50: Castle Doctrine

“Who is Chastity?” Honoka asked Diane over the phone, using hands free from the van.

“That…she’s a…grr…scruffy looking nerf herder!” It was obvious that Diane wanted to call this woman something else while struggling with Honoka’s rules.

“I was looking for something more clarifying,” Honoka said patiently while unlatching the phone and pairing to wireless earphones, arriving at the parking garage in Harvardtown. Gearing the van in park and stepping out, Honoka came around to the rear and opened the hatch. With the grit and solemn determination of her samurai ancestors, Honoka looped all of the plastic bags in each hand to ensure she only had to make one trip.

“Ug! She used to be Solomon’s Girl Friday, the gofer he dispatched when we went off script. She’s a sadistic, cankerous, swollen pustule of a person that edges her victims to a point of insanity, then crushes any trace of arousal with her Greater Succubus powers. She would do this over and over until it hurt when we orgasmed. And if that didn’t work, she’d flay the skin off our erogenous zones and pour healing potions over the wounds, erasing everything but the pain so she could flay us again. I honestly don’t know which of her games I hate more.”

Diane transitioned into a frothing rant, so Honoka eased off her attention to allow Diane unfettered catharsis, hiking through Harvardtown to return home. As Honoka walked, she reminisced with a smile over her totted bags and how much they would mean to Gwyneth.

Hours earlier, after the naked futa successfully Solid Snaked into her room without exclamation! alerts, Honoka spied Gwyneth sneaking through the halls when grabbing an afternoon nosh. Honoka called out and approached the shy woman, which had Gwyneth jumping out of her skin (Honoka thought this was so funny she was going to hire an artist and turn it into a meme). The lich fled immediately, screeching out jumbled apologies before disappearing around the corner.

In a huff at the time, Honoka calmed down and remembered the lonely woman requested oil paints and supplies. A quick search on DiFi informed Honoka the Dungeon didn’t stock paints and she would need to immigrate into Boston. Hitting up her old college art store, she pleasantly learned her old school ID gave her a discount. Which was fortunate, her bank account depressingly empty. Determined to be a better Christian, Honoka spent her last few hundred in cash, enough for cheap canvas, brushes and paints.

Back in the present, she was almost home and strangely full of energy. Honoka found herself purely, blissfully happy. She was about to become a mother times five, she loved and was loved by seven wonderful women (with eight and nine likely to join up any time soon). Money was a little tight, but if things got really bad Honoka would just design buildings for her father’s company. There wasn’t a problem that couldn’t be solved with enough creativity and hard work.

Diane was arguing with Banda and Eve over the phone, their banter going in and out from the speaker. They had tangented into something about horror movies, the other wives distracting the fiery Irish girl from her rant. Smiling - the trek home not a short one - Honoka brought up her Status and glanced over her levels.

“Level 16 already?” Honoka asked out loud, quickly scrolling through Attributes and pointedly ignoring the return of the glitch, taunting her. “I swear, this whole leveling with sex thing is absurd.”

Staring at her six Health, Honoka plugged the two bonus points there, a little frightened she was another mathematical mistake away from ejaculating to death. The extra Health calmed her nerves and slowed her breathing, a few of the bruises in her back losing their painful bite. With the easing of so much tension, Honoka realized her current level of giddiness might be less bliss and more coping mechanism.

When she opened her choices for available Class Features, the new option dug into the pit of her stomach and forced her to the side of the road, leaning desperately against a building.

Honoka was back in that black hole, fetid breath and saliva washing over her body, his open mouth about to swallow her whole. Not even aware, the young girl slid to the ground and thrust her fists onto her eyes, the pressure of her hands failing to block out trauma, bags forgotten at her side.

Perhaps Spoils Of The Heralds meant something else: none of her other Class Feature choices were cut and dried with their nomenclature. Her mind spiraling out of emotional control, Honoka trying to reason it into anything else. In her heart, though, the meaning of the name was clear. In some way, in some kind of Status twisting of the knife, the new option meant she would become more like the thing she found deep in the dungeon. Suddenly that open mouth in the darkness wasn’t Enoch, it was her.

