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The Witches' Treasure

By: justtheone



1.

This little expedition had ended up as an all-girl thing, which made a nice change. It's still a man's world. Things are getting better, sure, yet let's not kid ourselves. We've still a long, long way to go. Lara was used to being surrounded by men throughout most of her adventures. When she did encounter another female of kindred interests and temperament, all too often they became bitter enemies. 

Today was a pleasing exception to that rule, if it was a rule (and she hoped it wasn't, only an irritating trend). She was with two other female adventurers—adventuresses, if you prefer, though Lara didn't like that word much. (It used to have an uglier connotation, if you know your history.) And though she couldn't say she knew either of them very well yet, they were at least all getting along comfortably. So far. Wouldn't it be wonderful if neither of them turned evil and tried to kill her during the course of this journey? But she mustn't think too far ahead and jinx things.

Chloe Webber was officially leading them. She knew the most about the site they were visiting—the ruin of a sort of ancient convent, on top a desert plateau. It had not been a Christian convent. Its nuns, if it was even appropriate to call them nuns, had followed an older religion, though it was unclear to the scholars of today exactly what that religion had been. Chloe had controversial theories of her own about that. She reminded Lara very much of Jane Goodall in her youth. But it was just the look of the woman, especially in the safari khakis she liked to wear—she had no matching interest in apes or other wildlife, as far as Lara knew. She was a completely different sort of scientist. 

The third member of their party was Karen Crowe, a photojournalist—the kind of photojournalist that is typically described as "intrepid". She spent most of her time in warzones or wherever the world's latest appalling natural disaster had occurred. She had mischievous elfish looks and seemed younger than she really was—probably because she had braces on her teeth, and she'd dyed her hair sky blue. She had been Chloe's roommate at university, and so even though this sort of trip wasn't in her usual line, as a favor to her friend she had come along to help document their findings. Provided they made any, of course. 

Chloe was confident they would. She believed she was on to something really big and grand out here. 

The ruined abbey wasn't much to look at. There wasn't much of it left. But it wasn't the abbey itself Chloe was interested in; she believed another complex was hidden beneath it, undisturbed since the abbey's destruction, thousands of years ago. And she told them it might contain vast riches. 

Lara didn't think that was very likely. They might find tunnels, and that alone would be interesting and make the trip worthwhile, just in the study their architecture, layout and decoration—but if such a network existed, she doubted very much that no one else in all this time had ever found out about them and got into them, before Chloe came along today. Like almost all the tombs and temples in Egypt, whatever treasures they may originally have contained would long since have been emptied out, ages back. Nonetheless, you never knew for sure until you hunkered down for a good careful look. 

Chloe's information came from silver tablets found in a Viking burial mound, a year before. If Vikings knew about this hidden treasure, wouldn't they have come here and taken it? Only Chloe didn't think they would have been able to read the language on the tablets. They were silver and thus valuable trophies in themselves. That's all the Vikings would have seen in them, in her opinion. 

Well, maybe, thought Lara. And maybe not. People underestimate the Vikings. They were worldly, crafty blokes. Much smarter and more culturally sophisticated than they get credit for.

2.

"All we know for sure about the women that lived here is that they were all killed in a religious war. They were slaughtered for their beliefs, by men who believed differently. But there are a few different stories about what those beliefs actually were. Mostly, they're described as devil-worshippers, essentially. Witches. They get wiped out because they do horrible things. Although it's never specified what those things are—just that they're bad. And that they offended all the other gods, somehow. So it was declared they had to be destroyed, and they were. The End. But there's this interesting alternate version I've found, which goes into more detail. It was supposedly carved on the back legs of a statue of a horsewoman, possibly a female Centaur, rather than just a woman riding—but this statue doesn't exist any longer. It disappeared; nobody knows what happened to it. We only have a faded rubbing off those legs. Two other medieval texts mention the statue very briefly and say the writing on it is all lies and you'll go to Hell if you read them, but it makes you wonder ... 

"The statue's version says the witches worshipped a Love goddess, not devils. It was a sex cult. Sex was a holy act, for them. Not for procreation, though—only sex for pleasure. They weren't interested in babymaking, or their goddess wasn't. Just sex for physical gratification. That was what their whole religion was all about. They would send out priestesses to all the surrounding kingdoms, to become concubines of the rulers and to teach everyone they could reach the arts of love—meaning all the best ways to fuck. And so inevitably this freaked out certain people. The conservatives or the puritans of the time, however you want to classify them. To save the family and the institution of marriage and decency and all that stuff, they drummed up an army and attacked the abbey and slaughtered the whole uppity sisterhood, for their so-called sins."

That," Lara said, "is quite a story." 

"But there's more," Chloe continued. "This part comes from the silver tablets I got hold of, not from the lost statue. Before the witches got wiped out, they became extremely wealthy. Kings and queens from across the world would send them gifts, to get them to send back their priestesses in return, or just as offerings to that Love goddess of theirs. We don't know what she was called, by the way. Their name for her was never written down, or actually it probably used to be but it got erased from history. Also pilgrims would visit the abbey—pilgrims of both genders, I should mention. They would pay to stay there a while, and learn from the witches. So there was a form of temple prostitution going on. And lots of the women that went there did so because they wanted to become permanent members. They would need to pass a series of tests. This initiation ritual took place in the secret caves beneath the abbey. It was also in those same caves that all their treasure got stashed, through the years. The tablets say it 'piled up in mighty heaps, taller than the tallest of men.'"

