Monstrum: Grub - Part 2

By WintermuteX
wintermutex.stories@gmail.com
https://www.asstr.org/~Wintermutex/

Contributions by Clark & Lily
czernobog.n.lilly@gmail.com

Previous stories:
Monstrum: Bitch
Monstrum: Broodmother
Monstrum: Filly
Monstrum: Submission
Monstrum: Jacqueline
Monstrum: Pollination

Tags: Mg, bd, best, inc, magic, nc, ped, rape, reluc, viol

Content: Rape, Monster Rape, Young Girls, Magic/Fantasy, Gore, Death, Violence, Bondage, Incest, Pedophilia, Pregnancy

"Seri!"

She stopped crying when she heard the echoing voice. It came from the narrow gap far above, where the lone shaft of sunlight slanted down feebly.

"'Marcus!" She cried out. Seri's tears turned to joy. She thought she had been going to die down here. But Marcus was here. Marcus would save her. Her arm still hurt - everything hurt - but now he was here. He would make everything right.

"Hold on Seri! I just have to...to get the rope tied..." Marcus' voice was distant, but reassuring. "Are you hurt?"

"Yeah..." Seri sniffed. She could feel the warm blood on her scalp. Everything had happened so fast. First the rumbling under her feet, then the ground itself moving, falling, pitching her head over heels down the hillside to plunge screaming into the ravine. The memory was foggy. She had woken some time later to darkness and pain and the taste of blood in her mouth.

"Gods...gods curse it all. Ok, there." Marcus shouted from far above as he secured the rope, letting his voice comfort her. "Just hang tight Seri. Don't move. You fell a long way but I'm going to get you out. Ok, ladybug?"

Seri cracked an involuntary smile despite her sniffling. He changed his pet names for her practically every month, but ladybug seemed to have stuck for a while. She could hear him shuffling far overhead, and a knotted rope began to feed down through the crack into the narrow chasm she was stuck in. It dangled and steadied, then began to quiver as Marcus descended from above.

"Hold on...just hold on..." Seri wasn't used to hearing this kind of fear in his voice. Not fear of the mountain, or the height, she knew. No. The icy dread was fear for her. She didn't know how long she had been stuck here. Hours maybe. How long had they been looking? The light stung her eyes and her vision began to swim dizzily as she tilted her head to look up, seeing his growing form eclipsing the wan sunlight from above.

"Seri!" He finally reached the end of the rope and dropped the last few feet. "Oh gods, Seri!" She could feel his hands on her face, touching her, his voice quivering. Why were his fingers so sticky? No, it was her. Her blood. She blinked but couldn't focus. He was crouching over her, indistinct.

"Ok, there's a bit of blood, ladybug, but nothing you can't handle I know." The confidence had returned to his voice. He wasn't going to let his little sister see how scared he was.

"Tell me where it hurts Seri," he said.

Seri coughed, her throat stinging. "My...my arm," she said weakly.

She could feel him moving. Spikes of pain still lanced in her right arm. She couldn't move it at all.

"Ok...fuck." Marcus was grunting, pushing at something. Seri heard the sound of rock grinding against rock. "I'm going to have to..to..."

His face appeared in her vision again, hovering directly over hers.

"Seri there's a boulder on your arm. I'm going to have to move it. It's going to hurt. Try to keep your arm still, ok?"

She nodded. The world was getting dimmer, like a fog was creeping in. That was odd. There shouldn't be fog in here.

"Stay with me Seri." His fingers touched her cheek. "Don't go to sleep. Just a little hurt and then you're going to be fine. Ladybugs don't feel pain. Remember that rhyme I taught you?"

She remembered. He had made it up on the spot one day when they were alone in the fields. She started to mumble it then began coughing. Her chest hurt bad, and her lips were dry and cracked. She tasted blood on her tongue.

"Oh pretty ladybug, wings spread aloft," he prompted. "Come on Seri, say it for me."

"No pain comes now, nor touch so soft." The words felt funny in her mouth. The world was getting blurrier.

"With jeweled wings on fingers alight..." he said, taking off his shirt. The muscles of his chest and arms bulged tightly. He began to wedge his body between the big rock and the wall of the crevasse.

"A ray of hope from stars so bright."

"A true kiss of love..." His muscles flexed as he tested the rock, steadying himself.

"Sent from gods above," she whispered weakly.

"And a child conceived in the night," he finished.

She felt herself smile. That last part always warmed her heart. Her eyelids felt so heavy that she felt like she could drift off, happy just that he was with her.

"Here we go Seri."

Seri heard the sound of grating rock as Marcus heaved. Her eyes flew open and she shrieked. A pain lanced up her arm like a spike shoved into the bone. Marcus was straining, muscled corded and flushed red with blood. It was all over in a moment. Seri felt a massive weight shift and heard the crash of the rock hitting the ground behind her. The pain died to an angry throb that pulsed all throughout her arm and shoulder.

"M-Marcus..." she cried. Tears were running down her cheeks again. It had hurt so bad.

"Shh, it's ok. I'm here."

She felt his strong arms dig under her and pull her up out of the crack she had fallen into. He lifted her like a doll then lay her on the smooth stone to the side.

"Thank the gods you're ok, Seri," Marcus said. His voice carried a slight tremble, a brief crack in his facade as he bent down to look at her. "We were looking for you for hours. You're 8 years old now and you still get into so much trouble. You know you shouldn't walk on the hillsides when it's raining like this. There are mudslides."

"It had stopped raining," she sniffed.

"It's still dangerous." She could feel his hands on her, feeling her, looking for more broken bones. She winced when he touched her arm, so he stayed away from that, squeezing her shoulders, running them down her flat breasts and tummy.

"Does it hurt when I do this?" he asked, pressing tenderly at her belly. Seri shook her head.

He finished examining her legs. "Well, you might get out of this with just a broken arm, Seri. I don't like the look of that cut on your head though. It's a lot of blood."

He bent close to inspect it, putting his face directly next to hers. She could feel his hot breath, the sweaty strength of his muscles. He sensed her staring and looked down to meet her gaze. A silence stretched between them. He really was so handsome, with his curly blonde hair.

She pushed her lips against his with gentle pressure, and felt him push back. A warm thrill spread through her as her older brother kissed her passionately. She wiggled and moaned involuntarily, her pain all but forgotten, but he broke the kiss and bent to whisper in her ear.

"I thought I lost you, Seri." The pained quiver in his voice was unmistakable.. "Don't do that to me."

She nodded, ashamed, as he pulled back and looked down at her again.

"I'm going to make a harness for you," he said, pulling a second loop of rope from his belt. He ran it around her thighs and under her crotch, helping her roll slightly to loop it up and over her arms too. She winced when he touched her right arm and he loosened the rope and tied it closer to her shoulder.

"Ok. Grab on as tight as you can little sis." His arms went around her again and he somehow got her to sit up. The woozy feeling intensified. The light above her was swirling like it was circling a drain, but she felt the rope in her hand and his back against her chest, and she held on. The ground dropped away beneath her as he lifted her on his back. She always liked it when he did that, taking her off the ground like she weighed nothing. He reached back and helped her wrap her legs tightly around his waist, then pulled the rope tight and knotted it to secure her to his back.

"Almost there. Sorry if it hurts little ladybug, but it's just a short climb" She felt him grab the rope and tug on it. Her chest still hurt but it was dwarfed by the agonizing throb in her arm.

"You ready?"

She nodded, her chin against his shoulder. The ground seemed to fall away. Marcus' hands went up and up, climbing each notch of the knotted rope, lifting them both up towards the light.

Seri awoke with a start. She sat up, hearing the sounds of the night forest all around her.

"Marcus?" He had just been here. Right here. She could still feel the solid presence of his back, hear his heavy breathing. She put a hand to her head. No. Just a dream. She had been dreaming so much lately, almost every night. She didn't know why.

"Seri?" A girl's voice. Selise, the curly-haired girl her own age. She was sitting up on the opposite side of the patch of smoldering embers that had been their campfire.

"S-sorry," Seri said. Instinctively she felt for her wards. They were intact. She had included Ursa this time, obviously. They had travelled most of the day before collapsing in this little lee by the ridgeline. Seri had started a fire and shared a few emergency rations from her pack, then watched as the girls drifted off, sleeping next to each other on the ground and exhausted by their ordeal. She had intended to stay up and keep watch but she must have fallen asleep too.

"Who's Marcus?" Selise asked.

"Er...nobody," Seri lied. Selise just looked at her, those uncanny olive eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

"Not nobody," Seri sighed. "He was...uh, is...my brother."

"Oh." Selise said. "You were calling out for him. Something about his arms."

"Well, uh, nevermind that," Seri said, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She was grateful for the darkness to hide that, at least.

"You were awake?" she asked. "Did you see anything? Hear anything weird?"

Selise shook her head. "Just owls. Are there...monsters out here too?"

Seri nodded. No point in lying. Selise seemed like the kind of person who could tell anyway.

"Oh...but your magic protects us, right?"

Seri sighed. "Against some things, yes. But I can't detect every kind of monster at once. There are so many, and new ones being discovered all the time. Something could still sneak up on us."

Selise remained silent, her eyes wide as she scanned the darkness around them, searching for hidden menace.

"Hey, don't worry," Seri said. If anything does show itself I'll melt it with a fireball, or blast it away with air, or just disintegrate it. Piece of cake." She hoped her smile was comforting. Selise seemed to relax slightly.

"You can do...all those things? With the magic?" Selise asked

"Sure." Seri shrugged. "You can do practically anything with magic, if you know how."

"I've only ever seen mages once before. They came to Alara for the testing they do every few years."

"To see if you have the gift. The spark," Seri said. "Did they test you?"

"Yeah. They said I only had a tiny bit. Not even worth training. I guess if I had had more they would have bundled me off to the mage school." Selise shuddered.

"It's not so bad," Seri said. "You get to study magic and use it every day. We might even have been classmates."

"Don't they make you study books about how the monsters will rape you?"

"Well...yes," Seri admitted. "But there's a lot more to it than that. Battle techniques and anatomy lessons and all kinds of things.

Selise shook her head firmly and pulled up her legs to hug her knees. "Uh uh. I don't want to know anything about monsters. Nothing."

Seri wasn't sure what to say to that, so she changed the subject. "So uh, how did you end up hidden down in that cellar anyway?"

"Alyssia's mom," Selise said. "She grabbed all four of us and led us down there as soon as the bugs appeared. Said we had to be totally quiet or we'd be caught."

"Hmm," Seri murmured. "You didn't hide with your own families?"

Selise shook her head. "Don't got any. Me and Nelle and Nola...we're all orphans."

"Oh..." Seri said. "Sorry."

"We knew Alyssia though. We just happened to be there when her mom sent us all down. I think she had planned the space for just Alyssia."

"It looked pretty tight in there," Seri agreed. "So, what about them?" She gestured to where the two twins were sleeping together, arms hugging each other tightly.

"Oh...Nelle and Nola. They lost Nina a while back. She was a couple years older."

"Sickness?" Seri asked.

"No...a Centaurum raid." Selise shook her head. "I don't know the details."

The conversation lapsed into silence. Seri checked the sky. Moonlight flooded the valley floor. It would be a while until sunrise.

"You should get some more sleep," Seri said. "We'll have to start marching again at dawn."

"Don't you need to sleep too?" Selise asked.

Seri shrugged. "I can keep going for a while. I know some spells that will help. They won't last forever though and I can't use them on all of us."

Selise nodded, then laid back down on the grass. Seri watched the rise and fall of her chest for a time as the girl's breathing slowed. She shivered, and drew a trickle of magic around herself to ward off the cold. Being naked was embarrassing, the way the girls had kept looking at her, but she was used to all kinds of stares.

Selise was asleep now. Trying not to make noise, Seri pulled the tiny pouch off her belt, and fed it magic. It enlarged itself in her hands, growing back to a full-sized bag. She reached inside and felt for the stolen tome, then pulled it out. It was heavy in her lap, radiating with uncanny menace. Seri thought she heard a brief flurry of whispers, far off, somewhere she couldn't place, and she couldn't shake the feeling that if the book had a face, it would be smiling at her with cruel promise.

She shook her head to dispel the feeling. Just the magic. Wards, crafted to keep out the foolish and the unwary. It was a good warning for her to remember how dangerous the book was. Tinkering with magic whose function you didn't know was rarely advisable, but Seri was determined to unravel every secret this ancient tome held.

Carefully, she brushed the pages at the back of the book with her magic, testing the seal. Her spell broke, the weave snapped as if cut by shears. The book still didn't want her skipping to the end. She'd have to resume where she left off. More importantly, the feeling of her spell coming apart confirmed it to her: her spell had failed the same way during the battle. Had the book done that? It seemed impossible; it had been sealed safely inside the extradimensional space inside her bag. Dangerous. If the thing weren't so important, Seri would have thrown it away, but she knew it held the answers she needed: where the monsters came from, why they hunted and raped human girls. Seri looked at the 4 sleeping girls sharing the clearing with her. What would become of them if she couldn't figure this out? Her mind conjured an image of each of them, naked little fucktoys bouncing and squealing on an endless horde of monster cocks as their pregnant bellies bounced back and forth.

Not if she had anything to say about it. She dug her finger in to the middle of the book and it opened right where she had left off. She began to read.

The ancient civilization the pages depicted must be Aen Sielle: she had been growing more and more sure of it. They had been at the height of their power and produced magical wonders the like of which the world had never seen: floating cities, magical machines that controlled the weather, giant portals that could span different worlds. But something had happened: they ended up in a great war, a war against what they now called the Abyss. The text described endless hordes of monsters and demons from the lower planes appearing in the world. Their ferocity and numbers had taken the kingdoms of the world by surprise: although they commanded great power, the art of direct warfare had been obsolete for centuries.

