The Siluvara Files
The Many Journeys of Ian Scranton
Chapter 5: Overkill
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"On Earth, man chases woman. In Siluvaran territory, woman chases man. And you wonder why so many human men are emigrating?" - anonymous
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Upon landing in Isaya's belly again, Ian Scranton had torn open his dahla pod and hastily wolfed down as many of those big, juicy sweet dahla fruits as he could until he was completely stuffed. And not a moment too soon, for just as he'd tried to get comfortable inside his spriggan protector, he was squeezed right back out again.
As full as he was, he would certainly have thrown up if his trip had been as rough as the first time. This time, though, the alien muscles in Isaya's body were gentle to him, even as they rippled around his body and pushed him back into the light. In no time he went from being Isaya's pretend meal to becoming Hollani's sex toy.
The sight of Hollani's wet sex opening up slightly for him, clenching and relaxing like the muscles of someone's throat, was absolutely awe-inspiring. Whereas his perverted mind had to rebel against his survival instinct when he slid down Isaya's and Hollani's throat, this journey that lay before him elicited nothing short of pure, unadulterated excitement. As Hollani pushed him inside her, he hotly anticipated the taste and scent of her clean, horny womanhood as he was swallowed again - this time by the beautiful flower of Hollani's labia. And so Hollani's womanhood embraced and welcomed him. And he most certainly welcomed the loud squishes of her muscles kneading him into her molten hot center. It was like being swallowed again - but this time by Hollani's vagina.
Of course, Hollani's throbbing sex was very tight; Ian could hardly move his arms as her muscles restricted his movements, occasionally contracting violently, obviously wanting to crush him as well as pull him deeper, but unable to harm him because of the magic shield he knew was protecting him.
The temperature rose slightly as he was forced further inside Hollani's body, and it was then that he realized he could breathe, but he couldn't smell anything.
Ian groaned at first, and then let out a quiet, "Awww, fuck..." when he realized it was because Hollani had forgotten to rethink her magical protection spell for this situation. She had cast the exact same spell to protect him here as she had when he was in her belly, watching her digest her food. Now he would neither feel, smell nor taste any of the sticky cum squirting from her pores all over his body to lubricate him for his journey into Hollani's depths.
He sighed, then relaxed as her vagina contracted again. At least she was over-cautious, and didn't flip her magical spells around the wrong way. The spell Roshana had put on him before he went into her vagina allowed him to feel, smell and taste her juices - which would have been fatal for him when he was sitting in Hollani's belly. He grinned as he slipped further up into Hollani's birth canal, making a note to himself that while this took all the fun out of the experience, he would be better off not suggesting that Hollani fine tune her spells. Who knew what could go wrong?
Of course, that left his mind to wander to other, related issues. Such as... who were these Nivalavi?
***
The great Silurhean city of Oratho sprawled for miles in all directions below as Ami raced across the sky, deforming wispy clouds with the enormous pressure waves she created in her wake. Nestled at the foot of the volcano-of-many-names, Oratho was intertwined with a forest of massive trees, most rising almost a hundred fifty meters high, and a few grand woods almost five times that large. It was hard to see with the naked eye, especially during the day when the city's natural lights were hard to tell under the sunlight - but for a fairy like Ami, the city's location, size and scope was made plainly clear from a long distance by the myriads of red blobs and dots that danced around before her.
It was useless, of course, to keep using one's soul sight now that Oratho was within sight; Ami simply angled downward into a fast nosedive, like a hawk coming in for a strike at a mouse. She loved the powerful sensations of the wind buffeting her face and the turbulence - it was like coming in red hot for an assault on the enemy.
Roshana...
Ami's crimson eyes glowed brighter, her lips twisting into a snarl as she thought about having to fly away from a fight with that annoying Droathas. The maddening unfairness of having to worry about Roshana tying up all her magic energy in a fight to the death and Isaya interfering with a killing blow from one of her mighty branches, was starting to make her seethe. Hollani was easy; she'd burn her to ashes with the simplest of fireballs, or fry her brains with a lightning spell much as Roshana had done that stray Rikati - indeed, how fitting that would be! But there was still Roshana...
As Ami spread her wings and slowed her descent a few hundred meters above the treetops, a nagging question forced its way to the forefront in her mind... how could Roshana so easily best a Rikati fairy, especially an obviously meat-crazed creature that might even be considering devouring one of her own kind? Roshana had been known to back up her big talk on a number of occasions, but she'd never shown magical power of that magnitude. Only Rhea knew how powerful she really was. In any case, her pride told her at that moment, she was a trained warrior, far superior to that wide-eyed stray or even the other wanna-be warriors that Roshana sparred with around Oratho. Ami was a real fighter, trained personally by a Silurhean warchief.
The next time they met she would unleash hell.
The treetops raced up at her until she plunged beneath the forest canopy to see the complicated network of wooden walkways and thick, walkable vines linking one tree to the next. Countless mushrooms, mounds and tent-like structures passed beneath her - homes - as the sun's light waned in favor of the crystalline balls lining buildings and walkways that provided ample lighting.
To her delight she spotted a young adult male Rikati floating down into a poorly-lit corner between two tents made from what looked like some large autumn colored overlapping spearhead-shaped leaves petrified into stone, and caught sight of his fingers weaving strands of silk around a long and slender, gray furry thing, binding its legs to its body. She dipped lower, moving into the shadows behind a giant tree trunk to get a better look at him while remaining unnoticed. The ashy-gray skinned male had barely developed the musculature of a warrior cadet; given his gray warrior's tunic, he was just a warrior's apprentice, and given the time of day, he had little time to eat and then get back to his training. It was understandable then why he would duck into a corner like that. He literally had to eat and run. She smiled; those were certainly the days...
Ami's heart skipped a beat as she turned to watch him subsequently lower the creature head-first into his mouth, attempting to quickly swallow it down. Those pests - Geraugs - were no wider around than her forearm, and loved to sneak into fairy abodes and steal fruits and the like; they could squeeze into the tightest of cracks, and some were good at slinking around and robbing those who were not at home. But every so often, one would get caught or lead the fairies back to their nest. Usually they, along with the birds that dared fly through here, were captured and bred as food; the warriors, more than anyone, knew better than to eat any living thing around here carelessly and thereby risk exhausting the food supply. Warriors either made do with dahlas or lined up for distributions of live food - it was rationed out to them as a way to maintain self-discipline. No doubt this creature he was eating was a household intruder...
... or perhaps a gift given to him by the topaz-haired Arari female cadet who suddenly ducked into the same corner with him, holding one that was dangling limply by its tail. Asleep, just like the one the male was eating.
