The most noticeable thing about the girl, most people would say when asked later, was that she walked in a manner that was almost 'mincing'. It was as if she tried to keep most of her foot off of the ground, and as a result almost tip-toed. Others would call it an odd gait - stepping toe-heel, toe-heel, rather than the more usual heel-toe steps of the average person. Her appearance was almost secondary, exotic as it was. 

And it was exotic. Her hair was red, which was the first oddity; red hair was a Hinterlands look, and often associated with the fey folk who lived in the wooded foothills before the mountains. Her eyes were bright blue, which most people found reassuring since everyone knew green eyes were the mark of the true fey folk. A splash of freckles across skin almost milky in complexion didn't quite detract from her prettiness. She wasn't beautiful, no; her slight build and delicate looks, along with obvious youth, made her 'pretty' or 'cute' rather than 'beautiful' or 'comely'. And there was a distinctive look to her clothing; the sort of clothing a noble who was a ranger might wear, such as heavily tooled leather belt and doeskin belt pouches. Her only weapon was a slim dagger strapped to her thigh, the hilt of volcanic glass.

Naturally, such a person attracted attention from those other than the merely curious. The Silent Guild had a name for rich noble girls, and it was 'prey'. Mercurial was one of those who were usually sent to befriend and betray such; her own apparent youth - largely the result of having her ears cruelly 'clipped' by the guild master so she appeared completely human - making her naturally suited to appealing to the naiveté of a noble born woman-child. It was not a matter of personal preference either; most noble-born were very strictly against intimacy beyond the friendly kiss or gentle caress of a friend. 

Thus, she was tapped to 'make friends' with the unusually outfitted girl. She was rather wary about the entire situation, but her mild protests were ignored. There was a very distinctive grace to the young redhead's movements that only the old acquired. She'd seen it among her mother's people, and no matter how old an elf appeared, they could rarely disguise their graceful movements. Given that most other races were ham-handed minotaurs in their movements, this delicate girl was more like an elf than Mercurial herself was.

Pillory arrived in the city with the intent of purchasing some more transportable wealth in the form of jewelry and gems. While her enchanted belt pouch made coins easily carried, she traveled too far and into places far less willing to accept minted coins to bother with the gold and silver she earned. Fingering the ruby spider hanging from a silver chain about her neck, she considered the variety of inns and taverns along the street dubiously. While she could certainly afford better, and preferred it, being in those places would inevitably bring questions from curious nobility, and worse, would-be suitors. Rapists she had less trouble dealing with than attentive fops.

Her sharp eyes caught sight of another young female slipping between the people still moving too and fro along the main street. She grinned as she observed the blonde frail in the dark clothing and carrying a lap harp snake an apple from a cart in passing without anyone being the wiser. There was a dagger carried in plain sight and the girl was clearly the sort who was, or had been, adventurous. 

How adventurous remained to be seen, Pillory decided, and she headed towards the establishment. It was one of the more populated ones, but the quality of the food was good from the smell, though she felt no hunger.

The large panther that had tracked the unnatural abomination paused some distance from the city. She considered carefully the problems inherent in entering a city; worst and foremost, unfortunately, was the fact that she'd have to assume her own form. She chuffed softly, disliking the idea, but unable to completely give up the chase. 

She'd first spotted the....well, the thing, for lack of a better word - talking with some of the gnomes from the colony that was set in the foothills on the edges of her territory. At first she'd assumed it was a human girl on some kind of quest or journey. Only when she'd started to shadow the creature had she realized it neither ate, nor drank, nor did it do anything a human would do. It wasn't a half elf either - it did not enter reverie, but instead simply sat still for several hours, whereupon it got up and continued on its way. It was clearly alien; what kind of alien she meant to find out.

Sighing heavily she allowed her body to shift, slide from fur and compact muscle and thick bone to slender flesh and frail body. She ran a hand through her thick black hair and shook her head, clearing it of the animalistic thoughts that still remained. Her dark skin would mark her as an outsider, but there was a great deal of trade in the city so she did not think she would stand out too much. Her clothing, though worn, was not particularly noticeable, and other than a few amulets and simple trinkets she had little enough jewelry that thieves would not worry themselves over her meager belongings. 

Tightening the straps of her sandals, she began the long walk form forest's edge to the city. She would have preferred sneaking in at night, but there were too many times when she'd seen heavily armed and armored guards on the walls and patrolling the gates. The last time she'd been shot at with crossbows had been unpleasant, and while her spells would prevent that situation from getting out of hand now, the experience had not been pleasant.

She was let through the gates along with a caravan that had come from the hills; they assumed she was some gypsy girl or perhaps a camp follower. She did not dissuade them from their simplistic assumptions. She thought it better to remain unknown and unsuspected.  

Especially since she planned to leave a corpse in her wake.

Mercurial had seen the red headed stranger watching her of course.  It was strictly a one sided affair, she was sure.  She slipped into the Crooked Roost, and settled on a table near the fire.  It wasn’t particularly chilly yet, but it would definitely cool down in the evening.  It was also furthest away from the obvious escapes and exits, while being very close to the concealed trapdoor the heavies would hustle her prey into.  She had already ordered ale and some food – a working lunch she supposed – and was tuning her harp quietly when the red headed stranger walked in.

The red head’s outfit seemed more and more incongruous the longer she looked at it.  The white tunic was short sleeved with slits in sleeves and oddly high along the sides, and the delicate bracers she wore looked like they were made out of glass.  Her belt and boots were hand tooled leather, but they were imprinted or stamped with odd designs, looking almost elven in make, while her belt pouches were clearly of halfling design with the embroidery stitched into the leather.  The crystal hilted dagger was of no make she could readily identify while the necklace the stranger wore was clearly of drow design.  Half of her jewelry seemed of gnomish make but there was a distinctly dwarven cut to the gems in the armlets, and her breeches were loose and soft, and of a heavy silk rather than leather or wool.

The longer Mercurial studied the girl, the more she suspected this was a really terrible idea.

Pillory spotted the young-looking bard immediately.  She was most likely half-elven, rather than full elven, and while her ears had been somehow altered, the alteration was more of a blunt physical alteration than subtle magic.  She could have been anywhere from eighteen to forty in human years and still looked like the young girl she appeared to be.  She seemed unduly nervous, and it didn’t take a mind reader to realize something was up.  

Since it had the potential to be interesting, Pillory plunged headlong into the trap.  

“Do you mind if I sit here?” she asked the delicate bard, her eyes drifting along the black tunic with the unusual icon of a three legged toad in silver-thread embroidery upon it.  She was built beautifully, slender, spare of bust and with small hands, despite her profession.  The design of her lap harp was accommodating and Pillory suspected the girl had made it herself.  It took almost not effort at all to suppress the display of her mental protections, and she smiled warmly, allowing the simplest mental emanations she produced subconsciously to put the girl at ease.  She could have induced an immediate interest, but it was more fun this way.  “You look rather alone, and I would rather not suffer through the pawing of the local brutes.”

The tavern was a little busy, those workers who could get away for a short break and the few gentry who found the good food and relative safety of the Crooked Roost making for a pleasantly busy atmosphere without overwhelming noise.  There were a number of empty tables while those tables with people sitting in them were largely populated with men or couples who seemed to want not to be disturbed.  

“Of course you may,” the silver-tongued bard replied, smiling warmly.  She pushed a plate of apple slices across the table.  “Do help yourself.  I’m waiting on my lunch; if you are free to join me, won’t you do so?”  The red-headed woman took one of the slices between forefinger and thumb and popped it into her mouth as she settled down next to the bard.  Mercurial smiled, and hoped the sleeping draught would be as undetectable as Auaei the Poisoner had said it would be.  

