Dungeon Master 3 Page 13

  “That’s what I like to hear,” I said with a grin. I guessed that she had wanted to speak to me about marrying her once she defeated her father, but I decided not to push her.

  I would be pushing her combat abilities to their limit in the next few days.

  Chapter 8

  After Annalíse and I had trained for a few more hours, we had called it a night and rejoined the others to sleep. It had felt a bit strange sleeping in a dungeon again after so long since I had grown accustomed to sleeping outside under the stars or the occasional inn and waking to the sun’s light as it climbed into the sky beginning a fresh new day. I missed the greeting of the sun, and after I had settled down to sleep, a brief pang of loneliness had been triggered at the recollection of my imprisonment. The feeling had quickly faded because I wasn’t alone anymore, and I gave one last look over the forms of my sleeping minions who laid beside the fire before I lay down.

  Then I noticed that Morrigan’s eyes were open, and the orange firelight reflected off them like twin suns. She was staring at me, and I commanded my armor to peel away from my body and neatly stack itself beside the fire. Then I beckoned for her to come over to my bedroll.

  She nodded, wiggled silently out of her sleeping bag, and then tiptoed around the fire to where I lay. Half a moment later she was laying against me, and I felt her fingers caress against my chest.

  “I was cold,” she whispered in my ear.

  “I will warm you,” I replied as I moved my fingers up across the smooth skin of her legs until I reached the undergarment she wore.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered, and then she lifted her hips up so that I could pull the cloth down over her long legs so that her entrance was available to me.

  A moment later Morrigan’s fingers pulled down the simple pants my body wore, and then she grasped the base of my shaft so she could lead me inside. She was soaking wet, and she only had to shift her hips a bit before I penetrated her to my full length.

  “Master,” Morrigan muttered against my ear as she slowly began to gyrate her hips. There wasn’t much room to move in the sleeping bag, and neither of us wanted to wake the three other women, so the beautiful elf kept her hip movements slow.

  I traced my fingers over the bare skin of her legs, ass, back, and arms while she rode me, and my gentle touches soon brought the pale-skinned woman to a long orgasm. I could tell she wanted to scream, but instead of making a sound, Morrigan bit my shoulder, dug her nails into my chest, and softly grunted as her body trembled around me. When her climax finally subsided, she pulled her mouth away from me, and I could see that her lips were covered with my blood. I hadn’t really registered the pain, but her dark eyes grew wide when she saw how fiercely she had bitten me.

  “I’m so sor--”

  “It is fine,” I whispered softly to her. “Just enjoy yourself. This body will heal quickly.”

  Morrigan nodded and then continued to grind against me as she ran her tongue over her lips to clean them. This time her pace was a bit more urgent, and she bit her own hand when she climaxed so that she wouldn’t wake up the others.

  The feeling of the beautiful elf pleasuring herself with my body was exquisite, but it was now my time to take control, so I wrapped my hands around her hips and slowly pulled her up and down on the length of my shaft. At first, the movement created wet noises because of her extreme arousal, but then I slowed my pace so that we were quiet. After a few minutes of me forcing her down on my erection, her mouth opened wide, and I felt her began to tremble again. Her velvety tunnel squeezed me urgently, and we both fought to voice our ecstasy silently while I filled her with my climax.

  Then Morrigan lay her head on my chest, and her silvery-blonde hair draped around me like a blanket as we both took long quiet breaths.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered after both of our hearts had slowed their urgent tempo.

  “Of course,” I said softly. “I take pleasure in your pleasure, Morrigan.”

  “You are kind to me,” she said after she let out a long sigh. “You are kind to all of us.”

  “You are my minions,” I said simply.

  “I…” she began, but then she stopped and closed her mouth.

  “Yes?” I asked softly.

