Hungry Blob Soup Kitchen (Slimegirls)

CHAPTER 1

Winter is over.
Winter means hardship and hunger, out here on the edge of the Monster Wilds. But winter also means hibernation, for many of the mamono - and that, in and of itself, means safety for the scattered human settlements.
But now winter is over. Spring... spring brings all the terrors, all the monsters of myth and nightmare, back into the world. They emerge, and they emerge HUNGRY.

It is spring, and the city is on edge.

The halberdiers of the palace guard, their silver armour shining in the afternoon sun, pace watchfully around the great square of the marketplace. Their faces are hard, their steel lances sharp and glinting as they stand vigil over the frenetic activity of the bazaar. Hurrying past a fresh fruit stall, you can't help wishing you had equipment even half as impressive as theirs. A battered leather jerkin and your grandfather's old sword... it seemed enough to take on the world when you first set out on your 'great adventure', but one week later, here in the captial city, it seems even the garrison is better equiped than you.

And you don't doubt they're better paid, as well. The thought sits sulkily in your brain as you jostle the package in the bag across your shoulder; your one hope of a hot meal and a bed tonight, in all likelihood. Running courier odd-jobs for less reputable merchantile establishments is not exactly how you imagined starting your quest for gold and glory... but the mercenary outfits didn't seem that impressed by your zero-combat-experience resume. So if you don't want to spend the night with nowhere to bunk, delivery odd-jobs it is.

The sounds of the market wash over you like an angry torrent of feudal commerce as you weave your way through the crowds. Wagons trundle and livestock bleat; vendors compete with each other to yell the loudest about their dubious wares. Eggs and maize from the farmsteads beyond the city walls; fuming, coloured potions from the alchymical guilds; even one stall peddling what claims to be juroumuro silks from distant Zipangu. Not likely, you think: not at those prices. Besides, if they were juroumuro silks, the purveyor would no doubt get thrown swiftly in gaol for heresy. The Palace does NOT look kindly on trading with monsters. Or, indeed, anything to do with monsters that doesn't involve a very sharp object and maybe a burning torch or two.

You exit the market into the warren of narrow alleys and dubious odours that delineate the Merchant's Quarter from the Common District. Your employer didn't bother to give you any sort of comprehensive directions to "Honest Bharrek's Haberdashery Of Secondhand Knickknacks", but you're fairly sure it's somewhere in this direction. At least, you certainly hope so. You doubt there'll be much more paid work if you get lost on your first delivery.

Twenty minutes of traipsing later, you're less sure it's in this direction. The lengthening afternoon shadows mark time with a cruel relevance, as the promise of a night with no money for an inn draws closer. A stray dog scampers across your path while you peer vainly down the darkening alleys. How 'Honest Bharrek' gets any business if he's this hard to find, you don't have any clue or -

Wait a minute. A passing crone glances at you curiously as you freeze in mid-stride, before jogging backwards to examine the sign over a narrow doorway you just passed. "H.B.H.O.S.K.", it reads, in curly, hand-painted script. Bingo.

Except the place doesn't look much like a haberdashery... or any sort of shop at all, for that matter. There's no window displays, no wares placed outside; it's just a ramshackle wooden door, sandwiched between two other ramshackle wooden doors on the rather nondescript street. Still, a delivery is a delivery, even if it's to a shop who's business model you don't rate all that highly.

You push open the door and stroll inside. "Afternoon!" you announce. "I'm here with a package for... err...?"
Hmm. This ISN'T a shop. You're not quite sure what it is. A small, plain-looking and tidy room greets you on stepping through the door. Sensible, business-like lamps on the wall flicker with little orange flames, illuminating the double row of empty chairs laid out in the centre. A squat table in the corner hosts a pile of old almanacs and news pages, along with a handmade vase holding a trio of blood-red flowers.

No, this definitly isn't a shop. If anything, it looks like a minaturised version of the palace's waiting room for civic petitioners - as you are all too familiar with, having sat in there for four hours yesterday only to NOT get a job as a scribe. But what's a waiting room doing out here in the slums -

"Hi there!" a voiced blurts out. You almost leap out of your breeches as you pivot around in surprise.

Right behind you - somehow, you've absolutely no idea how she got there - stands a widely grinning, black-haired girl. Her clothes seem typical of what you've seen in the capital, if a little cleaner. But her eyes are by no means ordinary; irises dyed a piercing blood-red, which only adds to your dumbfoundedness at finding her in your blind spot.

You try to gather your scattered wits into a something resembling a reply. "Hello?" turns out to be the best you can do.

"Hi!" she says again, nodding earnestly. "You're here from the advertisment, right? I'm really glad; you're the first person to come in! It's great to see you!"

"Advertisment?" you ask with a frown. You have absolutely no idea what she's talking about. "I don't... think so. I also don't think you're Honest Bharrek, are you?"

The red-eyed girl giggles. "My name's Zeera, actually. Bharrek's a guy's name, isn't it? And last time I checked..." she tugs at the back of her outfit, pulling the fabric at the front taut over her chest, "See? I'm a girl."

Much to your credit, you keep a straight face as Zeera's not inconsiderable breasts strain against her overalls, exemplifying rather abundantly that indeed, she is of a feminine persuasion.
"Honest might be a good title," she continues with a wink, "but I'm not sure I could live up to it. What gave you that idea, anyway?"

Wrenching your eyes away from her torso, you gesture towards the sign nailed against one of the walls; a duplicate of the one that led you inside here. "H.B.H.O.S.K.? Honest Bharrak's Habadashery Of Secondhand Kniknacks? I've got a delivery here for the proprioter, but I've got to admit, this doesn't look much like what I was expecting from a habadashery..."

Zeera's face crashes from gleeful cheer to crushed dejection in the space of your sentence.
"Oh. That's... not what our sign stands for." she says, her red eyes downcast. "I guess you weren't here from the advertisment at all..."

While it isn't in your nature to leave a girl disappointed - particularly a busty girl with apparently no compunction about demonstrating said bustyness - it's MORE not in your nature to miss out on getting paid and having to sleep in a poorhouse tonight.
"Yeah, sorry for the mix-up," you say sheepishly. "Anyway, I've got to get going and deliver this thing if I want to afford a meal this evening. So I'll just get out of your way..."

