[b][u][center]Perks of Desperation Part 11 For a-lycotonum By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b] The wagon ride across Cheliax was both torturous and blessed by turns, depending on which way the wind blew off the river that came down from the north. Sometimes it blew hard enough to carry the cooler air over the water toward them, and other times, it blew the head of the desert right in their faces. When the latter happened, they all suffered, even those most attached to the Demon Lord. But they pressed on, and there were some advantages to their new companion. She was, after all, a slave, and she acted like one, serving all those that had need of her. Vitus had already enjoyed her once, but Shereeza had clearly decided that she was owned by the entirety of the pack, and served them all with ease. He looked over his shoulder as she moved away from Piers and began her journey to the front of the wagon. Shaking his head, he nodded back at Robin instead, and the mutated elf nodded back. “She’s definitely…eager,” he muttered. “She will be. She has been taught that she only has her life so long as she has value,” Katya said, shaking her head. “It’s not dissimilar to anywhere else in Cheliax, but those at the bottom of the order feel it keener than most.” “It’s not right.” “Heh, it’s somewhat adorable that you believe that ‘right’ has any meaning.” “In a world of so many gods, it should.” “Perhaps, but that doesn’t take into account the evil gods, or even the Demon Lords that operate below them.” The older woman shook her head. “Stop expecting the world to be better, and work to make it so. There will never be enough people trying, so you’ll have to work harder to see it happen.” “Hmmph. Are you encouraging me to fight Melchiresa, then? She’s a Demon Lord; her plans can’t be good.” “…There are reasons to work with her.” “…You almost sounded like you didn’t want to.” “Don’t mistake me. There are reasons to work with the Master of the Hunt. There are also things that one may disagree with. But when there are limited options, one takes the least worst and pushes forward.” “…” “I believe we are close to our destination.” “Why – oh.” “Ah, you can feel it?” “Yes…yes, I can.” He was surprised that she had to ask. The air positively oozed with magical power in the distance, and he had to grit his teeth as they drove through it. While the desert had presented a barrier of heat and pressure, this was something else, almost like an oozing wall of magical auras, something that pressed against him as if it was making it clear he wasn’t welcome. There were moments when the aura even went so far as to push him almost out of the wagon, nearly throwing him out of the seat and through the back of it. He gripped the reins that much tighter, curling his clawed toes against the wood. The temptation to draw the horses up and halt for a moment to catch his breath was very strong, but he held back from it. They weren’t at the mansion yet, and if they stopped this far out, they risked the wagon to bandits, or worse. “Was it…always like this?” “I don’t know,” Katya said, shaking her head. She was sweating more than usual, he realized; was the aura affecting her, as well? “I’ve never been here before.” “Heh…a place where you have no answers, then?” “A place that is worth exploring, if it means so much to you.” “Yes…yes, indeed.” The fact that the pervert back at the manor had thought that he was familiar had struck him as strange. He knew that the Leontina line had some mysteries to it, but he’d never thought that the family had roots here, of all places. Cheliax was a nation from which he imagined few escaped, and fewer still prospered. If there had been a family home that was sufficient enough to be called a manor out here, he would have thought that the family would have remembered that. He would have thought that someone would have told him. Then again, with the power-hungry members of the line that he could recall, perhaps that was for the best. Someone risking themselves to come here, hoping that they found something of wealth and power, might easily end up enslaving themselves instead. Cheliax did not easily forgive those that fled it. The washing waves of magic that pulsed out toward him were getting stronger, and more than once he felt like he was about to be buffeted right out of the driver’s seat. The Hellhound part of him had it even worse, the dog getting knocked around inside him, and there were moments when it almost felt like it might have washed the corruption right out of him. He almost wished it would, were it not for the fact that the Hellhound and Melchiresa were the only things keeping Brundir’s influence at bay. The fact that his choices were so limited continued to gall him. They followed the road under those uncomfortable circumstances for nearly an