by Dante King
Alura nodded. “I shouldn’t be surprised, really, that you have hidden untapped depths. Not after what I have seen you do and the way that I have seen you fight. Not by a man who is the progeny of two such powerful mages. My father served your parents diligently. Like I said, I think it is because he sees much of them in you that he finally allowed me to join the Academy.”
“Hey, I’m glad I could help you out then,” I said. “Maybe you could help me out a little?”
“How?” Alura breathed.
“Tell me what you know about my parents,” I said. “Help me fill in the blanks about them that I have in my head. Anything at all would help, you know.”
Alura sighed softly through her nose. Her gold and white eyes shone. “Zenidor and Istrea were saviors. They knew the truth: that magic was dying.”
I frowned. “Dying? How can a force like magic die?”
“Magic is a living part of our world. It might not be considered alive in the sense that we think of ourselves as alive, but it is still an integral part of our world. In actual fact, from the little that my father has divulged to me, it’s still dying, and may very well completely die out within a decade.”
“No doubt the reason for it fading from the world is one that is way above my pay grade,” I said. “But, now that I know how goddamn sweet this world is and how much fun it is being able to do magic, I’m not so keen on having it taken from me. How the hell do we stop it dying?”
“Well, your parents came up with a theory, a theory that they then proved.”
“And what theory would that be?” I asked. I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be the sort of theory that would endear my ma and pa to Amnesty International.
“Their theory,” Alura said, in the tone of one who was walking over eggshells, “was that magic was a finite resource, very much like the fish of the ocean or the woods or precious minerals in the earth. They believed that the continued mortal expansion was what was tapping Avalonia’s intrinsic magic to its limits. In response to this, it was their plan that, to save magic, they must sacrifice a rather consequential amount of innocent lives.”
“Fuck me, that was their plan?” I asked. I wasn’t easily appalled, but to hear that my own parents had considered genocide as the way to achieve their greater good was a little hard to hear.
Alura nodded gravely. “I understand your reticence to this course of action—it is, after all, extreme.”
“Nah,” I said, with mock outrage, “I’m sure if you asked some of the more upstanding citizens that have walked Earth—Pol Pot or Mao Zedong or Hitler, say—they’d tell you that that sort of plan was pretty standard.”
“I do not recognize these names,” Alura said.
“Shit, I know. They were basically world champion assholes. My point is that my parents’ plan is to plans what the durian fruit is to cuisine—a terrible idea that fucking stinks.”
Alura nodded thoughtfully. “If magic dies, then you, as a human, will be safe. But Elementals like me? We are fundamentally magic creatures. If magic dies, then so too do we.”
This brought me up short. Shifted my whole perspective. For a moment, I squirmed, trapped between two halves of a massive problem. I paced across the dungeon floor, Alura silent at my side, until I stopped and leaned up against a stack of mats that seemed to be filled with some sort of absorbent foam or gel.
“Well, preventing magic from dying out sounds like a tall order,” I said eventually, “but there must be another way to stop it happening, instead of just slaughtering people wholesale.”
I looked at Alura, my jaw set and my eyes burning with a problem that I knew was going to persist in my mind until I had it figured out.
“What do you intend to do?” she asked.
“I have to do something,” I replied, feeling surer of myself than ever before. “I promise that I’ll stop this world from withering away into nothing, and do it without a single one of your people being hurt.”
Without warning, without any hint that she was about to do what she did, Alura kissed me full on the lips. The sensation was an exceedingly pleasurable one and very different to being kissed by a human woman. Through my half closed eyelids, I could see the lights of the lamps dotted around the walls of the dungeon refracting through the facets of Alura’s face and neck. It was trippy stuff. Our tongues explored each other’s mouths. Alura’s lips were warm, her kisses hungry, but her breath strangely cool.
After what might have been merely seconds or minutes, we broke apart. The two of us were a little breathless.
“You seem like a smart cookie, Alura,” I said, our foreheads resting against one another. “Any ideas to solve this particularly thorny problem would be greatly appreciated.”
“Hmm, well I can think of one way in which I could help you,” Alura said.
“Oh yeah?”
“How about with some copulation? You are a Creation Mage, after all. You may gain some new power that might benefit us all.” Alura’s hand slid down my chest until it rested lightly against my crotch. “Anything I can do to help, I shall do.” She began to rub with a seductive gentleness that made my breath catch in my throat.
I took the Gemstone Princess by the shoulders and, as I did so, the vapory garment that clung to her completely dissipated, leaving her stark naked. She was a beautiful sight, the contours of her gleaming body—which looked crystal-hard to the eye and yet yielded like skin to my touch—drawing my gaze like a moth to a flame.
My hands slipped down her shoulders and cupped her firm breasts. My thumbs played like a couple of naughty skateboarders around her rapidly stiffening nipples.
“I guess that we’re kind of obliged, right?” I murmured, lowering my head to nuzzle at her neck.
Alura gasped and her hand rubbed more vigorously at the front of my robes.
I continued, “For the good of the nation and...all that shit.”
Alura gave a breathy moan that managed to be somehow royal, classy, and horny all at the same time.
