Escape the Island of Eldritch Lust

by Amanda Clover

  “Yes, you do,” agrees your mother, striding past the groveling cultist. Her huge breasts sway with each step. Her enormous hips swing from side to side. There is a certain erotic confidence to her gait that marks her as undeniably your mother. You can recall many times her charming an innkeeper for a room or disappearing through the door of a merchant’s backroom only to return with a hefty discount on all his wares. Only now… now that natural charm is grotesquely enlarged. She towers over you and your sister. She even towers over the minotaurs.

  She looms above you and Kara, a strange smile on her face and her golden-violet eyes seeming to glow with unholy magic. Without looking back at the beautiful cultist, your mother says, “I always favored you, Janine. Among all of his generals and heralds, you are my favorite. Now your value has been confirmed.”

  “Thank you, my queen,” says Janine, once more bowing her head.

  “Yes,” says your mother, tilting your head back with a single huge finger on your forehead. “My daughters alive and mostly well. You, Janine, will be my right hand. And my daughters will usher Zhibbareth into this world.”

  “God of lies!” Shouts Kara. “We will never help you, mother! Look at yourself, your flesh twisted by his evil magic, breasts bloated and—“

  Your mother backhands Kara, sending her sprawling on the tiles. The giantess glares in your direction and you cringe away from her.

  “Secure them both to the altar,” your mother snaps at the minotaurs. “It is time for them to fulfill their destiny.”

  You let out a cry of protest as the minotaurs scoop you up once more. Kara kicks and flails at the minotaur, but he ignores her attempts to escape as the bull-headed brutes carry you and your sister over to the slab of the stone altar.

  You are dropped on your back beside Kara, hip-to-hip, but with your heads on the opposite ends of the huge stone. Your arms are stretched out above your head and the minotaurs secure your wrists and ankles with lengths of rope to metal eyelets at the edges of the altar. Kara strains at her bindings, but is just as thoroughly tied down to the table. Her body arches as she tries to escape. She falls back down on the slab. Her pert breasts shake with the impact.

  “Bring me two sacrifices!” Your mother’s voice thunders and echoes in the cavernous space. “We will divide the fragment of our god between them!”

  Several warriors hurry out of the chamber, presumably to fetch the sacrifices. Now might be your only chance to attempt to escape.

  What do you do?

  Try to escape from your bindings

  Try to free Kara from her bindings

  Wait to see what happens

  Rely on Alyssa to distract your mother

  Your mother’s huge breasts heave with each breath she takes and she flexes her arms, smiling and apparently eager to smash you and Alyssa to pieces.

  “She is too powerful for us to take head on,” you warn Alyssa. “I need… one of us needs to distract her while the other cooks up a spell powerful enough to bring her down.”

  “Leave the distraction to me,” says Alyssa.

  Before you can discuss any further plan, your mother is upon you, swinging her huge fists and nearly striking you both. You roll out of the path of the blows and Alyssa leaps into the air and opens her wings, rolling and pirouetting around your mother. The succubus manages to lash your mother with several short bursts of spell fire.

  “Bitch!” Your mother roars, conjuring a shield to ward off the flames. “I will pluck off your wings and have you fucked to death by an Ur Bear!”

  “You have to catch me first,” taunts Alyssa, darting out of your mother’s reach.

  You needle your mother’s hip and side with dozens of tiny magical dart flung from your fingertips. She roars with pain as the blue darts stick into the side of her breast, down her arm, and into the meat of her upper leg like the glowing quills of a giant porcupine. She turns on you, fury in her eyes and a spell crackling around her fingertips. Alyssa dives in on your mother before the giantess can strike, blasting her with twin plumes of magical fire that catch you mother in the back.

  “Bitch!” Your mother screams and the word reverberates in your mind forcefully enough to interrupt your own spell casting. “You want to play with fire? We can play with fire!”

