Hello all,
As my stuff is now fairly… extensive, I have decided to make a bit of a landing page to help you jump to the… current part of the story arc without having to go through dozens/hundreds of chapters.
So right now, the best place to jump in would be Chapter 133- Aki's Homecoming, as it begins the wider story arc that finishes in Chapter 191
You can find a spoilered brief summary of where exactly we are below.
Spoiler
The story arc begins with the party's arrival in Dan-Hem, a small village where Aki, the party leader, is from.
The girl had to run away from there before the overall story began because of her Demonborn heritage. Zekuthran, her grandfather, is a powerful demon and a real asshole and seduced Aki's Grandmother while out "whoring". While her late mother Veenaya looked normal, Aki is a spitting image of her grandpa - sea green eyes, horns, tail and blue hair. That didn't necessarily make her popular with the villagers, and one of them eventually decided to call in an Inquisitor, who ended up hanging Matis, Aki's adoptive grandfather, for the crime of taking in an orphan girl.
After her escape, Aki was captured by goblins and was about to become their lunch when she was rescued by Lilyth, the overall MC of the story.
Lilyth, a trans girl from Poland, found her commute interrupted by suddenly dropping into a vat o’ slime where her old body was dissolved and a new one formed out of said slime with the help of Ereshkigal, the resident Goddess of Shadow and Death. The goddess decides to slightly alter the design our heroine made by turning Lilyth into an elf, as it would help her blend in due to her now-pale skin.
This whole thing, as later revealed, was a ploy to prevent Lilyth from ending up in the Tower of Trials - a deathtrap which has been dragging off people like her to their doom. The whole facility is actually underground, but the designers couldn't figure out a better name.
Against all odds, Lilyth manages to prevail there and survive her initial bouts against the undead. After realising there was no "normal" exit from the level, Lilyth had to climb through a weird tunnel, hoping there would be an exit there. Instead, she found herself fighting goblins and rescuing Aki. Together, our heroines try to find an exit, but don't manage to do so before goblins locate them and begin to chase them, so their only way forward is another entrance into the dungeon, where they are forced to take a stand against the goblin chief.
Unfortunately, that's where the duo's real trouble begins as they encounter the current management represented by a Necromancer named Maximilian Löwe, a Nazi officer who, just like Lilyth, was dragged into the Tower of Trials in 1941.
The meeting ends up as well as expected, and the exhausted Lilyth and Aki find themselves with another problem. You see... Löwe was a chemist and branched out into Alchemy while on Dwynveia. One of his side projects was recreating Sarin (a Nazi invention, btw), after all... what better way to get a LOT of corpses for Necromancy?
While trying to find a way to dispose of the vial, Lilyth runs into Caeileera, a winged, pale-skinned woman with red eyes and hair and three horn-like protrusions coming out of her forehead in a crown-like pattern. She turns out to be a member of the race called "The Sanguine". Now, Lilyth and Aki have been encountering members of the race on the level with Löwe, but she was the first one they met that wasn't a thin, malformed monster with too many arms and not enough of a face.
As the woman explained, the "beasts" were sort of animalistic variants of the True/High Sanguine like her.
Caeileera, a sorceress, asks Lilyth for help in stopping her “brother” Laachersain and then escaping the Tower of Trials, and our heroines agree.
While trying to escape, the trio finds themselves a creepy (and potentially sentient) statue and, after Lilyth falls down a very deep ravine (though is saved by swearing her life to Nyx - the goddess of Air) while trying to stop a big and angry lizard, a hidden underground city they name Y-ram. After reuniting, they are attacked by two assassins - Deirdee and Zvirvil. Lilyth manages to kill Zvirvil, and they escape back to Y-ram to evade pursuit from Laachersain's lackeys. There... suddenly, things called Tooth Horrors appear and capture and maim Deirdee - they rip out her wings. The gang rescue her, and eventually the four of them escape the Tower, after which they go their separate ways. Deirdee wanted to figure out who she was now that her career was in the Serrated Blades - a special Sanguine assassin guild. Their members are specially bred and lack the "horns" and have normal eye colour to help them better blend in.
The trio then sets off to Ror-Bhyk, the largest city in the province. On their way, they are ambushed by a gang of bandits led by a man in a red mask. They try to capture the girls and sell them to a brothel, but given how the trio are spellcasters... that proves to be the last decision of the men's lives. Later, while trying to buy supplies (going solo because Aki was wanted and Caeileera was from a race that wasn't terribly popular), Lilyth runs across Inquisitor Augustus Vanek and his three Temple Dragoon bodyguards - Arcarius, Halveck and Vylf. She causes a crisis of loyalty for Arcarius, who, already unhappy with the decision to hang Matis, was so terrified of pissing off the Inquisitor didn't realise they had no authority to actually hang the man. Oops.
