DemonRose

Hey! Hey!

So far all the chapters have been either narrated by Aaron, Mack, or Tanner. We get someone new on this chapter, Ellie! I debated for a while whether to have any members of the second party do narration, especially before Josh even has a chance (he will BTW, I have a very particular chapter in mind to introduce his narration). But I thought this might be a bit of a better solution than having Aaron narrate for a second in a row.

I was desperate to get a view of what was happening, but I could see Aaron's hand raised in a gesture that said, "Halt." It was silhouetted by the dim flickering light coming from the room beyond the shaft. And the muttering and grunting sounds (and was that a bark?) told me we were no longer alone.

I took a couple of shuffles backward. I was beginning to feel extremely cramped in this hole the width of a coffin. A child's coffin, I guess, considering my current size. We'd had to belly-crawl the whole way like soldiers through enemy territory. And to make it worse, Aaron's bare puss had practically been in my face the whole way. I'd already been suffering from constant arousal, and their sex so close to me made my head foggy with desire. Even after cumming twice, having it so near was making me wanting to go again.

And I wasn't even sure I liked Aaron.

I mean, they were nice enough. But for one, I'd only known them for what? A day and half? Then there was the fact that by all accounts, they'd been a cis-man IRL, and was currently a species capable of having the genitalia of both sexes. It was confusing to the say the least. Especially since I was just beginning to grasp my own truth.

Before entering Feronia, I was beginning to think I might be enby, possibly gender fluid. But now that I'd been in a woman's body for a couple of weeks, (first as an elf, then as a pixie), I was beginning to think I might actually be binary after all but born into the wrong body.

Something about this simply felt so right. Well, maybe not being this ridiculously short, but the woman part just seemed to fit. 

I'd never been attracted to men and still wasn't, which is what made having sex with Aaron so troubling (not that they looked much like a man ... but as I should know, it's what's inside that counts). Also, troubling was this new special skill the system had given me.

It had a promising enough name: Pixie-dust. And the benefit of being able to "hearten and boost an ally's spirit" and to give me a "glamour of leadership" seemed not so bad. But the fact it did it by emitting a sparking pheromone from my body and making everyone super horny was more than a little off-putting. Especially since, at level 1, it had a three-yard area of effect around my body. Meaning, I could target everyone in a small room.

Was there something wrong with me that I kind of wanted to try it, if only to see sparkles radiate out of my skin?

Suddenly, Aaron whispered, "It's clear. Come on." And they shuffled out of the air-shaft and dropped to the ground.

I followed a little surprised to see what looked like a diminutive restaurant. A fire was burning in a fireplace carved straight out of the cave wall. I dragged my body out, twisting so instead of nose-diving into the floor, I hung on and I got my feet out beneath me. I was glad I did because, I was able to lower myself down without even a drop. The furniture wasn't the only thing in this room that was small. I could practically reach up and touch the ceiling.

"Why were we waiting?" I asked, while checking my auto-map. It hadn't worked at all in the shaft, now it only showed the room we were in with whole lot of black around us. The title on the top read: "Sub-level—Boggie Outpost, Western Fallen Province.

Aaron answered, "Boggles." They went on to tell me there'd been a bunch of them, and that they were about our sized but dog-like and hostile, according to the archives.

We both agreed we were in a bad situation. Stuck in some monster lair with countless enemies and no idea how to find the rest of the party. It wasn't like we could go room to room, clearing them out, until we found our friends. Neither one of us was a powerful warrior. I mean, Aaron had his knives and wasn't bad one-on-one, but if we ran into another group of four ... or eight ... or twenty. (In this room, there were more than thirty chairs, which suggested at least the same amount of these boggles were about.)

As for myself, my spells were all about distracting enemies or tricking them into hurting themselves. They could be useful, but they were never as quick as an ax to the throat. (If only we had Jonathan with us!) Our only choice was to sneak, and try our best to head in the direction we though the troll cave might be.

