The Golem Challenge

Raven cursed under her breath as she stepped on another sharp branch. Despite what some romantically inclined people might believe, traversing a forest naked was an annoying and often enough outright painful experience. There was a reason witches usually wore sensible clothes. Then again, nothing about what Raven was doing right now was sensible in any shape or form.

She'd asked herself several times why she was pushing on with this madness. A question that had reached peak urgency a couple of minutes ago when she'd found her way blocked off by blackberry bushes, and even the most careful attempt of going around them had earned her some burning scratches. But each time she wondered if she should blow the whole thing off, she only had to remember that cocky grin on Alicia's lips, and that gave her the strength to go on.

Yes, she shouldn't have boasted quite so much, and she especially shouldn't have claimed that she could take on Alicia's golem in a fair fight. Raven might be the better witch of the two, but even with magic there was only so much a human could do against a shapeshifting monstrosity made of rock. But now that the challenge was official, she couldn't back down without losing face. The rest of the coven wouldn't let her hear the end of it.

Not that going up against the golem and getting completely demolished would be any more dignified. If anything, it would get her body as bruised as her pride.

That was, if the golem operated as intended.

Raven aimed for an enormous tree to keep herself hidden as she sneaked up to the clearing ahead. A quick peek around the trunk showed her exactly what she'd hoped to see: A boulder at least as large as herself lay in the middle of that small free patch between the trees, with a glimmering violet stone on top. Alicia's golem, currently dormant as it soaked up the sun to store energy for later.

The fight was scheduled for sundown, and it was barely past noon. It only made sense that Alicia would use the time to charge her golem as much as possible, just like it made sense that she herself was nowhere to be seen. With a weather this nice, she'd be enjoying herself over at the lake with some of the other witches. For a moment Raven caught herself daydreaming of Alicia skinny tipping, but she quickly shoved that thought aside. It was bad enough that her rival was this blessed in the looks department, there was no need to let it get into her head.

The point was: There was no reason for Alicia to keep watch, because even if she expected Raven to try anything, her golem was able to defend itself even without her directly controlling it. But this was where she'd underestimated Raven: By itself, a golem couldn't sense living things. Which usually wasn't a problem since every human who wasn't crazy enough to run through the woods butt naked had some kind of dead material on their body.

Only that Raven was crazy enough.

Raven slowly crept around the trunk, although at this point it shouldn't matter if she was careful or not. She was in plain sight from the clearing now, but the golem stayed dormant, pretending to be nothing but an out of place and unusually smooth boulder. It should be easy from there: Walk over, imprint the exposed soul stone with some of her own magic, and get out again. That would allow her to break Alicia's control during the fight and have an easy victory. If she played her cards right she should even be able to make it look like her win was simply due to Alicia's lack of skill.

Even though she knew she had nothing to fear, Raven's heart still pounded in her chest as she walked up to the golem. Her eyes darted from that deceptively unassuming boulder to the edges of the clearing and back, looking for any sign that something was going wrong. The forest seemed clear, though, and the golem didn't stir even when she came within two steps of it. If it woke up now, it could grow an arm and knock her down within seconds. Better get this over quick. Raven reached for the soul stone and channeled her magic.

Only for her hand to go right through it.

"What?"

Her hand was inside the boulder up to its wrist but she didn't feel anything, as if the golem wasn't there at all. An illusion? Whatever it was, there was a good chance she was in major trouble. Raven was about to run back into the safety of the trees to reassess the situation, when she found that the illusion had suddenly turned solid. Her hand was trapped in place, enclosed by a light but unyielding pressure as if the golem had grown around it. But it shouldn't have this level of control over its body, unless...

"Now what do we have here?" Alicia dropped down from the tree she'd been hiding in. Her robe fluttered behind her, and of course she looked absolutely fabulous as she impacted on the grass in a crouched position, stabilizing herself with one hand, the other one held up dramatically. That girl was such an insufferable poser. "Looks like I caught you red-handed. Or I guess gray-handed, in this case."

"Ha ha," Raven said dryly.

