“Anything?” I chuckled. “That’s a bit much.”
Dahlia shook her head. “It is what it is. We’re both falling for you completely,” she confessed. “She said what she was feeling. There’s no fighting it.” Dahlia shrugged in happy defeat.
I sighed. I was exhausted. Now this? This was too much. I didn’t need this level of devotion or any of this harem nonsense at the moment. I forced myself to my feet, and my leg stung as I stood.
“Okay. I’m calling it. I’m going to sleep out on the balcony under the stars. Doesn’t feel right to sleep in here just yet after I, y’know, basically died here.” I looked at the two beauties and worked up the courage to say what I needed to say. “You two can sleep in the bed or go back to your rooms, but I’m done for the night. And I’m sleeping alone.”
The girls begrudgingly agreed. I refused kisses from both of them and felt more than a little guilty to see pained looks on their faces, but I knew, or had to believe, they understood. Now the only thing left to do was sleep.
As they headed toward the door, I overheard Carmilla say something to Dahlia. “Don’t think you’re getting off the hook on that weird tentacle shit you just pulled, by the way.” One more thing to follow up on.
The ladies finally left. I suddenly remembered I still had a reanimated skeleton hanging around, which had been sitting quietly in the corner ever since the Headmistress arrived. I worked my way onto the balcony, dragging a spare blanket from my bed. Uther and my remaining skeletal minion followed me outside at my summons. The three of us created a weird, necromantic cuddle-pile. It couldn’t compete with Carmilla and Dahlia, but it was something.
As I looked up at swirling the alien sky, I caressed the skull of my bloody skeletal minion as it rested on my chest, suddenly realizing how desensitized I was getting to all of this magic and violence. The celestial fox Uther cozied up between my legs, keeping my thighs warm. The large gargoyle hanging on the edge of my balcony almost felt like another silent partner. I couldn’t help but think that this very scene, this weird snapshot moment of my life, was one of the calmest, least crazy moments I could remember since I arrived at Esoterica.
Tomorrow will be better, Uther assured me. Tomorrow will be better.
Part 2
Prologue
DAHLIA: Malicious Intent
Dahlia emerged through the swirling red portal, landing on her feet with grace. Rebecca didn’t fare nearly as well. As the brunette tumbled out of the gateway, she hit the ground with an inelegant thud. Dahlia looked away to hide the intense rolling of her eyes that she couldn’t help, despite her best efforts.
“On your feet, Rebecca,” she said. “We didn’t come here to lie on our backs.” She chose her words poorly. The combination made her think of the fact that this toxic, noxious brown-eyed bitch had already had her way with her soulmate, digging her corrupting, evil tendrils that much deeper into him. She looked at Rebecca hatefully, unable to conceal her disdain. Thankfully her mission partner wasn’t looking in her direction at the moment.
Dahlia was surprised that the brunette with the poisonous aura had the gall to request her help on this mission. She accepted, despite her best instincts, but after everything that had happened recently, she knew this was the right move—the only choice. She had to get some time alone with Rebecca at some point or another, though the thought made her sick.
The black starlit sky around them swirled madly. They were on a rock hurtling through space, hidden somewhere between dimensions. This asteroid was suspected to be a mostly-abandoned void source-world. Mostly abandoned didn’t spell s-a-f-e, though.
They started walking. The gravity was strange—heavier than what Dahlia was used to. The ground looked gravelly and brittle, but it had the density of iron at least. “Which way do we even go?” asked Rebecca.
Dahlia’s eyes flared white as she focused on her divinatory abilities. “That way,” she pointed toward their three o’clock. “And down.”
“Down?” Rebecca asked. “What does that mean?”
“Under the surface,” Dahlia answered. “There must be an entrance somewhere. I can sense a powerful aura. That’s why I’m here, right?”
“Right,” Rebecca said, looking away.
Dahlia eyed Rebecca as she averted her gaze. She seemed so innocent and sweet if all you could see was her face. Maybe she meant to be sweet. Maybe she had a good heart, but her soul was twisted, treacherous, and tainted with an evil that lay dormant. Every second Dahlia looked at her she felt as though her skin was crawling.
