We have Humility moved to Ellowyn. She remains bound to the gallows, on her knees in front of my great hollow. There should be no greater shame than to lay oneself bare to the public.
Gurk and Belle were going at it inside the house when I returned. Since I didn't want to disturb them for too long, I left as soon as I grabbed the wand and a few other things.
Dozens of lustful stares from both the orcs and kobolds eye Humility, waiting for a chance to have their way with her. Unfortunately, they will have to wait. Eudora entrusted the knightess to Mira and myself so that we may break her.
No one, not even the most pious, can resist their god-given instincts. When you're stimulated to such an extent, the body has no choice but to react. Humility is no exception. Her puffy nipples are erect like mountain peaks and her pussy is soaking the grass.
"Your foul magic will not defeat me. Better you hand me to the beasts and get it over with." Humility puts up a brave front despite being surrounded by two witches and countless cocks.
Mira scoffs. "Valor said something similar. Now he takes pleasure in the company of an alraune."
While they speak, I throw a handful of anoragrathi seeds to the ground. Once I pour the growth serum over them, the seeds quickly burrow into the ground, and sprout into their mature form. They whip around, searching for something to latch onto and find Humility.
"Ha! You seek to break me with mere tentacles? I'm offended— ah!" Her ass jerks back as a tentacle finds its way into her pussy.
"You caused a lot of grief for me. First you killed King Marcus, then you nearly killed an innocent girl. Does your order truly fight for the people?" I ask, holding back more that I want to say.
Humility winces as the tentacle picks up speed. Some of the spectators have begun masturbating to the sight of her miserable state. It's a good thing I made sure with Eileen that Cammy is sleeping. I would have hated exposing this to her as such a young age.
"Nngh… The Order of Piety… are defenders of humanity— ahh! You witches are the threat… nnhhaa!" Humility is barely able to speak as the pleasure brings her closer to climax.
I haven't even used the wand yet.
"See can hardly speak. Are you having fun yet?" Mira asks, brushing Humility's cheek. "Tell me, you must know. Why was Anora considered for a seat on the Council? The very power meant to oversee witchcraft?"
"Ahh— haah… I'm not privy to that… and even if I was, I wouldn't tell you a thing— wait! No, not there! Guuuhh, ahhh!" Her refusal to comply is met with a tentacle drilling into her ass.
Mira pulls out her pipe for a smoke, enjoying every moment that Humility is being sexually tormented.
"You've been fiddling with that thing. What is it?" Mira asks.
"It's an enchanted wand that can make someone's senses go wild. I was thinking about using it on Humility, but I doubt she'll have the cognitive ability to hold a conversation once it takes effect." I answer, twirling the wand in my hand.
"To affect someone's body to that extent? I'm impressed you are able to create something like it."
"Oh, I didn't make this! A merchant sold it to me. His name is— it was… huh?" No matter how hard I think about it, the memory isn't coming to me. I distinctly remember his face, the unnerving voice, but nothing else.
I believe his name started with an M… why am I having such a hard time remembering it?
The wand slips from my hand. Mira catches it before it touches ground and hands it back to me. "Humility won't speak to us anyway. Fire away, I say."
I wave the wand in front of Humility's face. Almost immediately, she becomes twice as loud, wailing into the trees. Her body writhes and tenses, eyes rolled back.
"Ahh— nnghhaa! This feeling… so powerful— and good! AAaahahhhh!!!" The knightess screams with delight.
As though on cue, another tentacle sprouts from the ground and plugs her mouth shut. The two penetrating her from the back throb with intensity, and then unloads the white substance onto her body before retreating into the ground. Another two emerge from the earth to fill the empty holes.
"Ah. What a pleasant sound." Mira closes her eyes to listen to Humility's pleasured moans.
"Careful, Mira. You might become a voyeur at this rate," I tease.
"Haha! Please. I have eyes only for you, darling." She pulls deep from the pipe, then kisses me as she blows the fumes down my lungs.
Her hand reaches down to my crotch. I try to move away, but she grabs hard, refusing to let go. She knows. She definitely knows.
"M-Mira…?" I can do nothing but squirm in her arms.
"Don't think I haven't noticed. When it comes to you, I know everything there is to know— every little change down to a misplaced strand of fair." Mira brushes the hair from my eyes. "Though I'm unsure why this has happened to you, I intend to enjoy it as much as I can. Later."
She pecks me one more time on the lips and lets go, humming as she takes off towards Eudora's mansion.
"Wait!" I call out. "What about Humility?"
"When the plants are done with her, let the orcs and kobolds have their fun. Someone as inexperienced as her will break. It is inevitable." Mira disappears past the treeline.
