From slavery to servitude 2: drifting vapors

The night passes in seconds as it does in hours. Both spans walk alongside each other in George's mind and body. And yet, today as with many mornings, he wakes up aching. The pain was his pre-emptive bird song to stir him awake.

"Eugh...another restless rest". Geroge forces himself up, turned to blame his worn-down bed as the constant culprit to his harsh awakening. A fitting way to remind him of the lash of labor that usually awaited him in the morning. Today, however, is a blessing, as the Sunday allows him respite from the constraints of unfulfilling work.

He straightens up with the thought that it really is Sunday and sighs in relief. One day to walk away from the burns and the aching and the everything between.

He pulls up a coat nearby and heads out. Breakfast? No need. His pantry was empty anyhow and his pay wasn't coming until next week. But, for now, he could forget about this, take a walk away from here.

And he does, seeing others step out of their apartments. Some, to drink. Others, looking to get meager scraps of breakfast, counting the coins at the depth of their palms.

George simply wants a place in his usual spot where he contemplates his life. A seat at a distant bench near a tree. A spot where he can be alone, far from those equally as morose as him. Or those, full of life and luster, swiping their high noses away from the poor man.

He turns the streets, seeing others go their way here and here. His eyes turn to the distant road and the promised view. A landscape of green hills occupied by majestic trees, gentle, constant breezes, and...

"Smoke?" George squints a bit, spotting an intruder in the canvas of nature's painting. A dazzling, distant visual of dancing vapor appears. It is soon joined by a second but in gray smoke.

And a third, equally of smoke.

And a fourth.

They stop adding more at the fifth, it's plum shade leading the rest. They undulate strongly and softly, standing against the whim of the wind. A sight, sure to catch George in their translucent swaying. The violet one among the fumes is oddly attractive, enticing, even. It is like a woman's sultry hips locking his eyes in belly dances, leading his pair of irises left and right whenever they saw fit.

His pace slows as the man takes a long look in their way, wondering what sort of festival did the city of their presence have. Surely a grand one--

"Fall back! Fall back!" Screams from the decreasing gap lure his look. Men that no longer dazzle in their pristine, if shine-devoid armors. No, the torn, twisted excuse for chest plates they hurridly run in is a far cry from the elegance of yesterday's parade.

The composure that perfumed then and the many more missing also was gone, replaced by a sense of dread--no, not dread. The two's faces were turning into grins. Boastful, uncontrolled grins as a purple haze seeped out of their twisted armors, taking hold of them.

Their limbs freeze mid-run, promptly scheduling a meeting between their faces and the rocky road with a metallic 'clank' resonating. Their screams attract a good amount of eyes around, hundreds, far and close. Including George's. Their grinning falls, however, made some turn around in pure wincing, either from the crunching of abused armor battered more or their face pre-emptively meeting the ground.

They grin still, almost in a pleasurable way, but mostly in an uncontrollable way. It intensifies, with moaning and gasping, unable to cover the expression they make as the rest of their bodies remain frozen, ripe with what increasingly looks like poison spilling more from the gaps of their armor.

The moaning from their mouths and voices persist, shaping an 'o' that accentuates...until their expressions accumulate in an evenly unchecked climax. Literally. Some looked in disgust as they realized what was happening, groaning all the while. Bound to immobility, the two 'released' inside their armor, again, unable to hide their folly...or the pleasure of release.

Their unwanted bliss is soon dragged away by hidden hands giggling and whispering unintelligible words. Back into the approaching veil of purple smoke where they promptly disappear, their pleasured-addled bodies convulsing continually.

"What is that?!" One of the many eyes startled by the scenery witnessed.

"Oh, gods..." Another voice trembling in its pitch.

"I knew I saw something yesterday when I looked out our distant neighboring city..." And yet another voice, joined by more.

"You're telling me. I couldn't sleep with the garrison's nightly trampling. Guess I know why they were..."

"What are--what are--you people doing?!" Another voice stems in gravel tone, spilling coughs from the tundra of smoke. Behind it, a man clasped in heavy, struggling steps.

He slowly waddles forth with great struggle. His armor is no longer the golden lion that it was, twisted and torn as it is. Its roaring features are gone, erased from the strain of failed battles, rendered into a pitiful state.

He still steps forward, a hand on his quivering sword, trembling like the rest of his body. The lower section of his armor is more shredded than the chest plate, dripping like leftover rain falling off to the side.

The weapon he holds on to is also broken with half of its thin blade missing. Battle proved to be too much for its artisanry, leaving it beyond repair as nothing close to the elegance it once bore.

"Run...all of you...run!" He still limps closer, a leg consumed by the fog from which he stepped out of. It drips heavy liquid, one that seems to mount across the surface of his body, taking whole. His voice is a grave omen, matching the dreadful expression on his face "Run! We couldn't keep them away...they were---they are...too strong...too numerous...they come for--

His body freezes as rapidly as his jaw, his struggle to mouth his sentence, lost. His voice no longer obeys him, leaving the man to twist uncontrollably as a falling wreck.

