The Accidental Necromancer
Thrifty

I had never gotten seriously into bondage, but I’d had a few girlfriends who liked it, and so I’d picked up the basics. I knew that what was safe for an hour or a sexy scene wasn’t safe long term, and I knew that you never left someone tied up without supervision – even if you weren’t worrying about them escaping and bringing back a small army of paladins. There were risks like nerve damage, muscle strains, and even positional asphyxiation. I didn’t think any of that was lessened by using living vines instead of rope, handcuffs, or silk scarves, and I wouldn’t be surprised it was worse.

The internet wouldn’t have the answer to that one.

I wasn’t ready to just let them roam free, either. We needed a better solution, and I had some ideas on how to build one, but it would take time and a lot of steel bars.

“Xyla, can you rebind Valeria in a way that’s a bit more sustainable? And perhaps that has more dignity, while you’re at it?”

Xyla pouted at me, but I was beginning to realize that was often more of an act than real feeling. “You’re no fun.”

“What know you of dignity?” Valeria spat at me.

“I think the wet wanton warrior likes it,” Gren said. “One of us should give her some relief.”

“Don’t touch me!” Valeria said.

“Should I leave her armor on?” Xyla asked.

I didn’t want to strip Valeria. Interesting that I felt no such compunctions about Talos, who as far as he knew was being exposed in front of a bunch of women. But the idea that you did not take women’s clothes off without consent was stuck in my head. I couldn’t afford to think like that. She was a prisoner, and we needed to make sure she wasn’t carrying any weapons, and also, long term the armor couldn’t be comfortable. It would also get in the way of tying her up effectively, although Xyla had obviously found a solution.

“No, we need to take it off.”

“I can’t be naked in front of him!” Valeria couldn’t use her limbs to point, so she bobbed her head in Talos’ direction. “He might become aroused with lust!”

“Sailed ship,” Gren said.

I had been about to say something similar. “Wait, you two have been traveling together for how long?”

“Three weeks, if you must know,” Valeria said. “But we’ve been together for nearly two years now.”

“And you’ve never seen each other naked?”

“Of course not!”

“Alright,” I said. “Try to face them in opposite directions. They’ve got a streak of not streaking going, we might as well let them keep it going.”

“But it’s unnatural!” Xyla said.

“An offense to both gods and men,” I agreed. “But let’s go with it for now.”

So I let Xyla and Gren work on getting Valeria out of her armor, and I put my shirt back on because it was distracting Gren, who almost let Valeria squirm free at one point. Maybe I should have averted my head, too, but I was a girl too, right?

It was confusing sometimes, but in any case it wasn’t practical to get prudish about looking at a prisoner.

Valeria struggled mightily, and I thought I’d have to interfere. But after the first attempt to get away, I realized she was actually just trying to force them to tie her with her arms covering her breasts, which Xyla eventually did. Other than that, her only covering once the armor was off was some rather thin fabric tied around her hips and crotch, which was now rather thoroughly soaked through. I could smell her arousal.

Meanwhile, her sword went into my bag of holding.

She had a nice figure. She wasn’t slender, but her thickness clearly had a lot of muscle to it, and the muscles didn’t take away from her curves. Without the metal boots, she was shorter than I had thought.

“Valeria,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you prisoner. You or Talos.”

“Then don’t,” Valeria said.

“But you’d kill me.”

“Of course.”

I thought of the consequences of officials searching my house, looking for my body. Maybe guns and gas motors couldn’t come across, but they could bring the knowledge of how to bring them. The history of humanity didn’t give me a lot of reason to hope that they’d avoid doing whatever it took to give people new lands to settle in. If Europeans had treated Native Americans like that, how would humans treat trolls? “And that would probably bring about the end of your world as we know it,” I said.

She didn’t know what to say to that.

“Do you think you two can watch these guys while I do some shopping?” I asked Xyla and Gren.

“What are you getting?” Xyla asked.

