Uthur took a step back, pulling his rifle from over his shoulder and readying it. There was a wet smack as something rolled out of the unfortunate orc’s chest cavity and hit the stone below it. 

Mika cringed.

“Th-there’s a huge abomination ahead,” she whispered as the smaller one flopped noisily around in a pool of noxiously violet liquids on the ground. 

“If you shoot, it might…” but she trailed off. The thing almost definitely knew they were there already. It was a spider, after all…and they were in its web. 

Uthur kept his rifle leveled.

In the next instant, the newborn horror uncoiled and, in the same movement, launched itself toward Uthur. Mika caught the briefest glimpse of a tiny, bald human face and a great deal of spindly legs before he pulled the trigger and the thing exploded. 

The lurking abomination’s responding screams echoed down the shaft and tunnel, and hastily Mika jammed her earplug back in. At once, all of the other bound bodies she could make out through the mists began to convulse. 

One after another, their chests burst open in a spray of vibrant fluids, more and yet more wretched offspring dropping to the stone. Uthur was able to shoot another five of them before he had to pause to reload. He gave up halfway through and drew his short sword. 

The newborns were on them in the next heartbeat. Uthur swung sword and rifle grip alike, sliced through gelatinous abdomens and still-soft bones, smattered bodies against stone. Mika cowered back, wishing she had Ixos—wishing she had some way to help. Because there were just so many of them, and Uthur—drained, sprayed with purple ichor—was failing. 

Amidst all of that chaos, the echoing scream sounded again…but closer. And then again, closer still. Mika trilled, though she knew what she’d perceive. 

The spider was coming for her, its horrible sockets with their gelatinous eyes fixed directly her way. Uthur, thrashing under a mass of spawn, roared as the thing shoved both offspring and orc aside. Mika tried to run, but it was no use. It was on her in an instant, cold and wetness and pressure ensnaring her body as the abomination bundled her halfway up in its goopy strands and clutched her close with two of its legs. Then, twisting its great bulk back to face the way it had come, it made for the shaft. 

Uthur’s shouts echoed behind them, fainter by the moment. 

Fire filled her veins, and Mika kicked, convulsed, screamed. None of it did any good. She prayed Uthur was faring better. 

But rather than stick her to the wall alongside its collection of broken and dripping corpses, it kept her bundled close to its body as it hurtled upward. Up, toward the heart of the palace. Up, toward that distant heat. The core seed within her pulsed. After a while, she gave up on flailing—instead reserving what little energy she had left and focusing her attention on her senses. Seeing, hearing, scenting as much as she could as the spider hauled her through the labyrinthine heart of the palace. Her palace.

And the outside warmth drew ever closer.

She scented humans more than once, but never saw them. And she heard, at one point, the distant hint of voices. And then, near the top of what must have been one of the stronghold’s central towers, the monster slowed at last. 

They had come before a massive set of stone doors, fortified by great, curling things like tree roots made of flesh. 

And at its other side lay the source of the heat. The thing which had called to her. 

Upon their approach the roots coiled back and in on themselves. The doors opened. 

The spider-beast set her down upon the stone…and then turned and skitter-skulked away. Struggling out of the loose bindings stuck about the lower half of her body, Mika dragged herself to her feet. She paused, briefly, to steady her breath. Then she stepped forward. 

The chamber beyond was vaulted, but dark. There were no windows and few crystals. Most of the space was occupied by black, twisting roots with occasional bulbous protrusions, strands of goop, and…at the center of it all, extended by a twist of root from the ceiling…a core. 

It was beautiful, aglow with a pearly iridescence like a massive opal with a fire at its heart. 

And it was alive. 

Slowly, careful not to trip over any of the roots, Mika approached. 

The light within the core flared and pulsed, and the heat in her own intensified again. 

It was too high to reach…but as she stretched her arm to its full extent and rose to her tip-toes, the roots beneath her surged upward, raising her until her palm pressed to the warm, smooth surface of the stone. 

And then it vanished. 

The entire chamber vanished. Replaced at once by another. 

She stood on a palace balcony overlooking the sea of mists. Succulents and flowers grew in lush profusion from stone trenches built along the rails and all up and down the pillars. Perched on an overhanging branch, a feathered songtoad ribbited happily away. A number of skyships unlike any she had ever seen plied the surface of the mists. By the size and stylings, she guessed them to be Ulvari made…but wrought of wood. 

“Princess. The first is in wait of you.” 

She turned. Another Ulvari stood before her, dressed in the silver robes of a steward and bowing low. She was in a bedchamber, and an especially resplendent one at that. 

“Are you ready?” 

She took a deep and shaking breath. 

“Yes. You may let him in.” 

The steward exited the room, the massive door held open by a guard as another figure took the steward’s place. 

An orcin figure. 

“Prince Talus,” said the person whose senses Mika inhabited, whose memories she now relived. The person whose voice was almost exactly like her own. “Welcome, and thank you.”  

The steward retreated once more, and the door closed. 

“I am honored, princess,” said the orc, his markings already turning blue. His voice was gruff, but he seemed sincere. He knelt, bowing his head. 

“You don’t have to do that,” said Mika’s host. 

“Do what?” inquired the orc as he avoided her gaze. 

“Be ashamed,” she said, reaching forward to brush her fingers lightly across the cerulean display at his brow. She leant forward, whispered in his ear. 

“I know what it means.” 

She could feel the orc tense beside her.

“And I am glad to be sure that this is truly what you want. Unless—?” 

“It is what I want,” he assured her. 

She leant back then, just enough to look into his eyes as they finally lifted to meet hers. And then she kissed him. Pressed her lips to his, her face fitting perfectly between his tusks. 

He raised his enormous, blue-gray hand and…still kissing her back, though carefully…placed his palm to hers. His fingers closed, enveloping her hand in hot, tingling, pleasure from claw-tip to wrist. A glimmering explosion of sensation overtook the whole of her mind, the whole of her body, in progressively building waves. Until at last the tide peaked. The waves broke. Her head fell back, and she cried out in release. 

And when he finally let her go, the heat of his skin was replaced by the heat growing within her. 

He lingered for a time, then, holding her in his arms. 

“When I have more bodies, I will learn the ways of orcin pleasure,” she promised him. “And I will return your efforts tenfold.” 

He left some time after that, and another Prince was shown in. That one, and several after him, were Ulvari. After them came an elf. With each hand she held, the seed burned hotter, the energy pulses growing stronger and stronger. 

“Please tell me we can stop for the day,” she groaned to the steward. “I am exhausted.”

In truth, she was desperate to hold more hands. But the overwhelming vulnerability and embarrassment of it all had finally become enough to outweigh her desire. 

“You have just one more scheduled for this evening,” sniffed the steward. “And he has come a long way.”

“Very well,” sighed Mika’s host, waving a hand. “Let him in.” 

Again, the door opened. And again, a stranger entered. 

He was tall, as far as humans went. 

“Good evening, Princess Mikanasha,” he said, moss-green eyes flashing as he dipped a moment later into a belated bow.