◈ Chapter 130:

A strange scent disturbed Rain’s sleep, something like cream, or maybe milk? It seemed so out of place that he drifted to consciousness, curiosity getting the better of him. Had someone brought him breakfast? More food was always welcome of course, especially after sleeping.

 

He opened his eyes to investigate the unexpected scent and found Opal sleeping on her back atop him, huge pregnancy rising above her, mouth slightly parted, hands curled,… and...she was... openly lactating. Her breasts had apparently grown during the night, swelling in size until her breast wrap had lost the battle to contain her and torn apart, boobs spilling through the strips of cloth and leaving her milky teats to leak across his fur making a mess.

 

In fact they were more than just grown, they looked engorged, almost painfully so, as though overly full and tight.

 

He lifted a paw pad and gently prodded at her right breast. It instantly sprayed a sprinkle of milk over his fur and Opal jerked away with a cry of alarm, which of course only disturbed her engorged breasts more causing them to sprinkle more and more milk.

 

After a moment of panic in which every jerked movement just caused her to produce more milk, the Goblin figured out what was happening and stilled herself, blinking down at her chest in surprise.

 

She struggled to sit up under her new weight, and mostly failed, hands slipping on milk slicked fur. Rain seeing what she was trying to do sat up himself and she slid down into his crossed legs, turning as she did so that she was facing him, her belly pointing toward him, twin lines of white running down it from her heavy breasts laying atop it.

 

“Wow,” murmured Opal in awe.

 

She gingerly touched at herself, exploring with her new size, both her teats and her pregnancy which was now comparable to how a human’s appeared at nine months.

 

She was, in a word or so, extremely gravid.

 

“Is this normal for a Goblin? This seems almost... I don't know, too much?” said Rain looking down at her with a frown.

 

Opal seemed to hesitate before answering. “Ahahaha, yes it’s uhm, totally n-normal, for Gobbos...S-standard preggers stuff!”

 

Rain eyed her suspiciously. Then his paws came forward and wrapped around her body, his thumb pads pressing up under her breasts and above her pregnant belly.

 

Milk sprayed over his paws, a lot of it. 

 

She squealed as he lifted her, small hands clutching desperately at his forearms.

 

He moved the Goblin girl close and opened his mouth wide, hot breath washing over her stiff and very sensitive nipples causing her to gasp.

 

His broad tongue slipped from his teeth and in one long lick he lapped at her breasts, tasting her as she squealed once more, the rough surface stimulating her nipples and causing them to gush milk into his mouth. The Goblin girl's motions became frantic as he licked, fingers clawing at his arms as she kicked at the air.

 

He moved his paws, squeezing her breasts together and took both her nipples, and most of her breasts, into his mouth, He sealed his lips and began to suck, an immense suckling pressure being placed on them.

 

Opal’s eyes rolled up and she buried her face in the top of his head as her toes splayed, hips thrusting, her stiff nipples spraying down the interior of Rain’s mouth, dual lines of white hitting the roof before splashing in every direction, streaming milk around his teeth and tongue.

 

He swallowed and the pressure only increased, her breasts being pulled further into his mouth, his teeth indenting her softness.

 

He could feel her shuddering and quaking with each massive drag on her breasts, kicking at his chest over and over as she squirmed and writhed in his grip, her cries of pleasure muffled.

 

After some time the milk slowed, and then finally slowed to nothing, her breasts milked of everything they had to give, he had sucked her dry, drinking all of her down.

 

He sat back with milk running down his chin and allowed the breathy gasping Goblin girl to flop down into his lap, little shivers running up and down her limp body.

 

“Y-you didn't have to do that!!” she cried between heaved breaths. She punched him as hard as she could. He barely felt it.

 

Rain nodded. Of course he had to do it. She was his and she had something to offer to soothe his appetite, it would have been rude not to.

 

He let her lay like that, her face buried in his fur, just trying to recover from being drained, her sweaty skin resting on his legs.

