by Dante King
“Skeleton Key?” I asked. “It’s one thing for someone to rob my parents’ house, but I don’t even know how pissed I should be about it, because I have no idea what the slippery d-bag stole.”
Enwyn shrugged, economically shedding her jacket with the movement. “I don’t know much about the key, I’m afraid. There was a little wishy-washy talk about it potentially being the finger bone of some powerful Chaos Mage who never met a magical lock that he couldn’t open, but that was speculative.”
A polite cough sounded from the bed. Both Enwyn and I looked over. To our surprise, Alura had dispensed with her misty gown and was lying on my bed, gleaming and naked.
“Speaking of speculation,” she purred, “was I entirely wrong in thinking that we might spend a little time seeing whether a certain key fits with a couple of locks?”
Looks like it’s double brisket for Rick, I thought as I unbuckled my pants and moved to the bed.
Ten minutes later—after some quite vigorous and filthy foreplay—Alura was dangling half over the balcony railing. Her cries of pleasure echoed out from the clifftop as I pounded into her from behind.
A delicious evening breeze played across my skin as I thrust into the Gemstone Elemental, my nuts slapping into her clit with every forward motion.
Enwyn, completely fearless about heights with her newly acquired spell, lay stretched out in mid-air. Her thighs rested on the stone balcony railing, and she was once more engulfed in ghostly fire. Her legs were spread, one on either side of Alura’s head. she moaned happily as Alura lapped at her sex and finger-fucked her in time with my thrusts.
“How does the key fit?” I asked breathlessly as I grabbed hold of Enwyn’s ankles and pulled myself deeper into the Gemstone Princess.
“Like...a...glove!” Alura gasped, her shimmering tits swaying as she dangled out over the void.
All of a sudden, I felt Alura go rigid. She cried out, her face pressed into Enwyn’s crotch, her thighs quivering as she unexpectedly came. I continued to buck into her, sending her into deeper paroxysms of pleasure as her wetness flooded down my thighs.
As I watched, enjoying the sight of the Gemstone Elemental royal orgasming, I noticed that her swaying breasts were growing larger. What was more, and patently obvious from where I stood behind her, what looked like a tail was also sprouting from her tailbone. Clearly, I was not the only one who had noticed.
“What the hell is going on?” Alura said, grabbing at her now enormous tits and squeezing the nipples delightedly.
I shrugged and continued to pound into her. “It’s a Creation Mage thing. Weird shit happens when I fuck sometimes—just go with it.”
Alura gave an affirmative moan, then slumped, exhausted, against the balcony. I pulled out of her, my cock still as hard as a two-by-four, and she turned around, leaning weakly against the balcony railing. Her breasts were slowly shrinking back to their normal size, and her tail was also retracting back into her body.
That’s some new spell manifesting itself, I thought.
In one smooth motion, Enwyn floated forward and basically impaled herself on my erection. That sudden sensation—swapping the pleasurably textured, cool vagina of a Gemstone Elemental for the hot wet box of a Fire Mage, almost sent into the land of the blissful O instantaneously. I managed to hold off however, and Enwyn and I got down to it.
“Yes… yes… yes!” Enwyn cried as I plunged in and out of her.
My rhythm ramped up as I sought to bring us both to a simultaneous climax. She was still floating in mid-air and would have appeared, if anyone had wandered along, to be lying on an invisible table. Her head and shoulders rested on the wide stone lip of the balcony railing.
Alura, the selfish horndog, recovered quickly from her earth-shaking orgasm. She then hopped nimbly onto the railing and squatted over Enwyn’s upturned face, so that the Fire Mage could tongue her while Alura watched me fuck the other woman.
It was one of the dirtiest things I had ever seen, let alone participated in.
Unsurprisingly, mere minutes passed before Enwyn’s legs clamped around my waist, and she jerked uncontrollably. I surrendered myself to the moment, pulled out, and came all over Enwyn’s stomach.
