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      "Why do I feel I know her?"
      "You do, from a long time ago. You seemed to think she figured largely in your early encounters with this man. We took her from your memories, and found her in the world."
      "What's her name?"
      "Kristen. Do you remember her now?"
      "Kristen...." Echo's mind still brimmed with fog, but it seemed to be abating. There was some inner self inside her head, banging to get out, be heard, be remembered- this fog wouldn't cloud her mind for long. Slowly the memories of Kristen came back.
      "Kristen... was a girl this man had a crush on. She wanted something he wouldn't let her have. He kept it from her because he was afraid of it, not because it was best for her. And I saw he was afraid of liking it. I think I threw her at him to distract him."
      "Ah, a wonderful trick. No need to end your games so soon, eh? Sometimes the player is more fun than the game,"
      In Echo's head, Janice's words snapped and drove the fog away. Echo looked up to see if she noticed, but the woman was talking to Ryan again.

      "Well, ya don't have to just stand there and stare at me, you know," Kristen said lazily.
      Ryan looked up. "And what am I supposed to do here?" he demanded.
      "You denied her something long ago. It is time you made amends," came the answer.
      He had expected as much. Kristen didn't seem to recognize him, which was fortunate, but she seemed drugged. He really didn't feel like approaching her, as he was still naked and erect, and as she hadn't seemed to notice yet he preferred to keep it that way.
      "Hey, like, are you naked? Are you-" she didn't finish the sentence, but dropped her head back to the ground, giggling. She writhed around a few seconds, then, still giggling, spun around and stood up. She still sported the shoulder-length auburn curls, maybe a little longer than he remembered them. Her breasts looked like they had been busy ever since Echo had given them the grow-on-beverage command years ago, but that Kristen had managed to restrain herself for the most part. Restrain herself from depleting the dairy stock of the entire state, that is. They were voluminous, to be certain, but carried a ballooning shape with them as though under a terrible pressure from inside. She didn't seem to be in any pain, or even care, that her chest pontoons jutted out from her body in an impossible bulbous buoyancy. Her nipples were large and well-defined, too big for a baby's mouth, the skin was smooth and uniformly tanned despite the shadows these monstrosities must cast, and Ryan could determine all this almost instantly with his treacherously wandering eyes because her nightgown wasn't decent enough to be opaque anywhere on her body.
      "Exactly what am I supposed to do here?" Ryan asked of the unseen voice. Kristen didn't appear to notice as she was busy fighting her garbanzos out of the tightly stretched nightgown.
      "Whatever you can," came the snide reply.
      "Very amusing. What else?"
      "You had refused this woman, and now you have to pay her back with interest. You may leave this room only when she says so."
      "I'm beginning to notice a theme here," he mumbled. Upon lowering his eyes from the windows above, they were again drawn to the impossible curves below her face.
      Kristen stood, swaying slightly, still giggling at him. As she noticed his continued stare, studying her features, she saw his eyes stray from her treasured breasts to the generous curves of her hips and thighs. Pouting, she crossed her arms under her boobs, raising them even more, then brought her right arm up to bite her forefinger. The breast deformed forward and out, eclipsing the arm and shoulder until just a hand was visible from her cleavage. She saw his eyes return to her prized features and giggled again.
      Ryan wondered what they had done to her mind, but noted they probably didn't have to do much. She would have been a wild woman in high school had he not been keeping her libido in check, but he could only guess what she might have been up to in the years following. Chances were it didn't make any difference what male walked through that door.
      "Calm down, Kristen. Do you remember me?"
      Her giggles faltered and she dropped her hand, though still hugged her copious breasts tightly. "Remember? I don't think so..."
      "You don't remember me at all? Ryan?"
      She giggled again. "I try to remember everyone, but it's so hard sometimes..."
      "From high school?" He was hoping not to have to bring it up overtly.
      Kristen stopped swaying and looked pensive.
      "Ryan? From homeroom? Yeah, I remember you..." The smile returned to her face as though it never left. "Yeah, I remember you, all right. Cute little brunette. Nice ass. And, like, the most adorable eyes, totally. You know I always had a total crush on you?" Kristen slowly began sauntering up to him as she spoke.