Unable to look away until she selected an option, she picked All Is Útangarðr and hoped her next Class option didn’t force an impossible choice in two levels. Which is when Honoka lost herself again, these panic attacks becoming more and more common in the last week.

Nononononono, Honoka repeated to herself, trying desperately to put Enoch and the Bone Castle out of her head, shaking with the effort of remembering. Honoka tried so hard to retain a façade, to keep everyone else from worrying, to be strong for them all. It was foolish bravado, faking bravery when she was not, keeping up appearances when she didn’t need to. However, Honoka realized with horror that above all else, she feared being a failure to her family. And maybe it was pride, foolish pride, yet she couldn’t say anything, to suffer openly in front of them.

Anxiety consumed her. For a few minutes, Honoka silently shook as she huddled on the ground, ignored by the passing crowd, desperate not to make a noise lest she inform Diane of this pain. Trapped again in that dark throne room, still held in the hand of a monster, Honoka wailed frustration in her mind.

Light returned, the street around her becoming real. Her heart slowed, allowing her to breathe. Finishing up, careful to control herself, Honoka stood and picked up her bags. Like putting on a familiar blouse, Honoka forced herself back into the happiness enjoyed only minutes before.

“Do you know how much I love you?” Honoka asked Diane, her voice pitching exaggerated chipperness.

“I…” Diane tried replying, but Honoka railroaded over it.

“All the love!”

“[Wait, what ‘bout the rest uv us!]” Quinn shouted in the background, her super hearing able to pick up Honoka’s message.

“All the love for all my girls!” Honoka shouted back, laughing as she skipped down the dirt road leading into the Lair. People walking around her gave Honoka weird looks, but Honoka didn’t care for once what other people thought. And if her eyes were still a little wet, well, a person couldn’t hear tears over the phone.

“[Hey, does anyone else feel that?]” Padmava said in the background, which is when the phone line went dead.

Confused, Honoka was about to call Diane back when the ground shook underneath her feet. Not a major earthquake - a 3.0, 3.5 tops - Honoka pausing with the people on the crowded street, who sounded startled yet nothing more drastic. These people lived in a dungeon: they were made of sterner stuff. As for the quake, it was more like a rumble than a shake. Searching those around Honoka, a few chatted with others and some checked their phones, but nobody was worried. Which is when Honoka sensed the direction this rumbling was emanating from.

Directly in front of her.

Towards the house.

Towards her family.

It’s probably nothing, Honoka thought, pushing past the immobile crowd in the street and then throwing herself into a full sprint amid faceless protests. I just want to get home really, really fast. The futa might not have the Strength or Health to go flat out, but her Endurance was high enough to warrant a consistent, loping gallop. It wasn’t comfortable, breasts jostling freestyle under her white t-shirt and the jockstrap she had taken to wearing not really large enough for her package under the red skirt. Maybe she should have dropped the bags of art supplies, but nothing else mattered to Honoka. Her focus was only on getting home fast, faster, and assuring herself there was nothing to worry about.

When the plywood gate came into view, undamaged, Honoka slowed to a jog in relief while her eyes scanned everywhere. The rumble was louder here, enough to chatter her teeth, yet nothing noticeably caused the disturbance. Padmava’s house was secluded, wedged beside large storage warehouses or empty lots. The housing complex built partially into the wall of the dungeon cavern, eliminating one entire direction where danger could appear. It was situated off the main road transversing from Shiny into the Dump that looped through the Lair. This meant, most days, except for the dedicated customers that trekked to Jaya’s store, it wasn’t uncommon to find the street in front of the house empty of people like it was now. Still, it wasn’t like the place was isolated, only a quarter of a mile away from the best fried chicken in the dungeon and within two miles of all the major spots in the Lair.

So when Honoka first became aware of the crowd running towards her in the distance, she thought they were people running away from something. Then she got a better look and tossed the bags, summoning her Status and allocating as quickly as she could move the dials. Those weren’t people.

As large as buffalo on steroids, sharp tusks the size of claymores, fur a dull copper color crackling electricity that arced between metallic hairs, a stampede of magical monster boars were headed towards Honoka. Their skin became easier to spot where the fur was lacking, dozens of the charging beasts colored a bright blue along their face and snout. Most of Harvardtown was paved in hard packed earth, damp enough to keep the dust down and dry enough to stay away from being labeled mud. The silver hooves of those boar tore through the road as they charged directly towards Honoka, these monsters otherwise oddly silent.

