Tales of Dunnis Urom Ch. 03

She furrowed her brow. She felt an urge to pat herself down to find a lump or bulge--the feeling of fullness she had--and press it out!

"C-can you hear my thoughts?" she asked.

"No--but I can tell if you're lying or happy or sad or such. It would be very hard for you to fool me."

"Are you going to make me do something?" she asked, nervously.

"No--I think you're going to do something--or someone else is. I'm just your passenger."

The smooth tone really did calm her nerves. "More like a slave driver," she scowled. The sarcasm slipping out--if Task was like something, it wasn't at all really like a slave driver. She closed her eyes. This had been a horrible day and it was already longer than she had ever imagined. She wondered where the blasted Artisan was--and what the penalty would be if she fell asleep.

NONS: TANARIS CRAY

The order treated its talented senior (and mostly male )Artisans extremely well--something he enjoyed reminding his twin of when he saw her. He had a spacious work room with a laboratory, plumbing that would be the envy of a palace suite, and a private room with a large oak bed. He had washed after coming from the work area when a bell jingled telling him his guest had arrived.

As a rule, he didn't punish unfortunates without good reason after hours and more importantly, he didn't spend when he was very horny. No, he had to suffer it--that was part of the discipline. As an Artisan Master, he could use many of the people in the enclave: acolytes and apprentices were required to service masters. Unfortunates sometimes had to as well. He could make less than utterly humiliating appeals to the hierarchy to couple with a peer. His peers were, as with him, usually willing in the physical sense.

Of course the power games that came with such a thing made everyone wary. There were several girls he'd like to try with--but one slip up and if they wound up.... over him--emotionally--it could be disastrous. If they could truly leverage it he'd wind up in their stables.

He was stressed and horny and so he definitely was NOT going to use the unfortunate--Maci--even if she had sworn at him. He'd summoned up an "Unbearable Itch" and let her sit with it. He didn't know many masters who could take that.

Yes, she did deserve punishment--and she'd got it. If she had more to pay--and he knew she did--that was not his remit.

But... He'd expected the crone to order her onto his cock. It was fairly traditional for the difference in social status--especially with her under serious punishment--to be made to perform like that. He would even have very much liked to see the forlorn looking girl try it!

But the crone's order, instead, had been... interesting. The girl had surprisingly literate fantasies and in them she was stroking herself to the punished rather than the punisher. She'd told the story in vivid detail--with an understanding of the fate of the girl in it. It had intrigued him. When he realized she was not just performing as ordered but exceeding expectations, he had dismissed the magic. Telling that story was awful enough.

Now he sat at a table with devices and maps scattered across it. The tangle storm was too complex to untie: true. He was skilled and he couldn't do it before. From inside it now, it would be impossible--but he could do something else: cut it in half.

He couldn't really--even as the metaphor--it was a mix of probabilities--of events and contacts between people and things across a grid of discrete moments in time. Each person was a lifeline, slithering through time, even if they were standing still.... or dead... or not yet born. Some of these lifelines touched and coupled and then perhaps intertwined for moments to years before forking off.

One technique was to take a person caught in the tangle (him, now) and make decisions that he would commit to carrying through with--if they changed the nature of the storm.

He would submit himself to terrible discipline for a period of 60 days no matter what? If he committed to it, and his measures changed, he'd have to! He was very not ready to try something that drastic. No. These had to be things he could recover from if, indeed, he was caught in this it might be a fantastic opportunity!

So he had been cautious: He would be at Farthing Square at DECA tomorrow for a period of 1 hour? No change. Okay. He didn't have to do that.

He would hire a carriage to visit each of the city gates tomorrow morning for a period of 8 hours? No change. Hmm.

He had determined that whatever was going on, it was still mostly going on no matter where he was. Of course the critical time didn't HAVE to be tomorrow--he had just felt it was close and Vivian had too. That was when he remembered the girl was here. He had to send her home. Maybe a light spanking to satisfy the angered matron?

He found himself showering and had grown erect thinking about those panties. He certainly appreciated punishment techniques and was well schooled in them. The panties--a slick, thick second skin for the wearer were exotic and intriguing. He realized her suffering under the hot layer of rubbery flesh must have been awful. He hadn't really thought about that while the Council Mother was going over things with him--hadn't he?

