Chapter 40 1/3

Previously on Centaurus: The two strongest generals of Lady Alexandria’s legion encountered Fey when they went to investigate why their boss had taken on her true form. Their confidence was swiftly crushed and then together they became one, expanding beneath a finally unleashed Fey.

Now Chapter 40:

It was a beautiful summer's day and birds gently chirped as brightly coloured butterflies fluttered across the lush long green grass. The sky above was a pure blue gradienting up into a deep azure, and snow white clouds were dotted aesthetically across the blue expanse like sheep on a distant field. It was a sight that nourished the soul.

In the very far distance, across the endless plain of grass, rose the great white walls of Bine, a sea break against the plain of flowing green. Just visible over the walls the great gold plated domes and bell towers of the palace could be seen. Apparently there had been building work happening on the palace as in addition to the gold domes there was now a new blue dome.

In any case being in sight of the protective walls of the city meant this was a place not far from civilization and so never far from safety despite being in the wild.

Saying the place was Idyllic was an understatement and the soothing natural beauty was only broken by the sounds of softly nickering horses... and the giggling of teenagers. Well, that and the out of place furniture that had been dragged from the city by a team of servants, most jarring of which was a massive white and gold dining room table set out on the grass.

On the dining room table rested three books. The first of the book's covers featured a simple ring inked in black in the center of which was a title: Apperturist. The second book’s title appeared to have been written by someone with an extremely shaky hand, as though they had a wasting affliction and could barely hold the quill, the title read: Vibramancer. The third and final book appeared to be made out of stitched animal skin and the title carved into it was in an unreadable angular runic language, only the crude horse head carved into and covering most of the cover hinted at what it was and what it was made from.

Three teenage girls stood in front of the table.

The girl who stood in front of the apperturist book had dyed the wolf ears that poked from her wavy blonde hair an obnoxiously bright pink, she, a wolfkin, practically bounced on the spot in excitable anticipation.

Next, standing in front of the Vibramancer book was a pleasingly curvy bunnykin who had pierced her tall ears with an excessive amount of gold jewellery and unbuttoned her blouse to show an excessive amount of cleavage. She was less visibly excited than the wolfkin, but still extremely curious.

Third was a human with long curly brown hair that spilled over her shoulders. Her blue eyes looked over the horse head book with nervous apprehension, but also a quiet determination.

All three of the teenagers were wearing riding uniforms, skin tight white leggings, beige in the human’s case, clad in knee high polished black boots. Above that they wore blouses, and in the human’s case a crisp horse riding jacket over top that buttoned at her front. They wore white gloves on their hands and had riding crops clipped to their hips ready to be used.

The human teenager’s beige leggings unlike the others were slightly damp, a wet spot over her groin. The cause was obvious, a metal ring and leather straps under her muff which were visibly outlined under the skin-tight fabric, a certain minotaur cock sleeved tight inside of her.

They had helmets too but they had been discarded on the massive dining table as the three prepared to use the books.

A fourth teenager wearing similar clothing hopped up and parked her rear on the table, crossing her arms as she looked over the three.

“Gods you lot look like you’re ready to shit your leggings.”

“Oh shut up Tami, like you weren't nervous when you got your rope whatever Class.”

“No, not really, I just snuck into mother’s secure warehouse, picked up an Affinity crystal, and grabbed the first glowy book I saw. Took like five minutes, easy peasy.”

The bunnykin stared at her.

“What?! What about all the warnings we were told and all the horror stories of this stuff going really really wrong?! And- And all the horrible things you put us through over the last few days!”

“Yeah, well, I didn't know that stuff at the time, I thought any Class would do and it didn't matter because I could change it later. It ain't my fault it turned out to be one and done and you can’t change your Class once you have it, which is sooo lame by the way.”

A silk rope slithered around her hip like a snake and she patted the knotted end.

“Not that it turned out too bad, although I probably have Fey to thank for my Class being as good as it is and not entirely crappy.”

“So you made us go through all that and never had to do it yourself? That's not fair! You made us put our hands and arms through increasingly tiny bracelets! And- and our fingers though way too small rings! I couldn't feel my fingers by the time we were done, I thought bits of me were going to fall off!”

The excitable wolfkin paused in her happy bouncing. “Yeah Tami, that part wasn't very nice, my fingers still hurt you know.”

