After a moment, his screaming stops, and you see black veins moving and bulging beneath the man’s skin. He stands up straight and approaches you. The blackness rises like a massive, engorged cock from his groin. It throbs and drips with unholy ichor.
“Yes, it isn’t beautiful, Penny?” You mother takes her place beside you, stroking your head as the man climbs onto the altar. You feel a sudden, vertiginous terror, as if this might be the last moment your mind has any freedom. Your mother senses your rising fear. She squeezes your hand in her massive grip and murmurs, “Be brave, my daughter.”
What do you do?
Scream in terror
Embrace your lover
Sold at the slave markets
You glimpse the crowd through the curtain hanging over the stage. A hundred men, at least, are crowded into this slave tent at the Great Bazaar of Wallech. These men look fantastically wealthy and with faces that seem to come from lands all around the known world. The wealthy buyers lounge on piles of cushions, puffing from hookahs that fill the tent with the intoxicating smoke of the shadow weed. Golden-skinned dancing girls gyrate on the stage to excite the buyers.
You are wearing only a loincloth and manacles on your ankles as you stand huddled with the nine remaining girls brought over by Stormono on the Dark Heart. Eight others were sold at auction this morning in this very tent. Stormono and his men seem very disappointed with the money raised.
“Oil them up,” he growls, looking you and the other girls over. “One last chance to make this trip worth it.”
Your head is hazy from the drugs, but they have given you less of them since you left Dark Heart and some of the other women are beginning to cry and whisper to themselves in despair. A few of them cling to one another. You do not know any of these women who traveled across the sea with you to Ishabbaria. You can find no comfort, so you stare stonily ahead to keep the tears from your eyes.
You have been stripped down to a fresh loincloth of red silk that contrasts with your pale flesh. You have been bathed and well-fed, although you did not look gaunt to begin with like some of the other women to be sold today. Your manacles clink as you shift from foot to foot. The exotic strains of Ishabbarian music drifting through the curtain are disturbing.
Stormano walks down the line of trembling, nearly-naked girls waiting to go on the stage and he stops before you. He lifts your chin with two fingers and his dark eyes peer into yours.
“Penelope,” he murmurs. “Almost a shame to sell you off. So lovely. But you will find a good home, my dear. More importantly, you will make me a great deal of money.”
“B-bastard,” you manage to speak through the haze of the drug.
“Oh, a little spunk in you,” he chuckles. “Well, I have a little something extra for you.”
He takes a small wooden box out of his pocked. He slides it open and reaches in carefully with two fingers. He comes out with a bright red wasp pinched between his fingers. It buzzes its wings helplessly and curls its abdomen. You can see the black needle of its stinger.
“W-what is that?” You moan the question, your shackles clinking as you shift as much as the chains will allow.
“Heatsting,” says Stormono. “A single prick will put any beast in heat. That includes a pretty girl like you.”
Stormono smiles cruelly and presses the wasp to your bicep. The sting is hot and painful and jolts you out of the haze of drugs. You cry out and the other girls look at you and the wasp. Stormono holds it with its stinger embedded in your arm for a few seconds before plucking it out and returning the angry wasp to its wooden box.
The heat comes over you at once. It radiates from the throbbing sting. Your puffy nipples stiffen and your heart begins to beat faster. Your mouth falls open in a gasp and the warmth seems to gather between your thighs.
One of the huge, bald mutes from the Dark Heart strides over with a clay jar filled with oil. He dips his whole thick hand into it and begins spreading the oil over your body. You cry out and whimper with lust as the eunuch carelessly brushes his hand over your nipples, squeezes your breasts, and spreads the oil onto your arms and legs until your whole body is glistening.
Without even realizing you are doing it, you begin to rub yourself through your silken loincloth. You hear Stormono chuckling, but you don’t care. It feels too nice. Each press of your fingers sends another jolt of pleasure through your body. Your breasts shudder and your mouth hangs open in a soft gasp of lust. The mute moves on to the next girl in line as you jerk your hips and rub against your aching sex.
It is not long before a swarthy man with a long, black beard thrusts his head through the curtain.
“Time for next group,” he says in thickly-accented trade tongue.
“Onto the stage!” Bellows Stormono and he shoves the waifish redhead at the front of the line. You and the seven other women file through the curtain and onto the wooden stage. Bull's-eye lanterns shine painfully bright lights on your almost naked bodies. Stormono arranges you in a row so that everyone can see you. He unlocks the shackles of the redhead at the front of the line.
The auctioneer takes her hand and leads her to the front of the stage. He takes off her loincloth, revealing her boyish hips and small bottom. He turns her around so they can see her and you see the blank look in her eyes. The bidding begins from the men in the audience.
“300 zeks! Do I hear 325!?” The bearded auctioneer calls. “325! 350 to the gentleman from Cinderwyte. Do I hear—375! To the lady from Red Hollow. 500 zeks from the shegg of Durabbi!”
As the bids come in, you strain to see the bidders. They are hard to make out sitting beneath the bright lanterns, but you can feel them leering at you and it makes you hotter. You rub more insistently at your quim, even though you hear a chuckle from Stromono. You whimper and thrust your sex against your fingers.
