Welldark B1 Ch. 02

"How tall is that thing?" Arlethia was more impressed than me and it was a good question. Its plain design aside, it was pretty impressive, standing taller even than most spires in Hell. Satan's own palace, of course, eclipsed it by an enormous margin. That one was infernally out of proportion. That the Lord of Hell was a prideful show-off was basically a given.

"About 50 stories?" Willt guessed. "There seem to be two apartments per floor, judging by the balconies, and each apartment should hold ten people. You would need 100 apartments of ten people to hold all of the first and second semesters."

"I hope they change mattresses between owners," I added. Seemingly off-topic, since Willt gave me a confused glance at that comment.

Arlethia answered her boyfriend's confoundment quicker than I could. "Just think about it, you have usually one guy live with nine girls, all of us are young, we all know there is going to be harem building going on... there must be so much fucking going around..." she sounded a bit dreamy now, "...so many horny young things that could use a bit of a spanking..."

"Sometimes you and Karitas sound pretty similar," her boyfriend joked and got himself a small pinch in the sides in return. Then they kissed. With only me and his girlfriend around, Willt was less restrained.

The splitting road led us out of the dense forest and into an open space by the water, filled with only a few mansions. Mansion really was the proper word to describe them. Each of the sizable estates had their own garden and pool, something I only saw when passing by the metal gates that interrupted the walls. The pools weren't just of the small, 'let's have an excuse to make the girls wear bikinis' variety that barely more than a few people could hang out in. No, they were proper pools long enough to get some exercise in, with a shallow end to stand and a deep end to dive. They were tiled with dark grey, a bit brownish, stones that fit nicely with the houses behind them. The surrounding gardens were, although currently empty, just as expansive. Freshly mowed lawns with bare dirt in the healthy dark brown of fertile ground. Only one of the gardens we passed seemed like it was being used at the moment, decorative flowers covering the raw earth.

Although each mansion was built with its own little quirks and extras, all of them had a similar design. Much like the university building, I would have described it as gothic in theme. In addition to the same dark grey stones that had been used for the pool, much of the mansion was walled with black-purple bricks. The doorways and windows had that particular style of arches, rising fairly straight upwards and then bending inwards sharply, meeting in a fashion that reminded of a triangle with two curved sides.

"Let's see..." I followed the line drawn on my map. Although I would have preferred to pick the mansion myself, just for the sake of freedom, they all were about the same size and, consequently, each far too large for the three of us anyway. Looking at the map closely, there apparently were a total of six mansions. Between me, Aclysia, Esther and whoever had scored highest last semester, that meant almost all of them were occupied. 'I wonder what would happen if they ever had more winners than houses?' I thought.

The chances of that were basically null, since my situation had already been an exception. Logically speaking, at most there should have been four occupied at most at any given time. The two highest scoring students and the two people that won against them. The fifth was probably as far as a contingency as would ever be needed and the sixth just made extra sure all would be in order.

Pleasantly, the one assigned to me was the one closest to the regular dormitories. Although we had opted to take this first trip on foot, enjoying the new scenery and whatnot, it was nice to live just a little bit closer to the train station that got people back to the university. Also, I was looking forward to interacting with much of the student body, preferably the soft, squishy and feminine parts of it. If there was one drawback, it was that we still had to get back to the regular dormitories to get to the cafeteria there.

The gothic mansion, whose fence I opened by holding my Ashod against the lock, was surrounded by tall walls. With its L-shape, the building half-hugged around the pool, a nice veranda separating water and walls. I spied at least four different doors into the first floor and a winding staircase that led up directly to two stacked balconies on the second and third. In the outwards pointing corner of the mansion's angle was an octangular tower that reached a bit higher. It was way too small to be a proper living area but probably usable as a lookout.

"Unholy demonic father," Arlethia mumbled when we walked through the door, "It's even bigger on the inside!"

