Ch: 253 Rock The Cat Box

On the gently rocking ship, time seemed to slow to a crawl… it was quiet and still, but sand slaves don’t sleep, they only wait.

“Is this ours?” Someone asked from outside Damsen’s barrel prison. An affirmative grunt sounded nearby, muffled by the iron banded oak keg. An instant later she felt a weird shift in the universe and an indefinable….

#

The kids were disappointed that Gabbie didn’t just show up in the world of dreams. The others were unsurprised.

“You were on the ragged edge in there, bro. She was scared of you to begin with, now she’s afraid to be around you, without us.” Becky paused to reflect for a moment.

“I think she’s considered oddly tall in the empire… it must be frightening, to be suddenly surrounded by all of you hideous giants, looming everywhere.” She giggled, winked at Gary and Shai, then scampered for her private domain with a mad giggle.

Gary roared with mirthful fury and clumsily lumbered after her, taking giant steps, shouting:

“Fee Fie Foe Fum!”

Naptime was going very well, as the kids started slipping into normal sleep, followed by Shai and Becky. Gary waved to Thirp and Ducky while trying to disapparate into the waking world… and failing hard.

“Uhh… why can’t I wake up?” He asked the two deities, as the sky around them started shifting its orientation. “What’s happening?!”

“Odd…” Thirp muttered, giving Gary a poke in the tummy with one leg. “This is what the sky does when you are up and walking around. You, like most sentients, subconsciously consider yourself a fixed point in the universe, so from your perspective…”

“The universe revolves around me…” He muttered lost in deep embarrassment.

“This is simply a quirk of mortal perspective, you silly boy. More importantly, who is driving the bus?” Marduk cut to the heart of the matter quickly. With a brief divine effort, he summoned a screen, which displayed the information gleaned from his own senses for them to watch, while he continued trying to wake the fuck up.

#

Damsen yawned, stretched and yawned again, because it felt good… really good! She wriggled out of the bedding, past the small horde of entangled co sleepers and ambled to the lavatory, her body leading the way of its own accord. With a deep breath and another massive, jaw creaking, neck stretching yawn, she fumbled her penis out of her pjs for a quick pee…

“Penis?” She wondered, glaring down at the meaty, semi erect handful in her grip. She flinched in horror and disgust, when it spurted urine everywhere, literally everywhere.

“Wow, they really do get it all over the place…” She muttered in a man’s voice. She shook the thing a few times to try and stop it from dribbling everywhere, but it twitched and started getting bigger instead!

“Gods, they truly are a nuisance!” She whispered, as she began to wonder who all those warm, comfy people in the bed were. She peeked out the door for a glimpse, but all she could see was the smooth pale bottom of a large red haired woman… For some reason, that sight made her terrible handful twitch and start moving again!

She jammed the awful thing into the front of her pants with a shudder and looked around for a mirror… strangely, there was none. She searched the bathroom thoroughly and quietly, no mirrors, no reflective surfaces at all.

Stealthily, she crept out the door and down a short flight of stairs to a landing. Peering out into the large chamber, it seemed to be some sort of inn… she slipped down a hallway and found herself in a well appointed bathing chamber, with cubbies holding clothes!

She quickly stripped, doing her best to ignore the dangly parts and strange sensations it gave off whenever she had to touch it. Unfortunately, she wound up touching it more than she’d originally hoped… and then more than was really needful.

“Oh, my… that will do… ” She mused thoughtfully, when she finally jammed it away in her new pants, after getting a better idea of what she would be working with, going forward. Stuffing it uncomfortably down her trouser leg was less than ideal, but waiting for it to go down by itself seemed like a losing proposition.

She was in no mood to experiment with it… any more, right now… soon. She really wanted to try writing her name with her new urine stream someday… that sounded fun, but where to find a snowbank in springtime…?

“Dickstracting prick!” She grumbled into her pants cheerfully. Now to escape this place with her… booty! She gave her perky new ass a friendly swat and slipped out of the chamber, seeking an exit. She found it at the other end of the hallway, through a crowded room of strangers.

Scanning the common room, her eyes fell on a display of musical instruments against a far wall; which set her heart to pounding and made her mouth water… Two very familiar things, that she had been incapable of for some few centuries now.

“I have a living body again…” She whispered to herself in wonder and joy.

While she stood in the corridor, a small, beautiful blonde girl with shocking blue eyes strolled by and smiled at her fondly.

