Licking Wounds

Damn it... Rave crossed her arms as she continued to ignore the lecture. Her text message, demanding that Jimmie hurry to the school, had not yet registered as read, and the barrier was already slipping past her classroom. Travolta was nearby, sure, but she had nothing beyond curiosity to justify leaping into the barrier. A giant, mobile barrier would soon crawl past her school... and her father’s strict requirement that she lay low, until the Order came down from high alert, was all that kept her from peeking inside. Rave leaned back into her chair. I bet Moi-Moi’s in there now, playing the holy protector against whatever idiot tried to setup shop here of all places... fuck, it pisses me off! She shouldn't have all the fun...

“In the name of the Lady!”

Moira’s hammer shimmered and magnified its brilliant glow of holy energy until it sunk into the mound of tentacled shadows. It shrieked in agony and continued to whip her body, rending her armor and slicing through links until the Warden bled. Her holy aura stunted the vicious, cutting blows; any besides a Warden might have lost a limb to this horror by now.

The living puddle she fought had surprised her at the clearing just before the staircase leading up, though she could still only guess at where her path was taking her. The shadows on the floor, no more menacing than the rest, bore this nightmare of tentacles and oozing shadow; her holy aura burned it, the flash of her shield had stunned it, but still it lived and whipped madly. It still encircled the Warden, raising pulsating walls of darkness all around her. Her shield could deflect only a fourth of its attacks; despite its howls, her hammer seemed to do little to discourage it. The shadows closed in on the half-stripped Warden-

“The Lady stands!”

I’ll kill her... I’ll kill her... I’ll kill the Order dog... I’ll kill the giant... punk-haired cunt drop who hurt me... I’ll kill the tower of stupid woman flesh that dared... that dared...! Spite, more than functioning bones, now moved Juniluny Snickerbottom. She couldn’t be sure of how badly her internal organs had been traumatized or if any bone left in her midriff remained unbroken.

She knew that every inch towards her target was agony. She knew that she couldn’t walk. She knew that she would bleed to **** from her fingers squirting the trail that she dragged herself across if she didn’t regenerate soon. Her heavy breasts dragged on the marble, and the polish it would eternally hold did little to comfort, even with the lubricant of her life essence. She was close to her target: a pitiful creature, akin to a massive toucan bird, nervously turned its multi-colored beak to and fro as it stared at the wall that whispered orders. “Stay... still,” Juniluny loudly hissed at the bird. Its pearl burned bright, encouraging obedience.

“I can’t,” sighed Galley. “You weren’t supposed to survive that.” Three halls separated them, but the Cabalist was too delirious with pain to be sure how far they were truly apart. Galley walked quickly now as she tried to work out how to reach and finish the halfling. Even as she marched, her hands swept through her messy black hair. “Geez... I had just re-dyed it too...”

Juniluny was the width of a hallway away now; it seemed a mile to her weakening arms and agonizing hands. I can’t... use my gestures... but foolish Order dog, I’ve mastered more spells than you have years! Saving myself with another's... essence... was... but one of my first tricks...! Her eyes narrowed up at the six-foot-tall tropical bird, and it’s beak opened slightly to reveal the uncharacteristic snake tongue that hissed its fear. Such beauty... such a waste, but... I have ****... I have to save myself... and chop down that rotten, human tree...!

Galley arrived at a crossroads ready to make a right turn towards Juniluny... only to see that it then turned left and away from her target. I never did like mazes...

“<Flow of the Dream, flow of life, down the rivers of flesh and into the heart of Ohr: I call upon You.>”

Galley cursed under her breath and broke into a run, taking the right path in hopes that it made a U-turn towards the Cabalist.

Juniluny continued to speak in the tongue of Qlipoths, the nearest description the Cabal had for the dark arts they worked. The language was that of a kind of enlightenment, faster than its holy counterpart but bearing terrible prices for its gifts. Juniluny’s nature made it an easy third tongue to learn. What was gibberish to others, save where the most names of power were invoked, was prayer-poetry to her.

And Juniluny was a halfling indeed, for she loved poetry. “<This vessel requires your nurture, the price to be paid by another. Let your gift flow from the rivers You opened and into the rivers You closed. Let one’s drought cure my own, in balance, forever. Let their **** bring life, not in the soils of Your creation, but in the thirst of Your servant.>”

Shit... I should’ve risked putting extra juice behind that punch. Galley knew the “poetry” of the Cabal as well: she never bothered to speak it, but she knew enough to recognize the root terms of those spells meant to mend one at the expense of others. Galley already showed her hand; the Cabalist would be wiser next time, if a next time was allowed.

