DreadWolf

◈ Chapter 67:

Rain finished eating the pair of thieves. It didn't take long. Then he turned toward the Satyr in the cage and advanced on her, he was still ravenous and these two were practically being served up on a platter for him.

Belle backed as far away as she could to the other side of her cage, her eyes round with fear.

Lyra mustered her courage. "Wait!"

Rain paused and turned his head toward her.

"I made a deal with them! Freedom in exchange for them finding you more to eat! You want more right? Those two alone for sure won't be enough!"

Lyra wasn't sure she was getting through to Rain, he just stared at her blankly. Then he turned back to the cage and reached out, slipping his digits between the metal. With an ease telling of his strength he ripped open the front, the metal shrieking and groaning as it bent and crumpled under his paw pads.

Belle flattened herself against the back of the cage, her face deathly pale, her breath coming in gasping fits, shaking her head in denial of what was about to happen.

"N-no! No!"

Rain reached out a paw for her, to drag her into his teeth. Then he hesitated, fighting with himself. After a second or so he pulled back, leaving the Satyr to slump in relief, and moved to the cage the Elf was in. He tore it apart, dumping the Elf on the ground.

Orden jumped to his feet and made to flee, turning on his heel.

"Wait! Don't run! He'll kill you!"

He froze up and looked over his shoulder, then up, a clawed paw was just above his head about to drop down atop him, to rip him apart. He started sweating bullets as he realised just how close he was to dying. He had no weapon and he had just seen this monster tear apart a metal cage with its bare paws. He stood no chance at all.

"J-just don't make any sudden movements. You said you could find us bad people right?"

Orden swallowed noisily and nodded his head. "Bad people? Sure, I can find you that...I know lots of bad people."

Rain's paw eased back and the Elf openly shuddered in relief.

"Great! Now you just lead the way okay and I'll make sure the great big wolf monster doesn't bite you into two pieces okay?"

Orden stared at the sheep girl, was she the things owner? He suddenly had the distinct impression that it might have been better to take his chances in the cage. Gathering what little courage he had he turned and began walking down the street.

He could feel those yellow eyes weighing on his back with every step.

The others followed and he led them away from the stable, away from the market and mid leveler's quarter and toward the area the higher leveler's inhabited and the monster slaver's market, or more accurately to a building that lay between the two. The building was one of the largest in Lynthia, a dark foreboding thing at night with pointed arched windows and doors recessed deep into the walls.

"This should have what you want, the 'bad people' you are looking for, now I've held up my end of the deal let me go, you can keep the Satyr, she didn't do anything useful."

"You make scumbags look clean and laundered Orden, go fuck youself. Oh, and you're lying anyway, monster slavers aren't bad people, I know lots of perfectly nice monster slavers."

"Hey, I'm just stating the truth, I found what the Half-elf wanted, you did not. And I didn't take them here for monster slavers by the way, I took them here because of something else, some cult or other Kaleb was looking into, that was always his thing, the goody two shoes that he was. The way he told it there's been some strange stuff going on, people being taken in here and never coming out. The Ranker never cared and no one strong has tried to stop them so it just... kept happening."

"Oh great, so first you stabbed Kaleb in the back and then you desecrate his memory to save your own shitty hide once again. I swear to the gods Orden, I'm-"

"You're not going anywhere until we're done, just to be clear," said Lyra interrupting. "You could be lying about there being bad people in there, I literally found you in a cage, you don't get put in a cage for being good."

The Satyr put her hand up, "Well actually in my case that's totally what happened. I'm just an innocent Satyr who loves wine, nothing more."

Lyra squinted at her, "Neither of you are leaving yet, you might warn the town or something!"

As they were speaking Rain had found an entrance. He was having difficulty grasping the door handle as his paws were too large and he was rapidly becoming frustrated until with a snarl he kicked the door. It exploded off its hinges and went careening down the corridor inside.

Rain ducked below the doorway and the group followed, with Lyra's hurried encouragement... and implied threats.

They followed the dark mass of Rain deeper into the building, an occasional muffled cry of surprise could be heard ahead of him and then a pause as he ate, the uncomfortable sounds emanating from in front of him making Belle shiver in fear. She noted that the sheep girl also seemed frightened, wasn't she supposed to be the one in control of this situation?! Was this monster completely free to do as it wished?!

