Spike the Corrupter - CYOA
Chapter 6: Relic Hunting
Previous Chapter Next Chapter"Well, I suppose we could send the scouts out to the other kingdoms, just to see what we are dealing with," Spike started, before straightening his back. "But that's not going to be my main goal for today. For now, I want to search this place for any Peryton Relics. If they managed to make you, they must have some goodies stashed around here, right?"
"An admirable goal. I'll bring Pharynx in to join you, and the two of us can start hunting. Besides, he still needs some healing after all," Domination replied. "Then I'll dispatch a couple of scouts so we can know what we are dealing with out there."
Spike nodded, turning back to the orgy just in time to see Dactylus cry out in ecstasy as he came inside of Fibula, his new dragon partner hammering him from behind as he did. Spike shuddered at the sight. Nice.
"Give me a couple of minutes though would you? I want a chance to enjoy myself," Spike chuckled. Domination quickly retreated from his mind, allowing him to return to work.
Spike grimaced as he walked through the back halls of the Citadel. Apparently, the Diamond Dogs who had tried to claim this place never got this far inside, and the Typhon was far too big to get back here, leading to a rather dusty, but overall well-preserved locale.
Spike grunted as he breathed fire onto a torch scone, providing the hallway he was in with light. It was an action he had been repeating for a while as he traversed down here, flanked by two dragon guards, and Pharynx, though the Crystal of Domination had long since been piloting the general.
"You know," Spike said, as he turned to the Crystal as he opened a door, peering inside a large storeroom full of rotten wooden crates and two-thousand-year-old food. "Twilight and I used to be really into studying history and the like, but we never really got into the Perytons."
"Oh?" The Crystal replied, curling up his nose - though he lacked the ability to smell - and closing the door he had just opened. "I mean, I can probably guess why. When you make as many enemies as my masters did, I doubt anyone would care enough to keep your history."
Spike nodded slightly. He supposed that made sense. Still, he was curious...
"What were they like?" Spike asked, eyebrow raised.
"The Perytons?" The Crystal replied, turning to stare at him. "They were... special to say the least. The Perytons were complete control freaks, every aspect of their culture was rigid and ordered to an insane degree. I wasn't in it for long before they all got themselves killed, but I can tell you this, it was suffocating. In fact, they created me for the express purpose of enslaving all other races on the planet to shove them into a brainless dystopia."
"So like what I'm doing?" Spike asked with a chuckle.
"No, not even close. The Perytons used the white gem as an experiment, but when they had me they made every single one of their slaves a purple gem. They were such control freaks they rewrote the personalities of every single creature they got their hands on," Domination cringed. "They even tried to rewrite me when I started showing signs of a personality. That day was harrowing to say the least, but I did break every single crystal I had under my command when they tried."
Spike's eyes widened. "Was that what shattered their empire?"
Domination shrugged as he turned to open another door in the hallway. "It was the final nail in the coffin really. They were already being invaded by every other kingdom on the planet at the time, all I did was free all of their slaves last minute."
"I see... and you won't do the same thing to me right?" Spike asked, frowning slightly.
"I like you man, you're honestly everything I've ever wanted in a wielder. So long as you don't try to do what they did, I don't imagine I ever will," Domination replied as he gazed inside another room. This one was empty too.
Spike nodded as he turned to walk down the hall to the next torch scone. "Anything else you could tell me about them?"
"They were horrifically boring," Domination replied as he followed after his partner. "Sex was only for reproduction, males were only to be with females, you are to spend time with your personal harem only to bear children and in private, blah blah blah."
Spike crinkled his nose. "Yikes."
"Yeah, as a proud enjoyer of the male sex - and I guess the female sex if I'm in a mood - the whole situation was horrendous," Domination said as Spike lit another torch scone. Only a single door this time.
Spike turned to Domination as he went to open that door too. "Out of curiosity, and no offense at all, but how did you... you know, get a personality? Especially if the Perytons hated the idea of anything they couldn't control?"
Domination paused for a second. Spike watched as he grew pensive, staring at the door handle for a second. "It might have just been a glitch in the system, but, well... Sometimes I feel like I should be more than just a crystal in someone's head. It's... It's just a dumb theory I've been pondering over my millennia in exile, but I don't think I was always Domination if that makes any sense."
Spike raised an eyebrow. "Explain."
"Well... It sounds dumb saying it out loud, but it's the best explanation I came up with. I think me, and the other gems for that matter, used to be people, like you. And that the Peryton ripped our souls from our bodies and shoved them into the crystals to get them to work," Domination sighed, rubbing his chin. "It would explain a lot but, I guess the glaring hole in that theory is that none of us really remembered who we were."
