by Dante King
Nigel had heard my plan and he used his Wind magic to push the manticore toward the stairs so that its focus remained on Enwyn. With a roar, the crippled monster lumbered after Enwyn as she took the stairs two at a time. The rest of us followed in its wake, firing spells at it to keep it moving. To her credit, Enwyn played the role of bait beautifully, allowing herself on two occasions to be hit with the manticore’s spiked tail.
Finally, she made it to the wide landing at the top of the top floor. This landing was fronted by a massive stained-glass window, depicting my parents surrounded by lightning and fire and beams of light. It was a lovely and intricate piece of work and I had only had a couple of chances to stand and appreciate it.
It was a shame, then, what I had planned for it.
The manticore made a grab for Enwyn as she made the landing and tripped her, sending her rolling across the thick carpet. Moonlight streamed through the myriad little panes of stained glass.
“Someone pin it!” I ordered. It was quite a new experience, this playing general, for me, and I found that I was relishing the experience.
Janet stepped forward and hit the monster with a swirling rush of Storm Rain. The great leathery wings were ripped open and then folded awkwardly back on themselves by the force of the gale that Janet cast, flapping all over the place like an umbrella in a storm. What with the two other debilitating spells, the manticore was effectively pinned to the spot. It shrieked with fury.
Shit, those wings could ruin everything, I suddenly realized.
“Alura,” I shot at the Gemstone Princess, “can you take out a wing at all?”
Alura gave me a glittering diamond smile and nodded. Moving with incredible grace for someone who looked like she was carved from half a tonne of precious stone, she backflipped to the window, so that the dappled moonlight streamed through her and broke, like light through a prism. She gathered this light into her hand and then thrust out her fist. A beam of concentrated moonlight speared the manticore, stabbing it right in the joint where its wing met its back. There was a sickening crack, followed by the unexpected smell of sizzling steak, and the beast’s right wing was sheared away.
The manticore bellowed, thrashed its tail and fired the rest of its spikes all over the place. By sheer dumb luck they thudded into the walls and ceiling without passing through anyone on the way. The monster staggered back toward the window, rearing up on its back legs, its revolting head scrapping the ceiling and making more work for the Academy plasterers.
I hit it with a couple of Storm Bolts. The balls of crackling blue energy punched into its shoulders. It backed up a foot further, its forelegs beating at the air in distress.
There was a flash of green and the indescribably exotic Wind Elemental, Kryn, stalked forward. She raised her fern-green arms, her skin like the softest moss, and cried out in a tongue that I had never heard before as she let loose her spell. It was a straight blast of concentrated wind that she conjured. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nigel adding to it, but it was Kryn who supplied the brunt of the elemental blow.
The manticore, despite being in the medium family sedan weight class, was picked up and bowled backward through the window with a world-ending crash. Glass rained down, and the wind whistled through the breach with a howl like a pack of wolves. The undead monster hung against the sable blackness of the night sky, the full moon and stars adding a dreamy quality to the grizzly tableau. Then, with a final roar of frustrated rage, it dropped out of sight.
“Fucking nice jo—” I began to say.
The manticore’s tail lashed up through the window, grabbed me around the waist and ripped me out of the window with cobra-like speed.
In the space of time that it took me and the manticore to plummet from the top story of our very tall frat house to the ground, I performed some of the quickest thinking and fastest magic of my life. The monster’s tail was still wrapped tight around my waist, and it was clear that I was entangled in a good old ‘I’m plummeting to my doom so I’m taking you with me scenario’.
However, the manticore had not counted on one thing. After seeing those six beautiful women perform such selfless and, more relevantly, extremely athletic acts of heroism, my zest for life had never burned more brightly within me. My mind dwelt especially on the Elemental women; Alura, Kryn and Iowyn.
Just as our brief but terminal ride was about to come to an end, I summoned a very basic, and very sharp, spear using the Flame Barrier spell and had it appear below the manticore. I’d never been that good at science when I was a kid, but I’m pretty sure that the combination of the monster’s own impetus, the power of gravity and the speed we were travelling were what broke the manticore, dead as it was, and shattered the magic that had animated it.
It hit the spear I had conjured and was impaled with a violence that was quite impressive to witness. It was like the building of the world’s biggest barbecue skewer. It made no noise, no scream of pain. It just smacked into the ground and was still. Luckily, it stayed mostly in one piece, because I landed on it a millisecond later.
With a groan, I rolled over where I had landed on the soft, furry, quite squashy chest of the giant monster and looked up at the window we had both just gone through.
“Are you all right?” I heard Enwyn call down from five stories above.
I lay back on the doubly dead manticore. “I’m fine,” I replied, grinning. I patted the beast I was lying on. “Better than this thing, that’s for sure.”
I was most definitely ready for that mug of mead now.
“You know, you wouldn’t have this problem if you just had a poltergeist. They can protect your frat house,” Cecilia said, accepting the bottle of mead that I was proffering her.
