Chapter 13 – A Young Lady’s First Kidnapping

Madam Orchid’s rival business, the Sword’s Sheathe, was also built along the river, but on the exact opposite side of town as her. Like the Violet Palace, it was built on the edge of the town where the river met the wall.

Adam led the way there, walking in front of me, trying to stop himself from staring at my newly transformed self. Chloe walked next to me, and she made no effort at all to avoid staring. She looked at me with absolutely blatant thirst.

“M-Mistress…” she whispered. “Can I lick you?”

“Not right this second, no,” I replied, raising an eyebrow.

“But um… maybe later please?” she asked.

“Sure, but why the sudden urge?” I asked.

“You sort of… smell good, now. Really good. And if you taste like you smell…” she didn’t finish saying the thought out loud, but I understood what she was conveying.

“Sure, but later,” I said.

“E-even the b-back hole… the umm… there… probably tastes amazing too… c-can I…?” she muttered quietly.

“You can taste your fill of both, once we get some alone time, how’s that?” I said.

“Yes… thank you Mistress,” Chloe replied.

We lapsed back into silence, and continued to walk. Chloe stared at my ass with hunger. I smirked at her, and made an effort to sway my hips a little more.

We were in a sort of run down part of the town now. It wasn’t a slum, exactly, this town was too small and too rich to have a proper slum, but if there was a ‘least good’ part of town, this was it. The road here was narrow, the buildings tall. We crossed the mouth of an alleyway when I felt a sudden chill shoot down my spine, like I was being watched.

I gasped and stopped, looking around me for anyone suspicious. I saw a man hiding in the shadows of the dark alley staring at me. Thanks to the darkvision that came as part of the whole demi-angel package, he was perfectly visible in the shadows, clear as day. The only thing I couldn’t see in the darkness was colour. Apparently darkvision was black and white only.

The man was tall and bald, with a dark cloak worn over leather armour. He couldn’t have looked any shadier if he tried. He even had a stereotypical scar over one eye. Seriously dude?

What did this weird feeling of being watched remind me of? Oh yeah… the priest’s [Status Appraisal] ability.

The creepy man smiled at me, like he’d just discovered something good. Wait… shit! I wasn’t a human anymore. This could be troublesome. Would he try to enslave me? Were Aasimar considered a Tainted species worth of enslavement, or an Untainted one?

Okay, what to do? Fighting him pre-emptively seemed like a bad idea. Staring at me and looking creepy wasn’t a crime. I’d walk somewhere a bit more public, and hang out near some crowds or town guards. He wouldn’t start shit in public. With that in mind, I looked away from the guy, and kept walking.

“Mistress?” Chloe asked, noticing something was up.

“Some creepy guy just Appraised me. It’s giving me bad vibes. Keep alert,” I replied in a low voice.

Chloe nodded, and looked around carefully, taking note of everyone around us with her superior Perception stat. Aside from the three of us, the street was strangely deserted. This was not good.

We kept walking for a few more minutes, when Chloe whispered, “We’re being followed.”

Shit. I quickly glanced over my shoulder, and didn’t see the same creepy guy, but a new pair of thuggish gentlemen were following us. I glanced ahead of us, and two more men came out of an alleyway and blocked our way forward.

Adam stopped, looking confused, only now realising something was wrong. The creepy guy I saw before came out of the alley ahead of us. The other thugs reacted to his presence with respect, looking at him like he was a leader.

“Can I help you?” I asked, with all the snark I could muster.

“Hey kid!” the leader called out, ignoring me and looking at Adam, “Leave the girls and get out of here, we ain’t interested in you.”

“Explain yourself!” Adam called out aggressively. “I am an Acolyte of the Holy Order, serving directly beneath Father Jordan!”

“Don’t give a shit ‘bout some hick town’s priest,” the thug replied. “You’re out of your depth. Get out of here. Last warning.”

“No!” Adam took a nervous step back, and puffed out his chest, “I-I… won’t just let you-”

There was a faint whistle, and then an arrow was poking out of Adam’s throat. He gurled and grasped at the arrow, his white robe quickly turning red as blood poured out of the deadly throat wound.

Fuckballs!

I spotted the guy with the bow. With my shiny new willpower buff and recently unlocked [Advanced Mana Manipulation] Skill, it barely took a second to weave together a Firebolt spell. I launched a huge barrage of flames at the bowman. The first one struck him dead in the face, knocking him over and setting his clothes alight. The other two flew over his head as he ducked and rolled, screaming and trying to put out the flames.

“Chloe heal him!” I shouted.

Chloe dove for Adam, trying to stabilize him. The five thugs around us all charged for me. I flung another barrage of firebolts at all of them. Most missed. The first bolt that hit something struck a man in the chest. He seemed to be unhurt, his leather armour cooking a little, but absorbing all the damage. The second man I hit screamed, clutching his freshly burnt arm. Neither hits were lethal.