Six months ago, Honoka would have frozen in terror. Today, rampaging monster boars didn’t even list in the top twenty of her fears. The only thought on Honoka’s mind as she faced feral death was that they needed to be stopped. Five of the women she loved were helplessly pregnant inside, her aunt and uncle were not combatants, her step-children and niece and nephew were in equal danger. This was her home, and she would rather die than let her family be harmed. Six months ago, Honoka might have run and warned the house to flee or tried to get help.

Today, Honoka was no longer helpless.

“Time to make bacon!” Honoka roared, exploding out of clothing and thrusting thirty feet (9.1 m) into the air, her hundred and ten foot (33.5 m) long naga tail topped with a four armed, scaled and cobra hooded holstaur body. More tail coiled from one end of the street to the other - the thick beige scaly hide three feet (91 cm) in diameter through most of the length - hopefully enough of a barrier to slow the monster’s charge. Four Banda-sized arms did not fit well together, deltoids of the lower arms pushing the upper arms perpendicular to Honoka’s body. The hood growing behind Honoka’s cowishly shaped head clashed with shiny purple horns poking forward - the mouth much larger than Banda’s beloved bovine with little flat fangs folded inside - had fur instead of scales sprouting out of the back side and running down her back. The sensation caused distracting itchiness. Jumping from pert to ponderously prodigious, Honoka’s breasts ballooned outward to six feet (183 cm) of mammary diameter. The odd sensation of milk sluicing down scaled teats was enough distraction that Honoka took notice. Because even when her family was in dire peril, milky holstaur tits waited on no woman.

Honoka’s body was a muscular titan proportional to an Amazon over thirteen feet tall (396 cm). So when she tipped her tail forward and fell upon the monsters like a wrecking ball, five tons (4536 kg) of dense, scaled, screaming holsnaga smashed into their front line with the force of a detonation.

“RRRAAAAAAHH!!” Honoka thundered, drilling a beast into the dirt with a double hammer strike. She followed that pile driver savagely grabbing one of the giant pigs by the horns and heaving it to the side, bowling over half a dozen creatures. The rest were not idle in their attacks, slamming into her snake body wildly, those behind the front mindlessly plowing into their sister beasts. As the line of sharp spears pierced into Honoka, she experienced a new high score for pain. Not only from the impalement, as each horn slicing through scales were accompanied with a fiery shock that shook her entire body and forced Honoka’s jaws open wide in a silent rictus of torment.

NO! Honoka remembered her allocations and forced her mouth wider, expelling the entire reservoir of naga venom in a wide arching stream as she thrashed her tail around in a whip-crack! of dirt and blood. A full third of the boars sizzled and either fell to the ground a smoking mass or leapt about in a blind panic as sections of their bodies dissolved like a Nome eating eggs.

Bleeding from enough wounds to kill someone with a lower Health, Honoka slithered back towards the gate, taking advantage of the disoriented boar monsters pausing their assault. Even if she rode high on adrenaline, she needed the choke point to keep them from hitting her all at once. Making more desperate allocations, Honoka prayed to hold out long enough and keep her family safe. The boars appeared unnaturally driven, though, and Honoka’s respite was only a few seconds.

Her scales pressed against the plywood, arms held out in hanmi as her mother taught her for so many years, breathing rhythmically to circulate her ki. Aikido, as a martial art, is primarily reactive. The practitioner disrupts the opponent’s balance and then strikes at the vulnerability created from lack of balance. Known as tori, the execution of a technique is accepted (Japanese martial artist are so polite that even breaking bones are civil conversations) by the opponent, the uke. A fan of puns even at a young age, Honoka imagined herself as a bird (鳥 tori) when she practiced with her mother as the one who completes the attack (取り tori).

Regardless of the nonsensical thoughts that distracted Honoka while she moved into place, the measure of her devotion ignited a determination inside her. Palms extended open, her focus lasered onto the rushing horde, everything melting away into a moment. Because this was her home, and her three-fingered knuckles cracked as they hardened into talons, her eyes burning with indomitable fire.

