…climb down to the balcony and sneak in that way.

Balcony it is. The sooner you’re off this ****-trap, the better; Captain Washkin certainly isn’t up here after all.

You make your way back down the roof, passing over the bowed section above the open and lit window with a little more care, and continuing along down to the balcony and its faceted stonework. It’s patterned like an arch of petrified ivy; greyer and more manageable than the real thing, though evidently less hardy; the stonework looks poor in its quality, clearly being carved on location and worn thin by wind and rain. It provides little more than the impression of ivy, with bumps enough to hold foot and finger perhaps, on the way down...most of the way at least. The arch of the tall doorway bares the most artistic stonework, while its sides are styled more in the impression of smooth traditional columns. It would take a far more skilled set of hands to climb back up, as you surmised.

Feeling a little nervous, you clamber over the edge of the wall and set your feet on the few decent looking ‘leaves’ you saw earlier, all while clinging on to the wall itself for dear life. You take a breath; so far so good. You offer up a little prayer, hoping the masons were paid better than the roof workers, and your hug of the wall stretches out, becoming a distant grip of one hand that sees your other reach down to its first grip below. You let go of the wall. The stone ivy holds.

Once you start, it’s easy to go on, clambering down and down until your hands grip the last of the ivy at the top of the right-hand column and your feet tread air a short distance above the balcony platform. You drop near silently, letting the softened soles of your black pumps tap the faintest tune against the stone tiles. To think, all those years since you climbed up and down the tree in your parent’s sparse garden and now you need those skills twice in one night. You can almost hear your mother scolding you.

The large inward opening double doors have been wedged wide, and the thin looking curtains at their side have been tied back to coax some cool night air into the building. They stand as sentries to the long dark room beyond, cut by narrow shafts of grimy moonlight coming in through the tall thin windows on one side. They stripe the room at regular intervals, highlighting wardrobes and cabinets, blankets and mats: nests of comfort for multiple people spaced out along the lengthy room. It looks like some servants quarters, with its artificially partitioned sections providing minimal privacy for those who sleep here. You might even think it a barracks if not for the lack of weapons. Nearby, in the right hand corner of the room and by the nearest narrow window, there’s a washtub and a foldable screen leaning against the wall. Both look old and dirty, yet they are marked with the effort of a recent attempt to clean them. The tub even bares the slight sheen of recent use and the air from it carries the whiff of cheap soap.

“Mmmmm.”

You freeze at the noise, hunched low just past the threshold of the balcony. You had been drawn in slowly by the rooms supposed lack of occupants, yet the distant hum you heard almost throws you over the balcony in panic. You search the dark places of the room, franticly looking about; the hum wasn’t close, but it was not muffled by any wall or door.

“Oh yeesss.” The voice is female, and comes from the rooms left side. Your panic first makes you think it a declaration by some triumphant pirate, or even your target herself, gloating at how you’ve fallen into her trap.

“Oh fuck yeesss.”

The voices second declaration, purring with quiet action, paints a very different probability. You quickly dart to the doors side and claim your own dark corner. A moment passes, and another. You place a hand over your breast, charting the decline of your raging frantic heartbeat from terrified to merely very alarmed. No voice calls out to you or chases you into shadow. It takes a moment before you’re calm enough to hear in the quite over the thumping in your chest. You strain your ears, working to pickup even the slightest noise that will tell you what’s happening.

A thin breeze rustles the trees outside.

Wood creaks at some distant movement happening within the building.

Far off, muffled voices occasionally rumble through walls.

And close enough, twin breaths break heavily against each other, panting in regular beats like the small waves lapping along the distant shore.

“Oh. You’re so fuckin handsome. Mh. M-my big dicked stud.”

Ah.

The woman’s voice is only a whisper, but far from devoid of passion. Even as her words turn back to heavy rhythmic breathes, you sense a wetness to them, occasionally crackling with suppressed moans and half formed words. The man, as you hear, is no better. His breath comes in similar heavy loads, though they don’t form words and quickly prove more inclined to hums of his own.

