Side Effects (story)

Ingrid Brandl Galatea, a loyal warrior of the kingdom of Faerghus, was sent to investigate the mysterious disappearance of women in a suspicious forest. Given that this forest is typically uninhabited, and few people venture near it, there is a strong suspicion that a kidnapper, rather than some forest dweller, is behind these disappearances. It is likely that the same kidnapper is responsible for all these incidents and is still at large, waiting for the next victim.

On this particular night, Ingrid wandered through the forest, searching for clues about the supposed predator, the person who was likely preying on and abducting the victims. It was an eerie night, and Ingrid sensed that she was being watched constantly, as if her sixth sense or intuition was warning her.

However, her paranoia got the best of her when she felt a presence from behind and instinctively used her spear to defend herself, only to realize moments later that she had accidentally attacked a harmless bird flying nearby. This incident made Ingrid question whether she was overreacting to her fears.

Her doubts were short-lived as two mysterious wizards, cloaked in black hoods, suddenly appeared before her. Ingrid did her best to evade any potential attacks, but she was ultimately overpowered and suffocated by a barrage of formidable magic, rendering her unconscious in the process.

[Drawing 1]

Later, several days later, Ingrid opens her eyes in bewilderment. She tries to see where she is or what is going on, but everything around her is very dark, so it seems to be a place where no sunlight enters. Everything is so disconcerting for her, until she begins to hear footsteps and then voices talking about magic spells in a way that seems to ignore Ingrid's very existence or that she is there, while she gasps and struggles to breathe, realizing as she tries to speak that she too is gagged with a handkerchief tied over her mouth.

Finally, the two wizards remove a piece of tied cloth that was tied to her head and Ingrid is blinded by the sunlight, only able to shake her head disconsolately as she tries to figure out where she is and where the magical beings that have kidnapped her are, wondering if they are not the ones who have been disappearing women in the forest all this time. Also, as far as Ingrid can tell from the appearance of the wizards, they are not from around there, but from their appearance she can tell that they serve another empire far away from that forest. Also, Ingrid notices that next to where she is there is a large red orb on a pedestal connected with some strange threads to the table where she is lying and tied. However, Ingrid stops watching the wizards and tries to recognize them while struggling when she realizes that she is completely naked, something that makes her blush and embarrasses her, which leads her to scream intensely and struggle harder, although without any success.

On the other side, the wizards simply ignore Ingrid and her anguished struggle trying to escape from where they have tied her, on an old wooden table, while they talk about the magical experiments, they will do with her.

[Drawing 2]

As far as they talk, without Ingrid paying too much attention to them at the moment because she tries to escape and run away from there to avoid the pain of being naked, the magicians seem to kidnap people to experiment with them randomly. One of the things that these magicians seek tirelessly is to extract the powers of the victims, especially if they use magic, in order to manufacture different types of orbs that can be offered for sale again depending on what powers they extract from the abducted person in question.

This is how one of the two magicians puts his hand on a big switch, which will activate the magic circuit they built on that table and do the dirty work in a cleaner way. The magicians still remember when they used more rudimentary and bloodthirsty ways than there are now, while Ingrid goes from struggling and trying to run away from there, to the feeling of deep terror and abandonment when she hears about the things those guys watching her would be capable of.

Then the magician activates the switch, and a great magical energy runs through the wires of the device towards the table where she is tied.  Ingrid begins to feel very, very tired as the orb begins to glow much brighter. Everything seemed to be going well from the magicians' perspective, until something unusual began to happen, a side effect of the magical process.

This is how Ingrid's body, already numb, begins to harden little by little, as if a layer of something like resin or perhaps, plastic? while Ingrid feels deeply immersed in pleasure and writhes weakly as she trembles and while she sees how that shiny material begins to consume herself, provoking in her much pleasure and excitement. However, just when that squinty and reflective element at the same time began to invade Ingrid's face, her gesture changes from pleasure to concern and then to terror, discovering the true implications of what is happening and how that squinty thing from which she cannot run away is covering and immobilizing her whole body, even though it is too late for her, and she is paralyzed for eternity with that gesture of terror.

[Drawing 3]

The magicians, surprised by the side effect of that magical process, abort the mission and try to see if they can return that woman (Ingrid) to normality somehow without any success, they even tried to do the reverse process to return her orb power to her back or try to use healing magic on her without any success.

Finally, the wizards, worried because they have heard in the last days that the army of Faerghus is approaching the forest to investigate the disappearance of some important person (although they do not know that she is that important person, they notice by her clothing that perhaps she could come from Faerghus), decide to dress the woman again, who now looks more like a kind of mannequin, and take her back to the forest where she was kidnapped to avoid getting into trouble.

[Drawing 4]

Hours later, while one of the armies of Faerghus commanded by Lord Dimitri was walking through the forest with caution, since the disappearances that have happened in the forest have brought bad fame to that place, they find among the trees something very strange, a mannequin identical to Ingrid.

Then Dimitri, with curiosity, approaches the mannequin to examine it directly, stroking its face with his finger seeing how much it resembles Ingrid. However, while he was inspecting the mannequin, it lost its balance and fell backwards rigidly, like a board. Dimitri wonders if that mannequin is really Ingrid or if at least he has something to do with her and her disappearance, being all this uncertain for now since that mannequin doesn't look like anything else but a useless and hollow mannequin.

[Drawing 5]