I closed my eyes and lost myself for a time. I could hear the sound of Alura climaxing for the second time, and the guttural moans of Enwyn as she came too.
My eyes snapped open at the sensation of my toes brushing the ground and then leaving it again. I looked down. The three of us were all engulfed in that spectral fire that had covered Enwyn while she had been floating. Now, we were all doing the same, and had actually floated halfway back into my room without realizing it.
“Shit the fuck!” I said, getting my expletives crossed in my shock.
This seemed to snap everyone out of the spell that had engulfed as all. We fell to our feet. I grabbed Enwyn and threw her onto the bed while Alura somehow managed to get her legs out from mid-air squat and land like a cat. We looked bewilderedly at each other for a moment, then started laughing uncontrollably.
“My goodness,” Alura managed to say after a few seconds. “I did not expect to open my eyes to that! What if we had floated the other way?”
I shook my head, not wanting to think about that. It was quite a drop from my bedroom window.
“Okay, boys and girls,” Enwyn said, in her best teacher’s voice. “Now that the practical is over, let’s compare notes. Alura, check your spellbook.”
Alura grabbed her spellbook from the bedside table and read out her new spell.
CRYSTALIZE - AUGMENT
A modifier for the Crystalize spell which allows the caster to near instantaneously produce body augmentations.
“That would explain the enlarged breasts and the tail,” I said.
“The tail?” Alura asked.
I laughed. “You didn’t notice that? I certainly did. It was kinda hot.”
“What about you, Justin?” Enwyn asked.
I dug my spell book out of my pants and flipped through the pages.
“I don’t mean to brag,” I said, “and I know there’s this contention about the inequality between men and women in society, but I have three freshies.”
Alura and Enwyn rolled their eyes as I read out my three new spells:
FLAME FLIGHT
Using arcane flames, the caster is capable of flight for a limited time. Drains mana at a moderate rate.
GREATER FLAME FLIGHT
Using arcane flames, the caster is capable of flight for himself and one other person of average human size for a limited time. Drains mana at a rapid rate.
CRYSTAL MAGMA BOMBS
Conjure a small crystal inside your palm which, when thrown, will explode after a few seconds, sending blobs of magma everywhere.
I particularly liked the last spell, as it conjured comfortable images of tossing around frag grenades during the epic Call of Duty battles we used to have in our dorms at college.
“Last but not least,” I said. “What have you got, Enwyn?”
“I now have Greater Flame Armor,” she said as she read over her spellbook. It was the tight, delighted voice of a woman on earth who had just opened a Christmas gift and found the latest pair of Jimmy Choo’s waiting unexpectedly for her.
“That’s the upgrade to the Flamewalker’s coveted spell, right?” I asked.
Enwyn nodded.
“Well,” I said, “give us a twirl then.”
Enwyn stood, still stark naked, and activated the incantation.
Instead of the malleable and lightweight-looking armor plates that she had been able to conjure before, Enwyn was suddenly encased in this vast sort of mech suit. It was the same translucent orange as the armor that she and Bradley could conjure. This version extended out from her own limbs and made her huge. Dust spiralled down from where Enwyn’s helmeted head had gouged the plaster from my bedroom ceiling.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” I said in an awed voice.
Enwyn laughed delightedly, cancelled t
he spell, and flopped back onto my bed.
“Alright, ladies,” I said, grabbing my clothes from the floor and hurriedly pulling them on, “as much as I love these little study sessions of ours, I’ve got to dash off. The boys are waiting, so we can grab some choice ingredients from the dungeon. We’re brewing up something a little special for the assholes at Frat Douche this evening.”
Enwyn and Alura both looked up from where they were sprawled on the bed. Enwyn had been idly running her hands over Alura’s breasts.
“I think that that might be quite an inadvisable thing to do, Justin,” she said.
I grinned. “If I had a dollar for every time I’d done something inadvisable in this world I’d be goddamn loaded.”
