"What is a stone gah... gol...?"
"A stone golem," Fedea corrected Charity. "They are creatures without a brain or a soul. Empusa has awoken them to... uh... Well, they are all looking for you."
"And they are around here?" Charity asked.
Charity and Hope were kneeling next to each other as Illie hand fed them twisted lumps of (tick)-doh grass. (One of Charity's favorite treats.) Charity was mostly relieved that she seemed to be able to swallow with no problems. A metal ring had emerged from the flesh around her neck. It was tight, but not constricting. There was no way that it would ever slip over her head, so Charity had to consider it as nothing more than just another piece of permanent jewelry.
"Chain-Head says that it is the second time that they have seen one nearby - probably the same one," Fedea said.
"Should we just leave?" Charity asked.
"No. We are very isolated here," Fedea explained. "You are much more likely to encounter one if you are traveling."
"Can you... kill...?" Charity asked.
"They are not alive," Fedea said. "You can eliminate them, but that might lead to an investigation... which means Empusa's guards would arrive..."
Charity nodded her head even though she did not fully comprehend what Fedea said.
"The search algorithm that a stone golem uses is not very sophisticated," Fedea said. "So, if you are located in a..."
Charity had no idea what Fedea was talking about anymore. She glanced over at Illie who revered silence above all else. Her mouth was locked in a frown. Charity rolled her shoulders a little and tugged at the ropes that were holding her wrists locked behind her back. She was not interested in pulling her hands free. She just found that she liked the way that the ropes felt both physically and mentally.
She leaned to the side and nudged Hope's shoulder. A moment later, Hope nudged her back. Recently, they seemed to be reconnecting a little bit. Most of their communications were now performed through subtle touches. This connection was buoyed on Illie's new practice of requiring Hope to direct Charity's head while Charity was orally servicing Illie.
Since Illie always slid her finger into the thimble that allowed her to safely navigate between Hope's legs, Charity quickly learned that by controlling her effort to push Illie over the edge, she could indirectly affect the amount of pleasure that Hope received from Illie. Hope seemed to realize Charity's strategy and started shifting Charity's head around as a signal to indicate how hard to push Illie's arousal. Basically they were able to successfully to reframe the act of three-way sex to an act of love between two with a go-between. And while Charity ended up as frustrated as always - glowing bright blue, there was a certain satisfaction in the idea that Hope's physical needs were wonderfully fulfilled.
"... For example, one would not consider a revolving security camera as looking around with any sense of intelligence. It's just following a simple algorithm..."
Illie was noisily stashing food supplies back in a storage container, so Charity leaned over and kissed Hope on the cheek (which involved pressing several layers of metal together - a thick nose ring and the jewelry chains wrapped around Hope's head). Hope actually smiled for a moment and winked.
"...and we monitor the boundary that Chain-Head has defined then, we can safely distract their meanderings..."
Charity's left ring finger knuckle felt weird. She feared that a new ring was growing...
<>--+-
Charity was lying on her side, randomly slathered in green paste, a tear sliding across her cheek. Illie, in her frustration, had tied Charity's hands behind her back and looped the loose end of the rope around her bound ankles - a fairly stringent hogtie. She had then roughly pushed Charity from her knees and into the dirt. Now, Charity could barely move. Her body was so tired and sore, she did not even try.
Hope, Illie, and Fedea had been arguing for the past hour in the native language. She had no idea what was being said. She could not help but feel like a failure.
Her freshly pierced ear was starting to sting a little. She could feel the three fat links of metal draping across her jaw. This act of creating this new piercing was meant to induce Charity to have an orgasm. Charity felt like she had been on the edge, but she was unable to slip over. Now her body was swamped in a mind-numbing state of unquenchable arousal.
She did not even realize that Fedea had been talking to her until her escort, the beast, had pawed her. "Chain-Head is such a stupid bitch," Fedea was saying. "She threatened to pierce a rod through your mouth from cheek to cheek like some kind of permanent bit. I think that Hope was able to convince her otherwise."
