**”Vessel of Corruption”**
Althea squirmed and writhed beneath the gaunt fanatic’s touch. The bony fingers held fast. When the four plagued cultists holding Althea’s ankles began chanting in the dark forbidden tongue of demons, the young acolyte darted her frightened gaze amongst them. Whirling like heatless flames, the black light wreathed the woman’s claws, but suddenly the accursed energy plunged into the priestess’ navel. To Althea’s astonishment, she felt no pain. Instead a dull itch spread outward from her belly button. “What? What’s happening to me?!” the young cleric cried out. Craning her neck, she looked down to see the dreaded patchwork of black mold appearing in small spots around her navel. They almost looked like birthmarks, they were so small. But they were there all the same, and there were nine of them. Just like the nine glowing rings around the altar. And in that moment the priestess recalled the association of the number nine with death… Nihilipox, could that be the name of the demon lord of undeath? Though she wanted to delve deeper the memories from her studies in the temple library, another spiking sensation tore her from her thoughts.
“Behold, brothers and sisters. Did I not tell you the girl was chosen by our lord?” the grating, sore voice of the pregnant, saggy-breasted cultist announced to her comrades. Their chanting doubled in fervor, and the shadows in the room coiled and twisted in unnatural angles, as if they reached toward Althea from the walls like grasping, black tendrils. The fanatic’s shriveled, black lips parted to reveal a smile of needle-like fangs. This woman was barely human. “Fret not, little one. For you see,” she lifted her hand and gestured toward Althea’s belly button, “you bear the mark of our lord and master, Nihilipox. Rejoice! You have earned the honor of becoming the first cryptmother in nearly three hundred years!” she let loose a haunting cackled but cut short to rattle out another cough, spitting a wad of black ichor onto the dark, stone floor.
“Cryptmother? What in the golden light of Helestria is that?” the restrained acolyte asked, but before she could get an answer, she and the cult fanatic groaned in anguish. Pain wracked their bellies simultaneously, but their reactions differed entirely. A shrill scream cracked Althea’s voice as her belly bulged outward an inch. “Aaaagghh! By the Hearthmother, why! Ungh–ohhh it’s stretching me from the inside out!” One of the nine black spots blossomed to the size of a marble, and bore a striking resemblance to a human skull. In harmony, the cultist’s belly shrunk slightly, the black veins throbbing in time with her manic heartrate. She leaned a bony claw on the altar beside Althea’s hip and looked down at her. She loomed even closer, her grotesque, swollen gut hovering inches away from Althea’s nearly flat tummy.
“It is a gift. Blessed with the master’s mark, you will grow in power. Your body shall become the ultimate vessel of unlife.” The cultist laughed with a sick croak in her throat. Another spike of pain, and this time Althea resisted screaming, instead scrunching her eyes shut and clenching her teeth. She still uttered a low, whining growl of agony, but it somehow felt… tingly? Gazing down, she discerned an observable swell to her middle. A small dome with its apex at her encircled navel. A second spot bore the image of a skull. “The fruit of your loins will usher in legions of obedient undead. And with them, we will conquer this pathetic realm and raze your temples to the ground.” Althea panted, her petite chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. Her naked, unblemished body shone with sweat as a feverish heat flared in her veins. Could this be the ritual’s corruption? Did they cast some manner of curse upon her? Althea tried to focus and anticipate the endgoal of the horrific cult, but with each burst of pain and lingering warmth, her mind spun out of control.
A vision flashed before her eyes. She stood as she was, nearly nude in her belly-slashed robe and slightly bloated tummy in a dark, foggy, silent orchard. Every tree in sight appeared ghoulishly ill or possibly not even alive at all. Some withered and dry husks gnarled into nightmarish shapes, others malignant with fungal tumors and rot, belching ooze and spores. Althea walked amidst them, feeling the soft, swampy earth between her toes. But then the voices of the chanting cultists returned, growing in volume. As they reached a near deafening level, she clasped her hands over her ears. And then the orchard quaked. Althea felt skeletal hands reach up and seize her ankles. They erupted out of the boggy orchard ground itself and immediately began attempting to pull her under. Though she tried to scream, no sound came out of her mouth. All she could hear was the sound of the crackling bony limbs and the shifting of fetid swampland beneath her. Blanketed in fog, the terrified acolyte flailed and sank into the muck.
