Klipyl Short Story - Rejected - Chapter 3

A night of simulations preceded a trudge along the paths to her next duty assignment that started before dawn. Partway there, she felt a rush from the energy feeding through the bond, and stepped off the path between bushes so she could savour the moment unobserved. With the bracelet on her wrist buzzing frantically, she pressed it between her legs and rode it happily, extending the pleasure of the demonic pact’s renewal. As the material in her now-soaked underwear dealt with her orgasmic explosion, she headed for the site.

All of the servants in the facilities building were brand new to her, and though they’d asked her name, none introduced themselves. A silver-haired, lanky male with black swirls that started at his fingertips and disappeared under the cuff of his sleeves. He pulled on a pair of grey gloves before he handed over drinks and food from the fridge. He gave instructions in a crisp, clear tone and handed Klipyl the ice bucket already stocked with ice wine and a blue liquor. The second was so far the one she despised, possessing an unpleasant floral scent that coated Klipyl’s nostrils whenever they served it.

The nobles were as vengeful as those from the previous day, their minds filled with similar petty grievances, oblivious to those serving them. As the morning stretched out, instead of only listening, she dripped images of the crest from Faisal’s office into those mulling over their drinks. Thoughts, plans, secrets, and history had spilled forth, though even intoxicated, some nobles' minds rushed faster than Klipyl could keep track.

When her second shift was over, Klipyl returned to Faisal’s office and recorded the details into an isolated system he’d set up. There she found the images of the people she’d watched over throughout the day. It took some time to enter everything, more than tripling the secrets she’d gathered yesterday. She was only halfway through when coloured lines formed between pictures, and new images of people she’d never seen appeared on the slate. Tapping on the images brought up details on each person, and for fun, she memorised the map of where their houses were located.

That night, and for a procession of days, more training followed, serving within different glades. Each day the golem would code her assignments into the bracelet. She’d go out, return mentally yawning with boredom, and update the system slate in his study. Further requests for a golem to tend to her needs were all declined, and the constant cravings remained. The only bouts of excitement came when Faisal directed her to slip into estates and leave items where the owner would find them

It was just another morning when another servant’s eyes were fixed on her. A prickling at the back of her neck drew her attention from the nobles’ minds within reach. As casually as possible, she looked up from the hover trolley laden with food to find a female servant staring at her wide-eyed. Klipyl had never previously seen her, so she used a new trick she’d learnt to tune into their thoughts alone amid the noise. Their mind showed images of Klipyl’s form laughing and flirting with another Elf she’d never met.

The female stepped closer, her voice low and harsh with suppressed emotions as she reached for Klipyl’s hand. “Caithel, do you remember me?”

Oh, she knew the person to whom this form belonged.

From near the drinks fridge, Klipyl’s familiar shift leader hissed. “She’s on probation. Stop now, or you’ll risk us all.”

“Please, Caithel, remember.” She whispered, images flashing in her thoughts, contained a weird, distorted version of the form Klipyl wore. They became clearer memories, and the changes in her donor’s features were traceable to adulthood.

A child’s changing features. She recognises the person I’m disguised as, but why’s she upset?

“I don’t know you,” Klipyl replied. “I’m Caithel, but you mean nothing to me.”

The female swayed on her feet before she collapsed to the ground, sobbing so hard her shoulders shook. At a query from a guard outside, two of the servers leapt into action. One slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the noise as a second wrapped an arm around her neck.

Although he was choking the female, the shift leader maintained a casual tone. “One female isn’t well, so we’ll need a replacement and an escort.”

A low rumble of annoyance came from the guard outside. “Medical or city?”

“No need for medical! We’ll send her to her pod.”

The guard grunted suspiciously but stayed where they were.

As the others returned to preparations for the morning service, Klipyl ignored the strange facial waters they wiped away; the first occurrence of tears she’d seen.

Although the replacement servers arrived on time, the glade had a tension that irritated the nobles until their tempers finally exploded. Nobles snapped and growled and drank faster.

Klipyl had just stepped back from topping up a guest’s glass when the host snarled at her. 

