Dark Mage

You stir, suddenly unable to ignore the cold, empty gnawing ache in your stomach. This feeling only exacerbated by the frigid, wet air seeping in through the splintered, dank, mouldy and moisture softened cracks in the rotten and loose wooden panels. Rain hammers down on the stone outside. You scamper out of your home, a small hole dug in one of the large, numerous peat storage sheds. You don’t live by the oldest blocks of peat, those are used up first. Nor do you hide by the newest, either. They wouldn’t be touched for years but you quickly realised the folly of curling up in the mercilessly moist things. After your brush with a pneumonic death you decided to chose the middle ground, of decently dry blocks of peat that still aren’t so dry as to be ideal fuel and forked out the next time a fireplace calls for it. Your hovel is practically invisible, the only entrance and exit being stones and boards that were already working their way loose before you came along and just… helped them along.

Carefully, rain pelting your hooded whale leather coat, you place each bit of the broken wall into their right spot, your hidden little home invisible once more. Drawing the hood further over your head, you look up slightly into the night sky, while fighting the wind trying to rip your hood off again. The skies are dark, dismal and pouring, though, that’s how it always looked. The nights were just a different kind of dark, blacker than the sun-strangling grey.

You don’t know what it’s like to live in a place that isn’t perpetually raining. Direct, warm and dry sunlight is almost like a myth to you. Maybe not as much as flying cities, but still. You can count on a hand the number of times you’d witnessed the cloud break and spears of sunlight pour through. Of course, you’re aware that it is your experience that is the mythical one. Apparently, elsewhere in the world it doesn’t rain every single second of every single minute of every single hour of every single day. But to you, that’s all you’ve ever known. Rain. Squall’s Landing.

Indeed, as far as myth goes, you spy the flitting avian forms of water sprites dancing through the clouds, shedding an ethereal luminescence amidst the angry roiling black. You figure those don’t usually go in the sky either. You had overheard one day a man in large robes exclaiming about the rarity of finding corporeal elements and so many at once, in such an unusual place no less. He’d practically jumped out of his own opulent robes, dislodging a gem in the process of this frantic display. So the event is pretty well stuck in your mind, admittedly less for the mad caster, more for the gem which quickly and quietly vanished. You ate well that day, even if you did get ripped off.

Pulling your large coat tighter around you, you double check what you’ll need for this heist. Your dagger and a small pot, handle tucked away so the thing doesn’t knock anything as you move. You set off silently into the wet dark, avoiding the braziers offering hazy, smoky light, protected from the weather via stoneware canopy. You make no noise as you head towards the harbour, your footsteps lost in the infinite pitter-patter.

You sneak your way down the looming, crowded alleys, skirting any and all moving shapes as best you can. Any Lander except for those sheltered by Keeper’s Peak have long since learned to avoid people at night, for the rain obscures all manner of evil. The entire city of Squall’s Landing is a constant rocky, cobbly trek upwards to Keeper’s Peak where after the castle it drops down nearly a hundred metres into raging, fitful seas. It rains constantly. The loud torrents course down sturdy and efficient gutters. Visibility is dismal during the day much less to speak of during the night.

Paradoxically, crime is so rife that it isn’t. Guards patrol the main roads quite heavily and in number, but their scope is still so limited by the weather, that anywhere out of their direct purview gangs have formed with reckless impudence. Despite their beginnings as humble local vigilante neighbourhood groups, their power grew so rapidly and unchecked that each neighbourhood was like it’s own tiny autonomous state. And had been for centuries. Protection money was collected and each gang took a vigilant eye over their territory and the effective takeover of another neighbourhood was almost unheard of. In the figurative dark you could only trust your back to the man next to you, not the one a block over. The nature of the gangs; too centralised to efficiently protect.

As such the only figures prowling the torrential night are guards who are callous, mean and surly. Then you’ve the local gang members who are also callous, mean and surly. Or, gang members from the block over. Callous, mean and surly. Finally, there are the vagrants like yourself, some of which are simply looking to survive much like you are. Others of which are, of course, callous, mean and surly. After all in weather like this you have to be especially noisome for even the guy next door to hear a mugging, or burglary.

You avoid them all and you’re not the only figure being so furtive. You keep your hands in the open but you often brush the bulge at your coat’s hip, reassuring yourself of its continued presence, a shoddy old dagger that even a beggar would scoff at. It bears a cracked handle of ancient whale bone, a guard a little loose around the blade and the whole edge is coated in old fish oil to stave off the ever-present corrosion of salt and rain. The blade is sharpened unevenly either on on stone or old tile.

You make your way to the harbour with a supernatural grace, much like every resident that is born, lives and commonly dies slipping on wet surfaces. No one notices or hears you as you approach one of many harbour-side fish stores, one that you had deliberately avoided for some weeks now. You can only hope that no other homeless, vagrants or thieves have clued into your particular egress. For if they’ve barred your method of entry, you’ll have to be less subtle about it. And since this place is naturally paying protection money, a smashed in window is less an act of hooliganism and more a direct slap to the face of whatever group fancies themselves as the lord custodians of this stretch of dock.

Your point of entry doesn’t involve the building in question at first. Dipping into a nearby alley you pickup the crate you left there weeks ago and take it to the low hanging roof of the shorter building next to it. With a nimble feat, you pull yourself up onto the roof and take a moment to steel yourself, flicking your hands of icy rainwater and taking deep, frigid breaths as the rain hammers down onto your coat. Perhaps finding a human standing on a roof a little odd, a low flying water sprite flaps its wings and lists over towards you in a quite surreal manner, definitely at odds with the winds and rain.

It lands on your shoulder, a shimmery, watery form of a seabird. It’s a shame you can’t eat it. You lift a finger to it, which it pecks. You feel no pain but for a mild, momentary weakness in the digit before it takes flight once more. Shaking your head, you look to your target, a ledge that leads to a jutting out roof and just above it is a second story window. Hopefully it hasn’t had its lock changed from the simple contraption that quickly gives way to a light teasing from your dagger’s edge. It’s also small enough that even you’ll soon outgrow the small egress, meaning your only competition would be from vagrants even younger than yourself, or, impossibly weak and frail. You don’t exactly boast meat on your bones after all. The best part about this… well, “latch” rather than “lock” is that you can then close it from the outside once more.

This fact – you dearly hope – none have clued on to. Rolling your shoulders and cracking your neck, the rain is almost heavy enough to mask from you the sound of your own body protesting. With a deep foggy breath, you prepare to run and leap, the blue sprite overhead still watching you with some vague sentience.

Foot thrusting down and blasting droplets out to mingle and fall with the rain, you leap off the corner of the roof and adjust your posture as you land. Your fingers reach out for the thankfully dry windowsill, yet your feet touch down first on the wet tiling, hands following a mere moment later. Suddenly, your left foot goes out from under you and your heart plummets, not because you’re about to fall, your grip on the sill is strong and your other foothold – though wet – is stable for now. You turn and look below and behind, putting your foot back down and a little over, watching the loose tile fall through the rain. Smash.

Or, nothing, really. There was no smash, incessant pounding of the rain muting all noise, maybe a vagrant in the alley might have heard it, but any one inside would only be able to hear the downpour on their roof. The thing did indeed smash, however. Thankfully, it didn’t land on a corner. Landing almost flat, there’s just one large diagonal crack across it and a smaller secondary one. Asides from that it looks rather whole. You briefly contemplate hopping down to collect it, but decide to make your heist first.

Looking back ahead of you, you’re glad to see there’s no giant spooky face in the window. Outside of a particularly close bird-call, screams are one of the few things to travel just a little further in the rain. It’s just a room, a little store room on the second floor, not even for anything good. Just boxes, bits of linen, brooms, mops, some old paint, a small stack of peat logs. Things that won’t help your empty stomach out of it’s predicament.

Taking out your knife, you lean against the window and try to spy the mechanism through the gloom. Thankfully it’s this old brass metal bit, it isn’t too hard to spot, nor is it too necessary to spot, it just saves you a moment feeling around with your knife. Slipping it between the window and its frame, you pop the latch up and pull the window open, giving yourself a little shake before squeezing your way in, awkwardly holding your weight up with your arms as you poke your legs through and drop down with a bit of a thud.

Despite the window still being open, you’re met with a familiar shift in the atmosphere as the sound of the loud open rain muffles significantly, just as loud but not nearly as clear. A cacophonous pelting. Your first order of business is to check the old crate to your immediate left. This one you placed there months ago to run up and step off as you reach for the lip of the otherwise too high window. Probably won’t fool anyone motivated to actually look but at least it’s not directly under the damn thing.

The next order of business – outside a casual surveillance of the room around you – is to poke your head out the door slightly and look around. The room opens out to a second story hallway, the staircase to your right leads down to the shop proper, where as there are two more rooms to your left and one directly infront of you. That’s your meal ticket, you don’t know what’s in the other two rooms, because a curious vagrant is a… well, ‘missing’ kind of implies someone’s looking, doesn’t it? It’s a gone vagrant. Straight ahead is where rows and rows of fish and other sea critters are hanging to dry. Moving as silently as you can – which is pretty damn silent – dagger in hand, you stalk the metre half gap and ever so slowly turn the door handle. Thankfully, the thing hasn’t grown squeaky in the time since you’d turned it last.

You’re instantly hit with an overpowering fishy scent as row upon row of cadavers are strung up like trophies, each their own little aquatic war crime. Your stomach doesn’t exactly turn at the sight nor smell, and it’s not because you’ve an especially strong constitution. You’re just that hungry. Squandering no time, your wasted-away frame slips sideways through the barely open door and you turn right to where – if they’d conveniently stuck to the schedule and system you’d half remembered, half guessed – some of the fresher fish were hanging, already prepared and ready to dry.

You cram three into a pocket in your coat and re-arrange the rest to obscure the three fish shaped holes and immediately turn to leave. Poking your head out once more, things are much the same and with another silent closing of the door and stalking across the corridor, dagger still in hand, you close the small storeroom door and listen intently. A moment passes, you are satisfied only when you hear the infinitely enduring pounding rain and the distant rumble of thunder – the odd bird cry – but nothing else.

Still at some distance from the wall, you hide your dagger in with the fish in your pocket and run for the crate, jumping up against the wall towards the window, just barely catching the opening with your fingers as your foot pushes off the thankfully sturdy box. It’s not hard to pull yourself up, you’re not exactly built, but you’ve survived this long and there’s a convenient wall for you to push off. You could even pull yourself up an overhanging ledge with enough flailing and luck to hook your foot on something. This, however, is far easier and far quieter.

The background noise shifts once again, as you leave that deadened muffle and reenter the pouring rain proper, still smashing itself into smithereens on any and every surface available. Reaching in you angle the latch just open enough for the window to close all the way again, but not too far over. Once the window’s closed you thump the frame next to it a few times, watching that brass latch shake loose and fall back down into place.

You smile.

Now you just have to do the jump all over again and hope you don’t break anything else. Hanging from the ledge, you drop down into the alley below and pick up the shards of tile, cramming them in with the fish and the knife before climbing back onto the neighbour’s roof and leaping back onto the ledge. Thankfully nothing else breaks this time and you’re able to put the tile together again and lay it in place. It’s heavy enough to not get washed away in the rain at least. And unless some one climbs up here, no one will know the difference. Even if it does smell a little fishy and… knifey.

Dropping once more into the alley below, you start to wrack your brains, taking a rough guess at where the guard – the actual guard – patrol around the main streets would be in their rotations. Figuring it’s pointless idly guessing, you just head down the alleys to the main section of town, the bits that rich people see while passing through and you wait for the guards to pass. There’s a brazier just to the left of this alley, jutting out by the roadside. That’s the second part of your meal, blessed heat for your dish of otherwise cold water and sharp fish. A luxury indeed, but it makes the fish go down easier. You take your knife out and stab, hack the stiff fish into bits, fitting about half your stash into your pot, which fills with water the moment you hold it out beyond the cover of the roof.

Suddenly, you hear the sound of footsteps and freeze, breath tight in your chest and heart pounding as five heavily armed men walk past your alley, not noticing you – or rather not looking – despite the lanterns at their hip briefly shining a faint light over you. A feature of the guard. The real ones. The fake ones don’t use them except for when they’re pretending to be them.

You purse your lips and berate yourself for not paying more attention. Being startled by footsteps in Squall’s Landing means that someone’s very very close. You blame the delicious looking fish for distracting you, but thankfully, unless you’re unlucky enough that they start walking backwards, you should have enough time. Dashing out to the brazier, you – careful not to spill anything – tuck your pot way in a part of the brazier that you hope would be the least likely to make a passing guard wonder why there was a handle sticking out of the fire.

The brazier itself is obviously covered, a crude earthenware dome stuck to a stone frame that contains some burning peat logs. The thing gives off a blessed amount of warmth but that’s not something for a vagrant like you to enjoy. Not on the main street anyway. You double check it’s in the fire and not too conspicuous then dash back into the alley. And then you wait, stomach growling, as guards pass this alley thrice more. You dart out, grab the almost too-hot handle of your pot and carefully lift it out of the flames. Running back to the alley, you cradle the cooling pot in your hands and sip from the fishy hot water, chew on the stiff flesh. The wait between guards passing is made infinitely easier as warm fish melts in your mouth and slides down your throat like hot nectar. Or, so you convince yourself, as you chew and drink the near flavourless water. You refill your pot as quickly as you empty it with more broken dry fish, while the rain does the rest and you wait another rotation and quickly head out to cram the pot back into the fire.

Your stomach begins to feel a bit less like a cold entropy void with something in it to break down and it stops gnawing at your insides, which is nice, since you need those. A measure of warmth, perhaps illusory, begins to spread through your limbs from your belly. The guard passes and you make the dash to your last bit of food for the day, carefully lifting the pot out of the fire and turning to head back into the alley. Only to be met with a group of guards walking in your direction. No, not guards, they don’t have little lanterns. These are perhaps the less legitimate guard, which is strange since no gangs have their territory so close to the main drag.

“Halt! Don’t move!”

You run.

And fall, pot of precious fish soup hissing and sizzling as the hot water meets the wet stone floor.

Your muscles stiffen, causing you no small amount of pain as it feels as if you undergo a full body cramp all at once. A second time, one of the blue sprites floats down to land before you, staring at your eyes for a moment before pecking your forehead and rushing away in a flutter. You’re picked up by the scruff and manhandled into a standing position, muscles still locked.

You’re hauled up and turned around, forced to face a rather gruff yet nondescript face. It leers at you and unfortunately it’s breath is quite distinct. It, he, look exactly like every second man in this city, a ragged gangster, replete with scars and the odd tattoo. “Yer pretty unlucky boyo. Normally ye’d get a fist in the gut fer good measure, but I imagine you’d rather that over Master Londbrook’s magic.” He moves around behind you, allowing you to make out three more thugs and a finale face, obscured in robes that are obviously some kind of cloth yet somehow not drenched in rain. Completely dry.

A gnarled hand stretches out before him, pointing at you and clutched in a claw as if gripping some small figurine, though his hand is empty. His eyes flicker to the man behind you, glaring, but it’s a tired glare.

“Names.”

“I know, I know. ‘E’s gonna be a dead man anyway innit? You can trust a dead man.”

This Master Londbrook lifts his free hand to the bridge of his nose. “You can’t, in fact. Whatever. Move it.”

You wince mentally, under the mercy of whatever has your muscles painfully locked. You wished it weren’t so, not necessarily to stop the pain, but at least to make carting you off a little harder. As it was though, your dead weight was perfectly mitigated by being stiff as a plank. You’re not even cumbersome enough to require two men, a single burly arm is wrapped around your chest and you’re carried off into the shadows of the alleyways. They don’t bother to really look after you that well either, so the side of your coat flaps open and exposes the bits of you you’d tried rather hard to not expose to the rain.

The seeping icy chill begins to spread out over your chest, nullifying the pain of having all your muscles locked up and tense, but it doesn’t offer you more freedom. Less so, in fact, now that it feels as though a coat of ice has begun to seal over you.

You can’t talk and… they don’t want to. It’s a shame they’re not inclined to share all their dastardly plans with you, or at least hold you in such a way that you can see where they’re going. You know your way around most streets like the back of your hand, but if all you’re able to get a good long look at is the rocky wet ground it all starts to look the same. Hopefully, what they plan to do is quick and easy. If not… well if you get your mobility back they’re going to regret not checking you for any weapons. Your dagger might be shit, but it’s going to effortlessly slit your throat all the same, you don’t plan to get bent over by some degenerate and take it.

In the wake of the realisation of your impending doom, a sense of emptiness and relief fills you. Your short, lonely struggle of a life would soon be over. Now all that’s left is a sense of curiosity. How exactly will it end? You note, strangely enough, that despite not trying their hardest to be unseen, they still cart you along, unmolested by the gangsters who are otherwise notoriously territorial to outsiders. It’s like they all chose this hour, in fact, to make themselves scarce. Not a pattern you’re familiar with anyway.

Your curiosity reaches its peak as you spy the recognisable – rumoured to be dwarven cut – main road. Your peripherals open up and the road begins to degrade the way it only does when you’re leaving town. A sliver of fear and trepidation sinks into you as you realise they’ve taken you out of Squall’s Landing and down toward the dread Bleakmurmur Bog. A great bogland that almost entirely cuts the peninsula tip of Squall’s Landing from the landmass, but for a great thinning of the bog by the shore. Everything that goes wrong in Squall’s Landing can be traced back to the bog, or so they say. Spoiled fish? Bog did it. Leaky roof? Bog did it. The rain? Witches in the bog. The witches? Bog did it. But really, half the things the bog’s blamed for has its culpability traditionally thrown in under that bigger aforementioned boogeyman. Or, boogeywomen, the Bleakmurmur Coven. Those accursed witches, masterminds of every wicked deed. Though, you’ve witnessed enough to know the leaky roof is just the hole made when the neighbour hops over to steal in through the bedroom window to bugger the other neighbour’s wife.

Other things? Other things you can’t quite explain. A strange sense of fascination mixes with the fear, as you’re trundled down the deep worn cart grooves leading to the bog. Your pleasant, floaty journey is disrupted as Master Londbrook lets out a soft grunt. “Release.”

In the very same moment that all-encompassing pain vanishes and you find yourself able to move again, you’re already falling face first into the mud. While reaching for your knife and trying to get up again, a heavy boot slams you back down. Fancy, eerily dry robes step into frame as the Master squats down and one of the thugs yanks your hair back to look at him.

He’s aged, but seems healthy, well at ease despite the hand he now rotates and massages with the other as if having just dropped a heavy weight. “You’re surrounded young lad. These four boys are all good in a scrap, and even if you slipped out, you can’t run with me here. Best take a little time to calm down, I can do what I can to make your last moments pleasant. I can also do what I can to make your last moments very very unpleasant. It’s up to you.” He looks down at you with a gentle, almost warm smile.

He reaches a hand out and pats your cheek. You glare at him and go to open your mouth before the boot on your back twists. Your protests turn into a groan and then a sigh. “Fine. Get your foot off me.” There’s a hesitation before Londbrook looks up at the thug and nods. With the weight off you, you’re free to stand up – slowly, given all the pain you were in on top of not wanting to spook them. A little indignantly, you pat yourself off.

“Why are you taking me to the bog? What are you going to do with me?” The man shakes his head and starts walking off into the bog, gesturing with a hand. A large palm slams into your back, making you stumble a step forward, forcing you to walk on while the other men surround you.

“We can discuss that in the bog.”

You hold your tongue and look back, peering over the shoulder of one of the perpetually snarling men, almost as if to wish farewell to Squall’s Landing. This is your first time viewing the walls from the outside, really. There was no reason to before this, your life was the city. You take a moment to take it all in before you’re inevitably pushed again and forced to march onwards. Keeper’s peak dominates Squall’s Landing’s city-scape, a large castle built around a huge tower, perennial flame burning bright as always, flashing out over tumultuous waves, the only reason the city sees any boats docked in it’s harbour. The entire place exists on a rocky peak jutting out into the sea and rising upwards, the immense light-‘castle’ sits at the very tip. The city’s walls start with a huge turret half carved out of the cliff face and continues across the width of the peninsula and ends some hundred metres out into the harbour itself. Right in the centre of the wall as it spans the peninsula is the entrance guarded by half lowered heavy portcullis gate and some turrets, but little else. In between the gates and the large cliff-facing turret is a sewer outlet, almost the size of a house. Thick, iron grated stone piping, able to fit four men shoulder to shoulder across and two men tall.

The runoff from the city alone creates a powerful rapid that turns to a stream down the hill into the bog. You guess that’s how the bog formed. That and the endless rain. Another shove from behind pushes you forwards, forcing you to catch yourself as to prevent from falling, drawing your gaze to the bog down below.

It rises from the land, dark and foreboding, the tree cover somewhere between sparse and dense, gnarled, twisted, stunted and bare. Black birds cry and flit in the canopies, but everything, even the tallest tree, is shrouded in an angry dark grey mist. It’s not imposing in its height, like a great forest would be. Even as you walk down towards it you’re still able to overlook all it’s vast expanse. It’s size is certainly intimidating but you also fell like, if ever given a clear day you might be able to see the end of it. It’s a strange sensation for being a low-lying bogland but what scares you is the notion that you can’t really fathom how deep it is. What lay within scares you as much as what lay below.

You head down a smaller side road from the main one that runs out of the Landing, that road cuts a swathe along the shoreline though the thinned out bog is still perilous. Your road, you hypothesise going by hearsay, can only lead down to the Bleakmurmer Distillery, built just off to the side of the Everbanks. Your group follows Master Londbrook down into the bog, quickly disappearing into the misty darkness, path lit only by the scarce torch by the road side. All manner of things hang from the stunted trees along your path, probably put up in jest by passing workers. Nooses in the gnarled boughs, chimes of bones hanging in shrubs, strange effigies planted in the wet ground, ears nailed to bark, eyes dangling from boughs.

You march in silence, this time not because they don’t deign to talk to you, but out of a sombre attitude, each man has his ears about him and looks around nervously. Asides from the insects, the distant frogs, the rainfall, the mist blowing through the bog, the gentle lapping of water in the distance and the creaking of dead wood, all you hear is the muddy squelching as you walk down the filthy road. You shiver in your rain-soaked clothes. In quiet tones one of them warns you to stick to the path, lest you’re sucked into the bog or worse. Ancient rails and wooden planks below the layer of mud are all that keep this stretch of road stable.

The way quickly widens though, as the deep carriage tracks split, left and right. The mist thins here, allowing you to see the distillery in the middle distance, a large building to your left, shrouded in the dark of night, ghost imaginings flittering behind the windows. To the right is the so-called Everbank, a some hundred metres long bank of peat that workers dig and cut at of a day. They say that a black fog rolls in as the sun sets and by the next day the bank is back like it was never cut at all, yet the peat harvested remains. No one knows what happens. Any one caught in the black fog disappears, never to return. Or so they say.

“Okay, we’ll stop here for a moment.”

Londbrook turns and pulls something out of his robes, wrapped in a delicate looking paper. “Want it?”

You want to say no, but for some reason the scent spills out of it like the wrapper isn’t even there, sweet and crisp, making your mouth water. You nod.

“I’ll need you to strip first.”

“…”

The aged man rolls his eyes. “Please. After this is done, I’ve a serving girl waiting for me back at home. I didn’t bring you out here just to bugger you in the bog. I’ve taken that girl in many a place, but I’m proud to say a bog isn’t one of them.”

Frowning, but accepting anyway, you shake your coat and drenched shirt off, glaring a hole into the wrapped pastry as you stand there in the misty night, scrawny chest bared, shivering. He tosses it over. “Catch.” And pulls out a pen, “And hold still. Remember, I can make your last moments much much worse.”

