[b][u][center]A Study of Connections Part 12 For a-lycotonum By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b] “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Tristan muttered. “I can’t believe that you were the one to suggest it,” Hazel shot back. The high priest of the temple didn’t have a reply to that, and she let it lie. All things considered, they were both risking their careers and lives as part of the church for this, but they needed more information. Hazel would have preferred going back to the vault and getting the book. There was more information in there to be gleaned, but Tristan had shut that down almost immediately. There was too much of a risk of Aster finding them down there, and considering how this was supposed to be at least somewhat surreptitious, it was better for them to do this quietly if they could do it at all. That, unfortunately, meant bringing him to the hobgoblins. Mol was the only seer that they had that was outside the church, and considering what she consorted with…well, it was better that nobody knew that Tristan was making use of her services. Hazel was just glad to have the chance to walk through the forest with shoes again. The fact that she’d been rendered barefoot more often than not had been embarrassing, something that made her feel dirty and lesser, like some peasant girl that had been kicked out of her home rather than a priestess in her own right. Having boots on meant that she could at least not get pricked by pinecones and worse in the dirt and roots. It made it easier to move quickly, too, something that she appreciated with the dark settling around them. With the high priest following behind her, she kept her eyes forward. There were a hundred different things that she could ask Tristan right now. Things about his past with the hobgoblins, how he felt about what had happened during the purging ritual, how he was feeling with the corruption coursing through his system…what would happen if she called him a ‘good boy’. That thought popped into her head from nowhere, and she wanted to slap herself for thinking of something like that. She had already given up her asshole to Vakrozad, and now she had let the priest eat her out. After all the work that she’d put into keeping herself for Vitus, she didn’t want to tempt herself further. [i]Even if he did look cute down there?[/i] She shook her head, pushing further through the forest. Tristan followed with a thump and a grunt behind her, and she sighed. He must have fallen over again. “You’re really not used to being outside the temple anymore, are you?” she asked. “Not really.” “You might want to consider taking walks or something.” “Trust me, I’m considering it. How much further?” “At a guess, ten minutes.” “That far?” “We were the ones that made them uncomfortable, remember?” “…Fair point.” They kept walking, and by the time that they reached the well-lit, guarded perimeter of the hobgoblin camp, Tristan was no longer falling head over heels every time that they walked by a tree. The hobgoblins recognized her, grinning and waving. “Hey, guard dog!” “Please, stop calling me that,” she muttered as she walked up. “I’m here to see Mol and Vakrozad.” “Heh, the boss’s sleeping right now. You want to wake him up?” “Yeah, you wanna do it the fun way or the boring way?” the second of the guards asked. She could all but feel Tristan staring a hole in the back of her head, and she did her best to keep her voice even as she cleared her throat. “Wake him up for me, and let us in.” “Yeah, yeah, fine. Come in, guard dog.” She bit off the retort on her tongue, pushing it aside for now. At least they were letting her and Tristan in. That was the important thing. The tingling magic in the air had most of the hobgoblins coupling with each other. Not roughly or violently, but definitely fervently and without shame. She was surprised how comfortable she was with it, now, but she supposed that after she had seen it for a few nights running, it wasn’t that hard to watch. She could see a number of them were showing some rather large balls tonight, and more to the point, not all the couplings were just men with women. Quite a few of them were women with women, or men with men. It seemed that the hobgoblins weren’t that interested in procreation, just with pleasure. She could get that. The central fire of the campsite was empty, but she knew that was where Vakrozad would come. She dragged Tristan along to the middle of the camp, ignoring the way that his eyes were flicking all over the place as best she could. “It’s what we do back at the temple,” she muttered at him. “Not in the open, though.” “They’re not the same as