Ami sighed; he was already spoken for. Still, she drifted over into a dark spot against a tree, where the sun's light was blocked by the branches and leaves above; and here, she watched the male with fascination and not just a trivial amount of arousal. The sight of his throat bulging to accommodate the unmoving Geraug, laboring to milk the creature into his stomach, caused her insides to ache. But she resisted the urge to masturbate as the furry beast disappeared into his mouth, until his lips finally closed around the tail. Like his female companion, he slurped his prey's tail and finished it off with another swallow, until the bulge worked its way down into his chest. No sooner did the Geraugs settle completely in the fairies' stomachs than the two now well-fed warriors leapt into the air and took off together, holding hands... back to combat training.
Ami sighed, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. The sight of a Drow male working a long slender furry Geraug down his throat would stay in her mind for days to come, and would aid her greatly in her efforts at sexual self-gratification... assuming she could get Roshana out of her head.
She turn turned to continue on her way...
... only to bump into the unyielding body of a raven-haired male in an unfamiliar white robe.
Her heart leapt into her throat as the next thing she noticed about this fairly brawny stranger, was his bright blue soul aura.
Her magic suddenly failed her and she began to fall from midair - that is, until his hand seized her throat like a hangman's noose, almost breaking her neck as her body jerked and her fall was abruptly stopped.
"How unlucky you are," he spoke in the Silurhean tongue. "The Bollars want a Rikati. Alive. And you're it."
Ami could hardly believe what she was seeing; the sheer shock of a male with a bright blue soul aura appearing out of nowhere, in the middle of her home city, with thousands of Rikati warriors within eyesight of her position, was still registering in her mind when her body jerked hard again, and she was yanked upwards, back into the sky.
As Ami was dragged clear of the forest canopy, her mind got around to telling her to struggle; but as soon as she reached for the hand gripping her neck, her entire body caught fire... or so it felt. No flames licked at her flesh, but there was no mistaking the burst of excruciating pain flowing through her veins; the strange blue-aura male had not only cast an anti-magic spell upon her that did not affect him, but he was now immersing her in a brief flash of full-body agony, as punishment for even the slightest resistance.
"Wha.. what do you want?!" she gasped, struggling to breathe.
This male was clearly not one of many words - the only thing he did in response was reach back with his other hand. His fingers clenched into a fist and then rammed into her face, causing an explosion of pain. Her vision blurred and she saw stars dancing before her eyes.
It was then that she could have sworn she was starting to hallucinate; perhaps he'd hit her harder than she thought, for her eyes were now telling her of swarms of blue aura fairies appearing out of nowhere all around them.
She was then thrashed around violently, her body roughly turned in the direction of the forest under which Oratho was concealed.
Ami's trauma hallucination grew even more bizarre as she imagined thousands of rays of light raining from the sky into the forest, like sunlight poking through a million holes in an overcast sky... lighting up everything below, until domes of swirling whites, reds, oranges and yellows arose a split second later. It was like deadly flowers of flame had been planted and then grown to maturity in the blink of an eye.
As her eyes were burned into blindness by the unexpected flash of an incomprehensible light tearing itself free from the depths of the forest, a rapid succession of ear-shattering thunderclaps destroyed her eardrums a second later. Now deafened and sightless, Ami was then struck fully across her body by what felt like a giant's palm... and then she finally lost consciousness...
***
"... and if the Nivalavi decide they want to rip me open to get at Ian?"
"I'm trained. I can handle this situation, trust me."
"That didn't sound too sincere..."
"Would you rather stand by the giant tree Isaya used to inhabit and hope a group of Nivalavi don't encounter you there? They would be most likely to make their temporary base there, you know."
Hollani studied Roshana's face as they raced with their arms by their sides across the sky far above the vast carpet of green that covered the land. Behind them lay the soaring mountain range that cut nearly the entire continent in half; ahead, to the north, lay a smaller mountain range dominated by the tallest peak overlooking the entire valley - a great snow-capped volcano with an ancient forest of soaring trees covering its long, gentle slopes, beyond which lay a vast desert on the other side. At its base, far beyond Roshana's range of soul vision, lay several tree cities which nearly a million Silurheans called home.
Roshana was mostly busy scanning the ground below her; they were flying as high in the sky as they could without the denizens of the forest slipping out of scanning range. They wanted to see the soul auras of everything they passed over - while being far enough to flee if they spotted any dangerous enemies.
"You've got a point there..." Hollani admitted. "I wish Isaya could send her clones all over the forest at once to watch for incoming threats."
"She did... they kept getting eaten, remember?" Roshana was quick to dash her idea to bits.
"Oh. Yeah," came Hollani's dejected sigh.
"Hollani, I must tell you what that was back there," Roshana turned her eyes briefly from their task of raking the forest for hostile life forms. "You know... the crystal tunnel entrance and all that."
"A fairy hideout?"
"A hideout for a Silurhean army much more hostile and dangerous than any of the local warrior clans that live among us," Roshana explained. "They're called the Grue Combine... and they don't come from this world."
Hollani fully turned on her side, inadvertently giving Roshana a full view of her naked body. "Are you serious?!" she gasped.
"Quite," Roshana nodded. "I'm worried that the group that was massacred may have been a scouting party... a group of advance... warrior clans, if you will... preparing for the arrival of a much larger force."
Hollani snorted. "They won't be coming now... not with those crazy Nivalavi."
Roshana cringed; carefully choosing her words, she said, "It's more likely that they'll come to investi..."
Her words trailed off as she noticed faint, mushroom-headed plumes of smoke rising from a small area at the foot of the volcano.
"Oh, no..." Roshana muttered, her heart suddenly racing.
"Oh no?" Hollani repeatedl confused.
Roshana pointed ahead. "Smoke. It looks like a fire."
Hollani turned upright and came to a dead stop in mid-flight. "Hold it... if smoke from a fire over there is visible from here..." She pointed behind her, "It's gotta be a million times larger than that patch we found back there!"
Roshana came to a hover as well, turning to look back at her. "That could even be... oh no..."
***
One advantage that Isaya the Spriggan had over everyone else in the area was, she could send out scouts into dangerous environments and if they died, she could simply send out another. As long as the danger didn't come too close to her Dryad form, all was quite well. Even setting her tree ablaze or chopping it down was ineffective; one of her roaming Spriggans would simply relocate. Even a sapling would do in a pinch. She'd even heard of Dryads possessing a blade of grass to reduce the size of their soul aura, effectively hiding themselves. Without fairies around, Dryads were hard to kill; and killing their avatars, their Spriggans, was utterly counterproductive.
And so Isaya the Spriggan, upon finding another sparkling crystalline underground tunnel entrance within the grove where her master had been transplanted, decided to investigate it.
The entrance was completely unobstructed by foliage, suggesting it had been recently used. Inside, however, it was completely dark; unlike the shifting rocks somewhere in the distance, her own footsteps barely produced an echo once she ventured several hundred paces down the sloping ramp and stepped onto the glass-like floor of what appeared to be a warehouse.