“It worked, didn't it? You all tried for the Class and Ruby was lucky enough to have enough Affinity for it, she got the Affinity for Class we need, so quit your whinging!”

“I did get it didn't I huh?” said the wolfkin looking smug, “And now I can make dick portals just like those nobles! Well, in a minute anyway.”

The human on the other side of the bunnykin leaned forward to see her.

“At least she got something for herself out of it, I couldn't find Affinity for anything even remotely close to portal making so all that pain was literally for nothing!”

The chubby bunnykin nodded her agreement. “Lucy’s right, it’s not fair.”

Tami shrugged. “Hey I gave you the run of mother’s collection, very few people are able to pick through so many different high quality Classes before settling on one. What the hell else do you expect from me Sarah?”

“Maybe jamming your fingers into rings for hours on end?” grumbled the bunnykin massaging her sore fingers beneath her gloves.

“Well I’m not doing that so you can forget it. I’ll buy you a special present or some shit later, I’m good at buying special stuff. Now shaddap and get your Classes already!”

Despite their complaints the three really were eager to use the Class books and receive their powerful Classes, who wouldn't be? Magic was magic after all. As one their eyes moved to their respective books, staring intensely at the covers.

It was time.

Ruby’s excitement reached even greater heights and her bouncing accelerated, unable to keep still, her heart pounding like a smith's hammer, blonde locks scattering across her shoulders. This was it, they were really doing it!

Even Tami sat up with interest, “On my mark then. On three, two, one, read!”

Ruby reached out for the book and flipped open the cover at the exact same time as Sarah and Lucy. The three of them became instantly lost in the contents, falling into the pages as Tami watched. The covers were doors made for each of them, and as one they stepped through.

To Tami’s disappointment from the outside the process was decidedly uninteresting compared to experiencing it first hand. The three stared blankly at the contents as the pages began to turn on their own, slowly at first, then accelerating, becoming a blur as the books flipped through themselves, the girls unable to even blink let alone look away.

The books came to an end and then slammed closed with a definitive thud, shaking the table under the impact. The three teenagers staggered backwards as though they had been struck in the face with a bucket of ice cold water, wobbling on their feet as they blinked groggily and came back to the real world.

“Well?” said Tami, impatient.

“I think- I think it worked!” said Ruby.

Tami produced a pair of matched bracelets, rings of plain unadorned gold. “Okay, so turn this into a dick portal.”

She tossed one of them and Ruby had to scramble to catch the thing.

“H-hey I literally just got the Class, I have no idea what I’m doing! You can't expect me to just- to just do it...”

“But you can try, can't you?”

Ruby gave the overbearing tigerkin and exasperated look but lifted the bracelet to her eyes.

She focused on it, her brow furrowing in furious concentration as she engaged her Class for the time ever, magic she had never known flowing through her body, mechanisms that just made sense to her engaging and roaring to life, all working with a new instinctive understanding.

She stared at the bracelet.

Nothing happened.

Nothing continued to happen.

“I think it works… but…” spoke Ruby, her words slow.

“But?”

“I’m level one Tami, about the only sized portal I could make would be the about the width of my thumb, this bracelet is just too big.”

“Ugh. Well that's not very helpful, not unless we want to summon needle dicks, or pinky peens, or baby carrots.”

Sarah removed a piercing from her overly pierced black furred rabbit ears as they spoke and held it up to her eyes, squinting hard at it.

Like with Ruby nothing seemed to happen, but then the teenager suddenly smiled, clearly pleased with something despite nothing visibly changing.

“This is just how Classes start I guess, gotta start small until you get some levels… which is why you had those brought out here right?”

The bunnykin pointed behind Tami.

Two dozen yards from the table some pens had been set out, strings dangling between wooden posts, more markers than anything, and in each ‘pen’ were enormous monsters, each monster staked down to the ground with chains unable to move.

“Oh right, that. Well go on then, let's go and kill them.”

They turned to go but a glossy white tentacle rose up and blocked their path.

“Not so fast, not without my supervision.”

They turned back to see Vivi. The fox girl had become… very large. Her pregnancy now sprawled across the grass, a vast dome over fifteen feet across. The fox girl was no longer capable of standing and now lay atop her throne of a body, her massive breasts each over six foot across lay atop the curve of her belly, each plate sized nipple dribbling streams of milk down her pregnancy. She practically radiated being a proud and massive broodmother.

