Wanderers of the Wasteland

After everyone readied themselves for the trip ahead, they marched out, Asphyxious in the lead. His muscles were sore from his battle with the Jabberwocky, even after Xanadu helped heal him at the cost of her life force. The horned, elegant demoness stumbled on occasion amidst her own stride, propped up by Bellatrix while the other succubi sisters helped her cover the desert wastelands.

Yet he had other thoughts, since if he knew Grayscale was wounded, he would have pushed to have less restrictions. However, this may be a good thing for the dragon hybrid. If Gray was in fact weakening that meant Asphyxious could slip, find loopholes or break their contact. For now he would play along, until they could all leave this place.

Once more, they were framed by hellish skies. Asphy's tattered map, marked by Grayscale Carnifex, indicated that this mysterious mansion they headed to sat mere miles from them. “How fortunate,” he muttered, a hand resting near the executioner's sword on his back while the thin strips of scarlet illumination shone across the numerous metal plates fused to his well-toned physique.

He walked side-by-side with Beatrix and Trixie. Gruffly he cleared his throat and asked, “How about it? Dragon's are known for their treasure troves. And their herds. Why don't you come home with me?” With his free hand, he firmly took a squeeze from each of their plush bottoms with a smirk.

“A tempting offer,” admitted Trixie as he squeezed. “But I don't think my daughter will ever be ready to settle down and let her adventures come to an end! Isn't that so, my little hellspawn?”

“Afraid so,” said Beatrix. “I can't. Not with what's at stake! Besides...” She looked to Shadow Scythe, Cerise, and Bellatrix. “Like my friends, I...I think I have a lover somewhere out there, too!”

“We can always have more fun until this is over,” said Trixie with half-lidded eyes.

Eventually, they would have to part ways. Asphyxious, too, sensed he had a different destiny from them. This wasn't supposed to be his war. He'd merely been pulled into it by Carnifex's machinations. He seethed while one hand continued to sink and play with their supple flesh, felt their buttocks and tits he traced roll in his palms and the stiffness of nipples press into his own skin, while his other hand itched to draw his blade and take out his ire on Carnifex somehow.

Fortunately, his dark prayers were soon answered. More hellhounds bounded their way.

“Good, I needed something to work out my anger,” he growled, blade drawn in an arc when he cleaved the first attacker in two, which popped into an explosion of inky darkness that splattered across the rocky terrain.

His allies, too, moved to intercept with their armaments and spells. He'd hoped to take the souls of each slain beast, to empower himself and win his chance to be a reaper like Grayscale teased him with, but each time his stabs and slashes dispatched a hound, he wondered if they even had souls.

“More dream creations,” he spat. “Unworthy! Just like the Jabberwocky!”

Yet his boasts were met with a flood of more monstrosities, reminders of numerous abominations he and his allies had faced in their own adventures. Monsters from the abyss itself, who swarmed and attempted to overrun them. Trixie had seen a similar scenario, when the Necronomicon opened up and vomited a series of eldritch creatures which fused into a twisted mountain.

“Get behind me,” called Cerise, a palm upraised. Geomancy formed crystalline walls around them which monsters thudded impotently into. She sweated, and tried to harness all her hidden powers.

In the air, Bellatrix, Nymphette, and Kismet assailed the skyborne enemies. Grounded below were the weakened Xanadu, who could barely mount an offense, watched over by the beastly warrior she-devil Sanguine, whose claws and tusks ripped apart any creature that dared near them. “I'll handle 'em,” the warrior demon said. “Just rest up, and let your sisters do the hard work!”

“You have my thanks,” murmured Xanadu with shallow breaths.

Shadow Scythe and Danse Macabre also lifted skyward to offer support. They scythed into bat-like monsters, and beams from their horns lanced out like the spells Beatrix and Trixie wove. Unfortunately, it became clearer by the second how outnumbered they truly were.

“There must be thousands,” seethed Shadow between clenched teeth when she stared ahead.

