The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

A Little Blue Camera by Lawrence Loft

Chapter 3: Stealing and Working

Synopsis: In the capital of a great empire there exists a secret rebellion of freed slaves and common folk who have become disillusioned with the ruling caste of priests who are powered by divine mandate to enforce their will on any who disobey. A slave freed through unlikely means gains possession of a priest’s staff of office and becomes the focal point of a brewing civil war. In amidst this turmoil is the coming of age tale of a little blue camera that just can’t seem to do anything right.

Authors Note: Set in the same continuity as all other stories of coloured Cameras. All characters are over 19 years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental, though some options may be themed after real life figures. Story contains nudity, coarse language, violence, graphic sexual depictions, and a variety of willing and unwilling mental and physical changes. If you don’t like stories about mind control, body modification, brief sexual violence or blue magical cameras then this story is not for you.

A little blue camera, Day 874, Phase 5, Armdale Education

And that was it. Two days of training and several pictures of the thirty-two page operating guidelines and the little blue camera would be turned loose on a world. Obey your User. Compile edits carefully and make sure each is assigned correctly. Keep a present eye for danger and alert your User when it is suspected. Do not take an image of the User without permission. Always act to further the grand plan. On and on without qualification or explanation. It was a comprehensive list that the educators assured the little blue camera would cover any and all eventualities.

No camera could work against the grand plan, it was told, no camera could even conceive of such a heinous act. The little blue camera could get behind that. No camera could make an edit on an image that didn’t fit that image’s portfolio. The little blue camera could get behind that as well. No camera could be destroyed except by the direct action of the recall teams. That made sense, the little blue camera liked not being destroyed. Further duty specific briefing would wait until the cameras were assigned to their respective locales.

As the little blue camera was hoisted up by the mono-pod and placed on a large cart with twenty or so other cameras it could barely contain its excitement. When the cart was pushed through a set of dull steel doors and left on a faded white circle on the floor the person who had been pushing walked over to a rusted control panel and manipulated the controls with a practiced hand. there was a creaking of rusted joints, then a sigh as the pneumatical lines actuated to bring an arm down from the ceiling.

Gracing the end of the arm was a tired and aged camera who’s colour changed as it rippled through the dim light. It was a longer body with a much larger mechanism than the little blue camera below, the iridescent coating allowing the camera to have access to functions very different from the other cameras produced in the factory. Without any ceremony the User said a few words that specified the locale, then flipped a switch. The iridescent camera let out a whine as it powered up its flash, giving the User time to exit the room and seal the door behind him, then a monstrous super-nova of light filled the room. The little blue camera was finally on its first ever commute to work.

Eliza Faerin, 0550, 10th of Vision, Year 205, The King’s Road

In times of strife people the world over have found within themselves a deep well of skill and determination in matters where they should rightly cower down and hope they just don’t suffer too much. While Eliza had discovered a knack for knowing exactly how to escape unthinkable horrors bent on raping her, she had also discovered that she had abosolutely no sense of direction, nor any knowledge of the empire outside of the Kelbris’ estate. She was lost.

It was a straight road. It literally ran straight north-west from the harbour city of Portsmouth to the capital of Armdale before curving north to meet the trading hub of Burlington. She had somehow gotten lost on the third day and had managed to backtrack the entire way back to the estate where the grim screaming and disconcerting moaning had long since ceased. She didn’t go back into the main building, but she was hungry enough to risk darting into a guard hut and taking a few rations packs and some granola.

Not wanting to just keep circling, Eliza decided to walk in the other direction and turn to the north. She observed a set of heavy footprints leaving the cobbled road and disappearing into the woods shortly passed the estate and picked up her pace for the rest of the day. She still had the lasting endurance of someone used to being beaten for taking a short break, and she would put it to good use as she walked herself to exhaustion each day. The first five nights she had simply laid down changed from being conscious to being unconscious like a switch was flipped. The sixth night she became aware of the Eye and its never wavering stare.

She leaned it against a tree and walked slowly around it, testing to see if the Eye would track her behind solid objects or just within line of sight and was disturbed to note that it didn’t seem to need to see her to know where she was. She leaned in close and moved her head from side to side and marvelled at the small whirring sound the surprisingly boxy Eye made as it shifted after her. A third test revealed that no matter how she tried to twist or flip the staff the Eye remained in the same orientation to the ground.

