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Seyrla must be furious and seething inside, but seems to reluctantly be impressed, and I am impressed with how evasive she is, and I wonder how much is truth. Even oath bound and tied up like this, it's like this is a game for her, and she is trying to make us annoyed or angry. Goad us into actually hitting her. Offering her tits up like a convenient target. And she still haven't stopped trying to be seductive, and she doesn't care about Reiley, Bokyli or Kima being here. Hell, Seyrla try to make them derail the questioning, and laughed after Bokyli slapped her face, asking her to do it again and harder, while pushing her tits towards Bokyli. Somehow Seyrla also figured out that I have sex with Bokyli too, and it is a subject we avoid talking about. Without orders this questioning would be even worse. I did order Seyrla to tell me about what she have been doing and who she have been talking to the last two days, and it is clear there is no attack coming that she is a part off. She really is here alone, so we stand down and people can go to sleep, but Xuela have slept enough and today she will still stay in the lookout keeping watch. Just in case. And she is still in the camouflaged cape. I have ordered Seyrla to tell me which vision she have and their activation phrases and options, and it turns out that Seyrla have what I call Direction 1 and Track, but apparently Seyrla have two upgrades on Track and can activate Track four times a day, and have them active at the same time, and just use the name or a stated nickname of a person she know to Track that person. Seyrla have been watching people a lot, and this is her seventh week here.
We both figure out that if I order Seyrla to talk about something, I can't ask a follow-up question or interrupt her without it also cancelling the order, and she apparently gets some kind of visual-audio warning if she is starting to defy an order by being too evasive or taking too long time getting to the point. Unfortunately, she figured out that order cancelling before I did, so I had to repeat some question orders. Still, I get Seyrla to say bits of information that makes sense, and might be true. I realised that Seyrla didn't react to my smart watch or wondered what the materials were, and she actually comes from a highly advanced civilization. The fact that certain advanced concepts actually translates and she knows what engines, steam power, vacuum and electric power are, means that knowledge is understood in her culture and by her, and Seyrla eventually figured out what I was doing, and her reaction felt glorious. Then again, I assume she have felt that several times, but is better at hiding it. Apparently men of her species have smaller wings and are not as good flyers, and if they bulk up with muscles or get fat, they can't actually fly. The male procreation organ is hidden inside the body and fold out, and Seyrla was surprised that mine is on the outside, and that it have dangly balls and grew big. Men of her kind don't have growing penises, and she seems genuinely fascinated by it. She have not been studying the anatomy of other people.
I don't doubt her world have many cultures, and most might be ruled by women with men as second class citizen doing the more physical and harder labours. Still, it have been hard to get her to spill the beans on the whole 'blood and seed' issue. I believe her when Seyrla say that she don't know why blood and seed from another species work, but she is happy that some do as she would be dead otherwise. It's likely that the damn alien bastards have done something selectively creative, and Seyrla becomes more than a little bit miffed when she realise the DAB's probably tweaked instead of fixing the issue, just because this way is much more fun for them. Seyrla is really good at cursing. I point out that it's actually more likely they did cure her, but just added some kind of timer counting down waiting for some kind of blood and seed to reset, as that should be the easiest solution. Seyrla have a new target for her anger and would really hurt the DAB's. Eventually she start to talk about the history.
"Almost a century ago, a team of brilliantly insane scientists managed to create a cutting edge decease, that they spread across the world. Something like 1 in 30 died, but it damaged how our bodies work in those that survived, and children are born damaged. We don't know if it was a fluke or a side effect from other work, or even who really created it. But they saw a use for it and probably refined it. Their goal was to force people to follow the teachings of their religion, and even though at least two of the scientists were women, that included making women subservient to men. I don't know if they intended the blood and seed part, but it is as is, and just like Master quickly figured out, there are ways to get a males blood and seed without his cooperation. It was a time of violence, wars and social upheaval, and details are murky and there have been lots of propaganda, lies and cover ups. Still, after all this time, no way to undo the damage to women have been found, although the duration between doses have increased, and we don't actually need to drink raw blood. There is just stuff in the male's blood and seed that the female body need a small dose off, like a periodic reference point for our bodies own system, and it doesn't even need to happen at the same time. My world have many different countries and societies, but generally the bottles are almost free, and there are different tastes. Just drink a bottle every two week and the woman is fine. There are countries in total control of those religious fanatics, where there is a black market for bottles, but there are fanatics in every country. There are terrorist attacks on the research or production of those bottles or just prominent people speaking out against that faith, or 'natural order' as they call it, but there are also freedom fighters that attack in those religious countries against religious figure heads and so on. There are of course issues with small children, widows and so on, but fanatics are fanatics, and along with faith it is a way to control the population."
