The Elsey Criss-Cross - the Criss

Notes: Though this story is part of the series 'Mercy Makes Three of a Kind', It can be considered a stand alone.

* This story covers (heavily compressed) the events of the series so far, but from Kelsey's point of view. This can easily be considered a recap story that should answer some questions of events unseen from Ren's point of view.

* I initially planned to only release a single story to cover up to, and a little more of the events so far, but found it too long. I've decided to split the story in half and release the first half, with hopes the second half doesn't take much longer.

* Though there is a Fantasy and adventure element, this story and series are heavy on Lesbian, D/S BDSM themes.

*Lastly, a very big thank you to Jordan Church for editing and helping me out.

Kelsey's story

"This slave girl is so gentle. You training her friends too?" Mercy asked Charity, while the slave girl Mindy ran a soapy cloth gingerly over Mercy's muscled body.

"Funny you bring that up," said Charity. "After you left our little family, there ended up being a falling out. Lucy and I are now running our own individual training centers. The Fire Thorns contract me and Lucy to do their training. I think they want to see who does a better job training these sluts." Then, with a smooth motion, Charity lifted her arm and brought it down around Alice's shoulder, essentially keeping her from getting any distance from our host. Alice tensed up.

"No shit. Mirror mage Lucy's still here in town?" Mercy asked, and Charity nodded. "Well, Mindy. Count yourself lucky to have gotten Charity. I feel sorry for your friends. Mirror mage Lucy has a reputation for breaking girls in a bit too roughly," Mercy said to Mindy, who tensed up at the mention of her former teammates.

While Mercy and Charity caught up on current events, Ren handed me the bottle of pink hair removal ointment. It smelled minty. "I like the smell of this one, nearly as much as the smell of the body wash." I told Ren as I scrubbed the ointment over myself, being particularly attentive to my pubic mound and arm pits.

Mercy mocked us moments ago, saying that we looked like savages with all our pubic hair.

"This stuff is incredible, Mercy. It smells so good. How long does it last?" I asked Mercy. The ointment really was amazing. It simply washed away, taking any hair along with it, and the smell left me feeling clean and confident.

Charity looked over and smiled a big, beautiful smile, "That pink one is permanent." Then turned back to Mercy "They might get mistaken for slaves. Only slaves are fully bare of body hair."

"Oh Yeah!" Mercy bellowed a laugh. "My mistake girls. I grabbed the wrong bottle. I forgot pink was permanent. Whoops." Charity joined in the laughter.

Whoops?!

Permanent?! What the fuck?! I mean, I didn't like the hair under my arms, but to permanently take it away... Well, shit. I found myself staring at my now hairless legs.

Maybe it all wasn't all so bad...

"What have you ladies got planned for the rest of the day? You know Alice, tonight I'll be doing some training for a special lady, and I could use your help." Though Charity was asking Alice, she kept eye contact with Mercy, and even gave her a wink.

"I... um... don't...." Alice was trying to say, clearly at a loss for a polite way to decline the offer.

"Oh! I can help!" I said, thrusting my hand high to get attention from Charity. Though it was an awkward first meeting, I wanted to leave a good impression with Charity. She was Mercy's friend and she also invited us to stay at her home while we got situated in Gran Stoby. First impressions were very important.

"Mmmhmmm, I might just take you up on the offer." Charity said in a seductive tone before returning her attention to Alice. With confidence, Charity casually brought her left hand from Alice's side to her left breast and reached over to grope her right breast with her right hand.

Charity and Alice sat side by side on the bench in the bath house. Charity said, "The thing is... that pretty white girls like Alice here, with the sandy blond hair, and the big Rrrack...!" Charity roughly squeezed both of Alice's large tits while she spoke. Rolling her R's in an exaggerated tone.

"Ohh" Alice tried to hold back a moan. She was biting her bottom lip.

"Those are the girls that Rrreally do it for me the most." Charity said, again doing the same R sound for the word really. Then she released Alice.

"I've soaked enough." Charity then stood "Come with me, little slave. I've been too generous to you today. I need to fix that. As for you ladies. Enjoy my hospitality. Mercy, I hope tonight we can catch up a bit. Alice, I want you to think about my offer. You just might see the world in a new way." Charity said. Then she gave Mercy a smile, Alice a wink, and she walked out of the room with Mindy crawling after her.

