Tomboy Island

“I have questions first!” Alex shouted over the motion of air around the tormented spirit. This was not a situation where the man of the island could just swing at things, he needed more intel.

The creature of molten rock and charred skin twisted in its bindings. Ethereal chains stretched, holding the monster in place. It thrashed in either rage or pain, perhaps even both.

“I will not do anything unless I know what’s going on!” Alex shouted, his voice firm. “Communicate with me, spirit!”

Tone or phrase, the words hit. With a shudder, the snake-like head of the creature was lowered to the height of Alex’s head. “Aaassssssssssk,” it demanded, voice crackling. “Quick… quick and set me free!”

“What or who are you?” he asked the obvious one first.

“I… I am… the great spirit Shluirach… I…” the creature hesitated, twitching as if the memory was pushing against something painful. “Bound… agreement… unreleased… the heat… the heat…”

Another hiss escaped it, then steam burst through fresh cracks in the skin. The spirit reared back, screaming in a fresh wave of torment. Such was the power of the monster’s thrashing that the earth around them trembled. Stone vibrated with the flow of magma beneath it. Alex took a step back, protectively putting his body over his present women.

“Free me! FREEEEEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Shiulrach roared, then collapsed forwards. “...free… me…” it begged.

“”Why are you bound here?” Alex raised his next question. “What am I freeing you from?”

“Liquids… I move… the liquids… heat… free me from the heat…” The spirit tried to clutch its head with two of its hands, but the chains restricted that range of motion. “Too long… its been too long…”

“How long?”

“..:Free… me…”

“Who were the people that bound you here?”

“...Free…”

“Did they shackle you against your will?”

A semblance of will flickered back into Shiulrach’s incandescent gaze. “No. I served… in honour… before she came.”

“Who? The Death Willow?”

“Yesssssssssss.” Hatred lent strength to the tormented voice of the spirit. Its skin mended itself, and the molten core grew hotter. It straightened up, delivering its answer with newfound certainty. “The Death Willow. She rotted the totem, broke the great line, overcharged the heat. The heat… the overbearing heat!”

Liquid flames erupted from the skin of the creature. In that hateful moment, it did not seem like it was tormented any longer.

“No more questions! FREE ME!”

“So you hate the Death Willow, is that right?” Alex asked. Another sputtering of liquid flame was his answer, alongside the insistent hiss of the creature. It sounded like a drop of water disappearing on a hot plate. “Tell me everything about her that you hate.”

Despite its declaration, the Shiulrach was all too happy to indulge that request. “I hate her nature, I hate her origin, I hate the greyness and dryness she brings! She is a being of pain, of undeath, of horrific continuation of things that should have ended!” With every word, the creature swelled up further, its charred skin glistening like polished obsidian.

Alex was not quite sure what was happening, but focusing on its hate seemed to empower the being and if its ire was focused squarely at the Death Willow, then that was a weapon he could use. “What else?” he asked.

“I hate… I hate… I hate those that brought her into existence. The fools that feared death!” The spirit’s fingers reached for the side of its head, the tips almost able to scratch the temples of the draconic skull. “I hate her legions, the un-life! All of that wood should be litter and mud! I hate what she does to blood! All should flow free. Stagnant, I hate her stagnant pulse!”

The chains suddenly stretched. Shiulrach managed to clutch his head. His searing palms layered on his burnt skin. A plume of steam rose up from his head, a large cloud of expelled water that rose up to the ceiling.

“I hate… I hate… I hate humansssssssss,” it hissed, opening a pit in Alex’s stomach. “Humans made her possible. Humans bound me here. Humans forgot me. Humans left me. Humans died without permission. Humans failed to contain her. I hate the Death Willow. I will scorch her out of existence and then I will kill everything that could ever lead to something like her existing again!”

The opening in the spirit’s chest suddenly closed, only a solid red gem remaining where a gashing wound had been before. No longer in torment or despair, the spirit laughed and flexed one of its arms.

The ethereal chain elongated, refusing the attempt to be broken. Whatever mana lay at the heart of the mechanism, there was not enough of it. The binding was pulled taut, then quivered as the strain on it continued to grow.

A loud sound like glass and metal shattering at once filled the chamber.