The tartness of the crisp apple would have hidden the flavor of the toxin from most people, and Pillory would not have noticed if she hadn’t traveled through the apple fields that this fruit must have come from only a few days before.  She felt the toxins trying to invade her body, and bolstered her metabolism instinctively – if she could actually be said to have ‘instincts’.  Instincts were a trait of natural creatures.

Setting aside the stray thought Pillory smiled and leaned in a little closer, her fingers brushing lightly along the outer thigh of the tight leather breeches the bard wore.  “That was quite a lift you made.  I could have sworn at least three people were looking in your direction when you plucked this from the stall!”  Mercurial smiled at the other girl, a more genuine smile; this might turn out to be easier than she’d expected if the girl found her attractive.  “You do not have the look of a hungry singer to me, though.”  Pillory settled back, and set her elbows on the table, completely at ease.  “Just keeping in practice I suppose?”

“Yes; one can never be too careful, for one might not know where the next meal comes from.  Though, I am not singing for my supper today.  I am taking advantage of a particularly rich patroness who has given me more than the usual share of payment for my ‘playing’,” she replied with a suggestive wink.  The way the red-headed girl’s eyes brightened and the flash of smile told Mercurial all she needed to know.  “I am Mercurial; my name, rather than a description.”  She’d discarded her surnaming, since it would have marked her as elven-kind.

“Pillory Jaas.”  She laughed at Mercurial’s reaction to her name.  “Jaas is fine; Pillory for my friends.  My mother and father didn’t much like my intrusion on their life, and I left home as soon as I could.  And they seemed unwilling to part with anything useful to me, so I made off with my mother’s jewelry box and my father’s arms.”  She tapped the delicate seeming glass bracers together, and they rang softly despite the apparent snug fit.  “He learned the secrets of the duergar and the svirfneblin, and crafted these, and a few other trinkets.”  A bald faced lie, but Mercurial swallowed it whole; the Concealed Thought mantra was more than effective, and Pillory had gone a lifetime or two to hone her lies.  

A serving wench brought a platter of steaming meat and gravy, and a sliced loaf of sour-bread.  Pillory only troubled her for a bottle of wine, and gave the woman a foreign coin of gold for it.  Mercurial choked a little seeing that.  This girl was suicidal, it seemed; if she had not been sitting next to a guild member in a guild-owned establishment she would have found herself lying half dead or all dead in an alley shortly after leaving – and perhaps before.  She composed herself and placed a slice of bread and several slices of meat on her wooden plate and gestured with her fork.  “Feel free – I meant it well.”

“I shall – I think a little more of that apple will do me just fine until the wine arrives.”  She grinned and ate another two slices, bolstering her metabolism again, and setting a part of her attention to track her state of well being.  Mercurial smiled and dug into her food, enjoying the rare chance for a good meal at the guild’s pleasure.  Pillory watched her eat with a smile of amusement gracing her pale-coral lips.  Yes, this was a girl who knew hunger and fear; it was a little strange, but not entirely unexpected.  “Tell me, do you know where a room might be had for a few days?  One clean and occupied solely by myself, preferably.  Unless the chance for a tumble with someone as pretty as you comes my way, in which case an occupancy of two would be quite nice.”

Mercurial stifled a laugh.  Pillory dressed like a noble, spoke like a bard, and had all the aplomb of a brazen whore, and was named for an implement of torment.  Whomever this copper-haired woman-child was she was a disaster waiting to happen somewhere.  “I think that is the boldest offer anyone has ever made to me, unless one counts the request to sing on an old man’s lap when mistaking me for a castrato!”  She took another bite of her meat and bread, and then took a slice of apple and offered it to Pillory in her forefinger and thumb, hazel eyes glittering.

The door swung open slowly and a small group of travelers entered.  A family it seemed, or at least traveling mates – two of them were quite exotic, but seemed to be attached to the other three.  The last lingered at the door for a moment, and scanned the room slowly, stepping off to the side.  Her dark skin color was unusual but not particularly exotic in this city; it only suggested she’d wandered out of the river-docks where the wayfarers traded.  Her chocolate skin was largely covered up with a simple grey shift of cotton, and a slender belt of hide held her belt pouches.  One was clearly a charm pouch, while the other seemed to be stuffed with herbs and leaves that jutted from it.  The amulet of amber that dangled from the leather collar about her neck hinted further at her nature.  Vasane spotted her quarry quickly, and her dark eyes narrowed hatefully.

As she watched, the abomination slowly took a slice of apple from the fingers of a young woman.  From the way her lips lingered over the tips of the girl’s fingers and the soft, delighted laughter of the blonde girl, it was clear there was a seduction going on.  The mere thought of it nauseated the druid.  Her lips tightened as she watched the two share meat and bread, and then wine when it was delivered to her table.  The creature was eating, but Vasane was well aware it didn’t require natural food or drink – it had eaten and drank nothing as it stalked through her forests.  

She feared what the monstrous thing might actually consume, and that thought forced her from the wall towards the creature, silently casting a further spell of protection upon herself.  Vasane knew she couldn’t risk turning into a beast in the city – not in tavern crowded with men and women, with the city guard near by.  Fortunately she was not exactly unversed in the warfare of man and woman; her quarry was in for a terrible surprise.  

Pillory poured a little more wine into her friendly companion’s tankard, and drank a little more herself.  Mercurial was doing a lovely job of not actually drinking the wine, and she avoided the apples most diligently.  The red-headed girl’s companion was still a little nervous, and seemed confused as to why Pillory hadn’t succumbed to the potent drugs, but she seemed interested enough that the game could last a little longer.  If Mercurial hadn’t looked startled and half risen, she could almost have been taken utterly by surprise by the brown girl’s assault.

The razor sharp claws that sliced through Pillory’s tunic passed through her flesh easily; reflexively Pillory sealed the wounds and repaired the damage before little more than a few drops of blood could spill.  Her tunic was shredded across the gentle swell of her breasts, and she reacted to the attack by straight-arming the chocolate-skinned girl in the face.  Her hand impacted with enough force that the girl took a step back – largely unharmed by what should have been a devastating blow.  It was like hitting iron and Pillory was quite shocked.

The druid did not let up her attack, this time slashing at the creature with both hands and tearing at her face.  Her claws bit deep, but the wounds seemed to be only superficial not matter how deeply she felt her claws cut.  The blonde had moved away from the table, her lips moving and a strange, lovely music seeped into Vasane’s hearing, carrying with it feelings of despair and world-weariness.  She took a step back, giving the warrior enough respite to tumble away from the table and into the aisle between tables and the patrons shouted and called out bets.  She looked at her hands; the ivory talons were drenched in hot, red blood, while there were only superficial scratches on the girl’s face and breasts.  “What ARE you?” she hissed angrily.

There was a soft bell like tone that sang in the air between them and Pillory’s hands gleamed with glassy liquid for a few seconds before it sank into her skin.  She did not answer immediately but instead lashed out, her booted foot slamming with greater force and accuracy than her earlier blows had managed, and following the kick up with a two-palmed strike to the dark-girl’s chest that knocked the wind from her, unlike the previous impact.  Pillory gave the druid a feral grin and shook her head meaningfully.

