Was there some cosmic law somewhere that stated all women must be unrealistically attractive in the age of magic? I get that magic is a thing but dear lord, at this point what I wouldn’t give to see a normal looking chick, maybe someone whose nose is a bit too long or her eyes a bit too close together. I can’t imagine what this is like for other men who do not have complete control over their hormones, this level of natural distraction is painful. Maybe they just get used to it, maybe the new standard of attractive is freaking gorgeous, maybe the baseline starts at the point where normal models are put to shame. Pre-apocalypse had people of all shapes and sizes which is a good thing cause everyone has a preference, but this is internally off-putting.
As the portal snapped close and Florida’s dying light cast everything in an orange glow, a woman stood stark naked right in front of me. She stood there proudly with her hands on her hips and bright red hair flowing in beautiful waves. Her face with those green eyes would have been a Irish knockout if it didn’t have that haughty ‘I’m in charge’ look marring her features. With my hormones firmly in check, I gave her a solid once-over from where I stood noting that she had no tattoos, runic or otherwise, and that she was very short, guessing around five foot one with curves in all the right places. There were no weapons sheathed to her arms or legs and there was no wizard staff. This bitch came to a new planet completely unprepared. Tilting her head up a hair, she asked me something in a language that I didn’t know, which was any of them since I’m a hundred percent ignorant Virginian. Switching languages, she tried again.
Gungnir, planted in front of me, served as a leaning post as I lazily waited for this woman to get her act together. I expected more, especially considering that Sybella and Rolf seemed to have no issues, although I wasn’t opposed to throwing her a bone. Pulling a dwarven translation amulet from my pocket, I injected a bit of mana into the center rune and tossed it to her.
“English honey,” I said, making sure the southern drawl was apparent in my voice. Not able to resist, I went full Deep South. “Bless yur heart dawlin’! We can’t have no lil’ lady struttin’ around here without so much as a shawl ta’ call yur own! And mercy me! I ain’t got nothin’ ta’ give ya.” I couldn’t help it, I had to joke around. This, this is not what I expected. Part of me over the past month was expecting to receive a young but fully trained witch who would assist me with my endeavours. Possibly, that’s what I got but the naked version hadn’t popped up in my mind at all.
Growling in frustration, the witch lady cursed in yet a different language, curiously flicking her fingers to make a symbol as a wisp of green magic sparked between her hands, the glow resonating with the amulet until her irritation came through in crisp clean English, albeit with a stark English accent. I caught most of it but some of the words didn’t make it through translation.
“Bat-shite crazy whore of a ferlowzink that screwed a long lost equine grebjii and I hope and pray to all the iengoqnad Icons of Insanity-”
“I can hear ya now, mostly loud and clear.” Dropping my affected Southern accent, I looked her dead in the eye as she blushed the deepest red. “Got a name or do I need to give you one? I’m really bad at it by the way.”
“Acantha.” Her voice was smooth and pleasant to listen to, a bit on the higher side but she controlled her tone well enough now that we’ve established understandable lines of communication. She looked a lot better without that pre-snarl on her face. “My name is my own but you may call me Acantha.”
That stuck out at me, the way she twisted it to give herself a label instead of giving me her name. And Acantha, that tweaked at a memory from some history class, something about a beloved nymph or dryad of a deity that got turned into a thorny bush? Pushing the thought away, I waved around at the bare area. “As you can see, there ain’t much here around us except for that city. If you are the ‘best apprentice’,” I said, making air quotes at ‘best apprentice’. “Then acquiring proper clothing shouldn’t be too much of an issue. You have an hour.”
Turning away, I faced the sunset and sat in my underbrush chair. Kicking my feet up, I turned Gungnir into a knife and sheathed it. “Whatcha’ waiting for? We don’t have all night.”
In my mind’s eye, I watched her walk off slowly towards the city, her figure vanishing bit by bit in a flash of blue light. Pulling it out once again, I reviewed the mental packet conversation containing the agreement with Sybella. For the price of one crystal mana battery molded to her specifications, Sybella agreed to catch my brother up to the standard of education required in the space of six months and then enroll him at the Poly-Arcane Institute for no less than five years. Alongside that issue was the problem that Sybella presented, that for at least five and a half years my retinue would be missing a valuable ally. To keep her word intact, Sybella said she was honor bound to provide a suitable temporary replacement. I kept my own specifications light as I personally felt that I was already getting the better end of the deal.