You make to move around Zeera, and reach out for the door-handle. But she steps with you, in a direction you couldn't have expected. Your outstretched hand closes to pull the door open... and instead you find yourself gripping a warm, pert handful of female.

It takes at least two seconds for your brain to process what has happened; seconds the red-eyed girl uses to grin in mock surprise. "Ehh...he-he-he" she chuckles mischievously, a flush of pink creeping across her cheeks. "Aah. Strong hands."

And then your brain catches up to your body. Your groping digits crack back like the girl's made of vipers, and you can feel your face start to turn the same colour as her eyes.
"Holy gods, I'm sorry!" you yell. "I... door... how did you move like that?"

"Heeeeey, don't worry about it!" Zeera chimes, giving you a big - chaste? - smile. You can scarcely follow it; she's gone from genki girl to bleak despondancy to laviscious trickster and now BACK to genki girl in the space of about a minute. She grabs your hands in hers and squeezes them reassuringly. "But don't leave so fast, will ya! Now that you know where you're not, don't you wanna know where you ARE? Can you guess what OUR H.B.H.O.S.K. stands for?"

"Uh... I... dunno?" you manage.

"You're not even gonna try? Aww, you're no fun." she pouts. "It's easy! We're a charity! The Hungry Blob Healthy Organic "Soup" Kitchen!" She actually does the quotation marks gesture with her fingers as she says 'Soup'.
"Can I show you around? Please? Can I? I really want to show the girls that someone came to help them, and... well, you came, even if you didn't mean to, and that's sort of halfway there, right? Please say yes, please please please!"

Zeera hops up and down excitably while she's beseeching you, setting her chests bobbing in synch. Inevitably - struck by the curse of the male condition - you can't help but follow them, and the movement of your head up and down is taken as a nod of assent by the enthusiastic girl... rather than the blatant lechery which it actually represents. That's probably for the best, really.

"Yay!" Zeera exclaims, raising her hands in the air in triumph - which only begats further bouncing. "Got my first interested party! I knew this was a great idea!" She clears her throat, and puts on a businesslike expression.
"Ahem. Well, Sir, welcome to the "soup" Kitchen," - she does the quotation marks again - "My name is Zeera and I'll be your proprietress. You're at the front of the queue now, so if you'd like to follow me I'll take you through right away." She gives you a big red wink at the end, in case you'd forgotten that the formality was just for show in the previous eight seconds.

You sigh inwardly. Unintentional groping or no, you really do have to deliver this package... but you're getting the impression that you'll probably be on your way faster if you just indulge her. So with a gracious nod, you let her lead you through the door at the far end of the chamber.

...and into a public bathroom. The out-of-place similarities with the palace hit you once again, as you find yourself standing in front of a row of closed latrine cubicles. Four rather battered-looking barrel-halves affixed to the wall serve as sinks, with mishapen and apparently home-made piping snaking into the wall higher up. It's certainly cruder than the palatial version, but it doesn't half smell better. As would a fetid jungle swamp, but... still.

You catch Zeera looking at you with her crimson eyes, apparently trying to gague your reaction to the room. You repay her with the same look of confusion that's been living on your face for most of the time since you walked into the building in the first place. She rolls her eyes theatrically, but the indefatiguable grin proves she was looking forward to her explanation.

"As you can see, Sir, here at the Hungry Blob Kitchen we have four small meal rooms for serving "soup" (quotation fingers), as our patrons often prefer to eat in private. There's some... err... light reading material available to speed the meal along if necessary, since the girls don't have much experience eating this way before. Our water supply is for a drink after the meal, to thin out the consistency again if a server has been... umm... particularly generous."

There is a grotesque, twisting feeling in the pit of your stomach as Zeera talks. Something about the cumulative weirdness you've accrued since meeting her just... shifts in your mind, to take the whole situation from merely strange - to deeply, deeply disturbing. As terrible understanding paces around the periphery of your consciousness, it's almost as if the colour drains out of the room while Zeera speaks, leaving everything monochrome, except for the blood-red pools in her eyes. She smiles at you once again; the same smile as ever, but now it seems brutally, horribly sinister.
"Hey... umm... are you OK?" she asks.

"Zeera," you choke, "What is this?"
She doesn't even have to answer, because at that very moment, you feel something tapping on your shoulder. Turning your head to the side is the single most terrifying thing you've ever had to do in your life.

"~He~llo~"

CHAPTER 2

It is eleven years earlier, and you sit, cross-legged, on an old rug. The weave scrapes against your feet, and cinders from the roaring fireplace keep wafting across your vision. But you scarcely notice those things. Wedged in amongst all the other village children, your face is rapt, your attention wholly focused at the story being unfolded before you.

You are at your grandfather's house. He is two-hundred and fifty-six years old, and he speaks of glory.

"...up on the Lomonosov Mountains, the cold is so deep, so terrible, it'll freeze your spilt blood to ice before it even hits the ground," he lectures, eyes gleaming in the firelight. "Yukki-onna on every peak, and whole flocks of harpies, dug into their eyries like maggots in a wound. But we had to get past them, to pursue that scurrilous tengu bitch to her godsdamn scholar's tower. What else could we do? Vengeance had to be served, and damned if some fucking rocks were going to stand between us and our restitution." Halfway into his third century, and the old man still curses like a dockhand scally. "But we needed a plan. How could we get to the center of that mightiest of ranges, right into the heart of the crow tengu's lair? And without being fucked to here and sundry by the mamono? How could we do it?"

He pauses in his narrative, stroking his long, platinum beard, and grins at the audience, inviting suggestions.

"Couldn't you talk to the dragon princess you saved?" pipes up a voice, as one of the other children tries their luck. "That one you told us about in the other story. She said she'd do anything for you ("anything TO me" your grandfather mouths at you with a wink) after you helped her against the dark angel's skeletons. So couldn't she fly-"

"Bah! I was trying to steal her gold, not find her gainful employment!" he laughs. "No, no, we couldn't come from the sky. The tengu was a bird; she'd be watching, expecting just that. But there was another way."

Silence from the semicircle of kids. Flames crackle in the fireplace; one of the adults at the back stifles a sneeze. Much as they might tut and disapprove of his language in the daytime, even the grown-ups hang on grandfather’s every word when he tells one of his evening tales.

