Katelyn

  Katelyn wandered through the guarded checkpoint without so much as a confused comment arising for her passing.

  Indeed, the only thing she found herself needing to moderately concern herself with was the presence of stomping feet.

  Naturally, transforming herself into a rodent was actually a rather potent ability when one desired to remain unseen or uninteresting. The realization of such simply made her passing between the two realms as painless as one could possibly hope for.

  She emerged on the other side of the mist while scurrying by a group of six young hopefuls wearing what she was coming to understand as the city's magical academy's uniform.

  Young men wore scks and jackets, young women pleated skirts and blouses, while robes served as an accepted unisex alternative if either decided the standard attire wasn't to their satisfaction.

  As it happened, and in an entirely unexpected twist of fate, the group that entered the mist, as she too ran towards its roiling mysteries, appeared with her upon the dungeon side of its barrier.

  Katelyn found herself staring up at the six young men and women who were merrily conversing with each other while upon what was apparently their very first delve of their schostic year!

  Well, if that wasn't just poor luck, then Katelyn simply didn't know what to call it…

  Still, she didn't immediately jump at the opportunity for sughter that so clearly presented itself, instead remaining as a rodent while watching the youths approach the very first of the goblin camps with earnest interest.

  For as long as she'd been in here, Katelyn hadn't ever really just sat and observed how invaders actually fared without the constant backdrop of hunger or primitive instinct.

  She hadn't really been awake very long since emerging from her catatonic state, and while she had stalked her fair share of people, she'd, again, never just watched for the sake of watching.

  None of the youths were above level two, which made her wonder if any even needed to die before the group was repulsed and ran away...

  Oddly, her time in the city had somewhat helped with some much-needed rexation. Katelyn found herself to be much less eager to jump straight into butchery because it was the only interesting thing in her life…

  Her little vacation had reminded the monster that she—upon a time, had been what she so often found herself mimicking… and she'd realized that it really wouldn't be too hard to return to a sort of normalcy that she could slip into with all the ease of a snuggly bnket.

  All those creature comforts of society were right at the tips of her fingers… granted, society wasn't exactly as clean as back home, even if the city had a numerous array of public bathhouses, nor as technologically advanced…

  However, unbeknownst to her, Katelyn had been craving something from life that transcended her existence within Abby, and it just so happened that it wasn't hard for her to get…

  The notion left her in a somewhat awkward position as she did have a prior standing agreement with the other girl—yet, even with the dungeon trying very hard to appease her, she couldn't really compete against the ease with which Katelyn could carve out a slice of a more than good life for herself outside the dungeon walls.

  After all, she had all the necessary skills to make such an endeavor ughably easy...

  Honestly, it was somewhat difficult to ignore…

  Mix in the fact that she had to purposefully hold herself back in regards to her acquisition of power and—well, their deal was an order less appealing than it had first seemed…

  Heck, given how few times she found herself in a truly dangerous situation, Katelyn suspected the dungeon's big overture towards a promise of resurrection was—less important than she'd first given it credit.

  Due to her strange retionship with the system, Katelyn was oddly powerful for her levels. And had grown confident in her capabilities to a degree she'd felt previously cking in when first appearing as a lowly mimic.

  Gone were the days of waiting in terror while wondering if adventurers would discover her secret and destroy her without a moment's hesitation…

  She was strong.

  And due to her strange set-up, she was rather resilient to boot.

  A bde through the chest would never risk skewering any vital organs…

  Her head held no brain, her limbs no veins to bleed…

  She wasn't entirely sure what would happen if she were to be decapitated, but seeing as how she could manifest her void and true self or—tongue wherever she chose to form it, Kate had a running theory that the removal of her skull would do very little to slow her down…

  The monster simply wasn't the same—kind of organism that the far more vulnerable humans were. And despite that fact, they still risked their lives and improved themselves, absent the knowledge that they could return should they be sin.

  Though she didn't want to invite the connotations behind the phrase 'cowardly,' considering she very much wanted to go out and explore this strange new world, it did feel somewhat appropriate to call any form of fixation upon her demise somewhat—silly, all things considered…

  But if she wanted to spread her wings and actually enjoy this new and wonderful life, she was quickly coming to indulge in, it would happen at the detriment of a girl who had nobody else to turn to…

  Unlike Kate, Abby was, in some ways and despite her amazing potential, far worse off than herself in almost every way imaginable… Katelyn couldn't even begin to put herself in the other girl's shoes…

  Hell, she'd been stuck inside the other girl for a mere handful of days before going crazy! Yet Abby had been here for entire lifetimes.

