Chapter 86 - A Bad Bet

Tonight. Tonight was the night Trey beat Napoleon’s ass in a game of chess. The little shit had gone on far too long as the unbeaten master of chess amidst their friend group. No one could beat him. Not Trey. Not Ashe. Not Jason or Izumi. Not any of Trey’s minions, not any of their neighbors in the compound… none of them were able to come close to beating this little bastard. Napoleon had gotten cocky every time the chess board was set up and talked a lot of shit.

But tonight was the night Trey’d beat him.

Even Jason had come out of his room of seclusion to watch the ensuing act. Chairs and their small cushioned couch had been lined up around the central table as bets were made amongst Atharost and Rivia on who’d win.

“Your minion Piggy has gained 1 level in the skill Cooking.”

Trey glanced Piggy’s way as he placed his queen piece on the polished wooden chess board. He was glad she was finally making progress, and his rumbling stomach testified to how much he wanted that delicious smelling food she was preparing. Of all the thralls he’d bought from the cult, Piggy was the only one left alive. Astala had been her name back then. The dark elf siblings Tarline and Rofa, the young culn warrior Charles, and his dwarf thrall Karus had all died. Karus in particular Trey’d had high hopes for, and it was truly unfortunate the dwarf had met his end. He’d really liked that dwarf, though he knew he wouldn’t lose any sleep over Karus’ death.

No. Not for Karus. Atharost and Napoleon would have been another matter though, he considered them both close friends. Perhaps he’d be sad if Piggy died, because despite their deplorable relationship they really really enjoyed each other’s company. Even Rivia had become a lot more likeable lately and he found himself truly caring about what she had to say. How odd that shift had been, considering how Rivia had participated in killing, eating and sacrificing the people Trey’d try to save when he’d first left Earth.

That and he had always found himself seriously attracted to her.

He shook his head to clear his mind of these irrelevant thoughts. He was getting sidetracked. He needed to concentrate. Trey’d always been competitive by nature but part of him was enthralled with the idea that one of his minions challenged him mentally like this. He considered himself really good at games like this, but Napoleon was even better. Even smarter. So here he was, getting nervous over a chess game and mentally pumping himself up for the coming challenge

Trey was excited.

“You look nervous! You’re even Sweating!” Ashe laughed loudly as Trey shot her a cold look, but it was Napoleon sitting on the chair across from Trey that spoke first.

“I I kick master’s butt! Master dumb dumb!”

Telipe, the blonde demihuman enchantress, went pale in concern over Napoleon’s words. She’d been giving Trey a back rub, still donning nothing but her shackles and collar, and stopped immediately upon Napoleon’s insults. She’d only known her new master for a day but what she’d seen was not good. He was violent, easy to anger, and killed people without thinking twice. He’d slaughtered numerous mercenaries, and even sacrificed a few of them to a dark goddess the other night.

So Telipe was very taken aback when Trey just began to chuckle.

Piggy called out from where she was baking some loaves of bread. “You can do it Trey!”

“You’re such a little shithead Napoleon.” Trey smiled Piggy’s way and finished setting up his pieces, adjusting them just right for his OCD to settle down. “You ready?”

“Ready ready!” Napoleon placed his rook on the board and let out an evil laugh, bringing his tiny clawed hands up above his head and turning the laugh into an all out cackle. “IF I WIN WIN THEN I POOP ON MASTER’S FACE FACE!”

Trey’s look of surprise and revulsion said it all. The others around the room began to laugh. Even Telipe let on a small but hidden smile, her chains starting to clank against one another as she started the back rub again.

“Oh my god…” Piggy’s grin was interrupted by her chuckling and then cursing as she accidentally knocked off one of the loaves onto the ground, hastily trying to recover the hot cooking loaf with tongs.

Trey pointed a finger at the imp across the table. “Alright, are we making bets then?”

“YES YES!” Napoleon cackled again as he did his regular happy dance, spurring the others and especially Ashe to go mad with laughter. The crazed look of glee overcoming the imp as he daydreamed of shitting on Trey’s face was enough to make Izumi even spit out her drink.

