Penance's body has been through quite a bit in her time as a Yodhgorphat. Between the things she's inflicted upon herself, and those that have been inflicted upon her, it's difficult to keep track of just what may be the cause of any given symptom. For the past few days it is the condition of her breasts that have been a growing concern.
The daily milkings have certainly played a part, especially in regards to the weeping sores. The process tends to strip away the scabs, causing more oily substance to ooze out until the spots scab over again, and her breasts have gotten bigger from the activity - at least according to Crabs, who tends to notice these things. But along with the scabbing has come itching, more so than usual, and other irritations. Penance is certain there's some kind of internal inflammation flaring up, but the most maddening part is the internal itching, which nothing seems to soothe. It gets even worse when she's 'strapped in' for the night by the horribs and can't sleep due to the irritation.
"Dis is some sorta plant fat," Crabs explains as he massages the goo onto Penance's chest until the horribs release her. It's still technically her sleeping time, but sleep is hard to come by due to the irritation. "Scrolls say it good for flame-ation." So far it doesn't feel like it's having an effect, but the massage is making her teats leak.
And that's not all of her problems; due to her nether-spreader that she can't remove, she keeps getting mild yeast infections, that make her discarge some unpleasant smelly stuff, in addition to the creatures that live within in making her discharge more useful stuff. So, she itches between her legs often. Now her breasts are itching like mad, too. "Why won't these sores heal?" she complains, "Maybe if we held off milking for a couple of days they'll heal." Of couse, they're aching now too, since the massaging started the production again, which makes them fill up until drained. She normally wouldn't mind being coccooned in, exposed as a host if the horribs decided to use her as such, as faith in Gorphat, but the itching and being unable to scratch just does not help.
"I dunno," Crabs says. "Are dey s'posed to heal?" he asks. He also takes a tentative lick of the milk, and notes, "Still tastes the same, so if it's an infection it ain't in de glands yet. Is the itchin' going down at all?"
"I think they're supposed to heal, yes," Penance claims, though sounds a bit unsure about that. She's winging being a Yodhgorphat as it is. "And no, they're still itching a lot. It's barely any better."
So Crabs tries squeezing harder, on the theory that one kind of discomfort can overcome another! "How about now?" he asks.
"Ow!" Penance yelps! "Stop that!"
"But did de itching go away?" the Skreek asks, just to be sure.
"A little, yes," Penance admits. Or it just hurt too much for her to notice.
The Skreek ponders a moment, then lets go and asks, "Do they itch again if I stop?"
"Argh, yes!" Penance whines.
So Crabs experiments some more. He twists, tugs, suckles, pinches and caresses. When those don't seem to bring any better results, he tries tickling Penance's ribs.
Penance is giggling like mad, but calls out to the horribs ... somehow! "Sting my boobs!" she blurts out, sounding plaintive and needy about it! It's a long shot, but it might make them stop itching for a while.
The horribs in the chamber flutter their wings a bit. The Queen would understand Penance, but doesn't seem to be reacting. "Did-a-chum?" she replies, so may not quite awake, or in some other odd state of consciousness (maybe her squishy abdomen thing has its own brain or something).
"Boobs ... need ... stinging," Penance pleads! Then to Crabs she says, "Go get a sleeping one and poke it's stinger in my boobs!"
It's still enough to get Crabs to duck down, just in case. When nothing dive-bombs Penance, he ponders again. Using more of the goo, he tries to soothe the girl's exposed bits while he's down there, in case that distracts her. "Do horribs sleep?" he asks. "I dunno about messing wi' dem. What if it's too much juice and it paralyze you?"
"I would at least be numb and not itch!" Penance whines. It's also not helping that he's rubbing her stinky nethers with that cream!
"But, if you be paralyzed and not numb?" the Skreek asks. "That be worse!" He really tries to get up in there too, probably because it couldn't hurt and partly to see if it distracts Penance from the itch.
"I can't scratch now, so how is it any different?!" Penance squeals loudly. Well, one thing that nether-harness does for her; she's very easy access!