Either mindless or unable to maneuver in the narrow street, the pack of monsters made an abbreviated charge instead of angling into Honoka’s flank. However, what the attack lacked in momentum it made up with numbers, over sixty of the beasts still having enough energy and rage to savage the holsnaga.

Knowing this was a losing battle, Honoka was playing for time. Each arm grabbed and tossed boars into other boars as quickly as she could move to the next one, ignoring each teeth-grinding shock whenever she touched their fur. Uzume would have been proud of her daughter, generations of samurai training distilled in this last stand. Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough. While injuring a few boar when tusks met pork, the injuries these monsters sustained were minimal. Also, even with Endurance and Health above thirty, injury and combat exertion slowed Honoka down, more and more the pigs able to bleed her a little more.

One particularly large boar finally plowed Honoka into the plywood and burst through, shoving Honoka to the ground as the rest of her bloodied snake body was trampled by lesser swine, monsters spilling into the courtyard. Honoka tried to right herself, to keep fighting, but the press of bodies proved too much and with tears in her eyes, Honoka prayed for her family.

“ARROW STORM!!”

Those words pulled Honoka’s gaze toward the center of the courtyard, Dolly surrounded in a blazing light of St Elmo’s fire. Dolly was allocated with the succubus package and some attributes from Quinn, adding a vengeful demon aura to her presence. The cheetubus clearly lacked sufficient warning time to remove her shirt and bra before the allocation hit, bits of fabric around her neck and shoulders even as R sized breasts swung free. The golden colored wings were giving her trouble, each fluttering asynchronously with the other. Despite wardrobe hangups, Dolly came prepared for battle, her backside covered in quivers.

Honoka took this all in during that magnificent, blessed moment in time. Because even as the echo of her shout faded, Dolly thrust her bow into the air, time moving again normally. Her body blurred, and a Status effect took place as she fired hundreds of arrows straight upward in the space of seconds. These arrows then didn’t fall down slowly in an arching fashion, they transformed into Patriot Arrows mid-flight and barraged upon the boars wreathed in the same blue fire burning around the skilled hunter.

Almost as one, the monsters died and fell over, pin-cushioned to death. And even though Honoka was right in the middle of the raining death, friendly fire must have been off for the technique or Dolly really was that good of a shot. The only creature to remain upright was the large one looming over Honoka, wobbling, yet the insane creature locked onto the fallen holsnaga and descended into the final blow.

*PWWKKOW!!*

Honoka blinked and missed it, everything happening so fast. From above, Miaka the gobyaon - half her size and sprouting green feathers - grinned like a madwoman with metallic fangs inside her elongated beak. Landing talon-feet first onto the head of the boar, her shotgun fired point blank between the eyes. While brain and bloody bone exploded outward, Miaka leapt off and landed next to Honoka’s head, actioning another round into the chamber.

“Get her inside to Banda before she bleeds out!” the goblin owl shouted to Dolly, flapping her wings and gliding to the roof of the store next to the smashed gate. “I’ll hold off the second wave.”

Honoka was delirious, her thinking sluggish from all her injuries. Dolly said something, trying to urge Honoka, but the words weren’t connecting with meanings. The large snake/bovine woman did understand that she needed to hurry and she needed Banda, but ideas weren’t meshing together. Or they were. In a haze, Honoka pulled up her Status and initiated an allocation.

“What?” Honoka asked out loud, snapping back to reality as the box faded. Once again, her Status reminded Honoka that no matter how much weirdness happened, the Ymirian could still be surprised. Right now, in the submenu beneath Banda, it showed Honoka allocating her holstaur Race. It also displayed Honoka allocating Banda’s cleric Class. Confused, unsure how this worked, Honoka put her hands on herself and hoped for the best.

“Not sure what the rules are, but I need fast healing…um, Teteoh. If we can do this now, I promise to work out the details later.” Then Honoka held her breath.