Why did it have to be this? You feel your face heat with embarrassment as you listen in like some degenerate voyeur. You look back to the balcony. No way back up. Perhaps you could go down? Drop the distance to the ground below and try again from another option? Thinking of the drainpipe you used last time and its near fatal fall, you don’t think it would support you enough to get back to the roof again. Perhaps the cellar window you saw? You discount it, save for an emergency: the cellar could be just as bad as here for all you know, and without access to the roof, leaving here means no coming back. The drop itself is something to consider. Perhaps if you hung from the balcony, as far down as you can go, you could drop without breaking or spraining something. It’s not a move that fills you with confident, even if you could be sure of doing it silently.

It feels unfair. How were you to know that there would be two people, doing...that, in here? You try not to listen to the panting sounds of pleasure, as though your life doesn’t literally depend on doing so. Perhaps you could...sneak by? The room is dark enough, so long as you crawl below the windows and their spilling moonlight. The wall that holds the windows is plastered white, which doesn’t help, but they’re evidently...distracted. So long as you’re careful, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. You gulp, quietly, wishing your thoughts did not sound as though you were trying to convince yourself. It may be best to drop after all.

‘Hold on.’ You pause and think for a moment. ‘Could this woman be Captain Washkin herself?’ The new potential gives you pause. She _is _considered a woman of very loose morals, and not just for her piracy. Ex-whores, you suppose, can afford to be quite liberal with their favours...

You adjust your facemask, making sure it covers over the bridge of your nose and hides as much of your neck as possible, while letting your hands slip into your sleeves as you look over yourself, searching for any other exposed pale flesh. Nothing you can do about your eyes and ears; hopefully the moonlight does not catch them. You must see this woman, who softly moans in the dark. If she is your target then perhaps you can use this opportunity to get the drop on her. If not...well then, one slattern found and dismissed, and hopefully only one more to go.

You move over to the other corner, near the washtub and folding screen, hunching down as you slowly make your way to the windows. While thin, they are quite tall, and you have to get onto your hands and knees to crawl underneath them and out of their silhouette light. Why a room with such a grand balcony would need such thin windows, you can’t be sure, though when you saw something like this in the past (from the outside of course) someone told you it was ‘castle style’; something used to evoke the image of powerful forts and the authority they bring. It just seemed stupid noble frippery at the time; an attempt to add current fashions to architectures that would outlive them.

You go slowly, on hands and knees, praying that none of the floorboards creak and alert the busy couple. You see the man first, you think; pale feet stretching out towards the middle of the room, attached to hairy muscled legs. They lead behind a long cabinet, with raided draws exchanged for gaping holes. A little more careful crawling shows them, and their ‘activity’, in earnest.

The woman is upon him, her back to you, straddling his hips with her knees on either side. Her buttocks, small and boyish, rock back and forth, grinding the man as they shrink with tension before smoothing themselves back to rounded cheeks as she slides back. Truly, like the lapping of waves, she rocks at him, almost still in the body, yet with hips that move on their own. As she moves up him, to the furthest reaches of their union, you see, from your low angle, how they are joined in penetration, and how each stroking length of her hot wet motion brings forth the hushed gasps they share. Masculine hands grip the woman’s hips, not holding her to task, nor pushing her away; they simply hold her, embracing her rump as best they can. It’s an act that catch you eye by way of the man’s light skin being a visible contrast, even in the dark, against the woman’s more tanned form. The sunlight would show her as olive, or a pale shade of brown, and the curly black bush of hair, upon her head also speaks to a heritage mixed of north and south. You suppress a sigh. Captain Wendy ‘Go’ Washkin, is blond.

They look distracted enough to sneak past, so with little alternative you press on. From your side of the room, you can see a distant doorway in the far off corner, lit by the thin line of orange bleeding through its bottom.