"Scratchin' would make a mess, and mebbe do worse," Crabs notes, looks up to see if her breast sores are still oozing. "Hmm, they don't look so runny now, maybe the fat plugged 'em up a bit?"
Penance tries to look down at her chest, which she may or may not be able to do! "Maybe, but they still itch!" she complains.
The itch is definitely stronger below the skin. Crabs reaches up with one hand and tries to gently run a bare finger across one of the sores. "Yeah, feels a bit dry.. OUCH!" The finger is pulled back and sucked on. "Y'boob bi' me," he complains while sucking on the digit.
"What? That's not possible," Penance says, sounding annoyed now. "Get a mirror or something so I can see better," she insists.
"A mirror?" Crabs asks. "That sounds like sumthin' only the High Priestess would have!"
"She probably has one in her quarters," Penance insists as she continues to try to look. "Go check?"
"What about guardians?" Crabs whispers, as if not wanting to alert the horribs.
"We're all part of the Temple, surely it would be safe!" Penance insists.
So Crabs leaves and tries to look sneaky about it. One horrib does follow him out though: his horrib. There are some noises soon after, but the High Priestess's chambers are right next to the horrib lair.
"Crabs? Are you okay?" Penance calls out as she squirms in her coccoon. "What is going on with me?" she wonders.
Itch-itch-itch. "Some of de furniture is alive in here!" Crabs squeaks. It's not a loud squeak, but it doesn't have to be for Penance to hear him. There are more 'ouch' and 'quiddit' complaints from the Skreek, but eventually he returns carrying a full-length mirror. Very slowly and carefully, since every few steps he has to stop and look around it to see where he's going.
"Her room can't be that bad! It has to be better than mine is," Penance calls out while she tries to ignore the itching; it's only moderately helpful. The mirror, when it does appear, makes her blink. "Wow, that is a big mirror. She must love looking at how glorious her body is," the Yodhgorphat claims.
It takes a few tries to get the mirror to stand properly on the uneven and often sticky floor of the lair. It's probably facing Penance as well, but in the dim light it's hard to pick herself out from the black resin of the walls. But it'd definitely a visual mirror and not a sonar mirror. "Do you need a candle?" Crabs asks, poking his head out from behind the mirror, and then wincing in pain for a brief moment.
"Why are you wincing?" Penance has to inquire; she could hear that happen! "And yes, I will need a candle; I can't see myself in it in this darkness," she claims, sounding frustrated.
"I'll be right.. back.." Crabs promises, and sort of waddles out of the room in an extremely bow-legged stance. But Penance can see the man's horrib clinging to his back, and stinging him in his scrotum.
"Ow, Dag. Gorphat, why did he get stung like that? And why do my breasts itch like the 9 Dagh hells?" Penance asks the room.
There is some extra light in the chamber.. or in the reflection at least. The tips at the ends of the feathery appendages growing out of her scalp glow slightly, the light moving in ripples.
Penance tries to lean her head forward to light the mirror up more. Probably hopeless, but she's sort of stuck in the wall.
It's something to look at at least, to try and distract (unsuccessfully) from the painful itching and inflammation. Crabs returns before long though, holding a blob of a candle in a scooped out beetle shell. It's not much of a light, but it's something. He brings it to bear near Penance's chest. In the moment it takes for her eyes to adjust, she gets the impression of her breasts having goose-pimples before they return to being smooth again.. aside from a few faint stretch-marks.
"Dagh, they are bigger," Penance admits when she spots the stretch marks, "They're going to start sagging if they get any larger." She ponders, then comments, "They look mostly normal, bug dagh, do they itch. Itch. itch, itch!"
"It's hard to tell 'cuz you got black skin," Crabs says, then reaches out with a claw-tip to poke at one of the sores. There a slight spurt of fluid, and then.. movement. Crabs pulls his finger back quickly this time.
"Ew! It pimple popped!" Penance says and skews up her face, then she feels the movement. This makes her blink, then blink again. "Do that again and hold the candle closer?" she asks.