us.” “Obviously.” “What’s the matter, seeing some old client or something?” His head whipped around, and she could feel that stare go from surprised and slightly judging to being a little afraid. Hazel rubbed her cheeks, then her forehead. “Forget it.” “What?” “I said forget it. Let’s just get this done.” The sooner that they had the Primal Point problem handled, the better. She didn’t want to be stuck like this for any longer, and the more that she had to deal with all of…this…the harder it was for her to keep her bestial, demonically cursed side in check. She just wanted to find a way to handle all of this and keep herself, well, herself. It was getting harder and harder to remember what that was, though. [i]I’m Hazel,[/i] she thought, looking down at her hands. [i]I’m a half-elf. I’m a cleric. I serve Erastil. Isn’t that enough?[/i] Not anymore, it wasn’t. Too many people would look at her and smell her and realize just what she was becoming. She had too much of a Demon Lord’s touch to her, and before long, that would be impossible to hide. Everyone would see just what she had done, who she had consorted with. Even the moderates in the church would chase her out, then. [i]We have to find the Primal Point and fix this…[/i] More than that, they needed to know what it did, and more important, what it was. The book had implied that two halves had gone in, that they had merged, somehow, but she didn’t know what came afterward. She didn’t know whether the art of two different figures going into the cave was supposed to suggest that two individuals had gone in, or if it meant that there was a person that had two warring halves that had yet to settle on supremacy. There had been too much metaphor in the art for her to be sure about anything. She needed more information. If the book couldn’t be retrieved just yet, then she would just have to settle for – “What brings you back so soon?” Vakrozad. She turned her head, looking over her shoulder at the tall hobgoblin. Right behind him was Mol, the old seer showing her age a bit more tonight, but with something more revealing to wear. She had a ‘dress’ that was more of a piece of hide that had been stretched out to look like something fancy, with low cleavage and something easy to flip up in the front. Tristan took one look at her and looked away with a blush. “Uh, Mol…good, uh, good to see you again.” “Mmm, and good to see you, too, pretty boy.” “That’s not – don’t call me that,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. Hazel had thought that she’d seen it all, but seeing Tristan flustered and almost happily embarrassed probably took the cake. She slowly shook her head at the sight, clearing her throat to get the seer’s attention. “Mol. Tristan and I need information, and you’re the only one that we can get it from.” “What am I, chopped liver?” Vakrozad asked, crossing his arms. “Well, do you know how the Primal Point works?” “…No.” “Then it’s a good thing I’m not asking you, isn’t it?” “What’s put a stick up your ass tonight?” “I’m turning into a dog, piece by piece, and I’m not happy about it, okay? I just want to fix this and get back to normal.” “Not sure that’s possible, girl,” Mol said. “Well, I’m still going to try.” “Heh, Old Melchi is going to love that.” Stiffening in place, Hazel had to force herself not to lash out at that. She wasn’t asking Melchiresa for help, she was asking Mol. There was a huge difference there. Even if they were bound, even if there were connections between Melchiresa and Erastil, Melchiresa was still a Demon Lord. There was only so far you could go with that. “Look. Can you help us or not?” “I asked the spirits before. They gave us what they knew.” “Can you give us more than that, though?” “Oh, you want something bigger?” “If that’s what we have to do.” The way that Mol looked at her, she knew that she was asking for something that was probably beyond the bounds of propriety and proper summons. There was no way that the older hobgoblin would look that gleeful if this was all on the up and up. At the same time, she was desperate. They needed answers, and they needed them now. “Wait right here. I’ll be back with what we need.” # The main campfire was circled with a dozen candles, a dozen wolf hides, and a line of teeth that looked like they had been pulled from the wolves themselves. All in all, it was rather dark and macabre, and it made her wonder just what they were summoning. It had to be pretty powerful with all of this involved. Worse, she had to stand in the middle of the circle, standing right by the fire, and she had to be naked. Mol had made it very clear that the nudity was part of this, that she had to allow herself to be