"I would venture to guess," Lara commented, "this treasure had much more to do with them getting attacked than their kinky belief system, however controversial it was at the time."

"That is plausible, yes. But the attackers didn't get it, if the tablets are telling the truth. They couldn't find it. They didn't know about the caves. Or perhaps they did, but they couldn't get into them. They couldn't find the door. All the witches were already dead. The last few had killed themselves, so they couldn't be interrogated to reveal the secret."

"Hm," said Lara, "If there were no survivors, where do the tablets come from? Who made them?" 

"I don't know. There's no clear indication in the writing. Maybe there was one survivor, after all. She just leaves herself out of the tale."

"The tablets tell you where the door is hidden, and how to open it?"

"Yes, and more. They explain how to find your way through the tunnels. There are certain traps to avoid." 

"Oh, of course," said Lara, "I should hope so, if they were doing the thing properly." 

"Your flippancy rather surprises me," said Chloe, "But I understand your skepticism." 

"Good to hear you say so. Don't take this wrong—what you've uncovered is unquestionably worth investigating. But there are a fair number of significant blanks needing filled in, aren't there?" 

"Yes there are." 

3.

Chloe led them to a sarcophagus, with an armored warrior sculpted full-size on the lid. He lay flat on his back, much like the tomb of a medieval king, but with a few significant differences. This statue was crafted long, long before the medieval era. His arms were straight at his sides, rather than crossed over his chest. His armor looked appropriate for the Trojan War. Again, the figure actually dated from far earlier. Which meant the metalwork as depicted was more sophisticated than it should have been. And the facial features, though heavily eroded, were striking because you couldn't confidently identify his race. That wasn't to say he looked ugly, just not like any racial type alive today. Kind of thing that got the von Däniken freaks heated up. Lara herself had little patience with that crowd. 

Lara was surprised at the thing's condition. Weathered as it was, it should have looked much worse, considering the fact there was no roof left over this section of the abbey. It had been exposed to the elements for ages. She wondered what kind of stone it was made of. Something reddish. 

"Who is this guy?" she asked. 

"Nobody, really," Chloe said, "This isn't really a sarcophagus." 

"Sure looks like a sarcophagus," Karen said, taking photos. 

"Yes," Chloe agreed, "But it isn't. It's a kind of altar, and also a gateway."

"Did they make it look like a tomb to disguise it or something?" Karen asked.

"Possibly. But then again, this thing is so old, I'm not sure anyone in the world was carving tombs of this design yet at the time. So the resemblance it brings to our contemporary minds might be completely coincidental." 

"And if they wanted people not to mess with it," Lara said, "then making it look like an important grave wasn't a good idea. People always pry into important graves, eventually, looking for treasure."

Karen laughed. "You would know." 

"Quite," Lara replied, "It's strange no one seems to have disturbed this one. Or maybe they just put the lid back on it, after they'd cleared it out." 

"It doesn't have a lid," said Chloe, "It's not a box. It's all one piece, the entire block. Well, almost. You see, what we have to do is take the armor off the figure. That will open the gate." 

"I don't think that's gonna work," Karen said, "That armor doesn't look like it comes off. It's a solid statue."

"No it isn't," said Chloe, "It just looks like it is. I'll show you." 

And then she popped off the figure's breastplate. It took a few moments of wiggling to loosen, but then finally lifted away very easily. Underneath, the man's chest was carved with lifelike detail. 

"Wow," Karen said. Lara made no matching exclamation, yet all the same she was rather impressed.

"Help me with the rest of the pieces," Chloe said, "We have to remove all of them to trigger the mechanism."

Provided it could still operate, of course. Lara remained skeptical about that part. 

It only took them a couple more minutes. The warrior had forearm guards and shin guards—what were they called, greaves? Then they pulled his helmet off. That left him in a kind of skirt, with slats on it. Lara always thought they looked like an upside down picket fence. No doubt like every other piece of armor, a slatted skirt like that had a technical name. But she had no idea what it was, and neither did Chloe, when she asked. "Who cares?" was her answer. The skirt came off the same as the breastplate had—they lifted it straight up. Only the top half, like all the rest of the pieces, was removable. And it was the least realistic of the segments, since it wasn't flexible at all, like a real slatted skirt would be. She wasn't sure why, but somehow this minor flaw or compromise in the design was pleasing to Lara, or reassuring. As clever as the statue was, its sophistication had a limit. Having that fact established felt ... comforting? 

Thing is, in this line of work, you don't want a lost wonder of the ancient world to turn out too wondrous. Lara liked solvable mysteries, not eternally unfathomable ones. What good is a discovery if you can't comprehend what the heck you've found?

Beneath the skirt, same as the torso—the carving of the figure was anatomically correct. Karen giggled like a teenager, and poked at it with her fingertip. 

"No, don't touch it!" Chloe cried. Her back had been turned when Karen reached down, as she and Lara were carefully setting aside the skirt piece. 

Karen's finger had already reached the stone. There was no immediate explosion. "What's the matter?" she asked.

Chloe sighed. "That's the trigger. But there's a certain specific way you have to move it." 

