From The Whorelock's Clutches

Author's Note:

This story is based on the world of Whorelock's and No Haven by Bedlam Games (https://bedlamgames.tumblr.com/) but has no official affiliation. If you like this story, go check them out! Their games are fun! If you *are* Bedlam Games and have a problem with this work for whatever reason, please let me know and I hope we could come to an amicable conclusion.

Some paths are designed to be played with variables, some aren't. The ones that aren't should be okay to never click start game.

IF THE PATH REQUIRES IT, PLEASE REMEMBER TO CLICK START GAME, OTHERWISE THINGS WON'T WORK RIGHT!!

Now, with that out of the way, please enjoy!

All things considered, you had always believed you had lead somewhat of a charmed life. You weren't necessarily born into the most fortuitous of circumstances, but things had always just seemed to work out: most of your difficulties ultimately melting away on their own. At least, until the chain of events that lead to your enslavement occurred.

That certainly wasn't lucky.

For the past two weeks your home has been a slaver camp hidden away in the arse end of nowhere, deep within the Great Plains. It's a ramshackle affair. A few dirty, raw-hide tents sloppily scattered about a crud-rimmed firepit like sores bubbling about an infected wound. The one exception to this was the camp leader herself, Katerina von Lamae, a human woman of seemingly of both Noble blood and birth. Her tent was isolated from the others, crisp and clean white linin starched such that the corners and edges were near as sharp as her accent. From what you had managed to piece together from furtive conversations between her subordinates, she had to flee Aversol in disgrace once her magic came to light. Well, not the magic per se, but more so its application.

She was a Biomancer, a mage skilled in the shaping and twisting of flesh. And a powerful one. Her test subjects could attest to that. Supposedly, she had been masquerading as a charity for those scarred by or some unfortunate happenstance of birth. Taking the into her house and imprisoning them within its cavernous cellars so she could test the limits of mortality in increasingly cruel and depraved ways. You had seen her grizzled Ogre leutenant blanch at the thought of the wreckage of viscera left in her wake. Eventually the authorties of Aversol caught on and issued a warrent for her arrest. Though either through luck, careful planning or that particular flavour of nepotistic tollerance afforded to the nobility, she was able to escape the city and skulk her way inland. So, on the run and her supplies dwindling, she decided on a rather significant career commitment and usurped a band of slavers; transforming their former leader into a screaming puddle of gelatinised nerve-endings. Now a fully-fledged Whorelock, she had spent the past few months directing her new band to bring her subjects that she would transform into perfect sex toys to sell either to high-end clients and brothels back in her home city or to the monsterous horrors who gathered at the Lord's Gate auction house.

And this is where your story begins. Captured in a routine raid and brought to this cesspit of a camp, the past fortnight has consisted mostly of various training exercises from the slavers who stay in camp whilst the others explore. But today is different. Today the wind brought with it twinkling, electric-blue motes of magical potential. An Arcane Wind blows. Seeking to take advantage of the magic enhancing storm, you were dragged two miles outside of the camp by Katerina. Although the terrain of the great plains is mostly flat, it is fairly regularly interspersed by small collections of little hills within which one can hide a camp from conveniant view. This was how the slavers remained hidden, and a similar dimple in the landscape hid the Whorelock's ritual site from curious eyes. You suspect that when the sun shines, this little retreat would be quite beautiful. A small, grassy well encompassed by hills and ridges and dotted by the bright hews of patches of wildflowers. Lilacs, violets, tulips and daffodils, just to name the ones you can, with a scent that screams of a bountiful springtime to come. But the sun is not shining. The great, still pond in the middle of the clearing reflects only the roiling cloud cover of the storm. An angry, boiling sheet that sparks with lighting of blues, greens and reds. Bolts sriking with impossible angles and timings amongst the heavens, defying divine order with the magic of mortal potential.

Bound and gagged, Katerina pushes you down to your knees and commands that you be still. Her, you know you should not disobay. And so you wait patiently and quietly amidst the light, magic-mote snow as the imperious Whorelock prepares to irreperably change your body at the most fundamental level. Seconds stretch to minutes which stretch to hours as her meditative rituals progress and the seed of anxiety deep in your core begins to bloom to electric panic throughout your self. It's only the fear of what could be that keeps you from trying to make a break for it. You know you couldn't escape in this bondage, and you don't know how she'd punish you for wasting a day of preperation.

Finally, after hours of excruciating worry, with the thunder of your heartbeat deafening the thunder of the sky, she is ready. With a single fluid, practiced motion Katerina uncrosses her legs and stands tall, commanding you do the same. It's not easy with your hands and ankles tied, but she will not deign to help you and you'd rather not irritate the woman who will soon be shaping your flesh. Now, with but a single pace seperating the two of you and your back to the pond, she begins her incantation. You don't understand the arcane words, nor the meaning of the symbols of the glowing glyph that begins to ring her splayed hand. But as the surrounding whisps of energy begin to swirl and coalesce around her, visibly infusing the web of magical energy that eminates from the spellcaster you do begin to recognise her expression. And it chills you to the bone far more than you ever could have imagined.

Panic.

The motes continue to flood the glyph. The fushcia light of the spell-in-making becoming brighter and more saturated until all distinction is lost to a white hot fire that burns your eyes to look at. Sparks shoot out as the glyph begins to visibly crumble and all Katerina can do is release a final cry of anguish. The sound is cut short as for a brief moment the spell overflows and halts time itself. In the unnatural pause you can finally see everything clearly. Katerina's brow furrowed with exertion as she tries to contain the runaway spell. The flowers in the glade frozen in the flight away from the maelstrom surrounding the two of you. Bolts of lighting still and lingering in the silent sky. And then it is silent no more as a great wave of uncontrolled potential explodes within the collapsing spell. A blinding front of white breaks against you, and then there is nothing but black.

The first thing you become aware of is the taste of dirt. And then an ache in your face. Your slowly reawakening brain takes far too long to link those two sensations. As the feeling in your extremities returns you muster up the energy to raise your head from the little crater it had made in the soft loam. Wiping your eyes clean, your vision begins to clear and you can take in the aftermath of the explosion. The clearing is still, the wall-like hills sheltering you from the of the winds and so you can see you the grass has been blown over, radially pointing out from the centre of the spell. A centre that is now across the pond from your perspective. You reallise that you must have been blown back over twenty feet by the blast and take a second to marvel at how you're still alive. A ways away you can see the still form of Katerina, though you have no way of telling if she still breathes. On your hands and knees you drag yourself the last few inches to the ponds edge and submerge your head briefly to clean and refresh yourself. Contact with the water causes some instinct to kick in and tell you just how parched you're feeling. You rapidly gulp down a couple of handfulls of the brackish water and hope to the gods you aren't going to contract dysantry for the liberty. Though that makes you wonder how long you were out cold for. A few hours at least, thought the cloud-cover is too thick to provide any insight. Lost in contemplation, you're about to attempt to stand, but something catches your eye in the stilling waters of the pond. Your reflection.