Luck was on our side to start. When we left the room, the corridor was empty. There was another door opposite us. It was closed, and we didn't try it. Instead, we followed the hallway to the right (the left was a dead-end). We passed two more doors across from each other. Both of these were wide and open. Beyond one of them was a workshop, where a half dozen boggles toiled on strange devices by torch light. The other led to a scullery where two more of the dog-like creatures were washing pots and pans. At the end, our hallway met two more in a small room that seemed to serve only as a junction for this crossroads. We really wasn't sure if we should go right or left, but I'd always been partial to making right turns when exploring. (Something that had stayed with me since hearing the story of the Minotaur and labyrinth as a child).

We were halfway across the room, when something in the floor clicked and a bell started ringing.

Crap!

The bell was met by the responding sound of feet from both the hall behind us and the one to our left. Apparently, the boggles in the right-hand hall had no need to run because two of them were already blocking the entrance to that passageway. Both were male with their genitals on display, their balls dangling and their dicks covered in canine fur sheaths.  One had a brutal looking short sword, the other a spear. 

Aaron flung a knife and hit the one with the spear. The boggle charged him. I cast my Phantom Foe spell at the swordsman. An ugly, black rat appeared out of no where. It wasn't monstrous, although it was disgustingly large for a rat. The creature launched itself at the boggle, and attached to its thigh, biting and clawing. The boggle started hacking at it with its sword, slashing his own leg. Before his attacks dispelled the illusion, I drew my pick-ax and launched myself at him. I only got a couple of strikes in before he turned from the rat and focused on me. I jumped back dodging a sweep of his sword. Needing to keep the fight from becoming a trading of blows that my strength and skill just wasn't up for, I cast Get-it-Off. A caul of a tar-like substance dripped down and covered his face. It blinded him and made him feel as though it was suffocating him and burning his skin. It wasn't doing either, but the sensation was enough for him to drop his sword and start clawing and his face. 

I darted back in and struck him freely until he was dead.

Aaron was finishing off his enemy around the same time. It looked as though he'd taken a few hits in the battle. But there was no time for healing, troops were pouring through both archways. 

"Close your eyes!" I screamed to Aaron. They looked at me a bit confused but closed them. I shut my own and cast Burst. 

Light flared through my eyelids. For anyone looking it would be like a sudden flash of sunlight. 

I grabbed Aaron's hand and said, "Quick." We ran down the hall the two dead boggles had come from. At its end, it opened up into a room with six steel doors containing barred windows. (Three on each side.) At first, I thought one of them might be the door from the troll cave, but they were all too close together. From one of them, a woman's voice called out: "Help!"

"It's a prison," Aaron said. 

Just great! This didn't bode well for our escape plans. Prisons usually were designed to prevent that sort of thing.

The boggles must have recovered from their temporary blinding because there was a rumble of motion moving toward us. 

Aaron said to the prisoner, "Sorry, friend." I pulled open a wooden door at the end of the room. We dashed in and shut it. 

We entered a horrible square chamber that reeked of fear and blood and was filled with all sorts of outlandish torture devices. Some of them were recognizable from medieval Europe like a rack and an iron-maiden, others were entirely new with unknown purposes. (And I hoped I would never find out what those purposes were.) There were two other door in this room. Each was opposite one another on the left and right walls. The first one we tried was locked.

We were running to the other one, when the mass of boggles poured in, filling the room. Very quickly, eight of them had formed a circle around us. Another ten were took up a somewhat aloof position by the door they'd come through. As though they knew, they wouldn't be needed. We'd be dead or captured before they were ever called up on.

Aaron turned to me, readying a throwing knife. "It was nice knowing you."

This was it. My campaign in Feronia was going to end. Either I'd go out in a blaze of glory, or I'd be tortured to death. Perhaps on the very machine I stood next to that looked like a printing-press with teeth. A Will-o'-the-wisp or a Left-feet spell wasn't going to cut it this time. I had nothing that could affect this many foes. Unless ...

No. I couldn't.

Ah, fuck it! I finally decided in the heat of a very desperate moment.

"Sorry, Aaron," I said.

They had enough time to ask, "Wha?" before my body burst forth with sparkles.