“Alright shithead. I’ll bite.” Trey leaned back, dragging the naked blonde wolf-girl over by the waist. He whispered something into her ear, causing Telipe to blush profusely and avert her green eyes as she got up and made her way over to Piggy to help prepare the food amidst the rattling of her chains. “What do I get if I win?”

“YOU NO NO WIN! YOU TOO STUPID!”

Trey let out an involuntary growl of annoyance at Napoleon’s extreme confidence, but at least the others were having a real hoot watching the imp do a little pre-victory jig on the other side of the table.

This motherfucker. Trey poked Napoleon between the ribs with his pointer finger. “If I lose I’ll let you take a dump on my face. But if I win, I’m ordering you to eat my shit. Do we have a deal?”

“DEAL!” Napoleon didn’t hesitate to enthusiastically shake hands. “Let us begin master poop face…”

And so the game began.

***

Twenty minutes later and Trey had admitted the defeat as checkmate.

Napoleon cackled like a fucking madman as he spread his tiny asscheeks over Trey’s face and forced out another pellet of shit. The soft dung hit Trey’s forehead with a satisfying splat, joining the other scattered droppings Napoleon had already forced out of his little demon anus.

“I WINNN WINNNNNN!!!” Napoleon shrieked to the heavens amidst the uproar of laughter and crying , finally giving way to an enormous spray of shart. The wave hit Trey’s face like the apocalypse had just erupted from Napoleon’s asshole, and it was all he could do just not to vomit.

But Trey’d agreed to the deal… and he wasn’t about to back out now just because he lost to that little bastard in chess again. He did however swear vengeance in his dying breaths under the stank spray of wet and brown sprinkles.

Nearby, Juila - who now towered above everyone there except Atharost - was trying to hide her smile and laughter behind her hands as she peeked out between her fingers. However, the way her new demon tail was going wild - whacking the floor repeatedly as she giggled - made it obvious what her thoughts on the matter were.

Rivia was the only one in the room who did not find this absolutely hilarious. With mouth agape in shock and horror, the priestess - who was on her way to becoming a saint that worshipped Eleknar and his patron goddess - was nothing but horrified. “NAPOLEON! YOU ARE SHITTING ON ELEKNAR’S HEIR! YOU ARE LITERALLY SHITTING ON ONE OF THE GREATER EVILS!”

The imp couldn’t hear her over the loud laughter of the others and his own maniacal cackling, letting loose one final volley of spraying shit that covered the rest of Trey’s face.

Rivia just simply couldn’t believe it. At any moment, she expected either Elenknar or Alkir herself to come down and blast that imp into fried bits of mangled flesh… but that strike never came. Instead, all she saw as Napoleon strutted away while doing another victory dance and slapping his tiny imp asscheeks... was Trey sitting up and wiping off what he could with a nearby towel.

Sacrilege. Fucking sacrilege!

Atharost was trying to contain his own laughter but was failing miserably. He noted Rivia’s distress and leaned in. “Calm yourself priestess, you’ll give yourself an early heart attack if you remain so on edge. This is all in good fun!”

“FUN!?” Rivia shrieked in disbelief, throwing her hands out to either side in anger. She didn’t bother waiting for the ifrit to stop chuckling and rushed over to help Trey clean up, dabbing another hand towel in the bucket of water they’d prepared and getting Trey to where he was looking a little more presentable.

Within another few minutes the laughter had only somewhat subsided, but Trey’s face was for the most part clean.

Rivia took his face in both hands and inspected him, wiping away what was left and carefully combing through his hair. “Unbelievable!”

Piggy held out a small vial and tried not to make it so obvious that she found this situation funny, especially whenever Rivia’s eyes were directed her way. “This is some perfume Ashe got me when we first met… I think it’ll be better used on Trey than on me.”

The stench was pretty bad, and Rivia took it without thinking twice. She opened the vial and poured half the contents onto Trey’s chestnut-colored hair - mixing it around with her hands as Trey stared straight ahead in defeat.

“Damn that little bastard. I’ll beat him next time.”

Rivia scowled and was about to reply, but thought better of it and just kept on cleaning him. Piggy began to help, rinsing off Trey’s upper chest and back to try and get the smell off.

