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The blonde haired woman pressed the needle under the captive's fingernail, pushing it up and parting the nail from his finger. She watched with fascination as the shadow of the needle moved beneath the keratin, then she winced as the man’s muffled screaming reached a higher pitch, apparently she had scraped bone.

“Is that enough? I don't particularly want to keep doing this. It's such a chore.” 

She eyeballed the Halfling to her side who was crouching and inspecting the chair the man was manacled to, preventing him from moving an inch. The heavy wooden chair, more a throne, was carved with an occult jagged scripture, the lettering faintly glowing orange-red as though burning from the inside.

The Halfling flicked her eyes up to the blonde.

“No Bella. The gem needs to be darker.”

On the captives head was a steel circlet, embedded in the front of the circlet was a red ruby, or rather, what had been a red ruby. The ruby was slowly darkening, going from a ruby red to a blood red to a deep dark red closer to black.

Bella let out a sigh. “Why can’t anyone else do this? This really isn't my thing.”

“Because it’s your turn. Plus everyone else is still obliterated from all the mana cut opiates they were messing around with late last night. If you can wake any of them up and get them to do this for you feel free.”

“What about you?”

The Halfling grinned showing off her gold tooth. “I already did it a lot. Like a lot a lot. But Bane wants all his girls to get familiar with doing this, it’s kinda his thing. You’ll end up enjoying it though, it’s like a game to see who can get the most out of the subject.”

She scowled. “Fine. Let’s get this over with. What's the next step?”

“The needle in his neck, see if you can’t get it in a little further, be careful, but make it as painful for him as possible.”

Bella reached out and her fingers touched upon the fat steel needle inserted in the man’s neck, more a knitting needle than a sewing needle it was so large. The man tried to shake his head but the steel clamps held him still, his eyes wide and terrified, his nose flaring as sweat rolled down his heated skin. 

She glanced at him and rolled her eyes. “Oh don’t give me that look. If you wanted to avoid this fate you shouldn't have tried to cheat the Ranker. You only have yourself to blame.”

Returning her attention she gripped the needle and began to slowly push it into his neck. The man screamed around his gag. The motion of his scream caused him to move slightly and that in turn caused the needle inside his neck to tear his flesh. He screamed some more.

“Yeah, this is good, the ruby is going fast now. You might have a knack for this you know.”

Bella tweaked the needle causing the man to jerk and twitch in agony.

“You really think so? I know Bane likes it when he gets a good ruby! Gosh, I could show him this myself!” said Bella, sparkly eyed.

The Halfling gave her a flat look and muttered under her breath. “I do feel sorry for the village robbed of its idiot sometimes.”  

“Huh?”

“...Nothing.”

Bella focused back on the man and stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth, concentrating hard as she wiggled the needle deeper and deeper into his flesh.

“Girls,” came a harsh voice.

She yelped in surprise and her hand jerked, the needle went somewhere it wasn't supposed to and blood began pouring from around the man’s gag.

“Oh fuck! Oh shit!”

“What have you done! godsdamn it! We could have gotten it so much darker before he popped his clogs!” cried the Halfling.

The person with the harsh voice stepped into the room, a severe looking female Elf wearing close fitting all blacks. A close lidded third eye was centered in her forehead suggesting that she was not quite all Elf.

“Congratulations on killing your first. A little premature but not bad for a newcomer judging by that ruby.”

Bella turned to the Elf. “It’s still good?”

“You show some promise, perhaps you will be able to help Bane with other more important issues.”

Bella gasped and looked almost giddy at the suggestion.

The Halfling scowled. “Naw, she’s a ways off from that.”

The Elf sniffed, looking down her nose at the Halfling distastefully. “Perhaps. In any case that Is not why I am here.”

“Oh?” said Bella as the man in the chair let out a grizzly death rattle and expired. She carefully ignored that.

“Something triggered the proximity enchantment.”

The Halfling stood up on the arm of the chair and plucked the now vanta black ruby from the circlet. She pocketed it and jumped down, heading toward the door the Elf stood in as Bella followed.

“And that matters why? It’s probably just a bear again, they’ve been getting lively as of late, it is the middle of summer after all.”

“It matters because Bane isn't here and there's an aggressive Orc clan in the area.”

“And?”

“Let me boil it down for you: being successfully raided by Orcs would be very bad and Bane would be very very angry and likely take it out on us. Do you want to anger Bane?”

The Halfling froze up for a second and hunched her shoulders. “No. Okay fine, I still think it’s a bear though.”

The Halfling and Elf left the torture chamber and passed into the main lobby of the mansion, a huge room full of cushioned furniture. Two skinny cat-eared Humans were lazing on a couch, one with her hand down the other's pants, the one below squirmed under her ministrations. The Halfling and the Elf paid them no attention.

