Now available on Literotica: Becoming Monsters Book 1, Growing Problems!
All 40 chapters will show up here, so look forward to Honoka's adventures with monster girls chapter by chapter as I figure out how to format everything to fit my vision.
For right now, enjoy the story and join with thousands of people when I say to KEEP HARMONIZING!!
PREVIOUSLY ON BM: NOBODY EXPECTS GIANT BUILDING BREAKING HOLSTAUR HOOTERS!! Also, Eve ups her edging game in the van.
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Chapter 19: Homework?
"I want to join y'alls guild."
The wives were on their fourth trip, and it was already late. The gate in the Shiny district stocked large trolleys for rent but uneven dirt or stone streets, half of it uphill, across seven miles one way punished each girl into bone-weariness when they stumbled back to the Indian styled compound. The first trip threw up some surprises when Honoka forgot to keep everything secret and walked around as a human. The wives downplayed the event by explaining Diane's change as an Alchemist potion, both Padmava and Quinn shrugging and chalking it up to Status weirdness.
When the wives continued to move their things into their rooms, they quickly expired in the humid heat that stayed a constant
jungle swelter
24/7, accepting lemonade provided by Padmava by the gallon each trip. This was the last, and they looked like the Donner Party: half-dead, hungry enough to eat anything. Waiting for them this time was Quinn, her perky otter self coming with four buckets of sumptuous smelling fried chicken.
Honoka glanced at Diane and Eve. Diane, gauging the otter woman's female form, asked the critical question. "How old are you?"
"I turned eighteen two months ago, if yer wonderin' 'bout my being legal to delve on my own," Quinn replied, leading the women into one of the compound's large hosting rooms (all three women basking in the blessed relief of cold AC air) with paper plates, napkins and more lemonade set at one table. "I'm also a level five swarmlock, a rare Class! Not even a hundred people in the US with swarmlock, an' my Attributes are all high."
"Do we get any chicken if we say no?" Eve asked, climbing into her seat and watching the buckets of fried food like a cat watches a laser. Honoka and Diane took positions on either side of the goblin as Quinn rounded the other side.
"Wha?" Quinn looked genuinely surprised, not picking up on the humor. "No! This here's just me being neighborly, welcomin' y'all to the Big House an' all that. Jus' figured we talk about me joinin' your guild while eatin'."
"Hmm..." Honoka paused, looking the beastkin girl over as the architect-turned-delver tried to broach the topic. Despite the heat, despite being entirely covered in fur, the otter girl didn't look affected at all. Her clothing was more casual today, a white tank top long enough to cover most of her stomach and tan cargo shorts were all she wore. The tank top stretched to bursting and if her nippled outlines were any indication, she let those large puppies hang free.
"What Honoka means to say is our guild is unique. We have...different...recruitment requirements." Diane tried for delicate, but she optimistically texted Cholena to get Banda's opinion into the mix.
"So?" Quinn asked, a desperate tint in her light blue eyes. "Even before I started livin' with Pad, guilds look at my magic as too blasted creepy! I'm runnin' out o' time, and all y'all might be my only chance."
Honoka's stomach rumbled as she tried to parse hunger with nerves. This was moving too fast. "Let's eat, first," the black woman said, placating the young girl with her hands, "then you'll explain why you want this."
Quinn nodded, dividing the chicken up. The chicken was the bee's knees, it boasted a bit of a kick and tasted similar to homemade chicken soup, only a light breading around the hot meat. In absolutely no time, the food was gone and they nursed their lemonades.
"Four months ago, my best friend, Dolly, turned eighteen and got right into a guild," Quinn began after they finished cleaning up. "I tried to tell her to wait for me but Dolls is a teensy headstrong. She's a level six hunter with Arrow Barrage so she wasn't lackin' options, guilds always lookin' for ranged DPS. The group she joined with planned on heading down to the Bone Castle an' seein' if they could take out the floor boss."
"Bone Castle?" Eve asked, chomping down a leg bone herself like hard candy.