Ashe however was having a grand old time as she and Izumi drank and laughed in some of the chairs. “Oh my god! That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in YEARS! Napoleon is ruthless!”

Izumi tried to reply, but was too caught up in her giggling and wiping the tears that continued to come even minutes later.

Jason however had the look of complete satisfaction. Taking a sip of his mug and raising it in the air to toast himself, he nodded as if this had been a long time coming. “Ah. The sweet scent of justice. Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

***

They’d partied all day and the room was filled with second-hand smoke. They’d been lighting up some kind of hash that Izumi’d bought from one of the Fost vendors downstairs. It hit hard, and all of them were pretty damn high. It was also a low caliber aphrodisiac, something they hadn’t necessarily anticipated. Even Izumi was up in arms, having forced herself onto Atharost with the much bigger demon pinned under her on her bed as she laughed at his protests.

“Just fuck her already!” Trey chuckled at the resultant glare from his friend.

“She’s going to wake up tomorrow morning and hate me if I do!”

Meh. Atharost might be right about that one, but Trey shrugged and motioned for him to get on it anyways. Izumi was demanding it at this point and had already been tugging at that fireproof loincloth Atharost always wore around.

They seriously needed to get Atharost some new clothes.

Piggy’d put on a fire for them on the balcony’s stone slab along with some food she’d cooked and Trey was enjoying the starlit view in a hazy mindset of his own. Chewing on some pork, he tried to ignore the grotesque visions that barraged his mind at random. He’d gotten pretty good and distinguishing whether or not they were visions now or if they were real, but they were still pretty disgusting most of the time. Even now there was a hobgoblin, gutted and stripped of skin, hanging from the ceiling to his left.

But he was the only one that could see it other than Sithis. Perhaps they really were induced by his insanity, or perhaps they were Eleknar’s memories as Sithis suggested. However, he hadn’t been in contact with Eleknar since that day he’d gone to see the psychic. Nor had he tried reaching out to the void essence, and for good reason. The only real contact he’d had was the recent quest he’d gotten from Eleknar about the stone he’d used on Rivia.

And he had to admit… he kinda owed Eleknar one for that. Not only was it an amazing current buff for Rivia, it was an awesome and additional potential future buff… and she’d been also absolutely amazing in bed since then.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Anyways - Jason had gone back to his room and shut the door again, no doubt contemplating what he would do after he went off on his own, and Ashe was having her usual loud lesbian sex with Juila. If he had to guess, he thought Juila actually rather enjoyed it… but that was only based on the many orgasms Ashe had given the demoness over the course of the day.

She’d even let him watch a little bit earlier, and due to the significant size difference Juila now had - she’d become the dominant one. A drastic turn of events.

Firelight flickered across his calm features and his gaze settled on the people walking to and fro from the brothel down the street. Always busy at night, he sincerely wondered how much money they made doing it. Already he’d made a couple thousand copper over the course of two days just from sitting around and charging Fost guild members to use the six prostitutes he’d acquired downstairs. He’d increased the price from 50 to 80 coin a go after talking to Ashe about overhead for birth control and maintenance - but the prostitutes were still a hot commodity. They were still being priced at a significant discount for the people who’d let him stay here for so cheap. Drastically having increased their income they’d even been able to buy new furniture, some better clothes, and better food for Piggy to cook with. Even now, Napoleon was taking charge of collecting the coin with the help of Telipe as an assistant, overseeing the whores, and making sure Trey’s other demons didn’t cause problems. Napoleon, Atharost and Rivia had absolute authority over the others - this much was made clear to each of his other minions.

He finished chewing the last of the pork, swallowed, and found comfort in the cool sea breeze. His hand reached over and stroked Piggy’s head, the elf was currently working as a chair again and her completely smooth, pale body felt rather nice to the touch. Looking down and playing a little bit with the long brown hair trailing from the back of her head, he roughly tugged on it to bring her head back up.

Her nostrils flared but Trey couldn’t tell if she was looking out at him from the corner of her deep blue eyes or not.

“When do you think the beta will end, Piggy? ”

There was no response, just the sound of labored breathing through her nostrils.

