My Boss Bred Me and My Friends in the Dungeon

As a child Lauren thought about the end of the world only once. On a spring day that carried a strange chill she played among flowers with glee. She loved days like these where she could wear her long dress layered with a coat and socks. When the weather turned warm she wore less and showed off less of her style. Her mother worked hard to make her clothes and she felt proud to wear them. Far from the house she heard no intruding violence. It was only on her return for an unfinished supper that she discovered the remaining carnage. No deaths only trauma. Her mother breathed on the floor but managed little else.

These were the first wounds Lauren tended. She could not quite remember her mother’s words only their meaning. Soft despite how shocking their message. “You must forgive.” Her mother walked with a limp until her early passing. But she had chosen mercy upon the souls who had afflicted pain against her body. “Why? How?” Her mother was no saint no compassionate soul. She was stately and tactical. She would help or forgive or give advice but coldly. As if there were no natural alternative. No perhaps it would be more accurate to say as if any alternative would be unnatural.

Chained in Shadow

Her mother had lived in the ruins when she was a girl before they had been called ruins. And before then she had lived in the capital. The tomes from that time she kept despite lacking interest were the same tomes Lauren had learned magic from. The basic healing and wards were old methods that taxed the body and strained the mind. Her mother thought them trifles. She had seen the turning of the world its many ways its motion and parts. Pieces set in paths before they knew they were moving. She learned to see crime not criminals war not soldiers. Death without killers. Blame without fault.

“You must forgive. There’s nothing else you can do.” Lauren did not decipher its meaning until much later. Her mother was practical. Too practical for metaphor. She meant not that forgiveness was a necessity. Rather that there were no other things one could do that could be considered a decision. Anything else would just be following the path you were set down. Only forgiveness had the uniquely unnatural quality of breaking from its path to break a cycle of pain with peace. Lauren joined the priesthood to help. She hated the ideals of her mother the thought that people had no agency. There is good and there is evil and to hurt is evil and to help is good. It is not. And until now she had never understood just how important that disparity would be.

A flung cloud of water corpse-temperature slapped Lauren awake. Her voice gasped then caught its breath in her ears. The water clung thinly against her naked body. She reacted to cover herself but shackles arrested the effort. Turning her head a collar chafed her neck and chin. Still she absorbed what forms she could in the dim room. Nearby a woman visibly inhuman with some kind of magic in her blood. Her hair was reflective gold luminescent even in candlelight. Her eyes were like two suns set into a head flanked with pointed ears. Her eyelids were relaxed her gaze set to the floor. She was chained beside Lauren still about ten feet away. Her body was a divine form of smooth skin and blessed proportion. She must be an elf thought Lauren. The ugliest of those creatures was still stunning to a human. This one’s chest protruded nearly the full width of her ribcage out again. Her bosom weight sagged them somewhat but not as much as any mortal’s skin would be. And as Lauren’s eyes focused she saw better the elf’s pale skin glitter in the dark. She had never seen one before not in her part of the city.

“Hey you. You’re finally awake.” Lauren fixed her gaze up at the woman standing freely before her. She held an empty bucket and she was thin with short black hair wearing crimson robes and a cutting grin. “Welcome to the land of the living. Thanks for joining us.” Lauren did not hold her tongue. “What is this? Who are you?” The woman shook her head and scooped another fill from a nearby pool into her bucket. “You’ve got the wrong girl” she said. “I’m just the assistant.” She dumped its contents lazily toward Lauren’s other side. The act startled awake a new person who had not been detected earlier. This woman moved quickly jolting up against her bindings. Brown hair drawn tightly into curls hung down over her freckled face. Her feet were calloused and worn. This woman was some kind of traveler or professional. Distracting out of place the woman’s short tight muscular body was interrupted by an unusually large bottom. She was a short woman with a torso even more so. Her legs were half her limited body length. Dwarven heritage?

“Fuck you!” she spat like a caged animal. “Let me go now and I’ll only cut out your eyes.” She had just woken up and already seemed much faster on the uptake than Lauren had been. She pulled fruitlessly in place and snarled. The self-described assistant seemed unfazed but stepped back mindfully anyway. She looked to form some words but quickly tired of the effort. She shrugged and shook her head. “Ah it’s not really my job to talk to you. Wait for my boss to come back.” She turned away from the three women each chained and kneeling toward the back of the room. And in the darkness of the back half of the room a shape stirred. Chains rattled. The hulking thing seemed to be awakening just as the others had done. While the room was dim this area was veritable night. The thing was large reaching up to the ceiling and wide enough to fill the stable. It heaved a heavy sigh a tired chuff.