“Come on, children! If I’d have taken this long to think about things that time in the Agrippa Lagoon, my grandson here would be sitting with crossed tentacles instead of crossed legs!” He chuckles merrily, and leans forward, tousling your hair.

Setting aside the fact that growing up with tentacles sounds quite cool, you put a finger to your lips, and think, hard. If the crow tengu was expecting an attack from the sky, and the ground was too cold and full of yuki-onna –

You gasp in realization. There’s only one other option, but… that’s impossible. Fighting a million winter mamono would surely be easier than that!
“Grandfather, did you… did you go down through -”

“Hell!” he roars, with a booming voice. As one, the assembled crowd recoils in surprise, as the old adventurer yells out the word, before clapping your shoulder merrily. “That’s it, my boy, that’s it! See, still just a young pup, and you’re already smarter than she was, for all her scrolls and her learning up in that tower!”

He pulls the crowd back to him, gesturing widely. “Yes, we went through hell! Caverns and tunnels, underground; everywhere you look beneath the continent, you’ll find them, somewhere. Can’t spit down there without hitting a werebat or a succubus, and THAT’S where we went. Came at the tengu’s mountain from underneath. Fucking stupid birds, always claiming to think in three dimensions, and she didn’t even have a guard in the basement when we mined our way in from below. Fucked her right in the arse with that tactic, we did. Actually, after we caught her I think one of the guys did literally- ”

There’s another loud sneeze from the adults at the back, a little too conveniently placed to be involuntary. Grandfather grins conspiratorially at the children, and brings his story to the moral conclusion.

“So that is how we gained revenge on the tengu – and we ‘revenged’ all her sisters as well, before we were done, ha! – for the betrayal at New Actium. She thought she had us all figured out, up there in the mountains. Thought we’d just go home, back to our cities and our families, and leave her to her books and scrolls. Thought we’d be too tired to follow her; too scared, too irresolute, to pursue our revenge to the ends of the earth and beyond.”
He slams a fist into the table beside him, eyes boring into the assembled throng.
“Never! NEVER! If you remember one thing from the story, children, remember this. It's what separates us from them. Man, woman, and child, from the Emperor of the Western Sea to the lowliest chattel slave; we’re homo sapiens sapiens, one and all. That is why we aren’t beasts, and the mamono are. They may be stronger than us, they may be faster than us… some of them, like that devious tengu, might even claim to be smarter than us. But they live for their carnal pleasures, and nothing beyond that. Every thought they have, every construct they build, it's pasted together with nothing but cum and spittle.”
He breathes in, crooked old face shining in the orange firelight like an ancient vision of the gods. “They can’t see what we see. What drives us, what pushes us away from our homes and our safety to do the great and terrible things that only human beings do. No, they don’t understand. They don’t understand... GLORY.”

CHAPTER 3

You guess that’s what they mean by your life flashing before your eyes. A pretty crappy display, really, at only a single scene; and it’s one of that cantankerous old bastard who set you on the path to this early doom in the first place. Thanks a lot, grandfather. Somehow you don’t think digging your way into hell is a viable solution in this particular situation.

The slimegirl pools in the sink behind you, a translucent feminine form rising out of the basin. "~He~llo~??~" she tries again, as light dances through the inside of her form. "~I'm ~ S~Syan~! ~He~llo~"

Fear pushes your legs backwards with more force than you ever knew they had in them. You slam against the far wall of the chamber, sword drawn, eyes wild. Shit, shit shit! The first time you've been this close to a mamono, dead or alive, and it's a slimegirl!? Just... shit!

Zeera's there, suddenly; intersecting herself between you and the liquid monster. Her face is set, the first time you've seen her look genuinely serious. Those eyes burn right through you; they actually glow, an otherworldly sanguine light.
"CaLm dOwN," she commands, in a voice that freezes your limbs. Then she grabs the back of your head... and plants her red lips on top of yours.
'CaLm dOwN'. The phrase rings in your head like a struck bell.
'CaLm dOwN'. The taste of blood in your mouth. Zeera's tongue tracing hungrily against your own.
'CaLm dOwN'.
And... you do.

The panic drains right out of your head like water, as though she's pulled a plug from the base of your brain. The room comes back into stark, full-colour focus. A sense of horrible danger is still there, but now you can actually THINK about it, your mind no longer clogged with horror. OK. It's maybe ten meters to the far door. You'll have to go back past the slime to reach it, but if you can move fast enough, then just maybe...

Your tactical considerations are interrupted by the noisy sound of retching at your feet. Zeera - after looking so fearsomely, unstoppably in control just five seconds ago - is coughing uncontrollably, her long black hair trailing on the floor. You keep one eye - and the point of your sword - trained unswervingly on the slime. Mercifully, she hasn't moved from the sink, and is watching the proceedings with what almost looks like confusion. Meanwhile, with your free hand, you grab the front of Zeera's shirt. There's no enjoying the springy sensation of her chest this time; with a heave, you drag the girl back up to her feet. She has no strength in her to resist. You haven't quite decided what you're going to do at the end of the motion, either - carry her out over your shoulder, or slit her throat right there and then.

Luckily, she saves you the dilemma. "OWWWwwww..." she mewls, followed by another spate of coughing. "Uuhh... I hate... eating... fear," the girl rasps, pressing herself up against you in a way that would probably count as amorous if she wasn't trying to hock up a lung.
"Tastes... like crap... *cough*... Haven't you... got any... lust instead?"

"You're a succubus, aren't you?" you seethe, shaking her.

"Haah... *cough*... Red eyes? Name full of Z's... and R's? I'm certainly not a... leanan sidhe, am I?" she flashes you a pained, self-depricating smile.

Your hand tightens on the hilt of your sword. Syan, the slimegirl - peering cautiously over the rim of the sink, as though trying to avoid attracting your attention - brings her arms up to her mouth, a shocked little 'blop!' issuing from the watery cavity. She quails back as you glare at her. "~Don't~! ~Don't~!" she mouths, shaking her head from side to side.

"I'll be... strong enough to fight back... in a minute, human." Zeera wheezes. A trickle of blood runs out of the corner of her mouth. You're fairly certain it's yours. "If you're... going to put a stake through my heart, you should... probably get on with it."

