Tooth and Claw, Part 24
Exertion Point Used
The dark, swirling clouds roil overhead, ominous in their portent. Below, the slavering Thorn Beasts hurl themselves toward Fallhazel. The fell creatures cover the distance with frightening speed, the closest ones lunging through the air, their claws reaching toward her with murderous fury. But before they can connect, a huge mass of writhing vines erupts from the ground, lashing up to wind around the nearest enemies.
Then they constrict.
The sound of snapping bone is audible even at this distance, as the ensnared bodies simply break. But the grisly sight does not even slow the others. With a shriek, more of the monsters angle in from either side. They launch fleshy, intestine-like appendages of at her, completely covered in thorns. The attacks rip out of the monsters' bodies—straight through their skin—to converge on their target.
With contemptuous ease, Fallhazel shifts into a hawk and takes flight, twisting between the barrage as it shoots past. The Thorn Beasts intensify their attacks, their howls increasing in volume as more of their appendages whip around in wild, criss-crossing arcs, shredding through the air as they try to catch the deftly swerving druid.
They fail. But they do tear through the vines holding the trapped beasts, while also rending deep into their comrades' flesh. It's enough that the broken bodies are able to wrench free of their prison. Horribly mangled... yet somehow still stumbling toward their target. Already you can see their injuries stitching themselves together, even as more of those thorn-studded innards spill out of their wounds. Some of those appendages attack, while others wrap around their own limbs to puppet their healing bodies, pulling them onward without even waiting to recover. Driven toward murder. Fueled by their Pain.
You however, have not been idle. You raise your hand, concentrating with every last scrap of your willpower as you attempt to push your summoning power past its usual limits. For a fight like this, you want something beyond the simple tentacle monsters that you've summoned until now. Your demonic power seethes around you as you reach out across the very fabric of reality, to a deeper layer of the Second Circle's Pleasure Pits than you've yet been able to reach.
The tentacle monster that erupts onto the Material Plane behind the enemy lines is visibly different from your previous ones. Bigger. More muscular. Coated with an even more potent aphrodisiac, that both lubricates and forms an extra protection against damage for its thick, resilient hide. And you can sense that it is more intelligent as well, capable of understanding basic commands.
It needs no such command to join the fray, however. The tentacle monster can sense the abject suffering that suffuses the very existence of these foes... and it is as anathema to its nature as it is to yours. So it responds to that pain in the only way it can. By attempting to fuck it away.
You doubt that the Thorn Beasts even have any form of genitalia... but that doesn't stop the tentacle monster from unleashing its own barrage of sinuous appendages, grappling two different Thorn Beasts from behind and dragging them back toward it. The beasts struggle and thrash in the unexpected grip doing their best to resist.
But you notice something fascinating in their reactions to the supernatural Pleasure.
You realized before that these creatures are unnatural beings, completely given over to Melca's sadistic love of Pain. They are fueled by that Pain, down to their very essence. Warped mockeries of life, made possible only through the power of a depraved goddess. But now—compelled by the demons' supernatural aphrodisiac to feel inhuman Pleasure—they don't know how to handle it.
They lash out. They try to fight back. Their thorns carve gashes into the tentacle demon. But this demon is much tougher than your usual summons, and the captured enemies' strikes have become frantic and uncoordinated. They actually seem frightened by the impossible sensations they're being forced to feel for the first time ever. Frightened in a way that not even Fallhazel was able to scare them.
It's just the edge you need. Now it's time to put them out of their misery for good.
The druid loops around in her hawk form, plummeting toward the largest concentration of Thorn Beasts in a headlong dive of terrifying speed. Then, just before she hits, she shifts into an enormous grizzly bear, the devastating force of her impact crushing the Thorn Beast she lands on beneath her as she savagely mauls it, ripping out its throat with her teeth. At the same time, she slams one of her paws into the ground in time with her landing, and the earth itself erupts upward around her, crashing into the nearby foes from beneath and sending their broken bodies flying.
But even as those Thorn Beasts tumble away, they're already healing. And more of them swarm around, coming at Fallhazel from either side. The bear-shaped druid whips around, hurling away the Thorn Beast in her jaws to crash into two more of its fellows. And continuing that same whirling motion, she shifts into a huge wyvern, her tail whipping across to break the neck of a beast coming at her from behind.
But impossibly, the thing still continues to lurch toward her, its arms latching feverishly around her tail in an attempt to hold her down.
Fallhazel uses its own grip on her tail to lift the Thorn Beast bodily into the air, before slamming the thing back down again on top of another monster charging in behind it. But that brief, unexpected distraction is enough to give a different beast an opening. It leaps in, claws outstretched, while Fallhazel twists her body so as to minimize the damage.
