Alchemical Atrocities part 5 (Patreon)

Previous chapters: 1 2 3 4

Art by: Jakkal

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One thing that Karen always missed from her pre-curse days was the simple act of riding a horse. A knight can not help but admire such animals after sharing many long travels and life-threatening situations. Of course, she never expected that to be a privilege they took for granted. The last real horse she had ever tried to ride had been the same autumn of her curses onset.

That trip had not ended well for either of them. Lots of expensive gear was broken in a spontaneous transformation, but it did teach Karen the uselessness of hoarding dried out Azuchroma for the winter. Hopefully, Chester had found a rider that did not tend to literally speak horse on occasion.

That said, being a centaur proved a more pleasant alternative to the usual form. Once cleared of the swamp and getting cleaned up in a stream, there was nothing but open plains stretched across the horizon.

Karen was bolting over hills and bounding through streams with all the strength of a thoroughbred. That stamina potion did its job keeping air in her many lungs. Hours of galloping later and all Karen could do was enjoy the nostalgia of feeling her hair flutter in the wind with her horsetail whipping about. The rhythmic thumping of her hooves became a soothing melody as she watched the landscape sail by. Might not be traditional riding, but an enjoyable silver lining all the same. So much so that it was a real surprise when her destination, a collection of fort ruins atop a hill, came into view.

By then it had reached late afternoon. Karen's upper and lower chest heaved for breath, making her curse for having to rest in the shade of some trees a few miles out. Talk about getting caught up in the joys of galloping to make such a rookie mistake. One of the oldest adventuring tips in the book is to never confront the unknown fatigued and starving. Worse was that for all she knew this transformation could revert at any time, and the nearest azuchroma was a long ways from here.

No point moping about it now. The next hour would have to be spent snacking on the provisions Desmond provided while pondering a strategy. Occasionally hoofs would twitch small holes in the dirt, but Karen forced herself to maintain a warriors patience.

So the sun was getting uncomfortably low in the sky by the time Karen made her way around the site. A run through the moonlit field did not sound too bad. It was having to navigate through a swamp full of nocturnal predators that raised some concern.

“Well, one thing at a time,” she decided upon finding the door Desmond described.

It was a large double door carved from sturdy oak reinforced with decorative steel platings. Signs of large hinges confirmed they swung outward. Unlike the crumbling bricks around Karen, this bit of structure appeared new and maintained. A small plaque rested on the right side displaying three phrases of writing. While Karen was unsure of the language in the first two, she assumed they all said the same thing as the third one, which was in her common tongue.

‘NO TRESPASSING. ENTER AND BE EATEN!’

“Great!”

Karen dug at the dirt pensively with her foreleg pondering how to approach this. Perhaps a more subtle method, since whatever occupied this old world dungeon seemed fairly reasonable. With any luck they might not have a racists hatred for humans...or human-like creatures in this case.

Picking up one of the smaller bricks, Karen took a deep breath before cautiously approaching the door to rap on it several times. The thudding of stone on wood carried out a loud ringing from the other side making her consider just how deep this might actually go.

A string of curses, gradually increasing in volume, helped give some idea. Much of them were in another language, but Karen knew an angry tone when she heard one.

“Go away!” a voice screamed from just beyond the door. It would have almost been beautiful to hear if not at such a shrill volume tone. “It's not Friday, so I know you're not my weekly supplier. I'm also far from in the mood to deal with hot-headed thrill seekers. Touch my door again and spend your last living moments as a bunny in my belly.”

“Yeah you must definitely know Desmond,” Karen muttered under her breath.

It must have been louder than intended, for there came rapid clicks and clanks of lock mechanisms being undone. Karen counted at least ten before the door lurched forward a minuscule amount. Just enough for the head of a young woman to poke out.

Even without the foreknowledge of facing a lamia, Karen could tell she was more than another pretty face. This girl's eyes were burning a fiery red as they took in a centaur on the doorstep. Pupils were cut in vertical slits that liked to expand and contract in pensive thought. Her hair was a thick grass green currently tied back in a large bun. This ultimately revealed her pointed earlobes that stretched out nearly a foot from either side of her head. They and the skin around their base were coated in sparkling sapphire scales. The way they complimented her pale white skin was something akin to jewelry.

The girl's eyes sized up Karen intently before gazing from back to front. It made Karen shift her back hooves uneasily, but she managed to otherwise keep a neutral stance. Not that it mattered. The girl quickly lost interest in her. Head whipping around to examine the surrounding ruins for several seconds. Karen raised a finger to politely catch her attention again, but the girl had already shot a disappointed glare back into her eyes.

