Pure Pond
#2 of The Vile
Sequel to Ravenous Rain
Leavold looked to the sky as she shouldered her pack. The heavens were clear, as they had been for weeks. Ever since her metamorphosis, the ravenous rain had moved on elsewhere to other parts of the world where humans, those unlike her, yet resided. The mage blinked and lowered her gaze downwards to her body. It still felt bizarre to think of herself as non-human, but she truly was. Though she had retained a humanoid shape and a still very human mind, her predominantly reptilian appearance as well as nonstandard features such as claws, a tail, a scaled hide, and a draconic muzzle ensured no would mistake her as human, herself included. Unfortunately, no one had been given a chance to evaluate her save for herself, for she had yet to come across any others thus far.
Leavold knew she could only blame her lack of human interaction on herself, aside from the obvious primary reason of the Vile. She had yet to journey far from her home mostly because she was more concerned with getting used to herself before exploring. She still wasn't comfortable with her altered form, especially her change in sex. She had thought that compared to the rest of the changes the addition of breasts and altered sexual equipment would seem unimportant, but it was still the alteration she got caught up the most in. She figured it was because the non-sexual changes were ones that she had adapted instinctively too, new habits that came naturally to her body's form and function. Her change in sex, however, required her to break old habits such as how she stood, sat, lay, postured, and changed what she wore.
At the moment she had on robes too large for her, garb that she had scavenged from her deceased peer Kala's belongings. Kala had been a bit overweight as many mages tended to be. This actually benefited Leavold more than she had expected, for it was far more comfortable to wear clothes too large than those too small as the rest of her fallen female peers' raiment had been. In addition, Leavold and Kala did share a common trait in that they both possessed a generous set of breasts. It wasn't something Leavold was particularly proud of, because she found them quite worthless thus far and never intended to make use of them if she could help it. Even then, she had them so she had adapted and come to wear some of Kala's clothing to keep them in place.
A gust of wind swept past Leavold, eliciting a shiver from the mage. She muttered a spell under her breath that warmed her immediate space. While the rain was gone, the weather had grown colder, a dry chill that would be difficult to live in if she hadn't forced adaptation upon herself. Still, she worried it might grow colder to the point that even magic would not be able to sustain her. That would be something she could document and worry about later, however. She had already wasted too much time in thoughts of the past and not of the present.
Leavold took a step forward and into her daily routine. She meandered on a patrol of sorts, a regular route she took everyday. She passed now familiar sight sand places in areas she would have feared to travel in prior to her transformation. Now, she walked with casual ease through a basilisk nest, nothing that the adult population had grown by one since yesterday, which meant that either an unfortunate human had stumbled across the basilisks or a basilisk had recently migrated. She hoped it was the latter. She also waded through poisoned water without the protection of any spells save for one to keep her dry. Lastly, she passed the remains of a broken village and the dead that stalked the area. They ignored her, of course, though she did not return the favor. A few aimed shocks of lightning and decisive swings of her sword ensured that many of the restless dead would have respite.
Usually Leavold would end her patrol after clearing the village the best she could. This time, however, she pushed forward beyond the last charted landmark on her map back at home. She followed the path that led into the village out for a bit, only deviating when she saw something off the side of the road that was strange indeed. Clustered in between two trees was a small body of water that looked surprisingly clear from a distance. She approached this pure pond carefully, noting that steam rolled off the water and into the air. When she stood before the pond, she bent down and looked into its depths. At the bottom of the pond lay a few rocks and a layer of fine silt. She stretched a clawed hand forward and hovered it above the water's surface. She dismissed her heating spell and marveled at how much warmth the water gave off. She pulled her arm back and looked left, then right, and finally returned her gaze back to the pond. What was a hot spring doing here? Actually, the real question was: how come the hot spring was uncontaminated by the Vile? She quickly probed the immediate area for any mystical influence, but there was none. Could this pond just be a fluke, somehow Viletouched despite the circumstances?
Leavold shivered as the last warmth of her spell faded away. Before she could recast it, a sudden thought came to her mind. Why not bathe in the waters and enjoy the warmth it provided? She wasn't sure how long it had been since she had properly bathed--survival had been a far more important priority--but she had an opportunity now. Why not take it? It seemed safe enough. The pond was clear and even sitting in it she could see clearly save where the trees cut off her line of sight. Still, she could just lean her head around in that case or even set up some magical alarm if she was that worried. And was she really worried? No.