She tried talking to it, but it either couldn’t or didn’t deign to reply verbally. She tried drawing something she wanted in the dirt by the fire and made several gestured, but the Eye didn’t take its gaze from her own face. She tried praying for the first time in her life, trying to fake sincerity as she praised the malevolent deity for it’s various gifts in her life. She’d had to wrack her brain for that one, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t fooled anyone.

Unnerved by the constant attention, and aware of how much attention the staff would bring given her non-priestly garb, Eliza took her satchel and fashioned a bundle to drape off the end of the staff and cover the Eye. She rubbed dirt and mud with some leaves from the roadside to cover the golden haft, and then wrapped the center in a spare tunic to keep her hands from rubbing away the camouflage. Now she looked like a vagabond. She finally braved walking the roadside as a carriage passed in the same direction and was pleased with the complete and utter lack of interaction with the merchants on board. She was hidden in plain sight.

As she rounded the crest of a large hill and looked down into the valley below her breath caught in her throat. Before her was a massive sprawl of hovels and board houses covered in a thin pall of smoke and fog from the chill morning air. Here and there the odd peasant wandered about on some errand or some drunk stumbled home at the latest hour to still pretend to have been home that night. Beyond the near mile of low-class housing was a wall well over a hundred feet high with crenelations and turrets spread out for defense all the way around the great city within until it reached the lake at the far side, where it connected with a smaller wall set back from a bustling dockyard full of river and lake traffic.

The large road widened out and was studded evenly along its length with guard posts to keep the locals from harassing merchants before they could take the best of their goods into the city proper. Beyond the wall she could see the tips of far taller spires in the center of the city, the famed Bronze Towers of the Palace of Armdale, green with verdigris. Eliza stopped on a stump by the road and took the time to eat a ration and figure out what she should do next. She had no money, and her skill sets were likely shared by everyone who worked an honest week in a place of poverty like this. She wouldn’t sell herself to the slave markets or sell her body to the men wandering the night, and she wasn’t about to sell her teeth or hair unless she got desperate.

Mentally kicking herself for not taking something of value from her erstwhile owners as she fled, Eliza decided to look for a special kind of merchant who might deal in the only thing she had worth trading: the staff and it’s creepily staring Eye.

A little red camera, 1230, 6th of Vision, Year 205, Castle Obscura, Armdale

The little red camera sat on the Manager’s desk watching the thin hand scrawl in a languid and spidery script across ledger after ledger. The accounts of an empire ran deep, and most people in a position of high power like the Manager would have just delegated such tedious work to underlings who weren’t paid enough, but this Manager simply rolled up its sleeves and pushed the numbers around like a bully with a large club.

There was a soft ping from inside the little red camera’s reliquary. The little red camera turned on its gyroscopic pedestal and reviewed the information coming from afield. Much like the Manager it was assigned to the little red camera believed in doing things itself wherever possible to minimize the amount of mistakes to zero. Ever since the artist stepped up their timeline the little red camera had had to put up with blue cameras with less and less training, and even less discipline, as the manufacturing facilities started to produce ever more of the versatile model.

Why couldn’t all camera just be a uniform red, the little red camera wondered morosely as it reviewed yet another incident report of a failed blue. It’s metaphorical frown deepened the further it went into the report and it mental copied the final line to a clipboard to use in a future disciplinary hearing. The little red camera, information assimilated, processed the data for perhaps a little longer than necessary and then formulated a series of orders and plans that it would need enacted.

There was a blinding flash and the Manager cursed under his breath as the page in front of him stopped containing reports of wheat and corn yields and instead was filled with commands and assignments to distribute to different sects of Users and guards throughout the capital. The Manager sat still and silent as it read the long list, it’s face never changing expression in a show of stoicism that mirrored the little red camera’s, then it slowly raised an eyebrow when it came to the final line copied and pasted from the original data transcript.

“Porter! I required the Headmaster of the Knights of the Azure immediately at my door. I have for him a tasking.” The manager said in an old but strong voice. Without waiting for the porter’s reply the Manager lowered his head and resumed his work, taking a blank page and filling in from perfect memory the information that had been rewritten by the little red camera. After a moment the Manager glanced at the bottom of the orders and read the line again in a soft whisper. “’User incapacitated and asset seized by unknown party.’ The last time they destroy the Eye, but now they have captured one?”

