Excellent job, Uther said. But that is all for now.
“What? There’s nothing left for Dahlia?” I asked, dismayed.
Evidently not, he sighed. Try again another time.
And with that, the ritual ended as I grabbed the green orb of power, sealing the deal. The rest of the ritual played out, and before long I stood up in a much emptier room, absent of all the loot which I’d absorbed, and made my way to the door.
I crossed through the campus quietly, uneventfully, avoiding anyone else as much as I could. It was already close to dinner time. The sun would go down within an hour or two, and I needed to meet Memento. But first, I was overdue to see the Headmistress and give her an update.
Arriving in front of the overdesigned wooden doors with the creepy bas relief of a fish cult, I rapped at the door slowly, trying not to signal impatience or urgency. The doors opened soundlessly, and I walked into the darkly lit room, sitting at the chair that appeared at the center of the room. A lantern was set on the floor in front of the chair.
I waited. And waited. At first, nothing happened, but after a couple of minutes, the lantern flickered, the room going from dimly lit to pitch black and back to dimly lit once again. When the flickering had completed, the Headmistress was sitting in a chair in front of me as though she’d always been there.
“Good afternoon, Headmistress Waite,” I said with a polite nod.
“How was the latest mission?” she asked.
I sighed. “Messy. Brian Adder lost an arm and—”
“There are remedies for that, just so you know,” she said, as though she’d been expecting the revelation.
“Really? Like what?”
“I’ll trust you to figure it out on your own. Please continue,” she said, dismissing my question.
My lip curled in annoyance at the tease of such information, but I obliged her. “But we completed the mission. We killed the, uh, space wizard.”
She laughed at our little nickname. “His name was Arthronor the Voidcaller,” she said. “He was once a student here.”
My mouth dropped at the big reveal. “Why did you want him dead, then?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t. Not really. But I wanted that book—you know the one,” she said. I nodded. I did know it. That book was what he used to summon and control the Void Things that attacked us. After the mission had finished, Randolph had taken it, saying he needed to hand it in to prove the success of his mission.
“Anyway, that’s what happened.”
“I’ve gleaned what I can of this book, but there is someone else who needs it far more than I do,” she said. “And it is in your best interest, and therefore mine, to help her.”
I looked at her with my head cocked like a confused puppy. “Who are you talking about, Headmistress?”
She reached under her chair and picked up the book. I hadn’t even noticed it there. To my surprise, she handed it to me. “Give this to your celestial lover, Dahlia,” she said. “She’ll adore you for it.”
I smirked as I took the book. “She’s a pretty big fan of mine already.”
“So she is,” the Headmistress agreed with narrowed eyes as she took a sip of a cup of tea that hadn’t been in her hand a moment before. And then the cup was gone—standard Headmistress behavior. “And how did you spend your mana, if I might inquire?” she asked.
I summoned Uther. The bear-sized fox appeared beside me, and if the Headmistress still had her tea, she’d likely have spilled it. She stood up in shock and, I dare say, excitement. She reached out eagerly, petting Uther on the head, I think just trying to confirm whether he was real or not at first.
“Incredible!” she gushed. “It took me years and years to get mine to this size! You did it in a week!”
A lot of things struck me about what she’d just said. First of all, it seemed like she was genuinely happy for me—even excited. She noted how much I’d achieved, and there wasn’t a hint of angst or jealousy, even as she compared herself to me. I studied her as she eagerly petted Uther, going so far as to hug his big head at one point.
“He’s beautiful,” she said, smiling at me with the warmest smile I’d ever seen on her face.
“There’s more, though,” I said. I stood up fast and dropped my cane, and it hit the ground with a thud. Her eyes widened in anticipation, and then her brow lifted in confusion as I began unbuttoning my shirt.
“Where is this headed, Mr. Elloway?”
But then it was apparent. My now flawless physique made her gasp. “I don’t need my cane anymore,” I said. “Fully healed, and also in peak physical condition.”
