A Barrier to Love

It would have felt great to tell this evil witch off, to say to Hell with the deal... but John's lizard brain hypothesized it would feel even better to angrily slam his cock into the bitch. Thankfully, his libido was throttled enough to allow him a moment of thought between the two. "What... about the girl?"

Wentworth took a second of consideration to even realize what he meant. "The jiangshi? No need to worry, I'll dispose of her once-"

"What? Wait, no, you-!"

A tremble in her lip. John braced for a counter-attack that didn't come. Instead of jarring his world anew, she let her smile return with that sinister tranquility she now managed. "What do you think the Order will do with her, young man? I've removed any trace of my power, so it's of no concern to me; they'll see your influence on it, however... and they'd sooner believe you're the necromancer in disguise that created her than believe your story. But suppose they spare you: the moment they find this creature... well, what do you believe they'll do to it?"

John stared at the bricks near the alleged undead's hand. Her fingers were pale, but still slightly pink where they were not stained by ash. Her pinky shivered with life. "But is she even dangerous? Level aside, she seemed rather innocent."

"Innocent? Then they'll kill her all the faster." There was a surge of bile he could almost hear, and a glance up at Wentworth revealed a mask of twisted anger. There was still too much he didn't know... but whatever Wentworth's grudge, or the Order's take, he wasn't going to let this girl die. ... again? The living dead girl presented only more questions, and if he could only speak whatever language she was using-

Of course. It's the simplest answer, isn't it?

<Do not do this, John Newman,> Alysha's voice suddenly urged. <I've remained silent as you asked, waiting until it was critical to interrupt. That time is now: do not court undeath inside this->

"Then let me take her."

<I do not know why you bother having me here if you won't even-!>

"The Warden will not let you leave with an ancient undead in tow."

"I won't be towing her." The Gamer did his best to show his determination while still squatting before his naked captor. "Please."

Hers was a face of stone as she spoke, and doubt in him dripped from her words. "Would you trade this 'quest' of yours to try? She is still my property, whether-"

"Yes." He didn't even blink.

Wentworth weighed her most intriguing student... and his power. Powers she had yet to test in every way she wanted to, she reminded herself. She returned to smiling. Her sigh came with a noble air, and she stretched and let herself fall onto... nothing, as far as John could tell. Upon this "nothing" she half-laid, half-stood, spreading herself seductively onto some invisible couch or loveseat, and reclining sideways in the air as she watched him. Her breasts pressed and flattened against that invisible furniture, and John exhaled slowly to keep his wits about him.

"So be it... a new trade, then, since you've changed the terms of the first: show me, first, how you intend to smuggle an undead monster from the middle of the Academy and out to wherever you think the Order cannot touch you. If you succeed in this task as you did the last... well, then the first terms bargained for, and the girl, are yours."

"Right... right here?"

"Were you hoping for a nice bed?"

"N-No, I mean the girl!"

"Well... of course. That won't be a problem, I presume? I hope you don't need to open another portal to do so; it wouldn't get you very far from here."

He shook his head, and found himself tracing the landscape of the civics teacher's silhouette. Was she perspiring? It wasn't even all that hot in this place, until just a moment ago, John was sure... "I might need to leave the barrier."

"Not with her, you won't; the Warden would no doubt sense so foul a creature and hunt it. Even if you do evade her, the last thing the Academy needs is to be marked as a den for the unliving in their hallowed little network."

Network? "Fine." John looked down at the girl, offered a small apology, and gently held his hand over the back of her neck. His brand appeared once more, and Wentworth watched with absolute attention, her eyes glowing blue as long as John looked away.

The old witch's genius, ancient mind pulled away all layers and illusions before her. The tracking spell, hidden within the depths of the jiangshi, would lead her to one of the few mysteries this bizarre mage had left: that place or existence he vanished to whenever she spied upon him; to wherever his summons truly went, now. Wentworth had watched his arc with her idle moments, seeing his transformations, some so overt that even he knew them, some that might've escaped his attention. His summons did not occupy his body; if they did before, Wentworth hadn't noticed it, but they were surely the slaves of a proper summoner, and here now she saw his brand. A curiosity, then: from where were they called, and to where were they dismissed? Somewhere in the Abyss, or in a Kingdom, or even, foolishly, here on Earth; wherever the jiangshi could go, Wentworth would have an inkling of it, and John Newman would be none the wiser-

Ju Sakuda (The Empress Who Honors Her Father, Was Virtuous, Warm, and Kind, Was Ever Sincere But Obedient, Merciful to the People, Respectful and Cautious of Her Place, Worthy of Love and Honored by Her Emperor) has been captured!
+0XP
+6 undead essence
+1 cheongsam of the hallowed dead
+1 headdress of the posthumous empress

John sighed with relief. Thank goodness... was really afraid it wouldn't work in here.

