Creation Mage 2 (War Mage Academy)

by Dante King

  Madame Xel, her eyes fastened unwaveringly on me, slipped through the crowd like some sort of provocative eel. Her thigh-high stiletto boots stepped nimbly over a couple of fallen raptors. She stepped up close to me. Her smell, her musk, was intoxicating. It tugged at every animal instinct in my body. Frayed my nerves. Raised my hackles—but in the best way possible. It took all of my self-control to stop myself from peeling away from Cecilia and wrapping my arm around Madame Xel, but something inside of me told me that this was a test of sorts.

  She is a succubus, I reminded myself. She’s nothing but trouble. Sweet, sweet trouble.

  “Mr. Mauler, Miss Chillgrave,” she said. Somehow, her sensuous voice—even though she spoke in little more than a sultry whisper—cut through the babble of voices surrounding us.

  “Madame Xel,” I replied. My grin grew just that little bit wider. “How’re things going?”

  “Not as good as they are for you, that is a certainty,” crooned the potion’s mistress.

  Madame Xel’s purple eyes sparkled mischievously and darted from my face to Cecilia’s, as if she could read exactly what was passing in our minds.

  “The Headmaster is waiting for you two,” she said. “As are a collection of well-wishers. Follow me.”

  Madame Xel led the way through the crowd. I couldn’t help but notice the delightful way that she slinked along, her hips and ass working in tandem to keep my eyes firmly glued to them. I tried to look away, but whatever sexy Succubus spell she was casting, I would have had better luck looking at the back of my own head.

  Eyes followed the seductive succubus teacher as she moved through the crowd. I was man enough to admit to myself that all this attention—the chants of ‘Mauler, Mauler, Mauler!’ and the constant backslapping—was boosting my ego. It was the sort of thing a guy could get used to. It was as addictive as anything I could imagine.

  Shortly, we emerged out of the press of people and into a cleared circle. I saw Grumpy and his team of security dwarfs holding back the eager crowd. They were softly slapping their truncheons into their hands and twirling them about in that characteristic way that law enforcement the universe over does. It says, ‘Things are all nice and agreeable at the moment, and look at us all getting along and behaving so well. However, if things get a little excited and heads require cracking, you can bet that it will be me and my boys doing the cracking and, what is more, we shall be at perfect liberty to do so.’ I gave Grumpy an ironic thumbs-up and received a humdinger of a scowl in answer.

  Reginald Chaosbane, dressed in his splendid suit of perfectly cut, blood-colored velvet, stood upon a slightly raised dais in the center of the circle. In front of him a select group were gathered. This group consisted of a number of the Academy teachers but, more importantly, there also were my frat brothers; Rick Hammersmith, Nigel Windmaker, Damien Davis, and Bradley Flamewalker. Mingling with them were the ravishing Enwyn Emberskull, Janet Thunderstone, and the—quite literally— sparkling Princess Alura.

  The young women all rushed forward to embrace me, as Madame Xel, Cecilia, and I were ushered past the sour-faced dwarf guards. As one, they plowed into Cecilia and me in what was the best hug I’d ever experienced. Hands fluttered and caressed me like so many amorous butterflies.

  “You put what you learned in our study session to good use,” Janet said in my ear, pulling me down so that she could give me a lingering peck on the cheek.

  “I never had any doubts, Mr. Mauler,” Enwyn said, pulling back from where she had pressed herself against me. She looked particularly beautiful just then; her eyes sparkled behind her spectacles and her breath smelled like spiced wine. Her professional-looking blazer had a few more buttons undone than would perhaps have been normal, and I could see those incredible breasts of hers just poking out of the top of a red lace bra.

  “Glad to hear it,” I said.

  Alura had her arm around my waist and one of her cool hands slipped up the back of my shirt. “You know, you did very well,” she said. “Though, perhaps, if all of us ladies banded together, at the same time, we might be able to produce a spell that would truly set you above the rest of your peers... “

  I looked around at the gaggle of beautiful women that surrounded me. Alura had spoken loudly enough for all of them to hear.