You frantically grasp for the wrapper, hoping against hope you don’t drop it and it seems to float its way into your hand. You half obsess over ripping it open and cramming it in your mouth and half watch Londbrook worriedly as he walks up to you, biting the cap off his pen.

He looks up at you, “Uh, you’ll want to swallow that first.”

Now deeply concerned, you listen to the man anyway and swallow, before watching the tip of his pen sink into your chest, right above your heart. Searing pain rips through you as the pen tip gouges your flesh and starts spitting twinkling purple sparks, not unlike what you see when a smith uses a grinding wheel on steel. Thankful for having listened to him, you cry out into the gloomy night as he carves symbols into your chest, symbols and witch-y looking markings and swirling patterns of undoubted devilry. The pain subsides a little, as you suck your teeth focus on the sweet pastry stuck to your molars.

“I suppose not much else can really go wrong at this point, and…” he glares at the thuggish companion of his “‘Dead men don’t tell tales’. Not too easily anyway. You’re about to be sacrificed. To the bog.”

“Uh…” Well it was going to be something terrible. “Knife in the chest, blood drained, what?”

The robed man shrugs, “Who knows? In a moment I’m about to do what I’ve done a couple times before, It’s only every half century, see? I’ll cast a temporary little spell, blind you so you can’t back track your way out and dump you further in the bog before walking away. Once I’m far enough away the magic will fade and you’ll be left to your own devices…” He frowns, “I mean I suppose you’re then free to fight your way out or what not. Ah, but I’ve never heard of a sacrifice popping up again, so… eh.” He shrugs disinterestedly.

“And why the sacrifice?”

He takes a moment to look you up and down before passing you your coat. “I’d say you were astute but you’re not the first vagrant who’s just more curious than anything else.” You shrug, fighting off these bigger, better fed men would be impossible in the best of times, much less when there’s a guy here that only needs to gesture to rob you of all movement.

After a pause, he sighs. “… I don’t know why we sacrifice people to tell you the truth. It’s just always been done. Some say it appeases the witches, prevents them from stirring any more trouble. Keeps them rejuvenating the Everbank, keeps the rain falling. Not that I’d really expect a commoner to get that last one. Or why it matters. To tell you the truth, I’m just doing this because I get paid to. That’s why my master did it. That’s why my apprentice’ll do it.” His lips purse and curl down in a frown, the bottom protruding while his brows rise again, “I don’t know if it really works. We’ve never stopped for long enough to find out.”

“You’re not about to start now are you?”

“No. No we aren’t.” He smiles.

You sigh, “I guess I know why me specifically.”

He nods, “Folklore has it that when the village was smaller it was actually the different families that would agree to send one among them on rotation. But the village became a city, families expanded, some got incredibly wealthy and thought they were above it all and the system fell apart. Thankfully by this point there were plenty of alternatives that people wouldn’t care about.”

“Uh… It’s a shit life huh?”

Another smile, “It is indeed. Are you satisfied now?”

You tilt your head up and look at the twisted branches, the clouded black sky above. “I wish my mother wasn’t a sick whore. I wish I knew who my father was. I wish I had somewhere warm and dry to call home. I regret not trying my luck on the seas or doing something worthwhile other than just live.” Your head tilts down and you sigh while looking at the runes carved into your chest. “I regret not living big, breaking into the castle and I don’t know… pissing in their fancy wood fires. I’m not satisfied at all.” You look at him, “But I guess none of that matters.”

“Not one bit. Now, focus on my fingers.” He holds two out, pointed at your eyes and as you look at them black cloudy swirls overtake your vision. It joins the rest of Bleakmurmur, hazy and indistinct. A pair of hands gasp your arms and you’re walked forward, of course, you’ve no real measure of where and for how long, until that Londbrook speaks up again. “Alright, this is far enough.” You’re released and you roll your arms a bit, trying to get feeling again after they kind of crushed your circulation. Slowly you take out your knife, earning a moment of silence before a small chuckle. “Good luck with that. Although I guess it’s no problem if you use it on yourself, you’re already marked so it should be all the same theoretically. It was a pleasure! Do try and be more careful in the next life!” The end of his words trail off, as if he’d not only turned around but already started walking away.

More heavy footsteps follow, before you’re left to your own devices, standing out in the open – you assume – with a knife out. You suppose that, as your vision begins to clear, you could dash about, looking for the direction where your vision begins to cloud again and use that to chase him out, but then what? What if he just digs your eyes out and tosses you back in? That would be needlessly painful.

You deliberate for a moment on slitting your own throat. The knife is… maybe if you were determined enough? Well, it would definitely be a cut, if not a clean one. You shake your head, vision clearing by the moment, returning to perfect clarity. You can now see with said clarity the heavy wall of mist a few metres in front of you. Might as well see – or not see – what’s in this bog. You start walking in a random direction, they’re all the same as far as you’re concerned. You’re surrounded now by the sound of falling rain. Still. Water bubbles around you, trickles in through the large stream running out of Squall’s Landing. Insects fly around, though thankfully not the large sentient kind yet. Hidden birds caw in the treetops. Creatures, perhaps toads or frogs or something, squeak and call. Spiders dance in webs and you’re honestly thankful you can’t hear those. There are some larger, deeper calls that echo out of the dark from time to time, the kind that make your skin crawl, some large nameless beast perhaps. While the countless insects buzzing around you have no issue landing on your coat, they avoid your chest for some reason.

You try and walk on the things that look the sturdiest, but more than once you get the shit scared out of you as your footing begins to bubble and sink, spurring you to quickly hurry to another foothold. You’re no less frightened when you peer out over the edge into a nearby pool of water only to see a corpse floating in it.

Thankfully, as its eyes open to look at you, you’re so horrified that when you open your mouth to scream, nothing comes out. You can, however, run. Really fast. A little unfortunately that includes bursting through a web that, had you lacked the momentum, may just have held you up for a moment. You get out of it with a few errant strings and a lot of crawly things on you that need slapping. Only after you’d been jumping, slapping, flailing and stomping about for a bit, do you land on something squishy yet firm, like a muscle of some kind. It had evidently been previously stealthily working its way to ensnare your ankle, yet your sudden stomp makes it freeze. You look down. It looks at you. Well, it doesn’t have eyes, but the tip points at you. A moment later there’s a muffled roar and a bubbling flurry from the waters around you and you bolt, leaping over another, larger, much thicker tentacle that rises form the water. You don’t look back.

The further you run into the bog the more things seem to become attracted to you, an enormous leech nearly drops onto your head and would have landed if not for a mad flurry of the blade. Mushroom things reach out of the stunted trees to grasp at you, wet fleshy things just manage to miss as they splat from down above. One of those corpses rise out of the water and only now do you see the strange fin ears. Her deadpan face stares at you as you run, but not long do you pass her by before a trident lands precariously close to your thigh. Sprinting hard now, your foot punches straight through the overgrowth and into the water below, before you struggle your way out to continue your mad dash. You begin to hear something buzzy and very very loud approach – a keening frequency that hunches your shoulders and rattles your spine.

You drop and scramble on all fours as something brushes past your back and stops infront of you. “Aww~”

You look up, first startled by the large sack of glowing crimson between its legs. More of it glows, small domes in her exoskeleton shedding the same colour. Upon more than a split second glance, you make out the sack between her legs is an abdomen hanging fat behind her. A her you’re sure, since one of her sleek black limbs toy with an appreciably large breast while the other’s four fingers are crammed deep in her twat. Her wings flutter furiously to keep her hovering in the air. “Come on cutie~ Just a little sip?” Admittedly, she’s quite pretty. A fairly oldish teen-aged build, well developed, hair split in a cute pair of ponytails. Fluffy looking antenna too.

Buuut…. on the other hand… she is a heathen witch-bug thing.

You keep running. Though, now there’s a nagging coming from behind, “C’moon! Just a little sip! I promise I won’t wrap around you and force you to burst all your hot gooey cum up in my womb so I get pregnant, honest! Kyahahahah!”

You duck another dive and pick a different direction to run, only to come face to face with another girl, a lot… slimier. Dark green and squatting, while regarding you with blank eyes. She doesn’t seem hostile. Except for the dark green skin, the slime all over her and the kind of bulbous digits she looks almost human. And then she blinks and before you can even slow down or turn what feels like a pink fist comes hurtling towards you, then – Bang.

You slam into something soft, yet solid. You don’t bowl it over at least. It’s not the giant tongue either, it’s something large and black, splashes of white by your face. The… something grabs you by the head and pulls you into two soft giant orbs but you still have an eye free to witness a lightning quick flash of steel collide with the tongue, send it flying, before you’re spun around bodily and made to witness what is now apparent to you as the hilt of a sword, held upside down with a crystal ball set into the pommel, pointed at a red and black flying blur that tries to evade, but before your eyes an arc of lightning explodes from the pommel and smacks the flying thing square in the chest.

You breathe heavy as the thunder echoes in your ears, chest shaking from the sprint. You suck in a lungful of torn air, the scent lightning gives off, accompanied by sizzling flesh and something softer… a bit of the bog, some scents and perfumes you’ve never smelled but are plainly a herbal mix of fresh and old. Below that, something sweeter and more feminine tying it in.

The bog finally goes silent with that thunderous roar, even the bubbling and the spattering rain seem to cease, leaving your own heave breathing in your ears and the comforting, steady thrum of the heartbeat by your head. Slowly, things meld into shadow, or recede under the waters, the red thing picks herself up with a broken wing and sulkily turns to stalk off and you’re swung around to face the green thing once more. It all happened so fast it’s still in the process of sucking its tongue back in and it flinches as the hilt is pointed towards it.

“U-uhm t-this is… my… uh… home…” She points a finger to a hollowed out stump a little weakly and slinks her way back inside, disappearing but for two eyes over the lip of the hole in the hollow. “I-I’m gone now… Y-you can leave…” She looks at you in fear – no, at the thing holding you and the thing just sighs, making the two big soft mounds your face is pressed into jiggle. Your head is released and you’re able to take a reeling, stumbling step back, prepared to start running again.

Only, your saviour as you now see it, is human. A… uh… sexy human. The splash of white was just her cleavage, top cut out to a kind-of deformed upside down droplet shape, revealing at its bottom a deep bountiful vale, curving up and out from that point, allowing the faintest peek of some pale pink areola. The curves continue to just skirt her armpits and rejoin at her throat. Deformed, just because of the shelf her pushed up breasts form. It might look more droplet-y were you to look diagonally down on her chest from a balcony of some sort.

The rest of her however, barring that blessed window, is covered from neck down in tight body-hugging black leather. It’s a little mindblowing to be honest, you’d never seen leather look… this good. Far more used to rough jerkins frayed at the edges and reeking of the sea, discoloured brown things of a rugged quality. Her boots look solid, probably make for a mean kick, there’s a mess of straps all the way up to the upper shin where the boot ends and smooth black leather takes over, claiming her athletic but meaty looking thighs. Strapped here and there are some small pouches and an ornate dagger. You’ve not seen her rear but you wager it’d cause a predicament in your pants.

The leather finally crinkles just faintly at her groin, following the lines where her thighs end, though the light isn’t good enough to make out too much. That smooth leather only reaches up to probably just under the belly button where a rather bulky looking over bust corset begins. It’s bordered with a kind of immaculate silver filigree lining, depicting all kinds of flowing, probably arcane patterns, but you don’t know the nearest thing about magic. It looks pretty and it makes her tits more prominent as they sit propped up on the corset and that’s all that really matters. Excitingly, they seem to be just barely on the verge of spilling over and out. If you were a mage like that Londbrook guy, you’d make her do jumping jacks.

Her arms are much the same as her legs, thick leather gloves up to the elbow, some straps on her biceps with some more smaller pouches and a pentagram broach at her throat. From the neck up however, she is no less gorgeous, plump and shapely lips, midnight black lipstick, pale never-seen-the-sun skin, prominent but not too heavy black eyeliner and shadow, vibrant purple irises under fine, delicate brows and a cute upturned nose. She turns this way and that, taking stock of her surroundings and daring anything that lurks to try her, sword still held out, upside down and pommel glowing menacingly. Her hair shakes around a little as she does this, as midnight black as her make up and armour, a perfect neat cut at the middle of her nape and running a mere finger’s width from her shoulders and down her delicate collarbones. Her black fringe is long and parted down the middle, framing her high yet not too prominent cheekbones, hair kind of looking like a pair of fangs when you look at her dead on, though it’s all drenched from the rain at the moment.

She’s tall for a woman, her breasts perfectly face level, as you’d discovered earlier. Though, of her height, an enchanting amount of it is in her legs, long shapely things. Satisfied with how intimidated her surroundings are, she sheathes her sword in the scabbard by her hip with a practised and smooth motion and the pommel quickly dims.

“Sooo.” She looks you over, a faint smile hanging at her lips, “Who are you and why am I here? I should be foraging ghostshrooms, yet something just kept teasing and tugging at the back of my mind, drawing me closer. And here I find a cute boy being bullied by some mean girls.” Her voice has a subtle deep and smoky texture, hidden mostly under a light-hearted mocking tone while drawn out words uncover a faint rasp. “You must be the first to wander this deep into the bog in… oh, what I hear to be about half a century. But you’re definitely the cutest.” Her eyes narrow playfully as lips curl. “Judging by the time, are you one of the…?” She leaves the question hanging but you quickly get what she’s implying. You nod, opening your coat further, or at least no longer covering the makings over your heart. “Oh my…” She lets out a despairing sigh “Such a cute one too. Poor, poor boy.” You blush as she approaches you, pulling your coat open further and laying her fingers on your chest. This is the most contact you’ve had where some one isn’t trying to either stab you or steal something. With what is hands down the prettiest woman you’ve ever seen no less. You are horrendously uncomfortable.

There’s a faint… reaction down south, as you’re once more presented with her majestic rack, but you’re quickly floored by the sudden flash of heat, the sensation of something being pulled out of your skin and then the brightly glowing patterns now hanging in the air from her fingertips. Looking down, you find your chest unmarked once more, just plain old skin and a bit of hair.

“They’re getting better at this. Hrmm… I wonder if one of the ‘sisters’ are teaching them. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.” She folds the glowing runes up and tucks them between her breasts where they abruptly vanish. You’re… not sure reality works that way, but you’re not the witch. You realise, now, that’s what she is. A really, really hot witch.

She turns her eyes back to you, reaching out to gently straighten your coat. “Poor boy. You’re absolutely soaked. Hmmm… I seem to have saved your life” those black lips curl again, “Or did you want to spend the rest of your life getting raped by mosquitoes and toads?”

“Uhm… that certainly doesn’t sound pleasant…”

“No, it certainly doesn’t, does it? A boy like you deserves a more, civil touch don’t you think? By the way, I’m Nia.”

You stare at her blankly and shrug. “I don’t really have a name, I was called Hopper by the beggars that raised me but… I’m not really sure they weren’t just making fun of me for jumping around. They also called me shithead. As for what I deserve, I mean… I lived in a hole I dug out of a warehouse and stole food for a living. I don’t really know what I deserve.”

Her delicate eyebrows rise, “That sounds dreadful. I’m sure we can think of a name for you together that’s a bit… better. How about you come back with me to my home, I’ll get you warmed up and -”

“Eat me?”

“- excuse me?”

“You’ll warm me up and eat me? I heard that’s what you witches do.”

“… And you really believe all the things you hear?”

“Well… I know you’re not the one impregnating the blacksmith’s wife, but…” You shrug, “Maybe you get off on poisoning fish, I dunno. And I am your sacrifice after all. They don’t come back or so I hear.”

“Mmm, food poisoning isn’t really an interest of mine. And it’s Dark Mage, cutie. Witches are something else. As for sacrifice… it’s just a thing those bumpkins decided on a few dozen centuries ago. Well I guess the sisters back then weren’t complaining~ I think you’ll find a little later on why they never return.” She clears her throat “There will be not poisoning or impregnating – maybe – we’ll eat… together. And then I’ll tell you what I want for saving you from a fate of being passed around the swamp like a cheap whore. Sound good?”

You shrug, “Some Londbrook guy in robes made it so that every single muscle in my body locked up at the same time, stopped me from running away. But I just watched you shoot lightning… You’re the boss, lady.”

“Londbrook? Hmm, not familiar.” She reaches a hand out, tilting her head slightly and giving a lopsided smile as she scratches your head with her gloves, “But, that’s a good boy. Follow along now.”

She takes lead and… you pull your coat closed and try and keep it that way, covering your waist. You lose much of the view of the bog, not really paying too much attention to where you walk, staring transfixedly at the large shapely leather-bound thing as it bounces and sways as she walks along, swivelling her hips in a seductress’ gait. You catch yourself beginning to drool and swallow, closing your eyes and shaking your head clear. You’re still in the middle of said shake when you bump into her from behind, getting a little more than you bargained for – fantasised about – as the tent in your pants rubs up against the cleft in hers.

You instinctively go to jump back but a surprisingly powerful hand grips you by the hips and keeps you in place. Flustered, you being to stammer “S-s-sorry, I just w-wasn’t looking I-I didn’t mean to-”

“Mmmmmm,” she keeps an iron grip on your hip and bends over slightly pushing her rear up against the bulge in your pants, rubbing it, “I wondered what was burning a hole into my ass. Dark Mages are very… sensitive to intent you know? Do you like it? Fufu, am I distracting you too much? Maybe you want big sis Nia to take care of your…” the hand on your hip moves over to cup your bulge and she gives it a decent squeeze, making you jump back like you’d been struck by her lightning. “Oooh~ big problem?” you can almost see her lewd leer in your mind.

She turns around and you no longer have to imagine those plump black things twisting. “S-sorry I…” You struggle to gather your words, burning red and flustered now, feeling so hot under the collar it’s like you’re not even drenched in rain right now.

“Do you want to take me here? I can bend over and lean on a tree if you like. Or…” She steps before your petrified form and drops to her knees, fingers trailing down your chest while she looks up at you and loops her arms around your hips and pulls you in, thrusting your crotch into her bust. “Do you want it though here,” She gives her chest a shake, “And in here? Ahhn~” She opens her mouth and a wet, surprisingly long tongue rolls out a good bit past her chin. Even through the coarse and inferior fabric of your pants you can feel how warm, soft and giving her bosom is, she alone is alluring enough to allow you to ignore the pungent scents of the bog and the incessant bothering of the bugs. The sight of her blessed bust, her beautiful face and purple twinkling eyes looking up at you, her delicate features framed by long draping midnight silk fringe, it’s an altogether different dynamic to when she stands and her buxom, curved femininity almost looms over you intimidatingly.

You cock threatens to burst, either figuratively or literally and you quickly grow to feel like steam’s going to start pouring out your ears. You do what you always do when overwhelmed, despite it not working out so good for you of late. You run. Finding a surge of strength, you break free of her hold and turn and sprint, making it a good few steps, then. Snap. You can’t move. Though, your muscles aren’t burning in pain like the last time and some how your momentum is completely arrested, preventing you from falling. Footsteps stalk up to you from behind. “You~” your spine tingles as she wraps her arms around your shoulders from behind and rests her breasts against the back of your head, “Are just too cute!” Nia reaches down, taking the time to molest you while you’re getting overloaded and very very hard. She lingers around your bulge for a bit before grabbing a handful of your ass, “As much as I’d love to have you take me here and now, the bog’s honestly just a little gross and ah… how should I put it? You’ll taste better if I let you stew for a while. Nya ha ha ha ha!” She walks away imitating a witch’s cackle and snaps her fingers, freeing you once more.

You’re less inclined to bolt now that her hands aren’t on you and so you dutifully hobble after her. You’re certain that dutifully hobbling in any other direction will earn you a bolt of lighting. So, you do your best to look at anything other than her ass, despite how she now exaggeratedly swings it from side to side. She leads you for what seems to be an eternity, turning every which way, for a time seeming to walk in circles, only, subtle changes happen each circuit. You get no warmer throughout and despite her seemingly simple perfect foot placement, you can’t replicate it, footing giving out under you more than once as top layer growth breaks apart to reveal cold black murk below. Curiously, despite ever-present buzzing, nothing comes near enough to touch you. Webs don’t exactly retract when you accidentally stumble through them, but their denizens certianly make themselves scarce.

At one point she even walks to a certain spot, stops and then turns and walks back. Eventually, head spinning and more than worn down from the pouring rain and damp mists, she leads you to a strangely thick and large stump, far larger than what any tree here should have grown to, though you feel that without the convoluted process of getting this far you wouldn’t even see that. At this point she turns around, a small missable glint of concern crossing her features as she looks over your bedraggled form before she reaches a hand out, “Hold on. This will feel a bit weird for first timers, just trust in big sis.”

Looking at her curiously, you take her hand and watch as she walks into and through the large stump. A strange black smoke wisps out around her form as she vanishes. You squeeze her hand tight, a reflex to the unknown, you watch wide eyed at your own arm vanishing bit by bit as she pulls you in after her. Gouts of smoke erupt from where your arm and then chest meet the dead old stump. It’s a strange sensation that sets your skin to goosebumps as you feel each ridge and flaked piece of dead bark, but there’s no real sensation of pushing yourself through.

In but a moment however, you’re through, gone is the stump, the sensation of touching yet not quite passing through vanishes. Still holding your hand, Nia guides you through what is now a large spacious arch, with the view of the bog behind it through the stump’s perspective. There’s no more noise, no smell. It’s even stopped raining, though you still see it through the bog side. Turning around, the road ahead is rather short and straightforward, not too long, but just long enough that for the first few tens of meters you’re hemmed on either side by incredibly dense forest growth of dead gnarled and twisted trees. It all looks quite realistic, yet maybe just as a side effect of passing through an old tree stump, you question it’s validity. It kind of almost passes for a mere barrier, with a master artist’s impression of deep woods painted on. The more you look at it, the stranger that notion grows. There’s no doubt that this kind of growth couldn’t be supported in the bog however.

At the end of the path, through stooping wicked branches you see a few corners of buildings as the road terminates, leading into a large square with three looming statues staring at you, at what seems to be the only way in and out. Behind them is something… enormous. At a glance it looks like a tree, but on closer inspection it isn’t quite. The square is bustling, intimidatingly so, fairly packed with a menagerie of shapes and forms that drop down from the sky, walk, fly or hover lowly, slither along, gallop, ooze and strut.

That are countless lights and a myriad of colours, hanging from braziers, sconces on walls, lanterns by the streets, even emitting with various degrees of intensity from staves, wands and bits of jewellery. The lightshow is faintly painful to take in, even. A huge demonic woman thunders down the street and just so happens to glance in your general direction, her burning eyes leaving a stream of flame that swims in your vision. You stumble to a halt as you clench your eyes shut and massage the stars and streaks out of them with your free hand.

Feeling resistance, she looks back confused, looks to the distant square, back to you. Feeling her question, you shrug, squinting. “Lots of strong lights compared to back home. Even the braziers you can’t really see more than a dozen metres out.”

“I’ve… never really been. You mean Squall’s Landing I assume. Haven’t needed to visit yet, no use for the elemental rain. It’s that bad?”

“Mm.” You nod to her and the two of you start walking again. “You get used to it.” Surreptitiously, you draw your hood and pull the coat tighter about you.