completely exposed to that which they were summoning. Her cheeks burned as she felt all eyes on her, even those of the hobgoblins at the edge of the camp. Her legs crossed, trying to hide her puffing dog pussy with her thighs, but she doubted that was going to be enough to keep it from being visible. “Mmmph…” “Hey, if it makes you feel better, you look great,” Vakrozad said, sitting with his legs crossed on a stump by the fire. “I think you look better naked.” “Shut up.” “Hey, just saying.” “…” “Heh, and you like me looking.” “Mmmph.” She didn’t want to admit it, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a feeling of pleasure that came from having eyes on her naked body, and she had to admit that it was getting worse and worse the more that people looked at her. The heat behind her had her sweating, little droplets running down her skin and making her shine all the more, and she had to bite her lips when some of the sweat ran down her nipples, or down and between her legs. Or over her ass, for that matter, as some of them did. She could feel some running right over the base of her spine and between her cheeks, the little droplets reminding her of how good it felt when Vakrozad fucked her ass. Gods and Goddesses, that had been pleasurable, and now he was looking at her like he wanted to do it again. [i]Don’t think about that,[/i] she thought. [i]Don’t think about…any of that…[/i] She did her best to just keep breathing, to focus on her body and what was going to happen next. According to Mol, there was going to be a small possession this time, something where a spirit would speak right through her mouth rather than just showing them imagery of the future. That was not entirely in line with church doctrine, but Tristan had given her an exemption. Admittedly, she’d feel better about the exemption if it had come with him being a little bit more in control of himself, but he’d been spending most of the evening staring at Mol, his eyes flicking down to the front of her dress and then back to her behind. The way that he did that made him look like a little bitch. She pushed down the temptation to call him that very thing, knowing that it would humiliate him. “Alright, I think we’re about ready, darlings.” Mol stood up from lighting the last candle, clapping her hands together. Their little group pulled a bit tighter together. “Alright. Here’s the thing. You all know the rules of summoning?” “Never break the circle,” the three of them said at once. “That’s right. And it’s real fucking important that you don’t do it this time. Hazel here wants something big? We’re getting something big.” “Just, uh, what are we getting?” Tristan asked. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Tristan. Mol’s got it handled. All you have to think about is what you’re going to do with your pretty little mouth when we’re –” “Can we focus, please?” Hazel asked. “Heh, what’s the matter? Don’t want to think of him having fun?” “I just want to think about getting this over with as fast as possible.” The tingles of arousal from the Erastil ritual notwithstanding, she was trying to focus on keeping her head on straight. She was having a hard enough time not giving herself to the males as it was. She didn’t need it getting more complicated. Shrugging, Mol seemed to agree. The seer lifted her arms and howled, a deep, barking howl that echoed and rebounded among the woods. The various members of the hobgoblin camp looked her way and then quickly looked away again, some of them even packing up and going to their tents. [i]What are we summoning, then?[/i] The howling continued, the seer gesturing about with snarls and growls, the sounds picking up. It was as if some ghostly pack was picking up the sounds, hearing them and calling back. Mol would respond with more growls, more howls, more bestial sounds that seemed to be guiding whatever it was closer and closer. The air burned around them, searing away the night chill. She could feel the heat on her skin getting stronger, her clawed toes curling and digging into the ground. The heat of the fire seemed to be stronger than ever, and she shivered as she felt that there was no pain from the burning heat, despite the fact that she was almost standing against it. Then, it came. She screamed as she felt ghostly, clawed digits sinking into her shoulders. She arched her back, her arms going out to the sides. Tristan leaped up, only for Vakrozad to pull him back down. “Wait. This is how it happens,” the warchief said. Hazel screamed again, feeling the claws sinking through her flesh. It was pain, then it was nothing, then it was swelling. Swelling and growing inside of her, almost like her bones were too big, or as if there was too much of her to fit inside of the body that she had. She gasped for breath, trying to catch something that was running away from her too quickly to ever be caught again. As she struggled for air, she could feel that swelling sensation running down her arms, through her back, up into her head. Her skull felt like it was fit to burst, and her mouth felt like the teeth in every little socket were being pushed down and out, something bigger just behind them. Agony, swelling, bursting feelings throughout her body. