Enigma of Sin

Rowen also asked Kinzie to come to the back room to explain the situation to her as well in order to see if she was willing to participate. 

"Let me get this straight, you want me to put a slave collar on Kayn and he will put a slave collar on me all so that we can use your technique and gain a high resistance or immunity to slave collars more or less?" Kinzie asked as she understood the gist of the situation.

"Yes, but this can also function as a trust building exercise for your relationship with Kayn as people can change when they know they have power over the other. Assuming things go as I expect, you two will probably trust each other much, much more once all is said and done."

At first Kinzie was skeptical about the whole thing, but once she heard this part of the explanation, inwardly she was beaming with excitement. Rowen could only shake his head as he knew exactly what his granddaughter was thinking.

Kayn on the other hand had remained quiet this entire time. He originally wanted to do this process with his mother as his controller, but he never found the chance to ask her with Lara being born, then everything went to shit.

He didn't trust anyone else he had met up until now enough to try this out but he decided that asking Rowen wouldn't be a bad idea as he could trust the old man to a certain extent. Not to mention he was going to fully explain the situation to Kinzie, and if Rowen forced Kayn to do something out of character, he knew that she would kick Rowen's ass for it.

Little did he expect that Rowen would suggest he and Kinzie should enslave each other in order to kill two birds with one stone, build their relationship and gain immunity to slave collars. He had thought about having Kinzie do it as well, but he didn't think she would be willing, never did he imagine that he would be doing the same thing to her.

"Hehe, hey Kayn. After this I'll belong to you." Kinzie giggled as she joked with Kayn, but her joke fell a little flat for Kayn. He knew she was just trying to be playful about it, but this was a serious topic, and he needed this for his future plans.

"No, Kinz. It'll be the same as it has been. The only times we will be commanding something of the other is during our training sessions to work on your grandfather's technique. While we will be wearing the collars every minute of every day, the time outside of our sessions will be working on trying to infiltrate the mechanisms of the enslavement spell with our own mana in order to overwrite it. According to Rowen's notes, this is going to be a lot of work, so I'm counting on you to help push me and I'll help push you."

Kayn's serious tone brought Kinzie back down to earth, realizing how important this actually was. She had read the articles about slave rings kidnapping more and more people in recent years but assumed it would never happen to her.

He had once told her to never say never, as things happen sometimes that are out of your control, or mistakes can be made. No one is perfect, one slip-up could lead to the worst experience of your life.

Once Kayn felt that Kinzie understood the gravity of what they were doing and that he would have full control over her actions if he willed it, she finally became serious about the whole thing. "Put it on me first."

Kinzie was adamant about going first as she wanted to feel what was happening to her body before she placed anything on Kayn. She knew that he had several traumatic experiences, and if the activation of the slave collar triggered any of these, she knew things could get messy.

He had never fully explained what happened when he saved her, but she knew there was something inside of him that was ruthless and brutal.

Kayn then looked over to Rowen who handed him a collar and a small marble that was currently clear like glass.

"Inject your mana into the marble and then touch the marble to the collar's gemstone. Once both glow with a green light, lock the collar in place around Kinzie's neck. Once locked the collar's gemstone will change to a black color to match the collar. The control marble will turn red when the process is starting and black when the enslavement is complete." Rowen stated as she showed a hint of nervousness.

He was putting the life of his precious granddaughter into this man's hands willingly. He trusted the young man, but it still made him uncomfortable.

Everything happened exactly as Rowen described and once Kinzie observed the marble in Kayn's hand become black, she became a little confused. "Um, Grandpa I don't feel anything different. Are you sure it's working?"

Rowen just gave Kayn a knowing look to make Kayn test it out, "Pick your nose."

Kayn had to have Kinzie do something she normally would never do in front of either of them, so this was the easiest option. Kinzie's expression turned horrified as her hand slowly raised and her finger entered into her nostril, digging around for gold.

"You can stop." Kayn said before asking what was on his mind, "It appears its working, what did it feel like? A compulsion or did your body just do it even though your mind was saying otherwise?"

Kinzie remained stupefied in place for a couple of moments before flicking away the "gold" she had dug out and wiped her finger on a cloth nearby.

"It's more like I'm a passenger in my own body. It starts out as a compulsion, but once I tried to keep myself from doing it, it just happened anyway and I had no control over my movements. Honestly, it feels horrible, this is going to be very difficult…" 

Kinzie mumbled towards the end, visibly becoming downcast as the challenge in front of her was going to be much more difficult than she anticipated.

"You don't have to do this Kinzie. It's just the wish of this old man that you are safe and have trump cards in case things get bad." Rowen stated as he embraced Kinzie in a tight hug, knowing exactly how she was feeling.

A look of determination spread across her face though and she steeled her nerves. "No, I'll do this. With Kayn being my partner through it all, I promise that I will fulfill your wishes Grandpa."

Rowen then turned to give Kayn a stern look, "Don't you dare give that marble away or lose it. Destroy it if anything else, that will release Kinzie from the collar. The only reason we couldn't do that back at the slaver camp was because they always send the control beacons ahead of the slaves in case of a rebellion.

