Chapter 115: The Great Mother
"Are you really Rindher? Everything about you is so different, from your looks to even your energy." Ames said, rubbing his smooth chin with one hand while using the other to support his busy hand from below, across his chest.
"Of course it's me, who else could it be? You certainly don't believe there are mimics in this lower world, right? The most you'll see here are the green skins. Apart from those, some wild beasts also appear, but that's mostly it. That aside, who are they?" Rindher asked, looking at the two women behind Ames.
They looked the part, kind of slutty, but then again if they were whores, they'd have to be among the most expensive ones, since their looks even when naked appeared different from the common folk.
"Oh, these two cuties? They are the princesses of this kingdom.. whatever the name of the kingdom is, I forgot, but that's who they are anyway. Just leave them be, they're a little shy. Besides, after you barged in like that, what damsel wouldn't be scared, even though a bit?" Ames said, pushing Rindher put of the cell to give the ladies some room to dress.
Rindher for one was well surprised, to think the princesses of a kingdom would enter a dungeon to have sex with an inmate… it truly was something to think about a second time.
While recollecting his thoughts, Rindher remembered something, "wait, princesses? As in they're both princesses?" he asked, a bit surprised and curious.
"Yes, why so shocked?"
"The royal house only has one daughter, the rest are sons, how come there are two princesses?" Rindher questioned.
"Oh come on, you don't think that old queen would be able to birth so many heirs, do you? She's way past the age for that in this world, if I'm not mistaken. The king has two other wives, call them concubines if you may. They both live within the palace under wraps, and most of those children I hear, are theirs, not the figure head queen's.
These two are sisters in fact." Ames explained with a chuckle.
"Wow… then why would they hide information about the number of heirs… well I see, these ones aren't exactly heirs, are they? They also look young." Rindher said.
"I don't know, not that I care. All I know is that I get to smash two queens and their daughters everyday while being fed well and treated like an exotic prince."
Rindher felt the urge to smack his friend on the back of the head, but restrained himself. The thought to hold the girls as hostages did come to mind, but being so low in the scale of importance to not even have their names mentioned as children of the king, they're usefulness wasn't really their best quality.
"You never even tried to escape? You didn't think we'd be worried about you?" Rindher rubbed his temples with two fingers, straightening out and massaging to ease his stress, at least it was meant to be so.
"Hey, you turned into some freak while I stayed human and can't properly use my powers, don't compare us." Ames said with a blank face while pointing at Rindher. He then left him for a moment to se if the girls were dressed.
Rindher's urge to punch his friend's face in increased again. "In other words, you never tried, you just gave up… why did I expect anything more… heh… Ralwa will tear you into pieces when later." Rindher spoke to himself.
While Ames checked up on the princesses, Rindher used a magic spell that could amplify his voice to send a message to the entire dungeon.
"This kingdom has been taken over, the king that once kept you as pets is no more! If you wish to use your strength for something more, join the new rule, if not, remain here and perish! Let the wise act swiftly, the rest will perish in their folly!" He said, his voice travelling all through the dungeon, or at least he hoped it did. He had no real idea just how big the dungeon was, nor did he care.
For now, he had done and said enough, the rest was left up to the ones who had heard him, their decisions would determine their own future. To be used as servants or as blood banks, it was entirely their choice.
'Well, we already have more than enough servants, I don't think we need more.' Rindher thought to himself. Anyone who didn't add substantial value was sure to be cast aside, that was certain.
Shaken out of his brief thoughts, "hey, hey, hey… what is this about the kingdom being taken over?"
… Experience new tales on mvl
Without any luck in finding the king and his people, Aldritch was forced to become resourceful, pulling out trick after trick that could help him figure out where the king was.
Being very good at blood manipulation, Aldritch tried to extend his reach to see just how far he could affect someone's blood. Naturally, if he could affect blood from far away, he would have a general idea at least, of where that blood he is controlling is. It was a kind of blood sense that only activated against blood being controlled by him.
Just like he theorized, it worked, but the feedback wasn't nearly as much, as it would seem that most of the place had been evacuated. There was also the fact that this method might not work through thick walls, say, an underground bunker, so even though he was using it at the moment, he couldn't rely on it for much longer and had to think of some other way.
While trying to sense the blood all around him, Aldritch noticed something strange. All at the same or close intervals, close to half the blood hosts he could sense died, he could tell by the behavior of the blood within their bodies, though only minute, he had killed enough people through this technique to know such details.
'Let me check below first, then I can think of looking around the back side of the mountains-" He thought to himself, partyly curious as to why those people died all of a sudden. As a man from the 21st century, Aldritch could think of a few possible reasons, one of them being that these bodies would begin to release deadly odour that is fatal. In a sense, a strong biochemical weapon.
Before Aldritch could finish the thought, a strange feeling cut him off. His entire body felt like it was being warped and distorted for a brief second, just enough that it created a discomforting feeling, but no damage was incurred.
As he didn't close his eyes, Aldritch did not only feel, but he saw the world around him shift, and when everything was back to normal, a second later, he found himself standing in an open place, outside the palace.
Before he could think of checking himself for any abnormalities, Aldritch's eyes scanned the surroundings to see if anything was amiss, or perhaps, an enemy was nearby. The first thought that came to mind was the possibility of the palace having some magical defence system or trap that he may have activated and it teleported him away.
"Uhh…" He scrunched his brows lightly, waving off the slight disorientation that made him almost fall backwards as it was a little tricky to maintain his balance at first.
"SO, it wasn't a trap, was it?" Aldritch said to himself, looking at a strange person levitating mid-air several metres away and above.
With excellent vision at night, he could see his possible advisory clearly.
Aldritch couldn't really tell if what he was looking at was human or monster, or perhaps, some race that came from the higher world. It looked exactly like a human female, with an arguably alluring figure, but there were blue and green tattoo lines running through her body that emitted a dull and faint glow within them.
"What's with the shiny tattoo? Some kind of voodoo mysticism shit?"
Rethinking it, it was quite possible that this woman before him was actually the kingdom's guardian, but to specifically pinpoint him was more commendable.
The woman kept staring at Aldritch with eyes that felt like void as there was nothing in them, both figuratively and literally.
Aldritch, tired of the stare off, grabbed a piece of rock from the floor and hurled it towards the woman. Instead of moving out of the way or catching it, she did nothing, simply standing still as the stone crashed into what looked like a shield around her and deflected to the side.
'I've seen that trick before.'
It had only been a minute since Aldritch started the stare off with the strange woman, but he was already tired.
'Is that it?' He thought to himself, not really curious enough to go checking if she was ok or not. He only assumed she was responsible for teleporting him out there in the middle of nowhere, but there was also the possibility that he was wrong, regardless, Aldritch had more problems to face, like figuring out where he was and how to get back to the royal palace, because he was nowhere close.
'This has to be the outter wall at least.'
Just as he turned to leave, a distorted voice spoke out to him from the woman, "WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?"