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Dungeons and Diapers - Chapter 12
🕑 Added 2022-03-10 03:49:36 +0000 UTC“So…is this it?” Quinn scratched his head, inspecting the circle.
Sandra looked down at the runes marked into the floor, drawn with salt and oil. The priests had been very nice about everything, and had followed the instructions sent by Gwyndomere to a T. “It should be. Why?”
“I suppose I’m underwhelmed,” Quinn shrugged. “Last time we needed to travel across planes, there was a test, and a ritual, I had to do paperwork, it was a whole big thing. Just having someone else do a ritual seems too ea–”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Hadrian snapped. “Never say that a quest seems too easy.”
Sandra didn’t care as much about superstition or jinxes, but she didn’t want her people letting their guard down. “What Hadrian said is true. We’ve still got to traverse this dimension, get the relic, and get out. It’s never ‘too easy’.”
They’d only needed a day to travel one city over, where a Temple of Desna sat. They were on good terms with the Calistrians, and had agreed to put together the ritual circle to transport the party to the plane where their relic sat.
“It bothers me that we don’t know what it looks like,” Tarja said. “What if we overlook it?”
“The relic’s on a pedestal,” Sandra said, “In a large cathedral built specifically to house it, or…it’s in a building made to house it, the details were unclear. We can’t miss it, though, is the point.”
“If you insist, but it still bothers me.”
“Bothered or not, we should get moving,” Sandra said, nodding to the priest waiting off to the side. “It might be a hike to our goal and waiting won’t do us any favors.”
The priest stepped forward, wiping his hands on an oil-soaked cloth tied to his waistband. “Just sit down within the circle and try not to move,” he explained. “You may feel a small pinch behind the bridge of your nose. Sandra, please hold this, you’ll be acting as the tether from this plane to the next.”
He held out a small gemstone, which she accepted. The four of them sat, Tarja needing help from Quinn, her legs so shaky that she couldn’t easily sit without just flopping over. They had all their weapons, gear, and magical accouterments in tow. The priest crouched to begin the ritual, and Sandra asked, “How will we know when it sta–”
She felt a pinch and her vision flashed white. A moment later, she found herself sitting in another plane.
“Never getting used to that,” Quinn grunted, pushing to his feet. “Where are we?”
Sandra looked around. They’d appeared inside some sort of unlit room, save for a tiny glow from the gemstone she’d been given. Thanks to her darkvision, she could see around the space, but there was no obvious exit. In front of her, there was just a plain wall made from enormous oak boards.
“Here, buddy,” Hadrian said, coaxing out his familiar. A light shone around the space, making it easier to see.
“Ah!” Quinn yelped. Sandra spun and looked, in time to see him swing his hammer down with crushing force, ripping the head off an enormous bear.
An enormous…teddy bear.
“What a beast,” Hadrian quipped. “I’m shocked you defeated it.”
“Hey, we’ve fought teddy bears before,” Quinn shot back. “I’m not taking my chances.”
Sandra pocketed the gemstone and looked around a little more. Other stuffed animals were scattered through the room, all of them life-size, but still clearly toys–they weren’t taxidermy, they were fabric stuffed with lumpy wads of cotton.
The room clearly had no doors, and the walls were high enough that the whole party would have to stand on each other’s shoulders to reach the top. It had no exits, though the round, domed roof was built with hinges that…
“Ah,” Sandra said, realizing. “We’re in a toy chest.” Now that she’d recognized it, she could also see the brass keyhole on the opposite wall from the hinges, large enough that she could reach inside with her arm without ever touching the sides.
“What’s an enormous toy chest doing in a pocket dimension dedicated to, uh, sexual proclivities?” Tarja asked.
Sandra looked down at herself, her diaper poking out from her armor. Then she looked over at Quinn, in his pretty princess dress. “Take a guess.”
“We probably appeared here because it aligned with our curses,” Hadrian suggested.
“Let’s hope it’s not locked,” Sandra said, conjuring an umbral pair of climber’s spikes in her hands. Walking up to the wall with the keyhole, she dug one of the spikes into the wood and tested it. The tool held her weight, and she grinned. “I’ll be up in just a moment. Quinn, how much weight can you lift?”
“With the right spells, quite a lot,” Quinn said. “Give me a moment.”
