roguehorseman wrote: ↑2 years ago
really enjoying the story, can't imagine the old woman is going to turn out to be on the side of angels thou
Thank you! I'm really glad that you're enjoying the story.
Mineira1986 wrote: ↑2 years ago
Oh, lots of information here. But we can finally understand the reason behind the title of the story. I wonder what Aldaris Blackhand could have in store for our protagonists, but I guess we'll have to wait. Meanwhile, I am not sure if they should trust the old woman. But again, it doesn't seem they have much options here.
Thanks for the comment! Like always, you'll see how things turn out for the protagonists on this chapter, but something tells me that we all know how they will.
Chapter 5: Hermit of the Fields
The woman introduced herself as Hilde and guided the girls to her house, a small but cozy cabin in the middle of the fields. How that place stood so peacefully in the middle of those fields inhabited by monsters was beyond the understanding of the girls.
The interior of the cabin was comfortable, the girls were invited to sit on a couch while the old woman began to cook some sort of stew in an oversized cauldron that was in the middle of her kitchen, making use of the big pumpkin that Amelina had carried to her house for her.
“I don’t want to be invasive but... may I ask what you were doing alone in the fields at night?” Daina asked shyly.
“I could ask the same” The woman replied with a friendly tone “It may be weird to see an old woman in the fields at night, but seeing two young woman and an elf in them is maybe even more weird”
“What makes you think that I’m not young?” Asked Rinyia, wondering why Hilde had excluded her from the ‘young woman’ category.
“I know how elves work, you must be twice the age you appear” Hilde replied.
The woman certainly was knowledgeable, certainly more than they expected from an old woman that lived alone in the middle of a field.
“But don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me what you were doing there” Hilde continued “I think I already know”
The girls were scared by the prospect of being discovered in their escape even if it was by that old woman, just thinking about going back to the hands of the wight was terrifying.
“You got lost didn’t you?” Hilde assumed “Happens all the time, the road is old so people usually get lost when night falls”
“Uh... yes, we got lost!” Daina replied, trying her best to sound convinced of her lie.
“Well don’t worry then, you can spend the night here and tomorrow the road will be easier to find” Hilde said “Plus, at day the pumpkins don’t come to life”
“That’ll make things easier” Amelina replied, she was much better at pretending to be calm that her friend.
After the initial scare the girls were able to calm down, and the environment was certainly one that provided the conditions for doing so. The inside of the cabin was cozy, warmed by a stove and the couch they were sitting on was so comfortable that Amelina began to doze laying her head on Daina’s shoulder, which made the alchemist smile despite of the situation.
“The food is ready” Said Hilde as she grabbed the cauldron and laid it on the table.
Those words quickly woke up Amelina, who on top of having a huge apetite was very hungry, and so were her friends. They sat around the table in the middle of the room and saw the interiors of the cauldron, it was filled by steaming pumpkin soup that made them hungry just by looking at it.
“Feel free to eat” Hilde said invitingly.
They didn’t need any more words, they quickly filled the plates Hilde had given them and began to eat the food, which unsurprisingly was delicious. After running from the day they’ve had they were all hungry, so they made short work of the food within the cauldron, which was empty in a few minutes.
“That was delicious” Daina complimented, a sentiment which was echoed by her two friends.
“I’m glad to hear that, when you need to sleep tell me and I’ll get the beds ready” Hilde said as she went to sit on her armchair.
“I don’t want to bother you but I’m already feeling kinda tired” Amelina said “ So if we can get the beds ready now that’ll be good”
“Oh, you don’t bother me at all” Hilde replied “I’ll just ask you to help me”
Of course the girls agreed to help their host. They laid three pads on the floor for them to lay on and Hilde provided them with pillows and blankets, with that, their stomachs full with hot food and the stove blazing the last remnants of its fire, it was hard not to fall asleep once they were laying on the pads and covered by the blankets.
Hilde left to her room which was probably the only other room in the house and the girls were left alone. True to her word, Amelina was the first one to fall asleep, curled up against Daina who was laying in the middle of the three.
“So, at least we got away with a nice story” Daina spoke.
“And a nice excuse for you to present to the academy” Rinyia added.
“I don’t think they’re going to believe me if I tell them what happened” Daina replied “But I’ve come to terms with what’s going to happen, I’m going to get expelled”
“Well that’s not the end of the world” Rinyia replied “You’ll still have us”
“Really?”
“Do you think we’re with you because you’re part of that academy?” The elf asked “Come on, we’re with you because we’re you’re your friends!”
