“ARTICLE 2b. IMPRISONMENT. A girl’s ability to use the Recall Beacon can be disabled only by the Princess of her own nation, and if it’s against her will, then only for the purposes of imprisoning that girl. While imprisoned, the girl retains the right to convert to another nation that would accept her. If she does, she must be handed over to that nation.” — excerpt from the Treaty on Friendly War
We stood in front of a massive and ancient stone gate, the entrance to the Dungeon of Eternal Restraint.
Except for Espoir, who was of course naked, we were equipped by the kissborn military with the best clothes we could wear. They were tight-fitting bodysuits, covering our bodies from feet to neck. Made from the strongest fabric, they wouldn’t fall apart unless subjected to extreme punishment. Water would permeate, but the fabric should block out any thicker mess and blunt its impact, too.
We had been healed of all ailments by kissborn and Ancient spellcasters, and a joint secret multinational base camp was set up a short distance from the Dungeon entrance to serve as our evacuation point.
You might assume that all of these protections would have made us feel safe and at ease but the opposite was true: we felt the heavy significance of this mission. We felt the burden placed on us and it seemed like the future of everything was placed on our backs.
Espoir intoned the words of the opening spell, and the giant stone slab slowly slid to the side. We entered.
I gasped. In front of us was a massive room, filled with hundreds upon hundreds of small container cells, stacked in neat rows and columns as if it were a giant library, except that instead of bookshelves, there were these 2-meters-wide cubes, each cube made of metal except for one side which was made of glass. I saw this was not a surprise for Espoir.
I moved to the nearest cell and peered inside.
There was a short naked girl, her wrists attached to chains near the ceiling. She was submerged up to her waist in green slime. And a metallic hand was punching her in the belly! When she saw me, her mouth moved as though she was speaking but I didn’t hear anything.
“That is Lumière vivante, Ancient, born three thousand two hundred and two years ago, imprisoned four hundred and seventy-two years ago. Her cell is a combined slime-tank and empowered belly-punch (random). The slime slowly drains out of her cell and then falls on her from above again. The machine punches her belly at unpredictable intervals, with greater force than in other cells. It still hurts her even four hundred years later.”
I couldn’t understand. Espoir pointed me to a cell across.
“Here you see Etincelle défensive, Ancient, born one thousand and thirty-two years ago, imprisoned one hundred and eight years ago. Her cell is a combined water jet and sensory deprivation. She can’t see or hear anything; and jets of high-pressure water randomly strike at her body.”
I looked at the poor girl. Her wrists were again attached to chains, she was blindfolded and had plugs in her ears. As I looked, a sudden stream of water rose from the floor and hit her between her legs. She opened her mouth as though she screamed and immediately sat her naked butt on the jet, blocking it. “Etincelle figured out long ago that her butt can handle the pressure the best. Now, look there.”
She pointed me to another cell where I saw a foodborn girl clothed in a strange grey bodysuit.
“That’s Allegra, foodborn, born two hundred and fifty-six years ago, imprisoned sixteen years ago. Her cell is mud bombardment. She is pelted with mud continuously, and from all sides. When the mud destroys her clothes, a new suit is provided to her a couple of hours alter.”
Allegra was standing impassively in the center of her cell, a blank expression on her face. The mud that hit her everywhere tore at her suit and muddied her face but she seemed to pay it no mind.
I saw hundreds of cells, some empty but most of them had a girl inside. Over half of these girls seemed to be Ancient, given their short stature and small chests, but I could see girls of every nation, including mudborn and slimeborn girls.
“What is all this, Espoir?” asked Ciel.
“These are the girls who tried to defeat the Dungeon but failed. If you lose to the Dungeon, it puts you here, in one of these cells, where you remain for eternity. They can’t be broken into. They can’t be escaped from. You can’t speak from within them. And each cell administers punishment, day after day, year after year.
“We catalogued them all. There are three hundred and twenty-one girls trapped in these cells, suffering from eighty-seven unique torments, though combinations raise that number.
“This is what awaits us if we fail, which is why I feel so guilty for bringing you here, and why nobody, nobody would fault it you decided to change your mind now and return to your homes.”
(There was silence in the living room, the girls contemplating the enormity of the punishment.
Then Alrae spoke, “so, some of these girls, they were there for hundreds of years?”
“Yes,” I nodded, “three of them were there for over a thousand years.”)
If I were to make the choice again today, I would turn back. It was the only sensible decision, but, we were young, inexperienced and our minds wouldn’t wrap around the concept of a thousand years of punishment. We each had our own reasons but we collectively decided to press ahead.
