Centaurus

Previously on Centaurus: Fey and Ellaria grow closer, spending the night in intimacy. The next day as the band are travelling through the vast forests surrounding Bine the band birth eggs. A lot of eggs. And for the most part the band is returned to a more normal size. The eggs laid are collected together in the dimensional bag for safe keeping. They continue on, but unfortunately all of their supplies were eaten by a certain ravenous otterkin making their journey to the capital a little more complicated.

Now, chapter 48:

The sounds of birdcalls and other small wildlife from the canopy provided a relaxing chorus to the girl's lunch. 

Which was the one nice thing about it as Ellaria had decided to put them on harsh rations to conserve what they had left. They had hoped that they might spot something to hunt and eat whether that was monster or animal, but the forest remained stubbornly empty of anything larger than a sparrow. It was a little spooky if Fey was honest.

Flora was of course still out of it and looking extremely hungover, currently slumped on a pillow and nursing a fresh pot of coffee. Letting the steam wafting from its surface ease her tired looking eyes as she peered over it at the object in her hand, a certain familiar object, a small glowing rectangle.

She was watching the show with Drag- with Wyverns and humans again, absorbed by the politics and backstabbing. There was rather a lot of backstabbing from what Fey could tell. 

The gnome yawned frequently but still seemed fairly engrossed with what she was watching, that is until the glowing rectangle suddenly went black. "What?! There was stuff happening!" she jabbed a finger at the black screen desperately trying to get it to work.

The rectangle remained still and dead and the gnome made increasingly frustrated sounds.

Lily was making similarly frustrated sounds too, but that was more because she was huffing over the measly amount of food she had been given. A small singular potato and nothing else rolled around on her plate. After a moment and a long sigh of resignation she demolished the singular potato in a few bites. It did nothing to soothe her appetite and her stomach growled angrily for more.

"I need more food Ella, I'm a growing otterkin who's got an army to feed!" 

"You should have thought about that before eating the supplies I brought. Perhaps if you hadn't eaten everything at once you would have something to eat now hmm?"

The otterkin stuck out her tongue and tossed the empty plate aside. She paused as she did so, noting the yellow flecked egg floating in the air beside herself, held by invisible hands.

"It's okay, uhm I can help feed them," came Kayla's voice. "I-I'm b-big boobed too!"

"Yeah, well, if I just had something to eat I could grow bigger and you wouldn't need too Kayla. Like, if there were a herd of deer around that I could eat or something… What is with this forest anyway? there's nothing in it!"

As Lily grumbled, Flora had begun bashing the rectangle on a rock. She gave up after a few attempts and let out a long exhausted sigh, the sigh of someone who sounded like they had just gotten done with a painfully long work week.

Fey did feel a little bad for the gnome, mana backlash was not a nice thing to deal with.

"Maybe I could try fix it or something Flo?"

Flora made a non commital grunt from where she lay flopped, her face in her cleavage.

Not sure if that was a yes or a no Fey stood to go look at the mysterious rectangle and hopefully find a way to fix it.

Instead she got a face full of cobwebs.

"Phhthgb-ack it's in my mouth!"

She spat free the webs and cringed as she pulled at the threads tangled her hair. Getting covered in spider web was an experience no one wanted.

"Where did all this spider web even come from!" she cried as she found more on her shoulders.

Ellaria looked up at her from where she sat. She was still quite naked, although she had found a belt for her hips from somewhere which the dimensional bag was hanging from.

"What did you say?"

"There's webs all over the place up here, I guess you guys missed it because you're shorter than me. Ugh this is the worst."

Ellaria stared at the centaur then her gaze shifted, looking around, spying more cobweb, then more and more in the canopy.

"Fuck, this is bad. Band! ON ME!"

The elf leapt to her feet, fire already forming in her hands as the girls boggled at her in surprise.

"What's happening?"

"Attack! Form up now!"

Her warning was a bit too late and the reactions of the girls were just a bit too slow.

Fey cried out in fear as something massive and heavy lunged at her from the trees, something near as large as she was. She was knocked to the ground as the thing savaged her and Fey found herself looking into a terrifying spider's maw.

Worse, she found that the golden manacles on her limbs made it impossible to throw the surprisingly strong thing off and she cried out as its mandibles snapped and bit at her face. She was given a horrifying sight of its many eyed face, made worse as it opened its maw wide and sparks poured free like from a black smith's furnace, two small cones of superheated fire roared at the back of its mouth as incredible heat washed over her.