“Even we can't handle all of this,” complained Danse. “Where's Carnifex when we need him...?”

“We can't rely on him,” reminded Bella. “Every movement he makes drains him more, and he helps maintain this planet's stability! Sisters, now is the chance to prove yourselves worthy!”

“Yes mistress!” Nymphette and Kismet snapped to attention.

Cerise concentrated, despite the sweat that left a sheen her charcoal skin and fur. The crystal wall spread further, far more than she'd ever been able to manifest before. It swept across the dusty desert, swallowed up and froze all the monsters it touched, and dozens fell by the second beneath the shimmery wave. The thousands which tried to beset them broke and ran in a desperate bid to escape. Her allies watched, wide-eyed, as Cerise's powers claimed the lives of hundreds at once.

“You did it,” called Beatrix, as they continued to blast at the runners. Asphyxious raised an eyebrow, but simply thanked them.

Cerise smiled and a solitary tear dripped from one of her eyes...a crystal teardrop which marked her cheek, the eye it came from turned to quartz. “I...did...” She tried to lean on her spear and swooned. Beatrix rushed to catch the mare, whose clothes partially ripped as the crystallization spread.

“Oh no,” whispered Bea. “The crystal...it's mixed with the dark arts her father Sombra imbued in her...it's spread like an infection!” She stripped Cerise's tattered, useless clothes away to see that portions of her flesh on one half were now embedded with crystalline chunks that mixed with her supple contours. She would've found it beautiful, were she not terrified for what she saw as a niece.

Swallow breaths caused Cerise's medium-sized breasts to steadily rise-and-fall, one of them swollen to a cup more size from the quart which tainted it. She weakly fluttered her eyes open, one blinded.

Gently Bea shook her. “Cerise! Answer me, please! Are you okay...?”

“D-don't touch me...don't want to infect you...” The dancer passed out in Bea's arms. Usually, the crystals Cerise formed would crumble to diamond dust, yet somehow they remained all over the desert. Glass-like dunes painted the landscape, and Bea shuddered, like it was a vision of the future.

Bella touched down and held her sister. “She'll live,” she reassured you. “She's stronger than she looks, as we've seen clear evidence of today. Unfortunately, it means we're down one more.”

“It's my fault,” lamented Bea, whose hot tears fell on Cerise's face. “I should've protected her-”

“No. She saved us, this time. Just as we've saved her many times before,” said Bella, who strained to recall distant memories of another lifetime. “Either way, we must march onward.”

Shadow Scythe and Danse Macabre landed to take a look at Cerise. “I don't think it's infectious. At least not by touch,” said Shadow. “But were a vampire to try and drain her, they'd be in for a nasty surprise! No, all she can do is rest for now, and hope that she doesn't fully crystallize!”

“Not much further,” said Asphyxious. “Someone'll have to carry her. If I had my books I could find a way to slow it down, at worst.”

Beatrix nodded, and with her aura lifted Cerise into her arms and cradled her when she wrapped her in a cape. On the upside, the scattered and terrified monstrosities didn't dare pursue them anymore, which left them a lonely trek to the mansion, which loomed ever closer with each footstep.

Boots and feet crunched on the sand. A half-hour later, the haunted manor, actually an eldritch beast underneath its shell, loomed over the horizon. Gothic architecture made up its old-fashioned appearance, voluminous and built to last. Those who'd walked its halls before knew they couldn't simply assail it successfully from outside, but they'd have to brave the maw of the beast itself.

Gates creaked open in their presence. Jaws of the famished abomination.

Bellatrix started to approach first. “I made a deal with it once-”

“We both did,” reminded Shadow Scythe, who faintly recalled her villainous turn.

Bella caressed one of itrs outside walls. “I think it's asleep. There won't be a better time to slip in.” She dared it first, with Shadow close behind, while everyone else shuffled to follow them. Off to the side Asphy was carving something into the side of a dead tree before joining them.

