Chapter 1: Lost in a Dream

Partisan sat naked in her chair, slumped back into its plush, soft red cushions. Her eyes were heavily lidded. It was so dramatic that one would need to be exceptionally close to be certain they weren’t actually closed. Her lids faintly flickered in front of her brown eyes from time to time, and each time they resisted an ever-growing urge to fall shut.

Time and time again, her lids nearly sealed, lashes close to interlocking, but something held them apart. It was as if the glowing blue-and-white sigils floating in the air mere inches away from her face were a physical presence that reached between her eyelids, keeping them separated. The sigils were opaque, but they looked more like hovering lights than steel bars that could keep the heroine’s eyes open in spite of her overwhelming exhaustion.

No matter how tired or weak she became, Partisan was incapable of fighting past such immovable objects.

“So… weak…” A quiet, soft voice whispered from behind Partisan’s lips. Soft and quiet as it was, her full, pink lips still trembled and shook. “Can’t… sleep…” A faint desperation rose in her voice, though her volume remained so quiet and the rest of her tone retained its distant quality. “Can’t… wake…”

Anyone who saw her would be forgiven for assuming the woman was already asleep. The only movements of her body were the rise and fall of her chest, the fluttering of her eyes, and the twitching of her lips as she spoke with a voice that sounded lost in dreams. Sigils, much like those floating in front of her eyes, were wrapped around her wrists and her ankles. Her fingers occasionally twitched, but her arms made no signs of movement.

Even if the sigils at her limbs held them in place, it seemed she had no desire or ability to operate them anyway. Escape was far beyond her grasp. So lost in her mantra, in her state of waking sleep, it was beyond impossible to imagine her suddenly attempting to rise and flee. She was so slumped, her voice so quiet, her eyes so helplessly caught and held in place.

“Can’t… resist…” Partisan’s voice was a whine, a whine that was so fragile it threatened to fall apart under the slightest resistance. “Too… soft…” Her voice almost sounded as though she were holding her breath, so much pressure building up, gathering, and then…

“Can’t… fight…”

She exhaled, her whole body trembling from the force of her exiting breath. Her hips wriggled. Her naked toes curled. Her curly brown hair, resting in ringlets on either side of her face, shook as it delicately framed her face. Sitting on the golden chair with its red cushions, Partisan looked less like a woman relaxing in a comfortable seat and more like a precious treasure kept sealed away and held on display.

Above her, a soft light shone, clearly positioned to emphasize the nakedness of her tall, slender body. Even sitting it was clear she had the physique of a ballerina, graceful in a way that didn’t even require movement to be visibly perceived.

“Can’t… think…”

In the sleepy woman’s mind, there existed only the words that dribbled past her lips, and the runes that hovered in front of her gaze. She was unaware of her own nakedness, or how long she had been trapped in such a state. The rest of her life, and the world around her, weren’t factors in her mind, or even unknown mysteries. They would need to matter to attain such statuses.

Partisan was trapped in a fever dream of words and glowing sigils.

Clicking heels echoed through the room. Partisan was not the only treasure in the room. There were wooden cases topped with glass displays, filled with jewelry that looked rare or magical.

A spear rested against the wall behind the sitting woman, a long metal shaft topped with a sharp point with a crescent shortly below. A partisan.

The trapped heroine’s namesake.

High above the knee-length boots that clicked through the room, blue-painted lips curled into a wicked, pleased grin. Above them, orange eyes that almost looked like burning amber or orange gold hooded in amusement as wavy, flowing light-blue hair fell wispily over the woman’s shoulders. She wore a garment that was a cross between a witch’s robes and a lab coat colored a deep clay, with details in a beautiful marigold alongside faint hints of black. While Partisan appeared to be in her early-to mid-twenties, the blue-haired woman was clearly in her early 40’s, with the faintest creases teasing at her penchant for grins, smirks, and wicked laughter.

“Partisan.” The heroine shuddered, her eyes opening wide at the sound of her name. Instantly, her exhaustion seemed to evaporate. Whatever state she was kept in, enhanced by magic or other means, she was clearly not drained of any capacity to act. What was truly drained was her will to do anything other than stare and chant. “I have a chore for you to perform!”