hour before they rolled over a hill and found it. The manor loomed over a half-dry oasis, with a wrought-iron fence that had been stabbed through the sand and half-buried in it. Plants that had once been elegant and beautiful had become overgrown, lending the place an appearance of being lost to the desert, the palm trees curling like green hooks and claws over the grounds, and more plants rising from the oasis as if serving as living protectors of the limited water. Vitus pulled the wagon to a halt, shaking his head. “Well…that’s not what I hoped to find.” “What did you hope to see? A thriving mansion? Servants keeping it in good stead in hopes of a returning master?” “Well…no, but also, yes.” Vitus shook his head. “At least we’ll have privacy here.” “Yes, indeed…and you’ll have to make your decision.” “…Don’t remind me…” “Oh? I feel like I must. Melchiresa will want an answer soon. The Demon Lord did accept that you needed this privacy, but now you have it. What will you do with it? Kill or keep, Vitus? Kill or keep?” He gritted his teeth, looking down at his hands. He knew that there was no good choice there. Neena was too dangerous to release, and more to the point, his soul would be further at risk if he did. Melchiresa had made it clear that she would make sure that he learned who he belonged to, whose pack he ran in. [i]She could kill me without a second thought.[/i] The only reason that she didn’t was because he was useful to her, a Hunter that she could direct and focus as she needed. If he disobeyed her too much, then he would become just one more Hellhound in her pack and a new Hunter would be found, and there was no guarantee that the new master of the pack would be any better for them, nor that they would care much for Robin or Shereeza. [i]Saving some by damning others…[/i] So much for gods of good. If they couldn’t help with this, was there any point to them? “I’ll decide when we have a safe place inside,” he muttered. “Will you? Or will you find another excuse to put it off?” “I’ll decide then.” “I hope you’re not lying to yourself. It will not help you.” “Just…help me get them out.” They pulled the wagon to the far side of the wrought-iron fence, making sure that it was tucked just out of sight of the main road. Once that was done, he slipped out of the driver’s seat and into the back of the wagon. Their elf slave was just finishing eating out the were-rat’s ass, digging her tongue out of that fuzzy hole, when Vitus waved his hand for attention. “We’ve reached the manor.” “And what will we do now that we’re here? Have an execution?” Piers asked. “That…remains to be seen.” “At least when we capture our prisoners, we had a plan for what happened to them. You seem content merely to keep her in tortured limbo.” “Ooooooooh!” The loud moan from the captured agent made them all blush slightly. Well, him and Piers. The others just took it as a given. Vitus rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think that she cares too much about the limbo if she keeps getting that,” he said. “…I cannot entirely argue.” “The point is. We’re here now. Leontina Manor. Apparently…apparently a place that my family used to own, and live in.” “That explains so much,” Piers grumbled. Vitus growled, and before he knew it, he was standing in front of the former Guardsman. He had his hand wrapped around Piers’s throat, and he’d picked him up, shoving him against the inside of the wagon wall. The one-armed man gasped and grunted, coughing through the rough squeeze. “Do you want me to be evil, hmm? Do you want me to be a monster, Piers?” “Ack…ugh…I think…you already are…” “No. This isn’t even close to a monster, yet,” he growled, feeling his fangs curling tighter beneath the illusion, the transformation trying to progress past the spell. He stopped it. “The monster? The monster would have broken you, Piers. The monster would have fucked you, rutted you, shattered you. It would have collared you and made you be a good boy, and if you failed, it would have eaten you. “You are pack. You are [i]my[/i] pack. And that means that I will protect you, and take care of you. But if you keep doing this…” “You’ll kill me?” Piers asked. He almost sounded hopeful. “…No. But I will make you fall in line. The monster wants to. The Hellhound wants to. Think of that the next time that you call me evil.” Forcing himself to let the man go, Vitus turned away, looking back at Katya. She was studying him, her eyes glinting with that familiar curiosity that he was all too familiar with from back at the academy. She was…always hard to read, and this was no different. “Let’s see if the ground’s safe. If nothing else, we can get inside, find some shade, maybe enchant a room to cold.” “I’ll be right behind you,” Robin said. “Shall I stay here, master?” Shereeza asked. “…Yes. Stay here, watch the