Still, the chance meeting causes the girls to take a detour, and they end up finding an ancient battlefield and a decrepit magic-preserved hospital dating back to the fall of the Vandarian Empire. At Aki's suggestion, the group enters and gets trapped there by Varyag, a bird creature that already tried to get rid of Lilyth once.
While trying to escape the place, the gang discovers that the place was potentially "haunted" by some powerful being, but that ends up a lesser problem for them because of more tangible threats like Revenants from the Sierra Squad (an old Imperial soldier unit), Rot Hounds and a thing the gang thinks was a Chimaera. While desperately trying to save Caeileera after she gets shot by a member of the Sierra Squad, Lilyth ends up causing permanent damage to her soul and is limited to using Air and Shadow spells. She also gets herself a neat pair of combat knives out of that.
Eventually, the word about the whole mess is delivered to Zekuthran, who launches a rescue op and manages to save the gang right before they are killed by the Chimaera thing (maybe). By that point, Aki had to have her right hand amputated by Caei due to it being infested by Rot, and the Sanguine was knocked out, her wings shattered by the monster (they later had to be amputated).
While being healed after the ordeal, they meet Savri, a pink-haired demon combat medic with orange eyes, and afterwards Zekuthran, who already tried to recruit Lilyth and failed, takes the gang to the Abyss, the realm where demons live, and they become "honoured guests" of the Sun That Burns No More - the deity ruling the realm. In fact, they are little more than prisoners, though Aki does get an artificial arm out of the situation.
While Aki is getting her new limb installed, Caei and Lilyth end up having sex. They try to hide it from Aki, but she notices and drags them both back to bed, which is when the polycule becomes official. The whole relationship started with Lilyth and Aki deciding to "might as well have someone to hug before we die" when both of them had one run-in with death too many in the Tower. Later, a bit of a love triangle started, which caused Aki and Caei to come to blows, but they resolved it by agreeing to "share" since likely they were not long for the world anyway and best to enjoy as much of it as possible.
Afterwards, they are summoned by Zekuthran again and are told they will be kicked out due to their lack of cooperation (including Aki swearing herself to the Goddess of Water to avoid getting... forced to swear herself to the Sun), and Lilyth doing her best to aggravate Zekuthran the entire stay, though Savri would be coming with them to help and monitor Aki. Lilyth, for her efforts, gets imprisoned and almost assassinated, but the party gets "rescued" by the Sun, who seemingly wanted to meet them despite the issues they caused him.
The meeting begins amicably enough, but then the Sun tries to kill Savri for knowing too much, though Lilyth manages to save her at the last moment, causing the god to turn his ire towards her. Lilyth, realising she had nothing to lose, stabs the Sun with her fancy new knives and the deity actually bleeds.
Realising how much he fucked up, the Sun just decides to yeet the party out of his realm and into a volcano, but they are intercepted by the Madness That Dwells Outside, who, in return, wants them to amuse her by making their way through some of the chambers of her realm -The Labyrinth of That Which is Betwixt.
They do well, so the goddess actually throws the gang a feast (a pizza party) and gives them new gear to replace the shit they lost. During all that, they discover that Savri, just like Lilyth, is an isekaiee. While native to Dwynveia, she ended up in an alternate universe Earth where she ended up serving in special forces before being brought back to her world... three hundred years after she departed.
After that, the gang meets the Madness, who reveals herself to be the creator of that Universe, and is sent to an alternative version of Dwynveia to "reset" Lilyth's fuckup. This had happened multiple times at that point, and the Madness decided to try a new approach of letting the gang keep their memories.
Savri, Aki and Caei end up in the alternative Dwynveia reasonably unchanged (Aki and Sav got some new memories to know what their alt selves were doing, Caei got a LOT of them, but most were locked away. She also got the ability to summon magical wings for herself.
Lilyth got the short end of the stick, as that universe's version of Lilyth ended up being rescued by Nyx rather than Ereshkigal, so Nyx, being a trickster deity, decided to give Lilyth a Kitsune form as the default.