“HATE! HATE AND MOLTEN FIRE!” Shiulrach roared and the mountain trembled from its voice. Its one free arm slammed into the ground. In his Titanic blood, Alex felt the earth around them shifting. It was coming under the ownership of the spirit before them, Shiulrach’s domain expanding through the veins of magma far beyond what he, in his burgeoning power, could sense. “Thank you, Mongrel!” the spirit hissed. “For lending your voice to my struggle. Thank you and know that I will consume your charred corpse with glee!”

Shiulrach strained against the second of the four bindings. The threat was beyond genuine. What exactly had happened and what his hand in it was, he had to work out later. Now, there was only the question of fight or flight. The moment the spirit was free of its bindings, it would attack. If Alex wished to stand even the slightest chance against it, he had to attack now.

“Listen to me, spirit!”

Alex turned his head, watching as Kiara stepped out of his shadow. The dwarven woman put her hands on her wide hips, presenting herself proudly to the hate-filled entity. Her voice reverberated with years of PR experience.

“We absolutely understand that the second-order effect of humanity’s actions have hurt you. Your suffering must have been long and was entirely unwarranted. You have every right to hate people for it.”

Shiulrach strained against the second chain. Though his focus remained on it, he did pay some attention to the dwarf. “Yes…. hate… hate… I am justified to hate! Hate the Death Willow. Hate the seed.”

“You are right… but.” The single word had the spirit hiss at Kiara. A wave of heat washed over the bubble of controlled temperature, flames licking the edge. “Please listen, great spirit Shiulrach! But is it not true that you hate the Death Willow the most?”

“Her branches of unburned tinder. Her roots of unsoaked veins. Her reach of undead hollow!” With another bursting of glass and metal, the second chain broke. The two main arms of the creature were now free. Claws gripped the red chains that kept the lesser pair below contained.

It would not be long before Shiulrach was truly free. The necklace around Alex’s neck switched between hot and cold, its enchantment getting gradually overpowered. If they did not vacate soon, they’d be burnt by its presence.

All the same, Alex put his trust into Kiara.

“Then, please, listen! Your resentment towards us is well placed, but we can repay you! We, too, hate the Death Willow and the births she denies us! Let us work together! Use us, if that is what you want. Together, we can stamp out the Death Willow and everything like her.”

Kiara took a slight step back, her elbow prodding Alex’s upper thigh. Not leaving her hanging, he said the first thing that came to mind.

“It is as my beloved says! We can strike a concord, great spirit Shiulrach. Like you, we desire the ultimate demise of the parasite upon our lives. Please, forgive us for the sins of those that came before us, and give us a chance to redeem humanity.”

The final pair of chains on the spirit’s arms snapped. The mountain shook, a quake so powerful that the quartet stumbled backwards and sat on the stone ground, lest they fall forwards into the lava pool instead.

“YOU SPEAK OF FORGIVENESS? OF USE?!” Shiulrach roared, stretching his mighty arms. The already enormous beast grew even larger. The previously hidden serpentine tail of the spirit manifested fully and he slithered forwards. One after another, the six arms of the beast slammed down around them. The draconic head hovered above, liquid mountain dripping from its fangs.

The heat was undeniable. The enchantment on the necklace could not counteract it in full. It barely worked enough to turn the incandescent saliva of the supernatural being into marbles of cooled stone before they made contact with the skin of Alex or his women.

Alex had not felt this helpless since he had fallen from the sky. The tumbling of the plane had been every bit as terrifying as this was. The face of the great spirit and the surface of the approaching ocean were two sides of the same coin. All the same, fate was out of his hands. He could only try to deal with what happened next.

The quakes came to a stop. The final tremble sounded as if the mountain itself sighed in relief.

“Forgiveness…Use…” Shiulrach inspected them closely. The steam below the ceiling rained down on them, impossibly gathering on the black scales of the liquid elemental. It formed a webbing of markings on him, a translucent blue network of rivers that ran through a volcanic landscape. “You have empowered me to free myself through your words, Mongrel. You have acknowledged my struggle, dwarf. For your services to me, I shall let you live. As you desire, you will be humanity’s chance to redeem itself to me.”

“Thank you, great spirit Shiulrach!” Kiara exclaimed.

“If you fail, know that I will bring rivers of boiling blood to your people. That is now my nature,” Shiulrach hissed.

“We will not fail,” Alex vowed. “What service do you wish of us?”