“Ah!” The man’s sudden cry makes you jump, but its quickly answered by a hail of shushes let out by the stilled woman.

“Do you want to get caught?” Her words are a careless whisper, bubbling with giggles of enjoyment. “I think you’re enjoying this position too much.” You watch as she clenches a few times, her buttocks and his humming moan the only indication of the hidden muscles gripping him. The glow of the moon reflects off the floor to her slick back, almost mirroring the ghostly shine not a hands reach away. Her hands stroke his chest. “Get up here.”

You watch as she guides him up by the shoulder, adjusting her legs as he rises so they stretch out behind him before wrapping about his waist and denying him the chance to lie back down. They kiss, mouths hidden behind a froth of black hair, yet adding the wet sound of it all to the rooms quiet. The heavy breathing and moaning go on uninterrupted, rising again as she begins to gently hump him once more. It looks odd, at least to you; her sitting in his lap and gyrating her hips like that. Is that supposed to be enjoyable? His hands feel up and down her back, caressing her skin before one of them moves to her front. He certainly seems to be enjoying himself.

You shake your head before continuing, careful of the man’s better view of you, and begin mentally lamenting. Why couldn’t the room have been empty? A lone person, drunk and with his back to you, or perhaps asleep would be better. May as well wish for your targets itinerary and a list of her worst fears while you’re at it. By the same hypothetical, it could be much worse; there could be a dozen pirates in here, all with their eyes and intentions upon you. You’re just bitter at having to crawl at a snail’s pace, shadowed (hypothetically) by the ‘loving couple’. Just a bit further...

“What the fffuuu-?” his voice snaps from easy lethargic pleasure to groggy alertness, “What the fuck?”

The words leave you frozen, unable to even turn your head to see his expression. Instead, you remain looking at the distant door, once so close and now feeling miles away, hoping that he will see you as just a smudge: a shadow cast on the wall and far less interesting than the reckless pleasures they engage in. If only you weren’t mid crawl, with arms and knees so obvious in their position. Everything about you seems obvious, now, under observation. Perhaps the moons light reflects off your sweat as well?

The sound of them stills, winding down until only their breath remains. For all your embarrassment wished them to stop, you practically beg them to continue as you feel the burning points of undistracted eyes wander over the vague shape of your form.

“What is it?” The words of the woman are directed at her lover, before she soon shifts in her seat. The direction of her panting sounds lets you know she’s turned to you, along with the further feel of eyes prickling across your skin. They watch you, and watch you, breath slowing as neither can work out what you are. Seconds march by, feeling painfully slow. Your ears strain to hear their movement as their deep breathing becomes less and less loud. If they were wearing clothes, like you are, then they would at least rustle as they moved. All you can see is the damn distant door, frozen and burned into your staring eyes. One of them could be moving closer to you right now and you might not know. Not until you feel a curious hand on your neck or a dagger in the back.

Time stretches.

Too long.

Despite the stillness of your body, your mind makes an executive decision. You’ve been rumbled. You’re not going to move. Not until they do. But when they do, you’re going to move faster and harder than them. You’re going to go right for... The options flash in your mind. The balcony? The door? The knife at your leg? You could kill them...maybe? Not silently though; even taking them by surprise, one of them would almost certainly cry for help or scream in pain, and that’s if you won. ‘Two against one more than triples your odds, or theirs.’ Who was it who said that to you? Whoever it was, you don’t want to test their wisdom. The door leading further inside the building is less attractive than before, considering you’ll have screaming people chasing you out of it. You’d probably be surrounded in a heartbeat that way. The balcony then? It may be the best way to escape, but it means the whole attempt is up in smoke. While there’s the cellar and even the nearby sub roof and its ivy, you’d still be chased by guards and their shouting, and even if you get away, you’d leave alertness behind. But you can’t give up now, can you?

“H-hello?”

You run.

