by A. J. Markam
I looked down –
SHIT.
Even though Saykir had stopped using his magic, the black liquid still seemed to be growing. The longest tentacles were only a meter away from my feet.
Stig threw fireball after fireball at my ankle bindings. Luckily my boots were on the other side of the ice crystal, because I could still feel the heat as the fire blasted around the curved base.
Alaria finished torching her wrist bindings. Then she leapt down from the column and ran over to help Stig.
The two of them working together greatly speeded the process, and the leather bindings on my feet finally snapped.
My body immediately began to slip down the ice column – but Alaria grabbed me.
“I’ve got you,” she said, and began to pull me around the crystal and onto the top.
I’d forgotten just how physically strong she was. She looked like a supermodel, but she had the demonic strength of an Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Unfortunately, I had slid just far enough for the first tentacle to latch onto my boot.
“AAAAHHH!” I screamed as it began to drag me down.
“STIG, SHOOT THE DAMN THING!” Alaria yelled as she hurled a fireball at the tendril.
Stig tossed fireball after fireball. Unfortunately, he was aiming at the part of the tentacle that was wrapped around my foot.
“OW! That’s hot!” I yelled.
“Sorry, boss. Just trying to save you.”
If only I could take my damn boot off –
That’s it!
“Stig, can you crawl down my body and get the boot off?”
Stig didn’t even hesitate – he leapt out over the squirming pit of darkness and grabbed onto my leg, then shimmied down and began tugging off my boot.
The boot fell away, and with it the tentacle.
Unfortunately, Stig lost his hold on my leg and tumbled down after the boot.
“STIG!” I screamed in horror.
Suddenly something red flashed out over the pit like a whip.
Alaria’s tail grabbed the imp and hauled him back onto the edge.
“Thank God,” I groaned.
“Thank me,” Alaria said tartly as she hauled my body around the ice post and settled me on top of it so I was no longer dangling over the pit.
“Thank you, lady,” Stig whimpered gratefully as he trembled by the edge of the pit.
“Thank YOU, Stig!” I cried out. “And you, too, Alaria!”
“Let’s save the ‘thank you’ circle jerk for later, shall we?” she said as she fried the leather straps still binding my hands.
The rest of the cathedral was in a frenzy. The frost elves were still battling, the pirates were still attacking, and Varisa and Eluun were still dueling.
The Mage had more powerful attacks, but the High Priestess could heal herself, so it was something of a draw – or it would have been, until Saykir saw them fighting. He knew he could end the battle even sooner if he had his Mage working with him, so he turned one of his hands away from the pirates and cast Soul Suck on Eluun.
She screamed in pain as the blue lightning slammed into her body.
Now she not only had to deal with Varisa, but her ability to heal herself was completely negated by Saykir.
Eluun’s hit points began to slip – 56%, 55%, 54% – as Saykir’s Health steadily rose.
He was already back up to 77%, though his mana was hovering around 10%.
At this rate he could do another Mana Conversion spell and start the whole vicious cycle over again.
We had to find a way to distract him. Hell, if we could just get him to keep doing Mana Conversion, that would do the most damage to his Health by far.
All we would need to do then was get him to use up all his mana –
And just like that, I had a plan.
My wrist bindings broke and Alaria hauled me to my feet. My bare right foot was cold against the ice, but I ignored it.
“Come on,” I said, “we have to get to Dorp!”
The three of us raced along the edge of the pit, dodging the frost elf skirmishes until we reached the pirates.
Krug and his crew were valiantly battling Saykir, but the toll was costly. Most of them were hovering around 25% Health. The only thing keeping them alive was he was splitting his attention between them and Eluun.
As soon as Krug saw me, he barked, “You owe me a damn ship.”
Oh yeah…
He’d sworn he’d never bring the Revenge across the Wastes because the engines would freeze up. Apparently he was right – and in doing so, he’d sacrificed his ship to save me.