When they crossed inside, torches placed on sconces lit one-by-one. A chill draft swept upon them when they walked an embroidered carpet. Gloom broke under thin illumination, as shadows danced and the shine of flames moved across their bodies. Groans echoed from deeper within with each subdued tremor, which made the walls breathe whenever the eldritch beast snored.

“Home sweet home,” said Bella when they stood in the foyer.

"Nice, I could get used to this." Said Asphyxious looking at a painting on the wall, of what looked like the royal sisters.

Trixie asked, “So what now? Do we descend below? Isn't that where its heart's at, Bea?”

“Cerise and Xanadu needed rest,” reminded Bea. “Let's use one of the rooms! But don't split up!”

“Yeah,” cut in Kismet. “I'd rather not be picked off one-by-one like in a horror show!”

“That won't happen,” assured Nymphette with an eye roll. “Just stick close to me, baby sis. And hope the walls don't close in and eat us the moment we try to relax our cute, tired butts!”

“Eep!” Kismet pressed closer to her sister and her eyes darted about superstitiously. With reason, all of them knew, since the entire place was alive, and they walked its famished innards.

Another strange phenomenon hit the party inside the manor's insides, reality itself altered for many of the inhabitants, in a way none of them noticed due to supernatural influence…as other than the succubi, they took on their anthropomorphic forms in most versions of Equestria, transformed into mares, or in the case of Asphyxious, a drake-like anthro.

Beatrix placed Cerise in a bed in the most spacious room she could find nearby, and Xanadu also draped herself in another. The witch faintly recalled their adventure here. Before they'd known the truth of the manor, someone had approached them...a familiar pair of twins that served as hostesses, put under the eldritch's spell so they could compulsively hunt food for it...

Bellatrix and Shadow Scythe shared a look with her, too, with a nod. With Cerise and other companions they couldn't recall, they battled in these corridors, until Beatrix and Shadow Scythe faced off with the aid of Bea's companions. Then, Bellatrix cut a deal with the wounded beast after its defeat.

“The twins...they must be here somewhere...,” whispered Bea, who stroked Cerise's cheek.

“I remember,” said Shadow, who clutched at her scythe's handle. “I took their heads, once.”

“That won't happen this time,” said Bella. “We're all on the same side now.” Golden eyes studied Danse Macabre curiously. They'd known him by another name, when they last met. And another appearance. An enemy too, she realized, somehow left to flounder with the rest of them.

Another low rattled resounded in the manor. Asphyxious rose and started for the door.

Bea yelled, “What did I say? We'd better not split it! That could be suicide!”

“I can handle it,” he dismissed with a nod at his executioner's sword. “This can cut right through these walls in an instant! But anyone's free to tag-along, so long as you don't slow me down. Besides, I know ghosts, I can deal with anything they throw at me.” He smirked back at Trixie when she rose to follow him, but Bella held back her succubi sisters.

“Aw~! No fun,” pouted Kismet, who plopped down with her arms folded.

“We can't wait forever until those two recover,” reminded Nymphette.

“Just...need an hour or two,” murmured Xanadu sleepily with shallow breaths.

Asphy and Trixie were already on their way. Their boots creaked on the floorboards when they wandered the torch-lit halls. They didn't need to travel far, when they heard a muted splash from what appeared to be a bathroom. He slid the door open and entered first, hand ready at his hilt.

In a spacious tub filled with pristine water, a pair of pastel coral pink mares bathed, earth pony twins with their hairs done up in bob cuts, in a deeper shade of pink like their eyes. They turned to the new arrivals with shared smiles, both well-sculpted, one with a hint more expanse to her bust, the other matched by wider hips and bottom. As one they said, “Welcome home, master~!”

Asphy relaxed his hand but didn't lower it. “Master? Of the house? Me?” His eye travelled to drink them in, the swell of their full breasts which swayed when they moved, supple and wet, their peach-soft bottoms and mounds, topped by delicious slits. Each of them radiated a sensual warmth.

“Careful,” warned Trixie. “They're not what they seem! I think they're succubi, too!”