“You will deliver to me a shrine, a vengeance and a future.” Shiulrach straightened up, tearing the last sign of any binding, the inactive metal collar around his neck, off without any resistance. “The shrine will be fashioned where water and magma meet. Trace the line of totems to its origin and you shall find the place of my choosing. There, with the hands of a Titan, carve a temple into the rock for the world to see and hallow it in my name.”

“I will do so,” Alex promised.

“Second, our vengeance - you shall end the Death Willow’s un-life, as you have promised. Correct the mistakes made.”

“That, too, I can vow to,” Alex stated. It was easy to make a promise to what he had planned to do anyhow.

“Last, a future - you will sire a child with her.” Shiulrach raised one of its smallest arms. The hand was still large enough that it could have grabbed Kiara effortlessly, but he only pointed at her. “And you will dedicate the conceived child to me, dwarf. It will be my conduit, my promised priest.”

This condition had them hesitate. “What exactly does this entail?” Alex had to ask. “Will it make my child your property?”

“No fae am I,” Shiulrach hissed. “I am a great spirit. I am Shiulrach of the Flows. Your child will be born with obligations to me, to tend to my shrines and extend my will, and in turn it will have my protection. It is my guarantee of investment in humanity’s future.”

Alex slowly turned to Kiara. Before he made any decision, he wanted her input. It would be her child, their firstborn, and he had no right to make this call without her.

As he understood it, he was about to tie the unconceived soul to Shiulrach in a manner that was akin to a pen-and-aper-style warlock. The great spirit would empower the child and in turn be able to exert influence through it. There were worse things to saddle a child with than a contract with a reasonable elemental. If all worked out, Shiulrach might calm down to be a thoroughly benevolent entity. The signs were there.

Still, if Kiara desired, he would have attempted to negotiate something else.

“Just one question,” Kiara said, meeting the burning gaze of the molten elemental straight on. “It will still be my child to raise, right?”

“No - fae - am - I,” Shiulrach repeated, slowly. “Service, not submission. Cooperation, not domination. That is what I seek from humanity. Show me that you are capable of this and my trust in your species shall be restored.”

“Then you have my agreement,” Kiara promised.

“And mine,” Alex followed her example.

A substance that was both smoke and steam and yet neither rose from the chests of Alex and Kiara. It spiralled up into a thread, the threads intertwined, and then were absorbed by Shiulrach in a deep exhale. “The vow is made,” he declared and straightened up. “Act upon it and we shall see each other again soon. Now, I must bring boiling streams upon the Death Willow!”

Alex opened his mouth, trying to convince Shiulrach to stay and answer more of their questions. Before he could get a single syllable out, the great spirit had turned into a pillar of molten rock, rising through the ceiling. He converged with the streams of the volcano and was near immediately out of sight.

“...I can’t believe that worked out,” Janette stated drily once they were alone in the now quiet and rapidly cooling chamber. “Are you in the habit of encouraging shackled creatures to hate?”

“First time I got the opportunity to,” Alex responded and walked forwards. “Though I am uncertain why my words empowered it so much?”

“I, uhm… I think that magic is a lot about perception?” Ashley suggested. “So maybe as you changed how it is perceived or how it perceived itself, it changed?”

“Could be,” Alex agreed.

The truth of the supernatural was obfuscated by its esoteric nature. Certain was only that they had reached the bottom of the dungeon. Where Shiulrach had been shackled, only cooling obsidian remained.

“Let’s have a last look around, maybe we will find something valuable.”

The chamber had a few side areas that were almost inaccessible due to cooled magma covering much of the doorways. A couple swings with Alex’s greatsword solved that issue.

“One had to wonder if he could have smashed stone like that with his other greatsword…” Ashley mumbled under her breath, her fingers wandering between her legs. She was openly aroused by the sight of his broad back flexing.

Alex acted on the impulses her lustful sight awakened in him, but not with her. Ashley had gotten her filling in the library just above. It was someone else’s turn and between the carry-fucking on the surface and prolonged pounding in the library, there was a third woman in their group that deserved her dedicated dicking.

Janette knew it was her turn before Alex even had the chance to announce it. She positioned herself against a wall, squatting on the cooling ground, and opened her mouth. An index finger hooked into her cheek, tugging at the edge of her stretched lips, making the invitation urgent.

“Search is being left to us, got it,” Kiara remarked with a bratty grunt.