A foul stench greeted her as soon as she arrived - one she was quite familiar with. Death. The room reeked with the lingering smell of death.
There was no light beyond the entrance, aside from a few dome-shaped rocks along the distant walls that emitted a feeble purple light. Isaya's night vision spotted many more on the floor, ceiling and walls, which were all cracked or shattered. There were broken crates everywhere, all soiled with dried blood. One corridor leading away from the giant storage room which was blocked by a cave-in. The haunting noise of soil and broken crystalline rock leaking into an unseen breach didn't disturb Isaya at all - even if the place collapsed upon her, her master would simply make another Spriggan and find another way in.
There wasn't a hint of caution in Isaya's routine as she casually studied several crates and found them all to be completely empty. Isaya stopped and folded her arms, looking around. Aside from the ceiling, blood stained almost everything around her. In fact, the only thing missing was the physical bodies - and those she had already found outside. Her clones were now burying their mostly skeletal remains so that they could give something back to nature. Obviously, many fairies had been killed here and dragged outside to be put on display.
Satisfied that there wasn't anything new to discover in this area, Isaya followed the macabre trail of footprints in the dried pools of blood on the floor, to one of the two corridors that were passable.
***
Roshana and Hollani stared with horror at the massive crater laying before their unbelieving eyes and the miles of charred, barren land that surrounded it. Many of the great trees beyond the epicenter, where mostly Arari consorts were invited to live so they could keep the Rikati warriors happy, were almost completely vaporized - their once majestic shapes now nothing more than ten story-high ashy silhouettes pressed into the scorched ground. Many trees far beyond the blast zone that were still whole were being consumed by fires - fires that burned everywhere, inside the crater and far out toward the horizon. Much of the southern base of the volcano itself was a canvas of scorched black littered with the silhouettes of trees flash-vaporized by an unimaginably powerful blast of heat.
The smoke billowing from all around them was beyond acrid - it was enough to block out the volcano, indeed even the rapidly retiring sun itself, and force both fairies to cast shields around themselves so they could survive breathing there. At the same time, fine particles of dust were coming down all around them, like dirty brown snowflakes.
"Oratho... the entire Rikati stronghold... the outlying towns..." Hollani gasped, wide-eyed, her hand over her mouth. "What could have happened here?!"
Roshana trembled as she held both her hands over her mouth, her heart thumping frantically. "The Nivalavi... it's as if they dropped an antimatter bomb on..."
Hollani turned toward her. "Anti-what?"
Roshana did a double take as she realized she was talking too much. "Oh.... I... it's a spell. The most terrible spell you can imagine..." She looked around some more. "They unleashed a huge amount of magic energy all at once. They would have caught the entire city... the whole region... by surprise!"
Hollani was now fully aghast at what she was seeing. "They... they killed over a hundred thousand people here... or more!"
Roshana rubbed her chin. "This is odd... the Nivalavi prefer a pitched battle." She looked at Hollani. "The Nivalavi will risk losses of their own in order to have the joy of pounding their enemy to death. It is an honor for their warriors to kill flesh eaters in close combat..." Looking back down at the devastation before them, she added, "This... this is not their way... not as I know it."
"But..." Hollani's lip trembled as she came close to tears, "but who could have done this?! And why?!"
"I don't know who did it, but I do know why. Genocide," Roshana said solemnly. "They got the Rikati out of the way..." She looked in the direction of the other cities she knew existed off in the distance. "Now they'll be in the other cities... massacring everyone."
Hollani's jaw fell open. "Massacring our people?! Everyone?! But there's almost a million-"
Roshana nodded. "Yes. They believe their goddess commands it... demands it, no less."
Hollani's pulse raced as fear ran cold through her veins. "There... there's no way we can fight them!" Desperation crept into her voice as she urged, "Roshy... we've got to get out of here before they sweep by again!"
Roshana nodded; Hollani's panic and her own cold logic had both come to the same conclusion. "We're going to be within their visual range if we stick around. We'll be dead in an instant if they catch us... There's nothing we can do but run. As far away as we can get."
Hollani slowly drifted back away from the direction of the volcano, adding, "And how far can we run?"
"Not how far... how long... until we become children of Gaia," Roshana explained, quickly taking her hand to lead her away, "at which time they will greet us as..." She snorted, "Sisters."
***
Isaya didn't need to go much further into the base to find more purple lights - this time much brighter, and stretched into thin fiber-like strands running in straight parallel patterns along the walls, into various rooms. Rooms where, to her surprise, she found strange equipment that projected all too familiar Silurhean runes and pictures into midair.
Most of what she saw was easy to understand - maps of the continent and other continents of the world. The Silurheans here had identified all of the Silurhean cities here, and even those far to the north, beyond the desert. There were also diaries and even communication logs from sources beyond this entire realm. Other worlds.
Isaya stopped to spend time studying these logs and was barely skimming the surface when her master informed her of Hollani and Roshana's panicked return. The news was terrible - even if the massacre Roshana and Hollani had spoken of to her master would make it less likely that she would be shrunken and eaten by the Silurheans above ground, much less the devils who once inhabited this underground facility, who was to say that this particular group of genocidal Nivalavi wouldn't just judge her no differently than other more hostile, sentient flesh-eating Dryads?
Being eaten was, of course, worse than being vaporized by the burning gaze of an angry Nivalavi, but still, it was death. Suddenly, the thought finding a lonely cactus somewhere in the northern desert and hiding there in solitude was starting to carry its own dark appeal.
Isaya's probing around was then interrupted when she noticed Roshana and Hollani's soul auras - as well as that of Ian, who was now out and walking with them - approaching the room she was currently in. The glow of intact lights switching on in sections down the hallway also served to indicate how close the trio was. Finally, a soft hum filled the room as one of the three orbs above her lit up, the other two having been cracked open like crushed eggs.
Roshana was the first to enter.
"This is a Silurhean base," Isaya explained.
Roshana added, "It's worse than that..." she gestured around, "These are computers. This looks more like an advance scout base for some kind of invasion."
Isaya nodded, her gaze serious and piercing. She then stunned Roshana into open-mouthed amazement by responding, "The Grue Combine, to be exact."
Roshana stopped dead in her tracks, her mind suddenly thrown into confusion as she tried to process the fact that Isaya knew volumes more about this situation than she had ever let on in the past. "Wh... what?" she stammered.
Hollani and Ian both came into the room behind her right then.
Isaya smiled. "I am a transplant from another world, young Roshana," she said confidently, folding her arms. "I hitched a ride here on a Grue warship, stowing away as a fruit bearing tree in a hydroponic garden. One of several of my kind, actually. A Bollar Freehold warship - I know you're familiar with them - did battle with my Silurhean hosts and both ships crashed. The garden I was planted in was destroyed in a fire. I barely made it to a tree beyond the crash site in time. From there... I wandered north, to this continent."