prisoner, and come get me if anyone comes knocking.” # The grounds, it turned out, were not safe. As soon as they hopped the fence, tentacles and roots and vines and worse came for them. Fire chased them back, but not so swiftly as any of them had hoped. Katya and Vitus alike were both drained as they forced the vines back from them, keeping their modesty intact, but the latter had been forced to go into his Hellhound form to channel enough power, and the older woman was gasping by the time that the plants finally gave up. “I knew…I knew that desert plans would be stronger against that, but that…” Katya shook her head. “That was unexpected.” “Almost demonic,” Vitus said. “No, not…demonic, but something like it. Something more powerful than mere nature.” “Are we going to be fighting that crap all the way through the manor?” Robin asked, the were-rat pulling herself from the waters of the oasis, having escaped her own attacking plant life. “I don’t mean to be a naysayer, but it does seem a little more dangerous than we thought.” “We can’t go back without attracting attention,” Vitus said. “Let’s push on.” They reached the front door with no more fuss, though the blackened plants still rustled and seemed to watch them as they passed by. He kept his eyes on them at all times, half-expecting to be rushed with more vines, seized by the ankle or worse and yanked into the brush to be… Well, he didn’t know what the plants would do to him, but he believed that it would be far more than merely restraining him. The entire estate was pulsing with power, forgotten but still potent, and he doubted that his ancestors would think too kindly about intruders. Kindness did not keep power in Cheliax. The front doors were made of darkened wood, painted and polished to a deep midnight stain. Red knobs guided the hand to where they were meant to be, but even as he reached for it, he felt another ward waiting. “What’s the matter?” Robin asked. “There’s another defense in the doorway.” “You’d think that someone from the family line would be welcome here.” “You know, you’d think that…but something tells me that they weren’t keen on family here…” He looked at the door. There was [i]something[/i] there that was almost familiar, something that felt keyed to him. For a moment, he wondered if there was some sort of magical aura that it was meant to respond to, but that didn’t make sense. Even in Cheliax, he couldn’t imagine that his family would have been that stupid; being focused on magic meant that anyone that couldn’t do that would have been dead in the household, and even for a family in Cheliax, that felt off. Wasteful, if nothing else; magical prodigies were rare, but so were keen minds and other talents that they would have hoarded out here. So, if that was the case, how did one get around a ward without triggering it? What would be the – He got his answer as he looked at the dead rosebushes on either side of the door. Glancing from their thorns to his furred hand, he groaned. “I have an idea, and I hate it.” “What? What’s the idea?” Robin asked. “Blood.” “What, like a sacrifice?” “No, like a key.” He reached for the rosebush and, before he could think twice about it, grabbed the thorny branches and squeezed. The pricks of the thorns went right through his flesh, making him hiss with pain, but he kept squeezing until he felt the blood start gumming up his fingers. Moving his hand from the plant to the knob, he squeezed it instead, grinding the red blood into the knob. It worked. He felt the ward fade, and he turned the knob with a shake of his head. “Well, that worked…ow.” “Are you telling me that your family made you mutilate yourself just to walk through the front door?” “Effective lock and key, even if it’s painful as hell. Ow, ow, ow…” Vitus wrung his hand, shaking his head. “That’s going to hurt for a while.” “Any more wards?” “Not that I can feel in the front room, at least.” “Then let’s get inside and check it out.” She didn’t seem to be bothered by her were-rat form anymore, at least not that he could tell as her furry hips swayed as she walked past him. Barefoot, naked, and not at all bothered: it was a far cry from the woman that they had picked up in Absalom, who had been utterly humiliated about her bestial form and had done everything to keep it under control. He had to force himself to look away from her ass, but it was only so that he could glance back at Katya. A wordless glance carried a clear question: [i]What did you do to her?