Tess backfires DONDER into a mass orgasm and Fay picks up the pieces

An alternate path inspired by LesLes' suggestion.

You and Tess stand poised at the door opening from the bathing chamber into Beavertail's secret guest suite.

"Not so safe, then," you whisper to Tess.

"Sneaking in the side door probably did it," she whispers back. "First time anything noticed. Well, then." Tess traces her wand in a complicated pattern. She incants a word you don't catch, deep and thrumming, that you hear in your bowels and the soles of your feet. The wand now bears a brightly glowing sigil at its tip like a menacing anemone, half flower, half tentacled horror. She pulls a thread from the sleeve of her robe and twines it round her finger. "RETICULA." A net drapes down from her hand, rippling with eagerness to catch something in its strands. "Pretend this is a doubles duel, Fay. Get ready to banish and deflect."

"Are you sure?" you whisper. "I mean, that's plenty fearsome, but do we know what's out there?" You wish Morgan were here. She'd be out with a magic mirror and have a picture of the intruders in a jiffy.

"It's a mob," Tess says, pulling back her hair to show one ear, transformed into a deep ear-cup coming to a point that would have looked right on a night-flying bat of Tess' size. "Muttering, shuffling. One more thing." The flower-petals-or-were-they-tentacles writhed, leaking sparks.

"LIBIDO," Tess intones. Her posture tightens with edgy tension, her heels lifting as she rises onto her toes. Her motions are quick, intent, hungry.

Tess is reaching deep into the bag of tricks. Everybody knows that one, but there are reasons not to use it. Not even in duels.

"Shit," you say. You raise your wand and trace a sigil of focus. "If you're sure. Alright then."

Tess opens the door to the main room of the secret suite. Her jaw clenches as the open door reveals a whirl of creatures, semi-abstract humanlike shapes with empty eyes, moving forward menacingly. Their glassy eyes flicker in the glow from her wand.

Reasons not to use LIBIDO.

You get a sinking feeling. Are they...?

"Tess, step back and cast a ward," you urge. "Ward them. Don't...!"

But Tess's attention is fully on the menacing figures, her flower-tipped wand scanning back and forth for the best angle while preparing to net any eager forward-pushers. Her weight dances from foot to foot. Some of the creatures are aping her movements, shifting their footing and moving their hands in the same way that Tess is.

You frown. Something familiar in that interaction, that mirroring. Tess bends her knees slightly, coiling as if to spring bodily upon them. The figures bend in a ragged mockery of Tess's fierce intention, gibbering and hissing half-intelligible threats. Some of them hold an arm forward like Tess's wand, but their hands are empty. You see another flicker from a glassy eye. They're indistinct of form, but you start picking out the common factors within the shifting blurs.

Tess brandishes her wand, its petal-tentacles reaching out hungrily. It pulses with a threatening flash. "BEGONE!"

The creatures grope forward into the light of her wand, fully illuminating the nearest ones.

They all have thick eyeglasses. Red hair. Hungry eyes.

"Now I have you," Tess growls. Her lips tighten as a magic word trembles at the tip of her tongue.

"Tess NO!" you shout. "They're thought-forms!"

Tess incants DONDER. Magnified through the sigil on her wand, the spell produces a mighty thunderflash rocking the room. Bodies fall to the floor. The backlash staggers you and you drop to one knee, clutching desperately to your wand.

Tess has felled a room full of thought-forms wearing her shape. They lie sprawled upon the floor of Beavertail's secret apartment, twitching and moaning. But Tess?

Tess lies upon her back, her arms and legs tense and vibrating. Her wand is still in one hand, the amplifying sigil erratically pulsing. Flickering. A strained groan comes from her throat. Her toes clench and her heels drum against the floor. It looks like a seizure, or, no, wait.

Oh no.

Tess bellows. Her body arches from the floor in an climactic spasm, amplified by LIBIDO. The flower-sigil at the tip of her wand explodes into a firework of magical orgasmic energy, lifting you up and carrying you away into convulsions of joy. You writhe on the floor. A ludicrous image comes back to you, Tess imagining herself caught by the Housemistress' orgasm, falling into the herb garden, her climax grinding the basil into pesto. You'd be doing that right now, but the floor is firm and solid and OH, another, YES!

