77: Smoke
The world went white.
Actually, that wasn’t quite right. It went grey- a pale shade like morning fog, but so incredibly thick that Leyla couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She only caught the briefest of glances as it happened; Eris reaching into her pocket and pulling out the ball she had been keeping hidden, then tugging a string.
For a single second, Elmas could see pasty smoke billowing from holes in the ball like breaches in a dam. It was so much that it couldn’t have been possible- especially not with the way that the ball flew out of Eris’s grip from the force of the ejecting smoke and started skittering across the ground. Within that single second of confusion, Elmas locked eyes onto the winch holding the Warden’s net shut and took note of exactly where it was. Then, the wall of smoke engulfed everything.
Leyla was already sprinting. She didn’t care about the pain in her chest resulting from her action, the burning in her eyes and lungs as acrid smoke whistled through her sinuses, or the thunderous screeching of metal as the Warden surged- struggling against the chains that bound it. For a moment, Leyla had to appreciate Eris’s ingenuity. If the thing holding the Warden in place was based on sight, then what better option than to block all sight whatsoever? Though, Eris could have just as easily sabotaged the entire trap so it would fail and release the Warden onto Pravala as soon as it crawled up onto the shore.
Wait, that runestone she secretly put into the back of the Altar- the same altar that had been wheeled right up into that crevice in the Warden where nobody could really see what Eris was doing. There was definitely something to that. What did that gem do? Leyla didn’t have any proper idea, and she wasn’t about to start guessing. After all, she wasn’t a crafter. She was a soldier, and right now, she had a job to do.
Furthermore, if Pravala had been telling the truth to Eris when she talked about her skills, and Eris then relaying that conversation to Bailey and Leyla, then that meant the woman losing control to rape the girl earlier might just have been- no matter how bad it was to even think- a good thing. Once Pravala stopped controlling one of her enslaved, she couldn’t control that enslaved again for five times the length she spent controlling them. Not a tremendous issue when she had over a thousand to pick and choose from, but debilitating when there were a select few right in the center of this plan.
After all, Leyla could only assume that it meant she and Bailey couldn’t be controlled by the witch again for at least another two hours. Truthfully, if Pravala hadn’t lost control like that, then Leyla wouldn’t be able to help in the same way. Pravala could see what Leyla was trying to do, then manually take control and stop her entirely. Not this time.
Leyla actually grunted in pain when she hit the winch- the handle punching into her gut. She could reach her hands out and feel the mechanism, but she still couldn’t see it. Everything in her vision was simply smoke and tears. Her eyes were burning, and coughs were already starting to sputter through her lungs. The scar in her chest felt like it was tearing back open with each cough, but Leyla couldn’t hold the front of her shirt over her mouth to try and breathe a little easier- she needed one and a half hands for this.
“I’ve got- cough- I’ve got the winch!” She shouted.
Leyla braced her foot on the edge of the contraption, grabbed one of the metal bars jammed into the gears, and leveraged it back and forth until it wiggled free. However, she didn’t immediately drop it to the stone at her feet. Instead, she swung it out like a club at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps- and not from the direction where Eris and Bailey were.
Leyla couldn’t see which of the enslaved ordered to watch the Warden was coming towards her, nor if they were even being controlled by Pravala. For all she knew, that person could have been running up to try and help her rip the bars out of the winch instead of trying to attack her. However, that would then mean a person that Pravala could control was right beside her, free to strike her from behind at any moment. Leyla wasn’t going to take that chance.
The bar stuck squarely and with a hefty thwack, followed by a cry of pain. Leyla had aimed low intentionally because she couldn’t see. It was worse to try and aim for the head and potentially miss against a shorter target. Instead, she heard the figure fall to the ground as a possibly-broken knee stopped them altogether.
Leyla didn’t let herself have the time to wonder if they were innocent or not. If they were a controlled puppet trying to stop her, or if they were trying to aid in the ruination of a mad Summoner. It didn’t matter right now. She could worry about the guilt later. She had her mission, and she was going to see it through- no half measures.
The pained cries went silent amidst a squelching crunch as Leyla brought the metal bar down with all her strength.