  It was—wrong to abandon her.

  Morally, responsibly, culturally… After all, she came from the same world as Kate…

  Though she wasn't normally one for charity in her old life unless it stood to somehow benefit her, the reality was that Katelyn was discovering herself to be something of an entirely different person...

  Her old self was still there, of course, but whether one wanted to call it personal growth or perhaps a skewing of her already strange, by human standards, personality, Kate genuinely couldn't say...

  That being said, she did like Abby.

  Maybe they weren't quite best friends, but it was certainly as close as Kate thought she'd gotten for quite a whole... Hmph! And all this time, everyone had said it was she who was holding Brandon back.

  As it happened, the monster was learning that the accusation might very well have been a two-way street...

  Katelyn's mind was different. Of that much, she had long accepted of herself. And yet, with Abby, she found a strangely willing ally and confidant that, for the most part, not only seemed willing to accept her true self but, in a way, actively encouraged her unusual brand of crazy!

  It was refreshing!

  Liberating even.

  And true, they'd had their hiccups, but by in rge, Abby had thus far been the only one she'd ever met who not only understood what Katelyn was but even accepted it...

  She wasn't exactly gay, but straight hadn't really applied to her, to begin with! And given they were both monsters—and that Kate could reform her body any way she pleased well... sexuality didn't seem very important, now did it?

  "There is Markus..." She softly mused, words hardly more than a whisper as the somewhat awkward battle before herself unfurled. "I'm not about to go looking for a 'bck book' of fuckbuddies, but... maybe...

  While she sat there, ruminating on her future, the plucky band of would-be adventurers faltered as they came face to face with an equally numerous foe that simply possessed more levels than they did.

  Though the goblins cked any form of noteworthy discipline or interest in tactics, they were, if nothing else, not as green around the ears as odd such a comment was.

  The kids were simply—not used to the ebb and flow of mortal combat, and rather than remaining to risk life and limb after skirmishing with the first pack of goblins, someone sounded the arm to retreat, thus breaking their formation.

  Katelyn transformed into her hob-goblin visage, smashing the first of the youths that stumbled right into her reach. The boy's wide and confused gaze as her bat raced toward his chest was a study of what true stupefaction looked like.

  He didn't make a sound, didn't scream or cry out in terror, and likely didn't even understand what was about to happen to him. He was simply, one moment, fleeing for the entrance within a few dozen steps away, then, his body was careening through the air after a meaty crunch, the lights in his eyes fading away in the same instant…

  When all but a single of the dungeoneers remained, knocked unconscious while being dragged along by the leg, Katelyn began calling out for Abby's attention, which, surprisingly, manifested very shortly before she started yelling.

  The tiny pixie version of her friend materialized from the ceiling of the dungeon in a cascade of glittering magic and righteous fury! The thunderous scowl on her face was visible the moment she appeared.

  "You—bitch!" The tiny woman screamed, her face steaming with anger, looking for all the world like some pissed-off Tinkerbell who'd just discovered bck hair dye. "You—utter and—absolute—terrible person!" Tears were beginning to stream from her little eyes, and the sight made Kate sigh and defte at the shoulders...

  "Hey, Abby! I—brought you something to eat." She tried, lifting the young delver in her hands up as though the dungeon couldn't see her…

  "No, no, no! You don't get to pretend you did me a favor!" She seethed, flying so she appeared just in front of Katelyn's nose before starting to uselessly fil at her face with such ineffectual punches...

  She actually had to blink and take a mental step backward...

  This was beyond senseless, utterly useless. And yet, she knew she probably deserved it.

  Katelyn caught the little pixie in her hands as the girl squealed her dismay, then stuck her into her mountainous cleavage, burying the girl alive between twin oceans of wobbling flesh.

  How else was she supposed to calm her down?

  Unsurprisingly given she herself would find it to be very confusing if she was shoved between a giant's tits, Abby emerged crawling for purchase and gasping for breath, but also slightly less screamy.

  Her tiny pixie body was soaked in Kate's hob-goblin perspiration before she was dunked back into the molten depths of sweaty tits, with but a quickly muffled outcry of indignation!

  This time, when she appeared, the girl was much less the tiny ball of super-powered and transformative golden rage and—more looking along the lines of extreme disorientation.

  Her eyes were wide as she stared up at Katelyn, as though terrified she'd be pushed back below the surface of her monumentally mammoth mammaries.

  In her hob-goblin form, they were truly of both the absurd and the divine. Though what had started as a bit of a goof had admittedly grown on her with the absence of downsides.