“Do you even know what the beta is? Are you NPCs aware this is a beta?” Trey yawned, taking another hit of the hash and placing his pipe down onto the balcony floor. He got up, stretched, and dropped his pants. “Probably not. I’d guess none of you have any idea about what this world really is… but is it true that you have the same level of awareness as I do? The All Spirit said something about that a while back… how you NPCs were self-aware and intelligent. How your source code was basically the same as mine. I don’t know why the All Spirit has placed us here and why it’s pretending this is all a game, but I think you’re real. Anyways, hold still for a moment…”

Trey picked up a small vial of ‘stardust,’ which was a drug very similar to cocaine that he’d procured from one of the guys downstairs. Sprinkling it onto Piggy’s bare ass and forming a line, the elf turned her head to watch him as he took a hit.

His eyes rolled back and closed, and the feeling of confidence… excitedness… power and energy, they overwhelmed his senses. Smiling and enjoying his drug-induced state, he laid out another small line and snorted it off Piggy’s asscheek again. “Fuck, this stuff is good. Want a hit, Piggy?”

The elf shook her head, then wiggled her ass to make it jiggle. No words were spoken, but a sly grin crossed her face.

“Alright then.”

Positioning himself behind her and feeling the combined effects of the stimulant and aphrodisiac, he took to big handfuls of Piggy’s white asscheeks and spread them apart. Sliding into her warm, wet pussy until he hit the back of her cervix, she clenched up and began to breathe faster - and her astonishingly smooth bubble-butt was soon slapping repetitively against his groin.

Violently yanking a fist full of her hair back, he pulled the woman’s head within whispering range. “You’re not squealing, bitch.”

Trey came out, then ripped into her anus without warning and full of gusto.

“HREEEEEEE!!!!”

He slammed her face into the floor and pushed in as far as he could go, causing her to squeal louder as he reveled in the way her warm body enveloped him.

“HRRREEEEEEEEEE!!!”

***

He cleaned up, trying his best to get to business. Yawning and putting on his clothes, he bade Piggy clean up the living area and not to bother any of his friends. Juila and Ashe were still going at it, while Izumi and Atharost had just started. He wasn’t going to spoil any of their fun even if it meant waiting a little while longer to use a bed to sleep in, despite how late it was.

He momentarily stopped by Jason’s door. Regret and a little bit of sadness overtook him. It was unfortunate that he and Jason had fallen out so fast. Truthfully he liked Jason, but thought he didn’t have his head on straight… who knew. Perhaps it was Trey with the problems after all.

A difference in philosophies on life.

He continued on, out the front door of their apartment and didn’t even bother locking it. He never locked it here. He wouldn’t be gone long anyways and the Fost guild was very trustworthy, he knew most of their members at least by face and they were all very friendly towards him. It wouldn’t look well for them if they were trying to recruit him and he had things stolen from his home.

Hell, he’d been gone weeks at a time - numerous times - and no one had touched his stuff, so why would they now?

He took a look over the railguard to the first floor below. There were still a decent number of people up and about. Jagla, Izumi’s squat, grumpy forgemaster was drinking with the raven-haired guild leader Radian along with some other men and women around a fire. Across the chasm of space on the second floor and on the other side were other groups of people going in and out of their own rooms for various reasons.

It was a little homey. A place of sanctuary amidst a city of deadly tomfoolery. Smiling to himself at his good fortune of finding such close-knit and trustworthy people here in Teretog, he thought he’d have a little chat with Radian.

He walked over to the stairwell and went down, bypassing his up and coming brothel where a very small line of men were waiting for their own turns out the front door, and headed over to where Radian and Jagla sat.

“Hey guys!” Trey waved as they noted his approach and took a pipe of god knows what from one of the other men as he sat. “How’s life?”

Radian chuckled, sipping on some beer and resting his boots up next to the firepit. “Jagla here was just telling me how well Izumi is coming around. Have you seen these before?”

Radian held out what looked like a metal flower the size of a baseball, flattened on the bottom and top. Instead of petals though, there were numerous small blades attached to a spring mechanism. “Careful now, it isn’t activated or set up with a tripwire, but if you press on that central switch we’re all dead.”