Some buildings part from your perspective as Nia guides you closer, from which you see familiar murky black waters. T+hey evoke in you that strange dread feeling, akin to the one you felt when overlooking the bog as a whole, being unsure of the sheer depth of these waters. You don’t doubt that, as you see here – ghost lights and shapes flittering below the surface – it too is inhabited in some mystical manner. The surface is littered with boats and shadowy darting forms. Piers stretch out from the town into the enormous moat pooled around the circumference of the truly gargantuan tree. The mythical thing has the width and overall shape of perhaps a small circular mountain. Like a pillar of the heavens it rises, easily equal to the distance of the tip of Keeper’s Peak to the fitful waves crashing at the base below the immense cliff it sits on. It’s definitely not something that can just ‘hide’ in the bog, something like this would be as visible as Keeper’s Peak itself. Clearly witchcraft.

The tree looks dead. It’s pitted and carved as if by billions of tiny insects, though each pit represents rather decently sized dwellings. The various colours of glowing windows aren’t hard to miss, but if you squint you feel you can make balconies out. And that’s the surface, you’ve no doubt the sprawling complex within the tree. The outside has little to no activity, not that you can make out specific detail on the balconies anyway. There are, however, countless boats ferrying back and forth from the town piers to a huge glowing entrance carved out of the base of the tree, enough to fit perhaps five of the small ferry boats beside and ten times that in height.

Replacing leaves and adhering to the broken sprawling branch bramble up the top however, is a canopy of twisting, warping shadow. Floating there, a misshapen oblate spheroid of darkness with great spires jutting up out of the shadow and down from it, or emerging from the sides. It is perhaps a vaguely spheroid floating city of reaching spires were you to shed it of its shadow shroud, each spire with its own lights, though dim and easily consumed by the swirling shadow around it. A curious similarity to your home rears it’s head here, as you make out countless small – kaleidoscopically coloured perhaps – lights, unmistakably being emitted from small personal lanterns flitting in and out behind larger masses of twisting shadow.

Your mind swims a little as you take in these fantastical details, struck by the strong contrast between the enormous tree-thing and the rather mundane looking stone construction town round its base, so alike the Landing you know so well. It’s only the gentle patient hand holding yours that keeps your feet moving at all.

Your eyes return to the three statues and just by looking you some how – mystically it must be – glean knowledge of who they are, the three head sisters of Bleakmurmur Coven. They stand, three giant yet life-like figures, a domineering assertion of their custodianship over the area, in fact, denying you so much as the ability to look away and ignore their presence. Least, yet, most prominent of them is the one standing in the middle, less a woman, more a mere rift in reality, a chaotic shifting vaguely human shaped mass of shadow. Upon looking away from her however, you find yourself immediately forgetting.

To her left is a woman who can only be described as drenched, soaking wet, the Risi of Blackwater, Zul’Bwatha. Hide, roughly cut clings to her bountiful curves in the primitive shape of a dress, a damp dark brown thing on her blackish blue skin that shows off a good bit of her massive cleavage, wide hips and thick thighs. Pauldrons of some unknown material sit over her shoulders, metallic, depicting the face of a weeping woman, the black tears run down her arms, soaking into some wrappings on her forearm and dripping off the statue into a fountain below. Her face is mostly obscured due to the long black hair hanging wetly onto it, but two large elfin pierced ears jut out a good six or so inches, rings and studs of a silverish metal line their length. The ears look nicked, giving a faintly jagged impression. She holds herself with a kind of primal grace despite the rather mopey appearance. A pair of short tusks poke out, growing from her lower jaw and curving upward. Markings seem to be carved into them, calling to mind flowing dark waters that drip down her chin.

The one to the right of the amorphous shadow is the Risi of Deadwood, Zul’Atal’zan. The most striking thing about her being her ghostly white skin. In much more of a mundane way than the twisting pile of shadow her features are hard to make out. She wears a hooded cape, slits for her long white ears to poke out and a half mask under it that obscures down to the tip of her nose, red lips revealed, allowing bone white tusks – a little larger than the previous – to jut out from her upper jaw. Their very tips are covered in a particularly concerning shade of red. The cape just barely covers her shoulders, but leaves her chest and arms bare. She’s a thin build with a modest pair of perky breasts that look amazingly springy. A pair of pale stiff pink nipples pop out proudly.

Below is a slim and toned stomach, almost on the verge of being malnourished and marked with red tribal primitive tattoos. A ceremonial looking loin cloth wraps around her lithe waist, pinned together with a large wooden brooch fashioned and crudely painted white in the shape of a skull. Her hands, forearms, feet and shins are covered in swirling patterns somehow reminiscent of both deadwood and bloody souls at once.

Your gawking is broken by a gentle squeeze of your hand, the Dark Mage evidently expecting your moment of awe and patiently waiting. “The three leaders of our coven, each with their own little domain in this space. You can kind of think of them as kings in a sense, only they appear far less, don’t really manage the place personally and spend much more time in their research. I’ve been here for around twenty years and as far as I’m aware they haven’t left their rooms once. Of course, even if they did they have no reason to tell anyone. It’s fairly obvious which is which. The one you can’t see owns the city you can’t see. Zul’Atal’zan owns the tree and the Zul’Bwatha owns the water. Because of how hands off they are it’s not quite right to say they rule it. They still put this statue here and enchanted it to make sure you know who runs the place though.” Her eyes roll faintly.

“What’s a Risi?”

“Risi are… strange. They come from goblins, essentially. There are lots of theories about how they came to be and why they bear such an uncanny resemblance to elves. Just think of them as evolved goblins.”

“Ev…olved?”

“Uh… better. They’re just better goblins.” She cringes a bit and you can’t help but feel the statues of the two Risi spare a moment to glare at her. She leads you away as she mutters under her breath about explaining things to commoners.

She takes your hand again, warning you to not pay attention to anything but her, not to look at or respond to anyone, not to touch anything. She starts explaining… well, witchcraft. You don’t really get it and she figures that out soon after and gives up. You just close your eyes, mostly to avoid eye contact, partly due to the sometimes glaring mystical lights and walk after her for about ten to twenty minutes. You focus instead on how warm her hand is, how smooth the leather, up until she stops abruptly and you run into her again. You suspect she did it on purpose. “You can open your eyes now. Welcome to my little abode.”

You do so, greeted by a normal door in a small building. That’s a bit misleading, the building is quite large, and there are larger doors. This, however, opening out into the alleyway is clearly a small part of the otherwise big building. She actually blushes a little as you eye up what would be the abode of the King vagrant back in Squall’s Landing. “I-It’s cosier than it looks and I hope that soon after, my research pays off I’ll be able to move up. Even the smallest spire under the domain of the lady of shadow is better than the biggest castle down here.”

“Why don’t you live in the tree?”

She shrugs, “Death and nature really aren’t my thing.” She did complain about the bog. “Come on, get inside, I have some things to explain to you and then I need to take a hot bath. ‘We’ need to take a hot bath.”

She pushes you inside, gently enough you don’t trip and fall down the small staircase leading down into a surprisingly spacious room given it’s outward appearance. There’s a bathroom behind as you step down onto the floor and face the room proper. A large chandelier hangs high in the roof, bathing the room in a dim light. There’s a fireplace and a small sitting area, a little dining table, a desk all down in this common area and infront of you is her bedroom, door ajar though it’s too dark to make much out more than the vague shape of her bed. This back section of her home is split into two though, half of it being the bedroom which itself seems to sink further into the floor, but a small staircase off to the side of the room, leads to a bit of an open balcony built over the bedroom, which seems to be her workshop, there’s an enormous cauldron – where she cooks small children to be sure – and another, messier desk lined with papers and vials of… things. Be it the bathroom behind, the bedroom, this large central common room with the chandelier up high or the quasi-second story workspace above the bedroom, every inch of wall is filled with some kind of witchery, book case upon book case, shelves of samples, tattered tapestries with witchy writing all over it. It’s all quite heretical, as street preachers would cry.

She moves around you and walks over to the fire, hair and leather glistening wet still from the bog, “I have two things to explain to you, I’ll start with perhaps the most important. Your place. If you so much as step foot out of this room and you’re not by my side you’ll wish I left you to the creatures of the Bog. And that’s not because of anything I’ll do to you. Just think back to all the things you heard about witches and for every one else that’s here they’re all true. Except for big sis of course.”

Your eyes widen, “You mean to say they really copulate with beasts and devils?!”

Her eyes widen, “They really say that?! You know devils aren’t really ‘equipped’…? I-I mean, yes. All of them, filthy evil… beast copulating devil whores. Except me. So uh… don’t run off.” She’s not quite looking you in the eye at the moment and you get the feeling that her explanation of the other witches is a little too convenient, but you brush it aside as it comes with an influx of other information.

“And…” you take a moment to gather yourself, “what’s the second thing?”

“Right! I was in the middle of gathering my last alchemical ingredient. I’d just finished in fact, when I felt you… Or, felt that marking left on you. Once I’d gathered everything, I would have to either head out and find, or buy, my own human boy test subject. But then cute little you came along, so that’s how you’re going to repay me for saving you. It’s perfect! I’m not really one for superstitions, but we are clearly destined. I’d planned a lull in my research as long as a few years before I found a suitable candidate, but now that you’re here with me I can greatly expedite the process and get started with human trials right away! Once we’re done and the project is over, either a success or failure I…” she adopts a pitiful look, “well I guess you could leave if you like… Big sis wouldn’t recommend it though! I do also need an assistant to help me organise myself more long term. A familiar of sorts… a permanent one.” She looks into your eyes with avid excitement and blushes, squirming slightly and clearly agitated.

You frown faintly as you filter through her words as best you can and offer the most charitable view on her ravings and think for a moment. Human trials and test subjects aren’t the nicest words but then she also has unfathomable power over you and it’s probably not really up to you anyway. In an effort to perhaps save some skin, you low-ball guess her intentions for you. “So… you want me to drink potions?”

“In a sense.”

Your eyes narrow, “These aren’t… weird potions are they?”

“No, no… just some enhancement potions, I’ve been researching on how to neutralise certain alchemical reagents so they don’t counteract, at the very least. The theoretical groundwork’s already done, and I’ve come across a combination that at least doesn’t explode and it doesn’t kill any animals I feed it to either, but the results aren’t quite conclusive or satisfactory enough. Though I’m certain it isn’t toxic, I need the thing the potion’s designed for. I need a man. If I can make it so far as to come to a product that works and doesn’t neutralise itself, or cause negative effects, I can publish the findings and I can look into finally moving into the big floating city above the tree.”

“What then?”

“Then…” a fervent blaze alights in her eyes as she begins to expound on something clearly near and dear to her. “I’m going to do even more testing with bigger, better facilities to see if I can go beyond merely not counteracting, if I can find the right combinations and methods to make something greater than the sum of its parts. An all round improvement, easily breaking the shackles of humanity, uplifting and ascendant! A potion to join the fabled ranks of the likes of the elixir of life!” Her zeal definitely lends no credence to her sanity at the very least and as your calm gaze begins to bore into her, she calms and grows self conscious.

“B-But that’s far, far in the future. I’ve only just made a small breakthrough in regards to trying to making some of the more key ingredients not destroy each other. And this is where you come in, and I’m so so incredibly lucky I don’t have to waste years searching and vetting other assistants. The moment I saw you, I knew it had to be you.” There’s an expectant anticipation to her heated gaze that you can’t help but squirm under.

“So… this will take some time?” You think about the prospect of living on the witch streets she so clearly stressed were something to avoid. She smiles, as if reading your mind.

“It will, but I’ll look after you, feed you, you’ll have somewhere warm and safe to sleep and someone to spend your time doing. You’re free to read anything you find in here too.”

Something about her phrasing niggles at you, but her last offer distracts you. “I can’t read.”

“I’d be surprised if you could, seeing as how these are all written in magic. Magic is easy though, you read with your soul as much as you do your mind. I’ll teach you though, and if you still can’t read, I can translate it to you into Imperial and teach you the letters.”

“You’d do all this… for free?”

She breaks out into a heartmelting giggle, putting a hand up to half-obscure her smiling lips “Ohoho sweet baby~ You’ve no idea just how much I’m ripping you off right now.” She points to the bathroom and you jolt a little as the sound of running, splashing water begins to fill the tub. “When the other girls find out I’ve taken a boy in for food and board while they have to pay their familiars a noble’s ransom?” She starts chuckling to herself again, “But that’s a secret just between us. For now, much as I’d love to milk a sample out of you immediately, you’ve been shivering this whole time and you’re… kind of tracking bog all over my floor… no offence. Oh! That’s right! I need something to call you, don’t I? You may have been given a… colourful name but what do you call yourself?”

“Uh… Rain Leaper. Because I can jump roofs really well. Everyone’s alright walking and running on wet surfaces in Squall’s Landing, but I’m the best at jumping around. That’s why they called me Hopper I suppose, now that I think of it…”

“That’s dumb. I’ll just call you Rein.”

“Uh… just Rain?”

“E I.”

“What?”

“Oh, I forgot you can’t spell. Whatever. Rein. Do you… like your clothes?” She squints and looks very very disapproving.

Taken aback by her seemingly random question, you look down to observe your tattered top and tattered pants and shrug, “I like the coat.”

She winces. “Okay… put it aside, dear, I’ll wash it later. Follow me~” She starts to walk towards the bathroom while you take your coat off and fold it over a chair. You watch as she holds a hand out while she walks and her armour begins to… warp. Liquefy as it starts to tear in places and rushes up her out-held arm, gathering into a ball. Stream by stream renders her nude in vast swathes of soft, hypnotising pale skin. A sudden dryness in your mouth impels you to swallow, the sound and motion drawing you to your flustered senses.

“S-sorry, I…” You spin on your heel, blushing, but not before she turns around and gives you a full frontal look, magnificently huge breasts shaking with the motion. A tight, athletic stomach leading down and down is as far as you see before you turn.

“Ufufu, wasn’t I clear enough?” You hear another snap and gawk as a painless purple flame consumes you. Rather, your clothes. “We’re bathing together. Got to make sure you’re all clean, don’t I? Besides, I just got you, it’s the perfect time for a little skin-ship and a heart to heart!”

“I-I can do it by myself, It’s fine…”

“Have you ever bathed before?” Her tone is a little drier than comfortable, “Letting the rain wash you doesn’t count.”

“U-uh…”

She sighs, “You commoners… you really make me unsure if I want to laugh or cry. Bathing, drinking, living your mundane lives under elementally infused water of such a rich quality no less… Come on, hurry up, don’t make big sis cast her magic on you!”

She purses her lips into an adorable pout and you shudder, charmed, your male heart demanding to do whatever it takes to see her smile. Your feet begin to move unbidden, following her in to the bathroom. An action she rewards you with a beaming smile. You only hesitate a moment before settling into the large now-full bathtub after her, sitting up the other end and turned away. You begin to settle into the almost scaldingly hot, faintly viscous soapy water. Steam suffuses the air with a soothingly pleasant scent, flowing down your lungs, melting away the remnants of cold rainy nights.

Just as you begin to feel this isn’t so bad, a pair of arms wrap around you, two large, soft orbs squish up against your back. “Nope~ Weren’t you listening? Where’s the fun bathing together if we can’t get to know each other through a little skinship?”

You freeze up while she pulls you ever closer, eventually wrapping her legs around your hips and her arms around your chest, one hugging you to her, while the fingertips of the other slip and dance around your lower belly. You go stiff, your body at first and then slowly something else. You don’t really move again until her lips meet your left ear and her fingers wrap their delicate selves around your half hard member. At this point, you jolt. “Mmm~” her moan rolls its way into your ear, voice like running, smokey honey. “Sensitive boy aren’t you? What, never been touched by a girl?”

You swallow hard, absentmindedly answering, lost in her touch. “Once…”

“Ara~ How was this young love of yours?”

“She… brushed me as she was trying to steal my food. She must have seen me put it in my pocket after stealing it from some one else.”

“…That’s dreary. Don’t worry. Big sis is here to make your first experience a memorable one.” Nia’s hand begins to move up and down your hardening length as she moves around behind you, lips now coming to touch your other ear, hot, soft tongue licking up the rim first before placing her plump blackened lips against your lobe. “Just sit back and relax~” She trails off in a silky hiss, sending a shudder up your spine like electric splinters, the sudden judder leaving you resting your head deep between her cleavage. “Ahh~” Her fingers momentarily dip from your shaft to curl around your balls, “I’m sorry cutie. If this is your first time then it’s all to more reason to not waste it in the bathwater. Virgin cum is a powerful reagent you know? You might get a little frustrated but I promise I’ll make it up to you later. For now I’m going to have to have you save it up.” With that, there’s a searing almost stifling sensation in your testes as she works her magic. Though she doesn’t outright say it, you know what she’s referring to. Blushing, you feel compelled to confess. “Ufufufu, it doesn’t matter if you release it all by yourself. It’s like a… closed magic circle – hmm… lets just say it only matters when you do it with big sis okay? Magic is pretty cool that way~”

Her hair tickles your shoulders and neck as her soft lips return to an ear, “So feel free to let it all build up. I know… how do you want me to take your sample, hmm? Do you want to push poor little me down onto the bed? Or bend me over my desk?” You try to answer, half formed words devolving into a murmur as her legs move about your hips and a foot slips down your thigh to cradle your balls. Another plants itself atop your length, rubbing and grinding gracefully as fingertips join in to encircle your swollen head. There’s probably something in the water, your skin’s so tingly and sensitive, not to mention the big rod of nerves being toyed with. Rain sure never felt this good. “Hmmm? I didn’t quite catch that, you’ll have to speak up…”

You gulp again, “L-like what you said… back then.”

“Oh? Against a tree?”

“N-no, the other one.”

“Ah~ you want to see big sis on her knees for you.”

“… W-with your armour on.”

“Awww…” she pulls you tighter to her with the arm around your chest and lays kisses on your ear and the top of your head. “Did you fall in love with big sis’ dashing rescue? Ehehe~ Good taste. So, my cute little test subject.” She moves the foot cradling your nuts away and places it against the bast of your shaft, squeezing it against the foot on top while her other hand draws lazy circles on your chest. “Lets get even closer~ Ah! How about I start with myself? You know what I want, but as for what I did?” Another kiss to the ear and you can’t help but almost forget her teasing ministrations on your dick, so absorbed in her soft, overwhelmingly intimate voice. “I sold myself… Ufufu, but don’t get the wrong idea, big sis is still pure. Some people need a Dark Mage’s advice. Some people need a Dark Mage’s protection.” Nia swaps ears with a languid messy half-lick into kiss. “Some people need a Dark Mage to do something intolerable, so they get something intolerable done to them instead. Outside of that I make a living brewing potions… and that’s about it. I was a noble’s daughter, but my Mistress trained me in secret. When the time came I left my family and never looked back. And you? What was your life like? What did you do? What do you want?”

You go from listening to her tale in interest to pulling a mixed expression that would surely be laughable to any observer, torn between discomfort and bliss. Her question puts you on the spot, you’re not really sure why she’s bothering you for the details of your nothing life. Though, she offered some of her own and so begrudgingly you begin to ramble in uneven tones, as despite asking for a quick distillation of your experiences as a conscious being, she doesn’t stop toying with your dick. “My mother was a prostitute who died not long after I was born. I have no father. Some vagrants, thieves kept me alive until I could learn to steal for myself. You couldn’t really say they raised me. Then ever since I can remember I’ve just hidden from place to place. Stole enough food to feed myself.” You shudder as her fingertip traces your swollen head, leaning back further into her breasts yet, so far her lips can’t access your ears comfortably.

So her voice comes from above and resonates in the bosom behind. “And what do you want?”

“…Food and somewhere warm.” you grumble.

“Hmm, maybe I wasn’t clear enough… Part of me wants my research to succeed simply so I become richer, my standard of living will explode upward and I’ll be some one important enough to really start attracting familiars, my research will have proved to have been of value and so will I. That’s~ why I’m so happy to have found you. Of course, if you stay in the picture long term, even though I still have to… research the cake recipe, I’ll get to eat it while I bake it, in a sense. That’s what big sis wants. To be recognised and valued. So. What do you want, really?” Seeming to anticipate a long silence, she leaves her question there, resting her cheek atop your head, moving her feet away and settling on just jerking you off under the water. It’s as your half immersed in thought, half pleasure you hear her chuckle softly, teasingly. “Don’t think too poorly of me trying to influence your answer. You don’t need to give it while you’re all pent up. You don’t even have to give it after we’ve done it. Think on it, if you need to.”

You do that, idly resting your head on her breasts as a hand roams around her thighs, not closed around your hips anymore, just resting by your sides against the tub. Your answer wasn’t a lie. Food, somewhere warm to sleep. This is exactly what you wanted, but it’s also what you can get by yourself. You get the sense, however, that she’s rather asking what you want from her. The first thing comes to mind almost before you even think of it – no doubt because you’re getting plenty of it at the moment. Affection, love, care. Extreme self reliance in your life led to extreme avoidance. Especially since from safety’s perspective you were often right to avoid other people, far more often than not. Rewarded for it, even. Yet, as you lived your days, you’d come across people you develop an innate fondness towards and always hated that part of you, the part of your life circumstances that stood in the way of going up to them, saying hi. Instead you watch other people form those relationships together. And… something else. Something hidden deep within you, as you think back to watching their faces as they go about their daily toils, so bright despite the mist and rain, actually achieving something, so –

A lightning sensation bolts through you, a bit pleasure, mostly frustration as an all encompassing prison clenches your loins. Your fingers dig into her thigh, meeting a springy kind of flesh, giving at first then unyielding. Your cock throbs and twitches in her grip, yet nothing comes out. “Oh my~ Did I ruin your train of thought? Or had you already come to your conclusion?”

“I-I… uh… don’t know…”

“That’s fine too. Take your time to think about it. It’s okay if it’s something simple. Like wanting to dump your hot thick load deep inside big sis fufufu~”

Her words would usually elicit more of a reaction, but the repetition of ‘big sis’ begins to irk you, despite your attempt to pass it off as a speech quirk of hers. Though, perhaps some of the antsieness comes from your ruined orgasm. While such a direct questioning may only find yourself out of good will – as you’d felt during her prying into your life – you lack the rational wherewithal to consider this, snapping “What’s with the ‘big sis’ ‘big sis’? Why do you keep saying it? I don’t know you.”

There’s a moment silence as she seems a little taken aback. She takes her hands off you, for one, and leans around you, trying to gauge your expression. “… D-does it bother you? It’s just… something I picked up from my mistress. She really was like a big sister to me.” Her voice grows a little quieter, a little less sexually charged. “And I really, really admire her. But I didn’t start calling myself that way until I got here and made some friends. And I guess I tried to act the way I thought my mistress would. I was able to help a few out with some potion making and when they started calling me that I… kind of just accepted it. I could stop, if you like?”

“Oh.” Your eyes shift and you avoid her look.

“W-well… um… why don’t you tell me about your friends?” Her hands return, a little more chaste, an arm wrapping about your chest while her other rests on your upper arm. “You’re not my prisoner, I can come visit Squall’s Landing with you if you want.”

“I don’t have any friends.” You try and deliver the otherwise terse and antisocial line gently.

“I see… well, what did you do all day?”

An uncomfortable sense of aversion grows within you as your bleak, meagre and mundane life gets further invaded by her questions. For a moment you wish she were Master Londbrook. Okay, you’d rather be naked and in a bath with her, but at least he didn’t ask so many questions. He didn’t give a shit what you thought and that’s an attitude you were more familiar and at ease with. You were just a worthless vagrant to him, the only importance he attached to your opinion was akin to the curiosity of wishing to see how an insect might react were you to tear off its wings. Still, off the back of snapping earlier, you bear with it. “I either slept in a hole I dug out for myself of peat logs in a storage house, or I wandered the streets looking for places I could steal food from. I had a knife that helped me break into places and was something to defend myself with at least and I stole a pot, so… water was never an issue.”

