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First things first, darlings.
Are you a [[Man]] or a [[Witch]]?
<audio src="/home/hexe/downloads/06 - No Pet Shop Boy Can Stop Me Now.mp3" autoplay>
</audio>[[You came too close]].Your skin drips with power.
Or maybe it's sweat, pheromones, and smart nanotech body glitter.
[[Whatever]]
It is alive, built of machine and meat, human and other.
It is maji-computer switches and gears, biomech and maTHEMATICal spellcasting calculator.
It is sanctuary, castle.
When we die, we [[become part of it]].
Everything that dies here becomes a part of it.
You hear the station change, feel it [[shift]].
Majick and machine, evolving constantly.
The Witches built it, cherish it, live inside it.
When one dies their life's work, research, personality is [[uploaded]].
[[You make psychic contact with Corruo.]]Over the years the station became more than a collection of ghosts and a maTHEMATICal spellcasting calcultor.
It is it's own being.
Deep in space, thinking, plotting, touching stars and playing with time threads.
It's name is Corruo.
[[The spacestation breathes around you.]]You knew you shouldn't have come so close to the borderlands, [[the rumors were true]].
The freelancer who picked up the shipments swore the witches' spacecastle was here, in this quadrant.
[[It was, oh, it was]].[[Strain against your bonds]]
[[pant sexily]]
[[RAGE]]They are strong, firm.
You press against them.
[[P.R.E.S.S.]]
Your mouth falls open, air heaving through your lungs and out your breathing orifices.
[[Your breath turns to a whimper]].Bubbling up from within you, RAGE emerges.
"YOU BITCHES, YOU FREAKS, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME"
[[THE TRUE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE WILL DESTROY YOU]]Your muscles fill with tension, your body shakes.
[[And the bonds never budge.]]With a manly grunt you give up, letting the odd warmness and strength of your prison hold your quivering meatpuppet flesh.
It seems to breathe with you, gently.
[[Your breath turns to a whimper]].And then a moan.
[[The witches are here]].Power drips off the witches, their bodies shimmer ever so slightly.
Terror clings to their skin, their eyes hint at cosmic mysteries.
[[They are beautiful]].You cannot tell if some of them are men or women.
How are you supposed to know who is in charge if there aren't clear gender roles?
One of the witches offers you a choice:
[[Be bled dry of your unearned sense of entitlement and self confidence so others can use it]]
[[Join the witches]]YOU ARE BETTER THAN THESE FREAKS IN A BREATHING, THROBBING SPACE CASTLE AT THE ASS END OF THE GALAXY
YOUR FUTURE IS BRIGHT
YOUR SUCCESS IS UNPARALLELED
YOUR LOGIC IS IMPECCABLE
...SOMETHING ABOUT ETHICS...
[[*your bonds start humming gently and spread over larger portions of your body*]]JOIN THEM?
WHAT FILTHY BULLSHIT
Some of them can't even decide if they are men or women!
The witch shows her teeth.
"We have asked Corruo's question!
Now you will [[Be bled dry of your unearned sense of entitlement and self confidence so others can use it]]."The pressure is pleasant and you relax into it feeling drugged, completely immmmmmmobilized, breathing with it, breathing with the space station, with the universe.
With life.
[[Pictures form in your minds eye]]Memories, fantasies, the future, the past.
Every scene ends in failure, every sure thing is sabotaged.
[[You start to doubt yourself]].Maybe you aren't infallible.
Maybe your space startup selling a dating app for cyborg racoons is shit.
Maybe you aren't better than everyone else.
Oh.
No.
[[Everything you thought about yourself was a lie]].Sobbing, your worthless meat husk is dumped out of the walls of the space castle on to the floor in front of the airlock leading to your ship.
"Goodbye"
Echoes in your skull, the station itself saying goodbye.
Your flesh misses the comfortable pressure of your bondage.
[[Pick yourself up]].[[Return to your spaceship, fly away as fast as you can, carrying the knowledge of your worthlessness for the rest of your days]].
[[Beg for the witches to keep you]].You disengage as fast as machinely possible, escaping into the galaxy.
Piloting your ship seems empty, where it once gave you a feeling of power.
finYou scream into the corridor, hoping the station itself will take pity on you or maybe one of the witches is nearby.
[[No response]].You curl into a ball, back against the warm wall.
*You wish to stay? You can never return, you will never be the same man*
[[You nod, aware the station is speaking into your mind]].
*Very well. Get up, come to us*
In you mind there is a picture of where to go, a feeling that you will be welcomed.
You never look back.
finYour body shakes, your face is red.
These freaks, in their weird castle that beats like a heart at the end of the universe.
THEY WILL PAY
THEY WILL SUFFER LIKE THE DEVIANTS THEY ARE
[[GROWL]]YOU STRUGGLE
[[And the bonds never budge.]]Your mind is focused.
[[The spacestation breathes around you.]]He is here, held immobile by Corruo's metalflesh.
Good.
[[Right on time]].You check in with the sciencewitches who run the systems that siphon and refine.
