A long queue of skeletons formed at Glarith’s command, right next to Elrith’s body. Behind Rum’s kneeling form, off to the side, Glarith stood directing the bonefolk. Rum’s solution, it turned out, came from a luck of circumstance. He had, after all, studied the skulls of the skeletons in Jorteg’s dungeon when he first came here. This intimate familiarity with the magic was what had given way for the creation of White Rose weeks ago. Now, he applied this familiarity into peeling open a hole into the skull-enchantment of the first skeleton. A passage by which external magic could be transfered, and contained. Ultimately to be absorbed.
“But why do you need the skeletons all lined up?” Glarith asked with curiosity, as the bearded wizard labored before her. “Why you want the whole hoard?”
A few seconds passed as Rum did not immediately. Then, leaning back and taking a breath, he responded without turning. “I don’t want to destroy them. They’ll only take as much magic each, as I believe they can handle. When we’re done, each enchantment will grind down its little excess of magic, and it’ll be turned into enchantment upkeep. If we divide it up like this, the enchantments should manage it fine.” He nodded to himself as he gave the first skeleton a glance.
Rum switched over from skull, having finished his work there, and started laboring on Elrith. Going into the ethereal world, he took time to study her enchantment more thoroughly, being initially cautious of how he should proceed.
Glarith smiled. “I don’t know if you’re doing it with respect to the work me and my mage associates put into making these, or if you believe the skeletons to be like people or pets somehow, but I appreciate your chosen way of acting either way.”
Rum didn’t hear the elder witch, being all wrapped up in his ethereal study, but the other mages in the room, some of which had come back over and was now gazing at the unfolding work, were touched by the meaning of Glarith’s words, and by the person for whom they were meant.
Inside in Elrith’s enchantment, it didn’t take too long before Rum was able to decide on a course of action. Crudely due to the constraint of time, yet successfully, Rum tore a rift in the magic structure before him. In so doing, he managed to open the enchantment up, but, and to his silent relief, the enchantment remained stable. No violently sudden rush of magic happened to kill him instantly. “It’ll be permanent damage though, but better that than both of us dead” he mumbled to himself.
And so the first skeleton, putting its skull to Elrith’s back, was connected enchantment-to-enchantment, and broken magic began to pour over. Rum quickly closed the connection. The first relieving of the body enchantment went without a bang, but it was apparent that the pressure of the magic was great as a slight pouring rapidly developed into a flood, and had Rum not closed quick the first poor skeleton would’ve gotten the analogue of a migraine so powerful it would’ve equalled a lifetime of chronic pain. “Probably would’ve turned the skeleton insane” the wizard mumbled some more.
The wizard finished the skeleton up by putting back together its enchantment. “Okay” he took a breath of mild relief. “One done, send in the next!”
It took more than a little while, but eventually Rum could see, through his ethereal vision, the stepwise vanishing of the excess magic on Elrith’s back. Long ago it had stopped smoking now, and not even a hint of glow was showing. The enchantment was starting to look stable from the outset, and Rum was beginning to think it looked stabilizing in the ethereal world as well.
“I think we’re about done” he said. The skeletons were not used up, but as Rum looked out over the long line of remaining skeletons, he didn’t think they’d be necessary. “Just one more, I think.”
Glarith commanded forth the next skeleton and Rum went into the steps of what had by this point become routine.
“There” he said, as the enchantment of the last skeleton was put back together. A mighty final breath of relief blew out from his mouth. “Pheeewww.” Rum tipped back over on his back and lied down onto the floor, breathing slowly. The mental fatigue of hours of heroism all came crashing down on him now, and it took a long moment before he was willing to speak. “All done” he announced quitely to the crowd gathered.
“YES!” Amez shouted excitedly, standing right next to the scene of his brother. Next to him in turn was Gilda and Rulli, each one of them smiling widely like Amez. Rulli suddenly wrapped his arms around Gilda and picked his woman up, swinging her around in a celebratory circle, before their dwarven mouths met in a joyous kiss.