Each time Rain moved on after eating a sticky red patch was left on the ground along with a heavy brown cloak that the Satyr grimaced as she stepped over.

"What is this place Orden? Where the hell did you take us?"

Orden was staring at the blood on the ground with a mixed expression.

"It's... she wanted bad people, so I thought this cult might be fitting, they were causing enough of a mess to get people talking, I- I really don't know more than that..."

Ahead of them Rain paused as he came to a door, instead of fiddling with the too-small door handle he thrust out a paw and the door slapped down flat on the ground as it was ripped off its hinges.

"Erm, I think that one was already open actua-"

Lyra put a hand over her mouth as Rain shot her an irritated glare. He stepped over the fallen door.

Inside was a long room, on the tables of the room were lain out bodies, small green bodies.

"Oh, they're Gobbos," said Opal. "Guess your cult couldn't miss out on a chance to kill monsters too huh? Had to include Gobbos in your mess as well?"

"It's not my cult, and who cares anyway, this is nothing." The Elf glanced Lyra's way. "I mean, uh, what evil people did this? Gosh."

As they passed Rain laid into the bodies and quickly devoured them, it didn't take long due to his great size. As Lyra passed by the bodies she spotted marks carved into their flesh, strange jagged runes roughly cut into their torsos and limbs. Strangely, she thought she recognised them, from the mansion? There were some vague similarities but she couldn't be certain without comparing them more directly.

"...What were they doing here exactly?"

"No idea."

"Levelers being levelers," muttered Opal under her breath.

As Rain ate a cloaked figure suddenly burst through a door, an Elf, and clearly a member of the cult.

"What? Who are you? How did you get in here?" Then the cultist seemed to notice Rain against the darkness but by then it was too late, a paw whipped out and engulfed her face, dragging her into Rain's hungry maw with a muffled scream.

Belle paled.

He discarded the bloodied rag that was the cultist robe and peered through the door from where she had come, something catching his attention. He glanced back at Lyra and Opal and then went through, ducking down to get inside.

"What's wrong? What do you see?" said Opal, following after him.

Lyra was about to follow them through when out of nowhere Belle suddenly grabbed an unnoticed knife from one of the tabletops and with a cry of rage lunged at Orden. The Elf yelped and dodged out of the way, scrambling backwards to avoid Belle's wild slashing attacks.

"You piece of shit! You never should have made it out of the dungeon alive! You don't deserve to draw another breath for what you did!" she cried, her lunges becoming ever more frenzied.

Orden remained silent as he moved, focusing on the blade and carefully dodging out of its way, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"S-stop it you two!" shouted Lyra as the pair stumbled past.

"Nah, it's fine let them kill each other, we don't need them anymore anyway," said Opal eyeing the two, unimpressed.

Orden not seeing any allies against the vengeful Belle shoved past Lyra and dived through into the room Rain had entered.

They rushed after him.

Lyra crashed into Belle as the Satyr abruptly came to a halt. She peeked around her to see what had made her stop.

It was a man, a naked Human man, held up from the ground face down in some sort of steel frame. His body was a desiccated shrivelled thing, more skeleton than anything, wasted away to nothing. His eyes blind and unseeing, staring sightlessly at the ground as if he was in a trance state.

Beneath him, on his private parts, a glass milking nozzle engraved with occult runes had been attached to his... Lyra looked away, what the hell had happened here? Some kind of weird sex cult gone wrong?

"So many..." whispered Belle

Lyra looked past the Satyr again to see she was right, there were rows and rows of people going on and on into the darkness until they disappeared into the gloom. All levelers, all set out in metal frames, Elves, Humans, Halflings, male, female, even a Minotaur, each of them had some kind of milking machine attached to their privates and chest, each of their bodies shrivelled up and desiccated as though they had had all the fluid drained out of them.

Rain was ahead, he had a shrivelled arm in paw and was hesitantly sniffing at it, he took a bite before making a face of disgust and spitting it out.

"This isn't edible. Where is the rest of this cult?" Rain narrowed his eyes at the hidden depths of the darkness.

Opal was crouching and examining one of the milking devices on one of the Elves. She looked up, "Oh you're back in control?"

