The first time one of my owners died, they sent me to the Kennels.
I remember it as an overcrowded and unpleasant place, filled with abandoned pets, filthy cells, and disorienting uncertainty.
Tower Anchorage is famous for its extensive slave markets, and animal markets are a specialty outlet for clientele primarily interested in pet play, kemonomimi1Kemonomimi (獣耳 animal ears) is an anime and manga term that describes humanoid characters that possess animal like features, mainly a pair of ears and a tail., beastkin, mounts, and other forms of shapeshifters. If there is a particular animal you want to buy, it is very easy to purchase one. Slave merchants go through extensive efforts to keep at least one of every species in stock, and hunting for exotic animals can be an especially lucrative business.
Cats are one of the most common species in the kennels.
In order to save on food costs and space, those of us with smaller animal forms are forced to transform and shoved into cramped uncomfortable cages. We are locked inside almost 24/7 until a prospective buyer takes interest, by which point most of us are desperate to be released for even a short period of time. After months of imprisonment, almost anything seems better than a tiny claustrophobic cage in the wall.
Most of us learn very quickly that pleasing a buyer is our only ticket to freedom.
By corollary, it is a very miserable feeling to be ignored by customers time and time again. Female cats are usually more popular than male animals, and shifters with impressive abilities are also sold relatively quickly. If you don't have any good qualities, or if you are permanently damaged in some way, you might not find a buyer for years.
On Earth, a vast majority of abandoned pets in shelters ultimately end up euthanized.
In Vetita's slave markets, the unsellable slaves receive worse fates, whether they are sold wholesale as cheap expendable materials for necromancers, hooked up as living mana batteries to power the guzzling energy demand of cities, or other unthinkable bad endings that only the most twisted and depraved individuals would think of.
Fortunately, my fire magic is considered relatively desirable.
My abilities are unusual, because my mana pool is not fixed or linear. Depending on my affinity with my owner, it can grow and shrink across a wide range of sizes. Most strangers who decide to try me out for the first time often find that my abilities are utterly unsatisfactory, but my abilities can slowly improve over time.
My base stats are honestly disappointing.
But given the right environment, I can burn extraordinarily bright.
⚘ ⚘ ⚘
It was completely dark.
I was freezing.
It felt like a candle inside of my heart had been snuffed out, and every single droplet of liquid warmth inside of my body had vanished. It was unbelievably cold, numbingly to the point where I couldn't feel a single one of my limbs. The freezing temperatures penetrated to the core of my body, and it felt like I was trapped within a metaphorical ice glacier.
I couldn't see anything.
I struggled to summon the slightest trickle of mana to heat myself up, but the sparse traces of energy slipped away from my body before I could ignite it into warmth. In fact, it felt like the magic was being sucked out of me by an external force. A powerful entity was literally swathing me with me with an overwhelming flood of cold, drowning me with suppressive magic that was far stronger than my own.
A caressing hand brushed through my frosty ice-caked hair.
"You're safe now," said a feminine voice.
A hand stroked my ears, but my tender sensory organs were literally frozen stiff like a brittle sculpture.
"Nobody's going to hurt you. We saved you from the slavers. You're not a servant anymore. You'll be free now."
I tried to open my mouth to say something, but then I realized that my lips and eyelids were also frozen shut with frost.
In fact, there was ice around my limbs too.
My arms and legs were trapped in a translucent solid.
It was some kind of ice prison.
Parts of the frozen structure had already started to melt, and I could feel faint drafts of air on parts of my midsection. My exposed torso was arched backwards in an uncomfortable inverted bow position, yet my shoulders and other other extremities were still encased in thick ice. It was impossible for me to move a single muscle.
The mysterious individual ran her freezing hand down my naked spine, and then I realized I wasn't wearing clothes either. Her finger slowly slid down each bony vertebrae to my tailbone, and she absentmindedly traced a leisurely circle around the root of my sensitive tail.
Obviously, I was instantly mortified.
Who the fuck was this creepy ice witch, and why was she touching me?
What kind of frozen hell did I wake up to? I had no memory of anything like this.
"Oh you poor thing. You must be terribly confused."
Her fingers strayed around my butt, probing at the exposed entrance of my chrysanthemum2In Chinese (and BL), "Chrysanthemum Gate" (jú huā mén 菊花门), often abbreviated as Chrysanthemum (菊花), is taboo slang meaning "anus" (with sexual connotations)..
Her index finger was so cold, it felt like she was pressing an icicle against my butt.
She hugged me all of a sudden.
"There's no need to be afraid! I'm your friend!"
The ice witch's voice was disturbingly cheerful.