“Desmond sent you? Where is my future husband!?”

Karen needed a second to process the entirety of their inquiries, and four more to stifle her giggles.

“He’s hiding in a swamp a bit of way east of here. I can take you to him for all I care, but we need some red coral first.”

A smile slowly crossed the girls face, revealing a set of fangs that could rival daggers. “Oh thank the gods! I was worried his taste in women had gotten too gaudy.”

“E-excuse me!?”

“There's already a large pile of coral harvested over...there?” The girl had stuck out a slim hand to indicate a groove in the ruins but uttered a hiss when both of them saw it empty. “Damn town kids stealing my shit. They know it pays for my meals.”

“What the hell's do you mean by ‘gaudy?’”

"Oh don't fret over it, dear. We can't help the way we're born.” Karen's entire head felt ready to cook an egg, but she was cut off from voicing a good lashing. “But you might as well come in. We can scrap some that junk off the walls.”

Suddenly the whole door gave a loud clunk. It's grinding across the stone floor echoed into a roar back down the cave. Karen took a step back in awe at seeing wood sized for a castle being moved by such a scrawny girl.

At least the top part of her seemed reminiscent of an ill-fed teenaged girl. Her only outfit consisted of a silk top decorated in tassels leaving her midriff bare. Everything below that Karen was not surprised to see balloon out into large, child-bearing hips before tapering into a powerful snakes tail capable long enough to ensnare the adventurer's entire centaur body. It's blue scales matched those of the lamia's ears. Each one shimmered like jewels with fresh sunlight cast on them.

"See something you like?" The lamia's amused question caused Karen to blush. Such a dazzling display of a shiny tail was very distracting. "Get your horse butt inside, and watch your head. This place narrows and widens a lot."

"Thanks..."

Loud clops joined the many echoes across the stone tunnels as Karen followed her monster host into its lair. Surroundings definitely showed their age while they walked. At some points, Karen could actually tell when one period died, and another tried to rebuild. Other times all sense of civilization vanished into tunnels built by other causes, natural or intentional.

Eventually, they entered into a neatly dug area not unlike a living room. One smaller groove off to the side was filled with a large pile of straw with rugs as a bed. Next to it were three shelves loaded with various kinds of books and scrolls. Moving out from there were two tables; one with dinner plates and utensils while another looked to have some sort of puzzle games set up on them. Karen absently wondered about the lack of chairs before a flick of her horse tail answered the unspoken question.

There were cabinets and a wood-burning stove set up as the kitchen. The lamia slithered her way over to them fishing out a tea kettle and casting a spell that lit green smokeless flames inside her stove.

"You're not a herbivore, are you?"

"Huh?" Karen had gotten lost in her thoughts again, almost missing the question. This was her first encounter with a lamia, making such a traditional looking home fairly surprising. "I...um...actually I have no idea. I mean, I ate some eggs for breakfast with only a bit of gas."

"Spinach-chicken pies should be fine then." The lamia seemed to be talking to herself as she bustled about setting up a teapot, followed by a frying pan with two lumps of pastry things going into it. "I'm Pixie, by the way."

"Karen. T-thank you for being so hospitable."

"Oh, pssh! It's nice to have some company that's not here to slay the 'big bad snake bitch.' My god does that get old."

Karen swallowed nervously, sitting on her hunches at the plated table. "People actually try and kill you?"

"Not as often as you might think." Pixie continuously turned her pies in the pan without giving Karen much of a glance. However, her manner steams with amusement. "If anything I think I've become some right of passage with the neighboring boys. Usually, they dare each other to do stupid things like paint on my door, or try stealing old garbage from the ruins. They're easy to catch, and then they keep coming back when they find out I'll feed them for a little chitchat."

"Wow, you and Desmond do have a lot in common." Karen could not help but giggle at the thought of these two together. The snake tail coiling around for a hug would be very snug, if not bone crushing. "I'm pretty sure the only reason he helps others is for the company too."

"Hey, we're not monsters." The girls exchanged a look at each other's very unhuman lower bodies. "Okay, but we're not monsters about it! Besides, Dessy is a total sweetheart when it matters."

"He made my breasts bigger than flour sacks..."

"That usually means he either really likes you, or you are very unlucky."

Karen reached back to give her horse stomach a pat. "Unlucky is a great way to summarize a lot about my past couple of years."

"Sorry to hear that, hun." Pixie sat a steaming mini-pie before Karen before adding the other to her own plate. With a happy wiggle of her snake hips, she went about pouring each of them tea before settling in to eat. "So what does that stupid dork need red coral for?"