They kept trodding the alien sphere. The atmosphere around them was thick with malodorous mist. Murky vapors occasionally burst from geysers, causing Dahlia to cough.
“That can’t be good for us,” noted Rebecca. “Let’s finish this as quickly as possible.” But they trudged for more than an hour through similar terrain before arriving at last at a hole in the ground.
“In here,” Dahlia said. “The gate is underneath.”
Rebecca didn’t hesitate. She jumped down the hole, this time landing on her feet. Dahlia grumbled at the lost opportunity to see her fall on her ass again, but she followed behind not a moment later, nailing her landing once more.
Before them was a door carved in black stone—the source of the aura that Dahlia had felt. “This is it,” she said. “There is a dark aura coming from this door.”
“An aura from a door?” Rebecca was puzzled. “So this is why the mission needed an auramancer? But aren’t auras usually from living things?” she asked.
“They are exclusively from living things,” Dahlia agreed. “But this is a void world, so life might have very different traits here.” As she said it, the door wriggled a bit, and a dozen or so hideous eyes of varying descriptions opened on the face of the doorway, staring at the two of them. An unholy assembly of mouths also became more evident as the women moved closer, teeth and fangs gnashing at the air as the unsightly entrance reacted to the proximity of the sorceresses.
“Who even built these things?” Rebecca wondered out loud with a shudder.
Dahlia shrugged. “Some say it was the same entities that invented magic. Others say it was a competing civilization.”
“What do you think?” Rebecca asked, looking at Dahlia curiously.
“That it doesn’t matter.” She lifted her hand to the door and blasted it open with a radiant golden bolt of energy. The eyes and mouths on the door reacted unfavorably, but could do nothing but watch the women pass through.
“Fair enough,” Rebecca said, plodding forward.
Behind the blasted door was a winding stairwell plunging steeply into thicker and thicker darkness. They walked down it for what seemed an eternity before they finally reached the end. The whole while, Rebecca kept a firebolt lit in her palm for light. The sound of their footsteps echoed with each step, piercing the otherwise perfect silence.
“Dahlia,” Rebecca said. “Can I ask you something?”
Dahlia didn’t respond.
Rebecca asked anyway. “I get the feeling you’re not my biggest fan,” she said carefully. “I’ve heard people talk, and you always give off the vibe, y’know?”
Dahlia’s brow furrowed with irritation. How dare she broach this topic mid-mission? “Sure,” she muttered evasively.
“But people always talk about how sweet you are, and you’re like everyone’s perfect girl. So, I was thrilled when you accepted my invitation,” she said. “Maybe after this we—”
“Don’t think too much, Rebecca,” Dahlia interrupted her awkwardly. Shit. She was even pretending to be decent about it. Dahlia felt petty, but still resolved in her contempt. Auras don’t lie.
“I’m just hoping we can have a fresh start, that’s all.”
“Maybe, if we both make it out of here alive,” Dahlia muttered, just loud enough for her partner to hear.
Rebecca laughed. “Doesn’t look like we’re going to run into too much trouble at least,” she said.
Dahlia almost smiled
at the naïve sentiment. “Don’t count trouble out just yet.”
They reached the end of the line. Their descent ended with the two of them breaking down yet another door and finding themselves in a hexagonal room, its floor carved with a dozen or so ancient casting circles, none of which Dahlia could recognize from their markings.
“This is what we’re here for,” she said. “Take notes, jot it all down.”
They began recording the records of every magical sigil and symbol they found. They plundered the altars and the connected chambers, finding half a dozen items that still bore magical signatures, but the signatures were void-based, not the magic of their progenitors. Dahlia eyed them hungrily. “Oh, thank Nodens.”
“This is some dank-ass loot,” Rebecca agreed, her eyes were wide like she was a toddler in a toy store.
