Inside Job

By VivettaVenray

(WARNING: Contains vore [soft, soul], cruelty, monster-traits, and gore among other things)

(NOTE: The general idea for this story was thought up quite some time ago. I actually promised myself I'd write this before I ever considered doing a direct sequel to any of my other stories. Now that this story is done, that door is open. Although whether or not I plan or write other sequels to my stories is another matter.

This story takes place in the same world some as, and some time after the events of, "Mary Sueddon's Campaign". If you enjoyed "Mary Sueddon's Campaign" then, without spoiling too much, you might like this story as well. It's not required to read that story before this one, but I do encourage it.)

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Chapter 1: The Party

Rune-light and one magic luminescent orb were the only source of light for the four adventurers as they entered the cave. Though their silhouettes all differed, each had on a backpack or satchel at least as they walked through the middle of the mountain.

“This is much to big to be a cave.”, spoke a light-skinned woman with mangy brown hair.

The human was one of the four, and her hair wasn’t the only wild looking part about her. The freckled woman had no shoes, only legwraps of dried leaves and cloth. Uncarefully made cuts of bark adorned her legs as shin guards and her outer arms for protection there too. She also had bark on her shoulders as pads, tied with more cloth.

Aside from that, the druid had barely anything on. Her top was short with a thin cloth base decorated with leaves. Her skirt was similarly hand-made, albeit colored green by some natural dye no doubt.

She was second in the marching order. At the front was a tall, lithe, elf clad in black leather. Her hand was held out as she led the way, and over her palm floated a circular orb of purple light.

The white-haired elf turned around to answer first, though kept on the move. The druid locked her green eyes with the dark elf’s crimson ones, but only for a second. The elf faced forward immediately after, doing the bare minimum to acknowledge her companion before refocusing on the path ahead.

“What would you call it then, Thistle?”, said the elf.

“A hollowed out mountain. A hollow mountain, maybe.”

The elf chuckled.

“Seems rather simple doesn’t it?”

“It’s the first thing I thought up.”, answered Thistle.

“Is that the druid way of naming things?”, spoke the elf.

“Well, Arafiel, it’s certainly natural.”

The druid chuckled and, though she couldn’t see it from behind, the dark elf woman smirked. Thistle would have liked to see it if she knew. Despite her differences with the drow, something about seeing Arafiel smile made the druid’s heart flutter.

Arafiel was the de-facto leader of the group. She was a daring rogue, and naturally gifted at magic to boot. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the scholarly type so no wizardry for her, nor was she so gifted as to be an outright sorceress. Instead, she mastered a few cantrips and worked them into her bag of tricks and dagger-work.

Not that it mattered. By far the drow’s greatest weapon was her stunning charisma, with equally stunning looks to back it up. Her ashy dark countenance could smile, bat her red eyes, and she’d get past guards in a flash without a fight. Her words and wiles had opened far more doors than her lock-picks had for sure.

A few more steps in and the lights from the runes started getting brighter. Thistle bumped into Arafiel, who had stopped walking.

“Watch it.”

“Well why’d you stop Araffy?”

“I told you not to call me that, you did well with it just a moment ago. Also, I didn’t stop first. Look.”

The elf pointed behind Thistle. The druid’s fluffed out scraggly locks brushed into the dark elf with the turn. About 20 steps back was a large muscular gray-skinned man ooo-ing and awe-ing at something.

“What’s the hold-up Grome?”, spoke Arafiel. “The dwarven city’s supposed to be very pretty, but if you stop to stare at every glowing rune we won’t finish the job by tomorrow’s end.”

“It’s not a rune Arafeel”, he said, mispronouncing the elf’s name on accident as he often did. “It’s a really cool rock.”

“A rock?” Arafiel introduced her face to her palm. A squeaky voice piped up behind Grome.

“To be fair, the rock being here *is* quite impressive.”, spoke the gnome. He came into view as he scrambled higher up Grome’s shoulders. His long white beard draped over the orc’s chest, which only had some ridiculous looking plated-bra on that he refused to take off (“for protection!”, the orc would say.)

The gnome--who was traveling on the barbarian’s back as per-habit--had a periwinkle hat atop his head with some brown robes and slipper-shoes. It made for a most clashing and unfashionable contrast in attire. He was short too, even for a gnome, and stood just over 2ft tall.

“What’s so special about it?”, spoke Thistle.

“Nothing.”, said Laddleplug.

“But you just-”

“The rock isn’t special, but the fact that it’s here is. Up till now the path’s been entirely smooth, with a bit of rock dust at most!”

He was right. The party had walked for well over a mile along smooth stone ground. It wasn’t paved in any natural sense, but by something very, very big.

“The amount of weight the Chimera Queen must be at her size... I’m surprised to find a single rock in here.”

“How big did you say she was again Laddleplug.”, asked Thistle.

“2 miles.”, he said.

“Jeez.”

“Don’t worry.”, said the orc. “Grome’s big too.”