That wasn't factually correct, but it sure felt that way. Wooden floorboards greeted us, past the tiled entryway, with their oaken colour. Out of our shoes, we couldn't hear a single creak from the expertly crafted floor. The walls were painted with a nice, royal purple. The furniture was equally high-quality and lacked any touch of personality. It just stood around, clean and brand new. Empty picture frames adorned the wall. Whoever had lived here before, their marks had been effectively eliminated.

Exploring the house, we found multiples of everything. Multiple living rooms, two on the base floor, one on every other, one kitchen per floor, a total of seven bathrooms (two large enough to house bathtubs big enough for four people), hobby rooms that were basically empty, and bedrooms. As I wanted and expected it, the bedrooms were all sizable, with two beds that were large on their own and could easily be pushed together. There was even one bedroom on the base floor that was basically just one giant bed. It was large enough for about a dozen people to lay on without touching each other. I claimed that one as mine.

On my lonesome, it would enable me to roll around as much as I would like. Not that it would serve me a lot. I was a largely motionless back-sleeper. However,I did plan to fill that bedroom with other permanent residents over the coming months. Willt and Arlethia picked a different bedroom on the third floor, the one closest to the earlier mentioned balcony. It would put more than enough space between us to circumvent awkward noise complaints. Not that we had to be too afraid, the walls were thick.

"We better get our luggage soon," Willt reminded us, when we had finished our look around. It came in the middle of a conversation about what to do with all the empty rooms. Personally, I wanted somewhere to work out and somewhere to put the kinkier and larger toys, if I got any. Willt wanted a communion chamber. Arlethia had no suggestion on that front. "Or did they say they would bring it right here?"

"Nope," I answered, having completely forgotten about the stuff I brought with me to Welldark. In my defence, basically everything I had taken along was spare uniforms, underwear and some sport's equipment. There was nothing in my possession that I was so attached to that I had wanted to take it with me here. "Guess we got to go to the actual building, huh?"

"Well, let's do that then, I want to have Mr. Firefluffles back!" Arlethia complained, blushing just that little bit. Even to good friends, talking about the fact that she was still cuddling with a plushie was a bit embarrassing. Didn't change the fact that she really wanted it back.

This was too easy a tease, even for me, so we headed back out without further commentary. I noticed that the dormitories of the lower ranks of Welldark weren't visible from here, the mansions were nowhere near tall enough to look over all the trees and see them. The distant palace of Golden Eagles, however, shimmering in the colour of the rare metal, was still in view. It was pronounced even, framed by the forest and underlined by the sea. 'You basically made it already, now keep at it,' this location seemed to tell me.

This whole island was designed with an admirable amount of purpose behind it. Under the light of the artificial sun, my eyes fell back on the mansion. With just the three of us, it would be really empty.

'I wonder how I can gather some lovely ladies as quickly as possible,' I thought and subsequently had a brilliant idea.

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The crowd of people around the luggage distribution was as dense as could be expected. People stood shoulder to shoulder in an effort to get towards the large trucks that were loaded with their stuff. As much as I felt like a sardine in a tin can, it had to be said that things were moving rather quickly. After only about ten minutes of waiting, me, Willt and Arlethia had made it to the front. Showing our identification to one of the two dozen workers had him quickly vanish inside the storage of one of the trucks and, one by one, hand us what we had left with them earlier in the day.

In my case, I was given a light backpack that wasn't even completely filled up. Willt and Arlethia, however, had not only backpacks that looked like they were about to burst but also a trolley and a shoulder bag - each. Them being so loaded increased the time it took us to fight our way back out of the crowd and to a less cramped spot on the plaza considerably.

"Don't you want to be a good guy and offer to take my stuff?" Arlethia tried to persuade me once we had left the crowd. Already, the seductive smile she threw on with those words came along with signs of minor exhaustion. Whatever was inside those bags must have been quite heavy to strain even that athletic and stacked redhead.

"Playing to my gentlemanly attributes, are you?" I asked in a teasing tone, stroking my chin like the bearded sages of days long past. Also of days happening somewhere else at that very moment. When dealing with dimensional travels, setting things as a current, past or future phenomenon was difficult. They also may have had tentacles or steady waterfalls instead of 'regular' beards.

