What Do you Mean All Dungeons are Girls!!!? Enhanced Edition

Arrieta turned the corner and found herself on the ground as a bundle of cuteness barreled into her. “Mistress! You’re back!”

She giggled and stroked Xiri’s head, “Yeah I’m back. How’d things go with Milith and Darious?”

“Milith is fun, but um, she’s been looking around the church more and more. I didn’t tell Darious, but I think the princess knows something darker is under the surface.”

“Oh, and what is our young Starlord doing about it?”

“So far? Nothing but look into things, some of which the Church wouldn’t be happy about if she looked deeper.”

“Well let her, I don’t care.”

“Alright,” said Xiri, then she fidgeted, “And, um, could you eat some of my brain?”

Arrieta giggled, “That’s the first thing you want?”

The girl nodded, and Miri commented from behind, “See, you are totally going to eat her brain first. You always eat her brain more.”

Xiri grinned, “It’s cause my brain tastes better!”

The halfbreed woman sighed, this was such an awkward conversation. “Let's just get to my shop, and I’ll slice some portions from both of you. Okay?”

The girls nodded, and she took them both to her place for a little snack.

After a quick snack, she left the girls at the church where they would be safe and went to look up Howard. She still remembered what he had told her and if there was a Maneater in town she was going to need to deal with that. Thankfully she’d put a tracker on him, and that had brought her to this part of town. It wasn’t special, mostly residential with a few shops and not too far from the guilds district.

Turning a corner, a house came into view. At first glance it didn’t seem out of the ordinary, but the moment she saw it she knew it was the place she was looking for. It was a modest two-story structure built from polished stone bricks that flowed almost seamlessly into a nice stone fence. A guest house could be seen in the back. Not far down the street was a general store, and it was surrounded by other houses. Only thing that made this one stand out was the really nice yard, it seemed someone had taken the time to really maintain the yard. It was immaculate, not one blade of grass or a single leaf out of place. 

It didn’t seem like a place for anything sinister, but she knew different. She could sense the corruption, it had spread. Covered the entire block, every house she saw right down to the shop she’d passed were coated in it. The taste was familiar but just wrong enough to almost feel foul to her. It wasn’t as welcoming as her mother town, it felt just a tad hostile to her.

Another thing she noticed was that the place was oddly both the center and not. Physically it was the center, every point touched radiated out from this house, but the magical center was behind it. What she could sense of it, Arrieta didn’t really like, the sense of wrongness was strongest there, yet there was that odd familiarity. Worse, she already knew what it was.

Standing there in the street as a cart moved past she took another look around. In her mind she was considering, the maneater responsible for this was likely in that house, but then there was the house behind it. Something sinister was going on within that house and if she didn’t miss her guess that would be where much of the horrors a maneater could inflict would be found. If an Atarli was bad... Well, a Tymesian Maneater was downright evil. Of course, all her kind were evil, it was just a matter of degree. Arrieta knew she wasn’t purely good either, but by that metric neither were humans. Pure souls of either degree were incredibly rare.

Letting out a breath, she started walking. If she was right about the magical center, she’d have to find some anchors in the area. The kind of magic worked here was intricate and complex, it created a cloak that hid the true nature of the place from others. In a way she was rather impressed, it was no wonder this Maneater had avoided notice. As long as she was careful with her operations few would ever notice what she was doing here.

Arrieta paced the entire neighborhood, she found it eerie how normal it looked on the streets. Was this what outsiders felt when visiting Mom’s town? How did they deal with it? Well she knew only some of them would notice, but the question still stood.

Coming to a stop, she looked in on the general store. She’d passed it on the way into the area, but now that she was looking more closely? Arrieta realized it was the location of an anchor. Taking one last look at the streets, she let out a breath and headed on in.

The front room looked pretty normal, there were several shelves lining the walls each full of various goods. It was a selection that was pretty expected from a general store, they had just about everything you might need from flour and salt to bandages and cookware. At the rear of the room was a low counter where a young woman sat watching the store while a few others looked around shopping. Nothing all that unusual at first glance but with her senses fully in use Arrieta knew better.

