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Until the tiefling groaned, a guttural growl, Kressa thought it was dead.
“Maghtew–grab that one,” she ordered imperiously, pointing to the ashen torso bobbing at the top of the fleshpit. A hand, with elongated and pointed black nails, was twitching and the wrist appeared floppy; there was something broken to be sure, but she couldn’t quite make out how damaged the rest of it was.
They were knee-deep in the slop, the deepest part of the oubliette, scrounging for body parts; the air here hung hot and sticky as the heat from the decomposing flesh gathered in a low, poisonous cloud. It reeked, too, of course; that was normal and to be expected, the heady scent of death overwhelming the far more delicate salty brine of the illithid passageways they had taken to the depths of Moonrise Towers.
Kressa did not mind the smell; perhaps she had, once, long ago when she was a neophyte healer back in Nashkel, but back then she was stitching farmers back up, setting broken bones. She had wondered, even then, why her instinct was to poke at the corpse-flesh after someone had died tragically, to open them up and twist and tweak at the tendons, to test what might happen. Death was not something she feared, but was fascinated by.
The night she’d snuck out to the graveyard with a shovel she knew her time as a healer was at an end.
Even today, with her tall boots squishing and squelching over bits of gore, arguably the worst part of her role, even today was better and more appealing to her than any of the thousand where Kressa had healed and saved lives. After her departure from Amn, she had found her true calling at Myrkul’s altar, sworn allegiance to the Lord of Bones, and delighted in her service.
Her husband had managed to turn the tiefling over with a grunt; it was a male, and naked, with short grey horns prominent on his brow, and tattoos on his chin and neck. His long black hair was matted with gore and bile and hung around his head like a tiara, and deep scars were graven into his face, which a placement that appeared intentional and long-ago healed.
There were other wounds that seemed just as intentional: a hole at the side of his head, above his ear, perhaps made by a knife; slices up and down his chest, some partially healed; and a twisting, ropey wound gaped at his abdomen, where Kressa could see the bulge of intestines. Her heart sank at the sight; it was unlikely this one would last long after all.
They never did, when the entrails were bared.
Maghtew had seen it as well. “We can still use him for parts,” he said, consoling her. “Balthazar’s golem. The limbs look mostly intact, safe for that right shoulder.”
She nodded decisively. The tiefling was still a good find; the wheelbarrow at the entrance of the tunnel had some hurriedly severed limbs in stacks, but fresher flesh was best for the joining. Her master would be pleased if this one could be reclaimed. “We will bring him to my laboratory for an examination, first,” she said. “And later, when he passes, then–” she trailed off, frowning, then waded nearer to the head. The viscera at her waist sloshed thickly. “Is this a tadpole hole?”
“The stench is getting to me, my love,” Maghtew said, curling up his nose. Kressa sighed internally: he was always weaker than her; she wondered sometimes if he would have found his way to Moonrise and subsequent service to the Lord of the Dead if he had not been at her side at the start. He seemed so content back in Amn, those sad eyes resigned to her experimentation. “Let’s leave this pit.”
“Very well. Take the arms,” Kressa ordered, and grabbed a leg, and the two of them hauled their find to the waiting wheelbarrow.
They had to dump most of the parts already scavenged to make room; the tiefling was larger and heavier than he had initially appeared.
It was a short trip to her laboratory, located in the depths of the illithid warren. It was a pink, fleshy sort of place with spongy floors and salt-scent in the air, and windowless; it would have been nicer to have a room in the tower itself, like her master did, but the trip from the oubliette was mercifully shorter. The body in the wheelbarrow did not make further noises, but twitched encouragingly at each jolt and bump as Maghtew pushed him upwards, sweating with exertion.
“There’s life in him yet,” she said, thoughtfully touching a finger to one of the open wounds at his torso. “I thought this was healed before he was tossed down there, but look, he’s healing now, still. How wondrous.”
“My dear,” said Maghtew, panting, “there will be plenty of time to begin our work once we arrive.”
–––
A week later and the tiefling was still alive.
Kressa had laid him out carefully on the operating table, intending at first to let him gasp out his last as she observed, making careful notations in her notebook, and then planned to dismantle his limbs for repurposing.