[/i] His mentor shrugged. There would be no answer there, at least not now. Shaking his head, he followed behind the were-rat. The entry hall of the manor was large. Unlike the usual narrow passage in which one’s cloaks and other belongings would be left, this one opened immediately into a wide chamber that was half-library, half-gathering hall. Aside from the hallways that connected the chamber to the rest of the manor – two on either side going east and west, one going north, and another going north from the balcony on the second floor that they could reach via spiral staircases – the walls were adorned with bookshelves. Leather-bound tomes glowed in the low light from the open door, either reflecting the sunlight off gold and silver stitching or creating their own light from magic. It was an oddly welcoming feeling, and the aura was no longer so oppressive. When he stepped forward, he felt almost welcome rather than repulsed, as if the house had changed its mind once it tasted his blood. “More…bookish than I expected,” Robin said. “Are you sure we’re still in Cheliax?” “One does their enemy a grave disservice when they expect them to be nothing but brutish barbarians,” Katya said as she joined them. “It would be a wiser course to imagine that everyone that you meet is as smart as you until they prove otherwise. To underestimate them is to leave yourself open.” “…It was just a joke,” Robin said. “It was hardly a funny one. Remember, Cheliax bases its power on deals with devils. Only the most idiotic do not keep scrupulous records of all the deals that were made; devils are not above lying about the terms if you cannot remember them yourself. To hold the devils accountable to their own laws, you must have proof.” “I thought that devils were bound by law?” “Yes, but that law must have proof to be upheld. Every contract is a new law; every deal is binding only so long as the terms can be pointed out. So, to have power in Cheliax, one must have a mind for details…and to have a manor this rich in magic, it’s clear that Vitus’s ancestors certainly had that…” Vitus nodded, barely listening. There was something to this place, a sense of wonder, but more than that, of power, that echoed through the room. There were whispers that could only barely be made out, sounds that came from shadows and the books themselves. He didn’t know what they were saying, but they were talking to him, of that much he was sure. As he walked along the shelves, his hand outstretched, he felt like he was seen by ghosts, by creatures and family members long past. He didn’t know what they wanted or what they were saying, but they were there. Just as he was about to touch one of the books, Katya called his attention back to the moment with something he really didn’t want to think about. “You have privacy now, Vitus. You have to make a decision.” “We just got here.” “And we have a private room. Unless you were hoping to convert her in the bedroom?” “Yes. Yes, let’s…let’s find that first. And in the meantime –” “You’re stalling,” Katya said. “Can you blame me if I am?” he muttered. “You’re asking me to kill or corrupt someone so far from their normal self that they will never be normal again.” “Is it better to let her stay under the thumb of someone that will trade her soul for his own gain? Someone that will use her as an agent, and make her love it? Someone that sees her as nothing but a body for a purpose?” Until that last one, he’d wondered how what they were doing was any different to what Brundir was doing. The Aasimar was a monster, someone that forced spirits into others, made them feel special, and then left them in the dust as soon as they did what he wanted them to do. There was no getting away from the fact that he looked down on anyone and everyone that he pulled into his schemes, and Vitus knew that even he, for as much as the Aasimar had loved his company, was nothing more than a pawn to the man’s desires. For all that the Hellhound would drag the woman down to a horrible place, for all that it would convert her into nothing more than another pack member, at least that would be a fate that would still see her cared for. In this life, if not the next, but even that had to be better than nothing, right? [i]And…I don’t want to…I don’t want to hurt her…[/i] The Hellhound didn’t contradict him, either. He was almost surprised, but then again, the Hellhound was meant to protect the pack as well as lead it. It didn’t want its people to be harmed, didn’t want them to be afraid. It wanted a pack that it could lead, care for, and see flourish in its own way. “…I will…convert her,” Vitus muttered, shaking his head. “It’s a risk, considering she’s an agent, but if we can change her properly, maybe we can shake her out of her loyalty to Brundir.” “A decision made is better than a decision not.” Whatever her opinion, clearly she wasn’t going to share it now. “Then let’s have it done with.” “Soon.” “Why are you delaying? We came all this way.” “But not just for that.” Vitus shook his head, looking at the various books and tomes all around them. This was a library that rivaled some of the greater collections of the churches in Absalom, and