Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

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ANOTHER SLOW MONTH in that dastardly place passed Rafel. Like the annoying dust-drops of a hourglass in a Greenhouse. The prison keepers were not in the least amicable to his condition. He guessed they were payed to be just that—cruel.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

He also guessed they were mercs from outside the capital. In the few times their tin-can heads had strolled by his dungeon irons, he'd heard them speak in the foreign tongue of the other southern realms; not Rocasus to the west. Their accents were distinctly garish, their ways vulgar—Rafel had spotted one hefty bodyguard scratching under his armor at his crotch.

Clearly, these hired hands were not used to the proud Eldoria red-and-gold bodysuits. But Lilith payed handsomely, far better [survivor coins] than they'd achieve as cutthroats of a feudal Lord or cruisers in a Skullrider's gang, so they stayed.

Some of them didn't even speak the general tongue; their languages so far into the southern kingdoms that it was almost crude to the ears to listen to them trade dialogue. The southern kingdoms of the Badlands.

These men were assassins and sellswords, pirates and bandits. Their lands they hailed from were desertified and furious. The heat waves there were rumored to wilt water-skins, and men who pissed blood. They filtered urine and water was near costly as gold. But still, the Bonelands men loved their gold.

So in from the south they came; some with heels slapping at the back of their heads to flee possible execution from the marauding gangs of the longroad.

Lady Lilith Firstborn, Dowager of the lands of the Continent, offered safe berth in her city. Nowadays in Titans Landing, lasses with pigmented skin and horns were openly courted by the normal, un-horned folk. Mortals made inlaws of demons, and heirs of Noblehouses, of marrying age took as loving wives women with forked tails swinging out their skirts.

However in all this, the realm had a new queen, and throughout the long months of winter following the capture and imprisonment of the Red Titan, no one had seen her face.

Ravenna de Vríes refused to rule.

Rafel's lonely thoughts were broken when he heard one of the burly guards of his dungeon come to be relieved by another broguish Bonelander. The one by his irons said. "Ye think he's ever gonna talk? Or just sit there like some glob? He hasn't shifted in a season. Not one fuckin' inch. He hasn't even pulled up to take a shit or piss; just lies on his side all day. Me tinks he's soon to die. Perhaps, he's cursed."

"Nay, broda," the new guard slapped the coatmail of his brother by the shoulder. "He's royalty, I hear. Even, the nephew of the Dowager. Some even say he and the new queen were a thing—that's why she has refused to be coronated. And that him, Her Majesty, and the two lush girls down the hall were a tight circle of friends."

"Really?"

"Mhmm."

"Well, that sucks for 'em. Don't it?" The first guard droned with a backward glance to the hulking giant. Israfel didn't so much as stir. It was quite the case of 'let the sleeping giant lie'. And Rafel did lie. He did for seven months now.

The relief guard responded. "It does. But there's no escape from here. It is called Eragonn for a reason; these dungeons are fit to hold the might of a dragon. And even if he manages to break out, the mountain is built into Darkwake... and the guild of a battalion infantry."

"Hahahaha!" Both guards laughed. "There's no escape from Eragonn."

As the second guard took his place at the irons of the dungeon, just beside a trio of [Bond Wraiths], the first hollered at him on his way: "Off to the taverns, are we?! Take a shot with that wench, broda! HER KNOCKERS ARE TO KILL FOR. Do it for us. Ye hear me! Do it... FOR ALL OF MANKIND."

Obviously, the southerner was too asinine to know that mankind included women.

A silence then fell in the dungeons keep. Since the Bonelands henchman could not talk to the Wraiths, because they couldn't speak, he settled his stocky build on a stone bench by the prison's bars and entertained himself into the evening with one of the print scrolls of nude, wanton women.

He fell asleep shortly, to rubbing his nethers and browsing paper pornography.

By the time the night bells came tolling from the Coast tower, the guard was snoring loudly.

And Rafel still hadn't moved.

But he did raise his head when something moved in the corner of his cavernous prison.

KRRR! KRRR! KRRR!

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Something scratched at the walls.

In a normal dungeon, you'd expect rats. Or crickets. But the body heat emanating from Rafel's plutonic red bulk was enough to roast any animal that dared. So when he heard the sound, he had to look; it was his first visitor in half a year—aside the evil bitch goddesses who had put him in here.

KRRR! KRRR!

He turned his great body toward the sound. And he saw it. . .

A jellyfish.

