by D. R. Rosier
“Andy,” she said in a breathy needy tone.
Her heart beat quickened, and she felt breathy as he pinched her other nipple, not too hard, but just roughly and firmly enough to send a shock of pleasure down her spine. Her body arched, and she felt him slide down a little to fix the angle, and then sighed in breathy pleasure as he slid inside and slowly worked himself into her warm and welcoming depths. She arched her back further, and then ground her hips back against him while squeezing his sex hard, damn that felt so good.
He whispered in her ear, “I love you, Jenny.”
She felt a thrill go through her, and she twisted her head and waist as she reached back to cradle his head. Her lips met his, and they kissed softly, sweetly, and languidly while he slowly pulled out to the tip and slid back in just as slowly. It felt incredible, little sparks of pleasure in all her sensuous nerve endings lit her body and mind with a sweet euphoria that blew her mind. The lovingly passionate kiss, and the slow movements of their joined bodies made her feel so entirely vulnerable, safe, and loved all at the same time.
Sophia said breathily, “Fuck, you two are so hot.”
She giggled into his mouth at Sophia’s words, and ground back against him and squeezed as their bodies fully joined once more. Shockingly, she still felt vulnerable in that moment, if not more so. Sophia’s words hadn’t broken the spell, not really. She felt even more exposed, as if her heart, deep pleasure, and longing feelings of love were on full display to both of them, as Andy continued to make love to her from behind. Their kiss was deliciously slow, and her heart leaped and her body trembled when the kiss ended and their eyes met.
Was that love? She started to believe it just might be.
She smiled at Sophia and ground back against him, then gasped as he pinched her nipple lightly again and ground up into her lightly grazing her clit. Her body arched of its own accord as she gasped and trembled as a shock of ecstasy went through her body. It wasn’t a large orgasm, but she was already building toward another, a bigger one.
Sophia joined them then, with a light loving touch. Sophia’s touch had always been lighter and gentler than the sex she had with Andy, but that morning it was even more teasing and soft, a perfect complement to the way Andy was making love to her. It was magical, terrifying and wonderful, she’d never felt anything like it before, maybe she was in love after all.
Thirty minutes later, she was lost in the post coital bliss, as her body jerked and trembled in aftershocks. She’d lost count of the orgasms after ten or so, and each one had been more powerful than the last, the final one had pushed her over into overstimulation. She’d never felt anything more intense in her life. So much mind-altering blissful pleasure that it’d brushed against the pain threshold.
When she felt she could move again, she turned over and watched Andy making love to Sophia as well, and it was her turn to caress her two lovers. It was insane, but her heart had never felt so full to bursting as it did that morning, when her, Sophia, and Andy made love. Oh, they’d been tender before, but not to the extent of that morning.
It was poignant, beautiful, and she’d never felt so exposed, so intimately connected to another being before, it rocked her emotions, her mind, and her soul.
Afterwards, they all cleaned up in a bath, and headed downstairs for breakfast.
She chatted lightly with her lovers over breakfast, while the masters argued. The masters were going back on forth on if to enslave or kill the dungeon crystal. None of them argued for it to remain free, and she suspected all the masters knew the truth of the dungeon, that it was actually a human soul trapped in a dungeon crystal.
It made no sense otherwise, dungeons were mostly a boon to an economy, training, and adventurers looking for a challenge. No one wanted to destroy a dungeon unless it was unstable, rogue, or runaway. She was still torn over the idea as well, not only had Narian given her priceless information, but he was supposedly her grandfather with a whole slew of greats in front of it. He’d been betrayed by the very church she wanted to reform, a church that had grown corrupt in its power.
Yet, she couldn’t lie down and die, could she? She was still an adept, and she wouldn’t be ready to challenge her superiors about the color of shit for ten years, much less the important things. Point being, she had no choice but to follow orders and hope for the best, if the masters lost she would lose, possibly die.
