1 day since the last chapter...

Succubus Homeland, The Exchange

 

Rex was standing in the middle of the exchange, he was holding a couple of small mushrooms with a light blue cap and dark blue spots. These were the hallucinogenic fungus that Canabus had discovered and used to make his fabled brew. In front of Rex was a cat beastman who was missing a paw, he had black fur and was a bit mangy. His bright yellow eyes were very striking, he claimed to be Canabus' friend and was told about the mushrooms.

 

Rex had awoken fine, the peroxide did nothing to him at all. He felt just as refreshed as he always did.

 

Looking over at the succubus who was in charge of the exchange, a thought crossed through his head.

 

If I shoved your tail up your ass, would you be stupid enough to eat yourself?

 

Rex had come down to do some planning for the construction of the port. A crazy idea had occurred to him and he had gotten out of bed and wanted to confirm if it was possible. As he was walking by the exchange this cat beastman had begged him to wait. The cat had been trying to exchange these mushrooms for anything he could. The cat had lost his paw in an accident and was unable to mine. Canabus took pity on this poor soul and put him in charge of taking care of his mushrooms.

 

This cat had tried to protect them, but he was unable to in the end. This is what was left of the mushrooms the two had worked hard to grow. They had originally been twice the size, but the water content had dried out of them. Looking back at the succubus a the counter a thought crossed his mind.

 

I bet since their breasts are so big, they needed a way to balance out the weight in flight. Birds have hollow bones, and succubi have hollow heads. It all makes perfect sense now.

 

Rex could care less about the fact that they were hallucinogenic, as they had a property that was even more amazing. These mushrooms possessed inherent mana, they were a magical mushroom. The irony struck Rex so hard he wanted to vomit.

 

“Kira, give this poor cat 100 credits! From now on I want to make a suggestion box, if someone finds something unique like this, I want to know about it.” Rex said to the only succubus he trusted. “I can't believe they rejected this!”

 

The sharks were a major problem to Rex, he wanted to get rid of the damn things. While monsters were all over the waters, the sharks were the most annoying of the bunch. They attacked anything blindly, which wasn't too uncommon. The shark's natural predator was a type of sea serpent that could eat them whole, and they mostly ignored ships. The serpents preferred deeper waters and didn't come close enough to the island to wipe out the population of sharks.

 

Rex couldn't build his dock as long as the sharks were around though, and he had other ways to defend the island. Rex had increased the fishing yields each time they went, but the numbers didn't go down at all. It almost seemed like there were even more of the sharks than when they had started killing them in bulk. Hundreds died a week, and they didn't seem to think at all.

 

Rex couldn't take truly desperate action against them though unless he could replace them. As long as something had mana in it, Rex was confident he could extract it. Chemistry was the art of transformation and purification, and he had many different solvents good at eating organic matter. The moment he had heard about magical plants, he had thought of this very purpose. Why eat what can be turned into fuel?

 

“I can show you where we grew the mushrooms?” The cat beastman offered.

 

Kira immediately looked like she was about to object, but Rex stopped her.

 

“I would like to see where and how they were grown. Kira this is necessary, don't worry. I have Blue with me after all.” Rex said and smiled at her.

 

This made Kira pause, and she looked at the innocuous bracelet with some fright. Calling what Blue did to other creatures fighting, was inaccurate. None of these prisoners were very strong, to begin with, because if they were, the demons would have taken them to work in their territories.

 

Kira finally nodded and agreed, she still looked a bit hesitant. The succubi were useless in an enclosed area where they couldn't fly. They had no way to control what was charmed when it was used. As long as the target could see them, even if they weren't looking, then they would be charmed. Rex assumed it was a weak radio wave that couldn't pass through solid objects well. Full plate wasn't a good answer either, as you still had eye slots.