“Why did you come?” I asked.
“Dorp,” Stig piped up.
“Your little blue friend’s good at laying on the guilt,” Krug growled as he fired off another granite shot across the pit. Then he mimicked Dorp’s high-pitched voice, although his bass rumble didn’t come anywhere close to pulling it off. “He freed you, he sacrificed himself to save you with that avalanche, and you’re just going to leave him to die?”
“Well, thank you,” I said gratefully.
“You still owe me a damn ship.”
“Master?” a familiar voice said.
I turned around to see Dorp looking at me – and I grabbed his big blue pumpkin head and planted a kiss on his forehead.
Dorp just stared at me in shock.
“Thanks for convincing them to come back for me!” I whooped. “But now I need you to create an illusion to drive Saykir crazy.”
“But I can’t see inside his mind,” Dorp said mournfully.
“That’s okay – I know what he’s most afraid of. Can you reach into my mind and see it?”
“No, but I can project what you tell me to.”
“Okay, but let’s hide behind the ship so he can’t see us.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Dorp said, relieved.
Then he, Stig, and Alaria followed me to relative safety behind the Revenge.
19
Saykir did another Mana Conversion while we were setting up.
The spell dropped his Health from 77% to 52%, but gave him back 20% of his mana.
He was still wreaking havoc on the pirates and Eluun when Dorp’s first illusion appeared.
It was me.
Butt naked.
With a raging hard-on.
It worked. Saykir saw it out of the corner of his eye, did a double-take, and then both his eyes bugged out. He stared at my crotch even though he was still casting spells at other things.
“Make the erection look a little bigger,” I said to Dorp.
Alaria smirked. “Of course you’d do that.”
“Shhh,” I hushed her, then ordered Dorp, “Just do it.”
Suddenly my illusion’s boner swelled 5000%. It looked I had a flesh-colored fire hydrant sprouting out of my crotch.
Everybody – me, Stig, Alaria – all jumped back in fright.
“Not THAT big!” I hissed.
Dorp shrunk it down to more normal proportions.
“There – that’s it, right there,” I said, as the boner retracted to the size of a porn star’s dong.
DAMN what I wouldn’t have given for that to be reality.
I was afraid of one thing: with all the changes in size, Saykir would realize that what he was looking at wasn’t real.
I needn’t have worried. He was consumed with jealous rage and insecurity to the point of insanity.
He stopped attacking Eluun long enough to hurl a Darkbolt at my doppelganger.
It worked!
The Darkbolt passed harmlessly through the illusion and exploded on the wall of the cathedral.
Again, I was worried he would figure out what was up – but Saykir’s brain was so far gone, he just tried again with Darkfire.
Black flames roasted the ice around the illusion and dissipated.
“Now do the second thing I told you,” I whispered to Dorp.
My naked illusion reached behind some rubble and pulled out
a naked frost elf (also an illusion). He bent her over the pile of ice, then inserted his swollen head between her legs and began to do her doggy-style.
She immediately began screaming with unrestrained passion. “OH GODDESS – OH YES! FUCK ME, HUMAN – FUCK ME WITH THAT BIG, NASTY COCK!”
“Clearly this is fantasy,” Alaria teased me.
“Shhh!”
Obviously it was fantasy. I mean, my junk had gone from normal size to three feet long, then back down to John Holmes territory – and then I’d pulled a naked frost elf out of nowhere. You know, just cuz.
It was basically the most egregiously fake porno ever.
But I don’t think Saykir knew that at all. He was too far gone.
His jaw dropped as he watched Illusion Me bang the bejeezus out of the frost elf, my pelvis slapping against her little blue ass.
Fwap fwap fwap fwap
“OH GODDESS!” she screamed. “I’M COMING – I’M COMING – AAAAAAAH!”
Saykir screamed like a soul in torment.
Then he started using both hands to cast spell after spell at the illusion.