A weary laugh sounds in your ears. It takes you a while to realise that it's coming from you.
It's absurd. It's all fucking absurd. You're trapped in a fake soup kitchen bathroom by a jelly monster who's more scared of you than vice versa, holding a spluttering demongirl who's giving you tips on how to murder her.

You never actually heard that one from grandfather before.

Zeera arches a disbelieving, manicured eyebrow as your sword slides back in its scabbard. More gently than she deserves, you lower her to a sitting position against the wall, and help hold her hair as the retching subsides. It's not just coughing, you realise as you sit down beside her; she's shivering as well. Makes sense, you guess. For a second or two, you really were planning to stab her.

"My sister's a... lying bitch," she sniffles, resting her head on your shoulder. "She always says that human fear tastes better than anything else. It feels like... hot needles, to me."

"Sounds like a nice lady," you remark. The mamono bites back a laugh, as she clumsily wipes your blood off her chin.
"Zeera," you ask, "Really, what is going on here? Why is a succubus controlling slimegirls?"

"~Not!~" comes a shout from the sink. The slimegirl in question is shaking her head vigorously, casting gloopy droplets from her watery hair. "~Syan's not controlled!~ ~Zeera helps Syan~ ~She made our kitchen!~"

"See? There you go," Zeera smirks weakly. "Look, if I *cough* tell you, promise not to stab anyone, OK?"

"If you tell me AND no-one tries to eat my soul, then we can talk."

"Aww, you're still no fun," she complains, with the same pout as before. "But... fine. I think I really will throw up if I try to eat any other emotions today, anyway."
She straightens her back shakily, and turns to the transparent girl in the sink. "Syan, you hear that? Our guest" - another bout of coughing interrupts her - "Our... our human here isn't going to hurt anyone, and we're not going to hurt him. He was just surprised to see you, that's all this was."

"~Syan didn't mean~ ~to scare any~body~" she responds, hanging her head sadly. "~I don't want~ ~to hurt anyone~ ... ~Syan was just saying he~llo~ ..."

"It's OK, it's OK," the demon girl consoles her. "Come on. Go get your sisters. Then we can do introductions, like you all practiced."

The slime peers at you again, clearly still nervous. You force out the most non-threateng smile you can manage at her, which spreads a cute red blush right across Syan's face. She dives away into the sink to escape your gaze, and the makeshift framework of plumbing on the walls rattles and creaks, as she vanishes up into it.

"There's four of them." Zeera tells you, sitting up on her own now. Seeing your eyes widen in alarm, she holds up her hands, stalling your exclaimation. "Hey! They'll behave, I promise. And you be supportive. They've never done this before."

The pipes start rumbling and rattling again; much more vigorously this time. The sound of rushing water fills the room, as multicoloured fluids rush out and pour into - and over - each of the sinks. With unnerving speed, Zeera's reassurances nonwithstanding, the four puddles surge across the chamber floor, heading directly towards you.

Four charging mamono would - SHOULD - make any sane person, with the possible exception of your grandfather, void their bowels on the spot. But while your alertness is still very much here, there's no fear at all; whatever Zeera did to you, it's still working. Indeed, you're focusing more on the coalescing featues before you: the puddles' surfaces shimmering and breaking as they move, twisting into four sets of heads... necks... shoulders... BREASTS...

"~Hi!~ ~Mister, hi!~ ~Hello!~"
"~Welcome to the Hungry Blob!~"
"~Someone's come for the advert!~"
"~Blop!~ ~*giggle*~"
"~How are you?~ ~Do you like our kitchen?~"
"~He~he~he~ ~He looks friendly~"
"~Syan, he isn't scary~"
"~Are you here to donate?~"
"~Why has he got all those layers on?~"
"~I bet he's got lots of food~"
"~Hey, Lello, q~quit pushing me~"
"~Zeera, is he from hell too?~"
"~Humans don't come from hell silly~"

"I think they like you," Zeera grins, lewdly. "And I'm sure tha- Lim, stop it!"

A questing green tentacle - creeping along the floor towards the hem of your trousers - retracts back into its puddle with lightning swiftness. The pretty green slimegirl responsible crosses her hands behind her back, and suddenly seems to be taking an intense interest in the room's ceiling. Her expression is the very definition of 'you caught me, but damned if I'm going to admit anything'.

Zeera folds her arms under her breasts, and addresses the multicoloured slimes clustered around you. "Alright girls, enough crowding. Places, places! Do it like we practiced."

"~Aww~"
"~can't we talk to him some more?~"
"~Lim, did you get him?~"
"~Bloop~"
"~What's he feel like?~"
"~*giggle*~ ~Hey, quit it!~"
"~I~ ~I forgot my l~lines~"
"~It's just your name Syan~"

In the exact reverse of the scene that played out before, the slimes reverse away from you, sinking back into amorphous puddles as they retreat - though still talking and giggling amongst themselves. Trickling their collective way UP the walls, the four mamono pour themselves into the ramshackle barrels... before popping up with choreographed timing, in hemi-female form. You're fairly sure each of them has gained a cup size since they were on the ground.

The girl furthest on the left is the first to speak. She's the colour of fresh lemons, with long, dripping hair half a shade darker. Smiling widely, she waves at you from her basin perch.
"~Good afternoon!~ ~And welcome to the Hungry Blob Healthy Organic "Soup" Kitchen!~" Her hands keep waving, but two slimy strands of hair rear up from her head to do the quotation fingers at 'soup'. You can't help but laugh.
"~My name is Lello~ ~I'm a honey~dew slime. Zeera says that~ ~we usually live in bee~girl hives, being sim~bio~ticks~ ~But I've never been to a hive myself~ ~Oh, and my favourite food is honey, but~ ~Zeera says I'll definitely like sucking soup more!~"

Lello turns sideways, towards the next googirl in line. The creature puffs out her bubblegum-pink chest, which wobbles enticingly. "~Pleased to ~blop~ meet you!~" she says, with a giggle. "~At the Hungry Blob we rely on your generous donations, so thank you very much for coming~"
The mamono points at herself with a dribbling tentacle. "~I'm Cheri, and I'm a red slime, even though I'm really pink, and that's a little bit silly don't you think, ~blop~, but it's true~" she bobs up and down on her perch, giggling happily.
"~Please help me and my sisters have a big meal!~"

The third slime - the curious, green-tinted mamono who was trying to explore your trousers - pipes up next. "~Hey mister human!~ ~I'm called Lim, 'cos I'm like a lime colour, see?~" She doesn't wave at you... because in place of arms, a writhing mass of liquid turquoise pseudopods sprout from each of her shoulders. They stroke over her slimy, viridian curves, touching everywhere, while a single tendril rests coyly at the corner of her mouth.
"~We are very hungry blobs~ ~and we're eager to do anything~ ~we can to help during your donation~". Lim leans forwards, squeezing her breasts between her tentacles. "~A~ny~thing~", she purrs.