"I didn't move it at all," said Karen, "I just barely touched the thing for a second. Just like this."

"Wait!" 

There was a tiny click, followed by a not-so-tiny rumbling ... 

"Bollocks," said Lara, and the entire floor of the chamber dropped open beneath the three of them. 

4.

They didn't fall far, initially. Beneath the false floor was a wide funnel. This deposited them into a narrower aperture, the beginning of a long, steep spiral tube. They tumbled down this slide quite a ways, and at considerable speed. At the end of it, they were dropped into water. An underground lake, ice cold. 

It wasn't pitch dark, there was a bright light source to one side. A glowing figure. They swam toward it, soon reaching the edge of the lake. It was not a naturally occurring sloped shoreline but a flat wall with a perfectly even, sharp-cut edge at the top, like the side of a swimming pool. They pulled themselves up there out of the water, dripping, shivering, sneezing, swearing. 

"Well, that was fun," said Karen, "But sorry, you guys. I think my camera might be ruined." 

"At least none of us is hurt," said Chloe.

Lara was already inspecting the light source in front of them. It was another statue, with similar facial features to the man above. This fellow was larger, seated upright on a throne, to which he was bound with heavy chains that were actual metal, not part of the carving. He wore no armor, nor anything else, and he was fashioned from different material, not the same reddish rock. Actually, his throne was made from that stuff. His body, however, was a yellowish glassy material, and it was glowing from inside. It did not have the greenish color of phosphorescence. His light was warmer, more golden. It seemed to be coming through his surface, not from the surface itself. 

"Interesting," Lara said. 

"I don't see any exits anywhere, do you?" Karen said, "How are we gonna get our asses out of here?"

"Well," said Chloe, hugging herself, "we have to use the statue. It should have another mechanism built into it, just like the other one did." 

"Is it activated in the same manner?" Lara asked. 

"The, uh, phallus, yes," said Chloe, blushing. Karen giggled at her word choice, and Lara couldn't help but give vent to an exasperated noise at their schoolgirlish behavior. "But this time," Chloe continued, "we must make sure to operate it correctly. There's a specific way you're supposed to touch it. If you touch it incorrectly, you fail the test." 

"So this thing is meant to be part of a test?" Lara said.

"Exactly, yes," said Chloe, "We've got ourselves caught up in their initiation ritual, you see. Karen seems to have activated the testing system. Not exactly what I planned for. Nevertheless, it's amazing that it is still functioning, isn't it? At least that first part."

"Amazing, yes," said Lara. "We might be buggered if the rest of it isn't up to scratch. If there's no other way we can open up an exit." 

"You're right about that, Lara," Chloe agreed, "I don't think there will be any other way, unless you've brought explosives with you." 

"I've got some in my bag. That's a last resort. We're more likely to make things worse, if we try that. Bring the whole damn mountain down on our heads." 

"We appear to have been deposited at the very bottom of the old network," said Chloe, "The lake we landed in, it was described on the tablet. It's the starting point of the tests. Now we'll have work our way through the rest of the system just like the pilgrims used to, in order to return to the surface. And along the way, provided we perform all the tasks right, and if all the old machinery still works like it's supposed to, we should all be led straight to the treasure chamber." 

"Might as well get started," said Lara, "what are we supposed to do with this chap's dingus?"

Chloe blushed again and swallowed with an audible gulp. "We have to, um ... er ... I don't suppose there's any better way to put it. One of us has to give it a handjob. You know, stroke it like this." She demonstrated with her hand in the air.

"Hm," said Lara, "I'm somewhat familiar with the basic procedure." 

"But look," said Karen, "how are we supposed to do that? It isn't sticking upright. The way it's carved, it isn't even hard. Well, I assume the carving is hard, 'cause it's a statue, but ... you know what I mean. He doesn't have a boner. It's just dangling limp there on his lap." 

"Karen, I want you to rub the top of it gently with your palm," Chloe instructed.

"How come I have to do it?" 

"'Cause you got us into this mess. What's your problem? You couldn't keep your hand off the other guy." 

"All right, all right. Don't be a bitch about it. I'll rub the damn thing, if it's so goddamn important. Holy shit, it feels really warm. And it's vibrating a little. Oh! Hey! Look at this, you guys! It's moving! It's tilting upwards!" It made itself longer, too, at the same time. "How the fuck is it doing that?" 

"I've no idea," said Chloe, "but you mustn't stop stimulating it. Get your hand around it, now that you can. Stroke it properly. I think you should try to do it faster. Put some real effort into it. Pretend you're doing it to a real living man, trying to get him off." 

"This feels so weird," said Karen, "the rock is slippery. It really feels like it's moving with my hand, like real skin. What the fuck kind of rock is this? Is the glow getting brighter or is it just my imagination? What do you guys think?"

While she was asking that, looking over her shoulder at them, the cock in her hand suddenly squirted a stream of silver into the air. All three women quickly sidestepped, to avoid the spray. 

"Jesus Christ!" Karen hollered, "Look at that! Scared the piss out of me. Seriously, you guys, I just wet my undershorts a little." 

With a long low groan, a ramp eased down from the stone ceiling, with stairs carved into it. 

"Next level," said Lara, "Here we go." 

5.