His collapse makes a sickening thump that earns the intensified dread of bystanders witness to this display of a warning. Some react with the instinctual step back, somehow knowing that there was...more to this ominous fog rapidly approaching the edge of their city.

More than the captain of the garrison, more than his recognition of failure. More than the enveloping veil now hosting shadowy figures behind it. One of them seemed to crouch for a second, only for the people of the Steel Moratorium to hear a dragging noise. Something was pulling another thing away, giggling in a distorted enthusiast.

"My, oh my. Our fearless captain seems to have crumbled midway, hmm?" Another voice. Feminine. Alluring. Seductive...

...dangerous.

It giggles a foot out of the smokescreen "Not to worry about him, however. We'll take good care of him...as we will all of you, of course".

Another step, two legs out. Leggings coat them in a jet black embroiled in gold. The legs of a woman proud of their appearance to show them so earnestly.

Then, the torso led a chocolate belly button that protrudes forward. The chest, adorned with a blackened tunic that only barely covers a woman's assets, as her lack of pants compensated by a waist guard. They also match the darkness of her leggings with a dash of gold.

Finally, a face to put the ominous voice to. A lock of spiky, untamed white hair that weaves behind her head in the ecstasy of the purple smoke that envelopes them. Hypnotizing eyes that pierce the night in their yellow sharpness. A beauty mark accentuating the peerless features that swarm her face and the knife ears on each side of her head. One that rests slightly left of her purple lips, likely decorated in a cosmetic kit.

To call this woman a ravenous beauty was to insult the true depth of her charm. To call her seductive was to spit on the effort made to be ogled on by anyone and everyone passing by. Which was to say that many did so.

Their orbits only widened with the sight of others like her following, equally as 'osé', equally as sultry. They dragged whips around them, each laced in a more concentrated dye of the purple surrounding them.

"Now, ladies..." The speaking woman takes a step forward, a snake-like lash pecking out. Blurred in the speed of sound, all the civilians can see is the joyous anguish of a nearby man collapsing on the floor, moaning as a part of his body seemed to take control, immobilizing him.

"Every merchandise here is worth its own weight. But, those who bring me the most get first picks among the best for themselves". A chill creeps up the bystanders' collective backs as the glare of the few otherworldly women slowly grinned in full teeth. A malicious glint in their eyes perfumes the rest of their expressions, turning to the increasingly startled populace.

"...happy hunting!" And, so, they are let loose. The sudden fright of seeing one fall in pleasure so intrusive already has the people on their backfoot. Seeing the elven hurl themselves at the no longer unsuspecting folks with whips and lashes and collars...

Made them run. All of them. To their houses, thinking it would serve as a guard against the otherworldly invaders. Those that didn't were consumed by the foul miasma that trails behind them. Poisonous miasma, as they soon realized, that now course their veins in monstrous warmth and dictate their moving.

Those that ran had more seconds to taste their decaying freedom before lashes licked their bodies, tearing the impact point of clothes and leaving a purple scar instead. No pain welcomed them. Only a perverse pleasure locking their joints.

Screams became abundant. Screams became moanings. Bodies of poison-locked civilians became numerous, swelling in hundreds, each carefully brought deeper in the fog of poison. Men and women were forcefully introduced to the taste of a dark elf invasion.

George, like many more lucky ones, were long gone from the grounds zero, fleeing the encroaching veil acquired with a passive sense of sentience. It gorges and bloats itself through windows and doors. Every gap of a domain is a failure that invites the gas as the piling civilians inside fall to the predation of its warmth.

"What the hell is happening?!" Screams a runner, eyes panicked and darting everywhere. Shadows leap from roof to roof, concealed by the sky overwhelmed in violet.

"What do you think!?" Another runner spits out, clumsily running ahead "We're being invaded by these...creatures!"

"I didn't know there was anything of an invasion! Why us?! Why now?!"

"Why are you asking me these questions?! Do I look like I know?! Just shut it, these freaks are getting a leg up on us! Run!"

"Aw...what a mean thing to spit at your mistresses~. A voice leaps low, revealing its position behind George and the two others. Charming as she is deadly, she lashes the ground in a persistent sprint with a macabre whip of reflective metal "What poor attitude you have, speaking with such foul tongues. Who would have known that humans were so crass-spoken to their better? I will have to correct that~.

"I don't have any mistress, get lost--hhnnnn!!" A whip comes licking the side of his cheek, passing as a soft, delicate caress. The metal he fears, unable to see coming until too late is not the violent bruiser he expected, but a warm reminder. Maybe he's too panicked. Maybe he should take it easy, let the warmth embrace him.

"...hhhrrrr..." It spreads within and without. Hot pulses engulf him, gleefully taking over in a cascade of feel-good tickling. A grin forms up his visage as he falls, welcoming the bliss that courses along. It shapes a sort of liquid cushion as it did others, disallowing any true harm from the impendent fall.

