Thread by @HardSundae

CW: hypnosis, curse, dubious consent / dubcon, anal, oral, demons, rough #HypNovember Prompt: "Artifact"

You let out a whoop of triumph as your greatsword cleaves through the final malebranche, and the two halves of its body dissolve into ash and embers as it discorporates.

The room is finally quiet. Around you lies what little remains of the devils, after you banished them back to the hellish realm from whence they came.

Not bad for an adventurer with no backup... but you didn't need those wastrels anyway! They were just burdens and distractions.

Harthriel with her ENDLESS sermonising. "Oh, Evrard, consider the weight of your actions!"

Aleslosh with his fancy magical gimmicks and kindergarten sense of humour.

Audhild always insisting on checking for traps and taking forever to do it.

Bores, the lot of them.

Now, you've proven that you don't need companions at your back to win the day, especially ones that call you "impulsive" and "reckless" and "a danger to yourself and others." Forget them! They'd be DEAD without your manly prowess and ability to facetank three fireballs in a row.

But you beat these creeps all by yourself, without their help, and more's the pity for them, because you got the Portable Hole in the breakup! Now the devils' loot is all yours and you don't have to share even a penny of it, and from the looks of things, the devils were LOADED!

You lay out the Portable Hole and start throwing stuff in. Gold, gems, paintings, goblets, candlesticks, they all go right in. It takes a good twenty minutes of work to whittle the hoard down to the really interesting stuff: the magic items!

This is always the best part.

Staff with a fist-sized chunk of glowing rock at the end of it? Hah! Bet Aleslosh would've loved that. Tough luck for him!

A golden necklace laden with sapphires, engraved in Elven? Maybe Harthriel should pray her goddess gives her something this good - womp-womp!

A set of twin daggers, their blades slick with some strange, purple fluid that seems to reach out and try to touch your skin when you get close? Whoops, maybe Audhild should've gotten here faster if they wanted these!

All this prime loot, and you get to sell ALL of it!

A longsword with a ruby pommel the size of an eye? Bah, even if it's magical, you're not interested. Your greatsword's already magic, and it's DESIGNED to be used two-handed, not some "optional" nonsense that weak shield-users can pick if they want to play with the real fighters.

Now HERE'S something promising.

A suit of plate armour, silver-white steel gleaming in the firelight, covered in imposing spikes and horns. This is something you could actually use, rather than just sell off to the auctioneers back in the capitol city.

Your own splint mail is dinged and dented in so many places you're not even sure how it made it through that last fight.

Meanwhile, what you've just found? You'd have to pay a fortune for a suit of this at any blacksmith, and wouldn't you know it, it's precisely your size!

As you strip out of your splint mail - you don't even bother dumping it into the Portable Hole, it's not worth the space - you briefly wonder why none of the devils were wearing it. It would probably have fit some of them - not that it would've helped against you, of course!

You reach out to pull your new cuirass off the stand.

You have a brief memory of Harthriel's nagging voice. "Have caution, Evrard. We should be careful. Some artifice carries curses, meant to trap the unwary."

Gods, why is that prissy elf even adventuring if she's such a wimp?

Even without a squire, donning this armour seems so damn easy. It doesn't impede your movement anywhere near as much as you expected, and as you slip every new piece of it on, you feel more and more powerful. Your face breaks into a cocky smirk. You'll be a walking fortress!

You finish the job by settling the helmet gently upon your head and buckling it tight. It's odd - you've never seen armour that pulls a thick leather strap around your neck like this, but you're not about to question it.

You smirk as a righteous clarity suddenly fills your head.

There's a flexibility, a suppleness to your body you're sure is new, and you're filled with energy. You want to get into another fight, to test this new armour out!

And look, as luck would have it, this isn't the last room of the dungeon! There's a dormant portal! Glory awaits!

You wrap up your Portable Hole and step up to the portal. It begins to glow an amethyst purple, and without a second thought you hurl yourself into it. A shiver passes through you as you slip across time and space, from one plane into another.

You arrive on a blasted heath.

Visible in every direction are numerous horned, bestial shapes, their eyes glowing a fiery orange. Not devils, but demons - you KNOW the difference, thank you very much, Aleslosh - and clearly not happy with your arrival. More's the pity for them! Into the fray!

You let out a war cry, and charge for the closest figure. It bellows, sprinting forwards to meet you. As it closes the distance, it belches a gout of flame at you, and your body tenses in preparation to dodge out of the way...

... and stays tensed.

You can't move.

Your plates of armour have locked together, as if magnetically, and you can't move.

The fire catches you straight in the chest, and you let out a yell as your breastplate glows red hot for a moment before rapidly cooling off. Your nose fills with the smell of burning undershirt.

As suddenly as it happened, the plates unlock. That hurt, but you're still in this fight! You pull your sword back, and take a swing at an eight-foot monstrosity with the head of a bull, but just as your blade is about to bite into its flesh, your plates lock again.

It decks you straight in the face, laying you on your back in the mud, with your sword barely still in your grasp. You have to plant the blade hard into the ground to have enough leverage to stagger to your feet. You are utterly surrounded, on all sides.

But you still got this!

That clarity you felt when you buckled the helmet onto your head, it's still there, and you can feel every demon around you, sense the presence of their minds. You think you're even able to hear their thoughts. They don't have a chance against you!

You lock eyes with the bull demon again, and wind back your sword for an overhead swing-

"Drop it."

It's not in a language you've ever heard before, but you understand it perfectly. Your sword slips from your trembling hands, landing behind you. What? Why did you obey?!

"Kneel."

The thought passes straight through your mental defences, and before you can even register it, you're on your knees in the muck.

"Bow."

That strange clarity, that feeling of demon minds around you. It's not letting you into their heads... it's letting them into yours!