“But you still don’t have a poltergeist,” Alura said. “I’m with Enwyn; you should probably stay here.” She stroked Enwyn’s smooth thigh and played a finger across her box, spreading the lips invitingly. Enwyn leaned her head back and let loose a little groan.
For an instant, I was a man pulled in two directions and almost torn in half.
Then I gave a little sigh.
“Hold that thought—and hold that pose,” I said. “I’ll be back, but duty calls.”
“You hope you’ll be back,” Alura said, snuggling closer to Enwyn.
“Don’t worry, if any monster does spontaneously spawn, I’ve got these nice new spells to deal with it.”
Enwyn pouted. “Well, if you’re set on going to do this thing, then I think it’s only wise that Alura and I come with you.”
Alura sighed, nodded, and got to her feet. “Yes, Miss Emberskull is right. “She stretched her arms over her head in a thoroughly distracting fashion. “We both know what you and your boys are like. It’s probably best that there are some adults present.”
“Ouch.” I grinned.
Chapter Fourteen
I stuck my head around the kitchen door. “You guys ready?”
“Where the fuck have you been?” Damien asked. “We’ve been waiting for ages. Rick ate his brisket, ate your brisket, then got Bradley to make him a whole pot of mashed potatoes.”
“And still I am hungry, friend,” Rick rumbled.
“And Nigel is half drunk already,” Damien said, inclining his head at the halfling.
Nigel hiccuped. “Pre-pre-preposterous,” he said, “I can still spell sophisticated; S-O-P-H—”
I waved the little Air Mage into silence.
“All right, all right,” I said. “I had a couple of things to take care of. Just had to get myself ready for anything that might decide to appear and try and kill us, you know.”
I led the boys out into the entrance hall where Enwyn and Alura were already waiting.
“What are you guys doing here?” Bradley asked.
Enwyn raised one of her sharp, black eyebrows. Alura’s crystalline cheeks went a little opaque—the Gemstone Equivalent of a blush.
“They’re here to help,” I said loudly. “We’ve been, uh, studying together. But the time for hitting the books is over.”
I gestured for the group to follow me, and we made our way toward the door that opened onto the stairs leading down to the dungeon.
This time we didn’t just waltz through the door of the dungeon like a bunch of hapless and suicidal teens in a nineties slasher flick. The seven of us regrouped outside of the door, and I hit everyone with a little bit of good, old-fashioned wisdom.
“Remember, why we’re going in here,” I said, trying to keep my mind from wandering. It was a tight squeeze in the passageway—especially with Rick there—and I could feel Enwyn’s breasts pressing into my back. “Ideally, we want to grab the ingredients without anything untoward happening. But if something big, green, and nasty decides to pop unexpectedly out of the void, then I think Bradley should grab the ingredients that we need while we protect him. Then, we should make like Tom and cruise.”
This last sentence was met with a puzzled silence. “Make like a tree and leave?” I tried.
There was a murmur of agreement.
“All right,” I continued. “Rick, you hold the door in case we need to make an escape and move with alacrity. I figure with your strength you shouldn’t have any trouble keeping it open.”
Rick nodded. “Understood.”
I looked around at everyone else. “I’m out of advice as far as the rest of you go. Just act on the basis that if anything appears, it’s probably going to want to turn you into some sort of humanoid sandwich spread. Beat the shit out of it before it can do that to you.”
With that, I kicked the door open, and we all moved inside.
Once we were all over the threshold, we didn’t mess about. Too often people in these situations go around patting themselves on the back until they dislocate their own shoulders, only to have something nasty sneak out of the woodwork and cut them in half or cave their head in. We moved with purpose toward the other side of the room, toward the alchemical gear and potions ingredients.
We hadn’t made it even a quarter of the way across when the air in the middle of the massive dungeon dojo shimmered, warped, then split apart to reveal a rent in the fabric of our world. As before, through that tear I could see a mass of beautiful, chaotic, lethal swirling colors.
I instinctively knew that to dip even a finger in that thaumaturgical soup would spell the end of me. Even so, I was drawn to it. It was marvellous chaos. Creation and destruction happening almost at once. Universes, worlds, time, and ideas bursting into life for less time than it took a flea to fart before being whipped back into nothingness.
