04

*Hello again, this post is still only building up to the erotic parts of the story, but if you enjoyed the previous chapters it's worth the read (and my girlfriend says the sex scenes are worth the wait). The next post will feature some hot and steamy action, but this one is still setting the scene a little and developing the characters. All I can say is thanks to all the people that read, favorited, rated and commented on my previous story. I hope I'll be able to meet your expectations. Also thank you to my girlfriend for giving me her permission to post this on here. Finally, feel free to leave a comment good or bad with any kind of praise or criticism. Even the most minute critique can be a big help when it comes to writing. Happy reading and look forward to the next chapters.*

Chapter 3

He moves away once more, heading deeper into the cavernous barracks, whilst explaining that the level you are on is the 7

th

of his dungeon; used for the barracks and storerooms along with the armouries. On this level, as you had already guessed, are the sleeping quarters of his garrison as well as magically cooled areas where food and drinks are kept in the form of basic ingredients; maximising the amount of time they can be kept. After a while of walking through the throngs of curious and often aroused critters, you reach another set of magic infused doors. A wave of your creator's hand later they slowly swing open. Both of you set off towards the upper floors, your curiosity burning, and him eager to put his life's work on display.

The next floor, number 6, is rather boring in terms of function but does have a redeeming feature. The cultivation floor is where the dungeon's supplies are generated. Aqua-crystals are used to help with the already impressive natural water supply, which in turn is used to feed the many fields of greenery, fruits and crops that saturate the area. The grass and hay is then fed to a variety of animals from humongous birds, Cockatrices, to smaller edible mammals; from numerous and fluffy Bladas to the powerful but slow Brellos. These two last species being a herd animal sheared for clothing material and the Brellos being the reptilian equivalent to human owned bulls.

This level of the dungeon is bright, illuminated by a large sphere hanging in the air. This ball of fire, which resembles the sun quite a lot, is about the size of a Mwaram, massive animals which roam the frozen wastelands of the north.

You're still impressed every time information surfaces from your mind as if to remind you of things you already knew. Your eyes widen despite the glare of the miniature sun, since as the bright landscape with its vibrant-green plants and crystal clear streams is one of the most beautifully natural things you have ever seen. You remind yourself that you haven't been alive very long, but your entire body and spirit are telling you that this place is incredible and ought to be appreciated as such. As you look on in awe, a flash of movement catches your eye. You scour the landscape in search of whatever it was, and soon two more streaks of light green speed across your field of vision. Frustrated at not being able to identify them, and the back of your mind fearing danger, your instincts kick in to reveal another ability. Time seems to slow down, the colours getting ever so slightly duller, sound decreasing in pitch, and your eyes move increasingly quickly along with the rest of your body as you search for the streams of colour.

Finally you see one, only this time it's not just a light green dash, but a small body the size of a twig, and about as skinny. These little beings, with bodies seemingly made of leaves and small branches, speed across the landscape with focus and purpose. They catch any falling fruit, harvest ready crops, and maintain every aspect of the farms faster than any farmer could, not to mention much more quietly. You learn all this in a moment, as even with your improved mental and physical speed, they're nearly too fast for you to keep up with.

"Lord Terenim. What are those creatures? The groundskeepers I suppose, but what specie-"

Your question is interrupted by a veritable flood of information bursting through your mind, as if a dam had suddenly been breached. Had you, in that moment, been able to think about your brain had been so slow to teach you about these creatures, the explanation would have been that there was an unquantifiable amount of subspecies, and for some reason every single race's information came at once.

Nanya

.

That's what they are

. A species known for taking care of their habitat, making any flora flourish and thrive wherever they settle. They are not overly capable in the typical battle, but are both fast and strong. Given time and the right accommodations, each type of Nanya is more than capable of defending their homes from intruders. In a place such as the farms, with which they are obviously familiar and comfortable in, they would probably be more valuable as defenders than an army of a thousand trolls. Their ferocity and efficiency as guardians is due to their dependency; without carefully regulated surroundings these little creatures can easily fall victim to disease or lack of nutrition, and thus they fight tooth and nail for their home on every occasion.

"I take it you have your answer?"

You nod, and don't ask him about how you seem to know so much despite just being born hours ago; you decide to ask him in due time, when you've learned as much about this place and your situation as you can.

After all... He's pleasant but I know nothing about him... Or myself.

"It's beautiful..."

You whisper gently before Terenim replies with a steady voice, right before setting off on the path in front of you.

"It was my inspiration, among others, for you."

You instinctively walk after him, but as you hear and understand what he's just said, your mind begins its increasingly familiar spiral into the abyss that is 'overthinking'. You blush brightly as your thoughts race through your head, each meaning you find for the phrase more romantic than the last.

