Arcane Dropout 2

by Edmund Hughes

  It was exactly what Lee needed, though he couldn’t have explained why.

  ***

  Lee had alchemy class the next morning, which left him with no option other than to confront Instructor Escher and her research proposal. He stopped by the dining hall for a quick breakfast before heading to the alchemy laboratory.

  Lee hadn’t seen Toma all morning, but Eliza was already at her seat when he arrived. She glanced away when he looked over at him. He was sick of that, and decided that whatever the issue was between them needed to be addressed before it became any worse.

  “Eliza,” said Lee. “Can I sit next to you?”

  She had her auburn hair collected in a loose, somewhat frizzy ponytail, and her initiate’s robes were still as form fitting as ever. She shrugged and said nothing, which was enough invitation for Lee.

  “Hey,” he said. “What’s going on? Why have you been avoiding me?”

  “I… haven’t been,” she muttered.

  “Yes you have,” said Lee. “Is this about the Equinox Ball? Toma had this ridiculous theory that you wanted someone to ask you, so you were trying to make yourself seem more available.”

  Eliza blinked several times in quick succession and her lips puckered to the side.

  “You shouldn’t have said that,” whispered Tess. “You really should not have said that.”

  “You think I want some random guy to ask me to the ball?” asked Eliza in a sharp tone.

  “I don’t know,” said Lee. “I have no idea what’s going on inside your head, but you’re my friend. Whatever it is, you can just tell me. I’m here, I’ll listen.”

  He smiled at her. Eliza’s expression softened visibly, but a deeper sadness lingered in her eyes.

  “I’ve been worried about you, Lee,” she said. “I thought… and I still do… that you need space. Space from me.”

  “Why? What’s that even supposed to mean?”

  “Look, I saw your expression after our duel. You try so hard to be confident, to be friendly, to be, well, you. It’s amazing. It’s what made me feel so drawn to you, uh, as a friend, to begin with.”

  “I’m flattered, but still confused,” said Lee.

  “After I beat you in the practice duel, Lee, you looked like you’d completely given up your faith in your own spellcraft,” she whispered. “Like you didn’t even consider yourself to be a mage anymore.”

  Lee stared at her, wondering if he looked as dumbfounded as he felt. Of course that’s how he’d looked. He’d never considered himself to be a mage in the first place, because he wasn’t one. What Eliza had seen was a glimpse of the truth, rather than a result of the trouncing she’d given him.

  “I don’t really know what to say to that,” he said slowly.

  “I feel guilty, Lee,” whispered Eliza. “I don’t want to stop being your friend, but I just feel… so bad about all of this.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “It’s not your fault. I cannot stress that enough, Eliza. I forgive you for thinking that it matters that much to me.”

  She gave him a small, forced smile and an equally half-hearted nod. Instructor Escher arrived in the laboratory before he could say anything more and began her instruction. An awkward tension hovered between Eliza and Lee throughout the lesson, and when class was over, she left before he could say more than a simple goodbye.

  CHAPTER 18

  At the end of class, Lee made a somewhat uninspired attempt to sneak by Instructor Escher while she was still preoccupied. She was waiting by the door, however, and grabbed him by the sleeve as he tried to duck by her.

  “Not so fast, Lee,” said Escher. “I have some extra work I’ll need your help to attend to, as we previously discussed.”

  Her smile seemed almost gleeful as she shut the laboratory door after the last student. Tess was there, too, and she was only barely containing a fit of giggles over Lee’s discomfort. He scowled at her and mouthed the word “traitor.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “Can we just get this over with?”

  “I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic,” said Escher. She adjusted her glasses and beckoned to the narrow staircase in the back of the room that led down to her private office. “Come with me. We can’t do our work up in the public laboratory, now can we?”

  She whistled as she led him down to the lower level. Her office was more of a private laboratory unto itself, with a surprising amount of floor space and shelves packed with labeled jars of alchemy ingredients. She had Lee help her move a few wheeled carts in the center of the floor out of the way, clearing everything off to the side.