this was only one room. What other books might be available further in the family hold? What might they have kept hidden here? “After what they said…I want to know what was hidden here. What my family was.” “This is a dangerous time for seeking your history,” Katya warned. “But it’s probably the only chance that I’m going to get. And I’ll take it.” “Decisive, but what a time to be…” “Look. Just…look around. See if you see anything that’s worth looking at. And find a bedroom.” # Back in the wagon, Piers was all too aware of the dangers of this place. He had been a guard in Absalom, after all, and one did not serve there without learning very quickly how to tell if a house was marked with magic or not. This manor reeked of it, and every time that he felt it pulse out from the estate, his stomach turned with nausea. The creature that they had picked up in Bloodrun didn’t seem to notice, and nor did the agent of Brundir that they had brought along, but he did. He sat in the driver’s seat for a change, not wanting to be back in the stench of sex with the new slave and the bound prisoner. Looking at the manor, he shook his head. It was a place of power, yes, but it was one of those that made him wonder again how Cheliax could accept the things that it did. The questions that burned in the back of his mind had grown hotter and hotter, and thus, harder to ignore. The sights of Bloodrun, seeing the slaves auctioned off to the devils of the lower planes, had shaken him. He still remembered what the Hellknight had said, how the tiefling had convinced him that slavery was not that bad a system for punishment, but to see that – They had to be convicted of something horrible to allow for that. If someone could be punished that severely… [i]But what were they punished for? Why would no-one buy them?[/i] He glanced over his shoulder. The elf was resting, but even from here, he could see her brands, her marks, her mutations. Someone had customized her, he knew. That had been a thing in Absalom, as well; prostitutes for long-term clients often were given ‘gifts’ that changed their bodies, warping them and creating things that the client liked more. However, it meant that they were ever-more unlikely to have other clients, and it made them that much more dependent on the one that warped them. It was a power exchange that was entirely illegal, but there were still those that had the funds to make it happen. Here… Piers didn’t want to admit that there might be flaws in the system, but there were undeniable ownership marks that were burned into the woman’s skin all over her body. They were of similar ages, too, meaning that they were added with very little time between them. Daily, perhaps, but weekly at the absolute most. [i]She changed hands…often…[/i] And her words echoed in his ears, still. She had to serve to live. She had to be seen to serve to live. Being given to a new owner every week, marked, bound, customized. They were not buying her for long, just for a little while. As much as he tried to justify that with the thought that she might be a bad slave, that she had an attitude problem or that she caused trouble, he hadn’t seen that in the wagon ride. He’d seen someone terrified, and he couldn’t help but think right back to Absalom and the girls that he’d seen passed between the worst of the nobility. Did her being a slave in Cheliax mean that she was that much worse? That much more undeserving of compassion? [i]She could have done something. You don’t know,[/i] Piers thought, looking back at the horses. [i]She hasn’t told us about her life. She could be…she could be a monster…[/i] And yet, he remembered how she had so gently parted his legs and serviced him. She hadn’t done it with the lustful need and domination of his tiefling lover back in Westcrown, nor had she done it with the frenzied need and desire that Robin had since her transformation. She’d done it as an offering, a service, something that she put entirely in his hands and would have pulled away if he had made the slightest motion of disinclination toward it. She was gentle, and kind, and – And he was starting to feel sorry for her. Piers groaned, rubbing his forehead with his one hand. “This isn’t right. This is –” The sound of thumping steps – not humans, but mounts – in the distance interrupted him. Piers sat up, eyes widening for a moment. There were others coming down the road. “Stay here,” he muttered as the slave elf poked her head out of the wagon tarp. “I’ll check it out.” Hopping down from the seat, he moved quickly. Old habits from the streets of Absalom came back to him as he kept to the side of the fence, using the building as cover as he moved around it. He kept to the shaded side, ensuring that he would be a little bit harder to see, and hustled as the sound grew louder. He rounded the building