A ragged chorus of sexual joy sounds from all around, you and Tess and the thought-forms shaped in her image, all overcome by the joyful lightning and thunder of Tess's rolling climaxes, pulsing out from the tip of her wand. The room is alight with sparks and stars and waving petals and rippling tentacles of light.

Your mind opens and you feel the thought-forms' hunger. I want, I want you sense, along with their joy in sharing. But they're still hungry. Sexually hungry. They want to share more. They want to fill themselves from Tess, from you. There are echoes of sadness from some that you recognize as yourself. Get away, I'm not worthy. Your hips rock against the floor. I hate how much I love you. Your eyes fill with tears and you snivel, crying aloud. Such pleasure in your body, such wracking pain from your heart cracked open, bleeding out through your tears, your spit, your sobs. And then sadnesses from Tess. Not just the thought-forms, Tess herself. I'm nobody, Leave me alone, My books will never leave me, I don't even have a name.

Somewhere in all this, you find yourself and pull yourself back up to a sitting posture. Your wand is in hand, old companion, well-practiced, a part of yourself almost. You're still sobbing, gently. Your clit throbs, the petals of your vulva are warm, swollen, weeping.

Poor Tess, you think, Those poor things. The thought-forms, attracted to your lovemaking, you and Tess in the bath, their hunger sharpened by yours. Each one sucking out a part of your soul, of Tess' soul, that brought you pain. And bringing that pain back to you with greater hunger. There's a ritual you've heard of, of offering yourself for that hunger's satisfaction, knowing that hunger in yourself and allowing yourself to be nourishment for it.

You stagger to your feet, an unnameable impulse driving you, holding you resolute against the sadness and hunger of the thought-forms, the rolling aftershocks of Tess' climax, the aching of Tess' sadness.

"Tess, can you hear me?" you call to her. "Tess baby, I'm here for you. Fay."

You have an open channel to her now, but she's lost, wallowing, her climax rolling on, roiling up pain and sadness from deep inside.

"Oh Tess," you say. She might almost be one of the hungry ghosts herself.

Lifting your wand, you trace out an elaboration of the spell whose word trembles upon your tongue. Drawing out a net to embrace the entire room, you call the sad, hungry souls to mind you. CHARM rolls deliberately off your tongue, through your net of intention, and into all the thought-forms. And Tess.

The moaning and wailing of the creatures diminishes. You sniffle. Creatures? They're practically yourselves, sad hungry fragments of Fay and Tess. Dreadful. Pitiful. But...worthy? Worthy as you and Tess? You tremble, irresolute for a moment. Tears roll down your cheeks. The next step is yours. It's just a little pain. Let it in. Let it out. But will you? Can you?

Tess's orgasm has subsided, and now she's sobbing, lying flat on her back and bawling, sniffling, coughing through her tears. Her sadness echoes keenly through you. Poor lovely soul, you think.

You suck in a breath and the words flow out, loud and brassy, confident and sure. "Come to me, you lovely sad children. I love you. Feed on my love. I want you. Feed on my desire. I must have you. Come to me."

The seemings of Tess and the seemings of Fay lift their heads in yearning. Their features become more distinct, their gibberings become words. Wants. Needs. "Want you!" "Mama!" "I'm sad I'm sad, ah!" "So hungry, so hungry!" "Love me!" "Eat, eat, eat you!" "Ahhh I need I need!".

Tess turns to look at you. "I love you, Fay, and you're never getting away again." She does something with her glasses, there's a shimmer, and her face is clean of tears and snot.

Tess and a roomful of hungry thought-forms close in on you. Bring it, you think. Bring it. Feed from me. Fill yourselves. Lovely sad children. I'm eating YOU, too.

You have Ambition +2, Bravery -1, Cunning +2, Diligence +0; XP: 2
FRIEND: Morgan, who also owes you a FAVOR.
You have a date to HAVE SEX with Cook, who walks about in a mouthwatering scent cloud of cinnamon apple tart.

Describe how you and Tess satisfy the thought-forms and let them go, satisfied and purged.

Choose a resolution for GET OUT OF DANGER. (More prompts in the next chapter).