The next test was almost the same as the last. Same sort of figure, same pose, chained on a throne. Except Chloe said this time they would have to demonstrate their oral skills. 

"I got the last one," said Karen, "So this time one of you two has to step up. Fair's fair."

"All right," said Lara, cutting Chloe off. She suspected that now was a better time to volunteer than later. Chloe looked like she wanted to argue, for a moment, but didn't. 

Lara rubbed the statue's flaccid cock with her palm the same as Chloe had, until it reared tall. Then, after first pouring a little water from her canteen over it and wiping it with a handkerchief, she bent over quick and went to work on it with her mouth. And again, just as it was Chloe, she was surprised how real the appendage seemed, in how it felt, how it moved, and how it tasted. 

She timed it perfectly—pure instinct, couldn't have explained what it was exactly that signaled the moment to her. She pulled her face clear just before it fired off its stream. Chloe had got a little too close, while she was watching, and she didn't jump clear fast enough. Some of the silvery goo spattered on her shorts, her bare legs, and the toes of her hiking boots. She had no luck wiping the stuff off. 


The Witches' Treasure



"I have a shiny silver nail polish back home that's exactly that color," Karen commented, "You can almost see your reflection in it." 

"It reminds me of mercury," said Chloe, "God, I hope it's not poisonous." 

"It's not mercury," said Lara, "It doesn't move the same way. See, look at the dribbles on the floor over here." 

"I don't need to, Lara. I can look at these dribbles right here staining my knees." 

"It's not stinging on your skin or anything, is it? You'll be fine." 

The next ramp had lowered. They found a third statue like the others. 

"Let me take a wild guess," said Lara, "This one, we have to ride." 

"That's correct," said Chloe, in a small voice, hanging her head and shuffling her feet like a skittish faun, "and it seems this time it's my turn. Could I ask the two of you to turn your back? I'm afraid I won't be able to go through with it, otherwise. I'm sorry if that sounds cowardly. I suppose I'm rather a shy and nervous person, when it comes to these sorts of things." 

"Don't fret, old thing," said Lara, "We won't watch." 

"I'll be most terribly grateful," said Chloe, but she was still shaking all over and seemed like she was about to burst into tears.

"Hold on now," said Karen, "Let's be sensible about this. You don't have to fuck the stupid thing if you're not up for it. I'll do it, I don't care. It's not a big deal." 

"Would you?" said Chloe, "Really? You won't mind? You won't hold it against me?"

"It's fine, so long as you both keep your backs turned, like you suggested. I'm not particularly shy like that, but still, I'd appreciate it, so you don't throw off my concentration. I'm gonna wanna hop off that thing before he shoots—might be tricky. I don't want the bastard pumping that silver shit inside of me, not after seeing how it stains like that. Also I think I'm gonna need a few minutes to, um, manually stimulate myself. To lube up, you know. And doing that in front of you guys actually sounds much more embarrassing to me than humping the sculpture." 

Karen took her jeans off before she got started but that was all—though first she had to take her thick-soled hiking shoes off in order to slide the jeans off easy, because they fit too tight, she jammed her feet right back safe into her shoes soon as that was done. Not that either of her companions saw her do that. They kept their faces to the wall, just as she'd asked, giving her as much space and privacy as possible. She even left her panties on, just moving the crotch of them out of the way with her fingers when the proper moment eventually presented itself to mount the statue. Her panties happened to be bright red, not that it matters. 

She groaned when she took the thing inside herself. "God Almighty! Hot! Damn! Hot damn!" 

"Are you okay?" Chloe called, "Did you hurt yourself?"

"No, not really it ... it's fine. Just ... big. Dammit. Big and hot. This guy's really heated up. It's like they must be piping steam through him inside. Uhhrr. That's a weird feeling. It's not enough to burn you but it's not like a regular dick either. Way hotter. Shit. Actually though ... hmmm ... yeah, it's kind of not bad at all. If I had one of these installed at home, I might really be able to have fun with it, after a little more practice, getting used to the feel. I think I definitely like it a lot better than my normal dildo. Which of course always has the other problem at first, right? Being way too cold, I mean. You guys know what I mean, right? No, don't answer that. Okay, okay, no more stalling ... Here goes. I need to get my little butt in gear and speed this bullshit up now or we'll be stuck here all day. Time to get cooking and get this over with." They heard her huff and puff as she built up her speed. "Man. Man oh man. Whew. You like that, buddy? Is this what you want? Am I taking good care of you, dude? God, I wish they hadn't carved such a goofy look on their faces. You happy, Mr. Statue? Is - this - what - you -want? Huh? Huh? Huhh! Huuhh!" 

This third statue took much longer to get done than the previous two. Lara couldn't tell for certain, and she would never be so crass as to ask her afterward, but judging from Karen's breathing patterns and vocalizations, it was possible Karen reached an orgasm before the sculpture did, whether she intended to or not. 

"Oh shit. Holy shit. Oh fuck-fuck-fuck-SHIT! Oh ... huuh ... huuhh ..."

Glancing sideways at Chloe, and only moving her eyes when she did, Lara saw that Chloe was keeping hers squeezed shut tight and she was chewing her upper lip. Clearly Karen's sounds were really getting under her skin. Chloe's face was red as a strawberry, streaming with sweat, and she was also unconsciously squirming her thighs together. She was breathing so hard through her nose that Lara could see her nostrils moving. And though Lara couldn't quite see for certain, because of the way her arms were folded, Chloe's hands were hidden by her elbows, but she looked like she might be fiddling with her nipples too. 