One, I needed someone who might have a vested interest in staying even after my brother returned. Two, it would be best if that individual was already classically training in the ways of magic and a wielder of wytchfire. Lastly, I needed someone with power, someone already equipped capacity-wise to take on a contested world. Reeanth and Johnny will easily be able to function as front-line fighters with assistance from elementals and Reeanth being able to act in a ranged capacity if need be, but if I’m out of commission we won’t have the chops to fight something with magic very well. Which then leads to this whole mess in the first place. Hubris would be me saying that I am more than enough to take on the Hungry Ones but common sense and a bit of rational fear do say that having someone watch my magical ass in combat and in experimentation might be a good idea.
Not ten seconds after Acantha faded off into the distance, she sauntered back, wreathed in blue fire. It took everything I had to not laugh my ass off at my own internal dialogue. All I could hear at that moment in my head was Shrek saying, “That’ll do Donkey, that’ll do,” and holy cow I wanted to say it just like Mike Myers. Although maybe that wouldn’t be the best of first impressions. Something about my face though must have given it away.
“Do you find fellfire amusing my lord?” The tiny human glaring at me was almost too much. With a whispered word, the blue flames wrapped around and settled into the shape of clothes, forming a lovely thin sky blue dress. The blue dress then turned evaporated and green ones replaced them forming another set of clothing. “Or maybe wytchfire strikes your fancy? I kindle all kinds of flames.”
Sultry words of promise they may be, but I’m thinking with my big head today. “So you don’t need clothing? Cause I can work with that too.”
“It is customary that the liege lord provides for all of his servant’s material needs,” she said with a slight bow.
“I’m definitely not your lord. If that’s what you’ve been led to believe then you should head off to that city right there. Better chance of a-”
“Maybe this is the wrong word,” she said, a little uncertainty creeping into her voice. “Teacher? Professor? Owner? The one who is over the apprentice or is it under the apprentice?”
Chuckling at my own dirty mind, I corrected her. “I believe what you’re trying to say is that I’ll be your teacher, although I’m not really sure what you’re supposed to be learning from me. What did Sybella tell you?”
“Simply that I am yours until I am called,” Acantha said softly. “Not that I mind. My former lady also said that I could stay if I so wished, but that decision would have to go through you.”
The real answers were frustratingly tucked away inside of Acantha’s mind and a large part of me, back up by Kraken, wanted to go snooping around inside of her head and find out for myself. If Sybella ever wanted to fuck me over, than this is a fairly obvious but effective way to do that. The probability that Acantha is a spy is simply overwhelming, but even if she’s a spy she could still be a big help. Wytchfire for the undead, knowledge and culture for New Richmond, I could get a lot of use outta her. As soon as I thought that Kraken snickered.
“Fine, time to meet your new family.”
Unfortunately, Acantha’s fire-based clothing was not something that Yggdrasil would allow her to wear so my new partner/apprentice had to be buck naked to get through the Arboreal Way. It was odd that I was complaining about having to hold a hot naked chick close to me to get home but things change, sometimes not for the better. Forcing myself to focus, again, we moved sixteen hundred miles in less than five minutes.
“Getting better at that everytime!” I celebrated, accidentally dumping Acantha to the ground. “Reeanth!” I called, “I need clothes for the lady.” Rounding on Johnny before his mouth could catch up to his eyes, I sent him off to either find or make dinner real quick. Lyra came out of the woods and helped Acantha to her feet.
“My lord, is she well?” Lyra asked. “She’s much smaller than your knight. Is this what you prefer or is it the larger ones? I cannot tell.”
“She’s here to work,” I answered, staring the horny dryad down. “You want to get laid, you know where to do it. I’m sure there’s enough men in New Richmond to keep you busy.”
Shuddering languidly, Lyra ran her fingers through her hair. “Ah, yes. Your orphan town has plenty of men willing to ravish me.”
Reeanth returned with a fistful of clothes, coldly eyeing our new addition to the group. “A witch, a young one too.” Tossing the bundle of clothing at Acantha’s face, Reeanth looked back at me. “She’s young my lord, probably too young. If I remember our intel correctly, witches don’t get their ancestral memories until they’ve hit their second century. Their minds cannot handle the weight of generations until a solid framework for an individual mind is established. I fear she is defective.”