  “I am happy,” she admitted. “It is a strange feeling. I thought I would never have friends beside Fea and Macha, but then I met Rana, Carmedy, and Annalíse. At first, I found it hard to care about them, but they served a purpose, so I endured their foolishness. Then we met you, and I realized that I was the foolish one for not opening my heart sooner.”

  “You don’t have to explain, Morrigan,” I whispered. “I understand you.”

  “I suppose you do,” she said as she pressed her head down into my chest and sighed. “You do understand me. Thank you, Master.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could whisper anything, I felt the tattooed woman’s body began to slump, and I realized that she was already asleep. My hard penis was still deep inside of her, but the body I inhabited was simple to control, so I continued to keep it erect while I allowed other parts of the brain and body to sleep. Then I swirled around in between the realm of sleep and self-reflection until the night was over.

  After eight hours of stasis-like rest, I decided it was time for us to continue our quest. Morrigan was still dead asleep on my chest, and my erection was still tightly grasped by her vaginal walls. I ran my fingers lightly over her face to pull back her snowy mane of hair and saw that her lips were curled up into a dreamy smile. Then I looked over at my minions and saw that they were still wrapped up in their blankets of fur and wool and sound asleep. Things were different now because I had them by my side, and now that I had them, I couldn’t imagine living life any other way. In a way, they were like my family, something which I had never had before. I never wished to be parted from them and after all that we’d been through together, I was sure that they felt the same way too.

  I slowly rolled to the side so that my elven lover would slide off my chest. She did so without waking, but her dark eyes fluttered open, and she let out a moan of disappointment when I slid my erection out of her.

  “Good morning,” I whispered, and then I shared a soft kiss with her before she could answer.

  “Good morning,” she whispered back once our lips parted, and then I pulled my pants back on while inside my sleeping bag, slid out of the covers, and commanded my dark armor to take its rightful place on my body. The pieces flew from their resting place beside the fire and then molded around me as if they had their own mind, and I noticed Morrigan’s dark eyes burn with desire and pride while she watched.

  I walked over to each of the women and one by one gently called their names and shook them awake. Rana, and Annalíse woke with little difficulty and each went about packing away their bedding and began the preparations for a meal. Carmedy, however, wasn’t so easy to wake. The petite woman lay curled up in a ball with her covers pulled up to her nose.

  “Carmedy, Carmedy, wake up,” I said as I gently shook her shoulder.

  “Just ten more minutes, mama,” the alchemist mumbled. “I’ll get up when breakfast is ready.”

  “Carmedy, come on now,” I said a bit louder. “Time to wake up. We still have a dungeon to conquer remember?” The feline’s green eyes lazily opened, and she looked up at me as she pulled her blanket just below her mouth.

  “Is it morning already?” Carmedy yawned and then glanced around. “I’m still sleepy. All this light kept me awake for so long, it took forever for me to get to sleep.”

  She presented a good point. The gleaming white light that radiated from the crystalline structures affixed to the ceilings had made it a bit troublesome for us all to fall asleep, and the polished ice walls that surrounded us only made it worse.

  “All the same, I’m afraid that it is morning,” I said as I helped her to her feet.

  “Are you sure?” the cat said with a pout. “We can’t tell what time of day it is in here
.”

  “I’m sure.” I chuckled. “Now, come on and eat your breakfast so we can be on our way.”

  With that resolved, our party quickly ate our meal and broke camp within the hour.

  “We still find ourselves in the same predicament as we were yesterday,” Morrigan said flatly as she gazed at the several tunnel entrances all around us. “We are still unsure of which path to take.”

  “That’s true,” I stroked my chin, “and while I can sense the deity’s presence in the walls, he or she is too deep into these tunnels to sense their exact location.”

  “Rana, can you sniff out which way we need to go like you did last time?” Annalíse turned to the fox woman.

  “Okay, first of all, don’t say it like that.” Rana wrinkled her nose. “Saying ‘sniff out’ makes it sound like I’m a dog or something. Plus, it’s a little more complicated than just sticking my nose in the air, there are other senses at work here, you know.”