She wasted no time- turning back around with gritted teeth and starting to use her metal club like a hammer. It clanged against the side of the second bar wedged into the winch, over and over and over again. The handle of the winch was rattling now with the force of the Warden’s struggles, especially when the second piece of metal clattered free. Leyla ignored the fact that she could taste iron in her next coughs and began working on the third bar.
Bailey was starting to get used to the world being a little bit out of focus.
After all, the glasses Eris made for her weren’t perfect- not that she was expecting them to be! Between not remembering her prescription, Eris having no idea how eye prescriptions even worked regardless of whether Bailey remembered at all, and subsequently needing to slap a couple pieces of glasses onto quick wooden frames meant Bailey was glad to even have what she did now. Not that it mattered much, since she couldn’t see dick from balls at this point anyway.
Bailey coughed even through the shirt she held up over her nose, holding her other hand outwards while she walked to hopefully keep her from bashing her forehead against something. The last thing she saw before the smoke completely obscured everything was the redhead also covering her own nose and mouth, then sprinting into one of the clouds. It certainly made sense. If any one of Pravala’s puppets could let the woman know where Eris was, then Eris would need to hide from every single one of them- Bailey included.
“Just keep hiding, Eris!”
Bailey wasn’t entirely sure if her voice could even be heard over the Warden’s struggles. She hoped so, given the fact that she could just barely hear Leyla shout about the winch a moment prior. The blonde kept walking carefully with her destination in mind- the edge of the shore. If Eris really was releasing the Warden to try and fight Pravala, then Bailey wanted to make damned sure she was out of the way. She didn’t want to get blindly squashed in the smoke underneath a giant metal, muddy foot. Sure, she could run to the winch to try and help Leyla, but Bailey trusted the young woman. Leyla could handle that part by herself. Not to mention, Bailey was a little bit lost in the direction, and she wasn’t entirely sure where the winch was anymore. Even if she tried to go help Leyla, chances were Bailey would just end up going in a completely wrong direction. Not helpful, and actively dangerous.
Thankfully, Bailey got confirmation that she didn’t get turned around from her goal when her shoes started to splash in a thin layer of water- then more as she kept walking. It was cold, but Bailey coughed and kept going. She understood very well that she wasn’t useful right now, and she was okay with that.
She had been trying to make sure Eris and Leyla didn’t get too down-in-the-dumps these last few weeks, and worked to keep both motivated and ready to get out. She assisted in helping to set up the scaffolding and trying to manage every other part of getting such a large-scale plan to trap the Warden working, while taking as much of the burden off Eris as possible. Even if there were problems she couldn’t directly aid with, spending each night snuggling Eris into her arms had to have at least helped somewhat. It was all Bailey could do to make sure that Eris knew she wasn’t alone in all of this.
Now, Bailey didn’t have anything to do. All she needed was to stay well out of the way, and serve as one less body that Pravala could use to try and find Eris in this mess.
Bailey tripped and stumbled as her foot caught something, falling down onto the thick iron chain that the Warden climbed. Her knee caught it at the worst possible angle- sending aftershocks tingling down her entire leg that almost made it numb.
“Gah- fuck!” Bailey groaned, rolling over onto her side and grasping her knee in pain. “Fucking shit!”
However, something chimed in the back of her mind. Pravala grabbed her arm in the same way right as the Warden started to climb, and it turned out that the person using the first winch had their arm broken. Pravala felt what her puppets did.
Bailey’s eyes were still watering from the smoke and the coughs were low and controlled. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to deal with this smoke a hundred times at once- if Pravala really was experiencing all of it. It would probably be debilitating. However, it also proved to be overpowering for the woman to simply have pleasure be a focus of her perception, given what happened earlier. Bailey wondered what it would be like- feeling the sensation of sex while choking.
Okay- she didn’t exactly have to wonder too hard since she’d done it multiple times, but not like this. Choking on smoke, lungs burning, eyes watering, throat getting raspy and scratchy while she tried to moan in between coughs and sputters…
Actually, you know what? Maybe Bailey did know exactly what it was like. Now, it was time for her to show Pravala how it’s done.
Bailey opened her mouth wide and took the largest breath she possibly could.
Immediately, every bit of her lungs convulsed, feeling like needles were dragging through her chest. The cough was forced out with the power of a geyser, leaving Bailey on her knees in the shallow water, hacking away. It was everything she could to not force herself to put her shirt back over her nose and mouth- instead keeping her airway unfiltered as she dragged smoke in and out of her lungs.
