Dark Discoveries (Unedited)

I quickly towelled as much of the oil off as I could, dressed in my armour, crept past my sleeping beauty as she snored quietly, belted on my weapons, and headed out of the bedroom. I hoped for Svea’s sake nobody came into the bedroom, lest they come face to face with a giant-breasted, seven-foot-tall anthro dragoness with a serious cum leakage in her rear end. I smirked to myself as I thought about how I’d stretched her stomach out, feeling a strange sense of pride that I had the power to produce such an amount of semen in one batch and that it had helped to pleasure my lover as much as it did.

I wondered if I could stretch her out more when I fucked her pussy? I wondered if I could do it to Larra or Karra?

Or do it to mom?

That was an arousing thought: seeing my mother’s eyes roll back into her head as I pulled my massive cock out of her pussy and seeing her squirt cum everywhere as her womb slowly emptied out. I fantasised about it for a moment, before shaking my head and trying to focus my thoughts. I was realizing that I’d become a lot more dark when it came to sex, not having my usual respectful attitude when addressing women, starting to think of them as whores, sluts, and possessions whenever I was balls-deep in their pussies.

Maybe it was something that came about when I tapped into the incubus form mom had mentioned? Incubi are demons, inherently possessive and vile creatures that exist only to fuck. Maybe that blossoming need to control and own the women I fucked came from that? It seemed to be getting stronger the more and more women I had sex with too. I cracked my neck loudly as I headed down some stairs, writing up a mental checklist of all of the things I needed to ask Luna and or Celestia when I got home:

Who was the other alicorn Vermon mentioned?

Is Cadance my real mother?

How do I access my magic without fucking it up like I did last time?

Who is my grandfather and why can I never see him?

Why do you never talk about my grandfather?

How do you fit all of that ass into those dresses, Celly?

I was so busy fantasising about Celestia as I rounded a corner, that I didn’t notice the oncoming person that came the other way. I slammed into the much taller being, my forehead striking them in the chin as we both stumbled back.

“Fuck me, Richter,” Zane said in a pained manner. “Where were you then?”

“Sorry, man,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I was thinking about… well, ass, to be honest.”

“Eh, no difference from usual,” he chuckled, rolling his shoulders and looking down at me. “I’m guessing you just fucked the big girl that dragged you upstairs raw?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Poor girl’s all tuckered out after only two rounds.”

“Then you need to go easier on her,” Zane chuckled.

“Or she needs to work on her cardio,” I laughed. “But anyway, I wanna talk to you about something else than mild misogyny.”

“I’m listening?” he answered.

“Well, basically, while Svea and I were in the city we went to, we ran into a few of the Highmoore elves, one in particular that kept mentioning Mothers, Goddesses, and something locked deep in the bowels of the basement,” I explained.

“Right,” Zane nodded.

“But while we were down there, we ran into another motley crew of adventurers that said they were hired by some rich guy named Elron to track down something called a Sapphire Chalice that was in the depths of the city.”

“Okay,”

“But the weird thing with that is the fact that the city hasn’t been opened for thirty thousand years, so there’s no way in hell he should know that it’s even there, much less what treasure is at the bottom of it,” I said, carrying on the explanation. “While we were there, we also ran into a pack of demons that seemed to be looking for the same treasure. Now while I was down there I got destroyed by the leader of the demons and had to have Luna save my ass.”

“Yeesh. You’re okay now, right?” he asked in a genuinely concerned manner.

“Yeah, I’m good after healing, a nap, and some good sex,” I joked, getting a laugh in response from Zane. “But Luna said that whatever was down there was way too dangerous for even Svea to handle, so she’s gone back to Equestria to get help taking care of the thing that’s down there, while giving me the task of looking into this Elron guy.”

“And you’re gonna ask me to tag along, right?” he asked with a smirk.

“How’d you guess?” I asked in response.

“Because you can’t go on adventure without me,” he chuckled, looking down at the ground for a moment. “Ever since you learned to climb, I’ve been saving your ass time after time. Hell, we even made a pact to share all our adventurers, remember?”

“Of course I do,” I grinned. “And there’s nobody I’d rather have with me than you.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Zane asked in an excited manner. “Let’s go find this Elron guy.”

“Hang on,” I said quickly. “Is the academy using Luna’s preferred set-up for training and education?”

“Yeah,” Zane nodded. “To her every specification. Why?”

“Just need to grab something then,” I said as I hurried through the corridor. “Can you tell me where the armoury is?”