****

That was how we met Charity and Mindy on our first day in Gran Stoby.

Let me rewind things a bit.

My name is Kelsey, and I am an adventurer. Yes. It is definitely more exciting than you've probably heard or imagined it to be. There are many people who attempt to become adventurer's but fail or fall short of expectations.

The first steps to becoming an adventurer is to form a team. I've got Alice and Ren on my team. Ren is our lockpick girl. We also have her usually scouting too. She's very petite and surprisingly quiet. Perfect for sneaking and staying unnoticed. At least it would be perfect if she hadn't perma-dyed her short hair that bright red color.

The other member of our team, the one Charity kept teasing, is Alice. She is a magic user. Our team's only magic user. We are very lucky to have Alice on our team. Alice was the one who encouraged us to break away from our previous group and start fresh as a team of three.

Magic users are rare, most only being able to specialize in one or two schools of magic. It's not often any magic user, let alone one who specializes in healing magic, decides to become an adventurer. So, for Alice to be out adventuring is an incredible opportunity for us. She is absolutely gorgeous, with her long sandy blond hair and her large curvaceous breasts, she truly stands out.

I'm average height with shoulder length strawberry blond hair. Both Alice and Ren are a little older than me, by only a few months. That said, I'm certainly the glue that holds us together. I may not have any gifts in magic, or nimble fingers to pick locks, but put a thug in front of me, and watch me kick their ass. Brawling is my contribution to the team. The muscle.

At least I used to be the muscle, until we met Mercy.

Adventurer's work out of an adventurer's guild, or hall. There, people can make requests for help and the guild will post the jobs for adventurers to complete. One such job we took was an open contract. A request that multiple groups could attempt. The job was to root out some bandits in the woods. Your typical hero stuff.

While we were in the woods looking for the bandito's, we encountered Mercy, another adventurer on the same contract. She told us that she'd been looking for the bandits too. She assured us she was a great fighter but was lousy at tracking.

This was my chance to get another member on our team. Another fighter. Jobs like this were particularly tough on me. Both Alice and Ren are crummy at fighting, so it would've fallen heavily on me to do most of this job. With Mercy helping us, this job would go easy on all of us.

It only took a little pleading for Alice and Ren to let her join for the job.

Mercy was a monster on the field. She nearly clearing the whole group herself. It felt great having her with us. She was massive, and not just in personality. She was tall, with a dark tan. Muscles on muscles. After that... mission's too weak a word. After that decimation, she just sort of became a member.

There was a bit of an awkward time or two, especially with her fixation on 'helping' us get clean. She could be downright forceful. But I think it was just her way of enforcing good hygiene. At least I'm pretty sure that's what it was. She had come from the Cobbery guild hall, and those folks were weird.

Not long after Mercy became a full member of our team, she encouraged us to pick up roots, and head south from our home of Millerton to the big port city of Gran Stoby. Mercy had made many good points about how Millerton was for beginner adventurers. If we ever expected to advance in reputation, we'd need to go somewhere bigger and better.

Gran Stoby is often called the city of luck. There's a huge gambling scene there that really got Ren interested. As for me, the prospects of becoming a renowned adventurer was too enticing to ignore. I shook with anticipation. Alice, well... I'm not too sure if there was any reason other than her friends wanting to go, that pulled her in with us.

** **

It took two days of travel for all four of us to get to Gran Stoby.

The city of luck was a port city with a vast desert surrounding it. There were spectacles and commerce everywhere. The streets were crowded with food vendors selling somewhat exotic foods, and performers danced and juggled for coins. The city was massive, and I felt so overwhelmed and excited.

Mercy had guided us through the city, stopping once at the guild hall for a job and once more at a potion shop called 'Pangy's Potion Potential Plus' while we made our way to her friend Charity's. The walk would have been more delightful if it weren't for the new clothing Mercy had given us. It was a present she'd made for Ren and me.

Clothing was a bit of a strong word to describe the tiny vests, and short leather skirts. The leather vests were short and tight, only held together by a thin silver chain that cleared the gap of my cleavage securing both ends in my front together. The vest was so short that it barely went down past my boobs.

