TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 13

When she told Perra that she would end up being passed around between the men of Telsin if she gave in to her desires, she intentionally left out that her comment came from experience. During her schooling, she had finally broken down and approached another initiate named Yoris for some relief. Her poor taste in men was in full effect and Yoris quickly began sharing her with his friends. The part that frightened her most was that she loved it. Sometimes just focusing on the memory of her ass and pussy being stretched as a cock bumped the back of her throat was all it took to make her cum.

Joris began taking money from his fellow initiates for the opportunity to use her, which was when one of the priests got wind of the situation. One night, Priest Ondeh came barging into the middle of a full-blown gangbang and dragged her out of the room, cum still dripping off her body and from various orifices as she tugged on his hand in an attempt to go back. Ondeh took her to his quarters and put her in his personal bath, the shock from the first blast of cold water sobering her quickly from her lust-filled haze. He scolded her thoroughly for prostituting herself in such a manner, telling her that he should just throw her out onto the street for such behavior. This was Elta's first knowledge that Yoris had been taking money and she told him as much.

Dismayed, Ondeh then lectured her on how such uncontrolled lust was dangerous as he knelt next to the tub and gently washed her down. Once finished with the bath, he toweled her off. She had expected the priest to want a turn with her body and had been looking forward to having something inside her again. To her surprise, he summoned an acolyte, a young blonde man by the name of Degen. When Ondeh's assistant arrived, the priest explained that from that point forward she would come to his quarters at night and allow Degen to sate her desires. She reluctantly agreed. She had become used to the constant stimulation and was not looking forward to reigning herself in.

At first, she was calling on the blonde man twice a day but eventually she began to calm down and regain some of her self-control. Her sessions with Degen were supervised by Ondeh, the priest often stroking himself as he watched them have sex but never joining in himself. He seemed to take particular pleasure in watching her sit upon the blonde's cock, taking it in her bottom as she faced away from the older man. She did find it curious that Degen often stayed after she had dressed and gone, still lying naked on the priest's bed as she closed the door behind her, but it was of little consequence. The age of initiates was widely varied and as long as both participants were of consenting age, such relationships between teacher and student were frowned upon but not forbidden.

Without long droughts between sex, she was able to focus more on learning and quickly rose to the rank of acolyte. Soon after, she was tapped for possible promotion to priestess in the near future. News of an incident near her hometown between an unknown entity and some knights led the church to accelerate her studies. Since the altercation had ended peacefully, if one disregarded the quiet grumblings that one of the knights had nearly died, the church chose her to establish a presence and keep an eye on things, citing her familiarity with the area and its people as reasons. Shortly after, a letter was received from Telsin's midwife stating that they would need to send someone to take her place soon. Suddenly, Elta now had to learn all about midwifing and delivering babies as well as her normal lessons.

Degen gave her heartfelt congratulations on her promotion to priestess, which meant a lot to her since he was still an acolyte. She had been worried that he would be resentful of her nearly meteoric rise in status. Had that been the case, he would have been joining a plethora of others. Many of those who joined the church around the same time were still initiates.

The night before she left to come back to Telsin was the only time she did anything with Ondeh. As she rode Degen on the priest's bed for the last time, she lubed up her bottom and asked the older man to take her that way as she held her cheeks apart in offering. After a moment's hesitation, he climbed onto the bed and slowly slipped inside his former student's rear.

Elta reveled in the feeling of being so full once again, the last time being when Ondeh had rescued her. She made love to them for as long as they would let her, saying goodbye and thank you to the men who had made it possible for her to come so far so quickly but had never become more than friends and mentors.

That was also the last time she had sex.

Much as she wanted to let the tanner's boy have his way with her, shadows of what Yoris did both haunted and enticed her. At the moment, Kal was not helping things either. Despite being a wizard and therefore her enemy, though the thought lacked the conviction it held just a few weeks ago, here was a man who could discreetly take care of her desires. As Ghoss set her down, she was really wishing that Perra had never mentioned how he had a way with women.

