Chapter 31
Even outside of the city, Illiana could taste the sour curdling in the magic that pulsed within. A week ago she’d have thought that to be normal. Now she knew better, that magic was stolen from the land that needed it. Closer the capital, the land scape was devoid of colors beside gray and rust brown. The magic here had to be unknotted or that would happen here.
Sleep pulled at her, traveling without starlight overhead was exhausting. Glitching got loud if she did it too often and her body’s humaniod frame was still a bit awkward overland. Still she’d made excellent time, reaching the city by mid afternoon. Cinder would be hours behind her. She couldn’t risk a nap though. The heat already itched at her mind and she might wake with it dominating her reason or worse, with Cinder’s scent in her nostrils.
Her body ached to create a den, to pull space around herself and bed down safely within it. Illiana knew that instinctual safety hid a lie. A lie she had to disarm before she allowed Cinder to get near her again.
The farmland surrounding the city provided little cover for a seven and a half foot tall feline woman were she to simply run up to the walls. Merely casting invisibility didn’t solve the problem either. Her stars shined through it. That was her sole illusion spell. Wait… she hadn’t learned any illusion spells. No she had, her glitch saber side supplied those, cast with her tentacles and without words. Yet experimenting with other illusion spells, revealed the same limitation. The best she could do was render her flesh self as a second starself and lessen its innate glow. The stars, the source of her power, refused to hidden. They shined on. Although nearly invisibly in direct sunglight. Possibly invisible to watchers on the city walls but farmer would see her spectral shape and panic. So she sent her starself streaming through the grain fields scouting for paths that around the farmers who tended the fields. While herflesh self stalked hip and elbow deep in the muddy irrigation ditches, lips curling with distaste as the water slowly inflitrated her fur. She bridged gaps with the soft <fzzst>, careful to wait ten minutes or so between glitches for the brusied space to recover. The farm workers were out in force, harvesting and weeding.
Illiana recognized the scent of Harvestia’s influence within the crops, far, far stronger than it had been back at the village or the country side. Curiosity compelled her taste the grain. Sweet with magic. These crops were mostly magic. That shouldn’t be. Bad things happened to humans who ingested too much magic. Like spontanious combustion or sudden petification bad. That was why when she “conjured meat” for the party as a treat, she was actually yoinking it from a butcher who tried to cheat her. Were people in the city eating this? Or was this for show because the soil had gone bad? Not that she’d put it past the empire to knowingly poison its own citizens.
She shook herself, not her problem. Excess magic in the humans would make them even more substitutable to the malistorm. The thoughts and possiblies whirled tantalizingly in her mind, distracting her so she bumbled into a farm hand trying to fix an irrigation gate. Illiana slapped his scream out of his mouth and sent him sprawling into the muck.
“Don’t you know its rude to scream at a goddess?” Illiana rumbled, letting his eyes pierce her invisablity. Her inner school child complained that should have been impossible but she did it anyway. Then carefully placed her muddy paw, claws extended on his scrawny chest. He stared up at her with the whites of his eyes visable all around, his dark irises. A scent of fear rose from his sweat along with sweetness tempted her nostrils. Too much magic was dangerious for humans but probably made them delicious to glitch sabers.
“Mercy! Please!” He pleaded.
“I’d rather not take the time to hide your body farmer.” Illiana said, an idea forming on what she could do with all that magic circulating in his blood stream. The farmer whimpered as she grinned. “So I will offer a boon for your silence.”
This felt familiar, she’d done this before, long ago but what did she promise? Something she could deliver? Or was it a trick. Half remembered spells flitted through her mind. Binding oaths? Transmutation spells.
“The power to fly perhaps?” She offered, “Strength beyond your kin? Or perhaps a way to really impress those in intimate encounters.” She reached down and squeezed him.
He gave a little grunt, yet greed flashed in his eyes.
“That. I’ll take that.” He gasped, “Nothing too obvious tho.”
Oh there was so much Illiana could do within that.
“Swear you will never speak of me.” Illiana said gripping his little manhood through his thin pants as her tentacles blossemed, and danced, weaving the geas.
“I swear. I swear on… My… Haa- HAWWW!” He brayed and kick as his cock and balls swelled. Growing until the bulged against the fabric covering his crotch. Illiana cut off his braying with a paw.