Much of the account was impossible for Seri to translate. She made out a few bits here and there, enough to determine that the mages of Aen Sielle knew they were losing, and they had come up with the grand ritual to shift the balance. She turned the page, and came upon a detailed account of what the book had hinted at earlier: a massive gathering of mages standing on a temple mount with a vast series of arcane diagrams etched in the ground. The text here had a lot more words that Seri recognized, and after carefully consulting her notes she was able to piece together the ritual's purpose: to eradicate the monstrum races attacking the world by a subtle alteration to their fertility, so that they could only bear male young and never female.

At first it seemed like it had succeeded astonishingly well. The Monstrum momentum gradually halted, and the mages fought them to a standstill as the invaders' numbers began to wane over the decades. The attrition was working. It wasn't until later that the taint of the spell became known: one of the most powerful mages - a woman that the book depicted wearing robes as white as snow - had altered the flows in a way the other mages couldn't detect, giving the spell a side effect. It had reached out to affect the fertility of all the Monstrum races on all the planes, as designed, but it went farther than it should have. Fertility was stolen from the females of the Monstrum races, but instead of destroying it, the spell had shifted it to the females of all other races. It was still twisted by the spell's initial effect though: only males could be borne, ensuring the cycle couldn't be broken.

There was more: the technical descriptions of the spell's inner workings were far beyond Seri, but she gathered that the taint had additional aspects to it that took a while to discover. Monstrum ejaculate was imbued with effects that greatly enhanced the pleasure of intercourse and also granted some measure of magical adaptability to the female's body to make her a more suitable mate. The Conversion effect. Over time it came to evoke intense and persistent sexual cravings, with the details varying from species to species.

Seri looked up when a thrush called overhead. It was dawn already. She shut the book with a sigh and slipped it back into her pack, then got up. She roused the other girls, who each sat up rubbing their eyes sleepily.

"Is there anything to eat?" Selise asked, yawning into her hand.

"Sorry," Seri said. "We used up the rations But I can help a bit with the hunger."

She swung her staff, conjuring a light evocation that affected them all. Now their hunger pangs wouldn't bite quite as hard.

"There," she said. "It will have to do. We need to get moving though. We have to reach the highway as soon as possible. It's not safe to stay out here."

"I want to go home!" One of the twins cried out. She began sobbing, drawing her legs up and burying her face in them. Her sister wrapped her in a hug, whispering in her ear.

"There's nothing there, little one." Seri kneeled down next to the crying girl and patted her shoulder. "You can't look back now. You have to look forward. You have to be strong." She tried her best confident smile. Funny, she remembered Marcus saying the same things to her whenever she had been afraid. Now it was her turn.

"Here, look." Seri raised her staff, the A'sham hovering in the air, and poured magic into a complex whirlpool. Light flickered to life in front of the girl's face: a pleasing amber glow, pulsing in a shifting matrix of sparkling streaks that glittered and darted about like comets. The girl looked up, and stopped crying. She stared at the light show in awe, tears on her face. Seri made sure to look away, lest she be mesmerized by her own magic. She wasn't great at this spell, but it worked. The little girl calmed down. Her chest stopped hitching. She wiped the tears off her cheeks with dirty hands.

"It'll be ok Nelle," Nola said, brushing her twin's arm. Nelle sniffled a final time and then nodded as Seri let the spell fade away. The girls would have to learn to be brave to survive this nightmare, but Seri could at least take away a little of their fear for now.

With nothing to pack, they were able to set out at once. The forest trails were tight and confusing but Seri knew how to navigate the wilderness. She used her magic to clear rocks and fallen logs that barred their way, and they made steady progress up out of the valley. At the top of a slope, Seri paused and looked back. The morning sun shined down cheerfully on the burnt town, as if nothing had happened. Alyssia stopped next to her to gaze at the smoking ruin.

"What...what's happening to my mom right now?" she asked.

Seri swallowed uncomfortably. Maybe she should make up a lie, but she felt sure Alyssia would know. The little girl stood staring at her with her piercing blue eyes.

"The Chrysilae, they...uh...they breed with the girls they take." Seri motioned and they started walking again.

"So they're raping her? Like the Org did to Alannia?" Alyssia asked. Seri swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded.

"Someone told me that Alannia's probably pregnant by now. That she'll be having an Org baby. She's only 6 but they said it didn't matter with Org-reh. Is that true?"

"Well...how long ago did they take her?" Seri asked.

"4 months," Alyssia said.

The breeze whispered through the forest as they entered an area of scattered pines. Dry leaves began to crunch under the girl's feet as they walked. Seri kept scanning the area for hostiles but she did some quick math in her head: 3 weeks for full gestational compatibility with a girl so young. Conception within a week after that. 4 months from conception to birth. Yes, the girl was probably quite far along by now.

Alyssia took Seri's nod stoically. "And my mom?" she asked. "How long until the bugs put little bug babies inside of her?"

"Well...certain ovarian changes need to happen first..." Seri said, trying to deflect.

"How long?" The determined clench of Alyssia's jaw looked odd on the 9-year-old.

"Since she's a fertile woman already of child-bearing age I'd say...um...2 weeks."

Alyssia nodded resolutely. "Then we have to get out and back with more soldiers in 2 weeks. Then we can go get my mom. I don't want one of those bugs for a brother."

Seri pretended to agree. She wasn't going to add that, with Alyssia's mother being pounded by bug prick around the clock and exposed to the rapid Conversion effect of the bug resin, she would soon be enjoying herself immensely. There would be no rescue.

The girls walked for a time in silence, the only sounds the whispering of the breeze through the trees and the rustling of the branches overhead. They crossed a tiny stream, wading barefoot, and continued. As they climbed further up the slope, they came to the edge of a ravine and turned to follow it.

Seri tried not to dwell on her defeat. She would be disgraced if they ever got back, but she didn't care. At least she would be alive. And right now she had something more important than herself to worry about: these 4 girls. They trusted her. Alyssia still looked at her with awe, like she was larger than life - a mage out of a fairy tale, wielding incomprehensible powers to drive off the kingdom's enemies and set things right. They would have been better off with any other mage, but Seri was all they had, and she was determined to live up to their trust. She knew if Marcus was here it would be what he expected of her.

The ravine widened. Seri peered over the edge. A rushing stream cut through the mountain over a dozen feet below them. It looked deep. The strip of land they were on narrowed as they climbed. They were nearing the tops of the hills, and on the other side it would be an easier trek down into more level land with actual roads.

"It's a bit narrow..." Nelle said, stopping ahead of them.

Seri looked. The path dwindled to a small strip next to the cliff face, with moss and the occasional root sticking out to bar the way.

"We can make it. Just put your back against the rock," Seri said. She wished she were strong enough to conjure a bridge of air, but they'd have to make do with their hands and feet.

"If we get past this, we can cross, up there." Seri pointed, and they all looked at the natural bridge that swept across the divide up ahead. "Here, follow me."

She slung her staff carefully and pressed up against the wall. The ground projected out only about a foot, and it was lumpy and uncertain footing. She began to shimmy to the side, using roots for handholds.

"See? Piece of cake." She smiled confidently at the other girls, and they followed her lead. One by one, the girls moved onto the narrow ledge, holding on to roots and rocks with their backs to the ravine.

"Don't look down," Seri murmured. "First rule of climbing."

"Oops. I already did." Selise was right behind her, her eyes wide with trepidation. Seri kept moving. Pebbles and patches of dirt crumbled under their feet, rolling down to bounce into the crevasse. Seri was the biggest so she figured if she could make it, the others could too. Her left foot slipped once, failing to find purchase on some loose dirt, but she grabbed hold of a root in time and kept moving.

"Just a little bit farther now." Seri could see the path widen up ahead where it began to climb up some narrow rock shelves. "Once we reach there we're home free."

Her blood froze and her heart stopped when she heard the shriek: it came from above, diving swiftly towards them. She heard the other girls scream just as a heavy impact dashed them against the cliff.

"Seri clutched desperately for her staff. A Vile Buzzard! The disgusting feathered creatures were more common in high, inaccessible areas, but there must be a nest nearby. An impact slammed her again and she was buffeted by a wing. Reeking feathers blocked her vision. She felt the cool ash of her staff in her grip and gritted her teeth together as she struck out.

A pained squall rattled her eardrums as Seri virtually ripped her magic out of the air and hurled it unformed at the man-sized bird. Wings flapped desperately, and she could see the creature hovering tenuously as it clutched a taloned foot around the waist of each of the twins. The girls were screaming, grasping desperately at roots as the bird plucked them from the cliffside. Seri struck again, panicking. She couldn't let the bird have them. She wouldn't! Her magic rang out with a thump and the bird screeched again, dripping blood from fresh wounds. The ground began to crumble under their feet, and Seri managed to grab on to a protruding rock.

With horror, she watched as one of the twins dropped from the giant bird's talon. The girl plummeted into the dark ravine below them with an echoing scream.

"NOOO!" Seri lashed out furiously, her vision filling with a red rage. Impact after impact shook the air. She could hear Alyssia and Selise next to her, screaming, barely holding on. Seri gathered all her strength into a giant ball of rage and unleashed the most powerful jolt that she could. The bang slammed into the giant buzzard, cracking in the air like a concussion, leaving Seri with the breath knocked out of her and ears ringing. Dizzy, she felt the rush of air around her, heard girls screaming, fading. Water splashed coldly around her, then rose up to envelop her with a clammy embrace.

Seri's arms and legs jerked as she vomited. Water rushed out of her throat and she inhaled air into her tortured windpipe. Sharp gravel crunched against her arms. She pulled herself up and looked around in a panic. There! Her staff floated in the water just nearby. She grabbed it, mastering her fear as she felt the smooth wooden shaft against her palm.

She had washed up on a rocky shore in a slow-moving section of the stream. The cliffs stretched impossibly high overhead, blotting out the sun. Only a small amount of light filtered down through cracks in the rocks. Selise was next to her, choking up water. Alyssia was helping her cough it up by pounding on her back. Seri's eyes darted. She saw two ragged bundles of cloth in the slow-moving water and waded in to grab them. Just rags. Where were the twins? There - thrashing in the water just on the edge of the pool. Seri splashed fiercely through the chest-level water and hauled them both up by their arms. Their heads broke the surface, coughing. She pulled them over to the shore, and they all collapsed together on the rock.

The twins were naked, she realized. Their trim little 8-year-old bodies were shivering and wet with droplets everywhere. The Vile Buzzard had shredded their meager clothing with its talons as it grabbed them. The sopping rags Seri had pulled up probably wouldn't be good for anything.

She swung her staff and light blossomed around them, illuminating the cave. Then she collapsed to her knees again next to the other girls, all 4 of them coughing and gasping for air.

"Ugh..." Selise was holding her head, panting. "That hurt. What...what was that thing?"

"Vile Buzzard," Seri coughed. The rocks felt sharp on her hands and knees. "Not common out here." She looked over at the twins.

"Are you two alright? Did it hurt you when it grabbed you?"

Nelle shook her head, but Nola was sniffling and cradling her arm. Seri scooted over to take a look at it.

"Can you move it? Like this?" Seri touched the little girl's arm but she winced and whimpered and shrugged away. Broken, probably. Seri lifted her staff and condensed her magic into a complex pattern. This weave was always too much for her, but she did her best, knowing it would be better than nothing. She probed with her power, then sent it into Nola's arm, feeling the bone begin to mend itself, the wounds on the skin begin to knit together and close. The arm shimmered with a dull green light for a moment, then faded away.

"Better?" Seri asked. Nola moved her arm experimentally, wincing only slightly.

"Wow. It doesn't hurt as much now," she said.

"I can't heal it all the way," Seri confessed. The scrapes and cuts looked like they had been healing for a couple days now, but it was the bone that she had focused on.

"You'll need to go easy on it for a bit," Seri said. Nola nodded and managed a smile. Alyssia was looking at her with her jaw hanging open, like she had witnessed a miracle.

"Hmmm, let's try this." Seri dug at the pile of shredded scraps that had been the twin's clothes and ripped off some strips of cloth. She wrapped them around Nola's arm and then tied the ends around her neck to fashion a crude sling.

"There, that should help." Seri gave the naked girl a comforting smile. "You know, I broke my arm once when I was your age. I had to have it in a sling like that for 6 months. We didn't have any mages around though. With the magic, your arm should be feeling better in a couple days."

"Thanks Seri." Nola hiccuped, still shivering from the cold. Her tiny nipples were standing out, erect.

"How far did the water carry us?" asked Selise. "It felt like a long way."

Seri nodded, peering upwards. The rocky ceiling was high above them, pocked with stalactites with only a few slanting cracks between them to let the sunlight bleed through. Marcus wouldn't be able to get her out of this one, but at least the Vile Buzzards wouldn't be able to find them here. The last thing she wanted was to be raped in a giant bird nest.

"I think it goes underground here. Look." Seri pointed with her staff to where the rock met the water. Foamy bubbles rippled just under the surface.

"How are we going to get out?" Alyssia had closed her mouth long enough to look upwards with the rest of them. "There's no way we can climb all the way up there. Can you make us fly Seri?"

"Er, no. I can't." Seri felt herself blush, a prickling heat that fought with the lingering chill of the weater. "Only a few mages are strong enough to fly. It's pretty hard."

"Oh." The disappointment in Alyssia's voice was palpable. She had clearly thought Seri was capable of anything.

Seri looked around, taking stock of their feeble party: Nelle and Nola, naked, the latter with her arm bound by strips of dripping cloth. Selise peering upwards at the cracks in the ceiling, thinking, and Alyssia shivering as her soggy blue dress clung to her body. They looked like a party of drowned rats. Seri's own hair was plastered wetly to her face and neck. Well, even if she couldn't make them fly, she could still help.

With a slow swing of her staff, she mustered her power and pulled it into a weave that she diffused into the air all around them. Warmth blossomed in the cave like a balm. In moments, Alyssia had stopped shivering, and they all began to dry rapidly. The twins stopped hugging each other for warmth, the slick droplets of their naked bodies evaporating before their eyes.