“Well, even if something is close to the mansion it’s no big deal.”

The Halfling stepped over to one of the drinks cabinets and began pouring herself a drink. She had to reach up awkwardly to do so due to her height.

“Why is it no big deal?” said Bella.

“Because they won’t be able to get through the front gate.”

The horrendous screech of iron being torn apart suddenly ripped through the air emanating from outside. 

The two girls on the couch who had been all over each other flinched and pulled apart, staring wide eyed in the direction the sound had come from.

The Halfling paused and slowly turned toward the front door. “Was that…?”

“Uhm, I think that was the front gate,” said Bella, her voice increasingly nervous and on edge. The Halfling and the Human gave each other wary looks.

“You don’t think it actually is the Orc clan?”

The Elf frowned. “You really need to start listening to me. If it is anything it’s going to be that.”

“But there’s just no way, they’d never be brazen enough to attack the Ranker’s mansion like this.”

“Yes, they would, you don’t know Orcs, they’d see us as a challenge to be conquered.”

“Well they picked a pretty time for it with Bane being away. Fuck.”

“It’s... manageable. In the end we can deal with Orcs, we have a lot of magic between us, and we only need to keep them off until the others can be woken.”

BOOM.

The double front doors shuddered as though they had been hit by a massive battering ram and thin streamers of dust rolled from the ceiling shaken loose by the impact. A large floating transparent azure rune flickered to life over the door along with a transparent field, the mansion's main barrier designed to prevent entry. A low heavy rumbling snarl came from behind the door that seemed to vibrate through the ground. The dust suspended in the air rippled as the sound passed by.

“Uhhh, what the hell was that?” said the Halfling.

“A really angry Orc?”

“What Orc makes a sound like that?? I was right, it has to be a bear.”

“I know of no surface bear capable of breaking through a solid iron gate. It will be a leveler of some kind, most likely an Orc, albeit a very angry one.”

The Elf began kicking over tables and pushing them toward the door, creating obstacles.

“Wha- why are you doing that? The barrier isn’t going to break.”

“They may have a shaman if it is Orcs, in which case the enchantment may be partially unravelled. Prepare yourselves.”

The women readied, the two cat-eared Humans pulling out longswords while the Halfling cracked her knuckles. Bella pulled out a knife and held it anxiously in both hands.

“If it’s not a shaman it's fine, the barrier will hold, it is rated for physical attacks.”

BOOM.

The door bulged inward as a room shuddering force hit it, the glowing barrier over the door flickered and strained under the impact. One of the girls nearly lost her balance as the whole building quaked. Anything loose on any of the table tops was knocked off or sent rolling. The magical lights that lit the room flickered and began to die as the barrier drew in mana from the entire mansion to maintain itself.

“An Orc shaman brute forcing it with kinetic spells m-maybe?”

“What the hell kind of shaman can do that?!”

The Elf was starting to look a little less confident in the barrier.

BOOM-CRASH!

The wood of the door started to disintegrate as it bulged inward, only being held together by the straining barrier. As shards of wood fell away a massive shadow became visible behind the gaps.

“That’s no Orc, what the fuck is that!?”

“M-monster! It’s a Monster!” cried out one of the cat eared girls.

A muzzle full of large terrifying teeth pushed through one of the gaps in the door, its nose pressing up against the barrier, its yellow eyes faintly luminous as it stared at the group. Then it began to push forward, forcing its way through with sheer impossible brute strength. The barrier stretched around its head even as a massive clawed paw pushed through another part of the door and began pushing out the barrier there too. 

“It’s j-just a monster, it can’t break it, it’s impossible!” wailed Bella.

“You really believe that!?”

The transparent field flickered and strained and flashed under the insane pressure, stretching in a way it was not meant to be stretched until with a thunder clap the barrier broke. 

The group screamed as the huge nightmarish thing broke into the room, nothing at all between them and its violent savagery. They unleashed everything they had. The room exploded with popping flaring magic, lances of ice and violet fire and spinning discs of darkness and neon lightning, a veritable broadside barrage of magic.

The lobby was filled with thick smoke and the acrid stench of burning wood by the end of it. The group peered through the opaque haze as it gradually dissipated, the dark room dimly lit by the wreaths of magic around the cat-eared girl’s longswords. There was nothing left of the monster, only one of the damaged doors… one of the damaged doors standing where the monster had been.

“Oh fuck.”

The wolf thing launched the door it had used as a shield forward and it hit the three eyed Elf full on, knocking her off her feet.

The claws on the monster's feet tore up the floorboards as it exploded forward in the door’s wake, charging straight toward the nearest leveler, one of the cat eared humans. Her face was a picture of terror as the black furred monster landed on her, smashing her to the ground. Its jaws came down on her entire head and ripped it from her torso in a fountain of gore sending copious amounts of blood spraying over the furniture.