And finally, quivering and blushing at the end of the quartet, is Syan. "~Umm... h~hello again~" she stammers, as your amazed eyes now finally latch on hers. "~Ehh... ~I~I'm Syan~ ~W~we will graciously accept your gift with o~open hearts and open mouths~ ~and cherish ev~every warm drop~ S~so~..."

In four-voice unison, the slimegirls reach the end of their presentation:

"~Please~"
"~feed~"
"~us~"
"~your~"
"~fresh~"
"~cum!~"

CHAPTER 4

The room is silent.
Their earnest requests delivered, the multicoloured girls simply watch you from their barrels, waiting demurely. You don't move an inch either. Well, not intentionally. But after all that, there's inevitably a number of inches moving around in your trousers...

Zeera - you'd almost forgotten she was still sat next to you, down here on the floor - claps her hands together. "Well, sufficiently explained now, are you?" she asks, mischief dancing over her pretty face.
"So, which one would you like to stick your... donation into?"

Carefully keeping your back to the wall, you stand up from the sitting position. Zeera tries to follow you, but she's still too weak to get up. Instead, her face simply tracks yours, growing harder as you rise further and further away from her.

"You know," you tell her, holding up three fingers "When I woke up this morning, I had three things I wanted to do. The first one was to go to the latrine, and that sorted itself out quite swiftly." You count down one digit "The second was to afford dinner, which is looking less likely, but I might still make it, if Honest Bharrek doesn't notice I've kept him waiting. While the third - and this was the important one, Zeera - was to not commit capital heresy in a fake Common District soup kitchen." You try to ignore the pressure in your pants, where one particular part of you is protesting that those four pieces of slimy capital heresy ass have made quite an appealing case for themselves, actually.
"So, all that being said, if you'll excuse me -"

"sIt DoWn" she orders.
Zeera's eyes glow and flash again... but it's a feeble, washed-out black-red, nothing like the psychic assault that drained you the first time. Your knees shake, yet with an effort of will, you remain standing.
The succubus' lips clench together in vexation, quivering and powerless. Then, she MOVES again; only a foot or two, but it's far enough to grab the collar of your shirt before you can leap away. You feel her warm breath on your face as she stares at you angrily.

"Listen human," she hisses through clenched - pointed - teeth, directing her words away from the slimegirls. "Even if I was inclined to let you be a selfish bastard, and stroll on out of here leaving my friends to go another day unfed and unloved - which, I might add, is the exact OPPOSITE of my intention - I couldn't. Like Syan told you, I don't control them. It's springtime, there's four hungry mamono in here, NOT counting the succubus... and you've only got one sword. So I suggest you do what men were made for, and feed ONE of them voluntarily, before all FIVE of us start to lose patience with you."

Finally out of breath, Zeera lets go of you, sliding exhaustedly back down your body towards the floor. Encountering, on the way, the increasingly insistent lump in your pants.

Zeera's face turns back up to yours - with all that injured pride and anger of five seconds ago, completly vanished. If you thought you'd seen her grin lewdly before...

"Oh, perhaps I -he-he-he- miscounted," she announces. "It seems you do have another sword on you. And... mmm... that one seems to recognise when it needs to be unsheathed."

Watching from their barrels passively until now, the slimegirls break apart in unison, collapsing into mobile puddles that slide towards you.
"Girls!" Zeera yells at them. "Table manners girls, remember! Hmm, better do this fast. Err... Eenie, meanie, minie, Syan!"
The puddles screech to a halt, four talking heads immediatly whiplashing out from the gloop.

"~That's not fair!~"
"~Come on Zeera~"
"~But I wanted him!~"
"~O~oh... ~j~just me?~ ~I...~ ~I don't~"
"~See, she doesn't want it~"
"~Let me! I do!~ ~I'm hungry now!~"
"~L~Look at it bulge!~"
"~I bet he's got loads and loads of-~"

"H-hey!" Zeera stammers. There's a husky undercurrent to her tone as she addresses the slimegirls. "It... ah... it's really hard for me as well, you know! b-but..." her eyes drift towards your crotch, before she snaps them away again "But if I can hold back, you c-certainly can."

"Syan." she growls. "G-get him in a cubicle and close the door. NOW."

"But I-" you start.
It's like being hit by a tidal surge. Syan crashes into you, a pounding spray of coloured water, and literally washes you through the door of one of the cubicles. There's no latrine inside after all; just a wide, low bench, with a white towel draped across it. You register this just in time to avoid breaking your legs on it, as the living tsunami pins you against the back wall. The door slams shut with a crash... and she's all over you.

"~Ah! Ah! Ah!~" the googirl pants, urgently. "~I got you~ ~I got you~ For m~me!~" Her face beams out of the seething liquid mass; quite possibly the happiest expression you've ever seen on anything, ever. And then it plunges down, kissing you desperately, licking your neck, your cheek, your forehead. "~Haah!~ You taste ~*lick*~ so good, your sweat, it's~ Mmmmm!~"

"Sya-*gargle!*" you attempt, your parted lips immediatly filled by a slimy tongue as she frenziedly slathers herself all over you. You feel her substance pouring down your collar; your shirtsleeves; the bottoms of your trousers. You try to blink, and she's in your eyes.
"Bre~athe!" you gasp, kicking, flailing your arms. It only seems to force more of her into your mouth.
"Can't brea-"

And as quickly as it began, the amorous assault ceases. With a shlick, her questing membranes disengage; sweet oxygen fills your lungs, as you sit up on the bench, choking and spluttering. Gradually, your swimming vision re-resolves to see Syan pooled in the corner of the cubicle, the bright red blush on her cheeks spreading all the way into her oozing hair.