  "Stop doing that!" Abby demanded, breathing heavily while her dark hair was slicked and sticking at odd angles.

  "Only if you're done rampaging."

  "Rampaging?"

  "I was gone a day, Abby, a day! It's not that bad!"

  "But you didn't tell me!" She whined, half bleating with miserable dejection, and rekindled hope that her only ally hadn't abandoned her! "I thought you'd disappeared for good! I thought—you wouldn't come back! I thought…"

  That was when the waterworks truly started; the girl, still more than half submerged between her tits, bawling her eyes out while Katelyn sighed, reaching down to gently, very gently, stroke at the other girl's cheek with the pad of her pinky.

  It was as weird as it sounded.

  Yeah… there just wasn't a good way to make it seem more romanticized as, honestly, she felt it would do the scene less justice than the currently presented imagery provided…

  Her life had truly become a low-budget meme of a Japanese cartoon so nonsensical and confusing that it was only a matter of time before she starred in her very own beach episode, complete with a degenerate mage lusting after her toes and an overly clinging pixie girlfriend who'd, as of yet, still refrained from exiting her cleavage.

  Yes, Kate had been the one to pce her there, but the monster sort of expected that she'd already vacated her premises.

  Instead, Abby seemed to nestle into her ever deeper, taking comfort from the voluminous softness that encapsuted her like a heated comforter while a blizzard raged just outside an uninsuted cabin…

  With an internal grumble, she allowed the other girl to vent her emotions, carrying on while she snuggled in and, oddly enough, appeared to even cry herself to sleep.

  Kate hadn't known that Abby could even do that—the sleeping, that was, or if the girl was merely resting in a sort of meditative trance in an attempt to regain her composure…

  Either way, Katelyn dialed back the whole sweating thing that was rgely part of her whole savage barbarian package. Since she didn't actually need to regute her heat with moisture, it was, just like her fake blood, merely a piece of the whole illusion and mimicry of life.

  Yet, as she had full control of her body, changing her temperature was easy, within the bounds of common sense.

  Slowly, she made her way back towards Grom's boss's room, eventually managing to get there and discovering that the boss was actually sitting there waiting on his throne.

  For some reason, Katelyn had assumed that he wouldn't be present because she had spawned in this particur shard. However, since that clearly wasn't the case, she had to content herself with sitting down in the dark passageway and waiting for Abby to stir.

  It wasn't long after, but, as when one sits and watches the clock, it felt like an eternity all the same…

  "Feeling better?" She asked, looking down at the sleepy pixie, who simply nodded and took in a deep breath through her nose.

  "You—scared me…" She admitted, somewhat softly, shifting within her impromptu nest as though getting herself more comfortable than she already was.

  "Yeah… I figured as much… I did try to let you know things were kind of taking on a life of their own, but… I assumed you were busy…"

  "I was, and it took a while to figure out that you weren't even in the shard I made you… Luckily, nobody actually got to Grom's room while you were away, but—I saw you! Saw you let someone go! What the fuck?"

  "I know, I know! But listen, it's fine! The kid's totally not going to say a thing."

  "But how do you know? He's aware I'm changing things! A witness! He can't be trusted, Katelyn; no humans can! Beleive me, I know from experience..."

  "He's fine, Abby. In fact, he's probably going to end up helping us!"

  "And why would he do that?" The dungeon groaned, her words arriving with the exasperated tone of a parent trying to use logic against a toddler.

  "Because he wants my massive hob-goblin cheeks to suffocate him while I sit on his face."

  That invoked a rather—bnk look of surprise from the pixie that seemed to require a visible reboot of her thought processes before she seemed to shiver in a single full-bodied reset. "He wants—what?"

  "Exactly what I said." Katelyn chuckled, shaking her head at the young mage, even as she expined herself. "He's head over heels for me. I might have been messing around with a bit of psychological torture and inadvertently awoken something in him that was—unexpected.

  He practically chased me down out there, Abby... Me! In broad daylight, as I was walking down the street, you should have seen him… like a lost dog… I don't feel like I need to go into details, but honestly, whenever he actually manages to find me again, he'll be our perfect double agent."

  The pixie just looked at Kate as though she had not just one, but many various screws loose, the girl shaking her head in abject wonder and dismay before sighing and just sinking back into her warren…

  "Enjoying yourself?" The monster asked, taking the opportunity to change the subject with a rueful eyebrow…

  "It's a titty sauna, and I'm gay, not to mention too old to care about being a prude. Of course, I'm enjoying something I've pretty much dreamt of my whole life!"