“Sure,” he nodded. “We just need to go through the three corridors straight ahead, take a right on the fourth corridor split, and then head towards the stairs. Why?”

“I just need to grab something essential,” I answered, leaving it at that. The two of us made quick time to the armoury, the stairs working up a heavy pant due to how far they went down.

“Fuck me,” I commented, looking back at the seemingly never-ending stone steps once at the bottom of them. “I bet those are a right laugh to go up carrying something.”

“It is,” Zane said with a chuckle. “I remember snapping a sword while acting like a twat with my friends when I first started training here and Arren had me running laps in plate up the things.”

“Fuck,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, leaning against a wall and waiting for me to get whatever I was looking for. “Not as sorry as my legs were.”

“I can imagine,” I said, heading over to a bookcase of leather-bound books. I trailed my finger across the backs of them as I got to several black ones, each with a oak-covered, sharpened charcoal pencil tied around it in string.

“Perfect,” I said, picking up a smaller one that was no bigger than seven inches long, opening it and flipping through the pages to see them all blank. “Just what I need.”

“Is it a map book or something?” Zane asked.

“Nope,” I said, slotting it into a pouch on my belt and clasping it shut. “Blank as the day it was made.”

“Are you gonna write your own?” Zane asked.

“Kinda. Luna taught me to take one for every single journey you ever go on,” I explained. “There useful for jotting down what you’re supposed to be doing, writing down memos, information on places, things, people, etc. They’re also really good for scrawling out basic maps to prevent getting lost in places you’ve never been to before.”

“Huh,” Zane nodded. “That’s actually really handy.”

“Yeah. It’s a tool as essential to a Lieren as your silver sword or your instincts,” I said, patting the leather pouch on my belt with a nod and getting ready to go.

“Lieren?” Zane asked, running the word through his language centre to try and translate it. “That’s… that’s the Guoxian word for hunter, right?”

“Yup,” I nodded. “There’s not really a special word for the people trained to deal with what Luna and I do because it covers so much ground in terms of problem solving. We’re not monster slayers because sometimes the problems aren’t even monster related. We’re not mages because we don’t really specialise in it because of the complete resistance a lot of monsters have to magic and our specialised training in combat, we’re also not peacekeepers, as we have to resort to violence quite a lot in our line of work, and the term of ‘problem solver’ sounds a bit lame.”

“And yet the Guoxian word for ‘hunter’ works for it?” Zane asked.

“It’s a term used for those that track, trail, and kill things either for survival or sustenance,” I answered. “And hunting down monsters to make sure we don’t get eaten as well as getting paid for it is a pretty accurate summation, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Zane nodded. “But why not just use the regular word? Why the Guoxian version of it?”

“To prevent confusion,” I answered. “It’s not a word a lot of people can translate, but it’s a word as well-known as king, queen, or prince. People know what you mean immediately when you say Lieren, but you don’t want a man with a bow and leather scraps showing up to take care of a Yenaldooshi, do you?”

“Yenal… what now?” Zane asked.

“They’re monsters that live in desert terrain,” I answered. “They’re a distant cousin to werewolves, but the difference is that once a person has transformed into a Yenaldooshi, they never switch back.”

“Huh,” Zane nodded. “Sounds rough.”

“It is indeed,” I said, pointing back up the stairs. “Race you?”

“I’ve got longer legs,” Zane shrugged. “But fine, you’re on. Loser buys drinks at the Black Lily?”

“You’re on,” I grinned, taking off ahead of him at a sprint.

I was overtaken in mere moments at the long-legged motherfucker exploded up the stairs like the speed-demon he was. We both ended up at the top of the stairs, Zane panting less than I was due to him being in much better shape than me, and he patted me on the back with a grin.

“D’you mind spending a little extra for the window seat?” he asked.

“Fuck you,” I spat out in between panting.

“I’ll take that as a no then?” he said, pulling me up and putting his hands on hips hips, breathing deeply. “Right then, off to see Baron Elron then?”

“Wait… Baron Elron?” I asked, looking up at Zane. “This fucker’s a Baron?”

“Yeah,” Zane nodded. “He’s a big name in the courts around here… though he has been strange these past few months. I saw him in the permit office a few months back when I’d been sent to ask for a permit to expand the Academy grounds. He was asking for permits for underground expansion. And from our experience with that kind of stuff, what d’you think it is?”

“I’m guessing either cult basement or he’s got an underground cave system under his mansion,” I answered.

“Or both,” Zane shrugged.

“Ugh, not again,” I sighed. “We barely got out of the last one with both arms and scalps.”