After getting over that, Lilyth actually starts to enjoy her new form. The party sets off in search of rest, but on their way, they encounter Ren Yamaoka, a white-haired half-harpy, half-elf girl with yellow eyes with black sclera, whom Caei's memories told her to avoid. As it turned out, it was because the "Other Caeileera" (Leera) was her lover. Ren also happened to be a local kingpin for a continent-spanning criminal organisation run by her family (The Yamaoka Clan), so the reunion is interrupted by an assassination attempt in which Caei and Ren nearly die.
After being healed, Ren then gets a strongly worded message from Ereshkigal (delivered through Lilyth) that the whole mess resulted in her getting a second chance and that she really shouldn't waste it.
The party then sets off in search of Kaede, Ren's cousin, as she was supposed to also meet up with Ren and Leera in the tavern the two were almost assassinated. While staying for a night in a tavern on Julbar, a small island, Ren and the gang argue over her criminal past, which almost causes a break-up in the group. Basically, an idea of warning Ren's Brother, Kojiro, is floated, but that would essentially mean the group risking their lives to save the Yamaoka Clan from the potential doom, which was not something they signed up for. Drawing on Leera's Memories, Caei also calls him a "raping bastard" In the end, they manage to resolve their differences, and Caei ends up rekindling "her" romance with Ren. Aki and Lilyth give her a "Ren pass" because of her fucked up memories and them not wanting to pressure her into anything.
Nyx ends up becoming Ren's patron (kinda needed after the girl was directly told off by the Goddess of Death), and the group decides to look for a River Goddess rumoured to be on the island in the morning (deciding to abandon their search for Kaede due to it potentially having a bad effect on Ren).
In the morning, Aki floats an idea of marriage to Lilyth, which causes the latter to immediately propose, and they both propose to Caeileera. They are immediately married by Nyx because why wait? As a wedding gift from Irmen, they are given a puppy of a Lumizu, a water dog-like fae, which they name Veenaya (after Aki's mother). In the end, the gang abandons all their quests on Julbar, as they realise that Kaede was likely the one to arrange the assassination, as she was the only other person who knew about the meeting, and the whole thing was likely a trap.
After being ferried to the shore by Phosi, a Sconryoll (basically a vengeful spirit made from Acid), the gang then go to a village called Mer-Cas to see the one person whom Ren really cares about, her mother, Ireela.
As usual, this doesn't go as planned, as the Red Masks, who turned out to be responsible for the whole mess, were already there. While scouting, Lilyth gets drugged using an anti-magic herb called the Zalikh Root and captured by the organisation. She is brought before Kojiro, who turned out to be working with the Masks all along, and makes the mistake of being defiant. As a result, the monster decides to immediately show Lilyth her place and rapes her before giving her to his men.
Meanwhile, the gang launches a rescue operation, which turns into the Battle of Mer-Cas. All the Red Masks at the Yamaoka Estate get slain, but Kojiro and some of his Lieutenants escape. The next day, Lilyth, Caeileera and Ren go to the place where the trail ended the previous day, but it turns out to be a trap orchestrated by the local innkeeper (who also acted as a guide), as Kojiro threatened his wife. The gang surrenders because of crossbows, but after they get imprisoned, Ereshkigal offers Lilyth a deal. A power to escape in exchange for her soul.
Lilyth agrees and gets the ability to turn into the Avatar of Ereshkigal. She ends up slaying most of Kojiro's men, including the man himself.
The Kitsune ends up in a two-day coma, during which the rest of the group handles the clean-up and ends up swearing themselves to Ereshkigal, too. After all, Lilyth did it for her.
Afterwards, Ere ends up giving them a brief tour of the realm of Shadow during which Rennie gets herself a new pet - Chirpy, a nesumi (shadow cat-squirrel thing) and the gang meets Teliar Zi-Ling, the former administrator of the Akh'Ret's Mercy hospital, who was also a soul bonded to Ereshkigal.
The next morning, Caeileera and Ren set out for a nearby town of Lin-Vyme, where they were hoping to recruit Wylam, a former soldier, as a drillmaster for a militia being organised in Mer-Cas AND to investigate rumours of undead infesting the local cemetery. The two of them end up running into Inquisitor Vanek and his party there, while they are being escorted out of the province by the Viscount's Guard. The noble would rather have hanged them, but due to politics, had to settle on exiling them.