Daina was hugged by Rinyia which along with the elf words made her blush, she was surprised but also happy to hear that, maybe she was worrying too much about what was going to happen to her on the academy when she had so much more to do. Rinyia and Daina fell asleep like that, smiling and hugging each other.
After she could no longer hear the girls whispering, the old woman came back to the room and grinned, her plan had worked right like she had expected.
Hours Later
Elves naturally slept less than humans so it made sense that Rinyia was the first one to wake up, she opened her eyes and found out that she was staring directly at a stone ceiling and the pain on her back told her that she was no longer laying on a pad but on something hard instead.
Rinyia tried to stand up to see what had changed, but she found it impossible, just like she found impossible to roll over or move, something was pinning her to the hard surface she was laying on that scared her.
Looking aside Rinyia managed to find out why she couldn’t move, she was strapped to the hard wooden board she was laying on, her hands were bound at the height of her head and her elbows were also strapped to the board. Her legs were bound at the ankles and knees separated from each other. Another strap pinned her torso to the table, running above her waist and tightly pinning her against the board.
All of the straps were made of tough leather and were tight enough to feel painful for the elf, who was lightly dressed in the clothes she had went to sleep on, just her loose shirt and pants that didn’t provided much protection against the straps that seemed to bite onto her skin.
But even if that was enough to cause fear within the elf, it wasn’t the worst thing that she saw when she looked around, she saw that her friends were also there, tied up exactly like her to her right, with Daina being in the middle and Amelina to her the left.
Rinyia struggled fiercely but she didn’t accomplished nothing other than harming herself, she couldn’t believe that after the unbelievable escape they had made from the camp of the undead they had fallen captive again, this time she didn’t knew of who, but that didn't made things better, not knowing who was going to enter through the heavy door of that stone room only made the situation more terrifying.
Daina woke up next, probably because of the harsh conditions of her sleep. Just like it had happened to Rinyia it took her some time to realize her situation, but when she did she couldn’t believe it, but she didn’t had the same reaction that the elf did, she didn’t struggled, she was far quicker to surrender.
“Rinyia? What happened?” Daina asked as she began to panic.
“I don’t know” Rinyia replied “it seems like they captured us on our sleep”
“That’s bad” Daina said as she looked in detail at her restraints “That’s very bad!”
Daina only needed to look at the straps over her body to be able to tell that she had no chance of getting out. The leather was tough and the straps buckle was securely clasped over and bolted to the wooden board, not something that someone with her strength could break out of.
“Any idea of how to get out?” Daina asked with despair.
Rinyia looked down and bit her lower lip, frustrated by the fact that there was no satisfying answer she could provide.
“Rinyia?”
“No” The elf replied abruptly “Even if I had the dagger we used before I wouldn’t be able to reach it, but we’re on our sleeping clothes so unless you with a knife under your sleeve we’re screwed”
Daina looked down to, internally cursing her luck in utter silence as she tried her best not to show how afraid she was.
“Someone´s coming” Rinyia alerted after hearing a door being opened in the distance.
Rinyia and Amelina tried to look forward to the entrance to the room as best as they could, but it wasn’t an easy posture to hold since they were horizontally strapped to the boards and they had nothing to rest their heads on, but they managed to hold it for long enough to see who had entered the room.
It was a woman of normal height dressed in a long black robe, she had very red hair which waved down her shoulders and deep green eyes. Her reddish lips were drawing a subtle but smug smile on her face, which quickly told Rinyia and Daina that this woman had no good intentions with them.
“Good evening girls” The woman spoke as she walked up to the two awaken girls “I was planning on coming down here when the three of you were awake, but apparently your friend seems to be unable of waking up on her own”
“Who are you? What did you do to Hilde?” Asked Rinyia as she futilely tried to rise to her captor’s height.
The woman cackled with annoying smugness after hearing the elf’s words.
“Oh I am Hilde” The woman revealed “Sometimes I forget how easily fooled people can be fooled by our disguises”
“What are you?” Asked Daina as fear grew within her.
“A witch” Hilde replied “And I’ve been tasked with giving you back to the queen of this land, who you tried to escape from”
Fear kept growing within the two girls, finding out that they had escaped just to be captured again was beyond descriptions for them. And to that they added the fear of not knowing how the undead that captured them will react once they saw them again, but they were sure that whatever reaction they had it wasn’t going to be good.
“So that’s what you’re going to do with us?” Asked Daina “Can’t we do anything to change your mind?”