"Ooooooh, that feels good." Alyssia rubbed her arms to chase away her last shivers, and then looked at her dress in amazement. It was dry already. "That's so amazing."

"It'll be amazing if I can get us out of here," Seri murmured. There really didn't seem to be any way out. A better mage probably would have had a dozen ways, but Seri was well accustomed to her own limitations.

"If you can't make us fly, can you cut a tunnel in the rock?" Alyssia asked her.

"No...sorry," Seri said sheepishly. "That takes a lot of power."

"Can you freeze the water so we can walk on it?"

"Erm...no." Seri felt her blush return.

"Can you give us sticky hands like a lizard so we can climb out?"

Seri thought for a moment. "Good idea, but...no. Sorry."

"Well other than drying us out, what CAN you do?" asked Selise.

"Look, I'm just...I'm not very strong with magic, ok? I was the weakest one in the company. The other mages are all better than me." Seri struggled to meet the gazes of the four pairs of eyes looking at her. "But right now, they're all getting raped by bugs in that hive in the mountains. I'm the one that got out, and right now, I'm all we've got."

Selise looked at her for a moment, and then nodded, looking disappointed. Seri had told her how magic could do almost anything, but now she understood that that was magic wielded by other mages, more competent mages. Alyssia was frowning unhappily. Her hero worship of mages was evaporating as fast as the water that had covered them apparently. The twins looked on, saying nothing.

The silence stretched on until Seri pointed her staff and conjured a flame from a small pit in the rock. It crackled merrily like a campfire, filling the space with a sweet smell.

"Let's just rest a while, ok? I can make the rocks feel soft." Seri tried to give them a confident smile. It felt strange. She had always been the one that needed help, that needed to rely on her big brother. He had always been there for her, but now she needed to be the one that these girls could trust. She didn't like the feeling.

They said little as they stretched out on the rocky ground by the fire. The light was already fading from overhead and plunging them into darkness, though Seri wasn't sure if that was because the sun was setting or if it was just at the wrong angle to shine all the way down to them. Eventually, their breathing slowed as they dropped off to sleep one by one. Seri had cast the meager wards that she could, but she couldn't stay up for watch. She had reached the limits of her magic's ability to keep her going without sleep.

The fire popped. It was a good imitation of a real campfire. The twins both had their eyes closed, asleep in each other's arms. Selise looked almost peaceful with her head resting on a rock like a pillow.

"Seri?"

She turned to see Alyssia staring at her, her eyes shining from the firelight.

"We're not getting my mom back, are we?" she asked.

Seri swallowed the painful lump in her throat as she stared into the flames.

"No," she whispered

Alyssia stared into the fire with her for a minute longer, then turned over to face away without saying anything. Seri felt tears well up in the corners of her eyes, but she wiped them away. All she wanted was to feel her brother's strong arms around her, to hear him whisper in her ear that it would all be ok. She had never been the strong one. Nobody should look to her to be in charge. But Seri knew that if he were here, he would want her to stand up and fight to her last breath no matter how hard it was. He would expect it. He had always believed in her.

Seri wiped away the tears before they could form and took a deep breath. She would do it. She would make him proud, even if he wasn't here. It was all she had left. Resolve began to fill her even as she began to drift off. She would get them out of this. She'd find a way. Even if she couldn't be the hero Val was always bragging about, she could at least get these girls to where they would be safe. There was nobody else.

It would have to be enough.

Darkness and flames surrounded her. The night breeze carried streams of burning embers and the sounds of harrowing screams to her ears. Girl's screams. Hulking, four-legged silhouettes galloped to and fro across the backdrop of the burning village.

Another raid. The endless raids. Fear pounded a heavy drumbeat in Seri's head as doom played out before her eyes. A pair of girls ran into the cobbled street, shrieking in terror. They barely got a dozen feet before a vast shadow reared up in front of them, hooves flashing. A net dropped over them both and cinched tight in an instant. The girls were lifted off the ground, shrieking, as a beast with the conjoined bodies of a horse and a man peered at them fiendishly. Centaurum.

The creatures were everywhere, chasing the villagers from their homes. One beast ran in close pursuit of a sprinting girl carrying a baby, galloping just behind to force her this way and that, making sport of her. Eventually it cornered her by a wagon, smiling down at them both malevolently. The girl's screams joined the background chorus, and her wailing intensified when she saw what the creature had dangling from its nethers. Another Centaurum trotted up the road, a wiggling girl under each arm. They couldn't have been more than 8, far too small to fight back.

Seri turned this way and that, dizzied by the chaos. She couldn't remember anything. The pulsing, blinding fear had risen up to drive all other thoughts out of her head. Focus. Breathe. She inhaled and coughed on the smoke.

Suddenly one of the beasts was in front of her, rearing up on its hind legs like a horse. Seri felt her mouth open but nothing came out. The upper body of a man flashed in front of her eyes, powerfully muscled, naked, with a handsome face that wore a twisted, cruel leer. He stared down at her, licking his lips. Seri felt her legs quake with fear and she looked down: she was naked. How? She felt the monster's eyeballs crawl all over her 12-year-old body, savoring it like a sweet taste before the main course.

Fight. The word cut through the madness in her head. She gripped her staff in her hand, feeling the comfort of the smooth ash. She swung, loosing power with a word from her lips, but nothing happened. The Centaurum grabbed the head of her staff in mid-swing and wrenched it from her grasp, then snapped it in two with a powerful flex of its biceps. Seri fell backwards onto her butt as the horse-man advanced on her, steeping forward until he was almost straddling her cowering form. Her eyes couldn't help but drop, coming to rest on the massive horse cock jutting from the creature's groin, pointing straight at her.

A scream carried on the wind. Flames flashed in her eyes. Seri was standing in the village square. All around her the monsters bustled, lining up their captured, weeping prisoners and lashing them in bent-over positions to crude hitching posts. A bounty of girls, all near her own age. Knives flashed, cutting away their clothing, hands dipping to squeeze the flesh underneath. The beasts were eager. They began to line up, each one taking positions behind a crying girl who squirmed against the leather straps that bound her wrists and ankles to the posts. A neat line of little girl pussy, fresh, ready to be enjoyed. One by one, they each moved to straddle their girl, letting her feel the thick shaft of veiny horsecock brushing against her buttocks, lubricated by the dripping trail of slimy horse precum. They grinned fiendishly, savoring the screams of their victims, their futile struggles at their first feel of horsecock pushing against their genitals. Those bulging phalluses pushed against the tiny, hairless slits almost comically, an impossible fit, but as Seri watched, each one managed to line up with its enormous glans spreading the tiny little labias to bursting, and then ram itself inside. The girls shrieked one after another, echoing cries as they were penetrated. Their first rape. Their first feel of thick horse prick slamming home inside them. Seri's fear gave way before a strange arousal, a burning heat that blossomed in her nethers unbidden.

The posts bucked back and forth as the horse-men rammed their cocks into the tiny struggling girls. It was chaos. It was music. Thrusting horse pricks flushed thicker with excitement, the Centaurum grunting with delight as they enjoyed the tight insides of their victims. Sweat dripped from their heaving horse flanks down onto the backsides of the bound girls, glistening in the light of the blazing bonfire of the town. A frenzied, pulsing, primal rhythm began to swell, horse cocks pounding into countless little girl pussies, penetrating deeply, battering wombs and stretching pussy walls almost to the breaking point. Girls shrieked, arms and legs jerking, but unable to struggle with their wrists and ankles tightly bound. The cries of terror began to transform, turning to howls of delight and pleasure, the girls revelling in their sexual congress with the beasts of their nightmares. Their motions eventually reversed, pushing back desperately against the fucking rhythm, urging their captors to slam harder, to drive deeper, to ram every inch of pulsing horsecock as deep inside as it could go. Panting gasps turned to roars of pleasure as the Centaurum began to cum inside their girls, releasing endless floods of sticky horse cum to flood their pussies and wombs

It went on for an eternity. Centaurum pounded away relentlessly, mounting each girl like a brood mare, slamming eagerly into the straining depths of her cunt and releasing a tidal wave of vile horse cum. Each torrent left a dripping, gooey river of horse sperm oozing out of the little girl's pussy when the veiny prick finally pulled out. The Centaurum began to have even more fun, mounting from the front to ram their stiff horse cocks down the little girl's throats, cumming in their bellies. Every struggling form was plastered in gooey semen, naked pink skin glistening in the firelight. They licked, they sucked, they pushed back against each fresh prick that rammed itself inside, squealing with total abandon as their horse captors fucked them without end.

Hair slick with seat. Saliva dribbling down her chin. Gooey runners of bubbling horse semen still on her lips. Seri looked down at the girl. Just one of many, naked and bent over and lashed to the posts like all the others. Something odd about her. Seri bent down, peering close, trying to see in the flickering firelight. Blond hair. Familiar. The girl looked up.

Alyssia.

Seri fell backwards into an abyss, screaming in surprise. Smoky fog covered everything. Still she fell, air rushing in her ears and drowning out her own cries, faster and faster, plunging into oblivion...

Seri rocketed up to a sitting position on the hard rocks, naked chest heaving, dripping with sweat. Darkness surrounded her. The meager amount of light that had come from the cracks in the ceiling had long fled, plunging them into darkness in the deep pit of the ravine. Her magical fire had died down to almost nothing - just a little dancing flame that quivered as if afraid of the encroaching shadows all around them.

She shook her head to try to dispel the nightmare. It had been so vivid. She had never been in a Centaurum raid, but the factorum had showed her what one was like. It had described in Centaurum battle tactics quite thoroughly, and devoted just as much space to describing how they raped their victims in vivid detail. All of the facts she had studied came again to her mind, unbidden: genitalia comparable to oversized stallions, up to 50 inches in length and 4 inches in diameter. Rapid first-tier conversion effects that caused enlargement of the vaginal interior and throat. Ludicrously large ejaculations. Oh yes, and they *loved* fucking little girls. Rapes went on around the clock and impregnation usually occurred within a week. Poor Nina. Seri wondered how Nella and Nola had grieved for their sister after she was taken, wondered how they would react if Seri told them that the little girl was probably an eager little horsefucker now, pregnant and squealing with delight on the pounding ends of turgid horse cocks several times a day.

Shivering slightly from her nakedness, Seri sat up. Her warmth spells had long since expired and the slow-moving water was stealing what heat the fire had to offer. She grunted and planted her staff on the rock to help herself to her feet, then looked around. The naked 10-year-old bodies of Nella and Nola were twined together on the rock, hugging for warmth, their breathing steady. Selise was awake already, staring at the dwindling fire. Alyssia was still asleep facing away from Seri.

Seri looked up into the darkness, unable to see the ceiling of rock overhead. A cold fear was taking root in her heart but she pushed it down. Taking a deep breath, she stepped over to the stream and bent to splash her face. Despite the chill of the air, the cool water felt good. She dashed another handful on her forehead, then cupped her hands to drink.

"Is there anything to eat? Can you make something?"

Seri turned to face Selise, the other girl's eyes shining from the firelight.

"Not really. I can conjure a pile of dirt, or rock. Making something edible from nothing is actually very hard. Not many mages can do that."

"Oh." The word was a dull thud of resigned disappointment, as if Selise hadn't expected anything else.

"Once we get out I have spells that could lead us to food. Roots, berries, honey - that sort of thing."

"We have to get out first," Selise said. The flatness of her voice said she didn't have much hope of that.

Seri just nodded. She looked up again into the darkness and tried to think. She wasn't strong enough for most things. She couldn't fly, or transmute enough earth to carve their way out, or let them breath underwater so they could follow the water. There wasn't really much she could do at all. Her instructors at the academy had pulled their hair out trying to teach her. The other girls were stirring now. They'd be looking to her for answers. Seri forced herself to concentrate.

Instead she found her mind drifting. Back past the academy. Back to before she was picked to be a mage. Why had the recruiters even tested her? She had barely shown any spark of ability. But by royal decree no girl could refuse the tests. Her life had made so much more sense to her before that. Her family. Her farm. Her brother. Her world had been small, but she had been happy.

Usually, anyway. Her mother was stern, and her father was often angry with her because she wasn't as strong as her brothers. She remembered a time during the summer just before she had been drafted, when he had sent her to chop firewood. It was an important job: a large store of well-cut firewood was needed to see the farm through the winter, and the dry season was the best time to get it. The axe was almost as big as she was, and she could barely swing it. When he saw how little she had produced, her father had slapped her and sent her to do the job again.

Marcus found her, of course. He always did. He came to her as she was crying by the stump they used for chopping.

"It's ok, ladybug," he had said, crouching down and giving her the smile that always calmed her down. "Don't cry. It will be alright."

"I'm not as strong as you," she sniffled. "I can't even swing the axe right. It's too heavy. Papa says I'm not done until we have a whole cord of wood."

"If that's what he wants, then that's just what you'll give him. You can do it." Marcus' smile was unfaltering. He always had that smile when he looked at her. Seri swallowed the lump in her throat and managed a crooked grin in return.

"Here, I'll show you." He stood behind her and reached forward, wrapping her with his arms and placing his hands over her fists where she was gripping the axe handle.

"Move your hands a little farther down...there. You'll get more power if you hold it at the edge."

Seri let his hands guide hers as she repositioned. The axe felt even heavier this way, but she trusted him to know what to do. He was taller than she was and had to crouch slightly behind her. She liked how tall he was, how he felt pressed up against her. She breathed in and smelled horse sweat. He must have been working with the mares again today.

"Just like that...see?" The axehead rose and dipped as he helped her feel the weight.

"It's too heavy," she whimpered.

"That's because you're working against it. Let the weight be your friend. Use it all when you bring the axe down. It's sharp, so let it do all the work. Keep your arms loose, just like that, and bring the axe up higher. Now, swing hard. Swing like you're trying to go all the way through the wood and split the stump in two."

"I'll miss." Her voice was quivering. The axe was held high over her head, but it was hard to concentrate with her brother pressed up against her 8-year-old body like that. She could feel his hardness digging at her back. She could barely wait for night to fall and for the rest of the family to drop off to sleep in their little farmhouse, leaving her alone in bed with Marcus.