The shirt she was wearing might have prevented your typical church guard from seeing, but it was nothing compared to the mind’s eye. Without actually seeing it, she knew that under that shirt the girl’s boobs had hooks in them, hooks that were held tight by short little chains anchored to her back, effectively forcing her nipples open, and allowing an object covered with little barbs to be pushed inside. It had a reservoir that was drugging the woman with something. The girl didn’t really know what, but she was quite aware of her boobs swelling and the pressure from her hyperstimulated milk glands. Arrieta figured it was something to make her lactate, and likely cause swelling of the breasts. For what purpose she didn’t really know nor care. It was wrong and she listed that down in her mind, as she made for the door. Trying not to focus too much on what she was learning about the people in the room, but it wasn’t helping.

She quickly became aware of the young man perusing the shelves full of cookware and utensils. He looked normal, but Arrieta could feel that he was in the most pain of anyone here. For some reason his dick was highly erect and placed into some kind of clamp. The guy was constantly worrying about it, and didn’t like how swollen or discolored his member was. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to complain about it to someone,  a Mistress Lydia.

Finding the name, she silently thanked the man. Knowing that helped her. Tempted, she reached deeper and was assaulted with images of the nest, the cruel things she’d done to him and learned more about the man. He wasn’t like Howard, but he wasn’t typical theocracy trash.

The guy had run away from his home with his two sisters a few years back, but the reason why stuck with her. He hadn’t run cause of his father like most theocracy runaways, nor because it was his mother. His memories about it were strangely fuzzy in some places, but he thought of her as downright evil. He also had memories of her doing things to his sisters, but he could never recall what. Them vanishing for days on end was the icing on the cake. Everything she saw was full of red flags, it was another Abyssal somewhere. How evil she couldn’t say, not without spending the time to heal the blocks in the young man's memories.

In the time since the boy had married his sisters and had two daughters with each of them. He’d been quite something with that, and she sensed he actually loved his girls too, but hadn’t seen them since Mistress Lydia had come along. Lydia was also keeping him from his sisters, but she’d let him see them once a month. Both were currently pregnant, but he wasn’t sure when it happened. The boy did recall Lydia breeding him with them a couple of times, but also with other women. That told her one thing, he wasn’t in mortal danger, the boy was a stud. Lydia was using him to get the females she had her fangs in pregnant. Arrieta knew enough about Maneaters to know the children would be in the most danger, they didn’t let that many grow to maturity.

Armed with a little more information, she stepped past the woman into the back. The woman didn’t even stop her, she was so conditioned that Arrieta was able to make her think she was supposed to be there without even trying. What greeted her behind that door was the true nature of the place, a shop of horrors. Young girls and boys hung from the ceiling, hooks anchored into their bones but that wasn’t the worst of it. Not by a long shot, Arrieta was bothered by the sight, but didn’t move to help them. The objective came first, only once she was done could she help them. Yet she knew they were going to need more help than she could ever provide. Who wouldn’t need help after going through this?

Arrieta moved through the room, passing a girl on a table. Her legs seemed to have been crushed, and her mind radiated the pain like a beacon. She could feel it and it made her hurt in a way to sense that. This wasn’t anything like what she’d felt from her girls when she worked on their brains, but she’d always made sure they enjoyed it as much as it hurt. Part of her felt uncomfortable knowing that she even had that much in common with this Lydia. Maybe it was time to look into new methods. So many of her recipes and techniques came from her mother, but were they all required? Something to consider later when she had the time.

At the back of the room, she found what she was looking for, a structure carved of solid stone, an unassuming pillar. A support perhaps, if one was blind and magically unaware, but beneath that simple edifice hid a magical structure of great power. This was the first of the anchors she was looking for. A smile graced her lips, as she drew on the magic within her, a mix of Abyssal and Divine. Her own magic mixing with the holy magic her goddess had given her, it was unstable but oh so potent. She muttered the name of her spell, “Arclight Pulse.”

A dark energy steam formed in her palms then shot forth punching into the stone with great force. It melted and fractured before her eyes, as the anchor beneath it broke under the impact releasing more energy into the stone. Arrieta quickly contained it with her next spell, projecting several wards around the collapsing anchor. A moment later a pulse of energy shot up into the sky with a booming crack like thunder. She smiled, that was one anchor down, three more to go.

She made her way outside, but quickly noticed a half naked dog girl approaching from the direction of the house. Aside from her dress, she might not have thought much of her if not for the fact that she could sense the abyssal mana course through her. Arrieta grinned, “And the Mistress comes running, Lydia I presume?”

