◈ Chapter 131:

They had left after Warwick stormed off, leaving the slums and returning to the library. Hesitantly of course, as they were unsure if the Librarian was going to immediately attack them.

 

She didn't attack however. Even when Rain stood directly in front of her and waved his paws in her face, she simply had no idea they were there. It seemed that outside of her glowing transformed state the Librarian had no way of sensing them, and her night time hunt had just been bad luck. The Librarian had realised something was wrong but not what.

 

Deep inside the library Vash had been allowed out once more and set to work searching for something, anything, even the slightest little hint on Rain’s species, even one little sentence describing something like him.

 

Rain no longer held much hope for Vash’s success so he had sat down with Opal and taught her to read. 

 

It had gone extremely well to his surprise. It seemed like her repeated practice had allowed her to pick up words quickly, startlingly quickly, far faster than he would have thought possible. Already she was able to figure out basic sentences from context clues and was rapidly improving, improving even as he watched. It was shocking, but it also made him feel warm and fluffy with pride. She was a natural.

 

They’d moved from the reading desks after a time, Rain gathering all the pillows from every armchair he could find, then throwing them in one of the rare rooms with windows. He’d built up a mound under a sunbeam then flopped down on it, placing Opal in his lap, her back pressed against his stomach.

 

A book was resting on her belly and she slowly read aloud from it, stories of leveler heroes defeating big scary monsters. There weren't a lot of choices when it came to fictional stories that she could read as a novice, basically all of them followed that same theme: Leveler hero, evil monster. 

 

He’d closed his eyes listening to her sound out the words as the sun warmed his fur.

 

This was bliss. 

 

Just lying there with his Opal, his breath coming slow and peaceful, feeling the weight of her.

 

Lyra ran into the room as he was drifting off into a gentle nap and he jerked awake as the dimensional bag was tossed onto his chest, darkness already spilling back into his fur from its strings.

 

“He’s here! He’s here right now! He’s here in Florens!” cried Lyra pacing around in a stress and running her fingers through her hair.

 

Rain blinked at her. 

 

“Who's here?”

 

The sheep girl stopped and turned on him. “Lord Wranvrye! The one trying to have me killed, the one who freaking framed me for killing his wife!”

 

Rain sat up and Opal scrambled to her feet.

 

“We’re going killing? Feeding Rain? Oh Hell yeah! That’s way better than reading dumb stories about stupid dumb levelers!”

 

“Er, r-right, killing.” Lyra swallowed. “H-he needs to- He needs to die. Even if it wasn't about me, he still killed those two innocent women I rescued, and then his wife, in cold blood. If there’s any justice in the world then that noble needs to face his karma.”

 

“It’s fine Lyra. Don't work yourself up. You are protecting your family with this.”

 

Lyra hunched down a little, her voice small, “O-of course...”

 

They prepped quickly, snatching up Red and Vash then leaving through the front entrance. Just as when they entered the Librarian had no idea they were there and they were free to leave. Finding the Lord turned out to not be very hard. They headed toward the noble estates and quickly found the streets crowded with excited people.

 

A caravan of carriages was the cause of public interest. Formidable looking things, they were pulled by great black stallions the size of cart horses whose lips were parted with long fangs and with large curved black horns on their heads, the front edge sharp and serrated.

 

The carriages forded their way through the streets, crowds of curious people on either side, many having to leap out of the way of the monstrous horses for fear of being crushed under hoof.

 

It almost looked like a parade now with all the people following, parades being something the citizens of Florens seemed to form out of habit more than anything. The carriages made their way through the city until they came out onto a wide open cobble square, which felt unusual to Rain now as he had quickly gotten used to the lack of open space in the city. The entire far end of the square consisted of a formidable wall, one that easily put Lynthia’s or Silvara’s walls to shame. In the center of the wall was a set of massive gates. 

 

Rain realised he was looking at the entrance to Lord Wranvyre’s estate, a vast thing, it was like a town in of itself had been built within the city walls.

 

The carriages pulled up outside the great gates and Lamia spilled from the flung open doors. Rain examined them carefully. The Lamia’s had human-like upper bodies, but their lower bodies were snake-like and covered in colourful scales. They were greeted by many more Lamia at the front gates. Many of them were wearing black in mourning, although many weren't. Many of the Lamia weren't pure and were half breeds, Elf-Lamia and Gnoll-Lamia were a common mix. The half breeds seemed in less favour than the pures and kept to the back.

 

“That’s his extended family,” whispered Lyra, “Lamia have big clutches and are, ah, promiscuous, so combined with how attractive his stature and his wealth is to many, well, I wouldn't be surprised if many of that crowd of Lamia was his own spawn, bastards or not, his and his wife’s children from various flings.”