The little red camera merely looked on with a grim expression on its features. This was a problem, and it was a new one, but it was confident that the matter would be resolved before the week was out.

Eliza Faerin, 1830, 10th of Vision, Year 205, The King’s Road

As the sun got itself firmly committed to the setting agenda Eliza walked out of yet another shop to which she hadn’t dared try to sell the staff. She was aware the value of the staff would be staggeringly high, but also that the risk of moving and housing the item would scare off most merchants. Instead of coming right out and stating what she had she had made probing questions to the merchants to test their moral flexibility. She hadn’t found a single one she wasn’t certain would sell the item if they thought they could get away with it, but she also hadn’t located anyone who would be willing to take the risks.

Broke, tired, and hungry from rationing her meagre supplies Eliza walked down the large boulevard of the King’s Road and glanced at the massive gates which were just now closing for the night. There was a long line up outside the gate of indignant merchants who’d arrived too late in the day to make it inside. A trio of them went to the nearest inn and gave a coin to a young man who took their carts around back and locked them behind a gate.

After the merchants were inside and the young man was back soliciting people to come stay in the warmest beds outside the capital Eliza walked around to the next building, a smithy’s forge, glanced quickly around, then darted into the alley. It was a dead end, as she’d predicted, but there was a small stock of timber scrap for the forge that she quickly and quietly placed as a set of dodgy steps and then made a run up the building, her staff giving her leverage to climb to the top of the little wall. She grunted as she fought to keep her balance and then made her way gingerly in the growing dark to the edge of the low wall. She was below the roofs of the buildings by high enough that if she wasn’t careful she’d get spotted.

Elza hesitated a moment when she heard rustling in the stable, only jumping gingerly down onto the hay when she realized it was just the horses and mules shifting. She stole to the nearest cart and glanced around it until she found a loose board that had softened edges. She grabbed the polished part of plank that had been worn smooth by the brushings of a thousand fingertips and opened the secret compartment. This guy was rich. If this was his emergency fund then he should have been staying in a different tavern with better security. Not wanting to bankrupt the poor rich guy she grabbed a few dozen coins, enough for a few weeks of barest essentials, then checked the back of the cart for goods to lift.

The canvas over the cart pulled back to reveal nothing more than firewood and a few knick-knacks. Frowning in confusion Eliza pushed a few crates around to try and find how a man selling junk and common goods could have so much money, then noticed yet another loose floorboard under the timber. She stepped off the cart and glanced at the side. There was a railing that was oddly a solid board and not just a framework to keep things in place. It was a small extravagance that a merchant shouldn’t have bothered with, but it did a great job hiding the true depth of the cart. There was about seven inches of unaccounted for space.

She nervously looked around, knowing it wasn’t her business, but unable to prevent curiosity from getting the better of her, and went under the cart to check for panels. Finding one relatively quickly she pushed against it hard enough to break the tiny lock open and reached through the gap. She pulled out a bottle and frowned. It was an smoked green bottle with some unknown fluid sloshing around inside. She gave it a tentative shake and frowned. Booze smuggling? She could make money off of robbing a smuggler and not lose any sleep over it, so she grabbed two more and loaded them into her satchel, then stole herself away back over the wall and into the alley.

Boldness or daring, or maybe just idiocy, made her approach the same inn she had just robbed and walk up the short wooden steps. Opening the door she was greeted by a scowling man who looked like he was made out of scar and muscle but with just not quite enough to have finished a neck. “Fuck off, drivel.”

“Excuse me?” Eliza cocked an eyebrow and took a half step back. “I thought this was an inn.”

“It is.” The man grumbled like a badger. “Fuck off, you don’t have money.”

“I do.” Eliza frowned and almost pulled out all of her money to show him, then decided it was smarter to play things differently. She brandished a single coin that she hoped was worth slightly more than a night and a soup, then smiled as if she’d won a contest. “I scraped and saved all week just to sleep in the warmest bed outside the capital. Is it not enough? I just want a bed and a meal.”

The bouncer eyed the coin with a gleam in his eye, then looked her up and down appraisingly. “You’re dressed dingy. Dress nicer next time. Talk to Sal at counter. Bed and meal.” He grunted and snatched the coin from her hand and put it in his pocket, no doubt trying to work out the exchange rate with his other coinage to keep the most money.