“You’re only about 7 feet max Grome.”, said Arafiel, chiming in now. “That’s orders of magnitude smaller. Also, let’s stay on the move please, like I said...”

Arafiel got to walking and the others eventually followed. Brass and dark-stone buildings speckled the vast and far natural walls of the gigantic cave. The vast majority were at least half broken, but the magic runes etched into the hewn stones functioned well enough to keep the wide cave lit despite it.

Those were just the buildings higher up. Far to the side of the smooth stone trail were plenty of piles of debris. Barely a rune still functioned there, but the ones that did still shined bright.

“Just piles and piles of rubble.”, spoke Thistle.

“Yes, it’s said Veezla destroyed this once great city all by herself.”, spoke the gnome. He snapped his fingers and conjured up his own orb of light, then fished a piece of parchment from his satchel and started sketching down notes on the runes and architecture.

“So, why’d the dwarves settle here anyways?”, asked the druid. The stone felt a bit colder under her naked feet the deeper the four walked.

“They didn’t know a titaness was here, there’s no other explanation.”

“But how could they not notice?”

“Well, they probably thought themselves lucky to find such a nice mountain to build in. They went just as dark as they liked, built, then built deeper as they expanded. It’s said the Mother of Monsters can sleep long periods at a time, hundreds of years. They probably scouted too deep once, woke her up by mistake.”

The four passed a massive pile of rubble surrounding a single crumbling little stone home. All around it was dust sans that one home. Thistle dipped her foot into some of the stone-dust at the edge of the area and brushed it away. There was depth below the dust, which she felt after nearly falling forward. She hadn’t expected non-solidly under sole.

“This is like a crater!”, said the druid.

The gnome tilted his head and poked Grome’s back. “Move backwards friend!”

The orc did so and the wizard tilted his head, then scribbled things down.

“Yes yes, I think that’s a hand print. Hard to tell though, but she must’ve flattened them all with just a plop of her palm.

“How can you tell that?”

“You can’t see it from where you are, but there’s a bit of a curve to the dust outline. Also, I think that one building standing just got lucky. It was small enough to not get too unstable, and probably was in the space between her ring and pinky--no, ring and middle finger. Fascinating.”

He scribbled some more stuff down and the four got to moving. Thistle was a bit more harrowed. As they reached the edge of the city, back to where the cave grew darker, she swallowed and spoke once more.

“Arafiel.”, said Thistle.

“Yes?”, said Arafiel.

“Aren’t you, worried?”

“Not at all. I’m excited.”

“You are sure she has the Dragon Orb?”

“I’m positive or, well, the city of Glainberg had it, and she’s the one who ate that place weeks ago.”

“Now that’s something I can’t believe, or abide.”, spoke Laddleplug. “With the threat of war against that mad, magical queen, the last thing we needed was a random titan attack in Igrisos.”

“Yes, it’s tragic, but think of the opportunity.”, said the dark elf.

“Since everyone’s worried about Queen Mary, the demand for any sort of magical artifact has skyrocketed. Every single city-state wants the power of dragons in case that brat of a sorceress shows up. We go in, get the orb, get out, then put them all in a bidding war. We’ll make enough platinum pieces to live like royalty for the rest of our lives.”

Grome chuckled at the thought, pausing his black-booted walk to clap for a moment. “I’m gonna buy me a uhhhhh lots of... honey bread. Huh huh.”

The other three blinked at their dimwitted companion, smiling in various stages of politeness or amusement. With that dopey boob-armor on and gray-cloth shorts, the dumb orc looked far more endearing than orcs from the wild tribes.

“Well, Grome, you’ll be able to buy all the bread and mead you want once we’re through with this job.”, said Arafiel.

They moved deeper, deep enough that they needed some extra lights. Laddleplug put away his scroll to conjure a glowing orb of light in each hand--relying on Grome’s one grasp to hold him steady on that shoulder. Arafiel just made the magical light-orb of her own bigger.

Once again, Thistle spoke up.

“Do you think it’ll work, Laddleplug?”, said the druid. “The barrier over Igrisos?”

The gnome’s mouth opened, but for once he paused before speaking.

“Well, it’s been quite some time since I was expelled from the magical academies. The College are the ones spear-heading the shield, so I can’t ask it’s details, but it’s kept her out for months now.”

“Do you believe what they say about her? That she could really be that big? Bigger than Veezla?”

“I only know what everyone else does, Thistle. The magical energies coming from Eldbann are immense. If all that power is wielded by one person, she’s definitely worth the effort keeping out.”

“Stop!”, said Arafiel. She held out her arms. “No more chatter, look ahead, more light.”

They could see now, the cave had some deep growing fungus on the smooth walls. It glowed bright as the moon. There was no more need for the magical lights of their own, so the drow and gnome snuffed their own light orbs out.

“We must be getting close. Let’s keep our voices low and stay moving.”

The party did so, and in less than a few more thousand feet they saw her: or rather, her looming light-purple face.

“Veezla”, said Laddleplug with a hint of awe in his voice.