Side Story: What if? (Perverted Masochist) (Patreon)

"What in the abyss is that?" exclaimed Si'janrii, peering at the almost naked humanoid walking towards the checkpoint. It looked kinda like a proper person, but the ears and tail were missing. Not to mention the clothing, if it could be called that. It seemed better suited to drawing attention to the exposed features than actually providing any coverage, and did nothing whatsoever to provide any modesty. Not that the creature seemed to care, judging from its seductive swagger. The lack of any sort of scarring gave away that this was something pretending to be one of them, rather than someone who had suffered disfiguring injuries, causing every guard present to sharpen their attention and keep a tight grip on their weapons.

"It's not any sort of chilopoda, and frankly, that's all I care about," opined Si'chieen. "If I never see another chilopoda in my life, it'll be too soon."

The incoming monster came to a halt just short of the kill line, then turned towards the checkpoint and smiled sweetly. "Hi," it called. "I'm unarmed and not dangerous. May I please come through?"

"Assuming we paid any heed to such an insane request, why do you wish to cross?" shouted out So'layn.

The monster pulled a Face. Despite the lack of ears to show proper emotion, it still managed to convey its opinion that the answer should be bloody obvious. "Have you seen all the centipedes around here?" it asked. "Never mind one wall, I'd like a few dozen between me and them."

"What the heck is a centipede?"

The monster blinked. "Ah, right. I forgot you have different names for things... The creepy-crawly bugs with a brown, segmented exoskeleton and far too many legs."

"You mean chilopoda? And how did you escape them, exactly?"

"I didn't," the monster answered with a shrug. "But they were perfectly reasonable hosts, and they let me go after a while. Not to mention their big, thick..." the monster turned away, blushing slightly, and shuffling its legs as if it were suddenly uncomfortable.

The guards backed away from the viewing windows and clustered together.

"This stinks as bad as the bathroom after the commander's been at the curry," opined one.

"Yeah, it's obviously a trap of some sort. We should kill it."

"Here's another option," suggested Si'chieen. "Since it seems to be pretending to be cooperative, we could restrain it and lead it to Ja'yakril? Let him get a pet collar on it, and maybe have him give us some compensation for the gift?"

"I'm not sure I want to let it through the checkpoint," responded So'layn. "If it's so desperate to get away from the chilopoda that it's prepared to cooperate unconditionally, I suppose I can let you risk it, but make sure it's thoroughly restrained."

The gate creaked open, and Si'chieen stepped out, weapon at the ready.

"We've decided to let you through, but we can't just let you walk around unaccompanied. We'll take you to someone who will decide what to do with you, and until then, we'll have to insist that you remain secured."

The monster perked up. "That sounds reasonable," it said, doing a poor job of hiding its sudden excitement.

Si'chieen frowned. Excited at being allowed through despite having to be restrained? As if they needed any more warning signs that it was plotting something. The only question was what. Whether he would have been more or less suspicious had he known it was actually being tied up that it was excited about will have to remain a mystery.

"Hand," he requested, and the monster obediently stuck one out. He poked it with a knife, not missing the way the monster gave a slight shudder at the sensation, but seeing only normal blood. Not a shifter, then. The monster didn't exactly have anywhere to hide things, but they searched it anyway, as expected finding nothing.

Out of ideas for what it may be planning, they tightly tied its hands behind its back and to its waist, the monster being completely cooperative the whole while. In fact, far too cooperative.

"What the heck sort of tie is this?" it complained. "Look, I can still twist my wrist like this, and if I'd managed to get hold of a knife, I could cut myself right out."

"We're hardly going to give you a knife!" responded Si'janrii.

"Not intentionally, no, but you should be thinking about defence in depth! You're not going to give me a knife, but you should plan as if you were, so if I managed to get hold of one later, it wouldn't matter. And why aren't you tying my ankles together?"

"What, you expect us to carry you?"

"No, not tightly together. Tie them with a short piece of rope between, and it limits my stride. Stops me from running without getting in the way of walking. Have you never done this before?"

"Will you please just Shut! Up!" shouted Si'janrii, his short supply of patience long since exhausted.

The monster gave another small shudder.

Eventually, a very thoroughly restrained monster was led down the tunnel by the pair of guards, and out into the open cavern, where they made their way towards Ja'yakril's dwelling.

"It just let you tie it up like that?" he asked, staring at the strange creature.

"Not only that, but it kept giving advice," muttered Si'chieen.

"How interesting," Ja'yakril continued. "Not to mention that it could approach the town barrier this easily, despite not wearing a collar. Either it's so docile that we don't need to be concerned, or else it's so desperate for something that it was prepared to put its life on the line for it. I wonder which it is?"

"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive," pointed out the heavily restrained monster.

"Yes, quite," he agreed. "So, from what I understand, you seek sanctuary in our territory? And have not requested any terms?"

"Yup. I just wanted to be on the other side of the nice, well defended wall. If you want to use me as slave labour or whatever, go for it."

Ja'yakril shook his head with a wry smile. "I find your attitude... implausible, but I suppose there's a simple way to get at the truth. If you would please hold still for a moment."

He took a hinged, metal collar out of a bag, at which the monster's eyes almost literally sparkled.

"So, they really are slave collars of some sort? I assumed as much when I saw them on all the monsters around here, but when you mentioned the barrier, I thought they were just some sort of identification."