[Fire Magic I] Skill has reached rank 3

Shut up, not now! I dismissed the message.

And then, the leader-thug was suddenly in front of me, staring me dead in the eye. He was fast. I hadn’t even seen him move. I yelped and hopped back, trying to cast another Firebolt. I felt something smash against my stomach, and my vision blurred. I flew back, crashing on the hard ground, rolling a few times before I came to a stop. My focus on the spell shape shattered and the magic unravelled.

I groaned and clutched my tummy where I’d been hit. I looked up just in time to see a boot flying toward my face. Everything went dark.

I woke up with a splitting headache, feeling the pulse of my own heartbeat behind my eyeballs. I saw nothing but blurry blobs. The air was cold on my bare skin. I’d been stripped of all my clothes. A minute or two passed as my vision slowly recovered. The world returned to focus again.

I was in a dungeon. Like… a literal medieval dungeon. The air was cold and damp, the smell of urine and blood in the air. The walls, ceiling, and floor were a dirty grey stone brick, damp and probably growing mold. The ceiling overhead was a low arch, probably three feet tall at the edges, and five feet tall at the apex. It made the space feel oppressive and claustrophobic, too low for an adult to stand. The cell’s dimensions seemed to be about eight feet deep and four feet wide, a horrifyingly tiny space to find yourself trapped inside. To make matters worse, there was no window, only a heavy wooden door against one wall, reinforced with iron bracing.

There was no light source at all, and the dungeon was dead silent. The stone seemed to absorb all sound. If I didn’t have magical darkvision thanks to my new species upgrade, I’d be absolutely losing my shit right now.

It was interesting to note that, despite Lysander claiming my new Aasimar eyes glowed… there was no blue light coming from me. Maybe my eyes were more cat like… catching and reflecting light, rather than actually being a glowing light source. I suppose that was a good thing, it would be pretty hard to hide at night if I glowed blue.

There was no furniture in here, only a pile of moldy straw beneath where I woke up, presumably for sleeping, and a bucket in the corner that smelled nasty. It was probably meant to be my toilet. Lovely. The only other feature in the room was a short metal chain connecting a pair of manacles around my wrists to the wall. It was a short chain. I was currently laying down on my back, wrists above my head, pinned up against the wall. I had, maybe, two feet of wiggle room. Enough to adjust my position a bit, but not to actually move around the cell.

Okay then. It appeared I’d been kidnapped and locked in a dungeon.

That in itself was meaningful… Almost every building in the town was wood, with only a little bit of mortared cobblestone for foundation. As far as I could tell, the average house didn’t even have a basement, or if they had some sort of cellar, it was probably just packed dirt walls and floor. So, that meant that wherever I was locked up was somewhere big, and fancy. This wasn’t just some random gang’s secret hideout.

So, why was I kidnapped? Why was I delivered to some elaborate mystery dungeon? Why were Chloe and I targeted, but not Adam?

I groaned. There was only one conclusion I could come to. Only girls were taken, I was butt naked, and I didn’t have anything thing of value other than my ass, so… yeah… It was easy to guess what my captors wanted from me. I immediately recalled what Madam Orchid told me yesterday, rumors about the Scarlet Thorn brothel abducting her free employees. Yeah, it was a safe bet I’d been captured by the torture brothel.

Why me though? Sure, I thought I was damn sexy, but from my conversations with the prostitutes last night, I discovered that slender figures like my own weren’t as desirable to your average random joe on the street. Elves and smaller species of beastkin were generally pretty skinny. Being a little bit… curvier was a seen as more humanlike, and therefore more appealing to mainstream tastes, body wise. Too curvy was also a problem, though. Excessively large breasts or hips drew comparison to larger bodied demihumans, like orcs or cowgirls. Maddie was the closest one among us to that goldilocks zone, curvy but not cartoonishly big. She was what most in this world would call the ideal human.

Short pixie cut hair like mine wasn’t in fashion either. Actually… that might not have been entirely true… One of the girls told me there was apparently a sort of popular kink among the nobility where they liked to dress their female slaves as pageboys. They would use male pronouns with their slave, calling them ‘boy.’ And when the master bent the slave over for sexytimes, they generally took their slave ‘in the manner of a boy,’ as well. Yep, that meant butt stuff.

The only explanation I could think of was that the Aasimar presence or gravity, that Lysander and Emi were talking about, caught these guys’ attention. It certainly had a bit of an aphrodisiac effect on Chloe. Perhaps it had the same effect on my abductors too.

Lovely. So, what now?

