Chapter 50

Lyra picked her way out of the forest and through the front gates of the mansion, or what remained of them. The large iron gates had been torn off their hinges and thrown aside. A worrying sight. What the hell had Rain done?

It was dark out but she was still able to see, the great many coloured moon helped a little with that. As she neared the front of the mansion she realised that the doors were missing. Wasn’t there supposed to be some kind of barrier to stop this kind of thing? Had it been mistakenly turned off? She knew most estates outside of walled towns and cities had one, it just made sense when monsters filled the countryside.

As she cautiously stepped inside the mana powered lights flickered on, dimmed, then managed to hold somewhat steady, then growing steadier. Her brow raised as she looked about the destroyed lobby. Furniture had been turned into kindling and anything loose was scattered across the floor, paper, lamps, broken china. Black burn marks were on every surface in lines and patches. Overall the lobby was thoroughly wrecked.

She bit her lip as she noticed the bloodstains. There was an awful lot of them, even on the walls. She wondered if any of them were from Rain. It wasn’t hard to see where they had gone next, the main door out of the lobby was just gone. She carefully crept toward it, cursing how loud her hooves made her as they clacked against the floorboards.

She released a breath as she poked her head around and found it empty.

“What are you doing?” came a voice from behind.

Lyra yelped and pinged into the air, somehow twisting mid-leap at the same time as materialising the black knife in her hands. She thudded back down on the floorboards, knife held in front, breathing hard, eyes wide.

Opal gave her an amused look.

“D-don’t do that! You almost scared the fluff off of me!”

“Did I? Hmm too bad. Rain wants you, come on, follow me.”

The Goblin pushed past her, although she paused for a moment to admire Lyra’s knife.

“I’ll trade you for the knife,” she said as she passed.

Lyra blinked before hurrying to catch up. “Uh, I’d have thrown it away a long time ago if I could, it’s cursed, I can’t get rid of it or trade it, I’m not even sure what it’s cursed with ... It’s a bit concerning.”

“But it can teleport into your hand any time! Sounds pretty useful to me, I know I wouldn’t mind having instant access to a pointy at any moment.”

Lyra eyed the multitude of blades strung around the Goblin girl’s shorts. She somehow doubted that she had issues with access to ‘pointys’.

“Erm yes, I suppose. Where is Rain?”

“I left him eating.”

Lyra shivered at that, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the details, in fact she was very sure she did not want to know them, however she was sure she was about to find out.

They passed through hallways where the lights hadn’t fully recovered, only giving dim and shadowy illumination. She paused as she passed by a doorway, the room catching her eye. Metal glinted in the gloom, lots of metal, lots of metal in various contraptions covered in alarming spikes and engraved in a strange jagged scripture that glowed a faint orange-red. As she looked she realised that various parts of the things were meant for various parts of a person’s body, some even specialised for different species, beaks, tails, claws, different variations, all contraptions designed for maximum effectiveness at their job...

This was a torture chamber, and a well fitted and used looking one at that. She suddenly felt a heck of a lot less sorry for the occupants of the mansion and what Rain might have done to them.

Opal grabbed her hand and tugged her along. She slowly followed, having to shake her head slightly to stop imagining just what some of those horrible contraptions might have been used for.

They soon found what they were looking for in a different room deeper in the mansion.

The room was dark, a shadowy mass could be seen in one corner, it took Lyra a moment to realise it was Rain. He was crouched over something, his paws moving. The sound of eating filled the air. Lyra nearly lost control of her bladder as she realised what was happening, she swallowed and fell against the door frame. He was eating levelers. She shuddered, this was one thing she was sure she couldn’t get used to, monsters fine, but levelers, no, it wasn’t right, levelers were different from monsters! Completely different ... right?

As the last of a limb disappeared behind his massive jaws he eased himself back onto a nearby couch, lazily slumping on top of it, his legs spread. The couch groaned desperately under his weight.