Dahlia grimaced. For Rebecca this was just another mission. For the Starchild, this was personal. It’s the main reason she agreed to help. These void source-worlds were her best shot at understanding the strange powers that had started to manifest in her. Their magic relics were her one shot at learning to control and cultivate those powers before they became a liability. No, these relics would be hers and hers alone. She’d hand the sketches of the magic circles over to the Headmistress as the mission required, but to Dahlia would go the spoils.
They finished up after about an hour of meticulous searching and exploring. No incident occurred. Dahlia was more than a little annoyed. So, we have to do it like this, then? she thought with an outward sigh.
“Hey, Rebecca,” Dahlia said as they exited to the asteroid’s surface once again.
Rebecca flashed a hopeful look at the starry-eyed beauty. But Dahlia’s eyes weren’t star-filled twilight orbs anymore. They were jet black and sinister-looking.
“Dahlia?” she expressed cautiously. “What’s going on?”
“Do you want to know why I hate you?” Dahlia asked. Rebecca sensed danger. Like a coward she moved to run in the direction of the portal, even though it was an hour away on foot, but thick black tentacles emerged from the ground and quickly overcame her, lifting her a dozen feet in the air, suspending her by an ankle so that she hung upside down at Dahlia’s eye-level.
“It isn’t because you fucked my soulmate,” she started, “That didn’t help your cause, but I’m not really the jealous type.” Tentacles began tugging at Rebecca’s arms and other leg, pulling her in multiple directions, forcing her to drop her focus before she could cast a single spell. She was only left with whatever innate powers she possessed, and being a purebred human sorceress, relatively low in mana level, they weren’t many. She cried out in horror, correctly predicting her fate.
“Frankly, it’s your aura,” Dahlia continued. “It’s foul. It’s evil. Being near you sickens me. It even weakens me. Normally, I could let it go. There are a lot of people in Esoterica with auras like yours.”
“Stop! Dahlia, what the fuck! Put me down!”
“But you’ve bonded with Liam, and now your toxicity is a threat to Liam, too. If I allow you to join us, we’ll all die, and you’ll be the cause of it. Let it be known that I take no pleasure in this,” she said, though that last part was stretching the truth. “I’m doing it for him.”
Rebecca failed to speak, only managing to scream like a frightened child. Just as well, thought Dahlia. With a flick of her wrist, a tentacle ripped Rebecca’s head off, a bit of bloody spine stump coming out with it.
Dahlia watched with satisfaction and relief as it hit the ground. The threat was over.
Chapter 16
LIAM: A Messy Mission
I awoke on the balcony with a start. The last night had been perhaps the most eventful so far. As it turns out, I’m the first necromancer at this school in a long time, and not only that, I’ve just been outed as the first known harem-magus in hundreds of years, and Carmilla the sexy raven-haired dhampir and Dahlia, the pale, almost white-haired celestial beauty with starry eyes and weird powers from the void…are apparently my first two harem girls. What awoke me, though, wasn’t me jarring myself back awake with these reflective thoughts. It was a cold, stern voice.
“A bit of a flair for the dramatic, I see,” the Headmistress said, leaning against the gargoyle statue with her arms crossed.
I sat up quickly, hoping to conceal my morning wood. My skeletal minion was just a skeleton now. I didn’t really want to dismiss him after the epic battle in my dorm room, so I took him out onto the balcony and snuggled up with him and Uther, my arctic fox familiar. The blood from the skeletal minion had all dried and patches of it spackled the bedsheet. Uther stretched, apparently unalarmed and unsurprised by the Headmistress’s sudden presence.
“Headmistress Waite,” I said. “What’s going on?” My back was sore.
She held a hand out in front of herself, and the two stony artifacts I recognized as the Nightgaunt cores orbited her palm. “You must absorb these cores before your next mission,” she said. “Cultivate your mana.”
“Shouldn’t a share of that go to Dahlia and Carmilla?” I pointed out. “Seems unfair for me to take them both.
The Headmistress rolled her eyes. “They will understand.”
“Even still—” I started, but she cut me off.
“—Tell them I gave you no choice,” she said. “It will be a true statement.” Her iconic sneer combined with the force of her irritated brow finally persuaded me to bite my tongue and shut my mouth.