“To reach the Recall Beacon, we must pass three tests,” said Espoir. “But they’re different every time.”
We walked along a wide central corridor past many trapped girls. Some of them smiled at us and seemed to cheer us on. Some of them desperately motioned for us to turn back. Many stayed impassive and resigned.
At the other end of the enormous room, Espoir pointed to a small door and we all went in.
We entered a small room. There was an inscription on a pedestal:
“I burn with the heat of a thousand suns, I bind with the strength of a hundred vines, I birth new life with the will of a dozen forests.”
“Well that seems simple enough, right?” said Ciel. “It’s love.”
“Wait, no!” shouted Espoir, but it was too late. The ground shook and melted under Ciel and she fell down on her back. Then a ball of yellow slime shot from a wall onto her leg. Then another on her arm, and another on her hair and in mere moments, she was covered with thick slime in which she disappeared completely.
“What happened?!”
“She answered wrong,” said Espoir. “Now she’s trapped in the slime cocoon. She’ll remain there for several hours and after that the Dungeon moves her to her new cell.”
Our protections seemed so meager now, compared to the strength of the ancient dungeon.
“Can we get her out?”
“No,” Espoir shook her head. “The slime is too sticky and the Dungeon blocks magic from working within. She is gone.”
(I made a gesture and Alrae’s clothing evaporated. She covered her nipples with her hands but then I summoned yellow balls of slime and started hitting her with them. She protested but in vain. I sent the balls until she was encased in slime which I then froze around her.
“Alrae cannot speak anymore,” I explained, “but she can still hear the story.”)
“I might have the answer,” said Xeelee.
“No!” I shouted. “I can’t lose you, Xeelee! We must retreat!”
She blushed and seemed to hesitate but continued. “There is a type of monster living exclusively in slimeborn territory. It’s long-lived and it feeds off sunlight; it has many tentacles that it uses to strip, choke and break its victims; and to reproduce, it must gather energy from sacred groves scattered all over our continent.”
“That might be it,” said Espoir, “the Dungeon likes riddles with prosaic answers.”
“Then, it would be the Hundred-Tentacled Sun Fiend.”
At that, a hidden door opened in the room. I hugged Xeelee and we proceeded ahead.
The floor in the next room was carpeted with ankle-deep mud. In it stood three girls with dark grey skin. Each had a ball of mud in each hand. It was obvious what this test was: we were to beat them in a mudfight.
“Remember magic doesn’t work here,” said Espoir. “Let’s each take one girl. I go left.”
Then the room erupted into action.
Espoir ran to the girl on the left, I took the right one and Xeelee went for the center. The girls all threw their mud at us. The mud glanced off our clothes but Espoir was naked and the mud hit her on the chin and chest.
Then we were in wrestling range. Espoir and Xeelee jumped on their opponents, pushing them on the ground. I myself hesitated which was enough for my opponent to grab me, lift me off the floor and throw me in the mud. She was strong!
I made to get up but she was already sitting on top of me and pushed mud in my face, the only skin I had exposed. I squirmed and tried to loosen her grip on me. It seemed to be working. I lost both sight and hearing when she piled mud on my eyes and into my ears, but I was loose enough that I could slide on the soft mud from under her and stand up.
Not for long though. She jumped on my back from behind and wrapped her arms around my neck. She still held mud in her hands so she pressed that on my neck and pressed it into my suit.
I pushed her off and she fell in the mud as well so I prepared to pin her but then she quickly kicked me in the crotch. It hurt a lot! I couldn’t even recover from the pain when she punched me in the belly and then grabbed at my suit and tore it away. It gave! I couldn’t believe my eyes. This was the most powerful protection that our nation could invent and this girl was strong enough to destroy it in our swoop.
I looked her in the face, expecting to see a mocking smile but it was far worse. Her face showed no emotion at all. The girl was not human.
I still had my bra, panties and socks, a second line of defense, so I took her arm and tried to send her to the ground but my grip was bad and I slipped on the mud, which my opponent took immediate advantage of, sat on me and stripped me of panties. My butt was now exposed and my opponent started covering it with mud.
I couldn’t let that happen. I grabbed two fistfuls of mud and smeared it in her face. That distracted her, so I slid out from under her again and looked around for my panties. Without them, I would quickly break. But I couldn’t see them. My opponent pulled down my bra and it disappeared, then she gave me a firm shove on the back and I fell again face-first in the mud.