The vision vanished and she was again on the altar. But now, she felt her limbs freed. The cultists had released her, and she awoke atop the altar. Althea glanced around, seeing no one in the chamber with her. Her tear-streaked eyes darted to her belly, and the horror sunk in. Despite her inexplicable solitude, Althea had indeed suffered through the ominous ritual. Trembling hands cupped the sides of her belly. It jutted out a noticeable distance from her body, and the bloating looked like a young woman near the end of her first trimester. She noticed no other growth, and the only other change was the seemingly permanent mark of Nihilipox. By her count, three of the nine spots had become skulls. Althea sighed softly. At least the pain had subsided. Now she just felt… full. But also empty? Perhaps the ritual consumed her energy because she felt famished. When the young, nearly naked priestess sat upright on the altar, she noticed the true weight of her belly. Even though it wasn’t very big, it felt like she was carrying a stone inside her. And then it twitched. Wide-eyed with panic and wonderment, Althea gingerly pressed her palm and fingers to the underside of her belly, squishing it in a little. Not a moment later, something that felt like a small eel squirmed beneath her touch. The cleric recoiled, and nearly lost her balance atop the stone slab.
“Ngh… no time to lose. I’d better find my way out of this place before they come back…” Althea groaned and rose to her feet with mild difficulty. They had taken her broken broomstick, but a glint of metal near the outer wall of the chamber caught Althea’s eye. “What is that?” she murmured and padded closer, wary of each step with her soft-soled bare feet. Upon closer inspection, she discovers it’s one of the cult’s hooked ritual daggers. It was no sacred smiting mace, but it would suffice. Althea swiped up the blade and held it firmly in one hand; the other hand unknowingly rested atop the slight swell of her ominous middle.
“I have to be careful,” Althea whispered to herself, dagger clutched tight in her hand. Each step sent a tangible sloshing throughout her modest potbelly. Padding softly, the priestess kept her knees bent and skulked to the wall with the utmost care not to make a sound. Better if they think her asleep than to draw any unwanted attention. Or maybe this was a test. Little more than a game to the wicked zealots. Althea traced a finger over the small, dark dots circling her navel. It was still an innie, but she suspected it would not remain so for long… She still didn’t know the significance of the strange markings, and three of the nine spots had become ominous, black skulls. Much like the nine moons of a human pregnancy. Althea halted a few feet from the tall wooden double doors and pressed her back against the stone wall. By the Mother! It took all her resolve not to squeal on contact with the freezing cold stone. Strange, she thought. The floor felt cool, but not nearly as cold as the walls. Now that she thought about it though, the air in the room was colder than she remembered during the ritual.
Creeeak. One of the wooden doors opened with a rusty groan, and a solitary figure entered. The large hood blinded the cultist to their peripherals. Althea held a hand over her mouth, the other kept its white-knuckled grip on the dagger. “Huh?” the a gruff male voice grunted from beneath the hood. He had walked ten feet into the large, domed chamber and stood with an arm on his hip and another reached up to scratch his head in confusion. Althea could see a fat, white worm dangling from a wound in the man’s forearm as the robe’s sleeve fell away. His hand and wrist were a web of red, rashy patches. Althea held her breath as he looked side-to-side.
The cultist had his back to her, but if the sickly zealot turned around now, Althea might lose the element of surprise. Glancing to the left, she saw the wooden door was still open. She could flee, but if he saw her and alerted the others, they might do worse things to her after capture. Despite the acolyte’s pilgrimage and training… Althea had never taken another person’s life. The dagger weighed heavy in her hand, heart pounding in her chest. She felt goaded on by the sudden gurgle from the thing inside of her doing a flip within the stretched confines of her sullied womb.
Unnerved by the guilt of stabbing someone in the back and too frightened of the unknown that lay beyond the big, wooden doors, Althea froze. Dozens of possible deaths and dangers lay in wait, and unfortunately this cost her the scant bit of time fate had provided. At last the cultist turned his head and caught sight of the dagger-wielding priestess. By the goddess, he was hideous! Clearly he had not attended the ceremony, for Althea would never forget such a face. Based on his cheekbones and jawline and the thick head of hair that at least remained on one half of his head, the man might have been handsome at one time, but the corruption of this damnable cult ruined any shred of his beauty. Pallid, loose flesh hung over withered cheeks. His nose was gone, revealing the bony slits of his skull beneath. No lips remained, and all but a handful of rotten, brown teeth hand fallen from his jaw. But this was not the worst of it. Worms. Maggots. Larva–whatever they were, there must have been hundreds of them.