  Katelyn paused, cocked her head, then ughed at the tiny creature. "Want me to turn up the heat and—sweat?"

  "Oh yeah!" Abby affirmed, snapping her little fingers with two sharp ccks, "Right up to max for them both; I wanna be cooking in here."

  When Abby returned Katelyn to her boss's chamber, both girls had calmed down and returned to a sembnce of friendship. Kate was walking about not in her elf form but rather, her dark-haired human variant, one that she'd spent the evening within while pying cards.

  It felt strangely right to keep switching things up, as though her body craved to be constantly changing her forms. And it wasn't like she was married to any of them, so keeping things fresh was somewhat easy for her.

  "Abby?" She asked, peering about the rge room as though not quite understanding what the other girl was going for…

  Gone were the little chanting goblins, bonfire, the bone sculptures, and the upper ptforms where, once, a rusty cage sat. Instead, all had been repced by an odd—area…

  Its circur design is as rge as a coliseum! With six equal distance pilrs forming a sort of inner ring that spanned high as there was light to see them.

  The entrance was a gradient shift from the uninspired and winding tunnel to a kind of sandstone brickwork, the hallway leading to this strange deviation from their pns ending in a grand archway that invoked notions of bread and games.

  A heavy portcullis waited above, just barely visible where it rested, its gleaming and pointed spikes catching the eye with an all too clear meaning…

  At the center of the room was a colossus among chests. Its design was opulent as it was enticing, and the sensation of greed and curiosity it provoked made Kate herself want to wander over and take a look inside!

  Yet, perhaps most telling of all was the closed metal gate opposite the entrance. Its sheer size and girth leaving little to the imagination as to the enormity of the fight to come.

  "Abby…" She asked again, this time drawing her words out as she took her first step in the sands, her head craning to try and see just how high the pilrs rose while the little pixie on her shoulder cackled with maddened delight.

  "Okay, so, cards on the table?" She began, the little insane giggle she released far too cute than it had any right to be. "After you left, I sort of went—full, happy pce… I thought you were gone for good and that my chances of pulling my whole pn off were so slim that I sort of hit fuck it… So—now this!"

  The tiny girl expined, waving her arms as though anything she just said had made a lick of sense… "Mhhhmmm, it's complicated, I know, but I figured that I may as well go all in and hope the people outside like the changes enough to let me—keep going… I've heard the sentiment that people want change's over and over again by delvers challenging me that… I just, hmhm—sort of did it!"

  "Yeah, wow, you ugh—really did… hey, are those spider webs up there? I keep seeing things shine and drift around, but…"

  "Yup, you got me!" The pixie excimed, grinning from ear to ear while kicking her legs. "Back when I first started, I actually had this whole dream about what kind of dungeon I wanted to be! You know, a whole theme that I had pnned out but was just cking the resources and know-how to get it done!

  I started with goblins and caves because they were easy and cheap and I figured that I had time to work into what I wanted. Obviously, those pns didn't exactly pan out…" She grumbled, voice turning sour… "Honestly, the end goal was sort of embarrassing, but I always sort of—wanted to have my dungeon filled with—monster girls…"

  Katelyn wasn't even surprised… though when her look of utter judgment nded on her, Abby merely scowled by way of reply.

  "What? Yeah, okay, maybe I was a huge nerd back in high school, but so what? Sue me! I'm gay, and I like monster girls. It's my dungeon, and I can do with it what I want!"

  "I'm just screwing with you. Obviously, I don't have much of a judgy leg to stand on…"

  "Good, because you are going to be integral to my pns!"

  "Aren't I—already important?"

  "Moooore important!" Abby preened that manic fire in her gaze, honestly starting to worry her… "As it happens, monster-girls aren't really a thing out here. Yeah, there's, like, biologically female monsters, but that's not the same thing!"

  "You want horney…" Katelyn supplied, earning herself an explosion of confirmation!

  "Yessss! That! One hundred percent that! I want to create a whole new kingdom of organisms! Ones that only reproduce via capturing males, specifically humans and elves, by using exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics to lure potential mates in and breed them! Then obviously, eat them so I still get their souls!"

  "Okay, Abby, down girl… bad dungeon…"

  "It would be consensual! Mostly… I mean, even if they die, they still wanted the sex in the first pce, right? O-or, some of them probably will...”

  "You're such a fucking dweeb!" Katelyn giggled, shaking her head at the other girl's antics while sighing quite audibly. "Seriously, what? Were you going to start a monster eugenics program down here or something?"