The body vanished. Wentworth blinked rapidly at where it once laid, and stretched her senses out through the barrier to find her missing zombie... then beyond the barrier... then to the outer-reaches of where her senses could go. She dipped her astral tendrils out of this world and into others, probing, sensing, letting herself be guided to the marked ****. But there was nothing to guide. No matter how far she would reach, it was as if that particular, precious summon had been obliterated in truth. Wentworth thought to summon her, activating one of some thousands of memorized runes, etched into her memory as if she had written them all, to check the inventory of creatures at her command; she watched as the armies of such slaves that she commanded sped through her mind, each held in stasis or ****, each awaiting her need... but she could not even feel the jiangshi's essence in her mind, ready to be tugged into reality by another ritual. The space she occupied was barren.

That particularly valuable corpse was simply gone. "How...?"

John looked up at his host and nearly recoiled at the most unfamiliar sight: a confused Ms. Wentworth, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Where did... no, you used..." Her composure was regained, and she narrowed her eyes to leer at the Gamer. "Did you just destroy her?!"

"What? No, I... captured her." He slowly rose, uneasy about his teacher's sudden fixation. "I swear... right?"

Right?

<She has arrived,> Alysha hesitantly declared, <though if you're finally asking for guidance on how foolish this action was->

Nope. "Right." He nodded past the exasperated sigh in his brain, and looked Wentworth over. "She's fine, now. So..."

John let her command the silence. She licked her lips, as if tasting the truth of his claim, before resting her head against the crook of her arm. "Of course," Wentworth sighed, disappointed. "Mysterious as you've been, you have technically fulfilled both conditions for our trade. Inevitably, then, we've finally arrived at this most... basic reward." Whatever unseen instrument she rested on turned clockwise, dumping her cleanly onto her feet as she stalked towards John.

"R-Right," John started, taking another step back, "well to get started I know a spell that would make it feel really good-" John bit his tongue as Wentworth's hand, faster than even his agility and wisdom allowed him to react, dove into his chest. Wide-eyed, he stared down at where he had only recently replaced a sternum and heart... and saw her fingers, each one up to the second-to-last knuckle, slowly meld with his flesh and sink in.

"So do I," Wentworth growled.

"Wuh..." John tugged, but her flesh followed, and sunk another knuckle into his breast. John struggled to beg for any explanation, from her or from his interface. A single pop-up warning flashed before his eyes.

Oh... Well... This is new...

... What?!

Despite the body horror between them, Wentworth saw fit to chuckle seductively. "Such a novice... come now. Please relax, Mr. Newman," she cooed, swiping her hand down his cheek as her body pressed against, and into him. He could feel a trail of her flesh cling to his cheek, peeling away from her fingers like butter, as she smiled. "I will show you how mages make love."

"No... no." They were the first words of fear Rave had ever heard out of Moira, and it spoke louder than how the proud warrior backed away from the barrier's spawns.

The new enemies were fully expressed, now, and two more globs weeped from the gash in reality behind them. The two first invaders bore the appearance of thick, muscular male bodies, chiseled and sharp in definition down to the toeless feet below and up to the chiseled chins and bald domes of their heads. Within each chest floated a fist-sized gemstone: a glittering, porous chunk of raw pumice with faceted edges and, in the gel bodies that kept them, the color and sparkle of a burnished noon sky. Orbiting around each, similarly trapped in the chest, were half a dozen smaller marbles of smooth glass, each blackened and inert. The masculinity of the malleable monsters was completed with their faux genitals: thick, erect penises complete with cosmetic scrotums below, all of them made from the same, bright blue slime.

Rave focused on exiting her barrier; she felt the barrier push back, as if it were locked. What the fuck? Did overlapping the barrier give them authority that fast?!

Moira shook her head, and held her shield out to the slimes with a weak, unready posture. "Not again... not this..."

"Again?"