"Floor 126 is a tad notorious among locals," Quinn replied, apparently knowledgeable of the dungeon's ecosystem. "While it is easy to bypass the floor an' keep goin' down, the magma themed level has an island in the center with a giant castle made entirely of bones. To access it, there is a single bridge patrolled by over a thousand undead creatures. No one has been able to break through. This guild, the
Master Blasters,
are a big deal, have a level twenty-four cannoneer as their leader an' they boast hundreds of members. The entire guild geared up an' headed to Floor 126, but somethin' went wrong."
The wives waited as Quinn collected herself, the otter clearly emotional. "No one is sure why: the undead of Bone Castle don't kill delvers, they capture them. Sometimes those captured return as recently created undead, sometimes they don't come back. I needed to know for myself, so two weeks ago, I went down an' did some recon myself. I have the Class Feature Bug Eyes and I can see whatever one of my swarms sees - though it hurts like a son'ova Jeff, insect seein's not for people seein' - an' not only did I find a hidden back door to the Castle, I found a prison with hundreds of people locked up in there, Dolly one o' them."
"Why are you asking for our help, then?" Honoka asked, unfamiliar with dungeons but her gaming lifestyle gave her some sense of tactics. "You found a back door, you can sell that information to any guild. Wouldn't they jump to help get into an impossible fortress, bypassing the main approach? Or you go yourself, your Class sounds like it has a lot of versatility."
Quinn breathed in and out, looking around as if the living essence of paranoia manifested inside her. "I think the guilds are hiding something. When the Blasters went down, they brought all two hundred and twenty-eight members, including fourteen people with Races. When they came back, they
regretfully
lost fourteen members to the castle. It took some diggin', but only their Race members were the ones captured or killed, includin' Dolly."
"Are you sure?" Eve asked, the goblin angry as she snapped one of the bones she was munching on.
"Yes, and not just to Races."
Everyone turned around when three people entered into the room. Padmava was the one who spoke, her dark scales reflecting the indirect lighting. The next to enter was a young Indian man wearing a long coat that looked to combine gambeson with kevlar - the style like a combat fireman's jacket - with a longsword strapped to his back. His dark hair and face were the kind found on serious, quiet people, but he wasn't older than fifteen or sixteen. Behind the two followed another naga, but this young girl lacked the hood of her mother, the coloring of her scales bright green that faded into lighter green on each hard piece, making her look like she was covered in leaves. The girl was shy and hid behind her larger mother, wearing a simple red dress over her green scales. Although age was difficult to determine, the green naga girl appeared in her tweens or younger.
"Arun, my husband, was also curious about what went on in the Castle," Padmava continued, slithering her body up to the table and coiling around it before resting next to Quinn, both sets of arms loosely folded. Today she wore a sari that clashed cultures: a tie-dyed rainbow wrap. It worked, but it was odd to see. "Nothing added up in the early days, so he eventually took a team of volunteers from the Lair and struck out. None of them returned. Today, the corpse of my dear Starlight stands at the head of the host guarding the bridge, defiled like some kind of warning to anyone who would dare."
"I need to hurry," Quinn continued, pleading with her voice and eyes. "Dolly might be the next one on that bridge tomorrow. When I scouted, there weren't a lot of guards in the tunnel but there were more than I could handle. You mentioned your guild includes a cleric, so's that's half the battle right there. Please, help me."
"Will you save daddy?" the little girl asked, coming up to coil next to her mother as the older son stood resolute near the door.
Honoka overflowed with compassion for these women, but she wasn't sure if she was capable of helping. Looking around the room, she felt overwhelmed. Honoka looked to her wives to see if there was any advice to give.
"We...want to help," Diane replied, looking in Honoka's eyes and seeing what the small black woman wanted to say. "And we might even be more capable than you realize." The succubus stood up and wiped her hands on some napkins. "However, before anyone makes any permanent decisions, the children need to leave and you need to sign some Contracts."
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They both signed. Diane was a little miffed she couldn't find her ProGo to finish the presentation, but the other women were fine with a quick back and forth of Honoka going succ for a few seconds. It was almost midnight and the wives set up a conference after explaining everything to the two other women. They took it all rather well, considering.
"And then Quinn said 'show me'," Eve spoke into the phone, holding her sides from laughing so hard. "H, of course, performed her