“What the fuck is that?” the angry woman beside Lauren shouted. But the scene was interrupted by another entrant. A tall woman garbed in red silk robes with bouncy hair the same color as her clothes. She wore a broad grin when she strode through the door and into the room casting a glance across the audience of women. “Cassie” the tall woman commanded to her underling “have you prepared the bull?” “Not yet Nicole” the younger thin woman replied. “Thank the shouter. I wanted to do it myself.” “You in charge?” the short woman asked the calmest statement she had yet made. “Cuz you’ve got only about a minute before I stop being polite with you.” The taller woman Nicole let her grin weaken into a smirk. “How delightful. You’re exactly what we needed.” She pointed a confident finger at the woman. “A thief or rake depends on translation. Either way some scoundrel or scamp.” She moved to aim her finger at Lauren. “A pure priestess her blood uncleft.”

Red Son Awakens

Lauren had heard these descriptions before vaguely. Her finger resting at the elf “You were tricky I hope you know. A daughter of moonlight dedicated to day. An elven hearthtender.” Her eyelids fell into a glare. “Of course not so hard to find just hard to keep. Your people are so delicate.” Lauren was a scholar an avid reader in her spare time when she had any from cleaning the temple and speaking with its visitors. She was aware of countless prophecies of the end times and all the many many cults who pursued them. You could never learn them all of course and all of them were ridiculous save for only a select few of the major sects which had any merit at all. Of course there were monsters out there gods and fiends but those were real. These silly beliefs were a hobby or a pastime or perhaps an exercise in history for those seeking to practice translation. They were not to be taken seriously and the followers who were serious were meant to be avoided entirely. Loons. She whispered to herself in despair. “Oh no.” There was a group who believed that the world needed to end but Lauren did not remember why. They followed their interpretation of a storm god their great shouter. And it was believed that his aspect a red minotaur would bring about the apocalypse. Women would need to be sacrificed and they were described in ancient texts. There were as many speculated women as there were stars in the sky but Lauren could guess that this cult believed in at least three. Was she to die here?

“I know of the great shouter” Lauren’s voice was steady like her mother’s “but killing us won’t achieve your goals.” “Fuck off” the thief’s face contorted. “Don’t give the freaks any ideas. They’re already ogling us nude.” Nicole laughed. “What goals do you think I have?” Lauren swallowed silently but was emboldened by the presence of other innocent souls nearby. “You seek a sky of endless clouds. You believe you can cause it but you’re wrong.” Lauren hoped to twist what little she remembered into a favorable persuasion. “Oh?” Nicole checked the light outside to determine the time. “You think so?” Lauren’s heart pounded. She was no negotiator. She was a priest. Her skills were academic not this. She relied on her knowledge but could not trust in the sanity of her captors. She hoped she might be lucky. “If you serve a warrior and a master then what you’ve done here is nothing honorable and it wouldn’t draw his interest or approval.” Nicole’s eyes narrowed quizzically. Lauren’s head still fuzzy from recent awakening swam with discarded lies strung together from half-forgotten writings from cults she found to be mere trivia. “I recall that the rake must be virgin” Lauren hoped she could think faster and that her reading of her neighboring captive was fair. “Ah and you think this dwarf is promiscuous?” Nicole’s interrupting tone was ambiguously playful or serious. “She is bottom-heavy and well-traveled.” The chained woman blinked. “I’m killing three bitches tonight.” Nicole waved her hand. “This is ridiculous priestess. Why would you think we’d kill you? Nobody dies tonight ideally.” Lauren paused but the thief chuckled. “Well let’s not speak for others.” Nicole continued. “Our hero king as you said a warrior would not accept mere sacrifice. No I interpret his end times as being something more noble.” “Can you start speaking plain?” the vocal dwarf groaned. Nicole clapped her hands together and a magic emanated in a ripple that surged across the room. The ambient light level raised to comfortable visibility. Then after a pause the room became bright as daylight. The thing from before was illuminated. It was a minotaur of description perfectly aligned with the prophecy. Its fur was a vibrant crimson like a harvest sunset but its eyes burned golden. Its horns were ornate and flowed like water black as wet ash on a stomped paveway. Yet it was clear it had lived in civilization with fingernails that were cut neatly and teeth that gleamed white. It was not a wild thing like its soul would imply. It sagged its heft from its wrists bound overhead by shackles. A pulley assembly fed the chains into a ceiling hoist mechanism that fought valiantly against the weight. The creature groaned.