“Ahhhh, there you are,” he slurred in a voice that sounded like stirring porridge. The swarm of inch-long, waxy, pale-green worms crawled around his hollow left eye socket, some navigated in and out of his nose slits. But so many others filled his mouth. Althea nearly gagged when she saw the man’s tongue lap across his blackened gums. When the tongue snaked a whole meter out from the man’s face, she leapt back in fear. It wasn’t his tongue at all. With every inch it became more evident that this tendril was another worm. Fat and purple, the long tongue worm swam through the air in front of the cultist as the robed, maggot-laden man shambled toward her. A quick glance down revealed a trail of the small waxy worms had already been strewn on the floor behind the man, like a macabre mockery of petals behind a flower girl at a wedding. At the thought of bridal ceremony, the unborn abomination inside her belly stretched its eely length along the walls of her womb. Althea winced, her free hand clasped to the side of her small potbelly as if to hush the unwanted offspring. Althea backpeddled along the chamber’s cold, outer wall, shaking her head in disgust and horror. When the priestess stepped on a loose stone, she yelped and nearly tripped over her own feet. The sudden imbalance led Althea to drop the knife, and it clanged onto the dark stone floor, sliding away from her.
“No… please…” she whimpered, and felt the thing growing inside her toss and turn again. “Angh! Not noooow.” Althea clenched her teeth and wrapped her arms around her waist. Within her huddled position she could feel the flesh of her belly swell outward in every direction. “Ohhh,” she puffed out her cheeks, casting her blue gaze first at the fourth black skull to now appear on her belly, and then up at the infested guard. He had stopped in his tracks, his head tilted to one side like a curious puppydog. Much like his face, the state of his robes appeared far worse for wear than those who had attended that accursed ritual. A long tear ran down the left side of his robe’s chest, and she could see more of the worms wriggling across his sickly pale skin beneath the tattered fabric. His physique was also unusual. While most of him appeared of average build or even slim, his belly rounded out farther than Althea’s. He looked like a woman over six months pregnant. At this distance, though, Althea could see discernable movement beneath the taut tummy. He was not pregnant, per say… he was chock full of the worms, like a bag overfilled with rice.
The meter-long purple worm now hung out of the maggot man’s slack jaw and looped around his shoulders like a pet snake. Althea could see the tip of the worm pucker and gape like a small leech mouth. That’s when a familiar, black ooze bubbled up to the tip like pre-cum. It spattered messily onto the floor with a warm honey-like consistency. And then she saw a shape bulging near the puckering, purple sphincter. The slim waxy tip of a worm poked out. “By the goddess… is that where those came from?” Althea clapped her disarmed hand to her mouth, her cheeks puffing with nausea. Had the bigger worm laid the little worms inside the man? Was he little more than its mobile host? Was man or worm in control of his body? But before she could discern any answers, the man let out a rattling, wet growl, spraying a dozen maggots onto the floor between them. Lurching forward, he lunged at Althea and grabbed her by the wrist in his calloused, rashy hand. The fat white worm from before now inched its way down his tattered sleeve, crawling closer to the acolyte’s grappled arm.
Althea struggled in the rotten man’s grip, but he was too strong. Thrash as she may, his fingers stayed locked around her wrist. A dark, soggy chuckle rose from the cultist’s worm-packed throat, and he slowly rotated her arm in his grip, bending it at the elbow before shoving her wrist against her own back, pinning the limb in place like a guard readying his manacles. The maneuver had spun her around, and now Althea’s back was to the man. He pulled her closer to him, and she could hear the wet, goopy noises of the worms sloshing about inside his body. It reminded her of the sound a thick stew makes coming to boil in a cauldron. Now that he loomed right behind her, the guard placed his other hand atop her shoulder. It was clammy, sticky, and felt like it was missing its ring finger. She darted a glance down to the hand, and her eyes went wide. Half of the flesh had rotted away, and she could see a number of the man’s ligaments and tendons flexing and loosening with every subtle movement. Was he even alive anymore?
“Please… you already marked me,” Althea whimpered, tears welling in her eyes from both fear and the pungent stink of death and decay. The man absolutely reeked of rot and putrescence. Her free hand pressed into the taut, round skin of her belly. A small jolt of pain, far less than the others she’d felt so far, tingled up the apex of her stomach. She already looked larger than four months pregnant, and with the proximity of the cultist, she could feel the shape dwelling in her womb warp and flex. It seemed to get animated whenever around one of the cadaverous fanatics.
“Just made ready,” the gurgling, male voice replied. The sticky, rotting hand from his shoulder lifted, leaving a handprint of foul-smelling dark-green fluid in its wake. In a swift but gentle slap, the palm splatted against the side of her tummy, smearing more of the green, viscous, rotslime. Everywhere it touched tingled and started slightly itching. “More preparations… more chaaange.” His breath was as awful as the rest of his body. After the final word, a gurgle rose in the man’s throat like an imminent belch before he vomitted up a chunky wad of the waxy worms all down Althea’s back. She shrieked at the wriggling, larval confetti that now clung to her back in a sticky, rancid, slow-moving waterfall of bile and maggots.