But something remarkable happened: he choked, he snarled, he struggled, he lived: it stopped being a deathwatch and turned into something else, a resurgence of life. The wounds on his upper torso knit together even as she watched, astounded.
Even the jagged, death-adjacent wound on his belly healed, leaving barely a mark. But it was when she confirmed the presence of a tadpole by bringing a specimen closer in a glass tube, and watched it wriggle madly, that something inside of her leapt in dark, exulted delight.
“You will keep this quiet. Do not tell the others, not until I have something to report,” she ordered Maghtew, who had other tasks than to carve at her table, and had been down to the oubliette twice without her for parts. “This is a stroke of such luck–to be able to experiment on a pre-transformation thrall! Think of what we can learn.”
He had agreed, but that evening when she chattered on about her discoveries, his embrace had been chilly, and rote, and then they had fallen to sleep without indulging.
–––
A month later and the tiefling was still alive.
His mouth gaped open, sometimes, as if he tried to speak, but while her poor pet had healed remarkably, he no longer had the capabilities or the intelligence for that. Something had been damaged in him, deep within. The first time he had opened his eyes Kressa had leaned down in fascination to see them glowing red, with orbs of black. “Remarkable,” she said, tracing a finger down those full lips. “I wish you could tell me your secrets, hellspawn, but you rest so silent.”
There were triggers she had found, places she could stroke that would summon a physical reaction, and with her light touch on his lips she discovered another: his mouth parted, a quick gasp at the touch, and she swirled a thoughtful finger inside. “Do you like this, my pet?” she crooned, staring down at his bare form, at how his muscles rippled under that ash-grey skin. “Do you like being touched, so?”
He had healed fully, now: even that stomach wound that had so worried her. But her pet remained a beast, a body only. A perfect specimen, all hers, something she could slice open again and again to test the tadpole’s resilience. He might be limited to moans, but oh, those were so delicious.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Maghtew at the entrance to her lab, watching her, but when she turned to welcome him inside, he was gone.
–––
Three months later and the tiefling was still alive.
Experimentation on her pet’s remarkable healing abilities had begun in truth. Kressa had started by replicating the scars at his shoulders and torso, slicing them carefully with a scalpel, watching the dermis split open to reveal the fatty, white tissue beneath.
He had cried out, a soft keening noise, and struggled weakly, moaning so delightfully in guttural agony that a warmth flooded through every part of her to hear it. Her mouth felt dry, her breath came tighter, and she crooned at him to get him to settle back against the laboratory table as she cut.
“Once there was a boy,” she sang, “Once there was a boy, tucked safe in his bed; once there was a boy who slept far too deep. He slept through the hand that unlatched the door; he slept through the cracks and creaks; he slept and rested and woke up the next day, never knowing who watched as he bled.”
He listened to her, better than Maghtew did, lately, those red eyes staring as he convulsed under her touch. And this time, between his legs the slicing did something even more remarkable, sending blood rushing to thicken and engorge.
She stopped singing, surprised, and her hand stilled with a surgeon’s grace. “Now that’s an odd response,” Kressa said slowly. “How far will you go? Is it pain or blood that triggers you, my pet?”
It was easy enough to test her theory, sinking the scalpel deeper and deeper to the new wounds on his chest, and she watched in fascination as the tiefling’s penis rose to the occasion, hardening, then she sliced more, humming and singing, her pulse racing with her own excitement, until it spasmed in a sticky spurt.
Kressa stopped, then, placing her scalpel carefully to the side, and returned with a vial and a syringe, carefully filling it with the globs of semen. Bottling it thoughtfully, she returned with a warm cloth to wipe him clean. “There, there,” she crooned. “You see, it isn’t all bad. I’m so proud of you, healing as you have been; this is a sign I’m doing something right.”
That evening, over a roast bird and caramelized carrots, she shared her findings with Maghtew and missed the troubled expression that drew over his face.
–––
Four months later and the tiefling thrived under her care.