“You should check with the trade boat, Gary. Liam’s unloading some stuff off Bounty into your storerooms, you should go through it.” She paused for a moment, looking closely at her face. “Are you feeling ok?”

“I’m fine…” She answered in that strange man’s voice.

“Your voice sounds funny, like your accent changed, you getting sick?” She asked, stepping closer. “I should get Tawny.”

A shiver of excitement ran through her new body, as she realized that her primary target might just be brought before her in a moment… she reached for her harp and found… unfamiliar trousers and a man’s firm backside where her instrument should have been. She gave the pert bottom a few more admiring squeezes, while reflecting on that cock she’d been handling a few minutes ago… Without washing her hands, she realized belatedly. “Men…” Damsen grunted in disgust.

At least this body seemed rather nice, despite all the awkward meat dangling between her legs. Perhaps she could get used to it, the thing did seem like it would be fun to play with, once she figured out how they worked from this side.

She looked down her loose shirt font and sighed. Those were hard muscled slabs of meat as well, with a tracery of complex purple scars ruining what would have been a rather nice abdomen. The hands were huge and seemed like they would be clumsy, yet…

She strolled over to the kitchen, just off the stairs and washed up, the filthy animal… Once her new hands were dry she nearly sprinted to the display of instruments. Many were wildly unfamiliar, while others seemed like variations on what she was familiar with.

She gave a short gasp of delight, after a few moments searching. In a back corner, she found a simple shamisen; one so new that she could still smell the lumber, hide, waxes, oils and glues used to construct her. She took it down and ran a musician’s practiced eye over her with care… She was beautiful and begging to be played.

Damsen took her prize to a stool near a surprisingly fine pianoforte, with a mismatched leg. She sat down, tuned up quickly and began to play, smiling beatifically. Her fingers slid and skipped over strings of gut that felt like the softest silken braid, the fingerboard responded to every touch, pluck, strum and slide as though made just for her… or him.

When she looked up, a beautiful golden woman was standing there, listening with a radiant, deep dimpled smile on her glowing features. Her heart quickened and her blood pressure fell in the presence of someone very close to this body. That was a very odd feeling indeed.

“You have really improved!” She sighed, when the music stopped. “We were all beginning to worry a little, you have been very… subdued lately, especially where your music is concerned.” She sat at the pianoforte and began to play something unfamiliar… almost unfamiliar. It was bouncy and spry, a feeling for spring, leading into high summer.

A small red haired man with a guitar joined in, taking a stool nearby with casual familiarity. A few seconds later the strains of a harp sang out, making her heart leap again, that was her harp! With a shattering crash she realized it was not hers, it was an instrument attuned to this body in some subtle way, not her beloved ‘Barrow’s Call’.

“What is this tune?” She asked carefully.

Both musicians fumbled together, staring at her in confusion and dawning suspicion, as another two men entered the room. They were joined by a red haired giant and the most heart achingly beautiful man she had seen in at least a few centuries. The ginger guitarist seated beside her was a beautiful boy… but this was a man worth killing over!

“It’s ‘Stealing Apples’… you taught us this one! Is he alright, Tawny?” The delicious man asked, running his fingers through his spiky black hair in the sexiest way possible.

That name brought her back, she snapped her eyes to the golden woman. She had to be certain before taking any action here…

“Thank you for your concern, lady Trelawny Belen, I am fine.” She said in her manliest way. That should have fooled them!

Staves, clubs and assorted bludgeons appeared in their hands, while the ginger giant began approaching her slowly. “Whoever’s in there… you’d best come quietly or we will get rough. He won’t mind if we beat him down to keep anyone from running off with his body…” The giant rumbled fiercely, his hands curling and uncurling in a very menacing manner. “He heals fast and Tawny’s really good at fixing bones.”

#

Shai and the kids woke to a terrible ruckus below, as all manner of chaos erupted in the common room. She bolted from the bed and hurtled downstairs with a firm admonishment for the kids to ‘stay put’, even as she vanished out the door.

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Down in the common room, Gary was wielding a stool against the entire family, holding them at bay with wild swings and scurrying leaps that were far too graceful to be her man’s work.

More people were pouring into the room, drawn by the noise and chaos, including Carlos, Jerry, Willow in her new body, and a cloaked stranger who followed the dryad meekly.

“Gary!” She shouted from the landing. He didn’t respond at all, so she yelled again, using her gift to pummel his aura with her commands. “Gary Ward, stop that now!”