Maybe he had? He got out of the shower--Artisan plumbing was spectacular--and dried off. He was dressed... more decently than he'd intended when he wondered why he was showering and getting dressed for going out at all. The girl could be dismissed by an acolyte and would likely be happier for it.

He stalked out into the hall. She couldn't be far. Where had they--oh.

The girl was off the stool--something that would cause her a likely long and involved punishment if the acolytes found her. She was curled up on the floor, very obviously asleep. He stared at her. He should summon one of the service acolytes to bundle her off back to where she belonged--but he felt an uncharacteristic pang of guilt.

She was so terribly worn out because he'd used a punishment magic on her that was utterly beyond her ability to handle--and he'd known it. He frowned. The idea of waking her to get her back on the seat so she could be dismissed without being punished all night made some sense--but ... oh, to fuck with it. He stalked over and knelt down. Touching her temple to use a mnemonic to deepen her sleep. Then he gathered her up and took her to his bed. He pulled off her shoes and, after a moment, undid her dress and got it off her.

She was still wearing the panties. He paused--looking at them--they showed all her private places as if she were naked. He considered taking them off as a tiny check with his talent suggested she was quite sitting in a small lake of discharge.

Suffused with the smell of her, he decided to leave them on--but dug for a mnemonic to create a whorl of a daemon that would simply subtly repair her flesh while she slept. It might be gross and uncomfortable when she woke up but she would be clothed, her skin might be mildly irritated but that was all, and his bed would be dry. He wanted to get into the bed with her--but he was uncomfortably erect and he wasn't going to spend!

Ugh. He got out a particularly made set of underpants and slipped them on. A cuff encircled his cock and he snapped it closed and then added the metallic belt around it. A click and the cage was locked. He was erect in the sleeve with a very light metal grid to prevent him from satisfying himself without a great deal of effort.

He opened a slot for that purpose and dropped the key down it, through a shaft that would deposit it at one of the stations where an acolyte would store it.They would have it brought to him in the morning.

He sat on his couch. How had the unfortunate wound up in his bed and he, erect for some reason, was remanded to the couch!?

He scowled at the work table: this tangle storm needed to be resolved--and soon. It was clearly getting the better of him. He lay back and, reclining, replayed her fantasy in his head--he as the minotaur, her as the girl condemned to the labyrinth. As the images swirled round and round in his mind, he felt the urgency of his cock more and more strongly.

Frustrated, he rolled over. Now the girl was punishing HIM... after a fashion. It was going to be a long night.

LLEVENS: BRYCE

Bryce lay in a clinic bed--legs spread wide--he thankfully wasn't erect--even though the enclave was so stimulating the nurses had given him something to make him only turgid. It also made him sleepy--which was fine. Apparently he wasn't going back to the Mother's Council tonight.

Two nurses, who seemed to feel he was the cutest thing they had ever seen, got him out of the carriage and berated the poor diver for having let him wear pants. Apparently he was far too swollen and any clothing at all would either constrain or chaff. They had also made it clear that he wasn't to walk at all: his swelling, again, was too severe to have him stand or even sit normally.

They chided him, giggling, and told him they would spank him (lightly!) except that it would get him erect again. He didn't have the strength or inclination to fight them off--so he submitted and got bathed (which felt wonderful) and fussed over (which he thought, annoyingly, wasn't bad either although it was intensely humiliating and infantilizing). He was put in a chair on wheels with a water closet style hole in, should he decide to move his bowels.

Before his judgment, two years ago, he would have been absolutely unable to do that around two, young, pretty, giggling women.

Now, when they told him the milking would be worse if he didn't and then one of them put her hands on her hips and ordered him to, he did.Their delight at his obedience was scorchingly humiliating. When he was finished, they got him over, on his belly, and a head nurse was summoned to do the milking.

The woman wore very fine, thin gloves and held his scrotum, weighing it like a fruit at a seller's market.

