An hour after her meeting with the lord of the Mud Castle, a gaunt-faced bandit stumbled out of the mysterious woman named Sly’s personal quarters. He wasn’t invisible, and yet no one noticed his passing. Nor did they notice the unusual bloody shit stain pooling in the back of his pants, even if a number of people wondered about the smell.

The bandit’s face was a rictus of pain, his eyes glazed. Due to the enchantment placed upon him, however, he made no attempts to speak to anyone, nor did he seek aid for his condition. Instead, he ambled awkwardly out of the castle, beyond the village, and into the nearby woods.

Bandits came and went. Sometimes they stayed to work for Mud Village in a long term capacity, but surely no one would notice the four Sly made disappear. Nor were their bodies likely to be found after being compelled to walk away from civilization until they died from internal bleeding. The animals and monsters were guaranteed to be drawn to the helpless bloody bandit and would consume all the evidence.

All four bandits she eliminated had been subjected to the same treatment. An hour of fun time with Sly, followed by a kick to the proverbial curb, so to speak. They had all been subjected to the worst humiliation and pain, then forced to silently obey a simple compulsion as their bowels were churned by the spiked instruments Sly introduced through their sensitive orifices. An apt end for rapists.

Yes, it really had been a good day.

Sly had the appearance of a woman in her early twenties with olive skin, chocolate curls, forest-green eyes and curves in all the right places. And yet, she was much more than she appeared.

Sly the Seductress had been a victim once. Now she was not. She wielded sex and magic together. They were her weapon and an extension of her power. She was proud of what she had become, and much like her mistress, Sly indulged in her perversions without reservation.

The woman Sly was an expert in people. Be they male or female, so long as they had a pulse and the slightest hint of a libido, she knew how to coax the flames of desire to whatever degree she wished. Whether she needed a raging inferno to burn the house down, or just enough heat to grease a business deal, she was an expert in the subtle art of seduction.

Which is why she was in such a good mood this evening. She had finally dealt with the last bandit who had been responsible for her capture. True, getting caught and brought to this place was all part of her plan and things were well in hand… But the sons of bitches who thought they could get away with being rough with her against her will had all paid the price for their sins.

Even if she liked it rough, it was under her own terms -- no one else’s.

“All done, my lady,” said the old gentleman who had just finished cleaning up the bloody mess her latest conquest had left behind on the stone floor. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Sly felt bad for the old geezer, making him do her dirty work, but not terribly so. She had already paid him in full without even needing to provide sex, infusing him with much needed vitality and health merely by having him drink some of her essence. He looked younger than he had, but he still had a ways to go. Sly preferred older men, but they needed to be powerful… and not so old.

“That will be all, Johan,” Sly said, producing a pair of gold coins from between her buxom breasts and proffering them.

“That really won’t be necessary,” said Johan, wiping the sweat from his thick silver eyebrows with hands that were pink from scrubbing blood. “I couldn’t take your money. Just the satisfaction of being allowed to watch my lady work is payment enough.”

Johan was a half dwarf. Tall for a dwarf but short for a human. He had no beard, but the bushy grey hair and broad frame of his dwarvish father. It was a frame that had become crooked and frail with age, although Sly’s treatments were helping with that. Like most of the laborers in Mud Village, Johan had been relocated from his home when the bandits raided it. For the old half dwarf, it meant being forced out of retirement, and made to serve the very people who had sacked his village.

None of that was completely responsible for the geezer’s perverse enjoyment in watching Sly test how many oddly-shaped objects she could cram into a rapist’s sphincter.

“Unacceptable,” said Sly firmly. “This gold belongs to the supposed lord of this castle and was gotten by blood from hardworking people like you. This isn’t payment for services rendered. This is me returning something that already belongs to you. If you don’t want to keep it all to yourself, then share it with some of the villagers.”

The wrinkled half-dwarf scratched the back of his head and smiled a gap-toothed smile. It was charming. Better than the no-toothed smile he had when she first got hold of him. She should give him some more of her essence. Maybe when he lost a few years, Sly could be persuaded to play with him a bit…

“Alright, Miss Sly,” Johan capitulated, taking the coins and tucking them into the leather pouch which hung from his neck and under his tunic. “I’ll be on my way then.”

The old half-dwarf picked up the bucket of sudsy, bloody water in one hand. With the other, he shouldered a roll of fine carpet that had gotten accidentally stained in her enthusiasm. He moved to the door and Sly opened it for him.

“Thanks again, Miss Sly.”

“Oh wait, I almost forgot!” Sly said, and Johan’s smile split his face with glee when he saw her saunter across the room and retrieve a vial. She held up the clear liquid for him to see, winked knowingly, then pushed her hands under his tunic to place the vial inside the same pouch he stowed the coins. “You know what to do with my essence later. Now be a good boy and open your mouth wide. I don’t want anyone questioning why you’re covered in blood and carrying on like you just cleaned up after the butcher.”