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Her body twitched, then went still. She tried to move, but it was like she had been disconnected from her own body. It was like she was sitting in the back of her head and nothing else worked. “Hazel?” Tristan asked. [i]I…I…help…I…[/i] The heat was burning through her in a whole new way, thrusting forward, then pulling back, then thrusting forward again. Her legs slowly spread, her body moving on its own accord, showing off the puffy black flesh between her legs. Without warning, her body took a step backwards, and the fire leaped up around her thighs. Ready to scream in pain, she found that the flames were…kind. Warm, but friendly, almost like dog tongues licking around her nether regions. They flicked up against her pussy, against her clit, and then along her thighs. No burning, no pain, nothing but the pleasurable feeling of being licked. Then, she knelt down. “Mmmmmm…” A voice that was not her own left her lips, thick and sultry, low and heavy and warm. It was the same voice that she had heard long ago, back at the Arcanamirium. It was the voice of the Demon Lord, the Mistress of the Pack and the Lord of the Hunt. It was Melchiresa. Her heart all but stopped as she squatted over the fire, the heat of the flames running right up between her legs. The Demon Lord inside of her was making her immune to fire, but the way that she squatted, the way that she was forced to take the flame inside of her, the way that it felt like a cock sliding in and breeding her, was so wrong. She dripped and steamed down there, the smell of a randy bitch filling the air. It was enough to get Vakrozad and Mol alike aroused. They stood there, bulges in front of them, while Tristan stared in shock and…well, he might have been aroused, but he was too small for anyone to be sure of that. Melchiresa spoke from her lips again. “I’ve been called to a different body today…it feels like a priest’s. Oh, but a corrupt one…and a familiar one…Hello, hello, Hazel…” To be known by a Demon Lord was not necessarily a compliment, and it wasn’t something that made her feel any better. She would have bitten her lips if she could have, but her body was not her own. As the Demon Lord settled in, she could feel the soft crick-cracks of other things happening to her body. Her spine felt like it was subtly elongating, and her feet…her feet felt like they were popping, like something was going on between the arch and the ball of her foot, like one was trying to lift up and the other was trying to stay down. [i]Nnngh…[/i] “Yes, I remember you. The one that would have become a breeder. A pity that you got away. I thought that we could have worked well together.” “Demon Lord.” Hazel felt her head turn, looking towards the high priest. Tristan swallowed, showing the first signs of nerves that she had seen, but he still collected himself. He stood up as tall as he could, which was just tall enough to be able to look imposing to someone in her body. “We have summoned you here to ask you questions.” “Ah, you are the one that invited them here…” “…Yes.” “I should thank you.” “If it’s because of a plan of yours –” “Not at all.” The Demon Lord chuckled through her lips, lowering one hand to the sweaty pussy between their legs. They started fingering themselves, and Hazel whimpered in the back of her own skull as she was used for self-gratification. “You are giving us what we have always wanted. Acceptance.” “…Somehow, I find that hard to believe for you, Demon Lord.” “Oh, I have other things I want, there is no way to hide that, but to have my worshipers given a chance…how could a demon ask more than that? At least, at first.” “…Is she always this honest?” Tristan asked, looking at Mol. [i]No,[/i] Hazel thought. “Most of the time,” Mol said. “I’m…surprised. I would have thought that she would be lying left and right.” “Merely because I’m a demon?” Melchiresa said through her mouth. “Heh, you really do not understand us.” “Then educate me,” Tristan said. “You mortals have forgotten much. You used to chase knowledge like it was the prey of choice. Now, you barely lift your