She wasn't sure if her sarcasm came across as confidently as she'd intended. It was hard not to feel self-conscious about how she stood there completely naked with her body showing the tear and wear of her forest trip, while Alicia looked immaculate in her witch's robe. Raven forced herself to suppress the instinct to cover herself. With only one hand free she wouldn't be able to hide all the essential parts anyway, and acting bashful would only give Alicia more ammunition.

"That was a cheap shot," she complained after a quick experiment had confirmed that, yes, her hand was stuck for good. It was such a weird feeling not to be able to twitch even a single finger. "Hiding your golem inside an illusion of itself? Come on!"

"You're one to talk." As Alicia came closer, her golden locks waved behind her like a second cape. It was so unfair that her hair was so thick and long and pretty when she didn't even put any effort in. Raven had never been able to make her own hair grow much longer than to her shoulders, no matter what she did.

Alicia stopped a good two meters before Raven. Far enough that she was safely out of reach of any touch-based spells (or of a much more mundane attempt to slap her) but close enough that she could fully appreciate every little detail of Raven's attempts to try and hide her embarrassment. "I wouldn't complain about me playing dirty if I was you, when you just tried to screw me over like that. Not that I'm surprised, though I admit, I hadn't thought that you'd go so far as to make your attempt naked. Good thing I kept watch just to be sure, or that would have totally worked."

Raven bit her lip. Despite her best efforts she was starting to blush. If she wanted to safe face (or at least not embarrass herself even further) she had to go on the offense. "Okay, you got me. Good on you. What now?"

"What now indeed?" Alicia spoke slowly, lost in thought. There was a glimmer in her eyes that got Raven blushing for real. "I have to admit, I kinda like you this way. The style suits you. You should wear it more often."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" It wasn't the confident comeback Raven had intended, but it was hard to come up with something witty when she was this distracted by her conflicting feelings.

"Sure would. And I wouldn't be the only one. Or do you really think I haven't noticed the way you're always looking at me?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," Raven mumbled, though she couldn't meet Alicia's eyes. "If I look at you funny it's only because you're an annoying know-it-all."

"Sure." Alicia's voice was dripping with sarcasm. She came a step closer. Raven might be able to hit her if she made a lunge, though the chances were high that she'd twist her wrist in the process, if not outright break it.

"So you want me to believe that you've never had any less than decent thoughts about me?" Alicia continued all casual as if this was nothing more than some harmless small talk. "You realize that I could put a truth spell on you if I wanted?"

"You wouldn't dare!" Raven hissed. She knew that her threat was toothless. Trapped like this she wouldn't be able to put up much resistance if Alicia actually tried putting a spell on her, but she'd go down fighting anyway. She didn't want to begin to imagine the things she'd say if Alicia forcefully removed her filters.

"You're right, that'd be a real mean thing of me to do. And I'm too nice a person to impose my will on you like that."

Raven was tempted to point out that this supposedly nice person had put her in bondage and was openly ogling her naked body right now, but she knew when it was better to hold her tongue. If she provoked Alicia too much, she might reconsider her vow not to mess with her mind in such embarrassing ways.

"And it's not like I need a truth spell to read you like a book," Alicia continued. "Just seeing you get this defensive tells me all I need to know. Not that it's any news to me. As I said, I noticed the looks you give me. And I heard what you did after our solstice trial, when you thought that I was asleep and that the blanket would hide you."

Raven had been blushing before, but now her cheeks lit up like two little suns. She'd known that she shouldn't have risked it back then, but she hadn't been able to help herself. Or rather, she'd been unable to stop herself from helping herself.

It was customary for intermediate witches who wanted to prove their magical capabilities to walk into the giant solstice pyre and show off how long they could bear the flames by channeling the elements. It should have been the moment for Raven to shine, but of course Alicia had to undermine her as always by joining her in the fire, even though she should have been forbidden from even trying due to how young and inexperienced she was. With her barely twenty-five years of age, Alicia was one of the coven's newest members. And the most humiliating thing was that she'd almost held out longer than Raven!