The Skreek is a bit more hesitant, but holds the candle within an a few inches of where he tries poking. The sores are hard to see, being dark pores on dark skin, until poked. This time Crabs pushes down between a cluster, so each one around the spot oozes a bit.. and then it looks like the pores invert for a moment, sticking out.
"Oh Gods, ew! There's something in there!" Penance blurts out! "Go get some tweezers and remove them! Aaaaaaugh!" The poor Eeee starts really squirming and freaking out.
"Don't squirm, you could hurt yerself," Crabs says, backing away a bit, since boobs tend to sway and he doesn't want the candle knocked out of his hand. "I'll go get some.. tools and alcohol.." he says. "Don't panic!" Then he hurries out as fast he can with a clearly painful erection and other swollen bits between his legs.
"Gorphat, what is growing in my boobs?" Penance asks the now empty hatchery. Well, Empty of Eeee and Rats, anyway. Now she realizes half the itching is moving. There must be hundreds in there.
As she strains to hear a reply, she realizes she can hear very faint sounds from her breasts to match the itching. Tiny chattering sorts of sounds, like those made by the horribs when they're eating.
"Oh ew, they're eating me," Penance whines and starts squirming even more; trying to get out of her cocoon even more now. "Gotta get them out!"
Breathless, Crabs returns with a rolled up bundle. "Hadda run to de archive.." He claims. He sets it down next to the candle and unrolls it. The medical tools of the Yodhgorphat all look disturbing, and it isn't clear which are crafted and which were once part of large, frightening insects. But there's a small bottle which Crabs uses to dab at a rag, and then approaches Penance. "Dis might.. sting," he warns.
Or which were just used to torture people. "It already hurts! And itches! And they're EATING ME!" she squeals out at an almost ear-spliiting volume! "Gettem ouuuuut!"
"Don' bite me head off yet," Crabs begs, and tries to apply the disinfectant to a spot of breast-flesh. This causes the itching to pause for a moment.. but then the 'bumps' emerge and squirt more of the oily goo out in defense. Apparently that stuff has been liquid poop all along or similar.
"Augh! That didn't do anything!" Penance whines, and starts crying.
"Well, it didn't kill 'em or get 'em drunk anyway," Crabs says, and retrieves a very long set of.. grabbers of some sort. They slide instead of pinch. He presses them to one of the pores, hoping to catch something. "Hah!" he says as the claspers clasp, and he tugs on the whatever. This causes a very sharp pain in that spot, and blood wells out of the pore, but the thing isn't coming out of its hole.
"Ooooooow!" Penance cries out and jerks. "I'm bleeding! It's not coming out! I'm going to die!"
"Now.. you aren't gonna die," Crabs says, letting go of the (presumably) butt-end of the burrowing critter. "You just gotta.. you know.. endure," he says. "I'm sure dey come out on their own.. when dey pupate.. or somethin'. I can try to look 'em up in the archive if you want?"
"What if they never come out?" Penance points out. "That snake doctor put this thing on my crotch which will never come off." Interesting logic, but then she's panicking a bit. "Yes, please go lookem up," she agrees.
"Do you want me to leave da mirror?" Crabs asks as he puts the clasper back into the bundle.
"Yeah, I guess so," Penance mutters, sounding defeated. And itchy. Her breasts still itch, and her crotch does too.
The movement is a lot more noticeable now, and the itching intensifies outwards from the spot where the extraction was attempted. If the bugs are being defensive now (and somehow biting), does it mean she can't be milked anymore? Should she warn Otto when he comes to milk her later?
Penance frowns and whimpers a little in her own little private hell. She should warn Otto to not milk her, and gods, they're biting, and it hurts. How to stop them? Soak her breasts in something so they come out to breathe, maybe?
It seems to take forever for Crabs to return. When he does he's dragging a stool with him, along with a scroll tucked under one arm. Time really crawls when you've got infested boobs.
"Did you find anything?" Penance asks him. She doesn't complain about him being slow, but boy does she really want to.