She began scaling the wall, dangling from her spikes. Once she reached the keyhole, she inspected it–too narrow for her to climb through, but she could reach inside and feel around for the pins. Shifting the umbral hooks so she was standing atop them, precariously balanced, she reached inside with both arms and got to work.
It was the strangest lockpicking experience of her life, but the comically oversized pins proved easy to pick. The chest unlocked with a little pop, an airgap appearing between the base of the lid and the top of the chest’s main section.
Reconjuring her hooks back in her hands, she used the keyway as a foothold, climbing up the rest of the way. Once up, she grunted and held on with one arm while she fished in her bag, coming out with a length of durable silk rope, one of three such loops she always carried with her.
“Quinn, I want you to climb up here with me and open the chest, you’re the only one here who’s strong enough.” she said, tying the rope around her other hook. Hopefully, it’d take Quinn’s weight. Adjusting her grip, she hung on, waiting for him to come join her.
The hook trembled but held as he scaled the side of the chest, reaching the top and dangling next to Sandra.
Once up to the side, he unslung the hammer from his back, sliding the handle into the gap beneath the chest lid. Using the magically reinforced handle as a wedge, he pushed down, creating enough space that he could get an arm in, and then another, pulling his feet up so he could push up with his hole body.
Exhaling sharply, he managed to push up to one knee, holding up the enormous chest lid like the weight of the world.
“Come on,” Sandra called down, getting up over the edge and double-securing the rope.
“A little speed’d be appreciated,” Quinn grunted, sweat building on his brow.
Hadrian jumped ahead, while Tarja hesitated for a moment. Sandra recognized the expression on her face. Once her diaper was wet, Tarja’s agility returned and she scaled the rope quickly.
All four of them up, Sandra shifted the rope so everyone else could slide down, waiting till the last moment to leave herself. Quinn shrugged and dropped the lid, slid to the side, and fell, landing in a pile of lace and petticoats next to Sandra.
“Okay,” Sandra said, dusting herself off. They were in a room large enough to serve as an arena, though her darkvision didn’t extend far enough to make out details, and Hadrian’s familiar, Rocky, didn’t cast enough light to really show off the room. “Let’s find a way out of here, get outside, and then we should be able to see the building the relic’s held in.”
“Sure,” Hadrian said. “Though…what kind of building would have a house-sized toy chest inside it?”
“I’m trying not to worry about that,” Sandra admitted, walking along the side of the chest while she wrapped up her rope. “Let’s hope whoever’s place this is, they don’t…”
The lights came on.
Dammit, maybe I should care about jinxing us after all, Sandra considered. The room came to life, and Sandra’s fears were confirmed.
Bright, colorful paint hung on the walls, and the door on the far side of the room was painted with puffy clouds. A changing table tall enough for giants, but only wide enough for people the size of dolls, sat against one wall. Across it, a similarly scaled set of cribs, and a playpen, and all the furniture one might expect from a nursery.
Only…that wasn’t right. The cribs had cuffs dangling from each corner. The high chairs had locks, and a hole in the bottom of each seat. Even the changing table had leather straps.
Sandra swallowed. “All in favor of getting out of here as fast as possible?”
“Yeah, let’s–”
The door began to open. Grabbing Hadrian by the collar, Sandra ran on impulse, leading the whole party around the corner of the chest before the enormous figure could walk inside.
“Hello, dears.” The high, sweet voice drifted across the room. “I know I heard you, where are you hiding?”
Sandra stuck her head around the side. The woman who’d walked in was huge, fifty feet tall if Sandra measured against herself. She wore her hair loose, smelled vaguely of cookies even from across the room, and had an apron that hung over her extremely ample breasts.
She also had fangs, lest anyone in the party assume she was harmless.
“We’ve got to get to the door,” Sandra hissed. “Hadrian, how much invisibility do you have prepared?”
“Not enough for the whole party,” he whispered back.
“Can you cast it on yourself and Quinn? Tarja and I are better at stealth.”
Hadrian pursed his lips and nodded, focusing on a spot of magic. He vanished, and a moment later Quinn vanished with him.
“You two split up, take the sides of the rooms,” Sandra hissed. “If you can, try to make a distraction once you’re across, Tarja–move!”