I slipped out of my jacket, and the Gemstone Princess unbuttoned my shirt. She ran her fingers possessively over my muscled chest.
I picked the naked Elemental up and tossed her onto the chest-high stack of mats that we had been leaning against. It was quite a bizarre sight since Alura was, to all intents and purposes, a woman made of diamond. I could see the outline of every part of her body, but when she moved and writhed, I lost sight of the details in the flash and flicker of light playing across her skin.
Her legs spread in front of me, and I bowed my head and worshipped at the holiest of holies. I ran my tongue up and down the slit of her sex, reveling in the different and unique coolness of it. Her juices popped on my tongue like popping candy, and they tasted just as sweet.
Alura moaned and writhed, her fingers twisted through my hair as I gave her head and steered her toward the first big O. As I felt her breath quicken and her stomach begin to clench, I slipped two fingers inside her and moved them in a come hither motion.
Within five minutes, Alura’s back arched, and she cried out, her voice echoing through the deserted dungeon.
“Ooooh, fuck me!” she cried out.
“Is that an order, your majesty?” I said, looking up from where I’d been playing zombie with her lady parts.
“Yes,” she said and pulled me up onto the squashy mat to join her.
She practically tore off my pants without actually ripping them. Her eyes widened at the sight of my cock.
“It’s enormous. . . are all human cocks like this?”
“Ah, I haven’t seen every one of them, but I guess I’m pretty privileged to be well-endowed.”
“A Creation Mage must have worthy tools for his trade.”
Then she wrapped her legs around me and pulled me toward her, all trace of the shy and diffident princess gone now. It was clear that she had thrown her inhibitions to the wind like a bucket of ash. Her gold and white eyes—always intense and piercing—were full of a want and hunger
that I had not seen before. Her lips were parted and her teeth shone like P.Diddy’s earring drawer.
I could see how badly she wanted me to stick my rock hard cock into her, so I teased her for a few seconds by rubbing the tip of my dick up and down her slippery opening until I could bear it no longer.
Alura cried out as I thrust into her, and I gasped at the totally new and unbelievably pleasurable sensation. It was how I imagine fucking a sock full of exfoliant beads must be. I know, I never thought that anyone would ever have to use that as a description either, but that was how I remembered it when I looked back on the episode—and I looked back on it a lot. Alura’s vagina felt as if it was lined with smooth, tiny, massaging pearls, and it was fucking incredible. My dick didn’t know whether it was coming or going.
Actually…
We fucked on top of that stack of mats like a couple of animals. It was the kind of sex that was all reckless abandon—selfish and dirty and fantastic—and a sort of rough competition on who can get the other off the quickest. On that score, it was going to have to go to the judges, because the two of us came at the exact same moment. Alura’s ankles were practically touching her ears, her hands clasped to her thighs so that her legs were as wide apart as possible and both my hands were squeezing her tits.
“Oh gods, that’s it, yes!” Alura yelled as she raked me across the chest with her nails and crushed my hips as hard as she could between her thighs in an unintentional impersonation of the devilish she-villain, Xena Onatopp, in Goldeneye.
We collapsed together, me rolling clean off Alura in a bout of light-headed ecstasy and tumbling off the mats and onto the floor.
“Are you all right down there?” Alura called, her voice a little hoarse from all the moaning and groaning.
“Nothing damaged but my pride.” I winced. “And my ass.”
Alura chuckled and then her head appeared above me. “Seeing as you're down there, why not check whether all our selfless exertion has culminated in making you a stronger mage?”
She had a point there. For a brief few moments, I’d forgotten why we’d embarked on our little roll in the hay in the first place.
I scrambled about in the pocket of my discarded robes and pulled out my spellbook.
“Anything new, anything new, anything n— Ah ha.”
On a previously blank page, toward the end of the spellbook, I found a page headed:
ELEMENTAL FORM SPELLS
I looked down the page and blinked. I didn’t just have one new spell, but two!
METAMORPHOSIS: LESSER GEMSTONE ELEMENTAL
Transform into a Lesser Gemstone Elemental for a limited time (consumes mana at a rapid rate).
CRYSTALIZE
Transform objects into crystal-like hardness.
I reiterated these spells to Alura, who still sat atop the stack of mats. She did not say much about the Crystalize spell, but when I described the Metamorphosis incantation she sat up and took notice.
“I don’t have that spell,” she said.
“So?”
“So, I thought that you were meant to take on spells from those that you paired with?”
I felt a little crease form between my eyebrows. She was quite right. The crease faded away, and I smiled. I didn’t know how this had happened, but the result was there in flowing script in my spellbook all the same. How had it happened? Was it because Alura was a non-human? I couldn’t be sure, but I was excited to see what happened the next time I had a little Netflix and chill time with another non-human.
Seeing as the spells were there and begging to be tried out, I walked naked over to a combat mannequin, which magically came to life as I approached. I squared up to the spinning, bobbing back of human-shaped gel and let loose with the Crystallize spell. It did exactly what it said on the tin, and the mannequin suddenly froze. It looked identical, but when I reached out to touch the dummy, it was as solid as if it had been carved from basalt.
