Chapter One Fifty-One Letters and Clues

Notice: Chapter is extra long, I'm trying to close out the Abyss arc, so I made several extra large chapters towards that end.

Eriko settled into her office chair, her gaze on the letter. Her mind however was on her last visit to Reiko’s dungeon home. She’d had a lot of fun and her guards had enjoyed the challenge of testing the dungeon. If she didn’t have responsibilities she’d still be there, but things were on track. She might be able to squeeze in another visit, it helped that Bordertown had a gate, but it might be more convenient if she had a private one she could use.

She blinked, that was a thought!. She turned to the letter, the name on it was Misaki. The dungeon itself had sent her a letter, one she’d already read. It was a heartwarming letter where the dungeon basically just told her everything her little girl was up to. Grabbing some paper and a pen she got started, she had a response to write.

__________________

  Milith took a step closer to Kari, her left boob was split open like some strange door, revealing the organs beneath. Her heart was quite visibly exposed and resting a good twenty centimeters out of her chest. Kari’s arteries had been disconnected from her heart and new tubes linked in. Red blood flowed out, and something else flowed in. Her expression was somewhat pained.

Tubes had also been connected to her exposed heart, which was beating rather fast. Milith knew enough about biology to know that it shouldn’t be beating anywhere close to that many times a minute. Certainly not while she was just sitting still with glazed eyes.

Milith traced the tubes, noting they were filled with a sickly green fluid that was flowing towards the cribs. Checking over there she noted each baby had been opened up and restrained. The tubes were pumping the green fluid directly into their little hearts, while another set of tubes flowed out of them into the next baby in the line. 

None of them looked healthy, their faces very pale, many of them with glazed eyes. Along with bruises and discolorations, their exposed organs were often swollen as well.

Frowning she turned to her pregnant guide, “Alright what the fuck is this about?”

The girl sighed, “Well, I did say it was a lab. Well, there is a little more to it. Um, Kari, there is a... heart girl. She’s had her chest modified so that her heart can be easily exposed. Ribs were removed, alterations to the breast were made, and changes to the circulatory system were made so that her heart could be easily bypassed, that way they could use it to pump things other than blood. The process is well... quite hard on the girls selected for this, their health is often poor, which is why the girls chosen are those not well suited to be hosts.”

She turned to the babies, “As for the um, babies? Well these are the ones the Qayan were willing to lose. They were all picked to be experimented on.”

Milith shook her head, “So an utter pain to clean up.” she drew closer to Kari to get started on unhooking her, “So why is her heart beating so fast right now? And what’s the fluid flowing into Kari?”

“That would be her blood after the machine has laced it with a mix of toxins and drugs. It's meant to keep her docile, while her heart is being used. As for why her heart is beating so fast?” The pregnant girl drew closer, then pointed out a little device attached to it, “This is a heart control, they use it to control her heart. When they are using it, they dial her heartbeat all the way up, then when they are done they drop it down to the bare minimum she needs to live and lock it there. That way she is left sick and lethargic after a session. They’ll let her recover a bit, then hook her up again.”

Milith sighed, having decided she couldn’t start with Kari, “Are they trying to kill her?”

“Um well... yes, just not right away.”

“Of course they are,” she replied as she went to look at the babies again, working out how she was going to unplug them from this without harming them too much. She didn’t trust the stuff they were being flooded with either. 

After a bit, she found a starting point and got to work. It was going to take awhile, but that seemed almost expected with what the Qayan had been doing.

____________

Emily stepped out of the latest shop. She’d spent most of her time stocking up on supplies and looking for clues. Although given her inability to just ask what was up she’d found herself limited on that front. She’d noted a few things during her time wandering the town. Pretty much every woman she saw was walking around with her boobs exposed, showing off those strange piercings that seemed so popular here. Most of them wore tops, but she met more than one pregnant woman, and oddly every pregnant woman she found was topless.

That seemed to be a pattern and interestingly enough it was one she’d been able to confirm. She’d come back to Tsia’s just moments ago and while there talked with the pregnant owner. Emily had asked her if going topless was some kind of local fashion trend.

Tsia had grinned, and replied, “Sure is! You see, girls take their tops off to show their pregnant bellies. If you are pregnant, you go topless.”