just in time to see no less than twelve Hellknights approaching from the road. Their spiked armor was as intimidating as their mounts. Not horses, but great lizards that were thick in the shoulder and back with fangs and metal slabs that covered them as much as their riders. They looked like war-mounts, and they sent a shiver down his back. At their head was the very tiefling that he had been thinking about. Onoria Salvus rode with her helmet off as she approached the fence, pulling her mount up short at the gate. The others stopped just behind her, and Piers hissed under his breath. [i]How…why…[/i] The Hellknight in Bloodrun. Vitus had said that he’d been questioned in the tavern. That Hellknight might have been Onoria, or someone under her command. If that was the case, perhaps – But why would she have come here? Was she interested in him, still? Or was something else going on? Piers was tempted to leave the shadows, but even here and now, he knew that was asking for trouble. He was still registered as a slave, and she knew that. As a Hellknight, would she be forced to follow the law and return him to his master, or see to it that he was taken to task for ‘attempting to escape’, as she’d surely see him as doing? It was hard to tell. Onoria turned to the rest of her knights, calling out orders loud enough for him to hear them. She still sounded lovely. “Keep a line between the estate and the road. If they’re not here yet, I don’t want them getting through. If they are here, I don’t want them getting out without a fight. Understand?” [i]They?[/i] “The Aasimar is looking for them, and anything that he wants, I don’t want him to get. The little one said that they were coming this way, so sooner or later, they’ll show up.” The little one. Him? Was that – His heart leaped into his throat, and Piers pulled himself back around the building, covering his mouth to keep from giving himself away. It had been idle talk, nothing more than that, but had she – was Onoria just using him as a source of information? Was everything that she had said nothing more than a lie? Was he so desperate for some connection to his old life that he had fallen for such a basic trick so easily? If it was a trick, that was. She might actually have meant it. She was…she was still talking about the Aasimar, Brundir, in a way that suggested that she didn’t agree with him. That she was opposed to him, even. That had to be a good thing for their group, right? There was nothing wrong with getting allies that were properly following the law. [i]But whose laws are they following?[/i] Piers tried to push that out of his head as the world felt like it was collapsing in around him. He’d lost his home. He’d lost his arm. He’d had everything taken from him, only to find someone that actually respected him and offered him some hope that there was a way for law and order to function. He couldn’t lose that, too. If he did…if he did, he didn’t know if he would be able to take it. By the time that he was able to stop shaking and look back at the Hellknights, Onoria had dismounted from hers and vaulted the fence. Five others joined her, giving them a squad of six to invade the grounds and the estate proper. [i]Six Hellknights against a Hellhound, a witch, and a were-rat…[/i] He didn’t give that good odds. He knew that the old woman was powerful, too powerful for his tastes, but would she have the skill to fight off six others that were touched with the power of Hell? Would Vitus, for all that Hellhound strength, be able to deal with knights that were trained with both magic and sword-fighting? Would Robin be okay? Piers hissed through his teeth as he imagined her. She wouldn’t back down from a fight, not here. She never had, no matter how many times he had tried to convince her that her place was away from flashing blades and dancing daggers. Robin had never been one to shirk what was more often a man’s duty, and she wouldn’t do it here. She had too much loyalty to the damn Hellhound. And if she fought… [i]She’ll die…or worse…[/i] And for the first time since seeing her getting fucked by the Hellhound, he actually worried for his wife. For the first time since seeing her change her loyalties, he was scared that he would actually lose her. Piers slumped down to his knees and focused very, very hard on not crying. Too much noise and they’d hear him, and he was no longer certain that he could trust Onoria. Even that little bit of fear, that tiny threat to his one connection to law and order, was enough to nearly shatter him right then and there. [b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b] Summary: They arrive at the manor, and find some stuff out about the place. Tags: F/solo, M/F, Blowjob off-screen, Off-Screen Sex, Were-Rat, Human, Hellhound, Elf, Series, Magic, Blood, Nudity, Fantasy, Tiefling,