Amateur Hour?

Two figures were walking through the front end of the bookshop, their movements clumsy and loud in the profound silence. A Japanese woman, dark-haired and fit in a simple blue sundress that showed off her generous perky breasts, and a man, blandly handsome and radiating a potent, fresh aura of Life Magic Mara would wager. A recent breeding in the last couple of hours perhaps...Either way they were unwanted interlopers. And not Life Coven, not with the chaotic, mischievous energy clinging to the woman. Mara’s dark eyes narrowed. A Trickster. Here. On Breeding Day. The sheer, arrogant stupidity of it was almost impressive. Mara could hear a third voice but couldn’t make out where it was coming from.

The group was talking about the owner.

From the corner, unseen, a gravelly, slightly ridiculous voice echoed, "The owner, this Wizard, he's a big deal because he isn’t just linked to Life or **** or even the four ancient Elemental Magics. He’s a General Practitioner of Arcane Arts and the Aetheric Philosophies. And judging from these volumes he probably is also a dab hand in the Primordial **** of Money."

The Japanese woman let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Money? You're telling me Money is a fundamental magical **** of the universe, right up there with Life and ****?"

"I'm not lying, Mistress," the unseen voice insisted, its tone deadly serious, which only made it sound more absurd. "Think about it. But it's not just literal cash. It's the ability to transfer abstract power into real-world effects. It's leverage, debt, the power to make things happen by moving value from one place to another. You look at this as a place that sells books, but really he is dealing in influence.

Mara now could make out where the voice was coming from, a long wisp of pink gas. A typically ridiculous Trickster Familiar.

'Money can buy sex, it can buy weapons, it can buy medicine. But it also gives power even if you don't expend it. Think about it, a hundred thousand dollars could probably do the same thing a Breeding Pass can do, get a woman to spread her legs. And how is it different? It's a funny piece of paper with a picture on it.'

"That's... not the same, Verdant" the man interjected, his brow furrowed in thought. "It's different because... well, because it is." Clearly not the brains of the operation Mara thought.

The man pressed on, glibly picking up and browsing through an occult book that only half hour ago had a magic fire-trap ward that Mara had disabled, "the Breeding Pass... that's magic. It just... makes it happen. Money, you have to... convince. Or hire. There are steps. It's not... instant." He trailed off, unable to articulate the fundamental difference between the raw, magical compulsion and the complex, transactional nature of capitalism.

“Amazing analysis Brandon” said Verdant sarcastically “I’ll be sure to led the great Mystic Masters of the 17 Scrolls of Ty’vuzz know of your insight.”

“What do you think Emi?” asked the man returning he book.

“Well I can accept Money being a Primordial **** but want I can’t accept is why we are able to wonder into this place so easily. I know I am knew to this but shouldn’t there be magic wards, or curses or even a lock on the front door”

“Maybe he’s out for lunch” commented the pink Familiar “Magic is hungry work and in this economy can’t imagine he’s selling much.”

Mara considered melting back into the shadows for a fraction of a second. They were idiots for sure but there were unknown variables, and this Trickster's energy felt… potent. Wildly untrained, but potent. But Mara couldn’t get over the sheer, unadulterated idiocy of it, the way they stood in the heart of a wizard's sanctum discussing the finer points of magical economics, was so grating it was almost a physical **** on her senses. Mara Ravenshade didn't fear idiots; she despised them.

With a soft, deliberate sigh that was designed to carry, she stepped out from behind the towering shelf of esoteric lore. The heavy, antique books seemed to shrink back from her. She let the silence hang for a beat, allowing the weight of her presence to settle in the room, her dark eyes sweeping over the intruders with the clinical disinterest of a predator surveying its prey.

Emi and Brandon froze in the aisle their plans for a discreet break-in instantly derailed by the sight of the gothic figure already inside.

Brandon in particular was immediately enamoured. Ever every line of her body was a weapon designed to inflict engorge a man’s dick.

Her face was a gothic masterpiece of pale foundation and sharp, winged eyeliner, her raven hair a stark, dramatic frame. She was a walking, talking embodiment of a challenge, a promise of filthy, depraved pleasure that was dangled just out of reach, making the desire for it all the more acute.

A black band t-shirt that did little to hide the generous swell of her natural tits, large, heavy breasts that moved with a liquid freedom beneath the thin cotton, toned stomach was a pale, flat plane, leading to a pair of thick, powerful thighs that strained against the fabric of her ripped denim shorts, that were little more than a second skin, outlining the powerful swell of her buttocks and the firm, rounded under-curve where her thighs began.