“In your situation it doesn’t seem like you could do much for me” Hilde replied “Aside from that, I’m going to do much more with you than just giving you back to Cordelia.”
Those words made Daina gulp, what could a witch have in mind for them?
“How about a small tease of what I want to do with you?”
Hilde walked away from the boards and towards a table, there she had many things in bags that the girls couldn’t see very well because of the angle they were at, but they were sure that they weren’t instruments for their pleasure.
Out of one of the bags Hilde took a leaf, green in coloration and tiny in size, she delicately handled it with her gloved hand and walked besides Amelina, who was still sleeping.
“Since your friend is still sleeping I think I have a fun idea of how to wake her up” Hilde said before opening Amelina’s clothes, revealing her abdomen.
“Do not dare to hurt her” Rinyia demanded, although she couldn’t ask much from her position.
“Don’t worry, she’ll wake up unharmed” Hilde said “Just... Very annoyed”
Hilde moved Amelina’s shirt up just below her breasts and then laid the leaf on Amelina’s abdomen, which was slowly going up and down as Amelina breathed calmly, but such tranquility wouldn’t last long. Amelina began to breath faster and she quickly woke up, she tried to reach down to her abdomen but found it impossible, that was when she found out that she was tied up and she did not liked it.
Amelina struggled and she did so much more than her two friends, fiercely fighting the leather straps holding her down as she drowsily but audibly complained.
“This isn’t funny!” Amelina shouted, still thinking that this was a joke by her friends.
“What’s happening to her!?” Asked Daina.
“Oh, nothing you should worry about” Replied Hilde “Those leaves are probably giving her an unbearable itch though”
After hearing that conversation Amelina turned to look at her side, seeing her friends tied up exactly like her and also Hilde, standing as their captor, but to her she still appeared as a mysterious woman.
“What is this you...”
Hilde grabbed Amelina by the jaw, silencing her in the process, she took pleasure in gloating over Amelina even more than she did with her other prisoners since she enjoyed seeing her fight so fiercely.
“I have some things to explain to you and something tells me that your screaming wont allow me to make myself clear” Hilde said “But I know how exactly how to solve this problem”
Hilde lifted a ballgag that she had grabbed from the same table where she had the leafs and showed it to Amelina, who didn’t liked what she managed to see.
“No way you’re going to put that in my mouth!” Shouted Amelina after seeing just how big the ballgag was.
“You don’t get to choose dear” Hilde said as she grabbed Amelina by the jaw.
Getting Amelina to open her mouth was a difficult task, she was already struggling because of the herbs she had on her abdomen but to that she added even fiercer struggles against her captor. But it was ultimately fruitless because Hilde managed to get her to open her mouth by pinching her nose, forcing her to open her mouth to breath and therefore, creating an opening for the witch.
“Much better” Hilde said after she had gagged Amelina, who was now giving her muffled complaints under her gag “Now that she has been taken care of, what should I do with you?”
Daina and Rinyia shrugged on their restraints, fearing what could that witch have in mind for them.
“I could just give you the same treatment I gave your friend but that would be too boring” Hilde spoke “But I think I know exactly what I should do with you”
Hilde ran one of her fingers along Daina’s left foot, which tickled her greatly and made her instinctively squirm to try to get free.
“Great, just what I needed”
“Please don’t!” Daina pleaded as she began to grasp the idea of what Hilde was planning to do.
The witch walked up to the bound elf and tried the same, she ran her finger across one of her bare feet but there was no reaction whatsoever from the elf.
“You wont be able to do that with me” Rinyia said as she looked at Hilde.
Even though the witch tried other spots in the elf’s body that may be ticklish she still didn’t got any reaction. Poking her ribs, tickling her armpits or her neck, nothing affected her.
“Well that’s a problem” Hilde said after trying everything that she could to tickle the elf “I guess your torture will have to be more psychological”
The witch looked around the room, it was a roughly empty stone cell but eventually she laid her eyes on something other than the table and her prisoners, an old big chair which was overrun by cobwebs in a corner of the room.
Hilde snapped her fingers and the chair began to move, dragging itself against the floor making an awful noise which drawn out for quite long since it took long for the chair to get in front of the three girls where Hilde wanted it.
“Sorry about that, ghosts aren’t really known for their strength” Hilde excused herself as she cleaned some dust off the chair.
“Mpghgghg!” Amelina moaned, dying to scratch her belly yet still unable to.