She examined his penis and questioned him about the salve the girls had used to stop his penis from becoming utterly raw from Maci's persistent sucking. He told her, whimpering softly in humiliation and after he explained what he'd gone through, she was satisfied and the nurses who had fetched him were horrified. They showered him in sympathy for the ordeal--and praise for being so appropriately submissive while the head nurse went to work--using some kind of tool and well trained fingers, working deep in his anus. Other than the spreading, it felt good and he buried his face as the girls chatted and stroked his hair. He felt so much of his seed flow out of him that he groaned in relief.

Now he was in bed. They still didn't want him closing his legs--although he thought this was possibly just to keep him feeling horribly awkward which they clearly thought was highly amusing. He did note that some of the others in the clinic did get much sterner treatment. Unfortunates had their hands strapped into anti-masturbation mittens. A nurse with a cart full of chemicals gave several of them mixed enemas before they were told to sleep. Clearly the enemas--expelled into a bedpan--were calculated to uncomfortable beyond just water or some kind of mild soap.

He was stationed where he couldn't see the girls being treated which was good because it would have aroused him. Now he dozed in and out of sleep.

It was late when he was roused by the sound of movement--a woman striding up and looming over the bed, looking down at him. He saw with a dismayed start that she wore the uniform of an Artisan. Her hands rested on her hips.

It would have been intensely humiliating were he erect--but being viewed limp, shorn of all hair, and laying helplessly open was bad too. She looked at him with a frightening look of mild dissatisfaction: if this woman were unhappy with him, she could do things like what the other Artisan had done to Maci. He'd heard her begging and mewling piteously while she suffered in the exotic throes of his magic.

His eyes were wide and he pressed himself down into the bedding as much as he was able.

"Kasti and Tasi!" the woman demanded, crisply. "Do you know those names, boy?"

"No, mistress," he squeaked in response. Her face darkened even more.

"I--I--m-maybe they are at the Mother's Council? Or friends of the unfortunate Maci who was brought here?" He cast about desperate to find an answer that would please her.

"Nurse?" she snapped.

One of the uniformed girls practically jumped to her side. "Mistress Artisan!" she announced herself. It pleased and comforted him on some level to see the abject humility with which the nurses presented themselves to her. He wasn't the only one who feared her.

"What is his condition, Nurse?" she asked, indicating him. The nurse glanced over. He felt his blush deepen. Her superior had used her fingers in his anus for an hour earlier today. It was unfair that he could feel so vulnerable and embarrassed still!

"This unfortunate was well milked after an extended enhanced teasing, mistress. My head (she meant the head nurse) had ordered rest and recovery." She scrutinized him. "He has had a trying day of it, Mistress Artisan and he has been nicely behaved with us," she added affectionately.

He had never been so happy to be patronized!

The woman pursed her lips. "I am sorry to have to further interfere with your head," she told the nurse. "Things are in motion. I have divined him as having some part in things. I need to see him in my workroom in fifteen minutes."

She turned on her heel and stalked off. The nurse watched her go. "Oh!" she said. "Poor unfortunate," she met his eyes sympathetically. "Such a hard day!" She fetched one of the rolling chairs and got him on it with cuffs at his wrists and ankles each with a few hands of slack in their cables that connected to the chair. She also reapplied some lotion to his cock, perineum and anus. The rubbing it gently on made him feel attempted stiffening in his exhausted organ--but he remained simply swollen and drops of precum leaked haplessly from his tip.

She rolled him out into the hall, quietly lecturing him on how to properly cower before the Artisan so as to avoid further punishment.

They used a pulley system in a wooden cage to raise and lower people from the clinics to the upper floors. He was rolled past an open space where women a few years older than him slept on cushioned pallets. They had no covers but instead wore "sleeping suits"--full body pajamas of a soft slightly fuzzy material that covered over their feet and hands as well as up to their necks. The suits buttoned and fastened up their backs so they would be nearly impossible to remove if wearing one--especially given the mitten-like coverings attached to the wrist cuffs. There were six of them slumbering. These had to be upper class unfortunates of some sort, he thought. It was impossible for him to tell what the order's discipline of them had been like.

