126: Face To Face

“I am so, so sorry,” Eris muttered as she took up her spot on the floor. The blanket laid out to sit on was a nice comfort compared to what would have been cold stone, especially since she was nude except for the silver necklace she had yet to take off once since getting it.

“We understood what would be required in order to join, and are doing so voluntarily. You have no reason to be sorry for our decisions.” Konderlacht spoke with the same stoicity she usually held. “That being said, your being an Artificer does not exempt you from punishment. You will not elaborate on anything that transpired in the preparation of this event to anyone.”

Somehow, despite kneeling on the ground while completely naked with multiple thick ropes of white cum contrasting the dark skin of her face, Konderlacht looked just as intimidating as ever. Eris gulped and nodded. Dzhemehal, just to Eris’s right, readjusted the blanket beneath her bare knees.

“If I may say, I do find it fascinating how your abilities function. Your only intent for the random Lust effect of the new Key was something that could let other individuals join you in the projection effect, and it provided the solution on your very first attempt. It shows that if you have an idea of how you want something to work, your Lustful energy is incredibly capable of forming a way for that to happen via the enchantment.”

Eris tried not to look at the historian or the superintendent, or else she’d end up ogling them and making even more of a fool of herself. Instead, she kept her gaze to the gold-tipped, rounded marble structure about a foot tall, standing straight up and slowly tapering…

Dammit, Bailey was right. It really did look like a dildo.

Skeleton Key V2

Durability: 100%

A very well-made statuette designed to let perception cross insurmountable barriers. Imbued with the essence of Lust. Created by Eris Kadell. Made from white marble, silver, gold, alcohol and a neutricore antenna.

Once every twenty-four hours, when activated by the creator, the Skeleton Key V2 creates a sensor in any location the creator can clearly picture in their mind. This sensor lasts up to one hour. As long as this sensor exists, the Skeleton Key V2 will transmit the senses of sight, hearing, scent, taste and touch from the chosen location of the sensor to the creator.

Additional effect: Companion

When creating a sensor, the creator may choose any number of individuals within one meter that are nude and openly adorned with the creator’s ejaculatory fluids. An additional sensor is made at the selected location for each chosen individual.

Additional effect: Borrowed Time

When creating a sensor with the Skeleton Key, the creator may siphon magical energy from creatures or objects within a three-meter radius around them. Doing so allows the creator to transform the sensor into a projection of themselves for communication and distant influence. The projection lasts as long as magical energy continues to be siphoned.

Eris couldn’t help but direct her attention towards Konderlacht. Well, not the woman specifically, since she was nude and showing off the receiving end of the facial that Eris jerked onto both of the women’s faces. Instead, Eris stared at the superintendent’s knees.

“You didn’t have to join us, if this was too much,” Eris murmured. “Dzhemehal and I could have just done this by ourselves.”

“If we are to speak with Vojemala, I wish to make it incredibly clear that your safety is paramount above all else.” Konderlacht let out a terse breath. “If she asks you to do something that would put you in any kind of danger, it will be declined adamantly. On a similar note, you said that when you used the original key, you could become injured through your projection. I am here to serve as a guardian if need be and keep you safe, should the projections allow for such.”

“Do you have all of your items readily available?” Dzhemehal asked. Eris quickly glanced around her to the small trough set up in a semicircle, holding an assortment of simple knives, wooden hammers, and anything else that was small and fast to make. It may not have been charged ichryte crystals designed specifically to be used as magical storage, but they would serve well enough as sacrificial items. 

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Major Charlotte, is everything secure?” Konderlacht glanced over towards the door, where the bodyguard was standing. The brown curls under the green bandana bobbed as Charlotte nodded.

“Yes. The additional guards are still posted outside, the door is locked, and I have emergency medical supplies here in case any of you become injured.”

“Then let us begin,” Konderlacht stated, extending both of her hands forward but spread slightly. Dzhemehal took one of them, then extended her own other hand towards Eris as well. Eris took both, forming a triangular ring around the Key placed between all three of them. “Try and bring us to where you and Vojemala had your conversations.”

Eris closed her eyes, since it would be a lot easier to try and recall the appearance of the moonlit meadow pulsing with Vojemala’s heartbeat when she didn’t have to look at the cum-drizzled breasts of her principal and her history teacher. Or the way that Dzhemehal’s ass looked while idly sitting on the balls of her feet. Gods, it was huge-

Focus, Eris!