“Carefully now, if you start that you won’t be able to stop. Calm down. Nod if you’re calm.” Illiana said, her tail tip twitched with delight. Doing Faustian bargains was so much fun!
He struggle a little, Illiana gently urged him to calm down. Eventually he nodded.
“Good. I’m going to let you go now, so you can inspect your goods. I’d advise against opening your mouth.” Illiana waited for a moment and after being met with no struggling or out cry lifted her handpaws from the man. He immediately scrambled up to his feet, splashing through muck. Ten feet away, out of swiping range he peeled open the wait of his pants and looked down. His eyes bugged once against as he took in the sight of a barrel shape shaft of a donkey’s dick sprang up. The tip nearly reached his belly button. His gaze rose to Illiana.
“That not- HaaaaW!” He clapped his hands over his mouth.
“Told you. Any attempt to speak of me, or to me for that matter will result in nothing more than a donkey’s bray. Bray three times in a row and the language of the donkeys is all you’ll ever speak again.” Iliana chuffed with amusement, “As for your partners, I think you’ll find them very accepting. Especially after a few more days.” Illiana giggled, a high mad thing. She really shouldn’t tell him things like that but what was he gonna do? He might turn into a donkey in front of witnesses but they’d need a mind wizard to figure out why. Good luck getting one of those snooty bastards to lower their nose enough to mind read a farm animal.
Purring and chuffing her contentment she honored the shaking farmer with a cheek rub, recast her invisablity and continued on. She reached the wall without any further discovery after scouting the nearest watch tower and finding it empty of any guards, she glitched up and treated herself to grand view of the city. She looked first to the imperal academy. A sprawling campus of iron rust brick and amber glow trees. The dean bid their group and several other less experiance explorers to find the Archmagus’s eye so to reinforce the academy’s seal. He’d promised them each an item from the university’s archives. The eye was a potent antimagical artifact, he probably wanted to use it act as a temporary seal while he and the professors of the academy repaired the seal. Probably an attempt to avoid asking the wizard guild for help which might demand more access to the city’s magical reservoir. Would Cinder and Barnaby deliver the eye? Or would Cinder consume it? It be easiest to release the magic during the repair attempt.
That would be secondary. The Academy had powerful magi yes, but they were the bookish types. Not the sort that would be siezing wand and rods at the rumor of a Gitch Saber prowling nearby. Those sort belonged to the Wizard’s Guild, the group that Illiana used to call home before they sold her out to the army and tried to pressure her into putting an obedience collar around her own neck. Her mane along her neck and shoulders rose at the memory while she stared at their alabaster tower. At its peak it flared out in a golden globe. Purple arcane fire burned from its roof. The torch of the empire, spreading light and flame in the empire’s name. It towered over the western half of the city, only the governer’s citidal in the center of the city stood higher.
There would be wards against her magic there but they’d be old, neglected things. Hopefully at least. She needed to disable them, otherwise there would be baby eating rats within her den. Her loins ached for Cinder. She’d have a plan on how to do this. If only she wasn’t so focused on saving someone who didn’t need saving. She, Illiana wanted to do this. When it came down to it Cinder had a do gooder complex nearly as large as Barnaby’s, just far more grounded and subtle. Illiana missed her so much.
Yet, this is how it always worked among the three of them. When something underhanded was required, it fell to Illiana, the child of privilege, not Cinder, the ex-burgler.
Cinder would help her finish the deed though. Be the knife in the back they needed. And Barnaby? He’d preach about justice but ultimately he’d helped bury a few bodies over the last year. A stinker indeed. Making Cinder cum on him had been so fun.
And that cock she’d grown… oh it made her entire body sing. Her tail flicked upward at the mere memory. Would she be strong enough to proper ally rut her tonight?
No, no no. Illiana cut off the thought. Wizard’s guild and their tower first! The heat was creeping up on her. She had to get moving before her sex got the better of her mind. Maybe holing up and releiving the pressure with paws and tentacles would be in order. The industrial district had plenty of hidey holes, not to mention a few friends who had an axe to grind against the Wizard’s guild.
Yes, a little grinding, maybe a nap. So long as Cinder didn’t find her first, she’d be fine. They’d be fine.
Gritting teeth, Illiana sent her starself over the wall and into the city, her flesh following with a soft <fzzst>.