 

The beastmen didn't care about this, as they tended to swarm their target to death anyway. The elves had larger enchantments the size of a large picture frame they could use, these were fairly common. They also had smaller ones the size of a dinner plate, but these were more uncommon. Red had discounted the power as he didn't have a use for it. Ideally, Rex would just have chain gun towers set up that the succubi could just stand naked upon, and rain hell on their enemies. Surround it with mines for good measure, no need for a door after all. They can just fly down onto them, maybe add a floor underneath to store the gun and the ammo.

 

“If you can show me where the mushrooms were grown, and how it was done. I can pay you another 100 credits.” Rex told the cat, now that Kira was assured.

 

The cat had a strange light flash in his eyes for a second, before it disappeared and the cat nodded happily.

 

“Of course, I can show you where the mushrooms were grown! Canabus found them in a sealed-off mineshaft. When he needed help, he asked me to help. I know the entire process he discovered.” The cat explained confidently.

 

Rex had a feeling he already knew where they came from, but he didn't want to make an assumption without proof.

 

“Alright, lead the way. Kira, I will be back.” Rex said as he ruffled her hair.

 

Kira looked hesitant watching Rex about to go and gave the cat beastman's back a hateful glare. Originally she wanted to go training with her sisters, but now she wouldn't be able to calm down until Rex returned. Rex had been teaching her enchanting in the evenings, but that had turned to gun-making now that she was starting to come into her own.

 

She had been using the original gun Rex had designed, but she had started learning about modern guns, and how they work. She wanted to design something truly for her, a weapon fit for a succubus!

 

-

 

Rex had been following the cat beastman for a while through these tunnels, he had hoped that reforming the exchange would help civilize the prisoners.

 

I must have been high on chemicals!

 

Adding the credits had made things worse! The succubi took the mock hunting very, very seriously. None of the prisoners used the bank, they lived in constant fear of being drained. If anything, he had given the prisoners something to set their sights on, he gave them something to steal. The only ones who used the bank were people like the cat, who had no way to protect themselves anyway. He happily deposited all of it in his account.

 

Why does everything I try go wrong?

 

Of course, the dwarves happily accepted the job to leave these godforsaken tunnels. The prisoners left Rex alone, the poster the succubi kept of him ensured that. Rex noticed the poster in there today was much different than before. It looked even more realistic as if the artist was becoming more practiced. They captured every detail of his confident smile, they even added a strange radiance to him in the picture.

 

It was a feeling that could melt any erection, and cause the butthole to tightly clench!

 

Rex asked Kira about it, but she said she didn't know. She did say she completely approved of it though. The other succubi just said the same quote, it was like a broken record. Rex decided it was best if it became one of the eventual 7 wonders of the island.

 

“We are almost there.” The cat beastman told him.

 

Rex looked at the cat and just nodded as they continued to walk through the dark tunnels. This looked like another rarely used part of the mine, but it was so huge that it wasn't surprising. Rex had barely seen a small portion of the mine, some prisoners kept hide maps where they could. Rex wasn't sure where the hide came from though.

 

Deciding it was best not to know, he continued to follow the beastman. Rex had gotten lucky with the succubi, as the prisoners lived like savages.

 

They finally arrived at a tunnel that became very narrow at the end, and he could smell sewage. This confirmed Rex's guess, as to where the mushrooms were grown. Walking ahead of the cat beastman he kneeled and looked through the hole, he could see a chamber that sewage had spilled into. Rex could already guess that they stopped growing because this chamber was left unsealed. Looking at the edge where the hole was in the tunnel he could imagine what happened.

 

A proud beagleman was reduced to crawling on his broken leg, but he was incredibly hungry. He had a pick and had to dig around on the ground like this. In his desperation, he managed to find this sealed-off chamber. It was filled with mushrooms and his mouth began to hungrily water...

 

Rex could see that this chamber had been sealed, and unsealed repeatedly by clay. This confirmed his other guess, this cat was probably the one who sold out Canabus.

 

“Now I have you! HAHAHAHA! I can't believe you followed me down here!” The cat beastman laughed crazily.

 

The cat had extended the claws on his remaining hand and pressed them to Rex's neck. Rex could only sigh at the cat sadly.

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Rex asked the cat.