"You won't miss. See it happening in your mind, and just let go. Your muscles know what to do."

The hair of his arms was tingling against her smooth skin. Seri took a deep breath, and then, letting her arms guide her like he said, brought the axe down with all her strength on the shaft of wood. The steel blade bit clean through and thunked into the stump with a jolt that left her arms numb. The pieces of split wood toppled to the grass on both sides.

"See?" His voice was hot in her ear, his lips tickling her earlobe. "Not everything is about muscles, Seri. It's about technique. Brains. Finesse. You have a lot more of those things than you give yourself credit for. Use them."

She shivered and dropped the axe. His hands were slowly gliding up her bare arms, fingers slipping along her skin. There was no mistaking the firm urgency pressing at her behind now.

"And beauty," he murmured in her ear. "You have more of that than anything Seri. I wonder which of the gods gave me a sister so lovely."

Seri had moaned and closed her eyes when she felt his kiss against her neck. His arms went tight around her and she melted into them. The bushes were close by. The sun hadn't set quite yet. They had time, if Papa didn't come looking for her. He rarely did.

Her reverie was broken when she heard the girls talking. Alyssia had woken, along with Nella and Nola. They sat in a semicircle around the dregs of the fire, absorbing the last of its heat. Despite the chill and the damp, Seri felt her face burning. Her Mama had yelled at her for the grass stains on her dress again when her and Marcus got back, but Seri had weathered it, knowing nothing could steal the warm happiness in her heart. She remembered everything they had done that night, everything he had told her. Brains. Finesse. Marcus had always told her to be smart instead of strong. She looked up again.

Scattered stalactites hung from the ceiling like stone spears, long and sharp. The rock here must have been mostly limestone, slowly worn away over hundreds of years by the water. Seri squinted at the protrusions. They looked brittle. She could probably split the rock and bring one down, but how would that help?

She looked around at the walls that enclosed them, an idea beginning to form in her mind. She lifted her staff and dipped the end into a tight swirl, condensing currents of invisible energy into a confusing matrix. This was one spell she could do, at least. Delving wasn't difficult. The girls gave her wary glances but kept talking by the fire. Seri wove the final layers of the spell and felt a tingling flash as it completed. She reached out, as if with an invisible hand, a new sense that rested comfortably alongside all her others, and *felt* all around her.

The rock underneath them was solid dolomite. The stream wouldn't dig much further. Scattered cracks ran along the ceiling above. She could feel them in the darkness. Shale and more limestone formed solid walls on either side of the stream. Seri turned, letting the head of her staff guide her like the nose of a bloodhound. Everything was quite solid, except for in one place...there.

She let her staff drop and walked over to the wall. The girls grew quiet, looking at her curiously. Seri put her hands out and felt the cool stone. Her fingers felt only rock but in her mind she could see the space opening up on the other side. The rock was only a couple feet thick, but solid - she couldn't get through that. Not without some help at least.

"Stand over there," she said, gesturing with her staff. The girls didn't argue as they got up and shuffled to where the far wall met the stream. They huddled together, cold and forlorn but with faint stirrings of hope on their faces.

Seri took a step back, then raised the staff over her head. The fire blazed with new life, crackling hotly. There, now she could see again. She looked up and picked her target - one of the biggest stalactites, thicker than the others, but still thin enough that she was sure she could manage it. She swung her staff again and gestured, and the girls looked around curiously at the swirl of air but saw nothing.

"Don't look right at the light," Seri said. She stepped on a rock to the side and pointed her staff upwards, angled slightly towards the big stalactite. A tight beam of red light lanced out from the end, as bright as the sun, slashing into the rock at the base and cutting a white-hot line into the edge like a razor.

Seri squinted against the glare. The stone far above began to ooze from the heat. She took a careful step back so no molten rock would land on her. A better mage might have been able to transmute a cross-section of the rock to mud or something, but that was actually harder. It was simpler to burn something than to try to change its essence. Seri sent more power into her beam, cutting at an oblique angle into the stalactite. The other girls cowered near the water, hiding their eyes. The rock overhead began to glow in a menacing spectrum of orange-red like metal under a blacksmith's hammer. Seri kept her beam going, feeding it power, feeling the stone give way.

It only took a few minutes. A low groan and a crack was the only warning she had. The enormous stalactite shifted briefly, then plummeted straight towards them. The girls screamed, but the rock suddenly flew to the side, rolling wildly and leaving drips of molten rock on the ramp of air Seri had conjured. The stalactite smashed into the wall at the thin place with crack as loud as thunder and a cloud of dust blew out to obscure the room.

Seri coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. The dust was choking and the room smelled like a forge. She waved her staff and conjured a slight breeze, shifting the air about to move the dust out over the water.

"Seri!" Alyssia was calling out. Seri could hear her and the other girls coughing. She made her way over to them. The afterimage of her beam was still burned onto her sight.

"Everyone ok?" she asked.

"That...that was awesome!" Alyssia was recovering from her cough, looking up at Seri again with awe. "You melted the rock and then flung that big hunk of rock to the side! Wow!" She looked over at where the clearing air had revealed an enormous crack in the wall. "And you broke right through the wall!"

Seri smiled slightly, embarrassed. She didn't point out that she didn't have the strength to be flinging big rocks about. She had just used gravity. But the results were what mattered. Finesse. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks to Marcus for that lesson.

"It looks like there's some space on the other side," Selise said, stepping over to peer into the crack. "But...where does it go?"

"Only one way to find out. Unless you want to stay here," Seri said. Selise quickly shook her head, curly hair bouncing. Seri looked around at them one by one: Selise and Alyssia, the only two of them still clothed, and Nelle and Nola, the pair of naked 10-year-olds still wearing frightened looks and Nola with her arm still in the sling. They looked like a pretty sorry troupe, but for the first time there was hope in their eyes. Seeing her break open the wall had restored at least some of their confidence in her. Right now they looked like they would follow her anywhere.

"Ok, just stay behind me," Seri said. "We don't really have any food and we can't take the water with us, but this tunnel will probably lead us out. I have some spells that will help at least, but we'll still have to be careful."

They nodded as a group. With a flourish of her staff, Seri produced a light that hovered in the air just over her shoulder, then turned and began to wiggle her way through the crack in the wall. There was no point in even casting her wards - there were too many monsters that dwelt underground for it to statistically matter. She'd have to deal with any threats as they came up. The crack was a tight fit - she barely made it to the other side, but luckily she was the largest of the girls. The others shouldn't have as much trouble.

The other end of the crack opened up into a jagged passage with an uneven floor. Selise came right after her, then helped the other girls through one by one, taking extra care with Nola's wounded arm. Once they were all through Seri began to lead the way, staff held in front of her and the harsh white glare of the light on her shoulder casting sharp shadows into every nook and cranny of the narrow tunnel.

The floor rose and fell and the tunnel twisted in irregular patterns - sometimes up, sometimes down, or spiraling diagonally in crazy patterns. The rocks were damp with water, and dripped in places into tiny pools. The space must have also been carved out by the flow of water over a long period of time, Seri thought. Small openings covered in pairs of tiny stalactites and stalagmites sometimes leered from the sides of the tunnels like open jaws, but few were large enough to enter. The passage forked again and again, and Seri picked the bigger tunnel whenever she had to choose. They clambered over the irregular floor where it rose and fell, and ducked under the ceilings when they came down to cramp the space.

Seri thanked the gods she wasn't claustrophobic. The other girls seemed to be doing ok too. The miles stretched on in uneventful silence, except for the occasional slip or stubbed toe. At least the tunnel was going up more often than it was going down. Seri breathed a silent prayer to the gods that they might actually get out of this.

Eventually the tunnel levelled out, flattening and widening to a comfortable diameter. Seri's spells had kept the damp and the chill away, but they were all winded from their long march and breathing heavily. The passage had just emptied out into a connected pair of round chambers when Seri called a halt.

"Let's stop here," Seri said. She felt like she could keep going but the girls looked tired. They weren't used to a life of marching and training like she was.

"We can rest a bit before we go on," she said, taking a seat on a flat rock by the wall.

"I'm so hungry I could eat my shirt," Selise grumbled. "Is this tunnel even going to lead us out, Seri?"

Seri shrugged. "I don't know the answer to that any more than you do. I can only delve a little ways. It seems to be going up though."

"Up into the mountains," Selise said. "I don't even know which direction we're headed now."

"West, still," Seri said, after casting a brief spell. "Close enough. I'm open to ideas if you have a better one."

Selise shook her head as she sat on another rock. She sighed and pulled her bare feet up to begin rubbing them.

"I have to pee," Nelle announced, looking embarrassed.

"You can go in there," Seri said, gesturing to the narrow opening to the other chamber. A few points of stone lined the gap but it was wide enough to get through, and the chamber looked almost as large as the one they were in. The naked 8-year-old squeezed herself through the gap and disappeared.

Seri's feet ached too, but she was used to that, so she just sat quietly. Her spells could keep her going for days probably, enduring without food or drink right up the point where she dropped dead. It was a dangerous line to walk, using magic to suppress the feelings of her body's needs. If she did it for all 5 of them she would become exhausted that much quicker. They would have to find the way out soon.

Alyssia and Nola had taken seats on the floor a bit away from them. Seri glanced at Selise, sitting across from her. Maybe if she could get the girl talking, she could do something about that look of resigned hopelessness on her face.

"So, Selise, you were in the orphanage back at Alara? With Nelle and Nola?"

"Yeah," Selise said. "I lived there a long time. The other girls only came last year."

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to your parents?"

"They died when I was young. A plague. "

"Oh. Sorry." Seri felt herself blush.

Selise just shrugged. "It's ok. I barely remember them now."

"Any other family?" Seri asked. "Uncles? Grandparents? Brothers?"

Selise shook her head. "No. How about you?"

"All of my family's back on my farm in Bithnia," Seri said. "My Ma and Pa and all my brothers. Did you have any friends at the orphanage?"

"Just Nelle and Nola," Selise said. "I guess I kind of became like their big sister."

"Any boyfriends?" Seri asked.

"Boyfriends? You mean the men?"

Seri blinked in confusion. "The men?"

"Yeah. The men that always came."

Selise saw Seri's confused expression and elaborated.

"Lots of men in the town had, well, arrangements...with miss Mathas, the matron at the orphanage. They paid her for time with the girls."

"Oh." Seri could barely manage the syllable. It seemed inadequate. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"How many, er...men came for you?"

Selise shrugged again. It seemed a common gesture for her. "Two or three a week usually. I had my regulars. Usually it was the girls a few years older than me that got the men, but some really liked the girls my age."

Seri could relate. The many instructors and commanders at the academy usually had their picks of the girls too. Seri had sucked and fucked her way through her mage training just like all the other girls there. It was hard to avoid when you had to wear a skimpy uniform that showed off your cunt all day.

Unsure of what to say, she plucked nervously at the frayed strap of cloth around her waist that used to be the belt of her skirt. The small pouch was still hanging from it. That and her staff was all she had left.

"Is that a coinpurse?" Selise asked, pointing at the pouch. "I wouldn't figure that mages would need to carry any coin."

"Oh, no. It's magic. It's uh...here, let me show you." Seri pulled the little pouch into her hands and sent a tiny trickle of power into it. It grew in her hands to a sack the size of a watermelon.

"Wow!" Selise laughed. "That's amazing. How does it do that?"

"It's made of dreamcloth and infused with magic. The spell sort of folds the space inside to make it smaller, like folding a piece of paper. It's even bigger than it looks on the inside."

"Why do you need all that space? I thought mages had soldiers to carry stuff around for them."

"Usually," Seri said.

"What's in it?" Selise leaned over as if to peek, but inside the neck of the sack was only an impenetrable darkness. Solid things were unharmed when put in the bag, but some things like light it couldn't retain at all.

"Well, they gave me one of these because I had to carry a lot of...erm, books."

"Books?" Selise looked confused. "Why would you need to carry a lot of books?"

"To study," Seri said. "The maesters at the library wanted me to continue to take notes for them from some of the volumes they had assigned me."

"Library?" Selise's puzzled look deepened. "You worked at a library? You're not a battlemage? Why did they send you out here?"

Seri felt herself blush. She still didn't really know why they had sent such a weak magic user like herself on a combat mission. She had just opened her mouth to admit as much when a scream came from the other chamber.

All four girls leaped to their feet. Seri grabbed her staff and rushed to the opening to peek through. Nelle was flat on her stomach on the ground, with some kind of enormous grublike thing squirming on her back and keeping her pinned to the floor. It was as big as she was.

"Eeeeek!" The scream came from just behind her. Seri whirled around, staff at the ready. Alyssia had been bowled over by another of the creatures. It squirmed over her body as she struggled on the ground. A shadow fell from the ceiling, and Selise dropped too. Seri looked up and saw a host of writhing, maggot-like bugs squirming out of a hole in the ceiling, ready to drop on them all.

Heart pounding, she rolled to the side, barely avoiding one of the bugs as it hurtled down through the space where she had been standing. It thwacked onto the floor, but recovered quickly, turning to face her. It was something like a cross between a caterpillar and a maggot, but with a long body of identical white segments topped by a head with several bulging insectile eyes and twitching antennae. As it reared up, Seri saw the line of disgusting orifices and tiny tentacles that lined the underside, and knew what it was.

She leaped to the side again, avoiding the bug as it pounced. They were shockingly quick. The other girls were screaming, struggling on the ground. More bugs had dropped down to join the fray, a writhing mat of horrific bug bodies crawling all over them. More were scrambling along the ceiling towards Seri, ready to throw themselves at her. She had only a moment.