That was unfortunately about all she’d gotten about that one. Still it wasn’t her only clue, she’d passed the school earlier and noted a few things were off. The kids playing in the attached playground weren’t being watched at all. Strangely she didn’t see any boys among them either, which is strange when a town only has one school. Thinking about it, she had seen a single young boy, maybe a couple of older men as she’d walked about, but that was about it.

To her this was just more proof something was going on. So she figured she’d check out the school, see what was up with that building. First however, she was going to drop her purchases off at the inn and check up with Amber.

Stepping into the inn a few minutes later, she was greeted by Amber who bounded on up to her, full of energy as always. The bee girl seemed downright excited, “Hey Emily, find what we need?”

“Sure did, figured I’d drop it off, then check out the local school, something is...”

Suddenly Amber hugged her, it felt nice feeling the bee girl’s naked body pressing against her, then she felt a sudden sharp prick pierce her thigh. She jumped as a buzz rippled up her leg, turning to give the bee girl a look, only to find her glaring at her.

“What the fuck was that for!!!”

The bee shifted her stance, “Thinking straight!? Or do I need to sting you again?”

Emily blinked, “Uh, what!?”

“You want to check out a school in a town that is obviously brainwashed? Surely you aren’t planning to leave your daughters there for a day, maybe come back and buy a house?”

Feeling a bit buzzed in a good way, she blinked twice. All those clues she’d seen started to click together, “Brainwashed?”

“Naked tits, weird piercings, no one watches the kids, barely a boy in sight? Ring any bells? Oh and have you tried talking to them, they seem normal until certain topics come up, like kids.”

“I guess you are kinda right, but that school does seem suspect,” she replied.

“Right, so does the Apothecary and the town park.”

Now that she thought about it, she recalled something odd at Tsia’s shop. There had been this door on the side of the building with a weird sign. Why hadn’t she realized? Not to mention the shop was bigger than it needed to be, “Right, Tsia’s shop seemed a little strange too,  but what’s up with the park and the Apothecary?”

“Well, with the park? Did you notice the adults steer clear? Only kids are there. As for the Apothecary? Well I don’t think you were near it, I passed it on the way to the park with the girls. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but well... might be better if you just looked yourself.”

“I guess, but I still want to look at the school.”

“Do I have to sting you? You're not a thief; you don’t have stealth skills, and I doubt they’d let you just walk in and look around.”

She walked toward the stairs, glancing briefly at Megan and Celine. The two seemed to be having fun with some toys. “No, but I’m an alchemist, now that I’m thinking I can just brew a little something to help. I did pick up some good ingredients on this trip.”

“OOh! Invisibility potion? That would be so cool!”

She giggled, “Yeah that would be neat, but sadly I don’t have the right materials.” she turned more serious, “Now recall my father’s title?”

“The hunter? I know, he got it for taking down so many Abyssals.”

“Well there is a trick to that. Recon is important, but Abyssals certainly make that tricky. My family however comes from a long line of mages, powerful ones and we’ve got something a little special in us. Let’s us use a very interesting spell, Spiritwalking. I’m not strong enough to use it on my own, but with just a little help I can cast the spell. Can’t believe I almost forgot I could do this. It will make checking those strange spots out easy.”

“Spiritwalking? Um, that sounds interesting. Anything you need me to do?”

“Watch my physical body. I won’t be aware of it at all, while I do this.”

Amber grinned, “Sure! I can do that!”

_________________

Emily walked up to the school door. Unlike earlier she didn’t see any girls in the playground but given the hour it was still open. She took another look around but no one seemed aware of her. Then again why would they be? She was just a spiritual projection. Taking a breath she pushed through the door and emerged into a large foyer. A pair of doors led to a hall, a desk was over on the left. A sign hung from it, “Kids only, if you are an adult leave now. If you are here to register your kid, leave, they can register themselves. If you are here to pick up a kid, leave. Your child can leave on their own.”

She frowned, well that was a totally reassuring and welcoming sign. Not! A sign like that spoke volumes. More points in the something strange here column.

Nobody was here either. Emily gave the entrance another look then headed into the hall. Doors were on either side, on the right was a sign that said, “School Apothecary.” Opposite that was “School Mistress’s Suite.”

The next door after that said, “Main Bathroom, Girl’s only.” Yet she didn’t see a boy’s bathroom where she’d expect one, instead it said, “Main Bathroom, second door, girl’s only.”