The twin sisters pouted. “Only half~,” they replied in one voice, and a solitary wing and horn appeared on both of them, the sharper incisors within their teeth now visible when they smiled seductively. They waved their backsides back-and-forth behind them with spaded tails.

“My name is Foal-Bearer,” said the 'elder' twin, with the shapelier hips and ass.

“And I'm Wet Nurse!” The bustier once proudly shifted with a splash so her heavier bust bounced.

Behind Asphy and Trixie, Shadow Scythe pushed her way inside with Danse Macabre close by. “After Bellatrix made her deal with the manor, they became its caretakers under her. Unable to leave after what I'd...done to them...they 'haunted' the place, until Bellatrix found a loophole. She shared some of her power and the manor's own with them to turn them into half-succubi.”

“There's only one problem,' said Foal-Bearer, whose breasts swayed and ran with water and soap suds when she rose and stepped from the tub. “As half-succubi, we have constant, intense needs...”

"One's a proper stud can satisfy~,” said Wet Nurse, who also swished her titties when she stood and strode closer, their moist hips shifted from side-to-side when they neared him.

“Be careful,” repeated Trixie with a snicker. “They could drain more than your balls!”

“That's a chance I'll take, besides it's better than having them possess you or Beatrix. Unless you're into that?” Said Asphy, as the twins coiled their plush nakedness around him, and his hands sank happily into exposed and presented breasts and buttocks. When their lips met his own in a three-way kiss, he could feel their breaths steal a hint of his life force away to sate them. Yet he trembled and found himself entranced by them, these two somehow different from the other succubi. Since they'd been trained in their past life by Bellatrix, they'd become more amorous.

Shadow Scythe scoffed at the lewd display. “You'd be dead in a horror story.”

“I don't think they mean any harm,” noted Danse, who couldn't look away and swallowed dryly.

“I could use a bath myself,” said Trixie, and with a wave she banished her clothes and her breasts and buttocks bounced free with a snicker. “Save some for me!” She pushed her way into the huddle.

With a splash, the four lovers found themselves in the tub, and Asphy impatiently stripped his wet clothes away. With another eye roll, Shadow Scythe floated out towards the library, and Danse took a solitary, curious last look back at the foursome before he followed his old research partner.

Now unclad aside from the metal plates, Asphy continued to fondle the feast of feminine flesh before him. His mouth wrapped around a presented titty from Wet Nurse, who he suckled from, certain from her name she'd fed a number of lucky ponies. Foal-Bearer moaned, and the cutie marks of the twins shined and resonated, a pair of intertwined female symbols which denoted their special ability, the power to share their sensations, be it pain or more importantly, pleasure.

“We need you inside us~,” moaned Foal-Bearer huskily, and impaled her cunt on one of his three cocks. While it was difficult to shift into position even with the spacy tub, he moved so that Wet Nurse and Trixie could mount him too, albeit the three mares atop him now crushed breast-to-breast. His hands wandered all over their moist bodies, as they now met in four-way, passionate kisses. Their hips shifted, not able to bounce much as his thrusts rose to meet their subdued humps.

A wet pop sounded when the twins withdrew from his lips, tethered by saliva strands. “Join us~.”

He rocked to meet them. Played with and sucked on their titties, while he also spread and spanked their bouncy buns. The fleshy spines on the drake's three dicks tickled and pulled at their wet, hot, pink folds, each of them taken to the hilt each time they slammed down his vein-lined shafts.

His maw swallowed and pulled on each presented tit, distended them and nibbled on the nipples he licked before he released the spit-covered titflesh free with a loud, lewd pop, rewarded with the moans he worked from them, the pleasures of the twins doubled by his attentions. Asphy was tracing over the twins backs, with each hand unnoticed by both.

Lost in lustful bliss, Trixie's half-lidded, hazy eyes barely saw Bea enter. “Join us, my little hellspawn?” She reached back and patted her moist ass a couple times, which rippled.