It was haloed in [spirit water] and glowed in a blue aura, luminous from the inside like an electric eel. The cap purred in warbles as it floated in the air toward where Rafel lay; the long stingers whistling in the prison cavern as the creature made its own water as it moved, just enough to envelope it in a bubble as it rolled forward. Rafel silently watched the jellyfish.

Some feet away from his great legs the jellyfish paused, levitating a moment before transforming in front of him: the stingers sank into the creature's shiny cap and glowed out brightly in bluish aura as the cell mass grew until a woman was floating in the air where the jellyfish had been. The creature was transfigured into a beautiful lady.

It took Rafel only a second to recognize the glowing woman—she had the same [spirit water] surrounding her in a bubble. Even the heat of his burning flesh could not quench. It was supreme magic. And the woman too. As her magnificent voluptuous form hung in the prison before him, untethered to ropes nor wings, he settled into her luminous and ethereal figure and for the first time in what felt like eternity, he smiled. In his Titan self, he smiled.

"Yemaya." It was Rafel's first word in seven months; he whispered it.

"Ohh, my love." The goddess floated near and hugged him. Her arms could only cradle a part of his gigantic body. Steam rose from their joining, where his volcanic skin hissed in contact with her [spirit water] aura. Yemaya held his mighty head to herself; she was as a pixie in contrast to his crimson bulk. The both of them, Lord husband and Lady wife, water and fire. They were of different realms, yet when Yemaya hugged him, his red flames and her blue streams rippled magically, but neither put out the other.

Yemaya said. "I'm sorry it took so long for me to find my way to you. I'm so sorry, Israfel. I'd been hibernating in the Arctic planes of the great ocean, expanding my mana core and [Influence Pouch] when I heard about your school—I was too far away.

"I'm sorry," she apologized again. "Oh gods! Look at you. What in the Martyr's name have they done to you?"

Rafel tried to move his head when she gazed upon his hellish façade. He didn't want her pity. She saw this and kept it from her river eyes. The riparian crescents went soft on his. "I came as soon as I could." She told him and sat in his giant lap, looking up at him as she continued: "I knew Lilith was some bitch, but to execute an entire graduant class? Fuck. That's hardcore."

Rafel didn't want to think of his Aunt. To him, she had long since proven her unending capacity to hurt. Lilith's proclivity to murder was to infinity. He changed the subject.

"Jellyfish?"

Yemaya gave a small smile. "It was the fastest thing I could come up with at the time. Because of glacier melt I could not journey through the winter, hence my late arrival. But I've no excuses. You are my spouse. Ceremonial marriage or not, I should be here for you, as you have been for me. Always."

Rafel crooked up fiery eyebrows. "So you turned into a jellyfish to come save me."

"Yes."

"And how do you intend to do that?"

"I'm busting you out!" Yemaya bumped in his lap. "Get ready, darling. It's Jailbreak, baby!"

She told Rafel when she spotted him looking out at the snoring prisonguard. The Wraiths weren't asleep but Yemaya's [Fog of Omission] had wiped Rafel and her from their smoky eyes'; they couldn't see into what was really happening in the dungeon.

"Haven't you wondered why there's no water kept near in this ugly place? They'd done it because Lilith guessed I'd show up."

"Hmm. I just thought it's because I'm a literal Giant of fire." Rafel attempted at humor.

Yemaya didn't laugh. "You have no idea the pangs it gives my heart to find you here... caged like some beast of the Abyss. My harem wanted to storm the gates of Darkwake. Rheda threatened a Germanic thunderstorms upon Eragonn. Nadya ordered her assassins at the ready. But I knew only stealth would prevail.

"Your Aunt is the queen-but-in-name. She commands all the armies from here to the Badlands. And now she has mercs too. We have to live to fight another day." Yemaya lifted her hand to fist-bump with him; her hand was little up against his. "—but good job killing that bastard Usurper. What a colossal cunt he was!"

She hopped off his lap. "Now come on, Rebel Lord. This dungeon is unfit for you."

WHOOSH!

Yemaya clicked her fingers and a gigantic vertical portal appeared inside the prison. It was dozens of feet high and shimmered brightly. On the other side it was day, thought it was midnight in the city.

Rafel forced his mammoth body to rise. "There are others in here we need to break out too."

"If you mean the girls," Yemaya smiled, "...they are waiting for you on the other side. Shall we?"

With the Red Titan towering over her, the both of them took steps into the portal, escaping the dungeons of Eragonn.