Not that Maghtew cared at all: last night he had confronted her, dark eyes flashing in anger. “You are shirking your duties, Kressa,” he said, disapproving. “You spend more time with that corpse than doing any real work–”
“–he is not a corpse,” she said sharply. “He lives, he breathes; he is a remarkable specimen! I am on the verge of something wondrous with him. The tadpole has made his flesh malleable while imbuing him with great healing properties. Sometimes I think there is intelligence behind those red eyes, he watches me as I slice, I see his lips curving as if he is repeating my songs–”
“–you sing to him? Oh, Kressa.” Maghtew sighed, then took a seat in their chambers. “You must stop with this creature, my dear. It has gone on too long–and Balthazar himself does not know what you have been doing!”
“Hush,” she hissed at him. They were in the small alcove they shared, and there was a chance a raised voices could be heard by the other necromancers of Myrkul. “You swore you would keep this private. I will have incredible findings to share with him, I just need a little more time.”
“If you say so, Kressa,” he replied. “I will keep my word, but I can’t cover for you if you continue to spend every moment down in your laboratory. I’ve barely seen you this last tenday.”
She shrugged away the dismissal, along with the robe that covered her, and said slyly, “Perhaps I can make you forget that now?”
“I’ve been in the oubliette for the last nine hours,” he said shortly, his jaw hardening. “All I want to do is go to sleep.”
He had changed so much; she did not understand it.
–––
Five months in, and she was finally ready to personally test her most ambitious theory.
Kressa had planned for this latest experiment carefully, and had given her pet a week to heal. It did not take long; his grey skin knit together quicker than on any she had seen before, all due to the tadpole’s resilience.
“Yet your mind is still a ruin,” she said sadly. She had sealed the laboratory’s doors today, and ordered Maghtew away on a routine task. It was not the only thing that was sealed; some of the last experiments had indicated the new need for restraints, and now her pet was bound to the table with leather around his wrists and ankles.
His body had grown so much stronger! She was sure he could take this, and recover from it, and perhaps it would finally ignite and connect his mind to his body. Something needed to spark it back to life, and it was pain, and blood, and pleasure that her pet responded to best.
Her favorite scalpel had been sanitized for the occasion, and laid out next to her other tools: scissors, for dressings; a bone saw, just in case; forceps, to pry open the flesh; clamps, to hold back the blood; a bit of twine, and a needle, to stitch him back up.
She approached him on the surgical table, running a languid hand across the clavicle, down to the sternum, then to the umbilicus where his belly button nestled between taut abdomen muscles. He had lost only a bit of weight under her care; the first week she had forced a tube down his throat and poured in nutrients. His throat must be scraped raw, now; it was done every other day.
Perhaps that was why he did not speak. “But you moan, my love,” she said. “That cannot be it.” Kressa shook her head. “No–there are times your body reacts voluntarily, and that is what we test today.”
She licked her lips, wondering if she was prepared for this, and then put aside her qualms: this was for science. And for her: her cunt throbbed like a beacon.
Kressa stripped herself of her clothes quickly, efficiently, and then put back on the smock. She shivered. “Why did you not say it was a little chilly down here?” she said, reprovingly. She had always had layers on: smallclothes, gambeson, armor, then her laboratory smock. With just the white overcloak, heavily stained with winedark splotches, the room felt less welcome than it should have. Kressa shook her head, pursed her lips. “You will warm up soon.”
It was quick work to straddle the tiefling, her thighs sliding around his own, and then his chest, as she sat on his legs with the pelvis directly before her. Her pet was limp, now; but would not be for long with what she had planned. He was alert this morning: red eyes were studying her.
“Are you watching me?” she asked softly. “You want me to come closer, don’t you? I am warm–I will light a fire in this room tomorrow, now that I know how cold it is for you, bare on my table.” She lingered over the word bare, running the f over her teeth like a treat.
It was far more likely that her pet simply watched her because she was the only source of movement in the room; she had caught the eyes watching the door, when it swung open, too.
Now he would stir in truth.
Her tray of tools was in reach; her fingers roved over them one by one, and then settled on the scalpel, curving around the familiar steel with quiet intensity.
“We will start by reslicing into your abdomen,” she said calmly, even as her heart pounded with excitement. Today she would not sing: it would be the pain and the blood only that spurred life into her pet. She would sing him a lullaby tomorrow, as he healed. If he did not die today.