The enormous figure moved with speed across the floor, right towards their side of the toy chest. Tarja ran with Sandra around to the back of the toy chest, ducking behind together.
“Don’t you want Mommy to play with you?” she asked, her voice unnaturally soothing for all the fear saturating the room.
Sandra held her breath, listening. A second passed, and then ‘Mommy’ turned, moving away. She sighed, relieved that they’d not been found.
“Aha!” Mommy declared, and a second later a throaty cry came through the room.
That’s Quinn, Sandra realized, sticking her head out. The enormous Mommy was holding something up in her hand, something invisible to Sandra’s eyes.
“There you are, were you trying to play pretend?” she boomed. “Like Mommy couldn’t see you, my pretty little dolly. Let’s get you dressed up, okay?”
“Let me go!” Quinn yelled, his voice echoing from the space in the being’s hand. She just stood straight, carrying him over to one of the changing tables.
Crap, Sandra thought. How are we going to fight this thing?
It could see through illusions, it seemed, and was more than strong enough to manhandle Quinn. Fighting it directly would be as foolish as battling an army, or an ancient dragon.
They’d have to be clever, but Sandra couldn’t see any obvious way to trick the Mommy-beast either.
“My goodness, you don’t have a diaper on at all!” Mommy declared, fiddling with the leather straps on the changing table. “What were you going to do when you have an accident, just ruin your pretty little dress? Let’s get that taken care of.”
“Damn you!” Quinn shouted invisibly.
Sandra considered her options. Mommy was distracted for the moment, but only for a moment. They had to be quick.
She considered her gear, and took out her hank of silk rope. “Tarja,” she whispered. “Think we can tangle her up?”
Tarja nodded, getting the idea. Taking one end of the rope, she ran with Sandra, moving silently across the nursery-dungeon floor, creeping up behind the monster.
“First we put the baby on the diaper,” Mommy said in a singsong voice, while Quinn shouted in annoyance and frustration.
Sandra nodded to her friend, moving the rope behind the monster’s ankles, arranging an enormous slipnoose to tangle up the monster’s feet.
“Then we put the diaper on the baby!” Mommy declared. “And just to be sure you don’t wriggle out of it, a little special dose of Mommy Magic will keep it nice and snug until it’s time for a change.”
“I’ll go cut him loose,” Sandra whispered. “Get ready to pull the trap on my signal.”
This would be dangerous. If her plan didn’t work, Mommy would just capture her right alongside Quinn, and then the odds of escape would grow even worse.
Silently, she clambered up the side of the changing table, pulling herself up next to where she knew Quinn was - though all she could see was an invisible shape beneath leather straps. She waved her arms, using the motion to hide the fact that she’d dropped a knife by her feet, right next to where she guessed Quinn’s arms were. “Hey!”
Mommy tilted her head. “Oh, did you have a friend?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Sandra said. “A friend. I’m here for whatever it is you want to do to me!”
“Well isn’t that nice,” Mommy said. “Let’s just–”
“AAAAGH!” Quinn roared, becoming visible as he struck Mommy right in the face, clinging to her hair and driving punches squarely into her nose.
Too fast, Sandra thought, shouting, “Tarja, now!”
The plan barely worked, but Sandra was fine with ‘barely’. Tarja pulled the rope tight while Mommy stumbled back, wincing as Quinn hit her, again and again. Her arms pinwheeled, and with her legs all tied up, she fell.
“Run!” Sandra yelled, leaping down to the ground from atop the changing table. Together, the three of them ran for the door, while behind them Mommy struggled to kick off the binding around her legs.
The three of them scampered out the door, and as they did, a quartet of horses set with bit and bridle appeared in front of them.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Sandra jumped on the nearest, holding back just long enough to ensure that the rest of her party mounted theirs. “Hadrian, you on?”
“I’m on!” Hadrian called. “Ride!”
The whole party laid on speed, spurring the conjured horses forward as fast as they’d go. Sandra only then took in their surroundings; they were in a massive hallway of some sort of demonic home–each room she could see as they rode past contained some type of dungeon or another, where half-corporeal dreams and images were held in place by other beings as large and unsettling as Mommy had been.
“Up there!” Tarja called, pointing. A set of double doors lay ahead, with glass windows at what would be the eyeline for Mommy. Through the glass, Sandra could see sky, which told her it was an exit.
