Seeds of Heroism - Chapter 59
Chapter 59 – content: >!rupture, impotence!<
*[A guide to the world of Bythos!](https://imgur.com/a/poZLPkK)*
Jim gently rested his hand on Philine’s arm, a bit on edge since Pearl had spent the better part of an hour pulling and pushing and poking at his scrotum. Instead of just the testicles, Ina had teleported away the entire nutsack and handed it to the deer girl to play with. When she eventually gave up, frustrated by this ‘game’, Ina had teleported out the testicles so she could unwind the knot in his sack. Of course, that meant his balls were now lying on the table, where Pearl rolled them around like marbles. It would have been almost gentle if the wood of the table wasn’t so rough and bumpy, splintered in many places.
Despina’s hungry gaze was transfixed by the swollen, pitted balls rolling from one of Pearl’s hands to the other, an observation that made Jim rather nervous. But that wasn’t important right now – it had nearly rent his heart in two when he had to leave the crying paladin behind in Hôdoburg, he needed to be there for his friend now.
“Do you think you can talk about it now? Why you quit the Valesian order?” he said, patting the back of her hand.
Philine nodded, though she still sniffled occasionally. “When they said you had… ended the maiden of light, I was sure you wouldn’t do that, so I tried to get you to come to the order with me. When you all left me…” A choked whimper came from the busty girl.
Despina reached over the table and patted her on the shoulder. The former paladin had switched the white tabard Jim had always seen her in for a plain beige shirt that was a bit too short, leaving the soft curves around her navel uncovered. “There, there. Take your time.” As she leaned back, Jim suddenly felt a hand close around his testicles.
He stared at the redhead in a mix of indignation and apprehension. For a split second, her pitying mien turned to a smug smirk, then her sympathetic act was back as quickly as it had vanished. Pearl meanwhile didn’t seem to mind the princess taking away her toys.
“… I spoke with the Mother Superior. She came to visit me and I thought she was only there to punish me for not stopping you.” Jim gasped but Philine shook her head. “That’s not what made me quit. I was kind of, well, used to that. I was always a bit clumsy as a novice and she has had to chastise me many times. But what she said after… it made me not want to be anywhere near her or the other paladins ever again.”
“Were you at odds with the order’s treatment of men?” Pearl asked. The deer girl peered up at Philine, opting to sit by her feet on the ground now.
“No, the order’s doctrine is the same as it ever was. If a boy is being bad, you hit his milkbag until he starts being good again.”
“Smart,” Despina commented. Jim felt one of her nails drag along the outside of his testicles.
“Then what happened?” Ina asked.
“The Mother Superior said I would be part of a squad of paladins. Since I knew you all, I would be leading them towards you. And our orders were to… murder everyone except Jim…” Her eyes shimmered wetly as she stared at him. “And to bring you back to Valesia monastery, the order’s headquarters. We were told we could remove your limbs if we had to, as long as we didn’t cut off or break your milkbag.”
“That sounds a lot like Malphas when she ordered Leonia to attack us…” Despina said, and absent-mindedly squeezed Jim’s nuts.
“Come to think of it, Raum had you by the balls as well, she could have popped you any time. But she didn’t, and I doubt she lacked the strength,” Ina said. “Remember when she broke your sword?”
“Guh…” Jim’s head hit the table.
“Why bring him back to the order’s headquarters?” Pearl asked. “Wouldn’t the nearest cloister be good enough?”
“Maybe there’s something there…” Jim muttered.
“At that moment, I began to believe what you all were telling me,” Philine said and rubbed her reddened eyes. “They are involved in it all, or at least the higher-ups are. I ran away and tried to find you all, but I had no idea where to look! There seemed to have been some big fight because a lot of city guards were suddenly replaced with women and most men that remained seemed to be missing half the contents of their coin purse but no one knew anything specific. And so I kept wandering and looking for you…”
[The doe-eyed girl suddenly thrust herself forward, hugging Despina tightly.](https://imgur.com/a/WiCBExZ) Both her and Jim groaned in pain as Philine crushed both the girl and the testicles she was holding with the mountainous breasts she possessed.
They hugged it out for a full five minutes before Philine calmed down again. She seemed much more composed now, and while her eyes were still red and her cheeks still wet, she wore a defiant smile.
“But that’s in the past now. I feel much better now, thank you, mister Jim! So, what happened to you? Where is miss Liriel and mister Aramis?”
Immediately, the cautiously optimistic mood turned sour again and even Despina stopped playing with the set of disembodied nuts in her hand, her little finger lodged inside the hole in Jim’s left testicle.
“Ah, right, we have a lot to tell…” Ina began. “You might want to sit down for this…”
Together, they told her everything that had happened. Cillia’s invasion. The fight with Raum and the nobles beneath Hôdoburg. Zenobia’s death. How it had all been a trap by Raum and Lilith to get Jim. And how Liriel had unexpectedly switched sides when becoming the maiden of darkness, taking Aramis with her.
“No…” Philine gasped, distraught and nervously tugging on the front of her shirt. “Liri, Ari and this miss Zenobia gone… and your family dead or taken captive as well, lady Coglione…”
“Ari?” Jim asked before a finger wiggling *inside* his testicle forced his head to the table again.
“Thank you for your sympathy, but please, call me Despina,” the redhead offered graciously.
“We came here to find a special blacksmith, one who is able to forge moonsilver. We think it might help us when…” Ina said but hesitated. She stared at the rough wood of the table, hesitant to speak of the goal of their journey.
“… we go to hell and rescue Liri,” Jim finished for her through gritted teeth.
That made Philine smile gently. “I knew you were one of the good boys.” She nodded, more to herself than to the others at the table. “Alright, I will help you! And when we rescue miss Liriel, I can finally give her…” She trailed off, looking at a crude little doll Jim hadn’t realized she was clutching in her hand. It was made of rough wool, with a green shirt and emerald button eyes. [From its head hung strands of yellow wool-hair.](https://imgur.com/a/k7dYiAG)
A memory of the crying Philine back in Hôdoburg flashed in his mind. She had clutched a doll back then as well, he remembered.