My midriff was on full display, from just below my boobs to the wide belt that my skirt was attached to. The belt had several metal hoops evenly spaced along the belt. The outfit also sported some thinner belts that secured to the upper thigh's, held up by the main belt along my hips. These thigh belts were designed to keep my brass knuckle's within easy reach.

There was a break in the skirt along my hips. It was both a good and a bad thing. The idea was that I'd have less of an obstacle reaching for my weapons should I have any need of them. The bad thing was that it left my panties very visible.

Our walk through Gran Stoby showed Ren and I just how much we stood out. Ren's outfit was nearly a mirror image of my own, though she didn't fill it out as well as yours truly. Mercy and Alice had said we looked pretty good.

Alice wasn't safe from embarrassment either. Before we'd left Millerton, Mercy had Alice fitted for some clothing that was equally debasing. She wore a small sleeveless shirt, and a sort of loin cloth. It was two rectangular strips, one to cover her front and the other the back. Tied high on her hip, leaving a lot of room to see her panties and long legs.

What hadn't made sense was that Mercy told us that these new clothes would help us blend in. That this was the current style in the city for young women. Looking around, it didn't seem to be the case. It actually seemed to be the opposite, with people gawking at us. A few people pointed, and the word 'slaves' were tossed around a fair bit.

I wasn't deterred too much. Though these clothes showed a lot of skin, they weren't too bad. I felt very mobile, almost nude. I'd worn thick leather armor before. It can slow down movements, causing you to get hit. Now that's no fun. Plus, it was hot out being so close to the desert, so the less clothing the better.

Alice was mortified walking through the city dressed so salaciously, while Ren looked manageably uncomfortable.

Mercy took us through the city marketplace, down some winding roads in a southwestern direction. The scenery turned more impoverished the further we traveled, until we went down a wide alley, where Mercy stopped us. In front of us stood Charity's training house.

The house had a wide staircase that ascended to the front doors on the second floor. On the side of the alleyway was another set of stairs that descended to Charity's private bath house.

Charity was a tall lady, stunning with a dark coffee complexion and very curly dark hair. She looked to be in her mid thirties, but with a body toned like someone in their early twenties. She had one of the most amazing smiles I'd ever seen, and a laugh that somehow sent a pleasant shiver through me.

Mercy had briefly talked about her past with us while on a few guild quests. She had said she used to work for some slavers. They had her break in sex slaves. Cool right?! Well, while she did that job, she met Charity. At least, I think that's how they met. It sounded like Charity never left that line of work, and this was the house she owned and worked from, training sex slaves. In the bathhouse, she had one of her slaves in training, Mindy.

Mindy was a young woman, very pretty with green hair. She was the first sex slaves I'd ever actually seen. She wore a slave collar around her neck. The collar had two chains that connected to manacles around her wrists. The chains were short, hindering what movements she could do with her arms. As a fighter, that would be crippling to me. To not be able to fully extend my arms... brr. I don't even want to think about that.

Mindy had two ring nipple piercings; they were gold bands with a colored bead. One was green, the other was violet. They looked pretty on her. Lastly, Mindy had a tattoo on her upper chest, just below her collar bone. It was a thick letter S with sharp red triangles jutting out from it.

I didn't care for the tattoo, it looked tacky to me. I've always wanted a tattoo, but something cool, not something like that. Gimme a skull, a heart with a dagger or an anchor or something like that.

Anyway, now you're pretty much caught up. Well, nearly caught up.

After our meeting with Charity and Mindy, and after we got cleaned up from two days of travelling from Millerton to Gran Stoby, we took on our first mission from the local guild. It was a pretty generic mission, all things considered. We were hired to re-acquire some lost property that was stolen from some artificers or engineers or something. Some low-level gang had stolen the stuff, and we went to get it back.

It honestly was dead simple. The idiots were mostly all strung out on drugs, with only a couple of guards keeping watch. Alice distracted the guard at the door, luring him to the alley where I lay in wait. She had him come around the corner, and I laid the fucker out. One punch in the solar plex, then one to the chin. The Kelsey criss-cross. Er... maybe the Kelsey one-two. I've not decided on a name for that move yet.

After we covered the knocked-out dude, we went inside to find out that Mercy had totaled nearly everyone in there. What a beast that lady is. We got the chest out and hauled it to the guild.