“I feel as though I should tip you,” she said, gesturing at my exposed pecks and abs.” I was caught off guard by the joke, and for a split second it didn’t register, and my mind raced to understand what she meant. After a moment I interpreted it for what it was and erupted into laughter.
“I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you make a joke,” I pointed out, buttoning up my shirt and sitting back down.
“Give me the cane,” she said. I didn’t know why she asked for it, as she could just summon it to her anyway. As if reading my mind, she explained herself. “That focus has bonded with you now, so other mages have no power over it unless you willingly pass it to them.
I nodded. It made sense. I could sense the unique magical signatures of other sorcerers on their focuses. Randolph’s rapier was absolutely covered with his signature energy. It was like an extension of him, and I’d begun to think of my cane in the same vein.
“I think it’s time this cane graduated into a staff,” she said. Without waiting for my consent, the cane twisted and extended into a long, black staff, and the ruby at the top was now clasped in the mouth of a decorative skull that certainly nailed a necromantic motif.
“It looks cool, but it’s a bit big,” I pointed out.
She nodded, and with a flick, it turned into a smaller version of itself, a wand. “How’s that?” she asked.
“Way more practical,” I agreed.
“Just flick the ruby when you want to change it back to a staff, and vice versa,” she said, handing the new wand back to me. I took it graciously and held it in my hands. It was light, sleek, comfy.
“Thank you,” I said.
We spent another twenty minutes reviewing a few spells and discussing my reading plans for the week, and she ended the lesson by urging me to take on another mission as soon as possible. I vehemently agreed with her.
“It is surprisingly easy working with you, Mr. Elloway,” she said with a relaxed smile. I returned it with a smile of my own. “Now, I can tell by your shiftiness and glances at my clock that you have plans this evening. Am I correct?”
I nodded sheepishly, and with that, the door opened behind me at last.
“Enjoy your evening, and, here,” she said, reaching out a palm, “Take this.” An amulet with a wolf’s head at the center of a pentagram lay in her open hand. “Clasp it as tightly as you can, and I will know you wish to see me, and I’ll appear before you if I can.”
“Drop-ins don’t work anymore?” I asked.
“I can’t guarantee I’ll always be here, but I can promise I’ll find you as quickly as I’m able to when you use this, but it’ll only work when you’re on school grounds.”
I nodded and stood up. “Thanks, Headmistress Waite,” I said. “I’ll see you again soon.”
As I exited the building, I looked up at the sky. The sun was setting now, splashing pinks and greens on the alien horizon, and I was almost late. There was no time to do anything but rush to the stadium, but I didn’t want to seem desperate, so I took a leisurely pace, hoping the “fashionably late” approach would work, as I left my shirt partially unbuttoned to show off my pectorals.
It didn’t work.
“Where the fuck were you?” an annoyed voice rang out as I reached the entrance to the stadium. I turned around, and there she was, leaning against a red tree with her arms crossed. “You’d bet
ter not disappoint me again, Liam Elloway.”
Chapter 22
Homunculus Shenanigans
Like Dahlia and Carmilla, she was impossibly hot, even more so now than when I saw her that morning. She wore a black tank top that covered only half of the skin of each breast, with black straps connecting one side of the shirt to the other and keeping it in a single piece. Whenever her body pivoted, I received a generous serving of sideboob. Her shapely breasts themselves were worthy of extravagant praise. Her pale skin took on a slightly different hue from Dahlia and Carmilla’s, probably due to her Eastern ancestry. Still, it was similarly smooth and creamy, and much of it was exposed, including her entire midriff region. There was no six-pack like Carmilla’s, but a perfectly flat tummy was just as alluring for its own reasons.
Below the waist, she wore a skirt that extended only down to her upper thigh, but it cut off provocatively on her left side, exposing the entire side of the leg. Her black heeled boots were incredibly sexy, too, and offered more coverage than the rest of her barely-there ensemble. On her shoulder, she had a tattoo: a sickle with a ribbon bearing the words “Sooner Than You Think”.