Turning from your crouched position, you sprint past them, back toward the balcony you came from, fleeing with all the element of surprise you can take with you. A glance shows them both fairly shocked, the man looking comically stupefied while the woman scrabbles off him with all the grace and elegance of someone covered in ants and rolling in a nettle bush. She’s fast though; unpinned and clearly the more disciplined of the two. Nevertheless, by the time she’s on her feet, you’re looking over the balcony. Gods, that’s a long way down! Longer than you remember. You look to the pot of ivy leading up to the sub roof, just peeking out beyond the edge of the wall and far beyond jumping distance. Too far, obviously. Hard way it is. You throw one leg over the stone rail, then the other, leaning back as you attempt to climb down before dropping.

The sight of the naked, olive skinned woman, strobes as she sprints through the rooms moonlight strips before turning corpse like under the colourless light of the balcony. No time to hang and drop from the bottom. Your feet already dangle, and your arms outstretch. So do hers. You let go…

…and fall up.

“Gotcha!”

Her hands grip your arms, hauling you up with a freakish strength that surpasses her short stature. Perhaps it’s the shock of your appearance that gives her strength, or the thrill of the chase or the ride interrupted, that give her the sudden power needed for her work forged arms -dainty ropes tied with brutal knots- to not simply drag you up, but almost whip you, like some fish caught on a line. The stone balcony rail fly’s past in your vision, and the cold stone of the balcony proper slaps the air from your fresh caught self.

Her hands don’t let go, and soon the naked woman is grappling with you, attempting to pin you with all her power and haste, crushing your wrists in her hands. Hard breathing of a different kind now races through her nostrils, and panic clearly stains her scrunched up features. You’d probably make the same face if you found yourself fighting an assassin in the dark while naked. You might be making that face right now! If only you could reach your blade!

She straddles you in a more violent reflection of her past intemperance, grinding you as she did her lover, though riding now against your thrashing squirms and **** attempts to twist free of her grasp. Your arms are pulled up, pinned above your head to the hard tiles. She has to move up your body to do it, leaning in close to you as she does. Her breasts are very distracting. Typically, you are not one to look at the ‘assets’ of another woman, but considering the circumstance, you don’t have a choice. A hard nipple pokes you in the eye, her mounds small pointed slopes made more so by their hang. She falls forward, pressing them against your face. You’d bite her if you could, but the black facemask you wear lets that attack pass by. You lift up your knees instead, trying to insert them between you and her and prise her off enough to arm yourself. Her legs dance for purchase, whipping against your own and the stone tiles, but you get your knee under her and kick at her thighs and stomach, charming grunts from her as she struggles to maintain your arms and her balance. Breath blasts through her flared nostrils and the facemask you wear cannot keep her sweat smell from your own nose. She must be tired. You can win this!

The flaming thought is quenched as soon as formed by the ‘pat’ ‘pat’ ‘pat’ of bare feet running your way. The man, now roused in a different way and coming to his lover’s aid, appears briefly in the light of the night and the part of your vision not filled with angry pointed bosom, before collapsing his naked form upon your legs and trying to wrap his arms around them. Not good! It’s all you can think, now wrestling with two naked pirates! You need your stiletto; you need to finish this before they can pin you further! You throw all your weight into your arms, not against the pressure pinning them, but hard to the side, twisting your torso and dragging the woman off you. With the man still hugging your knees, you cannot fully climb atop her, but you still roll with the momentum and it’s enough to bare down on her, even as she grips your wrists in both hands. With no other weapon available, you bring your head down against hers, bringing twin blows from both your forehead and the hard tiles behind her. Again, your forehead strikes, catching her in the eye this time and dazing her. She moves your arms, placing them between you and her, but you **** them aside just as you land the third strike. It’s enough: her right hand lets go from your left wrist to claw at your face and shield her own from your blows. Left is a poor hand for your needs -the stiletto being attached to your right thigh- but you’ll take what you can get! You **** the woman down with your right arm, trying to distract her with an elbow to her face as you reach down and across with your left. It’s too far down! They’re stretching you out and you can’t move your left hand fully into your right pocket; your fingers just scrape the handle. With a sudden jerk, you try to bring your legs up, dragging the man just enough to bend your body and make up the difference. The knife comes free. The cost is the woman’s arm throwing you back and snaking around your neck.

