I looked at Lamashtu. It was my first time seeing her since I’d received my Lemegeton ability:
Queen Lamashtu
Rank 7 in the demonic hierarchy. Answers directly to Emperor Baal.
May be evoked for binding purposes only. Her presence in battle provides -15% strength, -15% deftness, and -15% acumen to all opposing forces within 250 meters. Kill or bind to negate this debuff. In addition, all female legions under her control are permanently afflicted with Adoration. Killing or binding Lamashtu will not remove the spell. Requires Evocation level 4.
Has two forms: A Shuddersome Donkey or a Hell Guardian.
What the hell did “shuddersome” mean?
I was certain she had to have a regular form other than a goddamned donkey. But it didn’t look like she did other than the hell guardian one. She was the fourth demon I’d seen with that form. I had a nasty suspicion we were going to learn very soon what that meant.
“Have you brought our queen her prize,” the cellar hag asked. She waved, annoyed, at Winky, who hissed at the hag and then popped away, only to reappear a moment later by Clara’s head.
The large witch walked down to Lamashtu’s side and sat upon the ground next to the donkey. She produced a brush and started to lovingly comb the demon queen’s coat. Lamashtu continued to chew on something, flicking her ears.
I produced the fertilized egg from my bag. Its weight had doubled since I’d bathed it in Shrill sperm. It quivered in my grip.
I stepped forward. “Here it is. We have a deal. The key for the egg.”
The cellar hags uniformly groaned at the sight of the egg. A slow chant filled the small arena.
“You must plant the egg,” the hag said. “Then the key will be delivered.”
“What… what do you mean by plant the egg?”
“Whatever it is,” Clara muttered at my side, “It can’t be grosser than you having to drink that black milk.”
I looked at Clara. “Really? You really going to curse me like that right now?”
Lamashtu snorted and rose into the air. The donkey slowly ascended in the arena. She floated almost up to the roof as the cellar hags continued to sing, louder and louder. I felt the crackle of electricity. I activated my shield, and I prepared my Invulnerable spell. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I imagined it would be something awful. Everything with this queen was awful.
The donkey started a slow spin in the air, turning clockwise like she was a disco ball.
The spokesperson witch was the only hag who wasn’t singing and gyrating. She stood underneath her queen and faced us. “Lamashtu wishes to thank you for the destruction of both her rivals,” she called. She had to shout to be heard over the chants of her sisters. “Both Vinea and Beleth have threatened our queen, and she wishes you to know that your service is to be rewarded. Never before has a human experienced what you are about to. History shall know your name. Watch, humans. Watch and witness the grandeur of the birth of a demon lord.”
“You mean right now? Like right, right now?” I said. “Doesn’t she have to wait nine months or something?”
“I’d think it’d be longer than that,” Clara said. “Aren’t elephants pregnant for 22 months? Sometimes this game can be so unrealistic.”
“Yeah, that’s the most unrealistic part about this whole scenario,” I said.
“Is she getting bigger?” Clara asked, pointing up to Lamashtu.
You have been paralyzed! You are unable to move!
“Oh fuck me,” I said as I felt my feet rise off the ground. My entire body was suddenly frozen. I still held the egg in my hand. The last time I’d been paralyzed like this was at the start of the amplification ceremony. This time I still had my pack and gun, and it appeared I could still cast spells.
Sure enough, Lamashtu was getting bigger. She wasn’t being subtle about it anymore.
“Should I be trying to stop this?” Clara yelled up to me as I floated toward the ever-growing Lamashtu.
“Yes,” I called, unable to look in her direction. “No. I don’t know. I hate this game so much.”
The donkey was not keeping proper donkey proportions as she grew. She still rotated as if she was on an invisible turntable. Her stomach bulged and her ears grew absurdly long. The more I ascended, the faster the process became. Soon, she was the size of a blue whale, and she filled the entire top half of the small arena. Dust cascaded from the ceiling, and metal beams groaned as her bulk pushed upward and out. With a terrible ripping noise, the former donkey tore the ceiling asunder. Light streamed in as the walls crumbled outward. I felt a random, inexplicable concern for the drivet monster guarding the front door.