Opal happily skipped forward and pounced on the wolf, her fingers rolling through his fur as she prostrated herself on his torso. As she lay atop him one hand slipped down her own body and below the hem of her shorts, her fingers finding her sopping dripping wetness and exploring her folds, pushing and teasing herself as she felt Rain begin to change beneath her.

Rain growled and a paw wrapped around her hip causing her to coo and gasp aloud. Rain himself was straining against the crouch, his feet slipping against the floor. Lyra watched with fascination as she saw his body shift and grow, his mass swelling larger, his clawed feet scoring the wood as his paw slid along the back of the couch, he gruffed and groaned and thrust his hips into the air even as Opal wiggled and squirmed herself against his body.

Lyra bit her lip, she had to admit there was something about seeing the dominating mass of Rain grow larger and even more dominating that was tugging at her buttons. The sheer size difference, that huge overwhelming masculine physical presence next to the tiny Goblin who was desperately humping herself against him like her life depended on it, whining and mewling.

She chided herself, that feeling wasn’t normal, clearly this was her Elf part being Elf like. Elves had infamously broad taste, herself being evidence of that.

The poor couch that had barely been holding itself together suddenly gave up the ghost as Rain reached the peak of his growth. With a crash it collapsed fully leaving Rain in a crater of broken furniture. Opal let out a long desperate lush moan and her eyes rolled up before she collapsed on top of Rain burying her face in his chest.

Lyra swallowed, her throat a little dry.

After a moment of awkwardly standing in the doorway she made a polite cough into her fist.

“Uhm, I’m back now.”

Rain lifted his head.

“Good. Were there any problems? Anything dangerous?”

“Er no, it went perfectly fine although I couldn’t do much but eavesdrop in a couple of inns and ask a few casual questions.”

Rain lifted his paw and peeled the limp Goblin of himself. She mumbled in protest as he leaned forward and then climbed to his feet.

Lyra gulped, he was definitely over an inch taller, which due to square cube law also meant he was significantly larger and heavier in every other way. The floorboards did not sound happy with this new weight as he stepped toward her and she was sure most of them had been permanently cracked or splintered. She looked up at him fearfully, unsure what this unpredictable monster intended to do next.

He loomed over her as he neared, his intense yellow eyes the eyes of a predator, was he coming for her? To eat her like the other levelers? Her trembling hand reached for her mouth as unprompted wild imagery of being eaten by this beast slipped into her mind. Was she prey? Maybe she was prey! Her instincts were taking over, she needed to flee!

“Move.” said Rain.

She blinked. Oh right, she was standing in the doorway. She backed away hurriedly and Rain ducked down through it and moved past her determinedly. She watched as he passed down the hall filling most of it with his body. Opal appeared by her side, her cheeks still a little rosy.

“Wh-where is he going?”

“Dunno, wanna follow?”

“ ... Yes?”

The pair followed Rain as he made his way down the hallway, turning left then right. Light returned and filled the corridor although mostly blocked off by Rain’s size.

He pushed open a door and ducked down inside. Opal and Lyra glanced at each other and then Opal approached the brightly lit door. Her jaw dropped, a look of open dismay on her face.

“How is it indoors!”

“What! What is it!”

Opal put her head in her hands and groaned. “I just can’t escape, everywhere I go, it’s always there, I’m being changed against my will!”

Lyra approached the door wondering just what she was going to see, another torture chamber? Worse? The well-lit room revealed itself, a ... bathhouse. To be fair it was a very large bathhouse, with multiple large pools steaming in the air. Red was excitedly running around one of the pools, his claws clacking on the tile. He came to a raised circular pool and tipped the two bottles he was holding into it, a syrupy purple ooze poured out. He shook the bottles to get the last drips free then carefully placed them to the side. Then he jumped in the pool and began swishing it around with his claws, bubbles and foam began to pile up around him and Lyra realised he had discovered the wonders of bubble bath.