Eliza, not caring, acted like she was being blessed by the Headmaster of the Eye of the Azure himself and pretend to almost skip to the counter where a smaller but still large man with a dirty apron was washing wooden tankards with an equally dirty cloth. He looked up, looked at her outfit, her dirt face, and the muddy pole she was carrying, then glowered at the bouncer. “Did Morshaw let you in?”

“Yep. Paid for meal and bed.” she said, mentally removing some words to sound less educated and blend into her knew vagabond personna. “The big guy said go ask Sal.”

Sal looked her levelly in the eye for several moments, then sighed and motioned to a stool in front of him. “Meal is stew. Bed is under the stairs. Anyone touches you in the night bite him.”

Eliza just nodded and let it show how truly hungry she was when the wooden bowl of presumably rat and dog with mixed vegetables was placed in front of her. She barely kept herself from chugging it and instead settled for shoveling it into her mouth as quickly as possible. After she finished she wiped her chin with her arm and looked around the room at the men and women seated around the various tables. There were a few clusters of five or more merchants discussing in loud tones something about the empire devaluing one of the coins by taking the gold out of it to make it spend easier, there was a group of guards off duty laughing about something amusing and likely abusive they’d done earlier in the day, and then there were the odd smattering of tired craftsmen who were burning their days profits on booze to take the edge off.

Then there were three merchants seated with a man who was taking very good care to cover his face with a hood from anyone trying to pry. Eliza shifted in her seat as if enjoying having a comfortable place to sit for the first time in a long time, and watched their transaction. There was a minstrel or bard in the corner being largely ignored, but between him and the conversations flittering about she wasn’t able to glean any details other than what she could see.

Two merchants were angry at the third and the hooded man was unamused. The two kept pointing fingers and one of them pounded the table angrily to emphasize some point. The hooded man shifted position and must have said something as the merchants all suddenly contemplated their navels in silence. The one that had been yelled at nodded his head a few times as the hooded man leaned forward and held out his hand for something. The merchant pulled out a key and a slip of paper and dropped them into the man’s hand and then looked away as if unwilling to acknowledge the transaction.

The merchant’s eyes, by unfortunate coincidence, locked on to Eliza’s and they held each other’s gazed for a moment before Eliza blinked and quickly looked away. The merchant kept looking at her for a second and out of the corner of her eye she saw him mutter something to the others and the two merchants glanced her way for an instant and then one of those waved his hand dismissively. The hooded man tossed a full purse onto the table casually and then took to his feet and gave a polite bow. He looked at each merchant in turn and said something brief then walked towards the bar.

Eliza spun around on the stool and pretend to try and scrape more food from the clearly empty bowl and avoided looking around for several minutes. When she was sure the man must have left she turned put the bowl down and started to turn around when she suddenly smelled a dry and acrid scent, like burnt stone, then the hooded man’s sleeve entered her field of vision.

In a smooth and deep voice that was surprisingly non-threatening given the aura he exuded and his obscured face the man greeted Sal. “Hello Sal. I was hoping I could rent a room tonight. My dealings have kept me out late and I fear I won’t be in to anywhere within my means before the curfew hits the high road. I know it is late and the rooms of this bustling tavern would be filled to the brim, but surely you have a room under the stair for my... expensive use?”

“Hello, Mars.” Sal said, his hands still washing dirty dishes with dirtier rags as he failed to show any particular preference. “Unfortunately young lady took the last bed. You can buy your room from patrons if you like, but we are out.”

“Nonsense, Sal.” The hooded man spoke amiably, either missing or ignoring the hostility in the big man’s voice. “I’m sure we can work out something. Perchance a patron willing to sleep in the tavern overnight?”

“Fine.” Sal said after a moments hesitation and a glance at Eliza, then he looked the hooded man in the face with a broad grin. “You can sleep on a table or on some chairs as you please. That’ll be a silver.”

“A silver?” the hooded man laughed at the perceived jest. After no one joined him he met Sal’s level gaze and sighed. “A silver. You rob me, Sal, you really do.”

Sal just grunted and looked down at the mug in his meaty hands then frowned, scrubbed harder at one spot in particular, and finally put the mug down to pick up Eliza’s bowl. Before Eliza could react he spoon an extra large helping of stew into the bowl and set down a hunk of bread and a thin slice of cheese next to it. “Need your help cleaning the bowl.” he said and walked away.