  “My apologies,” Annalíse said with a raspy chuckle and held up her hands.

  “Secondly,” the curly-haired woman continued, “in case you didn’t remember, me leading the way didn’t work so well in that last labyrinth. I can sense any oncoming danger and obstacles, but I can’t just magically know which way to turn, it doesn’t work like that. Say, Morrigan, why don’t you ask Fea and Macha to help us out here? I mean they can’t see above the maze like last time but using them as scouts should still help.”

  “Perhaps,” Morrigan said slowly. “However, my fear is that they would become lost. Under normal circumstances, Fea and Macha can locate me regardless of the distance between us. I am a homing beacon to them, so to speak. The issue is that, like their other abilities, this one is fueled by the soul energy that they consume.”

  “I don’t get it,” Carmedy cocked her head to one side. “Didn’t they, uh, consume the soul energy of the ice demons that we fought with earlier? Is it not enough or something?”

  “On the contrary,” the elf shook her head, “the demons’ souls were more than adequate sustenance for Fea and Macha. The issue is that a certain amount of time is required for the energy to be fully absorbed into their bodies, much as it takes time for you to digest the many treats you consume over the day.”

  Morrigan gave Carmedy a faint smirk before continuing, growing concern edging into her voice. “Given that those souls were so freshly consumed, they do not have as much energy to spare as you would think. Our connection will not be as strong when we perform the shared sight. I shall still be able to view what they see, but it will be hazy and if they go too far afield, the sight will be broken entirely, and they will find it hard to come back to me.”

  “I think we can find a way to still make this work,” I said as I walked toward the closest tunnel and motioned for the others to follow me. Together, we walked through the entrance, and just like yesterday, we were met with five more tunnels branching from that one. “How about you have Fea and Macha each fly into the first two tunnels? Surely they’ll come across some dead ends and such so we can at least eliminate a few of these paths. When your second sight starts to grow weak, have them turn back and then try the remaining three. We’ll see what tunnels are left that don’t appear to have dead ends, and then we’ll go from there.”

  “This is a suitable strategy.” Morrigan nodded, and I could sense her relief that I kept her friends safety in mind. The tattooed elf turned to each of her black winged pets and whispered something softly to them as she stroked their shiny feathers. As she did so, the elf’s eyes turned wholly black, and her mage markings began to glow with sanguine light.

  The woman’s tattoos pulsated as the necromantic energy flowed through her. The two ravens let out a few shrill caws and without any further hesitation leapt into the air, flapped into the first two tunnels, and were soon out of sight. Morrigan stood quietly for a few minutes, and the rest of us silently waited until she gave her report. Finally the pale woman spoke and gave us an update on the ravens’ progress.

  “The tunnel into which Fea entered did not branch away into others. This one was a single passageway, and Fea ultimately encountered a dead end here,” Morrigan pointed a pale finger to the first passageway. “She is now returning.”

  “Gotcha.” Rana nodded as she walked over to the small section of frozen wall on the right side of the first passageway. With a quick swipe of her sharp nails, she scratched a large X shape in the polished ice. “Door number one is a no go,” the fox woman said and then leaned against the wall to wait for the next update.

  A couple of minutes later, Fea emerged from the first tunnel and fluttered into the third.

  “How is Macha doing?” I asked Morrigan.

  “Macha did encounter multiple entrances within the tunnel that she entered,” Morrigan said blankly as she stared off into the distance, no doubt sharing her vision with the raven. “There were three entrances beyond where we currently stand. Each of those had multiple tunnels branching from them as well. After exploring each of the possibilities, it appears that only one is not a dead end, at least thus far. Our vision has begun to dim, so I have called her back to me,” the elf said to the rest of us calmly.

  Soon, Macha sailed out of the second tunnel and plunged into the fourth. We soon discovered that the third tunnel eventually led to nothing but dead ends as did the fourth and fifth.