Sheesh. And this after all the fuss she made, wiggling out of her turn ... Poor girl obviously had some issues to work out. In fairness, Lara could feel herself starting to steam up, under her clothing. Looking at the state of Chloe was doing it to her more than any other factor. She was an attractive little thing, despite the uptightness, or maybe the uptightness contributed to it. The proximity of arousal is arousing; it's wired into the nature of the human animal ... 

"Crap! Crap! Dammit! Crap!" Karen had miffed it. She did not manage to dismount in time to avoid the sculpture's discharge ... "Oh crap. Crap. Fucker filled me, didn't he? Jesus, look at this! He sure as hell did! Oh Jesus! It's ... it's leaking out of me! It's running down my legs! How much did the guy shoot in there? Oh man this sucks—it's gonna dye my pussy lips silver and my thighs too! I'm gonna be streaked silver down there for a month, aren't I? Jesus. It better not be permanent!" 

"Don't let anyone else see," said Lara, "or you'll end up starting a new fad." 

"Very funny. Oh God, it's not stopping. I can still feel it oozing out! Ughh! So gross!"

"Let's just cross your fingers you don't get pregnant," Lara teased, "and then have to give birth to a glowing stone baby." 

"Ah God! Lara! Don't say shit like that! Jesus! God you're mean sometimes!" 

Another ramp lowered ... this time there was no statue awaiting them, just a large circular door, elaborately decorated with glowing lines in a maze pattern. As they watched, it partly swung open, toward them. Not enough to reveal whatever was behind it, but a clear invitation to come through.

"It's the treasure room!" Chloe exclaimed, "We've made it!" 

Really? Lara thought, so soon? She would have expected many more elaborate tests, if this culture made as big a deal about sex as they were supposed to have done. In Lara's opinion, they'd only covered the barest possible basics. 

The partly open door was still some fair distance away from them; this chamber they'd entered was the biggest one yet. Chloe ran ahead. Karen wasn't capable of running, at present. Lara lingered to help support her. "Sure you're all right?"

"My legs are all wobbly," Karen said sheepishly. "But if I'm gonna be honest, it's kind of a nice-feeling wobbliness, if you know what I mean." 

"I just might," said Lara. 

And then Chloe started screaming. "Oh no! No! We messed up! We messed up!"

The door still stood open but now nine more glowing statues had appeared out of thin air in front of it. These chaps weren't sitting down and they weren't chained. They were holding forked spears and whips, and they had plumed helmets. Their cocks were all erect, pointing up straight at the women. 

Chloe had dropped into a crouch, tearing at her hair. "I was ... I was afraid of this. No, I knew it! I knew this would happen all along! Why didn't I say anything? Why didn't I act when there was still time?"

Lara drew her guns and planted her boots in a firm defensive stance. "Chloe, what's the matter? What the fuck's happened?" 

"We didn't do the ritual properly," she said, "We were all supposed to participate equally. We should all have been completely undressed the entire time, as well. We were supposed to humble ourselves. We were supposed to accept their seed, whenever it was given to us—and wherever they wanted to put it. But we didn't, Lara. We didn't do any of those things. We've failed the initiation, and I know it's all my fault. Because I didn't tell you the truth. I knew what to do but I held most of it back. Prayed it wouldn't matter. 'Cause I knew from the start I couldn't do any of those things. I was too ... too scared. Too inhibited."

"What are these guys gonna try to do to us now?" Karen asked, "What do they want?"

"To ... to p-pu-punish us," Chloe sputtered, "They think we've defiled their temple." 

"Well, I guess we have," Lara said, "Now there's nothing else for it. Might as well get down to business." And she commenced firing at the statues with both her guns.

6. 

Being statues, her bullets weren't much good against them. Took some chips off their torsos and faces—they didn't seem to notice. 

She finally reached in her bag to try her explosives, but she'd delayed too long and let them get too close. One of them snagged the bag away from her with his forked spear before she'd got her hands on what she needed. Another spear prodded her throat while a third jabbed her bottom. She dropped the one gun she was still holding and put her hands up. She'd holstered her second gun so she could reach in her bag. The guys weren't dumb or primitive enough to ignore it, unfortunately. They took it away. Not like it would have been any further use to her, regardless—their invulnerability to gunfire had already been established. 

Chloe never put up any fight, just stayed huddled on the floor the whole time until Lara had to surrender. Karen tried running. She didn't get far. 

"Oh God," Karen wailed, "What's gonna happen to us? What will they do? Oh God! You guys! You guys! I'm so scared." 

"I'm sorry," Chloe moaned, "I'm so sorry for everything. Forgive me. Please forgive me." She seemed to be addressing the statues more than her friends. 

All Lara allowed herself to say was "Bugger." 

Three statue guys for each of them. Two held each woman in place on either side by her arms, pulled out straight. Then the third one set about removing all their clothes. Every stitch, even their shoes and socks. They didn't even spare Lara's fingerless gloves. 