“All right,” I said, “I can use that I’m sure.”
“It’s a natural spell that all Gemstone Elementals know,” Alura explained, “since we’re not born like gemstones—we are much like humans, but we change our bodies over time with this spell.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. I had to admit, I liked learning about this woman and where she’d come from. I felt a strong bond to her, and I wondered if Chaosbane’s warning might have had something to do with this. Hell, I didn’t care if I was bonded to Alura in a deep, meaningful way—she was, after all, an amazing woman.
“Maybe it will have a similar effect on you, if you use it on yourself?”
The next spell made me hesitate, but only for a moment. This would be the first spell that I had ever used on myself.
“Here we go,” I said.
I dug deep into my mana reserves and let loose the Metamorphosis spell. I felt an involuntary shiver pass through me, as if I was shrugging my shoulders, but all over my body.
I looked down at my naked flesh and at the rather unnerving sight of my skin along my forearms, upper arms, thighs, abdominals, pecs, ass, and spine hardening into sheets of what looked like rock. I tapped my suddenly glossy and very hard forearm.
“Is that armor?” I asked Alura.
She slid off the stack of mats and cocked her head as she regarded me, her expression serious. Then, without warning, she struck out at my stomach in a low punch. There was the sound of rock on rock, and I grunted, but I didn’t feel a thing.
A smile spread across my face. “The Thing, eat your heart out,” I said.
Chapter Eleven
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur. There were more classes certainly, but none of them adopted the hands-on approach that Madame Xel’s potions class had involved. My vector had remained holstered—or at least stayed leaning against whatever desk I happened to be sitting at—and I was left to daydream my way through a series of theoretical lectures. These lessons might well have been extremely interesting, had it not been for the fact that I’d just spent the morning walking around a sorority house that looked more like the classier type of bordello and shagging a representative of a royal family whose members could all be considered to be crown jewels.
I made my way back to the frat house that evening, ate dinner with my buddies, and wandered up to bed.
My dreams were a delightful, if confusing, kaleidoscope of seductive images involving Princess Alura, Madame Xel, and a collection of the Elementals that I had met at Alura’s sorority house.
I strode through a void with these women, stark naked, sporting a boner that looked very much like I had cast my new Metamorphosis spell on my own junk. My subconscious, sleeping mind seemed to be taunting me with half-guesses as to the kinds of spells that I might unlock if I slept with other non-humans.
The dream shifted and changed, and I thought I half felt something shift and change in reality also. My consciousness stirred, like a fish at the bottom of a silty river of sleep. With a deep breath, I opened my eyes.
Dust motes floated happily in a beam of sunlight that had managed to sneak past the vigilance of the heavy curtains that covered my high, arched windows. I watched the motes for a little while as my sleep-clouded mind tried to wake up. Judging by the difficulty that the old noodle was having in getting up to speed, I could tell that it was still early. I took a deep breath and sighed, before I rolled away from the window and onto my back. I stared up at the peeling paint of the ceiling above my fantastically comfortable bed.
Something in the corner of my sleep-filled eye caught my attention. I turned my head slightly and saw that the bed covers next to me were moving up and down with the regularity that denoted someone else sleeping there.
What the hell did Bradley put in that stew last night?
I wasn’t too alarmed. If anything malevolent had snuck into my room with malice in its mind, I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t have snuggled in next to me for a quick forty winks before waking up, nice and refreshed, and munching
on my spleen.
I recalled the last time I’d found a surprise visitor in my bed. It was the first time I’d slept with Enwyn. A cool smile touched my lips. Who would it be this time? Enwyn? Janet? Alura come for Round 2? Or possibly an entirely new flavor of beautiful mage that I’d yet to taste?
I reached out a careful hand and pulled back the corner of the duvet. The top of a purple fur-tufted ear popped into sight.
“Nope, I’m going to have to ask the audience on this one, Chris,” I muttered to myself. Who Wants to be a Millionaire had been one of my many guilty pleasures back on Earth.
I pulled the bed clothes further and further down. The person—the female form, I realized, as the duvet dropped lower—had her back to me. Apart from the ears, she seemed to be human—at least the back of her head, elegant shoulders, and graceful spine did. When I reached the base of her spine, I hesitated. Still, this person was in my bed, I had a right to know who the hell it was. I pulled the cover all the way off.
The mystery chick was the happy owner of the sort of tight, rounded, smooth, tanned ass that you’d expect to find on the Swedish beach volleyball team—the women’s one, I mean. I hadn’t ever seen a men’s game, so I couldn't speak for them.
That in itself would have been enough to excite comment, but the thing that really drew my eye was the two and a half foot long tail. It was furred and colored like the ears—a deep purple with lighter mauve stripes—and just carried on where the tailbone would normally call it a day.
There were a few things puzzling me about this whole thing. Firstly, who the hell was this chick? Secondly, how had she managed to sneak into the frat, into my room, and into my bed without anyone noticing. Thirdly, why would she go to all this trouble and then not wake me up?
I sighed once more, shook my head, and swung my feet out of bed. I was going to need a freakin’ book or something for all these ladies to sign in and out of. Maybe even my own personal bellhop.