“And is that what you were doing when they caught you? I assume you weren’t sacrificed willingly.”

You snort derisively, “Vagrants don’t have much choice. In anything. Yes. I was stealing fish and heating it up by a brazier… they came up from behind me and one of them cast a spell, or something… went stiff as a board, fell right on my face, look, why do you care? What’s with all these questions?” You twist, turning to face her, frowning though careful to not come off as too agitated, though the end of your sentence is more a rapid fire, taking her aback again. Her pretty purple eyes go wide, dark delicate eyebrows lifting with them, before one lowers into a look of half indignance.

“I’m curious. But more than that, I ought to know about and understand my research assistant. I need you to understand Rein, you’re not just my research assistant, first and foremost. To me, you’re you.” There’s a final heavy emphasis on ‘you’, “You’re also mine, but you’re you, before you’re mine. So obviously I want to know about you, who you are, what your life was like, and what you want.” That emphasis on ‘you’ stays, though not as strongly, as her words drift towards conveying an almost chided sense of hurt. “I wasn’t trying to pry…”

“Ah…” she clears her throat a little, trying to quickly regain her composure. “C-Come,” You hear splashing behind you and suddenly what feels like a bucket of warm soapy water washes over your head. “I’ll have plenty of time to learn about you and you’ll have plenty of time to think, but now that you’re here I really want to make a move on my research!” The next few moments are a bit of a flurry as she rubs you down with various parts of her body, suggestively alluding to a change of roles the next time, trying to slip back into her role as the alluring ‘big sis’. You get a nagging feeling she’s trying to put the conversation behind her. Maybe you went too far.

She barely dries, doesn’t dress as she bounces her way up the stairs, having to gather regents first. You’re left standing there, naked, though thankfully the stone floor is warm – by some witchcraftery no doubt. She bounces back down a moment later, a kind of gooey looking black orb in one hand, fingers curled around multiple vials in the other.

She places the latter down on the table and pushes the black orb into your chest, where is spreads before your dumbfounded eyes. “Now, if you promise to be a good boy you can keep this, but you’re not to let any one know you have this okay? At best they’ll just steal it. At worst they’ll also steal you. This is strong enough to protect you from any weapons a well trained militia soldier can throw at you. It’ll start to fail when up against monsters though and you can forget about it defending you from any truly powerful humans. I’ll teach you later how to change it to your will.” Its spread comes down to your crotch and up around your shoulders and neck, quickly separating to form a rather neat looking pair of black tunic and trousers, the latter of which laced up at the front, silver embroidery along the laces, silver embroidery over the lot of it, in fact. You aren’t given shoes, though. The tunic’s short, only reaching down to your groin while the trousers sit higher up on your hips. You look down at the done up laces, then looking back at her, a little reticent to repeat your embarrassing desires. Though you struggle to come to terms with how off putting it is, she reads your expression and picks up on your dilemma.

“Big sis didn’t forget. You see, the reason I have you in one of these,” She pulls her similar black orb out of nothing and it begins to spill out over her, covering her nudity in her familiar and welcome form-squeezing armour, “Is I can use it to gather data. Information on you, all kinds. Body temperature, magical and spiritual fluctuations, pulse, blood pressure. And much much more, I won’t bore you with the details. I suppose it’s not a bad idea to capture my own for reference. A little later on tomorrow I’ll conduct a more thorough test but,” a perverse anticipation warps its way over her features, “as there’s going to be a little something-something between now and then, it’s best to start gathering data for a base reference now. This way I can use it to cross reference when we begin your training and later when you start testing the potion. That’s why I bothered to put clothes on you that I’m only going to have to undo. Besides, that’s the only reason you dress any one up isn’t it?” As a first time recipient of being dressed, you’ve honestly no idea. You’re not entirely sure how this constitutes research either, but then you don’t know what research really is to begin with, much less how it’s conducted.

“Now, take this.” She reaches for a vial full of a cloudy white liquid and hands it to you.

“What is this?”

“You wouldn’t know even if I told you. Hmm… identifying ingredients is something I’m going to have to teach you though. Still, not now. That can wait. As for what this is, it won’t kill you. Just… make you feel a little ‘fuller’ eheheh. A-hem.” She clears her throat, “And most importantly, except for that, it’s incredibly non reactive – it won’t interfere with any of your readings. Except we’ll have to factor the dosage into your output.”

Eyeing it a little suspiciously before concluding she’d probably not trying to kill you after all this time, you down the thing. You watch with astonishment at the way it all cascades out and down your throat, nary a drop left in the flask and tasting of milk and cotton. Living in Squall’s Landing you are incredibly familiar with the way liquid runs down glass. This is peculiar in that not even a bead or drop is left behind. You tip the empty flask upside down and eye it until she takes it from your hand. “I’ll need that for… later.”

Instantly, you feel it settle in your stomach and start to spread. It’s a hot burning sensation but not painful and it radiates out in waves starting with an uncomfortable coldness as a wave of heat spreads out and leaves an icy void in its wake, a cold that feels innately wrong. Before you get to worry about it too much however, another wave of heat radiates out from your stomach, thawing the ice and leaving in its wake a lasting sensation of liquid heat.

“Do you need to take a seat?” Nia looks at you, smoky eyes and black lips conveying a sense of concern under the lather of lewd mischief.

You nod and stumble over to a chair, turning it alongside the table rather than before it and you fall into it more than deliberately sit down. It takes your weight with a faint scuff and nary a groan – the wood evidently well constructed – while you rest an elbow on top the table. The strength doesn’t quite leave you as much as it just drains from the rest of your body and piles in at your bulging crotch. Despite causing all this trouble, Nia seems heedless of your state, happy to slowly settle herself down onto her knees before you. Sleek-gloved fingers slide up your thighs towards the straining bulge. She traces around it, just avoiding the outline before her hands shoot back to grip you by the hips and yank you to the very edge of your seat, the lewd grin on her face making you think that this was what they meant when they said that witches devoured people.

“Since you’re such a pent up boy, I won’t fiddle around with laces this time.” Displaying an expected yet still unerring mastery over your clothes, your trousers begin to bleed up into your tunic. She robs you your pants, thread by thread until your cock literally rips from its confines and the dangling strands fade before your eyes. Your member stands free and erect, a bead of precum squeezed up your length and forms at the tip in response to its sudden liberation. You shudder as the pressure leaves you all at once and all that’s left to sate is the aching, throbbing need.

Nia’s eyes glitter. “Mmmhmhm…hehe little Rein has a big treat for big sis~” Her plump black lips part and you watch a strand of saliva link her opening lips before snapping under its own weight, falling across her tongue as it lolls out of her mouth to a length that dangles well below her chin, looking like she could almost rest it in her jugular notch at the base of her throat. She gives the slimy fleshy thing a wiggle before retracting it back with a smile, “You’ve no idea how good this thing is for magical girl diplomacy.” You could guess, and you figure you’re about to find out. She keeps her tongue in her mouth for the moment though, simply shuffling closer to you and ducking down, evidently working her way up and beginning with your taut, over-full nuts. The combination of pent up pressure and drugging has you especially sensitive, making you clutch the chair and causing a small spurt of pre to jet out as she takes a ball into her mouth and sucks it, warm tongue licking around before her plump lips free it with a pop and move onto the next.

There’s something immensely endearing about the sight of her head bobbing and toiling away under the shadow of your cock and you can’t help but to reach forward and give it a stroke. Her head that is, not yours. Her hair is a kind of silken smoothness you’ve never felt before and your fingers fairly vanish within as her locks spill through the gaps. She responds to your touch by pressing her head against your hand and giving a throaty moan that vibrates through your nuts, making some muscles at your lower back twinge, tiny electric wildfires surging along your already over excited nerves.

Her lips leave your testes and trace their dark seduction in kisses up the length of your shaft, making you rejoice at her touch, yet yearn for more all at once. It all comes so sudden – as you relish in pleasure absentmindedly – that you’re struck by absence, cool leather then a soft, warm embrace. Opening the eyes you didn’t know you’d closed, you see she’s moved much closer, close enough to rest her chest against your hips. Her cool leather corset presses against your inner thighs and the bits of silver filigree are startlingly cold, though your own raging heat quickly warms the thin metal. That warm soft embrace is – what else – her dastardly delicious, devilishly delightful, deliriously distracting and dangerously developed dark mage mammaries.

Her tits don’t quite wrap around your dick as much as your dick thrusts through them, confined as they are by the over-bust corset’s admirable efforts, despite the almost nip-slip at the very rim. Her posture is a little slanted, half under you by this point to get an angle that allows your cock into her bosom’s deepest embrace. Your mutual excitement and your over-sensitivity is such that you can feel the faint thudding of her heart reverberating through your length. “Mmm~ What a perfect fit.” She smiles as she looks down at the tip poking through her cleavage and lets her tongue roll out to full length, dripping with saliva, warm wet tentacle running circles around your tip all while those dark, stormy purple eyes look up at you.

The sensation of being embraced like this and teased at the tip but no where else proves too teasing to bear and you place both hands on her shoulders, gripping her tight before you swivel your hips back and thrust, using her chest like a masturbatory aid. Nia seems exceptionally supportive of the act, offering her chest to you, moaning encouragingly and breathless while her long tongue offers somewhere nice and soft and wet to ram up against after spearing your way through the smooth yet tight confines of her bountiful valley. She even squeezes her arms in against her chest, offering greater pressure, though it doesn’t bode well for her bodice’s ability to keep her sorcerous suckers subdued.

There’s a certain need in her eyes that seems almost stronger than your own and it’s with a blissful gasp that the tip of your cock doesn’t just meet her tongue, but pops into her mouth. Still looking up at you, though though the wispy forest of her delicate eyebrows now, she half buries her face in her tits – an enviable position as you can attest to – and greets the tip of your cock with her lips, sucking and swirling and really really reluctantly letting you pop back out as you plunge once more though her caressing cavernous cleavage.

Changing pace, you relent your thrusting and settle back down, opting instead to move your hands to her raven black hair and use her head in a similar manner, only moving it rather than your hips. You watch her locks dance mesmerisingly as you bob her head up and down, watch her nose scrunch up against her breasts, absorbed in her overflowing lasciviousness. Your breath hitches as a familiar urgency begins to broil in your loins, balls clenching, shaft throbbing. You let out a light groan and open your lips to warn her, but a soft gasp is all you manage. You don’t know if she already knew, magical monitoring clothes and what not, or your warning was herald enough, she flings an arm back, grasping for the empty vial and pushes herself out of your grasp, pointing your tip at the entrance and jerking you off furiously. Thankfully your length is well coated in her saliva.

You don’t really get long to bemoan the wasted orgasm, cum far thicker than anything you’d shot in your life rockets out, near smashing into the base of the flask, half filling it with a few more ropes and an ineffable fatigue sets in as you feel that there’s far far more where that came from. A herbal vitality blazes through your system and you get the delusion that you’re more than just pent up, you’re producing as fast as you can cum it out. Your shaft distends with another load, filling the flask to overflowing and dripping it over her fingers. She quickly sets the overfull thing aside and earns some thick, hot ropes splattering over her face and breasts. Then, moving even faster than when she first saved you in the bog, she practically headbutts you.

You gasp and groan and cum harder as a decently solid head rams its way into your gut. Not unlike, in fact, exactly like your cock rams its way down her tight, hot, greedy, vice-like throat. Your eyes almost roll up as her tongue slips out to coil around your overworked, almost overheating balls and the writhing walls of her throat milk the last half of your orgasm. She sucks almost harder than your dick can pump it out and the final skerrick of strength leaves you as you go limp, head tipping back to rest on the back of the chair, each inch of you feeling like not so solid, hot lead.

That doesn’t stop her however, as her cheeks hollow, plump lips forming a tight ring as she sucks out the last and final strand of cum, retrieving it on her soft, hot tongue and devouring it needily. She sucks for more, right up until you feebly tap her head, hips cringing as her stimulation quickly veers to torturous. She just lets out a low sultry moan you can’t tell is satisfaction or disappointment. Possibly a bit of both. “Mmmmmuah~” With a lewd wet pop your cock’s head bounces free from her accursed black-lipped embrace.

You open your eyes and summon the strength look down at her only to catch her swaying ever so slightly, moaning and almost absently scooping the cum off her breasts with a finger and licking it clean off her face. Even your exhausted member manages to twitch at the sight. She comes out of her stupor soon and her purple eyes bore into you, blazing with passion. “So this is how it tastes? Fufufu, sorry my cute little Rein. I don’t think I’m going to be able to let you go after all.”

You’re not sure you want to leave a mouth like that. She climbs her way into your lap and you’re too tired to respond to the cool leather settling against you. In fact, the coolness is even welcome at this point as your body slowly brings itself back down from overdrive. She lines kisses along your shoulder and up your neck, “That was amazing. The way you used my face and my mouth like it was your slutty little mage hole… haaah~ How about we take it to the bedroom and you breed a different hole of mine? I-I mean, how about we ‘consummate’ a temporary ‘familiar contract’, so all the other bitches know you’re mine. Thankfully it’s a bit of a long, stiff process.” She grins lewdly, “You’ll be on your back for most of it.”

Your head still swims with the aftershocks and her words are almost in one ear and out the other. All you understand is the promise of more and the fact that you’re rather powerless to actually resist her, your currently lacking wherewithal notwithstanding. A consideration for her actual goal itches in your mind though and you look down at what you’re both wearing and the flask by the table. “W-what about all the… magic stuff?”

“Oh, our clothes will memorise all the data, it’s not important for what’s next.” She waves a hand and dual orbs appear, siphoning off your clothing stream by stream until nothing’s left and they just sit there hovering in the air, inert. “And that,” she points to the flask “is an important sample. Virgin cum, untainted by mana. That’s why I had to collect it before you came inside me. Now,” She draws small circles over her heart wit ha finger, “there’s a teeny tiny bit of me,” and places it against yours, “in you, and it’s only going to get bigger. Speaking of things getting bigger, I want a very big, throbbing part of you, in a very tight, aching part of me.” Her black lips curl seductively, “So enough chit chat.” She slides, flows off your lap like satin and stalks into her bedroom.

If you had a leash, she’d be pulling it, by the way her magnetic attraction has you stumbling weak-kneed after her, right up until she pushes you onto her luxuriously maroon sheeted, pillowed and even canopied bed. She turns and heads to a chest of draws by the side of the room and makes a display of bending over, a small triangular gap between her thick thighs revealing her drooling slit, strings of her excitement stick and run down her thighs, glistening off the dim room lighting as she fishes out some vials. “I knew these would come in handy some day.” She rightens herself as she turns back to you, pale pink capped peaks bouncing and swaying with the twisting motion.

The vials glow faintly and swirls with earthy colours “Don’t feel bad dear Rein,” her mouth twists into a lascivious grin, but not before a line of pure white teeth sink in to her giving lower lip “It’s not you it’s me.” She practically melts over you, a hand on your thigh before she swings a leg over your hips and rests her breasts against your chest. Delicately, she puts the cool glass vial to your lips as you sit up, almost nose to nose, “You’d be able to do all this in your own time, I’m just… speeding the process along.”

A bit bewildered by what she’s getting at, you don’t get the time to ponder as all your exhaustion, hell, half your mind is blazed away in blinding hot light that crackles and frays and arcs along your veins and nerves indiscriminately. The other half is far more focused and you feel an almost bursting pressure hit your dick, like it wants to turn inside out. You nearly scream when you start to feel release, but thankfully she shifts her wide hips back and sits her large fit ass on your legs, allowing you to watch your own dick grow. It releases said pressure in a manner less horrifically explosive than you’d first thought, though the angry veins don’t look relieved. Eventually they recede to a more normal look once your throbbing, now enlarged tool teeters, toppling under it’s own weight and slapping heavily onto Nia’s stomach. Your pre drooling slit smacks well above her belly button, ushering a warm wetness to spread over your thighs as she quivers and moans, “Mmmhhh~… R-right… t-the contract.”

She begins to pant heavily, unable to tear her eyes from your majestic length, back to gnawing at her lip and giving the faint whine, though part of you can’t help but dread the thought of cramming the thing back into any pair of lower body clothes that aren’t robes. She begins to wave a finger in the air, muttering indecipherable incantations and moving her hips all the while. You figure the last bit has more to do with your hot length weighting down against her tight, toned belly and her subsequent burning need.

She finishes it and something like glowing parchment just, without the parchment slams its way into your chest. Your brain is full of strange yet concrete notions like how you’ll be hers for the duration of her specific research into the enhancement potions. She’ll be able to always tell where you are and how you’re doing, what your vitals are at or if you’re in danger. Another notion presides over all this and it’s an urge telling you to chose, yes or no, the contract means nothing until you do. It’s an unfamiliar sense of agency you’re almost intrinsically compelled to overlook as it thrusts the onus onto you. Yet in your heart you utter ‘yes’ and a strange power feels like it links you to Nia in some deep quintessential way. A haze overcomes you and that same force urging you to decide now drives you to be inside her, to fulfil the contact and make it bind.

You glean a sense of exhaustion from her in the wake of the contract, though her hips prove tireless. They move even now, thrusting forwards, rubbing stiff clit and slick lips against your stiffness, eventually knocking the pillar flat with a lewd smack as it topples into your stomach, pinned under her folds. You get the first good close and clear look at her womanhood. Drenched now and parted around the girth of your cock, her pale pink inner labia are visible, but as she rubs along your length and lifts her hips off – subsequent string of her exultation snapping under its own weight – they become largely hidden by the puffier, almost fatter outer vulva. Her skin here, like all over the rest of her, is an immaculate canvas of pale white, somehow managing to come off as both never touched by the sun and healthy at the same time, without the slightest hint of hair. The alluring and carnally promising pink of her clit and inner lips break up the rolling mons of white that rises up her flat and athletic belly, some pelvic definition in the shape of a ‘v’ guiding the eyes not so subtly. This close, paying this much attention, you’re able to easily spot the definition of her abdomen, tight muscles that belie a warrior’s physique lurking under the shallow surface of a researcher’s form, one a succubus might envy in its proportions and sheer nubile yieldingness.

Much of Nia you were already aware of, but it’s a different kind of perspective with her large juicy ass sitting in your lap, thick thighs straddling your hips in a way that almost dwarfs your chest in comparison. The lines of her slim, tight waist rising up to a mountainous bust you can scarcely see her face past – disappearing entirely when she tilts her head back in bliss, mountains quaking as she grinds your length. Awe inspiring isn’t a word strong enough. You can hardly believe she manages to contain it all under such tight leather. Your absent gawking quickly evokes a sense of haste to burn in your heart, as the contract demands swift and complete consummation.

Thankfully Nia seems to be even more driven than you, or at least grows impatient with running her sodden lips along the vein ridged length of something she’d much rather be splitting her pussy wide and ramming into her womb. With a hand barely able to wrap around your base, pinkie raised elegantly, she lifts her sopping snatch off your shaft. Angling your tip upwards and impaling herself, she catches on the precipice of penetration as your alchemically enhanced, swollen girth rams into her lower lips. Your bulging crown squishes them and elicits a gout of her sopping anticipation to soak your head in preparation for the inexorable, inevitable battering and plundering of her not-so-impregnable defence.

The breach is wet, warm and welcoming as her weight ultimately spreads her tight confines for you, moaning out as she plummets down with a libidinous fleshy smack and a hefty impact to accompany it as she hilts you inside her drenched molten quim. A movement apparently too fast for her body to immediately respond to, yet to you it’s a veritable eternity of your swollen shaft gliding through an almost silken passage, sensitive glans scraping by the folds in her walls, each one caressing, sucking your length and overloading your mind with localised nervous reports of a microcosmic bliss. A perfect fit as her lower lips press up against your groin; but for the way your tip mashes into her cervix and protrudes on her once flat belly, a rigid and proud bulge, fighting against the dense wall of abdominal muscle.

A halted gasp seems to stop time before her body registers the thick, large, throbbing invader and crushes down around your cock with a vice-like tightness that you’re not confident you’d have been able to handle before her concoction. Despite whatever reaction her body is having towards the impudent cock rammed into her cunt and thrusting aside a host of other organs, her brain’s still stalled on that moment of insertion, her purple eyes practically spit arcane fire with how they glow and you’re shocked to see a trickle of blood seep out of her stretched tight, girth girting seal. You’re almost concerned but then her mouth opens with a moan like molasses and her drooling tongue lolls out while those glowing eyes roll up. Her writhing walls go from crushing to quivering, quaking and spasming. Her thighs shake, even as they squeeze around your chest and she all but collapses into you, arms draping over your shoulders as you’re forced to quickly wrap yours around and hold her steady.

For a blessed moment, a kind of tranquillity washes over you as you feel her chest rise and fall heavily, heavily indeed, as her stature doesn’t lose out to yours and even exceeds it. Having since washed herself in the soapy bath, you realize that the smell of the bog is gone from her, obviously, but so too are the heavier herbal scents both fresh and old – despite the few ancient ones that reside within her very home, staining the walls. Thankfully those are pleasurable enough to almost be used for incense. Asides from the now almost natural perfume, you’re awash in a fresh almost floral scent, some parts the skin of her breast and shoulder some parts the locks of hair dangling just beyond your nose. Much of what your primitive brain hones in on however, is the cloud of feminine excitement she gives off, the scent of her climax rising, fertility drenching the air of her bedroom. Not to mention the older scents you’re now able to discern on her sheets so stirred with passion, they’d evidently seen much of her pleasure.

You make no overt motions, but find despite yourself your breath growing deeper and more drawn in, making you even more aroused by the woman slack in your arms, quivering on your lap and wringing around your length. Indisputably, part of your heightened arousal is due to the soft and sensual moans by your ear. You hold her a little tighter, a hand dipping down to grab or be devoured by a large overflowing handful of ass, dick twitching in her depths and eliciting another precious sex-oozing noise, her sweet gasps and cries continuing all the while.

Eventually cognisance returns to her, marked not by her sitting up off you, but by a larger, more conscious swivel of her hips and her limp arms gaining some measure of strength, as she holds you in turn. Faint streaks of pain scrape up your back as her fingernails stroke you, though it fades quickly under the surging tide of of pleasure as her soaked, strangling walls grip and squeeze about your cock, retreating and gracing your slick shaft with the sultry bedroom air before enveloping your length fully again as her hips begin to move. You’re left with little else to do but passively grasp her thick, divinely large rear and grip it as she rides you.

You grunt softly, the noise blending in with hers, as she all but slams her hips into yours. It kind of feels like a barely padded slab of iron, a squishy, wet, skin slapping slab of metal slamming into your gut with each wide roll of her childbearing hips. It’s pretty much all you can do to hold onto her ass and brace yourself, let her take her pleasure from you.

A line of sloppy, slavishly devoted kisses make their way up your neck, long tongue-lashings line your jaw before bewitching black lips enclose about your earlobe. You spine shudders as she half kisses, half nibbles up the length of your ear. Four lines scrape their way up your nape and work their way through your hair to scratch at your scalp, starting around the base. The sizzling arc of rapture blazes through you, results in her squeezing you tighter to her, as your cock throbs in response and spurts another jet of pre-cum into her abundantly lubricated passage.

For a time, your entire being is distilled to the rigid cock ploughing her depths, the lavishing tongue, beguiling lips and carnal exaltations all degenerating in coherence. The ass you have to squeeze just to keep hold of and the thighs clenched about your chest. It actually takes a moment for you to register the fall – or push, the loss of the tongue in your ear, you blink, mouth blitzed, already occupied by warm, long, twisting invader. Her raven locks curtain around you as you find yourself looking up into her eyes, ensnared in her netting of flesh.