Seyrla's voice have become a bit distant and that is a hell of a story, but I can't say I am that surprised considering some cults on Earth, and religious fanatics in general. Her species might be similar to Humans, where men have XY chromosomes, while women is XX, and in her species a vital part of the X are damaged. The reverse is partially true for humans. Human men have far more colour vision problems than women, since men only get one chance at a working X chromosome, while women with that defect might even have improved colour vision. Seyrla's species biotech seems to be advanced, but they haven't moved past optical microscopes and discovered DNA, and isn't advanced enough to fix that issue yet, as analysing old DNA should be able to find what was damaged. Seyrla sigh and continue:
"I couldn't get a bottle here, but I knew how those fanatics deal with it without bottles, so I had to try different men. Men from seasonal species is obviously not an option, but I found someone looking fairly close to me and it work from the first time. I thought I was lucky. I took a chance on Master and was lucky it too worked. I lied about becoming Masters, hoping Master would believe I was Masters sex slave and Master had power over me. I would have acted like it and hoped that it would make Master stupid, so I could escape. Hopefully with Master as my slave, and not just for blood, seed and revenge. Masters creations are impressive and valuable, and Master knows much. But Master tricked me into swearing that oath, and bound me with devious orders."
Seyrla insist on calling me Master, probably because it annoys me, but I don't want to order her to not call me master. It is after all a simple way of accidentally defying an order, which Seyrla made sure to point out. That Kima calls me Lord Arne have of course been noticed. I'm getting increasingly annoyed with Seyrla, and having her in our everyday lifes just doesn't seem worth it. Sure, she is another flyer which is incredibly useful, but not worth it if she is an annoying menace causing problem. I'm starting to think of creative punishments, but I think just banishing her to sit on a cliff for two days might work as a start. It would at least mean I don't have to deal with her for two days. But as soon as Seyrla is untied and leave my voice range, she is only bound by already given orders, as I can't give her new orders. Seyrla is going on another useless tangent and I remember what I've forgotten to ask, and my patient is wearing out, so I decide to check, just in case.
"Seyrla, I order you to tell me about any natural or unnatural weapons, venoms, drugs or for me dangerous parts of your body."
"Oh come on! That order doesn't leave me much wiggle room, now does it?" Seyrla gives me a disapproving pout, but I'm not going to fall for being lured to respond. Again. "Well, beside normal combat moves and having a wicked tongue that I would love to explore your mouth or body with, both lies and truth can be dangerous for Masters health. I also hope Master will find sex with me so rewarding and intoxicating that Master discard his lesser playthings, but as far as I know; tasting my mouth, licking my breasts or body, or penetrating me anywhere, isn't dangerous for Master." Seyrla push out her tits towards me and lick one of them, with a seductive smile and offer. I manage to keep myself from saying anything, and I stop Bokyli from bursting out at Seyrla again, and I just wait. Seyrla won't make me fall for the same trick a fifth time - or whatever time this would be - and I see when Seyrla fold. We both know she can't win a waiting game if the order demand she say more. "I also have a hidden internal pouch underneath my left breast." So many questions explode in my mind that I don't know where to start, but something about Seyrla makes me just look at her before even asking any of them, and I see her collapse back down on the mattress as she reluctantly say: "My right arm also have a small hidden blade."
What the fuck?! I manage to stay quiet, and after a whole minute of Seyrla being quiet, I guess that is it. Seyrla see our questioning looks and with seductive playful smugness, looks me in the eye and continue:
"Master already know we both come from highly advanced civilizations, but I don't know how much my Master truly know or understand. My world have some very advanced medical technology, and I paid for a few discrete modifications. Master will probably order me to tell all about it as soon as Master understand that other things might be possible, so I might as well say it. Master will obviously still order me, just to verify." Seyrla gives me a grin. "My right lower arm and left torso have been discretely modified, and it is almost impossible to tell from outside, but I have those modifications, and beside some internal armour, special sacks have been implanted inside my body. One that accumulate a natural drug to boost my reflexes, strength and endurance when needed, and others that cleans my blood from poisons, drugs and intoxicants. Though obviously not good enough to stop that paralysing shit your pet lizard hit me with. Utterly infuriating to be taken down and captured by a barbarian lizard throwing a tooth. A tooth!! Can it get more primitive?! Couldn't you at least have given it a proper weapon?! And now I am trapped for life by swearing a deadly oath to a devious paranoid asshole." The look and smile Seyrla gives me is filled with hate and scorn. "I would have used the blade to cut my bindings and escape, but the damn leather wrapping of my fisted hands means I can't. I just had to be caught and interrogated by a paranoid creative asshole from a high tech civilization. Do you know how few on my world would even think about doing this?! How few here!? And asking these types of questions!?! Argh!! I should have gotten that slide out razorblade under the nail so I could have cut myself free, but since it would be useless against ordinary metal cuffs or chains, I didn't bother. Stupid me."