Philine shook off the burst of melancholy and smiled at Jim when she noticed his gaze. “I promised her I would do something about the times she was looking so sad. Dolls always make me smile and I thought… but back in Hôdoburg, with all that was going on, I… I didn’t think little doll Liri could make anyone smile at all, so I didn’t even try to give it to miss Liriel. But I don’t want to waste my next chance.”
The door behind the bar suddenly opened and the dwarven barkeeper walked out with a satisfied smile. She poured a tall pitcher of beer, grabbed some cups and carried it all over to the party.
She poured Despina, Jim and Ina a beer each and then herself. Then she drank deeply and sighed when she set her cup down. “Alright, my boy is sleeping now. Losing a nut really tuckered him out. We don’t have any priestesses here, but there’s a girl thinking about joining the church. She’s my son’s age, I’ll ask her to come around and clean up his sack in a bit, that should be good practice for when she becomes a priestess.”
“Clean up his sack?” Philine asked innocently.
The dwarf nodded. “It’s not good for boys to walk around with a sack half-full of mush, so that needs to be taken care of. I would do it myself, but he gets so shy around me with anything concerning his little marbles. It took me a week to find out when he got his first kick in the balls, he tried so hard to pretend like his sack wasn’t beaten black and blue! You’ve really put his nuts through the wringer, though, girl.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I… I didn’t know I broke one of his bubbles when I…” Philine said and seemed genuinely sorry.
“Don’t worry about it, your friend popped it. Had to, we couldn’t get the knot in his sack out otherwise. Now, you said you were looking for someone, right? Maybe I know them. Pointing you in the right direction is the least I can do for helping my boy.”
“Err, right…” If the pain in his nuts didn’t make him nauseous, hearing the woman talk so casually about her son’s half-castration definitely did. “We were looking for a legendary blacksmith called Tarja. It is said she knows how to forge moonsilver.”
The woman poured herself another drink and hummed. “That’s quite the thing to ask about. Moonsilver is valuable. What do you want from her? And who told you this is where you could find her?”
“No offence, but we don’t have to tell you that,” Ina said with a glance at the curious barkeeper.
“I see,” she said and lifted the cup to her mouth. All of a sudden, her wrist turned and she splashed the beer in Despina’s face. In one smooth motion, she threw the cup at Inacea, hitting her forehead spot on. With a small yell, it shattered against her and she jerked back, far enough that she and her chair toppled over. Meanwhile, the dwarf had kicked out the chair underneath Jim and he lay sprawling on the ground.
Still slowed down by the vestiges of her inebriation, Philine was slow to react. She eventually raised her fists above her head. They came barrelling down on the dwarf’s head – only for her to dodge them at the last moment.
Instead of the dwarf’s head, Philine delivered a hammer blow to the two large off-white gonads Despina had dropped on the table to shield her eyes. The two slimy ovals deformed to flat pancakes, trying not to break under the pressure. Then, Philine’s fists slipped off their centre due to the testicles’ various pits and dents, and the nuts were shot out from under the attack by the built-up ballcrushing energy. One struck the barkeeper right between the eyes, leaving a big splotch of seminal fluid on her face. The other gonad soared through the room, sailing through the air and landing in the large vat of pickled eggs. It was Jim’s left ball, the one with a hole poked through it.
“Gwuugh!” Jim helplessly writhed on the floor, watching half of his manhood drop to the ground and roll away. Despite his sack being entirely vacant, he clutched his groin out of reflex. His balls' slippery texture and the various wounds that had been kicked, punched and stabbed into his bruised testicles were ultimately what saved them from a premature end. Philine’s punch carried on, her fists smashing through the wooden table where his nuts had just been with ease.
“Ugh, wait!” Ina yelled.
Across from her, the dwarven woman had just got back to her feet and rubbed her cum-smeared forehead.
“Stop fighting! We were sent here by her sister Vivi! She said she’d help us!”
The barkeeper snarled back, “That could be anyone, that isn’t proof!”
"It wasn't me," Pearl decided to throw in.
“She almost popped Jim’s balls in front of everyone!” Despina suddenly sputtered, wiping the beer off her face.
“Almost?” the dwarf asked.
“My baaaalls!” Jim confirmed.
“Vivi fought this boy and then told you to come here and ask for Tarja?” she asked again, slowly calming down. Though she still eyed the group suspiciously, she seemed to be willing to hear them out now.
“Yes! They made us prove ourselves!” Ina said desperately. “She fought Jim in front of the whole settlement and almost… almost popped his, his funbag!”
“Sorry to say but if you don’t have any moonsilver, Tarja won’t be smithing anything,” the dwarf said and took a stained cloth to wipe away the semen from her face.
“We have some! Jim, show her!” Ina said, but he was too preoccupied by the pain in his nuts. “Seriously? Fine, I’ll go get it…” She stomped over to him and rummaged through his bag, finally producing the chastity cage.
“That is moonsilver indeed… Fine,” the dwarf said, sighing heavily. “It doesn’t seem like you are here to steal moonsilver or kidnap her. Come on then, I’ll bring you to her.”
Without another word, she stomped out of the taproom. The girls looked at each other in puzzled confusion, shrugged, and decided to follow her. Philine picked up Jim and stuck him under her arm, then trotted out of the pub.
Together, the five girls and Jim headed out of the little village and into the forest surrounding it, towards the looming mountains. They didn’t go far, following a tiny footpath that was almost invisible if they hadn’t been following the barkeeper.
Turning a corner, a small hut emerged from the crowding trees. One of its sides was entirely made of stone and a large chimney crowned its ridge.
The inside was dark, only the faint red light of dying embers lighting the side of the dwarf’s face.
“I apologize for my earlier outburst. I am Tarja, Vivi’s sister. What do you need such a weapon for?”
Ina hummed and Despina scoffed. Philine just straight up dropped Jim in shock. “You’re the woman my friends were looking for?!” she gasped.
“We need a moonsilver sword to wage war on hell,” Despina said.
“On hell…?” Tarja nodded thoughtfully. “I see. To fight against demons. Pardon my curiosity, but none of you strike me as someone trained to fight with a sword. If I’ve pegged you all correctly, you,” she said and pointed at Despina, “are a sorceress, while you two don’t strike me as having experience with a blade. Miss sack knotter here lugs a heavy flail around and you don’t seem like a fighter at all, freckles.” Ina averted her gaze when she was called out but didn’t deny it.