And then there was her face. She was gorgeous, with sexy glowing red eyes framed with heavy black gothic eyeliner. Her orbs were as menacing as they were lovely, and they were only helped by her perfect pink lips and cute nose.
The two red horns protruding from her forehead accentuated the toughness of her entire vibe, and her neck-length pink hair was stylish and astonishingly cute. If it was a dye-job, as I’d initially assumed, she’d dyed it recently because no roots were visible.
I drank in her intoxicating perfection in a single gulp and forced myself back to the matter at hand. “Sorry,” I said calmly, my hands in my pockets, trying to project coolness. “I was with the Headmistress.”
Her eyes lit up, and she walked toward me. “What’s she like?”
I shrugged and looked at a nearby rock or something, trying not to show how severely attractive I found her to be. “She’s cool, I guess. She’s been helping me a lot. She’s my adviser.”
“Whoa! My adviser is Devon, who was also my Rescuer,” she said. Devon! That name!
“Devon was my rescuer, too!” I said.
“Really?!” she asked. “That seems crazy, but I guess I don’t have much of a frame of reference. Maybe there are only like two Rescuers.”
I laughed. Honestly, that could be the case for all I knew. “Maybe there’s only one.”
Her smile turned to a businesslike expression. “Okay, are you ready?” she asked abruptly.
“Ready for what?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
“We’re going to steal a homunculus and take it back to my room for experimentation.”
“Holy shit, no,” I said. “I’m not ready.”
She sighed. “Don’t be a pussy!”
“I am what I eat,” I said with a shrug and a wink.
She raised a curious eyebrow. “We will circle ‘round back to that later, but for now, I need your head in the game.”
“I’m not stealing from the school,” I said flatly.
She grinned a wicked grin. “I overheard your assignment stories at breakfast,” she said. “What if I told you I could get your friend his arm back?”
Well, now that was something. That was another thought that kept coming back to haunt me hour after hour. I felt responsible for what happened to Brian, and so it only seemed fair that I should be the one taking responsibility for getting his arm back. I had to make it right.
“Could you really do that?”
She nodded. “I was making flesh golems as a kid before I even knew what they were, but the school’s shit is next level,” she explained. “Get me one of those homunculi to play with, and I promise you, I can give your buddy a new arm. Stronger than before, too.”
I considered it, or pretended to, but I’d already made my decision. Any chance was worth taking to get Brian a new arm. After a few moments, I nodded. “I’m in. What do we have to do?”
She grinned. “The school’s security systems are poorly equipped to handle necromancy since it’s so rare,” she explained. “Devon accidentally indicated as much to me. More importantly, those homunculi are only bound to that arena by a necromantic curse, a curse which we could easily reverse just by taking control of it,” she explained.
I studied her cautiously. “Where do I come in, though? It sounds like you could handle this on your own.”
“The curse can’t truly be broken, at least not easily, and it needs to go somewhere. One of us needs to displace the curse onto another creature. Raise a skeleton at the exact moment I push the curse out of the homunculus,” she said.
“That’s it?”
She nodded. “Nearly. After I cancel its effects on the homunculus, the curse will look for a new undead host. Normally it’d just default back to the homunculus, but in this case, it’ll go to your skeleton. Then you need to command the skeleton to hold the curse as long as it can.” She handed me a heavy bag that had been resting on the ground beside her. I peered inside and was not entirely surprised to see a full skeleton within it.
“And you command the thing to, what, just walk out of there?” I asked. “Won’t people notice?”
She held up something small and shiny. “This is a Burglar’s Coin,” she explained, pinching a copper coin with a picture of a hooded man on it. “It’s a single-use item I found on my first assignment. It’ll make the homunculus invisible for up to ten minutes, just enough time to take it back to my room if everything goes perfectly.”