      "Did you?" He had actually known back then, but given that somehow these witches had managed to find Kristen and drag her here, he wouldn't have been surprised anyway.
      "Mm-hmm. You know, I always wondered what we could've gotten up to back then. There were always soooo many people in homeroom."
      "Yeah, I've heard schools can be like that. So exactly what are you doing out here?"
      "Oh, I don't know. Nothing much. I'm not even sure where here is,"
      "And doesn't that bother you?"
      Kristen came to a stop just inside arm's reach of Ryan, but couldn't take another step without touching. Ryan stared at the megalithic milk pillows that filled the space between them. She began giggling again.
      "Nah. I'm pretty easy..." Kristen let the sentence hang long enough Ryan was about to answer. "...going." Another fit of giggling followed Ryan's exasperated expression, and she began swaying again. The motion brushed her erect nipples across his chest. "Like, were you always so serious? You totally need to relax and have some fun,"
      Ryan started to protest, but Kristen reached under her massive breasts and grabbed his dick with both hands, holding tight enough to check his immediate reflex to jump backwards. Ryan was a moment too late holding his psychic energy in check, and Kristen's normal background arousal jumped to white-hot horny.
      Kristen dropped to a kneel as the one-time wave of energy washed through her; it felt at once better than sex as she knew it and somehow woefully incomplete, and she was a few seconds processing it. Ryan gingerly tried to pull her hands away from his cock, but she maintained her grip.
      When her vision cleared, she had his lower head right in front of hers. Without a second thought, she plunged it into her mouth, and delighted at the trouble she had getting the whole thing to fit. Echoes of her desire drifted into Ryan's mind, doing more than her treatments to fire his libido.
      He cleared his head to focus on self-restraint; Gina's mind was naive and Jenna's seemed drugged, but the tendrils of wanton lust that Kristen wove were experienced and relentless. They were also completely genuine- Kristen wanted sex in general and had wanted it from him specifically for a long time. Her sex drive battered his inner control... and she was pretty damn good at using her tongue.
      "Ryan," she snickered between licks, "you taste like you've been in someone else." Lick, lick. "You're totally holding out on me, aren't you?" She traced her tongue and lips around his foreskin. "You shouldn't try to play tough guy, Ryan," She took him in halfway and back out, giving a light bite to keep his attention. "I know what to do with tough guys."
      No sooner had those words registered as something to worry about did he realize she had subtly shifted her kneeling stance. Splaying one leg to the side for leverage, Kristen wrapped both hands around his shaft and pulled to the other side, her knee keeping his feet pinned. He toppled over, stretching out his hands to catch himself, but Kristen twisted her grip and flipped Ryan over to land on his back. Before he could say "unnecessary roughness" she was on his lap, pressing her pontoons fully around his dick with a slow grind.
      "Mmmmmmmmmmm," she moaned with a smile, "The girls still totally love you,"

      Memories and conclusions rushed back into Echo's mind, broken free of some artificial mental block. Probably Janice's doing. She gathered her strength about her and, confident that Janice was focused on Kristen's manhandling of Ryan, walked up slowly behind her. She was about four paces away when Janice suddenly whirled around, and for a moment, Echo thought she had realized the block was broken.
      Instead, Janice had an urgent look on her face. "I must go, Echo. Continue to watch him, and guage his talents. They will be yours in the end,"
      "What? Where are you going?"
      "There is a complication. One of the wizards is trying something rather stupid."
      Echo could see in her mind she was worried, and caught an image of the little man they had called Willie. However, Janice disappeared with a silent glow before she could ask another question.
      Alone, Echo wondered what her options even were in a place like this. Kristen certainly seemed to enjoy titfucking Ryan, although it was anyone's guess how long she'd be able to keep from just jumping his bones directly.
      She watched in envious amusement for a minute before she felt a presence behind her. She turned to see an old man, somewhat short, dressed in an extremely plain version of the wizards' robes she had seen earlier. His white hair ringed the back of his head, then down sideburns into a full curtain beard that covered the lower half of his face. The longest hair on his head was maybe an inch in length, and despite an obvious effort to go for "wizened", he seemed to only manage "harried".
