Thelenia was standing next to a folding chair. Human craftsmanship always found ways to amaze her. Here was a metal chair that weighed almost nothing and could collapse into a flat and stackable form. It was objectively amazing. And yet, it was also hideous. She was aware that humans could make things of great beauty, which simply reinforced the point that humans had made these artifacts to be unpleasant to the eye as a conscious choice. Each chair just stood there being a brown painted spindle of metal as an act of aggression. This was humanity reminding the other races that they had riches and marvels beyond comprehension, and that they would nonetheless surround themselves with ugliness. With these folding chairs, the queens of Earth had declared themselves untouchable. All seven other elves were
sitting
in the chairs that had been offered, but Thelenia preferred to stand.
Of course, the elvish Scout preferred to stand because she had a lump of metal lodged in her asshole, but the chair was pretty unsightly on its own. She might have chosen to stand even if Max had not shoved an Essence lock into her back door. Max had agreed to take it out and end their master/slave relationship entirely as soon as they had some privacy outside the dungeon. Unfortunately, as soon as they arrived back to Camp Acheron, Thelenia had been yanked off to a meeting. Apparently, some queen or another wanted to talk to the new elvish hunters after their first mission.
Thelenia did not want to talk about her mission. Not with a queen, not with anyone. She reached under her tunic in the back and touched her seal of binding. What would happen to those seals when she stopped being one of Max's slaves? She didn't know. It was too much to hope that she'd get her own body back, she was grimly certain that the adjustments for Max's aesthetic preferences were going to end up permanent. The bonuses from the seals were very large, and she couldn't imagine that she'd be allowed to keep any of them. If she kept them then surely every single woman in Camp Acheron would be made to watch him kiss his girlfriend. It would be a huge benefit for the Alliance, but Thelenia wouldn't be alone in finding the process offensive and degrading. She took her hand away from her seal and began straightening her clothes.
"What blasphemous nonsense is this!" A furious voice blurted out from behind her. Thelenia turned in confusion and saw Chaeryn rising from a chair and pointing at her accusingly. "We just got out of a dungeon, how did you even have
time
to paint yourself with this sacrilege?" The Shadow Elf had skin too pigmented to visibly change color, but the flaring of her nostrils indicated that she was near apoplectic with rage.
With so much on her mind, Thelenia wasn't able to find a context in which to process the dark-skinned woman's anger. "I don't know what you're talking about." Even to her own ears, she sounded more defensive than confused, and that probably did nothing to defuse the situation.
"Yes you do!" Chaeryn shrieked.
Fenniel made a hand gesture that was derogatory and had vaguely racist origins. "This is why the Ancients are mistaken to give hunter's marks to
lower
elves." He said it to the two Wood Elves, but he was loud enough that everyone in the room heard him. The Wood Elves didn't say anything, knowing full well that whether
they
were considered higher or lower elves depended greatly on which other elves were present.
Glyffildir was more magnanimous. "Look, I'm sure we can work out... whatever this is. Firenia, Queen of the Roan Spire is here, and we don't want to make a bad impression." Her gold eyes dug deeply into both Thelenia and Chaeryn as she stared expectantly into the other women. The Leaf Elf's freckled face looked both empathetic and stern, and Thelenia could well believe the rumors that Glyffildir was going to be a queen herself one day.
While the Sea Elf had been given implied permission to give her account first, she genuinely had nothing to say. Her time forfeited, Glyffildir turned to Chaeryn for an explanation she was bursting at the seams to give. "Thelenia drew the mark of the Spider Herald's chosen on her back and then flapped her shirt so that I'd see it!"
Fenniel leaned back in the folding chair and made an exaggerated sigh. "Oh, Great Tree! Here we go..."
Glyffildir made an expression that indicated that she was disappointed in her crop mate. Thelenia sputtered denials, but the Battlemage turned her around and lifted her shirt. The binding seal was fully on display. "Why would you do this, Thelenia? We're all here at the seat of the Ancients to fight the monsters. Together. Deliberate provocation like this is beneath you."
"But..." Everything was going wrong. "This is just what the seal looks like! I didn't draw anything!" Now every elf in her crop was staring at her back. She'd practically peed herself while Max shoved dungeon equipment into her ass, and yet she was now more embarrassed withering under the scrutiny of her peers.