It burned. It scratched. It felt like barbed wire rolling around in her neck, but Bailey kept at it. Meanwhile, her hands undid the button on her shorts to tug them down to her ankles where they caught on her shoes, then tilted backwards until her butt was slapping down into shockingly cold water. Even that sent icy tingles of pleasure shooting through her when her pussy got a lovely splash, making Bailey give out a little moan followed promptly by another hacking cough.
She may not have been helping to release the Warden onto Pravala like siccing a dog, but she was damned good at being distracting.
Eris held the fabric of her shirt squarely over her face- trying to keep her breathing calm and collected. It was going even better than she anticipated. Originally, Eris was going to run to the winch and try to clear it so the Warden could get out, but stopped as soon as Elmas took off in that direction. For a moment, Eris was worried that Elmas was being controlled to guard it from Eris’s interference. Then, she remembered the restriction Pravala mentioned. If it was truthful, then Elmas really was acting on her own right now. And even if Elmas couldn’t directly attack the woman that impaled her, she could do the exact same thing Eris was- getting something else to do it for her.
Hearing Bailey shout for Eris to stay hidden was the confirmation Eris needed. Even if those two were still under Pravala’s thumb, they were wriggling the best they could and doing whatever possible to undermine the Summoner. Elmas was presumably loosening the winch and Bailey… well Eris wasn’t sure what Bailey was doing but that was okay. Eris had her own job to do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
Eris was seated on the ground, behind the small bunker-like structure next to the beach that was originally designed to store fishing gear. Her back was against the ironwood, and the stone floor on her bare butt was cold to the point that it was both uncomfortable yet also oddly soothing for the soreness that still lingered. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the opening between Eris’s legs- revealed since her pants were now down around her knees.
Even reaching her free hand down to tentatively touch the folds pulled a wince. It was sore- very much so. Still, Eris tried to slide a finger inside gently. A few experimental finger-thrusts and just as many cringes of pain made the unfortunate reality clear and set a weight in Eris’s stomach.
It hurt too much.
Truth be told, she wouldn’t have cared too much about trying to work through pain if the goal was anything else. However, if Eris was going to cum and trigger the special effect on the smoke bomb, she needed pleasure. Right now, trying to play with herself was giving none- nay, less than none. Eris just wanted to take her folded-up-cloth-diaper in her pants, pull them both back up, and not have anything to do with her downstairs.
Eris silently cursed. This wasn’t going to happen- not like this.
With a wince, Eris quietly tugged her pants back up, making sure the cloth padding was back in place, then took a careful moment of contemplation. There was shouting in the smoke, all of it in the ancient language as people were running around blindly. Whether they were actively being controlled or not was a hanging question, but the bigger one was Pravala herself.
Surely, having this many people completely without vision, all coughing and crying from smoke would be a lot for the woman to try and handle at once. Was she completely debilitated? Eris hoped so, but doubted it. Eris couldn’t possibly be that lucky-
“Eris?!”
A voice called through the commotion- one that the redhead recognized, but didn’t belong to either of her companions. Eris furrowed her brow. No, her mind was playing tricks on her.
“Eris, where are you?!”
Eris choked, but not from the smoke.
“Jaxie?!” she shouted.
“Eris!”
The Artificer’s heart was wrenching as she started speed-walking closer. Why was Jaxie here? How was Jaxie here? Eris specifically told everyone in that office not to come in after her. Did they decide not to listen to her? That didn’t make any sense! Why would-
Eris’s thoughts were cut short when she walked face-first into a body; one that towered over her familiarly. Though Eris couldn’t see more than three inches in any direction, Jaxie was close enough that Eris could see the pores on her skin. She could feel the arms that wrapped lovingly around her back as she was pulled into a hug. She could even smell her. It was the scent of Jaxie’s old shirts that Eris would wear as pajamas. It was the smell of Jaxie’s hair when Eris would braid it for her. It was the odor of their bedsheets back home in Kelshiir, where Eris would curl up to sleep in Jaxie’s arms.
“I missed you so much,” Jaxie mumbled into Eris’s hair, burying her face as close as she could.
“H-how are you here?” Eris looked up through teary eyes, just barely able to hold herself together when she could see Jaxie’s face looking back down.
