Rogan's Monsters 2: Below, page 1
Rogan’s Monsters
2: Below
Jack Porter
Copyright © 2020 by Jack Porter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Also by Jack Porter
Introduction
The Wastes were just the beginning.
I thought the girls and I would be safe once we made it to the caves.
I was wrong.
Very fucking wrong.
Monsters, foul creatures like I could barely imagine, descendants of the alien fucks that had already killed me the first time around. And to make matters worse, the goddamned caverns themselves seemed to be trying to kill us.
Okay, so maybe I was this legendary swordsman with martial arts skills up the wazoo and a powerful chi gift that worked like magic thrown into the bargain.
But maybe even that wouldn’t be enough.
You can save them. You can save ALL of them.
Yeah, right. Good fucking luck.
Rogan’s Monsters is a harem series that includes isekai, wuxia, xianxia elements (martial arts and magic), as well as a few gamelit mechanisms for good measure. Set (mostly) in a post-apocalyptic world, it contains violence, nudity, and sex, as well as alien invasions, wraiths and monster girls.
Read at your own risk.
1
“Fuck,” I muttered.
It was like crawling down the throat of a stone monster, and I hated it. Give me wide open fields, an endless wasteland filled with sand and rocks, or even a forest, and I was golden. But force me to crawl on my hands and knees through dark tunnels filled with tight spaces I could barely squeeze through, and I didn’t like it.
And if those tight spaces were filled with hard, unyielding edges that caught my robes and dug into my flesh, then the odd muttered curse was bound to slip out.
I wasn’t phobic. Not exactly. I didn’t feel like the walls were trying to close in, or that it was getting difficult to breathe. But even in my old life, before the Wraith had cast his final spell, spelunking had been a long way from my first choice of recreational activities.
Now, I was bigger than I had been back then. My shoulders were broader. And while I had grown used to the changes out in the Wastes, this was a different story.
I’d already banged my head against bits of rock more often than I cared to remember. There were bruises on my elbows and knees, and, even though it was hooked firmly in place at my back, my oversized sword seemed to get caught way more often than it should have.
It seemed that the caves were made of sharp edges laced with malice, and I was wondering if it hadn’t been a mistake to enter them at all.
Not that we’d had much choice. Vesh D’Agon’s army would have overwhelmed us eventually, despite the mad, crazy skills I had with my blade.
And I wasn’t the only one expressing my displeasure. From behind me, I heard Camille spitting occasional curses and grunting with the effort required to crawl through. Beyond her, Gamma and Zera were quieter, and I had to take it on faith that Ash was still there at all.
I turned onto my side and squeezed myself past an outcropping of rock that seemed to be there just to make life difficult. “Fucking hell,” I muttered again as I scraped some skin off the back of my hand as I wriggled through.
It was a momentary irritation that nevertheless took my mind from the other task at hand, and the entire cave system plunged into comparative darkness.
Sure, Gamma had doused a small stone with the liquid that made everything glow, and that provided some defense against the darkness. But the liquid was precious, and Gamma had only a small amount with her. Given that we didn’t know how long we would be stuck in these caves, it made sense not to waste it.
And besides, I had my AC lens. With effort, I could manipulate my chi to power it up, and keep it going as I made my way. The AC lens had a variety of settings, one of which was night vision.
It was an expenditure of chi I was happy to pay, and I had become good enough that I could keep it going for long periods at a time.
But every so often, like when I scraped the back of my hand, I would lose my focus and be plunged into the darkness.
I paused for a moment, half-jammed around the latest outcropping, and tried to regather my focus.
“What’s wrong?” Camille said from behind me. Yet there wasn’t much in the way of sympathy in the fierce woman’s voice. I knew without asking that she too was uncomfortable being surrounded by nothing but rock.
“Nothing,” I said back, unconsciously keeping my voice low. “Give me a moment.”
The AC lens burst back into life, and I crawled my way forward again, wondering if this narrow part of the cave system would ever end, or if we would simply end up stuck, like chimney sweeps in the middle ages so often got stuck in the chimneys they were meant to be cleaning.
Yet it wasn’t long after that when I started to sense a bigger space up ahead. Encouraged, I crawled a bit faster, bending my body around what felt like a large boulder that was there just to annoy. I caught a scent that suggested moisture and plant life, and wondered if the cave system was already at an end.