“Helestria… please save me…” Althea murmured softly, hanging her head in prayer, eyes scrunched shut at the disgusting aromas and textures overwhelming her senses. The hand on her belly pulled away, leaving sticky strands of the tar-thick, soupy fluid hanging between the decomposing hand and her domed tummy. As if provoked by the mention of the sacred goddess, the man pushed Althea forward by arm pinned to her back, bending her over at the waist in a lewd position. Once every second or so she felt another of the waxy worms plop onto her back from their aggressive host. That’s when something cold and wet flopped down onto the small of Althea’s back. Judging by the guard’s position, it wasn’t his penis, so then… Althea craned her neck back and went wide-eyed. “No! Not that! Please! I beg you!”
Upon her back rested the tip of the thick, purple worm. It traced about her pale, smooth skin, sampling the youthful, flawless texture. A trail of black, filthy ichor lay in its wake. The long worm meandered up Althea’s horizontal back like a snake along a tabletop, sliding up the groove between her back muscles, clinging to the skin covering her spine. Althea turned her head away out of disgust and opened her mouth to scream to the door. Maybe the woman who performed the ritual would stop this? Surely this abuse was not part of their grand scheme. But before she could let out the first cry for help, she felt the slick length of the worm zip up her back and instantly coil around her throat. Althea gasped, her lips trembling and silent, blue eyes wide and watery. It squeezed her throat once before the tip came into view in front of her face. The priestess realized its intent a moment too late, and before she could close her mouth, the worm squeezed between her lips and its puckering, leaky tip flopped against her tongue. It had a bitter, acrid taste. Not unlike tea left to steep too long. But with another flavor… a salty, heady, spunky taste. Althea felt a glob of the black, honey-textured ichor spill into her mouth. It rolled around like an oily gob of lard before it began melting in the warm confines of her young, oral hole. When it ran down her throat, Althea could feel it burn all the way down. “Mmmph!” she let out a muffled scream around the writhing, invading tendril.
But the secretions were the least of her worries. Just as before, she saw a lump bulging up the length of the purple worm. It coursed up the fleshy, violet tube before stopping at her closed lips. Althea attempted to chomp down on the worm in hopes of expelling it from her mouth, but this only let out an unsettling moan from deep in the man’s core. A second bulge now gathered behind the first, and the priestess could see the contents squirming and pulsating rhythmically. Seeing that the cleric would not submit easily, the maggot-filled man did something that completely caught Althea by surprise. He hiked up the skirt of her torn, green robe and seized the tender meat of her small ass cheek his four-fingered hand. What could he possibly have in mind– “Mngh!” Althea gargled the purple worm in her throat in surprise as the stump of his ring finger pressed against the puckered ring of her asshole. Was… was he going to put his necrotic finger stump inside her? It would seem so, as the soft ragged flesh, cartilage, and rotten bone slipped into her rectum. Unfortunately, the ploy worked, as the sudden invasion from behind loosened Althea’s lips enough for the twinned, squirming bulges to work their way to the puckering tip of the purple worm. There, inside the warm, moist confines of her mouth, the worm discharged a dozen or more of the waxy, pale-green worms. Their tiny bodies instantly rejoiced, reveling atop her flailing tongue like it was their new home.
Althea gagged and coughed, but the purple tendril refused to leave. Dizziness and dissociation set in at the shock of the disgusting, wormy soup now filling the young acolyte’s maw. And by the time she swallowed the whole first load and half of the second, a third, sticky deluge of ichor and worms flooded Althea’s cheeks to the point of bulging. Hot tears streaked down her grime-smeared face. All over her body, the cleric of Helestria was coated in a smattering of body fluids, sloughed rot, corruption, and general filth. She struggled against her captor’s grip, but the sensation of dozens of inch-long worms crawling down her throat made her head spin.
Althea shook her head against the imminent blackout. No! She was a priestess of Helestria, and she would not break here! The maggot-filled man swayed slightly as the purple worm thrust in and out of her tightly-clamped mouth. Between each dizzying deluge of the slimy maggot stew, Althea realized that the guard looked increasingly fatigued, as if each spurt drained him of some of his energy. A fourth bulge rose up the purple worm, and Althea watched the man’s jaw fall slack, along with his grip on her wrist. Now! With one hand, Althea gripped the length of the purple parasite, clenching her small fist right above the rising bulge. She swiftly yanked it as hard as she could, and dislodged the worm’s sphintered tip from her lips with a wet pop!