You lie rigid, a hand still on her ass though the other now subconsciously drifts up her back, her knees still straddle your hips, but her legs hook under your own, almost coiling like a silken smooth snake, arms embracing you and not betraying the slightest hint of wanting to let you go. Nia still finds an inch or two of movement but little else, evidently content to have your groin pressed up against hers soaked puffy mons most the time while she pays more attention to the kiss, moaning as your heartbeats resonate. She doesn’t lift her hips up, powerful thighs flexing instead as she clings to you, rocking back and forth while thunderous purple eyes bore into yours unblinkingly. Her dark lips curl as she takes in your every expression. Indeed, it takes a moment for you to even start to wage ware on her impertinent writhing tongue.

If the complete derailment of her previous coordinated assaults and subsequent collapse into a fleshy pile of pure sex on top of you is any indication of her impending climax, yours is the telltale clenching of your loins as the tide mounts, less hammering at the dam of restraint; against Nia, you’re quickly learning that you have none. It’s more a relentless surge, dredging and carving a channel through the earth to blast out a frothy floodwater and turn her womb into an ocean. Your fingers dig into her rear, the other arm squeezing across her back, squishing her huge breasts even flatter up against your chest while you double into the kiss, trying to twist her longer tongue about yours. Climax sets on you sooner than it does her, arresting further movement and letting your painfully full sack contract while you thrust hard up against her womb, hilted balls deep and tip pressing insistently at her cervix, pushing it hard up against her uterus.

Spurting rope after alchemically enhanced rope, your seed slams up against the back wall of her womb, flooding tubes and painting her cock-stuffed bulging belly white. Your clenching loins packing it just a little more with each dick distending spurt, soon filling it with thick cum, then overfilling it, before her stomach begins to expand against yours. The nigh endless stream of virility sends her careening over the peak of ecstasy, a clenching, shuddering orgasm, crushing as powerful thighs squeeze in and deeper muscles make her wanton womanhood writhe and squish, milking you of your length while she utters a string of lewd cries. Eventually, like a burst dyke, the pressure of her cumflated insides up against your stomach breaks the seal and spurts of jizz pour out her overstretched hole, making an awful mess of the floor and sheets while she squirms in your grasp and gasps into your kiss.

Whether or not she quickly recovers to her teasing, bewitching self isn’t something for you to know, having just cum more in two short sessions than in all your life combined, most likely. A kind of overdraft hits you, no doubt the potions having rerouted and drawn on your natural essence to produce such a heathen quantity of ejaculate. Exhaustion swiftly sets in and you find your eyes closing as you sink into the bedsheets.

* * * *

You awaken. A scalp with five supremely soothing, scratching lines. For the moment, that’s all you are. Then, you’re a cheek, pressed up against something warm and soft, then an arm, half-dead. Then, a dick; a little sore, hips; a little beaten. A nose, wallowing in the scent of Nia and somewhat faded sex. Soon, your brain rouses and collates these versions of you, like a general overseeing its troops, drawing a cohesive map of the theatre. Your eyes open.

Boob’s not a bad thing to wake up to. In fact, as you reach out and give it a fondle, boob’s quite the good thing to wake up to. Your handsieness goes unheeded, however, as the soothing nails scratching at your scalp continue unabated. You hear something soft rustle over you and a very very faint hissing. Looking up, you see Nia reclining upright on some pillows, dark hair looking just the slightest bit messy. A hand idly strokes and scratches your head as it rests in her bosom, while the other is held out in the air lazily. A single graceful finger extends, points towards a book floating a short distance away. The tip of her finger glows a lavenderish colour and the hissing is the sound of magic letters being inscribed into the suspended pages with each wiggle of the delicate digit.

Finally, after a stab and a line of runes coming to end in a small dot, she turns to you, a smile on her lips. There’s some magic at play here, considering her makeup remains near pristine after last night, but for the vaguest hint of running about her eyes. “Good morning, Rein.” She smiles warmly and gives you an extra head scratch as she looks at your fingers sinking into her breast, “My cute, precious Rein. Comfy? Unfortunately there’s nothing there for you to drink yet. Of course, a spell could change that, but good old nature has a charm to it too I think.”

You blush a little at her forwardness, earning a soft “Ufufu~” and a kiss on the head. Extracting yourself from the bewitching Dark Mage, bits and pieces of the last night pop up in your recollection. The first place you look is between your legs, your member resting limp on her thigh, a bit larger than before but by no means the goliath of last night. Sheets and folds and bunches are strewn around and through both your legs and hers as they entangle. Yet the fabric’s all fresh and soft, not soaked and stiff as you’d have imagined. You look around curiously and finally get a chance to pay attention to the actual room you’re in, once more wall to wall with book cases. By the side of the door is a desk, littered with more books, some tools, some vials. Three of the latter stand out to you, full of a cloudy white substance that seems familiar.

Nia wraps her arms around you, pulling you into an embrace from behind as you study them. “I figured I’d save them. As a reagent your cum isn’t actually worth much now. The first virgin loads are very valuable. While it’s not quite all downhill from her, it is quite the quick plummet. I just figured I’d save some of such a large batch for efficiency’s sake. The more we…” her lips near your ear and drop to a ghostly whisper, “breed, the better it gets. Then, there’s no real reason to store older cum, because.” You jump as her smooth hand cups your balls, “The best is always going to be in here, fresh.”

Her hand lingers, earning a twitch of your exhausted member as she toys with your testes, absentmindedly. You let out a faint groan. “Oops~ Sorry. No time for that just yet, you need breakfast first. You need to replenish some energy and nutrients.” She slips out from behind you and gets out of bed, giving a full body, chest bouncing, rear popping stretch. “And I need some tea. Thankfully…” She breaks off into a cute yawn, “I’ve already finished inscribing all the data the magisynth suit collected, so we can go over that later today.” She flicks her wrist and two orbs appear, one melting over her while she tosses the other to you as you still sit on the bed. It rather gracelessly splats over your chest and begins to engulf you.

You don’t notice your own so much as it spreads over you, instead watching the other one swallow her, spreading up her back and over her ass and half way down her thighs as it begins to quickly turn partially translucent. It forms a loose see-through nightgown, haphazardly belted under the bust and leaving it scandalously open and causing the hem to ride upwards invitingly.

You quickly follow her out of the room and into the larger common-cum-dining area, still lit via great chandelier. You belatedly notice your own black goo ball had already covered you in the same tunic and trousers as before. She skirts around the table and takes a seat opposite you, gesturing for you to take yours. You hurry, bare feet crossing over the vaguely warm stone floor then immaculately soft rug under the table in the middle of the room.

“What would you like to eat?”

“Um, something warm and filling? I mean… I’ll eat anything.”

“A man should be decisive.” She chides somewhat playfully, leaning forward over the table and flashing you with blessed cleavage. She straightens up again lifts a finger out and starts writing in the air, the symbols this time lingering for a bit before burning up. “I don’t mind cooking and I’d love to cook for you, it’s kind of like alchemy, you see…” She starts softly tapping on the table. “Except there’s a kind of love to it that gives it a little extra kick. Unfortunately, we’ve a lot to go through and so for today at least we’ll make use of the coven’s servants. That’s what they’re for by the way. Do remind me to tell you at some point the privileges that exist for Dark Mages and their Familiars.” The air suddenly crackles. “My… Were they always this quick?” She chuckles, “I usually cook simple meals for myself and supplement with potions, It’s been a while since I treated myself.”

As she speaks, two magic circles appear on the table, about the size of a decently large platter. You jolt back in your seat, watching with some unnatural awe and bewilderment as things begin to emerge from the wooden top. The tip of a tankard first and then a glass circle that grows taller to reveal a body and a pale reddish orange liquid. Steam wafts up from the circle, carrying devilish scents with it, scents that make your mouth water and stomach churn in its uncomfortable emptiness. Things eventually stop emerging, the platter before Nia a mirror of your own. A full plate laden with still sizzling and steaming sausages and meats, a bowl of some kind of fluffy hot yellow scrambled things, a variety of grilled vegetables – only some of which look vaguely like what you know and are familiar with. That, for instance, would be a whole mushroom, were its cap not reminiscent of the starry night. Not that you’ve had too much experience with the latter except for some pictures and paintings. Cuttings of bread are strewn here and there, one floating in a bowl of some kind of soup. Fresh fruits sit nearby, served in a dish of ice and radiating a coolness similar to the glass of liquid, about the only things in this ensemble that do. The tankard is almost hot to look at and belching steam.

Nia says nothing, you say nothing. Your stomach growls. A lot. You wait though, and observe how she eats, taking a spoon of the fluffy yellow thing first and cop a heavy whiff of it’s golden goodness before popping it into your mouth. It melts, buttery and golden, exquisitely seasoned egg you now realize, having managed to steal a few from rooftops in your time scavenging the alleys. You mimic her again, taking a drink from the glass, an inexplicably delightful nectar flowing down your throat with an almost creamy presence, at once sweet and a little bit bitter and tart. Then, you follow as she takes a slice of buttered bread, lays some of the hot meats on it and then covers it once more in the egg before gracefully popping it in her mouth.

Your manners are a little less… cultured, but you do your best to imitate her mannerisms and you get the sense she’s showing you on purpose.

It’s about halfway through your food – having eaten bits of everything, even taken a few swigs of a hot milky and herbal beverage yet, having actually finished nothing – that you decide to open your mouth for something that isn’t shovelling food into it. Despite how offended you are to have food right infront of you and yet be unable to fit it in. For the moment. It’s a situation you’d only ever heard nobles or gang bosses to have, neither of which you had ever even dared to dream about.

“So… what now?”

“Now you finish eating. Don’t worry, take a moment if you need to, this is all far from ordinary food and you don’t look like you’ve really ever had much of that, let alone this stuff. Once your body begins to digest it, you’ll start craving it like you’re starved. It’ll replenish your muscles, bones and veins and some other pathways I’ll discuss later. Try not to get hooked, mortal kings can go mad for food of this quality. I need you fit, I don’t need you fat. You’ll need your strength so I can run some physical tests on you, get a baseline. I want to make sure you’re healthy and in peak condition, before training and before I start you on a regiment. That’ll take about a week, in the meantime I’ll tutor you on some of the basics, recognising magic and magical plats and the like. Even longer term, we’ll test your magical acumen and if you’re not that gifted, that’s fine. We can look into other physical training and weaponskills. Absolute worst case scenario I can just teach you to hide very well, though you should take to some kind of weaponskill, as a natural byproduct of the tests we’ll run on you. After all uh… ehem…” Her mature, almost dangerously seductive demeanour is broken by a blush, “I-if you…. do decide to stay with me as my familiar, we’ll have to travel around a lot, and they won’t all be the nicest of places.” She even goes as far as to coyly fidget with her fingers, poking the two indexes together – you begin to suspect there’s at least a bit of an act at play here. You busy yourself with mopping up the last of the scraps and face an unfamiliar feeling of being full, yet there’s a lingering subtle hunger under it, waiting. You’re fine for now though.

“And, right now?” You put your fork and knife down, not quite managing too well with the things but trying nonetheless. You shoot a glance towards the door. Only a short one, but one she apparently catches all the same.

“You… want to go out?”

“I mean… I can’t just stay in here forever right? You mentioned earlier you’d be happy to take me back to Squall’s Landing. I don’t want to go just yet but I should at least be introduced to the area. You already mentioned having friends, but even ignoring that your lie about the other witches is a bit obvious.”

“I wasn’t lying! … Mostly. Some of them really are dangerous, you know.”

“People are dangerous everywhere.” You look her in the eyes.

“They’re a… different kind of dangerous. A…” she starts to blush again, mumbling, “steal you away from me kind of dangerous.”

“By force?”

“Noooo… Usually. Some of them are just… really really old and really really desperate and they might try and seduce you or something.”

You laugh, “You mean I’d finally have a choice in the matter? I wouldn’t worry, I wont bite the hand that feeds.”

She blinks, half smiling but it’s an uncomfortable thing that hints of denial. “That’s silly. Of course you have choice in the matter. You’ve had choice all along. You chose to come with me, you chose to sign the contract… you chose to take my first… didn’t you?”

You look at her, blinking for a moment. Smile still on your lips but hanging, forgotten as you try and process what she’s saying. But most of her words slam into a sturdy mental block. The idea that you’ve had a choice in really anything other than where to steal your next meal from is met with a resounding ‘uh… no?’.

She leans forwards, brow furrowing. “You chose me, didn’t you? Hey. You wouldn’t just… let some girl fuck you, would you?”

You still hold your tongue as best you can, evidently having accidentally strayed deep into dangerous territory. You want to take a moment to try and conceptualise her perspective, but her piercing gaze makes you very uncomfortable sitting where you are. Reluctantly, you quietly confess from your gut feeling instead, “Why wouldn’t I? You would have just taken what you wanted anyway. That’s… kind of how things work you know.” You squirm awkwardly, in disbelief you have to even utter such a self evident truth.

She stares at you, hard before closing her eyes in an expression of almost pain and sighing, resting her head in her hands, elbows propped on the table. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Uh… just think hard about the shoes you want to wear and they should appear. Let me know if you’re having trouble.” Without looking at you, she stands and walks off into her bedroom, closing the door gently. You’re left with a gnawing sense of guilt and frustration, like a part of you feels it did something wrong, while the other insists nothing’s your fault. Still very aware of your position as a ‘sacrifice’ a sense of almost trepidation overcomes you. You don’t know if you’ve actually done something wrong, but you’ve seen time and time again the strong need no justification. You put it all from your mind as best you can and try to imagine a nice pair of boots. It doesn’t take long for your pants to twitch and begin to ‘spill’ in response, black goop flowing down to form around your feet in the shape of a pair of fairly nifty boots. You lift one foot then another as it solidifies around your sole.

You grab your coat which – you’ve no idea when – now smells and feels very fresh and clean and you draw it around you before somewhat gingerly approaching her door and calling out that you’re ready. A moment later the door opens and she steps out, dressed in her armour. Ostensibly closing the door to change, though she obviously had no qualms changing before you earlier. She looks you over, looking at your shoes and coat. “Come then. I guess I’ll show you around.”

Her face is a little impassive and you follow quietly as she leads you out the door of her home. You pull the cowl over your head as you leave her home and your first step is a little wobbly, as your brain puts up a bunch of warning signals. She notices your awkward movement and looks at you, frowning but a little concerned at the same time. “Are you okay?”

You blush, embarrassed, as the rain you expected doesn’t fall, the ground catches your foot with bone dry traction. It’s strange that you notice it now but not when you first arrived. You look to the sky. Still overcast. You’re not sure how you’d handle blue skies and no rain at the same time. She puts two and two together and finally gives you a small smile, “Take your time and get used to it. Your brain probably just didn’t register that it wasn’t raining anymore last night.”

“Thanks. It’s kind of all I know.” You take another tentative step and catch up, “This is… pretty weird.” The two of you walk in relative silence, the meal in your stomach, however, burns with abundance and makes you want to run and jump. You’re glad to be able to take the walk, as you’d probably be too energised to sit and focus on much else. Her home opens out onto the alley you’d seen before, but for the first time, you’re able to see what kind of street that alley opens out onto. The place isn’t as packed at the square you saw earlier, but all manner of storefront line the rather spacious street and countless races browse windows, enter and exit, or just transverse the neat, clean stone streets.

The stores advertise a plethora of goods in the city’s obviously native magic runes. They glow with arcane resplendence of all colours and despite being unable to read them, artistic representations sit below, of needles and threads, what you assume to be wands crossing staves, books, potions, anvils. The signs do a decent job of representing what each storefront deals in.

There’s no sense of uniform among the pedestrians, each one bearing strange and unique garb, though there’s recurring motifs on some, hinting perhaps at the respective domains they live in. Black broaches of endless darkness, dead trees weeping red souls, a fathomless body of blackwater. Those bearing the endless darkness carry lanterns at their hip or dangling from their staves, though, they’re not the only ones to sport a light source of some sort, even if it’s just a dim magical glow. You less walk, more meander down the street, walking by Nia’s side, constantly looking around from under your cowl, though you go out of your way to avoid people as they pass. Not that it matters much, they’re all quite comfortably busy with their own lives. No one spares you a glance. Cities are the same everywhere perhaps. There’s a noisome quality to the road, a clatter as carts roll down the stone streets. Hundreds of footsteps any given second and a hundred more conversations muttered between people. A tavern down the street is a significant source of noise. It all forms a rather dense backdrop.

It’s as you’re pondering these noises one cuts through, sharp and distinctive, just defined enough against the background noise that it demands your brain’s attention, solid footsteps, eliciting that same response. “Hey! Wait! Nia! Big sis Nia!” You control your reaction, neither big nor small, you just take another step forward and to the side, putting the dark mage between you and the source of the noise. Finally, you observe out of the corner of your eye a figure approach. The large… stiletto she strapped to her shoe seems to be why her footsteps cut through the noise around you, though you have to admit as she balances on the tall things, the outline of her ass – as much of it as you can see from this angle – seems to be quite perky. You imagine Nia’s ass and thighs flexing as she balances on her toes.

Nia seems to catch your earlier, non-ass related reaction, but doesn’t say anything, stepping forward to block more of your silhouette while turning to catch the short girl wearing a comically over-large hat that some how remains in place as she jumps and buries her face in Nia’s chest. “Niiaaaa~”

“Remi! How are you?”

She pulls her head out of the bigger woman’s tits and beams, “I’m great. I submitted my research to my mistress and she’s very pleased, she even says she’ll help fund my search for a familiar before I move on to the next phase in my research!”

Nia smiles warmly and pats the girl’s oversized hat. “I’m glad for you.”

She nuzzles in. “It’s all thanks to your help big sis! But uh… I think she knows you helped me out a little bit.”

Nia rolls her eyes, “She’s welcome to come and talk magic any time.”

“She might actually take you up on that. So, what are you doing? Do you wanna go grab a bite to eat? There’s a new bakery that opened up recently and I hear they use Titania milk in their cupcakes.”

Nia shoots you a glance her friend seems to miss. “I… can’t. I’m just a little busy at the moment. I’ve got to go pick up the last ingredients for my potion.”

“Oh! I won’t keep you then. So you’re nearly done with that project.” Remi’s smile turns into a little perverted grin, “So you’re going to start looking for a cute little assistant of your own then? Finally. Although, fuck him enough and he won’t need any potions.”

Nia waves her hand with a dismissive huff, “I know, I know. But not every man can find a monstergirl and some nobles might prefer to outfit theirs with one of my potions rather than more food, more room and a lot of a lot of indisposed soldiers. I still say it’s worth it.”

Remi pouts, “You’re lucky we sisters don’t really care. If your potion takes off the way you want it to, you’re kind of indirectly harming all monstergirl kind. Think of all the men who just want to get strong the easy and fun way who’ll just do it expensive but quick way if given the chance.”

“Yeah… but I’ll be rich. It’s a dark mage thing.”

Remi rolls her eyes at this point, “Yeah yeah, alright. Well, I’ll leave you to it big sis!” She heads down the street at a light jog, heels clacking against the stone, waving a hand, “Good luck finding your familiar!”

Her words trail off and you visibly relax. Nia turns to you. “Do you want to continue, or do you want to head back?”

You shake your head, “I’m fine.”

You continue down the road in relative silence, more taking everything in. Your habits kick in as you start imagining routs in and out of buildings, easy roofs to climb. You kill the intrusive thoughts as soon as they come though, not knowing what manner of security these magical women have. You eye up a few out of the way areas, only to find to your surprise telltale signs of habitation. Cities really are the same all over.

You make it to the square, your gaze instantly pulled to the enormous statues again, only this time there’s nothing. They look no less beautiful or alive, but whatever magic surrounds them seems content to just bombard your brain with its existence the once. The square is bustling, far more populated as individuals set up stalls and others browse. Presumably for cheaper and rarer goods than the stores usually have. There are plenty of arguments to be seen and you’re not the only bystander ogling the show, as different customers argue over the price, or quality, or the very legitimacy of their latest purchase.

You watch, eye drawn to their authoritative stature as a group of girls patrol the area and mediate some of the more violent disagreements. You turn to Nia and nod with your head to a passing group, “Are they the guard?”

She tilts her head from side to side before pointing to the city in the sky with her chin.. “Half and half. The girls from up there like to fancy themselves as an authority. Most people don’t argue. The big shots from the tree and the blackwater rarely show themselves around here. The sisters under the Sister of Shadow take it as free reign. They’re some of the ones I want you to avoid. Don’t let them bully you though, kick up as much of a fuss if you have to. You’re mine and stealing a familiar is just about the worst thing any girl can do. But if that familiar’s too scared to speak up and resist, that’s another story. Then he’s obviously asking for it.”

“I’m familiar with thugs like that. They just use different weapons. See the lanterns on them?”

“Yeah. Useful for getting around the shadows if you’re not currently using them. What about their lanterns?”

“Squall’s Landing guard uses them too, it differentiates them from the others.”

“The others?”

“Gangsters. They patrol their own turf, the Lord’s men only patrol the main road. They use lanterns to differentiate them from the gangsters who tend to use the cover of the rain more. I think they get off on announcing themselves. At least it makes them easier to avoid.”

“Oh.” She seems a little taken aback, not by what you’re saying, but that you’re offering it at all. Her body language grows just a little relaxed, though still hesitant. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking…” You don’t look like you mind, nodding gently. “Back then with Remi. She’s a nice girl. Why did you hide?”

You take a moment to answer, heading over to a quieter edge of the square and sitting down on a bench, Nia beside you. “It’s very loud in Squall’s landing. The rain pelts down over everything, stone, tiling. For a place so dangerous, especially if you’re not just a regular person with a home to sleep in, if you’re some one that has to wander the streets, by the time you hear footsteps it’s usually too late. There’s a knife to your throat and you’re getting mugged. Or its in your back and you vanish into the harbour. I’ve seen it before, once or twice. The blood vanishes down the gutters faster than you can spill it.”

She’s quiet a moment. “That sounds very hard.”

“It is what it is. You learn to accept powerlessness. You cherish what little control you have.” You offer a grim chuckle, “For all the rain, almost no one’s hands are clean. But I think I see a little bit of it here too. Is it just every city? Or is it the rain washing down hill?” Your musing’s cut short as she shuffles over and puts an arm around you, pulling your head into her bosom. You sit together for a moment in this overlooked slice of the city as she holds you.

“You don’t have to worry about any of that anymore. You don’t even have to go back if you don’t want. You’ll be warm, dry, clean, fed. Um… not too well rested I guess.” She laughs a little, it’s a sweet sound, gentle and low but very very feminine. “I’ll even be your big sis, if you want. Or I can just be Nia. Even if this whole potion business fails, in time you’ll grow strong enough to ruin every other man in a fight. You’ll have the power to stop any one else from making decisions for you. Well, if I’m truly honest, you’ll always be powerless. But at least it feels better to have a dragon dictate your fate than some alley thug. Dragons are easier to avoid too.” She smiles and winks.

You take a moment to think on her words. Just a useless vagrant, you’re not entitled to know much. But if you had to guess, there was probably a fat noble behind every gangster boss and a king behind him. “There was a big sis at the Landing. She was based around the red light district, looked after most of the whores and unfortunate women, mostly. They didn’t really like men but if you got in good with them they’d treat you very well or so I hear. I suppose… having a big sis wouldn’t be that bad.” You look up at her, and she beams back down. Gently she places a hand on your cheek.