There were five more verses in this spell, but Juniluny’s words began to slur as blood continued to drip from her, and shards of bone began to cleave into her organs. The dire toucan was frantic now, but it remained in place. Juniluny’s hand slowly extended out from the base of the wall separating her from her prized pet. The final... verse... to seal and activate... the power... I must... “<We thank Your creation... for this w... water; we t-thank You for this rain. Let it be... so, s-so that-t the... river does...>” The remaining three fingers of her left hand trembled. Blood dripped onto the toucan’s foot, but it could no longer move even as self-preservation screamed at it.

“<... flow.>”

Her right hand fell as the spell charged into her palm... and all three of her fingers sunk into the bird’s clawed toes as if it were the softest clay. The toucan screeched and cried out, but the connection was made: its left leg fattened and bulged oddly as blood began to rush downward through it, cutting open and ruining the tiny tendrils of veins in its feet to let the flood of vitae in. The pain of exsanguination was terrible for any living thing; the agony of invasive digits was multiplied as new veins grew from her finger-stumps to also stab into the flesh and have their fill. Juniluny sighed with relief as the colorful beast wept and screamed.

Damn it... if I can get to her faster, then maybe I can- Galley turned the corner... and flinched as she felt her body hit the ooze. The gellatineous cube surged forward, to greedily eat the Order mage, and the latter began to panic as oxygen was cut off, replaced with a gel that filled her nostrils and mouth. The creature had been only five feet in height, but filled the hall from wall to wall for a full ten feet; it quickly assumed its old shape, tucking Galley into its center. The mage tried to swing inside the jelly; she could only barely flinch inside its semi-solid body. Shit... shit...!

Yes... devils and dogs, yes...! Juniluny sighed happily as she felt the agony in her torso slowly fade. Her right hand no longer bled and the “fingers” the spell had formed pumped happily. Juniluny was no vampire; the blood melted into her body as a healing essence, converted into the raw kind of positive energy her art could not channel.

Only through another’s loss could a Cabalist gain.

The ooze began to seep into every orifice Galley had in hopes of digesting her faster. Even now its acidic nature started to burn at Galley, though the burning in her lungs was far worse. She gulped down the ooze as it tried to find her lungs and asphyxiate her, filling her belly as she continued to try and reach for her tattoo. Slowly her left arm neared her right, but the pace was too slow... she’d be overwhelmed, suffocated, and eaten unless she could just-!

“Ember.”

The ooze became flames, and the burning heat filled Galley’s every hole as she exhaled... but the heat was magic, and she swallowed it happily. Magical flames gushed into her belly, killing the slime but leaving her internal organs unharmed. The unnatural warmth filled her rectum and vagina, those sensitive places the ooze has indiscriminately seeped into, and killed all of the ooze it found. Her body was eased onto the marble as the remains of the creature boiled out from inside and around her, and she gasped a thin breath of what air the flames had not consumed.

Layla wrinkled her nose, first at the ooze she killed and then at the unfortunate prize that was hiding inside of it. Behind her, the staircase going down to the labyrinth’s bottommost level was flanked by the burnt husks of two hyena-men, likely the cause of Layla missing that the ooze down the hall had only been moving so violently because it had caught something. With a wave of her hands, she burned the two spying bricks and continued to contemplate the Order mage.

To think I was nearly beaten by someone so helpless... graceless... and I saved her, the one who tried to bar my way! Ugh- no, no. It’s fine. I’m one floor closer to my love. Besides, he’d never show interest in such a low beast... no, now is instead the time to... negotiate a peace... With a sigh, Layla approached her temporary ally.

Just two hundred feet away, a once-proud bird cried softly as the last of its life, in blood and in energy, was sapped from it. The colorful beak began to bleach, the feathers of its coat grayed, and it’s intelligent, terrified eyes slowly clouded until they were white. Its bones began to melt and let its body deflate or collapse as it laid down and, finally, died. Pain and nerves were the last things to be lost; the true life energy was in everything pain was meant to protect, after all, and piece by piece, it all revitalized Juniluny. She slowly stood, once her majestic prize had become a sack of biles and remainders, and did some stretches to confirm she was mostly healthy again.