Trey raised an eyebrow and took the little creation and held it in his hand the same way Radian did, eyeing it warily and then identifying it.

Bladed Lotus Trap

Item Tier: (7) Rare

Damage: 26 per blade

On Hit Effect: None

Durability: 42/42

Special: Connect this trap to a tripwire. Upon activation, this trap will shoot out all (52)

blades in every direction.

Trey snorted when he realized what it was. “This is one of Izumi’s new findings from Ornthas, isn’t it?”

Radian smiled in satisfaction and took the trap back, who then handed it to Jagla. “Ingenius little killing machine isn’t it? We have a couple of these already in place around the guild safe. A couple shrapnel bombs have been handed out to the front guards as well. We’re working on one of those cannons too… but it’s a lot more complicated than it looks.”

“Aye.” Jagla cut in with a burp and sat his own mug of ale down. “I’ve been a wee bit frustrated trying to build em. The first one failed miserably and backfired, the second one didn’t do nothin. I don’t know what I’m doin wrong but I’m followin the schematic well enough. Maybe I need to talk to Izumi about what she learned after using the enchanted knowledge stored in that schematic… prior to giving it to me.”

Trey was listening to them talk for a time, but he soon found himself distracted by another one of his creepy visions. This one though… this one hit a little too close to home, and it felt different from the others. His entire mind was swept away from where he was, and he was transplanted into some other time and place.

He was standing in the ruins of a large castle… no, it was bigger than that. A citadel? Rain was pouring down, causing the dirt at his feet to turn to mud. There were others he recognized, such as Atharost and Napoleon. Rivia was there too, and they were all speaking with not only each other but another group of people he didn’t know…

There was a woman… an angel with four black wings and eyes just as black without pupils. A necromancer with a huge golem with rippling muscles exposed to the air and numerous other undead servants behind him. A giant floating eyeball of writhing purple and red energy, lidless, and many times the size of a man. A gorgeous blonde woman wearing a white dress with power teeming from her body and a sadistic smile across her lips, leaning against an equally gorgeous woman who Trey believed to be a succubus… but this succubus looked different from all the others he’d seen. Her face was perfect in every way, wore an amazing set of demonic-styled heavy plate armor, and Trey couldn’t have imagined anything more perfect even if he’d tried.

There were also others there, but Trey’s attention was caught off guard and drawn away from these newcomers when he saw none other than his family.

His father, Ford… his mother Michelle. His two brothers, Vick and Andrew. They were all there too… He tried to reach out to them, to scream their names so they’d come to him, but he couldn’t move. They continued to speak with one another amidst the ruins of this once grand construct, until a split second later the scene changed.

Now he was looking up into the sky, where thousands of serpents with enormous maws ripped through the air towards him. Were they dragons…? No… they had no eyes or ears… they came through the storm clouds with electrical energy radiating from their bodies with no end to their length. They appeared as worms… until Trey finally saw it.

The body they were connected to.

It was enormous, bigger than any living thing he could have ever imagined even existing. Its huge ovoid body poured forth legions of huge carnivorous insects and they too joined the mawed appendages in their rush towards him. Glowing, lidless eyes along the massive ovoid body - numbering at least in the many dozens - stared at him in a deathly state of calm.

Just as he was about to be intercepted by these hungry predatory creatures, just when his heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest, they bypassed him. His scream remained frozen upon his lips and he turned around to see where they were going…

They were headed for his friends… his family… and the ones he did not know.

He watched in horror as they battled for their lives. He tried to throw out magics of his own to stop the incoming wave of enemies, but his magic did not respond. He watched… as his mother and father were torn limb from limb… eaten and consumed right in front of his eyes.

The vision stopped and he found himself in a cold sweat, shaking, trembling… until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He snapped out of his trance and his eyes left the fire. He looked and felt scared, and Radian had a seriously worried expression when examining him.

“Trey? What’s wrong? You were out of this world for a moment.”

Trey shook himself and tried to regain his composure. Deep breaths… deep breaths… “I’m ok… sorry about that. I… I’ve been having some problems with my new subclass. It gives me strange visions… makes me think I’m going insane.”

Radian’s eyebrows furrowed and he took his hand back. “Visions? What type of visions?”

