at the doorway letting my eyes adjust to the darkness and managed to make out a large dark blob moving towards me. I whimpered slightly from the speed at which it approached, but quickly stopped when I realized it was Vilmar. I moved as quickly as I could to meet Vilmar and latched onto him when he knelt to pick me up.

“You’re okay, I’ve got you. I’m so, so sorry that I couldn’t find Selmet sooner.”

I tried to tell Vilmar that it was okay, that at least he’d done something, but all that came out was sobs as I started crying. Vilmar let me cry and walked back over to where we normally slept, returning to the same position he’d been in before standing up to get me. Eventually, the combination of Vilmar’s familiar scent and his reassurances that I was safe helped me relax enough that I was able to hold back my tears.

“What was that? Why did I lose control of my body? And, and why would Selmet care enough to come get me?”

“That was a delmatas. I know that doesn’t help much but the easiest way to explain it, is that it’s a social event for them. The idea behind it is that everyone there is equal regardless of their position in society. They’re used to create bonds between those who have and those who don’t as a means to mitigate feelings of oppression or jealousy.”

“But, but what about what they made us drink, and the, the incense or, or the,” I swallowed a lump in my throat, “them making us suck their penises.”

Vilmar pulled me closer and I purred from the added warmth.

“That’s another part of it. Demon society is run by the men but the women are magically stronger. So they make sure to physically dominate their women in order to control them. Delmatas are meant to reinforce this idea that women are just property; things to be shared. The drink and the incense are there to make you feel weak and make you easier to control. As for, as for the…penis sucking, I’m sure that whoever it was that was using you also put it inside you.”

I nodded into Vilmar’s side. “It was Adamo.” I shuddered, “He was about to put it in when Selmet stopped him.”

“That’s good that Selmet stopped him, you’re much too young for sex by our standards.”

“Then Why? Why would Adamo try? And what’s sex?”

“Sex is how you make children; it’s what happens when a penis is put inside you. Adamo tried to do this because you’re not too young by Demon standards.”

I pulled my head away from Vilmar’s side and looked up at him.

“What?”

“This, this will answer the question of why Selmet came to get you as well. I already mentioned that we’re slaves right?”

“Yeah.”

“That makes us property and you belong to Selmet. He gets to decide everything that you do or that happens to you because of others. It’s why he was so angry that you were put on the list of who would go to the delmatas. He came and got you because someone was using his property without his say. The problem is that Selmet hasn’t finished going through the proper steps to make you his, so a few Demons like Adamo keep trying to undermine him to get you.”

“But why? Why me?”

Vilmar sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

“Because you’re rare Rea. The number of greater regenerators that appear each generation, if any do, can be counted on one hand. For Demons, societal power is everything but people only live for so long making it difficult for them to gain that power. Greater regenerators like you can live forever as long as no one tries to kill you. Once you’re fully grown you’ll stop getting older which means that if a Demon was born with your regeneration…”

“Then they could get as much power as they wanted.”

“That’s right.”

“But, But what does this have to do with Selmet or, or the sex. He doesn’t seem to care about either of those.”

“He does. That’s the whole reason he made you his. Adamo needs to hurt his partner to have children and Selmet is the same way. The difference is how much more Selmet needs to hurt someone for it to work. Regenerators are fairly common but if he needs you, it means that he was probably killing them while trying to have children.”

“I…” My throat felt like it was being blocked, “I don’t want to hurt anymore.” I started to sniffle again. ”I’m tired of it, of the pain, of being afraid, of feeling trapped.”

“We all are Rea, but there’s only so much we can do.”

“Then I want to do more.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “I want to leave here and be free and, and do something else, anything, that will get me as far away from Selmet as possible.”

“Let me know when you figure something out and I’ll help. Anything you need me to do, I’ll do, if it means you can escape from here. Okay?”

I nodded into Vilmar’s side while wiping my cheeks dry.

“Then let’s get some sleep.”

—————

I continued to run my hand through Rea’s damp hair as she nestled into my side. It was easy to tell it would be a little while before she fell asleep since she hadn’t stopped shaking even after warming up. Having her close, I could recognize the distinct smells of vomit and sex on her, but there was only so much I could do to help even when she did let me know what was wrong.

It wasn’t fair that she was forced to go through so much without having a clue as to why it happened. We were casualties of a war we had no part of, and it was people like Rea who got the worst of it. The fact that this was a conversation I had had with her almost every month since she turned fifteen only made things worse. I knew Selmet was trying to finish making her his, but the constant memory loss had put that plan on hold until she could cope with the training Selmet was having her do.