The spells zipped right through and exploded harmlessly on the ice. Darkbolts, Darkfire, Soul Suck, the symbiote pseudopod – nothing could interrupt my porn star debut.
But now, partly thanks to Saykir’s fireworks, we were drawing the attention of everyone else.
Frost elves stopped fighting, one by one, and turned and watched in awe as Illusion Me gave Fake Frost Elf the ride of her life.
Krug turned around, looked at the illusion, and shook his head in disgust. “You people are sick.”
“Just keep hitting Saykir!” I hissed. “And surround him!”
Krug shook his head again, then went back to casting granite cannonballs as he and his crew began to spread out along the pit.
The ruse was working. Saykir was in a frenzy. He looked absolutely demented – both eyes bugged out, mouth frothing, body hunched over as he cast spell after spell, with no heed to the fact that they were passing right through the illusions.
Then his mana ran out.
He stood there, chest heaving like he’d just run a marathon, totally out of power.
I was afraid he might come to his senses, so I hit him with everything we had.
“Do the third thing,” I whispered to Dorp.
Five frost elves (all illusions) ran out of the crowd, stripping off their silk robes.
“Do me, do me!” they chanted, rubbing their naked bodies all over Illusion Ian and kneeling before him in supplication.
In response, Illusion Me roughly slung the woman he’d been doing to the floor, where she collapsed in a puddle of post-orgasmic bliss.
Then he grabbed another frost elf, positioned her exactly the same way as the first, and slid inside her.
“OH GODDESS!” she moaned, gripping the rubble in front of her.
Then he snapped his fingers and directed two other frost elves to stand on either side of him. He pushed down on their backs, forcing them to bend over.
They did so willingly, thrusting their asses in the air.
He gave a quick SMACK! with the palms of his hands on each woman’s butt, setting their flesh to jiggling and both of them giggling with pleasure.
Then he inserted a finger between each of their legs.
“Ohhhhh!” one groaned.
“Mmmm!” the other one moaned.
The he proceeded to fingerbang both of them at the same time he was fucking the one in the middle.
All three women began to scream with pleasure, while the remaining frost elves began 69ing each other at his feet.
Damn… Illusion Me was a rock star.
“Okay, now we’ve gone from fantasy to farce,” Alaria said.
Saykir didn’t think so. He was starring in his own private tragedy, apparently, watching me get all the adoration and worship supposedly due him.
He gripped his hair and began tearing it out. He shook his head and shrieked in rage.
The whole time he was getting slammed by fireballs and lightning, but he barely even noticed. All he could do was watch me rail three of ‘his women’ and listen to them come ecstatically at the same time.
Then he pulled a Mana Conversion.
With all the damage he’d been taking, his hit points dropped to 22% – but now he had mana again.
Which he proceeded to blow by trying to destroy the imaginary porno scene.
“AGGHRRR!” he screamed as he cast Darkbolt after Darkbolt.
“OH GODDESS, IT’S SOOOO BIG!” the woman in the center cried out joyfully.
“BLAAGHHR!” he shrieked as he flung Soul Suck, to no avail.
What was even crazier was that the illusion was apparently affecting the rest of the frost elves, too.
All of them (with the exception of Eluun and Varisa) had stopped fighting and were watching the porno.
Then they began to touch themselves through their robes – caressing their breasts, lightly pinching their nipples, rubbing between their legs.
Robes slipped off and fell to the floor. Armor, too.
The naked frost elves began to kiss each other, their eyes half-closed with desire.
Then they began to lower to the ground, pressing their naked bodies together.
Women’s heads lowered between their partner’s thighs.
Others used their fingers to start stroking clits.
Still others bent their partners over and imitated our illusion, rapidly thrusting their fingers between dripping wet lips.
69 seemed to be the favorite position, though.
And all throughout the cathedral, moans and murmurs and screams of pleasure began to fill the air.
This was working out a hundred times better than I could have hoped for.
Apparently, all you had to do to beat this army was get them hot and bothered.