She hugs you close, turned and strangling you from behind in a vicious headlock. The man, younger and taller than the woman and yourself, is revealed to you, and as he sees the glint of the blade, his freckle ringed eyes widening at the sight. Neither of them are positioned well enough for a vital strike, or more accurately, you’re in no position to administer it; the man at your knees is too low and the woman now lies behind and below you. Attacking the arm at your neck with a thrusting weapon is too risky. Her side? Whether landed between ribs or belly, either would work. You move the dagger, aiming behind and hoping you don’t miss as you stab at the woman beneath you.

Your legs free. The dagger stops. The man, throwing everything against the blade, now holds back your one arm with two of his own, one of them bearing a nasty scratch for the effort. Your right arm, demoted from elbowing her face to tugging at the arm around your throat, now joins the **** fight for the knife. You knee him, adding all the effort of your legs to the fight and gasping hard as you struggle to breathe, but he keeps the knife away. Olive legs wrap around your own, holding you back. The knife finally twists bitterly from your fingers.

As the metal clatters across the balcony, you move your hands up to your neck and the arm restraining it, trying to pull it off enough to steal some fresh gulps of air. They both breathe hard, as though mocking, but they don’t cry out. A ragged voice gasps in your ear,

“You think you can wrestle me bitch?”

A few clearly tired breaths saw through her throat, paying for each word.

“You know how many brothers I got? Seve-“ Her words are cut off as you try elbowing her side, striking her several times before the man pins your arms again. Sandwiched between two naked bodies, both panting and sweating, gagged for air and powerless, the reality of capture and its potential consequences becomes stark in your mind.

Things begin to blacken. You thrash your body, twisting and jerking to free yourself from their iron grip before your air runs out.

It doesn’t work.

“Can’t believe Benji caught her. I mean, on his own like; no help. Boys got more balls than I thought.”

Your feet catch and bounce as they scrape along the floor, briefly pulling and turning the edge of some kind of rug.

“Mmm, yeah. ‘Can’t believe’ it either.”

A door opens. Your throat is sore, scratching with each breath.

“What’d’ya mean?”

The sounds or people running about, of shouted distant orders, seems muffled and watery; far further afield than the voices coming from either side of you. There is a pause that you hear but cannot see. Everything sounds confused.

“What?”

The first man responds, his question unanswered. Your feet begin to drop, hitting step after step as you’re dragged down some dark incline.

“Boys been fuckin Max on the sly. She probably did it.”

Your arms are tied together, behind your back, while hands drag you by the elbows, pulling them apart against the rough rope.

“Bollocks. Really? If that’s as is, why ain’t she here then?”

You try to suppress your coughs, swallowing as much as you can down your dry throat and getting your bearings.

“Because she’s-“

You fail, on both counts. Coughing shakes your whole body, and once it starts it seems impossible to stop. You cough and cough and cough until you almost throw up, hearing it echo deafeningly off stone walls, swallowing as much and as often as you can between the rasping, stomach turning expulsions.

The conversation shared by your guard’s quiets, though whether from your waking state or the fresh light and sound found at the bottom of the stone staircase, you cannot say. You look around, blinking free the tears in your eyes and taking in an earthen musky smell that you taste in your gasping mouth with each sucking gulp of air, you squint against the lantern light. You wish you hadn’t.