 

Rain turned his head to see Red waiting awkwardly by his flattened bed.

 

The Kobold held several sheets of paper in his claws, his gaze firmly avoiding Rain’s. There was a slight blush on his cheeks and a suspicious bulge in his loincloth. Had the Kobold been watching all of that?

 

“What is it? what do you want?” growled Rain.

 

The Kobold flinched and frantically shuffled through the papers.

 

“I- I- f-finished the first accounting of the hoard!!”

 

The Kobold held up the pages for him to see. Rain blinked in surprise, he hadn't known the Kobold was literate.

 

He examined the paper more closely and discovered that the Kobold was... probably not actually literate. The little reptile had created tables with crude drawings of objects and then some kind of scratchy numbering system that Rain didn't recognize next to each drawing. It was a list of each treasure in Rain’s possession and then how many of each.

 

“This is… good, but I don't understand these numbers…”

 

Red nodded, “Yes, this is a Kobold numbering system, it's what we use for counting the clan's treasure, it’s something I was born knowing, an ancestral memory I was fortunate enough to be gifted.”

 

“It would be better if you knew the common way of numbering.” He hesitated before continuing. “This is helpful though, and was needed, there is… so much treasure now, almost too much.” Rain grimaced. It was true that they currently possessed an astonishing amount of valuables, enough to crush a person to death were they to fall under it all.

 

Red sputtered at that statement. “There is no such thing as too much treasure! Please never speak of such a thing again!”

 

“What are we to use it all for then?”

 

This only seemed to annoy the Kobold more. “You do not ‘use’ treasure, treasure is for keeping! And- and sleeping on!”

 

Rain shrugged noncommittally. Sleeping on a pile of gold didn't sound very comfortable in his opinion. “If that’s all you have for me?”

 

“Not all! Some of the treasure has been stolen! That's why I urgently needed to talk with you!”

 

Rain blinked, “Stolen? Are you sure it wasn't just misplaced?”

 

Red shook his head emphatically. “That might have been the case if it were kept together, but these were randomly thrown in with the gold. They weren't kept in one place, but still they have slowly been disappearing.”

 

“What treasure has been disappearing?”

 

“The black gemstones that don't reflect any light.”

 

Rain dimly recalled the things. They hadn't just found the highly useful dimensional bag at the Ranker's mansion, they had found treasure, and amongst that treasure, standing out from the rest, was a collection of vanta black gems.

 

Rain narrowed his eyes.

 

“Are you saying Lyra or Opal-”

 

“No! As much as that silly sheep would like to throw all the gold into a ditch, this wasn't her, I know it wasn't, it was-” Red lowered his voice as if afraid he would be heard. “It was the skull. I left the sheep’s secret place and when I returned I found another missing black gem, but no one else entered while I was outside, only the Skull remained. That's how it is. It has to be him, the scale rotted treasure thief!”

 

Rain pondered this. What use a skull would have for treasure when he wasn't capable of spending it was something he didn't know, and suggested that maybe this was a larger problem than it appeared.

 

“What should we do!?” hissed the Kobold.

 

“...We don’t know truly that he took them,” said Rain slowly.

 

As they spoke Opal had taken to her feet and had been busily wrapping her breasts with fresh white linen, accounting for her new size and tying them down extra tight.

 

The cloth quickly gained two dark spots over her nipples.

 

“Then ask him. Ask Boner if he took them. Duh.”

 

That was true, there was a simple answer to this problem.

 

Rain rose from the bed, having to hunch down to not put his head through the ceiling, and went in search of Lyra. 

 

The bedroom they were staying in was dark and gloomy. Not because it was night time, it was actually morning, but because they had collectively, as a group, spent some time before going to bed nailing planks over every single window in the room and then jamming a bed up against the door. 

 

The room had been made singularly Bean proof. The wretched lizard thing blocked from entering while they slept.