The air in the Rare Books room crackled with a tension far more potent than the dust motes dancing in the dim light. Mara’s gaze swept over them, a cold, dismissive assessment that made Brandon flinch. "A Trickster and her new pet," she purred, her voice a low, smoky rasp that was both a threat and a promise. "And a Familiar, no less. You're all... terribly out of place." Mara raised her hands conjuring dark forces

"By the accords of ancient combat this can be resolved through a test of magical strength"

Brandon's jaw went slack, a low, appreciative "Whoa," escaping his lips as his eyes took in the full, dramatic, and undeniably potent visual of Mara. His gaze was a physical thing, a dumbstruck pilgrimage from her heavy, perfect tits down to the powerful, denim-clad promise of her thighs.

Emi seeing Brandon’s obvious hard-on gave Brandon a light punch

'Alright, he's meant to be your magically-bound, loyal Custos,' said Verdant, its tone a mixture of academic observation and pure, unadulterated lechery. 'He should be focusing on you, maintaining the bond. But... gods damn. That is a monument to ass. A cathedral of fuckability. I concede the point. She is really fucking hot.'

Emi fought the urge to sigh. The Familiar's commentary, now broadcast aloud for everyone to hear, was followed by Brandon's equally audible agreement. "Yeah, seriously," he breathed, completely captivated. A flush of slight, purely for show, embarrassment coloured Emi's cheeks. "He's not wrong," she muttered under her breath, a small, disrespectful grin playing on her lips as she took in the scene.

The sheer, unvarnished audacity of their response, the lecherous commentary from an petty Trickster's familiar shattered Mara's carefully maintained composure. Her challenge, a formal rite steeped in ancient tradition, had been met with the intellectual sophistication of a pair of dogs discovering a fire hydrant.

The air crackled and warped and with a contemptuous flick of her wrist, Mara unleashed a bolt of pure, concentrated hate. A small swirling vortex of green-black Acid Miasma that screamed through the air, leaving a trail of sizzling degradation on the bookshelves it passed. It flew between Emi and Brandon who ducked back instinctively and struck the reinforced concrete wall behind Emi and Brandon, missing the pair by a few inches. There was no explosion, just a horrifyingly efficient process of unmaking. he acrid, chemical stench of strong acid hit them a split second after the sound and something worse, the faint, sickly-sweet rot of the **** magic fuelling it. A neat, smoking hole had been bored through the reinforced concrete wall, its edges blackened and weeping a viscous, dark fluid. The air was suddenly thin and cold.

"Fuck! She just tried to kill you!" Verdant Green's new, gravelly voice, a note of genuine panic cutting through its usual lecherous tone.

"No shit!" Emi blinked, the reality of the situation slamming into her with the **** of a physical blow. This woman, this gothic nightmare, had just tried to melt her face off.

Mara’s face was a cold mask of fury, her patience utterly eroded. With another contemptuous flick of her wrist, she unleashed a second vortex of Acid Miasma, this one larger, angrier, a swirling maelstrom of hungry green-black **** that tore through the air towards them. But Brandon, acting on the newly forged magical bond simply reacted, grabbing Emi and yanking her sideways with a ****, powerful pull. They tumbled to the floor in a heap of limbs,

From the corner of her eye, Emi saw a flash of pink. Verdant Green, in a display of naked self-preservation, had abandoned its post. The Familiar shot upwards, boiling towards the high rafters of the vault, its gaseous form dispersing into the shadows, a pink wisp of cowardice against the dark, ancient wood.

"Get up!" Brandon grunted, pulling Emi to her feet, his body shielding hers as he scanned the room for an escape route.

"Take a cheap shot, or run away. Maybe both," Verdant Green's unhelpful advice echoed down from the rafters, its gravelly voice a panicked squeak. Emi's mind raced, the

Familiar's words sparking a ****, chaotic idea. Running was the sensible option, but this wasn't a day for sense. She was a Trickster Breeder Witch, and she needed to make a statement, even if it was a stupid, reckless one.

"Brandon, distract her!" Emi yelled, shoving him towards a towering shelf of leather-bound tomes. "Be loud!"

With a confused but willing grunt, Brandon obeyed, grabbing a heavy, gilt-edged book and hurling it at Mara. She sidestepped it with catlike grace ease.

Mara began a new incantation, her hands weaving a complex pattern in the air. The energy coalesced not as a bolt, but as a spreading, shimmering net of crackling grey energy, an area-effect spell that would corrode everything in its path. She wasn’t bothering duelling, preferring to simply exterminate.

Seeing the widening arc of certain ****, Emi didn't hesitate. She reached for that new, buzzing power within her, ‘Sow the Seed of Doubt’. 'You're unsteady,' she projected, pouring the intent of her cantrip into a single, razor-sharp thought. 'The floor is slick. Your balance is gone. You're going to trip.'

For a split-second, doubt flickered in Mara's dark eyes. Her foot snagged on an imaginary obstacle, a hitch in her perfect, predatory rhythm. The complex weave of her spell faltered, the words of power catching in her throat as she fought to maintain control. She almost contained the catastrophic surge of magical energy, her will a hard wall against the chaos.