      "You're Willie, aren't you? The one rogue wizard or something,"
      The old man nodded. "Aye, lass. An' there be a dread buggery afoot here. Ye cannae let the hags finish wit' the boy. They's as bad as the bloody wizards, if not worse."
      "Look, that's all well and good, but what the FUCK?!? Why? What's the point of all this?!?"
      "Yeh's bad as the boy, too," Willie whined. "Look, I'll gives ya the shor' an' sweet of it. In the entire world, only a wee bit o' people are magical, see? It comes from people, magic does. Generated by thoughts, I say. Only a few can use it, an' they have a bloody huge ego aboot' it. But whomever controls mos' o' the magic in the worl', can influence all the scuggans wot can't. Tha's all it really is, lass. Control. The hags an' the bloody wizards. What they do with the world doesn' even matter half the time, jus' that they can.
      "It was only this generation o' hags that first really put themselves out 'fore the bloody wizards, an' the blokes got desperate. They dreamt up this scheme to breed a great wizard, and the hags tried to steal it a' the las' minute.
      "Look, lass, I donnae care what yeh may think o' me, or the bloody wizards, or what yeh want with the lad, but I know if yeh an' he are claimed by either group, the whole worl's in fer one bugger o' a shitstorm."
      "That's not very specific."
      "Well, I donnae live long, I ken, an' tha's abou' it,"
      "Yeah? And?"
      "Bloody hell, lass! I donnae ken that wot happens beyon' me own passin'! I cannae see pas' it! Is why they call it one's 'passin', yeh ken?"
      "All right, calm down. So fine, Ryan and I have to get out of here alive, right? And possibly throw down this witch/wizard war in the process?"
      "I's nah so good with the 'throw down' bit, though I ken the 'gettin' ou' alive' like the back o' me hand."
      "And you're helping us? Ryan and I?"
      "I hates to say it, lass, but tha's the only future wot I see's meself alive an' kickin',"
      "I guess that's as good a motivator as any," Echo started. She turned a vicious glare on Willie to finish. "But I didn't sign up for any of this. I just wanted Ryan, and I'm going to have him. If you do anything, ANYTHING, to get in my way you'll wish you had found a future you died in."
      Willie tried flashing through a few possible futures and saw Echo to be disturbingly true to her word. Echo instantly felt the man's fear take on a new dimension, but the color draining from his face was amusing anyway.
      "It appears we understand each other. Now how do we get to Ryan?"
      "Weeeeeeeeeell, I have the hags a wee bit distracted for now,"
      "Great. Still, I wonder what they had in store for him in this room. Something's missing,"
      "Eh?"
      "Don't worry about it, Willy," Echo said, spotting a conspicuous set of switch controls on the chair Janice had been sitting. They looked fairly simple, able to be keyed to whatever surprises they wanted to inflict on the poor saps in the rooms below. This room had only one active switch, and it hadn't been flipped yet.
      "Worryin's second nature, lass."
      "Meh," Echo started as she flipped the switch, "as long as you stay out of my way you really shouldn't have anything to worry about. I've also got a plan. Let's go."

      Ryan kept his eyes closed, because opening them would show Kristen's plump, firm nipples straining to find stimulation in the empty air above his face. The massive funbags themselves were so large, Kristen could use only a portion of their total mass to surround his throbbing cock in their satin embrace. She had worked the titfucking down to her mountains' roots, thrusting the balance of the boobflesh up over his chest. They seemed strained from within even tighter now, the nipples bulging like overloaded caps on a bottle of cola put in the freezer as if they were fighting to contain some great pressure. They had flushed to a dark red, and the breastmeat around them had a stretched, turgid look.
      On his mind, however, were the feelings that were ripping through Kristen's. She was arousing herself hotter and hotter, building her sexual frustration further and further, and she didn't seem to have any end in sight. She had more than enough sensitivity in her boobs to appreciate every inch of Ryan's stiffness, and they should have brought her to climax multiple times already. Ryan felt her holding it back, fighting her own orgasms just to build her flames hotter. Her sex was tangibly radiating heat over his legs, hot enough that he barely felt the molten juices dripping from it.