Her training kicked in. Everything she knew about these monsters flashed through her mind in a moment. Air. She erected a field of it in front of her, just strong enough to buy her a few more seconds. The bugs leaped and hit the field, grabbing it with sticky feet and moving along it like an invisible wall. Force. She swung her staff and screamed wildly. The bugs flew back as if smashed with an enormous hammer. Fire. She pointed her staff and a gout of flame roared out of the A'sham on the end, immolating the pile of bugs. They writhed and squealed with high-pitched voices as they burned.

More were coming in. A flood of them. There were other holes they hadn't noticed. Seri shouted as she swirled her staff. Close the holes. Easy. Seri reached out with her power and found the rock, felt it like putty in her hands. With an act of will, she sealed them all shut in an instant.

Bugs were leaping against her barrier, smashing into it with the force of their bodies. Seri felt it give way, the spell dissolving, but she was ready. She struck out with a blast of ice, freezing half a dozen of the bugs solid, then followed with a slash of air that shattered their bodies into hundreds of twitching fragments.

Power flowed through her. More power than she had ever felt. It came so easily, as if giving a tiny shove to a boulder and letting it roll downhill. She swung her staff decisively, slamming a bug against the rocky wall with a satisfying splat, then pointed it at a large rock. The rock leaped into the air, then hurtled at a charging pair of bugs as she thrust her staff at them.

The bugs were slowing down but there were still more on the ceiling. Seri gestured with her staff, and sharp spikes of earth suddenly slashed down like spears, impaling the bugs still crawling on the ceiling. They squealed and writhed as they died, skewered, green blood dripping from their bodies.

The other girls were still overwhelmed. Seri fed her power into a complicated matrix, an elaborate network of twisting flows all arranged with perfect precision, then unleashed it. A sphere of purple energy appeared in the air and rocketed towards where the other three girls were struggling on the ground under a mountain of bugs. The sphere slipped over them all, and they visibly slowed, the flow of their time slowed down by an order of magnitude. Now Seri could breathe. She looked around for more bug stragglers, but she had taken care of them all.

Another scream. Nelle! Seri rocketed past the girls caught in the web of time and darted through the opening into the other chamber. Three of the grubs had the little girl's naked body pinned tightly against the rock, coiled around her as they enthusiastically raped her. One had covered her head entirely, squeezing tightly. Seri knew that one of the cocks that the bugs had on each and every segment of their body would be buried in the girl's mouth. Another was around her waist and crotch, jerking as it thrust one of its cocks into the little girl's pussy. She didn't need to look carefully to know the last one was throbbing eagerly inside her tight asshole.

Aiming carefully, Seri used a pincer of air to rip away the top bug from the girl's head, and then hurtle it at the wall. It thwacked wetly against the rock and tumbled down, not moving. She did the same for the other two, then rushed up to where the naked 8-year-old was quivering on the ground.

"Nelle! Are you ok? Look at me. Did any of them...did they cum inside you?"

The little girl shook her head, coughing violently. Seri helped her sit up. Nelle hacked some more and then drew in a long, ragged breath. Maybe she had been quick enough, Seri thought. The girl wasn't coughing up any cum. Leaving her there, she stood and raced into the other chamber. The purple field was still active. Seri conjured a smaller one and stuck it against the wall, then began picking bugs out of the slow-moving mass and hurtling them into it one by one. There were at least 15. When she had thrown them all into the other field, she pointed her staff and roasted the whole lot of them with the roaring blaze that poured out of the end.

The bugs squealed pitifully as they died. Seri turned and released the fields, and the girls on the ground suddenly started moving at normal speed again, squirming and coughing on the rocky floor.

"Selise!" Seri stooped down and helped the girl roll over. Selise was coughing, expelling sticky runners of gooey mucus that stuck to her lips like phlegm.

"Oh shit..." Seri muttered. Selise hadn't been so lucky. She moved quickly and checked the other two girls. Alyssia had sat up and was shaking. The top of her blue dress had been eaten away as if by acid, exposing her flat chest. A few sticky grey deposits had been spurted haphazardly onto the bare skin. The bugs had enjoyed themselves quite a lot in the few minutes they had had, apparently. Nola was even worse off, having been unable to struggle much with her arm. She was still face-down on her belly on the rock, trembling. Seri could see the mess of gooey bug semen that they had left seeping in her asscrack and around her cunt.

"What...what were those fucking things?" Alyssia had drawn her legs up tight to her chest as she sat, her eyes wide and haunted. Her chest wasn't the only part of her dress that had been partially dissolved. The skirt and sleeves were almost falling apart.

"They're called Chiropedes," Seri said. "They live and tunnel through the earth. Those were just babies though. The adults are bigger."

"Just babies...bigger ones..." Alyssia's eyes were simmering. She ran a finger over her bare chest and came away with a sticky deposit of cum. Disgusted, she flung it away.

"They're not all that common around here..." Seri muttered. "There must be a new nest. Chiropedes tend to have large broods. These were juveniles but they become sexually mature very early." Seri gestured at the charred, curled-up corpses of the grubby insects all around them. "Adult chiropedes are solitary but their young tend to gang up and overwhelm with numbers. The excretions from the underbellies of their segments dissolve soft material like clothing. There was a town called Erunya that was taken over by Chiropedes. I had to write the report."

Seri's head was stuffed with facts, and they tumbled out in a lecturing tone as she went on, not noticing the other girls' slack-mouthed looks of horror.

"They're not too picky about which orifices they use, but they raped the girls pretty much nonstop until they were pregnant. The incident gave us a lot of good data. Chiropede ejaculate volumes range from .5 deciliters in juveniles up to 5 deciliters in full-grown specimens. Once impregnation occurs gestation takes place over the ensuing 8 weeks, with the size of the brood tending to produce extreme distension of the belly while-"

"SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP SERI!" Alyssia screamed, leaping to her feet. "These fucking Chir...Chiro...fucking monsters are all over these tunnels, and you lead us right into their fucking lair!"

"Not their lair," Seri protested. "I didn't know what was down here-"

"Well you SHOULD have fucking known! You're the one with the magic!" Alyssia was shaking, fists clenched. Bug cum formed flecks of angry spittle as the tiny 9-year-old girl shrieked at Seri, advancing on her as if she would hit her.

"It doesn't work like that. I can only ward against one monster at a time-"

"Shut the fuck up! You and your fucking excuses. Your gods-damned excuses are why our families are getting raped up there by a hive of bugs, Seri!" Alyssia's face was purple with rage. "What the fuck are we doing down here? Since we joined you everything has just gotten worse and worse! Now we're stuck in this pit with these fucking Chir...these fucking bugs all around us!"

Alyssia reared back and kicked one of the burned bugs savagely.

"How much longer until more of them come out of those holes, Seri? God, I could feel all their gross little bug dicks all over me. Their disgusting little bug cum on my skin! You're a mage! You're supposed to protect us! From...from this!"

She swiped at her bare chest and flicked the semen angrily at Seri.

"Don't yell at her!" Selise shouted. "She's just a librarian!"

"A librarian?" Alyssia whirled on Selise, fuming. "A fucking librarian? You're telling me we're TRAPPED down here with a gods-damned LIBRARIAN?!"

Alyssia shrieked with rage. She swiped the remaining runners of bug goo off her skin as if it was burning, then grabbed the hem of her dress and yanked it up over her head and threw it to the ground.

"Disgusting bugs getting their slimy juices all over it! Never again!" She stood there, naked and shaking, then looked at Seri. "My mom's going to end up a little breeding bug whore now thanks to you. But I'm not ending up like that! I can't believe I looked up to you Seri! You can find your way out of this little bug-infested shithole by yourself!"

Alyssia whirled and stalked out of the stone chamber, back the way they had come. Selise looked on with wide eyes, and Nella and Nola were sniffling on the verge of tears.

"If there's a den of these things we don't...really want to go on...do we?" Selise asked, her voice faltering.

"This is the only tunnel so far that has kept heading up," Seri said. "We'll be fine." For the first time in a long while, she felt confident. She had done exactly as she had been trained to do. She had beaten back the monsters, ripped them apart, froze them and burned them and sliced them to pieces. Her magic had come to her with a greater clarity than it ever had before. She had...she had won. She felt like she could do anything. Alyssia could do what she wanted. Seri didn't need her.

"Did you see me blast them apart? I said we'll be fine!" Seri said to the girls' doubtful looks. "If there are any more Chiropedes I'll do the same thing to them! This is what mages train for."

"Yeah, but..." Selise wiped a trickle of bug semen from her lips, then spread her hands helplessly. "Ok Seri. If you keep going we'll follow you."

Seri nodded. As they should. Their only hope was to stick close to a mage. She could get them out. If any monsters crossed their path she'd slaughter them too. Maybe if she had been in charge of the battle instead of Varus she could have proven herself there too. She would have put more flares in the sky and had the mages work together to conjure a lightning storm that would have fried all the bugs when they were still in the air.

"Come on," she said, gesturing for the girls to follow. They all marched towards the exit with Seri in the lead. She decided not to worry about the Conversion effects of the Chiropede semen on the girls. Exposure brought some subtle changes to the womb, but they took a while. One or two spurts of bug juice wasn't the end of the world. Nothing else would happen under her care anyway. She felt like she had finally mastered all that she had trained for. Maybe they'd promote her to a battlemage when they got back. Seri, the hero of Alara.

She liked the sound of that.

Seri brushed her fingers lightly over her labia and shuddered. The other girls had dropped off to sleep after they made camp in an area where the passage had widened. Gods, she was so fucking horny. She wouldn't have admitted it, but she was.

She had tried to banish the thoughts of her rape in the hive, and failed. All those Chrysilae crawling all over her, shoving their big bug cocks inside her. She shivered again and slipped a finger into the juicy space between her lips. She was wet just remembering it. The bugs hadn't been at her very long, but it was long enough for the Conversion effect to begin to take root. Partially converted girls were rare, and sought-after objects of study. If Seri got out of here, the Maesters would want to inspect every inch of her. They'd take measurements of her body, her breasts. They'd examine her pussy and vagina. They'd want to know if she could still conceive human babies. They'd probably test that themselves...

Seri added another finger, and groaned as she lay on the rock. Was she already pregnant? They had cum inside her and sealed her up to let the semen marinate in her insides, changing her. She had washed it out, but who knew? Maybe there was a brood of bug maggots squirming in her womb right now. Maybe her belly would begin growing fat over the next week, confirming it. If it did, if it did...she could scarcely entertain the thought. Maybe she'd go back. It wouldn't be so bad. There must be a reason that girls didn't want to come back after being turned into little rape toys and breeders for the monsters. She could walk up into the mountains, naked as she was now, present herself to the hive. They'd swarm all over her, pick her up, seal her in another of those cells and then...

She shook her head firmly. No. Not again. She just needed a distraction to keep her mind off this, to keep from thinking how good it would feel to have a bug cock shoved inside her right now, thrusting madly and twitching and finally swelling up and spewing a creamy froth of insect sperm deep into her pussy. She took a deep breath. No. She pulled her fingers out and forced herself to look down at what she had been sketching.

For a moment, she didn't even recognize it. She had been sketching with one hand while her mind wandered idly. Now a young girl her own age stared back at her from the page, naked, with her mouth twisted in a cry of passion as a Chrysilae mounted her from behind. Her waist was sealed in a tight ring of immobilizing resin. It could have been any of her mage sisters, right now. She had taken out her sketchbook with a vague notion of drawing something from her experiences that the Maesters could use. Maybe a contribution to the Factorum. But this was too real. She shuddered, looking at it. The exultant look on the girl's face as the bug crammed its thick, bulging cock into her tiny pussy and inseminated her with a brood of insect young hit so close to home. She swallowed the lump in her throat, then firmly shoved the sketchbook back into her bag.

Well, if sketching couldn't distract her, maybe reading could. Sleep was quite far off anyway. She still felt the faint rush of adrenaline from her victory over the Chiropedes. She had beaten them off. Her, the girl everyone had always called weak. She had done it all by herself. Maybe not before the other girls got a few loads of cum dumped in them, but still. She felt more than a match for anything down here now. She fumbled in her sack and then pulled out the heavy tome. She knew she was right on the verge of deciphering its secrets. They hovered so tantalizingly close. She only needed a few more facts to bring it all into focus.

She ignored the faint feeling of menace that always seemed to emanate from the book, and opened it to a place near the end. She was almost there. The book wouldn't let her skip ahead, and she didn't try this time, but she had almost made it there herself. Just another few dozen pages...

Seri read feverishly. The woman in white who had corrupted the grand ritual had disappeared, and her treachery took a long time to be discovered. The monster's numbers had dwindled for a time, until they realized that they could rape and breed the females of the other sentient races. Humans, of course, but also Elves, Felis, Lupoid, Canthis, and even other races Seri didn't even recognize. It took hundreds of years, but Aen Sielle began to crumble. The monsters had no females of their own kind to breed with anymore, but they had found all the surrogates they needed. Girls of every non-Monstrum race were captured, enslaved, bred relentlessly. Entire new generations of Monstrum were conceived and born in their wombs.

The illustrations here almost put the Monstrum Factorum to shame. The rape pits were depicted in vivid detail. The remaining mages of the time had finally put together the pieces of what had happened. They had retaken some of the Monstrum strongholds and studied what they found. The results were all too familiar to Seri: pregnant girls, their bellies massive with the monstrous young inside them, slavering for cock with an insatiable need. The civilized peoples of Aen Sielle had been horrified. The discoveries threw their society into chaos. Eventually, a grand council of the last surviving mages and rulers had been convened. Every kingdom of the empire had been invited. They needed a solution. They needed a way to reverse the effect, or at least to stalemate the endless hordes of monsters entering the material world from the abyss.

Here it was: the page showed an enormous circular chamber, ringed by marching columns of ivory edged in gold filigree. Hundreds of people were gathered, all facing inwards toward the vast round table around which the grand council was sitting. An accounting of the meeting was written on the opposite page in a bold, blocky script. Seri's heart sank: she had seen this a few times before in the book - a formal shorthand, the glyphs just different enough that she couldn't make out more than one word in ten. She couldn't read it, at least not without a better reference. If she were back at the mage's academy she could have got one easily, but for now she couldn't make out what had been decided at the council at all.