Kressa shoved that thought to the side. Surely he would survive this.
The scalpel’s blade glinted as it came to rest on the grey skin, and then she sliced in slowly, tracing the scar of the original, healed wound, carefully, carefully, just under the dermis until it split, spilling open in fatty white.
He convulsed below her, rattling against the restraints, a low moan emerging from those lips. Her pet was watching her for certain now, blazing red with agony. “Steady,” she ordered him, “still. It wouldn’t do for me to slice too deep.”
A river of red welled up from the first cut, soaking into her labcoat and sending sticky rivulets down to her thighs where they met against his torso. It was easier to control him, from on top, why had she not done this before? He could not move with her weight on his legs.
There was one part of him that did move, twitching to angry life as blood called to blood, and engorged his cock. It pressed against her stomach urgently, and blurrily she wondered at why she had bothered with the labcoat at all as she pulled it over her head.
The cut was not deep enough; it had not split, just sliced. “This is the real test, my pet,” she said, and pulled herself up over him, to where he could impale her if if he so desired. Her entrance was sticky not just with her own excitement but his flooded warm blood.
When he was positioned just right Kressa went in again with the scalpel, cutting into the wound, and then moaned herself in divine delight as the tiefling thrashed again in pain and torment, and pushed into her.
He was so strong, her pet, so talented, so thick, and she told him that in breathless gasps as she settled deeper, the scalpel clattering to the ground, forgotten, her palms coming to rest on the steel table. Each convulsion of agony she inspired sent his hips thrusting up, up, up, as her head rolled back, her mouth agape.
“My pet,” she said lovingly. “I knew you had life in you, I knew it.” She rode him, panting, even as he pushed against her violently, the restraints pulling at the table, and then she slipped her hands into the rubbery soul: ropes of entrails slick and twisting under her delicate touch.
That did it, ten times worse: the noises he made, the moans, he was with her! She knew it–this would do it, at last! He knew she was here, this would bring his mind back, like nothing else would! His eyes were savage and intense, bright red pinpoints blazing at hers as they locked not just eyes but bodies in pleasure.
One of the forearm restraints ripped loose of the table, a clawed hand reaching for her–she would need to replace it, later, but not now, she could not stop now–but he did not reach for her at all, but to where she was digging at his stomach.
“That’s right,” she said, panting, her hips rolling. “Stay with me, let the pain take you into a new realm–"
Rubbery loops of his entrails were worked loose in an instant as he pulled not at her hand, but at himself. “No, stop,” she said urgently, coming to a stop. This was too much, too far, he might damage himself. “Hush, hush: once there was a boy, tucked safe in his bed–”
He pulled them loose, not listening, and wrapped them around her neck, and tugged at them, his eyes blazing in fury. He would be fine, she thought blurrily. If he could do this now, he would heal, tomorrow. Her hips rolled against him once more, and the spasms did not stop: he was still with her! She rode against him, harder and harder, even as her pet’s intestines tightened around her pharynx and she choked for breath and gasped to her own completion.
When she opened her eyes there were spots of light exploding in the room, whether from asphyxia or her orgasm, she did not know.
“There, settle back, my little pet,” she gasped. He was still hard as ivory, inside of her, and she clenched down upon him, grinding, as she reached upwards to pull away the ropey tubes. “You need those–careful.”
It did not take long for him to finish inside of her, spasming.
–––
Six months later the tiefling was gone.
Balthazar had stopped by unexpectedly, one day, and spotted the body strapped to the laboratory table. “Ah,” he said. “I have needed just the thing.”
Kressa tried to protest, shared her laboratory notes, claimed she was on the verge of discovery, but it was all for naught. She wept in silence, and moped, and went down to the oubliette, hoping to find something that would spur her scientific curiosity back to life.
Maghtew consoled her through it all. “We will find you something better,” he said. But their marriage bed felt uninspired, and dull; far too safe.
Sometimes she wondered what he would do if she sliced him open, but in her heart of hearts she knew what would happen: he would die. Perhaps she would, one day. He might surprise her.