Chapter One Twenty-Nine Of Fallen Heroes and a Plotting Harem (Patreon)

Pafi separated from the hug, feeling better, “Thanks.”

“So what got you so rattled?”

Pafi handed her the letter, and Aidera soon leaned over to look at the page. A frown graced her lips, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She shrank a little, “I’ll need to tell Phyllis.”

Misaki was silent for a moment, “I kinda wanted to meet the man. Phyllis made him sound like something else, guess I never will now.”

Pafi smiled, “He was something else alright. You know when I met him, he was already an accomplished Adventurer, but so was I. I can still remember that day pretty well, it had all started with a perfectly ordinary day. My travels had taken me north, we were out past the Spine Mountains and winter was fast approaching. I’d stopped by the local guild to turn in a quest before going to look for an inn to spend the winter months at. When a noble came in, a mother with an urgent quest to look for her missing daughter. Naturally I ended up volunteering for the quest, but my two party members weren’t so thrilled so we parted ways. I met Kael not long after.

“Kael joined in too and we met at the briefing. That was our first adventure together, the two of us left the town with a couple of others, as a freshly constructed party. I was the mage, Kael was our front line, I don’t really remember the other two, it has been so long.”

“Interesting, how did that go?”

“Well we picked up the girl’s trail easily enough, the path led us back into the Spine Mountains, where we found a ruined slaver’s camp and plenty of blood. Someone or something else had hit the camp before we got there, but weirdly the slave cages were missing. It wasn’t long before we found drag marks leading deeper into the mountains and a search of the camp revealed that the only corpses were men. That meant the girl wasn’t there, but we were pretty sure she had been. Something large and powerful had dragged them, and while it didn’t seem good we followed. Even as the weather started to grow worse.

“That trail led us to a tunnel entrance which led us into a series of caves. It was around then that things started feeling off. A weird miasma filled that part of the tunnel and then the walls themselves started to look strange. They weren’t rock, but something else.”

Aidera frowned, “Wait? Don’t tell me, an Abyssal!?”

Pafi nodded, “Sadly the poor girl had run into slavers first, and then her bad luck didn’t end there. She was ‘rescued’ by a Qilvi Puppet Queen.”

Aidera and Misaki shared a look, “Um, what is that?”

“A rare breed of Abyssal, I’ve only seen one once. Anyway, our team followed the trail right into her lair. I still remember what I saw when we walked in. Several cages rested against the rear wall, two monstrous abominations I can’t find the proper words to describe stood guard over them, near where some of the slaves still lay. Closer to us were a number of tables, the poor noble girl lay on one of them. The damn Qilvi had already started working on her, both of her breasts had been removed, her belly lay open with several organs missing and her skin had turned a sickly shade of green. Her head was firmly held in a bracket, with a small guillotine hovering over her small neck, and a couple of tubes attached where her boobs used to be.

“She wasn’t the only kid on the tables, next to her we could see another kid, female, she wasn’t a shade of green. Her skin had been removed, her head gone, organs missing. Her legs had also been sliced open, so her long bones could be removed. While in the other direction, we could see another kid who still had her head, but her breasts were gone and her belly was open.”

Misaki grimaced, “That sounds terrible!”

“Abyssal nests are never fun places. Anyway as I was saying, we were looking at a grim work line, with girls being harvested for parts. We saw several heads that were placed on a shelf, each resting on a strange silver disk. Their eyes were glazed, but the girls were still clearly alive. Elsewhere, just resting in a pile as if they had been discarded were the empty husks of the girls who had already been fully harvested. However what I remember most is the Qilvi, she was standing right there in front of us, ready to trigger that guillotine.

“The Qilvi was tall with a sharp angular face with four glowing eyes, a mandible instead of a mouth and framed by dark black hair. Her ears were long and pointed like an elf, just longer. From her back sprouted four translucent wings like those of an insect. She wore no clothes, giving us both a good view of her large breasts, toned belly and naked sex. From her butt extended a large abdomen, and she had four tentacles extending from her waist, each one ending in a stinger. Her arms were slender, yet toned, ending with clawed hands. She had four legs, with multiple joints and bladed feet. Just the sight of her was intimidating.”