The druid slashed at the creature, which stepped into the blows and brought up her arms, catching the other girl’s blows forearm to forearm, avoiding the claws.  There was a strange hissing sound and when her knee came up, catching Vasane against the soft flesh of her mons and driving her sensitive flesh up against her pelvis, there was a sharp CRACK and a fine red mist erupted from Vasane’s body.  

Mercurial gasped, realizing at once the nature of the power that the druid was facing.  A psychic; and a psychic of no small power to be able to batter the druid through the power of a Skin of Stone spell.  The Dissipating Touch had blasted a great deal of the druid’s body away, from the amount of blood that soaked her clothing and the floor around her.  The warrior-monk took advantage of the other girl’s pain and transformed potential energy into realized power, and slammed her fist into the girl’s sternum.  

A bright golden flash erupted from the point of impact and a gush of blood erupted from the dark-skinned girl’s mouth.  She sank to the floor, staggered by the psychically empowered blow.  Mercurial gasped and Pillory seemed to recover herself at the sound, despite the cheers and catcalls and howls of the now crowded tavern.  The druid fell face down upon the floor and Pillory turned to find Mercurial; the delicate bard was lost in the crowd and Pillory frowned faintly.  When she turned to look at her strange assailant she was gone as well, and Pillory was left standing amidst a gaggle of laughing, cheering patrons of the tavern, holding one arm over her small breasts as she puzzled out where the two girls had vanished off to.

Mercurial was hastily trying to explain herself to the brutish looking half-orc as they walked quickly down the sewer tunnel.  Behind them trailed three toughs from the bar above, two of them carrying the unconscious and badly beaten – though strangely uninjured – druid.  Her claws had faded, though her skin was still ensorcerelled.  Blood oozed from her lips and dripped from her clothing though she seemed otherwise uninjured.  

“Whomever she is, however rich she is, she’s had monastic training, and she has power akin to sorcerers.  This girl is enough, surely, Grondy!”  Mercurial was sweating bullets, and if she couldn’t talk fast enough she was going to get another whipping.  She didn’t mind that so much – it had become more an experience to be enjoyed since she’d encountered the Thing In The Circle – but the inevitable rape that happened after she could do without.  “She’s pretty, she’s young, and even though she’s a spell crafter she can be sold for a good price if we can’t ransom her!”  

“Th’ Maw wanted th’ other somethin’ fierce, and I’d suggest you take it up with he, Mercy darlin’.  But I’d nary worry ‘bout a beatin’; you got a doxy, and t’ me tha’ should be fine.”  The Grondy gestured to a cell similar to one Mercurial herself had woken in not so long ago.  The two toughs hung her arms from the ceiling chains and cuffed her ankles to a spreader bar that was attached to the floor.  The sight of the girl strung up so gave the harbinger a frisson and she licked her lips.  But the Grondy was not quite done with her yet.

Taking a strange bracelet that looked like it was carved of gold - rather than beaten or from a mold - carefully from his belt, he gingerly placed it about the dark-skinned girl’s wrist.  He pushed it closed, the hinge moving with a little resistance.  As it closed a tiny spark of white light flashed from the closure, and it seemed to be sealed shut; tiny gems appeared from the gold, rising from it like bubbles of glass.  “Tha’ll keep th’ slitch from craeftin’ for a good while.  So long as she wearin’ tha’ she ain’t got th’ power to weave so much as a canny-trip.”  The half orc turned and paused at the doorway of the cell, and looked back at the girl.  He glanced at Mercurial, and grinned, his fangs jutting fearsomely.  “Whyn’t you keep th’ slitch comp’ny, Mercy.  Tell any o’ th’ boys t’ leaven off for me, yea?”

Mercurial blushed hotly and nodded, keeping her eyes lowered.  She wouldn’t thank him or say anything; it was a reward of sorts since she likely wouldn’t be getting paid by the Maw.  Still, she walked into the cell and pulled the door shut, and leaned against it, letting a deep breath wash the taste of fear and nervous worry from her mouth.  Turning around, she took a pair of small throwing darts from her boot and a swath of black cloth from her belt, and tacked the cloth over the peeping-window.  It wouldn’t do much for real privacy, really, but it would keep the passers by from noticing that anything was going on for a bit.

The single torch lit the room well enough, and the smell of damp stone and moldy straw was not too terribly thick here.  Mercurial walked to the girl, finally having time to study her.  She frowned, and undid the belt and leather-strapped sandals as she looked the stranger over.  

She was dark skinned, what the gypsies called Anubian; the color of coffee untainted by cream, or the thick black tea Mother liked.  Her lips were full and soft, pale in comparison and her hair soft and kinky like the curls of the noble born when they dressed in finery, though more natural looking than those.  Mercurial turned up her hands and wondered at how pale they looked in comparison to the rest of her dark skin, and was surprised by how soft and supple her hands were considering her vocation. 

The golden-haired bard frowned and carefully cut away the bloodied clothing, revealing a largely unwounded girl at the breaking edge of womanhood.  She ran her fingers along the soft, conical mound of one breast, feeling the difference in texture of the girl’s large aureoles, and smiling as the girl’s nipple peaked under her touch despite the lack of consciousness.  “Pleasure is pleasure, pain is pleasure, waking or not, the body still likes it,” she murmured, reciting what the Thing had told her.  She slid her fingers down to the girl’s belly and then licked them clean, tasting the rich crimson thoughtfully.  

Walking over to the barrel of water in the corner – kept here for many a reason, though this was actually one of them – Mercurial took a large square of heavy wool from a stool and soaked it.  Then she walked around to the girl’s back, smiling at the sight of soft curves of the girl’s firm derriere, and began to wash the girl down, slowly and thoroughly.  The druid stirred slowly, dark eyes fluttering as she struggled towards consciousness.  The cold water and the rough bathing forced her to wake faster than she might have wanted.  All Vasane could taste was copper, and she licked her teeth, tasting her own blood.  

She was terribly thirsty, and she realized she’d lost a great deal of blood by whatever obscene powers that abomination had used upon her.  She waited patiently though, while gentle, delicate hands bathed her.  The feeling of the cloth being pressed between her legs galvanized her however.  “May I have some water, please?” she asked in the woodland tongue.  

Rather than a slap, or a demand to speak an intelligible tongue, the cloth rubbed her clean and then moved away.  She heard the spatter of water on stone behind her, then the sounds of water being played with in one manner or another.  “There is no dipping spoon; you must make do with my hands or with my mouth.  And I think a kiss would be a risky thing with you, earth-walker.”  The lilting, melodic sylvan bore the touch of the elven kind, and she was surprised to see the human girl she’d tried to save stepping around her.  

Without hesitation the girl brought her cupped hands to Vasane’s mouth and spilled the little water she’d managed to carry into the druid’s mouth and along her face.  The druid regretfully did not swallow but swished her mouth clear, as the delicate bard stepped back.  When she spat, it was away and far off to the side, where it struck the wall.  The somewhat surprised bard studied the crimson-stained water dripping along the wall.  Her softly spoken sylvan cemented the druid’s suspicion that she was not as human as she appeared.  “You spit not less far than some of the great serpents.  Do you still thirst?”  The bard’s eyes wandered over the girl, and the druid studied the inquisitive, hungry look with aplomb.  

“Yes.  I will accept a kiss; I have no ill will towards you, captor though you may be.”  Vasane watched the elf, who nodded slowly and walked away again.  The druid could not feel her soul testing its bonds, could not feel the power that should have been at her beck and call at all.  She concentrated, trying to draw power from the earth, the sky, the fire nearby only to find that her mind kept slipping away from the focus she desired.  A quick glance at her burdened wrist told her what she desired to know – it was some sort of tool to keep her power at bay.  “What is your name, child of light and laughter?”  