“Oh?” Johan’s voice lilted mischievously. “But didn’t I just?”

He then did as he was told and opened his mouth wide, going so far as to say “Aaaah” like a man at the dentist. Well, he could use one of those right about now, couldn’t he?

Sly proceeded to mutter a few words of power then spit into his open mouth. He closed his mouth and met her eyes seriously, nodding to show he knew what to do. Then the man left without another word.

For the next hour, so long as he did not speak nor intentionally interact with anyone, he would be free to move about without anyone registering his presence.

She was confident he would be both prudent and discreet. After all, Sly knew how to pick her people. Johan was the type to be fiercely loyal and useful in a pinch. His extended family had all perished since becoming slaves to the current lord, and the only thing keeping him going had been prayers to God and the Devil. Asking whoever would listen to send him the means to have his revenge. For what it’s worth, he got Sly.

Over the years, Sly had worn many masks. Though now she looked like a human woman in her early twenties, she was more than an ordinary human. She had many powers that were still far from being fully understood in this world, let alone the Vitalian magic societies. Naturally, the Church was largely responsible for rejecting any research into the subject of her brand of magic.

Through an unusual path via the warlock class, she had unlocked a little-known specialization made possible via her unconventional pact with a demoness. Warlocks were well known for their pacts with higher order magical beings. And yet, Shy’s pact was quite different. Said pact had transformed her warlock class into what she now held as a seductress. She hadn’t done any of this on her own, of course. It was all thanks to her mistress. The person who had rescued her from a life of sexual violence and probable death in obscurity.

A seductress’ abilities were subtle, and yet when properly employed, powerful.

Sly could physically alter her appearance at will using magic, albeit within certain limits. She could change her eye and hair color, the tone of her skin, and even the sound of her voice. She could alter the taste of her sweat as well as her scent, both of which she used to create a powerful aphrodisiac. As a matter of fact, all Shy’s bodily fluids could be used as agents in a number of alchemical solutions with interesting effects.

Her abilities allowed her to increase and decrease her apparent age to match her target’s tastes, as well as don a disguise on the fly. She could use illusion and mental magic, which helped manipulate the perceptions of others.

Of all her abilities, however, none were more potent than her access to magic of flesh and desire, known to her as sex magic. It was from this school that she was able to reverse Johan’s aging and increase his vitality.

Using sex magic, Sly could both give and take what she needed from others. Notably, the memories, plots, and schemes she had taken from Lord Zarik as part of her mission. Or, such as the life force of a few disgusting rapists, which she had chosen to share with Johan.

Many of Sly’s powers were well suited for infiltrators and assassins. Both were trades benefiting from the ability to quickly adopt a disguise. And yet, from the suite of powers she could use to change her appearance, she chose only to enhance rather than warp.

Unlike most of her contracted sisters, she wanted others to lust after her true form, a better version of the girl she had been ten years ago, when she shed the vestiges of her former life, and became the familiar of a certain demon succubus named Lola-Lolita Lorraine Beelzebaba.

“I love my life!” Sly shouted triumphantly, doing a little dance in place. “Wooohooooo!”

Her room had the same enchantment as Lord Zarik’s, which was absolutely necessary for what transpired earlier to have ever been possible with all that screaming and begging.

Sly took a look around her extravagant quarters that were now spotless. She laughed giddily as she recalled the messy entertainment that was nowhere in evidence, as well as the juicy information she had quite literally sucked out of the unsuspecting Lord Zarik earlier.

Oh, and she had a date with her mistress, Lola-Lolita to look forward to! Could this day get any better?

She threw herself onto her plush feather-down bed and looked to the clock on her nightstand. Confirming she still had some time before her appointment in the dreamscape, she commanded the glow-lamps to shut down, enveloping her in the dusky twilight pouring in from her window.

Then, she lifted her skirts and licked her fingers, and slipped a pair of them into her already sticky lower lips.

She spent the next half-hour masturbating, replaying her violent and perverse sexual fantasies, as well as in anticipation of her upcoming meeting with her mistress.

A sudden pulse of power washed over her. For the briefest moment her senses were beset by contradictions. The power felt familiar and yet oppressive. It felt acutely infantile, yet mature. It was innocent and frightened, and yet filled with malice. Most bizarrely of all, the power resonated with her in that it impressed upon her a bottomless hunger, not unlike her own sexual appetites, but raw and unfocused.

The wave of sensations startled her out of her reverie, and she lay still, trying to make sense of what she just felt. After a moment, seeing as nothing else happened and no one outside was making a fuss, her attention returned to her previous activity. She put the strange sensation out of her mind and resumed her heavy petting.