As they reached the bottom of the narrow valley, Kal still had quite a bit of speed and angled himself upward to avoid running into the incline on the other side. He gained a fair amount of height before slowing enough to activate the feather fall rune and come to a gentle landing on the northern slope. Turning around, he saw Kuto circling and coming to rest not far from where Ghoss and Elta looked to be headed.

With the help of his strength and feather fall runes he hopped his way back down to the valley he'd just passed over, landing in front of the swallow before taking her face in his hands and pressing his lips to hers.

"What!?" Elta screeched as Kuto squawked into his mouth and flapped her wings in surprise.

"She deserved that," said Ghoss, chuckling.

"What? Why?" asked the cleric.

"Our scent has that effect on men," the hawk explained gesturing toward the bulge straining at the front of Kal's pants. "But our kiss holds the antidote."

A few seconds passed and Kuto settled down, leaning into the mage and wrapping her wings around him.

"Umm, how long does it take to have an effect."

Ghoss was glaring at the two still in a lip-lock. "Not this long."

Kal finally released the harpy and affixed her with a stern stare. "No teasing on the way back. Got it?"

Kuto giggled with a dopey grin on her face, saying, "Okay," but with significant reluctance. That kiss wasn't a very convincing deterrent.

He shooed the harpies away and put a fair distance between himself and the cleric.

Elta pulled out the small white rod and pressed the button on it, causing the leather straps to sprout from the end. Continuing to hold the button, the straps detached from the rod, slithering down one another before reconnecting to the end of another strap. Four of the longer strips of leather formed before they each split down the middle and exploded into a flurry of motion, twisting around one another into a type of braid that Kal had never seen before.

"Perra said that I shouldn't hold back, and I should treat you like someone who is actually trying to kill me," Elta called out. "My only restrictions are that I can't kill you and I can't do more damage than I can fix." She leveled a fierce grin at him, "My healing spells are very effective, I can fix a lot of damage."

Kal swallowed hard, the thought crossing his mind that this might have been a bad idea. Taking a steadying breath, he nodded to the cleric.

Throwing a hand out in front of her, a magic circle appeared in front of it. Kal summoned his shield and held it in front of him, waiting for whatever attack she was about to throw at him. Instead, he blinked rapidly in confusion as magic swirled around him and he suddenly felt mildly nauseous. His thoughts became hazy, not enough to stop him from functioning but the change was noticeable. He quickly noticed his movements felt clumsy and imprecise, as though his body didn't quite want to listen to him, and he felt just a tiny bit weaker than a few moments ago. The mage watched as Elta then cast an inverted form of the spell on herself. This didn't bode well.

He suddenly wondered why he had put so much distance between them as he was woefully deficient when it came to ranged spells. The shield disappeared as Kal made a motion as if drawing a bow. A small purple rune lit up on one of his bracers as a similar colored bolt of energy formed between his hands. The magical missile spell that Ikuno used could be directed according to the caster's will, seeking out targets or even combining a number of the balls to create a single more powerful strike. The runed version Kal used was not so versatile. He could make small corrections to the spell's path but it mostly just went straight forward. Drawing from years of experience hunting in the forest around his home, Kal had chosen to change the shape of the spell and use a method of aiming he was most familiar with. It also drastically increased the potential to pierce its target and the mage consciously rounded the tip of the projectile before loosing it toward the cleric.

He need not have worried, the arrow crashed harmlessly against the cleric's staff in a spray of sparks that barely made the woman flinch. Worse yet, he almost missed her anyway, whatever spell she cast first was still affecting him. He went to ready another arrow but had barely gotten his hands into position before having to summon his shield and duck behind it again. This time a ray of blinding light hammered into it, numbing his arm and making the shield vibrate with the strain of holding back the onslaught.

Kal only had a moment to react once the ray had stopped as he felt warmth coming from below him. Throwing himself to the side, the trailing edge of his cloak caught fire as a small column of flame erupted where he had been standing a moment before.

