Echoes Of The Seven

“You fucking bitch!” Bailey’s scream echoed through Eris’s ears, but the sound was hollow. Eris was too busy rolling onto one hip as Elmas backwards-crawled out from underneath her, then setting herself back down in a way where she didn’t hurt too much.

She failed.

“You ass-mouth, worthless, cunt-for-brains piece of leech shit!” Eris watched Bailey out of the corner of her eye. The blonde stomped right up to where Pravala was anxiously sitting up in her chair, then sent a wild punch towards the woman. Well, she tried to.

About halfway through, Bailey’s arm seemed to lock in place with such force that Bailey herself actually stumbled forward from her own momentum- barely catching herself. Meanwhile, everyone else was moving away from Eris like repelling magnets. They slid back against the brown cloth circle until Eris was sitting completely alone. Sweaty, sore, with a mixture of fluids between her legs that Eris could look down and see contained just the faintest tinge of red. Her throat was dry and her eyes were aching. Meanwhile, the Summoner rose to her feet just in front of an extremely pissed-off blonde.

“I did my duty as an Echo, while also showing that duty to Eris.”

“Bullshit! There was no reason to do that! None! We were going to charge the Altar anyway, and Eris even said she would fuck us on her own terms, so you would get the same thing regardless!”

From what it looked like, Bailey tried to shove the Echo. That too, just like her earlier punch, never even managed to make contact. Instead, the blonde resorted to letting the venom drip from her words in a way that even made Eris’s blood freeze over. She’d never even seen Bailey upset before- much less to the point of screaming insults and trying to pick a fight with someone who could kill her in less than a second.

“Bailey-” Eris rasped weakly, though her warning seemed to have been too quiet to be heard.

“Doing that accomplished nothing,” Bailey snarled, then spit. Apparently, whatever effect preventing Bailey from harming the woman didn’t seem to stop that, since Pravala flinched when a wad of saliva splattered over her cheek. The blonde then stepped right up, getting so close into Pravala’s face that if Eris didn’t know better, she’d think the two would start kissing.

“You could have had the exact same outcome by letting us do it our way, but you didn’t. You didn’t, because you’re an evil, manipulative parasite of a woman. You talk about bad things being necessary, but that’s a load of shit. You only say that because your head is stuck so far up your ass that you are genuinely trying to justify being a piece of shit.”

“Bailey…” Eris tried again, being cut off by a cough. Still, the blonde stayed in Pravala’s face, seemingly unaware of the older woman’s hand clenching into a grip by her side like she were holding something- or about to be holding something.

“Say whatever you want,” Bailey spat on Pravala again. “Nothing you say will change the fact that you chose to be the monster-”

“Bailey!” Eris screamed through her sore throat, apparently loud enough that the blonde whipped around and stared. After a single moment of pain spread across Bailey’s expression, the blonde turned her back to the Summoner and walked back towards Eris.

Thankfully, Eris watched the dark-iron dagger that materialized in Pravala’s grip slowly fizzle into dust- unused.

Bailey knelt down cautiously in front of Eris, almost giving the impression of trying to calm a stray cat. The blonde’s eyes were wide as they raked up and down Eris’s body- obviously taking note of her condition. Eris desperately tried to forget that insatiable hunger those same eyes held mere moments earlier, but that image was painted on the inside of her eyelids. It reminded her every time she blinked.

“Eris, I am so, so…” Bailey seemed to pause for a moment, then gave a shaky sigh. “Are you okay?”

The redhead shuddered. “I… I think so? I mean, we were already going to… you know. This wasn’t that different, right?”

Bailey frowned. “The fact we already planned to have sex doesn’t validate what just happened, Eris.” The blonde leaned in just a touch, making her voice even more serious. “Please, Eris, just tell me. Are you okay?”

Eris sat quiet for several seconds. What scared her the most was that she wasn’t entirely sure what the honest answer was. She decided to settle on the safe answer.

“My- ow- my butt hurts.”

The apologetic look on Bailey’s face was so thick that it probably could have made a puppy start crying. Bailey gave a stress-filled sigh, twisted over, then grabbed her shirt that she had previously discarded. When she brought it back to lift it up to Eris’s face, however, Eris flinched.

Eris fucking flinched.

Eris hated it the moment she did it, if for nothing more than the fact that she knew it would upset Bailey even more. The way that Bailey’s entire expression somehow managed to drop even further felt like a block of ice was trying to shove its way through Eris’s circulatory system. A single moment of hesitation from both of them passed before Eris gave a tiny nod. Tentatively, Bailey lifted the shirt to Eris’s cheek and used it to wipe away a line of cum. A clean spot was then used to gently- so, so gently- clean the tear streaks.