"Well...I, uh, I'm supposed to be human."

"Oh?" Pixie leaned off to the side for a better look at Karen's animal flank. The intent silence made hooves twitch nervously. After a bit, she simply sat back up with a disinterested shrug. "Huh, shame the horse meat looks good on you."

"Um, thanks?" Karen stabbed at her pie trying to hide a blush. The dang thing was blandly unseasoned but easier to swallow than Desmond's potions. "It's a step up from being a complete animal at any rate."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Karen was so used to telling her tale of cursed necklaces it might as well become a stage play. Still, she needed at least an hour or so recounting all the finer details. The new stuff involving all of Desmond's experiments and botched transformations really slowed things down. It was sweet of Pixie to try not laughing, but the constant choking on her tea still left Karen abashed.

Not helping was Pixie's earnest attempts to continue a conversation. She began to eye Karen with a glow of admiration hearing about her different adventures. Time and again a sentence would barely be finished before she threw out more questions. Poor thing was like a child with a new toy. Probably how she acted to all guests, making Karen wonder how often she hosted them.

An hour became two, and then on to three. Karen was just reaching the climax of an adventure where she had dressed as a circus acrobat for an assassination when Pixie coughed in alarm.

"Is...is something wrong?" Karen blinked a bit surprised by the lamia's concerned stare.

"I was about to ask the same." Pixie began tapping her nose while pointing to Karen's face. "You got...uh...something right there is...well...

"Oh...oh curses gods!" Karen brought both hands to her face gasping to find her nose had tripled in size by now. She could almost feel it continuing to swells slowly as it fell lower down her face, becoming flush with her upper lip. "Dang it, Desmond's potion is wearing off. I gotta get back or find some Azuchroma."

“Eew! Those bitter weeds?” Pixie took a long sip of tea before meeting Karens pleading look. “Yeah, if there's none outside then the scavengers must have taken or burned them.”

“Of course they did!” Karen scarfed the rest of her pie in a hurry. No surprise its spinach suddenly had a bit more savory taste to it. “Can I just get some coral while we still got hands?”

“Yeah sure. Sorry, hun. Wait here a second.”

Pixie slithered off into her tunnels leaving Karen to sip her tea, tail twitching in annoyance. Of course, Desmond would not have packed probably the most important thing for a trip. Although she had not exactly remembered it until halfway here.

BA-PHOOM!

Karen threw her tea up in a fright. A loud explosion from the direction Pixie went reverberated throughout the cavern walls. Did other monsters inhabit this place? She had failed to consider that before being left alone in this maze. Thankfully the lamia had crawled back in by the time things stopped shaking.

“This should be enough for ya!” Pixie declared while depositing bundles of spongy chunks onto the table.

At first, Karen might have thought they were twisted roots until she noticed the soot coming off them. Some rubbing revealed them to be a very bright red skinned.

“You know, they call it a red coral when its actually a type of fungus? It's so weird what you humans do.” Pixie giggled just as masked in soot as her gift. A wash bucket by her stove would help fix that problem.

Karen was quick to pocket the red coral still in shock. It helped ignore how her reach felt a bit shorter. “Yeah. That's very fascinating. Why is everything covered in soot?”

“Oh, this?” Pixie ran a sponge through her hair giggling. “Most of the money I make is from mining ore out of the caves below. No idea if the fungus feeds on or produces minerals, but I can't find one without the other. Nothing a good blast of cannon powder can't loosen up.”

“You're using canon powder this deep underground!?”

“Hey, just cause I look gorgeous doesn't mean I'm not old enough to be your mom. Minning has been my trade since I was hatched.”

“Just worried about your safety is all.”

Karen adjusted her pack best she could on thinning shoulders. Her clothes, in general, were getting baggy on her human torso. This did not go unnoticed by Pixie, who grabbed at Karen's horse shoulders to help steer her towards the exit.

“I wouldn't worry about Lil ol me in this condition. You run along back to Dessy and tell him to visit soon...or I'll be eating him for dumping me here."

Karen gulped unable to think of a proper response. They were right anyway. Now was not a time for questioning a half-snake's priorities. Not when the half-human part of Karen was dwindling away. "Thanks for all your...help?"

Intense giggling made Karen flare her enlarged nostrils in a disgruntled snort. Even her voice was getting a bit nasally with her growing lips and nose getting in the way. With only a brief grunt of goodbyes, she was out the door back into the warm afternoon sunshine. Hoping horse muscle would not fail her now, Karen was off in full trot back home.