Karen continued to protest the whole time: "Stop it! Get your hands off! Don't you dare! Stop! Please just fucking stop this! Right now! Oh God why won't you listen to me? Please stop! You assholes!"

Chloe merely wept and apologized, throwing in occasional pleas for mercy. "Give me a chance! I'll redeem myself, I swear! Anything you ask! Just please don't hurt me! Don't take all my clothes. Let me keep my underwear at least. Please! Oh please! I can't stand this! Don't make me all naked! Don't humiliate me any further! Please I can't stand this! I'm so ashamed! I'm so ashamed it feels like it's gonna kill me! I swear—I'll just die! I'm gonna die! Please be merciful!" 

Lara said, "You guys are cunts, you know that. Bunch of cunts. Nothing but cuntface cunts."

For all her bravado, she was shivering after she was stripped, and not from cold. The ground felt surprisingly clean and warm under her bare feet, not gritty and chilly like she expected. Still very moist. She scrunched her sensitive toes against the stone. God, how she always hated the feeling of being barefoot in a place like this. Part of her always loved it, too. What she hated most about the feeling was how much she loved it sometimes. Because it was dangerous and a thrill, and it turned her on. And she wasn't just barefoot now, the rest of her was equally bare, equally sensitive, and she was, again, a prisoner. A much greater danger, a much bigger thrill. A much bigger turn on. She felt her nipples swell and spike, beginning to throb ... Same thing happened to her clit. 

It was hard to breathe now, and very hard to stand still, and very hard to keep silent. There was a whimper in her mouth that wanted to come out—she could feel it straining. She mustn't let it loose. Had to swallow the damn thing down. 

After their clothing was all gone, the statues got busy with their whips ... 

Lara had been whipped before. There's whipping, and then there's whipping. There's serious no-nonsense whipping, that will takes the skin off your spine and can leave you crippled for the rest of your days, and then there's the second sort, which is just sexplay. It's only a harsher form of spanking and/or tickling. It stings and it drives you crazy—but it ain't nothing like real whipping. It's just fucking around. 

The shit the statues were paying out, as Lara had guessed it would, turned out to be the second sort. 

Of course when it's brand new to you, and you don't know what to expect, it feels a lot worse than it really is—and that was how it was for both Karen and Chloe. They screamed and screamed and jumped up and down and kicked their feet and pissed on the floor and begged for mercy and then screamed and begged some more. Lara could absorb hers with a tad more decorum. Each time she was struck, she'd just jolt and grunt and gasp. But she was also much more susceptible to their final intentions, because she'd been taken down this road before. She knew what they wanted from her body and she knew she wouldn't be able to resist it, and she didn't waste any strength trying. 

In only a minute or two, they had her ready and raring to go. Under the intense stimulation of the whip, she let her mind go numb, and allowed her body to convert the hot agony of its licks to sexual heat. It's the body's last defense against torment—if it can't escape it, if it can't strike back, it gives in and adapts to make the best use of the experience it can. You start to like it after that. Pretty soon you start to crave it, and crave more. You go a little mad, because you've no other choice.  

Lara couldn't bend much, because of the two guys holding her arms, but she scooted her feet back and spread them apart and lifted up on her toes, to raise her bottom as much as possible and wiggle it enticingly at the one behind her with the whip. Pussy juice was streaming down her thighs. And when she was struck again, she no longer just grunted and gasped. Instead she let out a loud tremulous moan of undisguised desire. "Ohhhuuuhhaahhhoohh." Then she looked over her shoulder at him, with wide tearful eyes that still managed to blaze fiercely. "All right, you big bugger. You've got me stirred up pretty good now, just like you wanted. You can drop that whip. I'm ready for you. See? You see how ready I am? Fuck me. Come on and fuck me, big man." 

He lashed her again and again until she asked him nicer for it. "Please. Fuck me. I want it. I wanna come. You've made me want it. You've made me neeeeeed it. Ahhuuhoooww! All right, all right, fine then ... I can come that way too, if that's what you prefer. But you're gonna have to hit me harder, and you're gonna have to hit the right spot. Guuahhhaarrhh! No, that wasn't it. Not good enough. Really, easier if you just use your cock. That way you'll get to come too. Why you still holding back? Are you afraid you won't last long enough? I understand—lots of chaps have that problem with me. I'm too much to handle, with this ass. Cross I have to bear."

Whether or not he could understand her words, he dropped the whip and pounced on her. Soon as his cock was inside her all the way, he made his two buddies let go of her arms. He wanted to hold her arms himself, crossing them behind her back as he hammered her. 

"Ahh! Take it! Take it! Take that cunt! It's all yours now! Yours! Yes!" 

Karen and Chloe weren't freaking out as bad as before. Because now they were watching her, and they could see how much she was enjoying her fucking. And that (as Lara on some level had of course intended) showed them both the way—it made it possible for them both to reach the same mindset. The mindset of mindlessness. They saw they could survive this, and they saw how—they could allow their bodies to succumb to the same frenzied sex-madness Lara was demonstrating, and then accept the fuckings they would receive from their captors with the same complete abandonment. Captivity became escape. What had been torture would be transformed into transcendental delight, just as it seemed to be for her, all their horror and humiliation subsumed beneath wantonness and ecstasy. 

That was exactly the tribute these creatures had wanted and demanded from them all along, and from every other human soul that had ever dared to enter this place, since time out of mind. Sexual worship. 