"I found.. uh.. sometin', yeah," the Skreek says, not sounding too thrilled about it. He sets the stool between Penance and the mirror, but doesn't sit on it. Instead he sets the candle onto it so he can unroll the scroll. "Dey is fly larvae," he tells her. "A bit like teeny-tiny horribs."
"That doesn't sound good," Penance admits and makes a face. "But, they do come out, right? They're not going to stay in there, are they?"
"Wellll.. de larvae don't come out, no. Dey will 'ventually form cysts, and the flies come out of dose. Dey drink your blood and breath through they butts, but can turn and bite if they want."
Penance makes a face. "So, there's no way to get them out before that? What happens after they leave? Do more come? Does it leave a hole? Will I die having this many?" she babbles out all the questions.
"The cysts supposed to unravel after flies leave, but gotta come out quick or cause bad reaction," Crabs says. "Holes.. might close up, if they not scar on the inside. So.. gotta keep wigglers happy, not try to pull 'em out. Otherwise they gotta be cut out."
"How do you keep them happy?" Penance has to ask as her ears splay sideways. "And how long do they take to ... grow?"
"Oh.. just anudder ten or twelve weeks, if infection date accurate," Crabs says, and then climbs up and stands on the stool, so he's now standing so his chest is blocking Penance's view of the mirror. "Keep happy.. well, horrib maybe heard you.." Someone embarrassed (which is pretty rare for a Skreek, especially Crabs), he reaches down and starts to.. rub himself.
"Three months!" Penance squeaks, "You have to be kidding! No milking, right?" Then she realizes what he's doing. "Gonna stick that in me? I'm wide open these days," she mutters. And given the worm that lives down there, she doesn't really feel anything from sex most of the time. She's mostly become a, er, 'goo recepticle'.
"Err, not quite," Crabs admits. "Actually.. not at all.." He's clearly aiming for her chest. "Says to use.. you know.. the goo from the stings. So the little worms drink it up and not use your blood so much.."
Penance's ears go back again. "You have got to be kidding. Please tell me you're kidding," she pleads. "There has to be something else."
"It gotta be fresh and warm," Crabs admits. "Dis ain't easy for me, neither. It ache. But.. you get da odder guys to help, since dey gotta feed the inside bugs anyway.."
"Why not put it in me an work it up to where yer close, then pull out and finish?" PEnance suggests. Why should they both suffer, after all, and it at least makes her mangled nethers useful.
"Err, I can try," Crabs says. "I got some of that fat still." So he climbs down, lubes things up, and.. stands on tip-toe to make it work, given that Penance is up against the wall. And he has to do it without disturbing her breasts. However, this position does mean the worm is being stimulated more, which (after the initial aching pain as its tails-or-heads wiggle) eventually feels pleasant.
Penance lets out a small sigh. At least something feels sort of nice. It's nothing like it was; she's feeling no buildup or rush, but more just a gentle pleased. But, this was her choice, she sacrified that pleasure to Gorphat, and lets Gorphat decide when she can feel that sort of pleasure, or none at all. Of course due tot he removal and the spreading, and other problems, yes, outside lubrication is now needed when she's being used. Inala's gate really has been defiled and corrupted to close to uselessness for one of its main purposes.
The creepers haven't been forgotten, it's just their pain is more aching and sharp pains and less maddening itch. But now they're waking up in anticipation of being fed early. Which could also pose a problem if they aren't.
Penance figures, one problem at a time. She's disturbingly gotten used to just being used by guys like this and feeling not much from it. There's frustrations sometimes, though, but she's getting better with dealing with it. And her stretcher gear ... the hooks are nicely being over-grown by scar tissue, meaning soon she'll have no hope of ever removing that stretcher. Of course once that heals, the doctor will probably just mutilate things down there more, given how things are going for her.
It's taking Crabs awhile, even with the lubrication. Maybe it's the awkward position. He also looks like he might be getting a cramp from the way his expression is evolving.
"If you need to pull out and ... resume what you were earlier, go ahead," Penance tells Crabs. Why should they both suffer, after all?