With a shuddering lurch, he fell forward as though he’d been punched in the back of the skull. With a crash, he landed face first on his barstool weapon, among the tables and chairs, shattering it to pieces.

Surprisingly, he leapt back up, bleeding pale, watery blood from a laceration to his scalp as he staggered for the door.

The cloaked man moved suddenly and without hesitation; he turned, as Gary stumbled past and jabbed a ridgid, claw fingered hand into his abdomen, with a triumphant, predatory cry of victory.

The stranger’s fingers pierced his side to the second knuckle, releasing a huge, liquid gout of that watery pink blood, spattering the floor all around their frozen tableau.

Time resumed its glacial pace as he crumpled limply to the floor in a spreading pool of his own blood.

“Gary!” Shai screamed, shaking the whole house, as she sprinted for her fallen man. Willow fell to the ground in a disjointed pile of wooden parts. That left a very surprised, small, brown stick insect, struggling to free herself from the tangle, while the humans went mad with fury.

#

Jocomo saw his target, had it positively identified and within reach, so he acted. He summoned his most terrible and dangerous gift; The Deathadder’s Venomed Bite, and struck with all he had.

‘Her radiance will be disappointed that I failed to secure her traffic with the Sweet Tooth guild…’ He thought as he prepared to die beside his target, who was feebly kicking his last, as the magical venom did its work.

With a world weary sigh, he kicked Willow’s disjointed left leg into the face of the she-barbarian charging him so recklessly. In the same fluid movement, he brought the doll creature’s forearm flying up into his own grip, to face the screaming woman hurtling his way.

Wth a subtle twist of his hip, she flew over his slight body, in a helpless tangle of limbs. As she flew by, he reached out and rapped her on the back of her skull with the wooden fist he held, as she crashed down on a table nearby.

He wielded Willow’s forearm again, clubbing the red haired male giant across the elbow, stunning that grabby hand, while dodging his clumsy attempt to grapple.

Jerry’s fist struck only empty air, as Willow’s immobile, clenched fist plunged into his solar plexus, emptying the air from his lungs… Jocomo found a pleasing symmetry in that.

These children were no real threat, unarmed and surprised… Jocomo decided he would escape without killing any, if at all possible.

A beautiful red haired boy produced a dangerous looking chain whip and began circling, while his weapon thrashed like a living thing…

So Jocomo slid to the side, putting his companions in between them. A spiky haired warrior of no mean skill leapt at him from the other side, nearly succeeding in his attempt to take the Whisper down. Those two he might need to kill after all…

That red haired giantess popped right back up from the ruined table, that was a surprise. She was tougher than she looked and she looked like a barrel of trouble now. She was suddenly armored and wielding a pair of curved swords, in a style similar to his own.

With sinking regret he realized he would not be escaping to complete his chocolate mission. Killing these children would only increase the suffering he was already doomed to cause, simply by continuing to draw breath.

Resigned and at peace with his fate, he sank to his knees, bowed with his neck out and waited patiently for the giantess to take his head, as the form dictated.

At least the witch Gary Ward was slain... The empress would not refuse to pray his poor, damned soul into Secret’s realm, now, may the Light illuminate her glory forever!

He mourned his lost weapons, hidden away somewhere by Willow. Dying by the hands of a fellow practitioner while properly armed would be pleasant… Though such honors were for those who completed their missions; not failed and broken tools, those were best discarded.

That barbarian was taking a long time about her business… Eventually, he looked up and found only the giant male warrior, reaching down and gripping him with nightmarish strength.

“If Gary dies, I’m going to pull you apart one piece at a time.” The barbarian youth rumbled.

“Your Gary is dead, so slay me, savage. I care not how.” He answered calmly. Right until what should have been a dead or rapidly dying man, that barbarian witch… He got up and sprang out the door like a rabbit with its tail on fire, seeming quite alive.

#

Watching that drama play out from the cheap seats was super awkward and infuriating, but at least whoever they were, they couldn’t do anything with his gifts or affect his home…

“Whatever being has possessed you is not capable of wielding your magic at all, this is a good sign. Your Animus should start extracting them shortly… How they got in, is another question.” Ducky murmured soothingly.

“The art he used is very dangerous to the practitioner and deadly to the victim in most cases. In yours, he will be disappointed, I’m afraid. You remain stubbornly immune to most poisons, toxins and diseases.” Thirp whispered in his other ear, trying to keep him calm, while his body sprinted down the road away from town, clutching his wounded side.

