Out of the Shadows, Part 7

Your eyes search the woods ahead of you as you ponder the challenge that you face. Then, finally, you make a decision. "They'll be prepared for an attack," you say, even as your body starts to shift. "We need to use tactics they won't be expecting."

Relis looks on in surprise as you shapeshift, not having seen you use this ability. You concentrate, pushing the limits of how much you can alter your size. You would have preferred to go in as an outright child, to seem as nonthreatening as possible. But even straining your hardest, the best that you can manage is a particularly nebbish elf teen.

"If they're taking hostages, I doubt they'll turn down another one," you say in your new, higher-octave voice. "Not to mention another slave for after the mission. Once they bring me inside their perimeter, I'll do whatever I can to sabotage their efforts and make sure the hostages are safe."

You see concern flash through Khaytala's eyes. But she doesn't voice it, only nodding in agreement. She clearly doesn't like the idea of you walking into danger somewhere she can't immediately help. But she also respects your abilities, and your decision. She knows the stakes, the other lives at risk. She knows what she would risk to save them.

And she is, above all else, honest.

So she swallows her worry, trying not to burden you with it. Instead, she simply offers a suggestion. "We should have a signal. Some way for you to let us know if you need help."

"Hmmm..." you muse. "I like that idea."

You slowly turn to Relis, who quails a little at the grin you're now giving her. "What?" she asks. "What is it?"

"With your permission," you say, your hand glowing again. "I'd like to add something to the Boon I gave you. A condition. If you ever violate this condition, I will gain the ability to inflict pleasure on you from any distance. Pleasure that can—if I so choose—reach levels that are quite... extreme."

The young elf swallows. "And... what condition do you want to add?" she squeaks.

"Nothing much," you say. "You'll only need to jump back and forth from here to the capitol city of Nelin. Six times every second. While singing a song that no one has ever heard before, and yet everyone knows."

Her eyes bulge. "B-but... I couldn't possibly do any of that!"

Your grin widens.

She pales as she realizes your intent, hesitating for quite some time before finally nodding meekly. Your update to the Boon immediately takes effect, and immediately you gain the magical knowledge that she is in violation of its terms. Focusing your will, you inflict your punishment through the Boon's link, albeit this time with the lightest possible touch.

"Nnnhh!" Relis trembles, her legs bending inward slightly as she bites her lower lip. It isn't incapacitating, however, and she recovers quickly. Although, from the needy look she gives you it seems that the arousal still persists to an extent. Still, it shouldn't impact her ability once the fighting starts... and now you have a perfectly undetectable way to signal them from any distance.

"Perfect," you say. "If you feel that again, it means I need you to hit them hard. Other than that, just hold here while I get into position. And if Verika does catch up, following the trail we left..." You pause. "Well... just tell her I'm trying something delicate. And try to stall her as long as you can."

With that you set off, meandering through the woods. You even start to call out, just to make sure that you're noticed. "Ciale?" you shout, injecting a note of worry into your voice. "Ciale, did you come this way? You know mother doesn't want you going this deep into the forest. Ciale, where are you?"

Deeper and deeper you go. Not directly toward your target, but meandering in that general direction. It isn't long before you pick up a pair of followers. The two drow flit between the trees, closing in on you with impressive stealth... but against your inhuman senses it isn't nearly enough.

Nor is that the only danger you detect. Up ahead, you notice a thin tripwire strung between the trees, connected to a pile of leaves that looks to your eye to be concealing a rigged weapon of some kind. Since they haven't made their move yet, you decide to force the issue by walking toward it. You doubt they'll want to have it set off by some useless elf when they don't know when their true target will arrive.

Sure enough, before you can reach the trap, one of them creeps up behind you and places a sharp blade to your throat while pulling you back against her curvaceous frame. "Not a word, little elf-boy," the woman whispers in your ear, her smooth voice dark and smugly teasing. "You don't want me to have to water the ground with your blood, now do you?"

You give your best fearful whimper, allowing her to drag you through the forest. The closer you get, the more drow you're able to pinpoint. They're hiding spread out through the forest around their camp. Soon you reach the center of their formation, a decently-sized clearing with supplies and tents for quite a few more than the drow you noticed. The result of Verika thinning their numbers, presumably.

You see an elf there as well, kneeling on the ground with his hands tied behind him. It's Belan, the young male elf of the three students. However, you see no sign of his teacher or the two girls anywhere. One of his cheeks is red, probably from the blow that you'd heard earlier.

Standing over him is a tall drow, whose long, intricately-braided white hair winds down to her ankles. Her dress is a scanty interplay of black cloth, bearing several instances of the same symbol you saw on the vestments of the High Priest Nergan back in Kovora. She has a wrought-iron loop at her hip, hooked to her belt, the inner edges of which flicker with traces of seething, writhing shadow.

There are three other drow in the clearing, two of them clad in more practical leather armor, while the third wears long robes and carries a staff—one of the mages Verika mentioned. The rest of the drow are still out on the perimeter, waiting silently for their expected quarry.