  Before you can summon another spell, your mother blasts Alyssa with roaring streams of flames from both hands. The succubus is driven back, screaming and caught in the rush of fire. Alyssa writhes and glows brighter and brighter amid the flames. Her clothing burns away and her hair explodes into flames so that she seems to have a mane of fire. Her wings burn away, leaving red-hot bones.

  “Got you!” Your mother snarls triumphantly, scouring Alyssa’s flesh with the churning streams of fire.

  The succubus will surely perish if you do not act. You shake off the dizziness caused by your mother’s scream and summon the simplest and most powerful spell you can muster. It is a caster’s hand spell that projects your will into physical force through magical energy.

  You funnel all of your fear and anger and desperation, all the pain you have suffered during the course of your journey, into the casting. A rippling wave of pure force explodes from your hands. The blast gouges a channel through the ancient tiles, shattering them and causing them to fly out of the path of the magical energy. The wave of energy strikes your mother and Alyssa, extinguishing the fire in an instant and sending the giantess and the charred succubus flying. They go cart wheeling through the air like two ragdolls and plunge straight into the gaping hole at the center of the massive chamber.

  Worse, the force of your spell continues to spread through the room, thundering to the edges of the chamber and toppling the giant throne. Massive fissures split the walls of the throne room and the temple begins to shake, as if your spell has set off a chain reaction.

  “No!” You cry and run towards the hole. It begins to crumble at the edges, the tiles and floor collapsing into the endless pit like a weighted tablecloth being dragged down. You see your mother trying to pull herself up. Not far from her, Alyssa, badly burned, is dragging herself up from the depths.

  Another powerful tremor shakes the floor and sends huge chunks of stonework plunging from the ceiling high above and smashing the tiled floor. You struggle to stay on your feet as massive fissures begin to open in the ceiling and the handmaidens waiting on the edges of the chamber begin to scream and run. Your mother, halfway out of the pit, is nearly crushed by a massive chunk of stonework covered in vile runes. She slips back into the hole so that only her hands are still visible. Alyssa, meanwhile, has pulled her upper body out of the pit, but she seems to have exhausted all of her strength.

  With the massive pieces of stonework falling and the room itself beginning to collapse, there is no way you could reach Alyssa or your mother. But you could conjure another wizard’s hand and use it to pluck one of them to safety.

  But only one of them.

  “Please,” your mother cries. “Please, Penny, help me!”

  Alyssa says nothing. She is too weakened to make a sound. More fissures open in the ceiling and so much stonework falls into the chamber that you can barely see Alyssa and your mother. You must act now and you must choose which of them you save.

  Who do you save?

  Save Alyssa

  Save your mother

  Distract your mother while Kara strikes

  “I will keep her busy,” you say to your sister. “Try to find a weak spot while I am getting thrashed by our oversized mother.”

  “Try not to get yourself killed, please,” says Kara.

  “Do my best,” you say as you separate from her, moving to your left as Kara moves to the right. Your mother starts to veer towards Kara. You strike an exaggerated casting posture and begin to summon a simple fire burst spell. Generally the easier the magic, the weaker the spell, and the fire burst is no exception. It summons a swirling orb of flame that you fling across the chamber. It splashes across your mother’s shoulder and arm in a harmles
s puff of fire. Maybe it singes a few hairs. It also succeeds in getting her full attention.

  Your mother snarls and turns on you. She stomps towards you heavily enough to dislodge loose tiles from the floor, a furious expression on her giant face.

  “You like to play with magic?” She laughs. “Zhibbareth has made me so much more powerful.”

  “Gods!” You cry, throwing yourself to the ground as your mother almost instantly casts a roaring stream of flames in your direction. The heat seems to bake against your body, but her spell narrowly misses, sending a roaring missile of fire across the chamber and splashing flames up the walls. The fire is so hot that some of the maddening stonework cracks as loudly as pistol shots. You roll back up to your feet, conjuring a shield of ice just in time to block another roaring gust of fire. Your shield melts away, your eyebrows are singed, but you are alive.