Rum took several deep breaths, and closed his eyes for a bit. Meditating for calm.
“It think we all can relax for a bit now” Glarith said. “Skeletons” she turned to speak to the lined up bonefolk. “Please move over there for the time being.” She gestured with a hand towards one of the far walls on the sides of the room, where all the skeletons from the previous magic operations had congregated. The skeletons, perking up to follow her finger, started shuffling over in small steps, moving like a heard. As they gradually merged in with the congregation at the wall, they started to form a crowd of bonefolk so large that, by the time the last skeleton stopped to stand still, more than a third of the room was taken up by their presence.
After some time, and after everyone had left him to lie on the floor and relax in peace, Rum started to feel the urge to get up back up again. He couldn’t just start sleeping in the middle of a dungeon in any case, so he reasoned that he better be up and ready for whatever came next – and what exactly did come next was a curious thing indeed. As Rum came to his feet, his eyes fell upon a kissing queue?
Indeed, over in the corner that Rum had previously declared The Kissing Corner, multiple lines of witches and wizards had formed before a handful of other witches and wizards. There, as Rum watched it all happen, the first person in each line was granted a moment of tongue-deep kissing with the respective witch or wizard that the lined up mages each had been waiting for. The targeted mages, everyone of them either exceedingly cute, handsome, or beautiful, looked to be happy about the arrangement, despite the excess of attention. That is not to downplay how flustered many of them looked also. Rum could practically feel how overwhelmed they must be to suddenly have such popularity for their lips, or in some cases a little more than just their lips. His eyes curiously gazing at the scene, Rum saw one extra happy witch – who’d just come from giving a popular witch the tongue-kissing of her lifetime – skip across floor and back into the queue for another round with the same pair of lips and mouth.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Huh” the bearded wizard observed. “Different people seem to be reacting differently to my gay magic. Or, is this perhaps just the start? How will things turn out here, I wonder?”
That’s when he saw the tearful eyes of Darmon, standing from across the room and looking at him, the man’s expression being choked up like his puppy had just had a terrible accident.
“Hmm, what’s going on with you?” he mumbled inaudibly, and slowly stepped across the floor and over to the man in his metal suit.
“I’M SORRY!” Darmon declared before Rum had even come close enough to stop.
Rum finished his finals steps before coming to a proper halt. There, he raised an eyebrow in response. “What for, man?”
“FOR WHAT WE’VE DONE TO YOU!” The reply came out in big choked-up sobs, and Darmon had to intermittently look down at floor, as if unable to look directly into Rum’s eyes for too long.
“I...” Rum began, before thinking back to their time together. It’s true, they’ve been lacking a bit in friendliness at times, but most of that has been Elrith’s doing. And things have improved a little, I think. “I don’t think you in particular have been bad, a little shy at times, but that’s not a faulty thing. And your frank opinion at other times is suboptimal but quite forgive–”
“–NO!” Darmon interrupted, before sobbing some more. “You don’t understand” his voice calmed down some, only to falter. “You don’t...“ Darmon inhaled through a massively wet nose, and dried tears with his right hand. “You – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Darmon bent forward in something akin to a bow while holding both hands over a his tear-wet face.
Rum walked closer up to the man. He put a hand on either shoulder, gently pushing the other man up. Producing a friendly expression towards Darmon’s face again revealed by his departing hands, the mage decided to hug the tank. “Do not worry” he replied. “I survive, and I learn to thrive.” He pat the back of the metal breastplate in weak clangs of dense skin smacking against steel. “If you’re sorry, then you’ll figure out how to be better.” Releasing his grip on the weeping man, Rum pulled away and produced another smile. “Now, shouldn’t you join the others here in merryment? It’d be a loss should you be the only one who feels no joy from this gathering? The past is the past.” Rum assured, before looking around at the people of the room. The mage put an arm around Darmon’s neck, and made the tank look around together with him. “What about getting to know some of witches and wizards here, hmm?” He gestured at a trio of gatherings. In one of them, 3 witches and 1 wizard sat cross-legged on the stone floor, laughing at some story being told by one of the witches. In the other groups, 3 and 4 mages stood, chatting excitedly about something that couldn’t easily be heard. “Or...” Rum swung them around to The Kissing Corner. “Perhaps you’d like to get close with someone nice?” They both watched as several couples of witches and wizards played sensuously with each other’s mouths, and the many other nearby sensuous places.
