Liberty and Death, Chapter 47
There was perhaps no better way to follow up a speech like that than to make good on some of its promises. After Trish was [Integrated], and Lux ate her requisite core, they had two remaining, minus one reserve. Frankly, Cora really wanted to [Integrate] Dip and Jonesy, their two last dedicated fighters, but the morale boost of giving those [Integrations] to the girls.
And give she did, letting the women put it to a vote. She was touched that they let Kyra and Jocasta weigh in on that vote, despite both of them already having powerful classes in their own right.
Even better, one of the two girls that came forward from the huddle was Tania, who Cora very much wanted to [Integrate] asap. Given the girl’s supernatural stealth and shocking, if well founded, fury, she was curious as hell as to what she’d develop into when the system got a hold of her.
The other was one Cora didn’t know personally yet, but recognized regardless. She was the girl that ran the fastest, hit the hardest, stepped forward first, and made every conceivable effort to keep up with the literal superhumans during Iain’s morning training sessions.
“Hey!” Cora greeted as she approached the Grove, and extended a friendly hand. The girl took it and shook, but not without a bit of hesitation. “Don’t know your name yet, but happy you’re sticking around. You’ve definitely earned it during those workouts.”
She winked, as Jocasta took the girl’s hand and led her to the Heartfruit tree.
“Don’t worry ‘bout those doubts either! This shit’s gonna clear em up!”
Judging by the nervous look the girl shot over her shoulder, Cora had hurt more than she’d helped there, but, damn it, she was feeling excitable.
The ceremony went exactly the same for her as it had for everyone else, and as she came to, Cora scanned her for her name.
[Fern Janey] [Level 2]
“How’s it feel, Fern?” Cora asked, as the woman walked back over, Tania taking her place.
“Amazing!” Fern gasped, then tilted her head, eyes scanning Cora. “Huh. Not like I had any real doubts, no chance Linnea would have done the things you’ve done, but… nice to meet you, Cora.”
Her smile was genuine now, wide and open, and it warmed Cora’s heart. They turned to watch Tania’s [Integration] together, only to find… a real anticlimax.
Oh there was the whole lightshow, Jocasta did her entire spiel, but Tania, through all of it, just knelt there, gently swaying, wearing her customary placidly amused expression. Even when her eyes and mouth began to seep shimmering mist.
When it was done, she simply got up, and skipped over to Cora.
[Tania] [Level 2]
[Str:1(8)]
[Dex:1(12)]
[End:1(12)]
[Vit:1(12)
[Agi:1(14)
[Int:4(4)]
[Will:28(1)]
[Cha:10(1)]
[Skills: {Service(sexual) III}, {Handgun proficiency}]
[Titles: [Forgotten], [Shattered]]
[Stat Points:0]
[Skill Points:0]
“Tania, what the hel–”
“I took {Handgun Proficiency}!” Tania annouced proudly, before Cora could ask her how the fuck she had titles, “Do you think Iain will let me play with guns again now?”
“What? I mean, n-, maybe, Tania, but how the fuck do you– annnnnd she’s gone,” Cora said, as the girl scurried off to find Iain the second Cora admitted to the possibility.
She sighed, and pulled Tania up on Lux’s display, zeroing in on those titles.
[Forgotten: Life has taught you not to be seen. Eyes tend to slide right off of you.]
[Shattered: Your trials have been too much for any one mind to bear. So you found another within you.]
Fuck me, what did this world do to you, girl?
Her mind wanted to take that thought, gnaw on it like a tiger with a meat filled pumpkin. But that wouldn’t make her feel better. Especially not when she felt a sense of burgeoning kinship looking at [Shattered].
If Cadey Carmicheal slapping me in the face yesterday doesn’t represent the beginnings of DID, no idea what does.
She did have a guess as to what those (bracketed) stats meant though. When Tania went wild on Iain in the ring… well, it was tough to reconcile that with the absent waif that Cora kept waking up to hanging onto her like a limpet. A living repository for hate and bad memories though? That tracked.
“That was… weird, even for what I just went through,” Fern said, making the understatement of the century.