Seri closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. It was so close. The answers were right here. They must have found some solution, since the world had returned to normalcy for several hundred years. She needed to know what it was. Maybe they could do it again, force the monsters back to the abyss, buy some desperately needed peace for a time. Her head ached in time with the throbbing in her pussy. She tried to ignore both of them.

Seri pulled the book close again and turned the page on a new chapter. The title was a bold, flowing script of Elvish derivation:

The Grand Consummation

Her heart began to race. This was the last chapter, the key to it all. The pages felt heavy, as if made from lead, but they yielded under her fingers. This section appeared to be a pictorial. At first she couldn't make out the illustrations on the pages - they swirled in her head, indistinct, as if refusing to take form, but as she peered closer at them they seemed to come into focus. Magical, of course, like the rest of the book - reacting to her own ability like some of the arcane volumes she had studied at the academy. But this one felt...different, as if the images in the book were conjured for her alone.

The first was a picture of a little girl just a bit younger than her being raped by a horse. No, a Centaurum. The form was vague, indistinct, but what wasn't indistinct was the massively erect horse cock being rammed into the girl's tiny little pussy, stretching it obscenely. Her mouth was frozen in the rictus of screaming pleasure and her belly was distended from the shape of the bestial penis pressing against it from below.

Silken webs bound the wrists and ankles of the little girl on the opposite page. She was snared in a web, her back stuck tightly to the sticky strands with her legs pulled wide open. More girls could be seen all around her, their bodies covered by the hairy forms of giant spider monsters. Arachma. The jutting protrusions of their flexible cocks were buried in the soft pussies of the little girls they had captured for the hive. The picture was so real, so vivid. It felt alive. Seri could almost hear the cries of tortured pleasure from the girls as they were raped, inseminated with spider semen carrying thousands of fine eggs as tiny as grains of sand. The girl in the center was massively pregnant, the paunch of her belly grown to a grotesque size. How many spiderlings were swarming in her gut, ready to hatch? She looked ready to give birth. The exultant look on her face showed how much she anticipated the thought.

The picture was so real that Seri could even make out the sweat on the girl's forehead and the pre-birth juices glistening on the lips of her pussy. Seri swallowed and turned the pages. More images. Girls being raped, subdued, bound, bred. One showed a dozen girls in a rocky den, each pregnant and mating enthusiastically with a Rapewolf. Whores for the pack. Their panting, heavy expressions illustrated how much they enjoyed having their mate's thick doggy cocks crammed inside them. Seri turned the pages again. Still more. The pages felt heavier under her fingers as if the magic was resisting her, but no matter how many she turned she didn't seem to get any closer to the back of the book. Girls in a beholder harem, engaged in a twisted orgy with their master's eye tentacles and each other. Girls twisted together chaotically with a writhing mass of tentacles, their bodies bound together like a ball of yarn - an exotic Monstrum called a Thrack. Shapeshifters. Chimera. Org-reh. Vile Buzzards. Ettu. Yetta. Venoma. The images went on, endless. Seri flipped rapidly, panting, the burning pulse in her pussy growing. Girls twisted, bent over, penetrated in every hole. Seri reached up to wipe the sweat off her forehead. Blood thundered in her ears and her heart drummed in her chest like it would burst. The heat in her cunt raged like a volcano. She slipped a finger down and dipped it inside, then jerked as her pussy twitched wildly, clamping down and sucking desperately at the lone digit, demanding more.

Endless girls. Endless monsters. Species Seri didn't even know. Each one locked in coitus with an endless bounty of young human girls. The faces of the girls were ecstatic. Their bellies bulged as they were pumped full of the vile seed of every conceivable nightmare of the abyss, their befouled wombs bearing the spawn of those who dominated them. Seri slipped another finger in up to the second knuckle and gasped despite herself. Her hands shook, barely able to keep the book propped up, turning pages frantically. Dozens of pages. Hundreds. They didn't end. They never repeated. The rape went on and on. The magic of the book practically hummed along with the throbbing demand in her crotch.

Seri stopped in shock, her fingers poised on the corner of the page. A girl. Long auburn hair. Green eyes. Her age. Naked as the day she was born, with spittle glistening on her lips.

It was her.

Her body was twisted, glued to a pillar of rock by some kind of webbing. Unmistakable spurts of cum were all over her. Her belly was bulging, and her face, her face...it was...

Rapturous.

A scream shattered the stillness of the cave. Seri leaped to her feet, her fingers still slick from probing her genitals.

"Seri!" Selise was yelling frantically as she wrestled with a long, dark form in the deep shadows left by the fading firelight.

"It's the bugs! It's...aaaagh!"

More Chiropedes! They were pouring in through holes in the rock. Juveniles, like before. Seri had tested the rock before making camp. They must have spent all this time burrowing through. Seri thought they had to be older to do that.

She grabbed her staff and swept it around her in a circle. A force field sprang into being, shimmering in the air. She slammed the book back into her sack and made it shrink as she clipped it to her belt, then turned to face the enemy.

A quick blast from her staff summoned a gout of fire, burning away the horde of maggot-like bugs crawling towards her, but Seri instantly realized that something was wrong. Her magic felt tenuous, not strong like it had during the last fight. It slipped through her fingers like water. If anything it felt weakened, dampened, even by her own low standards.

Her force field failed as the bugs pushed against it. Seri screamed and sliced at the bugs with a blade of air. It cut into a few of them but barely stemmed the tide. The Chiropedes chittered in an advancing wall of grubby bodies, as if sensing victory already. Quicker than Seri could track, one reared back and leaped at her, knocking her to the floor. She hit with a bang, smacking one of her elbows. Dozens of disgusting legs slithered all over her naked body as the creature scrabbled for purchase. Seri shrieked and thrashed, revolted, and managed to roll out from under the weight. She felt around frantically in the gloom, and shouted when her fingers closed around her staff again. With the bugs just inches behind her, she managed to leap to her feet.

Heart pumping, adrenaline racing, Seri charged towards where the other three girls were struggling on the floor. They had been taken by surprise in their sleep. Why hadn't she warded for Chiropedes? She had felt so sure she could simply dispatch them again as she had done before. Seri channeled all her rage into a screeching battle cry, holding her staff by the end and smashing it into the bug on top of Selise like a club. With a chittering sound of pain the bug flew off to the side. Selise rolled over, leaping to her feet with a haunted look in her eyes. Seri conjured a wall of fire to keep the rest of the bugs at bay while Selise smashed the pair of bugs covering the twins with rocks and then picked them up and hurled them bodily away.

"Come on!" She yelled. Selise had pulled the twins to their feet, and they all took off running down the nearest passage. Seri conjured a light so they could see as they left the firelight behind them.

"Not again," Nelle was murmuring, tears in her eyes as they sprinted over the uneven surface. "Please, not again."

"Stay close Nelle," Selise panted. "It'll be ok, just stay close."

Seri reached out for her power to collapse the tunnel behind them...and found nothing. The weave of magic which suffused everything in the world seemed as distant to her as fog, and nearly as insubstantial. She pulled it into herself, condensing a small amount of power, and forced it into a wall of air just behind them.

"Keep running! I can't hold them off!" she yelled. The girls didn't need to be told. They were already running for their lives, but their progress was hampered by low shelves of rock, narrow corridors, and tight ceilings.

After ducking and crawling frantically through a chute speckled with hundreds of tiny stalactites on the ceiling like teeth in a shark's maw, they emerged on the other side into an open space. A narrow precipice lined the pit that stretched out to both sides in front of them, and the far walls lay unseen outside of the light's radius.

"Let's go! We can't stop!" Seri gestured at the thin ledge of rock that curved off to their right. "We can follow that. Just keep your back to the wall and don't look down!"

Selise looked doubtful, and the twins huddled against each other in terror at the dark pit that they couldn't see the bottom of, but the sounds of eager chittering echoing out of the tunnel behind them galvanized them all into action. Selise took the lead with the twins just behind her. The girls edged their way out onto the thin part of the ledge, keeping their backs tight against the stone. Seri followed just behind, keeping a white-knuckled grip on her staff.

"I think...I think it gets wider up there," Selise said, pointing off into the darkness ahead. "Yeah, it does. Just a little bit further!"

"I'm scared," Nola said, quivering as she halted her side-stepping gait on the ledge.

"You can do it Nola! Don't think about anything else, just put one foot in front of the other, just like that...good." Selise was inching her way along ahead of them, but she had paused to let the twins catch up slightly. They were crossing the part of the ledge where it was narrowest. The eager sounds of horny bugs were growing louder behind them.

A sharp crack and a scream sent Seri's heart leaping into her mouth. The ledge split and fell out from under them. Seri grabbed on for something, anything as she fell. Something soft was in her fingers, and she hung on for dear life as the world spun around her.

Their pitched screams echoed through the vast cavern. Rock scraped Seri's face as she dangled. She hadn't fell - she had hold of Nola's leg, somehow. Selise bumped into her side, twisting precariously just like Seri. They were both holding onto the little girl's legs.

"Aaaaaah!" Screamed the girl. "Nooooo!" Her sister was screaming just above her.

"Don't let go Nola!" Selise yelled. "Hang on! You can do it!"

Seri looked up. Nola had a tight grip on a rock with the fingers of one hand. Her other was still wrapped in the sling.

"I'm...I'm slipping!" Nola shouted, weeping hysterically. Her hand was shaking, fingers inching towards the edge. She couldn't hold the weight of all of them with just one hand. Seri cursed her weakness: why couldn't she have healed it all the way? The little girl could probably hold on with both hands, long enough for them to get out of this anyway.

"No! Keep holding on Nola!" Selise shouted. "We can...we can climb up...just a little bit..." Selise reached out as she dangled from Nelle's leg, trying to get a grip on the irregular rock wall.

A piercing shriek rang above them and the ledge suddenly dropped away above them. The world spun around her. Fear froze Seri's heart like an icicle. They were going to die. Some small part of her managed to stay calm though, to remember her training. She spun as she fell, but still managed a gesture with her staff. An easy spell. A simple matrix. Something even she could do.

The impact smashed Seri in the chest hard, knocking the wind out of her. She rolled off the invisible surface onto the rock. The bouncing thuds were audible as each of the other girls landed on a cushion of air, hard enough to be painful but enough to keep them safe. Seri wretched and finally managed to draw in a ragged breath of air. They had practiced falling at the academy. Seri couldn't levitate so she had to make do with half-measures. She had hated it but it had saved her life.

"We have to...have to go..." she coughed, getting shakily to her feet. She could hear the crawling and chittering of the bugs high above them. The Chiropedes wouldn't be stopped by the cliff wall. The other girls had fared a little better than Seri, and got to their feet quickly. Hearts pumping hot with fear they picked the nearest exit and ran for their lives.

Seri's muscles burned. Her chest ached where she had taken the impact. Blood thundered in her ears. Still she ran, bare feet pounding the stone, leading the way with the light of her staff. She could hear the girls scrambling after her, goaded by the sounds echoing up the corridor behind them. The rock was flat, the tunnel wide. Seri screeched to a halt when they came suddenly to a fork. The tunnel split into three separate corridors here.

"Which way?" asked Selise, her eyes wide with fear. She looked nervously behind them and winced at the chittering sounds coming from the shadows. The twins held each other, terrified.

"I don't know...I think..." Seri almost panicked, but decided to try something. She swept her staff in a gesture, shaping her magic into the form she wanted. It was a tough spell, with a difficult structure - like a crystal with layers that had to be applied bit by bit. Seri built up the spell and then unleashed it. A blue glow suffused the air briefly, then faded out. Now she knew.

"This way," she said, feeling a renewed sense of confidence as she gestured with her staff. The girls followed her down the middle passage. Immediately it began sloping down. The sounds of the Chiropedes were close behind now, their dozens of little legs pumping their bodies at a fast clip along the stone. Seri could almost see them: the disgusting little segmented bodies with the hard carapace on the back of each, almost like a moving spine. The systems of their body were distributed, almost entirely self-sufficient in each segment. Like a worm, they could be split in two and each piece could heal and grow a new head and become a separate creature. Seri tried not to think about the other parts of their anatomy that were even more revolting.

Feet pounded on stone. The panting breaths of all four of them filled the tight space of the passage. Seri tried to push away the niggling little doubts in the back of her mind, the uncomfortable certainty that she wasn't really strong enough for divination, that her spell shouldn't have succeeded. It did succeed, and that was all that had mattered. Such magical knowledge was inerrant. It had showed her the way out, assured her it was close by. All they needed to do was keep following this tunnel, and they would be free. Magic didn't know how to lie.

The tunnel suddenly opened up into a wide chamber, big enough for a house. Echoes rebounded off the distant walls and unseen ceiling.

"Wait...stop...need to rest..." Selise lurched to a halt beside Seri and rested her hands on her knees, wheezing. She was exhausted. They all were. Seri lifted up her staff and flooded the room with light from her staff.

"A dead end?!" Nelle cried disbelievingly. They all looked around, their panic growing. The chamber was round, with a high ceiling, and totally empty. There were no exits.

"Fuck!" Seri cursed, whirling around. The Chiropedes were entering the room like a white flood of maggots, crawling up the walls and ceiling. Gods, how many were there?

Seri brought her staff around in front of her, condensing magical energy from the ether as quickly as she could. She wove it into a quick dome of air that covered them all. It wouldn't hold for long, she knew. She shifted the currents of power flowing through her and wove a new layer of fire. A brilliant orange flash blinded them all as the outside surface of the field ignited into a roaring-hot fire.

The bugs that had been ready to leap on them pulled back, chittering wildly, crawling over each other in a writhing mass. There were so many. The other girls had huddled up close to her back, shaking with fear as they watched the bugs lurking just beyond the heat of the flames. Their alien sounds were eager, hungry - ready to leap on their prey, to subdue them, to rape them ceaselessly.