You force yourself to calm down just as you walk through the doors to the stairs, and hear high pitched sounds coming from behind you. You turn, and see the Nanya, surprisingly still save for their ever beating wings. They wave at you, their near inaudible voices calling out happily as if to say "Come back soon". You wave back hesitantly but with a fuzzy feeling in your stomach before following Terenim to the 5

th

floor, his voice echoing back down to you. "I talked to them of your... 'Arrival'. They desperately wish to meet you, but I'm afraid they will have to wait."

Once the doors at the top of the stairwell open, you shiver. At first you wonder if maybe you're cold, but quickly realise that's not the case. The reason you're shivering, as you soon find out, is because you sense danger. You seem to have some kind of sixth sense, and you think you see a slight smile on Terenim's face as he sees you react. In front of you lay stone walls with shifting faces on their surface. It's rather unsettling, since the visages all seem to be in pain or in the grips of terror, yet they make no sound as they endlessly appear and disappear on the walls' surfaces. You follow your creator closely, but can't shake the feeling of danger you have as you slowly take in what seems to be the corridors of a maze.

"My lord... What is this place? Why do I feel like one would have more to fear here than getting lost?"

He looks at you with a look of pride, one you've seen often today, and he summons a small sphere out of thin air. It lands heavily in his hand, no larger than an apple and not much heavier. He throws it down one of the corridors to your left, and the walls seem to come alive. The faces begin to wail and screech as the walls bulge and twist like living tissue, closing in, enveloping, and obliterating the object disturbing their halls.

"That is one of many kinds of traps planted around here, always changing places throughout the maze."

You blink quickly as you dread to imagine the result of such a contraption on a living being. Your lord leads you through the maze with ease and confidence, and as you exit through the heavy metal doors, the feeling of danger subsides.

"I hope the next floor is more pleasant... Although I doubt it would make sense."

"I'm afraid you're right in a sense. However in a way you might appreciate being able to visit it. You'll be able to thank the ones which made your dress possible."

Your brow furrows in confusion, and your mind goes back to when Terenim first gave it to you. Your eyes go wide in surprise as it dawns on you.

"Oh... I don't know how I feel about that..."

He chuckles as the doors begin to slowly grind open, and you hear the wind howling as something bristles in its wake. Web.

Chapter 4

This floor is dark. Very dark. You can barely see a few metres through the door, and yet just that is enough to realise that you're about to walk through a tunnel system covered nearly entirely in soft, intricate layers of web. The breeze passing through every so often makes the mass of strands wave and whisper as if they were alive.

You follow Terenim as he steps into the darkness, and for a second you're left deprived of one of your senses. You feel a slight tingle behind your eyes, and soon your vision turns blue, with shapes ranging from yellow to green to red forming in front of you. You realise that your vision seems to have changed, and you can

see

heat. Pleasantly surprised, you follow Terenim as he moves through the caverns and tunnels. His heat signature is intense, and you attempt to burn it into your mind, pun intended. You honestly can't understand what it is about this man that pulls you towards him so, but you do know you can't resist it.

A minute later, when your mind is about to wander off to what you could do in the dark, you hear a steady buzzing sound. It seems to be getting closer, and you stick to your guide more closely.

The constant hum gets more and more intense as it comes from deeper down a tunnel; the one Terenim seems intent on using. Finally, the source makes its way around a corner, and your eyes widen in a mix of horror and awe. A humongous wasp, the size of a goblin, is making its way through the tunnel, heading right for the both of you. As you see this creature, a feeling of cold fear blooms inside your stomach and mixes with the powerful feeling of protectiveness enveloping your mind. Just as you're about to jump in front of your creator and engage the titanic insect, you hear an eerie yet melodic voice echo from all around you.

"Fear not, young one. No harm shall come to Terenim or his companions in these caves."

As the voice ends its sentence, a large, heavy shape tumbles from a tunnel you hadn't noticed with all the web around it. It seems to lead straight up through the ceiling, and you would wonder where it went if a monstrous eight-legged shape wasn't climbing its way out of it. The bulky creature has a bulbous body as long as your chest and half as tall; you cannot make out more of the sudden arrival's features in the heat-ridden darkness, except that it runs moderately hot and falls rather heavily through the air. It tumbles slightly and lands on the insect like a bag of rocks, taking it to the floor with a dull thud. One of eight limbs, which is as long as you are tall, pierces the wasp's skull before the other seven begin to wrap its body up in silk. You continue to stare in shock as what can only be a spider bigger than two goblins put together wraps its prey up in web and drags it up the wall towards its previous hiding place.

"What... What was that voice? Was that spider sent, or was that a coincidence?"

