4.19 –  Interlude – Taste


    Frowning, Sol studied the strange container. Waist high and four feet wide, the wooden chest radiated more essence than nearly anything she’d encountered thus far. She had suspicions what the box was. Though she’d been releasedte by Mother to explore this realm, this wasn’t the first shard Sol had ventured into. The third, to be specific.


    A loot chest. That was what the locals called them. The terminology took a few moments to ce, since sorting through alien lexicons and memories was no easy task, but the word did, eventually,e.


    But the energy was so much <em>stronger</em> than it should be. And … of a different vor. Sol had learned quickly that this shard was aberrant in some way, though she couldn’t ce how, yet, or why. To be fair, she’d been here a total of twenty minutes, if that. She was a studious worker, but even she couldn’t crack the mystery <em>that </em>fast.


    Pursing her lips—why did these alien reactionse so naturally?—she reached down and unsped the two securing switches, then flipped them open. The chest cracked, and she tugged the container open.


    A ck portal greeted her. The expected sight. But again … so much more potent of an energy radiated from it than the other shards she’d ventured. And that <em>smell</em>. Husky. Intense. Almost … carnal, in a way? It made her head spin just taking it in. And she hadn’t even <em>tasted </em>it yet.


    Yes, something odd was going on with this shard.


    Sol paused, looking up and to the left, idly, as she strained her senses. The simcrum—that slime girl—wasn’t nearby. She was safe to continue. She just had to make sure she didn’t be <em>too </em>distracted. Though sneaking up on her should be next to impossible, and Sol could simply rejoin the Passage, even if caught, Mother’s directive was to be subtle.


    Satisfied she had a moment to herself, she bent over and reached in. It took a few moments of grasping around in the cold liminal space before her fingers wrapped around an object. Soft. Flexible. Fabric?


    She pulled the item out.


    Immediately, she was hit by the smell. Not the human kind—a different type of perception her appropriated mind’s vocabry couldn’t fully exin. It reeked of that same energy the chest had, but condensed. That same intense, heady smell. Magic of a kind unlike the other shards she’d explored. Almost as if … influenced by another Prime? Most of this world smelled and tasted of—at a guess—some sort of god of order. Maybe. It was hard to tell. This, though. An equally potent power pervaded it, but definitely <em>not </em>of order. Or a mix of two?


    Was it proof? That multiple gods watched over this realm?


    Well, no. Beyond the realm’s clear abandonment, just because it <em>smelled </em>different didn’t mean it originated from a separate god. Still. It was perplexing. Unlike the previous shards, and, she suspected, unlike <em>most </em>shards.


    She inspected it in a more mundane manner. It was, indeed, fabric. Clothing of some kind. She narrowed her eyes, stretching the flimsy,cy piece of clothing.


    Panties?


    The word finally came.


    Er. An undergarment? Really? Sol paused as she rifled through her memories, but only became more confused. How odd. Why was <em>this </em>being produced by the shard? She’d thought these brutalbyrinths focused onbat-rted items.


    As with most of the items given through a loot chest, it was imbued with powerful workings. Some sort of magical effect, though Sol couldn’t begin to decipher it. Or them. Maybe there were a few.


    Keep them to study, or a quick snack?


    She briefly tried to convince herself to keep them around, but failed. As an item separate from the rest of the shard, the panties were a source of food that wouldn’t elerate the pocket dimension’s decay, as with Sol’s snacking on more direct mechanisms.


    Plus, she was curious what the carnal energy tasted like.


    Eating the physical object itself wasn’t necessary, but she did so anyways. The real energy came from the magic she broke down, then digested. But simpler to consume it in its entirety.


    And …


    Oh. Oh, wow.


    What <em>was </em>that feeling? She blinked as the energy coursed through her, but so <em>unlike </em>anything else she’d feasted on. Or, at least, more intense—she’d felt hints, earlier, of this sensation. And so <em>satiating</em>. So much more filling than anything else she’d eaten.


    She rubbed her knees together, a heat growing between her legs that thrilled in satisfaction. Her thoughts grew cloudy, head starting to spin. Her face burned.


    What was happening?


    What was that energy that she’d eaten, soparatively sparse in the rest of the shard?


    Moreover, what were these sensations?


    … lust?


    A hand quested out, sneaking down her clothing, burying into her panties. She found wetness, there, and the pressure of her fingers rubbing against lower lips thrilled through her, making her heart m in her chest.


    Lust. She knew what lust <em>was</em>, of course, being a primitive emotion found in nearly all higher-order creatures, but in her? Her people in general? The forms they took influenced them, but only to a minor extent. Most emotions were muted things. Hunger, the only that truly stood out.


    But this. This was so <em>intense. </em>Bad intense? Good intense?


