Bronze Gold, Black Iron, Silver Steel

Back to the present day.

Elmerin opened his eyes, then closed them again with a groan at the glare of the light crystals. His eyes felt like they were full of sand, his throat felt raw, his wrists ached -he felt like shit all over. Although at least the gag had been removed.

"You awake?" He reopened his eyes as Drysia appeared in his field of view, a cup in her hand. "Drink carefully. It's almost the last of the water unless your mana's restored enough."

After he drank, Drysia carefully examined his eyes. "I don't see any green that shouldn't be there. How are you feeling?"

"Like shit with a side of fuck-all." Elmerin took a deep breath. "But I don't feel any more effects of the mucus."

"If you're lying, I'll kick your ass." Drysia cut his hands free, then his ankles -the knots were pulled too tight to untie. 

"." His mana still too low for the situation they were in, Elmerin focused his healing on just his injuries.

"Gross." Elmerin glared at Drysia. She glared right back. "You know how much you smell right now? You were sweating like a waterfall half the night. And it smells of that goo. You flushed it just now, didn't you?"

Elmerin was pissed; Drysia knew the fix they were in. "No. Any mucus residue will be gone in a few hours anyway. I could maybe make one strong ward right now, at best." Carefully focusing on controlling the amount of mana used, he added " ." He made sure to include Drysia as well as the bed and blankets in the spell's radius; this was no time to be petty, not when so many monsters tracked by scent.

"We have enough food for a meal and a snack." Drysia pointed to the table. 

"Looks like if we can't make it to the surface today, we'll be eating monster meat."

"Bleck. That always tastes rancid. And Bolat-infused monsters are supposed to be poisonous."

"That's true." His body urgently reminded him that he'd been out for hours. "Where is-?"

Drysia pointed. "Toilet's in that closet. 

"Thanks."

When he'd finished -done after removing the 'equipment' he'd used the night before- he found Drysia had left his clothes on a decorative hook right outside the toilet's door. Another Clean spell, and he was quickly dressed and at the table where Drysia had laid out their meager meal and two glass and gold wire cups apparently taken from a sideboard where two more stood.

"." After filling the cups, Elmerin sat and took his share to eat. "What's this?"

"Paper, pen and ink." At Elmerin's look, Drysia elaborated. "I know you like your journaling and reports. You may as well use Cothmore's stuff. Worst they can demand is you to pay them back. Falchan showed me that agreement you two signed; you can cover it out of the gold you're getting." She cocked her head at him. "You charged him an asshole tax, didn't you? Thanks."

Elmerin looked at her for a minute, surprised she could even say the word. Taking another bite, he started writing, more to not look at her than anything. 

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Elmerin finished his summary report and put the papers away in an item bag. He looked around the room.

"I think you said the Cothmores keep this place in better repairs than the public parts of the labyrinth."

"This and other places." Drysia wiped the glasses and put them back -she wasn't going to ask Elmerin to waste mana to clean them.

"But this room isn't just in good repair -it feels frequently and recently used. There's a different feel between a place that sees traffic often and a place regularly cleaned but otherwise left alone."

 Drysia knew damn well that was true. "The Cothmores prefer their privacy."

Elmerin got up and started opening cupboards and drawers. "You've got everything you need here for quite the sex party, except for food. There's even some rare wines."

"Food is usually brought in." Drysia didn't say that it was because Lisko bragged about using hunger to control his more unwilling 'guests'.

"What's this?"

Drysia winced and walked over. She didn't need to; she'd seen the contents last night.

Elmerin had opened a drawer about half full of small crystal bottles carefully stowed in padding, all containing a viscous green liquid. "This looks like Lustvine mucus, but lighter and more fluid."

There it was. "It's a preparation of the mucus. You can mix it with perfume or scent and spray it on the target. It's supposed to be a secret of the Cothmores handed down from lord to heir when the heir reaches manhood. It makes the target-" Drysia looked up at the ceiling, avoiding Elmerin's gaze "-more cooperative, Lisko says."

Very softly, very calmly: "Drysia-"

"I'm going to the toilet. You entertain yourself." Drysia turned her back and did exactly that, closing the door behind her. She shut out the sounds of what sounded like bottles clinking, and the very faint scratch of pen on paper.

The toilet was a typical high-priced and heavily decorated magic box toilet. Waste fell through the seat into a tank below, then was magically transported to a septic tank or sewer system. Magic-monitored piping was more practical and cheaper, but when you were trying to keep your "fun" rooms secret… It was nearly impossible to tell which magic toilet had dropped what in the septic tanks.

Drysia laughed to herself for a moment. Cleaning the labyrinth's septic tanks was one of the most hated jobs of both adventurers and Cothmore personnel. 

After what she hoped was plenty of time (and taking care of the condom Elmerin had apparently left on the side counter in his hurry), Drysia re-entered the main room. 

"There were a lot of different types of bottles." Elmerin's voice was still very soft and calm. "There were inventory sheets, but they didn't match up to the contents."

"That's no surprise." Drysia shook her head. "There's a lot of 'borrowing' that goes on by those in the know. Lisko has no concept of security around his illegal shit."

"Drysia." She knew the next question would be when she knew what she knew.