But, that wasn’t entirely true was it? She could get up and walk away, leave Nysten behind. Right in that moment she could walk away in disgust, but at the same time she knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t fix the church if she left it, not to mention walking away from her goddess felt like an impossible idea. No, she had to just hope for the best, though she wasn’t sure what that would or could be.
The only thing that tempted her in that direction at all was her lovers. The three of them would be able to settle down and start an unconventional family somewhere else. But… there had to be a way for her to have her cake and eat it too. A balance between her professional and personal ambitions, a balance in her life. She thought she did love them, maybe, but just family wasn’t enough. She needed more, every human did, and fixing the church was her professional ambition and passion. It was half of who she was, and no matter how good and wonderful a family with Andy and Sophia were, it would never be enough.
Family was only half the equation, if a very important half, still only half.
If Narian died today, she would do her best to complete his vengeance by reformation of the church and restoration of the nobles’ power. There had to be a balance there somewhere, didn’t there? Still, it would take time, and her and her lovers and other friends would have to move carefully.
She wasn’t naïve, dealing with the nobles would be fraught with dangers and the possibility of betrayal. Some people enjoyed being under the thumb of others after all, they could be lazy and not think or act for themselves. The nobility led soft lives, and had riches, that hadn’t changed, just their rulership and autonomy had. Their ambition, pride, and responsibility had collapsed like a rotten bridge, under the pressure of easy living and privilege. In short, many of the nobles in Nysten were so far up The Highest’s ass, they had to bring in daylight by pack train.
Her attention was caught by Master Ceran’s shocked gasp.
“The spells!”
Chapter Nineteen
The control spells had gone easily. They’d all been connected to me, and I’d simply drained them dry of magic. The spells would recover of course, the ambient magic would recharge the glyphs in a short amount of time, but that was no obstacle either since I went ahead and removed the glyphs from the bier.
All that was left was the wards that monitored and prevented an outsider from doing what I’d just done, and the destruction spell which was still active. I was a bit nervous about that one, if I’d had light magic it would have been child’s play from the inside, a simple dispel would’ve done it. I suspected that’s why they’d had me enslaved in my own mind. As it was, I’d had to come up with something a bit more creative.
The rest of the dungeon was complete, the twenty levels connected by alcoves save the four orc levels I’d be building slower for another two days, and I was extremely low on life force. Not quite critically so, but if there was an unforeseen danger I hadn’t accounted for, I wouldn’t have the magic to pay for it. If the cost of escaping the destruction spell was higher than I’d estimated, then I was truly screwed.
One thing was for sure, if the church masters managed to beat the levels, I wouldn’t have enough power for a personal face off. It was far from ideal, but it was what it was, I’d been forced to move before I was completely ready and had all my ducks in a row. It could’ve been worse, at least I’d had a little over a month to prepare, if not the two months I’d needed.
“Here goes nothing. I love that dress by the way, you look fantastic, not that you don’t always look great.”
She beamed at me, and then raised her arms and spun for
me exuberantly. She was so damned sexy, and a bright spot in my existence. The dress was slinky, from her neck to her ankles, the skirts flared slightly but hung close to her body. It covered everything except her back for the wings. If it wasn’t for the slits up the sides, I doubted she’d be able to walk. The dress was black, with shiny sequins covering it, and she had on red shoes with high heels. Her nails were painted red, and her hair was up.
She said, “If you’re lucky, I’ll show you what’s underneath it later.”
“Where do you get those things anyway?”
She grinned, “Creation power, remember? I was in that other reality, and I did a lot of shopping with the crazy woman that summoned me. Let’s just say I have thousands of dress and other clothing and makeup patterns. Stop procrastinating, let’s go to our new home.”
I sighed, on the inside, “Fine, let’s get this show on the road.”
On the good side, if it failed, I’d probably never know it, I wouldn’t even have an afterlife.
