Red Annandale
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A Predatious Field Study Chapter 3
🕑 Added 2023-08-10 15:37:33 +0000 UTCChapter 3: Tower of Tentacle Terror!
The next leg of the journey led the pair well outside the forest toward the Urkish plains that connected the kingdom’s woods to the desert. It seemed serendipitous, like each gem collected would bring them closer to the altar that would transport them to August Isle.
As they approached the point indicated on the map, the sky dimmed to a luminous orange as the sun set before shifting into a deep purple and finally into an endless dark void broken up only by the twinkling stars across its vastness.
Maggie had suggested hours ago that they stop and set up camp but Juniper insisted they were close enough to make it tonight. Her eyes glimmered with obsession ever since she’d left the drider cave. The discovery of the spider people had given her a chance to see something new and exciting as well as taste it across her tongue. Maggie could see that her urgency was driven by a craving for more.
Traveling by moonlight wasn’t exactly fun but when they finally reached the goal in the center of the plains, a tilted, wobbly stone wizard’s tower greeted them. A sense of relief fell upon Maggie upon seeing it. The building itself looked abandoned, with kudzu creeping up the wall and crumbled stone lying piles at the foot of the structure.
She set down her pack, ready to make camp for the night and start the evening diaper changes. Already she’d been dragging nearly a thousand pounds behind her, an effort only aided by magic sleds that made it possible for her to walk.
Juniper, however, didn’t stop. She was relentless in her approach of the doorway.
“Uh Miss?” Maggie started, “Shouldn’t we set up camp?”
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*GWWooooorrrrllllll*
Juniper had heard her assistant say something but couldn’t really process it over the growling of her stomach. While the plains were a nice change of pace from the forest, opportunities to snack along the way proved to be limited. This relegated her to the supply of food she’d brought in the cart which disappeared all too quickly. She’d never been any good at rationing.
She found herself hoping through her hunger that there would be at least some alchemical ingredients left behind in the dilapidated structure. If nothing else she might hope to make a suitable meal replacer for the day. If not, even Maggie was starting to look semi-delicious. With a side salad of plentiful kudzu along with her assistant she might be able to put a brief stop to her hunger pangs.
She moved towards the entrance, driven more by primal hunger than usual. Juniper’s palms pushed into the rough wood doors of the tower, forcing them open. A sprinkling of dust rained down from the ceiling, tickling the scientist’s nose. She vaguely heard Magdalene shuffling along behind her. The floor of the tower was barren stone with a spiral staircase swirling up to what could only be a mage’s laboratory above them. Juniper’s little legs worked as fast as they could to get her up the steps.
Caution was thrown entirely to the wind and worry started to set in for the scientist for the first time since she'd left the castle.
*Flllooooorrrpppp*
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Maggie followed behind her mentor as fast as she could, trying to speak up about all of her concerns. “Oh this building might be unstable and maybe we should check for traps and gosh it’s dark in here maybe a light stone and oh no Ms. Juniper’s diaper is starting to expand… she needs a change!”
However, It was impossible to vocalize that through heavy breaths caused by running with her own very full padding. She followed about halfway up the stairs till she had to stop, brought down by her own lack of stamina. “I… I’m a scientist—huff—not a knight—hah huff—I can’t run this much!” Maggie whined. her leg muscles burned, and a need for water cried out in her throat.
Behind her, a low rumbling noise formed from nothing, progressively getting louder with each passing second. The darkness around her also receded a little. Maggie turned her head slowly, fear spreading through her as she realized something was happening. Like always she was nervous but genuine terror struck her when she thought about turning to see what might be causing the disturbance behind her.
The previously smooth stone wall had been marred. A spreading rift with wavering lines of purple energy at its edges replaced the rough-hewn stone. Maggie’s jaw fell open as she watched the gateway to somewhere unknown spread open wide, threatening to extend up toward her.