"~I'm sorry!~ ~I'm sorry!~" she cries, aqua eyes rippling with concern and embarrasment. The unstoppable sexual wave that crashed into you has morphed back to the cute, shy Syan you first met; pseudopod arms wiggling all over the place in discomposure. "~I~I didn't mean to!~ ~I~ ~It's just~ ~I'm sorry!~" As she speaks, she sinks down into her puddle in shame, until only her neck and blushing head are sticking out of the cerulean pool.
"~I m~messed up~" she mewls to herself, pitifully. "~Now he'll never f~feed me...~"
The girl starts to flow away, sliming under the half-inch gap at the bottom of the cubicle door.

"Syan" you say.

"~Huh?~" she asks. Distracted by your voice, the back of her retreating head slaps into the closed door with a wet splat. "~Oww... ~uwaaaaa~~~"

It's against your nature to leave a girl disappointed - particularly when your pants have felt about eight sizes too small for the past ten minutes - but it's even MORE not in your nature when the girl is a blue mamono whose sisters are probably going to rape you to death if you don't co-operate with her.
"Come back here, will you?"

"~Oh~ ... ~ummm~" Slowly, shyly, the slimegirl reverses her exit; coalescing back out of the puddle until her dripping, naked figure stands silently before you, pseudopod-arms twisting around each other as she nervously wrings her hands. Syan's whole form seems constantly in motion, even now she's standing still. Breasts jiggle softly; a bead of fluid slides delicately down the curve of her butt. The googirl says nothing as your eyes slide over her - and the view has rendered you temporarily speechless as well.
The silence drags on.
And on.

"Err... aren't you-"

"~I'm sorry~!" she blurts again, burying face in her tentacles. "~I~ ~I've n~never eaten this w~way before!~ ~I don't~ ~Err... what s~should I do?~"

The half-terrified, half-enraptured expression falls off your face, replaced with look of blank disbelief.

"You're shitting me, right?" you say. "You. A mamono. A beastial, heretical, sex-crazed devourer of souls and seed. You've never..."

She shakes her head, sadly. "~We found honey, o~or juice ~ or hols~taur~us milk, some~times. B~but it doesn't taste right. ~ ~Th~That's why we needed Z~eera to help us~ Because humans a~always ~ run away~"

Tentatively, she extends a single dribbling tentacle towards you, lightly touching the pitched tent that is your groin.
"~Umm~ ~I think I should~ ~take it out?~" she queries. Not even waiting for an answer, her limb tugs at your trouser buttons. Alas, being made of viscous jelly, Syan accomplishes nothing other than making your garments damp.

"~He~he~ ~ C~could you help me?~" the slimegirl asks politely. "~Lim's really go~od at this, but I ~ can't do buttons ve~ry well~"

Your cock, having sensed Syan's warm moistness above it, feels ready to burst out of your trousers without any help from anyone. But one by one, you help the blue girl undo your buttons... then gasp as the tentacle slithers into your breeches, and pulls your shaft out into the cool air.

"~Haaaaa~~~" she gasps. Hungry light twinkles behind her watery eyes, as the slimegirl stares enraptured at your burgoning staff. "~It's so~ ~b~i~g~" For a creature that doesn't need to breathe, her chest seems to be bobbing up and down with a motion that reminds you remarkably of panting.

Released from its clothing prison, your dick twitches impatiently in the air. Syan might have no experience - indeed, the mute disbelief with which she gazes at your huge erection proves it - but she's a monstergirl. Unconsciously primed by the sight of your cock, Syan's mouth opens and closes reflexively, making faint 'blob', 'blob', 'blob' noises.
Your penis reacts in kind at the sight of the wet, slimy cavity awaiting in her face; straining, growing, desperate for someone to bring the two of them together.
Almost without direction, your hands close on the back of Syan's head. Fingers sink slightly into the gloop of her hair, as you push gently, and guide her down.

The sensation of moist, gooey bliss suffuses through you, as Syan's mouth gratefully accepts your member. You could almost melt from that sensation alone: the soft, welcoming swirl of a liquid tongue, tickling along your girth; and the slimegirl's heartfelt sigh of pleasure, as her lips close around a cock for the first time. Your questing weapon lengthens, pushing deeper into the oozing, squelching oral cavity.
Without an oesophegous, Syan shows no hint of a gag reflex. Assisted by the gentle pressure of your hands on her hair, she's accomodated the whole of your throbbing organ into her mouth; through her translucent head, you can see it swimming within her, longer and fatter than you've ever seen it before. Her jiggles and twitches, as Syan's liquid body struggles to accomodate the rock-solid intruder, send ripples surging through her insides, thrilling your rod.

But just when you could lose yourself in the tight, warm comfort, Syan's mamono impulses direct her to the next move. She starts to suck. Earnest, eager slurps assail your cockhead as her hands flow around the waist of your breeches, tugging your trousers further off and allowing fluid digits to cup and caress your testicles. Her slimy insides constrict and contract around you as Syan begins to move, bobbing rhythmically up and down, up and down. She needs no guidance from you any more; your hands find their way back to grasp white-knuckled at the bench on which you're sitting. First time it may be, but as a monstergirl, Syan's techniques are honed by a heredity that places this single, slimy action at the very apex of her survival instinct. And she is proving swiftly, incredibly effective. You're... going to...

She can clearly sense the approach of the coming meal. The suction around your cock redoubles; tiny coos of longing utter out of her mouth, audiable even over the sloshing and sucking as Syan hungrily impales herself on your meaty pole over and over again. Her wide, cerulean eyes gaze up at you; pleading, begging you to feed her. Bubbles, stirred up by the vigour of her fellatio, nudge and pop around your shaft, creating a fizzing sensation that's like nothing you've even imagined before. Oh gods... oh gods... ! !! !!!!

Syan squeals in delight as a volcano of hot cum erupts out of your engulfed penis. You can see your staff spasm inside the slimegirl, as another creamy load spurts out into her jelly. The mamono moans with pleasure as the sperm pours down her throat; your cock fires again and again, blasts of liquid passion exploding out of you over and over. Overcome by her own blossoming euphoria, Syan loses cohesion; rolling waves of orgasm surge outwards from your point of joining, drenching you, the cubicle, the ceiling, everything in quivering, ecstatic googirl. And still the cum flows, ribbons of white swirling with blue in the voracious fluid around your dick.
Swirling...
Cumming...
Swirling...