Angrily pulling the clothes on, Acantha rounded on Reeanth as I barely shook my head no. Now is not the time to test her emotional limits. Reeanth caught my look and stepped back. “Or maybe my youth and power let me overcome the limits of my kind!” Small but fiery. Shit. I let the femme fatale politics go for just a minute before breaking it up, citing ‘team-building’ and ‘interpersonal trust’, some HR bullshit just to keep my forest from going up in flames.
Stolen story; please report.
“Reeanth! A word!” Quickly telling Acantha to relax and make herself at home, I pulled Reeanth into the Hole. Not giving her a chance to rebut even though she was taking a breath to do just that, I slammed the door to my home and turned around. “Okay, we’re gonna make this clear,” I said slowly. “Yes, she’s a witch. Yes, she doesn’t know jack shit about anything here. No, we aren’t going to keep her at arm's length. Yes, we will make her swear magical oaths to verify that we cannot be betrayed now or in the future. Yes, we do need her. Any questions?”
Reaanth’s mouth snapped shut as she squinted at me. Even though her irritation was clear for anybody lookin’, she wisely nodded and put her hands behind her back standing parade rest. “What are your orders then, my lord?”
“We’re gonna use the lambchop method. It’s like catching flies with honey instead of vinegar but we have a hungry, wily wolf on our hands. You catch them with meat,” I declared. “You can even befriend a wolf if you have enough meat and they’re starving enough. Besides, think back. What did Reeanth agree to do for what cost me literally ten minutes of time and a bit of mana? I hold all the cards here.”
Grinning like a cheshire cat, Reeanth bowed her head slightly. “My lord is growing in wisdom.”
“You mean cunning, or deviousness?”
“Po-ta-to, Po-tah-to.”
Snickering internally, I gloated that I’d managed to bend this stiff woman to my eloquent colloquialistic ways. A light knock spooked me out of my reverie. Turning back, I opened the door, Gungnir blazing at the ready. My quick reactions knocked Acantha on her ass to which I quickly put my weapon away and helped her up while yelling at Reeanth to quit her laughing. Showing her to Andy’s quarters, I gave her a meal cube and cup of water since Johnny hadn’t gotten back yet before turning in myself for the night.
I woke up early after a solid five hours of flesh sorcery enhanced sleep at around four in the morning. Not really knowing what kinds of tools witches required to do their mumbo jumbo, I went for the variety within quantity approach which means I made pretty much everything by the time all the sleepyheads woke up. The table in the Lab that hosted Andy’s armor was bare which made me feel a little sad and I just felt this desire to fill the space up again. This time, I wasn’t going for ‘overpowered’ madness like I usually do, I went for control and capacity.
The right side of the granite table was covered in wands, each roughly two feet long and shaped like a pool stick with the butt of it being thicker than the point. Rowan, oak, willow, ash, and baobab wood made up the five top wands with the bottom five consisting of gold, silver, platinum, granite, and iron. The very tips of the wands where I usually put sharp focusing crystals this time around didn’t have the slots for them. Although to cover my bases, I did have an assortment of gems in an organized pile next to the wands for testing.
Seeing as Acantha was a user of fire and many different kinds at that, I did stay away from any kind of wooden armor. For me that would work but for her, well, it obviously wouldn’t. I also didn’t notice any kind of superhuman strength or dexterity that the Centauri warriors possessed which meant plate armor also wasn’t the best option for her, which left me with leather, skin, bone, or chainmail. To that end, I crafted and grew two sets of bone armor, one with thick skin covered in runes and the other a series of overlapping bone plates also covered in runes. The last one though is the one I figured she would like the best. I fed my backup flesh golem two whole deer for this and it took awhile but I managed to grow a full set of fire dragon armor from Rath’s DNA. Just to make it more badass, I had the flesh golem tattoo the inside and outside of the scales with a few awesome designs as well as making the whole thing black just to make it look cooler.
“Spoiling the help I see?” Reeanth’s sardonic question felt like it would have wrecked the entire process of growing the last set of armor but in reality I was just monitoring the design I had given the flesh golem an hour ago.
“A knock woulda’ been nice,” I growled, straightening my back and letting a few pops out. “What time is it?”