"Pet collar, not a slave collar. We're an enlightened race, and we do not tolerate slavery. But from that reaction, it appears you want to wear one?"

"Of course! I do what I can with my forge temporary slave bond spell, but as the name suggests, it's only temporary. It runs out far too quickly. I can hardly serve someone properly if I need to keep recasting the spell every hour."

"Would you please stop encouraging it and attach the collar already," pleaded Si'janrii.

Ja'yakril, kicking himself for letting the monster drag him along at its own pace, nodded and attached the collar, trying not to comment on the increasing abnormality of the situation as the monster helpfully raised its chin to give him clear access. Alas, Si'janrii's interjection had put out of his mind the important question of who she'd been trying to forge a slave bond with.

"Oh, this is weird," said the monster. "It works in a completely different way than my spell. Quick, tell me to do something!"

"Please, just shut up," said Ja'yakril, even his vast reserves of patience finally expiring.

The monster opened and shut its mouth a few times, failing to form any words, before its eyes once again started to glisten.

"What in the abyss have you brought me?!" complained Ja'yakril. "What sort of monster, faced with trading every last scrap of its freedom simply for a safe place to stay, looks so happy about it?"

"That's what we were hoping you could tell us."

"Well, your hope is in vain. I haven't a clue what this thing is. Although, I suppose we could just ask. What sort of monster are you?"

"Actually, I'm not a monster," it answered, causing some amount of shock to the three spectators. "I'm a human female, by the name of Katie. We're a civilised race that normally lives on the surface, but I got trapped down here when I made a stupid wish."

"And why didn't you mention that before?"

"It wasn't important. Besides, you wouldn't have believed me."

It... Or rather, potentially, she, attempted to shrug, but with her movements restricted by the pet collar, was completely unable to, a fact that once again caused her eyes to light up.

"If it can resist the pet collar, that might go some way towards explaining why it was happy to wear it," pointed out Si'chieen.

"I didn't like this before, and now I'm liking it even less," agreed Si'janrii. "We should kill it before it hatches whatever plot it's carrying out."

"Nonsense. If we killed things just for being different, my collection would only be a third of its size. But I see no evidence of it... of her... even trying to resist the collar, which means we need to take her claim seriously. Should we bring her to the temple?"

"You want to take it inside the walls? Fuck that."

"Well, one of you bring a priestess here then."

Si'chieen and Si'janrii shared a look. "That's... unlikely to work," admitted Si'chieen. "The clergy don't like us very much. Can't you go?"

"No. I'm the controller of that collar, so until this is solved, I need to stick next to her. Can you resist the collar?" he asked the katie. Or was it just Katie? She'd called it her name.

"Yes," she answered simply.

"A little more detail would be helpful..."

"I have a strong resistance to mind magic, but I currently have it disabled. If you order me not to enable it, I have no further means to resist."

"Then yes, I order you not to enable your resistance to mind magic," said Ja'yakril, again missing the obvious follow up question of 'why the heck would you have such an important resistance disabled?!'

"I'm still not going to agree to bringing it inside the settlement," said Si'chieen. "I'll go and ask one of the wall guards to pass along a message. The temple doesn't need to know it came from us."

And so, half an hour later, Do'myrith turned up to inspect the girl, declaring her claim of humanity to be truth. And then things got worse as her continued questioning uncovered information about the blessing.

"We need to take her to the temple," she insisted.

Si'janrii and Si'chieen were fuming, not believing this to be at all a good idea, but unlike Ja'yakril, Do'myrith far outranked them. In an attempt to minimise the damage, Si'janrii ran to the barracks to report the incident up his chain of command, while Si'chieen joined the other three on their journey to the temple, where the arch-priestess confirmed her story.

"Get that collar off her this instant!" she exclaimed.

"Aww, don't yell at him," said Katie. "Mas... ter... is nice," she added, stuttering a little and looking uncertain.

"How in the abyss am I supposed to believe something like that was granted the Goddess' blessing?" asked Si'chieen, incredulously.

"She's just a bit... confused," said Do'myrith, in an attempt to justify her behaviour. "I'm sure if you were plucked from your home and dumped alone on the surface, you'd behave a bit erratically too."

The excuse may have had far more weight had Katie not picked that moment to lean against the Goddess' statue, making obscene moaning noises, one hand creeping between her legs where a few fingers disappeared with a sticky squelch.

"Yes... Confused..." stated Si'chieen, in a completely deadpan voice.

"But it feels so good!" exclaimed Katie. "Here, let me show you."

She activated her class skill, share the pleasure, allowing everyone in the room to feel exactly what she felt. Most notably, the sensations of a hundred baby chilopoda burrowing their way through her flesh. Every vulpes in the room fell to the floor, screaming, as the plot of the chilopoda sagacitas came to full fruition.

When Sru'taklin burst into the temple minutes later, he was too late to save the town, finding nothing but a room of corpses and a thoroughly desecrated shrine. With the arch-priestess dead, the town's barriers down and a portion of the defensive force now required to defend against the constant stream of blighted husks rising up from below, it would only be a matter of time before the underground civilization of the vulpes sagax fell.

"Ah, so that was why I felt such reluctance to call Ja'yakril 'master'," said Katie to herself upon respawning, as her sealed memories returned. With a happy smile on her face, and not sparing a thought for the people she'd just killed, she skipped back towards her real master, more than willing to undertake whatever mission he had for her next in exchange for the immense pleasure that would come with it.