“Steel bars and concrete. We may be keeping these folks for a while.” I signaled to Xyla, and we walked off a few yards so we could talk privately. Gren nodded at us and walked around the captives, playing with her knife.

“What is it, Abby?”

“I’m not willing to kill them,” I said.

“I know. That’s why you’re so lovable. Because you’re an idiot. You could seduce Talos, I think.”

“I could,” I agreed. “And I suspect I could corrupt Valeria as well. Using spells. But instead, I’m going to try to talk them over to our side, which will take time. What I want to know is, if something goes wrong and they escape, can you bring them down?”

“As long as when that something goes wrong, they don’t go after me first, yes. I just have to get to them before they leave the forest.”

“Okay. I know you have better things to do.” So did I.

“You said steel bars. You’re building a cage?”

“I’d prefer to say a jail, but yes.”

“We could just dig a hole and put them in it.”

“And let them stew in their own filth?”

“You humans have such strange attitudes. It’s fertilizer. It helps enrich the soil and make plants grow.”

Ugh. She was not going to bring me around on that one. “No, Xyla. We are going to treat them with as much dignity as we can. I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”

“Okay, Abby.” She tilted her head up.

It took me a moment to realize what she wanted, and then I kissed her quickly, before heading back toward the crypt. I’d have to open the door. If I put a tablet on the outside, and a camera inside, the tablet could be passcoded, and then I, and only I, could use it to “see” inside and use Dimension Step. A project for another day.

“Hey, where’s my kiss?” asked Gren.

Of course. Doing poly right is hard sometimes, especially when you have a jail to build and paladins to lock up. I walked back, gave Gren a good solid smooch, and then made up time by running to the crypt.

As I’d told Xyla, I bought a lot of steel bars at the hardware store, along with a battery powered welder, several extra batteries, and a few chargers, some chain, some extra heavy duty padlocks, and some concrete. I had my doubts that I could get the job done quickly, but hopefully I wouldn’t run out of juice.

Kathy was on the porch when I got home, and she waved. I ran inside, plugged chargers and batteries in all over the place, and then hurried back out.

“Whatcha doing, Abel?” she asked.

“Errands!” I said cheerfully.

“Want company?”

I was going to have to unload the steel bars in front of her anyway. “Sure. I’m just going to the thrift store. It’s a quick run, I won’t have time to dawdle.”

She got up and walked over. “No worries. I want to pick up a few jigsaw puzzles. Something for a lonely girl to while away her hours with, you know.”

I got the hint. I opened the passenger door for her, and we rode off.

As expected, she gave the contents of the back a thorough scan.

“That’s a lot of bars. What are you building?”

I’d been trying to come up with a good explanation, and failing. “Maybe I’ll show you some day,” I said. And maybe not.

“Ah. You like your secrets, don’t you?”

“Yep.”

“I made an arrangement with a girlfriend. I mean a friend, who is a girl. I don’t swing that way. Anyway, we agreed to text each other every day. If one of us skips, and doesn’t answer a phone call, we call the police.”

Why was she telling me this? “Can’t be too careful these days, I guess.”

“Exactly. Men can’t be trusted. Not all men, of course. But it’s hard to tell which ones you can, and which ones you can’t.”

“Yeah. I would have thought –” I named a fantasy author – “was one of the good ones. But it just proves you never know.”

“Yes. Sometimes the nicest, hunkiest guys have deep dark secrets.”

I was ninety percent certain she was talking about me, but what could I say to that? “If you’re saying I’m nice and hunky, then thank you.”

“Egotist.”

“It’s either that or have no secrets, and that would be boring.”

“Sometimes boring is good.”

Like a life without paladins? Maybe. But I wasn’t a fan of boredom. I liked to keep going from one project to the next, and while building a jail hadn’t been next on my list, I was willing to try.

“I’ll meet you at checkout,” I said.

“Text me if you’re ahead of me. I wouldn’t want to delay you, with whatever you’re doing with a van full of steel bars.”

“Right,” I said.