Two men walk on either side of you, dragging you down a dark cellar hall, windowless and open arched in grey stone. One is old and dishevelled, with limp locks of grey hair under his bandana, jarring with the raggedy garb of a servants uniform, while the other is a giant who could likely carry you one handed. The shape you saw of the front door guard comes to mind; there can’t be that many people so large in on a single island. They walk as mostly dim shapes, even as you squint at them; the cellar hall is liberally shadowed, its dark corners seeming endless, but there is a lone radiance of light at its far end, looking claustrophobically alone. There, by the glow of lanterns and candles, stand three men, waiting. One is old and grey, yet stocky and with little apparent weakness from his years. Another has limp greasy hair and a twisted face scarred to the stuff of nightmares. The final is one whose bulk near rivals that of your escort, proving you wrong about the brutes that make up the average pirate crew, though he is shorter in height and more prominently muscle bound, arms ballooning like a circus strongman. All three are unclothed. What’s more, behind them stand several wooden stocks, two of which are full, displaying a man and a woman, both gagged, bent at the waist, and as naked as their captors. They’re bound in the wooden frames at the neck and wrists, and while you can’t see their limp and hanging faces, it’s clear that they’ve suffered some mistreatment. They have the air of those whose defeat has been hammered home most cruelly, now unresisting in their captivity.

More alarming for you is the empty stock next to them, which you find yourself being quickly dragged towards.

“Who’s this then?”

You don’t know which of them asked and you don’t care. You pick up your feet, attempting to back pedal away from your fate.

“Nnnnnn.” A wordless protest comes as you resist, pulling at the men, slowing the pace of the older man but not even noticed by the giant. The stock looms closer, its old wooden grain sturdy and weathered. The previous pair are clearer now as well, with the man whimpering and shaking, while the woman stairs at the floor angrily. Of the two of them, she is the one with a lone stain of use running down her inner thigh. Which one of the men took her? All of them? The wordless noise grows in your throat, along with the attempts to escape.

A calm part of you knows that they’ll have to untie your arms to put you in the stocks; that you should save your resistance for that moment, but like the coughing before, you just can’t stop yourself. You resist harder and harder as you get nearer, striking out at them with your feet, trying to catch anything nearby, turning feral as you feel the phantom wood on your skin, imagining how helpless you’ll be before them, picturing the men as they-

“Relax, bitch! Gods! Open that cell.”

The old man escorting you and clearly struggling with the task directs one of the men to the unseen cell nearest the stocks. The man with the greasy hair moves to open it.

It’s no more than a set of bars roughly set between the ceiling and the floor, with an iron door at its front, facing the room. It’s unlocked and swings wide with ease, and they throw you into it full body, letting you land on the thin veneer of straw that’s probably supposed to serve as a bed. Hopefully it’s not be placed to soak up blood. The door clangs shut and the lock snaps tight, and the naked and clearly confused men finally have their question answered by the big man who brought you here as he work the lock closed.

“She’s a prisoner. Caught upstairs. Captain knows.”

Further questions from the others are cut off as several new faces appear by the dark archway and stairs that you came in by. One of them, a man with a shaggy mop of hair, asks, “Who’s that? What’s going on?”

The naked strongman, the height of ignorance mere seconds ago, responds with confidence.

“Prisoner. Caught upstairs. Captain knows.”

Your immovable escort finishes with the lock and continues his monotone were the other man left off.

“Got orders. We’re alerting the crew, then searching the island and the house. If there’s one, there could be more. Get some weapons.”

This sparks a flurry of movement. Clearly, the large man is not one to question. The three naked men move to their clothes, and as they hop into them leg by leg, you take in the sight of the newcomers. Your older guard is gone, slipped past the curious faces at the stairs at first chance, but of the three who took his place, one of them is a woman, though built strong enough for a man. Dressed in what looks like a short white frock that ends scandalously mid-thigh, you notice a pair of short red shorts peeking out underneath it. She turns on her burly boots after giving the naked strongman a withering look, clearly displeased by his recent behaviour. Another is the wild-haired man who spoke first and looks to be the male twin of the strong looking woman, though more for her manly appearance than any feminine qualities on his part. Neither look interesting, but both wear red and white, the colours of Captain Washkin. It’s the third man, a bald man, who’s dressed different.