“I promise I’ll treat you very very well~” With a lingering suggestion trailing at the end of her sentence, she brings her lips down in a kiss. Only, it’s chase. For her. Plush lips pressing against your forehead, while the hand on your cheek slides up to stroke through your hair. You feel her sincerity and relax in her arms, releasing some of the tension you just now realised you had. “Now… shall big sis take you back home? I can’t wait to start training you, but first, I want to teach you some of the basics around magic and alchemy. And only if you’re really really okay with it, I need to run some tests and gather data on your body and its tactile sensitivity, then test your strength and stamina.” You appreciate her at least trying to ask your consent, but there’s a magically binding contract compelling you anyway.

You go to turn with her, looking back down the street towards the alleys the two of you came from, but an indecisiveness in your mind arrests your feet. You stop, incidentally halting under the dim rays of a nearby lamp, standing beside a neatly manicured hedge by the road. The crowd parts around the two of you, and you call out. “Nia.” She halts a moment later and turns back to you, question in her eyes though you continue before she can ask it. “Look, Nia I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. For hurting your feelings. For… I don’t really know, I just feel guilty. I didn’t… don’t want to make you feel sad.”

She steps up to you and reaches a hand out in concern, though self-consciously it changes course, originally heading to your cheek but falling to your shoulder. She doesn’t speak though, seeing the conflict play out across your face as you struggle to chew your way around words and ideas. “I’m just not used to any of this. I’ll try and be more decided, not let my self be pulled along with the flow, be better.”

She looks at you warmly and the hand leaves your shoulder, caresses your cheek. She fairly radiates as a smile blossoms across her face, “Aww, come here.” She pulls you into a hug. It’s warm, soothing. But definitely offers mixed messages with your face buried in her bosom. “It’s not your fault. I… think I understand a little where you’re coming from. What your life’s been like. Of course, I wouldn’t, if you hadn’t opened up to me. Thank you Rein.”

She leans down and plants a kiss on the top of your head. The two of you hold each other for as long as it takes for all the eyes to burn a hole in your back. Blushing slightly, you’re first to withdraw. Though Nia now walks with a bit of a happy, smug sway in her step and she eyes down glowering mages and witches in passing while holding your hand.

Together you head back to her home. In a strange twist of fate, it begins raining as you return, only it’s a light sprinkle. It brings a comforting sense of familiarity, though the light spitting is something entirely different from anything Squall’s Landing has to offer. Your coat’s barely even wet as you head in through the door after Nia and bathe in the warmth of her home. The gentle light of the large chandelier overhead is far more pleasant than the sometimes glaring lighting outside.

“If you don’t mind taking a seat and sitting tight for a moment?” She changes out of her armour and back into the looser gown of the morning. You take a seat at the table while she strides to a bookshelf by the other side of the room, too-thin fabric fluttering around her curves and hips swaying all the while. She stops a little bit away from it and scans the covers before pointing out an elegant finger and curling it towards her, beckoning to the book which responds by flying out, something that might be surprising if you weren’t already well aware that she was a wi- er, ‘dark mage’.

She doesn’t return to sit before you as she did for breakfast, instead circling around to your side and placing the book before you, while leaning over your shoulder and pressing her breasts up against your back. “Now…” Your spine quivers as she does that thing with her voice again and reaches forward, sliding her hands down your arms and making you open the book she titles ‘Identifying Magic: Yep, It’s Magic.’ She doesn’t stop with the cover, however and keeps you turning pages. “I’d really rather you read the whole thing, my cute little familiar, but I’ll have you start with the reagents, you might as well begin learning the letters from there…”

You spend the next few hours or so having her lean over your shoulder, whispering into your ears as she reads to you. To your surprise – and hers – you slowly begin to grasp some of the symbols. Of course, when you translate the symbols mentally it’s her hypnotic, at once soothing and stimulating voice in your head. She says she isn’t that surprised however, more pleased. It would be strange for someone who lived under elemental rain all day to be magically impotent. You let her comment pass as she very much gives the impression that the story behind the perpetual rain is long, complex, convoluted and mostly lost to time, though you glean by her attitude the witches only moved in to benefit from it, rather than caused it to begin with. As you struggle through the words with her she moves away from behind you to draw up a chair next to you. She’s still very much leaning on you and distracting you with her large breasts on your arm, but for the most part she lets you try and slowly read your way along. Apparently it bodes well that you’re able to pick up the symbols. For those magically inclined, it’s easier than learning to read mundane languages even, as you read it with your soul as well as your mind. Of course those without the talent could learn tens of languages and never grasp this one.

Once you gain a tenuous grasp of the language what comes next is actually memorising and understanding the different reagents. Nia proves to be patient and supportive throughout, reiterating what the book says and expanding further when you ask for it, all the while never really taking her lips from your ear or her tits from your arm – at one point adding a hand onto your inner thigh into the mix. All of these are dangerous for many reasons, but worst is her pushing her weight against you, as it pulls down on her dress and causes the hem to dip further. It’s paradoxically arousing despite being see through. You’re about to give up and call it quits when her hand ‘accidentally’ brushes the bulge in your pants and a teasing realisation comes over her.

“O-oh my~ What a bad teacher big sis has been, getting her cute little student so worked up and taking so long to notice… Lean back a bit and let big sis take responsibility…” Despite saying that, she doesn’t wait for you to move, simply twisting in her seat to comfortably rest her torso in your lap and hide herself under the table. She reaches an arm around you to steady herself and places the other on your knee. Meanwhile, you jolt as you begin to feel the lace of your trousers come undone jerk by jerk as she uses her teeth. Each movement only makes you harder until eventually you burst out, shaft smacking her across the face and smearing it across the ghost white canvass as you do so, making her gasp and moan, “It must have been tight in there…” You almost feel jealous as she starts to console and pamper your dick, licking and kissing up and down it’s length, sucking and tonguing the tip, muttering and moaning over it. It doesn’t help that with her hidden under the table, there’s no way to see what’s coming, a fact somehow amplifying the sensations, driving you mad until you take her silken smooth hair in your grasp and thrust forwards, cramming your cock down her throat and relishing in the strange splutter-moan she gives off.

You don’t last too long, there’s a heightened sensitivity and an urgent need you didn’t know you had until Nia’s cute nose pressed up against your spit-soaked crotch. Her black lips stretch around the base of your cock, her long tongue laps at your balls and your length crams down her tight, caressing throat. It helps your pride to think that the sudden, urgent yet sizeable relief is the remnants of last night’s potion, jetting out your throbbing shaft and into her stomach. It’s definitely not just a quick shot, no. It’s her fault for getting you so pent up anyway. Your grip on her flags after mashing your hips into her face a few more times and she uses your lacking grip to slowly pull her head back, leaving a black ring of lipstick around your base and a bit of a smear as her warm wriggling tongue coils and squeezes your girth as she retreats, sucking out the very last drops before her lips smack off your swollen head with a salacious slurp.

“Mmm… I could get used to that. Perfect to wash down a meal. And so forceful~” She tucks a side of her fringe behind an ear and shoots you a smokey look, “Now, I think that’s enough reading. I think it’s time to move on to testing your sensitivity, get a bit of a baseline for how you respond to tactile stimulation. After all, improving your sensitivity is part of the enhancement potion, hear better, feel better. React faster, cum harder, the usual things you think of, when you think ‘enhancement’. Due to the… conflicting nature of this potion, with the obvious implications of human monstergirl cohabitation I’ll need to routinely test your current body’s abilities. After all, I need to make sure that any changes at the end of this whole project; be it denser muscles, more flexibility or faster reflexes, come about as much of a result of my potions at it does living with me. The only way for me to know this for sure is either with a control, which is boring and a bit beyond my means at the moment, or with very very close monitoring. Thankfully there’s ample information to be found on other Dark Mage human relations and the average rate at which the man’s body begins to change, so I can reference that to determine how much of it is me and how much of it is my potions. Admittedly, it’s not ideal, but most the fun comes from the process anyway~” She beams a smile at you, “Come along now my cute little specimen, I’m going to need you to lie down on my table.” Her words sound reasonable, though you don’t really get it. Thinking back to when she said being with her will eventually make you stronger, you agree that if the potion basically did the same thing it’d grow complicated trying to figure out which change is because of which.

Demonstrating worrying mastery over the state of your dress, she recalls the dark orb and causes it to vanish, leaving you nude. She quickly sets off, sheer short nightgown flowing tantalisingly just at the very bottom of her already very visible rear. The large round thing bounces wonderfully with her every hip swinging, bust quaking forceful stride. She takes the stairs leading up to her laboratory two at a time and as you near, the herbal, fungal, floral and rooty scents grow stronger and fresher. Along with these you begin to hear the rather soothing sounds of various different flasks and beakers in myriad stages of turbulence from slow almost glacial blooping to a lazy bubble, to a faster, frantic boiling and simmering.

You crest the stairs and arrive at the level of the indoor balcony of sorts. To your left is a decorative metal railing, dark grey almost black and clearly there to prevent an unfortunately sudden trip back down to the first ‘floor’ though you wouldn’t quite call where you are a second story. Backed up against a railing is a long array of tables covered in notes and flasks and beakers. The walls are once more lined in bookshelves, though a few sections are bare, with large diagrams and tapestries hung up. Another workbench is towards the back of the room in front of you, around a large cauldron and an arcane green fireplace, while a thin, almost humanoid shaped table lay up the other back corner. It rests at an odd angle, while a boxy contraption sits under it. You watch as she approaches to put a hand on the table and pushes it flat, showing the thing can rotate and turn a few degrees at least. Worrying straps line the edges, where you imagine your head, wrists and ankles would be.

“This is…?”

She turns to you and beams, patting the table, “This is where I’ll strap you down and test your sensitivity! Among other things, later on.”

“Uh… strap?”

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I just got a little carried away.” She turns to you with an awkward kind of care and consideration, you can tell she’s trying. “Do you… mind performing this experiment with me?”

You hesitate for a moment, still holding your reservations on how much of this is actually legitimate. Her words sound plausible, but since you’ve met you’ve only really fucked a lot. In fact, the last time she gathered data on you she did it by sucking your dick. “What exactly will you be doing?”

“I’ll just be conducting localised testing at parts of your body and documenting things like the intensity of your response, how quickly you do respond to stimulus, how it compares against other regions of your body, if the response grows more or less intense with repeated exposure to the stimuli, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, I’ll also have to test your response to pain stimuli and I can’t tell you when, because you won’t react naturally if you’re waiting for it. Soo~” Her eyes brighten and your heart sinks, “I’m going to have to blindfold you too.”

Admittedly, most of that went right over your head. “And I need to be strapped down and blinded, why?”

“For magic!” You look at her and she sees her answer isn’t quite satisfying enough, “For the integrity of the experiment, if you hold my head again, for instance, you’ll make me spend more time on the one area. You can do that or bend me over the desk any time you like, but if you do it during the experiment you’ll void the results, so I’ll have to make sure you sit tight. And if you’re blindfolded, you won’t be able to subconsciously prepare yourself for any of the stimuli, giving a less biased reading.”

“And that’s really it?”

“W-well… It also excites me a little.” She grins, “But, don’t worry, you can trust big sis Nia. I won’t do anything too naughty~” Her smile is anything but reassuring, but given her outwardly sincere answers to your questioning, you trundle your naked way over to the table all the same and gingerly mount it, expecting it to flip out from under you with how easily she moved it, but the thing remains incredibly sturdy throughout.

At least the bindings are lined with some soft, comfortable material on the inside, making the pressure anything but uncomfortable. Though being blinded isn’t something you’re too fond of all things considered. As you settle in, you let out a soft cry of surprise. The sensation of sinking into the surface is a strange one indeed, but the material of the table shapes itself around you, forming small platforms under your feet and hugging your general shape. This makes it exceedingly strange when she tips the table so that you’re almost standing up, despite the slight angle you’re at. It’s like standing, only you don’t have to carry any of your own weight. You’re stuck here, arms and legs spread, not right out, but perhaps somewhere half way.

“The table’s made of similar magisynth material to our clothes. It’ll give me even more accurate readings when we do tests later. I sold half my fortune for this. But, that’s the nature of research,” Her lips curl as her smoky purple gaze roams over your body, lingering almost tangibly on your manhood, “And thanks to you, I’ll soon make it back and then some, our experiments can continue on a far larger scale. Ah, but don’t worry, you’ll be big sis’ one and only test subject.”

“But don’t you need to make sure your concoctions work on others too?”

“Others? Who cares about others? I only care about you, Rein. And myself. If I can make it work on you that’s all that matters. I’ll pass my research and data on – for a price – and others can figure out how to extrapolate it out more broadly if they wish.”

Her honesty shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does. “That’s… alright then…”

“Now hush with the silly questions, the experiment’s starting now. Ah, feel free to let out those cute little moans though~” She waves a hand and a book appears, flying over the table and opening, glowing runes appearing on the pages. You can’t see it obviously, but having your sight robbed like this allows you to focus on the rustling of turning pages with perfect clarity. Some symbols fluctuate, changing symbols multiple times before calming down but most largely remaining static before the page turns. There’s an array that pulses in time with your heartbeat, one with your breath and countless others you’d have absolutely no clue about were you able to actually see them.

“Ahh…” Her features twist to those of perversion and excitement, it even looks like she drools a little, “I have you all at my mercy…” You suddenly regret this very much. She crouches down, eye to dick level and gives the slowly rousing tip a kiss. “I’ll have to come back to you later. For the time being, I’m going to start…” Her voice grows distant as she squats down and points a finger at your big toe, “All the way down… here…” zap. The table rattles as you jolt, less out of whatever that was and more out of sheer surprise.

You blurt, have to stop yourself from shouting at the last moment, “What was that?”

“Magic, cutie. Remember the lightning I hit that bug with in the swamp? Imagine that but a million times weaker. As far as the research goes, it’s a pretty neutral stimuli, perfect for gauging your reactions. Now do try and relax.” Zap. They’re less… shocking the second time around, not that you’re able to anticipate them in your state, but at least the sensation is no longer completely alien. Were you able to look up, you’d see a spike recorded in the book of immense amplitude and a few more surges that can’t quite make it that far. Until she surprises you by moving on to the other foot that is, testing you toe by toe at random. Some shocks feel queerly pleasurable, some are just an uncomfortable zap that leaves you tingling for a moment in the aftermath.

You can hear her gasping softly for some of the more powerful shocks. As her magic runs through your system and spits sparks into your already agitated loins, you’d swear you heard appreciative coos each time the residual lightning makes your shaft twitch and stiffen. You feel her eyes burning into your manhood.

Slowly the sizzling stimuli slide their way up your legs. Getting your knees zapped is particularly unpleasant, but none of her zaps had manage to match the few recorded spikes when you were first truly caught off guard. She gives subdued half moans of satisfaction all the while and a comparable spike doesn’t happen again until you feel an entirely new sensation, hair brushing your half-hard and twitching member as she moves her head to your groin. You feel her breath with equal parts eager anticipation and fear, waiting for that electric jolt so close to your junk, but she dips to the side at the last moment, leaving a plush, shapely ring of black on your inner thigh.

“Mmuah~” You jump. It’s pleasant and most definitely tantalising feeling her warm breath roll over a place so close to your privates. Though, you direly wish her lips were somewhere else at the moment. But the niceness of it all is quite beyond the point! “What are you doing?”

She looks up at you, confused. “The experiment, obviously. Do try not to distract me, this is a very delicate procedure!”

“It feels like you’re just kissing me.”

“I’ll have you know, that despite my use of improvised implements, my tools are quite adequate for the job! I’ve already tried the more neutral stimuli so it’s time for something a little different, now hushhh~” Her voice drops to a sultry whispered hiss, as she puts her lips back to your thigh and kisses you. “I think that after testing your sensitivity, I’ll,” another smooch to the thigh, “Get you to show me what you can do with these boys. A… strength and stamina test, if you will. After all, I did all the fucking last night. Muah~”

Then you gasp, startled, as pain radiates out through your inner thigh. If you were able to look down you’d see her smiling sheepishly at you, tooth marks in your skin, “Sorry~ you were just looking so tasty.” You grumble and she returns to kissing and licking, starting to travel.

Unfortunately for you, they only get further and further from your crotch. She begins kissing tracks around your lower abdomen and pelvis, eyes constantly flicking from your body, to your face, to the runic results being recorded on the floating book and back to your body. Chomp. You jolt this time as she tries to take a chunk out of your hip, or seems to. “The second time isn’t an accident. Now what are you doing?”

“I told you, didn’t I? It’s more helpful if you don’t expect it. I need data on how you react to direct pain, this is a… rather broad enhancement and while blowing on your dick and making you spurt would be adorable, scraping up against a branch and suffering debilitating pain would be less cute. So… bear with it for big sis.”

You grumble and mumble under your breath. Thankfully she seems largely oblivious to the more niche Squall Lander curses. Though the next bite is a lot sharper. Maybe she can sense the intent behind the words with her witchy ways. She said something like that didn’t she? As she starts to lay her lewd wet smacks around your ribs you notice her start to lean in against you, pale nipples hard against the translucent, thin fabric and brushing your chest. The way she squirms and squeezes her thighs and the frankly salacious kissing sounds stir your imagination. Your cock grows fully erect against her stomach. “Mmmhm, this is doing it for me but unfortunately your readings are pitiful. I’d fix that with magic but that would defeat the purpose… Your tactile responses are fine, I just wish it led to greater arousal…” She pauses as she feels the thing poking into her stomach and blushes, moving aside, “I ah… shouldn’t be influencing my own research.”

She moves up your chest, her dark smoky eyes twisting into pleased crescents as her tongue circles and her lips wrap around your nipple, evidently finally seeing the kind of results she wants to. Thankfully, she’s far more delicate with this region, the warm breath rolling over your chest and the swirling hot tongue is stimulation enough, though probably less pronounced on you than it would be her. It comes as great relief that her pearly whites only gently nibble, squeezing to the point where you cringe before backing off. She lathers the offended regions with more kisses before moving over to bite your bicep.

She has a less sensual, more academic interest in your arms, strange as a smoking hot, gorgeous woman kissing and licking you all over can be non-sensual. Her incessant squirming and panting may belie impatience. She lays a hand gently over some teeth marks. “You’re not bad, honestly, but your uh… rough life until now has done you no favours. I can’t wait to start with your training and preliminary trials.” She gazes longingly at your arms as if looking to what would soon be. She takes your wrist and kisses it, before popping a finger into her mouth, where she looks you in the face and fellates it. Her long wet tongue coils around its length, lathering it in spit. You can’t see the lewd display but by all that’s carnal and unholy you can hear and feel it. “I’m getting wet just imagining it. Oop! Look at that arousal spike!”

You grunt, throat a little dry. “That doesn’t count, you’re clearly implying something else.”

“Hmm, annoying but true. Well, there are two more regions to test. I’ll let you pick. Lips or ears?”

“…Lips.”

“Oho! That desperate are we? Or are you saving best for last?” Nia smirks at you and you turn aside, not deigning to give a response. For your non co-operation, she gives you a shove and you cry out as your world begins to fall. You reach out to grab something but your arms are strapped solidly. Thankfully, you eventually stop, lying just short of completely flat but in your momentary terror, Nia had hopped up on the table and straddled you, lying down on your chest. “Don’t be such a wuss.” Your rebuttal, a profound one that would leave her speechless and corrected, surely, is halted by those plump black moist kissers pressing up to your own. “Mmmh~ ish merhapz, muah, innaproriate bu-mph ‘ll be teshting” another wet smack rings out as she wiggles her hips and throws herself into the kiss, absorbed in the act yet trying to talk around it, as though stopping the wet kissing were blasphemy to her, “‘aur tonguesh too.”

You see now why she strapped you down before running these tests, as her clit rubs along the length of your now solid shaft, coating it in her lubrication. You strain to hold her tight, or even just gain leverage to fuck her teasing pussy and show it what’s what. Unfortunately hearing the bindings snap as you pull them to their limit and they just bounce back into place utterly unfazed only makes the plush lips dominating your own curl in smug victory. She suffers from her own ploy though, hands roaming a little awkwardly around you as she clearly tries to pull you into her embrace, though the nature of the table denies her and she settles with resting her hands on either cheek, or gently stroking your hair.

Her long tongue plunges into your mouth like a snake returning to its den, utterly tyrannising your own, coiling about it in its dripping, warm saliva drenched way. Her taste fills your mouth fully, a hint of breakfast’s lingering flavours, but mainly her own unique mix. A flavour, mostly tasteless and most notable in slick texture though floral elements linger, tinging her breath and offering it a sweet quality. The latter of which inundates you as she switches to breathing through her nose to continue molesting your mouth. You don’t know if she qualifies as ‘skilled’, your own skill being nonexistent to tell, but she’s definitely better suited to this. You swiftly find yourself running out of breath, and effectively floundering into her domineering kiss. Mercifully, she breaks it with a gasp for breath that turns to a tittering moan, though your shared composite strings of saliva are a little more reluctant to part.

“We can pick that up again later, my dear dear Rein. I’ve got enough data now and if I don’t stop I’m liable to ruin this test and make a mess on the table. Now~” She leans over to your ear, suddenly dropping in volume in a way that makes your mind tense, hyper-focusing on her sultry low voice, “Lets see if you weren’t just saving the best for last~” Her breath rolls in like a warm breeze while her lips linger tangibly about the rim of your ear, so close you can almost feel them though never quite touching. Her wet tongue poking in your ear, however, sends you over the edge. Whatever moving parts constitute the table jingle, as tempest sparks surge up and down your spine, muscles spasming for only a quick moment yet doing so powerfully. She chuckles softly, “I don’t need any of my equipment to see where you’re most sensitive, now do I?” She gives your ear another lick before moving on, purple eyes burning into your half lidded ones through the blindfold as she leans over to your other ear and gives it a lick around the rim before nibbling the lobe and blowing gently into the canal, setting a different group of muscles to twitching.

The next few moments leave you gasping in blissful agony. You swear she’s relented on her academic integrity and started blowing pure magic in to your mind through your ears, how else could you explain this? Nia, on the other hand, is all smiles. Her eyes practically blaze in mirth and joy as she watches you quiver and twitch with the softest of sounds and the wettest of licks. “My my~” She looks down to your crotch, “I’m almost tempted to see if I can make you spurt with nothing.” Kiss. “More.” Lick. “Than.” Nibble. “This.” Her tongue oozes into your ear, riding on a wave of blessed hot breath, nerves alight and your cock throbbing, painfully erect, begging for a touch let alone a treatment so regal and devout.

It’s almost heart wrenching when you feel the presence of those black beloved lips depart. “You better control yourself better Rein, or you’re going to end up giving me an earplay fetish~ Now I think I’ve tested your sensitivity enough, there’s a good foundation of data to work from. The last test will be on your strength and stamina.” She dismounts you and taps the table. All at once the thing rightens itself and liberates your eyes, allowing you your sight before releasing you of your bonds with a burning erection. It practically spits you out onto your feet. Your emancipation lasts only as long as it takes for her to push you up against the tilted, now wall-like table, trapping your cock between her thighs for her pussy to drool over. “Thankfully this test is really, really fun.” She begins to line her enthralling kisses along your jaw and neck as she wraps her arms around your shoulders and lifts a leg up to rest high on your hip, “All you have to do…”

She takes your hands and places them on her ass, before wrapping her fingers around your cock and angling its drooling angry and neglected head to be quenched in her drenched mage minge. After settling her hips down so that there’s enough weight to have your cock on the verge of penetrating her tight tunnel, she wraps her arms around your shoulders again and lifts the final leg, crossing both over, ankles dangling near your ass while her knees ride almost up to your shoulderblades, causing you to stagger under her sudden weight while your fingers sink into her rear. Your knees go weak at the sudden engulfing, milking bliss. A big, busty, fit, perhaps meaty girl like her isn’t just heavy, no.