“I can just imagine.”

Pafi sighed, “She was a nasty foe, the battle lasted well over an hour, but we beat her in the end. The clean up wasn’t fun, we had to deal with her creations, clean up the husks and put the girls back together. Worse, our poor noble girl had been poisoned, which required hours to cleanse out. We also found a rear entrance to the den, which led outside into a large fenced overhang; it had a couple of other passages leading elsewhere into the den. It was here we found several playpens filled with baby girls and monstrous bugs. They were long pale white worms armored with segmented plates, they had thin tentacles at the front, ending with short barbs. We saw several of them attached to the poor babies in the pen, feeding. Thankfully the worms were not that tough, it was their bigger cousins we had to worry about.”

“Their cousins?”

“Those worms are the larval form, but still nasty.” Pafi glanced over, “But I’m still proud of the memory, we cleaned that nest out, saved so many young girls and ended up clearing more quests than we set out to do. Getting home wasn’t that fun though, as it would turn out we had to stay in the tunnels with the girls we saved for over a week since a blizzard hit while we were clearing the nest, but I did get to know Kael because of that. We ended up going on a number of adventures after that, by the end of the year we were married and a year after that I was pregnant with Phyllis.

Misaki glanced at the letter, “And now he is gone? A real shame.”

“Weirdly enough, we were brought together thanks to an abyssal and now one took him from me.”

Misaki turned to the letter, “It doesn’t say anything about that?”

“Well I wouldn’t be a good wife, if I didn’t know what Kael was doing. He and his party were hunting an Abyssal. It had all started when they cleaned out the nest of an Abyssal, but they never found the summoner, so he started looking into things. Over time, he found more and more concerning things, which led him onto the trail of another Abyssal and an investigation into an Abyss-worshiping cult. His last letter mentioned something about a Silaurean dick breeder.”

Aidera asked, “What’s that?”

Pafi shrugged, “No idea. I don’t even know what it does, as I’ve never heard of one before.”

_____

The party stepped before the doors leading to the boss. The large heavy gates were still closed but since they solved the puzzles Efim and the girls would be able to open them. Not far from the gate, a panel had retracted to reveal a mechanism, which Charel bounded over towards. The bubbly foxgirl quickly began to operate it, the doors rumbled a bit, symbols lit up and then they started to swing open.

When the doors were finally open, Efim led the way inside. A single naked figure stood in the middle of a large room waiting for them. She smiled, “Welcome challengers, I am Meifa, boss of the second floor.” she spread her sex a little, “Care for a workout or would you prefer to fight?”

Efim bowed, “A pleasure to meet you,” then he assumed his stance, “But we are here to fight not play.”

She smiled, “Then we better make it a good one and if I win you will be giving me that workout I want. All of you!” 

The demon girl giggled and then assumed a stance of her own. He smiled, this might be a good battle, she was clearly of dragon blood, the scales and wings gave it away.  Efim gave signals to the girls to set their strategy, he wasn’t going to do Meifa the dishonor of treating her as anything less than a worthy opponent.

The battle started with a spell, first to strike was Yuki as she let lose with a blue-white beam of magical energy. It lanced across the field in an instant, freezing everything in its path. Meifa didn’t even dodge, a magical barrier of her own springing into existance before the beam, stopping the attack. She giggled and then shot forward her claws at the ready. Efim stepped forward, ready to counter.

He was barely aware of Lyrvi as she slipped out of formation. While U’bel nocked an arrow, then claw clashed against sword. Three quick exchanges sparks flying with each movement as the pair of them moved faster than thought. Then they separated, each eying the other. Meifa was good, and strong for her level. Any lesser swordsman would have been dead from that exchange. Meifa grinned, and then tossed a bolt of magic his way. He switched to a guard stance, just as a ward sprang up between him and the bolt.

