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Shoestring Budget (Monilee's Adventure, part 3)


gregaaz

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It was raining again. Of course it was raining. At least Monilee's hooded cloak kept the wet from soaking her to the skin, but ducking her head to avoid the hammering precipitation made it a lot harder to appreciate Solitude's splendor. Yes, Solitude was an old city, and yes, it had seen better days, but compared to the crumbling ruins she'd seen during her recent travels, this was a living city. And compared to the rickety wooden shanty-town of Morthal, this was, in fact, city. Perhaps it was just as well the weather was awful, however. It was getting late, and Monilee's coin purse was feeling perilously light. She needed to find a place to sleep, and she suspected the local inn wasn't quite yet in her budget range. 

 

She should have known something was up when the gate guard ominously warned her about "ending up like Rogvir," but Monilee didn't take the time to ask him more. Thus, the spectacle that awaited her when she passed the city gate came as something of a surprise. This, apparently, was the messy end that awaited the like of Kottir Red-Shoal were he to fall into the power of the Empire. 

 

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With that 'light entertainment' behind her, Monilee set off to see to her needs. Borrowing an unattended bucket, she dipped into the town well and found, to her pleasant surprise, fresh and clear water. Likely fed by a spring, but perhaps also given a little help by the local priests. Speaking in priests, she realized it had been a while since she had prayed to Dibella, and so the temple of the divines was her next destination. Against her expectations, Solitude was thronging with pedestrians even at this late hour, and she had to push her way past several knots of people to ascend into the courtyard of Castle Dour. Legionaries and Haafingar guards alike thronged there, but so did many citizens. Evidently the castle courtyard was something more akin to a soldiers' quarter than to a proper fortification. Strange, and oddly lax for a realm in the midst of a civil war, she mused as she approached the temple.

 

"Be careful out there, or the beasts will tear your ass apart." Those were the words that greeter her when she stepped into the temple. While frankly that didn't surprise her at this point, the bluntness of this wisdom perhaps said something about the Nord character that Monilee hadn't fully grasped before. The speaker was Freir, a priestess, and in a short conversation she conveyed both knowledge and welcome to Monilee. She also spoke highly of the beauty of Jarl Elisif, the widowed queen (was that the right term?) of Solitude. Monilee made a mental note to catch a glimpse of Elisif for herself if the chance arose.

 

Monilee offered her prayers to the shrine of Dibella, but soon she couldn't hold back a yawn any longer. It was time for her to find a place to sleep, which might be tricky in a lively town like this. She suspected her choices were between "alley" and "sewer" and she decided to try the former before the latter. Of course, if Solitude was like the cities in High Rock, the guards wouldn't take kindly to vagrancy, so she would need to find an out of the way place to curl up.

 

After some searching, she came across a recessed space under a porch. Curling up next to a wash basin, Monilee briefy considered updating her journal, but another uncontrollable yawn tolder her that would have to wait for the day to come. So she made herself comfortable and after almost no time at all she drifted off to sleep...

 

...but of course that was too easy. Monilee woke to a curt "What do you think you're doing?" from a torch-bearing guard. Evidently her halo - curse that thing! - had drawn suspicion like moths to a candle. Sternly he warned her, if he caught her again he'd throw her in the dungeon. 

 

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Monilee was willing to put up with a lot in her diminished circumstances but she wasn't ready to try the dungeon yet. So she mentally held her nose and prepared that she'd have to try and rest in the sewers when the guard mentioned something about sleeping in the kennel. Monilee suspected that might be a shelter for the poors or some similar establishment, but there was something in the guard's intonation that made her a little hesitant to try that option. She tried, as surreptitiously as possible, to pull up the various manhole covers along the city's streets, but none of them budged and she didn't dare put her back into it more with so many people on the streets - do these people never sleep?

 

Finally, with midnight drawing closer and no safe place to rest, Monilee accepted that she'd have to visit the kennel. It wasn't too hard to find, though that was because it was right next to the execution grounds - a little detail that was not lost on her and that further raised her suspicions. The heavily reinforced door also spoke to a less than palatial accommodation. But... she had to sleep, and so she entered. A night porter greeted her, and soon the placement and the strength of the door made more sense. Before this was a poors hostel, the kennel had been the old Solitude dungeon. That actually seemed quite a reasonable explanation to Monilee and she let down her guard for a moment.

 

Right up until the porter explained the terms of stay. Yes, it was free, and yes, she could stay the whole night - in fact, she had to, as guest couldn't leave until sunrise. But she also had to leave her possessions - all her possessions - with the porter and agree to wear "devices", the nature of which he didn't specify. If she'd had even just to the last septim enough money to stay at the inn, she would have turned right around and walked out. But... she didn't, and after an awkward pause she agreed.

 

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By devices, apparently, he meant locked mittens, hideously uncomfortable boots that she could barely walk in, and to add insult to injury... a horse-hair "tail" inserted into her back passage. During her time in High Rock, Monilee had seen all manner of humiliations levied on the destitute and the criminal, but she'd never expected to experience something like this herself. This was evidently the dark opposite side to the coin of Freir's hospitality and welcome... 

 

The night was anything but restful. Not two hours into her sleep the keeper woke Monilee once more and explained to her the special privileges he enjoyed over the clientele of the kennel. Bound and helpless, Monilee couldn't resist his advances. It only got worse from there... the things Monilee experienced and witnessed that night left her with a newfound caution about this province. Here, it was clear the vulnerable were at the mercy of the powerful. She'd thought her first goal would be to find a backer to start a business or found some other enterprise, but she now had to reject the idea of becoming so subordinate to another. No, she could accept no course except to become the master of her own destiny.

 

 

 

 

Test Report - Session 3

Based on author feedback, reactivated virgin death alternative for further testing and analysis regarding CTDs identified in session 2

Identified and fixed a crash identified with a 3rd party mod (unrelated to SLaVE - other mod was packed with a corrupted file). Feedback and technical data provided to mod author. 

Identified a third party mod conflict: Go To Bed's sleepwear profiles will conflict with Devious Devices and may unequip DD items inappropriately. Sleepwear function temporarily disabled in MCM until a more permanent solution is identified.

 

Tested SLSO compatibility mode for SLaVE orgasm detection. SLaVE did not appear to catch the SLSO vanilla orgasm trigger. However, animation orifice was unclear - may have been anal/oral only. Needs further analysis/fornication.

Edited by gregaaz

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