  “Better,” says your mother. “Good reaction. You might have been a huntress. But you are weak, Penny. And now I will break you.”

  She thunders towards you, her huge size becoming more terrifying as you try to summon magic to your fingers in time to stop her momentum. Your mind blanks in the heat of the moment and you cannot think of a spell that will stop her without hurting her. You flash a useless flare of light at her and she ignores the illusion and slams you to the ground. One of her hands wraps around your throat, pinning you to the ground.

  “I’ll choke the breath from you,” she snarls. “And throw your body into the breeding pits. Your hole is unworthy of the Great One’s seed.”

  The pain of her constricting hand is nothing compared to the agony of hearing such words from your mother and seeing such madness in her eyes. Her soul is truly lost to Zhibbareth. Whatever chance you may have had to redeem her is gone.

  The darkness closes in around you as you fight to breathe, clawing uselessly at your mother’s giant hand. She seems to enjoy your desperation, laughing at you as you begin to lose consciousness.

  “Go ahead, fight it,” she snarls, spittle dripping from her mouth. “You and your sister will be nothing but wombs for the armies of—“

  Her eyes go wide and she suddenly stiffens. Hot, red blood pours from her neck and onto your body in a massive gush. You realize three feet of ice are protruding through your mother’s neck. As she pitches forward, you scramble out from beneath her toppling body and see Kara standing on your mother’s shoulders. Your sister grimaces as she twists a six-foot javelin of steaming ice into the back of your mother’s neck. The javelin snaps and Kara leaps off your mother’s falling body as it plunges, as if in slow motion, over the edge of the massive pit.

  Kara is a moment too late dismounting from your mother and tumbles after her.

  “No!” You cry, leaping to your feet and running to the edge of the pit. There is a sudden burst of magical force from the darkness and you realize that somewhere, far below, Zhibbareth has just swallowed up your mother. Kara, at least, is still alive. She clings desperately to the tilted floor at the ragged edge of the pit. “Kara!”

  “I can… pull myself up,” she says, beginning to climb out of the pit.

  A powerful tremor shakes the entire massive structure of the temple. It is followed by another and another. Stonework begins to crack and fall from high above and the pit widens, swallowing up more of the tiled floor and threatening to drag your sister down.

  “Go! Get out of here!” Shouts Kara. She loses her grip with one hand and barely clings on with the fingers of her other hand. She looks up at you desperately and shouts, “Run!”

  You ignore her command and kneel at the edge of the pit, the floor shaking and cracking beneath you and dust beginning to billow into the chamber as warriors and red-robed women flee. As you splay your fingers and begin to cast the spell, Kara loses her grip. She lets out a cry as she plunges into the darkness below.

  And rises back up again, grasped in the invisible magic of the wizard’s hand. With seemingly the whole temple beginning to collapse around you, there is no time to set her down gently. You turn and run, grabbing your belongings and tossing them into the air to be caught by the wizard’s hand spell. Your sister spins in midair as you run from the chamber and into the maze-like hallways of the temple.

  Fighting your way through panicked warriors, you arrive in a dining hall with overturned tables and chairs and a chandelier swinging wildly as the temple shakes. You pause long enough to set Kara down and let her pull her trousers and boots on. You manage to get your bodice and skirt on, but do not bother to lace it up as tunnels begin to collapse above you and around you.

  It becomes a wild dash through the crumbling halls of the temple to escape before you are crushed. More than once, the floor splits apart, opening a pit that disappears into blackness and forcing you to turn back and find another route. You run into a chapel with stained-glass and reliefs that seem to venerate monsters raping humans. Nearly thirty women are huddled in one corner of the tilted room, clinging to one another in their red robes.

  “Come with us,” you shout at them. “We’re leaving this place!”

  The women are too afraid to budge. Suddenly, a hulking human man with a hood over his head shouts at them. “WE GO!”