He smiles and you feel his eyes on you in the darkness, your mind racing to ask the right questions and possibly come up with answers.

"You're observant, good. That voice was... well let's see if her name helps. Arachne."

Information begins to flow into your mind once again.

Arachne

. A type of creature often found in caves or caverns near settlements. For an arachne to appear, hostilities between the occupants of the settlement and the spider nest must usually be inexistent. They are essentially elemental spider matriarchs that have developed an abnormally high level of intelligence through a long and peaceful life, and with it a certain proficiency for magic. They are capable of many things, depending on the individual, but the greatest bonus from their intelligence is not their new physical or magical attributes. Rather, the fact that they can now strategize and organise their forces, combined with their troops being arachnids of unbelievable strength and loyalty, makes them an enormous threat to all but the most fortified and defended areas.

They are usually passive when it comes to their 'neighbours' unless they stand in the way of food, territorial expansion of the nest, or the queen's particular wants and needs. It is rare, but there have been cases in which an Arachne has developed an unexplainable urge for an object or a living being, and cities have been taken over completely as a result.

"You... Have an Arachne living here? That's incredible... How?..."

"I'll explain later, but a lot of it has to do with my... charms."

He smirks a little, seeming to remember something as the voice whispers again all around you.

"Charms my silk spinning ass. You just got lucky."

The eerie and raspy voice now somehow sounds slightly embarrassed, and you decide you'll find out more eventually. You follow the chuckling Terenim through endless tunnels, and he suddenly makes a sharp right towards a solid wall. You open your mouth to ask him what he's doing, as there is nothing but the entrance to a web covered tunnel there, but he shushes you and answers.

"Shortcut. Don't worry, stay calm and follow me."

He lowers himself to fit through the narrow entrance, both the inside and outside of it completely white with soft, delicate silk. You shiver and follow him in, confused and interested by how his robes and your dress seem to lack any adherence to the thread around you, unlike your skin. The web is beautiful to be certain and you remember that your clothes seem spun from the very same material, but the idea of those humongous eight-legged, eight-eyed lumps crawling around in here makes you uneasy; until the cramped space ends. For the dozen seconds prior to exiting the small tunnel you had heard a rhythmic clicking sound coming from deeper through the tunnel. Now that you and your creator straighten up and look around, your mind is lost in how staggeringly impressive whilst every fibre of your being screams at you to run.

You have come through the burrowed out passage to find yourself at the heart of an elemental spider nest. An immeasurable number of creatures bigger than the one you saw capture the wasp are milling around the cavern. Left to right, right to left, up and down the walls and stone archways. Their pointed feet hitting the rock are the source of that clicking sound from before. The same voice from the web, the Arachne's, sounds again; only this time it doesn't feel as if it's being carried by the multitudinous threads. Now it sounds close, as if it's right next to you...

"Welcome, girl. It seems that at the very least my husband has good taste in women."

A gigantic spider comes through a sizeable entrance on the opposite side of the cavernous nest, emerging from the darkness. As large as a horse-drawn carriage, with a strong, sleek chitin, her feet create small dents in the rock where she plants them. Your eyes travel higher to the rest of her body, however where her eight eyes and her mouth ought to be sprouts the upper body of a woman, a

sizeable

woman in many ways, you notice. Your heat based vision slowly lessens until you can see normally again. You look around for a source of light until your gaze falls upon half a dozen spiders hanging upside down from the ceiling. If that was not eerie enough, these hanging monstrosities were now on fire, flames covering their bodies and turning them into absolutely horrifying lamps.

The large female makes her way to you and reassures you when you give her a look of utter confusion. "Do not worry. As I'm sure you'll learn, my children are of varied subspecies. These little ones are of the fiery kind." You look at this 'woman' and realise she is quite beautiful despite the obvious. Her skin is bluish in tone, much like her lower body. Her breasts sway, held up by a material much like your dress' silk as she makes her way towards both of you. Her hair is jet black, her features pinched and dainty, and her eyes seem fixated on you in the darkness. Furthermore, despite the unnerving manner in which she moves her eight powerful limbs she glides across the rock with a steady grace and flow that is not only impressive, but also slightly mesmerizing.

"My dear king Terenim has been speaking of you for a while now. Much can be said about my husband, but he obviously knows a thing or two about magic if he finally succeeded in creating an actual life form such as yourself. I'm no expert, but that was supposed to be impossible was it not?"

She looks you up and down with a strange look in her eyes after raising an eyebrow at the man in question as she runs her long, sharp fingers through your lord's hair. Your heart is beating like a drum, and you realise you're tempted to pounce on her then and there, an itching sensation coursing along your skin at the sight before you. You don't understand why you're so distressed, until you notice you've been repeating one word in your mind over and over without realising.

Husband?