“Ac… tually, the sword is for m-me,” Jim’s squeaky voice came from under Philine’s arm.
For a few seconds, Tarja was silent. Then, slowly, she began laughing hard enough that her mohawk shook. “Pffhahaha, that’s a good one. Can you imagine?” Her laughter was broken up by little snorts but none of the others joined.
“Uhm, actually, he’s serious,” Ina said.
Tarja’s laughter died down. “You can’t be serious. He’s a boy.” They all stared at her blankly, unsure what to say. “Let me get this straight. You want me to forge a moonsilver sword for someone with balls so he can go to hell with it, the place where testicles have absolutely zero chance of ever coming back from.”
“I know it sounds bad when you say it like that,” Despina began but Tarja cut her off.
“He’s holding his weak little clackers right now because cow tits over there accidentally smacked them! A demon could defeat him just by flicking her finger against his stones! You’re asking me to forge this sword just so you can hand it over to demons!”
Jim patted Philine’s thigh and she obediently helped him up. Shakily, he stood up, staring defiantly at Tarja. “That won’t happen. I will go to hell and save Liri and nothing is going to stop me.”
The dwarf sighed. “Look, boy, it’s not about willpower or having heart or anything like that. It’s just that, down there, your most fragile parts are like a fire in a forest of moths…” She snatched the two white ovals out of Despina’s hand and slammed them down on an anvil next to her. From beside it, Tarja grabbed a heavy forge hammer.
“Let me make this easy to understand. Let’s say these eggs are your balls. This is what will happen to them in hell.”
“Wait, those are my actual-”
But it was already too late. Tarja swung her hammer and brought it down on the two squishy orbs – only for a sudden gust of wind to push them out of the way at the last moment. One of the gonads was caught by the edge of the hammer. It was the testicle with a hole in it. The heavy tool squished down a corner of the ball with a gristly cracking sound, the shell of the nut compromised by the hole and therefore not as flexible as its sibling. But the partial testicular collapse didn’t stop its momentum. It sailed after its sibling, landing somewhere on the ground in the back of the forge.
The first one of the group to make a sound was Pearl. "Ah. Travelling back will be much easier now, without those between his legs."
“AAAAaaaaaAAAAH!” Jim fell to the floor like a man possessed, convulsing while screaming so hard he started to foam at the mouth.
“Hey! What on Bythos-?”
Despina’s eyes flashed angrily at Tarja. “Foolish woman! You almost popped my bal- his balls! How long do you think I’ve been working them over and softening both them and him up, you’re not going to ruin this for me now!”
“I- what, but I thought- weren’t those just pickled eggs from-” the dwarf stammered.
Ina raised her hands placatingly. “Let’s all calm down, please, Despina, remember not everyone is used to seeing a pair outside a man’s sack, so there’s no need to-”
“Does anyone else smell something burning?” Philine asked while Jim still screamed in the background.
“My balls!” Despina yelled. “Quick, Ina!”
With a sigh, the auf flicked her wrist and the two fat nuts appeared in her hands – both were severely damaged. The gonad Tarja had struck seemed to have a wedge of nutmeat just below its epididymis crushed entirely flat, the hammer destroying the sliver of manhood it caught completely. A thick slurry of crushed nut oozed out of a little split where the shell of the testicle had burst open.
The other gonad wasn’t faring much better. It still smoked and smouldered, little embers glowing across one side of the nut. It was burnt red all over, seemingly halfway cooked.
“It must’ve landed in the forge,” Tarja muttered incredulously.
“No, no, no, give me those!” Despina yelled and grabbed the two nuts from Ina’s palms. She stuck the scorched nut into a vat of water, then pressed her thumb on the fissure of the other ball that was leaking its contents. With her free hand, she rummaged through her pockets until she produced a small rectangle that looked like a matchbook. “Grrr, you and your stupid donkey balls! If you had just let me pop them already, this wouldn’t be necessary!” she yelled at the howling Jim.
She picked out a small needle that was already threaded. She roughly pierced the testicle in her hand near the rupture and pulled the thread through with a small whisper from the filament. Jim twitched as he felt his testicle stabbed by the needle. It was far too thick for such a delicate operation, but Despina had no choice. Again and again, the princess clumsily stabbed the testicle, slowly sowing the rupture shut as Ina, Tarja and Philine watched.
As the redhead pulled the thread tight, squeezing the two sides of the split nut together and bit off the thread, Jim slipped into merciful unconsciousness.
---
“Brought you something!” Inacea said. She handed him a scabbard. The sword inside was simple but well-made. “It’s not moonsilver, but it's better than nothing, right? Tarja said it’s a gift to say sorry, for, well, you know… So, how are you feeling?” Inacea asked sympathetically.
He blushed and refused to look at her, but Jim knew she only meant well. “Alright, I suppose… well, if I’m being honest, I feel like death. Just sitting here I’m sweating and shaking, as if my balls are locked into a metal vice, getting stabbed over and over again while on fire. I think if Tarja hadn’t given me that liquor, I would have passed out by now. But thanks for your concern.” She hummed and sat down on the bench next to him, staring out into the darkening forest surrounding the smithy. The setting sun painted the sky in dramatic oranges and pinks. “Do you think… they’ll be alright?”
“Err, sure! Definitely!” This time it was the auf that refused to meet his gaze.
“Be honest,” he squeaked.
“Jim…” she started, looking for the right words. “One of your balls got burned *really* badly. It smelled exactly like when I served Minos eggs at the Faerie’s inn. Which are cooked minotaur testicles. And the other had a third of its contents pulped. Not to mention all the times you’ve been kicked, punched, kneed, slapped, stabbed or just fell on those big balls of yours. And that’s only the times I’ve been around, I’m sure that didn’t start when we met! I think Liriel or Despina once said something about a demon biting into your balls and chewing them? Even if we had a priestess here and she healed your nuts…” She huffed. “I doubt they’ll ever be more useful than to stop you from sitting on something hot or sharp. They are basically just lumps of nutpain. If you ask me, I think Tarja castrated you in all but name.”
His whine made Ina flinch and blush in shame. “Sorry, I could have worded that more sensitively. It’s not like I’m a priestess, you know! I mean, have you tried to see whether your di- ahem, your lance can still get hard?”