“It's this place,” said Beatrix shakily, with wobbly knees. “It's...we're under...spell...” Yet an amorous compulsion started to overtake her too, as her erect stiffened painfully into her leotard's fabric, much like her swollen pussylips which drenched the crotch area, her cameltoe prominent.

All she could think about clearly at the moment was how much she wanted to be fucked! She winked messily, almost painfully when her swollen clitoris mashed into the wet spot, and her thirsty cunt pulled the fabrics deep into her snatch, embedded between a slit which drooled its lust.

Similarly, the fabric wedged into her buttcrack, swallowed between her wide buns where it rubbed and tickled at her puckered asshole. She mewled and tore her top down, breasts freed from their prison with a hefty bounce as they swayed and knocked to a stop with more small ripples, and she started to run circles around her tits with her palms, and traced her areola with her thumbs.

The entire house started to come alive, when it fed off the emotions of its inhabitants.

Walls took on fleshy textures in sections. Tentacles whipped out and snapped up whoever they could find, Bellatrix and her succubi unable to hold back the slimy coils which wrapped around them and the unconscious Cerise, as they were lifted up, any scant clothes torn away.

Immediately, the slick coils probed at any fuckable orifices they discovered. All at once, the captives were triple-penetrated with a wet, messy squish and squelches when they started to pump them.

Beatrix befell a similar fate, hefted up, leotard ripped away, and skewered from all directions.

In the library, Shadow Scythe and Danse Macabre tried to concentrate on the books they'd chosen. A thirst for knowledge drew them here, yet they discovered neither were immune to the manor's amorous influence. “It's...hot...,” complained Shadow, who cast off her sweaty white robes, to reveal form-fitted bandages that served like underwear beneath a thin, lean frame. These strips, she started to loosen too, unwound like a thread one-by-one, as she absently put on a strip-tease.

Danse swallowed hard, unable to turn away. The unicorn stallion twitched in his black robes, which also blazed uncomfortably hot all of the sudden. His nostrils inhaled the sweet scent of estrus from her inflamed, moist pussy, much like how she breathed in his own subdued, yet potent male musk.

He'd never been with a mare before. Not even a real date, even when Shadow's mother attempted to hook the pair up. He'd never tried to pursue her, knew she was out of his league and he had no real chance with the icy maiden, yet the lonely stallion had started to develop a small crush on her.

“W-we shouldn't...” Yet he'd started to remove his robes, too.

Estrus dulled Shadow Scythe's usually sharp mind. The mansion's influence did its best to blot out all memories of the lover she'd lost, at least until she woke back up from this blissful trance. Leaned but perky breasts were exposed with a cast aside strip, then her small but well-shaped hips and pert bottom, her mound tapped by a taut slit. She thirstily devoured the stallion before her.

He wasn't especially handsome, somewhat plain, yet suddenly he seemed so cute and delicious, after she'd been so starved of contact. Impatiently, she helped tear his under robes away.

“Your size appears decent,” she murmured when she took his shaft into her palm, feeling the flaccid flesh start to harden and heat up more when the flared head spat precum across her skin.

“I've never.... I mean, I've read books about it and seen pictures, but-”

“Shut up and let me make love to you,” she hissed and mounted him when she pushed him to the floor, the stallion straddled when she pressed her flower which parted to accept his respectable horsecock. Groans escaped both when his length spread and brushed her inner folds, which dripped down his shaft and over his balls while her pussy winked like mad. Slowly, she moved atop him.

Inch-by-inch, she worked him over with hip movements, allowed his clumsy palms to cup her pointy tits and small, cute buttocks, able to make certain he hit the best spots with her controlled humps. Her mane drooped and waved around her when she snarled and started to pick up speed.

“More! I...I want to feel...” Once more, the face of her lost lover threatened to manifest.

Danse, too, despite the unbelievable pleasures afforded inside his crush, felt his own dim memories try to resurface. A confrontation with Shadow Scythe. The reaper order's weapon, which each of its members carried, which she'd turned on him! The dark day when she betrayed and killed them all...