It seemed impossible that she could move like that, but from her stretched wide pussy came dozens of thick tentacles, tentacles that looped down under her belly and onto the grass below where they undulated, lifting her away from the ground and keeping her mobile.

She actually seemed to be loving her situation despite this, dozens of sheets of paper were spread across her belly and she idly drew as she watched the teenagers.

It had been Lily’s idea to ask her to come, having a veteran adventurer with them while they acquired their Classes and killed their first monster just seemed like good sense. Lily had come herself because she was good friends with Tami, the two girls connecting, more so when they had fought off assassins together.

Tami glanced to the side seeing Lily waving at her.

Lily was nearly as large as Vivi was, her belly fourteen feet across and being carried on the shoulders of an army of teddy bears. Her breasts were the real show stoppers though, each massive mammary was nearly ten feet across and swollen and turgid with milk, they rested heavily on her pregnancy, actually overhanging it onto the grass, and were continually sprinkling milk into the air below her draping silks, her bright pink nipples nearly a foot wide each and incredibly stiff and rigid. Her breasts were so large that she had trouble seeing over them, and a number of teddy bears had to work on spreading them apart so she could see between her cleavage. The rest of her body wasn’t empty of bears and they were scattered over her, busily working on various projects. Their red scarfed commander sat cross legged on the peak of one breast, and his partner in crime, a cream bear with an eye patch perched on the other.

“Erm, Vivi is right, you’ll want her help, you might have overdone it a bit with your monster choice Tami, just saying.”

The dome that was Vivi began to move as she gestured to follow, her body flowing over the ground on a carpet of tentacles, a galleon gracefully sailing upon the grassy plain.

The four teenagers followed.

They neared the monsters and the maids who were handling them. Tami’s mother kept a lot of talent on hand, apparently that included those with experience in keeping wild monsters. Well, maybe that wasn't that surprising, it wasn't like monsters couldn't be another commodity.

The three monsters they kept were huge bear like beasts with red and pink eyes and foot long bony spines protruding from their backs. They opened their mouths revealing their triple layered triangular fangs and behind them soft spines leading down their throat giving the impression that the insides of their mouths were nothing but razor sharp teeth.

Vivi tapped her chin as she looked them over.

“These are not good monsters for beginners, let alone level ones, I really wish you had picked something else Tami.”

“They look like they are worth a lot of levels and they were all that mother had in stock. We want them to level quickly so it’s fine anyway right?”

Vivi set her lips in a line and stared at the teenager until she wilted slightly.

“I wouldn't give these monsters to those at level fifteen, maybe more, it's fortunate you have me with you otherwise I would have said you shouldn’t do this. As it is…”

A tentacle slithered from beneath her pregnancy, snaking through the grass until it connected with Ruby’s foot.

The wolfkin yelped and cried out as the tentacle began spiralling up her leg, in mere moments her leg was encased in glossy white and more tentacles were flowing up her other leg, then up her torso and down her arms.

The tentacles stopped moving when she was encased in the spiralling things, even her head, her eyes just visible between two tentacles.

“There. This way these monsters can't hurt you in any way, they could maul you for hours and nothing would happen, Wummy is a much much stronger monster than they are.”

The muffled but excited voice of Ruby came from within the tentacles.

“I need a thin weapon, and a ring!”

A tentacle promptly appeared in front of her and handed her a rapier.

Her hand, appearing at the end of her tentacle wrapped foot-thick arm raised and caught it.

“Thanks!” came the muffled voice. “And the ring?”

A second waddling form approached, it was Sarah, equally wrapped in glossy white tentacles, even her ears, her pleasing plumpness made even plumper.

A muffled voice came from within and a tentacle wrapped arm raised, a pair of large earrings was passed from one waddling teenager to the other.

“Also thanks!”

Ruby began waddling toward her bear, unable to even bend her limbs.

Beside her Sarah began her own waddling, the both of them making their way toward their respective targets. As they did so the maids began unchaining the monsters, the monsters stirring to life, becoming alert to the strange sight of the waddling tentacle swathed teenagers approaching them.

Last was Lucy, but the human teenager did not have any interest at all in letting Wummy’s monster tentacles anywhere near her, backing away as they approached.

Instead she turned and whistled, and her horse which had been waiting patiently trotted over. They had all ridden out into the plain on horses, hence the riding uniforms, leaving the city so they wouldn't be disturbed while fighting.

She petted her horse’s neck and whispered, calming the stallion. And then she used her new Class.