After that were a few signs over the various classrooms. “Classroom One: Age three. Classroom Two: age four, and so on.

Since she was close she poked her head into the suite first. Emily blinked as she took the room in. It wasn’t anything close to what she would have expected, the floor and walls were coated with strange black flesh, the tendrils woven together like some strange fleshy mat. Several hung from the ceiling not unlike the fleshy tentacles she’d seen in the forest near town. Many of them ending in barbs or fleshy flowers.

Where doors would be, she instead saw more tendrils just hanging over an opening like weird curtains. There was a desk overrun with tendrils and a few decorations in the room. No one was at the desk but there was a fair degree of paperwork scattered on it. Glancing into the sideroom, she found a bedroom and a bathroom.

In the bedroom, she found a woman with tentacles instead of legs, and black tendrils framing her face like hair. Standing by the bed, a child was resting upon it. The scene seemed pretty peaceful, as the woman sat next to her stroking her sleeping face.

Emily had to wonder what race she was, she’d never seen anyone who looked like that. One of the brainwashers perhaps? Only she didn’t seem to be doing anything, so Emily decided to check one of the other rooms, to see if anything else was going on.

Recalling something her father Kael the Hunter had once told her, she picked her path. Something about Abyssals, certain places were prime for them. If they were in a school, the places to check most were not the administration but the medical facilities and the classrooms. He’d said something about how they liked to pervert a healer’s office and that how they did it was revealing of their nature.

Emily phased through the door to the School Apothecary. It was odd just walking through doors, but as a spirit the physical world was no longer a barrier. Of course she wished she could still affect it, but she wasn’t that strong at Spiritwalking. Even Kael couldn’t do that, and he was an expert at the spell.

Glancing around, she took in the room. Like the Mistress’s suite the room was filled with creepy black flesh, the tendrils weaving across the floor and walls like living mats. Tendrils ran up the row of beds practically engulfing them. Above tendrils dangled from the ceiling, of the same kind as the others she’d seen before.

Emily counted about thirty beds, each occupied by a child, very young. If she had to guess they were all about four years old. They’d been stripped naked, and one of the tendrils from above had pierced their bellies. 

Emily approached the closest one, it was a Fremur girl. She was rather cute with a lovely bluish tint to her skin, but the veins around her stomach were turning a dark black, spreading from where the tendril had penetrated her skin. The girl was obviously awake but her eyes were glassy and her mouth slack like she wasn’t all there. She could even see a bit of drool sliding down her chin.

A flower tendril suddenly moved from above, and pressed against her small body, moving up and down for a moment, almost as if it was.... Emily’s eyes widened as she realized that was exactly what it was doing, it must be some kind of sensory organ.

What it was looking for she wasn’t sure, but before long the organ pulled back. The girl was no worse for the attention. It definitely seemed to have been some kind of inspection. Another tendril then moved, winding out of the mat engulfing the bed like a snake. Its tip ended in some kind of barb, thin, long, and nasty with something green dripping from the end. For a moment it just hovered over the girl’s face like a snake ready to strike. Emily felt a lump form in her throat, yet knowing she could do nothing to stop what she was about to see.

Then with sudden speed the barbed tendril struck. Emily had thought it would plunge into her face or briefly imagined it penetrating her mouth. It did neither, instead punching a hole right into the top of her head. The girl screamed, her eyes shooting wide open, then she fell silent. Yet Emily didn’t see any other effects from that.

She looked at the next girl who was human. A sensory organ was just pulling away from her, giving Emily a moment to take her state in. The girl was pale, her eyes just as glassy as the Fremur girl’s. Her limbs were wrapped with tendrils as well, as she lay in a spread eagle position.

Like before a tendril unweaved itself from the mat, hovering over her face for a second like a snake before shooting towards her eye, the strange tip piercing the edge of her eye in several places. Emily blinked as she watched it pull back, working the eye out of its socket. A wet plop filled the air, the girl not even reacting as her eye was removed. Another tendril dropped from the ceiling to collect it. Emily watched that tendril vanish into the mat with the recently stolen eye. Her gaze turned back to the girl, the first tendril was still hovering over her face, but it did not strike her other eye.