She looked down at herself: her skin was almost glowing with vibrancy, and she felt hyper with the stimulation that came with fully draining a creature of life. She was now totally naked (and gorgeous, she would add even now), which meant she was now truly unprotected from any future enemies that managed to fight back. She held her hands up to her face; the suckling veins had retracted, and smooth, flat patches of skin terminated the four fingers stolen from her. Damn that wretched giant! I can't even leave the Maze now or slip between shadows... gah, near all my best work still needs these damnable digits! As much as she loved her laboratory, survival was paramount; being trapped here with strangely potent killers for another ten or twelve hours was not an option. She peered through the dungeon, eager to know how close her newest menace had come... and initially, to her amusement, saw that the stupid cow had actually taken the wrong path and was even about to head downstairs-

... which was when she noticed the small spikes of fire on her spying bricks. Her bricks remained, but black burns covered them... and so explained why she found them blinded. Juniluny's eyes traveled a bit further to find the shadily dressed girl, and her monstrous aura of magic, from earlier. The power of that strange child burned bright in Juniluny’s still-enchanted vision, so much so that the prospect would excite her if her predicament wasn't so dire, now. She looked back to the Order mage she was approaching and only now noticed the burning bits of material on the ground between them... and realized what monster it must have been. I had cultivated that acid ooze for weeks! Weeks, I tell you, you destructive... bitch... that was fighting... the other one. Ho hooo... a fire mage, then? Maybe I should leave them to it... and let the giant cunt tucker herself out while I go and handle my other guest. Juniluny quietly stepped through the walls as she retreated to the elevator and, once she felt she was far enough away, quickly sprinted as fast as her little hobbit legs would take care... fast enough, in fact, that she missed what had changed in one of the halls she blitzed through.

John flinched, but she was already gone. His brow furrowed as he realized what that tiny, naked thing was—had to be, really—on the floor below. His attention had drifted just for a moment, seconds really, but it had cost him what might have been the chance to end things here and now. He checked the minimap and confirmed it: based on her direction, she was heading for the shaft, or where the shaft would be if it extended into the floor below. He opened a tunnel to press his ear against the wall on his floor, and another tunnel to press his ear against the same wall on the floor above that, and waited as he continued to simultaneously scan the floor below and the floor two stories up. He waited, and waited, until he caught sight of two beings unexpected on this floor of monster corpses: a huge, naked woman staring down at a girl in sweats. What the Hell-

Whoosh. What his eyes couldn't see, his ears could hear.

An elevator. The sliding of metal, the roar of an object cutting through air, and the audible speed of it: John was sure of it, now. It roared past his right ear on his floor, and then by his left ear above. She was going up, then, up beyond where he had finished his scans. He had to do the same, then, and gave up on the floor below once he saw the staircase beyond the two rival girls. Looking upon them, he was given pause by their stat cards.

Layla Viorica
<Firesmith Academy>
Level 2 Fire Mage
HP: 2,025/2,025
MP: 871/2,030
Stats: Str 12 Agi 13 End 22 Int 18 Wis 11 Cha 7 Lib 49
Status Effects: Chorus (Fire)
Qualities: Abyssal Obfuscation, Aura Sight, Divine, Hate of Romulus, Lampad, Muse, Nymph, Siren
R/S: +200
The child of two bloodlines favored or fed by powerful, ancient beings of the Abyss. As a result, Layla has an unnatural gift for survival and magic, both being divine in nature but restricted by her status as a fledgling mage. She is sought by Romulus, the First King of Rome: his Hate bounty (100,000 soul gems) will be tripled if she is brought in alive and has been advertised far beyond the purview of the Extinction Kings. Her favorite subject at school is Enchantment, and her most loathed one is Magical Societies. As a divine creature, she is prone to extremes.

Daisy Dandelion Nippel
<The Order>
Level 34 Spellbreaker
HP: 3,225/3,591
Stats: Str 103 Agi 58 End 140 Int 11 Wis 24 Cha 11 Lib 14
Status Effects: Acid Slime Burns (1 round remaining)
Qualities: Breaker Arms, Soulless, Spell Scent
R/S: -8
The Hound of Titusville. Abandoning her birth name the moment she learned of her power, "Galley Gallows" has become one of the most powerful contract mage-killers the Order uses in the United States and Canada. She has only a few magical abilities, none of which rely on mana, the energy of the soul that she can never generate or awaken to. She is 27 years old, single, and has no friends outside of the Order. Her soulless nature makes most feel uneasy around her; she terrifies animals. Unfortunately, she loves dogs.

As many questions as he had about everything he had just read, he didn't have time to address them.

"'Order business,' huh? There's a Cabal mage in here, somewhere, with the love of my life, and you're too busy having sex with one of her pets to be bothered!"

John eyed the naked "Galley," noting that she had to be at least six and a half feet tall. "It was trying to kill me," she calmly corrected the girl. "I also already fought the Cabalist."

John was surprised at that... but in the end, that elevator did still go up. I saw Juniluny running towards that elevator, too... so she's definitely still alive. Besides, if she went up, then she won't notice if I...