“Whooooaa!” Honoka yelped, all four of her hands glowing with searing light, her body flooding with heat. And kept flooding. This was unlike any of the other times Banda healed Honoka, it was like a flamethrower infernoed inside her body and then kept pumping jellied napalm. Yanking her hands away, Honoka shot up, spinning her upper body around in daze.

Dolly looked at Honoka as if she grew another head. “How did you…” Dolly shook herself in confusion, but prioritized as she notched an arrow and peered towards the gate where a growing wave of screams emanated. “Ya know what? Yer Class is wonky an’ I can be curious later. How’s yer MP?”

Honoka shook herself as well, gulping at a single digit of mana reading from her Status. “Too low.”

Dolly nodded, reaching into a small pack and tossing Honoka a potion vial. Dolly’s expanded breasts got in the way and rippling enough to elicit a moan out of the cheetubus. “Only one I got, make it count. Speakin’ of potions, be thankful Miaka knew where Diane’s case was an’ was able ta get a Hunger Potion down my throat ‘fore I killed anyone.”

As Honoka gulped her vial - wincing because she forgot that important part of allocating succubi - Miaka shouted something the Christian woman was willing to forgive, allowing for the circumstances. Frantically flapped her way back to the center of the yard, Miaka skidded into the packed dirt with a worried face. “Redcaps, thousands of them! Coming from all sides!”

The three women arranged themselves to go back to back to back, screams and gibbering madness climaxing on all sides, the dungeon cavern creating a reverberating echo. Miaka continued while she fed extra shells into her shotgun, and the news wasn’t good. “On top of redcaps, there’s something else flying in that I can’t make out, but it is huge.” The shorter woman finished and checked the draw on her magical bastons. “I’m…I am not sure we can win this fight.”

That wasn’t an option, so Honoka focused on one problem at a time. Besides, she was forming the inkling of a plan. “What are redcaps?” Honoka asked, browsing her new menu and seeing what she could bring to the table to give them a fighting chance.

“Small, fast, nasty,” Dolly said, gripping a handful of arrows and searching everywhere at once. “They’re like the cartoon Tasmanian devil, a chaotic whirlwind of teeth an’ claws, but they’re also psychotically cruel. A ‘cap will go for the maim ‘fore the kill. Only savin’ grace is they have low HP, so so’s long as they don’t surprise ya or gang up on ya, they’re as annoying as a fire ant. If they gang up, well, they’re like fire ants.”

“I got a new Class Feature unlocked, unsure how it works. Check your Statuses…now.” Honoka closed her Status and prayed to God along the lines for a tactical nuclear strike or a Holy Hand Grenade. “We might actually live through this.”

Honoka hyperventilated to psych herself, moments away from the group of screaming monsters entering the compound, when her nightmares became real.

“Aunt Hono-chan?”

Spinning towards the north east corner, Honoka’s world slowed to a crawl. Miu and Jaya stood together holding hands, two bowls of buttered popcorn for a movie between them, wearing pjs of whatever popular cartoon was out right now. Maybe they hadn’t noticed the monster bodies, maybe in the strange dim lighting of the dungeon they couldn’t see blood covering Honoka, but neither of them were frightened. Neither knew how much danger they were all in.

From every wall surrounding the enclosed compound, leaping over the roofs of the square nālukettu structure, a solid wave of redcaps wailed and snarled as they clawed through the air. Blue skinned, naked like a ken doll, growing sickly patches of thick black fur in random places, with mouths like lampreys, serrated black claws, all wearing a blood red stocking on their heads. They were fast, so very fast, over a hundred of them within literal spitting distance of the girls while Honoka and her wives were fifty yards away (45.7 m).

Honoka tried to move, tried to think! There was no capacity in Honoka’s heart to measure the anguish watching certain death approach those girls. She already saw the future, holding their limp and torn bodies in her arms, forever regretting she could not protect them. She would try, she was desperate to try, but there was nothing. Nothing! For all her power, she could not save these girls. Honoka reached out her hand and tried to shout warning, but it choked on inarticulate sorrow, scales digging into the dirt to valiantly fail.

Too late, the girls looked up, eyes widening and the beginnings of screams upon their lips. Teeth and claws were too close, they would be dead before the screams left their mouths.

Dear God, save them!

“Begone!”