Charity lifted her head and realized that Illie and Hope had gone into the home tree, leaving Charity lying in the dirt under a moonless sky. Fedea's beast lay down next to her. "I told them that a second ear piercing would not push you over. We did your other ear last time. The extreme bit needs to be more unpredictable. I couldn't argue with Hope though. At least now both ears are pierced."
Indeed, the previous orgasm had been induced by the thick, seamless chain link in her right earlobe. The resulting earring was a three link chain that constantly brushed her shoulder. Now, she had a matching earring on her left side, also permanent, but without the same payoff.
"In the end, Hope agreed to try my suggestion tomorrow," Fedea continued.
Hope climbed out of the Home Tree and walked over to where Charity lay on the ground. She placed a gentle hand on Charity's shoulder then began pulling Charity's leash across the ground. She looped it around the leashing tree and locked it in place. Then she stopped by Charity and placed her hand over Charity's heart.
Charity tried to say something, but she was still incapable of forming words, so her communications were no more than meaningless moans. Hope pointed at Fedea's beast, then her eyes, and then Charity. Obviously, Illie had applied Hope's built-in gag. Fedea confirmed that she would watch over Charity until morning. Then Hope climbed back into the Home Tree.
It was probably best that they had left Charity hogtied. All she wanted to do was run. She would run until she collapsed and then just lie until the ground covered her up.
An orgasm definitely improved her cognitive skills, but the effects were degrading more quickly each time. And now, she was having more and more difficulty having an orgasm. It was utterly clear that they were traversing to a point where the act of inducing an orgasm would be too extreme to be safe. Charity had already declared that she was unwilling to be disfigured or blinded... No more amputations...
At the same time, more metal rings were popping out of her skin almost every day. Many of the rings emerged in places where they could be removed - finger and toe rings, for example. There had even been a few thigh rings that she had been able to slip over her knees and around her heels. Illie insisted on collecting all the metal rings, which she stored in a special leather pouch.
Just as often, though, a new ring would emerge that could not be removed. She had three rings around her neck, three on each ankle. She had four rings on her right wrist and two on her left. A second ring had emerged from her waist, but it was bigger than the first and sat low on her hips. Recently, they had been able to pry a ring from around the shell of her ear.
<>--+-
In the morning Illie untied Charity. She unlocked Charity's leash and allowed her to roam. Fedea and her lion followed her around all day. Fedea had a habit of talking incessantly, but Charity did not really remember much of anything that she said. She was moody and slipped into daydreams - some erotic, some filled with anxiety.
In the evening Hope was working on cooking up another batch of the green paste. A ring that had been emerging from Charity's left bicep broke free of her skin, but the diameter of the ring was large enough to slip over her elbow and wrist. Illie added it to her collection. Certainly, there was a limit to the amount of metal that Charity would shed. Eventually, she would stop making new rings.
Illie, Hope and Charity made love in their standard odd configuration under a sky full of stars. Charity found that she couldn't form any words at all for the rest of the evening. Even when Fedea and her beast returned from hunting and Fedea asked how Charity was feeling, she could only shrug her shoulders and mumble. She knew what she wanted to say. She felt like she was making the sounds necessary to speak her thoughts. But, when she actually heard the words coming from her mouth, she did not recognize the sounds. Apparently, no one else did either.
The next evening, the green paste was ready. Charity was nervous. She knew that they were not going to tell her the exact details, but she felt certain that she was about to receive some new permanent modification - a piercing, perhaps, or metal cauterized into her skin. What could they do? Pierce her nipples? The flesh between her fingers? Her lips? She was quickly running out of suitable locations.
After they had finished dinner, Charity was left kneeling on the ground with her wrists and ankles bound behind her back. Hope approached her with a goblet filled with the paste.
"Drinhh!" she said, pushing the goblet to Charity's lips.