Roshana's jaw fell open as she stared with amazement at Isaya. "You... you did not tell me any of this... I thought you were native to this planet."
"I didn't see the need to say where I ultimately came from," Isaya shrugged, matter-of-factly.
Ian walked around, leaning against a table with circuit lines and runes that were now glowing in various colors. "Hmmm..." he muttered, rubbing his chin, "Sounds like we have a confession-fest going on."
Roshana turned to tell him to shut up, but now Hollani was by his side, her arms folded.
"And how much more do you know that you haven't told us?" Hollani's tone suddenly became serious as she glared at Isaya.
"Yeah..." Roshana turned to Isaya again. "If a Bollar Freehold ship crashed here, that would explain who brought the Nivalavi to this world."
Ian cocked his head slightly. "Bol-what?"
Roshana turned her head slightly in his direction. "The Bollar Freeholds are basically a collection of fiercely independent spacefaring tribes... Fairies much like me - but much unlike me, if you'll believe that - tried to devour their people. The Bollars beat them back. They are the first non-fairy species ever known to do so."
Isaya raised an eyebrow. "You know of them..."
Hollani gawked at Roshana incredulously. "Roshy! What's with all the secrets?!"
Roshana rolled her eyes at both of them. "You, Hollani, were best not knowing about them. You have enough worries already."
"Dang," Ian snickered, faking a Southern accent, "y'all got a lot of secrets you ain't tellin' each other." Then he rubbed his chin. "And who are these... Nivalavi?"
"They are children of fairies and the Bollars."
"Ah yeah, those starfaring tribes..." Ian repeated.
"Proud, strong men, perfectly indistinguishable from you except for their dark brown skin color," Isaya explained. "They wiped out large swaths of Silurhean populations on other worlds I've been to. We had assumed their fairy halfbreed children were finally overrun and wiped out by the Grue Combine, but apparently... they've survived, somehow..."
Ian's jaw fell open. "Are you serious?!" he gestured, his arms casting dark shadows under the single bright light above him. "These guys look like humans? And they reproduced with fairies?"
"They did." Isaya nodded. "And the Nivalavi that just killed nearly a million fairies... those ones are their legacy."
Ian cracked a smile. "Holy shit. So are they carnivores or...?"
"I've never met a Nivalavi carnivore. I've never even heard of one," Isaya said reassuringly.
"They are like the children of Gaia, although they call their goddess Tarajika," Roshana cut in, shaking her head. "They're also known as the Incorruptible Children, chiefly because, as I did indeed say before, we have never seen one that can eat flesh."
"And who are the children of Gaia?" Ian asked. "You haven't said much about them. Why are they out to kick the Silurheans' asses?"
Isaya smiled. "Quite simple. They're The Children of Gaia would feed a man like you to their wombs..." She reached down and caressed the lowest part of her belly, just above her crotch. "Where Hollani can fit you in her womanly parts, a child of Gaia can take you deeper... where you would be absorbed into her, refreshing her magic." As Ian cringed, she then added, with a bit more cheer, "Then your soul will be released into a new mortal shell." She gestured to him, "A young man such as you would look in the mirror afterward and see little change, except your skin would glow with the perfect health that would pervade your new body. Being fed to a child of Gaia's womb would add years to your lifespan and make you ever slightly stronger than before."
Ian snorted. "You can't be serious. Fed to a hungry womb? Absorbed? So I can live longer? What the heck. Come on now..." He then cocked his head back. "Seriously? Huh?"
Roshana turned to Hollani. "This transformation is not long in coming, Holly," she explained. "You'll be able to completely replenish your magic using Ian's body, over and over again." She focused her gaze sharply at the human. "Ian, you will benefit from this process as well, becoming stronger and living longer."
Ian shook his head. "Holy smokes," he turned and smacked his palm into his face, walking toward the exit. "The guys back on Earth said the fairies we were going to meet had some fantastic powers. I guess I didn't pay attention to this part of the hard sell."
"Tell me about it..." Hollani said, casting Roshana a skeptical gaze. "I can't even begin to wrap my brain around what you're saying!" She gestured at Roshana, "How would I learn the spells needed for all of this?"
"It becomes an innate ability," Roshana explained. "Unlike most, I've actually seen the process."
"Okay, well," Hollani responded, "and it still sounds weird to me. I've never even seen such a thing."
Isaya laughed. "Roshana's right, you two. I've seen it myself."
Ian shook his head. "Wow." Looking to Roshana, he asked, "You say this... feeding me to Hollani's womb... makes me live longer?"
Roshana nodded. "It's called Gaia's Blessing. And after going through it many times, you'll become stronger."
"Seen that, too..." Isaya pointed out.
"Gaia's... what?" Ian said.
Hollani rubbed her chin. "Hmmm... really now."
Roshana gestured, "Maybe you should eat Isaya. She'll yield some memories to you."
Ian snorted at Roshana yanking Hollani's chain; Hollani, on the other hand, played right into it: "Roshy! You know I don't-"
Isaya joined in on the fun, sliding her hands down her body, "Oh stop being such a stick in the mud, Holly! I wouldn't mind being in your tummy. In fact, you're so cute, I'd just love to slide down-"
"Isaya!" the topaz blonde whined.
Ian snickered, leaning against the frame of the doorway.
A projected display flickered next to Isaya, lighting up her face briefly. "That's alright," she said, waving her off, "when you're ready to take Ian into your womb you won't even... what the...?"
Hollani did not miss that flickering image either. She spotted a woman's ghostly pale face and frowned, stepping forward for a closer look as the face flickered back out of existence, leaving in its place a map of the continent. "What in the world was..."
Roshana had caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye. An instant later, her heart leapt into her throat as dreadful recognition dawned upon her.
It was then that she realized that she'd made the worst mistake of her life.
***
Ian stood there, completely ignorant of what was transpiring as he tried to make sense of what Isaya and Roshana were saying. Fed to a fairy woman's womb? Absorbed? Returned in a new body? Was that truly possible?
Perhaps, he thought to himself, he should be looking forward to it?
His thoughts were interrupted by the unexpected sound of a sickening crunch that echoed from the room behind him; at the same time, two women screamed in terror.
As he whirled around, turning back toward the room, the lights flickered around him... and then everything went black.
The Many Journeys of Ian Scranton
Chapter 5: Overkill
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"On Earth, man chases woman. In Siluvaran territory, woman chases man. And you wonder why so many human men are emigrating?" - anonymous
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Upon landing in Isaya's belly again, Ian Scranton had torn open his dahla pod and hastily wolfed down as many of those big, juicy sweet dahla fruits as he could until he was completely stuffed. And not a moment too soon, for just as he'd tried to get comfortable inside his spriggan protector, he was squeezed right back out again.