The fact that I wanted Selmet to finally own Rea showed how desperate the situation had become. Twice this week Adamo had tried to call Selmet’s claim over her into question and the added abuse would only make her memory loss persist for longer. It was only a matter of time before Rea finally broke and I was both grateful and saddened that it hadn’t happened much sooner. All of her suffering would be over if she did shut down mentally, but it would also mean another person I held dear finally died.

I felt Rea stiffen when someone else in the room moved before relaxing after holding her breath for a moment. She continued to shiver and I reached over to pull her onto my chest. A small whine was the only resistance she gave to being moved and once she had settled herself on top of me she stated to purr. Her breathing finally started to draw itself out in the telltale sign that she was close to drifting off until someone in the room coughed.

The sudden noise caused her to tense up again and I reached up to scratch her horns in hopes of helping her relax. Her chest started to vibrate as I ran my fingers against the inside of her horns and she shifted again to push her head against my hand. The purrs started to weaken until only a slight vibration without any noise was left as she finally fell asleep.

Content with the knowledge that she was going to be able to get some rest, I closed my own eyes in hopes of getting some sleep tonight. I’d been lucky that Selmet directed his anger at Adamo instead of Rea or me. On any other day I would have been beaten senseless for going against his rules even if I was informing him that Rea had been taken to a delmatas.

I drifted off for a little while only to be woken by Rea thrashing about in her sleep. A moment later she woke and started to panic, whimpering and shaking me to try and make sure she wasn’t still in her nightmare.

“Shhh. It’s okay. I’m here. You’re going to be okay.”

I sat up slightly, propping myself against the wall, in order to hold Rea against me with both arms. The contact and my soothing helped her stop panicking enough to break into muffled sobs. She curled into a tight ball against me, burying herself into my chest as best as she could. As Rea calmed down, her sobs slowly died off only to be replaced with a constant shaking.

The longer she was awake, the worse the shaking became and she started to tense up at the slightest noise. I tried to scratch her horns to calm her, but when I made contact with her head she jerked back until she realized what touched her. After that, she pushed her head into my hand and whimpered in a pleading manner. I didn’t need to see her face to know she was distressed and started to scratch in hopes of helping her relax.

It was clear that what I was doing wasn’t helping due to the lack of any purrs and I was about to say something when Rea spoke.

“Can you tell me a story about something, anything, to distract me. I keep thinking about tonight and I just…I just…I’m going to drive myself crazy thinking about it.”

“I can do that.” I pulled myself up into a sitting position knowing that I wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep tonight.

”Make sure you’re comfortable.”

Rea shifted herself to lay across my lap with her head on one leg and her feet just barely dangling over the other. Once she stopped moving I resumed scratching her horns and earned a weak purr for my efforts.

“A long time ago, back when there was no distinction between Demon or Deamons, there lived a very powerful man. This man ruled over a large area of land, content to keep the people under him safe as long as they listened to his rules. Eventually, he fell in love with a maid working in his castle and his affections were returned in the form of two children. The man was a good father, but he found that he wasn’t satisfied with just one wife and began to slowly accrue a variety of women who bore him children.”

“What does accrue mean?”

“It means to gather. Now, when all was said and done, the man had sixteen children that shared his blood and therefore had a claim to his land. As he grew older he gave them a task, find a way to become stronger and ensure that they could protect themselves and their people just like he had.

“His children, like him, were smart and they knew that working together was the best way to satisfy their fathers wishes. They broke off into pairs to study the world and its creatures, looking for some way to become stronger. The answer they found was to use magic but of what type they didn’t know.

“Using this as their starting point, they began to create different spells in hopes of achieving the goal they had been given. But one day when experimenting, there was an accident and one of the spells backfired. The pair that had been hurt were Livius and Birati, these two are the ones who eventually found what the Demons now use to strengthen themselves. You see, when they got injured, some effects of the spell lingered and that in turn both hurt and helped them.

“When they recovered, the two continued to pursue this avenue of strength while slowly growing further and further apart from their brothers and sisters. They were angry, jealous that the others got to continue living carefree lives while they were now cripples, confined to limited activities because of their injuries. They channeled this envy into their study and eventually perfected a way to strengthen themselves while using that emotion as the power source.”

Rea yawned, letting out a small whine as she did so before nestling herself deeper into my lap. I let her finish moving before I resumed scratching her horns, which finally had Rea purring like normal.