Behind them, she heard a lumbering stomp and risked a glance over her shoulder. Mommy was coming after them, and she looked furious, wielding a leather-padded spanking paddle in one hand that was longer than Sandra was tall.
“How are we getting through?” Hadrian asked.
Sandra put together a plan in a matter of heartbeats. The door had a latch on it, rather than a knob, which meant they had a chance. She called two instructions, one to Hadrian, one to Quinn, and then braced herself for some quick maneuvering.
Quinn pulled out his earthbreaker hammer, took aim for a moment, then flung it like a shot put throw. It flew with inhuman accuracy, enhanced by a spell from Hadrian, and hit the door handle squarely on the latch.
The door popped open, and Quinn’s hammer returned to his hands.
“Go!” Sandra called, steering her horse through the narrow gap in the doors, barely watching where they were going.
Galloping forward, the party barely managed to stop in time before they plowed right over a cliff’s edge. Tarja called out, “Woah!” and Sandra looked forward, the precipice only a few paces ahead.
Pulling hard on the reins, she motioned for the whole party to stop. Their mounts nickered and protested, shying away from the sheer drop.
Sandra looked back. The door to the enormous house snapped shut. “It looks like we’ll need to find another way back,” she commented, finally taking a moment to absorb their surroundings.
The dimension was Golarion-like, but it was certainly not Golarion. The terrain undulated and changed too rapidly, too wildly, untamed and unconcerned with the natural laws that dictated growth on a mortal plain. Mountains grew next to jungle grew next to desert, and from their vantage point up high Sandra could see a dozen different biomes all within a day’s ride.
She could also see the creatures. Animals, beasts, magical entities that stretched the bounds of being physically plausible. What she thought was a flock of hovering birds were, on second glance, a swarm of animated cat o’ nine tails, floating through the air like jellyfish. Slithering things moved on the jungle floor below the canyon drop, barely visible in the edges of her movement.
And rising up to face them was an enormous dragon. Its scales were milky white with streaks of opal blue, each one larger than Sandra’s hand spread wide, and though it flapped its wings, the movement seemed not to cause a stir in the air.
Tarja drew her bow and Quinn his hammer, but Sandra raised her hand, stepping down from the saddle and approaching a step towards the dragon. They couldn’t fight this beast and win, but nor did it seem to want to fight them.
She looked in the dragon’s glassy eyes, pools of lapis lazuli that betrayed consciousness but not thought. It stared back at her, unblinking.
“It’s a dream dragon,” Hadrian whispered.
Sandra had never heard of them before, but she spoke softly in response. “I know.”
The dragon finally blinked, turning to float away. A wash of cold purpose filled Sandra, indistinct but meaningful. Without knowing how, she had a sudden memory of the world they were in, a sudden understanding. It was imperfect, as though she’d seen the paths only in dreams that were now fleeting in her waking mind, but she knew where they needed to go.
“The relic is this way,” she turned, pointing up the snow-capped mountain to their right. “Along the right pass.”
“Sandra,” Tarja said, concerned.
“What?” Sandra asked, her tail swishing from side to side with uncertainty. Her… tail. She looked back and saw a white-blue tail that poked through a hole in her pants, matching the dream dragon’s opalescent sheen. “I, uh…”
“It’ll probably go away soon,” Hadrian suggested. “I think it’s just a low level spell.”
“Right,” Sandra replied, shaking her head. “We…we should keep moving. Get this mission over with.”
Turning, she saddled back up. The saddle had enough room for her new tail to curl up without getting in the way, a relief since she’d otherwise have to walk or stand in the saddle the whole way.
They rode along the edge of the cliff face, making their way up the slow grade that led towards the mountain. Sandra had expected to see the structure containing the relic, but all she could see on the old stone outcrop ahead was greenery and life.
Looking back, she saw that the house behind them was no longer there, only light tree cover.
Nearby, she saw other paths, illusory and shifting. When she glanced away and looked back, she could swear that the trails had changed, shifting like snakes whenever they weren’t being observed.
But she knew the way. They were heading towards the relic.
They passed other structures, each visible only for fleeting moments until they’d rode by. Some buildings seemed rather plain, others were plainly unnatural, temples built to house the carnal desires of men. Sandra could just barely hear the sounds from inside, some of pleasure, some of terror, some of both.