      Finally she had reached the bottom of her cleavage, and had worked herself into such hysteria she didn't realize at first. Her hands furiously massaged as much of her sweater meat as she could reach, and a couple times she begged Ryan to take over for the rest. She was thoroughly enjoying herself, but felt at last as though it was time to screw him properly when she noticed a long plastic hose lowering from the ceiling. As she watched it descend, she could see that it was transparent, while the liquid inside was white. It was capped at the end like a baby's bottle.
      Kristen smiled from ear to ear as she grabbed hold of it and ripped the tip off.
      Thrusting herself to a kneeling position, she hovered over Ryan's crotch to shove him into position. With just the head of his cock past her vaginal lips, she swayed her hips back and forth as she let the milk pour over her copious breasts from the now capless drinking tube. Kristen savored the liquid playing across her boobflesh, running into a rivulet in her cleavage and flowing over her hypersensitive nipples. Much to her surprise, though, was the warmth and stimulation from Ryan's dick, and she could barely keep herself from involuntarily taking him in all the way. Instead, she took long, deep breaths bordering on low moans, stirring her wide hips to further agitate herself and the large cock half-submerged in her snatch.
      "Oh, God, Ryan," Kristen said between gasps, still massaging the outflow of milk around her breasts, "Why didn't we ever, like, hook up? I always knew you'd be amazing. But, like, you were supposed to be amazing with my tits!"
      Even the act of raising her own voice tightened her chamber, and her knees almost buckled in response. She caught herself from falling and raised back up until Ryan could feel the cool air on his shaft where Kristen's juices had been spread, with the tip brushing agonizingly against her lips again.
      "So, like, I'm not gonna actually fuck you until you, like, make my titties cum."
      Ryan opened his eyes and promptly rolled them. Kristen couldn't see his face anyway; there were about ten gallons of mysteriously buoyant boob in the way. "Are you serious? Is that even possible?" An afterthought speculated that there seemed to be more boob present that earlier; or that it was less buoyant.
      "I'm, like, fucking serious. About fucking you. And you better fucking like it, because I'm, like, not gonna fucking stop. I'm gonna- whoa-"
      Kristen's voice trailed into another moan, as Ryan had cut her off by running both hands across the underside of her massive bosoms. Thrusting his hands into the cleavage and spreading them, he could finally see her face- eyes closed, mouth agape; although he was now doused in the milk being channeled between them.
      "Kristen, this isn't healthy. You can't..." Ryan's voiced trailed off as he noticed that while there was milk dripping down onto his body, it wasn't nearly as much as was coming out of the tube. Watching carefully, he saw that Kristen's breastmeat was actually absorbing most of it- and slowly growing in turn. "Kristen," he said slowly, "how big is too big?"
      Her eyes opened, unfocused, and then she looked down at Ryan with a grin. "Like, there's no such thing as too big. Now we're gonna have a drink." She grabbed the milk tube and thrust it in her mouth, sucking hard, and Ryan felt and saw her mammoth tits lurch in response. Still sporting a manic grin of satisfaction, her head lilted back, and the zeppelins above him slowly took on even more mass, growing outward in all directions. Then, seemingly unable to keep them aloft any longer, Kristen hinged forward at the waist to land on her still-growing torso titans. Ryan's arms, unable to hold back the tide, were pinned against the floor. Her nipples had slid down to almost touch the floor, positioned right above his hands. Kristen's eyes remained closed, and her head snapped back and forth as if she was caught within her own private miniature orgasm. The way Ryan felt her fiery mantrap pulse around the head of his cock, he bet she was. Again.

      Echo and Willie entered the viewing room of the next challenge arena, and Echo surveyed the scene below.
      "Willie," she asked, "how long is your distraction good for, exactly?"
      "I dunno, lass," he said as he made for the next door. Echo noticed he didn't even seem to acknowledge the viewing window. "I wasna plannin' on bein' aroond long enough ta find out,"

      Kristen tried to keep the milk tube in her mouth, but between her moans and gasps half of it spilled out over her breasts instead. Not that it mattered; either way they grew. From underneath, Ryan watched the growing tide of flesh creep further and further. As they grew, the skin kept taught and firm, and the nipples were both hard and erect in his palm, each one more than a handful. There was no doubt that both contained a bounty of fluid and were ripe to release it, and still they burgeoned onwards. Ryan couldn't tell what anyone had done to Kristen's mind, be it Echo or the sorceresses, past the all-consuming lust-crazed turmoil she was drunk on. The one thing he could tell is the only way to break her out of it was to satisfy her. He mentally rolled up his sleeves, although he was beginning to tire of this theme. It was like a bad author trying to write erotic fiction; how many times could they get away with it?