Nothing.

Fortunately - for your sense of manliness if nothing else - your blackout doesn't last long. Your first sensation is of something moist and spongy against your cheek. Cracking open slime-caked eyes, its identity becomes rapidly apparent. Syan's arranged you to use her tits as a pillow.

"~Hel~lo~ ~slee~py~" she says, with a glowing smile.

The thick, wet smell of crazy, heretical sex sits heavy inside your nostrils; a heady mix of sweat and semen and slime. The cubicle looks like a syrup bomb has gone off inside. Blue gloop covers every surface, everywhere; trickling viscidly down the walls, dangling from the roof like drooping vines. You don't try to stand up, as you're fairly sure you'd just slip and fall over. Besides - nuzzling your cheek against the ripe curve of Syan's chest - you're quite comfortable here.

"~Tee~hee~hee~" she giggles, and plants a moist kiss on your forehead. "~That was won~der~ful~ ~You gave me so~oo much~" As though to accentuate the point, a cum-scented bubble pushes its way out of Syan's lips with a *bloop*. "~Ohh!~" she squeaks "~How r~rude of me~ ~He~he~"

She strokes your arm idly with a long, treacley tentacle; a gentle display of post-coital affection. "~I almost couldn't ~ take it all in, you know~" she confides, wobbling and snuggling up against you like an animate waterbed. "~I~I've never felt like this before... ~ y~you made me feel~ ~full~ ~It feels ama~zing~"

"I enjoyed it too," you tell her, and turn your face round, kissing her breasts tenderly.
"~Ahh~~~" she murmurs softly. "~N~no!~ ~We can't go again right now~ ~Aah!~ ~I~I'm so full I can hardly move~"

She kisses you a second time, on the tip of your nose, and squirms a tendril into your resting hand. You squeeze it, and she squeezes back, beaming.

"~U~um~ ~I think I'd better clean up~" Syan says, casting her eyes around the dripping bomb site that is your love-nest. "~Zeera always gets mad if we're messy indoors~"

She closes her eyes, and the omnipresent gooslick starts to drip faster down the walls. It creeps off the ceiling as well, tidying itself into moving rivulets which slide off the surfaces and back into the main body of Syan herself. Her breasts jiggle underneath your head, gaining volume as the slimegirl collects her substance together again.
"~I think you made ~ me gain a size here~" she says, prodding her boobs with a tentacle. "~Hehe~ ~I'll come back soon ~ and we can find out~"

"Soon? Wait - what do you mean?" you ask. But your groggy movements don't stop your head from clunking against the bench, as your pillow drains away from underneath you. Peering downwards rewards you only with a view of Syan sliding under the door, a tentacle waving bye-bye at you before she vanishes entirely.

You blink, and grudgingly shake your head to try and clear out the warm, after-sex fog. Well. OK then.

Not thinking about it - or much of anything - you simply lie in place, breathing softly. Huh. Mamono heresy.
You're not quite sure what the Palace has been complaining about all this time... as that was actually rather pleasant, to put it mildly.

A trickling noise at your feet suggests Syan's speedy return, anyway. You lever yourself up on the bench; only to see that the girl pooling under the door this time - isn't blue.

A seething mass of wriggling, writhing pseudopods squirms out of the incoming fluid, as the green slimegirl Lim pours herself into your cubicle. Syan stuck with just two, tentacles, as simple, slimy arms... whereas Lim's forest of probing, worm-like appendages crawl and flow over everything, at once. Even before her body is fully formed out of the puddle, the tendrils wrap around your limbs, pinning you down. Three of the things snake towards your spent penis; touching, coaxing.

"~Hi there, hu~man~" Lim announces, as her viridian face and torso coalesce out of the goo. The quaking mass of tendrils sprout from her hair, her shoulders, her back; skating over every part of your body like slavering tongues. You shiver, involutnarily; both in stimulation and foreboding. What-
"~Me and Cheri and Lello had a competition ~ while you were with Syan~" Her lips kink knowingly. "~It was to see who could go next. Zee~ra said to find out ~ who could unscrew the most jam~jars~ ~at once. Lello got second with six. I got~" she announces her next words one at a time, while pouring thick, binding layers of goop across your chest with each syllable:
"~One~"
splat
"~hundred~"
drizzle
"~and~"
blob
"~seventeen~"

"Lim!" you gasp. The green goo writhes and slithers on your chest, locking you in place like a liquid straightjacket.
"You... you CAN'T go next. I'm empty. Gods; I gave more than I thought I could possibly have in me to Syan. If -"

"~Zeera said you'd say that~" Lim grins. A predatory grin, like a sphinx riddling a cornered idiot. "~She said hu~mans always say that~ ~But that you just have to be~" she licks her lips "... ~persuaded~"

The three tentacles at your crotch grab onto your dick, wrapping it completly in a triple, slimy grip.

"~Well then~" Lim says, face alight with mischief. "~Let's see how quick I can get to ~ one ~ hundred ~ and ~ eighteen~"

CHAPTER 5

It is spring, and the city is on edge.

Four days after Honest Bharrek failed to recieve his delivery, and a deputy constable of the city guard strolls slowly through a soup kitchen. It is well past midnight, and in the Mercy House of Saint Reichenbach the Ressurector, a score of dozing vagrants and down-and-outs pay scant attention to the conversation just coming to a close before them.

"You understand, it's a very important painting, Constable" the priest whispers, straightening his white vestemnts. Soft, orange candlelight illuminates his wrinkled features as he speaks, keeping in hushed tones. "It may even be a primary reproduction of the original artwork. A... a true likeness of the Ressurector himself!"

Scarcely concealing his boredom, the constable grips a notebook and pencil within his comically oversized gauntlets. "As you say, vice-deacon, VERY important" he responds. On the page before him, concealed from the priest, a rather nice doodle of a sandcrab is taking shape. "And you were concerned that these fellows were..."

"Yes, looking at it, they were." the old man nods. "Very suspicious characters, too. I mean, they left, a few minutes later, no trouble, but I... I thought I should report something. What with them just LOOKING at the painting like that."