  “I don’t see a monster girl anywhere,” he pointed out. “Is today a dry run?”

  “Patience. I have several methods through which I collect my specimens. One of them is to have an associate of mine tag monster girls with a conjuration spell in the wild. Once tagged, I can use a summoning spell to bring them here for a short amount of time, during which I’ll need you to, ahem, keep them engaged.”

  “Is that how the snow bunny ended up at Primhaven?” asked Lee.

  “No, I had Odarin track and capture that one from the surrounding area. It’s preferable to capture them through direct means when I’m looking to conduct a wider battery of tests.”

  “Capture them? I thought you said the monster girls come willingly?”

  “Oh, trust me, they do,” said Escher. “They are far more intelligent than they seem, but they often have specific desires that are easy to appeal to. Even using conjuration to summon them here rarely ends in a violent encounter. Monster girls are curious by nature, innocent and confident, and much more open to, shall we say, ‘going with the flow’ than the average human.”

  Escher gave Lee a pointed look as she finished her last sentence.

  “Let’s just get started,” he said.

  “Are you not at all curious as to the background of the entity you’ll be helping me with today?”

  He was, at least a little, though he just shrugged instead of openly admitting it.

  “My associate found a slime girl,” said Escher. “Don’t let the name turn you off. They’re truly fascinating specimens. This one had taken up residence in a church in the Philippines. It had a habit of, shall we say, conducting its own unique breed of confession.”

  “Can we just get on with it?”

  “We can.” Escher coughed uncomfortably into her hand and fidgeted with her glasses. “It would of course… be helpful if you… prepared yourself. You can keep your underwear on, but the more of yourself you display, the less trouble the slime girl will likely present for us.”

  Lee felt Tess set her ethereal hand on his shoulder before he could put his annoyance into words.

  “Remember to try to keep an open mind, Lee,” she said. “This is more for us than it is for Instructor Escher. We need essence, and monster girls are like supernatural batteries. Except kinkier.”

  He sighed and started taking his clothes off. He left his boxers on and felt a little annoyed at the fact that despite his outward reticence, he was already a little aroused. Escher noticed, and Lee felt his instructor’s eyes lingering on his burgeoning bulge for a few seconds beyond what was appropriate.

  “Well. I suppose I should begin the spell. If you’ll just stand over there, Initiate Amaranth…”

  He took up a position on the opposite side of the room. Instructor Escher extended her right arm and clasped her wrist, assuming the conjuration casting stance. She took a deep breath and let out a long exhale. The spell was a protracted affair, taking nearly thirty seconds to build in intensity before completion.

  Purple energy coalesced into a bright expanding circle, which slowly grew in dimensions until it was a portal six or seven feet across. A translucent blue head poked out from the other side before pulling back. An instant later, the slime girl stepped into the lab.

  She was a sight unlike anything Lee had ever seen before. Her entire body was made of blue goo, including her hair which hung in a long lock
that fell to her waist. She wasn’t translucent as Lee had assumed before, but slightly opaque, like a stained-glass window.

  Her body bordered on voluptuous, with large, plump breasts and a bodacious butt. Despite her alluring curves, she was missing a few obvious womanly details; namely, her breasts had no nipples, and her crotch was completely smooth. She looked like an erotic version of a gummy candy, which shouldn’t have turned Lee on nearly as much as it did.

  “Hi!” said the slime girl in a bubbly voice. Her face was expressive, almost too much so, shifting completely as she smiled to take on new characteristics.

  “Uh, hello,” said Lee. He felt suddenly awkward, standing there in his boxers.

  “Yes!” she said. “Hi, hi, hi!”

  “Yeah, nice to meet you,” said Lee.

  He wasn’t really sure where to go from there. He glanced over at Instructor Escher, but she was busy opening vials and preparing various instruments. Lee took a step forward and held out his hand.

  The slime girl smirked at him and took a few steps forward. Her body was impossibly jiggly, and Lee felt as though his gaze was transfixed on the awesome movements of her full, surprisingly firm breasts. The slime girl came within a few feet and set her hand down on his.