We had been making our way through the tunnels for a number of hours already. For some of that time, we were able to walk upright, but for far more time than I liked, we were rats in a drainpipe.
And not a straight drainpipe, either.
I couldn’t help but wonder how Zera was coping. The butterfly girl was built for open spaces, and while she was the smallest of us, her wings made her ungainly. But she didn’t complain, at least as far as I could hear. She just made her way through as best as she could.
I maneuvered past the boulder, and my AC lens began flashing a warning. There was more ambient light here than before.
Hopefully, we’d made our way through. I dragged myself forward, eager to be free of the confines of the caves, toggling the AC lens at the same time to avoid being overwhelmed by what I would have sworn was real daylight.
I missed my footing. Didn’t notice that the ground disappeared from beneath my hands and knees. Couldn’t help but shout in surprise as I tumbled down a short bank.
I landed in a heap of very jagged rocks. Only then did I manage to toggle the AC lends off and look around.
“Fuck,” I said again.
I’d only fallen a couple of feet. I’d cut my hand but had done no serious damage. But that wasn’t what had caused me to curse.
We hadn’t reached the end of the cave system at all. We had just reached a larger cavern.
2
“Careful,” I said to Camille as she stuck her head out from the tunnel from which I had just emerged. She took the hand I offered as help and climbed out with much more grace than I had managed.
The cavern we found ourselves in was larger than most of those we had seen before, and lit by bioluminescence. Everywhere I looked, the floor and the walls were covered in leafy plant-like things that grew to about ankle height and gave off a delicate glow that filled the entire place.
Only the ceiling was free from the plants, or fungi, or whatever they were. I had never seen anything like them, and despite my disappointment that we were still in the caves, part of me was curious.
And the plant-like things weren’t the only signs of life in the cavern. There were also insects buzzing about, most of them keeping low, using the bioluminescent plants like clownfish used sea anemones—for protection.
Camille didn’t seem to share my interest. She looked around and uttered a snort of disappointment that we were still underground. Then she stepped aside, and we both helped Zera out of the tunnel.
The butterfly girl’s expression was one of torment, her face screwed up in pain. Along with the psychological misgivings of being underground, she simply wasn’t dressed for crawling through cramped tunnels with sharp edges. At least Camille was protected to some degr
But still, she didn’t complain. In fact, as soon as her feet touched the cavern floor, she looked around with an expression of delight. “Ooh, pretty!” she said, and without another thought, started wandering about, bending low to run her fingers happily through the plants, and laughing as waves of bioluminescence seemed to waft free from them at her touch.
Some of the bugs flitting about were small but colorful butterflies, a good match in terms of color for Zera’s wings. They gathered about her just as the few we’d seen out in the Wastes had done before, flitting about as if she was their queen.
Zera gave one of her musical laughs, and promptly sat down next to one of the many columns that seemed to hold up the cavern ceiling. Perhaps once they had been stalactites going down from the ceiling. If so, they had long since merged with the stalagmites growing up from below.
“Are you going to watch Zera all day?” came Gamma’s scathing voice from the tunnel. “Or are you going to help me down?”
Any joy I’d been able to muster at watching Zera’s innocent exploration of the cavern faded into nothing. It seemed that Gamma also didn’t like the tight spaces. And in her case, she expressed it by lashing out at whoever was handy.
Like me.
I didn’t want to help. But the binding was still in place, and I had no real choice in the matter. Yet it had been a long, tiring day, one which had nearly cost me my life on several occasions. I couldn’t muster any polite words for the painted princess, and just stood woodenly as I helped her down.
She tucked her glowing rock into one of the many pouches she wore, and spent a moment trying to ensure her extravagant hair was still in place. It wasn’t, not exactly, but given what we’d been through, it was still surprisingly close to its original architecture.
“Hmph,” she managed. “That’s better.”
I barely kept my top lip from curling in resentment. It wasn’t me who had agreed to the binding for the duration of this journey. It was the Rogan Ward who had worn this body before I’d taken it over. Although, I had to admit, to be burdened by the binding he had sworn was a small price to pay for finding myself alive once again, and for the use of his body (not that I had much of a choice in that, either). But I still resented it.