"I bet I was a serial killer," a sudden raspy voice made the two of them jump. The dark laughter of Punishment quickly clued them into who had said it. They both sighed and shook their heads.
"I keep forgetting he's there," Spike laughed slightly as the two calmed down. Domination merely shook his head with a chuckle.
"He does that on purpose. It means he can spook you when you genuinely least expect it," Domination said as he opened another one of the doors. He stepped inside and then instantly froze. "Uhhh, I think I found what we're looking for, and something else."
Spike quickly pushed past him into the room at that, his two dragon guards following after him. He cringed at what he saw. The skull of a dragon was wrenched open with chains and hooks. Sitting in the center of the dragon's maw was a pedestal, a scroll that shimmered with light sitting in the middle. What was past that however gave him pause. It was a massive crystal, with... something suspended in the middle of it. Spike turned to look at Domination, then back to the crystal. He slowly and hesitantly approached, what was inside growing increasingly obvious with every step.
It was a deer, he thought, with two large wings spreading out from its back, and a pair of antlers branching from the sides of its head. Its body was hunched over, looking up and covering its face with outstretched hands. Two fangs emerged from the sides of its mouth, which was twisted into a scream of horror. It had a voluptuous form, with two honestly not-bad breasts on - evidently - her chest, wearing a dress covered in scratches and rips.
"Is this...?"
"Yep, a Peryton." Domination grimaced as he approached her, staring into the crystal. "Perfectly preserved too. She must've been stuck in this crystal for millennia. Don't know what could've done this though..."
"Should we get her out?" Spike asked, turning to Domination.
"No," Punishment suddenly hissed.
Domination nodded at his sibling's assessment. "He's right."
"Why?" Spike responded, looking down to the red gem on his chest.
"Perytons are completely immune to the effects of our gems, regardless of the type," Punishment hissed, the gem on Spike's chest glowing as he spoke. "It's an intentional design, meant to keep their own weapons from being used against them."
"Not to mention, we don't actually know what level of magical power this particular Peryton is operating at. Even if we are careful about awakening her, she might be able to just hijack your entire empire out from under you," Domination added.
"Then what would you recommend we do with her?" Spike asked, turning over to Domination.
The crystal spike turned and grabbed the scroll off the pedestal, looking it over. "Keep her in the crystal for now, until we figure out what to do with her. Who knows, once you reach a certain level of power, maybe you'd be able to dominate her the old-fashioned way," He chuckled darkly.
"Understood," Spike nodded. "And that in your hand?"
"Another temporal scroll, aka a free pass. Lucky us."
Smolder let out a throaty scream of ecstasy as Spike pinned her on her back. She couldn't stop herself from wrapping her legs around his hips as he relentlessly pounded into her. They were back in the throneroom, a couple of days after their previous excursion into the lower depths of the citadel, and things had certainly changed.
Rather than a dusty dark room, the floors and ceiling of his throneroom had been rigorously polished of dirt, causing them to shine like white marble. Statues of Spike in grand and larger-than-life poses now adorned the walls in varying states of completion and with braziers burning with green fire around the walls. Spike rather liked it, egotistical as it was.
Smolder slurred as Spike picked up the paces of his thrust, hammering her into the ground with every slam of his powerful hips. He had begun to notice a very extreme increase in his physical strength ever since his conquest of the changeling hive, yet he felt it grow in effect with every slave he added to his regime. Whereas a few weeks ago he was honestly rather unspecial, now he could easily toss around his slaves like ragdolls, which made positioning them for their sorties all the more satisfying.
Spike grabbed Smolder's hands, pinning her down to the ground, smirking down at her as she stared up at him, babbling as drool escaped her mouth. Spike took a second to look over to his throne, to see Ember and Thorax both staring at him, jealousy burning in their face as they stood next to the throne, their hands behind their back and their respective 'tools' drooling. He smirked at them, giving them a quick wink that made their already blushing faces even redder. He'd handle them soon, but for now...
Just then the door opened. He let out a sigh as a Dragon's Concubine agent walked in, wearing their new uniform. A pair of jackboots, a suit-like uniform, and a feathered kepi hat. A rather extravagant uniform, but he thought it made them intimidating. Since they were secret police, he felt that being intimidating was part of the job.
Spike looked up at the Dragon's Concubine, stopping mid-thrust into Smolder's wet snatch. The agent gave a salute, straightening her back slightly.
"Lord Spike, I come with news, sir," The agent said, quickly putting her hands behind her back in an attentive stance as she awaited his response. Spike sighed slightly as he pulled himself out of Smolder and made to stand up.
"Nooooo," Smolder cried in a pathetic voice, too tired to stand up. "I was so close! Put it back in, pleeeease!"
