Evilward found some weird new "friends:" The Cult of Strong Bonds

As you moved through the hallways with your new ghost pals by way of telekinesis, you couldn't help but admire the spooky decor of the haunted castle. This place had knight's armor standing eerily around every corner, broken, half-curtained glass waiting to shine through glints of atmospheric lighting, and tons of portraits of scary, possibly vampiric fellows. Part of you wondered if you would spruce the place up once you owned it and top it off with necessities like a roof and non-dusty surfaces, or if you'd **** your cultists to live with it for your inherent love of all things spooky.

Your Trickster companion snapped you out of it literally, clicking her fingers in front of your face to get your attention. Something seemed a little off about a ghost clicking its fingers together and making a percussive noise, but hey, what did you know about fingers? "You're day-dreaming about this castle, right? I don't blame you... This'd be the perfect place for your Cult of the Pumpkin Lord to set up shop. But I wasn't kidding about those adventurers squatting here, they're eeeeverywhere. You probably know this, but my ghost friend and I can't do squat to help you in battle. He's got some dark and terror spells, but I'm even more useless than that; I can't do a thing but teleport away. So if any fighting starts, I'm out of there ASAP... I only get one hit before I go poof."

You'd given a lot of thought to your own woes as a Pumpkin-Head, doomed to be hit many, many times and then die an inevitable ****, but the Trickster's lot was actually even worse. If you were restricted to just one single HP, even an irritable bop from Pike or Evilward would kill you. Hell, Winnifred might be able to kill a Trickster just by sucking it off... although this particular Trickster was female, you didn't think Winnifred would distinguish. If you wanted to keep this Trickster as an ally, you were going to have to be very protective and handle the heavy lifting...

Figuratively, of course. The two ghosts were still being tasked with literally lifting you from place to place. Doing so had slowed your progress significantly... With each passing minute, you worried what sort of condition you were going to find Evilward in. Every now and then, a sliver of guilt crept up, as you remembered everything you'd **** Evilward to give up and the indignities you'd **** her to endure. Hell, you'd stolen her credibility just by defending your crypt against her as a low-level Pumpkin-Head; you'd been awfully rough with her, between smashing her head against the rocks and spraying her with poison gas... although, she was a threatening and cocky man at the time. Perhaps when you found her again, you'd treat her a bit more nicely to make up for your past bullying...

When you finally came across your cultist "ally," you found yourself regretting feeling any sort of sympathy for the Justicier.

The former Sheriff grinned from ear to ear, fixing her gleaming red eyes on you and spreading her arms to either side, causing her robe to rise up just enough for you to see her wide, bare hips on either side. She didn't even seem to be worried about the wardrobe malfunction; her gesture was clearly intended to draw your attention to the gathering of adventurers behind her. "Heh heh... Say your prayers, Pumpkin Lord Ickibod! You got cocky and forgot my innate bond with my fellow man! United in justice, we are ready to stand against you and claim this castle for ourselves!" she announced, pressing one thumb against the swell of her chest.

Damn, she worked fast!

You couldn't help but notice that the Trickster had already disappeared, the moment she sensed danger. With trepidation, you slowly rotated your head on its swivel to look around the room at the bondsmen that Evilward was referring to. There were almost too many to count, but they numbered somewhere between 18 and 20, mostly burly men but with a few thinner ones and even women mixed in. Their manner of dress was almost as perverted as Evilward's, mostly consisting of black bikini briefs and heavy, iron bracers and harnesses. Each of them wore black hoods over their heads with small cut-outs for their eyes and carried all variety of weapons. At first you though they must be barbarians, given that they seemed to favor one and two handed axes, but you noticed a lot of them carrying whips and some even carrying candle-tipped staves. What an odd assortment of adventurers... "We're the Cult of Strong Bonds," one of the men spoke up, stepping forward past Evilward with his arms crossed and a whip at his hip. He was enormous, with a thick beard trailing down from under his hood to rest at his hairy chest.

The more you looked at them, the more you thought they were actually a little gross... You couldn't figure out why their black bikinis should look gross and your pumpkin ones should look sexy to you. But hey, they really had their cult's uniform theming down! Hopefully, you'd get enough Pumpkin Bikinis at some point that you could have Bathory and your currently unnamed Trickster wear one. The Justicier could keep that naked cloak forever, for all you cared. Maybe you'd take that too and just make her wear a pumpkin over her face! These sorts of vengeful and admittedly horny thoughts swirled around inside of the produce you called a head. You gave a quick glance around to scope out the levels and names...

Level 11- Dagg "The Whip"
Human, Barbarian, Explicit

Level 7- "Leather-Man" Mortimer
Elf, Thief, Explicit

Level 9- Jezlee "The Ass-Plugger"
Dwarf, Engineer, Explicit

Damn! You didn't think you had the stomach to keep reading the names past those three. You may not understand everything about humans, but you knew something really, really weird was going on with this so-called "Cult of Strong Bonds." You did your best triangle-eyed imitation of raising an eyebrow and asked Evilward if she'd really thrown in with these guys for the sake of vengeance.

Evilward's smile seemed to twitch. "You underestimate the depths of my rage, pumpkin; I would do anything to destroy you after the indignity you visited upon me. I'd sell my very soul or give up my body, whichever it takes." The angry woman marched towards you as she spoke, pointing one gloved finger in an accusatory way. When she had reached all the way up to you, she pushed the tip of that finger against your head, forcing you to lean backwards against your stake. "The final curse I have for you is so dire and such an affront to common decency, I cannot speak it in front of my sworn brethren, as well-versed in the darker sides of humanity as they may be. I will spit it into your very face..."