“I need you to slowly and carefully search your essence… somehow you are being manipulated, not truly possessed. There must be some kind of invasive control placed on you.” Ducky spoke clearly, snapping him out of his fury.

“Or in me…” He snarled. With a grimace of anger, he closed his eyes and began rifling through his storage gift. It didn’t take long to find the problem.

In a cargo net drifting near his backside… or something like it, extra planar geography and anatomy were weird and upsetting… somewhere out there, an unfamiliar throbbing, pulsing, alien presence was hiding in plain sight.

With a surge of Will, he ejected the keg from his internal nonspace, pitching it out into the road with a clatter and bang that he heard through Ducky’s A.V. club setup.

With a reluctantly grateful sigh, he slipped back into his own body at last, waking to a searing pain that was entirely too familiar.

“Ghaaa! That suucks!” He moaned from the bloodied pavement, not far from home.

The entire fracas had taken less than sixty seconds from incomprehensible start to equally mysterious finish. The tattoo faced man with one bloody fingered hand stared in horror at the door the dead man had fled through, pursued by a small golden woman, the spiky haired warrior and the giant swordswoman.

“Impossible…! How?” The tattooed man muttered, clenched in Tallum’s grip and helpless. The man’s hopes sank even farther, when the puppet body of the monster, Willow began to stir and gather itself together again.

“That creature must die, her radiance commands!” The tattooed man whispered harshly as he struggled in Tallum’s unbreakable grip.

“Jocomo?” Gabbie asked sleepily from the stairs, from behind a cluster of small children and a tiny girl who looked enough like her radiance to be her younger sister. The empress he could never mistake, even in barbarian attire, even so far from home.

At his first glimpse of his empress, he went wild, thrashing and squirming to be free so desperately that Tallum worried he’d hurt the fellow just holding him. Gabbie stared in shock at the scene, lost and confused beyond all endurance..

Gary staggered back in, leaning heavily on Shai’s shoulder. She plopped him on a stool and unceremoniously slashed his shirt away with her shorter sword. A moment later, Liam was there, gently probing his wounds with a bronze tool.

“Too bad those were real clothes… I’ll need to extract these fragments of cloth and flush the wound thoroughly.” He mumbled.

“Wait, what’s this?” With delicate precision, he slowly extracted a small object from his brother’s bleeding middle finger wound. “A fingernail?”

“Careful with that, some kind of nasty magical toxin or venom. It really went to town on my insides.” He whispered raggedly, while Shai flinched and groaned along with him

“Tallum, if he tries to scratch you with his fingernails, break his arms immediately.” Liam ordered. “Dannyl, get your whip around him.”

“Ivy,” Gary gasped weakly. “…find a barrel out by the road, don’t open it! Secure it inside a circle and wait ‘til I’m ready… don’t open it! Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise… Becky, take the kids to the grotto with Gary and Shai, ok?” The small blonde mage answered calmly. “Gabbie too!”

The small wildcat in human guise went mad again, when Ivy used Gabbie’s name so familiarly. He struggled valiantly, until his arm bones began to creak and grind together in the giant’s grip.

“Jocomo! Behave, you are being very naughty right now!” Gabbie shouted shrill, aghast at the sight of blood and horrified by the concerned, worried and pained expressions on her new sisters’ faces.

Ivy slipped close with her cudgel and solved matters ‘peacefully’ by thumping the man’s skull while muttering a short incantation.

As if switched off, he fell still and quiet, completely unconscious.

Gary limped off, leaning on Shai, with Becky and the kids following after. “I’m fine kids, so’s Shai, we’ll have a rest and everything will be ok.”

Gabbie followed after them shooting disapproving, furious glares at both Jocomo and the giant holding him prisoner.

“Don’t you hurt anyone! Not anyone!” She commanded everyone she could see.

#

Willow got herself put back together and stalked over to Jocomo in a towering rage that dwarfed the Giant holding the poor fellow… who was slowing stirring. “Journeyman Tallum, please give me that boy.” She demanded coldly. “He needs to be punished for disobedience.”

“No way, Willow. I’m supposed to keep him alive and safe… he’s squirrely though.” The giant answered, holding his prize out of reach of the diminutive monster.

“Give him to Willow, journeyman. She is fond of the creature for some reason or other.” Jerry grumbled, while helping Carlos right a fallen table.

#

Out on the road, Ivy found it, the barrel was surrounded by a scattering of deep amber and red, coarse grained sand, jagged, sparkling, jewel like sand that glittered and shone in the sunlight.