I released the earth magic spell I’d prepared, and it slipped into the spell’s configuration around me. If I’d gotten any of it wrong, it would fail spectacularly, but if I’d understood the base configurations of the spell…
Crack!
The marble bier exploded beneath my crystal, and the remainder of the monitoring spells dissipated as the glyphs were now toast. I’d redirected the destruction potential of the spell. My crystal hovered in the air, not moving a millimeter in any direction. If I’d had a sphincter, it would have made a diamond.
“Piece of cake, ready?”
Wow, my voice had sounded steady and confident, I was impressed with myself, because on the inside I’d been shaking like a leaf.
When she nodded, I took us and her abode to the last room on the twentieth floor. Although I supposed, technically, that it was the sixteenth floor for the next couple of days. While I did that, I also opened up the stairways, exit, and entrance alcoves. They were very short stairways, literally just long enough to get people under ground level so I couldn’t be called a runaway dungeon on a technicality. The entrance had a teleport alcove to level one, or for returner adventurers wherever they were last, and the exit stairway had a modified alcove of sorts. It would only receive teleports, not make them.
I only did it that way because a target alcove couldn’t be teleported to if there were already people in it, and I didn’t want to cause traffic jams with people coming and going at the same place.
Our new home was a twenty by twenty marble room, placed in between the last large cavern on the level that was full of golems and the teleport alcove. Literally, marble walls, ceiling, and floor. I sat upon another marble bier, that one with no spells on it at all. There were also alcoves with statuary in them, just to tweak the church of light’s nose, it had statues of both my father, Nurien, who was a dark god, and my Aunt Hedea, goddess of music. They weren’t part of Nysten’s pantheon, but one of their own. Two gods made up a small pantheon, there used to be more, but that’s a whole other story.
I was also a dungeon, so I had them both holding a mana crystal for the adventurers to claim, light and dark magic mana crystals were incredibly rare, so they each held one. It was more than a worthy reward for beating my dungeon setup, although I hoped the church wouldn’t be good enough to claim them, or I’d be destroyed or enslaved again.
I shifted my focus, as I felt twenty-three of them enter my dungeon. I was alarmed at the fact Jenny was one of them, I couldn’t spare her life or those of her lovers if they got in over their head.
Jacen asked, “Are you sure he’s still alive? The enchantment should have destroyed him.”
Ceran replied, “We’ll find out soon enough, if he died the dungeon mobs will be chaotic and uncontrolled.”
Doran frowned, “A dead end?” and stepped up to the crystal plinth, “No, I think this is a teleporter, it seems the dungeon will be greatly changed.”
He waited until everyone was in the alcove, it was a fairly large space, but there wasn’t all that much room when he activated it. They all appeared at the beginning of level one, which was a catacomb beneath the keep. There were three levels originally, but I’d added a fourth and kept the catacomb motif.
They all moved into the wide tunnel in threes, and they’d started forward. They didn’t get very far, when there was a loud click, and Ceran fell into a pit and was impaled on stakes. Two skeletons fell upon the group from behind.
Jenny snorted, and then blasted the skeletons to dust with three sharp words and a wave of her hand. Not a hard challenge for an adept, level one was initiate level threats after all.
Jian and Michael, the master paladins, pulled Ceran out, and Doran healed him with a quick healing spell. I thought it was a shame the stake hadn’t hit head or heart, what an embarrassing epitaph that would’ve been, master cleric taken down by initiate level one trap.
Astrith snickered in amusement, as if thinking the same exact thing I was.
Michael cleared his throat, “Perhaps I should take point, and point out the traps. Obviously, the dungeon has changed the layout.”
Ceran reddened, “Do that.”
Michael snorted derisively, and even Jacen was having trouble not snickering out loud.