"I'll be responsible for taking care of you while you're here! My job is to cool you down, so don't get all fiery on me, okay? If you start burning up, I'll have to freeze you inside an ice cube again, and then we'll have to wait until you melt all over again. It's sooooo boring to watch ice melt, and I'd much rather have some fun!"
I struggled to process this new information while this mentally deranged woman invaded my intimate places.
"Oh, but you caused a big trouble, you know? I heard you almost killed a couple girls. It's a good thing Duke Adrian is so good with ice magic, because it would have been a huge problem if you set poor Nellie on fire. Nellie the flying whale? She's a sweet cake. Animal cruelty is bad, so please don't set whales on fire next time."
My memory was foggy... I had no clue what this crazy witch was talking about.
But then I had a moment of clarity.
@Jasper! Ovum was going to take him away!
Panic suddenly gripped my heart, and my emotions suddenly flared up like a swelling geyser.
"No, no. Bad kitty! Fire magic is bad!"
The witch sounded irate, and I gasped and shuddered as a new surge of relentless cold flooded my bones. It overwhelmed every last bit of warmth that was collecting inside my body like a smothering avalanche of snow, and I quickly turned into a shivering hypothermic mess.
When my body went limp, she resumed her bodily explorations and started humming quietly to herself.
I felt so helpless I wanted to cry.
⚘ ⚘ ⚘
There was the sound of a door opening, accompanied with a gush of warm air.
Someone walked in, and their footsteps abruptly stopped.
"What the hell are you doing, @Yuki?"
It was a vaguely familiar-sounding voice.
"Oh! My apologies! This kitten is just so adorable... and warm! I couldn't help myself Miss Priscilla!"
"Could you please not finger fuck the prisoner?"
"Eh? Prisoner? What prisoner?"
"...Guest..." @Priscilla slowly corrected herself.
"Ah yes! Of course! Oopsie! Silly me. Bad habit."
@Priscilla sighed, as if she really didn't want to be dealing with this right now.
"So what did you learn about the cat?"
"Ah yes! @Trisha told me to become good friends with kitty! So I made sure to learn lots and lots!"
The ice witch repositioned herself so that my slightly spread legs were visible to the girl who walked in through the door.
"You wouldn't believe this! He has two of them! Two!!!"
She tugged on my dick and pointed at my foreslit.
@Priscilla sounded strained.
"...Him...?" She voiced skeptically.
"Oh yes, he is very definitely male! Male kitty! Super adorable!"
"But futanari3Futanari is the Japanese word for hermaphroditism, which is also used in a broader sense for androgyny. are...."
"—Male! He's unquestionably male!"
"..."
@Priscilla sounded like she was about to say something, she but changed her mind at the last moment.
"Did you learn anything... useful?" She emphasized her last word in exasperated frustration.
"Hm?"
"His level. His abilities. How strong is he actually? Can we use him?"
"Oh!! That." @Yuki lit up like a lightbulb.
"Humu... maybe three or four years on the server? Honestly, it's hard to believe he cast such a big spell."
"That little?"
"Oh! But he has a big hole! Very big hole! Can fit lots inside!"
"Hole?"
"Look!" @Yuki spoke excitedly.
Excruciating ear-splitting pain suddenly burst from inside my body.
Something was being forced into me, and it hurt like someone was tearing my soul apart with a giant wrecking ball.
"See? Can put magic inside!"
"...Huh. So he's the charging type."
"Yes!! I like him a lot. Can I keep him? Please? The last one broke so I've been lonely..."
"Let's talk about it with @Trisha later. Maybe she can find you a better replacement."
"Okay! That makes me happy!"
"Can I borrow the cat for now?"
"Huh? Why?"
"@Trisha needs to see him. It's very important."
"Aww... but if it's for @Trisha, okay! I understand! I love @Trisha!"
"Yeah..."
"But make sure to bring him back! I want to play with him more!"
⚘ ⚘ ⚘
"Crazy woman." @Priscilla muttered to herself after shutting the heavy freezer door. "I really hate going into the basement."
She turned and stared at the ice prison that kept me trapped in a partially frozen and contorted state. A little while ago, she had managed to move the entire statue-like pedestal onto a rolling cart.
"It's a fucking block of ice... and so vulgar too..."
She seemed a little bit skeptical of this strange and bizarre method of keeping a prisoner secure.
"So you really were a man..." @Priscilla sounded like she was in disbelief.
"Unless you're trans?"
She shook her head slowly.
"Maybe I'm overthinking it. @Yuki isn't right about everything. I can ask about pronouns later."