“Get fresh drinks.”

She stepped towards the half-full ice bucket, only for an empty bottle to smash against the table, and it tumbled across the ground. Expensive liquor and ice wine sprayed everywhere as the bottles shattered.

“From the fridge, you null-brained flesh puppet.”

With Klipyl still reading the thoughts of the female she’d stepped away from, she caught the surge of spiteful rage denied a target. Klipyl crouched to pick up the tipped ice bucket as the crystal goblet she’d recently filled sailed towards the back of her head. It shot past and struck another servant’s cheek, sending pieces flying across the outer walkway. A large section of the goblet’s side landed near Klipyl’s feet, and so she scooped it up with the retrieved bucket, as nobles started yelling at each other. Under the cover of conflicting orders and raised voices from the various nobles, Klipyl slipped onto the side path behind the trees.

That bitch almost hit me.

With the others’ attention elsewhere, she licked at the lip stains on the piece she’d seized—tasting her attacker’s form.

“Leave. All of you.” The host screamed.

Klipyl fled, vengeance ticking in the back of her mind.

With no duty assignment queued up, the bracelet stayed quiet as she took her time returning to the tower. The goblet-tossing noble’s estate was nearby, and Klipyl drifted through the surrounding groves. The hum of the sensors stood out against the background of bird calls and other animal noises. She marked their position and circled the place, taking in the elaborately carved walls and bejewelled interior. Although it was only three stories tall, there was surely more below ground. Golem walked around the wall at a regular pace, leaving minimal gaps in their combined observations of the lawn. The tinting on the expansive glass windows did nothing to prevent her from seeing the lush furnishings within. Expensive wooden panelling was everywhere, unlike the silver walls of the tower.

The thick groves along the perimeter loomed above the central house, but they’d trained the branches away from the building. Though there were no minds within the structure, the training simulators had left her paranoid about security. Klipyl floated up beside the trunks and checked through those windows that allowed her to see within as she circled the place. The sensors covering the grounds and the lowest floor were absent on the upper two floors. She considered moving off, but the affront of being targeted for nothing prompted Klipyl to act.

With quick motions, she shed her servant attire and assumed the noble’s appearance. The flesh of her right breast enfolded the concealing pendant, ensuring she followed Faisal’s order not to lose contact with it outside the tower. With the clothing bundle tucked beneath a shrub, the magnetic lock pick went into place on her right hand. Blink’s transparent pane placed her in a secondary bedroom on the third floor, and she strode out into the corridor. Bare toes digging into the thick carpet, she strode about the place, looking for a suitable target or signs of a personal vault.

The first suitable room she found had a polished wooden cabinet, made of warm reddish oak, behind a polished stone bar with crystal goblets lined up on silvery trays. Klipyl dumped the glasses onto the thick carpet, testing the heft of the tray, and found it twice the weight of other serving trays she’d used in the past.

Platinum or something else?

Turning the tray against the cabinet’s doors scarred the wood, but the impact rang against a metal beneath the surface. The tray slipped from her grasp, and, ignoring it as it deflected off the bar, Klipyl leaned forward to yank on the handles. The doors didn’t even rattle, and she eyed it speculatively. 

What have you got hidden away?

She ran her right hand down the middle line, but the magnetic lock pick only caught on a restraining bolt. With curious excitement, she ran it across the panelling until it pulsed to show a set of tumblers on the far side of the cabinet. As Klipyl experimented with the lock pick, the panel beneath her hand began to vibrate. She didn’t bother searching for the security plate that should have been there; she just continued to work on the mechanism.

When it at last unlocked with an elongated sigh of a pressurised container, Klipyl yanked open the doors.

She seized a full bottle with her left hand and hurled it across the room, while working the locks on the back cabinet with her right. As it exploded, drenching the thick carpet and staining a pale couch, Klipyl grabbed another. She worked her way along the bar, hurling one after another randomly about the room. With liquor spraying everywhere, it soon became a soaked, messy scene. An expensive one, since the value of each bottle in credits was more than a family of servants could earn in years.