With a boom a fireball struck the side of the spider and it finally rolled off leaving Fey to struggle to her hooves.

"Get back Fey it's not dead!"

Fey flinched as the hissing spitting spider lunged at her again. How was it not charcoal after Ellaria's fireball?!

The answer to that came as she saw its limbs, instead of chitin like a normal spider she found herself looking at plate armour, the kind of steel plate armour a knight might wear, articulated at the joints and giving full coverage even up and around the spiders thorax and abdomen with quite incredible workmanship. Suddenly the super heated fire and sparks she had seen in its maw made sense. The spider had somehow forged itself armour.

"G-get away!" She brought her fists down on the spider's head as it lunged, striking the heavy plate affixed atop its head and sending it into the dirt with a thump before it squirmed and lunged for her legs causing her to dance backwards in alarm.

Another spider suddenly went flying by her head before the one trying to reach her was dragged back by an invisible force.

She turned to see Flora with her hands shakily raised, a dozen armoured giant spiders orbiting above her.

Yes! They were saved.

"Yes! I've got this!" cried Flora, "I've-" her eyes rolled up as she blacked out and collapsed on the spot and the giant spiders rained down around her.

Ellaria was ready and fireballs gatling fired from her fingertips at the now infuriated spiders but their brilliantly crafted armour simply caused the fireballs to bounce off, pinging away at angles and igniting the trees behind, or if they did catch the flame simply sloughed from the polished metal and onto the forest floor.

"Wh-what do we do!"

"You call on the latest member of the band, that's what!" yelled Vivi.

The fox girl strode forward and grabbed hold of her thigh and lifted it, doing the vertical splits, her athleticism of her Class on full display. The spiders had a full view of Vivi's pink pussy and then the tentacles that exploded out of it. Glossy white tentacles whipped across the space and snaked around half the spiders, coiling around and around their abdomens before drawing tight and with a horrible screeching sound crushed the spiders to death inside their own armour.

"S-see! hnnff! W-Wummy is a g-great adventurerrhnnnnng!" groaned Vivi.

As the tentacles slipped free from the crushed armour the remaining spiders seemed to realise the danger and backed away, other spiders that had been circling the band joining them as they became wary of the tentacles snaking from Vivi's cunny.

It seemed the spiders were in full retreat and they were set to be left alone and spider free.

But then the spiders backing away bumped into something, something invisible.

A squeak came from behind them and the spiders paused, their legs touching and feeling over the large soft invisible thing they had collided with.

"H-help!" cried Kayla as the spiders surrounded her.

"Sister!" cried Lily even as a swarm of bears charged the spiders along with the lashing tentacles.

Too late, the spiders shot web and pulled themselves up and away at an incredible clip, a certain invisible otterkin held firmly in their grasp.

"They have her!" screamed Lily, "S-save her! Fucking save her!"

In a moment of heart stopping panic Fey launched herself forward, using the acceleration that only a quadruped could manage to shoot across the camp and grab hold of Vivi, lifting the squawking fox girl up into the air bodily. Without even slowing she full pelt galloped after the spiders, shooting between the trees as grass and soil plumed up behind her pounding hooves.

The spiders were already far ahead, strings of web repeatedly shot into the tree tops and being reeled in by their abdomens, practically letting them fly through the forest. 

Fey charged through the foliage below them, a dark fury in her eyes, they were taking what was hers! Kayla was all hers and no one else's!

Her hands gripped hold of the panicking fox girl's legs and she spread her thighs wide, pointing her pussy upward as she ran, aiming her like a crossbow.

"Wummy GO!" she cried and the tentacles that had been flailing along behind her shot forward, extending more and more from the squealing fox girl's puss until with a clang of metal they collided with the spiders up above. 

Metallic shrieks and sparks rained down from the canopy as the tentacles struggled with the spiders, snapping legs and crushing bodies even as they bit and spat.

Fey ran harder, and then harder still as a cry of fright came from one of the spiders, a cry of feminine fright that seemed to be descending.

Fey changed direction, angling toward the sound, putting on even more speed, leaping and-

She crashed into an invisible Kayla mid air, the bodies of her and Vivi becoming tangled in her arms as they crashed to the earth, rolling as she did so to use her own body to pillow the two girls' landings.