As full as he was, he would certainly have thrown up if his trip had been as rough as the first time. This time, though, the alien muscles in Isaya's body were gentle to him, even as they rippled around his body and pushed him back into the light. In no time he went from being Isaya's pretend meal to becoming Hollani's sex toy.
The sight of Hollani's wet sex opening up slightly for him, clenching and relaxing like the muscles of someone's throat, was absolutely awe-inspiring. Whereas his perverted mind had to rebel against his survival instinct when he slid down Isaya's and Hollani's throat, this journey that lay before him elicited nothing short of pure, unadulterated excitement. As Hollani pushed him inside her, he hotly anticipated the taste and scent of her clean, horny womanhood as he was swallowed again - this time by the beautiful flower of Hollani's labia. And so Hollani's womanhood embraced and welcomed him. And he most certainly welcomed the loud squishes of her muscles kneading him into her molten hot center. It was like being swallowed again - but this time by Hollani's vagina.
Of course, Hollani's throbbing sex was very tight; Ian could hardly move his arms as her muscles restricted his movements, occasionally contracting violently, obviously wanting to crush him as well as pull him deeper, but unable to harm him because of the magic shield he knew was protecting him.
The temperature rose slightly as he was forced further inside Hollani's body, and it was then that he realized he could breathe, but he couldn't smell anything.
Ian groaned at first, and then let out a quiet, "Awww, fuck..." when he realized it was because Hollani had forgotten to rethink her magical protection spell for this situation. She had cast the exact same spell to protect him here as she had when he was in her belly, watching her digest her food. Now he would neither feel, smell nor taste any of the sticky cum squirting from her pores all over his body to lubricate him for his journey into Hollani's depths.
He sighed, then relaxed as her vagina contracted again. At least she was over-cautious, and didn't flip her magical spells around the wrong way. The spell Roshana had put on him before he went into her vagina allowed him to feel, smell and taste her juices - which would have been fatal for him when he was sitting in Hollani's belly. He grinned as he slipped further up into Hollani's birth canal, making a note to himself that while this took all the fun out of the experience, he would be better off not suggesting that Hollani fine tune her spells. Who knew what could go wrong?
Of course, that left his mind to wander to other, related issues. Such as... who were these Nivalavi?
***
The great Silurhean city of Oratho sprawled for miles in all directions below as Ami raced across the sky, deforming wispy clouds with the enormous pressure waves she created in her wake. Nestled at the foot of the volcano-of-many-names, Oratho was intertwined with a forest of massive trees, most rising almost a hundred fifty meters high, and a few grand woods almost five times that large. It was hard to see with the naked eye, especially during the day when the city's natural lights were hard to tell under the sunlight - but for a fairy like Ami, the city's location, size and scope was made plainly clear from a long distance by the myriads of red blobs and dots that danced around before her.
It was useless, of course, to keep using one's soul sight now that Oratho was within sight; Ami simply angled downward into a fast nosedive, like a hawk coming in for a strike at a mouse. She loved the powerful sensations of the wind buffeting her face and the turbulence - it was like coming in red hot for an assault on the enemy.
Roshana...
Ami's crimson eyes glowed brighter, her lips twisting into a snarl as she thought about having to fly away from a fight with that annoying Droathas. The maddening unfairness of having to worry about Roshana tying up all her magic energy in a fight to the death and Isaya interfering with a killing blow from one of her mighty branches, was starting to make her seethe. Hollani was easy; she'd burn her to ashes with the simplest of fireballs, or fry her brains with a lightning spell much as Roshana had done that stray Rikati - indeed, how fitting that would be! But there was still Roshana...
As Ami spread her wings and slowed her descent a few hundred meters above the treetops, a nagging question forced its way to the forefront in her mind... how could Roshana so easily best a Rikati fairy, especially an obviously meat-crazed creature that might even be considering devouring one of her own kind? Roshana had been known to back up her big talk on a number of occasions, but she'd never shown magical power of that magnitude. Only Rhea knew how powerful she really was. In any case, her pride told her at that moment, she was a trained warrior, far superior to that wide-eyed stray or even the other wanna-be warriors that Roshana sparred with around Oratho. Ami was a real fighter, trained personally by a Silurhean warchief.
The next time they met she would unleash hell.
The treetops raced up at her until she plunged beneath the forest canopy to see the complicated network of wooden walkways and thick, walkable vines linking one tree to the next. Countless mushrooms, mounds and tent-like structures passed beneath her - homes - as the sun's light waned in favor of the crystalline balls lining buildings and walkways that provided ample lighting.
To her delight she spotted a young adult male Rikati floating down into a poorly-lit corner between two tents made from what looked like some large autumn colored overlapping spearhead-shaped leaves petrified into stone, and caught sight of his fingers weaving strands of silk around a long and slender, gray furry thing, binding its legs to its body. She dipped lower, moving into the shadows behind a giant tree trunk to get a better look at him while remaining unnoticed. The ashy-gray skinned male had barely developed the musculature of a warrior cadet; given his gray warrior's tunic, he was just a warrior's apprentice, and given the time of day, he had little time to eat and then get back to his training. It was understandable then why he would duck into a corner like that. He literally had to eat and run. She smiled; those were certainly the days...
Ami's heart skipped a beat as she turned to watch him subsequently lower the creature head-first into his mouth, attempting to quickly swallow it down. Those pests - Geraugs - were no wider around than her forearm, and loved to sneak into fairy abodes and steal fruits and the like; they could squeeze into the tightest of cracks, and some were good at slinking around and robbing those who were not at home. But every so often, one would get caught or lead the fairies back to their nest. Usually they, along with the birds that dared fly through here, were captured and bred as food; the warriors, more than anyone, knew better than to eat any living thing around here carelessly and thereby risk exhausting the food supply. Warriors either made do with dahlas or lined up for distributions of live food - it was rationed out to them as a way to maintain self-discipline. No doubt this creature he was eating was a household intruder...
... or perhaps a gift given to him by the topaz-haired Arari female cadet who suddenly ducked into the same corner with him, holding one that was dangling limply by its tail. Asleep, just like the one the male was eating.
Ami sighed; he was already spoken for. Still, she drifted over into a dark spot against a tree, where the sun's light was blocked by the branches and leaves above; and here, she watched the male with fascination and not just a trivial amount of arousal. The sight of his throat bulging to accommodate the unmoving Geraug, laboring to milk the creature into his stomach, caused her insides to ache. But she resisted the urge to masturbate as the furry beast disappeared into his mouth, until his lips finally closed around the tail. Like his female companion, he slurped his prey's tail and finished it off with another swallow, until the bulge worked its way down into his chest. No sooner did the Geraugs settle completely in the fairies' stomachs than the two now well-fed warriors leapt into the air and took off together, holding hands... back to combat training.
Ami sighed, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. The sight of a Drow male working a long slender furry Geraug down his throat would stay in her mind for days to come, and would aid her greatly in her efforts at sexual self-gratification... assuming she could get Roshana out of her head.