That night Raven had come close to the very limits of what her body could take. The only thing keeping her in the flames had been Alicia's cocky grin taunting her, daring her to give up first and therefore to publicly admit that Alicia was the stronger witch. And it hadn't helped Raven's concentration to have a naked Alicia before her eyes the entire time.

The trial was always done without clothes, both because it was traditional and symbolized that the witches used nothing but their own skills to master the flames, and also for the practical reason that it would be a waste of magic to keep all that fabric fire-proof for so long. But tradition or not, Raven had been forced to look at Alicia as the flames painted her usually pale skin a vivid orange, her whole body glistening from the myriad droplets of sweat teased out by the heat. Leave it to Alicia to look fucking fabulous even when she was drenched in sweat.

Raven had won their unspoken contest in the end, but the victory had been too close to feel satisfying, and it certainly hadn't done anything to help with a particular itch that had taken over her body, a heat that had nothing to do with the fire she'd just stepped out of. It was a good thing that she, too, had been sweating all over, easily hiding a decidedly different wetness between her legs. She'd been annoyed at herself by how much the sight of her rival had turned her on, but there was no shame in admitting that Alicia was easy on the eyes. If anything, it had only made it so much sweeter to fantasize about all the thing she would love to do to Alicia if she ever got the opportunity to really put her in her place. But apparently these fantasies hadn't been as private as Raven had hoped.

"Don't act as if you were all innocent there!" Since she'd been found out anyway, the best thing Raven could do was to double down and shift the blame. "You were all but giving me a belly dance in that pyre. Maybe you would've had a better chance of winning if you'd focused on the magic instead of flaunting your body like that."

"So you do admit that it's me you were thinking about under that blanket. Told you I don't need a truth spell."

Raven cursed herself. She'd totally run into that.

"You know, I don't mind you having a crush on me. I really don't. It's kinda cute, actually. And you're kinda cute yourself. But it's time you channeled those feelings into something more productive."

"I don't have a crush on you!" Raven blurted out. She knew that this outburst would only hurt her believability, but that self-assured smirk of Alicia's was driving her crazy. Also: Raven was not cute. If anything she was sexy and cool and mysterious, but certainly not cute!

"And there we go again." Alicia sighed theatrically. She had to know how infuriating this act of hers was. Nobody was this obnoxious on accident, right? "Just out of curiosity: What was your plan there? Destroy my golem and hope that you'll win by default?"

"I wasn't going to destroy it. Just give myself a little edge. I can totally take that thing on if it's not all overcharged and shit."

"Of course you do. It's not like you've just proven that it can take you out the moment you touch it."

"Only because you tricked me! And since when can it even do this bullshit? Last time I saw it, all it could do was punch things."

Alicia chuckled. "I admit, I might have refined its shapeshifting abilities a little bit. You haven't seen nothing yet."

She took a round crystal out of her robe, big enough that she couldn't fully close her fist around it. The matching soul crystal, of the same deep purple as the golem's soul stone with which the thing was attuned. Raven prepared to fight (as much as she could prepare with her hand still trapped) only to stare in awe as the golem awoke.

She'd expected the boulder to unfold into a roughly humanoid granite monster, but instead the stone started flowing as if it was the world's weirdest liquid. Raven's hand stayed locked in place, but she felt ripples in the pressure around it as the bulk of the boulder shifted behind her. She turned her head to follow its movements, but it dropped out of her sight, only to flow into her feet from behind.

"What the fuck?"

It was the weirdest sensation, as if she was standing in the world's tensest quicksand. She found herself on a small stone platform, or rather in a small platform, since her legs appeared to end right above her ankles. She tried to rip her feet out, but they were just as stuck as her hand which was was now trapped in a small pillar connected to this platform.

Another such pillar grew out the other side, twisting and bending like a snake. Raven instinctively swatted at it, channeling magic into her fist to make her strong enough that she should have been able to hit the rock without hurting herself. Only that there was no hit at all, because the slithering pillar split to let her punch go right through it, only to reconnect immediately, trapping her last free limb in the process.