Then, small, yellow creatures the size of action figures poured out of the portal.
“Gremlins!” Enwyn yelled.
I didn’t waste breath on asking her if she was sure. It was irrelevant. Whatever the little bastards were, they were cackling and raving like Charlie Sheen on a Saturday night. Drool flew from their fanged mouths while long fingers poked and grabbed at one another as they came tumbling onto the floor of the dungeon. At once, they milled and moved like a swarm of locusts on speed.
I clutched my staff tight and summoned a Lightning Skink in an instant. The scaled creature crackled into being. Its sharp reptilian head darted back and forth as it took in its multitudinous prey. With one of its oddly electronically modulated screeches, a sound like it had just swallowed an electric keyboard, it darted into the fray.
The hoard of gremlins turned to meet this onrushing opponent with arms outstretched, like a bunch of demonic Furbies. The Lightning Skink struck the mass of little creatures like a thunderbolt. Darting this way and that, it maimed them with its glass-like fangs, slashed with its claws, and hit them with miniature lightning bolts.
For their part, the gremlins cackled as their fellows were torn to bits and mutilated. They pressed in to engage with the Lightning Skink. Before my eyes, the press of little bodies overwhelmed the magical creature, despite its speed. The gremlins abruptly started attacking the skink with their sharp little teeth. Like piranhas tucking into some injured animal that’d fallen into the river, the gremlins stripped the Lightning Skink down to nothing.
In a fit of sparks, my conjured beast was gone.
“O-kay,” I said slowly.
The gremlins turned to regard us. There was a pause.
The hoard screamed delightedly with one voice and surged in every direction. There were more of the little shits than I could possibly hope to count.
“Nigel, get in the air!” I roared. “Anyone who can armor up, do it!”
I looked over at Rick. The big man was struggling to hold the door open. It looked like it was sucking closed, despite everything he could do. Even as I watched, Rick fell backward with a grunt, and the door slammed.
That makes things simple then.
Thinking that, in this particular instance, defense was a crucial part of offense, I tapped into my mana reserves and activated the Metamorphosis spell. Instantly, the skin along my major bones—kneecaps, forearms, shins, spine to name a few—har
dened into rock-hard plates of armor. The spell must have been designed with all-over protection in mind, because I could even feel plates forming over my skull and across the soles of my feet.
Next to me, Bradley went inferno, summoning the magical orange armor that was somewhat of a birthright of the Flamewalkers. This spell also enlarged him, so that he became quite formidable, especially when compared to the gremlins.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. I turned and saw him regarding Enwyn in her even more impressive armor. “How the hell did you get the upgraded version of my family spell?”
Enwyn gave him a tight smile. “Ask Justin, he’s the Creation Mage.”
Bradley turned to me, and I shrugged apologetically.
“Don’t get mad, low-man,” I said. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” The tide of gremlins charged into us, and I stomped down and crushed one like a grape under my magical toughened soles. “Mostly,” I finished.
Bradley punted one gremlin about twenty yards with a bone-breaking dropkick that would have made any NFL kicker proud. He flicked away a couple more, then squished another that was trying to gnaw through the armor around his ankle.
“I wonder if a Creation Mage’s upgrade powers goes both ways?” he said thoughtfully.
“I dunno about a Creation Mage’s power, Brad, but I can tell you one thing: this Creation Mage only goes one way. Now, I need you to focus and get your ass to the ingredients stations, okay? We’re going to have to defeat these things here, because the door’s closed on Rick. Get whatever ingredients we need for that potion and don’t let these gremlins destroy them.”
Our immediate surroundings had dissolved into chaos with the sort of speed usually only reserved for natural disasters and motorway accidents. Anarchy, it seemed, was what these gremlins excelled at. With complete abandon and evident joy, they were wrecking our dungeon training arena with a proficiency that a demolition company would have paid big money to achieve.