Once she cleared the bar top, she turned towards the shelves behind it and threw their doors open. Alternating hands, she flung the bottles carelessly over her shoulder, enjoying every crash and splash. Finally, she came to an elaborate trio of decorative bottles of pale emerald liquor positioned on the top shelf. The pattern of scales worked into the crystal made them far fancier than any bottle used at the groves, and she reached for the first. 

The heft prompted her to snatch the last two down, and she juggled them to gauge their weights before each went through the room’s wide window. Outside, the golems went into a frenzy. Klaxons and barked instructions of ‘intruders will stop’ prompted her to rush upstairs. In a room with no security buds recording, she jumped straight back to her hidden clothing and changed. Up in the canopy, she took a course away from the tower and estate, flittering through the groves towards another estate. Klipyl blinked across the grassed areas, keeping in cover, and had bypassed two estates before the noise of an approaching guard convoy carried to her. The fierce roars of their bulky carrier jet thrusters sent birds screeching and fleeing in panic. She skipped between hiding spots she'd used on previous trips, pulling on clothing as she did.

The golems that had usually been waiting for her arrival at the tower’s entrance were absent. With a bounce in her step, Klipyl called out as she walked through the tower to Faisal’s office, but there was no response. She scooped up the slate to enter the report and eyed the deep chair behind the desk. The thought of sabotaging it brought searing pain that clawed up her spine and chewed at her ribs, which only heightened her vengeful fury. The more she plotted, the greater the pain of the binding grew.

At some point, Faisal coughed from the doorway. “Reset.”

The consuming pain instantly vanished, and Klipyl dropped mewling to the floor; the memory of the inferno lifted from her body, but her muscles still spasmed with aftershocks.

“Have you done something or merely plotted it?” Faisal asked.

Klipyl pouted, “I was going to play a prank, and it kept hurting me.”

“Did it involve tampering with equipment or misinformation?”

“Changing the binding of your chair so it would collapse.”

“When the pain started, what did you do?”

“Thought up ways to hurt you more.”

“Learn your lesson. Once things go bad, stop digging the hole deeper.” He flicked a finger, and Klipyl found herself deposited in the chair she usually used; the slate landing before her.

“Central authority drew the golems away to respond to a terrorist vandalising a noble’s estate,” Faisal said. “You wouldn’t know anything about that?”

Klipyl clutched her hands together. “Oh, not a terrorist, that’s frightening.”

“You need to add an extra quiver in your voice,” Faisal eased himself onto the office couch, and the dust coating his boots disappeared. “Why?”

“Why, what?”

Faisal sighed. “Why did you draw attention to yourself by trashing a noble’s private lounge?” 

“Did anyone see me trash her lounge? I’m sure that drunken bitch was wandering around naked or in some lame outfit and trashed it herself.”

“Except for the footage that shows someone obviously using a tool instead of her biometric code to open her liquor cabinet. Also, when you propose an example, don’t actually include correct details.”

“What details were correct?” Klipyl leaned forward with mock eagerness. “How was there obviously a tool in use?”

“The panel to open that lock was on the other side of the room. The simulations you’ve gone through were for normal door locks and security panels, not locking controls hidden away for aesthetic reasons.”

“What now? Are you going to spank me, or something more fun? Turn me over your desk and have a golem reach inside me?”

“You will return to the tower via direct mundane means immediately upon being dismissed from service at a grove and enter the event’s records,” Faisal said firmly.

“You don’t want to spank me, Master? I’ve been naughty.”

His expression went stony, and he presented a slate covered with the images of those serving in her group. Each image had a red line across it. "Did you like any of your crew?"

"Why?"

"They were the only individuals whose exact location couldn't be accounted for, so they were all killed as examples. The only reason you aren't back in the abyss is that the tower records showed your return route and presence in this structure."

"I wasn't here."

"My plans called for occasions when I'd need to fake your location. I activated them to cover for you the moment I heard the news. My preparation salvaged your stupid recklessness."

"Guess you needed a devil instead of a demoness."

