The witch gives a dramatic sigh and sweeps her arm across the desk, shoving the book and scroll to the floor and scattering dust everywhere. "Oh, forget about it. I'll take care of it myself." Once again, she's staring blankly into space, as if she's intending to talk to herself, even with her new apprentice mere feet away from her. "Another time."
The witch turns her eyes onto Ty at last, and, without warning, they narrow into cruel slits, glaring at him with a hostility strong enough to make his skin crawl. "Off to cleaning duty with you, boy." She points with one long, delicate finger to a huge iron door at the far side of the room. "Pick up any rag you like. Oh, and a warning." She abruptly drops the hostility and instead runs her tongue along her lips, as if she's savoring the very thought. "Do be careful not to let anything touch your skin, hm? Toodle-loo."
With that, Ty does as he's told. He manages to scrounge up two rags that appear fairly clean- relative to everything else in this dank, cold dungeon, that is- and find the door a good bit lighter than he first expected. He enters the storage room and can't help but exhale an awed sigh.
Gold glitters in every corner and on every wall of the room. Goblets, plates, trophies, rings, necklaces. Fine, jewel-encrusted weapons and elaborate ballgowns. Nothing appears to have the slightest hint of wear-and-tear, let alone dust or staining. Rather, the room seems like a high-quality, well-protected vault, locking away the finest of heirlooms worthy of the greatest lords.
After a few minutes of amazed investigation, Ty gets to work. He's careful, as he was told to be, not to touch anything with his skin, but the task does prove somewhat difficult. Many of the goblets and plates are slippery when held between two rags, and he has a few close calls nearly dropping these artifacts to the floor, but he makes decent enough progress. He can't perceive any real difference between before and after, as everything in the vault seemed flawlessly clean even before he arrived, but he wasn't about to let laziness be the reason he landed in trouble. Not today, at least.
After an hour or so, polishing and cleaning became an entirely mindless task. Ty continues to work, but he finds himself free to ponder his current situation... a situation that demands pretty heavy decision-making. First is his immediate surroundings. He's relatively safe, at least. The witch is eccentric, and a bit wild, and he'll never forget the way she transformed into a wolfish monster right before his eyes... But, she's at least better than if he'd been taken with the wolves like Stella.
Ah, Stella. She's already long gone, right? She was transformed and taken nearly a full day earlier. God only knows what's happening to her now, but Ty doubts it's much fun. The memory of the wolves mounting his face, one after the other, ramming against his throat, forcing him to gag around them... Ty chokes a little at the memory, cringing hard. But then, in his robes, he feels his manhood grow a tiny bit hard. Maybe Stella will be alright if she leans into it.
And what about the others? Erica and Aaron likely tried to enter the castle some other way. Somehow, Ty isn't confident that they made it through and defeated the vampire lord as they planned. No...with a sinking feeling in his chest, he concluded that they must've been taken, imprisoned, or defeated in one way or another.
So he needs to make a choice for himself. Living with the witch isn't ideal, but escape is extremely high risk. Even if he could somehow slip out of the dungeons, he'd almost certainly be caught by the wolves, if not something worse. And even if he could get out of the forest, he'd be stranded, without supplies or weapons or any indication of where to go. If he stays, perhaps he can learn under the vampire, grow strong enough to escape another time. Perhaps staying is the safest choice...
Ty is still considering his options and polishing a golden goblet as he hears a scuttling off behind him. A cold pang of anxiety clenches in his chest and he freezes, too tense to even turn around and look at his new company. Before he does, a powerful scent rushes around him, almost leaving him bent over and coughing. It's a powerful musk, definitively male and uncomfortably bestial. While not wholly unpleasant after first sniff, the rawness of it does take Ty off guard at first.
He finally turns around. Standing at the entrance to the storage vault is a huge rat. Well, he's really a rat-man; he's anthropomorphic, standing at about five feet tall and with an overall relatively scrawny build. He's dressed like the stereotypical rogue, with leather straps over his shoulders and chest, and several daggers strapped against his left leg. Beneath those straps, his chest is bare, granting a fine look at the messy black fur covering his form. His face appears quite feral, with a tapered muzzle and prominent teeth, but he has a cruel look about him, a selfish gleam in his eyes and a self-assured smirk on his lips.
"Nobody told me that witch had a servant now." The rat's voice is shockingly deep, considering his small size. His black eyes seem to peer straight through Ty's soul. He's still smirking, but the mirth doesn't reach his eyes. "Interesting. Let's make a deal, servant." The rat-man pulls on a leather glove over his right paw and begins to shuffle through some of the valuables of the vault. Ty knows he should intervene, but he's still stunned by the sudden entrance of this bizarre stranger. "I'm robbing this place, if you couldn't tell," the rat continues, unperturbed. He picks up a gleaming sapphire necklace and raises it to his eyes, admiring it. "But this doesn't need to be difficult. How about we pick up something nice for you? You take an item from this vault, and pretend I stole it with everything else. I get rich, you get rich, witch is never the wiser." He continues to shuffle through the artifacts, although he seems to care far less about damaging them than Ty does. "Anything here seem interesting? This is a pretty nice ring..." The rat scoops up a jeweled glass bottle, lifting it to investigate the way its purple contents shine in the light. "Or a potion, if you're feeling like a risktaker?"
The rat sets the bottle down upon its pedestal once more and turns to face Ty. For the first time, he gives the boy a thorough looking-over, as if he's analyzing a piece of meat. "Or, maybe you'd prefer something else...?" The rat-man confidently steps forward and shoves himself right in Ty's face, his muzzle just inches away from the young wizard's own face. The musk grows far stronger at such close distance, eliciting a small gasp from the younger man's lips. Even if Ty is more than half a foot taller than the rat before him, he's intimidated. The beast-man seems to give off waves of authority, as he knows exactly what he wants, and how to get it. "Would that buy your silence, my friend?" The rat's paw grabs Ty's bulge, squeezing it tightly. Ty grunts as blood rushes to his loins, and his cock hardens beneath his robes. The smirk deepens on the rat's lips.