Emily watched as the tip began to change, becoming a nasty barb rather than whatever tool had been used to remove the poor girl’s eye. Now equipped with a barb, the tendril penetrated her empty eye socket, and once again the girl failed to react. The tendril pulled out after a minute, bits of flesh clinging to the tip. Unlike with the Fremur girl, Emily could see an immediate reaction as the socket began to leak a nasty green fluid. 

The tendril retracted, and a new tentacle came up. Emily blinked as she watched it sever her right arm at the shoulder. The girl didn’t even react as the long sharp blade on the end of the tentacle cleanly severed her arm. Another from the ceiling collected it, and the limb vanished into the ceiling, while a couple of tendrils pierced her wound. Pulling out and leaving that nasty green fluid leaking from her shoulder.

A sound drew her attention back to the Fremur girl. She still had both eyes, but her limbs were now restrained. Her position adjusted to a spread eagle, while a tendril with a long blade hovered around her legs. It flashed and in a clean motion severed her legs. Legs that also quickly vanished into the ceiling.

Emily grimaced and looked around noting quite a few Fremur girls missing their legs. Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t good. They were doing things to these girls, they would need to be saved.

Turning she rushed out of the room and headed off to the classrooms. Peeking into one she looked around. It looked far more normal, aside from the students just sitting all glassy-eyed in their chairs. At the front of the room was a woman, tentacles for legs, living tendrils for hair and a predatory grin on her face, as she addressed the students.

The lesson sounded pretty normal however, just a basic lesson on entry-level magic theory. It was a far cry from the horror show going on in the other room. She stayed for a bit before deciding to check out one of the other places she’d been told about.

_______________

Emily walked right into the Apothecary her form phasing through yet another door. That school had been a nightmare, she’d stopped briefly at the park on the way here. She hadn’t seen anything decisively odd but she did note the lack of adults Amber mentioned. Emily had also spotted a couple of small structures that seemed suspect. Something about them set her on edge.

Yet she hadn’t looked into them, instead she had come here. Amber being so cryptic about it, had left her the most curious. The front room was a reception, a tentacled woman sat at the desk and greeted a pregnant woman who came up. “Welcome, you are just on time, please strip and head to exam chamber one.

The woman nodded, heading for the door. Stopping where several other women were stripping off their skirts. As a group, they headed through the door and Emily followed them into the exam chamber. She blinked as she took it in. The entire room was overrun with the same living black flesh she’d seen in the forest and the school. It seemed this place was just as suspect as she’d thought.

Blankly the pregnant girls walked to the beds all engulfed in black flesh and lay down. Several tendrils moved to restrain their limbs, while another set reached for their bellies, pressing into a pale red X right over their wombs. Emily blinked as the flesh split, allowing a tendril from above to enter their belly. 

Almost as if that was the signal, all the black flesh moved faster and the girls vanished into the beds in the blink of an eye, leaving only their exposed wombs on the fleshy surface. Emily couldn’t see anything else, just their swollen wombs resting on the surface. It was just strange, but as she drew closer she noted their ovaries had been pulled out as well.

After another minute or so a fleshy flower extended from above to wrap around the exposed wombs. Moving over them in a fashion like what she’d seen with the young girls at the school. It was an examination, alright, she’d already figured out that those flowers were sensory organs of some kind. Whatever this mat of flesh was, it was certainly alive, it acted like some kind of living tissue.

Before long the flowers retracted into the mat on the roof. Several new tendrils emerged, each tipped with a barb. They hovered over the vulnerable wombs like some kind of snake poised to strike, then suddenly sprang forward. Sharpened tips punched through the exposed flesh, a bit of liquid leaking from the wounds, but only for a moment.

One of the tendrils started to swell right next to the uterus it was piercing, a lump like an egg formed and started traveling down into the mat of black tendrils. Then a second and a third, each one about the same size. Emily watched the swollen organ shrink, a frown on her face. What were they doing?

Then another tendril swelled only this time, the lumps were coming up and going into the exposed uterus. Each one was the same egg sized shape, and the womb started to swell back up, then even grow.

Emily looked around and noted each of the organs was being treated the same, the exposed ovaries weren’t even being touched. The Apothecary was proving to be a mystery, but the clues it was providing told her basically nothing.