“You see” Nicole sighed longingly casting a glance over her pet “we possess his perfect crimson son under this wondrous night’s empty sky.” Lauren’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.” She had been wrong about which prophecy was being interpreted. This was an unusual mingling of two usually separated texts. These cultists were crazy even by cult standards. Nicole could not contain her glee. “Oh you’re familiar? I’m excited to speak with a fellow fan. Yes what many consider to mean ‘sacrifice’ I interpret more to mean ‘take.’ I believe the god I follow to be a subjugator.” She spread her hands. “So no your lives are all safe. In fact we really need you to stay alive for about a year from now. Because tonight your past selves will end and your new lives will begin.” Lauren felt a tear roll down her cheek startling her to its appearance. “Each of you will fight with your soul itself against our chosen son. You will each lose I assure you. And in a few mere months one of you will birth the endbringer.” The two cultists Cassie and Nicole worked to wash the minotaur’s body. They ran rags across its naked form soaking them in buckets of water while chanting their scripture. Helpless Lauren failed to find peace. “Hey ho of the cloth” the dwarf whispered “you wouldn’t happen to have anything useful hid up your snatch?” Lauren looked at her with hollow eyes. “No.” “Damn” the thief continued scratching at the solid wood of the platform they shared. “What’s your name?” “Lauren.” “Shame pretty name for a nun. Mine’s Lisa” despite the focused work of her fingernails on wood grain her posture was still and her gaze unmoving from the floor. The captors could not know what she was up to. “I’ll get us out of here.” “What do you mean ‘for a nun’?” “I mean you can’t get stuck so it sucks that your parents wasted a great name to call out at night.” She paused. “Well maybe not to say then. Lauren” she chewed the name “more like a nice name to say over candlelight. Yeah. Lisa though that’s an all-nighter.” Lauren failed to bury her disgust. “Please Lisa tonight may be the worst experience of all our lives. I’d like for you to make it just a bit less terrible by mellowing your speech?” Lisa’s lower eyelid twitched. “Darling you know that’s dumb as shit to ask me.” She nodded past Lauren. “What’s the deal with Leafeater?” “Hey!” Lauren hissed a bit too loudly. “Do not offend her. She has elven blood!” “Yeah dipshit I know” Lisa rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you hear my slur? If she were different I’d use the appropriate term.” The elf did not speak and did not move. She remained in pensive thought. “She serves the sun” Lauren shook her head. “If she’s a hearthtender she has a vow of silence.” “Ugh I thought that was just a joke kids say” Lisa sighed. “There are actually people who praise the sun?” “Not everyone has a soul as dark as yours” Lauren scorned. “It won’t help to reference her more. She’s meditating.” “Have you got any magic?” Lisa hoped. “Nothing more than tricks” Lauren moped. “Some minor healing and some simple lights.” “Damn. Well I’ve been fucked before but not usually so literally.” The minotaur was brought closer his chains swaying and the mechanism groaning. Lisa gulped. “Think you can learn any magic in the next few minutes?”