“Ugh, thank the mother–Now get off of me!” With the oral anchor removed, the priestess raised her knee and stomped her bare heel down onto the cultist’s black slipper. The man’s foot crumpled under her stomp with a wet crunch like rotten wood. The sound and sensation of liquifying a human foot turned Althea’s stomach, though that could also have been the belly full of worms and lively, tentacled spawn she carried. Her captor grunted, but it sounded more akin to confusion rather than pain. Off balance and beleagured by multiple maggoty climaxes, it was easy for Althea to shove him away. In her peripheral, she saw him fall onto his back with another wet crunch. At last the priestess was no longer in his clutches. Or so she thought, until something squeezed her butt. “What?!”
To her horror, the man’s four-fingered arm had detached at the wrist. It’s ring finger stump was still lodged in her asshole, and she could feel something tickling her insides. Like a string or filament poking out of the rotten nub. And that’s when she noticed nine squirming tendrils sprouting from the black-blue, necrotic wrist. These were black in color and no thicker than a piece of straw. They whipped about, lashing against her pale, cum-stained thighs. “No! Get it out!” Althea squealed and reached back to grab the wrist. When she tried to pull, the fingers of the rashy hand dug into the meat of her ass cheek, anchoring the stump all the way up to the knuckle. “Nyah! Not there! Please–stop!” the priestess lamented, but despite her cries the knuckle tendril scraped itself along the walls of her rectum. It almost felt like something– glorp! Althea went wide-eyed. Inside her ass, the tendril was planting hundreds of tiny, bead-like eggs along the inside of her rectum.
“Nooo!” Althea moaned, her knees buckling. She felt her butt flex and clench reflexively, only helping the disembodied zombie hand to remain latched in place. “Nnghh… I have to… get it out… before…” her fingers twitched weakly around the rotten wrist. She watched the nine flailing tendrils all start discharging dollops of thick, sloppy green roe. The spray of tiny eggs clung to Althea’s skin and hair like gobs of jade-colored oatmeal. When she leaned against the cold, black stone wall, she only managed to pull it free after bending over at the waist again and jutting out her butt in an embarassingly lewd posture. The knuckle popped free, and she felt the thin, black tendril twirling out of her asshole like an animated string. It kept laying the slurry of green ovum even after returning to the cool air of the ritual chamber. Several gobs drooled down between the crack of Althea’s pert, small cheeks. The priestess stood up and held the hand out at full arm’s length. When the tendrils tried to coil around her forearm, Althea squeaked and flung the severed hand across the room.
A moment of peace, at last. She leaned her sweating forehead against the soothing, cold stone. What a nightmare this had all been. Even in that moment she heard the maggot man clawing at the stone floor, unable to drag himself closer with one rotten hand. The purple worm whipped through the air angrily, spurting several more loads of black ooze and maggots onto the floor, but unable to reach the cleric after whom it lusted so fiercely. Althea laid a hand over her belly, and her eyes went wide. “What? When did the mark change again?” the priestess gawked at the growth in her tummy.
By now she could no longer deny it. Althea was pregnant. With what, or by whom, she could not say. A cold sweat erupted across her body, covering her sticky, stained skin in goosebumps. She had not lain with a man… or no living man… Could this be the product of that disgusting orc? Or the worm-filled man? Could this be the result of that strange ritual? Regardless, her belly had become a distinct dome. Every slight movement felt awkward as she tried standing straight up. The new center of balance would take some time to adjust. Time Althea lacked. A fifth skull wreathed her belly, leaving only four small spots unchanged. What would happen in the wake of nine skulls? Her small hands cradled her belly. From their place beneath the gravid swell, she couldn’t even see her feet without leaning forward. As an acolyte of Helestria, goddess of life, fertility, and harvest, Althea was well-versed in childbirth. Though she dreaded what horrid thing would fall from her womb when the time came. For the briefest of moments, the girl was thankful that the crazed woman slashed open her robes. It provided her burgeoning belly room to breath, though the rest of the green robes had long since crusted over by the numerous fluids staining its fabric. That’s when Althea felt the ground tremble.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/kbwt9v/lair_of_the_cryptmother_ch_6_dark_fantasybody
[Chapter 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/kbwsum/lair_of_the_cryptmother_ch_5_dark_fantasybody/)
[Chapter 7](https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/kbwtos/lair_of_the_cryptmother_ch_7_dark_fantasybody/)