Seri was panting. She struggled under the weight of the magical flow that powered the fire, but she felt it slipping from her grasp. She wasn't strong enough. She'd have to think of something else.

"Seri, look!" Selise was tugging her shoulder as she tried to concentrate. Seri spared a glance, squinting through the fire.

"It's an opening!" Nelle squealed. The small hole was about 15 feet off the ground, just barely large enough to fit them. The shadows of the rock had made it impossible to see before.

"Move together!" Seri shouted. They ran as a group, Seri maintaining her defensive field. When they reached the wall the girls began to climb. Nelle went first, then Selise helped boost Nola up so Nelle could catch her good arm and help pull her up.

"Hurry!" Seri could feel her power petering out, like a candle flame on the verge of being snuffed. All she needed was a few more seconds. Just a little bit more. Tears were leaking from her eyes from the glare of the fire, and she was shaking with the strain.

Beneath the sounds of the crackling fire and the eager bugs, a deep rumble began to build. Seri almost thought she was imagining it until the loose rocks by her feet began to shake. She could feel the pulsing of the rock with her bare feet. The earthquake grew quickly in intensity until eventually the whole chamber was shaking.

They all screamed in terror as the rock wall exploded. The girls toppled off the wall, falling in a heap. A slab of rock slammed into Seri and she flew to the side, her staff torn from her fingers. She looked up, and froze with terror.

An enormous chiropede had burst through the wall. An adult. Dozens of segments, each as big as a horse. It roared into the chamber, moving like the spine of a giant come to life.

The girls screamed as they clutched each other, witnessing this new horror. The worm reared up in front of them, regarding them with the disgusting insect eyes studded all over its massive head. Its antenna twitched hungrily, testing the air with its alien senses. They had made such a racket in the tunnels that they had drawn the attention of the big daddy Chiropede himself. The juveniles were his own brood.

Seri's spells had failed when the staff was knocked from her hand. She was helpless. Raw horror paralyzed her muscles as she looked up at the underbelly of the creature: each segment of the Chiropede sported a gooey cavity underneath it, just wide enough for a girl and lined on both sides with crawling tentacles. The mucus lining the fleshy walls was so sticky that anyone caught in that gap could never escape until the beast let them go.

The worm's front section reached the ceiling. It hovered over them for just a moment, but it felt like an eternity. Four segments were above them, each with open cavities, glistening like gaping vaginas, and in the fifth Seri could see a struggling form: Alyssia. She was trapped with her back stuck tightly into the cavity, held there like a bug trapped on flypaper. Her naked body glistened wetly with juices, and the dozens of tentacles around the grotesque lips of the opening were slithering all over her, dipping into her mouth. A thick girth of rigid purple flesh was pumping hard into her vagina. Alyssia was shaking her head, eyes wild with fear and her screams blocked by the thrusting flesh in her mouth.

Seri couldn't move. She couldn't act. Her doom fell like a hammerblow. The Chiropede slammed down on top of them, and Seri was crushed by sticky flesh. It rolled her along the rumbling rock floor like a toy. She couldn't see. She couldn't breathe. This was the end. She would have thought it would break all her bones and leave her for dead, but her education as a mage had taught her that a different fate was in store for her. Hot, sticky goop and the horrible reek of flesh enfolded her, and she felt a tight feeling against her back. The ground dropped away again. Rubbery lips of flesh had pinned her arms and legs to her sides. She was trapped. She opened her mouth and screamed as the nightmare surrounded her, but felt thick tentacles of flesh thrust their way across her cheeks and past her lips. They were all over her, gliding like slippery slugs over her naked 12-year-old body, caressing it hungrily. She felt a questing touch press against her pussy lips and stiffened in shock. At the base of every cavity was one of the beast's many cocks - a 2-foot affair at least 4 inches around, hard but flexible enough to wiggle into the tight space of a little girl's vagina. The glans of the turgid organ wiggled against Seri's pussy lips, pressing them aside while she struggled and screamed. When the beast felt it was well-positioned, it rammed the thick organ straight into her cunt with a powerful thrust, jolting her hips painfully. Seri gasped in shock at the massive intruder and a tentacle in her mouth took the opportunity to squirm into her throat.

The wailing of the other girls cut off one by one as they got the same treatment. Dozens of tentacles, coiling on the tight flesh of the captured little girls, squirming into their open mouths. Bestial rods of jutting flesh slammed into their quivering pussies. Seri could feel them struggling hopelessly against the creature.

The world spun and rock rumbled around them as the beast dug into the earth again. It could burrow through rock and rape all of its victims at the same time without breaking a sweat. Darkness covered Seri, a darkness filled with the sensations of hot, juicy flesh covering her body, of squirming limbs writhing over her skin, of the pounding beat of engorged tentacles wiggling in her mouth and the animal thrusting of the throbbing cock slamming into her. One intrepid tentacle slipped underneath her buttocks, tickling her asshole. Seri struggled and shrieked around the flesh filling her mouth, but that just seemed to excite the thing. The tentacle pushed hungrily past her sphincter and dug into the gripping heat of her anus.

Her world spun. Her head slammed back and forth from the pulsing girths in her mouth. Her pelvis was jolted, rammed enthusiastically by the insect phallus in her cunt. Her mind shattered. It was all her nightmares come true. It was every horror she had ever feared. She had failed utterly. All the girls who had relied on her would be broodmothers now for insect spawn.

And she would never see Marcus again.

Rising heat exploded in her brain, a sudden orgasm from the violent motion of her rape. Her muscles clenched and she struggled hysterically, and it was all useless. The roar of crushing rock filled her ears. The tight grasp of the fleshy cavity and its mucus kept her locked in place as the worm burrowed through the earth. Ecstasy lanced like a lightning bolt up her spine, shockwaves driven by the pulsing drumbeat of pleasure in her pussy. She could feel the tentacles in her mouth swell up, and a frothing gush of gooey syrup flooded into her mouth. Seri swallowed madly - it was that or choke - as she rode the waves of bliss. Throbbing flesh swelled up delightfully inside her, stretching the tight tunnel of her little girl pussy, and Seri felt the warm rush of insect semen spew up into her insides. Hot, tingling, utterly satisfying, a creamy rush of buttery seed that flowed into her womb and filled her belly with warmth.

The spent tentacles slipped out. Seri felt sloppy runners of bug semen and saliva on her chin. New flesh took their place, ramming straight in, filling her mouth and cunt without missing a single beat. The tentacle in her asshole coiled and squirmed like a worm and then tightened up madly, and she felt heat spewing up into her asshole as well. Another took its place. Seri's shrieking was muffled by bulging flesh. Her cunt shivered with delight at the thrusting intrusions of tight, slippery meat, which stayed tightly erect no matter how many times it ejaculated into her. The sound of grinding rock was deafening. She lost herself. She was falling, plummeting headfirst into an abyss of unreality, a space filled with a seething storm of lightning ecstasy.

Her next orgasm crashed into her like a peal of thunder. She shook. She cried out with pitiful moans. She had lost all sense of the her surroundings, of direction, of the world. Eruptions of bliss washed away her sense, sending her soaring into the stratosphere of delight. Her body responded, shaking, quivering, hungry for more even as her orgasm tapered away. She jerked her head as much as she could, encouraging the tentacles in her mouth to go deeper, to squirm into her throat and fill her belly with their hot loads of bug juice. She pushed down with her pelvis, meeting the thrusting of bug cock. She wanted it deeper, needed it deeper. Those squirming rods had become her heaven, the drivers of her pleasure, her desperate need. More hot bug cum flooded her insides. She felt like a cauldron of semen being fed at both ends, and still it went on. She twisted like a leaf in the wind, swirling chaotically from climax to climax. The tentacles never let up. They raped her and raped her and filled her twitching little 12-year-old body with buckets of cum, and whenever one ejaculated there was always another to take its place.

Her struggling turned to enthusiasm, her screams to exultant shrieks of delight. She welcomed each new batch of squirming tentacles that pushed into her body, sucking hungrily, pussy trembling, asshole quivering tightly. She had long ago let go of her senses of distance, of space or direction. She was somewhere. The Chiropede's lair, maybe. It didn't matter. Each climax blasted her again and again to the heights of pleasure, obliterating her thoughts and replacing them with pure, unending delight. Days had passed. Weeks, maybe. Time stood still, flashing past only in those brief moments between orgasms. The clutching sensation of the cavity was gone, replaced by the feeling of cool rock against her back. Her body was coated head to toe in runny juices, a cocktail of saliva, sweat, semen, and the slippery squirts of her own aroused fluids. It was rank. It was delightful. The sweet, wretched odor filled her nostrils as she inhaled. The air of the lair was wonderful. The hardened sheets of gooey webbing that shackled her was a prison of delight. She opened her mouth, and something filled it: a twitching, delicious bug cock. One of the juvenile Chiropedes. It thrust rapidly into her mouth and quickly left a revolting swill of bug semen in her throat that Seri swallowed eagerly. The warm goop was salty nectar on her tongue and warm cream sliding down her throat. She licked her lips, savoring every drop, and then slipped into a deep sleep of dreamy bliss.

Seri no longer minded the silk webbing around her wrists and ankles that kept her shackled to the rock. It had been disorienting at first, being affixed to the side of the stalagmite by the unbreakable white film, but now she relished her position in the lair.

She was not alone. The other girls surrounded her on all sides, bound by the webbing just as she was. Their naked bodies were jammed haphazardly together at different angles. Alyssia was just above her, with the huge paunch of her belly hanging down and her swelling genitals just inches from Seri's mouth. Selise was just across from her, spread-eagled with her back against another stalagmite and arms and legs sealed tightly by webbing. Nelle and Nola were close on either side of her, their arms interlocked with hers. She loved them dearly, loved the cute little squeaking noises the 8-year-olds made as the small Chiropedes clutching their bodies thrust their twitching bug cocks into their little cunts. They were like her sisters now, and their pleasure was her pleasure. They had both recently given birth, and the Chiropedes were wasting no time filling up their deflated bellies again with load after load of hot bug semen.

There were others too - other girls, some who had already been here, and more that had joined later. The patron Chiropede returned from time to time bearing loads of freshly raped little girls, naked and shrieking with his cum dripping by the bucketload from their pussies. More girls from nearby villages and towns, Seri thought. They had been deposited chaotically in the empty spaces of the many stalagmites and been sealed up tight like caterpillar larvae with their pussies exposed. Once the juvenile Chiropedes had them properly bound, they set about the joyful work of inseminating them.

The new girls had all quickly succumbed to the pleasure, of course, embracing their roles as the breeding mothers of the lair. Their cries of pleasure and panting desire echoed in the stone chamber, an endless music ringing out in this dark pit beneath the earth as the horde of Chiropedes crawled everywhere on the sticky webbing, raping each girl in turn. Seri's eyes had adjusted to the darkness - a previously unknown Conversion effect. She scanned the jutting pillars of rock that surrounded her on all sides, seeing all the girls above and below her, each in varying stages of pregnancy. Her little family was just one of many.

Nelle and Nola orgasmed at the same time next to Seri, both girls shrieking with delight. Their jerking motions against her arms stoked a tingling itch of desire in Seri's pussy. She could almost feel the hot spurts of insect semen splashing up inside them like it was her own pussy - a delicious flowing warmth, oozing ever deeper into their bellies, millions of swimming bug sperm flooding their tiny wombs and seeking out their eggs. They would be pregnant again very shortly, and their bellies would began to swell again with little grubby Chiropede babies.

Seri had long ago lost count of their broods. The little ones matured so rapidly, weaning off their mother's breastmilk in a matter of days. Their sexual maturity took less than a month, by which time they had grown to the size of a large dog. They weren't picky either - they loved to rape their own mothers as eagerly as any other girl there. Seri was sure at last a few of her broods had come from her own sons.

Just the thought of her own spawn clutching her heavy belly and thrusting madly inside her until it unleashed its incestuous monster cum sent her into a panting fervor. The horniness was almost unbearable. It had been several minutes since she was last raped, and she needed relief. The two Chiropedes on Nelle and Nola had slithered off after spending themselves inside the little girls, leaving them to sleep. Seri struggled in her bonds. The itch was growing unbearable. She looked up.

Alyssia was just above her, spread-eagled to the rock just like she was, with Seri's head jammed right up against her cunt. It usually afforded a thrilling view of erect Chiropede cock slamming up into the girl whenever she mated. Seri loved the show. She never tired of it. Alyssia may have spurned her before, long ago in a different life, but now they were sisters again - bound together in their delightful service to the lair as tightly as the webbing that held them immobilized.

The passion in her loins had grown to a fever pitch. Seri stretched her neck and stuck out her tongue, running it along the juicy length of Alyssia's cunt. The salty flavor of the little girl tingled on her tongue. Alyssia twitched above her, moaning, still half-asleep. Seri took another lick, ending with a flick against the tiny red bug of her clit, and Alyssia jerked. Her massive belly jiggled in the air.

She was due. Overdue, maybe. Seri took in the stretched and swollen look of the girl's cunt as she licked and sucked, tasting the juices of her pregnant arousal. Alyssia cried out wordlessly above her, basking in the pleasure. Seri felt how her own belly was stretched so taut it felt like it might burst. It would be a large brood. She wondered if Alyssia or she would give birth first. She couldn't wait. The young ones were a delight, squirming around the naked bodies of their mothers like maggots until they found the nipples and began to suck. And after that, the non-stop rapeathon until she was pregnant again was an earth-shattering experience.

Alyssia shuddered and jerked as Seri licked. She ran her tongue even faster over the sensitive lips of Alyssia's labia, then rammed her tongue between the lips. Alyssia's muscles flexed tight as a long squeal came from the girl's mouth, then she relaxed in exhaustion.

Seri licked her lips, savoring her sister's juices - all salty and sweet and alive with the oily undertaste of bug juices. Delicious, like nectar. Almost as good as the warm froth of bug semen on her tongue.