“It’s a long story,” Jaxie said.
“Why are you naked?”
That hadn’t escaped Eris’s perception either. Jaxie, as far as Eris could tell, was completely nude. In this hug, Eris was looking up at Jaxie’s face through the taller girl’s cleavage. Jaxie looked exasperated.
“Even longer story, and we don’t have time right now. I just need- cough- I just need to hold you for a minute.”
“No,” Eris shook her head. “You need to cum.”
Jaxie’s face twisted from relief to confusion. “Excuse me?” Eris ignored the gross feeling in her chest, then reached one hand downwards to the cleft between Jaxie’s legs. The moment her fingers made contact with the pussy folds there, she could feel the Berserker tense.
“I know you hate it, and I’m sorry, but we don’t have any other options right now. I can’t do it because it hurts too much, so you need to cum as fast as you can.”
One of Jaxie’s hands went down and firmly grabbed Eris’s wrist, pulling it just slightly away. “Ell, what are you-”
“Just do it, dammit!” Eris yelled. “I need you to! Please!”
Jaxie looked ashamed. More than that, she almost looked like she held the weight of everything on her shoulders and was being crushed by that burden. Her face fully twisted down into sorrow. “I can’t.”
“Jaxie, please!”
Jaxie’s other hand went up to hold the side of Eris’s face, rubbing her thumb over it lovingly. “I’m sorry, Eris. I love you, but I’m sorry.”
“Jax-”
Eris’s plea was cut off by strong fingers lowering just slightly from her cheek to her neck, clamping shut and silencing the girl who suddenly couldn’t breathe. Jaxie’s grip was unyielding, and Eris found herself rising to her tiptoes that eventually left the floor altogether as Jaxie lifted her an inch off the ground by the throat. There was a massive sound of screeching metal and collapsing scaffolding in the distance, presumably as the Warden was finally freed, but that was merely an afterthought right now.
Eris’s hands scrabbled, desperately grabbing onto Jaxie’s forearm in shock and confusion. Meanwhile, Jaxie looked onwards with an expression of sorrow so deep that it would have broken Eris’s heart all on it’s own. Tears were even rolling down Jaxie’s cheeks as her other hand rose up to join the grip around Eris’s neck and tightening further.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
Eris’s hands tried desperately to break Jaxie’s grip, but the girl was simply too strong. Glancing her eyes a bit downwards, Eris could see both of Jaxie’s wrists, but neither had any kind of brand or mark signifying she was one of Pravala’s enslaved, especially not one being actively controlled. Even if she had been and was being controlled, there was no way that Pravala could have matched Jaxie’s mannerisms so perfectly. The tone of her voice, the way she hugged Eris- the only person that could do it was Jaxie.
So then why-
Jaxie’s skin lost its colour.
The pinks and beiges, the brown of her hair and even the blue in her eyes. All of it turned a pale grey as if Jaxie were made of rock. Then, red began to trickle out of the corners of her eyes, her mouth, her ears, her nostrils- it was even bleeding from her hairline that frayed and shriveled. That was all Eris could see before she was suddenly falling- collapsing to the ground as the strong fingers clasped around her neck disintegrated.
“J-Jaxie?!” Eris coughed and choked in alarm, looking up at her girlfriend. Jaxie’s hands were completely gone- followed quickly by her outstretched arms that crumbled into clumpy dust. Right before the decay reached her shoulders, one of Jaxie’s legs gave out. When the girl hit the ground, she completely collapsed in on herself- turning into a pile of grey sand and blood.
Eris was too stunned to speak. Jaxie just died right in front of her, while she was trying to choke the life from Eris. What? Why would… how? There was no-
Eris’s eyes narrowed.
When Elmas killed the dragon Pravala summoned during their first encounter, it turned into dust and blood. The same thing happened to that beast Pravala tried throwing at the Warden in her memories, along with the other one Pravala used to dig a hole through the Warden’s shell.
This hadn’t been Jaxie at all.
It had been a gods-damned summon. A pet that Pravala made, definitely to lure Eris out and try to kill her. Cold fury burned through Eris’s chest. She didn’t know that Pravala could replicate people- she thought it was just creatures. Though, in a sense, people were creatures too. But how was it acting so incredibly alike to the real Jaxie? It even called her ‘Ell’, for Seven’s sake! Ugh- that wasn’t important. The question was, why did it suddenly die?