The plan was insane, but it might work. I didn’t know enough to refute most of the gorgeous goth’s claims, and she seemed confident in our ability to pull it off, so I decided to go along with it. Why the hell not? I had a feeling that Headmistress Waite might actually applaud my academic curiosity even if I did get caught.
We headed into the arena, acting nonchalant. It was somewhat crowded, though, to our displeasure, and that complicated things. What’s more, once it became clear that not just one but two necromancers were flinging spells at the homunculus, an audience gathered, and it was a hell of a lot more attention than we could afford if the plan were going to go forward at all.
“Who’s she?” someone whispered. “She’s hot. She’s a necromancer, too? That’s crazy!”
“That Liam guy ain’t so bad-looking himself,” a blond-haired girl with a silver halo and black wings muttered behind us. I smirked in satisfaction at the remark. I was a bit alarmed at the fact that strangers knew my name, though.
We played innocent, flinging curses and projectiles at the homunculus for almost an hour until we finally hit a lull. Shit, we were tired, but now was our chance. Most of the people in the stadium had returned to their rooms, and those that hung around had grown bored of us and returned to their own practice. If we were going to pull this off, it had to happen right now—before the nocturnal crowd settled in.
I nodded at Memento when I felt the time had come. She flashed a wicked, plotting smile back at me. I saw her begin to chant something, so I knew that was my cue. I emptied the bag and heard the clatter of bones as the skeleton hit the ground. With a gesture, it reassembled itself and stood again at the precise millisecond Memento finished her spell.
I felt the curse lift from the homunculus and ram into my skeleton, invading it, but it didn’t want to take hold. It wasn’t made for a mere skeleton, so I focused all my power and tried to keep it there, to contain the curse. Anyone watching now would still be none the wiser. “Necromancer bullshit,” they might shrug and say as I extended my hands out to my rattling, quaking skeletal minion.
I saw Memento toss the coin at the homunculus, and it vanished on impact. No one seemed to see. So far so good.
“Hold it here until I’m outside. The curse should fizzle out eventually,” she said, and she began sprinting toward the door. The homunculus may have been invisible, but I could hear its heavy footfalls and see where it left
footprints in the rocky soil.
“Be careful!” I whispered as loudly as I could so that it strained my voice and sounded downright silly, and I turned my attention back onto my part of the equation. The skeleton continued to shake and rattle. The curse was more potent than I’d anticipated, but I still needed to buy them some time.
Just then, the skeleton bones shattered into a hundred fragments, some of them flying into me, leaving bruises and gashes.
“Fuck!” I shouted. I could feel the curse charging for Memento’s homunculus again, trying to pin it down. I roared with determination as I focused on the curse and tried to pull it back… to myself.
I felt the curse change course again, this time charging back toward me. I wasn’t undead, but I had a connection to the undead, so maybe it would work? I had to try. Consequences be damned. Memento warned me not to let her down again, and I wasn’t about to.
And then it hit me. It hit me like a sack of bowling balls, knocking me off my feet, shaking me, quaking me as I tried to regain control of it. It was like my insides were teeming, like my brain was swimming down my throat en route to my gut, and my heart was jettisoning itself into my mouth. Everything felt wrong, until…
I woke up suddenly, on my back, facing the alien sky above me. I was still in the stadium, and a few people were standing around me?
“What happened?” I asked.
“You hit the ground all of a sudden,” a guy explained. “We rushed over here, and someone was already helping you, but by the time we got here, she’d run off.”
I groaned with pain. I still felt woozy, but that was a significant upgrade from having my internal organs play musical chairs. I looked around for any sign of Memento, but I couldn’t see her. Looks like she made it, at least, I thought.
I strolled back to the dormitory. I had no way to contact her for now, so I figured the best thing to do would be to head back to my room and call it a night. I could maybe catch up with her at breakfast in the morning if I ran into her. Our world was small. I knew I’d see her again.
Esoterica 1: Liam's Awakening: A Lovecraftian Fantasy Harem Adventure (Esoterica Chronicles) Page 18