The woman looked around, “An Atarli? Really what do you have against me? The city is certainly big enough to share.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t, and my goddess wouldn’t really approve of this.” Arrieta replied as she shifted into a battle stance and identified her opponent.

She was tempted to gulp, she was at a slight disadvantage, her opponent had a higher level, but thankfully not too much higher. Arrieta had reached level 169 not that long ago, so this was actually a fairly even match, but she figured her goddess would help even the playing field a little.

The other woman took a stance, then shot forward, magic gathering in her claws. Arrieta moved quickly, dancing out of the path with grace, as she channeled her favorite spell, “Arclight Pulse!”

A dark beam shot from her outstretched palm and Lydia almost took a direct hit. Her form suddenly shifted pulling the bulk of her mass out of the line of fire. The beam ripped through a tentacle reducing it to charred dust as it passed on, ripping through a bystander's leg with equal effect and then tearing into a building. Screams filled the air, as people started to rush away from the fight. Arrieta felt a little sorry for the man’s leg but chose to focus on the fight. Not because she was callous and uncaring, but that she couldn’t afford to. It was one of the dangers of a high-level fight. Thankfully someone cared enough to drag the man out of danger, as the two of them danced.

Lydia stopped for a moment, glancing at her wound, “Quite the spell you have there. Shame we can’t work this out.”

Arrieta didn’t reply, as she fired another spell. This time, Lydia raised her palms and projected a ward. The magical shield took the brunt of the spell before slamming into her belly with minimal effect. It was enough however to give Arrieta some information on the other woman’s battle style; she was a hybrid fighter who preferred wards over shields. They were stronger, sure, but they had more limitations. Still this was going to be a long fight, she just knew it. 

Then Lydia shot forward, her claws out as several tentacles formed each with new claws. Arrieta gave her a look of disgust and sidestepped the attack, a couple of tentacles slammed into her shields however, and she felt each blow. They were powerful, the average human would have been reduced to paste even with a mage shield to protect them. A full tier really made quite the difference, especially in an all-out, no-holds fight. Arrieta shrugged the hit off, and channeled a bit of magic into her shield to regenerate it, while simultaneously casting her next spell. Several bolts rippled off from her palms and shot towards Lydia, who dodged a couple, and blocked the next two with wards.

Several slammed into buildings with explosive effect sending off shards of dust and stone. Fragments of which rained on Lydia from behind, she grunted as fresh wounds were torn open by the shards, but they didn’t stay open for long. Right before her eyes the torn flesh of the maneater knitted itself closed. Then she charged again, no wonder she fought that way, rapid healing certainly helped.

Arrieta reacted quickly, dancing out of the path of the maneater, and shielding herself from several mana-enhanced blows from her tentacles. Trading them back with some quick spells of her own. Shards flew as objects exploded, behind her a house fell in on itself. Thankfully no one was in it, but someone was out of a home now.

For a moment she lost track of the blows, as they moved in an ever-changing dance of spell and claw. Each move tore up the surroundings, another house was torn apart just a moment later. This time by Lydia’s mass after a spell tossed her into the structure. She came back with a vengeance with a fierce look on her face before smashing into Arrieta. The halfbreed girl grunted, but held her ground before unleashing an Arclight Pulse at close range.

This time no ward came in to stop it, and a look of pain appeared on the maneater’s face as half her body was reduced to ash in a moment. Then anger took over, and next thing Arrieta knew she was flying through a wall. Stone and broken wood flew, shards and splinters stuck into her skin as her shield failed. She coughed, bits of blood came up. That was going to hurt later, but she pulled herself up. A new spell was already on her lips, as she moved forward.

Emerging from the structure, she stopped as the beating of wings filled the air. Both of them looked up, to see a majestic figure descending from the air. She was beyond beautiful with flowing black hair that hung loosely around her regal face. Silver eyes regarded them both, while from her back spread two large wings covered in scale feathers.  Shades of blue and green ran through them which helped bring out their majesty, more scales ran up her legs and arms like long gloves and socks. A pattern ran across her stomach and dotted her cheeks, while a thin top barely covered her ample bosom. An equally short skirt did little to protect her modesty down lower, but Arrieta couldn’t help staring at her feet. They weren’t human, they were potent-looking talons with sharp claws that could rend flesh. Even without hearing her name, Arrieta knew who this was.

The new girl landed on the street, her talons digging deep furrows into the cobblestone streets, as she surveyed the damage. “You two seem to be having quite the brawl.”