She couldn't have that. Drysia spun around and pulled up the back of her shirt.

"I didn't want everyone to know about this, okay? Falchan doesn't know what it means, but Lisko does."

Elmerin leaned over and examined the large and badly done tattoo that covered half her back. "Slavery, sex, submission… this is an illegal magic tattoo. It's to force the one wearing it to submit to sex whenever one or more designated parties want it. It's about… ten years old?" His voice hardened. "Who did this?"

"The herbwife and priest of Tow, with the headman's connivance. I was fourteen."

"I won't pry further. You're lucky it's badly done. It has no power."

Drysia had not expected that. She yanked down her shirt and spun to face him. "What!?"

"There was no magic used in its making. The formulae and circles are too crude to function. It's not personalized to you, even though some of those patterns should be. There's spaces for the designated parties, but no actual names.

"It's like they were trying to imitate something they'd only seen once, or had an inaccurate copy of. They didn't even include circles to pick up mana from the environment, since they had none."

"What-" Drysia choked down her tears "-what do you mean, 'designated parties'?"

Elmerin could see anger, rage, and grief in her eyes. "This spell is meant to make the target submit to specific people. It's not a general-use submission spell where the victim has to submit to everyone."

She grabbed his shirt and slammed him into the cupboards. "You mean, after Firnen had Tow destroyed, I could have told the Cothmores to shove it? I didn't need them to protect me? I didn't have to submit to-"

"Even before Tow was destroyed." Elmerin let her vent; her pain must be indescribable. "Once you became an adventurer, with the guild to back you up, no one there had any power over you." He winced as she slammed a fist into his chest; she was damn strong. "And… if Lisko knew what that tattoo is, he probably knew that."

"He described what each part was and what it did." Drysia rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. "He didn't say anything about it being messed up. Firnen tried to get it healed for me, but it never worked."

"Well, no, it wouldn't." Elmerin rubbed his chin, trying to keep his tone matter-of-fact and calming. "Tattoos are ink or ash within the skin -once the injury from making them is healed, healing magic won't do much. A dedicated cleansing spell should work, but it has to be finely controlled and will take a while. I'll have to do it later."

Drysia pushed back and looked up at him. "What?"

"I'll do it. For free," Elmerin said firmly. "Or if you like, you can count it as part of the price for handing over custody of Kres." He blew out a breath that ruffled his bangs. "We both know I don't like you, but damned if I'm going to let anyone bear shit like that." 

For a moment Drysia held still, her expression unreadable. Then suddenly, she'd jumped, her arms around his neck and her mouth on his.

Reflexively, he grabbed her waist. His rational mind told him he should push her away, but instead he found himself drawing her closer, moving his hands under her rear to support her. He felt a heat growing in his chest, although his lower half indicated it wasn't yet up to participating, thank you.

But dammit, for a moment he wished they had more supplies, that they could somehow justify resting for another day… Elmerin managed to untangle his tongue and pull away. "They've probably got search parties out for us by now," he said hoarsely.

Drysia shook her head as if clearing it. "We'd better get going, then." 

As they finally left the room, Drysia was pissed as hell at Lisko -but she also felt smug. She'd not only distracted Elmerin from asking about how much she knew of the Cothmore operations when, she'd given him something else to occupy his mind. He wouldn't suspect that his heated response to her kiss was leftover Lustvine goo messing with his reactions.

She told herself that it wasn't breaking the Guild Code. After all, he'd just shown he still had control of his will.

*******

People in this chapter:

Elmerin

Drysia

Spells used in this chapter: 

Water Splash: A weaker version of Water Bubble, used when small amounts of water are wanted. Anyone with Level 2 Water or above should be able to do it.

Items, magic:

Magic box toilet: Waste falls through the seat into a tank below, then is magically transported to a septic tank or sewer system. The tank contains magic circles and formulae for transportation via teleportation, cleanliness, and disease-killing. The rest of the toilet, and most other kinds of toilets, are also marked with circles for disease-killing and cleanliness. Magic-monitored piping is more practical and cheaper, but if piping can't be used or the existence of the toilet's location needs to be kept secret, it's useful. 

Tattoos: Tattoos can incorporate a wide variety of magic, both helpful and harmful. Some kinds of patterns and formulae are strictly banned, even for slaves, including absolute submission and absolute obedience.

This isn't necessarily altruistic; while many of the Summoned and some Tasnians such as Meinz, Agelum, and later Merridan fought against slavery, or at least for slaves to have rights, other powerful, wealthy people see outlawing the use of certain tattoos on slaves and prisoners as a silent agreement to not use them on assassins sent against each. An assassin subject to absolute obedience would be very expensive to defeat. No one wants to open that or similar cans of worms. By a similar silent agreement, absolute submission is not to be used on anyone, because that could open the door to it being used on anyone.

Other:

Guild Code: A joint unwritten code held between the four guilds. Some parts of it are specific to one guild, while other parts cover all guilds. No one signs anything that promises to follow the code; it's just something you do as part of being the guild. As time passes, unneeded parts of the code have fallen out of use while new ones have been added. Its strengths are being flexible and adaptable, yet still having boundaries; its weaknesses are not being official policy and having no direct official penalties. A weakness and strength is the community enforcing it.