  “Are we talking about a fivesome?” I asked.

  Alura chuckled deep in her throat. The rest of the assembled women smiled, shrugged, and otherwise made tantalizingly circumspect replies.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Surely, even my life can’t be that fucking sweet?”

  The girls laughed.

  “Hey, hey, hey, ladies, please!” Cecilia said, and she made a theatrical and good-natured show of shooing the rest of the girls away like flies. “I think it’s fair to say that I’m due some quality one-on-one time with my fellow warrior here, no?”

  She got onto her tiptoes and bit me gently on the earlobe. The sensation was quite wonderful. The other girls laughed, and Janet wolf-whistled.

  “Nothing acts as an aphrodisiac on a woman like being swept off her feet by a flying, flaming man,” Cecilia said. “And I would say that I owe Justin a stretch of time in which to show him just how much his help and dedication is appreciated.”

  I liked the sound of that. Oh, yes indeedy.

  She looked me full in the face with those glacial eyes of hers. It was like looking down into the coldest, calmest well and seeing it brimming with promise instead of water.

  “Does that sound agreeable to you, darling?” Cecilia asked.

  “Does a rocking horse have a wooden cock?” I managed to reply.

  Cecilia rolled her eyes and pinched my ass. Then she leaned in and said, for my ears only, “I am going to do such things to you, Justin Mauler. You’re not going to know where one orgasm ends and the other begins.”

  I was going to answer that with… well, actually, I couldn’t tell you what—I mean, what the fuck do you say to someone who looks like Amber Heard but with none of the issues?

  An irresistible hand pulled me around in a one-eighty, and I found myself eye to eye with Madame Xel.

  “You know,” she said, “there are going to be many sponsors who wish to wine you, many sponsors who wish to dine you, many sponsors who wish to flatter, convince, and sign you.”

  She was rhyming, which I knew to be a succubus habit when they were excited by something.

  “After that performance with the admirable Miss Chillgrave,” Madame Xel continued, “you will be the toast of the tourney. You will be the fish that most sponsors want to land.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something to complain about,” I said.

  “No, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind when considering offers,” Madame Xel said. “At your level, War Mages are only allowed to accept the help of three sponsors.”

  I hadn’t known that. It suddenly made picking three vitally important. Obviously, the first would be a Rune Mystic, but what would the other two be? I hardly knew anything about sponsorships, let alone which ones I should choose to provide the most benefit.

  Madame Xel seemed to read my musings, even as they were filtering through my adrenaline-charged mind.

  “Perhaps, I might make so bold, and offer my services as an agent of sorts?” she said. “I have been on this circuit myself in my youth. I know the sort of trials that you will have to face, the sorts of challenges and hurdles you will have to overcome.”

  The potions mistress pulled me to her. “It’ll mean we’ll have to meet one-on-one,” she said, hitting me with a blast of that succubus charm that made me want to tear her pants off there and then. “I could even assist you with some potion-making—help you craft potions that you might find advantageous taking before, during, and after a battle.”

  “That’s a very generous offer,” I said diplomatically.

  “I have been observing you during my lessons, Justin,” Madame Xel said, “and you seem to have an excellent grasp of the basics. You know how to
stir and mix with the best of them, certainly,” and here I thought her purple eyes flicked over to the women standing behind me, “but there are some tricks that only an experienced hand can teach you…”

  “There wouldn’t be any ulterior motives in these, um, client-agent meetings would there?” I asked, a knowing smile on my lips.

  “Perish the thought!” Madame Xel said, fluttering her eyelashes and biting her tongue. “That would be fucking unprofessional, wouldn’t it.”

  “In that case,” I said, “sure, it’d be really helpful to have you as an agent, you being a teacher and having all that experience brewing up—”

  “Trouble?” Madame Xel said.

  I laughed quietly and nodded.

  “Come and see me in my office. Any time. Day or night,” Madame Xel said. “And now, if I’m not very much mistaken, the Headmaster would like to speak with you.”