“Well past sunrise. The oaf is showing the witch around and your guardian is keeping an eye on her.”
“Oaf? Guardian?” I asked, turning around. “I assume you mean Johnny’s the oaf and maybe Everest or Spot is the guardian.”
“Correct,” she answered as she started to fidget. “Although, the purpose of this visit my lord is a bit more selfish.”
“Go on.”
Walking up to the table full of untested experiments, Reeanth ran one hand over the wands, her eyes closed as if she were feeling for something. Turning to me and taking a step back, she asked in a very formal voice, “My lord, I wish to be experimented upon. You need to conduct experiments to test out various tools and runic designs as well as body enhancements and I would like to grow in power. Both can be accomplished simultaneously. I know you’re hesitant to experiment on yourself which I understand, but a vassal such as myself can bear this cost.”
“And I can always return you back to normal with flesh sorcery should you so desire,” I finished.
“That is the hope,” Reeanth agreed.
“You know what?” I said, walking over to my industrial sized flesh golem and pulling a grapefruit sized piece off. “We’ll do this the smart way.” At my direction, Reeanth put her whole hand into the flesh golems both big and small for a minute and then stepped back. “Ok, this little guy is all yours, your own insurance to heal yourself and to return to me if you ever want your original genetic code. The big guy can keep your genetic code also as a secondary backup but also keep another test version that we can mess with. I can make you a whole new body if you want and modified however you want although I don’t promise exact results.”
Her smile lit up the room, and usually I wouldn’t have noticed but it seriously contrasted with her usual dour attitude. The woman was just too high-strung for her own good. Bowing deeply at the waist she murmured, “I’m deeply honored my lord.” Standing back up, she cracked her knuckles. “So how do we proceed?”
Chuckling softly, I walked over to where the stone wall of the Lab’s cavern extended past the work table. “First, gotta tell me whatcha want? You thinking dragon enhancements like Jamal who you haven’t met now that I think about it, or do you want to Hulk out? And you don’t know who that is either . . .”
“I’ve always admired the Kasarans, my lord. Few can contest their strength and power although none can determine the source of their abilities, and the Spiratni, their third eye allows them to instantly determine weakness, be it mental or physical.”
My blank stare was all I had to offer that statement. Not needing me to ask the question, Reeanth clarified. “Kasarans are winged forest folk, with light fur that changes to match their surroundings. For the most part, they look like natural humans but even the weres fear their approach. The Spiratni walk the Ways, their third eye allowing them to find the natural rifts of the cosmos to walk from realm to realm the way you and I walk down a hallway. They too look most likely native humans except their skin is a bit more translucent and of course the obvious third eye that sits in their forehead.”
My inner nerd was geeking out at a ten on the Richter scale. I’ve wanted to upgrade my frail body for a long time now but viable options that wouldn’t mess up my magical abilities simply weren’t that plentiful. Pre-magic earth had hundreds of novels of people being part dragon or wolf or bat, but none of them talked about the difficulty of being internally aligned to water and earth and trying to put some fire dragon inside as well. Part of me wanted to wait for a careless earth or water dragon before I started experimenting but Reeanth was providing me an alternate for the time being. The main limiting factor was the fact that I simply didn’t have samples of Spiratni or Kasarans on hand to give the flesh golem.
“Alas, both of them are rare sentients that haven’t been sighted by us in a while. If you're lucky you can catch an odd specimen at the slave markets in the dwarven realms.”
Uhg, slavery. Yet another unfortunate result of the mortal condition. Why do drudge work if you can just effortlessly force someone to do it for you? I could see how some sick individuals would go for that but it just doesn’t jive with my internal moral structure. To be fair though, I’m not some crusading moral arbiter of justice willing to go out and hunt down slavers and free the helpless. I got my own problems here on Earth that I need to handle. What is within the realm of possibility is maybe somehow getting passage to a different realm and visiting slave markets and buying what I need, of course freeing the individual as I don’t need them just their genetic code. Who cares if my reasons aren’t purely altruistic?