My thoughts flew back to concern for my own person as Lamashtu stopped rotating.
“Oh, no, no, no!” I cried as I realized with horror where I was headed.
The donkey’s tail appeared to be the only part of Lamashtu that hadn’t become misshapen and huge. The pink bow managed to stay attached to the appendage. The demon gave her tail a slight flick.
That bow was the last thing I saw before I was sucked into the demon’s bloody, swollen vagina.
If I didn’t have my breathless ability, I’d have surely suffocated to death. For five terrible minutes, my body remained paralyzed as I was sucked further into the still-growing donkey’s reproductive system. First the vagina, and then I squeezed through what I assumed to be the cervix. A long minute passed as I continued my slow, painful journey through the endometrium and then finally into the uterus.
Only then did my paralysis fade.
The egg ripped from my hands, and it attached itself to the far wall of the uterus as if it was a magnet.
Hell Quest – The Shrill’s Seed. Quest Complete!
The egg quivered and stretched. It started to grow at an alarming rate.
At this point, I no longer gave a crap about the quest or the key or anything else except getting the hell out of there.
The cervix was puckering, open and closed, and I slipped through. My journey out of the donkey was much easier than my journey in. I half pushed, half slid the rest of the way out, falling downward like I was sliding down a bloody ramp made of rutted slabs of marbled beef.
I emerged out of the donkey vagina, and I had to grasp at the snake-like hairs to keep from plummeting the forty feet to the ground. Above me, Lamashtu continued to inflate, transforming larger and larger. A constant river of bloody discharge showered out of her vagina, soaking me. She had rocketed past Banksy-size and was now approaching full-on guardian.
As I suspected, a “Hell Guardian” was a kaiju form. The next few days were going to be interesting, to say the least.
The roller derby arena lay below me, getting further away by the moment. I was already well past the point of falling safely. I was loathe to use my Invulnerable except in absolute emergencies. I’d been practicing for this.
My shield was still engaged, but I knew it wouldn’t be useful in a fall. I dropped, plunging toward the remains of the arena. I cast Hinder at the last possible moment. I cursed myself for not spending the teeth on the bionic upgrade for level 2, especially after what happened last time.
My descent was slowed for 6.8 seconds. My aim was true. The spell fizzled out before I hit the ground, but I was much closer this time. I shot out my hook, and I descended easily to the ground. I came to a slow, steady stop right next to Clara and Winky, who stood in the middle of the destruction of the arena, looking up at me as I came down.
The landing was so smooth, it almost looked like I knew what I was doing. Even Winky appeared impressed.
Clara looked over my blood-soaked body and grunted.
“Remember when you said you weren’t going to fuck a donkey?”
Chapter 60
Above, Lamashtu continued to increase in size. She floated above us like some sort of nightmare blimp. Her lumpy, amorphous body was a combination of the Shrill and Colo Colo the rat slug kaiju. She was not covered in eyes and mouths like the Shr
ill, but she had the same sort of blob-like feel to her form. But as we watched, she stopped rising, and then she began to descend. Four trunk-like brontosaurus legs emerged under her bulk. Talons emerged, and then the legs took on a distinctly avian appearance. Her skin seemed to shrink wrap upon itself, the gas letting out, causing her true form to take place.
“She’s not normally going to fly,” I muttered, watching. She’d, thankfully, moved over, so she wasn’t going to land directly on top of us. She descended one street over, landing on one of the Shrill’s old paths of destruction.
We rushed outside, passing the hags who continued to chant. The door guard drivets had survived the collapse of the outer walls and stood in the parking lot, staring. Lamashtu’s spokesperson hag followed us outside.
The hell guardian’s true form was a chimera of sorts. Her final head was a half lioness, half donkey with absurdly long ears. Her body was cat-like, reminding me more of the sleekness of Avvinik than the power of Bast. Her four legs were feathered, taloned, powerful, and long. She would stand higher than Bast or Avvinik. She did not have wings.