  I looked over at the small stage and saw that the inimitable Reginald Chaosbane was indeed beckoning in my direction. I glanced back to say goodbye to Madame Xel, but the leather corseted figure had disappeared like a female version of Batman, leaving only a bunch of goggle-eyed, dry-mouthed males staring after her in her wake.

  “Justin Mauler, my old mate, come hither and take a bow,” Chaosbane said, gesturing to one side of him. “You too, Miss Chillgrave. Let your adoring public shower you with their admiration. For, as we all know, there are few things more fickle than the acclaim of the masses. You may fight like demons in front of them, cause them to roar and weep and froth like a storm, and yet, after only a few passings of the sun, you are once more brought down to their level.”

  I came and stood next to the spectacularly dressed figure of the Headmaster. His thick hair was swept back and fell in aesthetic curtains to either side of his handsome, sardonic face. His beard and mustaches were trimmed and styled to perfection, and he carried himself with his usual showman’s swagger. He may have hammed up his eccentricity to the crowds, but I thought that beneath this exterior was a man you’d be foolish to cross.

  “All you fanatical fans,” he said, his voice carrying over the din that surrounded us, “let us have one more thunderous round of applause for your champions of the moment, Miss Cecilia Chillgrave and Mr Justin Mauler!”

  Pandemonium swept over the audience once more. Above us, a series of fireworks were let off and exploded into the velvet night sky that looked down on this mad and bloody gathering, this showcase of magic, bravery, and brutality.

  I felt, rather than saw, movement by my shoulder, and I turned my head to see who was there. Ragnar Ironskin, my Physical Fitness Training master, who looked more Viking than mage, stood nearby.

  “So,” he said, in his calm and balanced voice, “you did it.”

  “So it would seem,” I muttered as the crowd continued to cheer.

  “And still, you know not what it is like to fall and be regenerated.”

  “I’ll try and keep that streak running as long as I can,” I said. “Don’t bother to sell me a little of that wisdom about not knowing how much I have to lose until I think it has been taken from me, or whatever. I’m not buying.”

  Ironskin laughed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him raise one bare, thickly muscled arm and scratch his dreadlocked head.

  “Does this qualify me for the Mage Games at the end of the month?” I asked.

  “No,” Ironbark replied simply. “You’ll still have to undergo the tests along with your fraternity brothers.”

  “And the white staff, will you tell me where it is?”

  “I said that I would,” Ironskin said. “I gave you my word, and though words are as insubstantial as the breath that they are spoken with, a man’s word, once given, should sit across his own shoulders as heavy as a log. I will tell you of the white staff, but not here and not now.”

  I didn’t question Ironskin’s motives. He was right. There might be unfriendly eyes watching and ears pricked in that huge crowd. There was something about the reassuringly calm—yet obviously dangerous— man that I could not help but trust.

  My attention was snared by a rather sharp finger in my ribs. I turned with a snarl, my initial thought to snap the finger off whoever had just poked me. However, it was, perhaps, the one man in all that throng whom I was most keen to have on my side: Igor Chaosbane.

  “Igor,” I said, “you haven’t got any more of that funky yellow powder on you, do you? I don’t know if you noticed, but I just won this tournament—we won this tournament, I should say.”

  Igor’s dark, thoughtful eyes appraised me over the monstrous blonde mustache that ruled his top lip. I couldn’t help but notice that his face furniture was liberally dusted with mustard-colored powder.

  “I took the liberty of asking my brother who shared your fraternity house with you, Mr. Mauler,” he said, twitching strangely with every word that started with a vowel. “I have gathered said gentlemen here.” He gestured casually behind him and drew my attention to the frat bros. They looked as excited as they did confused.

  “I have decided to offer to sponsor you Justin,” Igor continued, “and craft the regeneration runes in your dungeon.”

  My fraternity brothers looked at one another in disbelief and then began to high-five one another with extreme gusto.

  “Yes, yes, it’s a jolly time and all the rest of it,” said Igor. He pulled a tin from his pocket, extracted a couple of pills that could have been horse aspirin, such was their size. With his head tilted back and his tongue poked out, he popped them into his mouth and swallowed them with great difficulty.

