Chapter thirteen

          It was a dreary Monday morning as I made my way to the shop in the poring rain. When I arrived I was surprised to see that the kids from the orphanage were already waiting for me at the doorsteps of the shop. I unlocked the door and let them inside. I couldn't quite remember their names so I started out by introducing myself.

         "Hello , my name is john and I will be your employer."

          "Hi, my name is Cara . pleased to meet you."

          "I'm Jamie".  " I'm Fred"

       Cara sounded a bit shy. The twins on the other hand were gruff and sounded like they meant business. Cara was actually staring at me without making eye contact and was starting to get really red. I thought her reaction was a bit strange but then I remembered that I took off my cowl when it got soggy in the rain. 

         " Alright I'm going to show you your new duties then I'm going to monitor how you do for the rest of the day."

           After I showed them what they should do, I sat back and watched them work. Cara was actually pretty sharp so she got the hang of it pretty quickly. As for the twins they were so intimidating that nobody even wanted to mess with them.

          At the end of the day I gave them the keys to the store, their first paycheck and I reminded them that from today onwards I'll only come in the evenings to do enchantment work. They seemed quite excited as they headed to the orphanage with their paycheck.

         I, on the other hand, wasn't so chipper. I've been working so hard on my projects that I had not slept for three entire days. The work wasn't so difficult but there was just so much of it. 

        "Hey john, if I may make a suggestion why don't you just get some help."

        "You know I can't do that Jules, if anyone found out about me I would be in deep shit."

       "I never said get a human helper."

       "Can't do that either, all the summoning rituals are large , complex , and need multiple mages to activate and control."

        "Not anymore, look at this."  And then she showed me the schematics for something large with very complex wiring.

        "Jules, is this what I think it is? "

        "Do you think that that is an automated ritual machine, then yes that is what you thought it was."

         It was basically a matrix of wires setup in such a way that when a current runs through them they create a complex magnetic field that 'guides' mana supplied by starter pins (a starter stone with a bit of orichalcum at the tip) into the appropriate shapes for a ritual ,aka an automatic ritual.

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          I was gonna need a lot of wire.

                *  *  *

             My first coherent thought was that the moon looked comically large in the night sky, I turned around to find out where i was and lying down next to me was a woman I've never seen before. The one word to describe her was perfect, all the confusion about the lack of information about how I got to this place, all the concern I felt simply became insignificant as I looked at her well sculpted face. As if my eyes were on autopilot they started to slowly lower their line of sight down her lightly arched neck, then further down to take in the magnificent bounty on offer and even though they lightly lingered there they continued their decent down to her slender waist that suddenly expanded as they continued their journey south, finally they scanned down her sleek lightly toned legs that seemed to go on forever . I was completely enchanted by her beauty , her skin was the color of really light mocha and the red swimsuit she was wearing put it on excellent display, the magic she had on me broke when she suddenly started to giggle

   "Enjoying the view john?"

   For some reason I didn't think she was talking about the night sky.

   Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, but I was sure I was mistaken because I would remember if I met someone as divine as her.

     "Where are we?"

     "Of course we are at the beach john, isn't it obvious ?" She was giggling while her large brown eyes seem to dance with humor.

      Just as she finished speaking I realized she was right, I was lying on white sand wearing swimming trunks that seemed to suddenly become a little too tight.

       The woman suddenly decided to get up and pulled me up with her. She pulled me all the way to the water to frolic among the waves. The funny thing was I didn't even notice the water until I was knee deep in it.

      "Come on john, don't over think it, just have fun."

      Then she dunked me underwater, the water was warm and pleasant . Then we started playing a game of tag in the water, which quickly devolved into a water splashing war until we both fell down exhausted on the white sands of the beach  , both of us giggling.

        "This was nice john, best date I've ever had ."

        "Was this a date?"

         "Only one way to make sure" then she suddenly straddled me and gave me a hot scorching kiss, then I felt my consciousness float away as I woke up in my room.

         Even though I knew it was just a dream, I just couldn't get the curvaceous woman out of my thoughts and I found myself wishing I could go back to the dream.