  He brandishes a double-bladed axe and the women scream and run. The man, a eunuch judging by his blood-soaked loincloth, follows with them.

  You and the large group of women manage to escape the collapsing temple only to face the chaos of Rhilath as it descends into madness. Humans riot against their slave masters and monsters big and small turn on the humans and one another. There is no way to join the fight on any rational side, so you and Kara hurry the women out of the dusty plaza and back into the woods.

  Thus begins a long and arduous journey across an island that is mostly overrun with monsters. Some of the women desert you when you make camp the first night. Two women are slain in a rock slide and another one is devoured by a huge insect creature that dwells in a pit trap like an ant lion. You and Kara kill the creature, but not in time to save the unfortunate woman. You fight mutated orcs escaping from Rhilath, run off a pack of wolf-like creatures with tentacles on their snouts, and bring down a harpy that more closely resembles a bat than a woman.

  It is to the credit of the former handmaidens of Zhibbareth in their tattered red gowns that they manage to continue on with little complaint. Nearly all of them are pregnant from various monsters and you spend your campfire nights asking the women about these pregnancies. They use the word “mating” to describe the rape they suffered at the hands of monsters. Their minds are not quite right after being forcibly indoctrinated into the cult of Zhibbareth. Despite their many hardships, their spirits remain high. You and Kara encourage them and find the eunuch, a stocky young man named Zaff, to be particularly helpful in keeping them motivated while marching.

  It is only as you reach the southern shore and see the Zephyr anchored in shallow waters that you realize Orsen Castillo cannot possible take all these women to safety. There simply is not room on his boat.

  “Take one,” you explain to him once he wades ashore to greet you. You call a small, mousey girl forward. Her belly bulges grotesquely. “Agula is pregnant with an oracle serpent. It is a harmless creature used for true-telling. Take her to the king of Akrane and let her tell her story. If he does not believe her words about the dangers Ctharne still poses, maybe he will believe her giving birth to a monster.”

  “What of you and your sister?” Orsen asks with concern. “You just want me to leave you here?”

  “We will fight the monsters that still inhabit this island,” you say, putting an arm around Kara’s shoulders. “We will try to stop them from spreading to the mainland and we will free the humans who remain in danger here on the island.”

  “You will come back?”

  “We may,” you say, not feeling particularly hopeful. “But if we do not, the king must know what is waiting for him on Ctharne."

  “I understand,” says Orsen. Reluctantly, the handsome captain depart
s with Agula and several survivors he gathered on the Zephyr while you were journeying to Rhilath. You wave him off as the Zephyr departs into open seas. Storm clouds still gather over the island behind you.

  Once the boat is gone, you give a short speech to make sure the handmaidens understand that they will have to fight for survival.

  “You will not be alone,” you explain. “We will teach you how to fight. We will teach you how to hunt. And we will help you have the revenge you so richly deserve.”

  They offer a surprisingly spirited cheer at that. Soon enough, you have put some of them to work spear fishing and gathering fruit and herbs while the rest help you and Kara dig and build wooden dugout shelters. Over the coming days, you train them in lore and magic and your sister gives them the basic skills of hunting with spears and crafting stone axes. It is the start of an education that might one day turn these handmaidens into huntresses.

  Around the fire, Kara expresses other concerns.

  “Some of these women are growing close to giving birth,” says Kara. “What will we do when that happens? What will we do with whatever comes out of their bodies?”

  It is not the first time you have discussed this with your sister, but you know the time is nearly upon you when such decisions must be made. Better to decide the matter now than to wait for the moment to arrive.

  “What do we do?” Your sister repeats.

  What will do you do with the offspring of the handmaidens?

  Raise their offspring to be helpful

  Treat their offspring like the monsters they are

  Refuse her. It is time to move on.

  You consider Alyssa’s proposal for a moment, then shake your head. “Mmm. No, Alyssa. I don’t think so.”

  The succubus freezes, her beautiful face tense and hard. “I’m sorry Penny. I must have misheard.”