 

“Do you think I am stupid, I know that the-” The cat began but was stopped.

 

He was stopped as a thin blue fluid exploded into his face, and immediately began invading it. Looking closely, you would see what looked like a thin fluid that was rapidly crawling up Rex's arm. It seemed like it was almost magnetically pulled to the cat beastman.

 

Blue was comprised of many tiny organisms, they probably operated on a hive mentality. This meant that they had no issues separating within a certain distance. Drowning? That would be the less terrifying way to die. Blue could instead enter your blood through your pores, and flood your body from the inside with chemicals.

 

Blue would transform into a variety of colors when this process happened, this was caused by the countless chemical reactions occurring at the same time.

 

“What a horrific way to die...” Rex muttered.

 

The cat beastman had fallen back as he tried to pull the fluid off his face, but he just couldn't. The fluid ran right between his reaming arms fingers. The fur on its face started blackening instantly before it just turned into ashes. This revealed the flesh underneath that was covered in chemical burns, as even the cat's eyes had started to melt.

 

Once Blue had fully left Rex's body, it began to suddenly start changing colors. This caused bubbling hissing and popping to start happening all over the cat's body, as it began to blend to form a large color spectrum. The cat fell violently onto the ground as it began to madly go into convulsions, thick foam coming out of its mouth and dissolving in the fluid with its body.

 

Blergh!

 

Rex violently lost his breakfast onto the ground of the mine as he continued to watch the horrifying process of the cat's demise.

 

-

 

“I don't think I want to wear this...” Rex muttered, looking at the harmless blue plastic bracelet on his wrist.

 

It had taken a couple of minutes for the cat to be dissolved into water and salts. Rex had a pale face and was covered in a cold sweat. He could now understand why chemical weapons were banned internationally.

 

“I can't go back to earth now, I'd be arrested as a war criminal...” Rex muttered.

 

Looking at the bracelet, he had begun to run through everything he learned about this creature. The chemicals it produced, were copies of what it has consumed. It can consume almost anything to grow, especially biomass. The bigger it gets, the smarter it gets, and the further it can broadcast its signal and control itself.

 

The creature had very real emotions, as the entire time he was following the cat, it was getting more and more upset. It could detect the killing intent being directed at me, and this made it furious. Normally Blue was thicker than syrup and felt almost like pancake batter. When he was angry though, he was thinner than water. The issue was communicating with it. Blue had none of the same senses a human did, it perceived everything differently.

 

It only really understood structure, so he had to tell it what he wanted it to look like. The color was unnecessary, as it couldn't understand it. He could only tell it the shape he wanted it to look like. This was kind of useless too, as Blue was soft even at its hardest. It was a rubber you could dig into with your fingernail, but it just healed when you pulled it out.

 

Rex continued to walk for a while longer until he finally concluded...

 

I'm lost...

 

-

Meanwhile...

Imperial Elven Training Camp, Camp Ivangor

 

People think of elves as beautiful graceful forest creatures, or at least they were. Standing before Ivangor were thousands of hairless pale elves. Many sported various levels of chemical burns, and some you could even see bone in places. The scariest part, was when you looked at their feet. Many had toes that had deformed and were dark with bruising. They looked more like clubs.

 

“Alright, now what we have passed the first day of training, I shall explain the next. We have begun the careful tempering process of the foot, which is a sword. I will now show you the hand that is a club.” Ivangor explained as if this was elementary. “Metal has layers, and so does a fist.”

 

Ivangor curled his hand into a fist.

 

“The first layer.” Ivangor said as he pointed to the knuckle and first finger joint.

 

“The second layer.” He said as he pointed to the bent fingertip in the middle of the fist.

 

“The third layer.” Ivangor said pointing to the thumb and the meat.

 

“This is nature's finest multilayered club.” Ivangor explained flatly. “To temper it is very easy.”

 

He placed his hand onto an anvil, signaling an Elf Lieutenant who held a sledgehammer. The elf began to violently hammer on Ivangor's hand. The sound of ringing metal could be heard as sparks came off the hammer.