The woman you presume to be the priestess turns as you are dragged into the clearing. She spares a scornful glance at you, then turns to your captor. "And what is the meaning of this?"

"I found him about to blunder into one of our traps, your Eminence," says the soldier deferentially, and you can hear a note of fear and submission in her voice. It's obvious who holds the power here. "What do you want me to do with him?"

The priestess fixes you with her gaze, and you cringe before her. The reaction causes her face to light up with a cruel smile. It's obvious how much she revels in this. The fear. The power. "Do we really need another captive?" she asks nonchalantly. "Perhaps you should just kill him."

You can tell that she doesn't mean it, though. She hides it well... but not well enough to fool your eyes. It's not that she actually intends to throw away the value you can offer. She just wants to terrorize you. She's getting off on holding your life in her hands. Getting off on watching you beg. And so—resisting the urge to roll your eyes—you decide to feed her more of what she wants to see.

But before you can continue your manipulations, the young elf boy shouts a protest. "No!" Belan blurts out. "Wait, don't kill him! He... He is useful to you! He's... a good friend of Verika's! One of her best friends! He'd... he'd be just about the best hostage you could have!"

Even if you didn't know for a fact that the boy had never seen your guise before in his life, the bluff would still be a painfully obvious one. But he tries his best to save you... even if all it does is focus the priestess's malice back on him.

"Oh is he?" the drow purrs, walking back toward the kneeling boy. Then she grabs him by his collar, wrenching him up to his tiptoes in a single, violent motion. "You know... I don't like liars..."

Belan pales, but then swallows. "I-I'm not lying."

"Really." The woman reaches out to caress Belan with her other hand, her long fingernails drawing a thin line of blood across his cheek. He shudders as her caress goes lower, until she has his balls in a vice grip. "Are you sure? Because I have all kinds of ways to play with foolish males who have the temerity to lie to me..."

Her eyes are alight with lust as she watches him squirm. He glances past her, looking into your eyes for a moment, and you can see for yourself just how terrified he is. But then he turns back to her, looking her right in the eye. "I'm... I'm not lying."

The priestess' lip twists, and she hurls him back to the ground with a painful shove and a snarl. She can't really do anything too serious to him—not as long as he's so important as a pawn—but in that moment, it's obvious how much she wants to do it anyway. She wants to punish him for his defiance. "I'm going back out to check the defenses," she snaps instead. "Watch these two. And be ready for the traitor-bitch to arrive!"

The question now is how you will play the situation. You could always signal for the attack as soon as you can. You're inside their perimeter, just as you'd planned, and you could probably create enough of a distraction to throw the drow into chaos and give Khaytala and Relis an opening to carve a bloody swath through them. It might be tricky—and some of you might take a degree of damage—but you're confident that you could pull it off without serious harm.

On the other hand, you could wait on the attack, instead trying to gather more information, either by eavesdropping or subtly plying your captors. That might give you more hints as to what exactly is going on here. On the other hand, given your situation, getting what you want out of your guards without being obvious will likely take a quite protracted and subtle campaign... and by the time you finish, Verika is likely to have caught up.

Granted, Verika arriving before the attack starts should drastically improve your odds in the battle, making it a more crushing victory, with less damage. On the other hand, if she's a direct part of the attack, she's more likely to realize the powers that you used to get this far, not to mention what you could end up using in the fight itself. You might need to field some pointed questions afterward.

There is another option, though.

If you want to take a more active role in sabotaging the enemy effort, you can think of few things more damaging than taking out the woman who is both their leader and probably their most powerful spellcaster. She just said that she's about to head out to examine the defenses... but if you act quickly you might be able to catch her attention before she leaves.

You saw how much she wanted to violate Belan in revenge for his presumption. You saw the way she molested him. You're confident that you could attract similar attention to yourself. Except trying to molest someone with an incubus' aphrodisiac touch is... not exactly conducive to clear thinking. And her impulse control is clearly shit, even at the best of times. You fully expect you can bait her into dragging you off to violate you.

Like a house cat dragging a tiger off to eat it.

Once your cock is inside her, she'll be done for; she won't have any way to stop you from fucking her insensate. The only question would be whether you want to shift back to your true form before the end, giving her the horrifying realization of just how fucked she is... or whether you'd prefer to watch her try to cope with the utter disgrace of being so crushingly defeated by a simple, scrawny elf boy.

If you follow that path, the other question is what to do with Belan. You could hide your true nature from him, taking on the priestess alone. Of course, that would leave one more person who you'd have to be careful with your powers around, due to your secret.

Or... you could manipulate the priestess into taking him along as well. If you convinced him to accept a Corruptive Boon to "help turn the tables" you could work together, giving him a little payback against his tormentor. If you tempted him toward your side like Relis, that could make this young mage quite a bit more useful to your mission, as well as opening him up to a whole new way of looking at the world.

That said, you'd have to keep an eye out to ensure that he doesn't garner suspicion on his own. As you've seen, he's not the best liar under interrogation.

Either way, you have to choose now. If you're going after the priestess, you have to act before she leaves.