 

Rain eyed the crowd. It was a lot of Lamia. Dozens and dozens.

 

A small square dais had been put up in preparation, and after a lot of embracing and entwining of tails Lord Wranvyre approached it and slithered over its slight step, approaching a podium.

 

He gripped the sides of the podium and leaned over it, eyes scanning the crowd. The crowd grew silent under his cold gaze and then he began to speak, his words solemn and harsh.

 

“This should have been a joyous return. Friends, family, employees. We should have returned with her, with Glyrieth. Returned to feasting, singing, drinking, and dancing. But…. we did not. Glyrieth was murdered in mindless greed for mere coin, a half woollie slit her throat in rage, an emotional anger that her demands for tens of thousands of gold were denied. A disgusting act by a leveler who is no better than a monster. Yes, that leveler trash, that sub-sapient filth, struck with a blade out of nowhere, too late for my dear wife to stop as she had implicitly trusted the half woollie, this Lyra Bellerhorn, a monster in leveler flesh.”

 

The crowd grumbled their discontent. This Lyra person sounded like bad news.

 

“My house has been wronged, I have been wronged. I demand redress from this world. I demand redress from the gods. I demand vengeance. And as you may know my vengeance pays well. It pays extremely well. Bring her not to me alive, bring her to me dead, bring me her head sawn from her body so that the first thing I see is her glassy lifeless eyes. That is the only thing that can assuage my sorrow. Come my city, show your loyalty to Florens, to a noble Lord of Florens, to ME. Kill this wicked girl and become unbelievably wealthy!”

 

The crowd roared their approval. Yes! This was great! A villain, an injustice, and a fabulous fortune. What wasn’t to like?

 

As the Lord spoke Rain felt Lyra’s hands grip his ears harder and harder until she was digging her nails in.

 

“That evil snivelling wretched fuckhead!” she whisper hissed, “Not only does he paint me as the baddest of bad guys but he’s demanding I be killed before I can speak against him! So I can't tell anyone about what he did!”

 

The Lord glared at the roaring crowd, sniffed, then slithered away, storming down from the dias and toward the main gates, his long black tail lashing behind him.

 

His very large family watched him go and then after a moment began following him inside.

 

Rain eyed the gate, considering simply walking straight through it with them, but he was brought up short the moment he thought to move. There were halves there, more specifically half Elf-Lamias and they each had violet spectacles dangling from chains hung around their necks. The estate really was like a small town, and like a small town it had provisions to stop the magically evasive from crossing its threshold.

 

“What are we to do?” he whispered as the three of them watched as one by one the Lamias disappeared inside and the crowd filling the square slowly drained away.

 

“I- I don't know! This is supposed to be our chance while they are dealing with the chaos of his return, but it's too secure! There's no way we’ll get through the front gates with those half Elves hanging around.”

 

“So what then? We find a side entrance?”

 

Lyra’s head rose in hope. “Yes, actually that could work! We just neeeed- There!”

 

A finger jabbed out from above Rain’s head and he followed it, looking across the square to where the Lamia were. Some of the Lamia were not going inside, some of them were leaving on business in the city, heading toward their side of the square and the path away from the expansive estate. 

 

However one Lamia was not heading toward them. No, she was following the wall, closely following it as she headed out to the side of the square unlike any other Lamia.

 

“You think…?”

 

“No, I don't know anything for sure, but we can look, it's not like there's another option.”

 

Rain slunk amongst the alleys they were hiding in. Catching sight of his target between buildings. A pink scaled Lamia, an older teenager. She wore a short flitty skirt on her hips and a puffy blouse. Her obnoxiously bright pink tail swaying behind her as she moved. 

 

He soon moved closer, their paths converging on the buildings that butted up against the estate’s walls. To their delight she approached a small iron gate in the wall. It was a side entrance, just as had been theorised. She approached it… aaand then walked past it, flatly ignoring it.

 

Disappointed, they followed after her. Was she not returning to the estate after all?

 

Down side streets and alleys she went, the further she came away from the main wall the dingier and darker the alleys became, it seemed like the servants of the estate lived in this run down place.

 

What she was aiming for eventually became clear, a seedy looking Drake stood from where he was leaning against a wall, acknowledging her approach.

 

Beside him was a large windowless prison wagon, its painted sides chipped and peeling.

 

“You have it? You have my Ogre?”

 

“Of course, you paid, and here we have it. Simple as. Simple as.”