“Oh come on,” Zane said, crossing his arms. “Try and tell me it wasn’t fun seeing the looks on possessed demon faces as a twelve year old and a sixteen year old boys beat the shit out of them?”

“Yeah,” I granted, looking to the corners of my eyes with a smirk. “Alright. That was pretty fun.”

“Hoping we get to do it again?” Zane asked.

“... Maybe,” I said, patting him on his shoulder and walking forwards. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”

“Right behind you,” Zane chuckled.

Transition.

The two of us came to a halt outside the mansion door, lacking in any sort of guards or patrols. That was never usually a good sign when it came to bureaucrats. We both looked at the door with a puzzled expression, looking at each other before looking back at the new feature the door had.

“That’s…” I said, staring at the object. “That’s a human hand… stabbed into the wall.”

“Indeed it is,” Zane commented. “D’you think it’s the knocker?”

I shot him a look that told him to kill himself, the taller man chuckling before preparing to knock on the door.

“Really?” I asked.

“What?” he asked in confusion.

“There’s a fucking hand nailed to the door,” I said. “And your first instinct is to be polite?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I think Elron could use a polite guest. After all, it seems like the last person here wasn’t.”

“Just kick the fucker in already,” I said with a sigh.

“Alright,” Zane nodded. “But if it turns out it is the knocker, you’re paying for the door.”

Zane took a step back, took a breath, and took a boot to the door, bringing the entire thing of its hinges with a mighty cracking sound. The door hit the floor and exposed us to the sight that guaranteed us to be having an eventful adventure. The entire foyer was decorated with gore, with corpses littering the floor, the stairs, and several hanging from the ceiling. Blood coated nearly every inch of the area and a mix or organs cut free during brutal attacks smattered and littered the area.

“So…” I said, walking into the room and staining the bottom of my boots. “Death cult?”

“Almost definitely,” I nodded. “Be careful not to touch any of the… blood.” I trailed off in shock, spotting something lying on the floor that definitely wasn’t meant to be here. I immediately went for my silver sword as I saw the thing’s chest expand, showing that it wasn’t dead, but was instead just asleep.

“What?” Zane asked, following my gaze until he saw the enormous, furry creature. “Oh shit.”

“Draw and keep quiet,” I said, lowering my stance and taking a step forward, only to immediately regret it. The creature’s ears, multiple sets of ears, twitched violently, its head, heads, rocketing up with a loud snarl. Its eyes, some of them rotting, some of them not, stared hungrily as it got to its multiple sets of legs, some too decayed to stand on, others missing entirely.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Zane asked.

“I…” I said, taking in the creature’s mangled, rotten, and deformed features and trying to find a name to match to it. “It’s… it’s a Conjoined. But it can’t be… only humans can become Conjoined.”

“Then why is it like that?” Zane asked.

“I don’t…” I said before trailing off as I watched the mashed-together, rotting, foul-smelling, blood-coated beast shamble towards us in an unsettling manner. “Death cult, remember?”

“Blood sacrifice?” Zane responded.

“Probably killed the manor’s dogs as offerings,” I nodded. “Then whatever they were sacrificed to turned them into that. I’m also positive this thing is what killed everybody else.”

“I think it’s obvious that it killed the people in the foyer,” Zane said, looking at me for a second.

“Not just the foyer,” I said, began to pace towards the beast as slow as I could. “Notice how there aren’t any dead guards or weapons strewn about?”

“Yeah, so?” Zane asked.

“That means that there either weren’t any,” I said. “Which doesn’t happen in a baron’s mansion. Or it means that this thing killed them in another room. I’m no expert Lieren, but my gut’s telling me the guards were positioned to keep this thing contained.”

“And I’m going to guess that they failed,” Zane nodded, gritting his teeth. “Let’s try to do better, shall we?”

“Of course,” I said, holding my sword with both hands as the amalgamated pile of dogs began charging towards us, the sounds of bones cracking from other parts of the more-damaged dogs mixed with shredding flesh making me feel queasy, the beast leaping towards us with several shows of shattered, blackened teeth bared. The two of us leapt to the side, jabbing at the creature with our swords, causing it to spray black blood onto the floor, mixing with the red coating the foyer already possessed.

It roared in agony, landing on the ground and having no need to turn around, as it already had a set of legs and a half-rotted dog’s head seemingly stitched onto its rear end that was conscious enough to see us, barking loudly and coughing blood out onto the ground. It charged again, seemingly unable to reach the full speed it would’ve once possessed, allowing us to cut deeply into it, drawing more and more blood that splattered to the floor with the weight and thickness of tar.