      Wrapping each hand around as much areola as he could, Ryan grasped and squeezed the hardened nipples as rivulets of milk cascaded over the tightly stretched breasts. Barely any milk reached the nipples themselves, but as Ryan kneaded the engorged tubetips he felt a hot dampness in his hands. To accompany his motion, he ceased control of his energy from his hands, and Kristen's breasts drank it in like the milk that had poured over them. Their growth surged anew, and there was now no doubt they were quickly approaching capacity.
      As the mammoth pair grew, Ryan could feel the slosh of liquid inside them. They became firmer still, the skin flushed pink, and sat so heavily on his body he had to concentrate to breathe. Kristen began moaning much louder than before, then screaming in time with her heaving breaths. The milk-tube, fallen from her mouth, splashed again across her titflesh, but they couldn't seem to absorb it as fast anymore. The cold liquid cascaded across the turgid pink skin, running down the sides and in a rivulet through her cleavage. Kristen's screams became begging and pleading, demands for more milk, more growth, and more Ryan.
      Good gods, woman, Ryan thought, I always thought 'insatiable' was just a metaphor! She was still hovering just at the tip of his dick, staying true to her promise of waiting until her breasts orgasmed. The milk-tube continued to splash across her breasts, and she tried in vain to return it to her mouth. Every time she did, she drank deeply, and her engorged boobs surged yet a little more, coaxing another cry of pleasure and causing the tube to drop across her breasts again. Ryan continued to fondle the giant nipples, feeling the skin stretch and harden as they tried to absorb both his energy and the never-ending milk.
      Finally, after seeming to get a hold of herself, Kristen took a steady grasp of the milk-tube. Her speech was punctuated by gasps and sudden breaths as she fought to contain her own buildup.
      "Come on, tough guy, you can totally do better than that," she said in a sultry hiss. "More! I want to be bigger! I need to be bigger! And, like, now we're going for broke!" With that, she thrust the tube in her mouth, keeping it there with both hands.
      The surge was slow, at first, but it didn't stop. The soft flesh flushed darker, became tighter, but mostly it just grew. The titanic nipples in either hand were trying to push away from each other, but Ryan's grip kept them at arm's length. Forced together, Kristen's billowing chest piled up along the cleavage, while still firmly retaining their bulbous shape. The pressure was slowly threatening to lift Kristen bodily off the floor and she sucked from the tube with blissful abandon. Finally, just before the encroaching pile of flesh overtook his head, Ryan squeezed hard with both hands and actively poured his energy in through every finger.
      It was the other part of what Echo had told him, that she could loose her energy on her partner, and what naturally happened to him unless he concentrated. He had been carefully controlling his up until now, and let go all at once. Kristen's massive breasts rippled with the shock.
      All at once, the nipples burst open to loose a thick stream of creamy milk, Kristen's legs buckled underneath her, impaling her neatly on Ryan's crotch, and a cry of ecstasy ejected the tube from her mouth. Ryan couldn't hold on as his hands were engulfed in warm titcum, but he didn't have to. The bloated milksacs kept firing, warm cream spraying all over the wall and building up on the floor. For a few wonderful moments, he watched them, expelling milk like garden hoses, bucking and wriggling in the air above him from the recoil of expelled milk. The rush of thick liquid almost drowned out Kristen's wailing moans.
      Somewhere in the back of Ryan's head he told himself it could have been a better show. Namely, that they could have been growing instead of deflating.
      Kristen had lost her breath and apparently higher thought by the time her breasts slowed enough to be quieter than two erotic waterfalls. Spent, but smiling, she lay back across Ryan's legs with arms and breasts askew. He carefully extricated himself from under her, arranged her more comfortably, and turned to leave. Before he took a step, he hesitated, turned back, and with an expression of amused consternation he helped himself to a sample of the cream now reduced to a thick trickle from her now reduced to a double-J-cup equivalent breasts. He was amazed to see they still looked plump and full, no crease or sag to indicate they had each just been approaching the size of a compact car. Finding they filled him with vim and vigor almost like drinking from Echo, he had a bit more. Beneath his sensitive suckling, Kristen slowly writhed, smiled, and sighed.