She slid across the earth, holding them tight until her momentum was arrested by crashing up against the base of a tree. The sound of clanging spider metal vanished into the distance and the forest became quiet once more…

"...Ow." said Vivi. "You know, I am a warrior Fey, that means I'm supposed to pick up and use weapons. I can't say I much like it when you pick me up and use me as a weapon."

Fey didn't bother replying, her hands darting over the two girls checking to see if they were okay. Thankfully they seemed unhurt but all the same she poured healing magic into their bodies to heal away any unseen scratches or bruises.

"I was almost spider food!" wailed Kayla, hugging desperately at Fey's upper body, her enormous breasts spread around her.

"What were you even doing Kayla… I didn't know you were there."

"I was h-hiding," sniffed the otterkin, "I c-can't do anything with my Class still, remember?"

Fey let out a long sigh. At least they were safe.

From the trees the rest of the band arrived, Lily squeezing her breasts between the trunks with a little difficulty.

An exhausted looking Flora waved vaguely at her. 

"Sorry, I just… couldn't handle it, still too weak from the backlash. I thought I was okay for a moment there, but then it felt like I got punched in the brain. Ugh."

"It's fine Flora, we can't expect you to do so much after holding down a dragoness."

"Armoured arachnids." said Ellaria, poking at the remains of a chunk of armour fallen amongst the forest grass. "They hunt intercity caravans and loot their cargo, any armour they find they are able to use with the gas powered flames in their maws to weld onto their bodies with impressive skill. They must have found a caravan of supplies for a legion as I have never heard of them having such complete and perfect armour before."

She pursed her lips and gazed into the trees. 

Fey turned her head to see what she was looking at and was alarmed to see countless red eyes glowing in the shadows, as well as many more spiders on the trunks of the trees, all quite clearly staring at them. The trees themselves were coated and layered in huge amounts of spider web.

"See the webs? You were moments from stepping into their territory. It would have been much harder to save her in there, if we even could…"

Kayla made a whimpering sound of relief that she hadn't been taken any further.

"...So well done Fey, that was quick thinking," said Ellaria, giving the centaur a nod.

"Does that mean the only loss to the spiders was my awesome rectangle breaking?"

"Th-that wasn't the spiders Flora…"

"How do you know? It might have been the spiders! They could have done something to it somehow!"

The gnome held up the dead rectangle and waved it around.

"I'm not standing for this, stupid spiders."

She fished in her pocket and pulled out a blue stone and held it up.

"Flora no!"

Too late, the stone flashed blue and in the brilliant light a figure appeared. 

Fey blinked away eye floaters and boggled as a human male wearing strange clothing and with straight black hair appeared before them.

Flora stepped in front of him.

"Hey, you, give me your rectangle."

"Y-you're a h-hobbit?"

"What the fuck is a hobbit? I'm a gnome, bitch."

The human boggled at Flora then turned sharply, looking around at the others, first Fey lying on the ground with Vivi, then the confusing mass that was Lily, and Finally the still stark naked perfection that was Ellaria.

His jaw dropped.

"C-centaurs and e-elves? Is this a witch and the wardrobe situation? an isekai? a portal fantasy? Wait wait wait, am I the hero summoned to save the world? I have to be, right…?"

"No you're not the hero, you're an idiot, and this is a mugging. Hand over your magic rectangle."

The human ignored Flora and lifted his hands.

"Usually in these stories the summoned hero has incredible magical talent, power to save the world from the Demon King."

"The what now? and no, you need a Class-"

Ellaria's voice petered off as flames started to appear hovering above the human's hands. He gasped in delight.

"ohshitohshit, it's really happening! I- I'm not dreaming!"

The band stared at the human with clearly magical flames in his hands.

"D-Does he have a Class from the eastern continent or s-something?"

The human blinked. "What's a Class?"

"This isn't possible," murmured Ellaria, staring at the fire. 

The human gave her a condescending look. "Nature elves like you only really know leaves and dirt and nudity in the stories so I'm not surprised you don't understand. Look, this is called magic, magical fire." He waved the fire around in front of Ellaria's face as if to demonstrate, "With it I can save you from the bad guys and you can join my harem."

Ellaria for once seemed lost for words, although sparks were starting to drift from her hair, her anger yet to catch up with her shock.

