As Rowena crouched in the bushes under the cover of night, she repeatedly cursed any and all of the goddesses above for whatever had transpired to lead her to her current situation. Y She was a well known mage, who on the side used her magical talents for some more…unsavoury applications. Unfortunately for her, those unsavoury applications such as slavery had led her to owing a lot of gold to some even more unsavoury characters. A lot of gold, far more than what she could come up with in terms of possessions so an ultimatum had been given: she provides the gold within five days, or she joins the next slave shipment in chains.
Despite her abilities and fame, Rowena knew they had her. She couldn’t outrun an organization like this, disappearing and running would just leave her like a deer hunted by wolves day and night for who knows how long until they finally caught her. No, she had to come up with a lot of gold on short notice, and that meant obtaining a number of prime pieces of merchandise. Which is why she now found herself crouched in the bushes on the outer perimeter of the castle that served as the Temple of Morgana. She had to take a big risk for a big reward and thus her target of the temple and all female acolytes. She had been scouting around the edges of the castle for the last three hours, starting at sundown, and the moon was nearly at its peak above her. She stood, clad in black leather thigh high boots, a long sleeveless black dress with a slit down the length of the skirt, and a black cloak over top with a hood covering her features.
Leaves crunched under her boots as she navigated away from the entrance to the temple towards the side of the castle, giving a frustrated sigh to herself as she continued to search for a way to breach into the castle when some motion caught her eye. Out of one of the windows two dozen feet above the ground came a length of cloth that seemed to be bedsheets of some kind tied together to form a rope. It continued to be fed out of the window until it nearly reached the ground, then two girls in white dresses and sandals laced onto their feet appeared in the window and slid down the bedsheet rope silently.
Rowena blinked. Fortune may be shining on her after all as she quickly darted through the brush to be in line with where the girls were headed as they snuck their way towards the forest. She rolled her eyes at their attempt at stealth, especially given they were wearing white which practically glowed in the dark. Summoning her specialty assistants, snake-like slime creatures that she was able to control to do her bidding, Rowena prepared her trap for the two girls. Likely sneaking out for a night in the town which was forbidden by the temple, they would not have told anyone where they were going which was perfect for her purposes. They looked young, one blonde and one brunette, but they were slim and looked good. Perfect for her purposes.
The girls finally made it to the edge of the forest and now had to move slower, picking their way through the branches and bushes that blocked their way as there was no true established path through the forest. Rowena peeked through the bush she was hidden behind, watching as they crept closer and closer to her completely unaware of what was waiting for them. Waiting until the girls were within a few feet of her and several feet into the undergrowth, she flicked her wrists and her slime creatures darted forward. They went for the legs first, both girls letting out muffled cries of surprise as their legs were tangled and they hit the ground hard. Working quickly, Rowena sent more sentient slimes forward to wrap around the girls. One wrapped around their mouths, muffling their attempted cries as all semblance of secrecy was out the window for them. The girls realized they were in much bigger trouble now than they would be if the temple mistresses discovered them out of the temple at this hour. However the slimes made sure that no sound would escape, forcing their mouths open and filling it with slime that caused each girl to wretch before the creature wrapped itself around their heads.
More of the slime creatures targeted the arms and wrists, crossing their wrists behind their backs and wrapping themselves in place while others wrapped around their chest and torso to secure the arms against their backs. Despite being made of slimes, the snake-like creatures proved to be very good at keeping a girl in place and solidified enough to trap both of the acolytes on the ground. Rising from her crouched position, Rowena moved forward to inspect her prey.
When she emerged from the bush, both of the girls on the ground screamed behind their gags and writhed as much as they could, which wasn’t much in the grip of Rowena’s slime creatures. Now up close, Rowena could see each was very young, maybe barely a moon past 18 and recently becoming acolytes most likely. Creeping past them to the edge of the forest to check if anyone had heard the commotion, Rowena returned to her two captives who were now very still, eyes still wide with fear but both seemed to realize that until Rowena decided to release them, they were not escaping the slimes.
While it was fun for Rowena to let the slimes do their thing, even if she had to exert some self control over them when they got some silly ideas like right now when one of the waist rope slimes was sneaking it’s head under the skirt of the blonde, she had a limited number of them she could control so she had to restrain these girls the old fashioned way.
Rowena drew lengths of rope from one of the leather bags she had brought and quickly got to work. She commanded the slim creature holding the blonde girl to release individual bonds, quickly replacing them with rope that was tied and cinched tight enough to cause the girl to emit muffled squeaks into the slime filling her mouth. Soon, ropes bound the girl at the ankles, knees, wrists, chest, and waist. From a second bag at her waist, she withdrew two cloth strips, one stuffed into a ball and inserted into her captive’s mouth, the other was yanked between her teeth and knotted off at the back of her neck under her hair. One final rope between the wrist and ankles secured her into a tight hogtie and the new slave to be was a tight little package. Rowena then repeated the process with the second girl, ensuring the brunette was not going anywhere anytime soon. With her slime creatures retreating away to the brush, she looked at the two hogtied girls on the ground and mulled things over. She would get a good amount of gold for these two alone, but it was not enough. She needed much more, which meant she had to take a bigger risk and likely go for the temple itself, which contained at least another 15 girls. It would be one of the biggest raids she ever undertook, at most she had targeted a group of four in the past.
But desperate times called for desperate measures and she couldn’t leave and come back. The disappearance of these two would likely raise an alarm and the temple would be on full alert for the foreseeable future. She had to strike tonight. Glancing at her bag, she silently counted the coils of ropes that she had and sighed to herself. She was going to have to improvise and capture as many girls as she could tonight with whatever was on hand. Maybe some of the girls came with their own gagging material. Leaving one of her slime creatures to secure the two captives to a nearby tree, she steeled her nerves, donned her mask, and turned towards the temple. She was about to take the biggest risk of her life, but no risk, no reward. She was going to come out on top.