      Echo was still examining the last room of the arena when Willie peeked through the door to the rest of the complex. He ducked back inside quickly, closing it just as fast. Echo spun around.
      "What's wrong?"
      "Er... me distraction... 'Tis a wee unwieldy thing,"
      Echo rolled her eyes, pushed him aside, and looked through the door herself. In the room beyond, a spacious dining hall complete with tables sharing the strange gemstone manufacture, a score of witches were chasing after many more small, fast-moving cyan orbs of light, which zipped through the air in seemingly random directions, upsetting any loose objects they passed near. Sometimes they dove after a witch, attempting to pass through their bodies, occasionally tearing or shedding the bejeweled bodices and capes in the process and causing the witch to drop to all fours.
      "What the hell?" Echo stammered, watching the sight. It appeared the witches had to actually catch one of the orbs on the tip of their wand to disperse them, and so far the only thing dispersed in significant numbers were full outfits. Many a double-D bounced in the open.
      "'Tis a kind of imp, or sprite, conjur'd and made o' magic. 'Tis not a living thing, o' course, but they's the bloody devil ta have aroond an' the devil's son ta catch! Problem wit' the bloody things is yeh cannae tell where they be headin', an' they attract attention worse 'in a Morris dancer in a mausoleum! The bloody wizards'll catch on soon enough, an' when they do, the whole place'll be one bugger o' a battlefield."
      "What are they doing to the witches?"
      "They's not alive, but they's can copy themselves by absorbin' magic. The witches ain't hurt, but need ta catch their breath for a bit." Sure enough, as Willie spoke, Echo saw that the orbs which managed to pass through a witch came out with a buddy. Then he closed the door before they were seen.
      Echo noticed another door in the observation room, one that wasn't present in the previous rooms. Opening it, she saw a stairway going down.
      "This looks like it goes down to the arena. Couldn't we run down there, grab Ryan, and then you teleport us out or whatever?"
      "Nay, I cannae teleport safely whilst those things be runnin' aroond," he answered, jerking his thumb towards the door to the dining hall. "They interfere wit' magic cast nearby, an' that's why they's gotta touch the bloody things to dispell 'em,"
      "But they have spells already going on in this arena thing, don't they?" she pointed towards the windows into the room below.
      Willie still didn't pay it much attention. "Aye, but the arenas be bonnie well shielded from tamperin', unless yer doin' it from up here."
      Echo turned her full attention on Willie with an intensity that made him physically back into a wall. "And I'm guessing these rooms are shielded same as the arenas so those things can't get in?"
      ".......Aye," Willie trailed.
      "Then you have until Ryan comes through that door down there to teach me how to fuck with magic,"

      Feeling refreshed and perhaps a little guilty for enjoying it as much as he did, Ryan stood and attempted to wipe off as much of Kristen's viscous milk as he could before stepping through the doorway into the next room. She still hadn't woken up by the time he finally stepped through the portal.
      There was barely time to take in his surroundings before the whipcrack sound of animated ropes pierced the air, and just as Ryan was beginning to forget about the ridiculous bondage webing across his body, he was seized by its bullrings again. Four lines snaked out of nowhere to grab hold of his limbs, and he was twisted around to be flung through the air, backwards, landing spread-eagled on a circular bed.
      His first glance at the ceiling, upon opening his eyes, told him he was off to one side of the room. A derisive snort from the other side got his attention as it was a voice he half expected. Its tone took him by complete surprise.
      "HIM? Good luck with that piece of shit," Across the room, Audrey sat on the edge of a similar bed, naked, eyeballing Ryan with scorn and venom. Behind her, Tom was bound to her bed in a fashion similar to his, and looked just as surprised. "Do yourself a favor, and just kick him to the curb now," she said, apparently addressing someone behind Ryan. "I know I should have a long time ago."