“They took this magic to their father and showed him it’s strength. He was impressed since they were the only ones to have created anything worthwhile. He gathered his other children and this magic was shared between them, with Livius and Birati explaining what made the magic work. Each pair was now to find an emotion and create a similar magic and that is what they set out to do.

“Sulari and Vratislav focused on anger since they had wanted to be the ones to meet their fathers wishes first. Their magic was powered from this wrath that they wanted to act upon.

Carpus and Nubia sought to try and use this magic for their own gains and in doing so fell prey to their greed. The magic consumed them, changing them into completely different people.

Shahnaz and Kian took the magic and made it their own, perfecting it to a level Livius and Birati could only dream about. Their work set them apart from the others and their father showered them with praise. They took great pride in their work and continued to try and keep their findings ahead of the others.

Mu and Sanjati were the opposite, they only picked up what they saw as nearly done work and finished it, not bothering to put much effort into anything they did. Their father had derided them for their sloth many times, but they didn’t care if it meant they could spend more time doing what they enjoyed.

Belén and Balgoy used the magic to fund their unending appetites, selling it to the highest bidder so the could fill their guts. They fell prey to their gluttony and soon enough had no friends or allies they they could rely on leaving them with only empty stomachs and empty lives.

Lilitummu and Zoticus were similar but they chased after the pleasure of the flesh instead of the mind or the tongue. They’re the ones who started what became delmatas, as they wanted to enjoy themselves as much as possible. They used the magic to draw others to them and satiate their lust, sometimes by any means necessary.”

Rea’s breathing had steadied to the point I knew she was asleep, but I decided to finish the story until I knew she wasn’t going to wake up again.

“After many years, the king gathered his children again to see what they had done and he was impressed. His children had surpassed his expectations and he broke his land into sixteen pieces so that each one of them could have something to rule. These magic are what the Demons now call curses. Powerful magics that help them but at a cost.”

I paused to run my hand through Rea’s now dry hair making her purr and curl into a ball in my lap.

“But the two children I haven’t talked of, they didn’t like what they saw. They didn’t want to be restricted and sought to twist the magic in a way to suit their wants. After many years, long past their fathers death, they finally finished their magic, fueled by the desire to change. Their siblings caught wind of this new magic, stronger than anything they could do but requiring years if not decades to come to fruition.

It was requested of them that they share this magic and they refused, stating that they wouldn’t do so. This refusal sparked a conflict between the fourteen that wanted the magic and the two who wouldn’t share it. They only held a tiny part of the land with very few people, but they fought back long enough to let the majority of them escape before doing so themselves.

They used their magic on those who had left with them, giving them the curse of change, the only thing they believed would truly last forever. Unsurprisingly, the rewards that were promised for knowledge of this curse lead to many people returning to the fourteen but none of them got what they had hoped for. They were used as test subjects to get the new curse and disposed of once all the useful information had been taken. The fourteen used what they had learned to enhance their own curses but it came at a cost they weren’t expecting.

“When their curses changed, they changed with them. Some became beings completely lacking any resemblance to a normal Demon. For others, it meant that the reward their curses could give were delayed or restricted to need certain requirements to grow while the negative side effects were present since the beginning. Their nations began to fall apart and the fourteen siblings gathered together to find a solution.

“It was in the last years of their lives that they finally presented the answer to the rampant curses that plagued them. They called them binding circles.

“This circle is burned onto the Demon’s back when they reached a certain age, caging the curses so they can use their power. Even then, it only allows one curse to wake and its power is still limited by the knowledge the owner has of the curse. They did this so that way someone else could see if the curse had any positives and then tell the owner if it was a bad curse, keeping its malevolence locked away.

“While this was happening, the two siblings that had fled looked at what their curse had wrought and decided to make changes so no one could steal it again and repeat the same mistakes. This change was physical, something that needed to be present since birth in order to make the curse take root and come alive.”

My fingers brushed against Rea’s horns making her purr and kick her legs slightly.

“This change also came with an unintended side effect. It changed how the bodies of those Demons could handle mana, allowing them to store it and use it without exhausting themselves. This change and the leadership of the two siblings gained them a near reverent status but they didn’t want it. They continued to do what they had always done; help others and lead their now nomadic people, teaching them what they knew of the land and how to survive in it.

“They were great people and they didn’t abuse the power given to them. That’s why they’re in our legends, our stories, and have remained a positive part of our history unlike their fourteen siblings.”

I slid myself down the wall enough to stop the ache in my back from getting worse and closed my eyes in hopes of getting some sleep in the few hours before the sun rose.

“That’s why we named the moons after them.”