George sees this, the bliss that visits the man with its poison. The other runner for his life was soon next to feel the lash peeling off the clothes off his shoulder, kissing his bare skin.

George didn't wait to see the man turn from dread to uncontrollable bliss as he turns away to barge through a door with the first furniture knocked down before it. He didn't waste his time looking back to the woman eagerly binding her two victims like sausages.

No, George continues. To him, it was nothing different. A gray, enclosed sky of steel and smoke. An open, exposed cerulean drenched in purple. Both are the same, akin to oppressors tumbling each other to step on the little guy like him. One of them just happened to be otherworldly invaders looking for...he didn't know exactly.

All he knows is that it was run, and only run...or die. It was already becoming more complicated with the ambient poison cloud enveloping the air. In fact, his joints were already starting to feel warm. Warmer than he expected like his heart was pumping fiery, passionate beats. It only feels alien to him, like an intruder.

He ignores it, running further in the way of the clear sky. Well, after picking up a few pieces of clothes to cover his face, slow the breathing of this vicious air. The city was condemned to aroused moanings of victims falling to the air or the casters. Workers, wealthy, soldiers, none of them escaped. The guards and soldiers, in particular, were preyed on more viciously than the rest as sorts of prized creatures.

From house to house, George leaps, blurring out his senses to the wailing and battling rattles of the failing garrison to these entities. All this time, he does so while shooting his gaze at the sky, gradually corroding to the violet haze.

From a house to another, street by street, he continues, taking to the darkest corners of the sinking city to gas and elven captors. The impoverished mask he has on his face has somewhat slowed the warmth that pulses inside, calling him to rest in its embrace. A call he ignores, running still. His mind plays ideas of 'what then?' What happened if he manages to escape? A one-way trip to the next? Wandering to the wilderness? Further? A run to warn as many as he can about creatures swallowing cities in poison hazes?

These were questions he would never get the chance to answer as a turn to the main street lays him before the one obstacle he could never pass through.

At the corner of his turn, a lone woman is in his view. She was immediately noticeable, not for the lone space she is in, but the attire she coveted. Where the other invaders came in seductive apparels and eye-catching ornaments, this lone woman was more reserved, wreathed in ambient, darkened purple colors. Where the others bore leggings, she preferred a pair of leather pants. Where the others had no reserve at letting their bountiful chests protrude forward for the eye to see, she held a black leather top marrying a concealing gown and leather jacket. While George could see a smidgen of elven pride in the shape of a belly button between an internal garment and a belt, he pretty much had to squint to spot it, let alone the delicate caramel pigment.

Her visage, if that was possible, was even more breath-taking than the others, hidden in a searching expression as it was. Unlike the others who adorned what akin to makeup, this dark elf seemingly had no want or need of luxury. Her eyes shine in a brilliant honeydew shade, matching seamlessly with her natural, glistening caramel-looking lips, the faint attraction to George's eyes, who, for a moment, forgot the predicament he was in.

She was looking elsewhere, idle in her shifting eyes. They move rapidly, mostly painting a picture in the left direction, seemingly unaware of the escaping George. Looking for...something.

Alas, this breath-taking sight he was allowed like the respite of Sunday was to end as the woman suddenly locked a glare in his way. His heart skips a beat as the previous bliss turns into a nightmare of an enormous scale. More precisely, the scale of a haze rising from within her body.

"Ooh, that one..." A swan tone precedes her hand pointing at him. A solid set of seconds passes between them. Something of a...George wasn't sure what, too caught up in his 'flight' instincts. He turns and runs, but the deepest part of him knows that he lost his chance.

The smoke that erupted from the woman elf shapes into a chalice. One wreathed in poison, so concentrated that the sheer amount could coagulate into different colors. Its goblet form is gold, embedded with four violet beads at each of its faces.

The peerless features she shares with the common elven kind is blurred by the disturbing imagery of a demon of old. A zipanguese demon, to be precise, a mask that lines the side of her face.

What gets George's attention is the bubbling of her chalice. Tiny points claw their way out from the cup, depth, viscous. They wreath themselves from it, forming sharp blades. Their target becomes obvious as George's running direction becomes hailed in many, small knives planting near.

They hurl themselves at the man closing a door behind him, hearing their whistling in the air at supersonic speed. The door...buckles, and breaks, giving them nothing close to a directional distraction. Some of them stab into George's fleeting body, immediately making his body collapse into a frenzy of warmth. He trips into furniture. Furniture that, by the act of one of the daggers, is rendered in half, disallowing a potentially fatal fall. His is a soft, delicate laying into the floor.

Consciousness was fading from their effect. Yet, as he slowly lost the struggle to close his eyes, he couldn't help but notice that he wasn't sporting an uncomfortable grin. No forceful pleasure coursing into his body like he saw others. Nothing to overwhelm him in ways like them. No face-twisting pleasure that spills inside him, only the comfort of a blanket-like warmth swarming his body. Only deep sleep...