“I don’t know…”
“See, then there’s still hope!” She awkwardly patted his back. “And even if you just got gelded, that’s not the end of the world. I mean, just Despina and me must have popped like, what, twenty pairs of nuts by now? There are lots of men like you! Well, they aren’t really men any more now that we emasculated them, and they probably won’t ever get to have sex because their thingies are useless now, but they can still bring their girlfriends and wives lots of pleasure with their tongues and fingers. And they can still be fathers if their wives hire an adventurer to boink and cream inside them.”
For a moment, Jim wondered if Ina really meant that as something to look forward to. “It’s just… I feel like, without my… if they really got broken, that I failed somehow… that I’m not enough any more.”
Ina leaned back, staring into the sunset and sighed. “I may not have balls, thank the Goddess, but I know what that feels like at least…”
*I seriously doubt that*, he thought, but something told Jim that if he said that, Ina would personally render his sack permanently empty. Instead, he asked, “What do you mean?” and clutched his balls a little tighter, just in case.
“It’s just… I feel Tarja is right. I’m not a fighter, with swords or otherwise. Now that it has been some weeks since we fought Raum and Lilith, I feel like…” She sighed again. “I’m not sure if I’m cut out for all of this.”
“But we need you! We’re going to rescue Liri and Aramis!”
“Yes, but…”
“Don’t you want to get them out of there, out of Lilith’s clutches?”
“Of course I do! I want nothing more than to go back to how things were, but I’m not strong enough!” Calmer, she added, “I want to help them, I really do, but when I think of going back into something like that place beneath Hôdoburg… fighting for my life, seeing people die… I can’t do it, Jim.” She pulled her legs onto the bench and hugged her knees. “I almost died down there. It was just simple, stupid luck that Zenobia went up and was killed instead of me. That’s all it was. Luck.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, how to make her understand that she was needed, that he was counting on her strength as well. So they sat there together in sullen silence, watching the day end and the night begin.
Bit by bit, the forest came alive. At first, the squawking of birds faded away, creating an eerie silence as if nature was holding its breath. Then, one by one, fireflies blinked into existence, dancing in the dark and turning the dark greens and browns of the forest into a sea of yellow lights.
As the cries of the nocturnal residents of the forest started to ring out, Ina stood up. “I know you won’t stop chasing after her… heck, I don’t want you to. But I can’t follow you down that path. At least, not in the way you want me to…” She trailed off and slowly walked back to Tarja’s inn. Jim couldn’t bring himself to ask her what she meant.
Pearl greeted Ina at the door, holding a salt lick and sweeping her tongue across it as if it were a lollipop.
*I won’t stop trying to save Liri, she definitely got that right. Goddess, I hope I still can… Ennoa, what the hell did you mean when you said the pieces are all there? Can I still save her even if I broke my balls? Doesn’t that blemish Norea’s creation, or something like that?*
Deep in thought, he didn’t hear Despina and Philine approach. When they plopped down onto the bench beside him, he was pulled from his thoughts with a start.
“Hello, mister Jim!” Philine said brightly.
“We’ve been thinking.”
“Despina,” Jim began and sounded very tired, “I’m really not in the mood for you to try and convince me to sign over my balls to you and frankly, I think you’re being a bit insensitive right now.”
“Hear me out! That’s why I brought Philine with me, she thinks it’s a good idea as well. So, the problem right now is that Tarja doesn’t want to make the sword for you because once you go to hell, demons will come and kick your nuts up into your throat and the sword won’t matter at all, right?” Philine eagerly nodded for him. “Therefore, the logical course of action would be to remove your balls! No more giant weaknesses dangling between your legs, Tarja gives you the sword and we go and kick Lilith’s butt. Wait, where are you going?”
He stood up and silently walked towards the forest, despite each step feeling like lighting hit his groin. Despina and Philine stood up and hurried after him.
“Wait, I still haven’t given you my 27 reasons why I think you should let me kick you for an hour before I break one in my hand and the other beneath my toes! We can finish by twisting your nutsack off with my magic! I’ve made a list! Jim? Jim!”
He was running now, just trying to get away from the emasculating princess. Fireflies scattered around him in a panic as he ran through their midst. Leaves smacked against his face, sticks scratched at him but he did not notice them. Two broken moons hung like an omen in the sky, lighting the way for him.
*Why is all of this happening to me? It’s not fair! I just want to live a nice, quiet life with the girl I like and not being chased by demons or princesses! But mostly, I want my balls to stop hurting so much!*
Wallowing in self-pity, he almost didn’t see the strange circle on the ground. [Only at the last second did he notice the bright red mushrooms dotted with white spots growing in a perfect circle.](https://imgur.com/a/SEYuguL)
He stopped mere millimetres from the ring of mushrooms. They seemed so out of place in this climate. And why were they growing in this strange circle? It seemed unnatural.
The strange ring of fungus gave him an eerie feeling, and Jim hesitantly backed a step away from it.
“There he is! Stop him, Philine!”
He turned in surprise, as if he had snapped out of some sort of daze or dream. Jim started to open his mouth, but that was when Philine’s knee crashed into his groin.
His injured testicles cried out in pain and he would have done the same if he wasn’t being busy being lifted off his feet by the knee in his balls.
*~crack~*
It was too much for the broken and stitched up testicle. Now that he had experienced it twice, he could *tell* how strange it felt for his gonad to lose the fight against a woman’s knee. His testicle was squeezed and pushed, deforming as much as it could. But when it reached the end of its flexibility, and Philine’s knee still insisted on pushing further, something ripped and suddenly, the shape of his ball was very different.
But Philine and Despina had been running hard to catch up with him, so besides her knee, the rest of Philine’s body crashed into him as he was lifted off the ground.
Despina intentionally flung herself at him in a tackle that would’ve made a rugby player proud. Together, Philine’s knee buried in his groin and her breasts squished against his chest while Despina hugged them, they fell into the strange circle of mushrooms and vanished.
The cries of nearby animals returned now that the intruders on their turf were gone. A firefly danced in the air, alight in hopes of attracting a mate.