  “Hmmmmm, oh yes, yes, that’ll take the edge off!” he said, in a tight voice. Then he pulled out a pipe, lit it with a snap of his fingers, and puffed vigorously on it.

  I was beginning to think that the Chaosbane family Christmas would be an event worth live streaming. Not something you’d necessarily want to be invited to, given the antics of Igor and Reginald.

  While he was going through these motions, I said, “Any chance of getting a poltergeist thrown in instead, Igor?”

  “That would rather defeat the point of my being a Rune Mystic and offering my services, would it not?” Igor said.

  I admitted that he had a point.

  “But I can throw in a batch of Uncle Rabelesian’s No Frills Thrilling Knob Socks,” Igor said, expelling a cloud of pungent brown smoke. “With my personal guarantee for a wild and wet time for you, your boys, and any womenfolk you should be able to cajole into letting you near them.”

  I crinkled my nose at this. “I don’t—”

  “Ah, ah!” Nigel said, surprisingly piping up at this juncture. “L-let’s n-n-not be hasty n-now, Justin.”

  I raised my eyebrows and sighed. “You can chuck in some of the dickwear.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was sound ungrateful, but I wasn’t all that interested in wearing Uncle Rabelesian’s knitted socks on my schlong. But if Nigel wanted them, then I’d definitely snatch them up when they were on offer.

  “Oh, you won’t regret it,” Igor said. “Trust me on that. And the Gorillantaurs, for that matter. I won’t be putting them in your frat house—Reginald would tan my hide—but should you ever be interested, I’d be more than happy to introduce you to a nice bunch.” He smiled, as if recalling the sweetest memory of his life, then he jerked back into the present. “Anyway, there is, of course, one stipulation to this business of sponsoring. A little prerequisite. Something you must do in exchange for the runes your dungeon needs.”

  “And that is?” I asked.

  “You wear the Rune Mystic’s robes.”

  I groaned inwardly. I didn’t really fancy becoming some douchey walking billboard, but I really didn’t have any other choice.

  “All right,” I said, “where are they?”

  Igor clapped his hands twice, and then, from God knows where, he extracted a set of robes that were, surprisingly, fucking badass.

  I held them up to the boys. “What do you reckon?” I asked them.

/>   They all looked as shocked as I felt. This sort of sponsorship deal wasn’t supposed to come with robes that you actually wanted to wear, surely. They should have had a big-ass logo stenciled across the back in some horrifically unfashionable color. These though…

  It was a leather overcoat, slightly distressed and worn so that it looked like it hadn’t just come straight out of the store. The garment shimmered and glistened as I turned it over in my hands. I opened it up and saw that across the back was a stitched symbol. It reminded me more of a biker gang’s patch than anything else.

  A crazy occult eye with the word ‘RUNE’ above it and ‘MYSTICS’ below.

  Even as I handled it, the overcoat flowed in my fingers and morphed into a cloak.

  “Did you see that?” I asked the others.

  Damien nodded and murmured that he wouldn’t mind one of those himself. I knew then that he must be really impressed, because he habitually went shirtless no matter the place.

  “I need one.” Damien enviously eyed my new coat—or cloak, as it happened to be now.

  Igor shook his head. “Oh, I’m sorry but something like that—a magical item that changes as the needs of its wearer changes—really is too expensive to be handed out willy-nilly.”

  The morphing jacket looked to me like the less reputable cousin of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. A bit of clothing that stayed out until 7a.m and made a habit of opening beers with other clothing’s eye-sockets.

  “I can handle wearing this,” I said.

  “Splendid!” Igor said, around the mouthpiece of his pipe. “We’ll call that settled then. Now, I must be popping off. Reginald told me that he’s set up a rather racy evening involving half a pound of moon dust and a contingent of dancers from an establishment called The Cheeky Unicorn Club. I think it might be prudent if I were to slip in a few quick drinks before we get into that. Just to settle my nerves, you know. Toodle-oo, gentlemen.”