Escape attempt? I could conjure myself a hardlight hacksaw or metal file and saw through the shackles. The metal looked dark and pitted, probably not a high-grade of steel. It might even be plain wrought iron. It would probably cost me a decent chunk of mana to keep the saw teeth sharp as I used it, but I could take meditation breaks. I wasn’t sure how my cell door was kept shut, but this place didn’t seem terribly high tech or escape-proof. There was a reasonably large gap between the doorway and the floor. I could probably conjure some sort of hardlight tool, slide it under the door and knock the bar or latch open.

And then what? I break out of my cell and… get my face kicked in again by some high level dudes that can apparently shrug off a bolt of fire to the face unfazed? Maybe I should spend a bit of time and boost my combat magic skills before I go pissing off an entire squad of armed thugs again… Unholy magic would be useful, especially with Lysander’s suggestion of that level ten ability that boosts my curses. I’d love to see them try to shrug off an attack that killed a level twenty Rock Mimic in two blows. Sadly, I couldn’t cast my doom curse without a living target. I’d have to practice and level up my fire or wind for now and hope I unlocked a more effective spell.

I started weaving my Firebolt spell shape together.

The spell collapsed.

“The fuck?” I muttered under my breath.

I tried again. It failed again.

One more time. I went slow this time, paying extra attention to my internal mana flows with [Sense Mana]. I was able to picture the spell shape, but when I tried to move my mana, it felt locked in place. Where before it would flow like water, now it was more of a gooey rubber. It seemed to resist any change. It could poke and prod my internal mana will my will, and deform it a bit, but even that took a tremendous exertion of willpower. I could forget about forming an intricate spell shape like this.

Okay, this was some sort of magic suppression. I suppose it made sense.

I was only level eight, but even for me, breaking out of a mundane dungeon like this would be trivial. Hardlight would work, but I could also alternate Firebolt and Gust to heat and cool the metal until it got brittle and shattered. Lysander could probably just blast her way through anything with her arcane missiles. Chloe and Emi would be pretty fucked though, unless they managed to unlock some other magic schools.

So yeah, magic suppression. Take away your victim’s superpowers when you capture them, that was comic book villainy 101.

How were they doing it? I took a glance around the cell, and didn’t see any conspicuous anti-magic runes or whatever. But when I moved my head, I felt a weight around my neck I hadn’t noticed before. I squirmed closer to the wall and touched my neck. Yep. I was wearing a metal collar, just like Chloe. [Sense Mana] told me it was magical in nature, a more powerful version of the one my slave wore. I had no idea what the enchantments actually did, but I was willing to bet this collar held some sort of magic suppression enchantment on it.

I strained my will again. Forget trying to form a spell shape, I was just trying to move my magic at all, but even that was futile. The harder I pushed, the harder the enchantment pushed back. Could I break the collar physically? No. I felt around the collar and wasn’t even able to find a seam. This was probably like Chloe’s collar, seamless, made of high-quality steel, and probably enchanted to resist damage and tampering.

I gave up, with a sigh. No daring escape for me, I was stuck here. My only hope was to wait for a rescue, like a damsel in distress. Did Chloe escape? Did she manage to save Adam? If so, there was a witness. If not, then Father Jacob would at least investigate his ward’s disappearance and possible demise. He seemed like a sort of big shot in town. I had to hope that help would come for me eventually.

Until then… what was going to happen to me?

Rape was… pretty much inevitable. I wasn’t terribly worried about that, to be honest. Aasimar were immune to disease, and a daily Purify would make pregnancy a non-issue. I’d already been raped by monsters, a mere human couldn’t be that bad by comparison. But Madam Orchid implied this place catered to sadists and torturers. That was… a bit scary.

I sat in the darkness for a good long time, remembering all sorts of cruel tortures I’d seen in various BDSM porn videos. Spanking, paddling, whipping… clamps and clips… lube-free painal… at least electrotorture probably hadn’t been invented yet.

If it was just that then it wouldn’t be so bad. Knowing how masochistic this body was, I might even enjoy it…

But, how far could they go if they didn’t need to worry about keeping things safe, sane, or consensual? If magical healing could fix up any damage short of actual death… how far could they go? How cruel could they be?

I recalled, in horrifying detail, all the forms of medieval torture I knew about. Whips were just the start. There were bone shattering vices, crushers, breast rippers, the rack, hot irons, boiling oil… the pear of anguish…

Oh great… I was getting turned on. No! Bad pussy! You’ve been captured by evil torture-rapists. You’re allowed to like spankings, maybe, but extreme mind-destroying torture is a bad thing! Don’t get excited!

I tried my best to think pure thoughts. I was an Angel, nice and pure and chaste. I stifled a chuckle, Yeah right!

“Hello? Anybody home?” I called out.

No response.

I sighed, and lay back down on the moldy hay. There was nothing to do now but wait.