 

The Lamia bounced on the spot excitedly, her skirt fluttering as her coils lashed. Rushing up to the wagon she pressed her hands against the wood and peeked through a gap in the slats.

 

There was an awkward pause.

 

“He’s a little… small.”

 

“Small? Why would that matter?”

 

The Lamia set her lips in a line. 

 

“I wanted a large Ogre not this, what is this? A teenager? a kid?”

 

The Drake shrugged languidly, his motions easy. “No, they just come in various sizes, different breeds. You did not specify which kind of Ogre you wanted in our contract.”

 

The Lamia’s expression soured further.

 

“I see. That is... unfortunate.”

 

“I can find you larger if you wish, in a separate deal, but specifying larger will come with additional costs.”

 

“It will have to wait,” she sighed in annoyance. “Getting this smuggled in cost all of my allowance on its own.”

 

As she spoke she unlatched the door and swung it wide. A muscular grey skinned form charged out, leaping from the raised door, tackling her, growling and snarling, a savage long tusked thing in a loincloth.

 

The Lamia barely budged, humming as she took hold of the Ogre’s neck, lifting him up into the air like he weighed nothing at all, her arm as unbending as steel.

 

The Lamia teenager was clearly extremely strong and the Ogre was left utterly helpless, his feet kicking at thin air. It was true he was on the short side for an Ogre, although the Lamia herself was large. Had she been a human she would have been at least six and a half foot tall standing, as it was the Ogre was at least half a foot shorter than the top of her pink haired head.

 

She looked over his body, one eyebrow rising as she spied his loincloth. Her tail tip darted forward and flipped it up allowing her to examine his privates.

 

The Drake gaped at her.

 

“Wh-what are you doing?”

 

“Hmm? Oh just checking my purchase over. Have you never vetted a horse before? This is quite normal, checking for disease, inflammation, you know how it is.” She squeezed the Ogre’s neck and he was forced to open his mouth. She examined his teeth, checking for rot.

 

“... Okay?” said the decidedly unsure Drake.

 

After a moment of watching the Lamia’s extremely thorough examination he decided he wanted nothing more to do with this and leapt up on the front of the carriage. Snapping the reins he moved off, leaving the teenage Lamia alone, a diminutive Ogre held in her hand.

 

The Lamia sighed and muttered darkly under her breath as he left, clearly dissatisfied with what she’d gotten for her money.

 

She turned and slinked down the nearest alley, this one especially narrow, Ogre dangling from one hand.

 

Lyra gripped Rain’s ears and he followed after.

 

He watched as the Lamia stopped by a wall and fiddled with a hole in the stone work. After a moment came a clicking sound and part of the wall swung wide. It was a door cleverly disguised as stone block work.

 

The Lamia disappeared inside and the door swung closed behind her. Or, at least that was what should have happened. Instead, a shadowy house cat slunk between the door and the door frame, blocking it from fully closing with its body. 

 

Rain moved close and carefully crouched by the door, straining his hearing to check if the Lamia had noticed. Silence. It appeared she had not. Careless. But carelessness that benefited him.

 

He let Lyra and Opal slide from his body and reached out his paw, the cat slipping back into his black fur.

 

“Well?” said Opal, “Is this what we came here for?”

 

“Y-yes, this place has to be connected to the estate somehow, this door even faces the outer wall. All we have to do is slip in, hunt down the one target, Wranvyre, then sneak back out this same way. Should be easy, right?”

 

Opal shrugged then pushed past her, entering the shadowed door.

 

“H-hey wait up!” said Lyra hurrying after her and disappearing inside.

 

Rain took up the rear, having to hunch down to fit through despite the entrance being especially large and built for Lamia’s. He heard the door click shut behind him as he was enveloped in darkness.

 

He filled the cramped space almost entirely and had to duck down to head forward, carefully watching Lyra and Opal walking ahead of him. The space was clearly designed to be a passage, more of a tunnel than a hallway, one that sloped down before levelling off. Rain realised that they must be within or rather below the estate by now, travelling deep into its confines.

 

Noises ahead caught his attention and he slowed with the others, becoming wary.

 

The tunnel terminated in an open space and Rain straightened as he came out into it. It was a large room, one lined with prison like cages down either wall.

 

Rain peered through the bars at the occupants. 

 

Monsters. They were all monsters. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, a muscular beefy shark person covered in innumerable battle scars. And then there were mixes, halves of monsters and monsters or monsters and levelers who weren't quite leveler enough to be levelers, half human-kobolds, half kobold-goblins, a hulking wild dog person, even a strange hunch backed cat person with two heads, its eyes rippling like rainbows in the light.