From the rafters above, a pink blur shot down like a meteor. Verdant Green propelled himself directly at Mara's face. The Familiar simply enveloped her, a rushing tide of pink gas that poured into her open mouth and nose. Mara's chant died in a strangled gasp, the intricate spell she was desperately trying to control collapsing into nothing. She stumbled back, her hands flying to her throat, her dark eyes wide with a mixture of fury and disbelief. Although in reality she was in danger and could breathe through the Familiar her body instinctively convulsed in to a violent, wracking cough seized her, as she tried to expel the invasive entity from her lungs. Verdant Green was violently expelled from the goth’s chest.

But the colossal power, the sheer caloric energy of the half-woven spell, had to go somewhere.

With no **** Magic left to shape it the magic exploded back towards its source in a concussive, invisible blast of pure kinetic energy. Mara was thrown backwards as if hit by a physical train, her body a ragdoll in the storm of her own making. She slammed into shelf containing ‘The Stiff Upper Libram’, the impact a dull, sickening thud that spider webbed the thick, tempered pane. Her clothes, unable to withstand the raw, chaotic feedback of her own ruined magic, simply shredded, ripping away from her body in tatters of black cotton and denim. She slumped to the floor in a heap, stunned and utterly exposed, naked save for a pair of simple white cotton panties. Her pale, perfect skin was flushed a furious red from the magic backlash that had just violated her.

The Still Upper Libram dislodged from the shelf, slid out bouncing off her head to lie on the floor.

“A jackpot!” said Verdant. “I bet that’s what the goth slag was after. Baby doll," Verdant Green's gravelly voice shrieked to Emi, the urgency cutting through her stunned surprise, "you wanted to learn a Cantrip? Well, there's a full blown spell on Page 344 of that very pretty book next to the downed **** Mage at that you really, really need to cast double quick." Emi's eyes snapped from the stunned, naked form of Mara to the book that had fallen from the shattered case. The spell book lay open on the floor, its yellowed pages exposed. Without thinking, she lunged for it, her fingers flipping through the delicate, vellum leaves until she found the page. The text was archaic, a spidery script that seemed to squirm on the page, but somehow she could not read it but could understand it. The title of the spell was simple: Ligatura Vinculum.

Emi's eyes scanned the archaic script, her mind racing. The spell's description was clear, its purpose devastatingly simple. “Ligatura Vinculum. The Severing. Cuts the target off from the currents of magic, rendering them mundane, deaf to the whispers of the Primordial forces. Temporary, but absolute.”

Mara was already starting to stir, her body shaking off the shock of the feedback blast. Her dark eyes, burning with a humiliated, murderous rage, locked onto Emi. Her hands flat on the floor, she began to push herself up,

Emi slammed her hand down on the open page, her fingers tracing the spidery lines of the spell. She didn't need to fully understand the ancient words; she just needed to channel the intent, the raw, chaotic power she now commanded. She poured her will into the spell. The book beneath her hand flared with a soft, yellow light, the energy flowing through her, a warm, potent current that felt both alien and deeply right. A shimmering, almost invisible thread of energy shot from her outstretched fingers, striking Mara squarely in the chest.

Mara gasped as the wave of magic washed over her, but it wasn't an attack. It was... a withdrawal. The cold, comforting presence of the **** Miasma, the dark power that had been her constant companion for years, was simply gone. Mara slumped back in a daze again.

'Well, now,' Verdant Green's gravelly mental voice was practically humming with glee, a sound like rocks grinding together in a cocktail shaker. 'This is what we in the business call a 'target-rich environment'. Look at her. A Level 5 **** Witch. almost naked, magically nullified, and lying on the floor. And you, your dear mistress, are a Trickster Breeder Witch in need of some serious power levelling.' The pink cloud zipped around Mara's prone form, a tiny, pink vulture circling its prey.

'And here's the kicker, the cherry on top of this delightful little sundae of opportunity,' Verdant Green continued, its voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Breeding a **** Witch... it's a big deal. A very, very big deal. The pure, chaotic energy of Life, **** into a vessel dedicated to its opposite... it doesn't just create a baby. It creates a paradox. It permanently severs their connection to **** Miasma. Forever. She'll be mundane. Powerless. And you, your dear, will get a magical payout that could probably level this entire wing of the mall.’

A certain, deeply satisfying thrill curled in Emi's loins as she took in the scene. The terrifying, arrogant **** Witch who had tried to melt her face off not five minutes ago, was now just a naked, stunned woman on the floor. And she was, Emi had to admit, ridiculously hot. All that pale skin, the heavy curve of her tits, the powerful, athletic lines of her thighs… it was a compelling picture.

"Well," she said, her tone casual, almost business-like. "She did try to kill us all." She turned to Brandon, and gave a nod and a shrug. "Brandon," she said, her voice a low, purring command. "Would you mind doing the honours on this goth slut?"