"They always require a soul in full. Since you’ve proven a lack of patience, you’ll do the following."

"Then isn't it lucky you have your whizz-bang purification rite?" Klipyl asked over the top.

Faisal’s expression didn’t change as he continued despite her talking over him. “The moment you are dismissed from any grove, you are to return directly here and enter a report. No detours, no stopping to smell the flowers, no visiting anyone’s house. Directly here. Is that clear?”

Klipyl fluttered her eyelashes like a fawning noble flirting with a superior. “Yes.”

“I’m honestly unsure if you’re worth the effort you’ve required. The lesson I just taught you also applies to my decision to keep you here. One more mistake, and not only will I stop this exercise, I’ll seal you away on another plane, or send you back bound. Understood?”

“Yes,” Klipyl replied, trying to keep her face straight at the excitement his stern tone stirred.

He motioned to the slate, and she began recording what details she remembered from the shift.

The following weeks continued the same routine with Klipyl staffing two shifts each day, standing around pretending the nobles mattered while drinking in the gossip from their minds. Whenever the shift grew dull, she kept a blank mask while she entertained herself with the thought of demons ripping them apart or trashing more homes. Klipyl dutifully recorded each day upon her return.

It had been nearly two months since she trashed the estate when, at the end of a boring day, the outer door was open and raised voices came from further inside the tower.

Light footsteps took her closer until a metallic shriek sounded out, and the dry voice of the golems coldly intoned. “Desist. Further attacks upon the tower preceptor will be met with violence.”

Curious Klipyl sneaked along the corridor until she saw a trio in the inner core confronting Faisal, his usually precise attire in shambles. The coat Faisal always wore was torn across his body and had flopped away from his shoulder. The gap in his clothing revealed a well-muscled torso and his stump. Instead of the scarred limb she’d expected, at its end were a few locks of hair and an unfocused eye. Along his skin were finely inked tattoos that radiated mana she hadn’t detected previously, and the energy created an aura that disappeared under his clothing.

What was he trying to grow, a second head? Is that a personal protection barrier?

A golem standing in the corridor had a sword crushed in its grasp. The former owner of the sword screamed soundlessly, clutching at fingers broken by the hand guard when the golem had yanked it from his grasp. Behind Faisal, a second golem emerged from the wall, its form shifted, and three barrels swung up from its back, each locked onto one of the tower’s intruders.

Confronting Faisal was a female, an unwounded male, and the injured one. All three wore bright attire showing their noble status, while their crimson hair matched Faisal’s hue.

The female maneuvered, putting her back to a wall where she could see both golems.

“Freak, I should have drowned you at birth. My brother told me he wanted you as a test subject, not to inherit his guardian post.” Fury blazed in the female’s gaze. “You will transfer it to your brother immediately.”

“You disavowed me, so I have no brother. I’ve inherited the post from my adopted father, Auntie. Begone from this tower! Security, you are to drive out the intruders. If they resist, get termination authority.”

With that instruction, the three visitors fled. The male with the broken hand shoved his shoulder into Klipyl’s chest and drove her against a wall in his rush to escape. The golems stomped after them, issuing repeated warnings that they needed to exit the tower’s grounds. Their hurried footsteps clattered on the gravel pathway before the door slid closed and blocked out the noise.

Klipyl caught the tremor in Faisal’s hand just as he began yanking and pulling at his torn coat and shirt. The severed section of coat had twisted down and away, jamming some catches on his bad side and putting them just out of reach.

“Why don’t you just repair it with magic?”

“I don’t know the transformation magic for that,” Faisal spat, before he let out a long, shuddering breath and his tone softened. “Can you help me with it? My former brother damaged the fasteners.”

At last, the chance to run my hands over someone else.

“Of course, master!” Klipyl purred playfully, enjoying the blush that clashed with his rage. She dipped her hands inside his shirt to straighten the ripped fabric, and he jumped at her touch. “Worried I’m going to hurt you even with all the conditions binding me?”

