Even Lysithea herself could see the irony in her fear, as she struggled against the bindings holding her to the table. Trapped alone in a dark room, the one thing she was most scared of was her single source of light. The dim, pink glow that hummed from her pelvis produced barely enough light for her to glare at the provocative white lingerie that hugged her curves.

…Moderate as they may be, she had still been proud of them. And yet when it was someone else lusting after them… that feeling dissipated into disgust quickly. She’d never anticipated being the target of someone’s attention like this.

Yet that was exactly what had happened to her. With the war’s end, she’d devoted herself to a deeper research of magic and crests, in the hopes of curing her condition. Just as she was beginning to reach her wit’s end with the obscure texts that remained from the Agarthans, she received a very promising letter from a fellow researcher. The man claimed that he had discovered some… power that could absorb or entirely nullify certain forms of magic. Could such a power affect her Crests as well? She could only know if she investigated it further.

Leaving for the destination he gave her in the letter without so much as a notice to her friends was, especially in retrospect, a poor decision. In her defense, every second that she spent with her crests in-tact could be detrimental to her health. Such eagerness would be her downfall, when she entered the man’s house and didn’t think twice of him locking the door behind her. Or when she greedily accepted the sweets and tea he offered as they shared notes on their various forms of research.

Or when she ignored her growing drowsiness for the better part of half an hour, up until she let her eyes rest for a moment too long and fell into a deep slumber. Her dreary, run-down surroundings suggested this was his basement, which obviously contributed to her initial panic. Having her arms and legs lashed to something that resembled an operating table hardly helped either.

And then… there was the marking. From a moment, her eyes were lost in the pink, swiftly pattern, forming into an intricate heart that glowed softly on her pelvis. Lost in thought for a moment, her foggy mind slowly recalled the details of the man’s research…

Supposedly, he’d recovered a strange set of materials from a “lost, underground civilization” of some sorts. Though she’d been immediately on edge hearing that – knowing it was likely Agarthan technology – she also knew that the best solution to a problem caused by them… would also likely be from them. She’d settled her worries then, thinking that the technology was in the hands of an “ally”.

Like any good researcher, he’d experimented vigorously with the stuff. Though he claimed it had many unique properties, the most interesting of them was the way that it resisted magic entirely. T-This strange, liquid substance was like a “magical sponge”, soaking the energy of the spell up and somehow containing it inside itself – proved by the way it would glow after absorbing magic. Lysithea remembered asking if there was any way to apply it to, say, a Crest or two, but from that moment on was when her memory became hazy.

Hence why she was so shocked and unnerved by the fact that the ink seemed to have been applied to her skin directly. Any legitimate magic experiment would certainly not use a human as a test subject… unless he’d worked out the details to this magic more than he let on. A-And more concerningly: why did he see the need to tie her up and apply it without her permission. Lysithea was desperate enough to try an untested method!

The… nagging feeling that he was hiding something gnawed in the back of the mage’s mind. Especially considering how he’d undressed her and put her back into these utterly scandalous robes – if they could even be called that.

Footsteps echoed from outside the room as the man descended down the staircase. She struggled against her bindings a little harder – but her frail and weak limbs were hardly a match for thick leather pressing down into her skin. The door creaked open – the man pushing it open with his shoulder as he carried a stack of tomes in his hands. Lysithea’s eyes immediately shot towards him.

“You–”

“I know this looks bad, Lysithea.” The man interjected with perhaps the most obvious statement ever uttered in Fodlan’s history. “But if you moved while I applied the Mark and made me mess it up, then there’s no telling what would’ve happened. So… you’re welcome.”

 “T-That’s not the point!” She yanked at her bindings for effect. “Why am I still tied up, then? A-And why did you dress me in this?!”

“Ah… apologies. I simply didn’t want you to trip over something in the dark while I collected a few tomes for you to try using. As for those garments, they were about the only thing that exposed the right area for the mark’s placement, while still covering your more sensitive areas. ” Even though the man said it with a smile, Lysithea could tell that there was something off about it. She could press him on why he owned a pair of women’s undergarments – especially ones as lacy as these, but her mind was more concerned with the mark placed upon her body.

To his credit, he did unbind her. For a brief moment, she considered wailing at him in retribution… but she knew she would be easily overpowered. The man was about to grant Lysithea her pick of magic to obliterate him with, if it came to that…

She stepped off of the table – her black heels which had been left on her feet clicking against the hard, stone ground – as the man handed her a fire tome.

“Try it.” He instructed, simply. Lysithea looked around in the cramped room for a target, until her eyes fell back to him. “Anywhere you’d like.”