Eris was cut off by a figure sprinting through the fog and promptly tripping over her- also slamming their knee into her face by proxy. She let out a squeal of pain as her lip was definitely split once again, rolling over to come face to face with a man she had only seen in passing. Most recently- one of the many people that Pravala had watching the bound Warden.
”Cirmol!” he sputtered quickly. Through context, Eris could only assume it was an apology. ”Tolem! Tarmen-”
The man was suddenly cut off with his own gurgled scream, and Eris could do nothing more than look on in horror as his throat and chest ripped open by themselves, the skin practically melting inwards as a wound materialized so deep that Eris could briefly see the man’s heart stop beating inside of his chest before he collapsed onto her legs.
Eris screamed, the realization coming instantly. Elmas must have succeeded in releasing the winch holding the Warden. Now, it was free and fighting Pravala, and Pravala was transferring her wounds.
Eris shoved the man she indirectly murdered off her now-bloody lap, scrambling directly backwards with shock from the body until it vanished into the smoke. Her lungs burned with the smoke, but Eris still stood, lifted her shirt above her mouth once more to try and filter her breathing, then turned to sprint in a direction she could only assume was ‘away’.
Of course, that was when the fucking smoke decided to turn pink.
Tingles shot all over Eris’s body, from her fingertips to her toes, and warmth surged everywhere in between. It rippled from her chest, convulsed her abdomen, and left her legs feeling like jelly as Eris promptly collapsed to the ground- just barely able to brace her fall with one hand that sent nails of pain through her wrist.
Oddly enough, the smoke actually smelled a little bit like flowers as Eris abruptly climaxed. Thankfully, that part didn’t actually hurt her abused lower regions all that much, meaning Eris could push herself to her knees and look around at the smokescreen that was now a vibrant shade of pink.
The smokescreen that was also wisping away and becoming thin enough that Eris could actually see again.
Mental note: the smoke wears off altogether when that secondary effect happens.
Like sunshine burning away morning mist, the smoke dissipated faster than Eris could properly comprehend. However, it also let Eris see exactly what was going on.
All of the scaffolding holding together the trap had toppled and was completely destroyed, and the iron net lay empty and partially torn apart. Dozens of people were all slowly rising to their knees after an unexpected orgasm, and turning around, Eris could see the exact same thing way off in the square of the kingdom. Over a thousand people all disoriented and confused, slowly struggling to their feet. Apparently, the radius of her smoke bomb had been far enough to reach everyone, not just the people around the Warden.
Looking back, Eris could also see Bailey about a hundred feet away, kneeling in the water on the shore with her legs spread wide and several fingers buried to where Eris couldn’t see them anymore. Though the distance meant Eris couldn’t hear Bailey’s mumble, she knew the blonde well enough to be able to guess at what her moving lips were saying.
“What the fuck?”
Meanwhile, Eris saw Elmas about fifty feet away from Bailey, huddling against the wall of the cavern to stay out of the way. The soldier had one hand braced on the wall and the other on her knee, doubled over and breathing heavily in the aftershocks of her own climax. As for Pravala?
She was right in the middle of the floor, actually beside the remains of the original winch that lowered the chain for the Warden to climb. To Eris’s surprise, it was shockingly close to where she herself ended up. Eris was barely thirty feet from the Summoner, which meant she could see her clearly.
Pravala was a mess. Her elegant blue dress was torn so much it was practically an afterthought, leaving the woman almost completely naked save for the blood smeared over her skin from wounds that used to be there. However, she was also missing one of her legs- the flesh ending just above the knee yet still mended together as if it had happened decades ago. If Eris had to take a guess, her ability to transfer wounds couldn’t give her back lost limbs.
Furthermore, Pravala was lying on the ground, unmoving. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and blood was even starting to leak from the corners as well as her nostrils. Eris blinked. Making the woman experience a thousand orgasms at the same time didn’t just distract her.
It looks like it melted her damned brain- or at least enough that it knocked her out cold.
Of course, that was the last thing Eris saw before a thundering crash echoed across the stone as one of the Warden’s club-like legs slammed flat onto the stone. Directly on top of Pravala.
Even thirty feet away, Eris’s face was painted with the splatter of red.