When Lucia steps out of her home, she finds people waiting for her. She’s used to find Stella waiting outside of her home, but this time she’s accompanied by two other persons. Melinda and Jack.

The first is the nice lady that cares for everyone here. Lucia is a bit intimidated by the woman, particularly by her big breast, she doesn’t have big boobs, she has really big boobs, like watermelons, the kind of things that should be obliged by some cosmic law to give her back pain at the end of each day, the kind that can make men dumber than they already are. The kind of boobs Lucia will never have.

The other one is the spotted Gnoll. She’s wary of him. Lucia does not really discriminate against Gnolls, it’s just that in her former line of work they are quite dangerous. Gnolls, like a lot of beastmen, have really good noses and their ears are not that bad either, which makes it really hard to sneak up on them and the best of them can even follow your tracks and scent and beat you to a pulp. She learned that the hard way.

When Lucia notices the serious look on their faces, she can already tell it will not be an easy day, not that any day is particularly good down here anyway.

“Hi, Lucia. Can we please come in and talk for a little bit?” Asks Melinda in a serious tone.

“What do you want?”

The woman comes closer to her and whispers in her ear. “It’s about Stella, we have bad news for her. And since you’re friends, we thought it would be better if you were there to support her.”

“She’s not really my friend. But she’s sweet and kind with me, alright come on in.”

“Thanks.” Says the woman with a small smile, then she turns to Jack and Stella and motions them to follow.

Once inside the small house, Lucia motions for Stella to sit down on one of the two available chairs and sits down on the other one, leaving the two other people standing in the room. The atmosphere is a little tense as no one wants to start talking first.

“W…what is this all about?” Finally, Stella asks. “I can see there is something on your minds. Did the Dungeon do something?”

“It looks like it’s doing something at the moment, yes. But that’s not why we are here.” Answers the only man in the room.

“We are here for you, sweety.” Adds the big-breasted woman, walking near Stella.

“Yes. We have an important information for you.”

“I...information? I...is it...something bad?”

“Yes.”

“Slow down, Jack. Whether it’s good or bad news is up to you, child.”

“Y…you’re starting t…to scare me.”

“Shhh, don’t be scared, sweetheart. We are here to support you, especially Lucia. She’s your friend, right? That’s why we’re doing it here.”

“Y...yes, I...I believe she is.”

“And I’m tired of you beating around the bush. Come out with it and tell us what this is all about.”

“Calm down, pup.” Barks the Gnoll, almost snapping at Lucia.

“Sweetheart. You... You’re bearing life.”

A bit of time passes before Stella pulls enough of herself together to ask.

“W...w...what?”

“There is a child growing inside of you.”

“N...no. That… That can’t be! I...I would k...know it if I w...was p...pre...pregnant.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but it is too soon for you to know by yourself.”

“Then how can you know?” Intervenes the youngest person in the room.

“I can smell it.” Answers Jack.

“B...but. N...no. That can’t be true.” Lucia can see that Stella is starting to shake on her chair, it seems like the older girl is having a hard time accepting this.

“I’m sure of it, girl, you’re pregnant. There is nothing wrong with you, but you need to understand that the father is a pirate.” Explains Jack with an almost apologetic tone.

“How do you know that, can you smell it too? Or are you just too stupid to keep your mouth shut?”

“Shut up, pup! Let the adults do the talking.”

“Adults? I’m an adult too, you dumb fuck. Now get out of my house!”

“Jack, we should leave. We still have others to see and are no more welcome here.”

“Hrmf, ungrateful little brat.” Says the man as he walks out of the house.

“Melinda, you should think more about letting that idiot go with you if you’re going to break the same news to more women.” Lucia angrily says in a calm, but furious voice, slamming the door shut behind them.

She then turns to look at Stella. The other woman looks grim and completely overwhelmed by the news, tears flowing down her cheeks. Lucia walks to the bed and grabs her blanket, she then tosses it across her guest’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry, they told it to you like that. It’s hard news. And I want you to know, however you choose, I’m going to support you.”