It does stand to reason that one of the hidden thrusts of having my brother work the shady side of a magical university is learning the state of otherworldly economics. What do they use for money out there? What do they consider valuable? What is the standard of learning out there? What is the technological standard or the standard for Galactic citizenry? The best piece of info that I do have and still hold very close to my chest is how I make my mana batteries. Five minutes worth of work for me translated into roughly the old world value of three hundred grand, which pre-apocalypse earth would have covered five-ish years of college including food, board, activities, partying, and supplies with some left over, depending on where you went to school. But scarcity and demand determine value which means I’m potentially filthy stinkin’ rich, or, it means that I’m a seriously vulnerable target.
Wrapping my thoughts back up and turning my attention to the flesh golem, I began playing with the concepts which yielded stunning revelations about my golem. I had my hand on the golem and thought about using it as the first test subject and the golem split into two parts, one the size of a football and hard as a leather and the other morphed into the naked form of Reeanth. “Spooky!”
Reeanth’s shriek didn’t deter me even as I calmly scanned the golem while placing my other hand on the football portion. All of the extracted and catalogued DNA sequences were in the small one but this Reeanth version was the exact biological clone version of my Centauri friend. “Awesome,” I whispered, moving the football to touch the clone. A questing sensation touched my mind as the two pieces of the flesh golem connected.
[It’s asking if you want to perform the test now?] Kraken clarified. [It’s not smart enough to use words but if you do that mental picture thing you were doing just a moment ago it should work.]
Explaining what Kraken said to Reeanth as I worked, I began following her suggestions to morph the clone body how she wanted it, sort of it being the test mannequin for clothes but one made to Reeanth’s specifications. The funniest reaction we had so far is that apparently Reeanth is slightly allergic to minotaurs. Everytime I put a bit of DNA into the clone, the inert body would start sneezing and raising little hives on its upper arms.
“This is so COOL! Check it out! I can test this on the dummy version of you and then if you like it and I don’t see any internal issues, we can then try the enhancements out on you!”
She turned a bit green as I added two extra arms and two more boobs to the clone just for the hell of it. Laughing out loud, I returned it to normal and then morphed the Reeanth clone into a dragon-woman hybrid complete with giant claws. As real-Reeanth frowned, I softed the whole concept to make it more human-like but I put minotaur horns on the head, forcefully suppressing the immune system to keep the body still.
“No horns. I don’t want to give the enemy a convenient handle on my body.”
“Fair,” I agreed, taking away the horns. Taking a minute or two, I delved into the clone’s immune system, figuring I might as well solve an annoying issue for Reeanth. Basic allergies is the immune system overcompensating to fight off what it views as an invader even if it’s not, which is why humans tend to hate spring. All that pollen isn’t actually something that would harm your body if your body didn’t view it the way it did. All I needed to do was convince her immune system that minotaur dna wasn’t harmful. Carefully morphing one patch of skin to grow minotaur hair, I watched for a full minute to make sure no reactions popped up. “Good news! I’ve solved one of your problems, maybe one you didn’t even know you had. Your test clone used to be allergic to minotaurs and now it ain’t! Want minotaur skin the same softness as human skin? It’ll give you the same resistance to magic they have?”
Reeanth’s shrug wasn’t really an answer so I kept at it. I had the clone grow fine translucent hairs all over its body that were genetically minotaur in nature. So while the skin might be a bit delicate, the hair covering it might function as an arcane power diverter. Taking it further, the bones of the subject were altered to be more in line with dwarven genetics which would allow it to slowly absorb metals and over time that would result in strengthening the skeletal structure far beyond what normal bone would be able to handle. Playing to whimsy for a moment, I began reverting the body back to normal and then began again.
Thin scales so red they were almost black grew out to cover most everything from the leg down. Tiny translucent minotaur hairs so fine you could barely make them out grew from the top of the scales and the other places not covered by dragon scales such as her sex, armpits, neck and face. The hair was dark oak brown and also made from minotaur hair and the bones again were dwarven in nature. With another flash of thought, the eyes themselves became a mix between dragon and dwarven with a third nictitating membrane. The scales on the usual contact points such as thighs, knees, elbows and knuckles were molded to be twice as thick just in case and in flipping her over, I then was able to add a dragon’s tail but decided against a set of wings.
“We can change the color of any part of this if you want but I’m thinkin’ this will be the base model to work off of,” I declared proudly. “Mostly fire dragon features with fine-tuned minotaur hair strategically placed at the flexible bits. Dwarven structured bones and a tail to boot! No wings cause the bones will weigh the body down. So, whatcha think?”