Trey’s responding chuckle was a dry one. He took a puff on the pipe he’d been handed, then gave it back to the man on his right. “You’d rather not know. I’m glad you’re putting those schematics to good use, but I think I feel sick. I’m going to head to bed.”

Jagla, Radian and the other few men around the camp exchanged glances but wished him well, and Trey pulled himself up to go.

What the hell was that? That hadn’t been like the others.

He didn’t even bother asking Sithis if he’d seen it or not. He knew Sithis had… because he got the same disturbed feeling from his symbiote that he was experiencing himself. No… that vision had not been like the others. This one felt more real. As he made his way towards his storage room turned brothel, he failed to notice the hooded man created from nothing but faint golden light watching him with a sad expression from the recess of a dark room. The man watched as Trey pushed his way through the line of eager men and into the brothel, before letting out a long sigh… and reluctantly snapping his fingers. In a flash, the man of golden light was gone… leaving not even a trace that he’d been there.

Trey entered the old storage room to the sounds of panting, screams, moans, grunts, and slapping body parts. There were more people inside for their turn than there were outside, with all seven of his prostitutes being preoccupied with eager customers. Each of the women were using their given individual cots as they worked, and were spread out six feet from one another up against the far wall. Even the pretty boy was… Yeah.

Napoleon had his hands full dealing with the customers, collecting their money and depositing it in a small wooden chest Telipe was holding with shackled hands - and the blonde demihuman enchantress gave him a tight-lipped nod while keeping her eyes low as he approached. Toady and the two minotaurs sat near the chest, guarding it against any would-be thieves… though Trey seriously doubted anyone here would take the money even if they weren’t under surveillance. Never could be too careful though.

Napoleon held out one hand for the money of another man as one of the other customers finished humping a grunting redheaded woman, getting up drunk and satisfied.

“80 coin!” Napoleon barked out as the bearded young man eagerly pushed a pouch of money into the imp’s claws. Napoleon quickly counted the money and nodded him on. “Go go!”

The man began to undress and headed onwards, giving one of the minotaurs a wary glance as he did.

Napoleon deposited the money in the small chest and turned around to speak to the next customer in line when he found that it was none other than his master.

“Oh oh! Stupid master here to collect coin?”

Trey grimaced as some of the other men behind him snickered, but they shut up when he glared their way. “Napoleon, you really have to be more respectful around people we don’t know. Please.”

The imp let out a cackle and flipped him off before scurrying back over to the box again and flipping the lid. “I done well! Collect much money money!”

Trey raised an eyebrow and walked over to the chest, with Cow-Daddy, the bigger black minotaur, quickly stepping out of the way. There was a significant stack of coins with a couple pouches too, and he didn’t want to bother counting them out himself. “Do you have any idea how much we’ve made today?”

“Today?” repeated the imp curiously. “Or since we we start brothel?”

Trey shrugged. “Both?”

Napoleon’s little demonic grin widened. “Today today we make 1860 coin and more more on way. We make 7440 since we we start start.”

Trey did some quick math. “That’s 93 customers over only a couple days. Do we really have that much business?”

A gruff voice from behind caught his attention. “At 80 copper a go, most of us are repeat customers.”

Trey glanced over his shoulder at a burly bald man with tattoos scattered across both shoulders. The man grinned, then shrugged. “It’s a lot cheaper here than down the street at the other brothels. They may have more variety, but your women are just as-”

An explosion rocked the entire compound, followed up by screams and two more explosions. Trey was knocked to his feet, as were many of the other men and he scrambled to get back up before a fourth explosion knocked him back down again. The walls shuddered and creaked, even beginning to sway until a multitude of quick successive impacts… and all he could do was cover his head and hope for it to end. Soon Trey began to see runes inscribed into the walls light up, supporting the structure against the barrage - until less than a minute later it stopped. Replacing it was a rising battlecry from the outside, and the sounds of an army of charging men.

Dust filled the air and people were coughing all around him as he got onto one knee, then stood up entirely. Looking around, no one in this room had been injured, but now he could hear the screams outside and cries for help amidst the clash of weapons.

The guild was under attack.