As Lucia takes a seat near Stella, the blonde throws herself into the chest of the brunette and starts to cry, drenching the brunette’s shirt with tears and snot. The younger girl starts to pat the older’s head while making soothing motions.

“Shhh, I’m here, I’m not going to leave you alone.”

“P...please, d..don’t beat me.” Whispers the crying girl with a frail voice.

“Beat you? What are you talking about? I would never hit you. You’re the closest person I have now. I have nobody closer to a friend than you are, not here, not where I come from, nowhere. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“N...no. I...I’m b...begging you. D...don’t beat me. I’ll b...be g...good. P...please Mistress. I’ll do it, I’ll do it with whoever you tell me to. I...I’ll obey. P...please!” *Snirfl!*

Lucia reaches down and grabs the chin of the whining girl, pulling it up. She tries to look into her eyes, but only finds emptiness in them, as if the girl with the big scar on her face is lost in her own mind. It is not the first time the former burglar has seen an expression like this, mostly on people so afraid of something in their past that it can sometimes come back to the present and break their minds. She hugs and cradles the crying girl for three hours before Stella starts to calm down.

When Stella is calm enough to understand her, Lucia explains to her that she’s going to fetch both of them something to eat, but before she leaves, she lays the blonde girl down onto the only bed in the house.

An hour later, Lucia comes back with some fruits in her arms and news of the Dungeon’s activity. She sits down on the bed next to the drowsy girl and offers her an apple to eat.

“Hey, you know what I heard just now? The Dungeon has built something new. Apparently, it built a bathhouse. I was thinking that maybe you would like to go there with me? Later when we can be alone inside.”

“Y...you came back. I was afraid you’d abandon me too.”

“I’ve told you that I wasn’t going to do that. I promise that I’ll always come back.”

“T...thanks…”

“You’re welcome.”

The two young women eat in silence for a while, before Lucia decides to ask Stella about what has been bothering her since earlier.

“So. Care to explain to me why you thought I was going to beat you?”

“I...I don’t know if I can. I want to, but I’m so afraid.”

“It’s up to you. You can trust me on this, I will always come back and never leave you for long. But if your past is too painful, if you don’t think you can trust me with it, then you don’t need to. I know how painful memories can be, I have my own share of those. I won’t force you to reveal yours to me.”

“Thanks. I...it makes me think I can trust you about it.”

“Like I said, it’s up to you. I do think it can be helpful to let it out, but you shouldn’t force yourself.”

“I...I have to t...take my life into my own two hands, m...make my own choices. I... I will tell you.”

Lucia reaches out for Stella and holds her in her arms.

“W...when I was a little girl, I was li...living on a farm with my parents, my sisters and my br...brothers and for the few memories I have of this period of my life, it was heaven. But one morning, when I was eleven, men came to the farm. They were b...bandits. They killed my father and my brothers. They raped my mother to death in front of us. Sometimes I still have nightmares of that night, and of the following days. The fire, the smoke, the smell of blood, especially the cries of my family and the screams of those beasts.”

At this point of the account, Lucia notices that Stella’s speech is growing more stable and more distant, she is stuttering less and less but seems to distance herself from reality and her past, as if she is talking about a stranger instead of herself. The former burglar hugs the apathetic girl tighter.

“Then they droved two of my sisters and me together and locked us in the barn. They kept my oldest sister to play with her for the night as they feasted on our slaughtered livestock. The day after that, they came back to the barn to take one of my sisters away and locked it up again. We heard her scream and cry throughout the day and when night came she already had stopped screaming, her voice broken. At that moment I knew my turn would come next and I had to protect my little sister, it was already too late for the rest of my family. I don’t know why I believed it would succeed, but, when they came back just after sunset, I jumped at them, ready to fight to the death and screaming at my lil’ sis’ to run away.”

Around this part of her story, tears resume to flow down Stella’s cheeks, but she keeps on telling her story. Now that she has told so much, she can’t stop at this point.