Once the initial disgust of the creature had worn off, it became clear that the thing was weaker than it should’ve been. It was too slow, too sluggish to even catch a novice swordsman by surprise, nevermind slaughter an entire mansion full of people. As we continued cutting the conjoined dog creature to ribbons, a horrendous thought occurred to me, regarding what the creature was. I decided to keep the thought contained until we’d lopped off enough of the beast to the point where it was either dead or unwilling and unable to move, either option being a good one for us.

We remained still, staring at the blood-spewing beast a while longer, weapons drawn and muscles tensed, ready for an attack if it should come. After a while we moved away from the dog, cleaned the black blood from our blades, and then sheathed them over our backs.

“That… that was too easy,” Zane commented. “That thing shouldn’t have been able to kill everyone in here.”

“Agreed,” I nodded, walking over to the dog, still being cautious as I knelt down besides it and examined its claws and fangs.

“What are you doing?” Zane asked as I reached behind me and pulled out the journal I’d taken, making rough sketches of the creature at several different angles, writing down the measurements of its teeth and claws as I did so before standing up again, looking around for a body.

“A little post-mortem,” I answered after a few minutes. “I have a theory I really wanna disprove.”

“Care to share?” Zane asked as I went over to the deformed corpse of what I gathered was a woman, seeing the finer strands of a torn, blood-soaked dress and the shredded body possessing a more feminine appearance than a man would have. I briefly examine her injuries, making notes about the shape, depth, and position of the wounds.

“Yeah,” I said, scrawling down a brief note on what I thought inflicted the injuries compared to the dog we’d killed. “I’m thinking that all the bodies in here weren’t killed by the dog.”

“Why’s that?” Zane asked.

“First clue is how weak it was,” I answered. “Even if it was injured, it was still too weak to be any sort of threat. Two normal humans came knocking and we took it down with nary an issue.”

“So you’re thinking it was put there to, what, scare us off?” Zane asked before his mind settled on the solution I was thinking of. “Like a guard dog.”

“Yup,” I nodded, getting up and examining other bodies, noticing a trend with all of them that required more poking around in sensitive areas of the corpses. “The dog was put there to chase off anyone that came knocking.”

“But why put something so weak?” Zane asked. “I’ve dealt with worse monsters than… I’ve… I’ve dealt with worse monsters before. But not everybody has…”

“Mhmm?” I said, wanting him to continue.

“Now, forgive me if I’m wrong,” Zane said, turning around and pointing to the dog. “But that thing wasn’t there to act as a line of defense in terms of combat. It was put there to scare the shit out of any tax collector or permit officer that came knocking for Elron.”

“Indeed it was,” I nodded, standing up after finishing with several corpses. I put the pencil back into my pouch as I walked over to Zane, showing him my sketches and findings.

“I’ve also proved that it wasn’t the dog that killed everyone in here,” I said, handing him the book. He took it and began reading it over, starting with the dog first.

“Three inch fangs at longest, smooth and designed for piercing and tearing,” he said aloud. “But the injuries… straight-through punctures with… serrated edges judging by the tearing in both the throats, stomachs… and vaginal cavities.”

Zane looked at me with pure horror in his eyes as he read the last passage, looking around at all the corpses and noticing the pattern I had.

“They’re all women,” he said. “Every single body here is a female. And they… and they cut their insides up through their vaginas?”

“Yeah,” I said, gritting my teeth angrily. “It’s the calling card of any demonic murder: sadism. Demons are pure evil and exist only to cause pain. While the trauma and sheer deformity caused to each woman’s vagina removed any traces of sexual assault… I’m more than positive these fucks would’ve in a heartbeat.”

“Wait, ‘fucks’?” Zane asked. “As in multiple demons?”

“Read the second page,” I said to him. Zane read it quickly, his eyes widening in horror as he did so.

“There were more of them with different weapons, axes, daggers… hammers,” he said in disgust.

“Yeah, each one of them got a number of women to themselves and went to town on them,” I said, pointing over to a torso lacking arms and legs with her throat slit. “Look at the high amount of blood spatter on the wall there.”

Zane did as requested, looking at the spray on the wall with a critical gaze, putting the pieces together before solving the puzzle, rage and disgust welling up inside him as he clenched his free hand into a fist.

“What’s one of the first things you stop doing when you die?” I asked.

“You stop bleeding,” he snarled. “They hacked off her limbs while she was still alive.”

“And she would’ve been conscious, too,” I continued. “More fun for the demons that way.”