“Yes, Runetress…” Partisan moaned out the words, her pink nipples stiffening at her chest as she spoke. So puffy and pronounced, her nipples stood out loudly against her pale chest. “You command… and I must obey…”

Runetress chuckled, reaching out a hand to stroke along her svelte slave’s arm. While Partisan was sleek, her shape looking most appropriate for a dancer, Runetress was more curvaceous. The act of leaning forward to feel her pet’s arm deepened her cleavage, further emphasizing her large breasts that contrasted Partisan’s smaller pair. “Yes, Partisan. I command… and you obey. It’s so simple when everything works like that, isn’t it…? Just so much better when everything is so simple for such a simple woman, mm?”

“Yes… simple…” Partisan’s eyes were open so wide it looked almost painful, but she still sounded every bit as asleep as she did before Runetress had arrived. Her body was forced into eagerness, ready to respond. Her mind was still caged, tightly bound. Partisan was less expressing her volition, and more surrendering to the forces that controlled her. “So simple… so much better for such a simple woman. Partisan is simple and weak—a tool to be used by her owner and nothing more.

“Runetress commands my will… Runetress is in control…” Partisan let out a quivering moan, her whole body shaking as her hands tried in vain to grasp at her chair. “I must obey my Runetress… The Mistress of the Runes that bind me in endless obedience…!”

Orange eyes hooded, pulsing and throbbing with a deep wellspring of power as the woman flicked her wrist and the runes above Partisan’s vanished with a flash. It wasn’t a simple, blinding flash, but far more theatrical and beautiful. The individual lines making up each figure slowly ripped apart, breaking up into smaller, brightly shining pieces that themselves burst with a bright, potent light. It was a simple gesture with a dramatic result.

Partisan had named her the mistress of the runes that bound her, and her simple command seemed to reinforce that truth. Runetress didn’t even watch the resulting effect. Her golden eyes instead remained singularly focused on her pet’s shuddering, clenching thighs and the slickness that stained the plush red cushion that rested between and below.

A hand drifted down to stroke along the inner curve of Partisan’s thigh, feeling just beside her flushed nether lips. Partisan quivered, her hips shuddering forward to savor more of her owner’s delicious gift of friction, though the bindings around her ankles made that difficult.

The runes that floated in front of her face did not merely keep her eyes from falling closed. Their magic also kept Partisan’s gaze forward instead of rolling back into her head. It kept her neck from arching back in any way that might obscure her vision. The runes were more powerful than anything in Partisan’s mind, or any part of her body. All the heroine could do was yield to their hold that squeezed around her so tight and kept her in the exact position Runetress intended for her.

“Mmm… That’s right, my pointy little pet…” Runetress laughed wickedly as she reached out her gesturing hand to pinch and twist at one of Partisan’s stiff nipples. It quickly responded, stiffening more under her touch as Partisan’s lips opened wide. The only sound that escaped was a strangled series of gasps. So much pleasure raced through her that one sound could hardly begin before the next was struggling to be heard creating a staccato of erotic sound. “I’m the Mistress of the Runes that bind you, and so many others, too. All that, and I didn’t even need to sacrifice an eye…!”

The villain laughed again, louder. She threw back her head, her golden eyes falling shut as she raised a hand beside her cheek.

Partisan’s gasps quickly gave way to whimpers and moans as fingers slid down from her chest to the space between her thighs. Firm, practiced touches began to dance along her slit, further encouraging the steady flow of her slick lust. “You’re just so eager to do whatever I want, mm? So helpless, so powerless to do anything that my runes command you to do?”

“Anything…!” Partisan replied instantly, the words coming to her mouth so quickly that the effort made her struggle for air. “An-anything…! I am so helpless, so powerless…! I must do anything you desire! I must do anything your runes command!”

Runetress’s finger flicked at Partisan’s clit, earning a sharp cry. Her eyes remained staring mindlessly ahead at the runes in front of them. Her thighs clenched. Her back arched. Every bare inch of her skin glistened, wet and slick with desire. Partisan was every bit as trapped in arousal, simmering and burning with need, as she was in her chair, bound by the runes that held her like a decoration or a caged animal. As her owner stroked more firmly, Partisan’s moans grew deeper, but she could do little more than moan louder and tremble harder.

“Anything my runes command… anything at all…!” Runetress’s eyes hooded again as she moved down to sit on one of her heroine’s thighs, fingers continuing to pinch and caress every bit as insistently as she settled in comfortably. “You don’t care how right or wrong your actions might be? Who you might hurt? What I might do?”