Eris shook the horny thoughts from her find and focused inwards. The dream meadow. Flowers of every shade, rolling gently over soft ground and interspaced with pale grass that drifted in the breeze. Darkness except for distant stars, no visible moon, and everything giving off that gentle thrum in rhythmic pulses to mimic the clenching of the organ buried in the old Artificer’s chest-

The breath suddenly wheezed from Eris’s lungs as if she were punched in the stomach, but there was no pain- merely a lack of oxygen so potent that it made her vision go dark. Eris took in a sharp gasp of breath, hearing more of the same on either side of her as two other women struggled to start breathing again. Glancing around, Eris could see that her vision didn’t go dark- the world did. No longer were they in a vaguely rainbow-tinted workshop. Instead, they were standing in a dim field of grass and flowers that were incredibly soft underfoot. A second later, a deep pulse vibrated through the ground. Then another. Then another.

Vojemala sat about twenty feet in front of them, nude, kneeling in the grass and facing them with her eyes open. There weren’t any pupils, nor any whites. They were simply pools of pink light that branched past the sockets into the complicated mess of her circulatory system which was aglow from beneath her skin. Eris could see the woman’s heart beating through her chest- a movement that was reflected in the world around them as everything vibrated in time with the beat.

Vojemala shifted slightly. It was only then that Eris realized no- Vojemala’s eyes weren’t really open. They were simply glowing through her closed eyelids. That was because when Vojemala actually opened her eyes, Eris felt a twinge in her chest of something she couldn’t properly explain. Not fear, but maybe respect? Looking into those eyes conveyed a feeling of power that Eris couldn’t understand. 

”Nu tomaela mo, id vaela.”

Glancing to her right, Eris saw Dzhemehal narrow her eyes. “I sense you, not see.”

“Do it,” Konderlacht said plainly. 

Eris nodded, then focused beyond this form of sense to feel around for something else. The tingle of magic around a body she wasn’t perceiving anymore. There, she could feel it; pricks of warmth radiating around a form in a way that she could tell was the arrangement of the workshop. Eris could feel the masses of small items filling the trough around her- magic waiting to be used. She could also feel a large amount of warmth bathing her chest from a necklace that she couldn’t look down and see right now, because this wasn’t her real body. Likewise, she could also feel a distinct shape of heat in front and to the left, exactly where Konderlacht would have been kneeling. The magic in the woman, also ready to be used. 

Eris ignored the woman and the necklace, focusing entirely on the small river of warmth in the semicircle around her. The only indication that anything even happened was when Vojemala visibly turned her head to glance at the two additional women. When she spoke, Eris simply looked at Dzhemehal- accidentally glancing down and catching an eyeful of bare backside cheek before she could lift her gaze back up.

“You aren’t opening the path. You want talk this, yes?” Dzhemehal translated seemingly effortlessly. Konderlacht cleared her throat.

“Tell her that we don’t need to open the path to talk. She will explain everything she needs to like this.”

Before Dzhemehal could say as much, Vojemala let out something that sounded like an annoyed grumble and then pointed towards her ear, where a simple stud of metal was pierced through the lobe. She spoke quickly, and Dzhemehal translated just as fast.

“I hear you good. I speak, but need path.”

“What do you need the path for?” Eris asked. “If you wanted to get out, then you could definitely do it yourself. That means you need the path for me to come here. Why?”

Vojemala sighed, then relaxed back into a more casual sitting position- still uncaring about any of their nudity or the fact that Eris’s two companions were both glazed in cum. Once again, Dzhemehal was on-point with immediate translations, doing so even as the old Artificer spoke and only staying a few words behind.

“You need path to move here. If you here, I give gift. I no give gift if you no here.”

“You want to give Eris something, but you can’t do it unless she’s here in person?” Konderlacht asked. Vojemala nodded.

“What do you want to give me?”

Eris stared down the old Artificer. Vojemala lifted one hand and opened it up to reveal a small metal object glinting in the pink light from her palm. An earring.

“I hear you, you hear me. Easy,” Dzhemehal translated as the Artificer spoke.

“Well, we have her for that, so the earring isn’t needed,” Eris said. “Anything else?”

“Yes, two,” Dzhemehal spoke as Vojemala responded. “I give information. Speak of important job. You do job, help world.”

“You want to tell me what I need to do in order to save the world,” Eris said.

“Yes. Important job. Very important. Only you. I give gift two to help important job.”

“What is your other gift?” Konderlacht asked.

“No give. Hope-” Dzhemehal paused. “Err… Eris no here. Need Eris here to give gift. Eris with future. Eris need future.”

“What do you mean Eris needs the future?” the superintendent asked. Vojemala shook her head, but Eris spoke up first.

“Future is ‘Azris’. She doesn’t mean that I need the future, she just means that I need Azris, the necklace.”

Vojemala gave a thumbs-up, then continued speaking indirectly through the translator.

“Eris be here with Azris, we sleep. I give gift. Power.”

Eris was able to piece it together quite easily. After all, when she didn’t have to keep the mental strain of trying to translate every word, it was pretty simple to actually pay attention to what was being said.

“You want to give me one of your skills.”