Mercurial started, though the druid couldn’t see her.  She hesitated over the barrel of water, and then spoke in the sylvan tongue.  “Mercurial Whim-of-Glory, earth-walker.  May I have your name to speak in under stars?”  She brought a double handful of the cold water to her mouth and drank, though she did not swallow.  

Unhesitatingly Vasane told Mercurial her name.  When there was no response she tried to glance over her shoulder, but Mercurial was already there.  She rose onto her tip-toes and kissed Vasane, lips pressing the other girl’s apart.  Warmed water spilled into Vasane’s mouth and she swallowed eagerly, accepting the gift.  The half-elf’s lips did not part from hers immediately, and she slowly closed her mouth, letting the elf be the one to pull back.  There was an avenue or escape here perhaps.  “You are more fey than your blood speaks of perhaps, Mercurial Whim-of-Glory.”  Mercurial smiled and walked back to the barrel and resumed her slow, purposeful washing.  

“I have found little enough pleasure in the company of men, lay with them though I have.  You are a prize for man or woman; the nymphs you have kissed have given you their beauty, dark though it may be.”  Mercurial walked about the girl and began washing the soft, rounded face, her throat with the damp woolen cloth, scrubbing the drying blood away.  “You are young to be so powerful.”  There was a question in the elf-child’s human-hazel eyes.  Vasane suspected she was uncertain of the provenance of her name, but had an idea.  

“Youth, as beauty, is a thing those who are wild keep well.  The young survive, and are oft mistaken for the weak.”  She struggled not to squirm at the girl’s cleansing moved down, her nipples sensitive to the rough, cold cloth and crinkled in the cool dungeon air when relieved of the roughness.  “That creature you were with is a greater power than I, canny and learned as I am.”  

The bard hesitated and spoke form behind the youthful bodied druid.  “What do you mean by creature, earth-walker?  I saw a power, but it was not a power unknown to me and not a power of corruption or dark provenance.  She seemed mortal and fine, and sought my company for pleasure, or so it seemed.”  Mercurial did not add that she’d been hunting Pillory; it would be more than a little damning and they were getting along rather well, she thought.  

“It is an abomination; it eats nothing, drinks nothing, and does not sleep.  Its power is strange to me, though you fear it not; if perhaps this is a power that you can name, then that I could perhaps accept.  But it is not a part of the earth or the sky and it traversed the whole of my forest fearlessly and alone.”  Vasane bridled her vehemence; it would not do to alienate the bard.  She shuddered involuntarily as the bard returned to washing her, the cold water sluicing down her belly and between, along her legs, the bare cleft between them.  

Mercurial continued her washing, distracted by the pretty prize before her.  “The word I have heard is ‘psyche-gifted’,” she said, breaking into common for the space of two words.  “It is a power of the mind, such as the hunting insects of the desert and the hive dwellers of the sands.”  The thri-kreen and dromites were hardly known but this girl was powerful enough she would undoubtedly have heard of them.  She ran the wool along the girl’s mons veneris, pressing gently, the girl gasped softly and squirmed, not entirely because of the bruising assault; her spell had protected her from the impact, but not the power that had come with the impact.  Mercurial’s lips parted and she slowly washed Vasane’s thighs clean.  “I doubt much that we shall see her again however.”

“Phrenic,” murmured Vasane in sylvan, recognizing the power of which the bard spoke.  Mercurial stepped away and rinsed the towel again, splashing water onto it from the barrel.  “Be that as it may, it is not a creature of nature, and I am duty bound to slay it to free the earth of its presence.”  She wondered though.  Some phrenic creatures sustained themselves on thought and emotion without harming those about them except by overfeeding.  She might keep it alive for a while and study it, to learn about it more, before dispatching it.

Walking back to the druid as she hung helpless, the bard reached up and slid warm, smooth hands along the other girl’s slender, muscular back slowly.  She traced the taut lines of flesh under dark skin with knowing fingers and smiled.  “I know you wish me to free you.  It may be that I could manage such a thing, and none know of it.”  She didn’t hesitate to speak of treachery in sylvan.  Even if any of the louts could understand it she could claim the lie for it.  It was a lie – the Maw was not a creature she’d want to cross, even if she could sic this druid upon the monstrosity.  “I….could perhaps be persuaded to employ my talents upon your behalf in more than that way, however…”  

Vasane tensed under the delicate caresses of the bard.  Forcing herself to relax, she murmured in soft, slow sylvan, “If your tongue is as golden as your voice and your fingers can play the skin of your lovers as you play your harp, I have little doubt even I would enjoy such attentions as you wish to give me.  But I would much rather find embrace in your arms unshackled from these works of iron and flame, free of that which binds me.”  While she was no lover of women as a rule, it was an inevitable truth that the fey would chase that which denied them until they claimed the prize.  She had been younger then, and the clean glades of her forest were much better a bower than this.  

“That may be true, but I have spent my time in those chains and under the stern use of others.  I much rather take you while you cannot deny me.  It is a little thing I ask, a brief indulgence in a pleasure too long denied.”  Her hands slid down, sliding along the druid’s sides, down her hips.  Mercurial pressed her lips to the druid’s back, her shoulders; soft, warm caresses against the chilled and goose-bumped flesh.  Pressing her own small breasts against Vasane’s back through the silken tunic, she mouthed words along the other girl’s back.  “It has been a long time since have had a pleasure of my own.”  

The druid shivered, and struggled a little.  The bonds were firm and ungiving, and she could only struggle a little – the cuffs upon her arms spread her wide, and the binder between her legs prevented even token resistance.  The sensation of the delicate, callused fingers sliding along her inner thighs made her tense in futile resistance.  The warm breath along her back was pleasurable, and Vasane felt her body responding to the bard’s play even though she had no desire to enjoy this.  “You will take me even should I deny this as pleasure….” She whispered in sibilant, almost angry sylvan.  

Mercurial gently pulled at the soft, warm flesh along the dark-skinned girl’s inner thighs, drawing the darker slit of her sex open and pulling her buttocks up, drawing a shocked gasp from Vasane’s lips.  Mercurial idly wondered what the girl was colored like below.  “I cannot deny the truth of your words, though I hear in your very own voice your pleasure at my touch.  Surely you have lain with nymph and dryad in the cool bowers under the starts and sky, bedded satyr upon earth and grass, played sweet games with wolf and stallion?”  

She couldn’t imagine the druid not trying those pleasures, forbidden by the laws of mortal as they were.  Mercurial released her opening grip and let one finger draw a line along the now closed slit of the girl’s lightly downed mons.  She let her finger slip inside, felt warm heat there before she drew it back to caress the forbidden passage behind.  “I can feel the truth in your answer though your lips might wish a lie.”  Her lips caressed the smooth skin along Vasane’s spine, and the whispered in heated, lust filled melody.  “Let us both tell a small lie, then: you about your desires; I, about being free to help you escape.”  Reaching around she caressed the druid’s belly, her fingers gliding up the smooth, unmarked skin to gently cup her small, conical breasts, though they were larger than Mercurial’s own.  

Mercurial’s caresses were knowing and fervent, truly pleasure, but the druid knew what this was: the omega, taking advantage of a chained and helpless alpha that could not revisit humiliation or revenge upon the omega when she was freed.  She responded with another angry hiss of sylvan.  “Calling for your masters to come punish you would be an exercise in futility, I know.  Your voice was soft, but heard it I have, and no longer do I hear the revelers afar.  Take your pleasure from me, and be damned for it.”  She shuddered as the bard’s fingers traced her aureoles, toyed with erect nipples still chilled by her bath.  