“I’ve not done that – only once” Darmon commented in quiet.
“Well” Rum replied, giving him yet another smile, and a raised left eyebrow, “why not see if you can do it again? If you’d like a pair of soft woman’s lips, or a pair of a handsome man’s lips, why not see if someone would share a moment with you?” Rum released his hold on Darmon’s neck and gave the fellow a final glance, before wandering off to roam about the room.
Before long, the Great Mage, having roamed about some, saw the man called Darmon cautiously step over to The Kissing Corner, giving the variably insatiable women there a few curious glances with his still quite emotional-looking face.
Turning around, Rum saw Glarith speaking with another witch. Next to them he noticed, was another witch, who like him looked to be just wandering around a bit. And not having anyone to talk to. Maybe you’ll want to talk with me? The mage strode over slowly, hands twinned together behind his back.
“Hey there” he gave her a smile and put himself next to her, taking the chance that she would want to wander around together. Through a sideglance she returned the friendly smile with her own. “You looked potentially lonely, so I wondered if you’d appreciate my company.”
“I can do company” she responded quietly, her hands grasping her robe as she walked, and her eyes looked to the floor and their surroundings.
“What’s your name?” Rum continued after they’d both taken a few steps.
“Medith.”
“What do you do in this dungeon place, Medith?” Rum offered her an eyebrow, though she didn’t look at him and so she didn’t see it. “I suppose you dungeon mages don’t all just read magic books and train spellcasting all day long?”
As Rum waited for a response, looking around like Medith was doing, he noticed a short woman with a friendly smile walk up to the shy Darmon, over at The Kissing Corner. The woman, arriving at the man, immediately putting her hands to his cheeks, stared into those eyes of his, reddened by emotion. Something is about to happen there, I can tell.
“I’m the cook, for the most part.” Rum snapped back to her, and saw her glance a smile of round red cheeks at him.
“Oh, you specialize in food magic? Veish mentioned she came from the Tumi goblins before I left. Are you from The Holy Kitchens as well?”
“I am” she nodded, “and I learned a little bit about cooking there. Buuut – I’ve learned most on the job. Here.” She gestured to their surroundings.
“Oh? Is it difficult to cook for everyone? I see there’s quite many of you.”
“It can be a lot of work, sometimes” she answered slowly, “but I only cook for the other mages. Though not for Jorteg. He has his own wizard taking care of him. I’ve had to learn how to make food for many people, but, the challenge is learning to be inventive.” She gave him a look. “The ingredients we have are sometimes a little same-same, so I try to figure out new ways to use them. Sometimes I make use of magic, but it rarely makes the difference you’d imagine.”
“Huh, interesting” Rum said, as he stopped and gazed over at The Kissing Corner again. There Darmon was getting his face full of sweet lip treatment by the short woman, who also had her arms around his neck and was pulling his face down to her. After taking in the picture for a moment, Rum turned back to Medith and resumed their walk. She had been polite enough to wait for him, and had also caught a few glances at the displays of love and desire. “Say, what are some of the things you’ve been making down here?” Rum delved back into the conversation. “Anything you’d recommend?”
“Oh” Medith responded, excitement suddenly bursting forth on her face. “There is this one cake I’m really proud of, and the others really love it!”
“They do? Well, maybe you’d want to make it for me once. I couldn’t say no to good cake” he gave her a broad smile.
Medith’s eyes lit up with intense interest and joy and her hands grasped the chest of his torso as her next response burst out like a question too intense to be anything but the demands of spontaneity. “WHY DON’T WE GO AND MAKE IT NOW!?”