It stopped just before its width met the back end of her diaper, leaving Maggie to let out a sigh of relief. That sigh was stolen from her throat when she caught a view of something writhing beyond the view of the portal. A moment later a dark shape slithered forth, cradling the backside of her diaper. Tentacles started to creep forth from the confines of the dimensional doorway, extending toward Maggie and Juniper.
The blonde felt petrified, stuck in place while she watched the tentacles reach for her. "I shouldn't have looked back!" she thought, willing her body to jump into action. However, she couldn’t look away as the dark shapes started creeping up the back of her diaper either. It was as if she’d been hypnotized to remain in place. Only when another glow at the base of the tower lit the entire space could she look away from the grasping appendages.
Another portal split reality, opening into a yawning doorway beneath them that glimmered with the obscure starlight of another universe. Every one of Maggie’s muscles tensed at the sight, and her petrified fear ended as she watched something crawl from the rift in space.
Her previous inability to move was gone. Adrenaline flooded every muscle and sent her running up the stairs faster than she thought herself capable of.
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Juniper’s focus on the top of the tower kept her from seeing or hearing anything her assistant was experiencing until that same assistant leapt over her in a panic. Maggie’s massively hypermessed diaper flew above Juniper’s head, landing in front of her with a loud, wet thud before the person wearing it rushed forward, leaving the scientist in the dust with nothing but her confusion.
*BLLLLLAARRRRTTTT*
Juniper looked back, seeing what exactly had caused Maggie to rush away like a scared jackrabbit. Portals dotted the walls with tentacles emerging from each of them. The glowing openings all spiraled downwards, leading down to the largest one at the base of the tower.
From that specific portal came something vastly different than the grasping tentacles. It even looked vaguely human as it pulled itself from the depths of its dimension, but its shape flickered and twitched, unstable in its new environment. Whatever the creature was it was made of tentacles and darkness and corded metal, all of those things twisting and undulating horridly before collapsing onto themselves and reappearing.
*FLLLLAAAAAAARRRRRRTTTTT*
“Even as hungry as I am, I don't think I could eat that. Looks like he’d give me a stomach ache!” Juniper joked, using humor to mask a feeling that felt unique and new to her; fear. She turned her head back towards the ascending staircase, pumping her legs hard so she could match Maggie’s speed up the stairwell.
The scientist’s arms flailed, her legs swung and she closed her eyes with the expectation of the wind whipping past her face. She opened them to make sure she wasn’t running headlong into a stone wall. Juniper had done no such thing. In fact, she hadn't run anywhere.
Her diaper must have reached capacity while she had stopped climbing the stairs to look at the being below because it’d grown so packed with filth that it’d pushed her upwards, keeping the soles of her feet separated from the stone steps while it crinkled and spread its surface area along the steps. "Crap!" she cursed, "I didn't even notice!"
She was stuck and wouldn’t be able to shift the weight of her expanding padding down between her thighs before the twitching, shifting, writhing form or the tentacles from the portals reached her. Her mind worked fast for a solution, not willing to give into an impossible situation so quickly. From her position it looked hopeless until her eyes landed on a metal ring hanging from the top of the tower, bolted to the stone.
“MAGGIE!” Juniper called, catching her assistant’s nervous attention. “THE ROPE IN YOUR PACK, USE IT LIKE THE DRIDERS DID!”
She watched the blonde follow her gaze to the hanging iron ring, putting together the pieces for herself. She tied a weight to one end before flinging it through the ring. The end of the long rope whipped toward Juniper, coming perfectly in line with her hand. Her grip tightened, and a smile formed across the redheaded scientist’s face. Maggie held the other end of the rope tight, acting as a counterweight to her mentor.
Her diaper grew beneath her but she was running on a mostly empty stomach, only voiding the last of her rations from earlier today. Juniper had to believe her diaper wouldn’t grow past the size of Maggie’s in the next several seconds.
Taking that gamble and calculating her trajectory, Juniper jumped from the edge of the stairway, flying through the air freely. The wind whipped wildly through her hair and she hollered excitedly, angling the swinging bulk of her thoroughly soaked padding toward the creature pursuing her.