The mage loosen the sash on her robe and threw off her robes to the ground. Still wearing her undergarments, she took a tentative step towards the pond. She dipped one clawed toe in and felt the water's pleasant warmth. Without another moment of hesitation, she sat down and gently lowered herself into the pond. The pond's shallow depths allowed her to sit comfortably against the side while stretching her legs almost to the bottom. The water's temperature was comfortably temperate, and she found herself unconsciously relaxing. She shrugged her tense shoulders and looked upwards. This time she found that there were clouds, large billowing shapes that did not look ready to storm. Leavold wondered whether it might snow soon. It would be an odd occurrence this early in the summer, but so was everything of the Vile.
As Leavold gave into the pool's tranquility, she lost track of her surroundings while her mind pondered the Vile. Before she had just been worried about surviving it. Now she meant to understand it. There had to be something somewhere that pointed to its origin or cause. Before that though, she thought it might be better to learn how to combat it further. The Vile could change--could those alterations be undone? She wasn't quite sure. She could conduct some trials on the basilisks, that is if they had been human once. Even if she was successful, the Vile could kill as easily as it could change. She often wondered what she would do if she came across a human. Wouldn't they have had to adapted in some way to survive? What wasn't to say they wouldn't be like her, fundamentally altered yet still themselves? It was not a thought she quite liked. She hoped at least some of humanity could survive unchanged. She had only adapted because she had no choice. To think that the only choice for all was disheartening. She would not let it be that way. She would find some way to combat the Vile, some way too--
Leavold felt sudden movement in the water. At first she thought it might be her tail that sometimes possessed a mind of its own, but then she saw something dart from out of the rocks at the bottom and into the shelter of another rock. She got to her feet and was already muttering a spell to conjure a bolt of lightning when she realized she didn't want to fry herself as well. Before she could think of another spell, the thing emerged from the rock and sped towards her. She barely caught sight of its diminutive, sleek shape before it flitted into her undergarments. She reached for her crotch and gasped in a mixture of pleasure and horror as the thing _entered_her, pressing past her sensitive sex. She had to suppress a moan as she felt it wriggle and worm its way up her vagina. Her inner walls clamped down on the intruder, but it fluttered through the tight passage with ease. The mage nearly doubled over at the sensual shockwave that coursed through her body when the writhing thing moved past her birthing canal and into a more fertile area. Then she felt no more movement within her sex, only a warmth within her womb similar to the heat provided by the water.
Leavold stared passed her breasts to her crotch and then quickly climbed out of the pond. In an instant she had torn off her soaked undergarments and was sitting on her rear and examining her sex. Her feminine lips were tight and slick and swollen, the first time she had ever seen them like that. It was also the first time she had been pleasured since she had become female and it had not even been her doing the pleasuring. She carefully touched a claw upon her clitoris and quickly withdrew her hand when an electric tingle ran through her sex. She ran the claw up to her lower abdomen close to where her womb was located. In only a minute the warmth had increased and...had her stomach started to swell if only slightly?
Leavold shook her head and stumbled to her feet. She quickly put her undershorts on again and then covered her body with her robe. Though she wasn't quite sure what had just happened, she had a suspicion that it was nothing good. She looked to the pond and found none of the small shapes. She had been a fool to enter the pool. Nothing so innocent could be safe. Yet, then what was safe? The Vile's dangers weren't always obvious, but this didn't seem like a Vile machination. Still, if the Vile was anything, it was versatile in an almost intelligent way. It seemed to have far too many ways to rid the world of humanity and anything in between and she was decidedly now something in between, a creature half-Vile yet still human. Despite how insane it sounded, could this pond have been placed there specifically for her?
The mage pushed this thought out of her mind. There was no time to worry about that now. At the moment she needed to focus on getting back home and figure out some way to cleanse her...insides of the things presence. There had to be a spell somewhere, somehow. Mages lived to learn how to solve problems, even the most impractical, with magic. Zelia, one of her more promiscuous peers, had slept with any other mage willing and she had never gotten pregnant. True, she might have been infertile but Leavold doubted it. She must have had a spell and Leavold had to find it. She just had to get home...
Leavold rushed back towards her home, taking a more direct route than her patrol had offered. At first she was able to run with ease, but her belly expanded and grew heavy with something as she traveled, restricting her to walking. By the time she was half a mile away form her home, Leavold could not deny being anything other than pregnant, though with what she didn't want to know. Her belly protruded far more than before and her breasts had swelled as well and become filled with an unfamiliar liquid that she guessed was milk. Her tight nipples ached with each step and soon she had a little relief as they dribbled and stained her robe.
The mage was greeted upon arrival at the gate to her home by the risen dead, her peers who kept returning to unlife even after she had destroyed them and buried them multiple times. They ignored her like the dead from before, which was fortunate given that she was not in prime condition to fight them. She waddled past the zombies and opened the gate with a whispered word. When she reached the entrance to her home, she staggered as she felt something move within her womb. Without even thinking she began to push with muscles she hadn't known existed, driving the object down her birthing canal. It took only a second for Leavold to understand that she was about to give birth, a concept so alien and impossible that it actually frightened her. Not only could she not believe the gestation period was so quick, but that she was going to have children in a matter of minutes was unthinkable. As a male and especially as a female as she was now, she had never thought to have offspring. Now the choice had been taken from her by whatever had violated her in the "pure" pond.