"One might argue that this is precisely the thing one is supposed to do with fine artwork, your holiness," the guard remarks - contemplating the shading on the third leg of his own fine, crab-shaped artwork as he says so. Yes, very nice.
"Buuuuut nevertheless, I suppose you were rightly concerned with the safety and security of your very important relics. Well rest assured, sir, I shall pass on my notes to the highest echelons of the watch, and make doubly certain to be on the lookout for any "suspicious" characters who may be lookin' at anythin' in an improper manner."

"Thank you, constable," the elderly priest breathes, oblivious to the guardsman's deadpan sarcasm. "Please, allow me to show you out."

The figures are halfway across the nave of the building when the guardsman stops in his stride. The benches around them are littered with soundly sleeping drunks and homeless, but sihlouetted against the soft candlelight, a lone figure is still awake, still seated. The black shadow's arm quivers, as it slowly brings a spoon towards the large wooden bowl in front of it.
The constable frowns.
He recognises that motion. He remembers how it felt.

"May I ask you to excuse me, vice-deacon?" the watchman enquires, politely. "I believe I may be presented with an opportunity herein to interview some persons of interest with regards to your civic complaint."

The priest follows his gaze, looking towards the haggard sihlouette. "Oh. Oh I see," he breathes.
"Yes, yes, that young man's been there for some hours, sitting with that same bowl. Hasn't said a word to anyone, yes. I thought there was something odd about him the moment he walked in, you see. What do you think? Was he a spotter for the prospective thieves? Or - or one of their ringleaders, looking to make a profit from selling stolen church goods? I tell you, it's hard to trust anyone these days -" The priest only shuts up when the constable physically ushers him out of the room, leaving just the two live figures amongst the sprawl of snoozing hobos.

Leaving just him, and... you.

The guardsman's armour clanks as he tiptoes around the comatose, rum-addled forms sprawled along the floors; and a final, metallic rattle, as he sits down, opposite your huddled shadow. He looks you up and down. Through the visor of his helmet, one can make out a face; still a young man himself, if a few summers older than you. His eyes seem... pitying.

"It feels like shit, don't it?" he says.

There's a wooden clatter as the spoon falls out of your hand. It bounces on the table, and the bench, before finally, noisily coming to rest on the hard stone floor.

"Feels like you're all wrung out," he continues. The words sink through you like a knife. "Like you're done, you're empty. Like they took everything out of you. It's like there's nothin' left for you to do in this world except to just lay down and die."

Inside the sunken holes of your eye sockets, two pupils flitter about madly. The bowl. The wall. His face. The candles. The table.

The constable pulls his little notebook out, and leafs his way through the pages. Your skittering eyes glimpse a number of tiny pencil doodles, as well as genuine policework notes and identity sketches, crammed into the pages. He shifts round, giving you a clearer look of the pad. As his fingers flip towards the back, the little doodles get less frequent - but much darker. Skeletal hands and disembodied eyes, crossed through and scribbled over in heavy pencil-strokes. There are even some pages that are completely coloured over. Solid squares of black, crowded all the way to the margins.

"The lads would have a field day if they saw this," he mutters. "But I wasn't always a guardsman. Two years ago, I was an artist. Landscapes, mostly; but I did a little of this, and a little of that. If you could see it, then I could paint it."

The sketch-filled notebook comes to its last pages. They're all black; ghostly suggestions of old lines and curves blotted out by angry, masking dashes of graphite. But at the very back of the book, there's something different. An exquisitly detailed drawing of a beautiful, smiling woman; an artist's beret rests on her head, the coy, happy expression in her eyes almost leaping off the parchment. The guard tenderly strokes his thumb over the corner of the portrait.

"Decietful bitch," he murmers. But there's no hatred or vitriol in his voice. He just sounds... nostalgic.
"I met her at my first exhibition," he confides. "And within a week, she'd made it so she was all I could think about. Her face, her legs... and yes, eventually, when she showed me her wings, those too. I didn't care. And then one day I woke up in our bed, alone. Shaking, just like you, and she was the only thing I could draw any more."

He slaps the book closed, and puts it down on the table. "Not to mention it felt like I'd never be able to take a piss again," he chuckles mirthlessly. "That wasn't any fun either. You might wanna try chewing some lapacho root for that, by the way. Tastes like swine, but it's full of zinc. Helped me out."

Your fingers rattle out an erratic rhythm on the tabletop. You don't recall how to make them stop. The watch constable leans forward, and grips your shaking wrist in a gauntlet.

"Listen to me," he demands, seriously. "It'll come back. Believe it. Little by little, it'll come back. You think it's all gone; you think you've forgotten how to be alive. But you'll remember, in time."
He taps the notebook beside him. "You saw, didn't you? I can do it again. For weeks, everything I drew turned into her... but it passes. You've just got to keep living. 'Cos the only way those godsdamn mamono beat you - I mean REALLY beat you, in your heart - is if you give up. Sure, they got you this time; but you can't come back up swinging if you don't come back up at all."

The guardsman stands, and makes to leave. You want to say something - anything - to him. How you can still sense Lello's sliding slime, all over your skin; how it feels like you're drowning under Cheri, every time you take a breath; how Zeera's hot moans whisper in your ears every moment of every hour, as she stroked you back to bursting point, again and again and again and again...

But the only sound that comes out of your throat is a single, choking rasp.

He turns back to you, eyes happening on your empty swordbelt. "Adventurer, is it?" he asks. Obviously, you're not in any condition to respond.

"Look," he says, jotting something down in his pad, and tearing the page out for you. "One of the guys from the watch left recently; started a 'Caravan Security Organisation' - fancy words for a merc company, as I gather. This is the address; I 'spect he could use someone like you. You've faced mamono and you ain't dead. Better than most fresh recruits can say; and hell, that's how I got into the guards."

He presses the paper into your shaking fingers, and with a final, commiserating slap to the back, is gone, stalking out of the soup kitchen like a man hurrying to leave a haunted house.

For a long time, you just sit there in the dark. Alone. Yes. Alone. The tremor in your arm doesn't stop.

But then; slowly, very slowly, your fingers all manage to move in the same direction. Inch by inch, your hand curls into a fist, around the crumpled piece of paper.

Ha.

Ha
Ha.

Ha
Fucking
Ha.

A mercenary job.
The whole reason you came to the capital city in the first place.
And all it took was to be gang-raped for half a week by four slimes and a succubus.
Ha.
Ha.

Ha.

...

...

They'd best pay well.