The minotaur male was otherworldly. While it was framed larger than any person its structures were ordered the same. Its wrists crossed over its head then wound down like heavy braided coils of roped muscle down its thick arms. There they connected to shoulders spread wide and limply relaxed. The creature’s flanks were flared like a cobra’s hood and soft shadows framed thin hills where his ribs pressed against his shiny dense body hair. From there the abdomen bumps trailed like neat cobblestones pathing down to his pelvis. Sharp shallow lines carved across the creature’s front and gently broad pits impressed at the sides of his hips. Between trunks of stone thigh muscle hung two peach-sized testicles. Together at their widest Nicole could just barely encircle them with both her hands. Above them was a sheath within which the monster‘s unnatural penis hid. Below the thighs the creature’s legs folded as an unguligrade’s. Softer hair framed his body all about crowning his shoulders and waist as well as joints of his elbows and legs. While Cassie was dutiful and overwhelmed Nicole was giddy. “Which do you think will dam our calf?” Cassie asked while she ran a rag across the minotaur’s shoulders. “Oh I’d be happy with any of them” Nicole had one hand on the bull’s hip and she traced her thumb over the divot at his pelvis. “But it would be very funny for the dwarf to mother him.” “I think the monk would have the best milk” Cassie chuckled. And finally the minotaur who had been shuffled slowly across the room came to somewhat. The tonics given to sedate him were fading and his imposed reticence gave way to tentative command. His voice rose deeply from his chest resonating with the air like a slow earthquake. “Where am I?” He stood up from his hunched form and filled space up to the heavy rafters. The women did not stop touching him. “Please” he tried to step away but the bindings held him in place under the hoist. “Relax” Nicole’s voice was seductive. “You’ll be thanking us soon. Look at what we offer you.” She laid a soft hand under him holding his thigh against her cheek a mere hand’s breadth away from his hanging manhood. “What?” the minotaur froze seemingly afraid to move. “Who are you? Why am I here?” The beast’s bright eyes were wide anxiously darting around. Yet his body was tightly frozen. Was he afraid of hurting the cultists? Lisa found a voice where Lauren’s failed. “Kill them plowpuller! They’re fucking crazy!” The minotaur’s chest heaved quickly rapidly and shallowly pumping air through wide nostrils. “What? No! Are you—” He carefully stepped his hooves around their small feet. “They’re just, you can’t, I can’t—” “What kind of monster is this?” Lauren murmured to herself. “Please” the minotaur pleaded his body twitching at each cultist’s touch. “Tell me what’s happening and stop this! I don’t want to hurt you!” Lauren had once seen cattle in town. She was young not yet up to her mother’s hip and terrified. They ran quickly through the streets as a flood of immense weight barreling at inhuman speed. Each one a boulder each one pulled forward by the instinct to drive on in any gap ahead and driven by the power behind it. She had thought it would kill her. And yet when all was done after several loud minutes she had been spared. She thought it was divinity’s watch but she was refuted by the nearby area. While the ground had been destroyed rended by countless footfalls the many shops and people were all safe. Each bull had darted despite panic to avoid colliding with terrain. Lauren now saw in the red minotaur the echoes of this childhood memory. “Please I have a home” the minotaur’s eyes glistened. “Whatever you’re doing I can pay you or work. You need no business with me here.” “The gods mock me” Lisa sagged in posture. “Give me a priest with no magic; give me an elf with no wisdom; give me shackles without my tools; give me a fucking monster with no fight.” The minotaur was stood centrally within the room his broad body run over with wet rags held in groping hands. Large enough to pull a carriage yet bound in chains that allowed only the shuffling of his hooves. Despite these restraints the thing still appeared to deflect the wooden beams when it jolted. “Mothers of all” Lisa was so viscerally repulsed she spat a glob onto the ground. “Are your balls for show? You’ve got monster blood you pussy just tip over and you’ll save us!” Nicole grinned. “Oh no dearest. Not for show. In fact it’s us who have such shame.” Nicole’s hand cupped below the minotaur’s testicle closest to her and she stared up at it as she ran her other hand up and down its bag. Bathing him she sighed. “We humans and it’s no better for you dwarves or elves have weak men who have fell frail from our communities.” Cassie weaved sigils in the air preparing some horrid spell. Nicole ran her body against the large man who turned his head away from her in shame. She continued. “We developed without competition and so our bodies forgot what it meant to fight for progeny. Humans have weak potency. We mate for life and hate to share and so most of our mens’ sperm is supportive. It doesn’t form a child but just helps others to do so. Only 4% of human sperm has potency. And our men soften after they empty themselves just once. And our women have eggs that are coy lined with a barrier that hinders their guests.” Nicole pressed her palm against the minotaur’s sheath coaxing the thick head to emerge slick and dark. The creature’s cock throbbed hot and heavy swelling fast under her grip. Cassie dropped to her knees and licked along the veined length tasting sweat and musk while her fingers stroked the heavy balls. Lauren watched the massive dick pulse and drip pre-cum her own pussy clenching against her will. Lisa snarled but her nipples hardened visibly. The elf stayed silent yet her thighs shifted. Nicole urged the minotaur forward guiding his dripping cock toward Lauren’s spread thighs. “Fuck her first” she hissed. The minotaur thrust hard his thick shaft stretching Lauren’s cunt wide. She gasped at the slick friction the heat filling her completely. “Harder” Nicole demanded. The beast rammed deeper pounding her soaked pussy with wet slaps that echoed. Lauren moaned despite herself her body rocking under each thrust. Lisa yelled “Fight it!” but the minotaur pulled out and slammed into her next his cock slick with Lauren’s juices. He fucked the dwarf’s tight cunt relentlessly her ass jiggling with every slap of skin. Lauren’s orgasm built fast her walls pulsing around nothing now. The minotaur roared and came deep in Lisa flooding her with thick cum that overflowed and dripped down her thighs. Lauren shuddered peaking hard her own climax crashing through as she watched the seed spill. The elf was next her pale body accepting the still-hard cock with a silent arch. The minotaur thrust until he peaked again cum erupting in ropes that coated her tits and belly. All three women lay soaked and panting the cycle of pain broken only by the raw heat that lingered.