  "Oh, absolutely! But I sort of figured out I don't really need to bother with the whole breeding program nonsense and can pretty much just shape life however I want it! It is a fairly prohibitive process when it comes to how many resources I have to spend to do it… you know, real te-stage stuff…

  But the good news is that altering things is a lot easier than outright creationism! I can tweak what's already there for veritable pennies on the dolr."

  "Uh-huh," Kate replied, already walking towards the giant treasure chest to take a peek at what was inside.

  "The cooler thing is that I can even absorb monsters! Like feral ones that aren't otherwise part of my whole—ecology. Then I have their tempte to py with and reproduce all I want!"

  "So, what, you want me to go out and capture some cool monsters that I can dump at crazy doctor Abby's b of unspeakable horrors and unquestionably inhumane research?"

  "I mean, if you were willing to, I wouldn't say no, but… I sort of had an—easier idea? One that you actually sort of gave me…"

  The way the other girl's words trailed off to a somewhat murmured whisper returned Katelyn to their conversation with a snap. Immediately, she angled her head to regard the somewhat sheepish pixie who was staring up at her with pleading and watery eyes.

  "No."

  "Please? Please-please-please! You're, like, perfect for the job!"

  "Oh my god… Abby! I'm not going to be your—brood mother!" Katelyn chortled, looking at the insane tiny girl and just chuckling at the ridiculousness of it! "I'm not even a real person!"

  "Only because you don't need or want to be." Abby objected, her tone taking on more academic and hypothesizing air, "Functionally, there would be nothing different about your body if you had a mind to copy everything about a human. I should know. I can literally understand how the monsters inside of me tick.

  It's my whole thing. Granted, I'm pretty sure the system never really envisioned your—existence to really do something along what we were talking about, but, you're a perfect mimic! For anything! Better, you don't even have to copy stuff. For whatever reason, you can clearly just come up with an idea in your head and shapeshift however the hell you want!"

  "Alright, you know what, I'll just say it." Katelyn stated, folding her arms and gring at the dungeon girl, "It's weird. Too weird. Even for me! It's like next-level stuff that's—gross…"

  "But you—could do it?"

  "Ahh… maybe? I mean… again, the answer is no, but, for argument's sake… probably? There are no real restrictions on it other than mana and mass, but…"

  "Heeee! Oh my god-oh, my god, oh my god! You can totally save us a probable century of work! Just imagine it! We'd be the coolest freaking dungeon in the entire world!" Abby leaped off her shoulder, flying to hover before Katelyn's face as she took each of her cheeks in her tiny palms and began shaking the monster girl with insane zealotry!

  "You can help me do everything I always dreamed of! And since I don't have to spend a fortune making new monsters without a tempte, we can get the ball rolling for more floors!

  Nobody will be able to do jack shit to stop us! Not when I'm literally flooded with adventurers thinking with their dicks and money pouches!"

  Katelyn made to tell the girl she needed to calm down and make new pns that didn't involve her doing such—unwanted things as live birth... But, after a few moments of thought, she sort of—hesitated in fighting back against the dungeon's crazy pn…

  Didn't she want this? Not the whole broodmother thing but—the rest of it? More floors? Higher-level adventurers that would actually challenge her? The opportunity to improve herself…

  Living here, acting as some—damsel in distress to lure her prey had—at the time, seemed somewhat reasonable, but… now, it just felt so dumb… The only people who bothered delving into Abby were those she could eviscerate while pretending to be a mouse!

  All the eborate pageantry of her master pn was, in the end, needless smoke and mirrors…

  By contrast, the arena was something that got her excited!

  It felt… fresh!

  It felt interesting and entertaining!

  Solving or at least combating everything that she constantly battled over, not to mention a clear means to ensure she never descended into that listless and disassociating state ever again.

  The truth of the matter was that if Kate could get what she wanted here, she didn't really have much of a reason to go elsewhere to seek adventure.

  Traveling for the sake of viewing architecture hadn't ever been what she'd call interesting when she could just see it in a photo online…

  Likewise wilderness survival had been among the least of her chosen list of ways to stave off the boredom. She wasn't exactly a couch potato, but it could be said that she was a homebody.

  She liked to nest, just like her mother.

  And while going out for a fun time on the town had its definite pce, it only did so because it hadn't been abused to the point it wasn't special anymore.

  She still had her issues with the whole idea, but the more she thought about it, the less she found herself pushing back… Worse were the excuses and justifications she began making for the notion as a whole; all the while, the pixie just continued to stare…