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"You forgot to call me Master."
"Eat my shit soup!!" Seyrla smoothly change and gives me a seductive smile as she expose her body towards me. "Master." Seyrla is damn fast in switching between roles. Still, she is right in that I have to verify, and I bet she left something out.
"Seyrla, I order you to tell me about all modifications you know have been done to your body."
"Blade in right lower arm. Pouch underneath left rib cage. Blood cleansing sacks and booster in my torso. Armour plates and armour weave protecting my heart, lungs, lever, stomach and a couple of other important parts like my throat and neck. A bit of filling in my tits. Plus whatever shit the damn alien bastards have done to me. Masters opinion and nickname for them is apt."
We wait just to make sure there is nothing more. Then I just have to ask.
"Seyrla, that is very advanced, but it also makes me wonder why you had that done. I see very limited reasons for getting it."
Seriously, that is Cyberpunk / Shadowrun Street Samurai stuff and unlikely for anyone else.
"I know Master would." Seyrla gives me a victorious grin, which quickly fade. "Stealing. Smuggling. Information. Intimidation. Negotiation. Torture. Removing liabilities. My service is for hire. Well it was. Damn alien bastards. Shitty oath. Shitty tooth."
I guess I oath bound a professional bad girl. Reiley, Bokyli and Kima seems to have more or less lost the conversation, especially Kima, but Kima is proud that she took out Seyrla with that throwing tooth, and did that wide creepy smile as Seyrla admitted how much she hates it, which just grew slightly wider.
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Being forced to give up the information about her body modifications, and with that what she done previously in life, seem to finally have made Seyrla surrender, and she just lie there and talk and talk. About her old life and what she have done here. Seyrla didn't have a pleasant happy childhood, but her culture seems generally bad, and preying on others and violence is just how life is. Her society is ruled by organised crime like corporations with personal gang armies and hitmen, who fight against each other, and you don't get to the top by being nice. Seyrla didn't want to be a low status worker using alcohol or drugs to dull life and just get by, so she joined a gang and worked her way up the ranks, and got rich. Her society have clear social ranks, but you're not bound to a rank from birth, and she reached the sixth rank of seven. Seyrla turned 50 years old half a year ago, and could have retired a decade ago, but Seyrla is a bad girl for life and she obviously enjoy the rush of doing bad and evil things more than the reward. She casually talk about seducing targets and killing during sex. Both men and women. And flaying, branding, acid disfiguring, lighting someone on fire and so on, is things she have done and half dreamingly talks about with something like pride or a cherished memory, or it makes her giggle with glee. Like when talking about how she blew up a whole building after using way too much of a new type of explosive. The whole six story building came crashing down, which gave her a nice boost in reputation. Considering her favourite weapon is a rocket launcher followed by other explosives, it's clear that Seyrla loves to blow things up, but she is also a bit of a pyromaniac. She stumbled upon one of those terrorist cells while looking for a competitors drug lab, and with a couple of friends she crashed their next meeting with a flamethrower and glass bottles with what sounds like white phosphor. The leader turned out to be famous and had a bounty, so they got a very nice reward and moved up a rank. All in all, it seems very clear that Seyrla will do horrible things just for fun, and will do practically anything to stay alive. Especially if that include a nice comfortable life, because she do like luxury and comforts.