The woman nodded and continued.

“I give… I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” Dzhemehal narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t quite get that.”

Vojemala raised an eyebrow, but did as the historian asked. She even broke up the word into the core parts, based on how the Artificer seemed to split the word in half, and then half again.

“I give… important sight of hard future? Is that what you’re saying?”

Eris narrowed her eyes. Hard future? Eris remembered having to figure that one out. As for the first part…

“Visions of Fate?” Eris tried. Vojemala gave a nod, and continued speaking for Dzhemehal.

“Use gift, you see important. Past and future. Help you with important job. Find important job.”

“Using the skill will show me visions, either in the future or the past, and they are important for me to do what I need to do?”

Vojemala nodded. However, Konderlacht narrowed her eyes. “If you already have the skill, can’t you just tell her what she needs to learn by using it yourself and telling us what you see?”

Vojemala hesitated, and Eris immediately understood.

“She can’t.”

Both Konderlacht and Dzhemehal glanced to Eris. “Why not?”

“Because it’s a Vile skill,” Eris said. “And she isn’t able to use it while she’s stuck here.”

Both women turned back towards Vojemala, who gave a nod that was almost solemn.

“Gift. Bad gift, but important gift,” Vojemala/Dzhemehal said. “I see what I need see. Did what I need do. Important plan. Plan… broken? Eris fix?” 

This time, it was Dzhemehal who asked her own question. “You had a plan for everything, but something went wrong, and you need Eris to fix it?”

Vojemala nodded. “What went wrong?” Konderlacht asked, but Vojamala’s nod turned into a frustrated shrug. She spoke again, making the pink-haired historian her mouthpiece.

“Don’t know. Plan. In Eternities fifty years, Eris come help. Finish plan. Not fifty. Eris take four hundred years. Plan broken, don’t know why so long.”

Eris narrowed her eyes. “I definitely wasn’t born three hundred and fifty years ago.”

Vojemala frowned.

“Demeri chose too long. Choose after fifty. Didn’t choose. Why?”

“You really think we’d know why the dead goddess chose me three hundred and fifty years too late? You’re the one bringing me here- you’re supposed to know!” Eris glared. Vojemala threw both of her arms up in a clear gesture as she shouted back. However, her translations remained level since Dzhemehal didn’t raise her voice- which made an oddly humorous circumstance.

“Me don’t know. Me did me job. Wait fifty, greet you, speak how to do you job. Job good. Plan good. World good. Plan.”

Konderlacht went to rub the bridge of her nose, but Eris watched her hesitate when her fingers touched cum. Of course that had been projected with them. Regardless, Konderalcht let out a sigh.

“Okay, so you had a solid plan, and everything was supposed to happen a certain way, but then something went really, really wrong. Could it have been the Hollow that did it?”

Vojemala paused and narrowed her eyes.

“No understand.”

“The Hollow?” Eris tried. “You know, the magical plague taking over the world and corrupting everything it touches, the one I now have a skill specifically to get rid of by using the blood of the Seven?”

If there was a dictionary with the world ‘befuddled’, Eris was pretty sure she could open it to find a portrait of the pink-glowing woman’s face as the definition.

“Not Remnadu’um? Sky of fire? Kashna? World of ice?”

Eris furrowed her own brow. “Aren’t those the stages of Miknalor? No- that isn’t happening. The Hollow is a disease- the world rotting, because you trapped the Seven, right? You put each of the Seven in one of your ‘Eternities’, and now that’s causing the world to rot and die.”

Vojemala wrung her hands. ”Id. Id id id id…”

“No, no, no, no.” Dzhemehal translated. “No right. No stuck Seven. Move Seven. Miknalor happen, finish prophecy. Akkaru’um die, Miknalor end. Fifty years. Seven still life. You let go Seven, world fix, Miknalor no happen two time. Seven life, world life. Plan.”

“Well, ‘moving’ the Seven is still killing the world, so we need to let them go,” Konderlacht frowned. “Now you need to tell us how to bring them back.”

At that, Vojemala paused with a confused expression, looking at Eris.

“You already let go Alda, yes? Others same.”

“Uhh… we didn’t do anything yet. We figured she’s being held in the Obelisk, so we’re asking you how to get her out.”

Vojemala narrowed her eyes.

“You fall in Stream, Demeri give gift. In temple, fall and touch Einyerja. Eternity and Einyerja connected, Eternity reach you.”

“Uhh… what?” Eris raised an eyebrow. Furthermore, Dzhemehal narrowed her own eyes and addressed Vojemala directly. 

“Einyerja is the living statue familiar of Alda, but her body is in the Faldrune Chapel all the way over in Kelopa. We’re in Kavala, just outside Madaras.”

Vojemala seemed to do what was probably a little bit of geography in her head. Her brow furrowed further, and then she asked more questions. Instead of translating though, Dzhemehal answered them herself.