“Don’t worry, I swear that wont last forever” Hilde chuckled “Now elf girl, I need to untie you but I don’t really want that to be troublesome, so I’ll demand from you that you stay docile”
Again Hilde snapped her fingers, this time she made the restraints that held Rinyia unlock, instantly releasing her.
It was so sudden that Rinyia didn’t knew what to do, she sat down on the board and glared at Hilde, who was smiling at her so blissfully that it was annoying. She was brought out of her trance by one of Amelina’s muffled complaints, that were loud enough to get through the ballgag that Hilde had put inside her mouth and that reminded Rinyia of the suffering her friend was being put through.
The elf jumped over the board where Daina was laying and reached to Amelina to try to remove that leaf from her body, but in an instant and with a speed that Rinyia didn’t thought possible Hilde interposed herself between her and her friend.
“I think I told you to stay docile” Hilde said as she grabbed Rinyia by her wrists.
Rinyia tried to get free but the witch’s grip was incredibly strong and Hilde didn’t even seemed to be making an effort, her face stayed just as calm as before as she held Rinyia with that incredible strength. That was what made Rinyia realize that Hilde didn’t asked her to behave because she needed it, she did so for comfort because she had no way of being anything but an nuisance to the witch.
“Now are you ready to behave?” Asked Hilde after Rinyia had ceased struggling.
Even though her face still showed anger, Rinyia looked aside and nodded, she had no choice that would end right for her other than that.
Rinyia allowed herself to be sit down on the chair by Hilde. Despite its size the piece of furniture wasn’t the most comfortable, it was hard and almost too big even for someone of Rinyia’s size, who felt as if she were a child sitting on a normal chair.
“Now I should tie you up but I’m not feeling like it, tying you to that chair would be take too much time” Hilde said as she looked down at the elf sitting down on the chair “But don’t think I don’t have another way to take care of you”
Calmly, Hilde walked towards the table where she had all of her instruments and took seed out of a small bag. Rinyia wanted desperately to get Amelina out of her suffering but having seen what Hilde was capable of she decided against it and just stood there, sitting awkwardly on the chair occasionally looking behind her to try to figure out what her captor was doing.
This time the witch grabbed a small flowerpot where apparently nothing more than a small green plant was growing. Rinyia had no idea of what Hilde’s intentions with that plant were, but she was still more concerned with Amelina’s situation, which made her only notice the plant again once it was too late.
Rinyia felt vines crawl up her legs and pin them to the front legs of the chair, she looked behind her to see what was happening and was met by Hilde, holding the flowerpot from which countless vines were emerging and crawling like snakes to wrap around Rinyia.
“Don’t worry, they are harmless” hilde said as she laid the flowerpot on the floor “But they’ll be easier on you if you stay still”
Rinyia immediately understood what Hilde was talking about when the vines tightened immensely around her body when pinning her to the chair’s back, only ceasing to be so tight once she stuck her back against the chair’s and the vines could work their way up her chest with ease.
Daina was the only one that could afford to care for her friend because Amelina was too busy cursing her own luck and thinking about what she was going to do with Hilde when she broke free, even though she wasn’t sure if she was going to get free.
By the time the vines were done with the elf, Rinyia had her legs tied to the front legs of the chair, and since the chair was so tall she could barely reach the floor. Rinyia’s arms were bound to the armrests of the chair form the wrists to the elbows, her tights were tightly pinned to the seat and vines went form her waist up to below her breasts, securing her to the chair. She didn’t even needed to struggle to realize that she had no chance to escape.
Thankfully there were some good news for the prisoners, or at least one. Because after making sure that Rinyia was secured to the chair properly Hilde walked up to the board where Amelina was tied to and removed the dreaded leaf from above her abdomen, which brought great relief to Amelina who felt the unbearable itch she was feeling before gradually fade away,
“You can thank me later” Hilde said as walked away from Amelina and towards Daina.
“Mpghgh!” Grunted Amelina in response.
“I’ll need you to make silence for this, so please open up and make this easier” Hilde said as she showed a ballgag to Daina.
“Please I swear I will..” Daina was interrupted by Hilde, who felt like she had spent enough time with her other two prisoners to be able to afford hearing what Daina had to say.
“Much better” Hilde said as she turned back to look at Rinyia “Since you are the only one of your friends that has not been gagged, I need you to answer me a question”
Rinyia didn’t verbally replied but she nodded.
“Torturing two people would be too much for me, let alone three, so I want you to choose who of your friends that you have in front of you will be tortured next” Hilde explained “I’ve noticed that both of them are pretty ticklish, so that already gives me an idea of what I’ll do with them”
“Mpghgh” Grunted Amelina, who found the prospect of being tickled somehow even worse than her previous torment.