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*Can’t think of much to say this week to be honest. Uh… I hope I didn't forget anything? Had to go back and adda few things into this chapter. Other than that... wow, what a weather we’re having! All that snow/rain/sunshine, and boy is it warm/cold/mild.*
*[A guide to the world of Bythos!](https://imgur.com/a/poZLPkK)*
Jim gently rested his hand on Philine’s arm, a bit on edge since Pearl had spent the better part of an hour pulling and pushing and poking at his scrotum. Instead of just the testicles, Ina had teleported away the entire nutsack and handed it to the deer girl to play with. When she eventually gave up, frustrated by this ‘game’, Ina had teleported out the testicles so she could unwind the knot in his sack. Of course, that meant his balls were now lying on the table, where Pearl rolled them around like marbles. It would have been almost gentle if the wood of the table wasn’t so rough and bumpy, splintered in many places.
Despina’s hungry gaze was transfixed by the swollen, pitted balls rolling from one of Pearl’s hands to the other, an observation that made Jim rather nervous. But that wasn’t important right now – it had nearly rent his heart in two when he had to leave the crying paladin behind in Hôdoburg, he needed to be there for his friend now.
“Do you think you can talk about it now? Why you quit the Valesian order?” he said, patting the back of her hand.
Philine nodded, though she still sniffled occasionally. “When they said you had… ended the maiden of light, I was sure you wouldn’t do that, so I tried to get you to come to the order with me. When you all left me…” A choked whimper came from the busty girl.
Despina reached over the table and patted her on the shoulder. The former paladin had switched the white tabard Jim had always seen her in for a plain beige shirt that was a bit too short, leaving the soft curves around her navel uncovered. “There, there. Take your time.” As she leaned back, Jim suddenly felt a hand close around his testicles.
He stared at the redhead in a mix of indignation and apprehension. For a split second, her pitying mien turned to a smug smirk, then her sympathetic act was back as quickly as it had vanished. Pearl meanwhile didn’t seem to mind the princess taking away her toys.
“… I spoke with the Mother Superior. She came to visit me and I thought she was only there to punish me for not stopping you.” Jim gasped but Philine shook her head. “That’s not what made me quit. I was kind of, well, used to that. I was always a bit clumsy as a novice and she has had to chastise me many times. But what she said after… it made me not want to be anywhere near her or the other paladins ever again.”
“Were you at odds with the order’s treatment of men?” Pearl asked. The deer girl peered up at Philine, opting to sit by her feet on the ground now.
“No, the order’s doctrine is the same as it ever was. If a boy is being bad, you hit his milkbag until he starts being good again.”
“Smart,” Despina commented. Jim felt one of her nails drag along the outside of his testicles.
“Then what happened?” Ina asked.
“The Mother Superior said I would be part of a squad of paladins. Since I knew you all, I would be leading them towards you. And our orders were to… murder everyone except Jim…” Her eyes shimmered wetly as she stared at him. “And to bring you back to Valesia monastery, the order’s headquarters. We were told we could remove your limbs if we had to, as long as we didn’t cut off or break your milkbag.”
“That sounds a lot like Malphas when she ordered Leonia to attack us…” Despina said, and absent-mindedly squeezed Jim’s nuts.
“Come to think of it, Raum had you by the balls as well, she could have popped you any time. But she didn’t, and I doubt she lacked the strength,” Ina said. “Remember when she broke your sword?”
“Guh…” Jim’s head hit the table.
“Why bring him back to the order’s headquarters?” Pearl asked. “Wouldn’t the nearest cloister be good enough?”
“Maybe there’s something there…” Jim muttered.
“At that moment, I began to believe what you all were telling me,” Philine said and rubbed her reddened eyes. “They are involved in it all, or at least the higher-ups are. I ran away and tried to find you all, but I had no idea where to look! There seemed to have been some big fight because a lot of city guards were suddenly replaced with women and most men that remained seemed to be missing half the contents of their coin purse but no one knew anything specific. And so I kept wandering and looking for you…”
[The doe-eyed girl suddenly thrust herself forward, hugging Despina tightly.](https://imgur.com/a/WiCBExZ) Both her and Jim groaned in pain as Philine crushed both the girl and the testicles she was holding with the mountainous breasts she possessed.
They hugged it out for a full five minutes before Philine calmed down again. She seemed much more composed now, and while her eyes were still red and her cheeks still wet, she wore a defiant smile.
“But that’s in the past now. I feel much better now, thank you, mister Jim! So, what happened to you? Where is miss Liriel and mister Aramis?”
Immediately, the cautiously optimistic mood turned sour again and even Despina stopped playing with the set of disembodied nuts in her hand, her little finger lodged inside the hole in Jim’s left testicle.
“Ah, right, we have a lot to tell…” Ina began. “You might want to sit down for this…”
Together, they told her everything that had happened. Cillia’s invasion. The fight with Raum and the nobles beneath Hôdoburg. Zenobia’s death. How it had all been a trap by Raum and Lilith to get Jim. And how Liriel had unexpectedly switched sides when becoming the maiden of darkness, taking Aramis with her.
“No…” Philine gasped, distraught and nervously tugging on the front of her shirt. “Liri, Ari and this miss Zenobia gone… and your family dead or taken captive as well, lady Coglione…”
“Ari?” Jim asked before a finger wiggling *inside* his testicle forced his head to the table again.
“Thank you for your sympathy, but please, call me Despina,” the redhead offered graciously.
“We came here to find a special blacksmith, one who is able to forge moonsilver. We think it might help us when…” Ina said but hesitated. She stared at the rough wood of the table, hesitant to speak of the goal of their journey.
“… we go to hell and rescue Liri,” Jim finished for her through gritted teeth.
That made Philine smile gently. “I knew you were one of the good boys.” She nodded, more to herself than to the others at the table. “Alright, I will help you! And when we rescue miss Liriel, I can finally give her…” She trailed off, looking at a crude little doll Jim hadn’t realized she was clutching in her hand. It was made of rough wool, with a green shirt and emerald button eyes. [From its head hung strands of yellow wool-hair.](https://imgur.com/a/k7dYiAG)
A memory of the crying Philine back in Hôdoburg flashed in his mind. She had clutched a doll back then as well, he remembered.
Philine shook off the burst of melancholy and smiled at Jim when she noticed his gaze. “I promised her I would do something about the times she was looking so sad. Dolls always make me smile and I thought… but back in Hôdoburg, with all that was going on, I… I didn’t think little doll Liri could make anyone smile at all, so I didn’t even try to give it to miss Liriel. But I don’t want to waste my next chance.”