  Her flesh, if it could be called that, was gooey without being slimy, and sticky without actually adhering to him. Her fingers caressed his palm and wrist, and suddenly, she was on him.

  Literally. The slime girl shifted forms, becoming an amorphous blob that slid up Lee’s arm, over his chest and neck, and into his boxers. He felt the goo paying special attention to his package, roving over it as though taking careful measurements. It was weird, and it felt awesome in a way that made him uncomfortably aroused.

  The goo slid down through the leg holes of his underwear, forming into the shape of a grinning slime girl on her knees in front of him. She slid a tentative finger into the waistband of his boxers and quirked a nonexistent eyebrow at him. Lee nodded dumbly and she pulled downward, freeing his cock.

  “Yes, that’s perfect,” said Escher, from where she watched in the corner. “Keep going.”

  His instructor’s presence added another layer of sexual weirdness onto the encounter, and it was made more intense by the lewd expression she had on her face. Lee didn’t have time to comment on that, as the slime girl was already leaning her face forward. He watched in disbelief as her lips expanded, becoming so full that they bordered on a caricature of a real woman, and then stretched forward, forming a tube that seemed to beckon to his erection.

  The first touch of the slime girl’s mouth on his cock was unlike anything he’d felt before. It was a warm mixture of sticky gooey-ness that undulated along the length of his shaft. It didn’t have the same firm tightness of a normal woman’s mouth, but it hummed and bubbled in a way that more than made up for it.

  “Whoa,” muttered Lee. “You… have a real talent when it comes to that.”

  He reached his hands out, possessed by his own lust and intent on thrusting into her face with gusto. Unfortunately, the second his fingers made contact, the slime girl shifted into her blob form again. A tinny giggle echoed through the chamber as she slid away across the floor and then up the wall.

  “No!” cried Escher. “Grab her! Don’t let it end there, I haven’t even finished, er, I mean started, yet!”

  It was easier said than done. Lee tracked the slime girl as she slid around the room at a zooming pace. She came to a stop behind him and briefly coalesced into her buxom, womanly form. Lee tried to reach out and take her by the waist but she laughed and dissolved into goo again as soon as his hands made contact.

  “That isn’t going to work,” said Tess. “Here, just sit down. Let her come to you.”

  She set a hand on Lee’s shoulder and gently guided him down. The tile floor was cold, and he felt a bit ridiculous just sitting there. Tess made a pumping motion with her hand, and Lee felt his face flush as he slowly began to stroke himself, aware of Instructor Escher’s eyes still fixated on him.

  The slime girl slowed her retreat, sliding across the ceiling directly above him. Lee glanced upward in time to see her drop. She landed on his crotch, shifting forms as she did in a manner that made it seem like she’d taken perfect aim with her mouth to pick up from where she’d left off.

  “Yes!” cried Instructor Escher. “That’s it!”

  Lee leaned his head back as an insane amount of pleasure slammed into him with the intensity of a streaking comet. He couldn’t resist reaching his hands to touch her even though it had scared her off before. Just as before, when his fingers made contact with her gelatinous cheek, the slime girl shifted forms.

  She coalesced to ride him cowgirl style without ever letting her slime break contact with his tool. Lee lay back on the floor and she pressed herself onto him, her hips bucking and bouncing at an impossible angle as she pressed her lips against his. She tasted sweet, like the candy treats her body was so reminiscent of.

  It was impossible for him to take hold of her directly. Each time he tried to grab her hips, she’d shift again, moving back and forth between riding him and sucking him off with as much ease as it took a normal woman to adjust the angle of her hips.

  Lee got a little fed up with her evasiveness and tried to flip her underneath him. She slid across his body, taking hold of his cock with both hands as she coalesced to embrace him from behind. He turned again, trying to lean forward and take her in the missionary position. Her body shifted, and she was suddenly on all fours, her butt and thighs pressed against him.