She started pushing the cart.
"Gotta find a damn heater......."
⚘ ⚘ ⚘
@uenala
This chapter didn't really feel like fanservice at all. Yuki came across as being an insane creepy pervert. I would not consider her to be a love interest in any way. What happened in this chapter felt disturbing, not lewd. The fact that Yuki somehow managed to correctly identify Fiie as male actually makes the situation more disturbing the more you think about it (Fiie's eyelids seemed to have thawed at some point, but not his mouth). You really shouldn't let this chapter discourage you. For an encounter to feel lewd, you should aim to have at least some form of dubious-consent rather than pure non-consent.
On a different note, Fiie's personal experience with the slave markets is likely atypical of what active players experience. Considering that active players could always try reaching out irl to groups such as Ovum to organize a raid, slave merchants would be highly motivated to facilitate the recruitment process for factions, guilds, etc. in regards to enslaved active players. The "recruiters" in Tower Anchorage might not be particularly active in reaching out to players in game, but rather the expectation is for the players reach out irl to the "recruiters" (the "expectations" might be a little different in other ports and cities, but in larger slave markets, it can be seen as more efficient to have the players do most of reaching out). Fiie's experience is probably more in line with that of abandoned characters that do not have the ability to reach out irl. Realistically, Fiie could have tried reaching out irl, but he didn't.
Thanks for your comment! I guess it's reassuring to hear that you aren't looking for more of this kind of content x.x Yuki is definitely a creepy character, and she has uncanny intuition for things!
My thinking with the slave markets is that the supply of slaves is actually relatively high with respect to the demand, meaning that it's really not that expensive to purchase a slave. Furthermore, I've kind of imagined the server to be fairly accepting of slavery, to the point that factions are more willing to participate in the system rather than intentionally go against it.
What I mean by this is that it makes little sense for a faction to "raid" a powerful slave-trading city to rescue a random stranger who has little-to-no individual value as a level one beginner. It's much easier (and cheaper) to just walk in through the front door and just buy that individual for $300 (which is relatively cheap for the budget of most moderately-sized factions). Furthermore, factions would be able to negotiate conditions with slaves that they intend to buy (i.e. "I will buy you if you agree to do this for us"), who then ultimately rise up the faction ranks and ultimately serves as a kind of recruitment.
Ultimately, though, I kind of visualize it similar to rushing a university fraternity/sorority. The factions get to browse an enormous selection of slaves at the market, but they're not interested in indiscriminately recruiting everyone. Certain individuals are likely to be a better fit for some factions more than others, and the factions are aware of this when they are shopping for slaves as a form of recruitment.
That said, some individuals are just... really undesirable... and might not end up recruited by any faction just like some people totally fail to be accepted into any fraternity/sorority.
@uenala It would still be nice to see Fiie end up in sexual encounters with female characters, though preferably most will not be as dark and disturbing. Having a female character sexually dominate Fiie and simply having a female character sexually violate Fiie are two different things. The darker encounters do serve a story-telling purpose (particularly with establishing characters and organizations that only see Fiie as a weapon or a tool and not as a person), and it's also important to consider that, even if you replaced Yuki with a male character, the encounter would still be just as disturbing.
I hope that I'm not giving mixed signals.
Realistically, the ability to reach out to factions irl would mean that practically all active players would be able to get into contact with a faction willing to recruit them (given the right terms). When I mentioned the idea of the possibility of slave merchants being raided, it was more as a limiting factor in the effective market value of enslaved active players. As you said, launching a raid doesn't really make sense when you could just buy the enslaved player relatively cheaply.
@UnknownReader I'll try my best again in the future! x.x But yes, you're right! Dominating and violating definitely aren't the same things!
I think one of the challenges of reaching out to factions irl is that illegality of Vetita. Almost all factions/players are committed to maintaining some degree of anonymity (both to avoid legal consequences and also IRL blackmailing/crime targeting), so almost all IRL interactions become unverifiable unless there was an existing relationship that was established on the server.
As a new player, contacting a faction (assuming you are even somehow able to locate a contact) has the same reputability as trying to arrange a transaction on ebay or the dark web (where there are a lot of scams). Malicious actors may also try to infiltrate/mislead/trap enemy factions by contacting publicly available resources, so both parties would be expected to be relatively skeptical of cold emails out of the blue.
@uenala Reaching out irl would essentially be sending your player name and in game location within an encrypted message. The point is not to set up an irl line of communication, but to help in game recruiters locate your in game character. Rather than trying to sort through every single slave that enters a large slave market, recruiters can start with players that are supposedly already interested in joining their faction.