“F-fucking kill it! KILL IT!” screamed the Halfling.

The Elf with the third eye scrambled to her feet and turned on the monster, thrusting out her palms. The eye on her forehead flashed bright and cracked open and a bright violet glow emanated from it that wisped yellow, reminiscent of a Gazer. A beam of light burst from the eye, a pulsating solar line of fire that burned through the air lighting up the poorly lit room. The thing leapt to the side as the beam struck but it still glanced across its stomach eliciting an angry growl and burning away a line of fur.

It bounded forward and grabbed a couch, throwing it at the Elf even as it scooped up the table next to it to use as a shield. The Elf dodged easily and the beam of light continued to follow, rolling across the room and scoring black flaming marks on every surface.

The remaining cat eared girl ran and leapt from a chair going flying into the air, her longsword crackling with electricity swinging over her shoulder as she spun acrobatically toward the beast. This would be easy, monsters made poor judges of just how dangerous her weapon was, her blade swung down like a guillotine, eager to part the beast’s head from its body.

At the last possible moment the wolf thing stopped and torqued its hips, swinging the table in its paws around like an immense bat. The corner of it took the leaping leveler in the side, her ribs caved under the brutal body blow and she was tossed across the room with a scream abruptly cutoff by slamming into the wall. 

The Elf took the opportunity and whipped her beam toward the unshielded beast, she smiled, this was it, she had it. Bane would be angry about what had been done to the mansion but he would appreciate her kill, yes this could come out in her favour and the rest of the harem’s disfavour. She snorted contemptuously as the light hit home and the beast roared in agony. With each second the beam touched its body the monster became more and more paralysed, unable to move or escape as the beam slowly burned its way inward. This was what made her so dangerous, she was inescapable once locked on, nothing survived, she was one of Bane’s favourites for a reason!

“Hah! Patheti-”

A steel blade stabbed her in the back and she stumbled forward, the beam going wide, zig-zagging wildly up the wall.

“Get fucked Elfy!” came a voice behind as she caught a flash of green out of the corner of her eye.

Gritting her teeth against the pain she turned her attention back to the main threat. Unfortunately for her it seemed to have known that the backstab was coming and the monster was in the middle of hurtling toward her. She panicked and fumbled her aim, desperately trying to realign her beam toward the black meteor, but it was all simply too late. It crashed into her full bodied and she was blown off her feet. She landed on the couch behind her, the monster coming with her, her beam flickering on and off before dying, plunging the room into darkness.

She could feel the weight of the monster on top of her making it difficult to breathe, its hot breath on her face, tugging at her hair.

“I don’t know how you lived with yourself, being with the Ranker,” it graveled. She could feel its heavy bass voice vibrating through her body.

She blinked, this monster could speak?... Well, why not, it didn’t matter anymore.

“...It was easy, I loved every minute of it. Someday I would have out leveled him and made him mine alone but being with him had plenty of benefits in the meantime.”

“Despite who he is? What he does?”

She grinned fiercely.

“That was the best part, that and the money, and fame, and levels, and power. You will never understand, as sub-sapient monster filth.”

It remained silent as if studying her, then, without hesitation, the beast sunk its teeth into her neck and tore out her throat.

The Elf died and the room became dark and quiet.

And then, light flickered. The mana powered lights of the mansion struggling to dimly illuminate. Flickering light separated by pitch black seconds.

A massive shadow could be seen in those fractional moments of light. Each time the light flickered back on it had moved. 

Bella clutched the knife to her chest wide eyed, her breath coming in short pants. She huddled behind the desk, knees drawn close. She hadn’t signed up for this! She just wanted to fuck the hot high leveled Ranker and potentially get some nice levels and money as an aside. This, this wasn't supposed to go like this! Some terrifying thing was in the room with her, the kind of monster she heard stories about as a child, from the deepest darkest unfathomable depths of a dungeon, the kind of dark horror that levelers only spoke of in hushed whispers!

The floorboards creaked beneath its broad heavy foot pads. It was drawing closer. It was coming in this direction! She stilled her body and held her breath, desperately trying to avoid being found.

Quiet.

Creaaak.

Trembling, she slowly turned her head. A pair of large yellow eyes were looking right at her from the dark. Her skin crawled as though it wanted to rip from her bones and flee where those terrible eyes could not follow. She screamed and stabbed wildly with her dagger. A huge paw came up and caught the blade, the knife slipping a little into the pad, but not far. The huge digits curled around her hand, engulfing it.

“P-please! Don’t kill me!” she sobbed, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

“...Why?” It growled. 

It was asking why?? Could she maybe talk her way out of this??