“Eris?”

She turned to look at the soft voice coming just from the side to see Elmas kneeling there, also having dragged over the small pile of clothing including Eris’s own. Elmas lifted her own shirt in a similar manner to Bailey, then waited in a silent ask of permission. Eris managed another small nod and cleared her throat. “O-okay.”

While Bailey wiped down Eris’s face, Elmas did the same for her thighs and stomach. It gave the opportunity for Eris to glance her eyes over to the woman in the blue dress staring towards the three naked, foreign volunteers and waving her hand dismissively.

”Tarmen.”

By the gods, Bimaja, Peilo and Zoime looked dreadful. It seemed like they were holding the weight of the world on their shoulders as the three of them walked away, back towards the castle. Then again, Eris didn’t have to think too hard about how they probably felt. Those three volunteered to be part of a ritual orgy to power a creation that would help get everyone out of the prison.

They didn’t volunteer for what just happened.

Meanwhile, Pravala turned back around to stare at Eris and her two cleaners. The expression on the woman’s face was hard to read. Eris wasn’t sure whether it was pride, acceptance, or just straight-up shame. Possibly a mixture.

“Come. The Warden seems to be climbing fast, so it won’t be long until it arrives.”

This time, it was Elmas who turned to the woman. Unlike Bailey, Elmas didn’t wear her expression on her face. It was completely flat, though the coldness in her voice chilled Eris to the bone.

“We’ll meet you there. For now, we need a moment.”

The stare-down between the wounded soldier and the woman that impaled her lasted for numerous seconds before Pravala swallowed. “Very well.”

No other words were shared as Pravala’s blue dress began walking away, padding quickly towards the underground ocean. It let Eris turn her eyes back to Bailey just as the blonde grabbed Eris’s shirt.

“I still need to clean you up down there, but maybe you’d be more comfortable with your top for now? Leyla, do you wanna get dressed?”

While Bailey gingerly helped Eris affix the buttons on her shirt, Elmas wasted no time in tugging on her lower clothing. Soon enough, one of the dicks that violated Eris was hidden from view- no longer bouncing in Eris’s peripherals. Elmas’s shirt followed, being buttoned quickly and efficiently to leave the woman fully clothed save her shoes. Bailey pulled on her own pants, though still held her cleaning-rag shirt in her hands as she softly spoke.

“Okay, now I’m gonna clean you up down there,” Bailey’s eyes were just as gentle as her voice. “Is that okay?”

Eris opted not to speak, instead giving a small nod. Bailey returned it with one of her own, alongside a tiny sigh.

“Alright. This is probably going to be easier if you get on your hands and knees and spread- erm… and part your legs.”

“...Okay.”

Eris was wobbly as she pushed up from her sore butt to her knees, then placed her palms flat on the cloth circle. Once she was in position, she wiggled her knees back and forth to widen the gap and allow easier access for the blonde kneeling behind her. Eris decided not to try and look at what was happening- simply letting her head hang with eyes closed.

“I’m gonna be real slow and gentle, okay? It’s probably gonna hurt a little bit, but we need to get you clean.”

Eris gave a nod. She tried not to wince too much at the sharp tenderness of her lower regions when Bailey’s shirt started dabbing at the mess left behind. Instead, Eris tried to focus on anything else. More importantly, Eris didn’t want to think about what just happened.

She almost felt like she should- that she should hyperfixate and obsess over it, becoming completely incapacitated and crying in a corner somewhere for a few hours, or maybe days. That was what she was supposed to do, right?

But it wasn’t like that. Eris wasn’t screaming. She didn’t want to scream. She wasn’t crying- she didn’t want to cry. Even the tears that had poured from her cheeks earlier hadn’t really been from what was happening- she’d simply began crying simply because Pravala had been way too rough and it felt like someone was taking a meat cleaver between her legs- not because she was being violated.

And that was what scared Eris.

She didn’t feel despair, or fear, or any of that. She just felt… hollow. Like someone could rap their knuckles against her skull and the sound would bounce around an empty shell. This wasn’t how she was supposed to feel after something like this, right? ”Welp, it happened, boo-hoo. Anyway, back to the plan…”

This was supposed to be a complete breakdown! She was supposed to be a traumatized wreck, doing absolutely nothing while she came to terms with what should easily have been the worst thing she’d ever experienced. Instead, it was almost easier to completely push it aside and focus on what mattered.