“Stick around me, and it’ll keep getting weirder,” Cora promised. “Come with me back to the office? I got some questions for you, if you’re a kind of leader figure for the girls.”
“‘Spose I am,” Fern agreed, eyes taking on a bit of hollowness Cora hated to see. “Bit of a mark of pride to be the one that spent the most time in the Dungeon.”
Cora winced; “Fuuuuck… I still haven’t even looked for that. Can’t imagine I’m gonna like what I find. Underground, I bet?”
Fern nodded silently, following Cora back into the house. After a few more steps, she spoke.
“Could take you there, if you like. Certainly know the way,” Cora stopped, turning to face her. Fern looked grim, but resolute. The same face she’d worn during training sessions.
“Depends. That going to be useful for you? I can always have Iain do it, later, I doubt he spent much time there. Was kinda hoping it would be an outbuilding I could let you guys burn down or something, but that’s not gonna fly if it’d take down Lux,” Cora explained.
‘Thank you!’ Lux interjected. ‘Fireplaces are scary enough, and that’s where fire is supposed to be!’
Both Cora and Fern broke into much needed laughter at that. Fern’s eyes twinkled when she laughed, faintly, like the light in them existed in pure defiance.
“Man, if you’d told me Luxholme would have a personality sweeter than pie three days ago, well, I’d have said ‘yes m’amm’ and curtseyed while figuring out how I was going to piss in your drink later, but she is a delight,” Fern said, wiping mirth from her eyes. “Nah, it's alright. Linnaeus wasn’t actually much good at torture. I mean, fuck, yeah, it hurt every time, but the idiot let me get used to it. Follow me.”
Cora tried not to think about what Fern had been forced to go through to ‘get used to it’, as she followed her down through the slave quarters to the dungeon. It didn’t pass her notice that it was one long stone hallway from here to where everyone else was sleeping. Those acoustics were diabolical.
She kind of expected the door to be off its hinges, the whole place already vandalized with whatever the women had on hand. But no. A heavy iron door loomed at the bottom of the tunnel. Unlocked, but untouched.
Cora, back home, had never been a true believer in the supernatural, but she’d never been able to deny that some places just felt wrong. She’d been staying with Nic Cage once, at the LaLaurie mansion, and she’d challenge anyone to do that and come away saying that a place can’t have a memory.
Luxholme’s dungeon was like that. Cora pushed open the door, easily, it was well counterweighted. But taking an actual step inside felt nearly as difficult as if the door hadn’t budged at all.
She scowled, and saw Cadey’s face, her face, smirking at her in amused derision in the back of her mind.
She stepped in.
The dungeon was terrible in its austerity.
A single set of shackles on the wall, disturbingly clean, but betrayed by the dark brown cake of blood flowing down from where they rested against the wall.
In the center of the room was what Cora could really only conceptualize as a Bowflex of depravity. Everything she’d ever seen on Kink.com, this thing had an attachment for it. Weirdly, it kind of made her want to laugh, it felt like torture by way of Costco.
The dark brown stains on its hooks and straps stifled that though. It might be ridiculous in its cruelty, but that cruelty was writ large and very real.
“Linnaeus was real big on physical pain,” Fern said behind her, voice the very aspect of scorn. “You were much more into the emotional aspects. Even now, looking at [Cora Casanova] floating over your head, I still wonder if this is just going to be your cruelest prank yet.”
“It isn’t,” Cora said, turning to face her. She was eager to have an excuse to turn away from the inside of the chamber, in addition to her mind screaming that Fern was going to slam the door behind her, and swallow the key.
“Oh I believe you well enough,” Fern said. “C’mon, this isn’t helping either of us.”
She led them both back up the stairs, but Cora’s mind couldn’t fully leave that place.
“What do you all want to do with that?” Cora asked.
“Whatcha’ mean?”
“I’m gonna give it to you all. We’ll have more people coming in, but that space will be yours, the original 8 girls. As we progress, Lux should be able to help you change that place, or you can just brick it the fuck up, but you’re the ones it hurt, you’re the ones who get to decide what its going to be,” Cora explained. She hoped that it would… help? Somehow? She also knew it was a little bit of a cowardly way to offload one more problem.