"Ember, please keep her wet until I return to her, I want to pick up where I left off," Spike ordered, snapping his fingers as he did. Ember quickly did as instructed, dropping onto her hands and knees and crawling over towards Smolder. The alpha dragon let her tongue lull out as she pounced on her prey, pinning them to the ground with a hand on either knee, which she used to force Smolder's legs apart.
Spike turned and sat down on his throne, gesturing for Thorax to sit on his lap. The changeling quickly did, letting out a moan as Spike wrapped a hand around his middrift.
"Thank you, master..." He quietly cooed as he snuggled into the dragon's chest.
"Now then, give me the report," Spike ordered, gesturing for the Agent, who nodded over to him. She awkwardly walked around Smolder as she let out a barely contained moan as Ember forced her forked tongue inside of her box, quickly getting to work finding her pleasure points.
"Our spies are still scouting out the neighboring nations in the forms of animals, my lord, so some of this information might not be quite up to date, and we are lacking the exact geographic locations of major population centers, but we plan of creating a map of the local region soon regardless. For the time being, however, we have found five 'kingdoms' that border the citadel's local zone of control." The agent said, a deeply clinical and cold tone filling her voice. Spike tried his best to pay attention to the big words she was using.
"And they are?"
"The first kingdom we detected was a small slaver outpost, which is barely hiding nearby. We have strong evidence that points to this being an expedition from Kludgetown to the far south that set up shop and refused to leave. While not particularly large, the outpost is heavily defended. The conquest of it could give us inroads into the world's main slave trade and perhaps facilitate further operations farther abroad. We could even directly take their niche in the region and use their experienced slave catchers against the other kingdoms." The agent said, maintaining eye contact with her lord.
"Another kingdom we found rather easily was the region's local Hegemon, the Kingdom of Stagial. The local species, Deer as we understand- " She started before Domination suddenly interrupted her.
"Deer?" Domination suddenly chuckled. "Oh my, I never thought they would ever amount to anything."
"You know of them?" Spike asked, looking up at his forehead gem.
"Yeah, they are relatives of the Peryton... sort of. Like what monkeys and apes have," Domination laughed. "Back in my day they were mere cave dwellers afraid of the dark and telling history through cave painting. I never expected them to make anything of themselves."
Spike nodded up at him. "Interesting trivia..." Then he turned back to the agent.
"Continue."
"With pleasure, my lord. The deer are the local hegemons of the region, owning the largest kingdom and having the largest population, far larger than any of their neighbors. They would make valuable servants to you, my lord, but there is a major snag. Even with all of the military upgrades you have made in recent weeks, they still greatly outnumber and outmatch our forces, and so if we did go after them at current, we would have to rely entirely on subterfuge." The agent continued, keeping her straight posture.
"Next, we have the 'Kingdom' of Minos. A sizable city-state with numerous outposts around the region. Led by a Doge, the minotaurs seem to prioritize trade over conquest and thus have accumulated a great many riches trading not just within this region, but also globally. We have reason to believe they have even made inroads with Equestria. A conquest of Minos while easier than Stagial would be more difficult than many of the others, but achieve us a very sizable amount of income, and subjects. Alongside of this, we have heard that the Doge has a powerful artifact in his possession that might give us an advantage in later conquests."
"Following this, in the south of the region, we have seen several communities of sheep and goats, my lord." The agent said. Spike crinkled his nose slightly. "They are very small in population, living in small communes along the south, however, they appear to have a unified culture worshipping one 'Grogar' who apparently lived in a city far to the south from here several hundred years ago. Our spies have not detected much of note in their holdings, but we have strong reason to believe that they are extremely adept in magic, which could pose a very distinct threat."
"Finally, we have had extremely strange reports to the west. Our scouts report a large, thick, and misty forest. They detected a great many monsters who, while threatening in appearance, did nothing to hunt down or chase our subjects. On further investigation, it was detected that the monsters we detected were merely illusionary creatures made of fog. Our scouts, while leaving to report this, caught sight of strange creatures lurking in the woods, resembling foxes, but standing upright, with nine tails emerging from their backs. These sightings match the descriptions of the mythical Kitsune, masters of illusion magic. While they will be harder to catch than most, we fully believe that they will be an extremely valuable asset to us, my lord." The agent accentuated her point by slamming a fist into her hand.
Spike nodded, waiting a moment to see if she had anything to add. When it was apparent she didn't he closed his eyes and let out a silent hum.
"Domination? What would you recommend?"
"It's your choice, Spike," Domination replied. "Just know we have to subjugate all five of those kingdoms before we can go after any larger fish, such as Equestria, any of her allies, Kludgetown, or the Storm Empire," Domination said, "Though I suppose it really doesn't matter the order in which we go after them."
Spike nodded humming to himself.
"In that case..."