But the attack never lands, as the second tentacle monster you just summoned latches onto the beast from behind, catching the thing just before its strike can land. The Thorn Beast strains and thrashes, its target just out of reach. But by then it's far too late. The monster has long since lost even the tiny window it was so lucky to receive.
Already Fallhazel is moving again, shifting back and forth between different forms as she tears through the beasts. She flings them left and right like children's toys, their shattered bodies tumbling along the ground or crashing into trees. You order your two tentacle monsters into the fray as well, their greater intelligence allowing you to play a far more active role than you otherwise would have had. You shout out command after command in Abyssal, using your increased intelligence and tactical acumen to order your summons where to go. Which beasts to attack, and which to hurl where.
The battle rages on, a chaotic, merciless meatgrinder. The Thorn Beasts fling themselves forward with utter disregard for their own safety, filling the air with inhuman screams and spraying blood. Still, for all the monsters' inexhaustible savagery, the four of you hold the clear advantage. Fallhazel's power lays waste to your foes. And you maneuver your summons to give her all the breathing room she needs. With each passing moment you fight in greater harmony with the druid, working together to push back the relentless foe.
The sky continues to darken as you fight, the angry clouds converging and swirling as the wind picks up even more. You hear ominous rumbling from above... and you can taste the faint metallic tang of the oncoming storm. Thorn Beasts surround you on all sides. Some of them are about to attack. Some of them are pulling themselves back together. A few have been ripped apart so utterly that they are well and truly dead. But their incredible healing has made every single one of those deaths a grueling exercise.
Fallhazel, however, remains unperturbed. She stands resolute, in her dryad form once more. The wind whips her mossy hair about her naked body, her hair and skin and teeth stained with the blackened blood of her enemies. Her golden eyes regard the Thorn Beasts with cold resolve, as they close in on your group from every direction.
Then... once the storm overhead has built to its peak... she raises an arm.
And the world goes white.
You clutch your hands to your ears as a deafening thunderclap assaults you point-blank, a lightning bolt searing its way across your vision to fry the closest Thorn Beast. Nor does it stop there. Bolt after bolt strikes down from on high, the assault coming in rapid staccato rhythm, as each beast is hit multiple times. You drop to one knee, bending over in an attempt to block out the noise. You are dimly aware of Melca's creatures dying, even though their screams are now inaudible to you.
You're not sure how long it lasts. But eventually Fallhazel's wrath is spent. You slowly rise to your feet, taking in all the charred, smoking corpses. Then you turn back toward the druid, who seems to be regarding you with a newfound respect. You suspect that your improved summons played a role in that; their greater intelligence allowed you to be a far more active participant in the fight. As a result, you were able to demonstrate more of your abilities than if you had been limited to summoning them and then letting them run wild on your behalf.
In fact, a fire smolders in her eyes as she looks at you. Both of you still feel the frenzied rush of the life-and-death struggle, and for her it is on all the temptation you've been enticing her with for so long. You can't imagine a better time than now to make your final push. The only question is how you want to go about it.
Do you want to inflame that smoldering fire you can see in those eyes right here and now, turning your mating into a savage celebration of the victory you just shared? If you take that approach, then you expect that a competitive element will be inescapable. You don't think that you'd lose a contest of sex if you fought with everything you have, especially now that she respects you a bit more. Still, depending on how exactly you wanted to progress Fallhazel's corruption, it could also be interesting to let her take the lead anyway.
Or, if you were in the mood for something more low-key, you could also relax the situation a bit. Take her somewhere you could wash yourselves off, and leading into slow, steamy lovemaking in the process of getting clean. At this point, she's already tempted enough that either approach should work. It's mostly a question of what direction you would prefer to take this.
There is also another decision, however, made possible by the improved version of your Corruptive Boon. Once you have fully seduced Fallhazel and have her support... the Old Mothers would be sitting ducks as far as temptation goes. Simplicity itself to seduce them and win them over, if you had the druid's help. Your Corruptive Boon could wash away the infirmities of their age, while also showing them the true allure of Lust.
And if this sacred glade really is spiritually connected to the rest of what sprang from it, it could have some degree of an effect on the entire Great Forest as well. That could open up all manner of fascinating options for improving this crucial area between the two nations out to destroy Kovora, giving you all manner of tactical advantages, as well as avenues to spread the glories of Pleasure.
On the other hand, if you felt the situation required it, you could refrain from offering the Corruptive Boon to them, in an attempt to limit your moves that could be seen as more... aggressive... to just the heroines themselves.