Luckily, Caei and Ren are warned by Arcarius, sent to the inn they were staying at to rent rooms, to get away because the Dragoon recognised what Caeileera was. Fearing the worst for the town, the pair rushes off to the cemetery to investigate the undead rumours and discover they were caused by a ghûl named Anika, who was living there and surviving by eating the local livestock. The three of them escape into the forest just as the Inquisitor approaches the necropolis, and they are tracked down by Arcarius, who was "arrested" by the Inquisitor for warning Ren and Caei. The problem was, the Viscount's men did not answer to the man they were escorting out of the province, so they decided to let the Dragoon go, as they didn't want the man to die for saving two women from a madman.
The four of them make their way back to Mer-Cas, where they discover that Anika was Savri's former squadmate and ended up in the same rift as she did during the demon's return to Dwynveia. The ghûl also ends up revealing that she was turned by the party's old friend Maximilian Löwe.
Since the party getting a break was not in the cards, they were soon informed that the Viscount was coming along with a lot of his men to Mer-Cas, likely to arrest Ren. The group tries to escape but gets intercepted, and just as they were about to make their last stand, the noble interrupts them and reveals that he wasn't planning on actually arresting anyone. Ren gets pardoned for her role in stopping the bandit invasion, and Ireela is raised to become the baroness of Mer-Cas. The Viscount also has sad news - he brought the body of his friend and Ren's father, Kenji, as the man was tortured and murdered by Kojiro.
After the funeral, the gang gets introduced to Viscount's lady wife, Malika, who is revealed to be Savri's mother. They are also introduced to her son, and Savri's kid brother, Zaiven.
Eventually, the trio plus Ren decide to set out to Dan-Hem, as Aki wanted to go back and see her home. While on the way, they make a detour at the request of Lilyth, who wanted to see a cave where this universe's version of herself ended up after being remade by Nyx. The Kitsune had been powerless since receiving a nearly lethal dose of Zalikh, so she was looking for ways to cure herself.
There she finds an inscription that was identical to one she had seen in the Tower of Trials. She touches it, and the four of them end up teleported to a dungeon called "The Extrinsic Corridors". While the gang is making their way through it, Ren gets accepted as the fourth member of the polycule.
In general, the dungeon is "weird". The first room is a labyrinth of walls infested with Shrieklins (A goblin variant). They next find themselves in actual tunnels where they find another group of soldier revenants, though worryingly, those had functional radios and automatic weapons. Lilyth manages to disarm most of them before they wake up, but not all. After defeating them and fighting through energy spiders and two-dimensional monsters, the gang ends up in the third room. A space station. Thoroughly confused, and as the place is safe, the lovebirds decide to spend the night there. Lilyth and Caeileera then confess their feelings for each other (they previously were kinda acknowledged, but now they're out in the open), and the next morning, the group enters room four - a kindergarten.
There, their foes turn out to be seemingly sentient mannequins, and one of them ends up breaking Aki's neck. Caei manages to save her, but at that point, the group is thoroughly out of resources, and a decision is made for Lilyth to clear the way to the exit.
The Kitsune barely manages to do it, but is then captured by the Mistress of Mannequins - Dryad Helrika. The sentient salad decides to drug Lilyth with magical spores that would make her more pliable to suggestions and has to resort to enough of them to drug a football stadium. What happens, though, is that while Lilyth's self-control goes away, her predatory instinct... doesn't. Ever since the first day in the Tower of Trials, Lilyth had to deal with what she called "The Huntress", basically her more animalistic self, and she had been giving her more and more leniency as she managed to get Lilyth through a LOT of issues (including that desperate save in Akh'Ret's Mercy).
The Huntress then assaults Helrika, slits her throat and then devours her. Lilyth is horrified by that and is terrified her loved ones would reject her. They end up blaming themselves for not being able to assist her, and the group reconciles. After they loot Helrika's rooms and rest for a bit, Ren goes out to scout and finds herself mind-controlled. She does manage to call for help using one of the radios, though. The other three lovebirds rush to help her and find her captured by a being that reveals itself to be a vestige of a god called The Prism That Distorts Dimensions. He planned to destroy Ren's soul and to take over her body; however, the conversation with the party made him realise that the other gods had found him and likely sent the party to kill him. Realising in despair that there was no escape and that killing Ren was pointless, he decides to merge his essence with her soul (in order to fix it), turning the half-harpy into a quasi-divine being.
The Prism's death finally sends the group back to Dwynveia, though they end up in the Tower of Trials, much to the chagrin of Lilyth. They make their way out through Goblintown, all of the goblins dead at the hands of Red Mask stragglers and resume their trip to Dan-Hem.
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