The Justicier leaned in towards you until her breasts were pushing against the straw of your chest, drawing her face far closer to yours than you think even made sense for the type of dramatic standoff she was trying to simulate. Once she got close enough... her face fell into a nervous frown. "Help!"

You squinted your triangular eyes, not understanding the sudden shift in tone.

"Help! I was looking for someone to backstab you with and came across one of these guys. I gave him my story, asked about his party, and followed him in here. Before I knew it, I'd joined into their freaky bondage cult! It's even worse than your depraved Pumpkin Cult! They're talking about making me straddle a triangle horse, running a chain between the lips of my vagina, and sticking something up my ass already! Apparently, I have to get branded; they stick a hot branding iron on your ass and hold it there until you scream! They said with ecstasy, but bloody hell, I have to think I won't enjoy it! It's a nightmare; it's going to change the whole course of my role-play character again. You have to help me!" The woman's face was unusually frightened as she looked over your shoulder, towards some of the less noteworthy members of the Cult of Strong Bonds, who were busily cleaning their leather and putting sharpened tips onto some kind of strange pinching tool that was a little smaller than a set of tongs.

Frowning, you told Evilward that you didn't see how she could beg you, of all people, to help in this situation. She'd just confessed to betraying you!

"Yeah, well, I'm unbetraying you! Help!"

You spun your head around to look at the... counting them... yep, solid twenty adventurers that made up the Cult of Strong Bonds. Part of you felt like Evilward deserved the situation she was in... and another part of you thought it might be pretty nice to watch her go through this kinky as hell initiation she'd just told you about. On the other hand, you didn't have many cultists; you couldn't afford to lose one, even if that one was a dirty back-stabber. You looked around for an ally to help guide you and saw only the voiceless, faceless Specter from earlier, floating dumbly around your stake as though he didn't realize the danger you guys were in. That Trickster was nowhere to be seen... ordinarily, you wouldn't begrudge her for playing it safe, but having one less ally in this situation managed to make it even worse.

Finally, the big guy called Dagg seemed to get fed up with your secret chat and stepped forward, roughly pulling Evilward aside. As her cloak flapped about her, you saw that they'd already fit her with one of those leather harnesses... this one formed a sort of suspender set over her breasts, connected to a circular hook at her belly, then terminated in a single strap that flossed her pussy and ass. It looked profoundly uncomfortable and explained why she'd looked nude from the side. Perhaps it was your duty to save her from that painful device and return her to a more dignified uniform: bare-ass nudity, under a flapping cloak. "Enough, you damned pumpkin. The Cult of Strong Bonds knows a thing or two already. We know you have manipulation tricks you use to woo adventurers to your side. Evilward told us all about it," he grumbled, stepping close to you and scowling. It wasn't nearly as pleasant as being talked down to by your busty Justicier.

You looked over his shoulder at Evilward, placing the blame on her for telling these guys that you'd try to manipulate them under the guise of reasoning with them. She gave a wince and an apologetic clap of her hands, discretely. The two of you were surrounded by creepy, hooded cultists, the kind of gathering that fit the word "cult" far better than your own group of adventurers did, but also the kind that you had no aspirations to emulate with your own cult. Smiling your most harmless jack-o-lantern smile, you began negotiations: "Gentlemen, please! I love a little 'bondage' as much as anybody! If we could just talk this out-!"

"No."

"I was actually planning to show you my own proficiency at rope-play, to show that we ourselves share more in common than you might-"

"Uh uh."

"Just let me-"

"Not happening."

Damn! You wished that this Dagg guy had the same curse that Pike did. There was no negotiating with him. For once, your charm and wit weren't going to be enough to maneuver this situation. What about Evilward's bombs? Isn't this exactly the situation where one ought to throw a bomb and run for it?! You wanted to ask her, but a big wall of black-leathered meat was standing between the two of you now.

The one called Jezlee, a swarthy dwarf with dirty brown hair in an upward ponytail and dressed in a leather bikini that bit tightly into her plump, pale body, grinned up from her anvil. "These guys drop skill-books, right? Let's just waste him! Maybe I can upgrade from Basic Leatherworking!" The others nodded along with her idea, seemingly especially excited about her enthusiasm for leatherworking.

"Good idea as always, Jezlee. Great commitment to the cult. Everybody else, remember: sharing is caring. Never keep an idea to yourself if you think it could be a benefit to everybody," Dagg agreed, giving the dwarf an approving nod. Several of the others clapped for her while she beamed, smug with praise.

Huh. Maybe these guys really did have strong bonds. They seemed to have their stuff together as far as being a cohesive cult went. Nevertheless, you needed to escape them at the bare minimum, if not also run them out of the castle you were trying to claim. With some dismay, you noticed the sun had barely moved in the sky since you started this adventure... doubtless, it would be a good, long while before your allies arrived to bail you out. At this point, you needed at least a moment's rescue, so that you could collect your thoughts and come up with a good plan.

Also... there was one more even worse thought, tugging on the back of your mind...

What if all of the groups of adventurers that had set up inside the Haunted Castle were just as **** as these guys? Taking over this so-called "uninhabited land" was starting to feel like a pretty impossible proposition.

You and Evilward both looked at each other pleadingly, her clenching her teeth with worry and you grinding your jagged mouth back and forth. When both of you realized that you were depending on the other one to come up with an idea, you both put on blaming, angry expressions. Evilward flipped the bird and you flipped the straw hand, a poor proximation of the bird. This was not the most productive use of your time.