 

The Ogre was there, tossed in one of the cages and eyeing his much larger prison mates with clear fear.

 

“What is this place?” whispered Opal, staring at the monsters in the cages.

 

Lyra tapped her chin. “I would have said they are being kept here for easy leveling. It wouldn't be the first time someone wealthy has paid to have monsters taken up from the dungeon for their convenience, although there is a limit to what is allowed, nothing too dangerous.”

 

She paused and then gestured ahead of them where the cages stopped and a free space opened up in the room.

 

“But uh, looking at that lot I'm not so sure.”

 

Rain peered over her. The space she was gesturing at appeared to be some kind of horrible torture chamber at first glance, one filled with spikes and whips and chains and manacles and…

 

Rain furrowed his brow. Why was there a bed in the torture chamber? A bright pink one with flowery pillows? And why were there plush carpets on the ground, and why were those handcuffs fluffy?

 

“Why is there a large pink bed in this torture chamber?” he said aloud.

 

“Uhhh…” said Lyra pondering how to frame her answer. 

 

Opal scowled. “Kinky levelers.”

 

“To put it bluntly… yeah. Lamia are one of those very few species who somehow have a worse reputation than Elves for being, hmm, casual with...stuff, and doing a lot of… stuff, and doing that… stuff, in, uh, non-standard ways...”

 

“But with monsters?” grumbled Rain. Now he was looking over the prisoners he realised that they were all male, and each of them were very fit and healthy looking, muscular and toned. It was clear they had been picked out with something in mind.

 

“That is, uhm, taboo for the civilised and noble, we are supposed to be better than that, but you know how it is, Goblin slaves have a habit of ending up pregnant... Not that this isn't completely scandalous! Only Lamias would keep an entire flipping selection of monsters just for s-stuff!”

 

“Wouldn't Lord Wranvrye be very against this place existing?”

 

Lyra paused.

 

“Maybe. But then he seems to care only if a child comes of it, I can see him doing the deed with a monster, and then just… killing that monster.” She furrowed her brow and glanced at the large bed. It was very pink. Very very pink. “But… I don't think he has anything to do with this, and the way that teenage Lamia was so secretive. I think this is something that his daughter or maybe daughters are hiding from him, they don't want him to know what is happening down here.”

 

“Hrmm. Then this doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with what we came here for. We’re moving on.”

 

Rain scooped up the two girls, holding them in his arms, and he felt more than saw Lyra’s invisibility wash over his body.

 

He approached the stair at the end of the room carefully, his ears focused as he strained to pick up if anyone was nearby.

 

He heard nothing of course, and he made his way up, up through the spiraling stair, from what was apparently many floors underground, up and to the surface.

 

He came to a door disguised as stonework and opened it, stepping out into an ornate room, his feet pressing down into the excessively fluffy and thick carpet.The door swung shut behind him and he realised from this side it appeared as a massive oil painting depicting a some ancient noble Lamia in a ruffled collar. 

 

The room he was in appeared disused, with sheets covering the furniture and dust in the air. It was clearly in an out of the way part of the building. He quickly left, seeking where Wranvyre might be, and stepped out and into an equally ornate hallway. This time there were signs of life. A human maid passed him by, forcing him to press against the wall to avoid being touched by her. As he continued the halls became busier and busier, it was fortunate they were so wide.

 

He made his way deeper into the building, mansion? His eyes scanning, looking carefully for any sign of the Lord’s private quarters.

 

Unfortunately there appeared to be nothing. Despite passing through great dining rooms and luxurious lounges and busy bathing halls and various dancing parlours and everything else imaginable they saw no clue as to where they should be going. Only servants rushing around as Lamia lazed across furniture sipping from fruity beverages as they chatted.

 

They were on the verge of giving up and interrogating one of the maids when they came to the end of a corridor and were faced with a large gold trimmed door.

 

“This has to be it, look how fancy this door is! This is totally the door of a Lord boss person!”

 

Rain nodded his agreement and quickly pushed through, opening the large door and entering into the huge room beyond.

 

There was... a lot of pink and a lot of floral things in the huge room, and a lot of stuffed toys too, in fact an absurd amount of stuffed toys. Rain eyed the mountain of the things piled on top of the enormous nine foot by nine foot Lamia sized bed, so many they spilt up against the wall. It was a collection and then some.

 

“This seems… extremely un-Lord like. I don't think I can quite picture Lord Wranvyre sleeping here,” said Lyra, squinting at all the pinkness.

 

She tried to picture it for a moment, the severe black scaled and sharply clothed Wranvyre lying amongst pink heart shaped pillows and teddy bears, his long black hair framing his chiselled jaw. Nope. She couldn't do it even slightly. There was no way that this was his bedroom. No way.