"Look, just point me at the villians, I'll destroy them and save everyone and then we will have incredible amounts of romantic sex after we get married, that's how these things work."

He waved his hand around with a smirk, fire fluttering behind his moving fingers, the flames forming butterflies or birds of flame before they vanished.

"... I don't give a shit about any of that, give me your magic rectangle," groused Flora, "I want to watch the rest of the pointy chair play thingy."

The human paused on Flora, then eyed her enormous floor touching breasts. "You're… quite the shortstack. Can't complain though, just means more hand holds while I make your wildest dreams come true."

"A-Are you from the eastern continent truly?" Said Fey, finally finding her voice.

The human blinked. "Like Asia? Well my father is Japanese and-" he paused as his gaze drifted past where Fey lay and came upon the many red eyes and giant spiders watching them closely in the forest beyond. "Ah, I see why you summoned me now. Desperation. Surrounded by monsters on all sides, all of you about to die, you made a last ditch effort to summon your saviour. Me."

"Uhm, actually we're safe-ish here I think," murmured Fey.

"Hush futanari centaur girl. It's okay now, I am here." He elegantly brushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead. "Just watch the talent of an earthling."

The band stared as the human strode out toward the spiders in complete confidence, flames casually appearing around him forming birds and insects, an aura of sheer raw magical power emanating from his body, a picture of pure professional competence, embodying everything a hero could be.

He raised an arm with a smirk.

And a sleek looking spider leapt from the undergrowth and instantly decapitated him.

The band watched in silence as his headless corpse dropped to its knees then flopped flat on the ground, the flames he had summoned winking out into nothing.

Quiet fell over the girls.

"..."

"Wha- why didn't anyone stop him!?" shrieked Fey.

"I didn't expect him to literally just walk into the spider's nest!!"

"H-He looked so confident and powerful!" wailed Lily, "I'm still new, I didn't know he would just instantly die!"

"It's an insane person summoning stone, it really is," whispered Ellaria. 

Flora shrugged and wiped at her tired eyes before lifting her hand. The clothing of the corpse shifted and then a rectangle appeared from a pocket and floated into the air, levitating over to her from the nest where she caught it and pressed some buttons. Her face lit up with a smile as the rectangle glowed.

"Actually it's not an insane person summoning stone, it's a magic rectangle thing summoning stone. The person attached to it is just the discardable wrapper it comes in, like a present."

Fey let out a distressed groan. "This is not good for me as a healer Flora! Could we please stop summoning suicidal humans? I feel like I'm going to have a mental breakdown if I see another human just throw themselves at a monster like a lemming! I can't heal a decapitation!"

"Yeah, as long as this magic rectangle doesn't die on me like the last one. I'm sure it will last forever though, that was totally the spider's fault, they did something to the magic somehow."

"I don't think it works like that Flora, maybe you just overused it. In any case it seems we now know what's been devastating the local wildlife and why we haven't come across anything we can hunt and eat, apart from the spiders themselves I suppose, but unfortunately we can't eat spider. I think if we can move beyond their nest here we might start to see-

A loud wooden creak came from the forest around them and Ellaria paused.

The creaking continued, becoming a loud groan, the sound of wood under stress.

"Is it the spiders?"

Fey glanced to the side to see that the spiders were no longer there, the last of them fleeing into the distance. That was one cause for alarm, another was that the tree she was resting against was beginning to move. She yelped as the trunk pulled away from her back, the entire thing rising from the ground as roots slipped free from the earth and carried it away like centipedal legs.

It wasn't the only one and the girls looked around in astonishment as every tree within sight got up and started moving, crawling over the grassy forest floor on their roots and away from the band. The darkness of the forest disappeared as the canopy opened up above and bathed them in bright warm summer sunlight revealing the vast blue sky above and miles tall clouds.

They quickly drew together defensively as the trees continued to shift and walk away, the space opening up wider and wider, even the trees that had carried the spider's webs and nests getting up and departing until the band was left standing in the middle of a wide open field ringed by trees so tightly packed together that they formed an impenetrable wall.

Fey lifted her hands ready, forming hesitant fists as her eyes darted around waiting for an attack. She could feel Ellaria and Vivi's backs pressed either side of her barrel as they searched for threats, and Flora below her, looking out, although still distractedly fiddling with the rectangle.

Stratothrax-After-Dark

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