I tried to stand, weakly, but before I could, my opponent was already on top of me, piling mud in my hair and on my back. I tried a final slide away but she had me pinned tight. She then pulled apart my butt cheeks with one hand and pushed mud into the crack with the other. I gasped. I knew I was weakening and getting aroused — neither of which was good.
A tear appeared in my eye: I realized that I, too, would become a prisoner of this Dungeon.
But then before my opponent could push more mud into the crack, she got pushed away off my body. I looked up to see Xeelee relentlessly smack my opponent into the ground. It worked, she had the upper hand!
I looked at the rest of the room.
I saw two grey girls lying motionless in the mud, and a big blob of yellow slime close by. Espoir must have lost. Xeelee beat my opponent until she dropped unconscious.
“Are… you… okay?” she panted.
“Yeah,” I said weakly.
“Espoir is gone,” said Xeelee, “I see the next door. But I need a moment.”
(I caused Daina’s dress to wink away and summoned yellow balls of slime to hit her.
She smiled as the slime bombarded her, “I guess I’ll see you later, Jouette.”
And then she was a cocoon of yellow gunk, just like Alrae.)
We waited a couple of minutes to catch our breaths and to recover. I located my muddy panties and put them back on. The suit and bra were gone, of course, so I’d need to go through the rest of the dungeon just in my panties. But according to Espoir, that would be just one more test.
We went through the door. There was no room, just a long corridor paved with tiles. We walked on together.
It was I who stepped on the first cursed tile.
When I did, it depressed and I felt a sudden surge of malaise. I fell to my knees, inadvertently triggering another tile, which caused a cascade of orange gunge to fall on my back from above.
“What’s happening, Astra?” asked Xeelee.
“I don’t —” I started, and then I vomited a large load of gunk on the tiles. “I think —- sick —-” and I vomited again. “We must go on, Astra,” said Xeelee. It appears my vomit was spent so I nodded, and tried to stand up. I couldn’t do it on my own so I leaned onto Xeelee for support. She led me further in.
We took more care to avoid the tiles that seemed dangerous but still from time to time we triggered a messy trap. When we saw the end of the corridor, we were again covered in all kinds of new mess, and Xeelee’s clothes were all gone. I was still holding on to my panties, but just barely.
Then, when we were nearly at the end, Xeelee stepped on an innocuous-looking tile but it was the worst. She turned on me and I saw hate and confusion in her eyes. She shoved me on the floor, laughing maniacally.
This of course triggered many traps, and, lying on the floor shocked, I couldn’t evade any of them. Streams of gunge dropped on me from the ceiling and finally tore apart my panties.
Then Xeelee was on top of me, but in her mind-controlled state she was careless and stepped on a cursed tile. She fell on my chest, looked me in the eye and vomited straight into my face.
(“Eww. Your story just keeps getting grosser,” said Jouette.
“It would appear so, wouldn’t it?” I said and flicked some summoned vomit into her face. “But as far as I recall, it only gets better from here on again.”)
I knew I couldn’t overpower Xeelee. She was a better warrior, even if confused and controlled. She turned me on my back and started smacking my breasts. They were smacks that wouldn’t hurt all that much ordinarily, and not at all when coming from a girl I came to love, but they were painful here as I saw the pain and hate in her eyes as she delivered the smacks.
In desperation, I moved up and kissed Xeelee.
I thought to give the kissborn Great Kiss, a magical effect that would leave her weakened and defenseless but I forgot that magic doesn’t work in the Dungeon. I was about to break the kiss when I felt Xeelee’s body stop and her tongue move in my mouth. She was returning my kiss!
I hugged her and put all of my force and all of my love for her into the kiss. It was a deep and passionate kiss that lasted minutes. And when we finally broke it off and I looked Xeelee in the eyes, they were clear and twinkling. And we kissed again.
(“And that’s where Xeelee became Astra’s first mate!” exclaimed Luna.
“Really?” asked Jouette.
“Yeah, we had feelings for each other for some time at this point, and this pushed us over the edge.”)
And then after we broke that kiss, she, of course, vomited again.
Weak and cursed, supporting each other, we opened the final door and breathed a sigh of relief. We were the first girls to ever enter the central chamber of the Dungeon. We saw the Recall Beacon, the Sanctity Barrier Sustainer, and some other machines. And we also saw on a screen the glass of each holding cell slide away and the chains holding the girls unlock.
The girls dropped into the mess on their cell but some of them then slowly stood up and walked out, weak and hurt from endless years of isolation and punishment, but free for the first time in forever.