The bard laughed, a soft, warm chuckle along the back of Vasane’s neck, and the pleasure it brought was unexpected.  The bard was a superb lover, despite her age – or, Vasane realized, perhaps because of her age – and the warm hands slowly cupped, slid up, and let their weight brush her hard nipples against Mercurial’s warm palms.  She writhed in agonized pleasure, already sensitive.  The bard slowly walked around the youthful druid, and slowly ran her hands down the slender, toned body of the brown girl.  She paused when they reached Vasane’s inner thighs, fingers stroking her bruised mons gently. 

“Yes; none shall hear our soft sighs or unbridled screams – though I’ve no taste for screams to be sure.  I will make you cry out in pleasure, whether you will it or no.  But you are not entirely unwilling, are you?”  Mercurial’s lips slowly caressed the hollow of Vasane’s throat; her fingers moved down, slowly stroked, petted, toyed with the thick lips of her outer labia, teasing at the more tender inner folds that peeked from between them.  

“Curse you for a silver-tongued liar; you know as I do that the body will feel pleasure when pleasured, regardless of our desire.  As they lay upon you, forced there hot seed into your body, you felt pleasure, though you hate them so!”  There was no force behind the curse but the bard gestured anyways, a twisting, weird gesture that was at once alien and familiar to the druid.  Averting the curse spoken without power, but not as most would have done so, with the Evil Eye or the Horned God’s sign.  “…Whim of Glory….your a worshiper of the chaos born….”  She was immediately distracted from further accusation by a finger slowly slipping into her soft folds.

“Not worshiper, per se, though I have truck with certain of the slaadi.”  Mercurial slowly went to her knees and used both her hands to spread wide the rich flesh of Vasane’s sex, marveling at its deeper color.  She leaned forward and spoke only once more as she spread, played with the moist warmth with her thumbs, exposing Vasane’s center, her apex where her full bud throbbed with a deep ache.  “It matters not.  Not even you could turn me upon the true ruler of this place, powerful though you may be.”  She suddenly laughed and placed a soft kiss on the hot flesh she held exposed, and Vasane arched violently in her bondage.  

“It is actually more the seemingly monstrous girl who defeated you who might salvage our lives from this peculiar hell we find ourselves in.  Irony is truly the axis upon which the universe turns.”  With that she pressed her warm, wet tongue to Vasane’s sex, and began to gently lick her.

Vasane shuddered and did not respond vocally; the sensation of another girl’s mouth, tongue, lips, fingers against her sacred places, those places man and beast had taken pleasure in, stole her breath away.  She had forgotten what it was like: the knowing, gentle heat, and the slow, deliberate pleasure.  Whatever else the bard was, she was skilled.  The half-elf responded to the tiny, involuntary movements to direct her attentions and kept the rhythmic strokes of her tongue similar, yet not the same.  She paid attention to every slick crevice and soft expanse of Vasane’s cut, and she seemed content to take her time tormenting the druid.  

The druid tried to resist, futile as she knew it was.  But the pleasure – sky and earth and fire, such pleasure! – was too prolonged, too intimate.  When the sweet-voiced bard covered the wet heat of her slit with her mouth and began pushing the length of her tongue into Vasane, the druid started to tense, her breaths quick and short.  She curled over as much as she could in the chains, trying to push the pleasure away.  When her climax struck it was all the more powerful for her resisting its lure, and she wet the bards face a little in the violence of her orgasm.  

Mercurial did not stop until the druid was entirely spent, though she suffered two smaller, less intense climaxes during that time.  When the bard finally rose, licking her lips, she was smiling and her hand lingered along the druid’s hip.  “There is more; I have not finished with you nearly, beautiful Vasane.”

Pillory Jaas stood in the bar, the spatter of blood at her feet and the wild, raucous sounds of the bettors collecting or paying and the few more demanding men who wished to have her name or her company.  She ignored them all for the moment, and concentrated.  The crowd quieted as the strange murmur of dozens of unintelligible, alien whispers passed over the surfaces of their minds.  To Pillory, the quiet murmurs were not alien at all; she channeled powerful psychic energy through the synapses of her mind, stirring up every mote of information and memory, driving her mind to levels of cognition that would have destroyed a normal mind.  

Mercurial was a good thief.  She was a good enough thief to avoid the sight of people standing several feet away, yet Pillory has seen her steal the apple form the cart.  Her eyes were sharp, and she was nominally more aware than most people, but a shopkeeper looking directly at the girl had missed the theft.  Mercurial had WANTED her to see that theft.  The apple had subsequently been poisoned, yet the poison was such that a bad reaction would not have drawn comment or fear from those in the tavern.  Ergo, the poison was a drug designed to influence Pillory in a manner the other patrons either expected or would not have commented on.  A sleeping drug or a poison designed to incapacitate without harm, then.

The brown girl’s assault had been a surprise to Mercurial, and a large number of the tavern’s inhabitants had quickly begun bets and conversations concerning the fight.  The brown girl’s clothing had been simple, light, meant to be shed quickly but concealing enough that they could be called modest.  Her amulet and other jewelry of natural and simple make, combined with the plants and the particular power that had made her skin impenetrable to all but the most potent blows marked her as a druid.  

Felling the druid had signaled Mercurial’s escape, and then the druid’s body had vanished.  They were on opposite sides of the room, and a number of the people in the tavern were now missing, from certain places.  The approach of a rather burly man and a hand clapped to Pillory’s shoulder jarred her from the influence of her power, and the train of thought that should have taken minutes faded in the few seconds it had been in her mind.  She turned and smiled at the big man, his food-stained tunic too small and rich for his appearance.

Running her hand along his chest, Pillory gazed into his eyes.  “Why don’t you take me to where Mercurial is and I’ll show you a good time, big man?”  She didn’t merely let her subconscious influence affect him – she set off the synapses in his mind and played on his secret desires and wants, giving him an intense, immediate desire for her.  She winked slowly.  “You can trust me – besides it’s private down there, isn’t it?”  She turned and to the catcalls and whistles of the crowd ran her hand along his hardening manhood.  Her blue eyes looked deep into his brown ones and he grinned, showing a mouthful of bad teeth.  

“Aye, I kin show ye how to get at that little slut’s chambers, but ye’d have to give as good as I give, yeh hear?”  He was firming under her caress and she glanced down, though his eyes were fixed on her coral-colored lips.

“Oh, I’ll put this right where you want it to go, I’m sure….”

Vasane was going mad.  She’d been terribly, terribly wrong about the bard, who was no true bard.  She was a rare anomaly, a terrifying harbinger, a doomspeaker and cursemaker, and she’d come closer to breaking Vasane than anyone the druid had ever dealt with.  

Her voice was angelic, but the feelings it brought on, no matter how beautiful the song, shattered self control and resistance at every turn.  After she’d forced herself on Vasane, Vasane had pleaded for release, at least long enough to relieve full bladder and bowel; the door was locked, after all, and the spell-sealing bracelet kept the druid’s potent magic untouchable.  