"Mebbe you could.. help?" he asks timidly as he pulls out climbs back, trying to finish things manually. "Kin you say somethin' sexy?"
Penance looks confused. "I don't know what sexy is," she admits, "Or at least I don't think I do." She purses her lips as she thinks. "Oh, Skreek of Mabb, anoint me with your most horrid goo so that I may honor Her, Gorphat, and smell like a Skreek girl?" she struggles out.
"Ehh.. can you like.. talk me up a bit mebbe?" Crabs asks, trying to be more specific.
"No one really knows how to treat a Yodh like you do, you sexy stud of a Skreek?" Penance offers, feeling rather silly about this. "Bathe me in your juice?"
"Nggg.. am I your favorite?" Crabs asks, working faster.
"Of course! You're much nicer than Otto towards me! And you have a nicer thingie too," Penance claims. "If I were a skreek girl, I'd marry you."
"Really?" Crabs asks, looking genuinely surprised. "Do you mean it or.. GLIRK!" Things feel suddenly warmer and stickier on Penance's chest, and after a moment to recover, Crabs starts to rub the stinky stuff all over her breasts. The itching does abate. But the smell is making her a bit woozy (or else the lack of sleep is starting to catch up to her). "Dis stuff a lot stinkier than de regular version," Crabs notes.
"It smells fine," Penance claims as she tries to not breathe through her nose and looks upward so she doesn't have to look at what he just did. "And yah, I mean it. I'd marry ya."
"And have lots a little ratty brats?" Crabs asks as climbs down and.. picks up where he left off down below. Now that the goo is out of him, maybe he can enjoy himself more. "I'm sorry you're all.. messed up down here. But I sure Gorphat reward you for enduring it eventually."
"Sure, dozens of little rats," Penance claims; though she's probably completely sterile now! And things are back to feeling ... nice, but nothing overwhemlming. She does at least have muscle control down there, though the stretching limits some of it, and she works it against him as a reward.
"You are my favorite girl," Crabs claims, his hands on her hips (since he can't reach behind her while she's stuck in her alcove). "The Yodhmabb aren't nice like you."
"They aren't? Why not?" PEnance asks, able to have small talk since she has no buildup from this. She can't really move her hips either, but she keeps working her muiscles inside as much as she can.
"They not happy about what we hadda do to feed their guardians," the Skreek notes, closing his eyes. "And dey get better guardians, so.. feel more important. But.. yeah.. dey Yodh so they is more important. Barmabb for serving them."
"Maybe I should talk with them. The new Yodh should not be all self important anymore. I don't think, anyway," Penance admits, sounding a little unsure about that.
"They not stuck-up-up.. nff!" Now the Skreek is really pumping.. upwards. He's probably going to get foot cramps for sure if he keeps this up.
There's little PEnance can do other than try to use muscle to make the poor rat finish faster, before he cramps up! "Still, they sound like a problem, should talk to em," she admits, "Though only if Gorphat allows."
"Mabb serves Gorphat," Crabs notes. Then lets out a might squeek and feeds the creepers.
"Yah, I know. But, Gorphat may be fine with how they act. She will have to tell me if I should speak to them or not I suppose," Penance says as the poor Rat releases. Sure, it feels nice, but that's about it. No pleasure for her; she's just a factory now.
Crabs slides down a bit, and actually sits on the stool. "This has been a long night," he notes. "Want me to leave the mirror or.. oh." The horribs finally start crawling over Penance's limbs to chew them free of their restraints.
"You can take it back ... and I don't care if they do let me out, I'm taking a nap," Penance claims, sounding tired herself. She doesn't even care she's sticky, or that she's dripping from Crabs' last stand.
Even as Crabs moves to return the mirror to the High Priestess's chambers, the newly freed (and exhausted) Penance can hear the approaching rattle of Otto's bucket.
"Horribs ... chase him off please," Penance asks from where she wobbles. Soon, she drops to her knees, then down onyto her wings at least, sparing the larvae more irritation. And within seconds, she starts to snore.