Anywhere? Tempted as she’d been to attack him, that would probably take things a little far–

“Oh, I should apologize for something else.” His smile grew quite wide as his eyes lit up in mischievous joy. “I really did try to respect your privacy while dressing you back up, but my eyes couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of those cute, pink nipples on your… modest chest.”



Lysithea flipped the tome open and extended her arm out, pointing it straight at his face. Magic simmered in the white-haired mage’s body as she drew it forth, using the book as a conduit. The man didn’t flinch in the slightest – not even getting down on his knees to beg for forgiveness! He was a pervert through and through – and he’d already shown Lysithea where he kept all his notes. Magic surged forth–

And sizzled out entirely. Lysithea stared at her tome in shock, hands repeating the motions as though she’d simply made a mistake. N-No, her form was perfect, her talents were above all others, h-how..!



Her eyes were drawn downwards to the pink mark on her pelvis, glowing just a little bit brighter.

“Ah, it worked!” The man eagerly exclaimed in celebration. “Just as I hypothesized, the mark absorbs any magic that flows through you entirely. Isn’t this wonderful?”

Lysithea’s jaw dropped – harder than it had when she’d first tasted the wonderful combination of chocolate cake and ice cream. T-This… wasn’t just out of awe, though. That academic part of her did find its effectiveness almost incredible, b-but…

“E-Explain yourself!” She stepped forward in an attempt to be threatening, but her legs retreated as quickly as they’d approached. Lysithea was about a foot shorter than the man, nowhere close to as physically capable, and most importantly… completely and utterly devoid of her magical ability, as long as this mark remained on her body. The woman stumbled back as quickly as she’d put herself forward.

“The mark simply compresses and stores all the magical energy an individual uses inside of itself. As for what it does with all that… well, it merely depends on the type of slave crest which is applied.”

The details were getting worse by the minute. This technology being related to slavery was not a fanciful thought for the mage who had said mark applied directly to her. Given her position, she didn’t have the luxury to panic or rage or cry out. S-She could definitely keep her cool… like a lady would…

“W-What does this mark do then..?”

“Ah, that one? Well – when the Mast – ahem – the one who applied it presses it with their palm, it activates… as such.”

Though Lysithea flinched and recoiled away from the man, there was hardly enough room for her to make any sort of dedicated retreat beyond fruitlessly trying to cover herself. It did little, beyond forcing the man to push down her knee before his hand pressed against the mark. Her eyes dropped to it – watching it intensify in brightness before… a warmth brewed for a moment.

Indescribable pleasure shot through every inch of her body a second later. Every sensor of stimuli that existed inside her body flared up in intensity, and her mind struggled to even process it all. Lysithea’s knees buckled underneath themselves – and only the waiting arms of the man saved her from an painful encounter with the ground to shock her body out of this haze of ecstasy. Quick gasps of air slowly elongated into heavy breaths as her fingers clenched around his back, as Lysithea tried to regain her composure. Her heeled feet kicked at the stone beneath her until she found balance. Slowly, she pushed herself back up with the support of the man.

The second she tried to let go and stand upright, she lost control of herself yet again, and fell back into his arms.

“Normally, I would ask a subject how they felt… but I believe this to be enough data as is.”

“Wh–eugh..?” The sound Lysithea made was hardly sophisticated, respectable, or womanly in the slightest. If she had to describe it, it would be the sorry sounds of a pleasure-riddled slut, and yet that was exactly what she’d been reduced to.

She felt her body lifted into the air – her vision still a bit hazy to tell exactly what was happening – and placed back onto the table to sit. Her upper-body wobbled as her mind dealt with the residual after-effects of pure bliss overwhelming it entirely.

“It’s definitely a good thing that I figured out which mark was pleasure and which was pain… that would not have been pleasant.”

Her eyes widened, before weakly nodding in agreement. That… definitely would have killed her. Especially since she felt so exhausted that she was about to pass out from just this… this pleasure.

“D-Does this… hah…” Lysithea focused her mind as hard as she ever had, just to get a few, soft words out. “Does this mean I don’t have to worry about my crests anymore?”

“Crests?” He emphasized the plurality of her remark, and Lysithea didn’t even have the energy to try and correct her slip-up. His eyes narrowed on her snow-white hair before slowly nodding. “That would explain why the mark had begun to glow on its own that quickly. Fascinating…”

He thought to himself quietly for a moment before finally answering the woman’s question. “It’s fair to say that they’re nullified, as long as the mark is applied. But since we probably don’t want it to build up too much pleasure – for lack of a better term – I’ll let you stay in my house while we research it further.”