She turn turned to continue on her way...
... only to bump into the unyielding body of a raven-haired male in an unfamiliar white robe.
Her heart leapt into her throat as the next thing she noticed about this fairly brawny stranger, was his bright blue soul aura.
Her magic suddenly failed her and she began to fall from midair - that is, until his hand seized her throat like a hangman's noose, almost breaking her neck as her body jerked and her fall was abruptly stopped.
"How unlucky you are," he spoke in the Silurhean tongue. "The Bollars want a Rikati. Alive. And you're it."
Ami could hardly believe what she was seeing; the sheer shock of a male with a bright blue soul aura appearing out of nowhere, in the middle of her home city, with thousands of Rikati warriors within eyesight of her position, was still registering in her mind when her body jerked hard again, and she was yanked upwards, back into the sky.
As Ami was dragged clear of the forest canopy, her mind got around to telling her to struggle; but as soon as she reached for the hand gripping her neck, her entire body caught fire... or so it felt. No flames licked at her flesh, but there was no mistaking the burst of excruciating pain flowing through her veins; the strange blue-aura male had not only cast an anti-magic spell upon her that did not affect him, but he was now immersing her in a brief flash of full-body agony, as punishment for even the slightest resistance.
"Wha.. what do you want?!" she gasped, struggling to breathe.
This male was clearly not one of many words - the only thing he did in response was reach back with his other hand. His fingers clenched into a fist and then rammed into her face, causing an explosion of pain. Her vision blurred and she saw stars dancing before her eyes.
It was then that she could have sworn she was starting to hallucinate; perhaps he'd hit her harder than she thought, for her eyes were now telling her of swarms of blue aura fairies appearing out of nowhere all around them.
She was then thrashed around violently, her body roughly turned in the direction of the forest under which Oratho was concealed.
Ami's trauma hallucination grew even more bizarre as she imagined thousands of rays of light raining from the sky into the forest, like sunlight poking through a million holes in an overcast sky... lighting up everything below, until domes of swirling whites, reds, oranges and yellows arose a split second later. It was like deadly flowers of flame had been planted and then grown to maturity in the blink of an eye.
As her eyes were burned into blindness by the unexpected flash of an incomprehensible light tearing itself free from the depths of the forest, a rapid succession of ear-shattering thunderclaps destroyed her eardrums a second later. Now deafened and sightless, Ami was then struck fully across her body by what felt like a giant's palm... and then she finally lost consciousness...
***
"... and if the Nivalavi decide they want to rip me open to get at Ian?"
"I'm trained. I can handle this situation, trust me."
"That didn't sound too sincere..."
"Would you rather stand by the giant tree Isaya used to inhabit and hope a group of Nivalavi don't encounter you there? They would be most likely to make their temporary base there, you know."
Hollani studied Roshana's face as they raced with their arms by their sides across the sky far above the vast carpet of green that covered the land. Behind them lay the soaring mountain range that cut nearly the entire continent in half; ahead, to the north, lay a smaller mountain range dominated by the tallest peak overlooking the entire valley - a great snow-capped volcano with an ancient forest of soaring trees covering its long, gentle slopes, beyond which lay a vast desert on the other side. At its base, far beyond Roshana's range of soul vision, lay several tree cities which nearly a million Silurheans called home.
Roshana was mostly busy scanning the ground below her; they were flying as high in the sky as they could without the denizens of the forest slipping out of scanning range. They wanted to see the soul auras of everything they passed over - while being far enough to flee if they spotted any dangerous enemies.
"You've got a point there..." Hollani admitted. "I wish Isaya could send her clones all over the forest at once to watch for incoming threats."
"She did... they kept getting eaten, remember?" Roshana was quick to dash her idea to bits.
"Oh. Yeah," came Hollani's dejected sigh.
"Hollani, I must tell you what that was back there," Roshana turned her eyes briefly from their task of raking the forest for hostile life forms. "You know... the crystal tunnel entrance and all that."
"A fairy hideout?"
"A hideout for a Silurhean army much more hostile and dangerous than any of the local warrior clans that live among us," Roshana explained. "They're called the Grue Combine... and they don't come from this world."
Hollani fully turned on her side, inadvertently giving Roshana a full view of her naked body. "Are you serious?!" she gasped.
"Quite," Roshana nodded. "I'm worried that the group that was massacred may have been a scouting party... a group of advance... warrior clans, if you will... preparing for the arrival of a much larger force."
Hollani snorted. "They won't be coming now... not with those crazy Nivalavi."
Roshana cringed; carefully choosing her words, she said, "It's more likely that they'll come to investi..."
Her words trailed off as she noticed faint, mushroom-headed plumes of smoke rising from a small area at the foot of the volcano.
"Oh, no..." Roshana muttered, her heart suddenly racing.
"Oh no?" Hollani repeatedl confused.
Roshana pointed ahead. "Smoke. It looks like a fire."
Hollani turned upright and came to a dead stop in mid-flight. "Hold it... if smoke from a fire over there is visible from here..." She pointed behind her, "It's gotta be a million times larger than that patch we found back there!"
Roshana came to a hover as well, turning to look back at her. "That could even be... oh no..."
***
One advantage that Isaya the Spriggan had over everyone else in the area was, she could send out scouts into dangerous environments and if they died, she could simply send out another. As long as the danger didn't come too close to her Dryad form, all was quite well. Even setting her tree ablaze or chopping it down was ineffective; one of her roaming Spriggans would simply relocate. Even a sapling would do in a pinch. She'd even heard of Dryads possessing a blade of grass to reduce the size of their soul aura, effectively hiding themselves. Without fairies around, Dryads were hard to kill; and killing their avatars, their Spriggans, was utterly counterproductive.
And so Isaya the Spriggan, upon finding another sparkling crystalline underground tunnel entrance within the grove where her master had been transplanted, decided to investigate it.
The entrance was completely unobstructed by foliage, suggesting it had been recently used. Inside, however, it was completely dark; unlike the shifting rocks somewhere in the distance, her own footsteps barely produced an echo once she ventured several hundred paces down the sloping ramp and stepped onto the glass-like floor of what appeared to be a warehouse.
A foul stench greeted her as soon as she arrived - one she was quite familiar with. Death. The room reeked with the lingering smell of death.
There was no light beyond the entrance, aside from a few dome-shaped rocks along the distant walls that emitted a feeble purple light. Isaya's night vision spotted many more on the floor, ceiling and walls, which were all cracked or shattered. There were broken crates everywhere, all soiled with dried blood. One corridor leading away from the giant storage room which was blocked by a cave-in. The haunting noise of soil and broken crystalline rock leaking into an unseen breach didn't disturb Isaya at all - even if the place collapsed upon her, her master would simply make another Spriggan and find another way in.