Jacen said, “Fine. Michael take point, Jian on our rear for traps and ambush attacks. Me, Ceran, and Doran will be behind Michael, and Nabon and Liam will take the rear in front of and defended by Jian. I want all the adept clerics in the middle, and the adept paladins on the sides to defend from flanking ambushes. Adepts, you will be our support, we’ll meet the threats. I suspect there won’t be any great threats in the beginning, but we don’t know how deep this dungeon goes now, nor how high the threats.”
That… I didn’t want to, but I felt a grudging respect for Jacen at that order. Sure, the old bastard should have just left the adepts at home, but at least he was protecting his inferiors in the church, sort of. I didn’t expect my dungeon to truly threaten any of them, even the adepts, until they’d reached the new and much more powerful elemental levels. Although, the forest levels might kill a few out of surprise, even if it was rated between mid-journeyman to mid-adept, there were a few nasty surprises for the unwary. Time would tell.
They all took a moment to cast protective spells, something they should’ve done before even entering the dungeon, and then moved forward.
To my disappointment but not my surprise, Michael was an expert at spotting my new traps, never failing to notice floor, ceiling, or wall traps. The enchanted traps were even more easily spotted as they radiated magic.
Of course, the skeletons weren’t a threat at all, Michael’s glowing white sword took most of them down, and the clerics got a few too with their attacks. They moved forward slowly but surely through the first four levels, without a problem. Of course, the levels only went up to mid-apprentice. Then they reached level five, which should have been the goblins, but was at the moment the forest level. So they’d jumped from mid-apprentice to mid-journeyman in one step without those four goblin levels present.
Michael grunted, “Well, this is new. No more elementals?”
Jacen said, “We’ll find out. My question, Master Ceran, is how the hell did he do all this under your nose.”
A few of the adepts looked at Jacen in surprise, probably at the pronoun he instead of it. A slip of the tongue that confused the adepts who didn’t know the reality of who I really was, except for three of them of course.
Ceran grunted, ignored the sarcasm Jacen added to his title, and answered the question, “I don’t know. He must have built it very slowly, over the last month, and kept it disconnected until last night. There were no indications at all except for a slight rise in ambient magic levels, and those have always fluctuated in the past. By the time I started looking into it, it was too late.”
Jacen didn’t look happy at that answer.
“Be alert, we have no record of these threats, and we can be sure the dungeon intends our deaths.
”
Well, he was right about that. I wanted revenge against the church’s corrupt leaders, and I had seven of them within my grasp. The adepts were a different story, but neither was I averse to their deaths since they were supporting the masters in their mission, with one obvious exception.
Astrith said, “This should be interesting.”
They moved forward, grass beneath their feet, and the humidity in the caves was high. The tunnel expanded and widened, right before they entered the first cavern which was about a hundred yards long and thirty yards wide. It was filled with trees, bushes, flowers, and the sounds of animals.
Jian said, “Damn, I wasn’t expecting this. Paladins, be aware of all directions.”
They’d only gotten about fifteen yards in when several things happened at once. One of the adepts got a little too close to a man-eating tree on the right side of the formation, and several roots reached up from the ground and grabbed his legs firmly, injecting toxins. At the same time, a swarm of thousands of mosquitos fell upon the whole group, and stated biting and inject small amounts of poison. The poison in the bugs weren’t enough to kill, but it would degrade their abilities and also hurt like hell. In short, they were a deadly distraction. Last but not least, a rushing bear the size of a horse with foot long claws roared and raced at one of the adept paladins on the left side of the formation.
Perhaps it was the shock of a new type of encounter, or the stings from the mutant mosquitos, or maybe he just froze a moment because he’d never been in true danger. After all, my dungeon had been a very controlled training tool, too controlled, and adept or not this was probably his first true life or death situation.
The young man didn’t even lift his sword, as he froze in pain, shock, and surprise, and the bear’s foot long claw slashed across his throat cutting halfway through his neck. The bear’s other paw moved like a blur, and batted the side of his head, tearing it free and sending it whipping up into the air spraying blood down on the party.