I gulped, ready to obey. “Fair enough.”
I was taken aback to see the Headmistress plop down on the ground, sitting cross-legged right before me. It was almost out of character, but nothing seemed to be out of character so long as she pursued her ultimate goal of… making me more powerful? Was that it?
“Why have you taken such an interest in me?” I asked out of the blue. It was an earnest question, and I was a bit afraid of the answer. Certainly, she wasn’t the type to dole out kind charity to young sorcerers in need of guidance.
Her face gave nothing away, though. “Let’s just say it’s in both of our best interests that I do so,” she said. “I’m afraid that’s all I can offer for now.” She continued her preparations. After a moment, the ritual was ready, and the two cores dematerialized. I inhaled the dust that they became.
“Now, Mr. Elloway. Let us begin.”
◆◆◆
“You almost ready?” Randolph asked me as he fastened his boots securely to his feet. He was grinning, clearly as eager and excited as I was. I couldn’t blame him, but whatever loot we found, I’d want my fair share of it, so I hoped that he could temper that hunger when all was said and done.
“Wait,” I said. “There’s one more thing.”
Brian eyed me suspiciously. “Well don’t just stand there, then, mate. Have at it.”
I summoned Uther. The fox was now considerably larger than the last time they saw him due to my recent cultivation of mana. I reached down and patted him on the head, scratching behind his big, pointy ears. His starry eyes twinkled up at me as he tucked his ears back to receive my affection.
“He’s kinda big,” Randolph acknowledged, raising his brow in a manner that seemed almost concerned.
“I boosted him with Nightgaunt cores,” I said with a dismissive wave. Their eyes widened, but there wasn’t any time to explain. “I want to teach you to use your familiars as a remote spell focus.”
I went through the process with them that I had learned in the library when studying with Carmilla and Rebecca. I spared a thought to wonder how the two of them were faring on their respective missions, Carmilla in the library and Rebecca out on assignment with Dahlia. I’d be sure to check in with them whenever we all returned.
With a bit of practice, both Brian and Randolph were able to master the trick. “How is this not a standard-taught spell?” Randolph asked. “It’s so useful!” he said as his dove, Bosco blasted fire from its beak. “I mean, it’s a neat trick if nothing else!”
“It’s more than that
,” Brian said as his crow, ironically named Raven, emitted light from its eyes. “It means our familiars can participate more directly in combat once we get the hang of this.”
“You may not be able to concentrate on it during this first mission, but it’s good to know just in case a situation comes up in which it’s needed.”
The two of them nodded back at me, grateful looks on their faces. “Thanks for this, Liam.”
“I still say it’s insane that this isn’t a normal spell taught at the school.”
Brian shrugged dismissively. “There are hundreds of thousands of books in the library, mostly loaded with forgotten spells and their variants. There’s bound to be more than a few old gems in each of them.”
“Guess I’m going to the library when we get back,” Randolph announced.
We made our way to the cliff where the portals open for assignments and missions, where I had been once before with Carmilla. Randolph pulled a red crystal out of his pocket and crumpled it to dust, blowing it off the ledge. With a few words, a temporary rift in the fabric of the universe appeared. The sight still impressed me even my second time seeing it.
“You ready?” Randolph asked, but he jumped before Brian or I could even answer. He fell through the portal, leaving us behind. Brian and I exchanged irritated looks and followed in a few moments later. The feeling of falling toward the portal was exhilarating, but going through it was disorienting, even nauseating. Before I knew it, I was landing on my back on the other side of the portal, holding my side in discomfort as I gazed up anxiously at a quivering red sky—the color of blood.
There were no clouds, no stars, just a tempestuous gaseous atmosphere that loomed oppressively overhead. I wondered how we were even breathing. The air reeked of sulphur and ash. As I picked myself up, I found that my hand was lacerated by the very grass we landed on. The grass was thorny, yellow, and twiglike, and above all else, it was surprisingly sharp.
Esoterica 1: Liam's Awakening: A Lovecraftian Fantasy Harem Adventure (Esoterica Chronicles) Page 14