“Hadrian,” she said. “This is no normal pocket dimension, is it?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “It’s too ephemeral.”
“What does that mean?” Quinn asked.
“That we need to be on our guard,” Sandra supplied.
“No, I mean–’Ephemeral’. What’s that word mean?”
“Transient,” Hadrian said. “It doesn’t stay the same. It’s like–”
“A dream,” Sandra finished. “I think this dimension is fueled by, well…Golarian’s collective pool of wet dreams.”
“That’s–”
“Quiet,” Tarja snapped.
To the party’s credit, they didn’t question her urgency. Every one of them fell silent.
Tarja put a finger to her lips, listening for a moment, then whispered, “Hag.”
At once, all four of them were ready for battle–weapons drawn or conjured, prepared for battle.
Ahead, they finally saw the creature, a stooping hag with curled goat horns and long, white hair. In a breathy, hushed voice, Tarja added, “Dreamthief.”
“Well then we’re fine, we’re not dreaming,” Quinn suggested in a stage whisper.
“I don’t think she cares about that,” Sandra said. “Get ready to–”
The hag’s head turned, eyes locking on Sandra’s.
“RUN!” Sandra shouted, turning and spurring her mount into the woods, no longer following any dreamlike destination.
They fled for the second time in as many hours, galloping away from the Hag as it shrieked and pursued, chasing them right into a trap.
Sandra might have caught it if she’d been paying closer attention, but as it was, she didn’t notice how the ground sloped down subtly, slicker and more unstable, until the earth shifted beneath them. The slight slippery grade gave way to a sheer, straight drop, hemmed in by muddy walls that offered no purchase.
A pulse of magic dispelled their conjured horses while they fell down, down, down into the deep pit.
By the time Sandra realized the trap, she’d already hit the bottom, forty feet below the surface and surrounded by vertical walls. The ground had formed a funnel, forcing them down here, into…
“Where exactly are we?” she asked, looking up. She could just make out the frame of the hag, skirting around the edge of the pit, hissing down at them. With one last shriek of frustration, the hag turned and left.
“If this isn’t the hag’s trap,” Sandra said, glancing around warily. “What did we fall into?”
Beneath her, the ground shifted, sliding away. She sank deeper, and her tail brushed against…
She swallowed.
“I don’t mean to alarm anyone,” she said, quietly. “But…don’t move, and don’t panic.”
Hadrian sat up sharply, alarmed. “What?”
“Shh,” Sandra repeated sharply. “It’s asleep, for now. Don’t wake it up.”
“What is it?” Tarja asked quietly. “It feels slick.”
“I’m not sure exactly, but I can feel it moving,” Sandra said. “It’s made of tentacles, and given where we are…”
She didn’t need to finish the thought. Nobody wanted the sex-dimension tentacle monster to wake up.
“So what’s the plan?” Quinn asked.
“We can’t climb out of the mud pit we fell down,” Sandra said. The tentacles beneath Sandra shifted slightly, and she sank an inch further into the mass. “And none of us can fly. We need some other way out of here, fast.”
“That’s not totally right,” Hadrian corrected. “I can fly, sort of.”
“How?” Sandra asked, latching onto the escape plan.
“Levitate. I know the spell, I just never prepared it.”
“Doesn’t do much good, then,” Quinn said.
“Don’t count the wizard out just yet,” Hadrian quipped. “I left a couple openings in my spells today, in case we needed the flexibility. I can get it ready, I just need time.”
Sandra tried to pull herself up without shifting her weight too much. It didn’t work, and she sank another inch. “How much time?”
“Fifteen minutes.” Hadrian swallowed, nodding to himself. “I can get it ready with fifteen minutes.”
“Then do it.” She considered their options. “You’ll only be able to cast it once, right?”
“Right,” Hadrian confirmed.
“Then cast it on Quinn, and he can tow us up.” She shifted her arm, going for the hanks of rope on her belt, still there from the climb in the toy chest. She tossed one length to Quinn, who caught it without disturbing the tentacles.
“I can’t really focus on instructions right now,” Hadrian said. “Tell me later, but first let me meditate.”