You are on fire with a need to be fucked by the time your manacles are unlocked and the auctioneer brings you to the front of the stage. The auctioneer pulls your loincloth off and has you turn around. Even as you are turning, you begin to fuck yourself with your fingers.
The crowd murmurs with excitement. A lantern shines in your eyes as you turn back around.
“This lovely calls herself Penelope and was caught in faraway Heimsvak, hailing all the way from the capital city of Akrane. She is a learned scribe with fascinating knowledge of the occult. Notice the unusual golden eyes. She is fit, healthy, with good teeth and no child. In fact, she has hardly been with men at all!” One of the dancing girls walks beside you, her face veiled beneath her eyes, but her body otherwise mostly on display. She is pushing a wheeled cart with an ornate ivory saddle resting atop it. In the center of the saddle is an intricately detailed serpent carved from more ivory. The serpent looks a great deal like a penis.
“To demonstrate Penelope’s suitably as a bed slave, she will ride the throne of the snake.”
The dancing girl helps you to climb over the small cart and lower your aching sex towards the tip of the ivory cock. You reach down and grasp it and rock your hips, rubbing your groove and your throbbing clit against the erotic carving. The bidders murmur appreciatively as you roll your hips almost like the dancing girls, spreading your dripping nectar all over the cock. Your sensual motions make your breasts heave.
You slowly lower yourself onto the cock, sinking it deep into your steamy cunt until you hit your limit and ride back up to the tip. The dancing girl crouches behind you and begins to turn a crank on the side of the cart. With a whirring sound, the cock begins to move up and down, skewering your slippery cunt and causing you to cry out with ecstasy.
“She is a fine specimen,” says the auctioneer. “This chestnut-haired beauty will fill your bed with delights, will pleasure you in strange ways known only to ancient mystics, and will even carry your seed in her fertile womb if it is your desire. For such a beautiful creature, I ask the starting bid of… 1,000 zeks!”
The bidding rises rapidly from 1,000 zeks to 2,000. You bounce with pleas
ure atop the saddle, the carved cock vibrating inside you and stimulating your clit with its intricate ridges. You shudder with your sudden climax, tits shaking with your movements as ecstasy thunders through your body. You arch your back, crying out so loudly that it momentarily interrupts the bidding. You grasp the pommel of the ivory saddle with one hand and roughly play with your soft breasts with your other hand.
“4,000 zeks to the shegg of Otar!” Shouts the auctioneer, pointing to a grotesquely fat man with a long, oiled black beard. “Do I hear—“
“5,000,” counters a pale and very slender man sitting by himself.
“5,000 zeks to the duke of Tripolo!”
The bidding swings back and forth between the grotesquely fat shegg and the fastidious duke. You continue to ride atop the saddle, the bidding receding into the background as your pleasure consumes all thoughts and attention. You do not really care who buys you, so long as they fuck you again and again.
Beneath the haze of lust and pleasure, a tiny part of your mind wonders how you managed to end up being sold into slavery. Your adventure never even began.
BAD END
<< START OVER | < SKIP PROLOGUE | INDEX
The village in the hills
Your mother always told you to seek the high ground when in combat. You look to the hills and even from this distance you can tell that the buildings in the hillside village are standing. At least one of those might offer shelter from the beast that has been pursuing you and, if you are fortunate, maybe there are some villagers who might provide you with some answers about what has been happening on the island.
You set off up the nearest hill. The mists have left the grass damp and you slide repeatedly on your way up, soaking your knees in the mud and leaving your skirt tattered and filthy. You climb hills of increasing height until you finally begin the climb up the large heights overlooking the valley. In the damp undergrowth you find a cart path. Although it is neglected, it is reassuring to travel this vestige of civilization.
The village is perhaps a fifteen structures almost as bleak as the village that had burned to the ground. Ancient buildings of moldering planks are topped by shingled roofs so overgrown with moss they seem to have grown out of the surrounding forest. A black stream curls along the edge of the village and its slow waters languidly turn a water wheel attached to a millhouse. Through the mist, you spot a hint of light. Candles burn within one of the larger buildings up ahead. Thin smoke issues from the chimney.
You set off down the muddy thoroughfare, noting that there are few boot prints and no hoof prints in the muck. However vital this village might once have been, it nearly abandoned now.
The building with the lights is a tavern called the Mouth Inn with a grotesquely carved wooden sign depicting a laughing mouth. You hear the murmur of conversation through the door and your heart swells with hope. You push inside the tavern. The lights are low, the décor nearly as grim as the outside, but your gaze is drawn to the warmth of the hearth as the door bangs closed behind you. The innkeeper and the two patrons sitting at the warped wood of the bar slowly turn around.
To call them ugly would be an understatement. They are human, but they are the ugliest men you have seen, and all of a similar kind. Their pasty skin is bursting with red sores and unhealthy growths, their eyes have strange, rectangular pupils, and their crooked jaws hang open revealing rotten teeth. The two of them at the bar seem to be hunchback and the innkeeper is, by contrast, eerily upright and lean.