Rain glanced her way. "A little. What is this?"

Opal shrugged, "Dunno. It's a leveler thing right? Wouldn't you know more than me?"

"I have no idea, I've never seen or heard of anything like this..."

"Hello Rain, mmm it's really good to see you." Came a voice from the darkness.

Rain turned back to the dark. "I know that voice... It's you, isn't it?"

"Sharp ears. Figures." A person stepped from behind one of the steel frames, a short figure. She had her hands in her pockets as she turned and smiled at Rain. It was Lira.

"I do wonder how you knew to find me, perhaps I underestimated that nose of yours. "

Rain shook his head. "I had no idea you were here... how did you know that it was me when I'm not even Human anymore? Did you always know?"

"Oh, I can still see you in there Rain, that little soul mixed with the soul of... well, that is what piques my curiosity the most. I have seen so many many souls but never anything like this, something so..."

"Tell me before I end you, are you really Lira? Were you always a monster wearing a leveler's skin?

Lira raised an eyebrow. "You know I'm not her? I wonder how? Seems we both have our ways. In any case you were only half right, I am not a monster."

"Did you do what you did to me as you are now? Whatever you are?"

"Oh yes, of course, I replaced Lira months ago, I have to say it was amusing seeing you squirm when Myra was playing with you in the dungeon, you fell apart so easily. I would have taken you and drained you myself some time ago, it's not like anyone would have cared, but you had so little worth that you just weren't worth the effort. As you are now though... now there's something I can properly suckle on, hnff, you look delicious Rain."

Rain stared at the Halfling who was looking him up and down hungrily, which was far more unsettling than when she had done it at the market, this time he was drenched in blood.

Orden suddenly dashed by, a furious Belle behind him. Before Rain could even blink Lira leapt at him and dragged him down, holding his face in his hands as he knelt before her. A look of shock crossed the Elf's eyes as he realised that the Halfling's hands were completely immovable no matter how hard he pushed against them, it was like his head was braced in a pair of rigid steel clamps.

Lira smiled sweetly at him. Then she kissed him.

Orden's eyes rolled up and his body convulsed and shuddered, his knees knocking against the stone ground as his hands pawed half-heartedly at the Halfling's clothing.

Belle suddenly appeared behind him and brought down the knife, aiming for the back of Orden's neck.

This got a reaction out of Lira, she scowled and tossed Orden aside sending him rolling and tumbling across the ground until he crashed up against one of the steel frames.

"Not yet, nor for you, now come here."

The Halfling leapt at the Satyr and realising the danger the Satyr backed up, putting a table between herself and the Halfling. The both of them were distracted from their standoff however by a blood-curdling scream that came from Orden.

The Elf was kneeling, staring at his hands, his body was... skinnier, drawn.

"Nonononono, this can't be happening, this can't be fucking happening! NONONONO! FUCKING NO!"

"W-what's wrong? W-what is it?" Asked Lyra standing nervously beside Rain.

Orden looked up, a fear in his eyes that was unlike anything Lyra had seen before. She realised she was looking at something that had rocked the Elf to his core.

"M-my levels, sh-she took my levels, I'm a low leveler now, a l-level e-ight." The last of his words came out as a bare whisper, every syllable an utterance of unfettered horror.

Belle swiftly took a dozen steps back from the Halfling, putting several more metal frames between herself and her. Lyra heard what Orden said and without hesitation immediately vanished into thin air, disappearing from sight.

"Wh-what is this? What are you?" said Belle, extreme wariness in every motion of her body, backing up further even as she spoke.

Lira smiled charmingly.

"A monster that steals levels? I've never heard of such a thing," growled Rain.

Lira turned on him. "Oh, that's because like I said, I'm not a monster, Lira isn't my real name either."

She snapped her fingers and her form seemed to blur and shift as a black flame washed across her body.

A red skinned girl appeared in her place, with smooth red horns protruding from her long black hair. She shifted her hips, an amused expression on her lips, and her spaded tail flicked behind her.

She was still fairly short, so that when she stretched her arms and made a little satisfied sound she didn't reach far. The wings protruding from her back were also petite, and became smaller as they folded up behind her.

"Hi. You can call me Erin."