Eliza, not one to miss a free meal, and catching that Sal truly relished forcing the hooded man to be miserable, chowed down without a word. The bread was dry and the cheese was still a little briney, making them the perfect fit for the thick stew. When she’d had her fill she nodded appreciatively at Sal and made to get up from the counter.

As she took her feet a cloth hit her in the face and she recoiled as she snatched from her head and threw it onto the counter angrily. “What is this?” she asked hostily.

“Said clean the bowl.” Sal lowered the gaze she was learning to associate with perceived idiocy on her and pointed to the other tables. “When you’re done get those and start washing them too. If anyone wants more ask and I’ll get it to them.”

“What?” Was her only response.

Sal lowered his voice and spoke in a surprisingly non-threatening tone for a big guy leaning in. “Runaway slaves shouldn’t turn down honest work.”

“I... really?” she managed with astonishment and a tiny burning sensation in her chest. “A job for me?”

“Pay is shit, but bed and food is free.” Sal turned away and frowned as he walked to the other side of the counter. “As long as you don’t eat much.”

A little blue camera, 0145, 11th of Vision, Year 205, Sal’s Keeping Inn

When the User went to sleep she had removed the bag from around the little blue camera and leaned it on a barrel in a dark corner of the nook under the stairs. There was no door, but the barrels and crates were more or less arranged to provide the illusion of being a room and blocking her from the sight of those outside. The nook was under the creaky steps and just around the corner from the main room, which gave the little blue camera a perfect line of sight to the large and empty room. Having been obscured for many days the little blue camera had decided that it had displeased its new User in some way, and it made a vow to rectify that situation.

While the User slept the little blue camera turned down its flash, and thus its surplanter’s power levels, and took a very low powered snapshot of the User’s face. It made subtle changes to it’s appearance such as removing all the dirt, giving the hair a full bodied look that would never get tangled, and cleaned her teeth to near perfection. Not sure of its User’s predilection for makeup or tattoos the little blue camera kept it at things that were universally prefered and just cleaned up her skin to be blemish free for good measure.

Though the little blue camera knew it wasn’t supposed to interact with a User mentally it knew when they were under stress and so made a small tweak to her sleeping processes to allow her to recharge more fully by employing kinetic stimulation to nerve-dense areas. In short, the little blue camera would make her get rested by getting pleasured.

Satisfied with the sound of success emanating from its User the little blue camera watched for a little while to try and glean exactly what it was that would please the User most, then turned to look out at the room. There was a male seated in a chair with his head down and his chest rising and falling slowly. Confident the User would have her privacy the little blue camera shut itself down for the night.

Eliza Faerin, 0430, 11th of Vision, Year 205, Sal’s Keeping Inn

“Wake up.” a rough hand said as it shook Eliza from her sleep. She bolted upright in a hurry, feeling far more rested than one should after less than six hours sleep. She also felt hot and constrained. The rough hand cuffed her on the top of the head. “Hey, gutter-girl! Wake up!”

“What?” She said as she kicked out and pushed her assailant backwards enough to get a look at him in the wan lighting. It was the merchant from earlier, the one whom she had locked eyes with. “What do you want?”

“I want what you think I want.” He growled. She could smell the expensive booze on his breath. “Now hurry up and give it to me before anyone wakes up and I won’t hurt you.”

Her eyes immediately went to the satchel resting in the dark part of the nook beside the staff. She was glad it was obscured, but she knew she wouldn’t be staying here long once Sal learned she’d stolen from one of his customers. The merchant shuffled forward and stumbled a little bit, drunk but determined.

“Come on, then. Give it up little girl.” He slurred, then pulled back the side of his doublet and revealed his dagger. “Haven’t got all morning.”

“Fine.” she said, not seeing a way to get passed him with her feet still tangled in the bedding and her only exit blocked. She quickly got to her knees and stretched over to grab the satchel when she felt a hand on her ass. She yelped in protest as the man pulled up her sleeping shirt and pinched her bare cheek. “Hey!”

“This is what I like.” The man muttered as if she was an afterthought. “Women who know their place. Women what’s get’s hot and ready for a man before he even needs to ask.”