But the bard had refused, and pressed her body along the bare back of the brown-skinned girl.  Her hands had slid about Vasane’s waist, and spread her nether lips wide; when Vasane claimed she couldn’t possible go under those circumstances, soft, crooning notes of a sweet, warm melody had drifted from those curse-laying lips, and Vasane’s willpower had eventually broken, and she’d let go, spilling her water upon the floor while the girl helped her.  She’d even been forced to the ultimate humiliation, and Mercurial had helped her there too, cleaning her gently and softly with cool, wet cloths.  

Now Mercurial was oiling her hands as Vasane’s breasts heaved, deep, heavy breaths keeping the tears at bay as the harbinger hummed a sweet, teasing melody.  Clean now, the druid was no longer soiled at all, but her soul felt filthy; she struggled to see the gentle, helpful treatment as part of the bard’s pleasure and desire to control.  The worst part is that she could understand Mercurial’s position and desires, in a strange way – she had seen animals act the same, and it was a natural and understandable reaction.  

That did not make it any less humiliating.

The warm, oily hands slide up her back, painting her body in sweet-smelling oils and she shuddered.  Those damned hands, knowing, gentle, pleasuring and hateful made her feel desired and it had been too long since she’d been with any creature, fey, beast or mortal.  The girl’s hands slid to her front and she felt Mercurial’s breasts against her back once more – but this time without the softness of cotton and silk between them.  Vasane gasped and bit out quick, sharp sylvan.  “What are you DOING?”

The warm, oily hands slid up her belly, coated her breasts in the slick, warm oil, and stroked downwards, painting her mons, her thighs in the slick sweetness.  In melodic, heat-laden sylvan the woman-child responded, “I am preparing you for the auction.  You are a prize to be bought and sold.  I could not bring the other, whom my master desired greatly, and thus my only reward is this time with you.  I am taking every advantage I may, for it is all I can do.”  The youthful bard’s hands moved away, only to return a moment later laden with more of the oil, which was gently worked into the druid’s kinky hair and along her slender arms.  “I am glad your spell keeps you from suffering the pain of the cuffs and bondage.  You deserve no pain; you merely were in the wrong place at the right time.”  

Vasane had no answer to that.  She shuddered as the bard coated her legs with the warm oil, working each leg with both hands like a skilled masseuse.  Then those wicked, skillful fingers were moving along her nether lips, spreading, entering, pushing and caressing, inside and out.  Vasane arched and cried out, both in denial and pleasure; Mercurial’s soft, warm body against her back was a pleasure as well, up until her slick, oily thumb pressed into Vasane's forbidden back passage, intruding in a manner she’d never allowed any lover.  Her enraged scream traveled only to the walls, and not beyond.  

This was a pity because the noises on the other side of the harbinger’s sound-bubble would have been educational.  

Pillory Jaas stood up, wiping her hands clean on the tunic of the fat man’s stolen tunic.  Her eyes glittered with malevolent intensity, and she continued to cast her mind over the minds of the guards only a few feet distance.  They neither saw nor heard her approach, their senses completely commanded by the psychic; if they had, they might have heard the scream of the fat man when she’d emasculated him and stuffed his softening manhood into his mouth.  Though she was fairly certain he’d hoped to put it in hers.  Still, any port in a storm, and his mouth was still warm for the moment, though that wouldn’t last long as he bled out.  

She gathered her mind and let the sensory mastery drift, though it would last a few seconds more.  It was more time than she really needed as she drew the dagger of dark glass.  It was neither glass nor volcanic in origin, however; it grew in deep caverns, and has been forged by her own hands and power into a weapon of more than matter.  A thought of violence implanted in the material, along with a minute portion of her psychic power, and the weapon glowed with a deep golden light from within.

The two guards' senses cleared, and the red-headed girl seemed to step out of the very air itself.  Before they could sound an alarm, she slammed her fist into the solar plexus of one and slashed the other across the throat with the empowered deep-crystal blade.  Her hand gave a flash nearly identical to the one the dagger gave off and the men died almost instantly, one with his throat cut to his spinal column, the other with organs crushed to pulp in his belly.  Both fell to the ground and remained there.  

The unfortunate woman who walked around the corner was gnomish, and rather a harridan looking one at that.  She reacted quickly, however and while she didn’t shout, the dagger that she threw pierced Pillory’s arm through even as she brought it up to guard her heart.  Power burned through her body and she ignored the blade – though she would only be able to ignore it for a few seconds given the fact it remained in her arm.  Pillory reached out, as if taking the woman’s head in both hands and the imprints of her fingers over the woman’s mouth and against the soft hair at the back of her neck were clear – though she stood some distance away yet.  

The woman struggled against nothing, trying to cry out, as she was wrestled to the ground swiftly and efficiently, pinned by nothing at all.  Pillory held the power and gritted her teeth against the pain in her arm, before she twisted violently, snapping the woman’s neck.  The woman died instantly, and Pillory rose from her crouch – the Mimetic Telekinesis she’d performed required her to move as she thought.  She took the tiny dagger from her arm and wrenched it out, tossing it to the ground negligently.  The poison was coursing through her body already, and she used more power to burn it away, as well as to heal the wound.
	
Pillory had a goodly amount of power left, but she considered herself lucky that Mercurial was in the cell nearby; she didn’t fancy trying to depopulate the local thieves guild during an effort to kiss the pretty blonde.  The adept walked over to the cell, and blinked, curious as to the lack of sound.  The peeping-window was covered with a cloth, but she lifted it, and found herself treated to a sight that most men would have paid platinum to see.  Grinning she laid her hand on the lock and watched from the small window, the two girls so absorbed in what was going on they didn’t notice Pillory spying on them.

The bubble of silence kept Pillory from hearing the soft, intense gasps of the youthful-looking druid as Mercurial pressed her body, rubbed herself along the girl, two fingers slowly, firmly driving in and out of the tight, slick passage of Vasane’s well oiled derrière.  Her other hand was occupied with the soft, warm petals of the dark girl’s sex, Mercurial sliding delicate fingers along the firm nub of her clitoris, the sensitive folds of her vulva.  The blonde girl was breathing fast and heavily, and the druid cried out, the attentive bard’s play drawing yet another unwanted orgasm from her body.  

“Not so evil as perhaps you believe the act to be, sweet earth-walker?” murmured the excited bard in sweet sylvan as tears spilled across Vasane’s oiled breasts.  While she had no bruises, the bard had bitten, suckled, and tormented those soft, firm breasts, as well as other places on her body.  The spell had kept her from feeling pain or suffering injury, but there had been pleasure and that was a disheartening side effect to such magnificent protection.  “I imagine that tight as you are, if you had not had the spell, this would have torn you, and your blood would be anointing my hands.  But you are wonderfully well defended against any pain I might cause, are you not?”

Vasane hissed angrily, blinking more tears away.  “Be done with me – your masters will be pleased that you have given all the torment you have received.”  Mercurial’s fingers slipped from her and she gasped, the shock of pleasure inevitable and inescapable.  The girl walked around to face her, but before she could say anything more, the harbinger’s eyes widened and a deep, vibrating tone erupted from behind her.  The bard was enveloped by translucent blue bars at strange angles and positions, many of which seemed to pass tough her body.  

Before she could react the bars stopped moving and erupted with another intense tone, Mercurial lighting up and her hair flying in a breeze that Vasane didn’t feel.  The explosion of force that seemed to not exist for Vasane erupted about the slender half-elf and she crumpled, driven half-conscious by the potent shockwave.  She struggled to form words and was driven back against the far wall by an unseen force that Vasane felt not at all, pinned and held there with the imprint of fingers covering her mouth and an unseen arm pressed across her breasts.  