________________________

Milith stepped out of the building, the sky was dark but Kari was going to be alright. She’d done her best to heal the girl, her friends and the babies. Her companions told her that was about it for this town. She’d helped all the children, freed the mothers and even found herself an interesting pet project. Movement around her belly reminded her of said friend. Feeding her had required some creative adaption. Solean physiology was incompatible with most parasites. Since she couldn’t do it herself, she’d turned to her magical abilities, creating a piece of biotech that produced a liquid jelly for the little serpent to consume, and she kept the thing close so it would benefit from her warmth and wrapped it in magical shields to protect it from the elements. This also ensured the young Qayan didn’t dry out either.

It wasn’t a true substitute for a proper host, but it would keep the Qayan girl alive for now. Honestly, it would have been ideal for her to have stayed in her mother’s womb, but that wasn’t an option anymore. Milith knew she had a bit of a clock for this, but she could keep the parasite warm, fed, and stable for a few weeks, a couple of months at the most. More than enough time to make the right host.

Suddenly, thunder cracked in the distance. She blinked and turned to see lightning raining down, with nary a cloud in the sky. Dry lightning was rare, and it didn’t normally happen like this. A wave of magic with a tinge of the divine hit her, powerful mana. She felt her reserves shoot up almost a third. Milith blinked, she’d not expected to recover mana like this, she’d been getting used to living with a constant negative regeneration. Yet something about that mana felt familiar, almost like... her own, yet somehow different, more refined.

The pregnant woman beside her commented, “Did some god get angry and smite a city?”

Milith opened her mouth, but a voice spoke to her, Send the Swarm, bring down the hammer, call forth the Draviri, times of war are upon us, the Abyss must not return lest all be lost. I give thee this gift to help you, use it well.

Then right before her eyes space itself folded upon itself and a portal of darkness opened. Several boxes fell from the portal only to drift like feathers to the ground. Each box was huge, easily three meters tall and solid metal. Reaching out, she replied, Um thanks???

We will speak again, but not today, my daughter.

DAUGHTER!? You aren’t.... She trailed off as she realized the presence was already gone. They’d felt familar but she knew they weren’t her mother. Why call her daughter? Who the fuck were they!?

The pregnant woman waved a hand in front of her, “You alright?”

“No, but I think you might be right about the god part. I’m not sure who they are, but they left me a gift and called me daughter. I know they aren’t my mother.”

“People have two parents.”

Milith sighed and shook her head, “Come on, help me with this. I’m making friends it seems.”

__________________

Emily left the Apothecary to find the sun had set, despite looking around for awhile she’d found little to tell her what they were doing. For a moment she was about to head home, when she noticed several kids walking down the street. They weren’t playing, they seemed dazed and they were naked.

At second glance she noticed very few adults on the street. None of which paid any attention to the kids. One woman knocked on a door nearby, a younger woman responded.

She smiled, “Is it time?”

“Yup, send your twins out, naked. They won’t need their clothes.”

“Will do!”

The younger woman rushed back, not even closing her door and came back with a pair of girls, toddlers who she pushed out the door. The new woman guided them away and towards the dazed group she’d spoted earlier.

Frowning Emily followed and watched. The woman would stop at a door every once and a while, request a kid or two, then move on.

It wasn’t long before they reached a nondescript storehouse on the edge of town. The girls filed into the building and the woman guiding them left. Emily followed them in, the girls took a staircase hidden behind some boxes into the basement.

The basement was overrun with the same tendril mats she’d seen in other places. Against the back wall were eight beds placed right before a round portal, surrounded by long tendrils tipped with feelers and fleshy flowers.

Emily watched the girls line up, a girl would climb onto a bed and lie down. Almost immediately several fleshy flowers would feel her up, before the tendrils grabbed her and moved her into the hole. In seconds she’d vanish, as the tendrils moved her along like cargo, the girl wouldn’t resist.

A moment later more girls arrived, joining the lines. Emily didn’t stay, her mind linking the dots on the clues she’d seen. She wasn’t sure what Abyssal was behind this, but she had a good idea of what this was about. Her father had told her about towns like this, there weren’t any actual Abyssals here, those tentacle women were just corrupted monsters.

Emily turned away, heading back to the inn to reunite with her body. Plans forming in her mind, she wouldn’t be able to help on her own, but Phillip was quite powerful. She’d talk to him after the funeral, bring him and any adventures she could recruit and deal with this mess. Unfortunately there would be more victims while she waits, but there was no helping that.