“That true, Lux? Gonna help us turn a torture basement into a spa?” Fern said to the air, taking it in stride. The wind in the house did its warm gusting hug, flowing up around each of them.
‘Oh I would love to Fern! Just as soon as I can, I will make that disgusting part of me beautiful for you!’ Lux gushed, and Fern chuckled.
“Yeah, I bet you will babygirl, I bet you will,” she grinned, catching Cora’s eye. “Thanks, Cora, I’ll let the girls know. Might be we just turn it into a stress toilet, but I think they’ll like Lux’s idea of turning it into something beautiful.”
‘And I would appreciate toilet activities be confined to toilets!!!’
The pair entered the office, but instead of cordoning herself off behind the desk, Cora guided Fern to one of the chairs in front of the fire, taking the other herself.
Not a moment later, Tania sat in her lap, a tall glass of brandy she obviously wasn’t enjoying clutched in her hands.
“Gah! FUCK Tania! Knowing that actually is magic doesn’t make it less spooky!” Cora gasped, as Tania giggled, then grimaced as she took another sip of brandy. Cora scowled at Fern, who tried and failed to hold back laughter.
“Whoo- oh, ohhh fuck, hah,” she said as she calmed down came back to herself. Her eyes twinkled when they met Cora’s, both with mischief and wet from tears of mirth. “You know a bunch of us thought Tania was a ghost for awhile? Thought maybe the Lights had finally figured out how to make sex slaves out of the dead. This is good though, means she likes you, probably. Happened to me often enough.”
Cora tried to take the girl’s drink, but the snarl of insensate rage that crossed Tania’s face when she did made her decide that she could keep the damn brandy. Instead, she just started to stroke Tania’s soft, mousy brown hair, deciding that whatever comfort Tania could take was well deserved.
“So, you had questions for me, huh?” Fern asked, eyes a little harder, but not letting herself fall into serious business mode. Good. Cora didn’t want her guarded.
“I do. Basically, I need to know what the vibe is around here. I feel like I’ve won over the leaders and the powerful in the house, but you girls are who I’m doing this for, inasmuch as I’m not just doing it for myself. They’ll be more of you too, as we take in people that need help. I need to know what kind of buy-in I’m getting from the folks that aren’t constantly in contact with me.”
Fern took a moment to think about it, sinking back into her chair and rubbing at her chin like an academic.
“This time yesterday, I would’ve said you were doing just okay. Plenty of buy-in on the changes and self improvement stuff, far less on yourself,” Fern said, then gave Cora that wide, genuine smile she was already coming to adore. “Buuuuut that was a hell of a speech, and powering up me and Tania here goes a long way towards showing you aren’t just a new kind of master. You kinda nailed it today, Cora.”
The praiseslut puppygirl in her Cora had never quite been able to shake after her teens preened inside at that.
“Yeah? Not overwrought?” She asked, feigning modestly.
“Oh totally overwrought,” Fern laughed, wilting that part of Cora she didn’t care for anyway. “‘But most of all, I hope’,” Fern quoted, making Cora go beet red. Still, Fern’s smile wasn’t mocking.
“S’okay to be overwrought with stuff like that though. Maybe necessary. Gods know you gotta be grand if you’re serious about taking on the nobility,” Fern observed.
“Honestly? That wasn’t, like, the goal,” Cora sighed, “but I don’t think we’re gonna have much choice. We’ll have to deal with Eldridge, who I’d bet the little money I have left stole from me somehow, and that’ll piss someone else off, murking him will set off some other blood feud, and sooner or later every person in Tyrinno that’s ever considered themselves the owner of another person is gonna want Luxholme burned to the ground.”
Cora scowled at a very smug looking Fern.
“Why are you smirking?”
“I don’t know you at all, Cora, and I like that you’re trying to frame things realistically. But I think it makes you just as happy as it makes me that that path is going to be paved with so many slaver corpses.”
Cora couldn’t stop her mouth from twitching up at the edges.
“Fern, I am so fucking pumped.”