He closed his eyes, thinking carefully. His familiar crawled out and sat on his chest, somehow aiding in the process, and he occasionally whispered a comment or two in thought while readying the spell.
Sandra took slow, deep breaths, trying to remain still. She could feel the tendrils beneath her, supporting her weight, shifting ever so slightly with the creature’s heartbeat.
Don’t panic, she thought to herself. She’d never practiced lying on a tentacle monster trying to keep it asleep, but the task had many similarities to other problems. Like lying on quicksand and waiting for rescue, the most important thing was to lay still, take deep breaths, and ignore the way she kept slipping lower and lower into the tentacles.
Tarja and Quinn were little better off. Only Hadrian, with a task to distract him, had his wits totally about him.
“Okay,” Sandra said, quietly. Her party needed something to work on. “Okay. Tarja, I’m going to pass you some rope. I want you to tie it around your chest so you can be towed up. Quinn, help her.”
Slowly, steadily, so as not to agitate the sleeping creature, she passed over a fifty foot length of the rope.
“Follow my lead,” Sandra said, moving slowly with her own rope. “Quinn, you may have to tow us up with a lot of force, so we need safe knots. Nothing that’ll cut off blood flow or pull joints out of alignment. Do as I do.”
“Just…hold on,” Tarja said, cheeks darkening with a blush. Her hands stopped shaking and she raised the rope. “Okay.”
“This is important,” Sandra said, as much so that they’d be focused on the task as because it mattered for safety.
Sandra folded the rope in half, forming a U-bend in the middle, and quietly, slowly, showed Tarja where to wrap it around her chest. She’d slipped deep enough into the pit that she had to finesse one hand underneath a tentacle, holding her breath as she did so, but it didn’t resist her.
Folding over the rope, she looped it again, watching Tarja. Next, the rope went over her shoulders, running back around the original loop. “Make sure you can get two fingers beneath the rope, so it won’t be too snug and cut off blood flow.”
As slow as she went, the process took most of ten minutes, and she and Tarja were both left with a secure rope harness around their chest, a loop on the end that could take another length of rope. The third and final length, the one Quinn would use to pull them up, got fed through those loops, anchoring them together and giving him a way to pull everyone up and free.
“What about me?” Quinn asked, tilting his head and extending his arm so he could check the tautness of Tarja’s rope. “Do I need a harness?”
“You’ll be up there, towing us out,” Sandra said. “It’d be redundant.”
“And Hadrian?” Tarja asked.
“The spell should be able to carry the weight of two people,” Sandra said. “Quinn, just make sure not to drop him.”
“Yes, please,” Hadrian added, blinking his eyes a few times. “Don’t drop me.”
“You’re done?” Sandra asked.
He nodded, stretching his neck. His hips had sunk beneath the surface of the tentacles, but he reached his hand down, fumbling for his component pouch. “So, Quinn, then?”
She nodded. Hadrian reached out, touching Quinn to channel the magic, and–
The creature woke up.
Sandra felt the shift, the twitch of every overlapping tentacle around her as soon as Hadrian’s magic went into effect. Quinn started to lift up and grabbed Hadrian by the wrist, towing their wizard out of the pit, but that still left Sandra and Tarja down and helpless.
“Find a place to anchor the rope, and–” Sandra called, and then a sharp tug at her ankle pulled her down.
She plunged into the writhing mass of tentacles, and felt the mental presence around her mind close, probing her mind even as it probed her body. She tried to fight back, conjuring a knife in her hand, but a tentacle wrapped around her wrist and held her tight. Snarling, Sandra dismissed the umbral blade and conjured a knife in her other hand, but it too got held down.
Angry, she made the knife appear between her teeth, whipping her head to the side. It cut through one tentacle, then was ripped away, and before she could conjure it again a tentacle lurched into her open mouth.
She resisted the psychic, almost dreamlike force that willed her to stop fighting, but could do less to stop the writhing tentacles that got beneath her clothes. Further probing tendrils crept within her diaper, and she wriggled and squirmed, desperate to keep those areas from being explored further by this monster.
A tug on her chest tried to rip her free of the creature’s grasp, but wasn’t enough. Another tug, stronger, did little more. Quinn simply wasn’t strong enough to pull her free from so many clutching tendrils.