She reveled in the excitement that she would finally get to see her mistress tonight after so long. Yes, after long months searching for a tenable edge in the political landscape of Vitalus, she finally had something her mistress could sink her teeth into! Sly had succeeded in uncovering a secret plot between House Visconti and this Lord Zarik character and she couldn’t wait to tell her about it.

Suddenly, her thoughts started taking an unexpected turn as she began to connect a number of dots between the information she had taken from Zarik.

The magic she used to steal information from Zarik had its drawbacks. She didn’t mind the part about having to play the role of the lord’s sex toy. His personality was tolerable at best, but he was just the right kind of ripe that she liked best, and he was a man with power. Which turned her on most when she was in a position to subvert or outright siphon that power and use it to her advantage. She liked nothing better than riding a powerful man right off his high horse and into the ground until he died… literally.

The biggest drawback to her information gathering powers was that it took time to enthrall a person who was a much higher level. Even more so with elves, who had a natural resistance to many of her spells and techniques. Zarik was the suspicious type. Keeping him from being suspicious of her was a challenging task in and of itself.

It had made her revert to a more analog technique involving an exchange of fluids. This technique also took time, as it required her to sift through more irrelevant information she came across from her stolen thoughts and mental images and ideas. She would then have to puzzle their significance on her own.

Which meant that some of the pieces were only now falling into place in her mind, causing her to draw some troubling conclusions. Even if she didn’t realize what all the information in her mind meant only a minute ago when she had been celebrating the idea of sharing with her mistress Lola-Lolita. She knew what it all meant now...

It meant war.

“Nyah! Fuck! Mmmmmm!”

Sly groaned as her pussy spasmed in orgasm and she gushed into her hand.

It was not an orgasmic revelation. Rather, it was the opposite. It was an unhappy coincidence her thoughts came together the moment she came. The result was that she came down way too early. This would have typically left her somewhat frustrated and annoyed, but she was too preoccupied to care.

The tenuous peace Vitalus had experienced for years would soon be coming to an end. What had been a cold war of strategic misinformation and clandestine assassinations, shifting alliances and arranged marriages… All the political jousting would soon be over, replaced by pitched battles and sieges with who knows how many cities sacked and lives lost.

No, that wouldn’t happen right away. But it was the writing on the wall. It was what that idiot Zarik believed, and with good reason.

Zarik had figured out he wasn't the only player. There were likely staging areas all over the peninsula, anywhere the Visconti’s influence could reach. And there were probably contingencies.

If that was true, then all Bernabo of House Visconti needed once preparations were complete, was enough time to let their nefarious strategy run its course.

"The children..." Sly muttered to herself in horror, realizing for the first time that all those kids she had seen brought to the castle were doomed to a horrible fate. Even the ones she thought had been returned were likely dead or worse.

Zarik seemed to believe the children played a more important role that he couldn’t see. Sly wasn’t sure what that was, but it didn’t matter. From his memories she gleaned that they were never delivered to their parents.

The entire human trafficking racket was all a ruse. Sly had assumed that the children were sold or ransomed as a source of income for the village, while the adult prisoners were being sold as slaves, both for sex and labor. She had been wrong on both accounts. What need did Zarik have to earn coin, when he was being so thoroughly backed by Visconti coffers?

To the powerful city states in the region, the Mud Village bandit camp and castle were nothing more than a nuisance. Or so, they believed. Robber Knights were a common enough occurrence that when one established themselves in a quiet, tucked away part of the countryside, it was actually good riddance. So long as the banditry was not excessively bloody… Well then, a half-dozen relocated rural villages, a few armed robberies of an underprotected merchant, even dozens of kidnappings and ransoms were all par for the course in the boonies. Peasants could move closer to the walls of a major city or a powerful fief lord if they wanted protection.

That was how the real world worked. Rooting someone like Zarik out of his castle was like sending a doctor halfway across the peninsula to pop a pimple. It was simply too expensive a proposition with too little reward. Even if said pimple caused more than just discomfort for the locals, as far as the city states were concerned, a rural problem was something for rural powers to deal with.

When Shy had been given this assignment by her mistress, she had balked at first, thinking that dealing with someone like Zarik was a job that was better suited to a group of adventurers than herself. Even if she killed the bandit leader herself, she figured the snake would grow a new head and her time would be wasted.

Now she realized that even if local adventurers were assigned to deal with this bandit camp, given the Visconti’s involvement, they would have little success. By the time the city states registered there was a problem worth getting involved in, it would be too late to stop the momentum of a trap years in the making. The Visconti were building an army that no one would see coming. And it wasn’t an army of bandits…

No, it would be an army powered by forbidden magic. All those prisoners the bandits were capturing, the disappeared villagers, and even the children. They would all be the sacrifices to an unnatural and unholy war machine the likes of which the continent of Vitalus had never seen.

With these troubled thoughts on her mind, Sly slowed her breathing and willed herself into the realm of dreams.