Alex gave her a pat on the head in passing before stepping up to Janette to indulge the demands of his erection. She stayed right where she was, lowering her hand so his manhood had nothing to compete for space with. Before that, he grabbed his cock, pulled it up and then let it drop.

Thwack!

“Ah!” Janette let out a clear moan when his cock smacked down on her face. The heat of her blush competed with the heat of his member. She shivered all over when he grasped her antlers. The middle points halfway up the curved, forked horns poked out between his middle and ring fingers. They were nice and sturdy, perfect handles for him to drag the cocksleeve around by.

He tilted forwards, using the stone wall as his support. He gazed down through the narrow gap created by his forward shoulders on the wall. It allowed little to be seen, basically just Janette’s face as she panted and worshipped his testicles with her tongue. He could see little, but he could feel everything.

Drawing his hips back, he dragged his cock over her features. The bump of her eyes, the side of her nose, and the softness of her lips, all were felt through the sensitive underside of his shaft. When the head dropped from her upper lip onto her outstretched tongue, that was his signal to thrust forwards.

It was a swift and harsh conquest. Janette’s throat yielded to his force, the tight tunnel stretching to accommodate his girth. Eyelids fluttered, lips pressed against his shaft, then the base of his cock. He was sheathed fully inside her.

Alex was always the horniest after danger. His body craved to leave his seed in a woman. Though this wasn’t the right hole, his instincts did not know, nor would they care if they did. Breeding this willing sex slave was just a matter of time.

Lustful slurping sounds accompanied every centimetre of withdrawal- Janette was fighting to keep him inside her. Crying, wanton moans were muffled by his cock, slamming back down the moment his instincts demanded.

He would never not be impressed by how long and enthusiastically his private sluts could stuff their throats. There was no gag reflex they considered, just the raw, ecstatic need of having him inside their holes. For a full thirty seconds, he never left her throat, just glided back and forth inside it. Thick strands of precum and spit connected her lips and his groin. They drew long when he finally did let her breathe.

“More, Master, please?” Janette whined. “Fill my stomach with your cum, I beg you.”

Alex thrust back into her throat with an acknowledging groan. He was already close, the survivalist’s sensitivity combined with her readiness was too much for a regular man. Exceptional as he was, he too had his limits.

The repeated penetration of her throat had the oral slut quivering. What had started with an unusual but still human level of cum sluttery had evolved into a hair trigger fuelled by a face fuck kink. The moment her cries rose to a muffled scream was the moment Alex unloaded. He just barely had the presence of mind to pull back to her lips as he did.

The flood of his seed into her mouth had the already climaxing cocksleeve quiver continuously as she came harder and harder with every jet of the thick white that she hastily gulped down. Completely driven by instinct, she bobbed her head, tongue and lips coaxing every drop out of him.

It was the first of three climaxes he had over the next ten or so minutes. By the end, Janette was a mess of a woman. It was fortunate they had a crystal for field cleaning now.

While she got herself in order, Alex checked with Kiara and Ashley. “Found anything?” he asked.

“Just scorched stuff,” Kiara responded and shrugged. “Shiulrach probably burned anything that was valuable down here.”

“What about that?” Alex asked and pointed at the centre of the room. A blue gleam rose clearly from the obsidian background.

“That… wasn’t there before,” Ashley said.

He believed her, mostly because that was exactly where Shiulrach had been before. They stepped closer, inspecting what turned out to be a rod of blue, a streak of red in its centre, waving and curving like a meandering river. It was attached to the ground but broke off with the mildest of pressure.

Alex immediately felt the power within the oddly shaped gem. It reminded him of that sphere that he had found in the clay in the early days. A sphere that, initially, the others had believed to be a product of heatstroke but, in retrospect, clearly was the beginning of his awakening as the ‘Mongrel’. Would it disappear like that sphere had after allowing him access to his bloodlines?

He would take it home before deciding to interact with it.

Once the rod was stored away in the backpack, they began their journey to the surface. The underground had stopped quaking, which made traversing the corridors considerably less scary. Similarly, the magma all around was starting to cool. The ancient systems meant to transport water were shutting down for good.

Being back on the surface was a nice feeling in one sense and a dreadful one in another. Standing atop the small volcano, they were faced with the ashen wastes around them. They would get all covered in soot again.

“Back to the tree or are we heading somewhere else?” Kiara asked the important question.