I was no longer cowering in the corner of the pit with the other girls. I was now standing in the exact center. I had the memory of being covered in slime, yet I could find none on my body. I was perfectly clean and healthy. The soreness in my vagina from Crabby's earlier penetration was gone, as was the scratch on my thigh from Foxy.
I was healed and restored, perfectly refreshed. Despite not having eaten since the previous morning, or slept at all, I was neither hungry not tired.
Standing next to me, unharmed, healthy and whole was Chloe. The old slave collar around her neck was gone, replaced with a new one. This one was made of a black metal, almost like wrought iron, and gave off an ominous aura like that of the old god himself. It was beautifully ornate, carved with an exquisitely detailed pattern of slithering tentacles that seemed to shift and change whenever I wasn't looking directly at it.
Kneeling in a circle around us, facing me, kneeling with their heads to the floor, were twenty or so slaves. I recognized them as my fellow torture slaves from the dungeons down below. There were a few new faces, however. Dark elves, clad in maid outfits, probably the rest of Lord Anthony's unfortunate harem. They were all wearing new collars of black metal, decorated with the same tentacle motif as Chloe. I felt my own neck, and it was bare. I was no longer a slave, apparently.
"W-what the fuck happened?" I stammered.
I looked around. The monster corpses were reduced to a barely recognizable bloody pulp. Purple as well, had been decisively finished off by the tentacles, reduced to a mash of purple flesh and green glowing blood scattered and spread across the sand. I couldn't find any trace of Milah or Foxy near the spot where they'd once been fucking. I looked around and spotted Milah in the crowd of slaves, kneeling with the others, no longer in any danger.
Despite being monsters, Foxy and Pinky were both spared the god's wrath for some reason. They were far outside the circle of slaves, yet positioned the same as them, kneeling with their faces to the sand. They both had their old collars replaced with new tentacle styled ones. Foxy was soon kneeling up, back on her haunches, looking around warily, too scared to move from her position or rape any of the three male slaves present. Pinky, however, didn't dare straighten up or move from her submissive position at all.
As for the rest of the torture brothel… What torture brothel?
Everything above the rim of the arena pit was just… gone. The building was scoured clean, down to the foundation, like the aftermath of a passing tornado.
I heard the groaning of men from above us. Clearly there were some survivors. I had to admit, I was a little disappointed by that.
"Huh… okay then," I muttered.
"W-what do we do?" one of the slaves muttered.
"The masters are… gone?" another gasped in disbelief, looking at the open sky, now lit in pre-dawn twilight.
"A-are we… yours now, Mistress?" Lothelea asked me uncertainly.
I looked down at her, kneeling at my feet.
"Honestly, I have no idea, but I suppose the position we find ourselves in is probably… meaningful," I told her.
"I think so too, Mistress," Lothelea said. "Please take care of me well."
"Sure, if I actually am your Mistress," I chucked.
"Why am I standing then? I'm still a slave right?" Chloe asked.
"A head slave? Or perhaps merely a favored one? Perhaps the Despoiler of Purity wanted you to be above us in hierarchy?" Lothelea suggested.
"M-maybe…" Chloe said, looking at me nervously.
"Well, if I were to gain ownership of everyone here, and actually set up a hierarchy, I would give Chloe a place of privilege. I've known her for a lot longer, and trust her," I awkwardly explained.
"If our position reflects your desires, then perhaps we really are yours," Lothelea said.
"Is there any way to check?" I asked.
"Have a priest or artisan mage analyze the collars?" another elf I hadn't met yet suggested.
"I don't suppose anyone here can do that?" I asked, looking around the crowd. Nobody raised their hands.
So now what? New collars meant new enchantments. And if these were gifts from the tentacle god, odds were decent that the slaves wouldn't die if they tried to leave the brothel now. That wasn't a guarantee though. Similarly, I had no idea if I rightfully owned these slaves or not. Even if the god-crafted collars bound them to me, that still sort of made them stolen property, didn't it? I certainly hadn't bought any of them. Wouldn't I need to register them or whatever?
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Also, where was I going to go? Somehow I doubted twenty or more slaves would fit inside that little bedroom in the rectory hall. And how much did slave gruel cost? I had twenty-something mouths to feed, didn't I? Oh, and clothes? Everyone but the dark elven maids were naked.
Eventually, my panicked indecision was cured by the sound of commotion upstairs, shouts and the sound of jingling chainmail armour.
"Try to remember who your neighbours are, and where you're kneeling in this array, I'll draw a chart later," I ordered.
I heard two dozen murmurs of 'Yes Mistress.' Hehe… that was kind of awesome. I had more submissive slaves than I could easily count at a glance. Mistress Tyler's found herself a slave harem. If they were all mine, I'd have to avoid letting the power go to my head.
"Okay then, I'll go poke my nose out upstairs and figure out what's going on. Then I'll call for you all to follow if it's safe." I said.
More murmurs of 'Yes Mistress.'
I walked over to the door at the side of the arena, the one I'd entered by. Before the tentacles, it had been a thick, monster resistant door, firmly barred shut. Now it was just missing, torn straight off its hinges. I crept up the narrow staircase to the ground level.
The upstairs was utterly demolished. Not a single shred of debris larger than my palm stood intact. The tiny shards of timber were spread around most of the town, poking out of roofs and littering yards. I could see the footprint of the brothel and its stone foundation. Most of the stone was still intact, but the underground torture chamber had been dug out, each individual brick crushed and scattered, leaving behind a deep empty pit of raw dirt. No other buildings had been damaged by the tentacles.
And then there were the bodies. Probably close to a hundred corpses, crushed and wrung out like dirty rags. Blood splattered every surface. There were maybe another twenty human survivors among the brothel's clients. They no longer wore their red robes and masks. Each was completely naked yet miraculously unharmed. There was a pretty obvious message behind that. 'Don't be a torture brothel customer anymore.'
I saw a row of town guards around the perimeter of the property, keeping curious townsfolk away from the scene of devastation, yet more and more curious people continued to join the crowds. After a few moments, I saw Lysander and Maddie in the crowd, waving at me. I waved back. I couldn't see Emi anywhere.
I also saw Father Jordan, three other priests and a half dozen acolytes who I hadn't met yet. They were combing the wreckage, checking on survivors, and distributing modesty blankets to cover the men. Father Jordan spotted me, and approached me carefully.
"Lady Tyler… it… seems you're unharmed," he said awkwardly, handing me a modesty blanket.
I took it gratefully and covered myself. I was getting tired of always being naked.
"Yep, Old Shiggy was a real gentleman. What a surprise, eh? He was nice enough to personally rescue me from the dungeon and even fixed up a few little injuries for me."
Father Jordan paled when he heard me call the great and powerful Nyar'Shiggurath by such a casual title. I smirked. Based on the gods I met so far, I suspected few of them actually gave a shit about formality. For Nyar'Shiggurath in particular, from the brief moment of carnal communion I had with him, I got the impression that referring to him in a casual manner would actually be seen as endearing. The Violator of Purity was a lover, not a dominator.