Now, we are all gathered around Charity's table celebrating our first mission in Gran Stoby. Charity has such an amazing place. She gave us the tour earlier. The main room had a well lived in feeling, lots of wooden walls and hardwood floors. Colorful plants and vines hung from the walls, and the large round table she had near the bar was so inviting.

Showing us more, there were several rooms that ran down the long hallway, all spacious, and all furnished with tables, dressers and best of all, a big bed. I'd gotten so used to sleeping on cots, that the big bed looked kind of intimidating.

At the end of the hallway was a large set of double doors. Charity whispered something to Alice, making my friend blush. I think Charity really liked making Alice uncomfortable.

Sitting at the big round table, Mercy dropped the sac of coin we'd earned from our first mission here and began splitting out shares while I dispensed the ale. It was time to celebrate. I tipped my cup back, taking in the cold drink. It tasted so damn good.

"I'm so excited. I'm in Gran Stoby and I've gotta see some of these gambling halls," Ren blurted out, causing everyone to laugh. All day she'd been staring longingly at all the gambling halls. She had a bit of a gambling problem. One that bordered dangerous maybe. I think she burns through almost all her money playing card games or rolling dice.

She's always going on about odds and probability too. It gets especially bad some days, usually the days that she wins. Those are the worst days to be around Ren. Those are the days she never shuts up about strategy. As if rolling dice had strategy. Pfff.

"Anyone want to join me?" Ren asked as she pulled her share of the coins to her with both hands. Alice and I stood in unison with Alice saying, "I don't know if I want to do any gambling, but I'd like to see some sights." I didn't have much interest in gambling either, but I couldn't let my best friend explore the city without me. "I'm in!"

Ok, maybe I wanted to see more of the city too. I was pretty restless.

We weren't gone long. Ren lost all her money in spectacular fashion. She'd lost all her money in the first place we went to. In minutes... Classic Ren.

We decided to walk around a bit and see more of the city. It was truly beautiful. The only problem was it was getting late faster than we expected. In the fear of getting lost, we decided to get back to Charity's place before it got dark out. Travelling around in the dark would be much more difficult.

"You're all back early." Charity said, still sitting at the table with Mercy. They'd not moved from the table since we left. You could hear their laughter from outside the front doors. They must've been doing a lot of catching up.

"That's because Ren sucks at cards!" I said with a laugh. I found my mug from earlier and began to refill it.

"No worries my little pixie" Mercy said to Ren.

"You've just spent all your good luck finding me. Here, I'll lend you my share of the earnings." Mercy tossed a sack of coins towards Ren. "You'll owe me." She said with a wink.

Ren looked at the sack of coins for a silent moment, then with a big smile, she quickly grabbed the bag and pulled it close to her chest. She practically ran out of the room looking like a thief, nearly knocking her chair over as she left.

"You probably shouldn't have lent her money like that Mercy. There's a good chance you'll never get it back." Alice chided Mercy.

"Oh, I'm sure I'll get what's mine in the end." Mercy replied with a toothy smile. Charity barked out a loud infectious laugh, causing Alice and me to smile and chuckle too. Still, something felt off, like it felt like there was an inside joke going on.

We all sat around the table, Mercy sitting across from Charity. Alice sat across from me. We talked and laughed while we drank. Charity told us some amusing stories of previous mishaps she'd endured while working with Mercy, like a few gang members thinking that they were intimate. It just turned out that occasionally they'd both share the slave girls with each other, or something like that. I think the alcohol was getting me mixed up on a lot of details.

Charity kept scooching closer and closer to Alice as the night progressed. She also kept topping up Alice's cup, while whispering into her ear. Alice grew more bashful each time. She wasn't much of a drinker, but tonight she was tipping the cup back more than usual.

"I think Alice has an admirer," Mercy said as she gently elbowed me. I was feeling slightly lightheaded from all the drink and just giggled at my friend. Alice just seemed to blush more, clearly embarrassed at all the attention.

"Now, now you two. No need to make my beautiful mage here uncomfortable. I'm simply telling her about how someone who can heal would be a great Ass-et, to my training." Charity punctuated her words by pinching Alice's ass. Alice jumped at the sudden touch, bumping the table.