Arlethia audibly blew air out of her nose, dropping any cute facade she had put on. "Sure, whatever you want to call it, are you doing it or not?" She held one bag out towards me as if she already knew the answer. Normally, I would have obliged her demand with some more teasing. I didn't mind the extra bit of weight and serving the ladies, even the taken ones, was just good manners. Not that I wouldn't have helped Willt, but I would have made more fun of him in the process. Dynamics were just different that way.

Sad as it was, there was an issue with me helping in this particular instance. My willingness to help hinged on me heading to the same location, or at least the same general direction. This was not, currently, the case. "I'll have to decline," I informed her and one of her eyebrows, a darker colour than her main hair, darted upwards.

Her suspicion reflected in her question, "What're you up to?"

"Can we discuss that later?" Willt wheezed. Physically inferior to both of us and equally as loaded as his girlfriend, the young warlock was buckling at the knees. "Or can we discuss it long enough that I can put this stuff down?"

"If you want to stay and watch me recruit new... I want to say roommates, but that isn't correct... roomsluts sounds a bit degrading... not that I would mind if they let me degrade them a little bit... or a little much..." I was trailing off, as I was prone to do. "Can you imagine, my dear friends, the beauty that is the female form, obscured by naught but an apron? What greater way to see the life-giving first meal of the day prepared could there be?"

"Stop!" Arlethia dropped the bag and it hit the floor with a loud 'thud', accompanied by a cloud of sulfuric yellow spreading out like a layer of thick dust disturbed by a stomping boot. It dissipated within moments. "So you want to recruit some room..." she also struggled to feminize the term, "...ladies. How are you going to do that, exactly?"

"Watch and learn, my dearest frenemy!" I announced and closed my eyes. I concentrated, imagined shapes, textures and directed my Astral Capacity to flow into the mental mould I had prepared. What I attempted to create wasn't among the usual list of items. Thus, it required greater concentration and time.

Shaping raw Astral Capacity wasn't easy. I was taking a magical force and using it to create physical shapes without converting it into an actual physical thing. In theory, it would have been easier to make the things I wanted by making them out of ice. I had neither experience in nor talent for ice magic, however, and was quite content with the gift I had towards gravity.

That aside, it wouldn't have been pleasant for the people if the items were made from something that cold and slippery. Ice could have been quicker, but my Artefact had its advantages in just about all other aspects.

'It would all be much easier if I had references for what I am creating here,' I thought. My Artefact's power, for all its perks, was limited in many ways. One of them was that making things on the basis of imagination alone was much harder than copying present items. Copying was accurate, relatively quick and overall painless. Even if I had never held Esther's weapon, I was able to make a copy of it that was largely accurate. Now that it was no longer in sight, I couldn't repeat that little trick. If I tried to, the shape would be mildly off and things like weight and texture completely subject to my memory. There were some things, like my gauntlets, that I had created so often that I no longer had to rely on that crutch.

A table with two stools was not something I had to create regularly, so it took me about a minute. Despite how simple they were at the face of it, making sure that all of the legs were of equal length did take quite the mental effort.

When they finally popped into existence, they had the usual look of things my Artefact created. Silver-white, half-translucent and with dots shining within, some interconnected like drawings of constellations. I could modify that look, but only to certain degrees and I usually didn't bother. In this particular case, the shiny appearance of the magical furniture could only help me with what I wanted.

Although the crowd had been steadily shrinking (most people left to deposit their luggage as soon as they got it) there was still a large student body whose attention I could grab. Several dozen out of the hundred or so people around turned their heads in my direction. Either they noticed the tables or they noticed people noticing the tables, as herd behaviour went. Willt and Arlethia immediately stepped away from me. The former, because he didn't want to deal with a lot of strangers, the latter because she wanted to get a really good view of the situation if I got humiliated. They were cute like that, with their individual quirks.