Another few seconds passed and she sank down deeper, and then a sudden, enormous force yanked her up, so powerful that the tentacles lost their grip. She all but flew upward, rocketing out of the tentacles, and while she sped up, she crossed someone else going down.
Quinn had become enormous, twelve feet tall and surrounded by a buffeting dress that flashed in Sandra’s vision. She barely spotted the rope, tied to his waist and pulled taught; he’d fashioned himself into an enormous counterweight so that by jumping into the pit, Sandra and Tarja were pulled out.
He met the writhing mass of tentacles with a manic grin, grabbing the nearest and ripping it apart with bare hands. Above, Sandra watched the rope grow short, slung over a tree trunk to act as the pulley, and drew her knife in time to slash the rope before she could get pulled right back down after Quinn. She managed to catch the other end, which didn’t pull her down with nearly the weight she’d expected, instead hanging slack in her hand.
Below, another tentacle grabbed him, then two more, and the furious raging half-orc got towed into the pit, below the surface and out of sight.
Sandra caught Tarja’s arm, helping to steady her. They were still on a slick incline of mud, one wrong step could undo all Quinn’s efforts.
“Give me a hand so I don’t fall,” Hadrian snapped, extending his arm.
“What are you going to do?” Sandra asked.
“Quinn’s idea,” Hadrian said. “It can’t dodge while it’s in a pit, and he doesn’t think it can resist fire.”
Sandra grabbed his arm, but pulled him back. “What are you thinking? Quinn’s down there, he’ll burn too!”
“And you’d rather leave him?” Hadrian asked. “We can heal burns.”
Swallowing, Sandra admitted his logic was sound enough. There was no time to argue, so she held his arm, stabilizing him so he could get a good vantage over the edge of the pit.
Flicking out his wrist, Hadrian sent two bursting fireballs down, both detonating with a torrent of heat. Sandra winced back, but Hadrian peered down, his eyes widened, and he grabbed the rope. “He’s free! Pull!”
She expected not to be strong enough, but when she pulled, it didn’t weigh that much. Hadrian helped, and soon Tarja was assisting as well, all three of them towing up Quinn with steady tugs.
They got him up, his dress pristine, scorch marks on his face. Other than that, he looked fine–and he looked to be about three feet tall.
“What sort of hare-brained scheme was that?” Sandra demanded, stepping forward and pulling Quinn into a tight hug–since he was smaller than her, it meant picking him up to do so. Quieter, she added, “You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“You always have those convoluted magic plans,” Quinn replied, patting her on the back. “I invented one of my own. I put a fire in my belly, so I could resist what Hadrian threw after me, and then I dismissed the ‘big me’ spell. Not sure where the ‘little me’ came from–maybe I dismissed it too much?”
Hadrian snickered, and Sandra glanced at him. “What’s funny?”
He pointed, grinning. “Your tail’s wagging.”
Sandra looked back and saw he was right. Blushing, she turned away, trying to get their bearings. “Let’s get this mission finished, I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.” Smiling, she added, “And good job, everyone.”
The five of them navigated up the slope, cautious for another attack from the hag, but visibility was good in the area and the only dangerous creature they could see was a giant on the far mountain peaks, half a day’s travel away.
Once they reached an area with flat, dry terrain, Sandra called the party to stop for healing and recuperation. Hadrian knelt to check out the still-small Quinn, noting the bruises around his waist from the rope.
“Ouch,” he winced, applying a bit of infernal healing.
“No time for a harness,” Quinn shrugged, as the bruises faded away. “Where’d you learn to tie one of those, anyways?”
Sandra began removing the rope on her own body. “It’s a trick for spelunking,” she said, glancing to the side as she stripped out of the snug, constricting rope that wound around her body.
“Your tail didn’t go away,” Tarja said.
“Yeah, the spell must last a while,” Sandra shrugged.
“But the conjured horses and other magic got dispelled,” Tarja pointed out.
Hesitating, Sandra’s tail drooped as she understood. “Maybe…it’ll go away once we reenter the real world.” Changing the subject, she pointed back the way they’d run. “We just need to go a bit further this way.”
Hadrian got to his feet and stretched his back, latex squeaking. “You’re sure? I still don’t see anything, no temple or shrine or what-have-you.”