“They subdued me and caught her. Then, to punish me, their chief tied me up and forced me to watch as they raped my little sister. At the end of the day, when she couldn’t even cry anymore, he took my hand, gave me a knife and forced me to slice my own sisters’ throat. I was eleven at the time. After that, contrary to what I was expecting and almost hoping for, they didn’t kill me. They fed my family members to their dogs and loaded everything they could take onto their carriages, then lastly they burned the rest of the farm.”

At this point of her story, Stella pauses a second, not sure if she should keep going. But Lucia’s gentle warmth helps her carry on with her hard story.

“For years, the chief of the bandits kept me as his pet, at the beginning my arms were tied behind my back, a leash around my neck to prevent me from running away. I was only allowed to eat scraps from the floor or whatever he gave me. He trained me like a dog with treats and beatings. I only have a few clear memories of that time, it’s mainly a long and painful blur. After some weeks he found I was obedient enough to untie my arms, I remember feeling joy then. Same when he later removed the leash, even if I still had to wear a dog collar.

During this time I became pregnant several times, despite the herbs their ‘doctor’ was giving me. Each and every time he would beat me until I lost the child. Eventually, I grew older and started looking more adult and my Master grew bored of me. After he lost his last bit of interest in me, he sold me out to a brothel run by a couple of Drows. They didn’t have to pay much for me, I had been used so much and my skin had so many scars. But at least I was completely obedient and willing to do everything to please my Masters.

I worked for four years in that brothel. Little by little, I was recovering my sanity and becoming Human again. At the same time, and to my own damnation, I was becoming more and more beautiful as my scars were fading away and I was growing quite popular with some of the most expensive clients, the kind that loved to be able to do everything they wanted with a willing girl like me. After some time I even started to catch up with the head girl and she didn’t like that. One night, while Master and Mistress were out - she was in charge of the brothel on those nights - she sent me to one of her usual clients, and he did things to me which were even forbidden in this brothel. He may not have inflicted more pain than I was able to endure, but he slashed at my face and not only at my body.

When the head girl came by later, she acted all nice and sweet, she even gave me a poultice that she claimed was supposed to help me heal faster and prevent the formation of scars. She told me she was sorry that he had done this to me and that I should endure the pain, that it was normal to feel pain with this poultice and that it would help me recover when in truth it was to ensure that a scar would form on my face. I knew she was lying, but I didn’t know the full extent of the lie. Anyway, I would have obeyed her even if I had known the whole truth, I was too obedient and the Masters had told me to obey her while they were away. So I endured the pain of the poultice, and when the Masters came back, they found me lying on my bed. They told another slave to take care of me and had me tell them what had happened. Of course, the head girl told them it was a mistake, that she was innocent and all those shenanigans, but they were too smart for that and called her lies out.

She was tortured and killed in front of all the slaves of the brothel to serve as an example. Meanwhile, with my new and big scar on the face, I started losing clients. One day, the Master came to my room and explained to me that I was no longer worth keeping, that they had found a new owner for me, a new Master to serve. One of their cousins liked scarred girls, the more gruesome the scars the better. Oh, they could have bought some medicine to make my scar disappear, but I wasn’t worth the price in their eyes.

Then, the pirates that were supposed to take me to my new owner abandoned us here in this Dungeon. I was lost and didn’t have a Master to tell me what to do. I was free, free to do whatever I wanted. But still in locks.”

While she tells this part of her more recent past, Stella is no longer crying, but Lucia is doing it in her stead. Silently, she’s clinging to her and listening to the horrific story of her life, glad it is finally ending.

“At that moment, you gave me an order, or rather, you asked me to do something, to give you my metal hairpin. You freed me from my physical shackles, and from my mental ones at the same time. You made me a free person again. You didn’t know, but if you had wanted, you could have easily made me your slave, you still can. I don’t know how to live outside of slavery anymore. I’m constantly afraid, wondering where I’m supposed to go and what to do. But more importantly, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be now.

So, please help me. Tell me where to go, tell me what to do, tell me who and what I am. If you tell me, you can become my new Mistress.”