“What did _my _captain say?” He walks in further, towards you and your cage, and the mountain that threw you in responds simply.

“Who cares.”

It’s a response that clearly displeases him, a flash of irritation twisting his features and ripping the exposed skin of his head, but he quickly overcomes it, adopting a somewhat smarmy expression.

“Then I’ll stay.” He makes a kissing face at you, clearly relishing the open disgust you display as a response. He slips out of his small, token yellow jacket, letting it fall to the floor and leaving only his red sash and ballooning trousers. He can’t be... but one look in his eyes tells you what he wants. You immediately think how to counter him, with arms bound as they are, but should you? Perhaps you could encourage him? He could be a way to make your escape, though not one you relish the thought of in the least.

“She’s not for fucking.”

Relief, hope, and a deep scepticism rises within you.

The bald man pulls free his sash, letting it and his trousers drop to a crumpled heap. He stands bare before you, shameless, and clearly ready in his intent.

“I came for pussy and I’m getting pussy.” You bring your legs together, hard, as he looks for the key, your resistance clearly not a factor in he’s consideration, nor the words of the far larger man behind him. Only when a hand big enough to swallow his neck gently rests upon it, weighing down his shoulders with its simple presence, does he stop in his tracks. The giant turns him and points at the woman in the stocks.

“Pussy.” Her gagged mouth twists into an even more hateful expression while his damning finger returns to point to you. “Fuck this one and you die. Captains gonna speak with her when she’s done.” He hurries the others in their movements before turning to the previously naked old man, now holding his newfound trousers in a crumpled heap in his hands. “Ref, you watch this clown.”

The man shrugs and drops them dramatically.

The bald man takes a deep breath, gripping himself readily as the others move out to grudgingly return to work. He watches you, maskless, defenceless, sprawled on a bed of straw, yet blessedly denied to him, and after a long moments pause, he moves away. You close your eyes as relief cascades through your heart, and after listening to his now bare feet slap their way away from you, that relief quickly sours to crushing guilt as he moans quietly, the **** you were saved from now given with gusto to another.

Why was that? Why are you not on their depraved menu? You can only assume the captain wants to question you first, with the threat of her crews abuses hanging over any conversation you have. No sense doing her worst before she can threaten to do her worst, after all.

You feel around, tugging at the secure rope binding your wrists; it’s too sturdy to break through, and is composed of some knot unknown to you. Pressing the side of your thigh against the floor lets you know that the dagger once strapped to it is gone, not that they would have returned it to it sheath. More importantly, it lets you know that the vial of poison it once held is gone as well.

This won’t be easy.

Putting aside the thoughts of being so thoroughly searched while ****, you take stock. In the moments that you’ve returned to consciousness, you haven’t really had time to take it in, but you’re alive, you’re trapped, you’re safe from **** (for now), and you’re going to have a chat with the woman you came here to kill. The blend of relief and dread leaves you too confused to feel either, though it looks like you’ll have time to sift through such a mix of emotions. The last of the departing cellar goers make their exit, leaving you with one bald ****, an old man acting as your guardian, and two victims who are in no position to help.

“Welp. I’m not sitting around doing nothing. How about we go again?”

You look away as the man in the stocks whimpers through his gag. Better make that two rapists guarding you. You look about the room, its dark corners and crates, the bars of the various open cells along your same wall, the chairs and dust and stocks and victims. The old man stands behind the rear of the younger, grunting as he jolts the sweat soaked dark mop of hair sticking out of the wooden frame. The mechanics of what’s happening to the man become clear very quickly, leaving a sick taste in your mouth. The woman is treated as you’d expect, though her abuser watches you hungrily as he does it.

The first challenge of this, before you even meet your captor, is that for now, there is nothing else in the room to see.