Namely, Pravala.

Back when Pravala first said all her skills, the woman said that she could only see and hear through her enslaved. If nothing else, this confirmed that Pravala had been lying- at least by omission. Pravala definitely felt everything- even before she had taken control. The way that she had been gripping her armrests, shuddering, and even giving that one moan? She hadn’t just been watching the foreplay happen- she was feeling every bit of it from all five bodies at once.

In truth, that might have been what ultimately set her off, if Eris had to take a wild guess. Everything they did was getting Pravala so hot and bothered that she decided to take matters into her own hands. Then, during the… well- during, Eris did take note of a key detail. Whenever any of the five girls came, all of them seemed to shudder, at least in part. Like a spiderweb had connected all of them together, and if one string got plucked the whole web shook.

Then, right when it all ended. Pravala physically winced. She was holding her shoulder, and all five of her enslaved stopped everything to stare at nothing. Something else happened- something when the Warden started to climb the chain. Based on the way Pravala almost seemed to be in pain for a moment, did that mean someone got hurt? And she still felt it despite all of her attention clearly being on Eris?

Though Eris had no confirmation, it was looking more and more like Pravala was experiencing everything through all of her slaves, all at once.

It was an impossible amount of information to comprehend- a thousand lives at the same time. A thousand sounds, a thousand sights. A thousand feelings. No wonder Pravala went insane. Even if she didn’t have that guilt of what she’d done hanging over her, trying to live with such a distorted perception of reality would drive anyone to madness. Obviously, that ability for an Echo to enslave the soul of another was never intended to be used on this many people. It gave her unmatched levels of power in skills dozens of levels higher than they should ever normally reach because of the near-infiniteness of her sinful resource. However, it also completely crippled her ability to effectively view the world and retain the benefit of individuality.

Unfortunately, Eris had no idea what else Pravala may have been lying about through omission. Supposedly, her ability to teleport had a cooldown of one minute, but what if it was less? What if she simply said it was a minute to give Eris a false effect to work off of? What about her creature summoning? She said she can only summon one at a time. Was that a lie? Eris certainly hoped not.

Actually, was there any chance that Pravala avoided saying that she could feel through her enslaved, or the specifics of how she perceived through them because it would have been revealing a weakness? Perhaps…

If that was the case, then Pravala’s earlier description of all her skills may have actually been more truthful than Eris thought. Instead of trying to hide a dagger up her sleeve in case Eris tried to act against her, Pravala may have simply dropped everything she had in a grand display to show exactly how powerful she was in some attempt to dissuade opposition entirely. There was a very real chance that Pravala did indeed state every single one of her strengths, but actively hid her greatest weaknesses.

If anything, Pravala may actually be weaker than she initially let on.

Eris tried not to let her hopes grow too much, forcefully pushing away that thought. After all, that’s what it was. A thought. A hope. A wish for a possibility that would lend itself in Eris’s favour. She couldn’t rely on Pravala having a slew of crippling debilitations on her abilities. She couldn’t rely on her having something similar to Eris’s own Pacifist, being a skill with only downsides. She couldn’t rely on the Summoner being completely incapable of handling anything that Eris tried to use against her.

The only thing Eris could rely on was the single weakness Pravala just revealed. That Pravala felt everything her enslaved did.

Eris found her eyes drifting to her pants, sitting just beside her. She could see the bulge of the insane smoke bomb she made hiding amongst the overstuffed pockets. It seemed uncanny. Eris originally dismissed the additional Lust effect as something useless. All she needed the bomb for was to disrupt Pravala’s line of sight in a key moment and hope that everything worked out how Eris wanted. Maybe, just maybe, though, that extra effect wasn’t too bad after all.

Additional effect: Blissful Censure

Whenever a creature achieves orgasm while inside smoke created by the Smoke Bomb, all other creatures within the smoke achieve orgasm as well.

“Okay, I think you’re all clean now,” Bailey said sadly, lowering her shirt. “There was a bit of bleeding but nothing seems to be genuinely damaged- just stretched a teeny bit too far. Do you… do you want to put your pants on, or do you need a few more moments?”

Eris sat slowly and sore-ly back onto her heels as Bailey scooched around to Eris’s front. Eris swallowed, let out a deep breath, then shook her head with finality.

“No. Let’s go trap the fucking Warden and get out of this place.”