As the fire splashed against the barrier, he said, “Thanks!” There was no need to mention names, but he knew exactly who cast that barrier, that was Charel’s work. As the healer she often didn’t have much to do unless they got hurt, so she’d learned how to cast wards and would often deploy them to protect the party against hostile spells, allowing Yuki to focus on casting offensive magic.

An arrow whizzed by him, forcing the dragon girl to defend herself and that was followed up with a barrage of icy spikes that slammed into her defenses one after the other. He shifted into a stance and lept forward just as the barrage ended. Another arrow striking at the same moment, this time scoring a grazing hit to Meifa’s cheek. Then his sword was flashing, as Lyrvi emerged from the shadows, her blades at the ready. As she danced, her skirt flaring, he joined her in the moments.

Blade met claw in a furious rhythm of move and countermove. They danced around each other while the girls held back, at this range there was too much risk in launching a spell or arrow. Occasionally a ward would appear to block a strike, each time he silently thanked Charel for her diligent protection.

Lyrvi’s blade danced before him, one of more strikes than he cared to count, as it caught Meifa’s claw. Seeing an opening, he turned his blade, bringing his shield arm to bear to block another claw strike, before launching a horizontal slash that caught the dragon girl across the belly. She gasped before smiling, clearly enjoying this bout as much as he was. She really was good, and he hadn’t been expecting a second floor boss to be so well-matched against his party.

Meifa suddenly unleashed a fiery breath at him, forcing him to take a step back and raise his shield. In the same moment another ward sprang up to protect him, just as Lyrvi danced out of the path of a claw strike. Moments before the dragon girl jumped back. Already new spells forming in her hands.

U’bel responded quickly with a powerful arrow strike, sailing across the room to lodge in the dragon girl’s shoulder, which Yuki followed up with a barrage of icy bolts. Each one slammed into the dragon one after another, her shield soaking up much of the damage but a few of the bolts found their mark.

Meifa smiled, and then lept back into the fray, unleashing a couple of spells at the same time. He moved to intercept her, as they slipped back into the familiar steps of a combat dance. Each step carefully made, every stroke simple yet vital. Sparks flew as blade ran against claw. Lryvi stepped in, dancing around a claw strike meant to block her, as her twin blades soon found their mark. The Dragon girl turned for a counterstrike, and he took the opening to hit her with a deadly thrust. Then an ice lance buried itself in her belly.

As the dragon girl took a step back, she said, “Well fought, I’d enjoy another battle, do come see me again!”

Then her body began to fade, claimed by the dungeon, even as the light was still fading from her eyes. He bowed respectfully, saying, “I would enjoy another bout, this was a fun duel.”

With the boss defeated the party proceeded down the stairs to the third floor. Coming to the base of the stairs, he paused. The dungeon certainly had an artistic flair and he couldn’t help but admire the stonework as he looked around the courtyard he found himself in. In a ring around them were a number of rooms. Not many adventurers had made it this far, there were a few parties, but most of the ones in Bordertown lacked the experience to progress this far. Regardless the guild did have some general information that he’d taken the time to read.

This castle was a rest zone, not a true safe zone, but they would be safe for a few hours. “Okay girls, how about a break before we take on the floor?”

Suddenly a large pair of breasts pressed into his back, as U’bel said, “Sounds good to me!”

He blushed, “U’bel! What are you doing!!?”

She turned him around with a smile and lifted her armored skirt revealing her glistening sex. Efim’s blush deepened and he tried to turn away. Just as Yuki joined in her robe missing to reveal her naked body. He suddenly felt her nipples pressing against him, already hard and erect. She whispered in a tone then sent shivers down his back, “Come on Efim. We are all feeling pretty hot, come help us girls out!”

He gulped, as U’bel dragged him into a room. Yuki close behind. He glanced at the other two for help, only to freeze for a moment at the sight of their naked bodies. Nipples erect, fluids dripping from naked pussies and eyes that promised trouble. Why did he suddenly feel like a sheep surrounded by wolves?