Lara and her friends had trespassed here. She was willing to acknowledge that, no point sugarcoating it. These creatures, whatever exactly they were, ancient aliens or ancient robots, it didn't make a difference—bunch of big jerks, was what they were. Greedy horny jerks. But the jerks had cornered the girls fair and square, in their own house, uninvited. By their own rules, the fuckers weren't doing anything wrong. These jerks were sexbeasts and this was their long lost sex temple, and they wanted sex. Lara was willing to suck in her gut and roll with that, to a certain extent; there was justice in what they were doing to her and her comrades. Rough oldworld justice, but justice of a kind all the same. They should have known what they were getting into when they came in. You can't honestly bitch about getting stung if you stick your nose in a beehive, right? Same general principle down here.

And at least they were good at what they did. Once they moved past the nasty teasing whippings, the jerks fucked them all real good. Lara and Karen and Chloe all got their brains fucked out. When the three assigned to each of them had all taken a couple turns, the trios swapped them around. In the end, Lara and Karen and Choe got fucked by all nine, and at least twice by each of the jerks. And they made damn sure, as a point of pride it seemed, that every time they took a girl, they made her come several times before coming themselves.

They also made the girls fuck each other, a few times, as they were fucking them. Made them use their tongues and their fingers on each other, and even their feet. They made sure each girl got off the other two. Lara was best and speediest at it. She ground off both girls with her cunt, mound to mound, two rapid rough cockless fuckings, which women often enjoy much more than the other ordinary kind. When it was Chloe's turn to take care of her, she brought Lara off with her tongue in her ass. Very strange that this would have been the thing to do the trick. Never in a million years would she have guessed a thing like that would happen to her, especially from a prim woman like Chloe. It was going to be impossible to look Chloe directly in the face again, or even hear her talking, without making Lara remember this moment ... Karen got her over the line next by grinding her heel on Lara's clit while she was sucking on Lara's toes. The heel by itself wouldn't have done it, nor the mouth on her foot, but both things together in concert gave her one of the biggest bursts of the whole day. "Oh Karen ... Karen!" 

Karen moved her foot from Lara's pussy up to her face. "Lick it clean, you slut! You're such a dirty slut! You spewed your slimy come all over my foot! Lick it off! Lick it all off! Slut!"

Only then Chloe had straddled her face: "You're a slut too, aren't you? You're a bigger slut than she is!"

"You're the biggest slut of all of us! Biggest slut in the world!"

"Yes I am! I am! Eat me! Eat my pussy! Eat it please!" 




The Witches' Treasure



Except orgasms start to hurt if you have too many, too fast. By the end of the orgy, the exhausted overstimulated girls were screaming from stinging pain again in place of proper pleasure, like when they were whipped, only inside instead of across their skin. They began to weep and beg again. Lara the same as the other two. She was reduced to the same desperation. 

"Please don't make us come anymore. Please no more. Please. Not again! I can't stand anymore! Please I beg you! It burns! It's burning! Please! Please no! No oohh oohhh aahhhuurrhhh AHHAARRHUURRHH! Huuhh ... hhuuhh ... no God no ... no more ... no ..." 

The mad ritual had come full circle, switching back to an agonizing and shameful punishment. 

"Whip me!" Chloe wailed, "Please whip me! Whip my ass! Whip my tits! Just don't fuck me anymore! Whip me instead! Whip my ass and my tits and make me scream for you! I beg you to whip to me! Take out your cock! Take your cock out of me! Please just me whip me again instead!" 

"Me too," Karen moaned, "Me too! Please God! God oh please please GAAAWWHHD!"

The jerks, for better or worse, never actually took them up on that notion. By then all nine had got mostly done circulating the girls anyhow, though the girls themselves had long since lost track. 

7.

When the jerks finally (FINALLY!) finished with them, they were led down a short curved corridor, dizzy and stumbling, utterly exhausted, panting and wheezing for breath. The corridor took them to the edge of a pit. 

They were immediately shoved into it. Thankfully it wasn't too far of a drop. 

The jerks didn't go away. They stayed at the edge, looking down on the filthy huddled women, coldly observing what was going to happen next. Good thing they did—if they'd fucked off, the women would have been left in total blackness, without the glow provided from the jerks' bodies. 

A number of very large, very hideous spiders crawled from cracks in the far wall. The things looked too big for the holes they emerged from. They were hairless and maggoty white. They weren't exactly spiders. They had no eyes, and pincher claws on the ends of their legs, at least some of the front ones, and their mouths were long tubes or trunks, that unrolled from their faces like those damned annoying party-favor noisemaker things kids blow on at birthdays, except these included rings of snapping teeth on the ends. All in all, the bloated beasties were quite the ugliest customers Lara could remember running across, at least since the last time she sat in on a session of Parliament. 

Chloe didn't cope with this development of their situation very well, and Karen didn't handle it much better. She at least was quiet about it. Pretty much shut down, curling into a ball to make herself as small as possible, with her head tucked down hiding her eyes so she wouldn't see the creatures coming for her. Well, fair enough. Chloe, however, manifested her feelings in the opposite extreme. Threw her hands up over her head and screamed and screamed. Lara couldn't tolerate the noise. She punched Chloe across the mouth, knocking her flat. Had to be done. It didn't knock her out—that's actually almost impossible to do with a punch, unless you kill the person altogether, one of the great ongoing lies of fiction. But the blow did manage to shut her up, so now Lara could turn and concentrate on what needed concentrating on. 