“Let us have none of that, my pretty magpie; my defenses are good, but I’d rather not test them against your angelic voice.”  Vasane turned her head and saw the abomination she’d been hunting stalking slowly towards the semi-conscious bard, hands bloodied and her long copper tresses slightly disheveled.  “While I could not hear the sweet things you undoubtedly said to our tearful new friend, I can imagine they were enough to break her heart.”  Vasane’s cheeks burned and she glared at the psychic with enough venom that the girl glanced back at her.

“Don’t thank me yet – you’re not free until we walk from this place.”  The girl pushed her arm forward and tightened the grip of her hands on air, and the bard started struggling, grasping at her breasts and her mouth and nose, the psychic’s hold on her keeping her from breathing.  Pillory was sweating bullets, her efforts clearly taking a toll even as the bard succumbed to her grasp.  When she passed into unconsciousness, the redhead relaxed and Mercurial slumped to the floor, breathing shallowly.  

“There’s that.  Now, to prevent untimely interruptions, which would undoubtedly make a mess of things.”  Turning, the adept gazed at the doorway, the molten metal of the lock and the decayed wood around it having made no noise on the other side of the bubble of soundlessness the harbinger had crafted when Pillory had plied her Acidic Touch upon it.  The guards would be noticed soon, so she lifted her hands and concentrated, drawing off the wellspring of her soul to create momentarily a Power where none she knew would suffice.  A moment later the doorway and walls were gone, a shimmering field of silver-white liquid light erupting to encircle the trio of young girls inside the cell.  

“What kind of monster ARE you?” Vasane breathed softly, looking at the girl who stood arms akimbo and terribly pleased with herself.  

The adept looked up at the chained druid, and smiled.  “Monster?  Well, I suppose by your standards, yes, I must be!”  She walked over and ran a single finger along the helpless girl’s belly, and then rubbed the oil between forefinger and thumb.  “Suffice it to say that what I am is a creature of the mind, more than the body.  I am a psychic – sobreitas phrenic nos vanis, yes?”  Vasane was taken aback by the fluency of Pillory’s sylvan.  “But I was once mere mortal, just as you ONCE were, druid.  Now you are a creature of the woods, a fey thing, no longer subject to merely human mortality.  And I am a body powered and sustained by a human mind, no longer subject to the threat of old age or death by frailty.”

Pillory looked down at the still sleeping Mercurial.  “And before we discuss this any further, I am going to take advantage of the girl who would have put me in your place.  I would rather you kept quiet, but I will have no problem making a gag for you if you insist.”  She glanced up at the dark, lovely girl as she hung suspended and noticed the bracelet.  “Well…that’s something new.  I had no idea that would work on a mage or priest.  I guess that age doesn’t answer all questions, does it?”  She grinned and slowly undressed, baring her supple, pale body to the druid.  

Well freckled along her shoulders, arms, upper back and along the gentle swell of her upper breasts, she was an amazingly fit youth, and her movements were graceful beyond her apparent years.  Vasane shivered a little, seeing the coral nipples and pale flesh of the girl’s mons.  Pillory looked at Vasane and smiled, and began expending tiny, almost unnoticeable bits of power, slowly tweaking the girl’s powerful mind.  The effects were difficult to insinuate into her mind, but persistence and time paid off.  

As Vasane watched Pillory arrange the harbinger on the floor Mercurial herself had washed clean during their play – or rather, her rape – she found herself finding the pale, copper haired girl more and more appealing.  Strange, alien desires started to rise unbidden; she found herself starting to panic when she realized the desires were not her own, not even natural.  Yet she couldn’t resist them constantly, and each passing minute had her wanting to explore, to taste, to possess even as she’d been possessed by the harbinger.  Her heart pulsed quickly, and she became more and more wet, even though she’d suffered numerous climaxes of varying intensities under the curselayer’s talented tongue, fingers and lips.

Straddling the unconscious harbinger, the naked adept rubbed her bare nether lips along the girl’s smooth belly, enjoying the warmth of her oiled skin.  Pillory poured out a handful of coins into her hand, and smiled.  As the girl started to stir, the adept poured a modicum of power into her hands and through them into the gold and silver, molding them, forming them.  “You are about to be wearing the most expensive bindings that have ever been made, Mercurial.”  The harbinger blinked, still semi-conscious, as Pillory wove the gold and silver into a study braid with the sheer power of her desire, and wove it about the girl’s wrists.  Many more coins formed a slender but unbending spreader bar between her wrists, and then similar bindings for her lovely legs.  

Last, Pillory smiled and gripped the girl’s beautiful, elfin face firmly, opening her mouth with her fingers.  Waking, Mercurial started to struggle as metal flowed into her mouth, a sleek, form fitting mesh sliding over her teeth, against her gums, until she was held open mouthed by a metal gag that was tucked back, leaving her mouth open and unable to close, while leaving her tongue free.  “No sweet music from you, beautiful!” pronounced the adept, before she pressed her soft lips over the girl’s mouth and thrust her warm, probing tongue deep into Mercurial’s mouth, a one-sided soul kiss. 

The heavy gold and silver bars that kept Mercurial spread eagled on the floor also kept her from doing much more than squirming under the weight of the girl that straddled her waist.  She finally gave up and gave in, accepting the kiss as best she was able, her lips pressing against the soft heat of the other girl’s, her tongue twining, playing with Pillory’s.  The girl broke the kiss, licking her lips as the droplet of saliva broke between their mouths.  The milky light from the strange shifting wall that encircled them gave the pale-skinned girl a luminous glow of her own, her hair alight and her eyes glimmering like sapphires.  “How amusing; the tables are turned and you eagerly enjoy it.”  She leaned back a little, her fingers sliding along Mercurial’s thigh and finding the warm heat between her legs wet and open.  “You could learn something from her, druid.”  The darkening of the druid’s cheeks and the caressing gaze that accompanied it made Pillory laugh.

Her fingers slipped deep inside Mercurial, who made a strange, muzzled noise through her odd gag.  “I think you have already learned something from our little songbird!”  She plunged three fingers into the harbinger’s inhuman tightness, eliciting a shudder and a quick, convulsive orgasm from the girl.  Pillory turned her attention to the girl under her and rubbed her own sex along the girl’s belly.  “Ah…hadn’t had time to give yourself enough pleasure, then?  Never fear, you’ll get more than you can take, I’m sure.”  The wicked light that glittered in Pillory’s eyes was purely a trick of the shimmering wall’s reflection, but the look on her face was pure lust and the shuddering, writhing bard closed her eyes at the intensity of it.  

While Mercurial’s sex pulsed and tightened over the trio of fingers buried deep within her body, Vasane too writhed and moved, though in her case it was more frustration and need.  Her irrational desire to make love to the beautiful redhead was purely a power of the girl’s, she knew; yet despite that knowing, the feeling could not be denied.  It was no sort of charm or domination, just raw desire that had grown from seed into a thorny tangle of wants and lusts.  Her body ached for the other girl’s touch; she wanted to do to the other girl what Mercurial had done to her, and more.  Things she would never have done by choice she now NEEDED to do.  

And here she was, bound hand and foot, forced to watch as Pillory stood, then straddled the delicate human-looking half-elf from the other direction, teasing the girl with her own sex so tantalizingly close yet impossible to reach, even as she lowered her breasts to Mercurial’s belly and faced the tight, wet slit of her sex.  “How lovely…” she murmured and she slowly pulled her fingers out, the girl’s body clutching tight.  Mercurial moaned and then made a gasping noise as Pillory slipped four fingers, two from each hand, into her tight sex.  