With horror Eliza realized the man didn’t know about the bottles and instead was after something else entirely. She tensed her legs kick up and do far more than bruise his balls when he dipped a finger into her moist slit.

She nearly collapsed.

In her panic she hadn’t noticed the changes the Eye had made to her in her sleep, and was only now aware that she was so mind-numbingly horny that his fat finger felt like Tinal’s thunderous member. She moaned and bucked her hips as he plunged the finger in and out, his other hand running roughly and clumsily over her breasts, tugging and squeezing her sensitive nipples in what should have been a painfully distracting manner that now only served to heighten her arousal.

“Oh god, don’t stop!” She cried softly as he stuck out a second finger to grind into her clit while he pumped the other one back and forth heartily. She lost strength in her arms and her head fell onto the end of the bed with her ass held high as she came in an explosive rush almost as good as the ones she’d had from Sofita a week prior. “Oh~!”

“I’m gunna go for it.” the merchant declared in a husky voice before dropping to his knees behind her raised ass and exposed slit. The heavy man undid the lanyard holding his pants up and let them fall to the ground. “Here it comes.”

Eliza realized what the man meant when he started chuckling drunkenly to himself. She tried to swat him away in protest but the merchant had a hand on either side of her waist and just drew her towards him without fanfare or finesse. “Oh god yes!” she moaned as she felt her whole body light on fire with pleasure. She stopped fighting it and let the man pleasure her, just enjoying being along for the ride. As the ride.

They thrusted and grunted and moaned together for a while before the man muttered something into her deaf-to-the-world ears and thrust even harder than before. She began to moan and stifled her cries of ecstasy as he pumped and thudded into her again and again, lifting her knees up with every hammering. His rhythm hit a crescendo and the two of them froze for an instant, then he slammed hard and spent himself into her own orgasm. The two of them lay for a second, shuddering, before the man went limp where it mattered and tried to stand up.

“It was good.” He said in a low and barely conscious voice, then turned around and walked straight into the fist of the hooded man. “Oof.”

“Are you okay, miss?” asked the man as he shook his fist to get feeling back in the knuckles. He reached down with his other hand and offered to pull her up. “Here, take my hand. He’s out now.”

“I... I’m okay.” Eliza said as embarrassment fought with satisfaction and produced such a tremendous flushing of her features that she was sure must be glowing in the darkness. She pulled the blanket up around her to cover her still tingling breasts and then looked at the merchant. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken.”

“I can imagine.” The hooded man stood up and turned around to look at the merchant’s pantsless form laying on the floor, probably to avoid staring at the attractive victim under the stair. “He remarked at the table that he thought you were looking his way in admiration before we separated for the night. I didn’t think he’d be dumb or drunk enough to try anything or else I’d have had a word to him.”

Eliza quickly threw on her shirt and work skirts from the night before, making sure her limbs worked properly before she tried to stand. Though she’d expected to feel scared or drained after the brief but potent encounter she was surprised to note that she felt not only relaxed but invigorated as if the sex had been a splash of cold water to the face. She wiped the sweat from her face and padded down her skirts then cleared her throat to let the man know she was presentable.

He turned and she could just see his smile in the darkness under his hood. “There, you don’t look the worse for the wear at all.” He said warmly. “I pray you excuse me a moment to clear out this drunkard and rapist to the streets for the guards to find come morn.”

Eliza was thrown off by the incredibly formal tongue, but had no trouble understanding his words as they were the same vocabulary of the late Lord Kelbris. She nodded and watched him drag the much heavier man out the door and kick him down the steps, taking care to make sure he landed cock down to avoid offending any female guards unduly. When he returned he was sweating and out of breath.

“Not used to physical labour?” Eliza asked with a hint of amusement.

“Not a stranger to it, but never have I tried lifting a horse before.” He said with a dismissive wave. He smiled again and Eliza realized he thought he was impressing her with his valiant hero routine.

She owed him, she supposed, but he had intervened too late and the merchant had shown no signs that he was going to harm her afterwards. She could have gotten revenge later with a swift kick in the right location. Again Eliza found herself surprised by her lack of reaction. She knew that being raped was serious and that she might just be in shock, but she was looking at it mentally the same way as she had looked at dashing passed Tinal’s murderous bulk. It was a problem to be dealt with like any other. She worried she had lost her emotions at some point in her admittedly tragic ordeal, but if she thought for a moment she could find the hot fiery hatred she had for her rapist right next to the warm feeling she still felt from her amazing sexual conclusions.