Your neck bends and your head lowers obsequiously.

The bull demon snorts for a moment, and then makes a noise you don't immediately recognise. A deep, bass rumbling... that you eventually realise is a chuckle.

The noise is repeated by its companions. Louder and louder.

Now they're ROARING with laughter, SCREAMING with laughter, not just laughter you can hear with your ears, but in your mind as well. You desperately try to pull this helmet off, to get them out of your head... but it's buckled tight to your neck, and your gloved hands fumble.

"You've gotta be one hopeless fucking rube to wander in here wearing a suit of Demon Armour, mortal," the bull demon gloats, kneeling down so he can speak directly into your ear. "You thought you'd be a walking fortress... so how's it feel to be wearing a prison, instead?"

"Don't answer that. Stay still."

You feel your possessions being stripped off your back by many firm hands. Your Portable Hole is the first to go, but they take everything else as well - backpack, potion belt, everything except the armour. That stays firmly on your body.

"You belong to us now, flesh."

It's not just a statement, but a command. You try to resist it, but this cursed suit has stripped away the skin of your mind, leaving it bare and unprotected against the assault. You know it's true. You're their property now, a demon's plaything.

"Now, you're gonna be a good boy for us, aren't you?"

You don't know what they mean, but you certainly are. You belong to them. You're their property. Of course you'll do what they tell you - how is that even a question at this point? You feel ashamed that they had to ask you.

You feel something happening behind you. The cold air of the heath upon your behind. You briefly remember wondering why the suit had nothing protecting your buttocks.

"Close your eyes, and open your mouth, plaything."

The helmet has no faceguard. You understand why, now.

The bull demon's thick meat pushes past your lips the moment you part them, thrusting all the way inside and touching the back of your throat. You swear you remember having a gag reflex once, but not now.

There's pressure against your pucker, something big and wet and veiny.

You grunt in discomfort as it pushes in further, unprepared for the girth splitting you open. But you're a good boy. They're perfectly within their rights to do this to you, and you love it. The bull demon seizes your helmet's horns and begins to buck his hips rapidly.

Your eyes roll back as you're jackhammered from both sides, and your conscious mind gives way beneath the flood of sensation. It's rough and it hurts but you like it this way, because you wear their metal, and the metal tells you you like it this way.

You begin to let out a moan, a moan that makes the other demons watching break into derisive laughter, but they're absolutely right to laugh. You are pretty pathetic, just putting their metal on without even checking it first, and blundering straight in here like you did.

The bull demon grunts loudly, and lets loose a blast of something wet and hot and corrupt in your mouth. You greedily slurp it up, letting it spill onto your tongue and slide down your throat. It sits in your belly and burns like fire. You need more. You need so much more.

"We're gonna," he gasps, still unloading himself in your mouth, "we're gonna keep that armour... on you... for a while..."

The thrusting from behind intensifies, hammering against your prostate. You groan blissfully around the cock in your mouth.

"Not... that you'll need it..."

The demon behind you lets out a strange, animalistic whoop of pleasure before grabbing your hips and thrusting one last time, spilling a flood of molten-hot Abyssal seed deep inside you. You writhe in place as much as the armour allows as it churns within.

There is a crushing emptiness for a moment as both demons abruptly pull themselves out, leaving your mouth whining hungrily and your ass twitching with need, but your torment doesn't last long, as they quickly move aside to let the next two demons take you.

Your vision blurs...

Meanwhile, an elf, a gnome and a dwarf burst into an empty room. The elf quickly shoots a glance across the room, checking for hiding spots an enemy could ambush them from, but finds only piles of ash.

"Damn," she growls. "Whoever it was must've cleaned the whole place out."

The dwarf rolls into the room, scooping up a handful of ash and letting it drop slowly to the floor.

"Well, stone be fucked," they grumble, frowning. "What a fuckin' waste of a day, aye?"

The gnome adjusts his goggles, smiling ruefully. "Truly, a most execrable goose chase."

The elf moves deeper into the room, grunting. "Lunari be blessed, can you imagine if Evrard were still here? He'd be blunting his sword on the masonry and picking fights with the wall hangings."

The dwarf grimaced. "And y'just know somehow it would all be our fault, aye?"

The elf sneered. "Yes, of course. Somehow he'd find a way to get knocked unconscious in an empty dungeon, and then all we'd hear for a week is 'Harthriel! Why aren't you quicker with the heals, wench?!'"

Something caught the gnome's eye, and he moved to the back of the room.

"Compatriots, all may not be lost! I believe I have located a dormant portal! There may yet be more adventure beyond!"

The elf eyed the contraption warily. "Let's not go charging into anything. Can you tell me where it goes, first?"

The gnome nodded demurely. "In but a moment."

He whispered something ancient under his breath, stretching his hands out towards the portal. An amethyst purple shimmer lit the room for a second, and the gnome paled slightly.

"Alas, my erstwhile friends! 'tis nothing less than a gateway to the Infinite Layers of the Abyss!"

The dwarf's eyes went wide, and they shook their head. "No, ye can get tae fuck wi'that."

The elf nodded in agreement. "Yeah, fuck that."

The gnome once again adjusted his goggles. "I find myself concurring: that may indeed get fucked."

"So," the dwarf chirped. "Tavern?"

As they made to leave, the dwarf's foot caught something, and they picked it up. It was the dented vambrace from a discarded suit of splint mail.

The elf looked back. "What do you have there?"

"Oddest thing. Some dinged-up splint mail. Look," the dwarf said, "there's more."

There was a whole suit of splint mail lying discarded on the floor.

The gnome peered at it. "How peculiar. Was that not the same manner of armour Evrard was most fond of? Do you think he might have been down here?"

They looked at each other for a moment.

And then they laughed.