Ivy swooped in, like a falcon on a hare and assessed the damage. With quick economical movements learned behind Shai’s bar, she hammered the bung back in with a broken chair leg and called for Tallum. “Go fetch Gary’s magic sucking machine!”

“You mean the WardCo Vacummatic Spill Buster?” He asked archly.

“Uhh huh… I like my name for it better. We’ll play around tonight and see if you change your mind…” She said with a wink, while using a broom hastily made from a nearby privet bush, to collect the sharp, pointy grains.

Tallum was still blushing prettily when he re-emerged with Gary’s round red can. The thing rolled on wheels, standing upright, and had a long, flexible hollow tube of reinforced leather sticking out of the top. A long spring steel coil sewn to the outside of the hose kept it from collapsing, when he switched on the motor built into the high domed lid of the trashcan. With a quiet whine and a sucking noise of rushing air, he began sucking the loose crystalline sand up and onto his big trash barrel.

“Was the bin empty?” Ivy asked, when he was finished drawing the loose stuff into his hosepipe.

“Uhh… no?” He mumbled in embarrassment. ‘I was cleaning the forge grates this morning, before everything went stupid.”

“Maybe we can sieve it out…” She muttered unhappily.

#

Damsen was having none of it, she could come back and slay the Belen girl later… With a nimble dash, while everyone was distracted by the new arrivals, she tried for the door.

That beautiful giantess, the one that her new pecker liked so much, shouted a name at her and the legs she was using, ducked out from under her as suddenly as they had arrived. She pitched face first into a tangled mess of furniture taking a sound battering as she landed inelegantly among the rubble and trash.

Furious at the indignity of it, Damsen sprang for the open door and escape, only to be brought to a crashing shuddering, painful halt, when the cloaked man attacked her without hesitation.

Iron hard fingers seared channels of pain through what had been a lovely new kidney, it had hardly been used, yet! She lay on the ground, wracked with pain, another thing she hadn’t had to deal with in a very long time. This body was surprisingly tough and resilient, it could really handle pain too.

She managed to scramble back to her feet and hit the smooth, white paved road, free and clear! She sprinted for the distant treeline with all her new legs could give, before her world ended with a swirling sensation and a deafening crash.

She awoke in the strangest position, halfway in and halfway out of her barrel. With a mighty effort, she slid most of herself out before losing cohesion and stumbling off partially formed. She collapsed a few dozen steps away behind a shady growth of some tall, fresh scented, minty herb. She lay there in the sun, helpless as someone hammered the stopper back in the barrel holding a good portion of her mass and began sweeping up the rest with a switch broom, like she was rubbish!

Her horror only increased as the pretty blond waif summoned her pet giant, bearing some kind of metal garbage container…

The sensation of being sucked down a tube and scattered among clotted, iron reeking ash and clinkers was horrifying enough. Being helpless, among the dusty garbage in an ash heap, trapped in a fragmentary state was too much. Darkness claimed her until the night could come and re-energize her sand.

#

“Any ideas what’s inside?” Becky asked the group, all of whom were staring at a barrel inside one of Gary’s magic circle tools.

“The label says ‘Garnet Sand’ and that’s what this stuff looked like.” Ivy shook her head. “There’s something else inside, along with about a third of a barrel of ‘sand’.”

“This one delivered this cask, but it was not on the manifest or bill of lading. Have you an invoice?” Ranza asked.

“None.” Ivy murmured crossly. “This was some kind of attack… The care and precision of the planning, a mastermind is at work here.” She declared firmly.

“The being behind this is not just lying around in the sun enjoying the flowers. This reeks, it reeks like shit!”

#

Damsen slowly awakened, still immobile as the sun sank lower. Soon she would be able to take a form and retrieve the rest of herself and her effects. Once it was fully dark and the moons could fill her with their radiance she would…

Something moved among the pale blue flowers and minty stems. Something humanoid, with gray and black striped fur.

The golden eyed face of a young catwoman pushed through the flowers, her eyes were widely dilated and staring, right at Damsen’s patch of golden red, glittering sand.

“Ohhhh!” She sighed breathily. “Just the place! That fried river carp was a terrible choice!” She murmured softly to herself… so far as she knew.

With mounting horror, Damsen’s life got just, ever so much worse… as the feline woman scratched a neat hole in the sand, slipped out of some very nice panties, hiked up her skirts and…

Damsen regretted entering that barrel.

And exiting it.

#