The Artisan's chambers had a large arch to enter. He could smell chemicals. It had four work tables and, built into a wall, a bedding nook. Her bathroom was occluded only with a hung curtain. There were some frightening looking restraint racks and lots of cabinets. She wasn't a punishment mistress though. He presumed this was her personal workshop. She was observing a tube of liquid through some kind of instrument, the glass container slotted into a holding mechanism and she peered through a scope and dripped a green colored dye into it.

Next to her on the counter set a metal bedpan. He smelled stale urine.

"Nurse," she didn't look up. "Have the boy pee into the beaker," she said. Pushing a glass cup slightly. "If he cannot, you will need to encourage him--"

"He can, Mistress Artisan!" the nurse said cheerfully, fetching the beaker. "He's been very well trained in obedience!"

She too the beaker to him and he felt her gently lift his penis, slipping the mouth of the beaker under it. She fixed him with a look. His face burned.

"Pee," she demanded. He did, closing his eyes as he released his bladder. She tapped the side of his penis with her finger to dislodge any droplets and then wiped the tip with a soft cloth. "Good boy," she praised him, giving him a warm smile and a slight smirk. She delivered the liquid to the Artisan.

"Wait to return him to his bed," the Artisan said. "I will need to perform some tests."

"Yes mistress!"

He watched her, nervously as she decanted his urine into another tube and subjected it to the same examination with her scope--pausing to look at pyramids with pendulums swinging from the apex that were placed over parchment charts and adding drops of dye, watching how the colors mixed and dissolved through the yellow fluid.

The smell was humiliating for Bryce and he sat, trying not to squirm or annoy the Artisan.

Finally, she saw something she found meaningful and he watched her check some other charts and tools, before standing and walking to where he sat. He squirmed under her gaze.

She gave a soft snort examining him as though he had done something baffling and she wasn't exactly impressed but she was intrigued. She pulled a stool over and sat on it.

"How are you called, boy?" she asked him mildly.

"Bryce, Mistress Artisan," he said.

"Remanded to the Mother's Council by the courts?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress Artisan," he told her.

"Are they as bad as is said?" she queried him.

"I've,,, been thoroughly punished during my time there," he said. "I... am told I should feel gratitude at not being sent to prisons or even to the Mother's Council's work houses. I think that might be correct, Mistress Artisan," he said carefully.

"Mistress is fine," she told him. "And it's too late to further discipline you, so relax yourself."

"Yes, Mistress," he said softly. If he relaxed it was by tiny amounts. He was, for reasons that he had trouble articulating, acutely and embarrassingly aware of his bare cock and testicles presented on the chair before her between his spread thighs. When she reached over and laid a small wash cloth over his region he felt a surge of relief.

"Thank you, Mistress," he said, honestly. She nodded--absently. She was trying to formulate a question.

"You know the old city?" she asked--the original DunnisUrom had been a smaller, fortified outpost with several key structures around it. Ancient temples and tombs. The foundations were still there, the modern city, substantially larger. The oldest buildings in DunnisUrom were there. Some stretching back more than two centuries.

"Yes, Mistress," Bryce said. "I grew up there--my mother bathed me in a fountain of the Asphrosia Temple."

"The ancient goddess of beauty and love and marriage," she mused. Asphrosia was most well known in ancient mythology for being an incredibly beautiful bitch who mercilessly tormented men who thought they could deny her and women who thought too much of their own beauty. There were still festivals with her iconography. The temple had stood deserted for more than a hundred years in the era of Sattva.

She laughed! "Maybe that's why you came to the care of the Mother's Council! They are the mistresses of all things beautiful and in love!" He colored and looked down uncomfortably.

She had caught a thick thread of his--recent--a probabilistic leaning towards the old city. He was likely to be found there soon, it suggested, although she had no idea how or why.

She drummed her fingers. He waited--shifted a little and yawned.

"Are you bored, boy?" she asked archly.

OH SHIT!

He gasped. "I --I am sorry Mistress Artisan!! I forgot myself!! It has--It has been a really hard day," he finished meekly.

"Mmph." she groused. "It has, I suppose." She looked at him then--and an idea clearly dawned on her. "You were fixed to be unable to spend until the punishment is removed, weren't you?"