      Subtly malicious snickering turned Ryan's head, and he could place the face that was responsible. "I remember you. This must be the last one if you've finally come down from the voyeur room upstairs,"
      Dorma smiled. "Self-righteous indignation does not become you, little man. I should save my energy."
      "You can't keep me in here forever. I'll get out. And I'll see to it your kind never tampers with the world again."
      "So much fire still in you. I hope your body has fortitude to match."
      Dorma paused, trying to read Ryan's gaze, and Audrey interrupted. "So, can we start now?"
      "Start what? What's the game here?"
      Dorma glanced at Ryan once, and then addressed Audrey instead. "OK, let's begin. You win if you can get Ryan there to climax before I get Tom off. Are you ready?"
      "Wait, what?? I'm over here! What's going-" Ryan began. Then he took a closer look at Tom, held on Audrey's bed. There didn't appear to be any bindings, but there was a ball gag in his mouth. Audrey was looking at Tom with the longing expression she held for Ryan last time he saw her.
      Dorma leaned over, as if to nibble his ear. "That's right," she whispered, "she's under the illusion that Tom is you and you are Tom. Since anything you say comes out in Tom's voice, and she hears 'Ryan' say whatever she expects he would, you two can't reveal anything. If you talk about anything that happened after she left Tom she'll just think he was spying on her," Dorma climbed onto the bed and straddled Ryan, still whispering. "And of course the game is stacked. It's not you, so if Tom actually does finish she won't even be able to tell. There are spells keeping him 'in the game', so to speak, and you get to watch that while I do whatever I want with you. Unlike your old flame Kristen, I have some very unusual tastes."
      "Kristen was not an old flame. And since when is wanting your own breasts to outgrow a circus tent and spew enough milk to make an entire aisle of Cap'n Crunch soggy a 'usual' taste?!?"
      "I mean the kind of taste that Audrey just might have thought Tom has underneath. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks. And when I start acting on it, and Audrey begins to realize I'm 'winning', she's going to really wonder why 'Ryan' doesn't seem to be as into her as she thought he was."
      Ryan turned back to look at her. "You want to alienate me from her? Why? She might very well go BACK to Tom after that!"
      "Yes. We would have undone what you did for her. Not her body, of course, just her mind."
      Ryan narrowed his eyes. He could see where this was coming from. "You read Echo's memories, didn't you?"
      "Magic isn't nearly as good as psionics for that sort of thing, but senior year was so emotionally charged for her it was an easy read. And you thought you weren't ever going to make someone's life miserable like that again, didn't you? Never again to bring them to happiness, only to see someone else who was better at the game crush it, and hard enough that the poor bastards came to believe what was happiness was actually an illusion?"
      For once, words failed him. Otherwise, he occupied a tiny eye of calm in storm of rage.
      "Oh, and by the way..." Dorma continued, "Tom can see and hear everything that's going on. He knows that Audrey thinks she's fucking you. And everything she says to 'you' in pillow-talk he'll remember. When this is over, and she drifts back to submission, he'll take it out on her.   Every...single...night..."

      Echo had to admit, if they were trying to break Ryan's will, they might actually be on to something. Watching from the window and somehow hearing every whisper through the glass, she could feel his anger through the psionic damping. Had this been a level playing field, she had to admit that she'd be at least a little scared pushing him that much. Up until now, she had really been doubting all the whole process.
      She looked back at Willie, who could look huddled in a corner while he was standing in the middle of an empty room. "OK, and you're sure this is gonna work? If the wizards are going to show up, we don't have any second chances."
      "'Tis the best I can do, lass. I donnae ken wha' hiddlins tha scunners had these terr'ble things fer, but yeh should ha' control o'er 'em."
      Echo looked back over the odd control panel on the foremost observation chair, and pressed what Willie had assured her as the magical equivalent of the "big red button".
      "Aye? It worked? So we should-" he said, sidling towards the staircase to the arena below.
      "We should hang on for a little bit to see what happens next before we go down."
      Willie froze in place, but Echo smiled at him reassuringly. "Honestly, for someone who can see the future as long as he's still alive, you really should know that whenever you press the 'Royally Fucked' button you either run away or you watch the initial fireworks before you make your next move."
      Willie mumbled something about running away while Echo turned back to the window.