“B-Betrayer...!” The words escaped his lips between their shared moans of pleasure.

“Traitor? I...” His words almost stopped her dead, yet their bodies felt compelled to move on their own, to draw out the moment of satisfaction. Nonetheless, distant memories started to physically manifest for a stallion who'd already died, and reincarnated simply as hollow memories.

Skin partially melted and slid away from Danse Macabre, until he appeared partially skeletal, and they both remembered the name the undead lich took after his dark rebirth...Mortis Saltaire, would-be avenger of the Order of Reapers that had cruelly fallen at Shadow's scythe.

Pleasant lovemaking turned to brutal hatefucking when cold, callmy, bony hands tightened around her throat, and he flipped and pinned her beneath him, even while he continued to pound into her depths with ravenous force. “Must...kill...” She tried to claw and pull at his cold hands, tried to lit her unicorn horn which fizzled out beneath a loss of concentration and the throes of estrus, as she clenched harder around what she feared was a rotted horsecock which plumbed into her womb.

Love and hate warred in him, as confused, ambivalent tears dripped down his cheeks and tinkled over the bounce of her small, perky breasts, even while her buttocks smacked under his fierce hips each time he slammed balls deep to claim her. Danse admired her. Mortis detested her. His soul was split in two, the shy and quiet, lonely stallion, the embittered wraith with a malicious vendetta.

His heart won out. He eased his choke hold. She clenched and came with him with a low howl.

Similar scenarios played out across the mansion. The tentacles pumped and emptied themselves into the vessels they subdued, whose bellies swelled up from the excessive loads of spunk. Asphyxious emptied his own balls into the twins and Trixie, oblivious to what occurred. Leaving behind rune markings on both twins, marking their souls.

Beatrix choked up cum when she was dropped onto the floor, drenched in a puddle of more spunk which had hosed her down all over. She swallowed a salty mouthful and asked, “Is it over yet...?”

Cerise choked on her own load when she tumbled back into bed, also painted all over in seed which swathed her half-crystallized curves. “Wh-where am I...” She realized where they were as her one uninfected eye took it all in as it widened. “Bellatrix! Are you and everybody else okay...”

“Just...fine,” lamented Bella, who picked her cum-stained frame off the floor.

Nymphette licked her lips and said, “That was intense! I didn't know it was dinner time!”

“I'm sore all over,” complained Xanuda, who rubbed her bare buttocks with both hands.

Kismet slurped up her own salty treat and asked, “What in the heck happened?”

“I think this monster was hungry,” said Sanguine, who stared at the fleshy walls which breathed and pulsed with an erratic heartbeat. “At least it didn't gobble us up! Try that, and I'll tear hunks of meat away to have a feast of my own!” She bared her tusks, claws, and club-like tail at the wall.

“Settle down,' demanded Bellatrix with arms crossed under her breasts while she tried to make sense of it all. Did the eldritch beast currently have a master, or did it simply act on its own? Cautiously, she touched a palm to a flesh wall now that it had awakened, and attempted to communicate.

Her spoken words reached its nervous system. More truths started to dawn on her.

“It’s lost and afraid. It didn't intend to hurt us. With help from the twins, who are trapped here, it's learned to feast on love and lust instead of flesh and blood, like before. But such scant meals have left it weakened. This whole 'planet'...it's the same asteroid Beatrix once banished Shadow Scythe to, where she kept her imprisoned and they stumbled upon this eldritch creature the first time.”

Cerise nodded slowly when she took this in, like the succubi. “No wonder this world's so small!”

“Indeed,” said Bella wryly. “The eldritch beast may appear to be a cancerous tumor on this asteroid, but in truth it's helped keep it stable. The moment it dies, this world will collapse. Grayscale must have sent us here not to dispatch the mansion, but to save it. Remember, it's capable of interdimensional travel. Unfortunately, where else can it take us? Should the multiverse really be a void...”