    She plunged two fingers into herself, hand operating of its own ord—guided by a pulsing hot need somewhere below her stomach. She cried out, the sensation of being filled, even by two slim fingers, making her thoughts go white.


    Good intense.


    She fell, knees impacting hard stone, but the pain didn’t register. She worked two fingers in and out of herself, bulging her panties outward as her hand delved desperately. Her entire body shook as she pleasured herself.


    The artifact she’d eaten. Clearly, consuming its essence had done this to her. Even through the shaking waves of hot ecstasy that pulsed through her, Sol’s rational brain could deduce this. So. Carnal energy indeed—it wasn’t just the smell. A god of lust? Or some variation? But she hadn’t seen any <em>real </em>hints of that through this shard. Had she?


    Her thoughts were too fuzzy. She couldn’t sort this out, not right now. She bent over, pressing her forehead into the stone floor, two fingers still exploring herself rapidly. Clumsy, unexperienced motions, but intense enough to have her shaking.


    Masturbating. She found the word. Even lost to pleasure, Sol’s brain turned the idea over, fascinated. She was fucking herself. With her fingers. That was how the locals would put it. Her people weren’t, fundamentally, sexual creatures, and so Sol had little experience with this. Much less pleasure so <em>intense</em>.


    Groaning, the amplifying heat climbed, reaching a scorching peak that shocked Sol. She rolled over, pressing her back into the stone floor. She thrust her hips upward, straining her ass off the ground, and continued to rub, thrust, and curl with her fingers. She didn’t know what she was doing, but any motion, clumsy or not, was helping to work her higher and higher. She wanted more. Needed it.


    She squeezed her breasts, noting how her nipples had grown painfully erect from arousal, then cried out, closing her eyes. Her hips jerked up and down in little twitches, her body one taut muscle, as euphoria washed across her. Heat flooded her veins in a way she’d never experienced. The magma wiped away everything, including Sol’s always-churning curious mind. She basked in ecstasy, uncaring of the world around her, falling apart from the pleasure her fingers brought her.


    “Ha!”


    The noise, so unexpected, pierced the haze. Eyes shooting open—lower half still twitching as she pleasured herself—Sol’s head snapped to the left, where she saw an invader standing the doorway, having snuck up on her.


    A green slime girl, pointing at her, other hand on her hip, seeming supremely proud of herself.


    “I found you! I <em>knew </em>there was someone here.”


    Sol melded with the Passage, vanishing from the creature’s sight. The horror of being caught—failing in Mother’s primary, and near-singr requirement—washed away, in part, the arousal clouding her thoughts. Her body still twitched with aftershocks, but she pulled her hand, fingers wet from her excitement, out of herself, and went very, very still.


    Submerged so deeply in the Passage—almost to the point it began sucking her away, back home—she could barely make out her surroundings. The slime girl’s surprised words were dulled, distorted, like sounds heard underwater.


    “What? Where’d you go?”


    Home tugged at her soul, seeking to draw her from this world back to that dark, formless void her people had built their empire in. She took a metaphorical step forward, pulling away, melding closer to the other dimension. In her panic, she had dove too intensely—she steadied herself and adjusted her submersion to a reasonable amount. Enough to be hidden, but not be drawn away by the current.


    The stone walls, wooden chest, and slime girl came better into focus. Her words were more clear when she spoke next. Sol had missed part of what she’d been saying during the struggle to stabilize.


    “—could join me? It’s even more fun in pairs?”


    Hm? She tried to patch together the first half of the sentence, but failed.


    The slime girl waited, then at ack of response from Sol, pouted, shoulders slouching. She looked around the room one more time, realizing the futility of confronting Sol—probably not knowing whether she was even there, anymore—then left, defeated. As Sol had noted, even if she was caught by this creature, disappearing was simple.


    She couldn’t move while submerged into the Passage, even only a few steps in, but the slime girl didn’t know that. She had no clue she’d had a captive audience. Fortunate for Sol. The first time, when the girl had pled with her and asked what Sol was doing to her domain, she’d felt a squirming difort in her stomach. Shame. Absurd as it was. She didn’t want more of that.


    Now alone in the room, Sol looked down to see her legs were shaking. Even having … climaxed? … arousal pulsed through her. The effects of eating that strange energy persisted.


    And so <em>satiating</em>. So much more than it should have been. What did it mean?


    There were still so many things to discover about this ce. Sol was convinced, by this point, that she’d wandered into a highly aberrant shard. And the slime girl? Maybe Sol should study her. For that matter, the rest of the shard. The vines, especially, she was starting to think she’d overlooked. They’d shied form her previously, but Sol had a suspicion what their purpose was, now.


    And, of course, intended to confirm or deny it. What use was an untested hypothesis?