 

“You must carefully remove the space between the bone, and make it even denser.” Ivangor explained. “ Circulate your energy and use the pressure to temper your club, you want it as hard as possible.”

 

The Elf holding the sledgehammer stopped as the wooden handle began to split.

 

“I have long passed through this phase, so this is pointless for me.” He said as if this was elementary level. “Alright when you guys finish, I will teach you to locate a diamond in a mountain of broken glass. Look forward to it.”

 

-

1 day later...

Succubus Homeland, The Exchange

 

Rex walked out of the tunnels, he was so very thirsty. Rex had been wandering around aimlessly for hours, he just kept finding himself going deeper. He began to wonder if he was going to die down there, then he stumbled onto a prisoner.

 

The prisoner had given him directions to follow, and Rex thought he did. Then he realized he made a mistake somewhere and tried to backtrack. This was very difficult when everything looked the same, Rex began to curse himself for so stupidly coming down here. It was another few hours after that that he bribed a dwarf to take him to the commons. It was the first prisoner he ran into when he came here.

 

Walking into the exchange, he saw Kira behind the desk, with a very angry scowl. She had deep bags under her eyes and it was clear she hadn't slept. She was sitting behind the counter sharpening her battle-ax.

 

“Kira, I am back.” Rex announced hoarsely.

 

Kira looked over and saw Rex and a look of Pity flashed across her face as she hopped over the counter and ran to him. Rex held her shoulders to stop her from grabbing him.

 

“Kira, I need water.” Rex mumbled hoarsely, “I have been thinking this whole time of drinking Blue!”

 

-

 

Rex and Kira were sitting inside the exchange, Rex was drinking some boiled water Kira had gotten him. He made a large pot so that he only needed to make it once a day. Losing a day like this annoyed Rex as he had other plans that he wanted to carry out.

 

“The sisters who delivered the cotton are still here right?” Rex asked.

 

“Yeah, I had them stay as you asked.”Kira replied.

 

“Alright, did you design the fire starter I asked for?” Rex confirmed.

 

“They are only 2 pieces, we made 25 of them so far.” Kira answered, using her fingers to count.

 

“Alright bring all the TNT we have crafted so far, I have a new type of training to show you.” Rex said as he stood up and lead Kira outside.

 

Glycerol was a bi-product of making soap, they had quite a lot of it. Fat was the only thing the succubi took from the sharks aside from their magic stones. Soap was also a big seller for the elves, borax was much like washing with iron wool. This had sold almost as well as weapons, and they had to put more and more succubi into production work. The issue was getting them interested in making anything else.

 

The 200 succubi were already planning to get more cotton, they had been debating this whole time about their failure. They wanted to fix the mistake. The pride of the great succubi philosophers was at stake after all. Rex realized the only way to change their mind was with weapons, he would also use this to carve the channel to the ocean he needed.

 

It was about an hour walk over to where he wanted the cut made. It would be very large, and they would use a lot of TNT. Rex guessed it would take a week for the succubi to complete it. The other goal was to start bringing up limestone from the waters on the island. This would be used to make concrete, then they could clean up the walls of the cliffs and the ground.

 

Rex wanted to add a series of rollers on the ramp, to move freight up and down. A winch would control a large box that would roll over the top of the rollers. Then they could add a divider wall to keep the two lanes separate. He also wanted to add a large shutter door, as the beastmen could climb a portcullis. A grove would need to be carved in the wall to facilitate it. Cannons would be placed along the cliff face, and towers would be erected around the coast.

 

Once the sharks were gone, he would make the waters around the island even more dangerous. The goal was to drop concrete-coated steel rods into the water. These would rip open the hulls of ships, and make collecting limestone easier. They would act as a fence against bigger monsters, but he needed to get rid of the sharks first.

 

Rex's biggest fear wasn't the mainland, but the other continents. Mana was an incredible element, and the elves and beastmen had barely touched on it. Since this world lacked a magnetic field, electronics just weren't worth it to build. The sun produces massive amounts of different radiation, and the magnetic field blocks this energy. This radiation will cause electrons to move freely in conductors like electronics, acting as a constant source of EMP.