The whole thing had taken barely a minute, and Raven had gone from a severe disadvantage to a complete defeat. She tried to keep her calm, but it wasn't easy when she was so very aware that she was now completely immobilized, her naked body sprawled out for Alicia to gawk at. Or to do even more naughty things with, should the fancy strike her.

It was so humiliating how completely Raven had lost control of her own body, and the worst thing was that the question what Alicia would do next didn't fill her with the trepidation it should have. She'd turned into the helpless plaything of her rival for fuck's sake, so why did her traitorous body have to choose this very moment to get aroused?

"Let me go, you... you..." Raven tried to target her anger with herself at Alicia, but the words failed her. Her mind got stuck trying to find an insult that didn't sound like she acknowledged the sexual nature of her predicament.

"Don't worry, I'll let you go. Eventually." Alicia closed the gap between them. Now that Raven was completely helpless, she could come up right into her face without fear of retribution. "But only once you've admitted what this is all about."

Raven tried to figure out if Alicia was in range for a headbutt. Not that it would achieve much, but it was about the only way of fighting back that she had left. And planning her revenge was a much needed distraction from how her body betrayed her.

Not that her being aroused actually meant anything, of course. She was a bit of a kinky gal at heart, so it was no wonder that her body recognized that feeling of being bound naked. It was a trained reaction, nothing more, and certainly not a sign that she was crushing on Alicia as that little bitch wanted her to believe.

"I'm not gonna admit anything because there is nothing to admit." Raven forced herself to keep eye contact. Any show of weakness would only be used against her.

"Sounds like we're gonna be here for some time." Alicia didn't seem bothered by the prospect at all. "Let's start easy: What exactly did you think about at solstice? You sounded like you were having so much fun. It must've been something real nice."

Looking into Alicia's eyes suddenly got a lot harder. "That's none of your business," Raven mumbled.

"Given how I was apparently the main star in your mental production, I'd argue that it kinda is."

Alicia still had that infuriatingly calm tone, and having her pretty face dominate Raven's field of vision didn't help with staying cool. Raven gritted her teeth. This brat wanted the truth so badly? Then let her have it. At least that would remove any delusions about potential amorous feelings she may harbor.

"I imagined that I fucked you into submission," Raven blurted out, playing over her embarrassment by yelling at Alicia. "I imagined how I'd slap your tits and scratch you bloody and fuck you till you can't do anything but moan my name anymore. There, are you happy now?"

Raven knew that she was being a bit of an ass, but if anything, she hated how she even considered feeling bad about it. Alicia was the villain here! She'd tied her up and kept provoking her, so why should Raven mince words?

Alicia was taken aback by that outburst, but she didn't look as shocked as Raven would have expected. "That's a vivid imagination you've got."

"You asked for it." Raven scoffed at her. "So much for me having a crush on you, huh?"

For a moment Alicia just stared at Raven, then she broke out laughing. A bright belly laughter that shook her to the point where she could barely even breathe.

"What's so funny?" Raven was starting to get pissed for real. Alicia was supposed to be shocked and disgusted by her bluntness, not laughing at her.

"I'm sorry, you're just too damn precious." Alicia wiped the tears out of the corners of her eyes, slowly getting herself back under control.

Precious? The claim was so outlandishly ridiculous that Raven was at a loss for words. She glared at Alicia, once again evaluating the headbutt potential of their current distance.

"Anyway." Alicia suppressed the last bout of chuckles. "Do you really think you'd have it in you? If I released you and told you that you could do whatever you wanted to me, with zero repercussions, would you actually do all these things? You know, the tit slapping and the fucking and all the rest?"

"If I didn't have it in me before, I certainly have it now."

"Is that so?" Alicia gently stroked her fingers over Raven's cheek and giggled when Raven tried to bite her. "You know, seeing you bound there all naked, I was so tempted to pay you back for trying to pull a fast one on me. Maybe tickle you a little, maybe even some pinches that just so happen to go into less than decent territories. The kind of punishment where we can both pretend that it's just some harmless bullying and totally not a sex thing. Not that I'd have done it, since a good girl like me would never abuse her power like that, but now that it turned out that you're not a good girl..."