It was an hour or so later, and the eleven of us who had been involved in the battle with the undead manticore now lounged about on the front porch of our frat house. Enwyn had called in the Academy medics once it was clear that the monster was most definitely dead, and the three older women had patched up Rick, Damien, and Bradley. They had also conducted a series of tests and examinations on me. They concluded, in no uncertain terms that surviving after being dragged out of a five-story window by a creature as deadly as a manticore was lucky. Apparently, I was about as lucky as a hanged man having the rope around his neck break.
“As soon as today’s class is over, I’m figuring out how to find a poltergeist,” I said. “I’m not going through a fight like that every time I want to go and use that sweet-ass dungeon.”
“I don’t think that’ll be easy, brother,” Rick said. “We have a saying about resident poltergeists on my island.”
“Well, you’d better lay that nonsensical island wisdom on me, big boy,” I said.
“It’s easier to fuck a cross-eyed badger than find a poltergeist for your home,” Rick rumbled.
I nodded. “Yep. That saying’s another keeper.” I turned to Enwyn, hoping that she’d be able to explain this whole thing to me in a way that I could actually understand. “Why’s it so hard to find a poltergeist for your house, then?”
“Technically, poltergeists aren’t meant to be used the way it’s done at Mazirian. There were a couple of. . . incidents, and the Arcane Council banned them.” Enwyn leaned back against the wall of the frat house and took a sip of her mead. “Chaosbane managed to get through some legal loophole that allows them here, but unless you can find one—or break one out of the Eldritch Prison—then you’re out of luck.”
“How did everyone else get their resident poltergeists then?” I asked.
“They’ve been in their houses for generations.”
“None of you guys have any pull?” I looked over my frat brothers, but they all either avoided my gaze or shook their heads. “Well, looks like there’s only one thing we can do. I’ll speak to Chaosbane. He put us in this fraternity, so he can find a way to give us a poltergeist. Without one, our house is vulnerable to intruders, and we can’t use our dungeon without getting attacked by fucking terrifying mo
nsters. We were almost screwed today.”
Damien nodded. “Screwed with a capital f.”
“You won’t be able to speak with the Headmaster,” Enwyn said. “He’s on one of his benders.”
“He’s not in the Academy?” I asked.
Chaosbane struck me as just the type of mad genius to inexplicably vanish for a prolonged stretch of time, just when he could have been of some use. I thought it likely that he would show up at some opportune moment to give me some mysterious bit of general advice, but not actually resolve any problems.
Like Dumbledore with a drinking problem and a penchant for casual hallucinogens.
Enwyn shook her head. “He’s in one of the many worlds he likes to use when he imbibes various mind-altering concoctions.”
That sounded about right.
“Then we’ll have to find another way.” I turned to Janet. “Your old man, Captain Chuckles of the Eldritch Prison, he can’t help us out, can he?”
“Call him Captain Chuckles and I’m sure you’ll win him over,” Janet replied sarcastically.
“You don’t think he’d help then?”
“We’re not really on speaking terms. Not after the last trip I took to Earth...” She looked pointedly at me. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter Five
Few things compared to waking up with the realization that you’d gone to bed with a gorgeous woman the night before and it was her warm weight that was pressed against you. However, it was even better to recall that you’d gone to bed with two gorgeous women. Not only did I have a perfect pair of breasts snuggled up against my shoulders like the most genius travel-pillow ever invented, but I also had a toned, rounded ass pressed into my crotch and my hands were cupped around another pair of excellent tits.
As I surfaced up out of the velvety clutches of sleep, the only question in my mind was whether it was Enwyn’s ass that ground slowly into my groin or Janet’s.
Talk about first world problems.
My eyelids rose slowly, and they weren’t the only thing that was rising slowly either. It became apparent that the owner of the gyrating ass was Janet Thunderstone—I should have been able to tell from the athletic curve of that ass, even with my eyes closed. She turned to face me as she rolled languidly over while Enwyn’s warm breath tickled the back of my neck.
“Morning,” I said.
Janet’s hand reached down and grasped my rapidly hardening cock.
“A very good morning,” she purred sleepily. “Is that your staff, or are you just happy to see me?”
“I have a blanket rule of no vectors in the bed,” I said. “I want nothing in here that could accidentally blow my nuts off, thank you very much.”
Janet wriggled herself slowly southward, down my body and under the covers.
“No,” she said, “we couldn’t be having that now, could we? How would us girls get all these fancy new spells you keep treating us to?”
“So,” I muttered as Janet ran a flurry of kisses down my abs, “I’m just a tool to be used, is that it?”
“Used,” Janet said, biting softly at my thigh, “and abused.”
If there was one thing better than waking up next to two beautiful women, it was certainly being the recipient of a morning blowjob from one while sinking back into the cleavage of the other.
I lay back while the still drowsing Enwyn ran her fingers slowly through my hair and Janet worked her magic under the covers. I slowly moved my hips in rhythm to Janet’s ministarations, detachedly realizing that not only was she a capable Storm Mage, but she could rather impressively open her throat and take my whole cock into her mouth. I gasped as her lips pressed against my groin.
“Holy hell, where did that come from?” I asked under my breath. We’d had sex twice before and she’d never showed this move of hers.
“What?” Janet said from under the covers, her bare feet sticking out the bottom of the duvet. “You don’t think I use up my whole bag of tricks after just a couple of rounds of horizontal refreshment, do you?”