I jumped on the table to make myself stand out even more. Raising my voice, I addressed the crowd. All they had to do otherwise was chat, look at their screens and wait in line, so their interest was easily piqued. Everyone would have jumped on a distraction in their current situation.

"Hello all my lovely ladies... and to the guys as well, I suppose," I jokingly added that last part. "This message doesn't go out to you, so feel free to just carry along." The men didn't, I was just the best entertainment around right now. This could have been because of my dashingly good looks, intense charisma or because I was currently making a fool out of myself. I was very aware that I looked stupid, but that was a sacrifice that needed to be made sometimes.. "I am sure you recognize me from that fight earlier and I, Karitas, want to extend an offer to the ladies out there!"

I pulled some fresh air into my lungs, before continuing, "As you may be aware, I was given better housing than the rest of you. A wonderful mansion..." I let that word sink in. "... just across the forest, to be exact!" At this point, I could see the annoyed eye rolling of some of my jealous peers, who were realizing what I was doing here.

Nature was an unequal thing. Although they may have been better people than me, the fact that I was the highest status male of the first year hierarchy meant that I had a headstart when it came to flirting. Which was, in its own way, just. I had taken the risk and put in the work, now I got to make a potential profit from it. Finding lovers was strangely connected to success in other walks of life.

"It has a garden. It has a pool, and it has a lot of rooms. A lot of very empty rooms. So, if you want to come live in luxury with me and my friends," I gestured at them and Willt made himself as small as a lanky man could be. "Now is your opportunity! Just form a line if you are interested."

With that, I jumped down and took my seat on the stool, behind the narrow table, looking at the crowd and the large luggage trucks. It didn't take long for a small line of interested girls to appear in front of me. I mustered all of them closely.

Although I did act the part of the fool sometimes, and there were times I was actually an idiot, I was not naive. I knew perfectly well what kind of woman would be first and foremost be attracted to an announcement like this. Those that were attracted by a man because he flaunted his wealth, in whatever shape it may come.

Golddiggers.

There were those women that would never be interested in me, but only in my success. Thing was, not every golddigger was a cold-hearted and calculating bitch. Having an attraction towards the successful was only normal and a perfectly acceptable reason to get to know someone. If it was the sole reason someone stayed, that would be an issue. I was aiming to get to know some attractive and at least mildly perverted ladies that could love me just as much as I could love them. There was no other way to do that then to just talk to a whole lot of them. I just had to separate the genuine ones from those that were rotten under the surface.

Problem was that a lot of women (well, people in general) were pretty good at hiding their true selves. Plan was to just entangle all of the women in small talk and maybe, kinda, sorta, hopefully find it out on the way. If they were any good at it, they wouldn't let the mask slip in the first conversation, but that was a risk I had to take. At least testing for the desired level of perversion was, relatively, easy and straightforward.

First in line was an elf. Given the many sub-species of elf that existed, that deserved further clarification. She had brown skin of a milk chocolate shade. That, combined with the shape of her body, identified her as a wood elf. She was tall and athletic, with a body so clearly weighted towards the bottom it almost made me drool imagining her bend over the table between us. She had the kind of thighs that men would ask to die between, thick, toned and smooth. Having them around my head, my hands on her chocolate bubble butt, that was a dream in which I knew exactly what I would be doing.

With all of the wonderful things that could be said about her bottom half, her chest was rather mediocre. I was a connoisseur of all sizes, the important thing about breasts was mostly whether or not I got to touch them, but I had a preference for things in the upper C to lower E range. I liked having squish to work with and sizes to cup. Hers were, and this was my opinion as a layman who thought of bra sizes mostly as clear-cut categories, somewhere between B and C. Noticeable, certainly, but nothing outstanding to look at.

She sat down without asking or being offered the seat, employing a certainty in her movements that spoke of a certain kind of upbringing. Her long black hair swayed during the motions. It was equally wild and in good condition, with small tendrils of ivy braided into it. A single strand was decorated with black leaves instead of the fresh green that was normally expected of healthy plants.