Layla took another step towards the bared goliath and opened her mouth for another accusation... when the wall to her right, and Galley's left, suddenly opened into a hallway. Both women stared at the edges of the apparent opening, each realizing that it was actually a massive portal laid just over the bricks... and in the newly revealed hall, just before a string of monster corpses, was the cross-legged form of a man who appeared to be meditating.

"Come on through, quickly, before she comes back down!" he half-shouted with his eyes closed. Neither girl immediately moved; Galley showed an obvious distrust as her hands shot to her crotch and breasts to cover them.

Layla, on the other hand... Oh my... oh my... oh my...! With a tiny, tiny scream in her throat, Layla overcame her shock and quickly skipped through the tunnel.

Cursing, Galley followed and flinched as the portal closed behind them, revealing the rest of an unusually long hallway. She looked carefully at the boy's haggard, exhausted-looking face... "... John Newman?"

Layla's throat seized at the name. Is that... is that my husband's name? John... biblical, so pure... Newman... Layla Newman? Is that the beautiful name he will gift unto me?

"Yes," John replied to only one of those questions, though Layla happily took it to address both. "How do you know me?"

Galley sighed her obvious frustration. "If you've got a hand in this, then you should know-"

"I was the target," he flatly interrupted, "and you work for the Order... right, 'Galley'?"

The Spellbreaker's frown deepened. "You shouldn't know my name."

"Y-You shouldn't speak to my... t-to him, then!" Both turned to the Firesmith girl. Crap! Layla... calm down, play it cool... it's alright! "I... I... I mean... we'll get out of here soon enough! We just need to kill the evil little troll who made this horrible barrier and get out! ... R-Right?" She mostly spoke to Galley; her heart couldn't yet handle addressing John directly.

"She went upstairs," John explained, "and by the sounds of it has gone beyond the floor above this one, to another floor I’m still mapping."

"Map out?" Galley repeated. "Is that how you found- wait, you're listed as a summoner. Was it your pet, then?" She glanced around but found nothing besides corpses. "Who opened that portal for us-?"

"In due time," he quickly deflected. Man, I guess Moira never spilled the beans on my power set... "I have to make sure no one else came into the Maze besides us..."

Layla tried to object to searching for anyone else, but she couldn't bear to counter her future lover. She felt light-headed now, standing in his energy like this. God, I could just... fuck him here on this filthy floor... oh... oh God... no, don't... don't-! She begged her body to calm down, but the warmth, and slippery joy, at her crotch continued to build.

Galley swallowed hard... and sniffed the air again. She could tell the Warden was still a way's above them... but even noting that was difficult with these two so close. This rogue mage is like a bitch in heat, now... she must've been talking about the Newman boy. But his smell is... hmm.

"If no one else is here, then we can just-"

"The Warden of the Golden Rose is also in here, somewhere." The words had no sooner left her mouth before it hit her. Galley took a step back reflexively. What the Hell...? She smelled it on him: first anger, and then fear at the idea. No... not of the Warden... but for her... but this intensity is...

Something... odd happened to John's left eyelid, though Galley missed it. "Then I've got no time to waste," John concluded.

Layla bit her lip to keep her protests silent. Why is he so worried about some stupid... bitch who... oh God... Layla's thighs continued to squeeze together as she tried to keep her thoughts clean... but the mere presence of the boy was driving her mad with lust. A trickle traveled down her thighs to stain the inner legs of her sweatpants, though most of her moisture was seeping through the crotch of her- No! No no no no yes, oh God... yes! Layla's mouth opened slightly, and she hastily sipped in a bit of drool that threatened to pour out and give her away.

John, for all his usual horniness, hadn't noticed. "So you can read auras," he declared, blindly pointing at Layla before shifting to Galley, "and you can smell magic?"

Layla snapped out of her revelry as a cold, awful panic filled her. My love, no! If the Order knows that, they'll hunt me down... oh God, you have no idea, do you my love? You've...! Nervously, she gave the Order mage a side-glance.

"Yeah, that's right," Galley replied. "Though I can only tell if they're close or not... she can actually do it through walls and give you the pin-point location."

"S-S-S-Says who?! Hahaha, my lov- my h... this... John! John is just joking, hahaha!"

Galley returned Layla's nervous glance. She wasn't laughing. "I can tell plenty just by the stink of you... especially with how you smell right now..."

Layla's blood froze... and grew a degree colder when Galley finally gave her a smirk.

"Good," John continued, oblivious to their exchange, "I need you both to listen to me very carefully, and do as I say."

"O-Of course!"

"Tsk. Why?"