Sandra almost questioned the wisdom of trusting dreamy intuition, but nodded. “I’m sure.”
They resumed their hike. It took another twenty minutes of walking, but as the woods thinned and gave way to rocky mountain terrain, they came into view of a singular, impressive stone door.
Ancient writing adorned the door. As they got close enough to read it, Sandra asked, “Hadrian, can you read that?”
He scanned the text. “Give me a minute, I think so. It’s old, so it might–”
“Not translate perfectly, yeah, we know,” Tarja said. “I remember what happened in the last plane we visited.”
Reading it over a few times, Hadrian mouthed the text, sounding out a few words. “Okay, I think it’s a burial poem. ‘Inside this tomb lies… that’s a rune for a name, so I’m just going to guess on the pronunciation and say ‘Illia’... Inside this tomb lies Illia, the great lover, master, and servant of I’m going to say ‘Gilly-dom.’ Something something, her life, history, great epic love. Then at the end, it says, ‘Her burden may be shared. To those who wish to take it upon themselves, shackle yourself to her destiny and you may be freed by her chains.’”
Sandra nodded. “Hmm, okay. They did say that carrying the relic back would be the hard part, that must be what this ‘burden sharing’ thing is about. Is the door locked?”
Quinn stepped forward, pushing on the door. It swung open effortlessly.
“Hold on a moment,” Sandra said. “Quinn, why haven’t you changed back to normal size yet?”
He looked down at himself. “I’m going to say, ‘time passes differently here’. Normally the duration should have already run out.”
He exchanged a look with Sandra, who in turn glanced back at her tail. “You’re probably right.”
“Let’s get the relic and get out of here,” Tarja added. “We still need to make it back to where we came in.”
Sandra walked through the stone door, her knife out, ready for trouble.
The chamber was smaller than she’d expected. A singular glass table filled the center of the room, surrounded by pillars and stained glass portraits of a woman engaged in various debaucheries; whips, chains, orgies, snuggling. In all, she wore a pair of manacles, one end locked to her wrist.
And, laying on the glass table at the center of the room, the same woman lay, perfectly still, her face a visage of angelic beauty. Naked, her body on display for all to see, the only thing she wore was the handcuffs.
She was dead. That Sandra could tell by her unnatural stiffness and the aura of preserving magic over her. This was her final resting place.
“I’ll get the handcuffs, watch for traps,” Sandra said, holding out her hand and stepping forward cautiously and removing her lockpicking tools from her bag.
Though the handcuffs seemed plain, when she tried to work the lock, she found that there was no lock–or, at least, no keyhole. The half of the cuffs that dangled from the woman’s wrist was attached permanently.
Sandra attempted to move the woman’s arm to get a better look, but it resisted, hard as diamond.
She looked at the other end of the cuffs, hanging open. Right, sharing her burden, Sandra thought. Reaching down, she put her wrist inside the cuff and locked it on.
The other end of the cuffs came instantly free, so that Sandra now carried it alone. She tugged on it to confirm that the cuff was on her wrist tightly, and that the other side was free, dangling openly.
“This doesn’t seem too ba–” she started to say.
Then, a dozen strands of rope sprung up around her, enwrapping Sandra, winding around her breasts, her arms, between her lips. In a heartbeat, she was fully trussed, arms bound to her sides, an extensive harness around her body that’d leave her utterly vulnerable to anyone who might wish to pull on the ropes, further bondage that held her thighs together so that, while she could stay upright and shuffle, she couldn’t run.
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as the snug, hard and tight around her body. Somehow, the cuffs had read her mind, and projected a very private thought into reality.
Tarja stepped forward to try and help, but the knots were indecipherable and permanent. Sandra suspected the rope would only go away if she removed the cuff. It’s magic was clear now; it trapped its victim in a sexual fantasy of their own making.
She started to speak, but the rope that gagged her turned the words into, “Wmmbhtgo, buhcawithansfmmfthhis.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Hadrian said, “But we need to go. The Calistrians will know how to fix this.”
Yes, thank you, Sandra rolled her eyes.
Quinn, leaning in with a grin, bumping her side with his elbow. “Are you sure that you learned that rope trick for spelunking?”
Sandra’s cheeks flushed deeper, but she couldn’t retort. Groaning, she started to shuffle forward.
They had a long way to go.