  “Looks like door number two is the winner.” Rana nodded to the aforementioned tunnel. Fea and Macha returned no sooner than the words had left the fox’s mouth, and they fluttered down to rest on Morrigan’s shoulders.

  “We’ll go as far as Macha flew and then try again from there,” I said as we all walked toward the second passageway. “Morrigan, lead the way.”

  The white-haired woman walked to the head of the group, and I followed after her. The others quickly filed behind me, and off we went, deeper into the ice-coated labyrinth. Morrigan quietly led us through a series of passageways, through one turn after another without the slightest bit of hesitation as Macha cawed into the elf’s ear, no doubt telling her the way.

  We tread carefully as we made our way through the polished corridors and did our best not to slip on the frozen floor. The further we went, the colder the temperature became. The air was heavy, still and silent which only contributed to the unremitting chill. There were no creatures crawling along the walls of the tunnels or skittering across the floor. The only source of noise was the sound of the wind blowing through the tunnels, our footfalls across the icy floor, and our steady breathing.

  I still could not sense the nearby presence of whatever deity resided in the dungeon, and the deity had yet to even show proof of their existence. We hadn’t been disturbed in any way while we had slept, and we hadn’t come across any traps or been attacked thus far. Perhaps the deity preferred to sit back and observe for a period of time while crafting ideas to test and torment visiting adventurers as I often had in my dungeon. How long would we venture until the deity finally showed their hand? What powers did they possess that would undoubtedly be wielded against us? What manners of hell would they unleash upon us?

  I only hoped that whatever monstrous creatures that were at the deity’s command would be worthy of serving me, for I had my own havoc to wreak, and they had to be worthy of their new master.

  “This is the furthest point that Macha reached,” Morrigan finally said after we had walked for about ten minutes. We came to a halt in another small circular room similar to the one in which we had started out. Three more tunnels branched out ahead of us.

  I turned to the fox-woman behind me. “Do you hear anything, Rana?”

  Rana moved in front of me and approached the tunnels, her orange and black tipped fox ears twitching rapidly. She studied the available paths for a long moment.

  “Not a thing,” the curly haired woman said at last. “It’s weird. I haven’t heard anything the whole time that we’ve been in here. I mean we’ve been in quiet dungeons before, but I could still hear a little of so
mething.”

  The red-haired fox narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the tunnels that lay ahead. “Not only that, I haven’t sensed the slightest bit of movement. It’s like there’s nothing alive in here, but that just can’t be. I mean there has to be some monsters or creepy crawlies of some sort lurking around here somewhere, right?”

  “Maybe whatever god lives here isn’t going to use those sorts of attacks against us.” Annalíse shrugged. “After all, it’s happened before. The forest god didn’t send monsters after us, neither did the illusion goddess or the water god.”

  “That is true,” I spoke up. “Every dungeon is different. The deity may just choose to face us head-on,” I said with a shrug.

  Even as I spoke the words, I wondered if that was indeed the case. You never could tell with gods. Deities were unpredictable to say the least, something which I always considered to be part of our charm.

  “Maybe,” Rana said slowly and rubbed at her chin with a frown. “I still think it’s weird though. I mean I’ve never been in a place where I couldn’t hear or sense anything at all. No skittering, no vibrations, nothing. It’s putting me on edge, to be honest.”

  “Stay alert,” I instructed the fox. “We can’t be too careful.”

  Rana nodded as her ears twitched. “Got it.”

  “Morrigan, go ahead and send Fea and Macha to investigate these tunnels,” I said to the pale elf.

  “Yes, Master,” Morrigan said, and a half second later, the ravens leapt from her shoulders and flew into the first two tunnels. “The first tunnel is not a dead end. However it does appear to be a trap. As Fea flew, I observed that there were numerous cracks in the ice floor, and when Fea reached the end of the tunnel, it led out to an enormous pit of spikes. No doubt this is where one would find themselves should the cracked floor give way.”