 

“We made a wrong turn somewhere, we need to go back and search more carefully.”

 

Rain was about to turn and leave when something drew his eye. A giant wall height mirror was set opposite the bed and he caught sight of his reflection. What he saw made him freeze up. 

 

He had not seen himself this way before, normal mirrors were just too small. With this his sheer scale was revealed to him in perfect clarity for the first time.

 

He was… big… very very big. He was caught off guard by the fresh perspective and his train of thought shattered.

 

An impatient Opal squirmed from his stilled paw and dropped to the floor. She glared up at Rain then rolled her eyes and snorted. Lyra dropped down from his other paw after a moment too.

 

Rain moved his paw watching his reflection move with it. It didn't feel real. He lifted his paw above Lyra’s head. He could enclose her entire head in his paw if he wanted to.

 

After eating many hundreds of animals and the gang who had come for Lyra, he had reached just a little bit less than nine foot six. The top of Lyra’s head now came up only to his naval and the top of Opal's head was level with his sheath.

 

He was, in a word, massive. He dominated the room, an overwhelmingly masculine presence with arms bigger than torsos. It was no wonder to him now that Opal had taken to sharing him with Lyra so easily, he really was too much for one girl to handle, just too much sheer physical presence, an excessive amount of maleness.

 

Staring at himself in a somewhat self obsessed way he didn't notice as a now bored Opal wandered around the room.

 

Which was unfortunate as there was no one to stop her when she found a miniature door subtly hidden behind the furniture. A miniature door designed for a Goblin. She stared at it. There was a Goblin head silhouetted on the door below which were words in an elegant script. ‘Slave passages’. 

 

It wasn't hard to guess what it was for. The servants had servant passages, the slaves had slave passages, special tiny cramped spaces for them to navigate the estate in a way that kept them out of sight and out of mind of the levelers.

 

She wondered what she would find if she went in. A collection of well heeled Goblins who lived in relative peace? There were no dungeon monsters here after all, and if the Goblins had their own space… well… wasn't that sort of like her town idea?

 

She opened the door.

 

“Opal!” cried Lyra.

 

But the Goblin was already gone.

 

Lyra rubbed her hands over her face in frustration.

 

“Goddamit. Rain I’m going to go fetch her, stay here okay?”

 

Rain mumbled incoherently waving his giant paw in front of his eyes.

 

The sheep girl failed to notice his state of shock as she locked the bedroom door. She then marched toward the slave door, crouching down to fit into the tiny thing.

 

Which was unfortunate timing because at that exact moment someone rattled the bedroom door, found it locked, then smoothly slotted a key in and swung the door wide.

 

Lyra in a moment of hideous panic turned and scrambled back into the huge bedroom, rushing forward, trying to reach for Rain in time.

 

Too late, a Lamia came into the room, stretching her arms and sighing. It was the pink scaled teenager. She froze as her eyes snapped onto Rain. An extremely large wolf monster, an extremely large wolf monster in her private sanctuary.

 

Rain blinked and came back to himself, realising that he was currently flexing rather absurdly in the mirror, one arm curled as he examined his bicep.

 

This was decidedly not a good position to be caught in. He somehow felt doubly embarrassed, first for being caught in the first place, and second for being seen in such a ridiculous pose.

 

“What the fuuuu-!” cried the Lamia.

 

“Don't scream.” said Rain hurriedly lowering his arms and desperately trying to pretend he hadn't been doing anything silly in the mirror.

 

“I’m not going to- wait, are you not meant to be here? I was thinking you were a surprise gift from the girls, but…”

 

She furrowed her brow and looked Rain over, her gaze catching on this sheath.

 

“Ahhhhh! I get it, you escaped from her clutches. You were trying to leave the estate and stumbled in here by mistake!” She snorted, her eyes dancing over his body.“Trust sis to find a specimen like you. Goddaaaaam. No wonder she’s been looking so rosy cheeked and glowy scaled lately, you must be pounding her senseless every night! Gods that greedy bitch needs to learn to share.”

 

“That is… correct????” said Rain, not quite sure what was happening but desperately hoping to avoid her raising the alarm.

 

“Hah. I knew it. She’s gonna be salty about losing you hmm? What, did she misplace your heart pin?”

 

Rain tilted his head, not sure how to answer that.

 

“No answer? Oh? Tell you what, we can do a deal. I’ll let you go on your merry way, on this silly escape attempt of yours, if-”

 

“If?”

 

She bit her lip. “You do what you are doing to her to me.”