The door behind the bar suddenly opened and the dwarven barkeeper walked out with a satisfied smile. She poured a tall pitcher of beer, grabbed some cups and carried it all over to the party.
She poured Despina, Jim and Ina a beer each and then herself. Then she drank deeply and sighed when she set her cup down. “Alright, my boy is sleeping now. Losing a nut really tuckered him out. We don’t have any priestesses here, but there’s a girl thinking about joining the church. She’s my son’s age, I’ll ask her to come around and clean up his sack in a bit, that should be good practice for when she becomes a priestess.”
“Clean up his sack?” Philine asked innocently.
The dwarf nodded. “It’s not good for boys to walk around with a sack half-full of mush, so that needs to be taken care of. I would do it myself, but he gets so shy around me with anything concerning his little marbles. It took me a week to find out when he got his first kick in the balls, he tried so hard to pretend like his sack wasn’t beaten black and blue! You’ve really put his nuts through the wringer, though, girl.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I… I didn’t know I broke one of his bubbles when I…” Philine said and seemed genuinely sorry.
“Don’t worry about it, your friend popped it. Had to, we couldn’t get the knot in his sack out otherwise. Now, you said you were looking for someone, right? Maybe I know them. Pointing you in the right direction is the least I can do for helping my boy.”
“Err, right…” If the pain in his nuts didn’t make him nauseous, hearing the woman talk so casually about her son’s half-castration definitely did. “We were looking for a legendary blacksmith called Tarja. It is said she knows how to forge moonsilver.”
The woman poured herself another drink and hummed. “That’s quite the thing to ask about. Moonsilver is valuable. What do you want from her? And who told you this is where you could find her?”
“No offence, but we don’t have to tell you that,” Ina said with a glance at the curious barkeeper.
“I see,” she said and lifted the cup to her mouth. All of a sudden, her wrist turned and she splashed the beer in Despina’s face. In one smooth motion, she threw the cup at Inacea, hitting her forehead spot on. With a small yell, it shattered against her and she jerked back, far enough that she and her chair toppled over. Meanwhile, the dwarf had kicked out the chair underneath Jim and he lay sprawling on the ground.
Still slowed down by the vestiges of her inebriation, Philine was slow to react. She eventually raised her fists above her head. They came barrelling down on the dwarf’s head – only for her to dodge them at the last moment.
Instead of the dwarf’s head, Philine delivered a hammer blow to the two large off-white gonads Despina had dropped on the table to shield her eyes. The two slimy ovals deformed to flat pancakes, trying not to break under the pressure. Then, Philine’s fists slipped off their centre due to the testicles’ various pits and dents, and the nuts were shot out from under the attack by the built-up ballcrushing energy. One struck the barkeeper right between the eyes, leaving a big splotch of seminal fluid on her face. The other gonad soared through the room, sailing through the air and landing in the large vat of pickled eggs. It was Jim’s left ball, the one with a hole poked through it.
“Gwuugh!” Jim helplessly writhed on the floor, watching half of his manhood drop to the ground and roll away. Despite his sack being entirely vacant, he clutched his groin out of reflex. His balls' slippery texture and the various wounds that had been kicked, punched and stabbed into his bruised testicles were ultimately what saved them from a premature end. Philine’s punch carried on, her fists smashing through the wooden table where his nuts had just been with ease.
“Ugh, wait!” Ina yelled.
Across from her, the dwarven woman had just got back to her feet and rubbed her cum-smeared forehead.
“Stop fighting! We were sent here by her sister Vivi! She said she’d help us!”
The barkeeper snarled back, “That could be anyone, that isn’t proof!”
"It wasn't me," Pearl decided to throw in.
“She almost popped Jim’s balls in front of everyone!” Despina suddenly sputtered, wiping the beer off her face.
“Almost?” the dwarf asked.
“My baaaalls!” Jim confirmed.
“Vivi fought this boy and then told you to come here and ask for Tarja?” she asked again, slowly calming down. Though she still eyed the group suspiciously, she seemed to be willing to hear them out now.
“Yes! They made us prove ourselves!” Ina said desperately. “She fought Jim in front of the whole settlement and almost… almost popped his, his funbag!”
“Sorry to say but if you don’t have any moonsilver, Tarja won’t be smithing anything,” the dwarf said and took a stained cloth to wipe away the semen from her face.
“We have some! Jim, show her!” Ina said, but he was too preoccupied by the pain in his nuts. “Seriously? Fine, I’ll go get it…” She stomped over to him and rummaged through his bag, finally producing the chastity cage.
“That is moonsilver indeed… Fine,” the dwarf said, sighing heavily. “It doesn’t seem like you are here to steal moonsilver or kidnap her. Come on then, I’ll bring you to her.”
Without another word, she stomped out of the taproom. The girls looked at each other in puzzled confusion, shrugged, and decided to follow her. Philine picked up Jim and stuck him under her arm, then trotted out of the pub.
Together, the five girls and Jim headed out of the little village and into the forest surrounding it, towards the looming mountains. They didn’t go far, following a tiny footpath that was almost invisible if they hadn’t been following the barkeeper.
Turning a corner, a small hut emerged from the crowding trees. One of its sides was entirely made of stone and a large chimney crowned its ridge.
The inside was dark, only the faint red light of dying embers lighting the side of the dwarf’s face.
“I apologize for my earlier outburst. I am Tarja, Vivi’s sister. What do you need such a weapon for?”
Ina hummed and Despina scoffed. Philine just straight up dropped Jim in shock. “You’re the woman my friends were looking for?!” she gasped.
“We need a moonsilver sword to wage war on hell,” Despina said.
“On hell…?” Tarja nodded thoughtfully. “I see. To fight against demons. Pardon my curiosity, but none of you strike me as someone trained to fight with a sword. If I’ve pegged you all correctly, you,” she said and pointed at Despina, “are a sorceress, while you two don’t strike me as having experience with a blade. Miss sack knotter here lugs a heavy flail around and you don’t seem like a fighter at all, freckles.” Ina averted her gaze when she was called out but didn’t deny it.