“No, Eris wasn’t born in the Faldrune Chapel, and she’s not the ‘groundskeeper’s daughter’. She was born on the west side of Kavala, and her mothers were a Syndicate soldier and a tailor.”

Vojemala rubbed her temples with her fingers with a long sigh that had enough stress in it to make a tectonic fault line slip. In fact, she could feel the buzzing pulses of the woman’s heartbeat throughout the world around them growing a little more rapid and potent.

“Okay, I don’t know about the two of you,” Eris shrugged, “but I’m gonna sit down for a little bit because this is obviously gonna take a while.”

Eris lowered herself down, the grass making a shockingly comfortable cushion beneath her bare bottom. As she did, Vojemala looked at her and asked something. Dzhemehal translated it as she herself took up a seat just off to the side.

“You no touch Einyerja, how reach-...” The pink haired woman faltered. “The complicated-sight of Eternity?”

“I think she means the Abstract of Eternity, where I got stuck in.”

“Ah, I understand.” She turned to the old Artificer. “Continue.”

She did, repeating herself for the translator to speak.

“You no touch Einyerja, how reach Abstract of Eternity?”

“Uhh… I kinda got flung in by a rain cloud in a bottle,” Eris said. Vojemala shook her head.

“No, how reach it? How reach through Stream to touch stone?”

Eris narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t have to reach through anything. It’s just sitting in the middle of the school.”

Vojemala was getting visibly frustrated. Or, well… more so.

“No, no, no. Wrong. Eternities in Stream, no Tonshlur. Touch connection to Alda, Eternity reach Tonshlur.”

“The Abstract of Eternity has been sitting just outside of Madaras for over four hundred years. The Syndicate’s been using it this entire time.”

Vojemala stared for a moment, let out a long, angry breath, then yelled out something that Eris didn’t need Dzhemehal to say was a swear of some kind. Then, the ancient woman threw herself back to lay on the grass and stare up at the sky. At least Dzhemehal kept translating.

“Wrong. Everything wrong. Not what I saw.”

After a moment of silence, Vojemala breathed out another sentence. One that made Dzhemehal narrow her eyes and say out loud with no small amount of hesitation.

“Tomorrow, bring Balzonest, Lymme and Pravala. I speak to them.”

When none of the modern women responded, Vojemala propped herself back up on her elbows to look them over with an expression as confused as her translated words.

“You let go them from Abstract of Eternity, yes?”

After a beat of silence, Konderlacht cleared her throat.

“After Eris accidentally entered the Obelisk and ended up in Pravala’s prison, Eris built a way for her and the others to escape that place. However, she was forced to use Control Trap: Alda Three to kill Pravala because the woman had gone completely insane and was a threat to everyone.”

Vojemala’s eye twitched.

“Others?”

This time, Eris answered.

“Well, the Abstract of Eternity only has like… two percent Durability left and if it gets destroyed, it might explode with the power to wipe the entire city off the map. We have no idea what to do with it, so nobody’s doing anything with it at all in case something goes wrong.”

For a long, long moment, Vojemala remained quiet. She slowly rose to her feet, nude body shining from the glowing pink veins under her skin. Calm. Collected. Composed. Except for the thrumming of her heartbeat through the world picking up pace.

“RRAAAAAAIIIIIIIIGHHHH!!!!”

Vojemala screamed, the entire meadow shuddering and quaking as she did. Konderlacht, who was still standing, got knocked off her feet entirely and Eris had to brace herself with both hands on the floor even though it didn’t help much. Meanwhile, the spare earring in Vojemala’s grip was thrown madly across the meadow, vanishing out of sight. Then, the woman dropped back down to her knees, burying her face in her hands in what was clearly her best attempt at avoiding a complete breakdown.

All three of the modern girls remained silent- Konderlacht having scrambled back to her feet and taken up a defensive stance. After many long seconds of silence broken up by the underlying heartbeat, Vojemala groaned into her palms.

“What did she say?” Eris asked Dzhemehal. The pink-haired woman narrowed her eyes.

“Reach my workshop, and down.”

Vojemala continued, with Dzhemehal maintaining an equal pace.

“Workshop have path down. Eris open path as Echo. Get…” Dzhemehal did a double take. “Get Kadu? Are you serious?”

Vojemala nodded and kept talking.

“Demeri give Eris gift, Demeri connect to Tonshlur. Kadu awaken. Kadu see past, see what wrong. See broken. Learn fix.”

Eris furrowed her brow. “Are you saying that because I became an Echo of the Oculus, Demeri’s dead pet raccoon came back to life, and we need to go find it so that it can tell us what the fuck went wrong with your plan to save the world?”

A moment of silence, and then a slow nod.

”Ad.”