There wasn't a hint of caution in Isaya's routine as she casually studied several crates and found them all to be completely empty. Isaya stopped and folded her arms, looking around. Aside from the ceiling, blood stained almost everything around her. In fact, the only thing missing was the physical bodies - and those she had already found outside. Her clones were now burying their mostly skeletal remains so that they could give something back to nature. Obviously, many fairies had been killed here and dragged outside to be put on display.
Satisfied that there wasn't anything new to discover in this area, Isaya followed the macabre trail of footprints in the dried pools of blood on the floor, to one of the two corridors that were passable.
***
Roshana and Hollani stared with horror at the massive crater laying before their unbelieving eyes and the miles of charred, barren land that surrounded it. Many of the great trees beyond the epicenter, where mostly Arari consorts were invited to live so they could keep the Rikati warriors happy, were almost completely vaporized - their once majestic shapes now nothing more than ten story-high ashy silhouettes pressed into the scorched ground. Many trees far beyond the blast zone that were still whole were being consumed by fires - fires that burned everywhere, inside the crater and far out toward the horizon. Much of the southern base of the volcano itself was a canvas of scorched black littered with the silhouettes of trees flash-vaporized by an unimaginably powerful blast of heat.
The smoke billowing from all around them was beyond acrid - it was enough to block out the volcano, indeed even the rapidly retiring sun itself, and force both fairies to cast shields around themselves so they could survive breathing there. At the same time, fine particles of dust were coming down all around them, like dirty brown snowflakes.
"Oratho... the entire Rikati stronghold... the outlying towns..." Hollani gasped, wide-eyed, her hand over her mouth. "What could have happened here?!"
Roshana trembled as she held both her hands over her mouth, her heart thumping frantically. "The Nivalavi... it's as if they dropped an antimatter bomb on..."
Hollani turned toward her. "Anti-what?"
Roshana did a double take as she realized she was talking too much. "Oh.... I... it's a spell. The most terrible spell you can imagine..." She looked around some more. "They unleashed a huge amount of magic energy all at once. They would have caught the entire city... the whole region... by surprise!"
Hollani was now fully aghast at what she was seeing. "They... they killed over a hundred thousand people here... or more!"
Roshana rubbed her chin. "This is odd... the Nivalavi prefer a pitched battle." She looked at Hollani. "The Nivalavi will risk losses of their own in order to have the joy of pounding their enemy to death. It is an honor for their warriors to kill flesh eaters in close combat..." Looking back down at the devastation before them, she added, "This... this is not their way... not as I know it."
"But..." Hollani's lip trembled as she came close to tears, "but who could have done this?! And why?!"
"I don't know who did it, but I do know why. Genocide," Roshana said solemnly. "They got the Rikati out of the way..." She looked in the direction of the other cities she knew existed off in the distance. "Now they'll be in the other cities... massacring everyone."
Hollani's jaw fell open. "Massacring our people?! Everyone?! But there's almost a million-"
Roshana nodded. "Yes. They believe their goddess commands it... demands it, no less."
Hollani's pulse raced as fear ran cold through her veins. "There... there's no way we can fight them!" Desperation crept into her voice as she urged, "Roshy... we've got to get out of here before they sweep by again!"
Roshana nodded; Hollani's panic and her own cold logic had both come to the same conclusion. "We're going to be within their visual range if we stick around. We'll be dead in an instant if they catch us... There's nothing we can do but run. As far away as we can get."
Hollani slowly drifted back away from the direction of the volcano, adding, "And how far can we run?"
"Not how far... how long... until we become children of Gaia," Roshana explained, quickly taking her hand to lead her away, "at which time they will greet us as..." She snorted, "Sisters."
***
Isaya didn't need to go much further into the base to find more purple lights - this time much brighter, and stretched into thin fiber-like strands running in straight parallel patterns along the walls, into various rooms. Rooms where, to her surprise, she found strange equipment that projected all too familiar Silurhean runes and pictures into midair.
Most of what she saw was easy to understand - maps of the continent and other continents of the world. The Silurheans here had identified all of the Silurhean cities here, and even those far to the north, beyond the desert. There were also diaries and even communication logs from sources beyond this entire realm. Other worlds.
Isaya stopped to spend time studying these logs and was barely skimming the surface when her master informed her of Hollani and Roshana's panicked return. The news was terrible - even if the massacre Roshana and Hollani had spoken of to her master would make it less likely that she would be shrunken and eaten by the Silurheans above ground, much less the devils who once inhabited this underground facility, who was to say that this particular group of genocidal Nivalavi wouldn't just judge her no differently than other more hostile, sentient flesh-eating Dryads?
Being eaten was, of course, worse than being vaporized by the burning gaze of an angry Nivalavi, but still, it was death. Suddenly, the thought finding a lonely cactus somewhere in the northern desert and hiding there in solitude was starting to carry its own dark appeal.
Isaya's probing around was then interrupted when she noticed Roshana and Hollani's soul auras - as well as that of Ian, who was now out and walking with them - approaching the room she was currently in. The glow of intact lights switching on in sections down the hallway also served to indicate how close the trio was. Finally, a soft hum filled the room as one of the three orbs above her lit up, the other two having been cracked open like crushed eggs.
Roshana was the first to enter.
"This is a Silurhean base," Isaya explained.
Roshana added, "It's worse than that..." she gestured around, "These are computers. This looks more like an advance scout base for some kind of invasion."
Isaya nodded, her gaze serious and piercing. She then stunned Roshana into open-mouthed amazement by responding, "The Grue Combine, to be exact."
Roshana stopped dead in her tracks, her mind suddenly thrown into confusion as she tried to process the fact that Isaya knew volumes more about this situation than she had ever let on in the past. "Wh... what?" she stammered.
Hollani and Ian both came into the room behind her right then.
Isaya smiled. "I am a transplant from another world, young Roshana," she said confidently, folding her arms. "I hitched a ride here on a Grue warship, stowing away as a fruit bearing tree in a hydroponic garden. One of several of my kind, actually. A Bollar Freehold warship - I know you're familiar with them - did battle with my Silurhean hosts and both ships crashed. The garden I was planted in was destroyed in a fire. I barely made it to a tree beyond the crash site in time. From there... I wandered north, to this continent."
Roshana's jaw fell open as she stared with amazement at Isaya. "You... you did not tell me any of this... I thought you were native to this planet."
"I didn't see the need to say where I ultimately came from," Isaya shrugged, matter-of-factly.
Ian walked around, leaning against a table with circuit lines and runes that were now glowing in various colors. "Hmmm..." he muttered, rubbing his chin, "Sounds like we have a confession-fest going on."
Roshana turned to tell him to shut up, but now Hollani was by his side, her arms folded.
"And how much more do you know that you haven't told us?" Hollani's tone suddenly became serious as she glared at Isaya.
