They left her alone in the room for a couple of hours. During that time Chloe watched the alchemical agent they’d injected into the other girls work. It was a potion, and an interesting one at that. Chloe watched how each girl’s ovaries swelled, ran through an entire ovulation cycle in short order, then cloned themselves. Several additional ovaries formed on the end of the oviduct, creating a cluster of them. Chloe wasn’t entirely sure why.
Just as she was getting rather bored waiting, the two girls from earlier came in with their cart. The one checked the first woman on the left and then spoke, “Process went smoothly. We can harvest the crop.”
“You sure? The new ones are fertile?”
The first girl used an odd rod covered in runes to probe the ovary clusters. When it glowed green, she nodded, “Fertile yes. I’m going to check the next one. Start harvesting, and remember, leave the originals.”
“Like I’d ever forget.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” came the reply as the two beastkin girls went about their strange work. Chloe watched it with a frown. Ovary cloning, then harvesting the clones? And they needed them fertile? Her mind flashed to a very specific monster. Schwæri Raptors and their evolved form the Schwæri Harpy could take in the ovaries of another species and use them to lay eggs that would eventually hatch into a member of the donor species. Everyone here is pregnant. Factor in this... if they had a tamed flock of those things... could it be? Or was something else going on?
The two girls closed the five girls on the tables up. Then left with their cargo of stolen ovaries. Chloe watched them leave and wondered when they would be allowed to leave. As it would turn out, she didn’t have to wait long. Through her shadowed eyes, she noted the receptionist escorting Alicia out of her room and that girl had been through the process only a couple minutes before. Seeing that, she dispelled her false copy and took its place on the bed. Pretending to be dazed by the stone above, took some effort, but it was easy enough.
__________________________
Chloe ended up joining with the others not long after, and given the late hour, they went to find lodgings. Alicia ended up selecting an inn just down the block that was run by a young beastkin woman. Specifically, she was a Vorician Tiger-kin; they were known for multiple breasts, stripped skin and two tails. This one was no different, she wore nothing more than a short skirt and a headdress, leaving her pregnant belly and four pairs of swollen breasts on full display.
The inn also had a chef. Chloe took him in as he set down her plate. He was handsome in a rugged sort of way, clearly had some demon blood in him. Tusked face, reddish-grey skin, tall and muscular. “The House Special, I hope you all enjoy.”
Chloe spoke up, “it looks delicious.” She looked up at him, a question on her mind, “So are you married to the innkeeper?”
He chuckled, “Well she is pretty, but no. I have three lovely daughters waiting for me at home and a cute wife as well...”
The man’s face lit up with pride. He was soon telling her all about his cute wife and their three daughters. She ended up learning far more about his family than she cared to know. Such as the fact that his youngest daughter was four, had way more energy than was good for her, and that she had a tendency to break her bones if you don’t watch her. She also learned that his eldest was nine, hated being told what to do, and had a bit of a mean streak. Meanwhile he talked about his middle daughter who was apparently seven as if she was an angel. Chloe had a feeling that particular daughter was his favorite.
Alicia, noting her expression, chuckled. Then leaned over, “Remember this next time you go asking people questions.”
“Anyway I’ve talked your ear off long enough. I should let you eat your food, but if you are looking for a playmate let me know. I’ll introduce you to my daughters. I’m sure they will enjoy meeting a lovely young lady like yourself.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied.
The man hurried off to the kitchen. There weren’t that many customers on the floor however, so he was doing both the cooking and waitstaff job. It made Chloe wonder if they were short a waitress or two. Turning to the table, she focused on her food. The chef had served her a local variation of steak with grilled veggies, a small bowl of soup and some bread. It was a filling meal, and actually rather well done. It tasted better than what she would expect to find in an inn that catered to the common traveller and adventurer. More in line with what a restaurant or higher class inn might serve. Her impression of the chef went up, he was hopeless about his family, but he had a strong grasp of cooking. Maybe she’d come back to poach him, when she was ready to unveil who she really was?”
Halfway through her meal, she spoke up, “Myshi? Ellie?”
The two girls in question looked up, Ellie frowned, “You need something?”
“I have something I would like to talk about with both of you, but not here. Ellie, would you mind letting me and Myshi into your room for a chat?”
Ellie gave her a look, then shrugged, “Color me curious. I’ll bite.”
Myshi looked around the table then nodded, “I’ll come.”
Alicia interjected, “What? Just them? Am I not invited?”
Chloe looked over, “It’s not a topic you have any expertise in. You’d be rather lost.”
Alicia chuckled, “I was just joking. Have fun.”
Sae however was frowning, “Are we not going to play a game tonight?”
“I won’t be long, we will have plenty of time to play.”
Reassured, Sae went back to her food, the frown gone. It was nice having a friend that was so easy to satisfy, but she’d still be cuter without her head attached. Not long after, they were finished with their food.
The innkeeper noticed they were done and walked on over. She smiled, “Don’t worry about your dishes. Qrek will take care of it later.”
Alicia nodded, “Alright.”