 

From what Rain could tell it seemed to have worked, their sleep hadn't been disturbed by Bean breaking in and Rain hadn't woken to the sight of Bean trying to give someone's eyeballs a tongue bath, which was genuinely a massive relief, that was not a nice thing to see first thing in the morning.

 

Maybe they wouldn't have to find someplace else to stay after all.

 

He strode from the room, having to squeeze down to fit through the door, and stepped into the large grassy courtyard that was the center of Warwick’s home.

 

There he found Pickle and Lyra. They were busily setting out breakfast on the long table, pans and pots full of bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and more lined up down its center, the morning air filled with the delicious scent of an extensive fry up.

 

He approached the unknowing sheep girl tending to the table, his shadow falling over her. 

 

She turned, noticing something blocking the light, and nearly jumped out of her skin when faced with a fall of black fur.

 

“R-rain?” 

 

“I need to enter you.”

 

“Wh-what?!”

 

Rain rolled his eyes. “Not like that, your wool space, quickly.”

 

Lyra took a moment to gather herself, quickly squashing her shameful disappointment, and allowed her wool to wash black.

 

“I don’t know- AHH!

 

Rain ignored her words and picked her up, paws encircling her waist and lifting her into the air. Her legs pressed together as she rose and he took advantage to press his head through, the wool spilling around his ears as it billowed outward to take him.

 

His head emerged into the space inside, poking incongruously from the wall of darkness that took up one side of the octagonal room that was Lyra’s wool space.

 

A lake of glittering treasure met his eyes, a lake that reached wall to wall to wall and lay concerningly deep, they really did have a little too much treasure to be practical.

 

The statue of Lyra looking like a goddess of deliverance stood above it all, cheerfully welcoming him inside. By one wall, and looking decidedly less divine, stood Vash, his ragged black cloak folded neatly and put to one side leaving himself ‘naked’.

 

The skeleton really hadn't been happy about being made to return to Lyra’s wool space. Even when they had explained that Warwick would take extremely poorly to having an undead skeleton walking around Pickle he had resisted, resisted until Rain had practically shoved him inside.

 

Vash had his hands on his bony knees and his rear was parked over one of the stone beds. On the stone bed was a vanta black gemstone, carefully and purposefully placed. 

 

Rain stared in disbelief as the skeleton awkwardly lowered his rear down and over the bed, directly over the vanta black gem, his awkward pose looking for all the world like a person using the toilet who was afraid of touching the seat with their chapped and sensitive buttocks.

 

After a moment the skeleton shuddered and its green eyes flared with fire, the flames doubling then tripling in size, becoming bonfire bright as power seemed to flood his skeletal body.

 

“Yes, yes, more! Return to me my power!”

 

“Return your power?” said Rain, his voice as cold and solid as a glacier.

 

The skeleton squawked in alarm and fell forward, tripping over his own feet and face planting into the lake of treasure with a crash of metal and gems. He flailed around, bones clattering against metal in the most undignified way, until he found his center of balance and scrambled to his feet.

 

“B-Brute?! What is this meaning of this you interrupt my- my…” the skeleton glanced behind himself at the now slightly smaller vanta black gem resting on the stone bed. “Uhhh….”

 

“Give me a reason why I should not have that centipede in your head rip your skull apart right here and now. You have three seconds to answer me.”

 

“H-hold on! I was just- I was just- I-

 

Rain narrowed his eyes at the skull’s dome.

 

“Wait! I was absorbing them!”

 

Rain paused. “You agreed to not go against me in any way shape or form, that was your word.”

 

“And this isn't that! I couldn't do anything as I was before, even the tiny bone bow I formed to stop that Ranker from killing the sheep and the Goblin, I could never have made such a precise thing without such pure rubies, my necromancy was regenerating far too slowly, my absorption of these is the only reason the ones you care for still live!”

