4.19 – Interlude – Taste

4.19 – Interlude – Taste

Frowning, Sol studied the strange container. Waist high and four feet wide, the wooden chest radiated more essence than nearly anything she’d encountered thus far. She had suspicions what the box was. Though she’d been released late by Mother to explore this realm, this wasn’t the first shard Sol had ventured into. The third, to be specific.

A loot chest. That was what the locals called them. The terminology took a few moments to place, since sorting through alien lexicons and memories was no easy task, but the word did, eventually, come.

But the energy was so much stronger than it should be. And ... of a different flavor. Sol had learned quickly that this shard was aberrant in some way, though she couldn’t place how, yet, or why. To be fair, she’d been here a total of twenty minutes, if that. She was a studious worker, but even she couldn’t crack the mystery that fast.

Pursing her lips—why did these alien reactions come so naturally?—she reached down and unclasped the two securing switches, then flipped them open. The chest cracked, and she tugged the container open.

A black portal greeted her. The expected sight. But again ... so much more potent of an energy radiated from it than the other shards she’d ventured. And that smell. Husky. Intense. Almost ... carnal, in a way? It made her head spin just taking it in. And she hadn’t even tasted it yet.

Yes, something odd was going on with this shard.

Sol paused, looking up and to the left, idly, as she strained her senses. The simulacrum—that slime girl—wasn’t nearby. She was safe to continue. She just had to make sure she didn’t become too distracted. Though sneaking up on her should be next to impossible, and Sol could simply rejoin the Passage, even if caught, Mother’s directive was to be subtle.

Satisfied she had a moment to herself, she bent over and reached in. It took a few moments of grasping around in the cold liminal space before her fingers wrapped around an object. Soft. Flexible. Fabric?

She pulled the item out.

Immediately, she was hit by the smell. Not the human kind—a different type of perception her appropriated mind’s vocabulary couldn’t fully explain. It reeked of that same energy the chest had, but condensed. That same intense, heady smell. Magic of a kind unlike the other shards she’d explored. Almost as if ... influenced by another Prime? Most of this world smelled and tasted of—at a guess—some sort of god of order. Maybe. It was hard to tell. This, though. An equally potent power pervaded it, but definitely not of order. Or a mix of two?

Was it proof? That multiple gods watched over this realm?

Well, no. Beyond the realm’s clear abandonment, just because it smelled different didn’t mean it originated from a separate god. Still. It was perplexing. Unlike the previous shards, and, she suspected, unlike most shards.

She inspected it in a more mundane manner. It was, indeed, fabric. Clothing of some kind. She narrowed her eyes, stretching the flimsy, lacy piece of clothing.Cheêck out latest novels at novelhall.com

Panties?

The word finally came.

Er. An undergarment? Really? Sol paused as she rifled through her memories, but only became more confused. How odd. Why was this being produced by the shard? She’d thought these brutal labyrinths focused on combat-related items.

As with most of the items given through a loot chest, it was imbued with powerful workings. Some sort of magical effect, though Sol couldn’t begin to decipher it. Or them. Maybe there were a few.

Keep them to study, or a quick snack?

She briefly tried to convince herself to keep them around, but failed. As an item separate from the rest of the shard, the panties were a source of food that wouldn’t accelerate the pocket dimension’s decay, as with Sol’s snacking on more direct mechanisms.

Groaning, the amplifying heat climbed, reaching a scorching peak that shocked Sol. She rolled over, pressing her back into the stone floor. She thrust her hips upward, straining her ass off the ground, and continued to rub, thrust, and curl with her fingers. She didn’t know what she was doing, but any motion, clumsy or not, was helping to work her higher and higher. She wanted more. Needed it.

She squeezed her breasts, noting how her nipples had grown painfully erect from arousal, then cried out, closing her eyes. Her hips jerked up and down in little twitches, her body one taut muscle, as euphoria washed across her. Heat flooded her veins in a way she’d never experienced. The magma wiped away everything, including Sol’s always-churning curious mind. She basked in ecstasy, uncaring of the world around her, falling apart from the pleasure her fingers brought her.

“Ha!”

The noise, so unexpected, pierced the haze. Eyes shooting open—lower half still twitching as she pleasured herself—Sol’s head snapped to the left, where she saw an invader standing the doorway, having snuck up on her.

A green slime girl, pointing at her, other hand on her hip, seeming supremely proud of herself.

“I found you! I knew there was someone here.”

Sol melded with the Passage, vanishing from the creature’s sight. The horror of being caught—failing in Mother’s primary, and near-singular requirement—washed away, in part, the arousal clouding her thoughts. Her body still twitched with aftershocks, but she pulled her hand, fingers wet from her excitement, out of herself, and went very, very still.

Submerged so deeply in the Passage—almost to the point it began sucking her away, back home—she could barely make out her surroundings. The slime girl’s surprised words were dulled, distorted, like sounds heard underwater.

“What? Where’d you go?”

Home tugged at her soul, seeking to draw her from this world back to that dark, formless void her people had built their empire in. She took a metaphorical step forward, pulling away, melding closer to the other dimension. In her panic, she had dove too intensely—she steadied herself and adjusted her submersion to a reasonable amount. Enough to be hidden, but not be drawn away by the current.

The stone walls, wooden chest, and slime girl came better into focus. Her words were more clear when she spoke next. Sol had missed part of what she’d been saying during the struggle to stabilize.

“—could join me? It’s even more fun in pairs?”

Hm? She tried to patch together the first half of the sentence, but failed.

The slime girl waited, then at a lack of response from Sol, pouted, shoulders slouching. She looked around the room one more time, realizing the futility of confronting Sol—probably not knowing whether she was even there, anymore—then left, defeated. As Sol had noted, even if she was caught by this creature, disappearing was simple.

She couldn’t move while submerged into the Passage, even only a few steps in, but the slime girl didn’t know that. She had no clue she’d had a captive audience. Fortunate for Sol. The first time, when the girl had pled with her and asked what Sol was doing to her domain, she’d felt a squirming discomfort in her stomach. Shame. Absurd as it was. She didn’t want more of that.

Now alone in the room, Sol looked down to see her legs were shaking. Even having ... climaxed? ... arousal pulsed through her. The effects of eating that strange energy persisted.

And so satiating. So much more than it should have been. What did it mean?

There were still so many things to discover about this place. Sol was convinced, by this point, that she’d wandered into a highly aberrant shard. And the slime girl? Maybe Sol should study her. For that matter, the rest of the shard. The vines, especially, she was starting to think she’d overlooked. They’d shied form her previously, but Sol had a suspicion what their purpose was, now.

And, of course, intended to confirm or deny it. What use was an untested hypothesis?