“…Is fuck me.”

Grunting softly, you grab her ass and lift, hefting her into an easier grip, while, though she provides no help in this regard, she clings to you even tighter. This grasp she has on you adds a negligible difficulty in lifting her by her thick push-cushions to thrust yourself back in. Her twat proves tight enough to arrest your head from sliding out of her warm, wet fold-ridden walls in and of itself. Not to mention the psychological resistance, you were clearly indisputably and evidently born for the sole purpose of cramming your dick into this woman’s womb specifically and keeping it there, possibly forever. Until the end of creation is also acceptable. This you will not be denied.

Another scent – one of carnal lust and fertile excitement – mixes with the other scents of herbs and cuttings. Another sound – one of lewd wet slapping of crotch against crotch, balls on large, toned ass – mixes with the other sounds of bubbling and boiling and hissing flames. You shift your grip to somewhere between thigh and ass, fingers sinking as far in to her supple curves as honed muscle permits. Your own muscles strain, though the way she clings to you distributes her weight more evenly. The new position doesn’t make carrying her any easier, but the new leverage lets you easier make use of the lewd, carnal force generated when her soaked fat pussy squishes up against the base of your cock. You set to a rhythm of letting your hips collide, trying to stave off the unearthly pleasure as her twisting, milking folds suck and slide along the length of your shaft as it plunges her depths, multiplying the pleasure by factors as innumerable as each devilishly delightful contour of her wet writhing witch cunt. You take the force of the collision, as it rocks through her curvy form and issues out of her plush lips as a longing moan that melts into your ear and you use it to thrust back with her rebound, bouncing her on your cock quite admirably as though she weren’t a head larger than you and far far thicker.

Her passage sucks and clenches your waning cock, then crushes wetly and almost rejects its waxing intrusion. The glans rubs and scrapes at the sopping, swollen walls, dredging out spurts of her excitement when your rod grows so slick in her fecund fervency there’s no recourse but for it to leak out around your balls, run down her thighs and splat on the stone floor, only adding to the heady fuckhaze of nigh tangibly pinkish carnal miasma. Though, sharp herbal scents pierce through now and then, restoring a measure of clarity to the delusions before being beaten back like you beat the Dark Mage’s womb with the blunt battering crown of your manhood.

The cacophonous moans in your ears rise to a fever pitch, accompanied by discordant slobbering on your neck, jaw and in your ears. Quickly – perhaps a product of a foreplay that frankly did more for her than you, some byproduct of her augmented tongue perhaps – her cries grow frantically coherent, “J-just a little longer… H-hold it in ahn~ Just a little longer, g-gonna!”

Your bouncing of the thick woman clutching to you is arrested by a frankly frightening reveal of strength. Bound in soft, supple chains of flesh that quiver and cry rather than jingle and clank, you’ve no power to move her let alone yourself. You’re only able to respond to her desperate clinging by digging your fingers in and wresting with yourself to hold on just that little longer and not give in to the spasming pussy currently wringing and clenching – near shaking down and demanding from your cock the load it so deserves. You get uncomfortable confirmation of just how overrated collar bones, sternums, ribcages and all the rest truly are as your shoulders are nearly crushed together in the middle, shallow yet bloody trails are scratched into your back and you’re just thankful she wasn’t halfway through nibbling your ears.

Her orgasms subside eventually and you take your petty revenge by heaving with all your might and slamming her sensitive still quaking cunt down on your very very rigid spear. With a stilted cry she goes stiff, though not as stiff as you, and begins to plead, “W-wait, not s-so rou-ahhng, s-still sensitivvvve!” You ignore her, much as you can’t ignore the calamitous aftershocks in her drenched canal quickly intensifying as you fuck her sensitive slit sideways from Sunday.

The sawing, hammering against her womb’s entrance, the push through her milking folds quickly turns her period of post-orgasm bliss into a tumultuous cataclysm of nigh painful ecstasy. Your legs quiver, sweat runs down, salt stinging the bloodied lines of your back as your own climax reaches a head, just as your other head slams into her cervix one last time – for now – and your balls smack pendulously into her ass, clenching and broiling. You stumble a few steps as your strength leaves you for the most part, pouring into your loins, and luckily you find a table, scattering papers and trinkets everywhere as you drop Nia down over it and practically collapse onto her, clutching her for dear life as she does you, cumming simultaneously. The swollen tip of your cock stretches her cervix and the hot gout of cum slams into her womb, setting her over the edge, a sexual synergy milking such a torrent from you you’d think she’d slipped you some more of whatever it was she gave you last night.

Strand after strand of scalding semen spurts into her sanctum, packing it full to the brim with life bearing seed and spilling out over the table below her, to drip off the edge into a small puddle on the floor, growing with each loin clenching pump her over-stuffed passage fails to hold. Her black see-through gown’s long been twisted a-strew, large pale breasts free and shaking with the jolts as you ride out the last of your orgasm in short forceful thrusts, rising and falling with her deep shuddery breaths.

Spent, you go to pull out when her legs clench, keeping you balls deep in her cunt as it still milks you of the precious gooey remnants. “Ohhh no, you’re staying right here…” She seems to have regained a modicum of composure, though her breathing’s still disturbed, “I still need data on how fertile you are. Though getting knocked up right away would mean I have to make some serious adjustments to my schedule and it’s statistically unlikely… If you do knock me up however, whether or not you’ll be my familiar won’t be your choice to make anymore, ufufu~ So you’re going to stay nice and hard in there and we’ll see how,” She drops a foot lower and softly massages your drained balls with the heel of her foot, “These boys work.” She reaches up and pulls your head into her ghostly white bosom, “So take a rest, while big sis finishes gathering her data.” She begins to stroke your hair as insurmountable fatigue creeps in. “Good boy, good boy.”

* * * *

The next day and a bit you were largely left to your own devices, as Nia pours herself into her plans around you, according to her, shuffling the schedule around based on your results and altering dosages. You’re still sceptical that she didn’t want to just tie you down and molest you, but unless she’s devoted the past number of long hours to playing a joke on you, she seems to have poured herself into her revisions quite earnestly. At least you’re inclined to go along with it for now. It’s not until sitting with her a little later on and enjoying some lunch that she lets you know she’s about to start your more physical training.

“Um… like exercise? I’ve never tried. There was dockwork but stealing was easier and honestly, dockwork didn’t pay well enough to keep you fed and warm. I could probably do it for a few days but any more than that and I’d be using more energy than I’m able to replace it with. Not to mention, you’d get beaten pretty regularly.”

“No and I won’t beat you unless you’re into it. But I will get you onto more general exercise. What I’m really wanting to start with is some weapon training. We can spar, it’ll be the quickest way for me to grasp where you’re at.”

You look around the room. There might be enough space if she got rid of the table in the centre. Noting your look, she laughs. “We won’t do it here.” She smiles at you mischievously and takes your hand, “It’ll be easier to show you.” She leads you to a truly unexpected place of mystery and magic. She leads you to her bedroom. You look at her, a little deadpan.

“We’re sparring here?”

“Of course we are, silly~ Now drink this.” She flicks a hand out and there’s a rattle and a knock as a desk drawer bursts open and two bottles shoot out, flying into her hand where she wraps her fingers around both necks. She downs one before passing the other to you. It’s a vaguely glowing, swirling purple thing. You’re not sure you want it, though when she opened hers you got a distinctly pleasant whiff of some kind of flower. You eye it sceptically.

“I’m not really sure I want to.”

She smiles, “Of course you do, the last one was so fun.” She half drops her trickster facade for the moment, “Or would you like me to ruin the surprise for you?”

You sigh and down the potion, at least determined to take a little more control of the situation this time, as a willing, driving participant. You blush, the potion making you a little light headed, but that doesn’t stop you from rounding on her and pushing her down on the bed. The fall lasts forever, you’re left with what feels like hours to watch her face twist from surprised to pleased as she giggles and brings you down with her, and down, and down.

You find yourself in a void, a nothingness as the best way to describe it, devoid of light and dark. You get the sensation you’re only standing and breathing because that’s what you’re used to. The only constant is yourself, and – as you begin to panic – Nia. You calm yourself.

“What is this?” All around you is an infinite expanse of null. And then, there’s a distinct something. Perhaps conjured by your mind’s refusal of non-existence. The place around you slowly begins to shift and move.

Her playful grin returns, “This is your dream, our dream. It’s a bit blank because you fell asleep rather abruptly, a side effect of the dreamwalker potion I gave us. If you let it, your subconsciousness will slowly begin to fill in the blanks, but we are both in control here.”

You shoot her a quizzical look. She only laughs. “Close your eyes and imagine. It can be anything, but think about sparring, about fighting. What is combat to you? I’m excited to see what you come up with as a backdrop for our sparring session.”

A little bemused, you close your eyes and picture the only think you can, the place where you struggled all your life. Almost instinctively, you draw the hood on your coat and the rain begins to hammer down. A chill cold begins to fill the air, as Nia gasps.

“O-oh wow… I live so close, yet I’ve never really visited. I suppose I should have known you’d choose this.” You open your eyes, to the dark alleys of Squall’s Landing. Trillions of frigid droplets smash down over every surface, while torrents run off the roofing and down along the ever-present gutters. You reach a hand out and it instantly grows wet and cold. You look to Nia, who in this short moment is already drenched and she shudders. “Amazing isn’t it. Everything here is as close to real as fake can get. After all, it’s only in our heads.” She crosses her arms and hunches up, as the building all catch alight at once and the rain stops, vanishing. You’re overcome by a wave of heat and Nia turns to a nearby blazing building, reaching out with her hands and warming them, while she flicks her hair dry and winks to you, “Quite the difference hey?” Heat unlike any you’ve ever felt before blasts your face and stings your open eyes.

“If this is my dream, how are you in it?”

She gasps, feigning hurt, “You mean you don’t dream of me? I’m sure we’re snuggling up like quite the cute little couple in bed. I’m here because of how close we are, it’s one of the Dreamwalker potion’s properties. It was developed by a nightmare if I recall. All right then,” Her armour begins to shift as she warms up, forming a coat not unlike your own before she pulls up her hood. “Back into the cold then I guess.” She looks to you. “You imagine it, it’ll be more real if it’s based off your memories than mine.”

“Alright.” You don’t really have to close your eyes, as the downpour resumes, smothering the flames in icy fingers, leaving cold wet stone behind. You’re all too familiar with how these streets ought to look.

“Now, try and imagine a weapon, it can be anything. Try for something you’re not familiar with, entertain yourself for a bit.”

You nod and call back to the large swords the guard carry on their hip. A moment later, a weight makes itself known at yours. You draw the thing from its black whale leather sheath and it slides out easily and silent. The blade’s well oiled and more black whale leather forms the grip, thin strips of it wound and bound. The pommel and guard aren’t especially ornate, functional and bland. The weight changes and you nearly drop the weapon as it begins to shift into a large and wicked looking halberd of the palace guard, a group of stern stoic men you’d never seen but for the rare procession. You try and imagine other weapons, but the thing doesn’t change. She notices your confused, slightly vexed expression. “If you don’t have a strong image of it in your mind, you won’t be able to form it. Go for something familiar now.”

You nod at her and the weight all but vanishes into a small but familiar dagger in your hand, loose guard and cracked handle and all. “Oh?” She raises an eyebrow at the pitiful looking thing. You shrug.

“What do you expect a homeless dude to have?”

“That’s fair. Well, a sharp bit of metal’s a sharp bit of metal.”

“So what are we actually doing?”

“Now, I want you to attack me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Go on, attack me.”

You look at her, somewhat bemused, then at the dagger in your hand, before you thrust it at her, not really putting much effort into it. She slaps it aside easily. “Come on, you can do better than that surely.”

You stab at her again, twisting your wrist and adding a second palm to the pommel, driving it up into her ribs. She easily steps aside. “That’s a bit better, but I still sense hesitation. What are you scared of? Big sis won’t get angry.”

You look at her, then back at the dagger in your hands, “Look, this uh… isn’t exactly how I’d go about it, I mean I’d never really had to but I certainly wouldn’t just be standing infront of you like this.”

“Oh?” She smiles, “This world is yours. How exactly would you do it?”

You close your eyes and walk backwards. The alley expands all around you, shifts, turning into one of the more main streets, while the wall behind you opens into an alley. Shapes begin to fill the streets. She tries to remain where she is, but a figure barges into her. She instantly reacts, thinking it’s you, but the figure just cusses in her face and moves on. Before she’s able to recover another shoulder slams into her, slowly but surely forcing her to start moving with the flow of people, wandering down rain shrouded misty streets, looking around in wander at the world you used to inhabit.

At this point you step out of the alley, holding your dagger backwards and hidden in your pocket. You amble, at the same pace as every one else, only slightly gaining as Nia turns off a main street and heads down an alley and some stairs to reach another large main street, this time overlooking a good deal of the harbour. Perhaps playing into her role as the unsuspecting target.

You merge with the crowd once more and approach her. She’s stopped, only this crowd is more forgiving, there are a number of stores lining the streets and people stopping, coming and going. The others here are more inclined to walk around. Most don’t care to take too wide a berth, however and you ghost one. Thankfully the incessant downpour means you don’t really have to match their footsteps or do anything too sneaky. You pass by her right, blade in your left hand and so quick it doesn’t turn any heads you whip your elbow out, wrist following for a lightning quick stab into her side. For a moment you panic, as she doesn’t move. You get that this isn’t real yet you still don’t want to cause her any pain, much less cause her to be so displeased she abandons you in a strange city with stranger people so close yet so far from what you know. But there’s too much force behind the blow to stop it. The blade sinks into the leather covering her much like your finger would and does about the same amount of damage. That is, none. You catch her purple eyes smiling at you in the window’s reflection.

You glare ruefully at the leather she’s wearing, only just now recalling that she told you it’s able to protect from all mundane means. A beggar’s blade is about as mundane as it gets. “That’s cheating.”

She grins. “That’s magic, my cute, dear Rein. I have to say you’re downright treacherous when you want to be. I only realised you were there at the last moment. Of course, perhaps if I’d been on my guard this might not have happened.” She looks around her, the vague figures passing by in the rain, the soothing din to you that pounds in her ears. “I’m not really used to the weather either, most people stay inside when it’s raining like this, you see.”

“So, if this leather wasn’t there, then what?”

“It would be extremely painful, I suppose.” She taps her finger on her chin, “I’m usually more in my element and a lot more guarded. I can try and pretend all I like, but,” the tapping finger rises to her temple, “I know it’s all a dream in here. It’s hard to be truly vigilant. I wouldn’t die from this. You can’t kill a monster so easily after all, especially not a powerful one. You’d need to strike a lot faster for one, too much time to respond.”

“I thought I was pretty fast. I hit you.” You try the shanking motion again, blade splitting rain drops. Seems fast.

“I wasn’t moving, and, while I’m sure most humans would agree, you should see a mantis girl. They can dice you faster than you can think. At any rate you’re quite gifted at this, I think.”

You shrug, “It’s really not hard when the weather’s like this. I don’t think I’m anything much.”

“Maybe,” she grins, “but by the end you will be.”

In the end, after teaching you some moves and having you practice them, she ultimately had you move away from your familiar knife and start practising with a staff. Her rational was that you’re going to be hitting people with the end of it anyway, regardless of if it boasted a spear tip, or even concealed a blade. The latter she figures you’d be fairly well predisposed to. She turns out to be quite capable with it and you’re quickly taught the disparity between the two of you, just in case your earlier success got to your head.

The rain stops for ease of practice, though the cool wind remains to keep you refreshed and alert. You feel like all it does is freeze the knuckles gripping tightly to your staff, already aching as you hastily, sloppily bring it up to block another blow. You endure the powerful vibrations, feeling like if this weren’t a dream, the staff would have been broken by now as she hits you with what feels to be the force of a gale.

Before you’re able to respond, the blunt tip slams into your knee, pushing it aside and breaking your stance. Familiar by now with how this plays out, you lean backwards to avoid the sweeping end headed towards your chest. Accepting that you’re now so horrendously overbalanced, your only option is to fall back and scramble back up to your feet, but at least you avoided one – You stop, horrified and humiliated, as the end of her staff presses up against your balls gently and arrests your fall, leaving you rather comically sitting on her held out weapon. She didn’t go for your chest this time at all. Her bewitching black lips curl, “Now isn’t really the best time for a rest, is it?”

Flushing, you lift a leg and stomp down on the pole between your legs – the one you’re not attached to thankfully – and thrust your staff towards her chest. She leans aside, dodging it, but just as you’re about to swing again, she snatches it and pulls you forward. You refuse to let go of your weapon but it only ends up being used against you as she pins you to her chest and rests her boobs on your shoulders. You look up, only to find her looking down smugly. “Are you comfy?” You struggle, flustered at being toyed with and not taken seriously, when suddenly you’re sent stumbling forth and your staff vanishes from your chest.

You gain your footing and turn, only to see her resting your staff between her breasts and pretending to moan, lips infinitely close to touching it. Laughing at how you stand there awkwardly, she tosses the staff back to you. She’s mocking you. She’ll pay for that dearly! Roaring, you charge at her and thrust forwards with your staff. She easily bats it aside, but you’re no longer even holding the thing! Momentum set, she widens her eyes as you barrel into her. Grounded now and still stunned by your heroic demonstration, she doesn’t resist at all as you manhandle her, bend her over your knee, reach for your fallen staff and with a valorous cry, ‘smack!’ The staff whacks into her tightly leatherclad, thick and bouncy ass, making it quake as she throws her head up in an orgiastic cry “Ahhhnn!~”

You blush, but stand up and away from her all the same, with a vaguely unsure but still mostly victorious huff. Alas, as you go on to find out, the mood between the two of you’s been indelibly shifted. It’s a double edged sword, her single minded determination in teasing your now-half-hard dick makes her attacks predictable and you slowly gain a better grasp on how to defend your lower body at the least.

But she’s also leaving herself more open. You whack her sloppy incoming staff up and duck low, trying to harness what you’ve learned as you butt the tip of your shaft against her puffy mound and grind. She moans, relishing in the perversion of the sparring session, before you push her back with the staff and swing it around to collect her knee. Swiftly, she knocks it off course, but doesn’t respond as you correct it and gently flick upwards, thwacking into her corset and making her breasts quake. You quickly step around her and take a wide swing at her round ass again. She gives out another cry and drops to her knees, sinfully salacious body shaking with the movement, but before you can get the next swing in she thrusts her staff backwards and up. She stops just shy of hitting you, but rubs the base of your now-hard cock all the same.

The two of you stop just short of devolving to a hot sweaty brawl and by the end of the session, you’re leaning on your staff for support and breathing heavily for a multitude of reasons. As you catch your breath you can’t help but marvel at the reality of it all, the frigid air forcing its way down your lungs, the hard cold stone, the sore bruises all over you. It gets you thinking.

Nia’s practically eye raping you at this point, gnawing on her bottom lip and she struggles to rein herself in. “Alright, W-we’ll end it here for today. I’ve just got one test for tonight before we wind down and… continue this. It’s just a little simple one. I need to make sure you’re not going to have any adverse reaction to some of the reagents we’ll soon start working with.”

You look around, pondering. “It there a time limit for being in here?”

“Nope. Of course, your body will eventually awaken.”

You smile at her, “That’s fine. I’d like to stay here just a little longer. Close your eyes.”

“Oh?” Bemused, she does so anyway and you close yours. The rain begins to shift in sound, still pelting down just as intently, only you’ve moved indoors. You open your eyes, to see Nia still standing there with hers closed. Around you is as much the picture of luxury you’ve ever been able to imagine, how you picture one of the rooms in Keeper’s Peak. There’s a window, lined with wet streaks. The floor is lined with luxurious rugs, lined in gold with rich warm reds and burgundies. Atop a fur rug is an immense bed, not unlike Nia’s, though this one is canopied. Up the other end of the room is a small folding screen, rather haphazardly placed and revealing part of a large bronze tub, already full of steamy hot soapy water. “Hmm?” She tilts her head cutely, “Are we inside now?”

“Don’t open your eyes.” Her eyebrows rise at your order and her black lips curl in anticipation, but she keeps her eyes closed even as you walk up to her and rest a hand on her lower back, right above her rump while your other rests on her thick, muscular yet shapely upper thigh. You feel the leather give underhand as you apply pressure and she jumps a little, offering an excited coo.

“What’s this then? I get the feeling you can’t wait until later to resume our little sparring session~” The hand on her thigh slides up and in, fingers stroking along her slit, making her press her hips into your hand and sigh, though, a little in frustration. Despite hugging her form quite tight, the leather is decently thick which makes sense for something so protective. She can’t feel your fingers stroke her pussy as much as she can the general sense of pressure. Your hand on her lower back, however, does something else. You focus on it and move it around. Your efforts do not go unnoticed.

“Ohhh bad boy, what naughty things are you planning by trying to take control of big sis’s clothes? Ufufu~” All of a sudden there’s a rush of… permission. You’re able to shape her clothes at will and as you move your hand, the material suddenly goes from unyielding to very very yielding, peeling away and gathering into a ball. Your fingers continue to stroke and stroke at her lower lips, until something breaks and you find your digit getting swallowed by a wet warmth. Exceedingly wet, since the armour seems to have trapped her excitement. That’s well well worth taking note of.

The armour around her begins to shift and move in streams to the orb you now hold at her lower back, while your other hand works at her pussy. Soon, she’s standing there completely naked and you toss the orb aside, to roll for a bit on the dense rugs. You do the same to your own clothes, even while you admire her in her bare glory. You step into her and swap hands, one reaching around behind her to sink its fingers into her large rear before seeking down lower to find her folds while you observe your other pussy-slicked hand. You toy with the strings between your fingers for a bit before giving it a taste then bringing your fingers up to her mouth, which she opens with a lusty moan. Your tips brush her plump lips as you feel and stroke her tongue.

She does a good job at being obedient though her eyes flutter desperately and she leans her weight into you, begging for you to touch her more. She gasps as she feels the hot length of your cock press against her thigh, and your fingers sink into one of her large, perky, pendulous breasts. “Mmmm, touch me~” You do one better and catch a nipple in your mouth. “Ahh~” She rubs her thighs together as your fingers toy at her entrance from behind and you can’t help but to try reign her bucking hips in by taking a handful of her ass with your other hand. Taken in by her overwhelmingly voluptuous form, you grow harder against her, shaft eventually going rigid and pressing into her thighs.

It’s as she starts really getting into it you take your hand away from her swollen puffy lips and earn her lusty whiny ire. It doesn’t last long though. You surprise her, earning a cute gasp as you place an arm behind her knees and another by her back and sweep her off her feet, lifting her up in a bridal carry. She cries and giggles and hugs you tight as you carry the hefty woman over to the bathtub and lower her down. She gives another cute gasps as she feels her self sinking into the hot soapy waters and it’s evidently a welcome relief.

“You can open your eyes now.” Those beautiful dark purple things flutter wide, as she takes in the bath and the luxurious cosy room, lined with tapestries and rich dark woods, the height of extravagance to be found in the Landing. Then she looks to you, climbing into the large tub with her and reaching out. You pull her over into your lap, though a good half of it is her drifting herself over. It’s only the slightest bit awkward, but she’s happy to wrap an arm around you and twist herself so that she’s sitting in your lap and rubbing her ass against your erection at a slight angle, granting you a lovely view of her mountainous breasts.

“Do you like it?”

She smiles and leans in, giving you a kiss on the ear, before letting her tongue slip out and slide along your face to violate your ear’s non seduction principle. “I love it… what’s the occasion? What is this place?”