Damn it, Mira. You can't just whisper sweet things to me and leave me dry like this. I'm pretty sure I have a boner right now.
I don't have to look under my robes to know. It's an obvious thing swinging between my legs. Now I understand how men feel to be blueballed.
Revenge isn't as sweet as I thought. Humility is being reduced to a slut, the very person who killed the man I swore to protect, but I don't feel vindicated at all.
I still have King Marcus' lockbox.
"When the anoragrathi retract to the ground, you guys can go next." I tell the orcs and kobolds before heading into my great hollow.
Belle is riding Gurk to another orgasm when I get inside. She's covered in ejaculate from head to toe. The leash is in the goblin's hand, and his slamming hips tell me he's a lot more eager than he was initially. I just hope that he hasn't made too many requests to run down the collar's one-hundred orders.
"I'm cumming— ahh! To be made to cum… by a lowly goblin, I'm— agguuuhh, aahhhhh!" Belle throws her head back as another orgasm rocks her body.
I head to the second floor and take a seat on my bed. The lockbox isn't very large, nor is it as gaudy as the key. When I turn the lock, my hands feel a magic ward within it be dispelled. This was important enough to be protected by magic. But that shouldn't be possible since King Marcus hasn't worked with a witch until me.
Unless he had and I wasn't aware of it?
Just what is inside that he wanted to keep out of the Council of Kings' hands?
I open the box to a ruby-set silver ring nestled in a satin cushion of the same color. The longer I stare at the gem, the more blurred my vision becomes. I've never seen a cut like this before. Angles and corners that do not make sense, surfaces that seem to distort the space around it, yet at the same time perfectly symmetrical.
For all I know this could be an enchanted ring— No, it must be. King Marcus would have no reason to put magical wards around an ordinary ring. The smart thing to do is to divine it with alchemy, but my hands move on their own, slipping the ring onto my middle finger.
As it reaches down to the base of my finger, the space around me melts away and is replaced with a world on fire. The sky is thick with smoke and cinders, and before me is a looming castle in which the gates have been broken into.
I'm no longer in my great hollow. I stand with an army of knights, banners from a dozen different kingdoms and empires flutter against the backdrop of the burning sky. In the distance, towers much like the ones in the Weeping Expanse emerge from the ground. Countless bodies litter the field from my feet to the castle gates.
"Foward!"
The army at my back marches towards the castle. A man who gave the order looks very much like King Marcus. Perhaps an ancestor. He wears heavy plate armor dented and with dried blood caked on every inch.
"An army of your covenant sisters and demon-spawned familiars stand between us and Edith. Defeating her ends the Crimson Wars for good. Are you ready to turn your magic against your own sisters, Anora?"
My response is lodged in my throat. He just said Anora. It couldn't be the same one, could it?
After all, the Crimson Wars was centuries ago.
If my studies serve right, the siege on Edith's castle was the final stand against witchcraft, and ended in humanity's favor. I don't remember reading about a witch siding against her own covenant. The war was a black and white conflict between humanity and witchcraft.
And what follows is a hundred-year persecution of witches that brought us to near extinction.
I swallow hard, recalling that this final stage of the battle only had a handful of survivors left.
"Hold on—!" I try to call out, but my body is pulled forward and I'm in a dark chamber with corpses hanging from the high ceiling.
The smell of rot is heavy in the air. A woman lies dead at the center of the room. That is none other than Edith Percouli. Her body bears demonic features of black horns on her head, and splotches of discolored skin on her face.
There's no doubt she consumed souls to become this powerful.
"Well done, Anora. You have earned your freedom with this." I turn to the voice only to feel cold steel plunge into my chest.
My body— Anora's body collapses to the floor, staring up at the hanging cadavers. The knight sneers. He grabs my hand and severs it at the wrist, pulling the ring from the finger before tossing the hand away. He and the remnants of his entourage leave, but in their absence… Edith's monstrous and bloodied visage stands above me.
"Naive of you to think they would ever grant you clemency. For what they fear and cannot control, humanity will always seek to destroy. Worry not, Anora. I shall seek vengeance in your stead."
I feel myself being dragged towards the far end of the room as the castle crumbles around us. A bubbling cauldron awaits.
I come back to my senses to the sight and sound of a frenzied sex session downstairs. My body is still intact.
What I saw just now wasn't an illusion, it was a glimpse into the past. This enchanted ring seemed to have captured Anora's last moments and then some. If what I saw was true, the Anora I know isn't the Anora I believed her to be— it was Edith all along.
As M. Night Shyamalan would say, "What a Twist!!" but seriously though good job.