“You’re unnaturally tight for all that must happen to you here, you know,” the adept remarked conversationally to Mercurial, glancing up and reinforcing the druid’s desires with further power.  She had to really work at getting her fingers into the girl, but once they were, she slowly opened Mercurial, pulled gently at the soft flesh until Mercurial started to try and scream.  Her body writhed and she tried to thrash, Pillory’s weight and the weight of her bonds keeping her relatively still.  With her inner flesh utterly bared to Vasane, Mercurial felt a flush of embarrassed heat, and then jerked as Pillory began to explore her femininity with a hot, quick, talented tongue.

The fingers pulled, teased at her inner flesh and she found herself tensing, her breathing erratic and troubled.  Then Pillory slowly let her body close and she shuddered at the relief from the pain.  Then two, no, three fingers slipped in and out of her, and she felt Pillory’s tongue stroking, licking her opening and the fingers and hand that played with it.  Pillory lifted her head and whispered to the druid softly.  “I do not think she did this to you.”  She then pulled her fingers free, and forced four into the girl…except she didn’t stop.  She pushed until her knuckles were stopped by the girl’s tightness, and Mercurial made terrified, fearful noises under her.  

Vasane watched, fascinated and horrified as Pillory pulled her fingers back, then pushed them in, licking, working them against the girl’s tight sex.  Her flesh pulled, clung to the abomination’s hand as Pillory worked with her, and only the slight adjustment of her body over Mercurial’s silenced her, as she offered her sex to the bound harbinger.  Mercurial immediately licked, worked her lips along the soft heat of the adept’s sex, even as the adept pushed, licked, pushed, forced….

The attempt at a scream through wide open jaws was much more successful than Pillory had anticipated.  The bubble Mercurial had made would prevent the sound form carrying, but inside it was still very impressive.  Vasane stared at the sight of Pillory’s hand engulfed in the tightness of Mercurial’s sex, wrist seemingly projecting directly from the smooth flesh between the elfling’s legs.  Her clitoris was pushed up and out, and her inner labia were entirely swallowed by her outer labia.  When Pillory pulled, Mercurial thrashed violently, and actually banged her head against the stone flooring in her frenzy.  Her pink inner flesh was translucent about Pillory’s wrist, and the red-headed girl looked up at Vasane.  “She’s coming again. I can feel her body rippling about my hand.”  

“Please…please let me go….”  Vasane was drenched, both without and within.  The Adept smiled and tilted her head.  She glared at the bindongs the druid was trapped by; the strange blue glow and tonal vibrations surrounded them.  They burst asunder and Vasane fell to the ground – though her wrist was still encircled by the golden bracelet.  Her amulet still adorned her neck, and for a second she was tempted to attack…but then Pillory pushed her hand into the girl she pinned, and Mercurial cried out again.  

Slowly Vasane walked around the twain, and shivered.  She ran her hands along her breasts, and nipples aching and she pulled them tightly, before she settled down behind Pillory.  She shuddered, her desire overwhelming, but unavoidable.  As Mercurial lifted her head to lick the slick, pink flesh of Pillory’s sex, Vasane moved forward, her hands gripping Pillory’s hips, and she applied her tongue to the girl’s backside, her eyes closed as she tasted the spicy musk of the abomination’s unused forbidden places.

Pillory gasped, her head coming up as she was tasted from both above and below, her hand pausing in its slow torture of the girl she pinned.  Savoring the pleasure she slowly lowered her mouth to Mercurial’s sex and nibbled, licked the tiny bud that her wrist pushed up and out of its protective folds.  She pushed, forcing her hand into the girl again and she was rewarded with a stifled cry.  Her fingers unfurled from her fist, making Mercurial thrash again, and Pillory caressed her inner body slowly, toying with the girl’s inner gate.   

Mercurial thrashed, tears streaming from her tightly shut eyes; Vasane took the opportunity to lave her tongue over  pale sex as well as forbidden places, pleasuring Pillory as the girl tortured her rapist.  Her body was feverish, and she reached between her legs, fingers sliding easily into her wetness.  Mercurial’s body arched and she let go, spilling wetness over Pillory’s hand.  

“What in…oh!”  Pillory laughed and slowly, implacably pulled her hand from the girl, who shrieked breathlessly.  She idly ran her sticky, pink-frothed fingers over Mercurial’s twitching sex as a pool of wetness formed beneath her buttocks, her body unable to contain the liquid.  Pillory shuddered and closed her eyes.  “Deeper, animal-girl…that’s a good kitten.”  Vasane blushed but pushed her tongue into the tightness of Pillory’s derrière as Mercurial gasped for breath, red-faced and embarrassed by her own loss of control.  

Pillory came quietly in comparison to the other girls, but no less intensely; she was enjoying herself immensely.  “That’s enough Vasane….kiss Mercurial and make nice.”  Pillory shakily got to her hands and knees and then to her feet, slowly resting against the cool wall of ectoplasm and astral energies.  Vasane hungrily kissed Mercurial, and the other girl responded as best she was able, her cheeks still flushed from the cruel treatment Pillory had inflicted.  

Pushing herself up, Pillory glanced at the wall, its agitation increasing.  “Oh dear.  Time to go.”  She moved over to Mercurial, and used two fingers to take hold of the bit that held her mouth open, gently pushed Vasane away.  Vasane crawled back, staring at the girl she wanted to make love to, knowing it was a false desire, but unable to resist it nonetheless.  Pillory gently pulled the bit from the bard’s mouth a it flowed like liquid into a small sphere of silver and gold in her hand.  “I’ll come back later, lovely songbird. I think we should play some more.”  

Mercurial shuddered but nodded slowly, her eyes confused and half-afraid.  Pillory gave her a kiss, a real, honest kiss, deep and fervent.  Vasane moaned softly, her fingers slipping back to caress her own sacred places once more.  Pillory gathered her clothing, and took out a small cube of carnelian.  “Come along kitten, time to go.”  She caressed one side of the cube and a large square of verdant forest appeared before her.  She smiled down at Mercurial as Vasane stood shakily, and took her hand, holding it like a lover might, her other pressed firmly between the burning heat between her legs.  “You can tell your masters that turnabout is fair play.  I will be back to take as you tried to take me….”  With that warning, she stepped through the Gate, and it closed behind her and her once-pursuer.

The wall of shimmering force and ectoplasm shattered and faded away as a lance of bright yellow light burned through it and struck the wall across from the doorway.  The Maw turned several eyes on the naked elfling girl laying on the floor and a few more the strangely broken shards of iron and steel that had once held a powerless druid.  Its potent middle eye scanned the room, but there was no power remaining to be removed.  The Grondy looked about, as did several other touched, all with weapons drawn.  The Maw spoke in its deep baritone.  

“I trust you have a VERY good explanation for this, Mercurial.”  Mercurial nodded and the yellow light lanced out, cutting bits of the cuffs away so she could roll over and get to her hands and knees shakily.  She ached deeply, and she wouldn’t be walking normally for several days at least.  

Looking up at the Maw, she said softly, “If it would please you, I’ll tell the tale after I’ve bathed, master?”  The Maw blinked at her a few times, and then laughed.  “Very well.  But quickly.  I have the feeling the creature the old hag said was coming was been and gone….”  

Mercurial shuddered.  “Yes, she came.”  She felt ridiculously pleased by that fact, and ducked her head to smile.  She shuddered, and touched herself gingerly.  Came and went, so to speak.  

~End~