She hurried as quickly as she could past the door and through her home, momentarily coming to a halt when she had to consider where the best place to actually give birth was. Without another moment of hesitation, she took a left down the hall and opened the nearest door. She stepped into old Experimentation Room and fell against the wall just as she was pushing was nearly out.
Leavold quickly disrobed and winced with pain as something plopped out of her sex. A slimy egg rolled past her legs and stopped just a few inches south of her taloned feet. She stared in horror and fascination at the ovoid, unsure what to do. Then she looked down at her still swollen belly and knew the nightmare had yet to end. With a sob, she felt another egg move from her womb and down her birthing canal. Possessing no other choice, she pushed as best she could. This one came out easier than the first and she only had another moment's respite before the next was on its way.
She didn't know how long she was birthing, but she pushed the eggs out, one after the other, until nine of the slimy things laid before her. She let out a soft groan when she realized she was done. Her body felt sore in places she had never thought would be sore and she was exhausted, but she had done it. She had laid nine eggs and now what was she to do? Destroy them? See what was to emerge? As much as Leavold wanted to ponder the situation and make a decision, her body made one for her. Fatigued and faint, the mage faded into unconsciousness.
Leavold awoke to the strange feeling of simultaneous pain and release upon her chest. She blinked and looked groggily down to the area to find an impish winged lizard latched onto her left breast, its fangs drawing blood while it suckled milk. It stared up at her with beady yellow eyes, its body growing with mass each second. She looked past the feeding creature and to its kin that flew and flitted about the room. Nine eggs lay before her and their contents were free. There was eight other total and six of them were the same size, the other two small and runty. She glanced back down to the one suckling upon her breast and shuddered as it removed its mouth. It chittered and then jumped down from her. It lifted itself in the air with its wings and flew at one of its kin, tackling it and getting into a tussle. Leavold heard another chitter and watched as one of the runts approached her. She blinked again and then she realized the solution.
Before the runt could come any closer, she pointed a claw at it and uttered an invocation. Lightning sprang from her outstretched claw and struck the runt. The impish lizard squealed and exploded, splattering the walls and floor with its cooked flesh. The two tussling lizards halted their brawl to look up at Leavold just as she pointed at them and unleashed the same spell though with greater intensity. They too died with only a pathetic shriek and then Leavold was on her feet, gathering more arcane energy for future spells. The rest of the lizards scattered when they realized the mage's less than peaceful intentions.
She squashed the last runt underneath her talons and was able to incinerate one more of her offspring before the rest flew out the door. She rushed after them, sprinting naked and casting spells haphazardly as they flitted down the halls, uncaring when she damaged her own home. The mage was only able to zap one more of them before they flew out of her door and into the dark night sky. She attempted another spell, but it fizzled. Even if she wanted to cast more magic, she hadn't the energy to do so. She could only watch as the lizards flew into the dark, out of sight and out of range of the majority of her spells. She stood in the dark for a while and listened to their chittering. When she could hear them no longer, she shook her head and turned around. She stepped into her home and closed the door behind her.
For the next few minutes Leavold repaired the damage her erstwhile casting as best she could. Then she returned to the Experimentation Room and looked upon what remained of her birthing: cracked egg shells and the gore of her slain offspring. She thought of those that had escaped her wrath and hoped they did not find human prey. She had no doubt now that they and the thing that had violated her were of the Vile. It was disheartening for only a few hours ago she had thought herself immune to the Vile and its effects--what a fool she had been. She knew the Vile could kill, but she also knew it did far more than that. She had been used by the Vile as anyone might have if they had bathed in the pond, human or otherwise. She was not so invincible, and she could be a danger to others, a disheartening thought indeed. Who knew? She hadn't even had contact with another human. For all she knew, she herself was poisonous to others.
Again though, she had survived. She would adapt as before. She would keep more care and trust nothing, perhaps not even her own kin. She had to survive and more--thrive. Most of all, Leavold had to beat the Vile, not just for herself but for humanity. She could no longer stay so close to home if she wanted to discover its origin or purpose. She would need to travel far, beyond even the realm of the Iron God if she to.
But for now Leavold needed to rest. She was still exhausted from her birthing and expenditure of magical energy. Tomorrow was a new day, a time when she could do away with both the emotional shame and the physical evidence of it that lay in the Experimentation Room. Tomorrow she could reengage in her conflict with the Vile, one she intended to win for all.