It was clear that he was outmatched at range and the mage's speed rune came to life as he darted toward the cleric.

Anticipating this, Elta finished casting another spell just as he began to move. Kal's eyes widened as half of a gray transparent bubble formed on the ground just in front of the cleric that took up most of the space in between them. With his current speed he couldn't stop in time to keep from entering the half-sphere. His strength rune came to life as he went to jump over the magic dome, but one foot was already inside the field and only one leg gained the enhanced strength. This sent him sailing through the air just inside the bubble. He reached out to the feather fall rune to soften his landing and it was though the rune didn't exist. Ahead of him the cleric had stepped one foot inside the area and planted her staff in the ground approximately where he was about to land, pointing it at him.

Kal flared out his cloak and twisted his body, the end of the staff glancing off his ribs just before he hit the ground, hard. The mage felt more than heard the woman lift the staff to bring it down upon his prone body. Twisting around, he swept the cleric's legs from under her just as the staff came down on his gut. It hurt, but his counterattack stole most of its strength.

While still gasping for breath from hitting the ground so hard, the mage stumbled to his feet. It was little consolation that the fogginess in his mind had cleared and he seemed to have full control of his body once again. Throwing himself out of the dome, he was surprised to find that his healing rune was already lit and working, something he hadn't expected with the failure to activate his runes while inside. Looking over, he saw that Elta had rolled over to get away from him and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. Seeing he was standing and healing himself, she summoned a circle and pressed it to her chest, disappearing as she sank into the stone beneath them.

He looked in surprise at the place Elta had been moments before. Filling himself with magic he could plainly see the shape of her body just below the surface with his glowing eyes. Rubbing his side where her staff had caught him, he smirked. Using geomancy, he outlined the area of rock containing the cleric then took hold of the magic cables and lifted with the help of the strength rune. Kal had expected her to just pop back up where she sunk into the stone. Instead, the spell forcefully ejected her from the side of the slab he just raised, sending her skidding away from him as she shrieked in pain.

Believing the match was over, the mage stepped toward her but was caught up short by the shimmering multi-colored spell the cleric was holding out towards him. His body froze in place, his legs coming together and arms locking to his sides. Unlike what happened with Sera, he was still able to breathe and move his head a little, he just couldn't move his arms and legs or speak.

Elta slowly got up, her expression a snarl. Kal saw bruises already forming on her face and arms and she had scrapes and cuts in numerous places from sliding along the rocky ground. Once the holding spell took effect and vanished a healing spell followed it. This one was much larger than others he had seen, with a number of extra rings around the outside. Pressing it to her chest, the cuts and bruises vanished in a fraction of a second.

The strangeness of the mage's glowing eyes only faintly registered as she launched into her next spell. Like with the greater healing she just cast, this one too started out looking familiar but quickly grew as more rings were added to the circle. Elta had only used the spell one time in practice and it hadn't seemed nearly as powerful as it now felt. She also hadn't been pissed as hell from being thrown out of her stone meld and bounced along the ground that time either. She reveled in so much of the goddess's power flowing through her just before activating the spell.

Her eyes widened in horror as the magic coalesced and she realized what she had done.

There had been no way for Kal to know what spell she was casting, but from what he could see it was big and had something to do with fire, judging by the glyph in the center.

'Uh oh,' he thought, looking up as much as the holding spell allowed and seeing the energy come together above him.

Elta watched impotently as a huge column of flame roared down onto the mage from above. The harpies both screamed in surprise, both from the magnitude of the spell and from believing that it had killed him. The next couple of seconds seemed like the longest of the cleric's life as she waited for the spell to end and see if there was anything even recognizable left of the man.

Her eyes became saucers as the jet of fire ended and revealed a very shocked Kal standing in the middle of a circle of charred rock. Some of the smaller pebbles still glowed dull orange from the intense heat.