  He couldn’t tell which part of her he was technically penetrating, and he didn’t care. Lee took her from behind, appreciating her not shifting this time as he took hold of her sticky hips. Jiggles ran through the slime girl’s entire body with each of his thrusts. He pumped into her faster, drunk on both the pleasure of the sensation and the sight of her voluptuous, bouncing curves.

  It was a novel experience, a glimpse into a new realm of possibility. The slime girl let out a high-pitched moan. Lee gripped one of her breasts in his hand, feeling it grow and stretch with a bizarre, unnatural eroticism under his palm. Escher was moaning too, with one of her hands massaging under the folds of her robe, in between her thighs.

  Tense, jiggling shudders began to run through the slime girl as Lee intensified his thrusts. He gripped her by the waist as he felt himself give in to the feeling, unleashing an explosion of his seed inside of her hot, sticky core. The slime girl threw her head back and gasped, spraying Lee with a curtain of goo that he assumed was her equivalent.

  “Good work, Lee!” called Tess. “You’re never going to believe how much essence I got from that.”

  Lee nodded and leaned back on the floor, exhausted by his efforts.

  CHAPTER 19

  It took Lee a few minutes to catch his breath, and the exhaustion was apparently mutual. The slime girl lay on the floor, with an unguarded, satisfied smile on her face. Instructor Escher crossed the room with slow movements and took her sample, filling up a small vial with blue goo.

  “Yes,” said Escher. “Oh yes. That was a terrific engagement, Lee. I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome.”

  She looked a tad disheveled herself, which was odd, since she’d supposedly only been watching. Her hair looked messier, and the side of her robe was partially undone.

  “That was interesting,” said Lee. “I feel like I need a cigarette. There’s no issue with how I, you know, didn’t pull out in the end, is there?”

  “Honestly, I’m not entirely sure,” said Escher.

  The slime girl let out a bubbly laugh and hopped to her feet. She held her hands over her stomach, which expanded outward until she looked like a pregnant woman in her last trimester. Lee scowled, ignoring the way she began to bat her eyes at him.

  “I like her sense of humor,” said Tess.

  The slime girl left in a similar manner to how she’d arrived. A few minutes after Escher had finished collecting her sample, a purpl
e glow surrounded the slime’s body. She waved to Lee as the glow intensified, and a loud whine sounded on the air as her form faded from the room.

  “That was the end of the spell?” asked Lee.

  Escher nodded. “She’s gone back to where she came from. It would be unwise for me to try to keep a non-local monster girl in my laboratory for more than an hour or so at a time. Too taxing for someone of my conjuration prowess, as well.”

  “Then we’re done?”

  “Indeed. Here’s your payment.”

  Escher walked over to him and pulled out her wallet. Lee was about to tell her not to bother when he noticed the bills she was counting out were fifties, not twenties.

  “This is five hundred dollars,” said Lee. “Five hundred dollars for… fucking a monster girl?”

  “The goo I can collect from slime girls is rather useful. It’s worth it for me. Some monster girls will command an even higher rate than that. Some will pay less. Good job today, Initiate Amaranth.”

  Escher turned and began organizing ingredients on one of her shelves. Lee stared at the money in his hand in disbelief as he headed back up into the main laboratory.

  “I feel like a prostitute,” he muttered.

  “I’m a proper lady, I wouldn’t know about things like that,” said Tess. “It wasn’t like you didn’t enjoy it though, right?”

  “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

  He opened the door to head out into the hallway and almost ran directly into Harper. She wasn’t wearing her instructor’s robes, which meant that she hadn’t just been teaching a class. Her outfit consisted of a tight pair of jeans and a black sweater ornamented with small white doves, wings outstretched to touch at the tip.

  “Instructor Harper,” he said. “What’s up? How’d you know to find me here?”

  “Escher informed me about the details of your arrangement with her,” said Harper.

  Lee got the sense from Harper’s neutral tone that Escher had either left out or shifted some of the details of what his actual work with her entailed. Harper started walking, and he fell into step alongside her.