The effect was impressive, the horse's fur started to change from a brown to a redder colour and muscle poured onto its frame. Its barrel slowly rose higher beside the teenager as the horse steadily grew larger, quickly reaching the size and stature of a cart horse, or rather a war horse looking to charge an enemy line. The horse’s nostrils flared and steam rose from its body as its fur turned fully red and it pawed the ground whinnying angrily, clearly entering a berserk state.

Lucy pointed at the bear and the red stallion let out a furious bellow and charged the monster.

A horse versus a monster as strong as the bear seemed like a foregone conclusion, the horse was destined to die… only, that's not how it went. The horse pranced forward, spun around, bouncing its rear up, legs contracted, and then kicked out at the bear's head with its hooves, a powerful pistoning hammer blow that could shatter rock.

The effect was instant. The hooves connected perfectly with the unprepared bear's head, violently jerking it back, and with a grizzly wet snap its neck broke.

The bear flopped down dead on the spot, completely still and unmoving.

Even Vivi seemed surprised by this, as the other girls had yet to kill their monsters. The strangest of the three chosen Classes was apparently better than it seemed.

The horse happily trotted back to its master, an almost smug look on its face as Lucy fed it carrots, steam pouring from its body as it shrunk down and returned to its original size and colour.

She petted it once more and turned to see how the other teenager’s fights were going.

Ruby roared and charged, waddling furiously as she lifted the rapier overhead and flung herself at the bear, clearly she had no idea what she was doing with the weapon.

The bear roared back and lunged for her, spittle flying from its open mouth as horrible teeth came down on the protective tentacle in front of Ruby’s face. The teeth bit down, the bear confident in tearing the slime apart.

Only it didn't. The bear’s teeth squished the tentacle in a little, but it remained resilient and remained in place, keeping the teenager perfectly safe.

The bear outraged by this slammed its paws down on Ruby, a tremendous force striking her that would have killed a normal person instantly. Ruby bounced as she was pinged into the air, the tentacles making her invincible and unharmable. She laughed with joy as her bouncing came to a stop and she struggled to her feet with Wummy’s help, returning to her waddling charge.

This seemed to piss off the bear a great deal and it screamed, spittle flying from its maw as it leapt on top of her. The teenager was smashed to the ground as nearly a ton of bear flesh crashed into her like an out of control wagon.

She barely felt it.

And as she fell she flipped the rapier around, placing it between her legs as she aimed the hilt at the bear.

The bear's body collided with the hilt and it was driven down with an incredible amount of force, the weight of nearly a ton of monster flesh behind it. The rapier stabbed down into the long grass between her legs, or more specifically, into a small ring shaped earring that had been casually discarded amongst the green. The tip passed through the earring and didn't come out the other side, instead the second of the earring pair, which was currently being held by Ruby in front of her chest, had a metal point emerge from it, or rather, explode from it. The Rapier blade stabbed from the earring with an unstoppable force and rammed directly into the monster's chest, stabbing it straight through the heart and out the other side.

The pain washed over the bear and in the last few moments it was still alive it stumbled backwards roaring, and then, then it was dead. The bear crashed to the grass and its body stilled.

Beside Ruby’s pen Sarah was being bodily lifted and flung, bouncing across the grass like a ball as the bear slammed its claws down on her glossy white tentacle wrapped body. She seemed absolutely helpless in the face of the bear, she didn't even have a weapon, unable to do a thing, and unlike Ruby she wasn't giggling, things were clearly not going well.

The bear smashed her down once more and with a furious snarl it lunged for her head, its teeth wrapping around the tentacle protecting her eyes, trying to tear through and bite her face off, raw savagery mere inches away.

Her hands darted forward and her fingers lightly touched down on its cranium.

One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five-

The bear slowed and then eased down on top of her, its limbs going limp as it drifted into a calm death.

Sarah hummed, only a little surprised with how things had gone.

Back with Ruby she was pulling her rapier from the chest of the bear monster, meaning having to pull the rapier’s handle from the earring she had left on the ground. With a spill of blood it came free.

“Hey this almost feels like cheating!” she yelled, happily waving her sword in the air.

“That’s because you are cheating!” said Vivi, “You would have died in several hundred different ways before you could have gotten your blows in without Wummy armour!”

Stratothrax-After-Dark

Read chapters in advance of release:

Centaurus Patreon