“I don’t actually know. It’s what a noble’s room looks like in my head. I’ve spent so long staring at the outside of the castle walls I’ve no real clue what’s inside. I just wanted to treat you to the nicest thing I could think of. And… make good on your desire to reverse the rolls in that bath we took together.

“Awwwh, that’s so sweet. Unfortunately…” She twists in your lap, reaches down and pins your cock against her stomach and yours, while her hands move to either side of your head. You hear the tub groan as she fairly crushes the metal. She settles her knees down either side of your hips and looms over you, her large breasts almost dwarfing your head as she leers down. “You’ve gone and made me really, really horny.”

You just smile, scoop up handfuls of floaty soap bubbles. You grasp and run your soapy hands up her waist before moving in and under to have at her tits, rolling them around and making them delightfully slippery. She bears down on you, clearly with every intent to use her body as a makeshift sponge. A very vigorous one.

* * * *

Your time with the seductive and amorous Nia flies by as you immerse yourself in training, studies and her. The hours buried in books or elbow deep in cauldrons or getting smacked about while learning to fight and cast were all made worth it as you relaxed together in a bath or on a lounge or snuggled into her of a night, belly full of her food and hers full of you. These months were easily the happiest of your life and you’d long since reaffirmed that answer you tentatively came to when you first met her all that time ago. These months gave, no, inundated you with the things you’d wished you could have had and so much more you’d never known to wish for. It wasn’t even as hard to get used to the soft, warm bed, clean comfortable clothes or hot filling food as you’d initially thought. Having her wrapped around you in more senses than one was nowhere near as cloying. Striving for something, learning and achieving far more rewarding than you could have ever reckoned. Actually trusting and relying on her however, took time and it probably wasn’t until she tempered her interest in you with ample consideration and understanding that you took the risk to open up in turn. And it wasn’t until well after, when you actually felt the effects of the prototype potions that you had accepted her research for what it was and not just weird, different ways to molest and harass you. Although, in hind sight, knowing what you now know and are familiar with, there were far more appropriate ways to conduct some of her research.

You awaken, dreary – having stayed up late last night to finalise everything before the last big test – only to find the other side of the bed empty. There’s a rustle of paper and a hunched figure that pours over her notes at her desk. You sigh and rise from the bed. Hearing the noise from behind her, she sits up a little straighter and looks over to you. She looks… possessed, to put it lightly. A deep deep weariness sits under her eyes. “Oh good, you’re finally up. Eheh, sorry, I couldn’t sleep. So I decided to go over everything one last time. But this is perfect, now you’re up we can move on t-”

“No.” You reach a hand out to her shoulders and feel the iron muscles, wound tight and bunched. You sigh, “No no no.” Gently, you rub her shoulder, hoping to melt the tension with your care and love. “What did I tell you?”

She actually has the shame to express guilt, what a surprise. It might be more effective were she not practically melting into your hand. “I’m sorry, I just got so nervous and excited.”

“I don’t care. You need rest, you’ve pulled too many all-nighters now as it is.”

“But we’re so close!”

“All the more reason to not mess it up at the last moment by being a zombie. Come.”

“Pleaaaseee… noooooo” she moans and whines as you pick her up and bring her to bed. “I’ll be fine, seeeriously, I just need a bite to eat….”

You stop before the bed and sigh, before turning around and carrying her out of the bedroom. “We’ll see. But if I catch you nodding off, I’m replacing the day’s entire schedule with snuggling in bed and there’s nothing you can do about it.” You put her down and she makes an exaggerated swoon,

“The horror~”

You ignore her and sit down to eat, closing your eyes and making feeble, tenuous grasps towards the spell network that covers the coven. The only reason you get the damn thing to respond, you figure ruefully, is because the spell recognises Nia on you more than your own magical prowess. She makes it look so easy. You still feel that small, almost negligible telltale drain and you know breakfast’s soon on its way. Despite her years of practice she’s still slower than you, hinting at an uncharacteristic indecision. When the magic circles appear on the table, hers is far smaller and by the end of the dramatic affair, while you’re left with your usual fairly indulgent platter, she nurses a small bowl of soup.

You eye the meagre thing with an expression of disdain as you cut into your lavishly piled platter of meats vegetables and cheeses that have all been introduced to inordinate amounts of heat in one way or another. “Is that really enough to fill your belly?”

Her eyebrows wiggle as her smoky, smouldering eyes bore into yours, “If not, you’ve got something else that can fill my belly.” You roll your eyes. “Maybe after this I should start remodelling my body after the likes of a vampire or demon. Then your dick’s all I’ll ever need.”

“You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to yourself. You’d be hopeless without good food, which is why this,” you wave a fork adroitly in her direction, “surprises me.”

“I-I could still eat, you know. I just wouldn’t need to. There’s a difference. And… I’m just not that hungry today.”

“Sure.” You directly dismiss her and devote your attentions to your food.

Her pouty act settles down as she begins to eat, but she doesn’t manage a single mouthful. Still grinning she brings a spoon of soup to her lips before her smile falters and she lowers her fork weakly.

Frowning you watch her in a moment’s silence before reaching a hand out and stroking the back of hers. “Calm down and try to eat.”

“Haah~” She lets out a weak, defeated sigh and dispenses with her haphazard facade, “all I feel are butterflies in my stomach, I’m not sure I can keep even this down.” She idly stirs her spoon through the soup, bearing a subtle expression of almost blame as she looks at the cloudy liquid. You smile at her and circle around the table, pulling up a seat next to her before you pull her into a hug.

“It’ll be fine.”

“But so much time and effort….”

“Yes… but we’ve also been making small steps along the way. This isn’t one giant leap. This is a long journey of little steps and this is just the last one. And if it isn’t, that means our journey’s just a little longer. That’s all.”

She raises her head, gnawing her bottom lip, you feel she wants to ask you something but is too scared to hear the answer. To be honest it’s been weighing on your mind too. Every day you wake up, you feel the power of the contract inside you weaken. A tangible sign of the progress you’ve made together, but also a herald of the possible end.

Why you act like you don’t see it you don’t quite know yourself. She eventually calms down to the point where she’s able to stomach her meal, though you have to reach over the table to grab your own plate, because she refuses to let you leave her side.

You manage a rather masterful work around, redirecting her mind and loosening her nerves, letting her keep down something more solid by feeding your meat to her yourself. Granted, though you both sleep naked and though she begins to loosen up; defaulting to being handsy and clingy, breakfast isn’t actually as lewd as that could be assumed to imply. There’s a boner being stroked as you carefully pop the fork spearing through a rich, juicy chunk of meat into her mouth, however. You pat her head as she leans it on your shoulder to chew, but it’s the boner that belongs to your heart being stroked.

“Hey.”

“Mmmm?”

“I don’t think you’re really fit to move on to the experiment right now.”

“What?! I’m way better now!”

You spear another chunk and bring it up to her lips, “Countless hours of effort, years before even meeting me spent researching and toiling, all coming to a head in just under half an hour from now where anything could go wrong.” She practically goes green before your eyes and shrinks away from the fork, gagging. Something, you muse idly, you’d never seen her do before. “See?”

“That’s cheating.” You put the fork down and swap it for a spoonful of her soup.

“Point still stands. At the very least you need some rest.”

“But how am I supposed to sleep like this? I can’t even eat!” She opens her mouth and you stick the spoon in. “… sort of.”

“I know, I was just thinking about that. You still have some Dreamwalker potions, how about I take you to bed and we can wind down a bit in our dreams while your body rests.”

She looks at you, tilting her head. “Doing what?”

You offer a small smile. “There’s something I want to show you.” She squints at you, trying to glean some meaning before sighing and surrendering herself.

“Fine.” She pushes the plates and platters away, “I’ve had enough anyway.” At least she’s actually eaten. The leftovers can sate her afterwards. She swings her legs over yours, wraps her arms around your neck and performs a movement well beyond the mortal ken, a strange otherworldly half slide half hop, half pull into your lap accompanied by a litany of cute grunting noises. The rubbing of her ass in your lap elicits many a response, but you don’t indulge just yet. Your fingers sink into milky thigh as you stand, lift and carry her over to the bedroom. You drop her down over the multitude of will-numbingly comfortable sheets and she wriggles into them like a worm, while you stand and look around the bedroom. She pokes her head out, just barely. “The bottom of the bedside cabinet.”

“Ah.” You stoop down and pull open the luxuriously decorated deep, rich wooden door and lo there sit two vials of the arcane flowing purple stuff. You turn back around to see Nia painting a picture of seduction, reclining on her side, elbow propped up on a pillow while she lifts and peels the bedsheets far enough to serve as an invitation into her warm, silken, smooth, dark depths. You feel yourself grow hard as you gawk at her overwhelming sexual allure, some part in the back of your mind relishing in the fact that some way, some how, this woman turned out to be all yours.

She smiles teasingly, “Hurry up, my arm hurts. Don’t just stand there with that magnificent cock so far out of reach.” The arm under her taps the bedding, “Come here honey.” The flasks are almost forgotten as you put them down on the cabinet by the bed – just close enough to be snatched for with the reach of an arm and you slide in to bed with her, snuggling in tight and close. The tip of your cock pokes her belly, but a shift and squirm later it presses into her thighs. She murmurs and moans, “Nf, spread them.” And rather forcefully ingratiates herself into your embrace, slipping her leg between yours and sliding an arm under you. She clings to you almost frantically and makes more cute groans as she squeezes her other arm down between the two of you, graceful fingers clutching and groping as she cutely pokes her tongue out and bites her lip, trying to angle your tip into her pussy.

She lets out a long, sultry moan as she’s able to strain her back and thrust her hips out, gaining as much room as she can before your cock finally finds purchase, butting into her already wet lips and sinking in, but not before flicking against her stiff clit. You stifle your own moan as her warm folds envelop your length, just as her arms and legs wrap and squeeze and coil about as much of you as they can. You feel her chin at the back of your head as you’re held to her and your face is forced into her bosom. You’re happy to wrap your arms around her, a hand on her large, fit ass, idly stroking down to her thick thighs then back, another across her toned, athletic upper back. But you finally remember what this was all about. And it’s fortunate that you do, since she’s evidently forgotten.

You twist in her embrace, making her groan irritated and fitfully and squeeze you tighter, in more ways than one, powerful inner muscles reticent to let you withdraw even a fraction of an inch. You gasp out, “Did you forget the point of this?” You hear a discontent mumble form above and she loosens her grip enough for you to twist more and fling an arm out up and behind you, groping for the bottles. You brush the neck of one of them then catch them both between your fingers, unawkwarding your arm in the process of bringing them over. You struggle to release yourself from her bosom and glare at her balefully, her purple eyes flickering playfully in the darkness. A hand reaches down and gives your butt a squeeze.

You shake your head and flick off the cap of the first bottle then the second, holding the – thankfully meagre – contents of both in your mouth and tossing the vials aside. You reach a hand up behind her head and pull her into a kiss, spilling roughly half your mouthful into hers. She almost doesn’t care, tongue gleefully playing about in your mouth as she squeals and giggles and pulls you even closer to her, as if trying to make the two of you merge perhaps. At some point amidst the copious saliva exchanged the two of you swallow the potion. You recall holding her tight, making small thrusts of your hips to meet hers while she constricts around you, both outside and in. Perhaps due to her more magical nature, she lasts a moment longer than you. You see her lips move as she regards you, warm gaze flooding your heart with queer senses of vertigo and an agonising happiness.

Your earlier slip into the dreamlands benefits you, as you quickly try and create the scene. You close your eyes and stand between the dining table and her bedroom, the scene building around you easily as you know it like the back of your hand. For some curious reason, your mind grows discordant. You feel your body move and shift. Perhaps your deeper intentions bleeding in, you find yourself lost, musing on where you were, how you came to be here and what exactly it is you want to do different this time. Nia enters the dreamland you’d constructed, eyes fluttering open.

You decide to stand before her not as you were but as you are now, a far cry from the malnourished vagrant you used to be, – and in more ways than one – though the teasing seductive dark-lined purple-eyed, black lipped wi- er, ‘Dark Mage’ remains much the same as when she first found you. Your biggest change, far more foundational than your physique, is that you’ve not only found something to do, something to pursue, you’ve found someone to pursue it with. Thankfully, much as you’d hoped.

“What’s this?” She looks around, confused at your choice. “This obviously isn’t sparring, but it’s not ‘sparring’ yet either. Let me tell you, if you’re planning on drinking another dreamwalker potion in here you’re going to spend the next month in bed with a headache!”

You gawk, nearly entirely thrown off track before momentum can even begin. “Y-you can do that? I mean, no. That’s not what this is.” You take a step forwards, advancing on her. Before she can respond, you pull her into your arms and take her lips in a kiss. Despite being evidently thrown off kilter and confused about everything, she’s not one to refuse a kiss from you, not when she’s the one that so often initiates them no less. Still, you don’t deign to give her her explanation just yet, hands sliding down her back, over her rear to grip her legs. With a heft you pick her up, earning a gasp as her thighs wrap around your hips instinctively. You walk her into the bedroom and practically fall onto the bed with her in tow.

Now, you break the kiss, take a deep breath, close your eyes and calm yourself before you open them again and look at her with steady gaze. “Nia.”

She jolts slightly, awoken from the kiss and taken aback by the change in your demeanour “Y-yes? What are you doing?” She look around, head spinning like her eyes, “If you wanted to fuck you only had to ask, what is all this?”

You ignore her, looking down at her while bracing your self with a hand either side her head. “Do you remember when you first brought me here? We bathed and you asked me what I wanted and I told you I didn’t know.”

A bunch of emotions flit across her face from bewilderment to reminiscent to attentive, as she puts her confusion aside for you. “Of course I remember…” Her lips tug into an unbidden smile of reminiscence, “Fufufu you were much funner to tease back then.” Her graceful fingers run down your arm, “But you’re a big confident boy now. Letting on how much I like it when you take charge like this is probably the worst mistake I’ve ever made.” Her plump lips twist into a lewd leer and you have to control yourself, get your point across rather than delve into their devilish distractions.

“I want you.” You tilt your head up toward the laboratory, where the culmination of so much of your hard work now sits, “I want that, waiting up there. I want to be your familiar.”

Her pretty eyes go wide. “Y-Y-You!…” She turns her head, incapable or perhaps unwilling to leave your embrace, but at least trying – and failing – to hide the blush on her cheeks and the moisture gathering in her eyes, “F-fu-f-fu… a-ahh ha ha. W-what’s the meaning of this? Trying to get your big sis back for all her teasing? Eep!” Her words are cut off as you reach down and angle your cock to her lower lips, already drenched in arousal despite her half protests.

“I knew it back then but I just wasn’t sure if you could give me what I actually wanted. If any one could. If I even deserved it… I’d had enough of watching others be happy from the alleyways, grown sick of watching them toil away full of purpose, actually achieving something. In the end, you really have been more than I could hope for. You gave me something to strive for, but more importantly you gave me some one beautiful and loving to strive for it with. I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner, it’s just…our time together was… the only happiness I’ve ever felt. And I was scared to say something that would change it. I’ve known for ages now, I was just putting it off, but each step we came closer to finishing this was a step closer to loosing that contract, that tangible proof of our bond slipping away. I… can’t see it go without at least being honest with my feelings.” As you talk, you rub and grind your tip into her tight entrance, coating it in her lust, rubbing your length along her puffy pussy lips in preparation.

“And the longer I spend with you, the more I realise the ways that my life now is so different from my life before… the deeper I regret hurting you all that time ago.” Slowly, oh so slowly you sink in, until you butt up against something. Her eyes flare wide, hands going to her mouth, as the moisture swimming there quickly grows to flood. “I want to try and make it right. Even if I can only do it in a silly little dream. Thank you Nia. No matter if this potion doesn’t work… even if it’s an astounding success, no matter what, I want to be with you, forever. If you’ll have me.”

… A heavy silence fills the air between the two of you as you await her answer, poised on true penetration but still patiently waiting. You grin, “Don’t think too poorly of me trying to influence your answer.”

“… I-I…” She takes deep shaky breaths, before giving out a long drawn out whining moaning, squirming, though you put a sturdy hand on her hips so she can’t move until she answers. “Ohhh geeezee~! Of course I’ll have you! Just j-j-jam it in already!” She grips your arms and bites down on her lower lip. “I love you Reeeiiin~!”

You make a careful, yet forceful thrust forwards, lowering down and gathering her up in your arms as you use this dream reality to play out what should have been the first time in earnest. Pure, free of baggage and maddened, desperate lust. You’re neither slow nor quick, her womanhood cringes with a kind of happy pain, but welcomes you in all the same, balls resting gently at her love-slicked lips as you press in home against her womb. You stay there a moment, letting the pain fade, though it isn’t as though her depths have to get use to you, no dream could overwrite the memories carved deep into her body.

Perhaps that little spike of pain was all it took for the tears to roll, because your shoulder grows damp as she buries her fact into it. She doesn’t react, as you begin to move inside her, except for perhaps an imperceptible tensing of her muscles. It isn’t ‘till you open your lips you earn much of a response. “I love you too, Nia.” She extracts her face from your chest and looks up at you, eyes glimmering, insides clenching in waves as two stiff nipples dig into your chest.

“S-say it again…” Her voice is soft, quivering. You dip your head down, relishing in the feel of her breasts shaking against your chest as you thrust into her hips. Your lips come to the hollow between her collarbones, and you give it a kiss. She tips her head back into the sheets and offers an alluring moan, spurring you to greater effort. You kiss and nibble up her neck, breath deep the natural scent of her midnight hair as your lips press against her ear gently.

“I love you Nia.”

“More!”

“I love you Nia.”

“Harder!”

Your words begin to blur, growing indistinct like a sacred mantra, mixing with her demands that long since cease to make sense. More, harder, deeper, softer. You lose track, she looses track of what she’s asking, you just know each demand brings her swelling towards her ecstasy while your own heart fills to burst with love. Each demand, no matter how contradictory is akin to the truest of the lot; ‘more’. A testament to her desire for you, that what you do doesn’t even matter – only that you do more of it.

Relishing in this serene state, you bury your face in her bosom and her arms wrap around your head. You don’t even have to thrust that hard, really. She meets you half way, thighs clenching around your hips, not allowing you to pull out more than a few inches regardless. Then the way her wet, wringing canal milks your length from tip to base, there’s little else you can do but set into a slow, luxurious pace – lose track of time, everything except for her. You’re not even sure the dream realm’s fully to blame for the surreal sensation either.

A soft chorus of moans rises around you, as her insides stimulate your length, constricting and contracting as deeper muscles work to milk and caress your shaft. Ample arousal slicks the depth of her tunnel, providing the perfect amount of traction as her tight insides grip to your thickness but can only hold so far before the lubrication sees you spear back in or out. That moment of arrested motion as you change direction provides more than enough for her molten, drenched walls to wring and clench again, the feel of her folds groping and almost sucking at your head, tip butting up into the firm ring of her deepest ingress.

Her delicate fingers and manicured nails scratch and scrape along your scalp, tugging at your hair as her thick thighs begin to clench. Her legs assist you on the thrust in, helping you rub, grind and nestle up into her cervix before relaxing, permitting you some small leave before clenching again. You take deep, shuddery breaths, indulge in her scent, feel her heartbeat around you. Your rhythm begins to pick up pace, unbeknownst to you, lost in her embrace. The shuddering of the bed grows a little more pronounced, more violent as your muscles strain to slam your hips against hers. The carnal slap of flesh on wet flesh begins to sound as you inject your vigour into this session of love making, ever chasing to match the pace of the rippling, writhing, slippery tunnel as it wraps about your cock and spasms with growing intensity. You clutch her tighter and call out her name, receiving your own back in blissful orgasmic cry.

You only consciously take note of the intensity as it’s forcibly halted, her thighs crushing your hips, calves squeezing your butt. She tightens her arms, hugging your head so hard breathing grows to be an endeavour in and of itself, though you don’t notice, lost in the milking actions of her climax. With no way to pull out, you resolve to face the onslaught and thrust in as deep as you can. You don’t get far, managing to squish her drooling puffy, fat vulva up around the base of your dick, putting pressure on her clit, making her shudder in bliss.

You balls clench and your loins boil over, unable to handle her incessant demands that you dump your load in her womb this instant. You acquiesce. You squeeze her soft-then-firm form to you greedily, arms thrusting the bedding aside as they slide up and down her back respectively. One reaches down to claim a handful of her large, fit ass, the other lays across her upper back, fingers just barely gracing her shoulder and sinking in to her toned, springy muscle. Makes sense, ignoring her general athleticism they bear quite the weight, now near flat against your chest, twin peaks pressing hard into your skin stiffly.

She utters an almost whining moan, squirming and relishing in you holding her so tight. The breathing situation grows worse yet as she thrusts her chest up to your face and clenches with her thighs around your waist harder. It’s almost like she wishes to squeeze the contents from you, with more muscle groups than just the one. Her milking pussy continues to wrap and writhe even as thick loads of white life-bearing seed distend along your throbbing length and jet out to hammer into the back of her uterus, flooding the fertile chamber, filling it as your loins empty in turn.

Images flicker through your mind in this period of cum haze, strangely recalling you to the moment you first came inside Nia – her mouth, to be exact. The small semi-conscious part of your mind ponders on why you’re reminded of this as you dump the remnants of your load into her welcoming, wanton womb. Then it hits you, that strange sensation of something intangible yet incredibly integral passing from you to her and something that’s indisputably hers settling in its place. You push the odd occurrence out of your mind as Nia goes slack around you, thighs still shaking intermittently, breath scattered and sweet. You simply bask in the glow, before eventually rousing yourself enough to extract your face from her bosom.

You look up at her, head resting back on the sheets, hair a bit of a mess as she breathes through an open mouth, eyes half rolled up, lazily spitting and flickering arcane sparks of purple. Perhaps feeling your gaze, she looks at you, making her face a little less slack. Curling her lips into a grin at the least. A heavy blush smears across her cheeks, most parts arousal and exertion no doubt.

“So?” Your voice comes off a little husky and dry, “Was that a better first time?”

She reaches a weak hand out and beckons. You place your cheek in it and let her guide you to her lips. You’re content to stay there tasting her, but she evidently has other plans, rolling the two of you over onto your sides. Her eyes glimmer playfully as she breaks the kiss. “Mmm, to be taken so passionately by the man I love… It’s everything I could have imagined. Thank you, Rein.” Her eyes turn playful, “It’s… almost perfect?” She grins lewdly and pushes your shoulder, rolling you flat onto your back.

“Almost?” You affect a half hurt.

“I mean…” She puts a hand over her heart as if to calm it’s flutter, “hearing you call my name just got me so wet… I didn’t know I needed it in my life, but now that I do~” She rolls over after you, swinging a leg over your hips as she slinks down low like a cat, and kisses and licks down and around your chest, “I’m stating to feel like all our other times were just… lost potential. While we’re here, we might as well make up for that. Every time you came inside without calling my name, telling me how much you loved me… how about we fix that too?”

You begin to sweat, “What about testing the potion? I don’t think we have time to go over and redo every time we’ve fucked.”

She giggles and wraps her fingers around the base of your half hard, cum-leaking cock and flops it up to squish against her still drenched entrance, white teeth biting down on her lower lip as she moves her hips and sinks down to hilt you, moaning as she feels you grow hard inside her all over again. “We’ll make time~.”

She gives off a lewd shuddering moan as she feels you grow to full mast and places her fingers over her lower belly, stroking the skin there, pressing down and feeling the faint ghost of a bulge. Plump, black lips twist into a smirk as she lowers herself down over you, breasts plopping down onto your chest before her belly, hot breath rolling into your ear.

“Now… Say my name~”