The hard-to-perceive being seemed to track her movements but didn’t move out of the way in time as she spun down towards it in a wide arc. The padding of her nappy landed against it with a sickening thump, squishing around its wavering form while threatening to swallow it. She hadn’t expected it to be so solid and for a moment Juniper wondered if her attack would even have the desired effect of knocking him back.
Just as hope was starting to thin, whatever the eldritch horror was bounced away from her diaper like the exterior was made of elastic, flinging it backward down the staircase and through the portal it’d opened in the ground. Juniper watched in satisfaction as the portal in the ground wavered, trembling before it blinked out of existence.
“Pull me up!” Juniper commanded, watching as the portals leading up to her and Maggie started to close one by one, following the example of the largest one. The scientist’s assistant hoisted her up to the top of the steps, leaving Juniper’s diaper to plop next to her on the staircase.
It seemed that safety was not yet guaranteed for the pair because the tower shook and rocked around them, its foundations struggling. “The Metaphysical weight of these portals is pulling at the tower!” Juniper yelled. “Quickly, into the laboratory!”
“What good will that do?” Maggie asked, panicking while she pulled at the redhead’s arm to help her towards the door.
“Most wizard labs are a pocket dimension. It’ll remain stable despite the tower collapsing!”
Though laborious the pair did manage their way through the door, their diapers scrunching to just barely make it through the threshold. Once through, Juniper slammed the wooden door shut behind them and the rumbling stopped.
A shared sigh of relief passed between the pair, with Juniper overcome by laughter moments later. Her joyous relief carried through the whole laboratory, threatening to shake the various beakers and bookshelves all around them.
She inched forward on her belly, dragging the massive hammerspace pamp behind her. Its size easily dwarfed her little legs, making walking normally a near-impossible prospect. She still couldn't get over the intense hunger in her stomach that caused it to pop and gurgle. Something on the shelf had to be helpful.
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Maggie watched with intense interest as Juniper dragged her body toward the shelf and pulled out several scrolls, unfurling them to read the spellcraft contained within. “Wh-What did you find Juniper?” she asked.
Her boss turned around with a wry smile and ravenous hunger tinted her eyes, making Maggie reconsider the question. She herself seemed possibly at risk for consumption, the realization of how long it’d been since Juniper hit her.
As she considered whether or not she’d be swallowed Juniper instead sparked the scroll, activating whatever spell was contained within. Like the ones on the wall outside the magical laboratory a portal opened on the paper, with tentacles bursting out suddenly. Unlike the walls Juniper was ready for them, unhinging her jaw above the portal and swallowing the tentacles that shot up into her mouth.
“Ugh finally!” Juniper groaned, “I was starving. Even you were starting to look tasty, thankfully there are plenty of scrolls here. I should be able to fill my stomach for a couple of days!”
Magdalene laughed nervously, rubbing her head. “Y-Yeah how terrible that’d be… being eaten by… you.” Her statement lacked conviction. Magdalene hoped her mentor hadn't noticed but she felt weirdly intrigued by the prospect. It was because she honestly wondered what it may have been like to be consumed by Juniper, how her tongue might feel, or the constriction of her stomach…
Maggie shook away a hard blush, bringing her focus back to the task at hand. Juniper needed to eat but she needed to find the second teleportation gem. Sure enough, it stood out plainly in the center of the tower’s alchemical table. She plucked it up and put it in her bag.
Juniper meanwhile summoned tentacled horror after tentacled horror, gorging herself on them in a moment of weakness. She didn’t even stop when Maggie brought over new padding for a change, only flipped onto her back.
“I think—*gulp*—we’ll stay here tonight and get a fresh start in the morning.” Juniper proclaimed in between bites while Maggie cleaned her. “Nothing safer than a nice little pocket dimension and I’ve got plenty of—*BBBUURRRRPP*—snacks.”
The bubbles produced by that burp had little stars in them.
Maggie nodded. She suspected the last leg of the journey would be the hardest anyway.