“Um, hello,” you say, taking a hesitant step towards them. “My name is—“
The door bangs open and closed behind you and another hunchbacked man shuffles into the tavern. He tosses a damp overcoat by the fire and waddles over to the bar. He does not look at you until he is seated. He’s even uglier than the others, with no teeth and one eye gone white with cataracts. His head is hairless and he has a tuft of white hair on his chin.
You clear your throat.
“My name is Penelope, I am looking for my sister and mother,” you begin. “I—“
“The goat gets the girls,” growls the bartender.
“Ayup,” the three men at the bar agree.
“The goat gets all the girls,” continues the bartender. “Sure as sure took your sister and mother there if they came through. Now we take you. Gonna take you to the goat.”
The men at the bar stand up. They have the rough hands of fishermen or farmers. Their bulging eyes remind you of the gertlings. The same rectangular pupils in all four men. The same cursed goat eyes. As if they’re related.
“I don’t want any trouble,” you say, reaching both hands to your waist so that they can see the pistols and the sword on your belt.
The men hesitate and exchange glances.
“No trouble,” croaks the old one. “It ain’t so bad. We’ll take you to the goat. You’ll see. You’ll like the goat. Just give us the weapons. You don’t need those.”
They seem to be keeping their distance for the moment, but you are not certain how long the mere threat of your weapons will hold them at bay. In fact, as you consider your options, the bartender seems to be reaching for some sort of weapon under the bar.
What do you do?
Wait
Parley
Attack
Magic
Surrender
The Drowned Giant
You step from the steamy rains of Estermar and into the lantern light of the tavern. A few men eye you as you shake off the rain and approach the bar. Most ignore you completely; groups lean together in muttered conversation and loners drink with their gazes fixed on invisible horizons. The bartender is a huge, bald man wearing a grimy apron over his tattooed body. His hands are scarred and knuckles swollen, a brawler you’re guessing, maybe a pit fighter from Ishabbaria. His skin is a deep tan color and his smile is anything but friendly.
“Are you Grel?” You ask as you step up to the worn counter.
He takes a moment to look you over before answering with a growling voice, “This is my place. My rules. Ten percent to the house. You buy three drinks while you’re here. No getting their cocks out here, you take them in the back in the storage room. And if one of them busts his load onto my tables or chairs, you are cleaning it up. You get me, sister?”
“What?” It takes you several seconds to realize what he is saying. He thinks you’re a whore, come to sell yourself in his tavern. “No, I am not a prostitute! I am here to hire a ship. Boggen Luckfen said I might find a ship here. He told me to ask for you.”
“Did he now?” Grel’s smile becomes the slightest bit friendlier. “What sort of ship are you looking to hire? We have all sorts here, from cutthroats to fish-chasers.”
You can sense some of the patrons of the tavern beginning to take an interest in your conversation with Grel. You lean across the bar and try to whisper.
“I need someone willing to sail somewhere dangerous.”
“How dangerous?” He demands.
“The Pitiless Gyre.”
He blows out a breath and follows it with a shake of his head and a chuckle.
“You’ve picked a bad night.” He scratches his chin. “Only three captains I know here would take a job like that, the rest are too soft or too sane.”
You look back at the patrons in the bar. Most avert their gaze when you look in their direction. One hunched, bald man stares right back and smiles mysteriously. You smile back, trying to hide your apprehension. Grel points to a different man, a blond man in an embroidered jacket with gold buttons. He looks too finally dressed to be drinking in this bar and he is drinking alone.
“That there is Erel Benolio,” he says. “He sails an escort ship, hires out to merchants with precious cargo. One of the best seamen I’ve met, ballsy, expensive. Probably too expensive for you, seeing as how you wandered in here alone and dressed like a scribe or something.”
Grel gives you a lascivious look. Your face flushes. He seems to snap out of his dirty thoughts and points past you to the bal
d man with the mysterious smile.
“That is Stormono. Don’t know much about him even though he’s a regular when his ship is in port. He’s got a big three-master, able crew, tends to run trade routes to Ishabbaria with contraband, but I’ve known him to take contracts like you. I bet he’s pricy, but he likes pretty girls. Maybe show him a bit of thigh, he lowers the price.” Grel leans closer, his breath hot against your neck. “Maybe you show him more and he gives you a real good deal.”
“I-Is that all?” You ask, trying not to let Grel see the tremble in your hands.
“No,” says Grel. He gestures to a man at the end of the bar with an empty mug beside him and his head down on his arms. “That is Orsen Castillo.”
The man lifts his head up as if he heard his name being called, but his bleary eyes suggest he didn’t hear much of anything. He tries to drink from his empty mug, shoves it aside in disgust, and puts his head back down on his arms. He’s a handsome, swarthy man.
“He’s a drunk,” you say.
“Yeah,” chuckles Grel. “Castillo has lots of debts here in Estermar. Lots of collectors looking to take it out of his hide. He might take a dangerous job just to get out of Estermar. He knows his way around a wheel, I suppose.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
“Thank you, Grel,” you say.
You start to step away from the bar. The big bartender lashes out and grabs your hand, startling you and stopping you cold.
Escape the Island of Eldritch Lust Page 103