Black fire exploded from one of the doorways, swirling around the two girls into a burning tornado high enough to stop Pharaoh’s army. Dozens of the frenzied beasts found simply touching the flames burned them to charred nothing, scattered their assault as more leapt over the building and flung themselves directly into the dark conflagration, ashen skeletons spilling to the ground on the other side.

From out of that fire, marching forward as if her very dignity would defeat an army of beasts, Gwyneth raised a single gloved fist into the air, more of that black flame burning out of the eye slits of her golden mask. “Whoever it is that holds the leash to this filthy pestilence, the Baroness considers these people here under her aegis!”

Gone was the hesitant woman who ran away from Honoka in empty hallways. Gwyneth radiated the presence of a queen as she pulled that gloved fist towards herself, power thronging through the air like a gong. In a colossal spray and discharge of gore, the dead boars exploded when their bones were ripped out of their bodies and flew towards the imperious lich, forming humanoid-ish shapes in a ring around the fire. Once the army was in place, the deadly and impressive fire tornado dissipated, leaving two scared girls huddling in the center, unharmed.

However, the redcaps embodied mindless hunger, only seeing flesh and blood before them and trying to manufacture chaotic misery. Gwyneth’s skeletal amalgamations met that ferocity with deliberate, unified strength and stood their ground, dismantling the animalistic with unyielding tenacity. Stepping inside this defensive ring, Gwyneth raised her hands again and shot out smaller, precise gout of black flame, shoring up her defense perfectly.

“Nothing shall harm these children!” Gwyneth cried out, a conviction Honoka had never heard in the lich’s echoey voice. “I swear it!”

Honoka was torn, wanting desperately to help, but she had to think of the bigger picture. Gwyneth’s impressive display of necromancy effectively drew half of the horde away. In fact, given enough time, the lich would have stopped the entire monster army single-handedly. However, the real situation still left hundreds of enemies running full tilt towards the three women in the center of the yard.

“I’m going to split them up!” Honoka yelled, shifting her massive body forward and holding out her hands, hoping this worked. The holsnaga didn’t have any real words to describe what happened, it felt like going to a blood bank and donating plasma in the space of a moment instead of an hour (with no juice or cookie). Tired and woozy, in front of her was a half dome of opaque energy, redcaps slamming bodily against the effect before scrambling toward either side. Now with a large shield facing the western entrance and Gwyneth drawing all the monsters from the east, the only directions to defend were the north and south. Honoka bared her fists and took the south while Miaka faced north, Dolly firing into both directions from the center.

When Honoka split up the Classes among the three of them, she didn’t get exotic and complex. Miaka had Eve’s goblin Race and brawler Class, Dolly had Diane’s succubus…assets…and Honoka took Padmava’s, Banda’s and Quinn’s Classes. Honoka already felt it, the pain in her body on a cellular level that meant she allocated too much into herself. Thaumian energy threatened to tear her apart, but Honoka didn’t care. If pain was the price for her family’s safety, Honoka would pay it a hundred fold. Accessing Quinn’s Class, Honoka put proof to her iron determination.

“Aaaah!!” Honoka roared, each of her four hands and forearms bursting apart in a spray of blood and sulfurous smoke, extending outward into long blades half praying mantis and half demonic scythes. Now properly armed, Honoka waded into the mass of tiny creatures and slaughtered them like a garbage disposal slaughters celery.

“I’m really jealous of Eve’s Class!” Miaka shouted from her end. Already an acrobatic, close combat fighter, Miaka’s glowing rods threshed through blue monsters, proving that innate skill combined with the right Class acted as an exponential factor in a fight. On Honoka’s side, allocated naga tail herded the monsters and kept them from surrounding the women. Miaka accomplished the same effect moving so quickly between the monsters that not a single one advanced. When Eve used her Class, it a barroom brawl condensed onto one particularly savage fighter. When Miaka used the same Class, she was a dancer weaving to the rhythm of the fight. Every strike brought death, every move economical. Already the savages monsters crawled over the bodies of their brethren just to engage Miaka. And based on the wide and toothy grin spread across the gobyaon’s beak, she loved every second.