head when it passes by. It’s disgraceful, isn’t it? But not here, it seems…” Melchiresa turned her head this way and that, and Hazel could feel her approval of Mol. The long-term worshiper of the Demon Lord had been through much with her. They’d rutted, they’d wrestled, and they’d talked long into the night. She could feel that the Demon Lord didn’t always like Mol’s fast and loose playing with the magics, but that Melchiresa did enjoy the way that things were always different. She could feel the interest in Vakrozad, and more, the urge to see the warchief mated so that his genes could be carried on. She had an image in her head of the big man turning into a were-boar, turning into something bigger, thicker, heavier – [i]More well-endowed,[/i] the thought popped into her head, and her cheeks would have burned if she wasn’t already blushing like the sun. Even Tristan received some approval from the Demon Lord. He was willing to do something different, something risky, something that was against the rules if it meant figuring something out. A demon could appreciate that, and a Demon Lord, moreso. “You want to know about the Primal Point, don’t you?” “Yes.” “Heh, and mine, in particular?” There was no immediate answer, but Melchiresa chuckled anyway. Hazel felt her body moving, her hips shifting slowly over the fire. She rolled them as if she was grinding down on some cock, or something like that. “Don’t be so surprised. There’s only one around here, and it belongs to me.” “How does a Primal Point belong to you?” Tristan asked. “Oh, easily enough. I was born there, after all.” “…Born?” “They [i]are[/i] old, you know. Mine’s not as old as others, of course…but it is older than any of you. Older than your temples, older than your oldest elves.” With Melchiresa inside of her, she could see the images that popped into the Demon Lord’s head when she spoke. Littered through the world were different Primal Points, each one different, each one part of the birth of something powerful. She tried to remember them, but of the many that popped in, only a few settled before the Demon Lord continued. “Have you forgotten how your gods and demons came to be?” “We remember the tales of creation.” “Ah, the tales, the tales. Heh. Bait for the fools.” She even managed to say it without actually sounding judgmental, somehow. “The world is bound together in these points. Order and Chaos, Chaos and Order. The old gods that took the world and argued over how to make it, how to bind it, how to fill it, how to make it more than just the systemic things that obeyed all their other laws everywhere else. “At every point, something happened. A war, a choice, something significant. Always something that either brought more chaos or more order. Always something that brought more good…or more evil.” “Then this one brought forth [i]your[/i] evil, then,” Tristan said. “Oh, it brought me forth, but not only me.” “…What are you saying?” “You are such a slow hunter.” [i]Erastil,[/i] Hazel thought, and Melchiresa chuckled. “But this one isn’t. Perhaps she would have been better for something more than a breeder. She has a mind, and she is tricksy, this one. Very tricksy, indeed, for what she did to me back at the school.” “What are you talking about?” “Erastil, little priest. Erastil was born out of the point, as well.” “That…that’s impossible…” “Something you should know. [i]Nothing[/i] is impossible at a Primal Point. At a place where gods are born, where Demon Lords are created, where the world is bound and changed and shifted to what it must become, nothing is impossible. A powerful druid entered the cave, pursued by angels, demons, and more, each of them determined to bind that druid to their side as his power grew. He fled, hoping for solitude, for a chance to think. Instead, he found the Primal Point. “There, on the altar, all that was good and all that was not split inside of him. Erastil and I leaped into being. Stag and Hound, god and Demon Lord. Though still bound to copies of his body, warped and transformed, we were finally ourselves. And we…fought.” “And fucked,” Mol said. “Heh, yes. We rutted.” Neither Hazel or Tristan liked the idea of gods and Demon Lords copulating, and Tristan couldn’t quite keep it off his face. Melchiresa chuckled with amusement, shaking Hazel’s head in the process. “And so we continued. Fighting, rutting, sleeping. The altar became our bed as we battled for supremacy and decided what we wished to become. Eventually, I won. I left the Point, walking out into the world, while Erastil chose to remain behind, kneeling beside our old body. He remains there to this day.” “Our god…is locked away?” Tristan asked. “Yes. Locked