“Ac… tually, the sword is for m-me,” Jim’s squeaky voice came from under Philine’s arm.
For a few seconds, Tarja was silent. Then, slowly, she began laughing hard enough that her mohawk shook. “Pffhahaha, that’s a good one. Can you imagine?” Her laughter was broken up by little snorts but none of the others joined.
“Uhm, actually, he’s serious,” Ina said.
Tarja’s laughter died down. “You can’t be serious. He’s a boy.” They all stared at her blankly, unsure what to say. “Let me get this straight. You want me to forge a moonsilver sword for someone with balls so he can go to hell with it, the place where testicles have absolutely zero chance of ever coming back from.”
“I know it sounds bad when you say it like that,” Despina began but Tarja cut her off.
“He’s holding his weak little clackers right now because cow tits over there accidentally smacked them! A demon could defeat him just by flicking her finger against his stones! You’re asking me to forge this sword just so you can hand it over to demons!”
Jim patted Philine’s thigh and she obediently helped him up. Shakily, he stood up, staring defiantly at Tarja. “That won’t happen. I will go to hell and save Liri and nothing is going to stop me.”
The dwarf sighed. “Look, boy, it’s not about willpower or having heart or anything like that. It’s just that, down there, your most fragile parts are like a fire in a forest of moths…” She snatched the two white ovals out of Despina’s hand and slammed them down on an anvil next to her. From beside it, Tarja grabbed a heavy forge hammer.
“Let me make this easy to understand. Let’s say these eggs are your balls. This is what will happen to them in hell.”
“Wait, those are my actual-”
But it was already too late. Tarja swung her hammer and brought it down on the two squishy orbs – only for a sudden gust of wind to push them out of the way at the last moment. One of the gonads was caught by the edge of the hammer. It was the testicle with a hole in it. The heavy tool squished down a corner of the ball with a gristly cracking sound, the shell of the nut compromised by the hole and therefore not as flexible as its sibling. But the partial testicular collapse didn’t stop its momentum. It sailed after its sibling, landing somewhere on the ground in the back of the forge.
The first one of the group to make a sound was Pearl. "Ah. Travelling back will be much easier now, without those between his legs."
“AAAAaaaaaAAAAH!” Jim fell to the floor like a man possessed, convulsing while screaming so hard he started to foam at the mouth.
“Hey! What on Bythos-?”
Despina’s eyes flashed angrily at Tarja. “Foolish woman! You almost popped my bal- his balls! How long do you think I’ve been working them over and softening both them and him up, you’re not going to ruin this for me now!”
“I- what, but I thought- weren’t those just pickled eggs from-” the dwarf stammered.
Ina raised her hands placatingly. “Let’s all calm down, please, Despina, remember not everyone is used to seeing a pair outside a man’s sack, so there’s no need to-”
“Does anyone else smell something burning?” Philine asked while Jim still screamed in the background.
“My balls!” Despina yelled. “Quick, Ina!”
With a sigh, the auf flicked her wrist and the two fat nuts appeared in her hands – both were severely damaged. The gonad Tarja had struck seemed to have a wedge of nutmeat just below its epididymis crushed entirely flat, the hammer destroying the sliver of manhood it caught completely. A thick slurry of crushed nut oozed out of a little split where the shell of the testicle had burst open.
The other gonad wasn’t faring much better. It still smoked and smouldered, little embers glowing across one side of the nut. It was burnt red all over, seemingly halfway cooked.
“It must’ve landed in the forge,” Tarja muttered incredulously.
“No, no, no, give me those!” Despina yelled and grabbed the two nuts from Ina’s palms. She stuck the scorched nut into a vat of water, then pressed her thumb on the fissure of the other ball that was leaking its contents. With her free hand, she rummaged through her pockets until she produced a small rectangle that looked like a matchbook. “Grrr, you and your stupid donkey balls! If you had just let me pop them already, this wouldn’t be necessary!” she yelled at the howling Jim.
She picked out a small needle that was already threaded. She roughly pierced the testicle in her hand near the rupture and pulled the thread through with a small whisper from the filament. Jim twitched as he felt his testicle stabbed by the needle. It was far too thick for such a delicate operation, but Despina had no choice. Again and again, the princess clumsily stabbed the testicle, slowly sowing the rupture shut as Ina, Tarja and Philine watched.
As the redhead pulled the thread tight, squeezing the two sides of the split nut together and bit off the thread, Jim slipped into merciful unconsciousness.
---
“Brought you something!” Inacea said. She handed him a scabbard. The sword inside was simple but well-made. “It’s not moonsilver, but it's better than nothing, right? Tarja said it’s a gift to say sorry, for, well, you know… So, how are you feeling?” Inacea asked sympathetically.
He blushed and refused to look at her, but Jim knew she only meant well. “Alright, I suppose… well, if I’m being honest, I feel like death. Just sitting here I’m sweating and shaking, as if my balls are locked into a metal vice, getting stabbed over and over again while on fire. I think if Tarja hadn’t given me that liquor, I would have passed out by now. But thanks for your concern.” She hummed and sat down on the bench next to him, staring out into the darkening forest surrounding the smithy. The setting sun painted the sky in dramatic oranges and pinks. “Do you think… they’ll be alright?”
“Err, sure! Definitely!” This time it was the auf that refused to meet his gaze.
“Be honest,” he squeaked.
“Jim…” she started, looking for the right words. “One of your balls got burned *really* badly. It smelled exactly like when I served Minos eggs at the Faerie’s inn. Which are cooked minotaur testicles. And the other had a third of its contents pulped. Not to mention all the times you’ve been kicked, punched, kneed, slapped, stabbed or just fell on those big balls of yours. And that’s only the times I’ve been around, I’m sure that didn’t start when we met! I think Liriel or Despina once said something about a demon biting into your balls and chewing them? Even if we had a priestess here and she healed your nuts…” She huffed. “I doubt they’ll ever be more useful than to stop you from sitting on something hot or sharp. They are basically just lumps of nutpain. If you ask me, I think Tarja castrated you in all but name.”
His whine made Ina flinch and blush in shame. “Sorry, I could have worded that more sensitively. It’s not like I’m a priestess, you know! I mean, have you tried to see whether your di- ahem, your lance can still get hard?”