"Yeah..." Roshana turned to Isaya again. "If a Bollar Freehold ship crashed here, that would explain who brought the Nivalavi to this world."
Ian cocked his head slightly. "Bol-what?"
Roshana turned her head slightly in his direction. "The Bollar Freeholds are basically a collection of fiercely independent spacefaring tribes... Fairies much like me - but much unlike me, if you'll believe that - tried to devour their people. The Bollars beat them back. They are the first non-fairy species ever known to do so."
Isaya raised an eyebrow. "You know of them..."
Hollani gawked at Roshana incredulously. "Roshy! What's with all the secrets?!"
Roshana rolled her eyes at both of them. "You, Hollani, were best not knowing about them. You have enough worries already."
"Dang," Ian snickered, faking a Southern accent, "y'all got a lot of secrets you ain't tellin' each other." Then he rubbed his chin. "And who are these... Nivalavi?"
"They are children of fairies and the Bollars."
"Ah yeah, those starfaring tribes..." Ian repeated.
"Proud, strong men, perfectly indistinguishable from you except for their dark brown skin color," Isaya explained. "They wiped out large swaths of Silurhean populations on other worlds I've been to. We had assumed their fairy halfbreed children were finally overrun and wiped out by the Grue Combine, but apparently... they've survived, somehow..."
Ian's jaw fell open. "Are you serious?!" he gestured, his arms casting dark shadows under the single bright light above him. "These guys look like humans? And they reproduced with fairies?"
"They did." Isaya nodded. "And the Nivalavi that just killed nearly a million fairies... those ones are their legacy."
Ian cracked a smile. "Holy shit. So are they carnivores or...?"
"I've never met a Nivalavi carnivore. I've never even heard of one," Isaya said reassuringly.
"They are like the children of Gaia, although they call their goddess Tarajika," Roshana cut in, shaking her head. "They're also known as the Incorruptible Children, chiefly because, as I did indeed say before, we have never seen one that can eat flesh."
"And who are the children of Gaia?" Ian asked. "You haven't said much about them. Why are they out to kick the Silurheans' asses?"
Isaya smiled. "Quite simple. They're The Children of Gaia would feed a man like you to their wombs..." She reached down and caressed the lowest part of her belly, just above her crotch. "Where Hollani can fit you in her womanly parts, a child of Gaia can take you deeper... where you would be absorbed into her, refreshing her magic." As Ian cringed, she then added, with a bit more cheer, "Then your soul will be released into a new mortal shell." She gestured to him, "A young man such as you would look in the mirror afterward and see little change, except your skin would glow with the perfect health that would pervade your new body. Being fed to a child of Gaia's womb would add years to your lifespan and make you ever slightly stronger than before."
Ian snorted. "You can't be serious. Fed to a hungry womb? Absorbed? So I can live longer? What the heck. Come on now..." He then cocked his head back. "Seriously? Huh?"
Roshana turned to Hollani. "This transformation is not long in coming, Holly," she explained. "You'll be able to completely replenish your magic using Ian's body, over and over again." She focused her gaze sharply at the human. "Ian, you will benefit from this process as well, becoming stronger and living longer."
Ian shook his head. "Holy smokes," he turned and smacked his palm into his face, walking toward the exit. "The guys back on Earth said the fairies we were going to meet had some fantastic powers. I guess I didn't pay attention to this part of the hard sell."
"Tell me about it..." Hollani said, casting Roshana a skeptical gaze. "I can't even begin to wrap my brain around what you're saying!" She gestured at Roshana, "How would I learn the spells needed for all of this?"
"It becomes an innate ability," Roshana explained. "Unlike most, I've actually seen the process."
"Okay, well," Hollani responded, "and it still sounds weird to me. I've never even seen such a thing."
Isaya laughed. "Roshana's right, you two. I've seen it myself."
Ian shook his head. "Wow." Looking to Roshana, he asked, "You say this... feeding me to Hollani's womb... makes me live longer?"
Roshana nodded. "It's called Gaia's Blessing. And after going through it many times, you'll become stronger."
"Seen that, too..." Isaya pointed out.
"Gaia's... what?" Ian said.
Hollani rubbed her chin. "Hmmm... really now."
Roshana gestured, "Maybe you should eat Isaya. She'll yield some memories to you."
Ian snorted at Roshana yanking Hollani's chain; Hollani, on the other hand, played right into it: "Roshy! You know I don't-"
Isaya joined in on the fun, sliding her hands down her body, "Oh stop being such a stick in the mud, Holly! I wouldn't mind being in your tummy. In fact, you're so cute, I'd just love to slide down-"
"Isaya!" the topaz blonde whined.
Ian snickered, leaning against the frame of the doorway.
A projected display flickered next to Isaya, lighting up her face briefly. "That's alright," she said, waving her off, "when you're ready to take Ian into your womb you won't even... what the...?"
Hollani did not miss that flickering image either. She spotted a woman's ghostly pale face and frowned, stepping forward for a closer look as the face flickered back out of existence, leaving in its place a map of the continent. "What in the world was..."
Roshana had caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye. An instant later, her heart leapt into her throat as dreadful recognition dawned upon her.
It was then that she realized that she'd made the worst mistake of her life.
***
Ian stood there, completely ignorant of what was transpiring as he tried to make sense of what Isaya and Roshana were saying. Fed to a fairy woman's womb? Absorbed? Returned in a new body? Was that truly possible?
Perhaps, he thought to himself, he should be looking forward to it?
His thoughts were interrupted by the unexpected sound of a sickening crunch that echoed from the room behind him; at the same time, two women screamed in terror.
As he whirled around, turning back toward the room, the lights flickered around him... and then everything went black.
The Many Journeys of Ian Scranton, Ch 5 - 11/27/2009
By jacquelope -- Report
Hell suddenly breaks loose. Total hell.
Note: Chapter 3, 4 and 5 were all part of one big chapter, which I found myself breaking up into 3. That's why there's 3 new chapters coming so quickly!
11/27/2009: major, major continuity fixes.
Please login to post a comment.
Posted by pokelover1234321 17 years ago Report
Just finished with all 5 chapters, loving the story! Do not rush your writing it is very good.
On a story related note... Why do I have the sincere feeling that Ian is not the only Human (past or present) on this Planet?
Posted by jacquelope 17 years ago Report
There were other humans on this planet, they came on the same ship he did. Two were featured here:
http://aryion.com/g3/thumb/text-plain.png
Posted by jacquelope 17 years ago Report
Oops...!
http://aryion.com/g3/showitem.php?id=170384
Posted by French_snack 17 years ago Report
Whoops... Looks as though things are going to get even more dangerous. Good chapter.
Posted by Imrhys 16 years ago Report
I will strangle you for ending it with a cliffhanger T.T
Posted by LordVengeance 16 years ago Report
Bollars AND Nivalavi invading? It's like the old Chinese curse- "May you live in interesting times"