“I’m aware the timing is in poor taste, but I would love to have your name, miss, if it doesn’t bother you unduly?” the man asked almost apologetically.

“Eliza.” she answered automatically before wondering if hiding her name was even worth it. It wasn’t an uncommon name and she’d been a slave all her life and probably hadn’t had much of a paper trail. She gave him a polite smile and nodded. “My name is Eliza.”

“Mars.” He stuck his hand out to shake, and Eliza foolishly met him in the middle. He quickly turned her hand up gently and kissed the top, his stubble lightly caressing her in the dar. “A pleasure. It is not often women of such grace and beauty find themselves outside the walls of the capital in such establishments. I do hope you’ll deign to tell me your story?”

Eliza shrugged and looked away. “I had to leave my home for various personal reasons. I had no place to stay or food to eat, then Sal threw a cloth at me and now I have both. Actually I should thank you for that, I think Sal only gave me the job because he thought it would make you angry.”

“Sal disapproves of my use of his tavern as a place to meet and banter with my friends.” Mars said with an expansive gesture, as if it was just another horror of the modern world. “We keep from being rowdy and we stay our hands from gambling or worse that other establishments may offer in this lower class district, yet Sal looks at us as if we were a plague on his floor.”

Eliza leveled a surprisingly playful gaze at Mars and felt herself snicker. “Well, we saw what kind of friends you invite to his inn.”

Mars’ hooded and shadowed face was still mostly obscured, but the chin and mouth she could see clearly in the dim light twisted up into an odd smirk. “You really are something else, you know that Eliza? Something strange and alluring. One has to wonder how such a frail and delicate looking thing could keep her calm and poise in the face of such adversity.”

“Now hold on a minute.” Eliza leaned back, realizing she was in no place to be acting flirty. She tried to imitate his posh accent and mocked him lightly. “You’d try and seduce a woman who was just ravaged? Such an uncouth gentleman!”

The hooded merely nodded and the mouth took on a more casual smile, then Mars stood and gave a slight bow. “Well, my dear Eliza, I believe I must depart at this time. I have people to see and places to be, even at this dark an hour. If you continue working here then I think we shall have to meet again, and if not then I shall know true heartache.”

Eliza tried not to gag at the purple prose, then stood and bowed a little shallower than Mars had, and then smiled at him in thanks. “I owe you.”

“Farewell.” he said, then turned with a flourish of his cloak and made for the door. He paused before he closed it behind him and flashed her that same smirk, then left into the night.

“Cheers.” Eliza muttered after him, then got up from the table and went back to her bed to clean the sheets before the morning.

The whole time she felt something watching her, and looking closely she realized the Eye was watching from under the stairs. Leaned up against a barrel and hidden perfectly in darkness, the Eye could see through the spaces between the steps and gaze out into the room. She shivered as she watched the Eye trace her movements around the room, then sighed and went back under the stair to try and rest more before morning.

Already fully rested from her evening exercise, Eliza was unable to sleep for the hour or so before Sal came over and threw a mop her way. The entire time she waited she had locked her eyes to the one on the staff, some poorly understood battle of wits that she didn’t know how to win.

A little blue camera, 0500, 11th of Vision, Year 205, Sal’s Keeping Inn

The little blue camera was confused when the hooded male had walked up to the User and pulled the sexual assistant off of her. It had an instinctive feeling of hatred and distrust for this odd male, but it didn’t know why. Not being an evolved creature, camera had in fact been programmed to dislike this male, though it had not been supplied with a reason for such a reaction. It felt earnestly that the User should instruct the little blue camera to edit the male into a small animal and then order a combat-edit to stomp it flat, but no such order materialized.

Unsure of itself, but unwilling to make a fool of itself in front of its new User by asking, kept quiet. It was sure things would work out for the best in the end. After all, it had trusted her this far, so it would forgo judgement until it’s new User decided what to do. In the mean time it took the time to find out what had become of its combat-edits and was surprised to find that two of them had followed after the User and were active nearby. It would monitor them to make sure they didn’t cause too much trouble for the User, but otherwise they weren’t needed, and thus were let free to roam and wander.