Where Bast had mighty tentacles erupting from her back, Lamashtu had snakes. These were not nearly as long, but she had a heck of a lot more of them. Hundreds of thirty-foot-long, biting serpents writhed about the hell guardian’s back.
As Lamashtu descended behind a row of buildings, I caught sight of her bulging and swelling belly. The kaiju screamed, the sound like a thousand donkeys braying in pain.
Banksy: Father. The world rumbles. What is happening up there?
Duke: My man, you do not want to know. Stay ready in case I need you.
I turned to the cellar hag, who had come to stand next to us. In the bright of day, her black cloak still drank the light, giving her the appearance that she was black and white while everything else burst in color. The hag quivered, and electric sparks shot off her body irregularly.
“The key,” I said.
From this angle, we could now only see the top half of Lamashtu. She had finally stopped growing. She had become enormous, at least 1,500 feet long. Bigger than Bast. Almost as wide as the Shrill. She screamed again. The world reverberated with her cry. Several streets over, a building crumbled.
Cellar hags streamed out into the open, filling the parking lot and the streets around the arena. They started a new chant. I exchanged a look with a drivet. Even he looked freaked out.
“Patience, human,” the hag said. “Miftah will slash open the rift soon, allowing passage for your kind.”
“Miftah! Miftah!” the hags chanted.
“Miftah?” I said. “What the hell is a miftah? Is that the baby? The key?”
“Miftah is much more than just the key,” the hag said. She spoke quickly, reverently, her voice in awe. “He is the trueborn son of Zagan and Lamashtu. He is the trueborn heir of all the heavens, all dimensions, and all life past, present, and future. He is the bearer of annihilation, the harbinger of the apocalypse, the end of joy, and the slayer of hope. He is the End of All, and now he has a form, soon all who oppose the inevitability of Him will know nothing but an eternity of sorrow and the gnashing of teeth.”
“He sounds nice,” Clara said.
Crash!
The world rumbled again. I watched in horror as “Miftah” leaped into the parking lot. The house-sized ball of flesh splattered a dozen cellar hags. Concrete shattered, blasting in every direction. The other hags didn’t notice or didn’t care. A collective groan filled the parking lot.
“Miftah! Miftah!”
Luckily, Nipper was on the other side of the lot and hadn’t been smushed.
I looked up in awe at the baby kaiju.
Miftah was a hairy, flesh-colored ball, about fifty feet in diameter. A single, thin eyestalk pushed out from the ball’s side, curving upward. The flesh-colored stalk reminded me of a giraffe neck, but with a round, beach umbrella-sized eye blinking down at us in confusion. A single, gummy mouth opened and closed at the very top of the creature. It made wet, squeaking noises. The creature hopped in the air and crashed down again, smashing more cellar hags.
The red, flaming name appeared over the demon. He did not have a crown.
Miftah – Infant Stage
Has no rank in the demonic hierarchy.
Has no sigil, and as such, may not be evoked.
The child of the Shrill and Queen Lamashtu, Miftah’s only purpose is to devour all existence, creating a universe of neverending pain for all who dare oppose him.
Has the ability to cast Rend Dimension. Additional abilities appear as Miftah ages.
Has two forms: A Donkey Foal or a Minor Hell Guardian.
Miftah bounced, sailing over our heads and smashing into the shattered arena. The infant kaiju began to wail. He bounced again, going deeper into the city. Lamashtu remained in her spot, and she howled. Miftah answered her. The twin screams were so loud I took a small amount of damage.
The remaining cellar hags followed the bouncing baby kaiju, raising their hands in adoration. As they followed, their cloaks disappeared, leaving them as pale, naked forms rushing through the street. Some galloped away on all fours while others hobbled forward on two feet. Only the one cellar hag remained.
“Your dealings with Lamashtu are over,” the hag said. “Worry not. Our deal is not forgotten. Give him a day to explore his physical form, then Lamashtu will gather him up and take him home. As the light fades tomorrow evening, our new Emperor will proceed to the rift and rip it apart. He is the key you have been promised. This will allow travel from both directions.”