Wait… huh? Her mind was finally putting the pieces of itself back together, and she couldn’t help but realize the absurd turn of events. The man had almost certainly drugged her, put t-this mark upon her body, and was now saying she had to live with him? Phrased as nicely or selflessly as he might put it, that was clearly what he wanted. Whether she was just a test subject to him o-or… something else…

“I’ll give you a moment to think about it. I… think I know how to remove the mark, if you so wish. But if you do choose to stay, then… do put these on.” He dropped a pile of obviously restrictive devices by her side. Some leather straps, cuffs, and a bright red rubber ball.

“You’re much cuter with those on.”

He slipped out of the room as Lysithea blinked silently while her cheeks flared in confused embarrassment at the… compliment? A few moments after he left, she looked down at herself and the mark.

This was… a very sudden turn of events, not to mention strange. Her mind was still addled with the remnants of pleasure as she tried to think things through – rationally. A part of her body felt uncomfortable with the mark, but it didn’t seem to be hurting her. Q-Quite the opposite, in fact. The side-effects would be… inconvenient, but it was a cure to her condition. She could live a long and happy life – as long as she could trust that man. There was no doubt he was eccentric, b-but… sincere?

Gah. Why was she trying to justify his insane behavior? She was pretty sure she read about some psychological condition pertaining to this type of rationalization, but its name escaped her tongue given the pleasure coursing through her body. A-Actually, that had to be why she was even considering this: the pleasure had just been too distracting and sudden. Once her mind was cleared of that, she could make the rational, correct decision… whichever one that may be.

…She idly kicked her heels against the base of the table. The sound echoed throughout the empty room. As her thighs rubbed against one another, she finally felt the humiliatingly wet traces of fluid that coated her lacy panties. T-Those must’ve been… mere by-products of the forced pleasure. Indicators of nothing more.

Out of boredom, Lysithea idly grabbed the rubber ball he’d given her and ran the straps of it through her fingers. Did the man really get some perverted pleasure from seeing this locked between her teeth? Leisurely, she brought it to her mouth – popping it in and strapping it around her cheeks, before locking it at the back of her head. She let out a few testing moans – just to see how they echoed in the room. A couple minutes passed, in which saliva pooled at the corner of her mouth and she could already feel the discomfort in her jaw. How could anyone enjoy these things?

Lysithea didn’t even realize her hands were feebly rubbing at the mark until a moment later. They recoiled in sudden shame, as she attributed the motions to mere “investigation” of the foreign spell. Just a simple way to confirm that only he could control the mark’s mind-blowing effects.

She didn’t know why her heart was racing at the thought of that, and distracted herself with a pair of cuffs. The cold metal jingled in her hands softly. Her mind toyed with the thought – the possibility of what it would be like to have them locked around her wrists. The key was right there, in the middle of the pile, so… why not? She tightened one around her left wrist, and pushing aside that last bit of hesitation dwelling inside of her, locked the other cuff around her free wrist in front of her.

It was a strange feeling to be partially helpless. The chain connecting the cuffs would immediately tighten if she tried to pull them apart, keeping her hands within inches of each other. Though it was clearly an annoyance, it was obvious that putting on the cuffs with her arms behind her back would be much more effective. She could still do plenty of things like this…

Like picking up one of the tomes he’d left behind. F-For experimental purposes only, it might not be a bad idea to see how the mark reacted to a different spell. As she flipped through the covers of the books in idle thought and analysis–

The door swung open. Lysithea’s eyes shot up to the man standing in the hallway, before she looked down upon herself. Self-gagged, cuffed, and looking for a spell to cast after he had just proven that doing so would only provide her with unimaginable pleasure. She blushed in humiliation as she tried to sputter off excuses, only for them all to be swallowed up by her gag.

“Made your decision, then?” The man asked with an amused smile.

Every rational part of her mind that she’d honed and sharpened in deep study told her to say no. That was drowned out by her emotional side – longing for not just t-that incredible pleasure, but a long, comfortable, and simple life after everything she’d been through. Where she could just… just…

The woman shyly and slowly nodded her head. Approaching her, the man picked out a thick, leather band from the pile, brought it to Lysithea’s neck, and clasped it shut around her like a collar. Her heart skipped a beat when the man gave a soft, subtle tug to the leash dangling from it. He plucked the tome out of her grip with one hand while the other one gently caressed her hair.

“Good girl. Maybe we can get you in an outfit that’s as cute as you. One that’s nice and snug… with even tighter ropes.”

Lysithea immediately knew she made the right decision.