[[Everything is ready]].You gather the welcoming party.
We are always more powerful together.
[[The air is heavy with power as you walk the corridors]].You will ask the question, you will give him a choice.
Many of the Witches are not entirely happy with giving him a choice.
He is too dangerous, and it seems men have always killed and raped witches.
[[But consensus was made in council with Corruo and all living witches]].Witches respect life and autonomy, so he must be given a choice.
The welcoming party consists of one Witch representing each of the five genders currently in fashion on the spacecastle.
[[You arrive]]He is [[sweaty]].
And [[struggle-y]].
And [[angry]].
Or maybe [[scared]].His skin glows with sweat, his hair damp.
His lips look like they are about to say something stupid.
[[You speak]]His limbs strain uselessly against the metalflesh encasing him.
Very muscles. So wow.
[[You speak]]He yells curses and threats.
His impotent threats mean nothing to you or the other witches.
[[You speak]]His breath is quick, his eyes widening in panic as you approach.
He is silent.
[[You speak]]You have two choices, meatbag.
[[Stay here and learn our culture as our prisoner. You will never leave.]]
[[Go home after we remove your unearned sense of entitlement. Your memory of our location will be wiped.]]They never choose this.
It has never been known or remembered in the witches memories, and witches have long memories.
It is surprising, like spacecat migration out of season.
But it keeps the witches [[most profitable export]] flowing.They never think their sense of entitlement is unearned.
They always choose this option, stupid meatbags.
Flesh batteries.
Source of our [[most profitable export]].
Drugs.
The best drugs.
A drug that gives you hours of self-confidence and inner strength.
Distilled from the entitlement and egos of Men grown in a culture that rewards their every breath, in very [[high demand]] to the people they oppress.
You know, everyone else in the Universe.One line will give you the confidence to do a corporate presentation or break up with a bad lover.
2-3 lines and you're flying in the self-satisfaction territory usually reserved for narcissists, crooked bankers and princelings from small empires.
[[The entitlement from one Man can make a years export supply, if harvested correctly]]The witches have perfected the technology for harvest.
[[BEGIN THE HARVEST]]Choose your harvest role:
[[SIPHON]]
[[MACHINERIES]]
[[KERNEL SUPPORT]]
[[DREAM DIRECTOR]]
[[TORTURE ARTIST]]You position yourself physically near him, using your psychic spacewitch powers to make a conduit for his dreams and energy.
[[YOU ARE A TUBE, A CONDUIT]]
[[FUCK THIS]]You sit at a terminal to observe the parts Corruos fleshsupercomputer brain is handling, text scrolls down your screen.
Everything looks good.
[[BASH THAT SHELL]]
[[FUCK THIS]]You ready yourself, one hand on his head, to direct his dreams and visions toward the proper themes and symbols so the witches can collect the most privilege, pride, and ego possible.
[[DREAM A LITTLE DREAM]]
[[FUCK THIS]]You have been studying for this, learning all the exquisite tortures of mind and body, to create the exact right amount of stress and pain so the final drug has that little extra kick.
[[COMMENCE TORTURE]]
[[FUCK THIS]]You ready the collection machines and prime the tubes, inserting some under his skin at key points.
[[SWITCH ON]]
[[FUCK THIS]]He twists and screams and you give a little personal flair on a specific genital torture trick.
[[Well done.]]
The ritual is over.
Time to go swimming in the Lake of Starfields with your snakebat!
The flesh of Corruo rumbles as the machines start, already taking the raw drugstuff from the captive.
You watch to make sure nothing gets clogged, extra tubes and veins and spiderwebs from a black hole spider in your tool bag.
It takes a long time.
[[But it is done]]You've been having thoughts about the other witches for a while.
You've helped with other harvests and touched them Men's minds.
[[Out in the world you can be rich.]]
You let the toxic self importance flow through you to the maji-machinery that processes and refines.
You must be careful.
It is a very dangerous substance in it's raw form.
[[You are an adept, though]]You're a sysadmin for a self-aware brain.
You don't actually have anything to do.
[[Just wait, monitor, wait, play solitaire.]]You spin dreams made of wild successes, financial bubbles, technological breakthroughs.
The witches take everything he feels, feeds it to the machines to be processed and his dreams turn to disappointment and failure as his entitlement and self-confidence is removed.
[[It is tiring]]And later, hours later, you are exhausted but triumphant.
Time for a nap.You pack up your flesh mechanic bag and your magi-machinery glues and go home to your lovers.
Well done.Until the end, when everyone else has gone home; you type out commands to refine and process the raw drugstuff into the fine powder that eventually hits the black markets across the galaxies.
You crawl into your witchhouse on the edge of Knifechime Swamp, and sleep.
Well doneWhen you are done you wrap you arms around one of the other witches and they lead you to a hammock by on of Corruo's streams in the wilder parts of the spacecastles forest.
It is good.
Well done.You can have slaves.
You can own companies.
Full Communism is boring.
You want to leave this place, separatism is toxic.
Rejoin the world of [[Man]]