“How is he going to get there?” I said. I looked south. “There are many of my guardians securing the passage.”
The hag’s cloak faded, revealing the naked form and pale skin of the ancient witch. She stood to her full height. The pendulous breasts of the giantess hung down to her knees, and they dripped black milk similar to that of their queen. Her black, bulbous eyes fixed on mine as a wide, toothy grin crossed her face.
That grin, Jesus. The moment I saw it, I knew we were fucked. I knew we’d made a terrible mistake.
“By this time tomorrow, no guardian will be able to stop Miftah’s passage.”
Chapter 61
Feedings Left: 1
We waited a full 24 hours before we decided to approach the Temple of the Chained Gods. It was just about five in the afternoon, giving us seven hours before Miftah would force open the rift.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that cellar hag’s grin. I hoped and prayed that whatever terror we unleashed on this world would only exist as an epilogue, a part of the ending sequence. Maybe a bleak ending, but an ending nonetheless, a dark storyline that emerged as one of the thousands of possible conclusions. As long as the credits rolled, I didn’t care.
But I had a terrible feeling we should never have gone down this path. We were mixing too very unlikely ending scenarios with Miftah and the temple. I feared we’d fallen into a trap, and we’d unleashed something that required more than what we had to complete.
One feeding left. If we screwed this up, there would be no second chances.
There would be no more rest. No more stopping to analyze what our next move would be. This was it. We were going to break into that temple, and from that moment forward, the rest would be nothing but fighting and running.
“Wait,” Clara hissed. I stopped, putting my back against the wall. A moment later, the city guard strode by. In this part of Medina, the only guards were sundered, radiants, and caduceus.
Technically, we weren’t doing anything wrong. Not yet. But I wasn’t welcome in this part of the city, and there would be questions.
I thought back to that moment, almost two weeks before when I asked Guildmaster Fiona about the prophecy that said a worm surgeon would bring destruction to the Temple of the Chained Gods.
Fiona had opened her mouth to talk, but the screen flickered, and I was suddenly transported to a new world.
A cutscene. One that was actually playi
ng. I was so surprised that it took me a moment to take in my surroundings.
I stood upon a smoking, decimated battlefield. Bast and Tem appeared in the distance, lumbering away. The rift lay opened before me. It looked different than it normally did. This time it was about half the width it usually was.
A group of five humans appeared. All men. Four of them held the fifth captive, who struggled in their grip. This fifth one was in irons. The other four each wore dented and bloodied armor covered in red and black tunics. The fifth was in rags. They faced the rift. I stood amongst them, but they could not see me.
The four armored men had hawkish looks about them. One of them had what appeared to be a light dusting of feathers along his neck. The fifth was pale, sickly, diseased.
I then realized what I was watching. This was long ago, and these men were in the early stages of transformation. In a hundred years, they would be completely hawk-headed. The four would become radiants. The other was a worm surgeon.
“Paskunji will be back soon. And then you will answer for your crimes, traitor,” one of the radiants said.
“A traitor?” the sickly man answered. He spat, and it came out bloody. The man’s pale face was a map of cuts and bruises. “If we hadn’t resurrected the demon, this war would’ve been lost.”
The radiant slapped the worm surgeon across the face. I flinched. “Paskunji will take care of this demon. Just you wait. And then Paskunji will take care of you. You and all your family, all those who made this traitorous pact with darkness.”
The scene froze, fading to black and white.
The deep voice from the character creation sequence spoke.
“It is the end of the first war. Neo-Austin is in ruins. 70% of the population is dead. The guardians lick their wounds. The survivors have retreated to the outskirts of the Temple of the Chained Gods. But, alas. Victory. The heavens are safe. The demons have given their surrender, and they have retreated back to hell, escorted by Guardian Epsilon and Guardian Paskunji. Once the two mighty guardians return, the rift will be sealed. It won’t open again for a millennia.”
Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon Page 48