“I don’t know…”
“See, then there’s still hope!” She awkwardly patted his back. “And even if you just got gelded, that’s not the end of the world. I mean, just Despina and me must have popped like, what, twenty pairs of nuts by now? There are lots of men like you! Well, they aren’t really men any more now that we emasculated them, and they probably won’t ever get to have sex because their thingies are useless now, but they can still bring their girlfriends and wives lots of pleasure with their tongues and fingers. And they can still be fathers if their wives hire an adventurer to boink and cream inside them.”
For a moment, Jim wondered if Ina really meant that as something to look forward to. “It’s just… I feel like, without my… if they really got broken, that I failed somehow… that I’m not enough any more.”
Ina leaned back, staring into the sunset and sighed. “I may not have balls, thank the Goddess, but I know what that feels like at least…”
*I seriously doubt that*, he thought, but something told Jim that if he said that, Ina would personally render his sack permanently empty. Instead, he asked, “What do you mean?” and clutched his balls a little tighter, just in case.
“It’s just… I feel Tarja is right. I’m not a fighter, with swords or otherwise. Now that it has been some weeks since we fought Raum and Lilith, I feel like…” She sighed again. “I’m not sure if I’m cut out for all of this.”
“But we need you! We’re going to rescue Liri and Aramis!”
“Yes, but…”
“Don’t you want to get them out of there, out of Lilith’s clutches?”
“Of course I do! I want nothing more than to go back to how things were, but I’m not strong enough!” Calmer, she added, “I want to help them, I really do, but when I think of going back into something like that place beneath Hôdoburg… fighting for my life, seeing people die… I can’t do it, Jim.” She pulled her legs onto the bench and hugged her knees. “I almost died down there. It was just simple, stupid luck that Zenobia went up and was killed instead of me. That’s all it was. Luck.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, how to make her understand that she was needed, that he was counting on her strength as well. So they sat there together in sullen silence, watching the day end and the night begin.
Bit by bit, the forest came alive. At first, the squawking of birds faded away, creating an eerie silence as if nature was holding its breath. Then, one by one, fireflies blinked into existence, dancing in the dark and turning the dark greens and browns of the forest into a sea of yellow lights.
As the cries of the nocturnal residents of the forest started to ring out, Ina stood up. “I know you won’t stop chasing after her… heck, I don’t want you to. But I can’t follow you down that path. At least, not in the way you want me to…” She trailed off and slowly walked back to Tarja’s inn. Jim couldn’t bring himself to ask her what she meant.
Pearl greeted Ina at the door, holding a salt lick and sweeping her tongue across it as if it were a lollipop.
*I won’t stop trying to save Liri, she definitely got that right. Goddess, I hope I still can… Ennoa, what the hell did you mean when you said the pieces are all there? Can I still save her even if I broke my balls? Doesn’t that blemish Norea’s creation, or something like that?*
Deep in thought, he didn’t hear Despina and Philine approach. When they plopped down onto the bench beside him, he was pulled from his thoughts with a start.
“Hello, mister Jim!” Philine said brightly.
“We’ve been thinking.”
“Despina,” Jim began and sounded very tired, “I’m really not in the mood for you to try and convince me to sign over my balls to you and frankly, I think you’re being a bit insensitive right now.”
“Hear me out! That’s why I brought Philine with me, she thinks it’s a good idea as well. So, the problem right now is that Tarja doesn’t want to make the sword for you because once you go to hell, demons will come and kick your nuts up into your throat and the sword won’t matter at all, right?” Philine eagerly nodded for him. “Therefore, the logical course of action would be to remove your balls! No more giant weaknesses dangling between your legs, Tarja gives you the sword and we go and kick Lilith’s butt. Wait, where are you going?”
He stood up and silently walked towards the forest, despite each step feeling like lighting hit his groin. Despina and Philine stood up and hurried after him.
“Wait, I still haven’t given you my 27 reasons why I think you should let me kick you for an hour before I break one in my hand and the other beneath my toes! We can finish by twisting your nutsack off with my magic! I’ve made a list! Jim? Jim!”
He was running now, just trying to get away from the emasculating princess. Fireflies scattered around him in a panic as he ran through their midst. Leaves smacked against his face, sticks scratched at him but he did not notice them. Two broken moons hung like an omen in the sky, lighting the way for him.
*Why is all of this happening to me? It’s not fair! I just want to live a nice, quiet life with the girl I like and not being chased by demons or princesses! But mostly, I want my balls to stop hurting so much!*
Wallowing in self-pity, he almost didn’t see the strange circle on the ground. [Only at the last second did he notice the bright red mushrooms dotted with white spots growing in a perfect circle.](https://imgur.com/a/SEYuguL)
He stopped mere millimetres from the ring of mushrooms. They seemed so out of place in this climate. And why were they growing in this strange circle? It seemed unnatural.
The strange ring of fungus gave him an eerie feeling, and Jim hesitantly backed a step away from it.
“There he is! Stop him, Philine!”
He turned in surprise, as if he had snapped out of some sort of daze or dream. Jim started to open his mouth, but that was when Philine’s knee crashed into his groin.
His injured testicles cried out in pain and he would have done the same if he wasn’t being busy being lifted off his feet by the knee in his balls.
*~crack~*
It was too much for the broken and stitched up testicle. Now that he had experienced it twice, he could *tell* how strange it felt for his gonad to lose the fight against a woman’s knee. His testicle was squeezed and pushed, deforming as much as it could. But when it reached the end of its flexibility, and Philine’s knee still insisted on pushing further, something ripped and suddenly, the shape of his ball was very different.
But Philine and Despina had been running hard to catch up with him, so besides her knee, the rest of Philine’s body crashed into him as he was lifted off the ground.
Despina intentionally flung herself at him in a tackle that would’ve made a rugby player proud. Together, Philine’s knee buried in his groin and her breasts squished against his chest while Despina hugged them, they fell into the strange circle of mushrooms and vanished.
The cries of nearby animals returned now that the intruders on their turf were gone. A firefly danced in the air, alight in hopes of attracting a mate.
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*Can’t think of much to say this week to be honest. Uh… I hope I didn't forget anything? Had to go back and adda few things into this chapter. Other than that... wow, what a weather we’re having! All that snow/rain/sunshine, and boy is it warm/cold/mild.*