Only the innkeeper was already walking off to chat with another table. Chloe neatly stacked her dishes and then hopped off the chair. Ellie joined her and Myshi wasn’t far behind as they walked towards the stairs. The rooms they had rented were on the second floor. The stairs were on the other side of the dining area, so they walked past the innkeeper on the way up. So she caught some of the conversation on the way up. It wasn’t anything of real note, the other table was inquiring about ordering seconds.
Chloe climbed the steps and upon reaching the top, she started scanning the doors. Each one was marked with a number, they’d rented two rooms. One for Ellie and the other one was for everyone else. Chloe wasn’t sure about sharing a room with Myshi, she loved her tail too much, but she’d not been able to convince the others. She was sure Myshi had manipulated the others, not that she’d caught the girl doing it. It just aligned too much with Myshi’s desires to be anything else.
Ellie’s room 207 finally came up and Chloe pointed out the door. “Your room is this one!”
“So it is,” said Ellie as she moved up front to unlock the door and the trio walked into the room. Myshi closed the door behind them and Chloe cast a privacy spell, just to be sure.
She took a breath. Hesitating to say anything, she instead looked around the room for a moment. It was a pretty typical single occupant room, with a large bed, chest and wardrobe. A lamp in the corner served to provide light. Sitting on the bed, she let out another breath, centered herself then said, “About our ‘invitation’ what did you two think about that?”
Ellie looked to Myshi, then glanced back at Chloe. No words came from her but there was an unspoken message. Myshi, a frown on her face, said, “Hmm? I had a fun time, what about it?”
“Remember our conversation before we went in? You don’t recall anything strange?”
Myshi shook her head, “It was nice. The female at the door greeted us, took us in the back and separated us. I was shown to a nice room, the bed was really comfy. I must confess I fell asleep almost as soon as the massage began. Best rest I’ve had in a while.”
“No odd feeling about being separated?”
Myshi gave her a look, “No.”
Chloe sighed, then looked at Ellie, “What about you?”
Ellie sighed, “You weren’t affected either were you? I know it wasn’t that. I played along naturally, I assume you did the same?
“Something like that,” she replied, focusing on Myshi. How deep did the mental manipulation go? Chloe assumed the crystal had something to do with it. The current Ellie in the room was fake Ellie and Chloe knew that as a spirit she shared the mental resistances she had. Of course, her high level protected her even more than other spectral undead and spirits. Chloe sighed, “Now Myshi, how does your stomach feel? They didn’t actually massage us, they cloned and harvested our ovaries.”
Myshi blinked, “My belly? It feels...” she gasped, “It should be fine? Why does it hurt?”
She touched it and gasped again. Chloe kept a close eye on her, and watched gears turn in her eyes.
“What... What did they do to us? Did you say something about ovaries?”
Chloe nodded and carefully elaborated on what she had observed. “... I’m not sure what they want with our ovaries. Yet I’m starting to get a picture of this place. It seems to me that this entire operation is all about the children, but if you have noticed, there aren’t huge numbers of kids here. For a town in which everyone is pregnant, you’d expect to see more kids wandering around, playing or getting up to mischief. Yet we don’t see anything like that.”
Ellie sat down in a chair set in the corner. “I noticed that. Personally I wasn’t going to focus much on it. Just report things to the cult, but somehow I don’t think you are just here to talk. You noticed something.”
“I did.” She looked at Ellie, “I wasn’t sure at the bathhouse, you seemed to glaze over like everyone else there, but you were pretending, weren’t you?”
Ellie nodded, “Sure was.”
“That means you sensed the pulse. Well I managed to trace it. It came from under the city.”
“Under?”
Myshi was poking her belly, wincing each time, “I can’t believe I didn’t notice this until you mentioned it. That’s kinda scary. How will I know when they aren’t manipulating me?”
Chloe sighed, “... I can shield you.”
Myshi jumped up, “You can!?”
Chloe didn’t confirm, instead she started her spell work. After a moment she cast; Blessing of the Mental Fortress. It was an easy enough mid-level dark spell that was designed to protect the mind from outside influences.
Myshi blinked, “Woah! That’s better my head feels so much clearer!” she looked Chloe in the eyes, “What did you do?”
“Blessing of the mental fortress,” she replied, “It’s a mid-rank dark magic spell. Not as good as mind magic is at warding against mind magic, but it should help prevent further manipulation. Won’t do anything to combat what brainwashing already exists.”
“Are you going to do the same for Alicia and Sae?”
“I am.”
The two shared looks. Then Ellie said, “So you traced the source of this to under the city. I take it you want to investigate?”
Chloe nodded, “I do, but” she looked to Myshi, “I wanted your thoughts on the mind magic. When I start shielding, Sae and Alicia, will they be alright?”
“Now that I know about it? Sure. Just let me work on removing it, but first I need to figure out all they did to my mind,” she poked her own belly again, then looked at Chloe, “You sure they didn’t...”
“They left our original ovaries intact,” said Chloe. Ellie nodded, “Yup same thing in my room, me and the other girls had our ovaries exposed, drugged with something and then after they... clustered, they harvested the excess.”
“I wish I remembered,” said Myshi. Chloe leaned back to stare at the ceiling, “Right, so about the source of this. How do you two want to go about looking into it?”