“S-so...” Cerise mulled it over. “Someone has to form a symbiotic bond to keep it alive, yes? Didn't it have to be someone with special powers before? M-maybe...in my crystallized state...”

“It may work. But Beatrix wouldn't want you to take that chance. Me either,” admitted Bella, who softened. “Once, I believed you little more than a silly wench, but you're precious to me.”

“...thank you,” whispered Cerise with a sniffle, her one eye moist.

“Everyone else here, too. And the ones we've lost, who are hopefully still scattered across what's left after the multiverse crumbled, or so Grayscale claims. Survive this, and maybe we can find them. I've never met this 'Asphyxious' before, but he's proven a capable ally so far,” she surmised.

With the spell broken, everyone started to awkwardly redress. “Danse...wait...” Shadow Scythe called to him, but he'd run away shame-faced, unable to look at her after he recalled what he'd done. What he'd become. What happened to the Order of Reapers, by her once villainous hands.

She floated across the corridors when she tried to chase him, only to run into Beatrix. Gathered up quickly with Asphyxious, Trixie, and the twins, they returned to the bedroom where Bellatrix shared what she'd learned on contact with the beast. Someone would have to bond with it.

“It could be permanent this time,” warned Shadow Scythe bleakly.

Bella nodded her own awareness. “It's so diminished, the host could be absorbed into it entirely. The more powerful the candidate, the less likely they'll be swallowed up whole. I'll do it.”

“I've handled it once before,” reminded Shadow, as an alternative.

“A temporary measure. Your ability to regenerate your flesh, high intelligence, strong will, and mastery of magic, the dark arts included, aided your chances,” explained Bella. “But my demonic body is still more naturally powerful than your frame. I have a far better chance.”

Shadow nodded her deference, aware the succubus was also wise and willful.

"What happened to the other ghosts? Surely more died in this place before all this." Asphyxious asked, adding another small caving into the bottom of the wall.

He got a surprise as both twins wrapped their arms around him and pushed their boobs into his back. "We're unsure." Said one. "We think they're still here but sleeping, it's good they're not awake," replied the other.

Beatrix cut in, “I've hosted an eldritch being of my own! The Demiurge! Huh, but I can't feel its presence ever since we've arrived here. I'm not sure whether I have it anymore, but it feels like I can work most of my old spells...hmmm...” She considered it, while the final choices were made.

Another rumble sounded. More like an earthquake, which almost bowled them over.

Bellatrix touched the wall and cried, “Oh no! We're too late. Someone's already seized control!”

Asphyxious seized his sword and drew it. “Who? I'll lop their head off before-”

Realization dawned in Shadow Scythe's icy blue eyes. "Danse Macabre. No, Mortis Saltaire. He'd already halfway reverted before I could catch him.” Her small fists balled up. How many times would she have to kill him? Whatever happened, she bore him no ire now, but he must be stopped!

Tremors rose around the interior, when Mortis Saltaire, now almost fully back in his lich form, found his way into the basement and forcibly fused with the manor to seize control over the eldritch abomination, to carry on unfinished business. He knew it could travel the stars. Intestine-like coils wrapped around his skeletal form, his face skull-like, his black hair in tatters.

“I too am a reaper,” came his hollow, disembodied voice. “Like the betrayer, I mastered the dark arts. What then should be my purpose, now that she and her companions have doomed the multiverse to this hellish fate? Does the Order of Reapers matter amidst an empty void?”

The eldritch beast tried to forcibly reject him. Mortis pitted his own will against it, pure in his focus, the weakness of Danse Macabre bled away when he christened himself into the black reaper. His black robes turned to tatters, like they too were decayed, his hood included as a bony horn jutted from his forehead. Eyes burned in hollow sockets, like the sparks of ignus fatuus.

His scythe transformed to resemble a rust-colored guillotine at the blade. “I am reborn. What Beatrix and her friends once called home, I now turn on them. Feast. Grow. Spare no one.”

All at once, the interiors assailed the companions, as the beast's innards manifested around them.