I got a bunch of clothes that I thought might fit Valeria. Dresses, mostly, because I thought I could guess wrong and still have things sort of fit better than with pants. I figured Talos could wear some of Abel’s clothes.

Then I picked up a couple of big pots. For, er, collecting fertilizer for Xyla.

Kathy had already gotten through checkout by the time I got there, but she joined me I the line and looked over my purchases. “So you’re making a big stew, and one of your girlfriends made the mistake of sending you shopping for clothes for her? Or are you cross dressing?”

Closer on the latter count than she realized, but I told her, honestly, “These aren’t for me.” I noticed her puzzles. One of them had 5000 pieces, half of which must have been sky. That was a lot of loneliness.

“Huh. When a man buys a woman clothes, chances are they barely cover her. But these actually look decent. This one’s positively frumpy.”

“I’m leaning into my niceness,” I said, echoing her comment from earlier.

“The niceness?” she asked. “Oh, right. What’s her name?”

“Valeria.”

“Not the one who is into body paint.”

“No.”

“A new one.”

I shrugged. “Not actually a girlfriend, either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Huh. And she’s got you buying her clothes. Admittedly, at a thrift store.”

“Something like that.”

I paid the cashier and we went out to the car. Kathy pumped me about Valeria the whole way home, wanting to know what she looked like, what her interests were, and all that.

I told her Valeria was into fencing. It seemed like a close approximation to the truth.

“Do you need help taking those bars in?”

I hesitated, but the fact was I had a lot of work ahead of me. “That’s be great.”

I carried three to every one of Kathy’s, and it meant that I had to pile them up near the basement door because I wasn’t letting her down there. But it made the work faster, even if it meant I’d have to make more trips to get them down to the basement, and then to get them into Amaranth.

I was in for a long night, but not as long as Talos and Valeria were in for. I didn’t think I was any better a person than them. Circumstances just put us on opposite sides. Hopefully, just for now.

“Thanks,” I said, when we’d unloaded. “That made it a lot easier.”

“That was a workout.”

“Yep.”

“You’re taking them down to your basement.”

“Yeah, eventually.” As soon as I get you to leave.

“And you’re not going to let me see your basement, are you?”

“A man has to have his man cave,” I said.

“Ah. You know, you can store your porn on a computer these days.”

I shrugged. I didn’t feel I needed to answer that one.

“I get the hint. Well, thank you for having me along. My arms will hate you in the morning.” She looked at me, not moving.

I wasn’t going to guess. “Do you want a goodbye kiss?”

“I was debating,” she said. “You’re so strange. But I’ll go with yes. I don’t have enough kisses in my life.”

I kissed her, letting it linger for a few seconds, pulling back at the first sign that she’d had enough. For the seconds it lasted, it was a damn good kiss. She had some kind of perfume on, but it was nice and not too overpowering, with a hint of vanilla.

“Goodnight Kathy,” I said.

“Goodnight Abel.”

She walked out, and I locked the door behind her. I didn’t think I had time to get involved with her before, and things hadn’t gotten any simpler. But there was an attraction there that went both ways.

I grabbed a few jeans and sweatshirts, as well as underwear, and a couple of blankets. I took as big a load of steel as I could carry, as well as the clothes, and took them down to the basement. Then I went back up to lock the basement door behind me. Kathy was too interested, and I was getting paranoid.

Outside, I heard Roxy, or maybe it was Rover, barking. They were in my backyard again, and the noise reminded me that Kathy was just an ordinary neighbor with a job and dogs and so on. If I’d seen what she’d seen, I’d be curious, too, and I’d probably ask a few leading questions to try to see if I could get answers.

I stripped off my clothes and climbed down to Amaranth. I dropped the steel bars and they clattered on the stone floor, the sound echoing repeatedly in the confined tomb. I checked the cameras. The two paladins were asleep, as far as I could tell, Gren was looking toward the cameras, and I couldn’t see Xyla. Then I put on shorts, shoes, and a halter top, and went outside, using the door like a normal person.

If something happened, I wanted to have mana for it.