Zane closed my journal and handed it back to me, closing his eyes and growling angrily, taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself, something I made no attempt to do.

“We need to find these guys,” he said. “And they need to pay.”

“Damn right,” I spat. “What’s the best place to kick off a demonic sacrifice and remain undisturbed?”

“The basement,” Zane answered. “Or whatever cave is underneath this place.”

“Then let’s get looking,” I growled. The two of us set off, tearing the house to pieces on every floor we could, moving through room after room of mutilated corpses, blood, and organs everywhere. The more and more ground we covered, the more and more death we discovered, the angrier and angrier I became, feeling a buzz beyond mere hate inside my body. I knew the feeling was there, but it was shoved aside for the pure rage to take place, readying myself to annihilate whatever had caused this much destruction.

I knew deep-down I stood no chance against demons, but I didn’t care. The anger I felt pushed all fear and all doubt from my mind and replaced it with headstrong belief in vengeance, risking indulging my own demonic fury a little more than I’d like to have done, looking back on it now, as it was this trusting in hate that lead me down a dark path.

Zane seemed to notice the change in my demeanour, but said nothing of it, both of us staying quiet until we’d discovered the entrance to the basement, having had a hole blown through the floorboards by the escaping demons. The two of us silently jumped down it, dropping into a low crouch to soften the impact, and hearing tortured screams immediately upon moving past what I gathered was a magical sound block.

“Right,” Zane said in a hushed voice. “We need to keep quiet, keep low, and surprise whatever’s hurting someone down h-”

Zane didn’t even finish the sentence before I took off, walking with no sense of silence or stealth towards whatever chamber lay in wait down here, my head and heart pounding with fury as I made my way into the darkness.

“Richter!” Zane snapped, hurrying after me. We came to a locked door made of solid oak, almost definitely locked. Zane said something to me, but I was beyond listening at this point, cocking my leg back and booting the keyhole on the door, snapping the locking mechanism and sending the door flying open.

I stormed into the room, drew my sword, and went for the first thing I saw. It was some big motherfucker sitting on a chair with a greataxe across his lap, having no chance to move before I brought my sword up and stabbed it downwards through his skull, the sickening and satisfying crunch of bone followed by blood leaking out of the front of his face as I wrenched the sword sideways, splitting his skull open like a watermelon and seeing his black blood and brain splatter onto the floor.

“What in the fuck-” another demon said, this being the one with the serrated sword, as he stood up, only to have my fist catch him by the jaw, knocking him sideways and onto the floor. If I’d had my rational mind about me at this point, I’d have commented on my usual inability to fight this hard, that I’d never normally be able to almost punch out a demon in one hit, but my rational mind was gone, replaced by the strong buzz of what I later learned was the brim of magical release.

The demon snarled viciously, swinging his sword wildly at me only to have me disarm him and break his wrist by booting him in the joint of his hand and wrist as hard as I could, snapping the bone, dislocating his hand, and sending his sword flying away into the darkness. I brought my sword up and plunged it directly into his throat, keeping my eyes locked onto his as I circled the blade around in a sadistic manner, fully indulging the demonic rage brewing in my body as I watched him bleed and die in agony, unaware of what exactly was going through Zane’s head, but having an idea of it being a strain of fear.

I tore my sword sideways, cutting through his neck and spine to free it, before turning around to swat aside an attack from a third demon, slamming my fist into his stomach as a counterattack, causing him to hunch over. I then flipped my sword over in my free hand and slammed the pommel into and through his eyeball, his scream of agony falling on deaf ears, even as I wrenched the sword at a harsh angle, cracking his cheekbone and causing it to break off from his face, the blade tearing through the dark skin covering his face, and gushing blood every where. I then released my sword, still stuck in his face, and grabbed the back of his head with both of my hands before ramming it towards the floor, the sword hitting the ground and sending the pommel through his brain and breaking the back of his skull, his rapidly-dying corpse staying completely still at it was propped up by the blade.

I continued to force him down, pushing the hilt of my sword all the way through, the crossguard cracking his skull and tearing his skin until the entire hilt had passed through the skull cavity and was available to grab. I closed my hand around the brain-and-blood stained hilt and tore it from his head, sliding the blade all the way through before the body dropped to the floor, holding my gore-soaked sword as I turned around to look at the source of a new sound: applause.

“Very well done, my boy,” the deep, booming voice said in a proud manner. “Such anger, such ferocity. That kind of will to kill is something I’m proud to see. But let’s be fair here; I’d expect nothing less from my own Grandson.”