“That’s part of it, even if I tried to prevent loopholes, but I’m simply not used to being touched.”

Klipyl untwisted the last buckle before pulling his coat off him. “Why are you rambling?”

Why did I ask that? He might have given away valuable information.

“Do you even care? Or are you looking for a weakness?”

“I certainly don’t care. You can consider this my practice at small talk. I heard some servants believe venting at home helps them to stay calm while on duty. Why is that the case?”

“The mind processes things we hear aloud differently from internal thoughts,” Faisal said, tilting his head in thought. “I expect violence when I’m outside the dome, not from other elves. Political maneuvering is one thing, but a direct attack was a shock.”

“Lots of servants and guards hate the nobles.” Klipyl laughed. “Only the fear of something happening to the power cores keeps them in check. Without that hanging over their heads, even some guards would kill you along with the rest of the pricks who treat them like shit.”

“What?”

“Did that hurt you, to know the contempt they have for you, poor dear?” Klipyl crowed mockingly.

His face ran through denial and shame before Faisal tugged on her shoulder. “Turn around.”

“Why? Did the truth hurt your little feelings?”

“I can’t deal with that right now. Turn around so I can pretend that you are someone I could care about,” Faisal said.

“You’re being weird.” Klipyl spun on her heel and felt Faisal’s hand brush tentatively at her side. “You know we have something in common. I wasn’t good enough for my mother either.”

Faisal stepped close, and Klipyl felt the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck. That warmth intensified as his arm wrapped around her awkwardly, and he changed position to press his cheek against her shoulder. The trembling turned into shudders as an adrenaline dump hit hard, and silent tears dampened her clothing. The heat from his body was a strange, soft warmth that the hollowness inside her readily consumed. Though the contact lacked the spiked rush of sex, it still fed the same hunger with a growing intensity. Klipyl savoured its build-up and bit her lip to stop the little moans that threatened to spill loose.

His body pressed against me instead of frantically moving is making my skin throb. How is this soft warmth stronger than the heat in my flesh? Is it because I’ve had nothing for so long?

After a long silence broken only by his breathing, Faisal cleared his throat. “What did she have against you?” 

“Do you think a demon needs to have something against you to want to hurt you?” Klipyl laughed. 

“You’re all motivated by self-interest, so surely she’d still need a reason.”

Klipyl couldn’t help but laugh. “Some demons enjoy cruelty and pain even when it threatens their self-interest. Boredom, enjoying another’s pain, boredom, frustration, or even more boredom.”

“Why the focus on boredom?”

She pressed back against him, nostrils twitching at the change in his scent. As he started to pull away, she stopped wiggling and let a rush of words spill out in the hope he’d hold still to listen. 

“Demons don’t need to sleep, so you can’t pass the time that way. We eat to distract ourselves, not because we need to, but I’ve heard even the strongest flavours get dull. Boredom doesn’t merely persist; rather, it grows until gouging at your own flesh is better than having nothing new to do.” Klipyl reached back awkwardly and caressed his hip. “This is better than being savaged by a bored demon.”

“You wouldn’t venture a guess at all about her reasons?” Faisal asked.

“She never shared them with me. Maybe out of frustration or disappointment, she wanted us to strengthen her position, and I could only get a general sense of the surrounding mana. None of those who stayed in the brothel gained an affinity. However, that’s only a guess, as we saw each other only when we were displayed in the picking room. All the ones who walked beside her could cast spells.”

Faisal backed away, his hand tugging her shirt straight. “Only seeing what she wanted, she rejected all you might be?”

With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Klipyl trembling on the edge of an approaching orgasm from the strangely intimate contact.

He paused in the doorway, not turning around. “You might consider how I’ve improved your state; here, you’re no one's whore.”

As Klipyl spluttered, he cleared the doorway, and it sealed behind him. The warmth of his touch faded away, and her slightly muted cravings strangely took longer to return than after the golem’s ministration.

That was a hug? Could I get another if I pillage enough information? Though he held onto me for so long, what would he give for another? What is it that makes being held so intense? The risk? A lack of recent orgasms?