"Not to mention they were of a different style where anyone giving them a command can force the action on them. With these two collars, only the one who imprinted the beacon can control them."

This provided both Kayn and Kinzie with a bit of relief as that was actually what Kayn was most worried about. He remembered being able to give commands to the slaves and they would follow them, and he really didn't want to follow any and all things spoken to him in a commanding form.

It was now Kayn's turn, so Kinzie followed the same process as Kayn had just before her. However, on Kayn's end, a voice was saying things in his head and he knew this was the automated voice of the Wanderer's Villa.

[Detecting foreign energy harmful to the soul. Soul strength sufficient. Initializing purge of foreign influence…Purge complete.]

Kinize being completely unaware of what had happened quickly went to get her revenge for Kayn making her do something embarrassing. "Hop on one leg and squawk like a bird."

Kayn could only give her an embarrassed smile as he stood there doing nothing. "Hey! Why isn't it working Grandpa?"

But before Rowen could speak up, Kayn spoke for him, "It would appear I might need something stronger if you have it Gramps."

Hearing this, Rowen gave Kayn a good stare before disappearing into his workshop once more. He returned a little bit later with some materials and tools, but had a displeased look on his face.

"I have everything I need to make a more advanced collar except for a powerful core stone. It needs to be at least A-class to affect you would be my guess. For the two you had originally, I used my mana, but clearly my strength isn't sufficient for you. Unless you can get me a core stone of A-class or higher, I may not be able to help you.

"Not to mention, creating what I would is highly illegal, and I could get into a lot of trouble. I don't usually make collars, but I have studied them in depth enough to know how to create a very powerful one.

"Usually, one only enchants the collar, but for you, I would need to both enchant and inscribe on it to make it what is classified as an artifact, much like I did your mask. The core stone would be used to create the inscriptions that would facilitate the functioning of the collar."

Kayn stood in thought for a few moments before asking a question, "Does it matter what rune beast or elemental affinity the core stone comes from?"

Receiving no as an answer, it was Kayn's turn to disappear somewhere. When he returned, he was holding a blue stone about the size of his fist in his hand. "This is an S-class core stone from a Colossal King Squid. Will this work?"

Rowen's eyes widened in shock, just how did this kid pull out a treasure like that? There was no way he was the one who hunted it!

Clearing his throat, Rowen answered "Yes, it will do just fine. In fact, it might work better on you since fire is among your highest affinities, so the water elemental base will suppress you a bit, maybe…"

Rowen wasn't too sure on that last part though as Kayn had aptitudes for and could use every element. The thing he knew for sure was that this collar which he was about to make would get him into a whole lot of trouble if someone learned he made it.

While Kinzie was grumbling in displeasure, Rowen got to work, but stated it would take him a few hours, possibly even a day or two to complete it. Kayn walked over to Kinzie and disabled the collar on her neck before taking it back to her surprise.

"It wouldn't be fair to you if you had to start a day or two ahead of me, I'll put it back on when the one that works on me is finished." Kayn gave her a gentle smile and kissed her forehead to try and ease her frustration.

…

The next few days passed with Kayn and Kinzie helping out around the shop since Rowen was busy. Time had already bled into the final week of Kayn's break, and he was hoping to be back working on ranking up within the Black Hand Society again, but this was more important in his opinion.

Finally, with only 7 days left in the week, Rowen approached Kayn looking haggard and tired. It appeared that he hadn't slept for the last few days and put all of his energy into completing the slave collar.

When the three of them arrived at the secluded back room, Rowen spoke. "I hate to admit it, but this is the best work I've done in my entire life, and it's a slave collar. It makes me ashamed, but if I have better materials, maybe I can craft something extraordinary that isn't a slave collar for once.

"Say kid, you wouldn't happen to have another S-class core on you that you could give me for helping you out like this would you?"

Kayn chuckled as he actually expected this. No slaver-hating enchanter would feel good about their best work being a slave collar, he wouldn't be surprised if Rowen even felt a bit disgusted with himself.

Thus, Kayn pulled out another core that he had taken from the treasure of his Villa left behind by Yvaris Earthborn. This one was an S-class wind attribute core from a Raptor Eagle. He handed it over to Rowen while patting him on the shoulder before taking the new and improved collar and beacon out of Rowen's hands.

Rowen became too engrossed with staring at the core and thinking about all the things he could potentially make with it to care about what was about to happen.

Kayn walked over to Kinzie and handed the items to her. "Same as last time, it's my turn to feel what you felt."

Kinzie silently nodded before injecting her mana into the marble that was a little larger than the previous one and touching it to the collar. She then clasped it around Kayn's neck, waiting for the lights to signal that the collar was functioning properly.

On Kayn's end, he heard the automated voice from the Villa as he had expected, only this time the result was what he was hoping for.

[Detecting foreign energy harmful to the soul. Soul strength insufficient. Cannot purge foreign influence. User must increase soul strength or build tolerance to the influence before it can be purged.]

Just as the voice finished speaking, Kayn caught the end of what Kinzie had said out loud, and before he could ask her to wait…

"Bawk bawk bawk" Kayn began to strut around, acting like a chicken.