“So, who will it be?” Asked hilde “Will it be your small, sheepish alchemist friend? She looks like she can’t take it but maybe you think she had it too easy until now” She asked as she pointed at Daina “Or maybe you’ll choose Amelina, she has already taken quite a punishment already but she also looks quite tough, maybe you think that she’s faking it”
Saying that the decision was hard would be an understatement, because as much as Hilde made an effort to sound annoying most of her points were valid. Daina was not the toughest person around but Amelina had already suffered enough.
“Daina” Rinyia muttered.
“What? Speak up please” Hidle demanded.
“Daina, I choose Daina” Rinyia repeated regretfully.
Daina felt chills run down her spine and she was immediately overwhelmed with fear, but even if she was the one that had it worse the decision didn’t left anyone happy. Rinyia felt awful about dooming her friend to that fate and Amelina felt guilty about knowing that it could be her the one suffering Daina’s fate.
“Interesting choice, I wonder hoy she feels bout it” Hilde said “But its not like she can tell you, lets get started”
Again Hilde walked towards the table where she had all of her torture devices, and this time she came back with the strangest selection of objects she had chosen so far. One was a small box covered by a blanket, the other a bucket which judging by the steam that was coming out from it, was holding something hot inside.
Hilde sat on the board beside Daina and smiled when she looked at her, the fear was visible in her prisoner’s eyes and that only made thing more exciting for her. The witch introduced a small brush inside the bucket, which came out tainted in some sort of orange liquid.
“I saved some of the soup just for this purpose” Hilde said as she started to brush Daina’s feet.
Daina had to make a great effort to keep calm, she breather deeply and tried to keep her mind focused on something else, trying with all of her energy not to let out a frantic struggle that would for sure get her in trouble.
“I can see that this is already enough of a torture for you” Hilde said as she began to brush Daina’s other foot “But this is not even the beginning, one could say that it is just the set up”
“Mpghgghg?” Daina moaned, still trying to conceal her suffering.
“You see, the reason why I selected soup to put on your feet its not to torture you, its because there’s someone who’ll take pleasure in licking it out of your feet”
Before Daina could even ask herself who was Hilde talking about, her question was answered when something inside the box moved, making a metallic sound that revealed that the object was not a box but a cage. Hilde brought the cage up to her lap and uncovered it, revealing what was inside to her prisoners, it was a medium sized amphibian creature, one of blue coloration, wet blue skin and a big mouth equipped with a proportionally big tongue that the creature was using to clean its eyes.
“This creature that you’re seeing here is a frost salamander” Hilde explained as she released the creature and began to caress it “Since your an alchemist I take it that you know of many of they magical capabilities, but did you know about their taste for hot food?”
As Daina realized what Hilde’s intentions were she began to struggle, tigging the board straps to no avail.
“Despite being exceptionally cold creatures, salamanders love hot things like fire, boiling water, and maybe my pumpkin soup” Hilde began to let go of the salamander, allowing it to crawl onto the board with its stubby legs “What do you think?”
“Mpgghghghg!” Shouted Daina.
Daina’s screams only continued after the creature began to lick the soles of her feet, her tongue was cold and wet and its licks ran slowly from her ankles up to her toes. It was downright torturous.
Hilde appeared to find Daina’s suffering quite amusing, she chuckled as she looked down on her helpless victim, who relentlessly but futilely struggled against the restraints that held her with every lick that the salamander took.
But Hilde’s pleasure was short lived, as a loud knock on the door upstairs prompted her to change her expression to one of annoyance. The witch called its pet which obediently returned to its cage where it snuggled up and quickly fell asleep. Daina was immensely relieved because she wasn’t sure of what would happen to her if her torture continued.
“I’m sorry but it seems like our fun is over” Hilde announced before leaving the room.
Now Daina didn’t knew if she should be thankful of her torture being over, because according to what her captor had previously told her there was only one person looking for them and she didn’t had the best of intentions.
Daina looked aside and was met by Amelina, who was still struggling to break free to no avail, her relentless yet futile fight made Daina feel guilty, after all none of them would be there if it wasn’t for her choice to take this knowingly dangerous path.
After a few minutes when Daina was regaining her heat after cooling down immensely because of the salamander licks, she and her two friends heard the noise of people coming into the room, which made them look towards the door as much their restraints allowed them to.
“Well, was the escape worth it?” Cordelia asked as she walked into the room with Hilde and her two guards.