Fenniel's expression soured. "That's not funny. The underground prophecies aren't real." He turned to Halendir, the only support in the room. "Halendir, end this charade. Thelenia can apologize to Chaeryn. She can apologize to all of us."
The green haired Wood Elf rattled her fingers and the soothing rustle of wind in leaves filled the room. Green light began to coalesce into a halo over Thelenia's head and then it splintered with the sound of twigs being crushed under foot. "I... can't. Her seals are too powerful, I can't add to them." She might as well have simply thrown a golden apple, the room erupted into pandemonium.
Many hands make light work, and a half dozen elves motivated by a healthy mix of fury and curiosity rapidly stripped Thelenia naked over her own feeble objections and those of Glyffildir. Soon her tunic and pants had been stolen from her, and she was laid bare in boots and bracers, her seals on lewd display, along with her horrendous B or perhaps even C cup breasts. Worst of all, the Essence lock that was still ensconced in her butthole was now impossible to hide, her small ass cheeks being simply insufficient for the task. Hands scratched at her back and buttocks, trying to peel off her seals, accomplishing nothing.
Thelenia screamed in shame and frustration. No longer having anything to lose, she stopped trying to cover her nipples and butt plug with her hands and just started punching and kicking. Her physical strength and agility were substantially increased from what they could be expected to be for a D-tier Scout, and her blows landed fast and hard. Fenniel went flying and landed awkwardly on a folding chair that promptly folded up. Halendir took a punch to the mouth and to the stomach, and she collapsed. Chaeryn got an elbow to the neck and went down on her back when Thelenia brought her leg around to kick the Shadow Elf in the back of the knee.
Their appetite for punishment vanished, the other three elves scuttled away to the far end of the room. "Stop it! Everyone stop it!" Glyffildir's plea for peace finally found purchase now that clear consequences could be seen for ignoring it.
Everyone looked embarrassed to one degree or another, but Chaeryn looked genuinely contrite. "I'm sorry," she winced as she struggled up to a kneeling position, "I did not realize that you were the Chosen of the Spider Herald in truth. It seems that I am guilty of heresy rather than you. Thelenia, I will wash your hair in penance." Everyone stared at the Shadow Elf. The silence was deafening.
"Rotten beak snails, all of you!" Many elvish faces winced, but Chaeryn's remorse was the most dramatic. "This is nothing so portentous as the Spider Herald's chosen. It's just Max Mitchell. His class gives bonuses to a small number of slaves, but it also deforms their bodies. Our bodies." She grabbed her perky breast and jiggled it at the other elves. "That's why I've turned into a tower matron, these look like obscene human mammaries because they were granted by a human. I'm leaving his party, but I don't know that I'll ever get my body back."
The other elves mostly nodded in claimed understanding despite the fact that she really hadn't explained the Essence lock at all. Chaeryn's eyes bulged as she realized that Thelenia was wrong about becoming a tower matron. She was becoming a pit queen.
###
After everyone had their hunter's marks scanned, the orcs and elves were taken off to be interviewed by officials from their own planets. The thirty humans of the crop were given standardized response forms. They were semi anonymized, with each person's response sheet given a bar code and the ratings for the other party members being numbered rather than named. Max was number six in his party, so Thelenia was number one; but for Rosalita, Gormag was number one and Thelenia was number three.
Max rated all of his party members four out of five, but marked that he definitely
did not
want to work with Gormag, James, or Alex ever again. He candidly wrote "my class only gives bonuses to women" in the free text portion. For Rosalita and Thelenia, he marked the "willing to team with" middle option. They were leaving his party and he didn't blame them. He was mostly just sad that his weird class had put them in such an awkward situation in the first place. He quickly filled out the rest of the form and made for the restroom, signaling Sophie and Rosalita to follow.
When they got there, Sophie looked excited and Rosalita looked ashamed. "Are we here because Rosalita changed her mind and wants to stay in the group?" She looked wolfishly at the shorter woman.
"No!" Rosalita hissed. "I'm outer than ever. I'm E-tier, I can't
do
this stuff." There was a desperation in her voice and terror in her facial expression.