Resolutely, I turned from Lady Gamma, intending to help Ash from the tunnel, but I had forgotten about Edda, Gamma’s irritating monkey-creature.
It burst out of the tunnel as if it had been shot out of a cannon, a chittering, six-legged ball of anger. In less than a heartbeat, it had climbed to the top of Gamma’s shoulder, where it sat, holding onto one of the columns in her hair for support as it sputtered angrily in my direction.
I ignored the creature as best as I could and waited until Ash appeared at the entrance.
Ash was the largest of us, fully seven feet tall and more muscular than even my own rawboned frame. I hesitated to guess how she’d managed to force her way through the passage. Yet she had, and without the complaints voiced by some of the others. She accepted my hand without a word, and through brute strength more than any sort of native flexibility, heaved herself out to stand before me.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Uh, sure,” I said in an awkward stammer.
At this, the big woman quirked a half smile but didn’t say anything, and I cursed myself for being a fool. Of all of the women in our little party, Ash was my friend. But not this Ash. She wasn’t the Ash I had fought beside all the way through the Wastes.
For one thing, she was smaller. Considerably so. The Ash I’d fought with had been a giant, a massive creature more than fourteen feet tall, swinging a club as big as me, holding her end of the field against our enemies almost as easily as I held my own.
This Ash still carried her club, although it was much smaller. She slung it across her shoulders like my sword, but that was about the end of the similarities.
I’d originally thought of the giant Ash as a troll, or maybe an ogre. She’d had a face that looked like a pile of rocks, and at first, I’d mistaken her for being a man.
This new, smaller Ash was decidedly female, and almost entirely human. She still had tusks, for lack of a better word, and her ears were pointed. And her skin, if I had to guess, given the light we were in, was somewhere between gray and light green in color.
For all that, she was far more attractive than I would have guessed, given her gigantic form.
In summary, I didn’t know what to think about this new version of Ash at all.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to. All I had to do was get my group of women through the caves and to the temple beyond, although how far away that might truly be, I had no idea.
“Just how extensive are these caves anyway?” Camille asked, her voice filled with bitterness and discontent as she echoed my thoughts.
It wasn’t an idle question. Instead, it was directed at Gamma, who had led us here.
The painted princess seemed weary, but she still held herself as tall as she could while Edda transferred her chittering aggression from me to Camille.
“I am not certain,” Lady Gamma replied. “All I know is that they are extensive, and will lead us to where we want to go.”
Camille shot a glare at Edda and then uttered a sigh. “Well, at least there’s more room now,” she said. “But maybe we should take a small break?”
3
While the others found relatively comfortable places to sit and take the weight off their feet, Ash and I made an effort to check the dark, hidden corners for anything dangerous. But the cavern seemed to be no more than what it appeared, a relatively open space filled with luminescent fauna and flora.
But the light given off wasn’t all the same. While mostly shades of blue and green, some of them glowed white, yellow, or even pink as if they were these strange plants’ equivalent of flowers.
I wondered why the plants didn’t grow all the way up the wall, and spent a moment trying to discern what might be on the ceiling. I thought there might be something moving up there, and was on the verge of powering up my AC lens to check when Ash gestured toward one of the openings.
“There is more than one option leading away from here,” she said. “I’ll check this way. You take a look at that narrower passageway on the side wall?”
I was happy enough to follow her lead, checking the passageway out of habit and a sense of doing things right more than anything else. So far, we had come across nothing more dangerous than the odd scorpion or spider, if you didn’t count the caves themselves.
Yet the choice of more than one direction to go presented another problem. I checked my passageway, decided there was nothing lurking in the shadows, and then returned to where Lady Gamma was sitting with her eyes closed and her legs folded, lotus position, as if she was seeking a balance of her own.
Perhaps she would have been more successful if Edda wasn’t doing her best to harvest as much of the luminescent foliage as she could, chattering away at herself as she hurled luminous leaves into the air.
Camille lay on her back nearby, apparently relaxed, with one of her ankles balanced on a knee, her tail occasionally twitching in the foliage, and Zera was still happily playing with the butterflies she had found. Ash returned then, shaking her head that she hadn’t found anything of note in her passageway.