She got back to it, picking up her pace while one of her hands played expertly with my balls, squeezing them gently with every downward motion of her head.
“I—I guess not,” I said.
“Oh,” Enwyn whispered in my ear, “what’s going on here then?”
I couldn’t give her much of a coherent answer, my concentration almost solely focused on the wet, squelching, sucking noises coming from the direction of my groin.
I felt Enwyn’s hand slip over my taut stomach and down to clutch Janet by the hair.
“It’s a school day, remember?” Enwyn said, in an austere teacher’s voice that only heightened the sexiness of the situation. “So you better hurry, Miss Thunderstone.”
Janet grunted, without taking her lips from around my shaft and started bobbing frantically up and down.
Enwyn muttered dirty talk in my ear and rubbed her hard nipples against my back. Janet sucked my cock in a way that I figured even the likes of Giacomo Casanova had never experienced. It wasn’t long before I gave a small groan and emptied myself into Janet’s eager mouth.
I relaxed back with a small sigh of satisfaction as Janet extricated herself from the tangle of sheets and came up for some much needed air. She wiped her hand over her mouth, and her eyes sparkled mischievously.
“I bet you could get used to starting your day like that, huh?” she asked.
“Certainly beats a cup of coffee,” I said. “Is this going to become a regular occurrence?”
“You’d be so lucky.” Enwyn grinned, biting my earlobe.
I sat up against the massive and ornately carved headboard, kissed each of the women on the cheek, and reached over to the nightstand for my spellbook.
“What’re you looking for?” Janet asked.
“He’s looking to see whether he gained another spell from the three of us fucking last night,” Enwyn said in a matter-of-fact voice.
I flicked through my spellbook, looking for any sign of one of the new hybridized spells which had popped up the last time the three of us had done the Devil’s dance together.
“Nothing,” I said. “Did you guys get anything new?”
The two women extracted their spellbooks—Janet from under the bed and Enwyn from her pile of clothes on the floor—and rifled through the pages. Both shook their heads.
“Do you guys think that it only happens once?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not saying that I would want this thing to stop if that were the case—not at all—but it was a nice added bonus getting a spell each, don’t you think?”
Enwyn reached for her bright red lace panties, kicked off the covers, and pulled them slowly up her thighs. This display made me just want to reach over and tear them off again—and it wouldn’t have taken much effort. Those panties of hers were tiny, the Luxembourg of the underwear world, and looked to be made of tissue paper.
“I think,” she said, “that it’s probably because we have not learned any new spells individually since the last time we slept together.”
“You think that makes a difference?” Janet asked.
Enwyn fastened her matching red bra, slapping my hand away as I reached for her ass.
“Sorry, Justin,” she said. “But you’ll have to wait until next time. Punctuality is very important at Mazirian.”
“And fucking is an important part of my learning,” I countered. “I am a Sex Mage, after all.”
“Creation Mage,” Janet corrected.
“That might be the official term,” I said.
“Nevertheless,” Enwyn said, “there is more to your progression than what we do between the sheets. It would be beneficial to us all if, when you pounded us into oblivion, we learned new spells. I’ll book an appointment with one of the Academy’s resident inscribers later on and see what I can do about getting a fresh incantation added to my book. That way we can test the theory.”
“‘Test the theory’ is one euphamism I haven’t heard before,” I sa
id.
Janet slid out from beneath the sheets, and my eyes followed her athletic form as it moved about the room, collecting clothes from where they had been haphazardly discarded the night before.
“I’d like to get a new spell myself,” she said, “but none of us newbies could pass the inscriber tests.”
“Inscriber tests?” I asked. I knew that I should probably start getting dressed myself, but if it was far more pleasant to stay in the nice warm bed and watch these two feminine beauties do it.
“The tests are a way of limiting and managing the power level of new mages,” Enwyn explained, buttoning her rumpled shirt. “They stop new mages from learning ridiculously powerful spells—the sort of magic that might destroy them if they attempted them.”
“That might be the first responsible thing that I’ve heard the Academy doing,” I said.
Enwyn gave me a wry smile.
“”What sort of classes will we have today?” I asked her.
“Check your spellbook. It should update automatically with each month’s lessons.”
I thumbed through my spellbook. Toward the front, I found a color-coded timetable.
“Intro to Potions is up first today,” I read aloud. “Looks like the month is pretty heavy. Monster Bestiary Class—sounds awesome. Physical Fitness Training. Avalonian History. Vector Bonding.”
I raised my eyebrow at the sound of this last class. I’d always had a feeling that my staff had a personality of its own, that I could communicate with it somehow. I mentioned this to Enwyn and Janet.
“I’d like to say that I’m surprised that you know this, but the more I get to know you, the less surprised I am when you say these unexpected things,” Enwyn said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, most new students see their vectors as inanimate objects that they use to do their magical bidding. It usually takes mages a little while to understand that their vectors are very much a part of their ‘team’.”
“Like the way a shepherd and a sheepdog are two separate entities that form one cohesive unit,” I said. “The shepherd is the master, but he wouldn’t be shit without the good will and help of the sheepdog.”