 

This barrier could only be overcome with magic, and Rex was afraid somewhere in this world some species were. There were countless races on the mainland once, and now it was down to 5 factions. If a truly unified race existed as conquerors with high magical mastery, then it would be a terrible enemy. Rex's depression had been swept away because he realized that he had responsibilities in this world.

 

He had always seen himself as a respectable middle-aged man, and Kira as a child. But they would both grow up one day, and she would never let him escape. As it stood, he was stuck with her, and he was okay with that. They had good chemistry now, and maybe she would grow out of it as she got older. He still had some hope.

 

“Alright, we need to drive poles into the ground and were going to use ropes to make a guide. Imagine 2 straight lines right next to each other.” Rex started explaining to Kira. “This is going to be training for the succubi for when they need to destroy enemy ships, but we will use them to carve a ramp.”

 

Rex imagined it would look like complete shit when it was done. He wanted a smooth, clean-cut, and he imagined it would look like Kira's butt when his face was stretching it open. This memory caused him to sigh sadly.

 

“Hey, I feel like you are remembering something unpleasant!” Kira said giving him an accusatory look.

 

“You are just imagining things.” Rex assured her.

 

-

Meanwhile...

Great Elven Forest, Burn Zone.

 

A large white polar bearman was running on all fours with a small elven girl on his back. She had a dead look on her face and just sat lazily. She was currently tied onto his back with cloth ropes. A misty haze raised off the bear's thick white fur from a large bead necklace he wore.

 

The bear was 20 years old, a not quite middle-aged beastman. He had been a slave under the elves his entire life, and the collar around his neck was proof of that. A succubus had bought him and a bunch of other slaves, and he was given this necklace. It was the first time he ever felt comfortable in his entire life.

 

The slaves were told that they could either go to the homeland of the succubi or go back to the elves. This was an easy choice for a bear to make, so he was currently running through the burned forest. The little girl seemed broken and was going to get left behind, so he helped her.

 

“Little Girl, where you from?” The bear asked.

 

The bear waited but got no response from his passenger.

 

“Little Girl, Who you? I am named Bear.” The bearman asked again trying to strike up a conversation.

 

The bear had done this multiple times, but he never got any kind of response. This was the most boring elf he had ever seen.

 

“Little Girl, I sing you song of my Homeland. My mother sing it to me sweetly, each night.” The bear said in reminiscence.

 

The bear opened his large maw and began roaring loudly, It sounded like a chainsaw running through wood. Welch continued to just stare off into space blankly as if she noticed nothing going on around her. Occasionally a pained look would flash across her eyes, causing tears to well up.

 

-

1 day later...

Succubus Homeland, Future site of the dock

 

“Keep the formation tight, wingtip to wingtip!” The lead succubus yelled.

 

The group of 7 succubi started flying closely together, forming a tight V formation in the air. They began to dive towards the ground in a shallow arc.

 

“Ready!” The lead succubus shouted all 7 pulled a stick of TNT out of their cleavage.

 

At the hip of their burlap shorts was a lighter. The lighter consisted of 2 metal plates with a spring between them. They were connected on one side with a pin. Pressing down the top plate on the bottom causes a thin blue flame to appear from the top. The two plates sat on top of a little glass tube, that held the fuel.

 

“Light!” The succubus yelled as all 7 light the fuses of the TNT.

 

“Release!” They called as they dropped it down.

 

The group of 7 immediately pulled up into the air. Right as they did another group of 7 released a payload right in front of them. A line of explosions from the first line of TNT sounded, right as the third group of succubi passed over and dropped their TNT. This continued from the start to the end of the cliff.

 

At first, they made many mistakes, as evident with the massive gouges at the start of the digging. Then each layer that was carved, was cut tighter and tighter. Rex had underestimated the succubi's love of war as each group began to desperately compete. Far into the future, the game of bombing would be a succubi sport.