Lucia can’t answer yet, she’s too shocked by what Stella just told her. She takes a bit of time to think about it, while the other girl is slowly growing more and more agitated in her arms. Finally, she found what she wants to express.

“Do you remember your full name? How old are you? Where was your parents’ farm?”

“My full name is Stella Maria Bran. It’s one of the few memories from before my enslavement. I’m nineteen years old, I remember my birthdate, it’s thanks to that that I am able to calculate how long I was a slave, eight years. But I don’t remember the name of the country I grew up in, only that we were speaking Nodasian, but that’s the most commonly spoken tongue.”

“Well, then you are Stella Maria Bran. You are a free, nineteen years old woman. You are free to go wherever you want to and free to do whatever you want. You are your own Mistress and only you can decide what you want to be in the future. You are the Mistress of your own Destiny.

No one can force you to do anything against your own will. Never forget that. Never forget that you are free.

As for me, I’m Lucia, I’m sixteen years old and I’m your friend.”

Hearing those words Stella buries her face in Lucia's small chest and resumes crying. But this time they are tears of joy and relief that are soaking her friend's shirt.

“Thanks. Thank you so much for what you just said. I love you. I love you so much for those words.”

“Here, easy, easy. I’m here.”

“A...and for the child?”

“It is your choice to keep it or not. You can choose to raise it, I’ll stay by your side and help you take care of it so that it becomes a good person. Or you can choose to go see the Gnome, and in that case, I’ll stay by your side. It is your choice and I’ll support you, whatever you do.”

“How can I repay you? What can I do for you?”

“You don’t have to do anything, that’s what friends are for.”

“I still want to do something for you. That is what I want.”

“Well, then, you can come with me to the baths, so we can clean ourselves and try to relax a bit.” Says Lucia with a smile on her face.

Stella withdraws her faces from the younger woman's breasts and looks at it.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, your shirt is a mess because of me.”

Engaging in small talk the two young women leave the house and go to the new upper level of the cave and to the bathhouse.

Inside they follow the indications and enter the women's bath. They find the place empty, all the other women having already left the building after a bath in the lukewarm water.

The water is not really hot, but it is at least warm enough to help them relax in it and unload a big part of the burden weighing on their minds. They wash themselves while thoroughly rubbing their own skins with water and each other back, meanwhile Lucia notices how many scars are on Stella’s body, there are some all over her body, most of them are small and rather shallow, but there are some clearly newer ones which are bigger and more gruesome, although none are as repulsive as the one on her face. They manage to relax and feel good. At one point Stella offers Lucia to massage her back and the former reluctantly accepts, not wanting to take advantage of her friend and the skills she got during her slavery.

During the massage, Lucia hears a strange noise, it seems like someone is trying to move stealthily but has such a lack of skill in the art, that it makes it even more noticeable to her trained ears. She motions Stella to stay quiet and to stop the delightful massage. Under the curious gaze of her friend, Lucia grabs her shirt to cover her nudity and walks silently down the corridor.

She hears a sound and looks in its direction. It comes from the direction of the door to the Citizens’ area. At first, she believes it’s someone that is here to observe the door, and maybe to unsuccessfully try to open it. She knows it can’t be opened, all of those that try fail. Stella and she tried too, of course.

But to her surprise, she hears a sound corresponding to the opening of a door. Curiosity wins the battle against prudence, and Lucia rushes to the door, but she can only catch a glimpse of a silhouette on the other side of the closing doors.

She goes back to the puzzled Stella and whispers to her.

“Someone’s in the Citizens’ area.”

“I heard Grundy was trying to become a Citizen, he must have done it.”

“No, it was not Grundy, he is tall and big. This one was shorter and broader than me. I think it’s a Dwarf.”

-

On the other side of the door, completely oblivious to the fact that her secret could be revealed soon, Franziska Kon Ironknuckles is taking a bath in some pleasantly hot water. She is taking a well-earned rest after a day full of testing her new abilities in the secrecy of her house.