Kal's eyes were just as wide as he slowly raised his hands above his head. The leather on his vambrace popped and crackled around the faintly glowing fire resistance rune as it smoldered.

"I give up."

---

"I'd like to copy down the rune for this spell if you will let me," Kal said around a full mouth as he chewed up a bite from the chicken leg in his hand. Once they were both healed up and their clothes had been mended, the cleric had decided it was close enough to noon for a meal. Moments later she had summoned food for them and the harpies out of thin air.

Kal was currently sitting with his legs crossed trying to eat. The sparrow sitting sideways in his lap was making things difficult but in a pleasant way as she used every opportunity to rub her leg or butt against the erection she had caused.

Elta shrugged "I doubt you can get it to work, manipulating energies is different from creating something from nothing."

"Still, I'd like to try. I just spent six days locked in stasis down in a cave. If I were to spend a significant amount of time somewhere like that, having a source of food and clean water would be extremely helpful." He also had an idea from watching how the magic moved as she cast the spell that the food was not as 'divinely created' as she believed. A number of magic tendrils had reached out, some of them going quite far away, and appeared to collect materials to make their food. Looking around the rocky valley, he couldn't see a trace of lichen or moss anywhere that the magic had touched. More disturbing was the lack of bugs in the area. However, he hadn't been paying attention beforehand, so he wasn't sure if it was the spell's fault or the area was just that barren.

The cleric laughed. "Of all the spells I used today you are asking me for the one that makes food. How typically male."

Kal smiled at her, "I'm asking for the one that I think you might actually let me have. Though I am extremely curious about how you shut down my runes inside that bubble. Not to mention why your staff didn't unravel when you put it in there."

Elta's eyes narrowed as she thought for a moment. "Ugh, I probably shouldn't tell you this. It's a magic suppression field. There's a more advanced spell that cancels out all magic in the area but after some ancient war, Lantaris began researching a way for lower-ranked priests and priestesses to be able to defend themselves from mages. Inside the sphere, low-level enchantments are dispelled, weak magic items revert to normal though stronger ones will still function, and the crystals you mages use have to be touched to access their power. From what I've heard, if a wizard is fighting a cleric and doesn't know about it beforehand, they rarely live long enough to tell anyone else.

"As far as my staff goes," she lifted it from where it was lying next to her and stood it on one end, "this is its base form. I've always readied it earlier because once inside the field it won't change form. Now that I've answered some of your questions, what is going on with your eyes?"

"To be honest, I don't know." He held up a hand to forestall the objection written plainly on her face. "It happens when I fill myself with magic. My thoughts become clearer and movements become sharper, I can sometimes even predict things a couple of seconds before they happen." It wasn't the truth, but he wasn't comfortable telling the woman he could see the flows of magic around him.

Elta seemed to know that he was hiding something but let it go. "I must say you are an interesting one, Kal. When we were training to fight wizards and such, it was never really taken into account that someone powerful enough to be a threat would be so young or be able to effectively attack us directly."

"I doubt there are many more like me out in the world, so it probably won't be much of an issue for other clerics. I have to say that I'm surprised they sent you back here. I'd imagine a priestess with your ability would be better put to use somewhere with more people. Don't be offended, but in all honesty I wasn't really expecting you to be such a challenging opponent after Perra... well."

"I'm not offended. I'd say that's a fair assessment, considering the circumstances. I was so enraged by Perra that I didn't see Dax or her pack come up from behind. If I had the chance to square off with them, I'm sure you can see that things would have turned out very different."

Kal nodded before looking down at the harpy sitting in his lap and mumbling, "Stop that."

Kuto looked up at him with an impish grin. She had decided that Kal's lap was the place she wanted to take her meal, flicking her tail feathers high and shaking her bottom at him before sitting sideways on his legs. Her small stature let Kal and Elta converse freely but had been subtly shifting and nudging Kal's crotch with her hip. As much as Kal was enjoying how it felt, it was becoming too much of a distraction.