 

Rain considered that. He almost shattered the necromancer’s Skull anyway. The fact was he just didn't trust him, and any slight trust that might have started to kindle had now been smothered by the necromancer’s decision to hide this from him. If he hadn't been able to control the ancient necromancer with the shadowy centipede then he was almost certain he would have crushed the skull to bits and burned the remains then and there.

 

As it was the centipede allowed for a little flexibility, and the necromancer was admittedly useful. He thought over and over what to do as an increasingly nervous skeleton watched him.

 

Outside Opal had made her way from their room and was watching Pickle with amusement. The tiny goat girl was running around Rain in circles. Rain was standing in the middle of the courtyard with an extremely red faced Sheep girl for a head, his neck disappearing into her crossed black wooled legs. It looked more than a little ridiculous and Pickle couldn't stop giggling at the sight, waving her hands in the air and placing them on her head in imitation.

 

After a time Rain pulled his head free from Lyra’s legs and set her down on the ground, having to help keep her upright until her wobbly legs steadied and she could stand on her own.

 

Opal slapped her rear as she passed by causing the sheep girl to stumble.

 

“What the hell Opal!”

 

“You’re going to lose your mind if you don't get it for real at some point. Just saying. All that teasing and edging stuff with the wool must be driving you absolutely crazy.”

 

Lyra’s cheeks blushed bright pink.

 

“I- I don't know what you mean...”

 

“Mhmm.”

 

Opal was struggling to get up onto her chair as she spoke, her new size causing her difficulty until Rain helped lift her up, pushing the chair in until her breasts were spilling over the table top.

 

Smiling cheerfully she grabbed at the pots and pans and began shovelling breakfast onto her plate.

 

Rain removed a chair and sat down on the ground beside her, as he did so Warwick appeared from one of the buildings carrying a cage with a monstrous rat inside. He stacked it amongst the other cages before joining them at the table, giving Rain an unpleasant look as he approached. He very clearly didn't appreciate him being there.

 

Opal had already finished her first serving and was pouring another six fried eggs and a dozen rashers onto her plate as Warwick ate his first mouthful. The Goblin girl’s new production had apparently made her ravenous.

 

Rain hesitantly picked at a plate of bacon Pickle had handed him. The gesture was cute, but he wasn't sure he would even notice swallowing it. He ate it anyway of course.

 

“So why do you have Pickle, you aren't her father by blood, at least I don't think you are.” said Lyra between mouthfuls, desperately trying to make the awkward breakfast a little less awkward.

 

Warwick hummed in thought as he lifted a fork, clearly deciding whether to speak or not. 

 

After a moment he came to a decision.

 

“You’re right she’s not mine. I’m just looking after her cause I found her in the dungeon on one of my dives, one of my worst dives. Got caught out. A birthing Panthara. You know how it is. My… business partners were killed when we were chased into an unmapped part of the dungeon, I nearly expired too after having my guts ripped open. But I survived somehow, the things missed me in the feeding frenzy and I was able to crawl away in the long grass.”

 

“What do you mean by ‘Birthing Panthara’ ?” said Rain.

 

Warwick gave him a startled look, momentarily forgetting that he usually wilfully ignored Rain’s words. “I had thought you were taken from some incredibly deep part of Floren’s dungeon but if you don’t know-”

 

“It’s fine,” said Lyra, waving her bacon covered fork in the air, “Tell us about Pickle.”

 

Warwick hesitated but decided to respect his guest's privacy.

 

“I was a dead man walking, or rather crawling. Creeping through the foliage like some helpless slug, terrified of being found and so delirious with pain I hadn't noticed I was bleeding out.”

 

“Ooh I totally would have rescued you, that's what i’m good at, rescuing levelers from the precipice of death in the darkest of dungeon-”

 

Warwick glared at her and she snapped her mouth shut.

 

“Sorry! Sorry! Please continue!”