Point of order, gentlemen. (A moment such as this brought out the British in her to a far greater than usual degree.) A laugh's a laugh and all, but there are lines we don't cross. Giant bugs, and with fanged penis mouths, no less? Dear me, I'm afraid it's just not on, chaps. This is not cricket. 

First order of business was to obtain a weapon. Lara got busy. She leaped on the back of the closest of the spider-crab thingies, crouched to seize one of its limbs around the base with both hands, planted her feet and heaved upwards with all her strength, wrenching sideways as she pulled. Popped the leg from its socket, with an accompanying spray of foul-smelling yellow-orange goo. No problem. As thickly coated all over as she already was with slimy stinking bodily emissions, her own and the other girls' as much as the silvery stuff from the jerks, the addition of spider-crab blood to the mix was scarcely noteworthy, beyond the trivial difference of color. 

The leg proved highly effective both as a bludgeon and lance. This limb didn't happen to have pinchers on the end, its tip was pointy instead. Lara made good use of that point in the next few minutes. 

The spider-crabs did not acquit themselves impressively in the ensuing combat. She took them to school, and it was a short class, and none of them passed the lesson. Only needed to kill a few of the nasty buggers before the rest fled from her, chittering their dismay as they scrambled back out of sight into their cracks. Bunch of pansies, actually. Not used to food that fought back. 

The jerks up top weren't pleased about this, not at all. One of them jumped straight down with his whip to make an issue of it. Used the whip to snatch the leg from her hands. 

That was all right. She knew it wouldn't be any good against these guys. She'd come up with another idea, soon as one got close enough. This chap was her volunteer. 

Lara had noticed, when she hacked off a couple of the spider-crab's penis mouths, that digestive juices spilled from them in prodigious amounts, and dissolved sections of the surrounding rock wherever it splashed. She'd had to watch her step around them. Now she grabbed up one of those severed trunks around its middle, where it was safe to touch, and pointed the leaky slashed-open back end at the jerk with his whip. Then gave the tube a firm squeeze as she slid her hand along its length. Emptied it straight at him like a big tube of toothpaste. Acid squirted all over the face and torso of the jerk, both of which rapidly proceeded to melt away into hissing steam. 

The other guys up top fled after that, just like the bugs had done. Cunts. Cowardly cunts. 

Lara and her friends weren't left in the dark. The legs and the arms of the one she'd killed remained intact and continued to provide illumination. They used them like torches as they climbed up the wall of the pit. 

The other jerks stayed hidden and didn't mess with them anymore as the women made their way back up the long winding stairway to the door of the treasure chamber, which thankfully when they reached it was still standing open exactly as before. The jerks had no further interest in trying to keep them trapped. 

Lara led the way, obviously. Chloe and Karen needed to keep clinging to each other as they tottered along. They didn't snivel or fuss, though. Lara was grateful for that and proud of them too. It was a real good feeling not to be leaving bodies behind (or chewed bits of them). Both girls had done all right, over all, considering the awkward and demeaning directions this adventure ended up taking. They'd held up better through it than most people would have done, regardless of gender. 

"I can't believe you managed to do all that," Chloe finally said, "after everything else." 

"Yeah," said Karen, "You were amazing. Seriously."

"Stop now, both of you," said Lara, her native Englishness kicking in again, "Forget about it." 

"We owe you our lives," Chloe said, "You saved our bacon." 

"Well, you know," said Lara, "Didn't seem like Batman was going to show up. Had to make do best as we could." 

Not a very good joke, no. Didn't matter. Just so long as a joke of some sort was made. Only way to clear the air when that sort of touchy-feely eye-watering nonsense starts bogging everybody down. 

8. 

Guess what they found when they went through that big enticing treasure door? 

Bupkis. 

Well, that wasn't quite fair. There was also another little set of steps—wide and straight this time, opposed to all those narrow twisty ones they'd just finished climbing—to a sunny opening to the surface. This was the complex's exit, on the far side of the mountain than the one they climbed at the beginning of the day. 

Very nice, of course. And yet ... 

Karen said, "Um, what the hell, Chloe?" 

It wasn't even like they'd found a vast shadowy chamber that somebody else had already cleaned out. This was just a plain dinky hallway. No room for treasure. 

"Did we get tricked?" asked Karen, "Does this mean we have to go back down?" 

"No," said Lara, "No point."

"I think," said Chloe, "I think maybe it was a metaphorical treasure. Knowledge. Self-knowledge." 

"Sex knowledge, you mean," said Karen, "That's all people ever got, wasn't it? All the crazy fuck skills they had to learn. Only way those creatures let anybody the fuck out of the place. Fucking their way out. Pretty much what we just did, except with the nasty spider thingies as a bonus, since we weren't supposed to survive after we offended those evil fuckers down there, breaking their stupid rules." 

"Well," said Chloe, "yes. That's pretty much my interpretation, at this, um, juncture. Would your assessment concur, Lara?"

Lara just snorted and spat on the floor, then led the way out into the sun.