Curls bounced more dramatically as Partisan shook her head fiercely. She had little room to move with her eyes held so tight, but she used her full range to express herself every bit as clearly as she could. “N-no…! No! I don’t care at all…! All that matters is I must… must… obey…! I must serve you! I must please you! There is no other choice. There is nothing else I can do but yield and serve! Use me! Command me! I am y-your possession!”

Even as the pressure welled inside of her stomach, building ever greater between her legs, Partisan’s only focus was on properly pleasing Runetress. She replied swiftly and decisively. There was no hesitance or uncertainty.

Partisan existed to be Runetress’s tool, and nothing else mattered anymore.

“Mmm… That’s right! If only you could remember what you sounded like before you ended up here…” Runetress chuckled, purring as she lifted her hand from Partisan’s breast, waving it to dispel the sigils that hovered before her face. Blue nails slid through Partisan’s hair, grasping tightly before her newly freed face was shoved deep inside of the magical villain’s deep, cavernous cleavage. Her smooth, pale flesh readily yielded to Partisan’s face, and her skin muffled the heroine’s frantic, gasping moans. “You were so willful then… so insistent you’d never serve my ends… but now you’re going to run a little errand for me, and it doesn’t even matter why!”

Cries of agreement were too muffled by Runetress’s heavy breasts for any of the words to be clearly heard, but that didn’t matter. The blue-haired woman knew that Partisan was repeating her words, reframing them to further emphasize her own obedience. Her very self was so wholly crushed and reshaped that there was no possibility for anything else.

“I have a few little things I want you to get for me, and naturally, I don’t want to pay for them… but you’ll be more than happy to use that pretty little ranseur of yours to procure whatever I desire…” Runetress’s fingers reached deep between her slave’s legs, stroking at her slick folds. A loud, wet, lewd sound echoed through the villain’s trophy room, but she paid it no notice at all. “And then you’ll come right back here, to sit down in your chair for as long as I tell you to… won’t you?”

Again, Partisan strained, desperately struggling to moan agreement. To help her, Runetress grasped at her hair tighter, and pulled her head back to make her nod several times before shoving her back deep into her chest.

“I knew you would! Of course, I didn’t exactly give you a choice… but that doesn’t really matter, does it?” Runetress’s voice took on a mocking tone as she slowly shook her head, her fingers curling so deep inside of the heroine as Partisan’s thighs shook with even greater need. Her whole body yearned for relief, for a release to flow out of her so she could sink back into the chair and forget everything but Runetress’s dominance.

The sigil directly above her pussy made sure that pressure could build and swell ever stronger inside of her, but the relief would never come. Partisan’s arousal surged, and her body shook more and more, but there was no chance that she would be able to cum.

Even if Runetress remained sitting on her thigh for hours, touching her so relentlessly, Partisan would only become more and more aware of just how helpless she was under her owner’s control. Each time her body felt right on the cusp of orgasm, that sigil glowed brighter, forcing that pressure back. It was agony, an agony that drowned her mind in a craving that it was incapable of comprehending.

Her own body’s urges for pleasure were just another way that Runetress made Partisan her helpless slave. The heroine could do nothing to stop her body from aching for that pleasure, even if that very act bound her libido in service of the magical mastermind.

“I always love visiting you, Partisan. You’re always exactly where I want you to be, and exactly what I want you to be.” Runetress purred, pausing to slide her tongue along the curve of the heroine’s ear. “You always will be. There’s no escape for you. You’ll always be a part of my collection—a weapon on display for me to use or ignore at my pleasure. Isn’t that just the most perfect thing, my little object…?”

Again, Runetress lifted Partisan’s face from her breasts. This time, she waited for the heroine’s reply.

“Yesss, Runetress… perfect… everything you desire is perfect…! Use me…!”

Again, Runetress shoved Partisan’s face back down into her chest with a low chuckle. “Good girl. I guess I’ll need to get off of you, if you’re ever going to get to work, mm…?” She withdrew her fingers from Partisan’s sex, sucking them clean with giddy delight. “I have a little shopping list… and you’re going to make sure I get it all filled…”

Partisan moaned, nodding helplessly from her place inside of her owner’s breasts. Her lips trembled as they kissed at Runetress’s smooth skin, and her thighs clenched tight. She would do anything for her owner.

She had no other choice.