 

“Hrmm. Anyway I would have likely died then and there but then a ball of mud came waddling through the grasses and found me. The ball of mud helped tend my wounds then went hunting for food and water, bringing me bugs and little mushrooms to eat. It was close, I still very nearly died, but with the little ball of mud's help I somehow hung on. After a week of that I recovered enough to move. First thing I did was find a rock to defend myself from the little ball of mud. The thing was clearly a monster. It hadn't spoken a single word and looked in a feral state. But then it returned and seeing me awake it hugged me. That was nothing like a monster would do. I pulled the muck aside and I realised the truth, it was a long furred toddler crawling around on all fours like some feral monster, her fur so choked and matted that it looked like nothing recognisable.” Warwick paused as he scraped food from his plate. “Took another week of coaxing to get her to say a word. Asked her name and she said Pickle. That’s about all I ever managed to get out of her concerning her past.”

 

“What in the abyss was a toddler doing in Florens’ dungeon?!”

 

Warwick looked genuinely upset at the question. “No way of knowing for certain, but there is a belief that the earlier the kill the better prospects in life a child will have. Parents take their children down into the dungeon when they’ve just started walking and hold down a monster and then have them kill it. Wild kills are thought to be the best, there's probably some truth to that. Pickle’s parents took her down no doubt, but then the monster they intended for her to kill instead killed them and Pickle was left entirely alone deep in the dungeon.”

 

“How utterly terrible…”

 

Pickle looked up at Rain with big eyes. 

 

“Sad,” said Pickle. 

 

Rain attempted to pat her comfortingly. She was knocked flat on the grass and he hurried to help her up, his heart dropping in concern that he’d accidentally hurt her. She didn't seem to mind and let out a laugh and beamed up at Rain, eyes squeezing shut as she gave him the most innocent smile he had ever seen.

 

Warwick watched this with thoughtful eyes.

 

“Hrmm. You're a strange monster.”

 

“And Bean is a strange leveler… an extremely strange one.”

 

The leveler gave him a sour look.

 

“I can see what you are trying to imply, monster. I don't care for it.”

 

“But isn't it true? Bean is worse than what levelers think of monsters, doesn't that tell you something?”

 

“It tells me that levelers can fall far.”

 

“Or that there is nothing special about levelers, nothing unique, nothing civilised, it's all a lie, there is no real difference.”

 

Rain leaned over the table at the leveler.

 

“You are talking to a monster, one sitting and eating with you, and you think I’m still less than Bean, a wordless mindless thing that crawls through windows at night to drink people’s blood. Don't you see how hypocritical you are?”

 

He gestured at Opal as an example who was happily eating her fourth serving, far from appearing anything like Bean.

 

“What if it has nothing to do with how a monster or a leveler is born, what if it's their life experience. A monster born in a dungeon is born into a pressure cooker of violence, a living hell, but if they lived in safety, generations only knowing peace, maybe they wouldn't be like you think they are?”

 

Warwick sneered, his lip curling in disgust. “You are going to sit there and tell me that a fucking Panthara, one of the most abhorrent evil creatures to ever grace this world could be turned into a peace loving little flower sniffer if only they were raised right?”

 

“...Well... no, maybe not a Panth-”

 

Warwick shoved his plate aside and stood up.

 

“I’ve heard enough of this. Pickle. Come.”

 

Rain watched quietly as the man scooped up Pickle and stormed away. The goat child wasn't particularly happy about this, but Warwick seemed angered enough that she went quietly.

 

Rain let out a breath.

 

“You’re fighting an uphill battle Rain.” said Lyra, “I know, I was like him not long ago. To him monsters do not have the capacity for kindness or civilisation or mercy, they aren't capable of higher thought. And why would he want to think otherwise? To admit different means he has been doing terrible things for his entire life. That’s never going to be easy to overcome on an instinctive level.”

 

“But I’m sitting here telling him it is different! He can see and hear the truth with his own two eyes and ears…”

 

Lyra hesitated. “Maybe you got to him a little bit, he did seem unsettled.”

 

Rain hummed in thought as Opal took her fifth helping, unconcerned, as though she had expected the conversation to go exactly the way it did.