Waking up here was a shock, but she is a flyer and quickly realised others weren't, so she had a huge advantage, made greater by having few moral limits for dealing with strange pathetic primitive aliens. So naturally she did what she did. The Shore Cliff camp is not her group and they actually seem friendly. Seyrla have a deal with them, where they give her food and tribute, and she don't terrorize them while giving them bits of information, and occasional guiding a newly awoken person towards them. She tries to balance utter fear of what she will do, with being too useful, and some are very grateful for being saved from the dinosaurs. Fear of her also helps keep the peace in the Shore Cliff camp. One asshole tried to organize them and rule, but she couldn't allow that, especially as he was from some high tech civilization, so one night she got him addicted to a drug she brought along, and he suffered bad withdrawals. He might have survived as he only got one dose and the drugs effect on people here are impossible to predict, but she killed him, branded the body, and cut him up while making it look like dragged out torture, and beside his head on a pole, she left bloody pieces to be found. She even left that head on a pole on a pretty inaccessible cliff so they couldn't get to it without making a special ladder. That pole and skull is still there. Seyrla lied about telling the Shore Cliff camp about us. She hadn't decided what to do with us yet, but hoped that we might be another camp she could terrify into giving her tribute. Her plan is to surround her home with camps that do.
Seyrla's talk about her lookouts seems to be true and she also have a couple of 'resting spots'. But the middle lookout is actually her home being built, and partially by drugged up slaves. She had a pouch basically filled with a very addictive, pure and compact drug she had just stolen, and she drugged up newly awoken. It didn't work on one and another died, but two have become completely addicted, and along with three others they're building her stronghold tower up on a hard to reach ridge outcrop poking up through the jungle, and this is the sixth week they have been building. The gatehouse is done, and they've soon finished the main tower. Seyrla have already threatened the two drugged up that she will cut them off, as they're not worth the effort and food to keep alive, since they do shoddy work. The partial truth is that she will eventually run out of that drug and those two might die when they can't get more. Seyrla have kept two of the three undrugged in check with just the fear they might be drugged unless they do good work, but she also make sure to reward them and so on. Handling and molding potential gang members isn't something new to her, and Seyrla is basically making a stronghold and forming a bandit gang so she can have a comfortable life here. One of the three undrugged is a woman called Quaoy that act as her housekeeper, cook and maid, that apparently is so proud over Seyrla and happy to serve her. The stronghold will be quite secure and safe from both dinosaurs and people, but her gang members will be slightly trapped there, as this is dinosaur country and moving about on the ground is dangerous. Although there are some sanctuary flowers in the forest, and they are making a open path through the forest to the coast, that will have regular platforms high up in trees to shelter in. The reason Seyrla mumbled when I asked her to use Direction, is that she have called it 'my stronghold'. That she made that stupid mistake annoys her, and even more so that I used that error against her. She blames herself for that one.
I don't think Seyrla have lied a lot about everything she told us, but man; does she dump a load of shit on me. Considering how bad a person she is and just what she told us she have done previously in life and here, and that she have no remorse over it at all, means I probably should just execute her. The world would be better without Seyrla.
Still, a really bad idea have started to form. I'm not proud to have those thoughts, as it proves how bad and rotten I am. We could probably ally with the Shore Cliff camp, but just that. Sure, it would be better to join up against King and so on, but I don't want to move there as this have become my home. And this place won't be good for too many people. I sure don't want to live at Seyrla's stronghold, or deal with the mess she made there. But Seyrla is a very useful resource. So my rotten idea is to use Seyrla as a front woman. She gets to live and have the freedom to mostly act like she have been doing, but she is ultimately under my control and I will creatively punish her if she is too bad. That way my group should have far less problem and issues than trying to keep someone like her under control during everyday life if she lives here. I also get a flyer that gathers information and protect a stronghold, and if I need bad things done? Seyrla can do them and take the blame. Sending Xuela to try and assassinate King or do a hit-and-run raid on his camp is a bad idea. But Seyrla? Seyrla would have no qualms about doing it, and probably have the tactical understanding and skills to increase the chance of success. Hell, Seyrla would probably want to do it without me asking, as King and his ambition is a danger to her plans, and his camp could fall in line under 'her rule'.
Honestly, considering what Seyrla have told me about her old life, the organised crime and the gangs and turf wars, it wouldn't surprise me if she is actually hoping I would suggest this, and if she haven't thought about it, it is just a matter of time until she will. And it is doable. Only Reiley, Bokyli and Kima knows that Seyrla is oath bound. Unless the others have overheard something. I might tell the others, but we need to come up with a really good story that makes sense for others. Both future members and other groups. Seyrla is just laying there and looking depressed and moody. I surprise her when I grab her by the horn, and I whisper in her ear:
"Seyrla, would you like to return to the life you have created here and have a lot of freedom?" Seyrla's surprised and confused reaction as she glance up at me is probably not acted. "Just with me secretly holding your leash."
That is a truly wicked smile.
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