It was Dolly, though, that made the biggest breakthrough. At first, arrows eliminated single targets one after another, plugging defensive holes and keeping them all from being overrun. Then - maybe thinking of something or hitting upon it by accident - one arrow exploded in a cloud ten feet wide (305 cm) and rained shrapnel on dozens of redcaps at once, beasts falling to the ground in a mist of blood.

“Ya can combine different Class Features!” Dolly then fired off twenty arching arrows over the barrier. With a staccato of bursting shafts, hundreds of the nasty creatures all died at once in a crimson fog thick enough to haze the entire courtyard in red.

Despite the odds, this was the fourth down home run they needed! However, before the girls celebrated, with a gasping breath the deadly archer went limp and fell heavily to the ground, quivers spilling the remainder of her arrows onto the dirt.

“Miaka!” Honoka shouted, dismissing the barrier and sweeping her tail around in a sharp loop, pushing the last of the creatures away from the group of three, maybe fifty of them left.

The combat savvy Miaka understood, breaking away and checking on Dolly gently with her talons. “She’s breathing steadily, no heart problems! I think that cool arrow trick uses MP and Dolls has never used her mana pool before, probably just ran dry of magic!”

Speaking of MP, Honoka didn’t take the time to check her Status, but she was probably running on fumes at this point. Gritting her teeth (which proved very painful with large folded fangs in her mouth), Honoka stared back at the monsters, about to finish this. Or, at least, she would have, when Honoka and every other woman in the yard were reminded Miaka spied something huge in the distance.

With a final flap of twin pairs of wings - throwing Miaka off her feet while Honoka remained upright purely from naga anatomy - something gargantuan fell into the courtyard with bone shattering force, a crater fifty yards wide shallowly breaking into the ground. The first impression was primitive, lost in the placid island of ignorance sitting in the midst of the black sea of infinity. A mix between a flying T-rex and a mutant blue beetle in only the most corporeal description, its jaws - large enough to swallow a passenger jet whole - unhinged and roared, the cacophony shaking the whole Floor with more physical force than discernible noise.

Bleeding out her ears, Honoka fought off the effects of pressure and ethereal dread. In fact, she marveled that she remained conscious, her high Health forcing her awake even if she lacked full lucidity. She couldn’t move, only able to stare as the colossus sniffed the air and fixed a row of a dozen tiny eyes upon the women.

Which is when Honoka figured she must be hallucinating.

Concepts in size no longer held meaning. Padmava’s house was actually a compound that could house hundreds of people comfortably with an open space in the center large enough to fit a football stadium inside. The giant beast made the house appear like a doll house in comparable scale. So when red finger shapes rapidly descended from the misty ceiling of the Dungeon - large enough to make this previously unfathomable creature now appear to be the action figure to this new threat - all concepts of reality were lost upon anyone in the courtyard. A flurry of long, large tentacles grappled over the insectual dinosaur, quickly wrapping enough bright red spongy limbs around the creature that it stopped attacking and instead struggled to break free. It thrashed, shaking the earth for a moment, yet it was only for a moment as the tentacles constricted and lifted, hoisting a thing the size and weight of a large building into the air, vanishing into the ceiling mists.

For the briefest moment, Honoka managed to glimpse through the mists acting as the Floor’s sky in this jungle biome. What Honoka spied through that mist was an octopus hanging from those rocks above, only so large miles were the smallest increment to understand it’s size. Other tentacles reached down into the courtyard and casually smashed the last of the redcaps, those limbs precise and fast enough that only smears were left after a few seconds, red flesh ascending back up and then disappearing as the mist thickened across the ceiling again.

Quiet. It took ten minutes for anyone to recover enough to move, yet the dungeon remained silent. Allocating everything back, Honoka fell to her knees and gasped for air, every part hurting blindingly before her brain started shutting everything down into unconsciousness. In her last act before it all slipped away, Honoka tried to see past the mist again. Nothing that happened in the last hour made sense, why shouldn’t there be giant dungeon octopi as well?

She did find it odd, collapsing to the ground for what Honoka told herself would be a quick nap, that all the monsters attempting to kill them were colored blue, yet the one that saved them was red. The former architect didn’t have any evidence to support this, but she reasoned that must be significant.