A young Chiropede crept along a strand, coming straight for Seri. Her breathing grew heavy. She had finally been noticed. The muscles in her pussy almost squirmed in anticipation. The Chiropede was almost 5 feet long and nearly of age - they left the lair not long after reaching sexual maturity, heading out into the world to make their own lairs. Seri wiggled happily as it reached her and began to climb up her belly. The hundreds of little legs brushed her sides like the fingers of a lover as it climbed up and positioned itself along her restrained body. He looked fit and healthy, as large as she was with several segments to his body already. They grew larger the more girls they raped, Seri knew. He had been busy. Such a good boy. Seri was pretty sure he was one of her own, and at his age he'd have a nice fat cock for mommy.

Clutching her sides for leverage, the bug crawled up farther. Its bottom half curled up under her groin and it pressed the slimy underbellies of its body against her face and pussy. It would be a long time before he was big enough to suck a girl entirely into the labia-like cavities underneath each of his segments, but the bulging cocks that grew from each of them were a very healthy size already. Seri could see the erect flesh jutting from the slippery pink hole just in front of her face. The bulbous tip touched the lips of her open mouth. She opened her mouth and wiggled her hips at the same time, encouraging him down below. Tumescent flesh grazed her pussy lips, sparking a delicious tingling thrill that shivered her pussy. She felt another visitor too: a pointed tip of flesh grazing her back door. The bug wanted all of her holes at once. Such a good boy, filling her up everywhere at once like that.

The bug's body tightened and Seri jerked as three cocks penetrated her at once. The taut penises squirmed their way inside her slippery confines and began thrusting. Seri's body was rocked by the motion, the silken web rustling as the bug began thrusting more rapidly, enjoying the feel of the little girl. Seri squealed but the sound was muffled by the turgid prick moving in her mouth. She sucked on it lovingly, relishing the syrupy, insect taste. She didn't know how but she was sure he was from one of her own broods, now. He tasted right. He had squirmed his way out of his mother's cunt as a tiny maggot and raped his way around the chamber, then returned to fill the hole he had been birthed from with a flood of his own cum.

Seri moaned. The thrusting bug cocks were driving the heat in her belly like a bonfire. Pushing into her mouth, sliding delightfully against her quivering pussy walls, digging into the tight heat inside her asshole. A wash of pleasure raced in her body as it was rocked against the cool rock, her son thrusting into her again and again. He began to pick up speed. The tempo grew like a primal drumbeat, the turgid pricks slamming into Seri's body. Twitching cockmeat slammed into the tight tunnel of her throat and crashed against her cervix. She shuddered. She screamed deep inside with passion. A electric pulse flashed up her spine and seized her muscles as the pumping ecstasy erupted inside her and sent her soaring into a wild orgasm.

A torrent of hot goo splashed into her throat. Seri swallowed madly. Another river splashed up inside her, her insect son unleashing his vile semen into his mother's body. Seri's muscles thrashed chaotically in a storm of ecstasy. A third flood of warmth emptied itself deep into her bowls, sending Seri over the edge. Flailing, buffeted by the storm of her intense climax, she gave herself over to the pleasure. This was what she lived for. This was what she existed for. The thrusting, pumping cycle of raw sexual pleasure that fueled her every waking moment. Her hips jerked on their own, welcoming her son's cum. Her muted squeals thrummed in her head until it was ringing. The tsunami of her roaring climax crashed down over her and obliterated all thought.

She awoke a short time later. The echoes of passion still rang out from the stone walls, an endless chorus. Her mate had vanished, leaving gooey trickles of semen dripping from her nether regions and a sloppy mess of bubbling saliva and bug cum running down her chin like grease. She licked her lips to savor the delicious taste. Salty, with an aftertaste of greasy insectile fluids, but to Seri it was as sweet as the birthday cake her brother had made for her on her 8th birthday. Funny. She hadn't thought of him in a long time. The memories were hazy, distant. Irrelevant. How odd it seemed, that she had once craved a simple farming life, that she had welcomed her oldest brother as her closest lover. The bugs were better lovers than he had ever been. Vaguely, she wondered what he would think if he could see her now: a naked 12-year-old, bound, belly hot and tight with grubs and globs of bug semen oozing from her genitals. It didn't matter. The memory of her brother faded away as quickly as it had come. She couldn't even remember his name.

She had been such a naive little girl, never understanding her true purpose. She had trained so much, had fought so hard, despising her own weakness every moment of her life. And for what? She saw it now: she had never been made for that. Her fate had always been here. This was what she had been made for, to mother her generations of children in this fowl den of rock beneath the earth. How many squirming grubs had she pushed from her belly? How many thousands of dripping little maggot-like insects spawned from her womb? Seri had never been happier. The world had rejected her, but she had found her place at last.

Once, she thought her place had been as a mage, but she had never been good at that. Even her position at the library had been a concession. They had told her she was worthless and they had been right; she had no worth in the human world. Everyone that had depended on her had been killed or captured, even the orphan girls that surrounded her. It had been so foolish for her to struggle. She thought of her fallen mage sisters, doubtlessly still cocooned in their proper places in the hive somewhere far above them. She wondered how she hadn't recognized their fate for what it was. It had all been spelled out for her in the tome, and she had been too blind to see it - the doom of every little girl like her, following the workings of fate set in motion long before she had even been born.

The endless echoing screams of pleasure seemed to die down. An odd kind of stillness surrounded Seri. She sniffed the cool air of the lair and its familiar aroma of bug juices and body odor. She couldn't sense anything different, but something still seemed off. She couldn't quite place it. She looked around curiously. All of the girls - her family - were still here, sleeping contentedly with their pregnant bellies drooping down.

There was something...a presence. Seri blinked her eyes as she looked about. Prickling flashes raced across her skin. What was that? Something was coming from above - a light. No, something in white, gleaming with an inner glow that defied the pitch blackness of the pit. What was it? Seri squinted her eyes against the painful glare. All they had seen was darkness for so long. The light came down, a pure radiance like snow, and finally dimmed enough that Seri could see.

It was a woman. Majestic beyond words. Beautiful beyond description. Seri gasped in shock. She recognized the woman. An entire page of the forbidden tome had been dedicated to describing her: the woman in white, the one who had corrupted the grand ritual and plunged the world into chaos. Now, seeing her face again, all the pieces fell into place for Seri.

It was Sheila.

The very woman that had sponsored her duty at the academy, that had taken her in as a personal assistant. The book's magic must have kept Seri from recognizing her. Seri's mouth hung open as she stared. Sheila glided down as if on a carpet of air, her slippers alighting without a sound on the muck of the lair floor. She stood there a moment, smiling benevolently at Seri, and Seri was struck yet again by the immaculate splendor of the woman. Her white dress was pristine, hugging her slender hips tightly without a single fold out of place. The beautiful top of white lace was open at the shoulders, with delicately ruffled sleeves, and cut wide to show a generous display of her perfect breasts. Gems hung in a glittering pageant of colors from the silver circlet on her head. She looked like a queen, a unmatched pinnacle of grace and refined majesty. Seri hung her head, averting her eyes in the face of that old, familiar feeling of inadequacy. There was something about Sheila that whispered of the heavens, as though one might commit a blasphemy merely to meet the eyes of a being so marvelous.

Fingers cupped her chin lovingly. The loose sleeve of Sheila's dress swung in folds of silky lace as those fingers brought Seri's gaze up again. Seri blinked, cringing before the authority of her old sponsor.

"Seri." Sheila's voice was melodic, like the singing of birds. "It is so very good to see you again."

"Sheila..." Seri croaked. Her throat felt dry. She suddenly felt very insignificant. She wished she could move so she could hide from the beatific light coming from this woman.

"You're looking happy. How wonderful." Sheila's fingers cradled Seri's face like a mother touching her child.

"How...how are you..." Seri's voice rasped. She felt unable to form the words.

"How am I here?" Sheila laughed - a rich, musical sound. She took a step back, taking in Seri with an approving gaze, seeing the sheetlike webbing that kept her shackled, the belly bulging with pregnancy, the dried fluids on her naked body and the globs of fresh bug semen dripping from her cunt and asshole.

"I think it's past time for you to be concerned with matters like that, don't you?" Sheila's smile was condescending. Seri winced. She felt her own filth keenly in the presence of this woman. Despite her impeccable kindness, Sheila had always had a way of making everyone around her feel inferior.

"Matters have moved quickly, Seri. I'm very pleased." Sheila nodded to herself, still smiling. "I was content to let you keep it until I had need of it. That time has come."

"It?" The word hung in the air, dull and flat. Seri felt stupid.

"Why, this of course." Sheila bent and touched the tiny sack resting on the webbing below Seri's feet. Seri had forgotten all about it. Her little pack of things had made the trip with her, then fallen off when the last part of her uniform's skirt had finally disintegrated here. It still had everything in it. Her supplies. Her Monstrum Factorum. The tome she had stolen...from Sheila.

Sheila plucked the sack from the silky strands and straightened up. It grew in her hands, responding to an unseen command. Magic. Magic without a staff. Sheila opened it and felt inside, then pulled out the stolen tome.

"I do so hate it when people steal from me," Sheila sighed, running her fingers over the harsh lines of the book's cover. "Really, you're quite lucky Seri. I wasn't so merciful to the last bitch that took something of mine."

Seri hung her head, ashamed. Had she really stolen from this magnificent woman? It all seemed so long ago, in another life.

"Funny, that you never even came to realize what you stole," Sheila said, her smile taking on a fiendish edge. "I let you steal it, of course. It was too dangerous to keep where it was, and it was a good way to keep tabs on you."

Sheila ducked closer, fingers gasping Seri's chin again. They felt forceful this time, cruel. Seri wished she could shrink into the rock as she met Sheila's gaze.

"You didn't really think you could have got this far on your own, did you? No, no my dear, sweet little cunt. I knew you would end up here. The tome was with you the whole time, subtly directing your magic, your choices. The perfect chaperone, leading you right where you needed to go. Just a sabotaged spell here, a little touch of power there. A bump of confidence right when you needed it. Ah, Seri, my precious little slut. You never knew. And once you got a nice big dose of monster cum inside you, well, then it could do so much more with you."

Seri stared, slack-jawed, her eyes still stinging from the light. The words made no sense to her. She couldn't think. A burning itch began in her pussy, the relentless horniness that marked the cycle of her existence.

"Hmmm..." Sheila's fingers gripped Seri's cheeks tightly as she forced head to the left, then to the right, as if she was inspecting a bug caught in a trap. Her smile looked dangerous. Had Seri ever thought the woman was benevolent? Had it all been an illusion? The woman in white. Seri struggled to put the pieces together, to assemble her thoughts in order, but they slipped away from her and vanished.

"How amusing it all is," Sheila chuckled. "You went about your pathetic little life thinking your magic was your own, that it would always serve you. You have no idea, Seri. But it's not your fault. Your ignorance was taught to you, handed down by all the pitiful meddling children that call themselves Mages in this era." Sheila's laugh deepened to a wicked tone. "But matters are out of your hands. You knew how this would end up, right? How you and all your little mage friends would end up?"

Seri nodded fearfully.

"You've always known, haven't you?"

Seri nodded again, beginning to pant. The horny surge in her gut was getting hotter. She needed to be fucked, to be flooded with bug cum. It had been too long.

Sheila nodded and took a step back. Seri marvelled how the sticky webbing and the filth of the lair seemed to refuse to touch the woman's clothing. A small Chiropede scuttled along a twist of webbing, coming up alongside Sheila. It waited, docile, and Sheila reached down a hand to pet its hard carapace.

"Hmmm. Such lovely little creatures, aren't they Seri? No strife, no conflict of purpose. Pure. Whole, but for their need for girls like you."

The Chiropede scuttled off on its own. Sheila leaned closer to Seri, putting her nose right in her face. Seri would have looked away but she was frozen in fear. Why hadn't the bug attacked Sheila?

Sheila's hand reached out. Her fingers touched Seri's bare chest, caressing the girl's smooth flesh. She seized Seri's nipple and twisted savagely, leaning in to crush Seri with a kiss at the same time. Seri shuddered. The woman's lips were cold like the grave. The beating pulse in her cunt was raging now, desperate. Something was happening. A tight pain was beginning deep inside her belly.

Sheila pulled back, smiling sadistically. Seri's saliva glistened on her lips.

"This is all a little cunt like you is good for anyway. A perfect end for a thief. Yes, I think you'll be happy here." She rested her chin on her hand, as if considering something. Seri's heart skipped a beat under that malevolent grin.

"Happy. Yes, you would be. And we can't have that." She stepped forward and pressed her palm to Seri's forehead. A flash of lightning flickered behind Seri's eyes. Her head spun, suddenly dizzy.

It wore off in moments. Seri struggled feebly in her bonds, groaning and incoherent. She opened her eyes.

She remembered it all. Everything. Her life as a little girl. Her time training as a mage. Every failure and foolish choice that had led her here. Marcus. The brother she had cherished and loved more than anything. It was like a veil had been pulled back from her eyes. Here she was, deep in a dark hell of rock, sealed away, her body captive to the monsters that had taken her. A tool to be raped, to be bred, to bear endless nightmarish spawn from her womb along with the girls that had trusted her to keep them safe.

She looked around, eyes widening in horror. The woman was gone. Chiropedes crawled everywhere, raping the bounty of girls they had sewn into the silken walls of their lair. Hundreds of girls. Pregnant. Breeders like her, birthing new monsters to terrorize the world.

Seri almost choked when the first pangs of labor hit. The tight mound of her belly quivered and her pussy spasmed involuntarily. She could feel the swarm of Chiropedes crawling in her belly - dozens of them suddenly moving, eager to come out, to be born. Monsters hungry to feed. To grow large. To rape more little girls like the ones cocooned here. Like the ones taken from Alura. Like the four that had so foolishly followed her down here.

Like her.

Her vagina spasmed painfully as it expelled the first of her new brood. The twitching, maggot-like grub writhed on the silk just beneath her open legs, slippery with the juices of her womb.

Seri threw her head back and screamed.