away, but still kind. He chose it.” “Why would he –” “You really are unbelievably slow…” Hazel groaned inside of her own head. Much as the information was interesting – she wasn’t sure if she believed it all, but it was interesting – she had other things to be concerned about. Her feet had gone from slightly dusty with fur to being completely covered with it on the top. Her soles were cracking slightly, lifting up, halfway to paws, already. Her toes had fattened, sticking forward, and the pads along the bottom had gotten thicker, more present, adding a fraction of an inch to her height. “Mmmph…” She managed to groan out between her lips the next time that Melchiresa was about to speak. Before the Demon Lord could chastise her, Tristan looked down and saw the same thing that Hazel had felt. “She’s changing. That wasn’t part of the deal!” “Do you think that you can summon even a reflection of a Demon Lord without consequences, little mortal?” “Get out of her.” “Ah, then we are done then?” “Get out of her.” “I’ll take that as a yes. Goodbye, Mol, Vakrozad. It was good to see you again.” And with that, she was thrown from the fire as the spirit of the great demon fled from her body. She felt the presence of the Demon Lord leave her, shooting down and out almost like it was fleeing through her sex, and then she was empty, held in the arms of the warchief and too tired to pull herself away from him. As she gasped for breath, she was more aware of her body than ever. The heat of Melchiresa had settled in her middle, spreading out through her guts and slowly moving towards her womb. She whimpered under her breath, knowing it was yet another curse of the Demon Lord, another reminder of what she had been on the road to becoming, something that she might yet become. Hazel beat her forehead against the hobgoblin’s chest. “This…isn’t…fair…” she hissed. “What’s wrong?” “I just…lost even more of myself. That’s what’s wrong.” “But now we know about the Primal Point,” Tristan said, helping her up and giving her the ‘favor’ of letting her lean on him rather than against the hobgoblin. She didn’t know if she preferred the priest or not; her body didn’t, not with what Vakrozad had to offer. “We know that our god is there. We can get you fixed there.” “I don’t know if I believe her,” Hazel said. All eyes turned to her at that. Mol sputtered in indignation, while Tristan and Vakrozad both offered a cocked eyebrow. She sighed. “I don’t know if I believe her. She’s a Demon Lord.” “So?” Vakrozad asked. “So, even if she didn’t out and out lie, she might still be twisting the truth, presenting it differently. I want confirmation.” “Yeah? How are you going to get that, then, hon?” Mol asked. “The only other person that knows what happened is Erastil, and it’s not like you can call him up for a chat.” “No, but we do still have the book.” “Hazel –” “No, Tristan, we need it. There’s no other way.” At this point, it didn’t matter to her what kind of risk they faced if Aster found out that they were looking for the book. It didn’t matter how much further she had to go to get the answers that she needed. She’d just hosted a Demon Lord, and she’d been transformed even further than she already was. The corruption was in her, and it was still growing. The heat, the need, the rutting, breeding urge that came from being a hellhound bitch was [i]still[/i] there, and it was begging her to give in right then and there. She wasn’t going to take it slow anymore. She wasn’t going to wait for someone else to fix her. Either he could help her, lock her up, or he could get the hell out of her way. Those were his options, and if he didn’t pick one, then she would pick for him. Tristan sighed, shaking his head. He gave a bob of his head in farewell to Vakrozad, and then did the same to Mol. The seer smiled at him, giving a teasing, almost flirty finger-wave as he turned to leave. They walked away, with her only barely managing to grab her clothes as they left the center of the camp. “You realize that this is not going to go the way that you think it will,” he said. “We’re risking everything by doing something like this.” “What else is new?” she muttered. “That’s how it goes in the field. Anything big is always risking everything.” He looked at her, but said nothing. [b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b] Summary: Hazel and Tristan go to the hobgoblin encampment, looking for information on the primal points. They get it from a first-hand source. Tags: F/solo, embarrassment, nudity, humiliation, possession, demon, fantasy, hobgoblin, human, half-elf, arousal, erection, wet, masturbation, transformation, foot fetish, feet to paws, series,