“Oh… my… Goddess,” Alaria murmured as she gazed out at the mass orgy.
I saw her hand creep down between her legs, almost unconsciously… under the tiny little patch of leather covering her sex… and she began to touch herself.
My erection was nearly bursting through my pants, I was so turned on – but I still had business to attend to.
Saykir was absolutely stark raving mad by now.
He didn’t just have to suffer my massively endowed illusion reaming his willing frost elves; he had to watch his entire army going at each other like rabbits.
He screamed unintelligibly and returned to his central point of hatred: me.
Or Illusion Me, anyway. He blasted away at the porno phantom, paying no heed to the fact that his attacks were accomplishing absolutely nothing.
And the whole time he was getting slammed from all sides by the pirates.
His hit points were dropping rapidly. 17%… 16%… 15%…
“LORD SAYKIR,” Varisa screamed as she was being worn down by Eluun, “IT IS AN ILLUSION! YOU MUST STOP!”
But he didn’t. His hit points kept tumbling.
12%… 11%… 10%…
Varisa cast a final spell. It cost her dearly, because she had to stop battling Eluun to do it. Ten seconds later she was overwhelmed by the High Priestess and fell to the ground, dead.
But she lived long enough to serve her undeserving master one last time.
It was a force field – an invisible wall that started near the hull of the Revenge and began to move outward.
As it shifted, it pushed me, Dorp, Alaria, and Stig out from behind our hiding place and into full view.
As soon as Saykir saw me – the clothed me – he stopped flinging attacks at the illusion. He just stared at me, slack-jawed…
And then screamed in hellish rage.
He was only at 5% Health. He knew he had less than a minute to live. And I guess he decided if he was going to die, he was going to take me with him.
He cast another spell: a symbiote strand from his right hand.
It shot out a hundred feet through the air, grabbed me by the throat,
and pulled me towards him.
I slammed down face-first on the ice and began to slide towards the pit.
“NOOO!” Alaria screamed as she grabbed my legs, trying to pull me backwards.
Stig and Dorp jumped in, too, seizing my feet and tugging with all their might.
It slowed me down a little, but it couldn’t stop my inexorable slide towards the pit.
I looked up in horror as I saw the tentacles writhing in the air. They were all around Saykir now, flailing like a nightmarish field of black sea snakes.
He just cackled and foamed at the mouth, his eyes bugged out, as he pulled me in closer.
4%… 3%…
Over to my side, I saw a thousand naked frost elves stand up and watch in horror.
I was just feet away from the pit now.
“You son of a bitch,” I growled, and put everything I could into a Soul Suck aimed right at him.
If I was going down, I was going to make sure I delivered the bastard’s deathblow.
Blue lightning arced through the air from my fingertips into Saykir’s chest.
Any other time, I wouldn’t have stood a chance – not against a Level 70 Warlock.
But at 3% Health? Along with 50 pirates slamming him?
I had a shot.
I saw his face grimace in pain, outraged that I was fighting back.
But then he pulled a Soul Suck on me – and his health began to creep back up.
I saw him grin.
Even if he died, he knew he was going to kill me before the pirates finished him off.
But suddenly the pirates weren’t alone anymore.
“WOMEN – ATTACK!” Eluun roared, and blasted Saykir from behind with a spear of white-hot light.
Every naked frost elf with magical powers joined in.
Red lightning bolts crackled through the air. Blasts of blue, orange, and green energy filled the air and pierced the Warlock’s body.
Saykir’s grin vanished. “NOOOOO – ”
And then, for the coup de grace, Krug appeared behind Saykir on his ice bridge.
The pirate captain summoned one final granite cannonball – but he didn’t fire it at Saykir’s body.
He aimed it at the Warlock’s feet.
The rock projectile blasted through the ice, shattering the end of the bridge.
Saykir fell screaming into the waiting tentacles beneath, which slithered around him in an obscene embrace.