Moira didn't answer, and Rave didn't want to stay to find out. She checked all the doors and windows: the latter remained shattered and clogged up with debris, and beyond them was a two-story drop. The doors remained buried in desks, but with a minute's work Rave would clear it enough to escape.

They didn't have a minute. Her breath was steady once again, and she straightened her back in preparation for a fight. "We're going to have to work together to get out of this, Moi-Moi; there's more coming."

"Coming... more... I... I..." Slime poison; the memory of it made the holy warrior shudder. It was the day before she had met John, the last time she investigated one of these mysterious barriers... and had done so, foolishly, alone. The slime-girls there had no intentions for her save to drain her fluids, and she had barely managed to escape the barrier before she risked perishing by dehydration as they filled her mouth, her throat, even her stomach with their thirsty bodies. The healers at home had managed to remove all the vile essences deposited into her stomach then, but the poison's effects... her body shuddered in the memory of it. The alien thoughts that ran through her, the sick urgings that almost made her doubt her duty when she spotted a demonic fairy running amok at the Academy...

The slimes continued their march towards what now became Rave and Moira's side of the classroom. The second pair began to form, and it was clear they intended to take the same, menacing shape.

"Moi-Moi!"

"I... I can't-"

"MOIRA!"

The Warden blinked, and froze as the pink punk shouted directly into her ear. Her trembling face turned into a grimace, and then a snarl. "I... can't... be cowed at a time like this!"

Rave nodded, taking her trained stance in preparation of the approaching enemies. "Fucking right you can't. Let's take these bastards down!"

"You may consider your earlier cowardice forgiven," Moira calmly declared as she appreciated the heft of her warhammer, "should we win the day."

"Can it, princess," Rave chuckled, readying a handful of light.

The male slimes were almost within arm's reach, and both lifted their defined digits towards the girls, one apiece.

"Taste my wrath, you perverted-"

"Don't underestimate us you pieces of-"

Rave's palm blasted light into the slime's chest, aimed flatly at the fragile core within, and burning through the layers of slime protecting it with raw mana.

Moira's shield swung away and let her hammer, blunt though it was, come slicing down towards the core of her own target, cutting through its shoulder with sheer **** and rocketing towards the heart of the beast.

Both cores, with their orbits, would be shattered by such attacks... if they did not, as if swimming in sync, sink into the lower-halves of their respective torsos and dodge the destructive blows.

The arms of either slime retracted. Large, maw-like protrusions grew from each chest with the transferred mass, one to swallow and pull in Rave's hand, the other to better grip the shaft of the hammer and pull it completely through, burying Moira's grip.

"... slime?"

"... shit."

"Where's Moira?"

"She said she had to talk to Ms. Wentworth about something."

"Such a workaholic!"

"I know, right?"

The conversation was just one of several types of idle chatter that filled the cafeteria. The Academy cafeteria was where virtually every student dined, despite the ability to leave campus or bring one's own meals, and despite the rather ugly quality of its food. The meals were free, or rather, they were already pre-purchased as part of the Academy fees, and parents irritated by this often commanded their children to eat there, or left them no alternatives.

But it was Friday, and so there was often an additional food, something more akin to actual food, put alongside the mystery beefs and eldritch gravies. This week, as an exhausted, embarrassed Sarah DeCroix discovered, was mashed potatoes. Oddly sparkling mashed potatoes, certainly, but there was a charm even to this after her bizarre, humiliatingly random orgasm in the middle of class. Even if it was off-putting, mashed potatoes was exactly too good to pass up on to help the mystery meat go down, so she invited the lunch lady to plop a scoop onto her plate. If nothing else, she invited a return to normal.

Like a few dozens fellow students, she took her plate of brown mess and glittering taters to an empty seat. Unlike her fellows, however, her mind was still focused on the class two hours ago. "God, what if I have some kind of neurological...?" She shook the awkward memory away and tried to keep her muttering to a minimum. Happily, she scooped the first mouthful of mashed potatoes into her mouth.

[Author's Note: The Intermission chapters coming up contain **** not involving John and can be skipped; it will just mean you enter certain scenes with no initial context, though it will be explained properly later even if you skip. Because the Intermission chapters were rather divisive among readers, the "Skip To" link was opened. If a couple of chapters that may upset you could turn you off from this branch of the story, then use the "Skip To" link below instead.]