“I’m- I’m really new! I only recently came to this town unlike the others, I don’t know what's going on, I’ve never done anything wrong! I’m completely innocent! S-spare me! I’ll do anything, anything!”

She waited, her thoughts going a million miles a minute. The monster seemed to be thinking, considering.

It shifted.

Then a voice came from behind her.

“Torturers aren’t innocent, especially an apple polishing bitch like you.”

The vrsssh sound of magic exploding from a palm rent the air and Bella only had a moment to realise what was about to happen, far too little time to do anything about it. The yellow eyes were already gone. A wide black cutting disc crossed her gaze… below her. Now she was falling, she looked as the light flickered, not fully understanding. Her hips and legs were beside her… she was separate, cut in two, bisected at the navel. Her trembling hands touched at the warm mass that was her guts slowly spilling across the floorboards. Everything was going fuzzy, but strangely she wasn't panicking, just confused, why was this happening? It didn't make sense, it was just nonsensical. Things were getting cold now, and she felt so weak. Bella felt herself slipping away but she didn't understand, she wasn’t like the man she had killed, she was different, special, She couldn't just die, she couldn’t. She was utterly convinced of this even as consciousness left her and her chest stopped moving.

The room was dark and quiet once more.

“Tch. Missed,” said the Halfling from the shadows.

“You killed your ally just to get to me? You didn't need to do that. No wonder the Ranker keeps you about, you’re as twisted and awful as he is.”

“Nearly worked, didn't it? Fuck her. Tell me who you belong to monster, whose slave are you? Who put you here? The Orcs?”

It huffed air out its nose.“I belong to nobody, I do whatever I want.”

“Hah! Good joke. It doesn't matter, the Ranker cannot be defied or resisted, he’s far far too strong. Once he returns he will hunt down whoever sent you and make them wish they’d never been born.”

 

“He already did that, a lifetime ago.”

“Hmph, nonsense. You have no idea of what he is really capable of. Now be a good monster and die for my levels.”

A cacophony of Vrsssh-ing sounds filled the air as disks of darkness were shot out blindly. The Halfling turned on her heel as she fired the last and fled from the lobby, slamming the door behind her. She thundered down the hall as fast as her small legs could carry her. Behind her the door exploded into splinters and the hall was filled with the monster as it chased after her.

The Halfling dove down a side corridor, up some stairs, then left, then right, using her memory of the interior to keep ahead and navigate the darkness. At last she found what she was looking for and burst through the door. A large master bedroom was revealed, the center of which was filled with a vast and heavy oak bed, big enough for the Ranker’s bulk and all his girls. The flickering light revealed over a half dozen people of various species on the bed all sleeping extremely deeply, the result of all they'd imbibed last night. The Halfling sent a quick thankyou to the gods for having chosen to skip that particular party.

The creaking of floorboards was approaching so she dove beneath the bed, wiggling and crawling until she was near the center and on her back, the heavy crossbeams of the bed above her.

She calmed her breathing as best she could and waited. 

The door swung open with a creak and a heavy foot pad came down in the room, then another, the Halfling listened carefully as the monster drew near. It paused for a moment observing the bed, then the bed creaked and groaned as a new huge weight crawled on top of it, the wood bending alarmingly beneath the burden.

She heard the questioning murmured sigh of one of the girls, apparently not all of them were completely out of it.

The murmured sigh choked off as a pair of jaws moved in the dark.

The Halfling bit her lip. This dangerous monster had perfectly taken the bait. She had problems with aiming her cutting discs, but this, this would be like shooting fish in a barrel. She spread her arms and legs and centered her core. She could hear the monster above, moving across the bed… Now.

Black discs exploded up from all over her body, they penetrated the wood above her, ripping through it, up through the bed, up through the pile of women sleeping above her, tearing slicing shredding.

The Halfling stared wide eyed at the bottom of the bed above her. Many long dark slots in the wood were now patterned across it. As she watched blood began to drip and then after a moment pour and then waterfall from the slots, falling across her body and the floorboards.

A cruel smile curled her lips, her gold tooth glinting in the dark. She’d done it. She’d killed the monster and somehow Bane would be all hers... Wait, shouldn't she have leveled up from a really strong monster like this? Maybe it wasn’t as strong as she had assumed?

Her train of thought was suddenly derailed by the groaning shriek of wood failing under load.

Her eyes widened in horror as above her the bed collapsed, the heavy crossbeams plus the pile of diced people atop it falling on the Halfling. She might have survived, but then one of the beams landed on her throat, cutting off her breathing and pinning her in place. Her eyes bulged out as she realised just how trapped she was. She scrabbled at the wood in panicked desperation, her fingernails scoring long lines, but nothing she did could move it with so much weight on top. 

As she ran out of air and everything started to slip away she heard the floorboards creak with the sound of heavy pads.