Drow's Dilemma Ep. 125: Archmage

Author's Note:

A Drow's Dilemma began as a one-on-one roleplaying project and has been converted into a chapter-by-chapter format for weekly posting with the permission and assistance from my partner. It will contain a considerable amount of sexual themes such as femdom, lesbian, straight, 'reverse' rape, BDSM, group sex, romance, and other themes. The main goal of the story, however, is to tell an epic tale of adventures, gods and goddesses, fae, and nymphomaniacs. This episode and every episode to come will be available for free on Literotica for the foreseeable future. All characters that engage in sexual or suggestive situations are mentally and sexually mature: the human equivalent of 18 for their race.

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Episode 125: Archmage

Though clothes had no longer been needed inside the library once the party reached the exit two women needed to get dressed again. Both Ylene and Ashyr had equipment that made them look downright prudish compared to the rest of the people, though they were form-fitting and revealed quite a bit of cleavage and midriff. They might have chosen to go without to better fit the 'uniform' of the party but their gear was simply too important during battle for them to justify it.

"Image you, Ashyr, being the conservative member of the party!" Selene teased her older cousin. The mage hadn't bothered concealing her own nakedness beyond the jewelry she wore. It was just easier to be naked when she might have to engage in battle-sex at any given moment.

Caleldir groaned. Althaia certainly found it funny, though.

"It is weird, isn't it?" the ranger said, grinning. "Usually that's Caleldir's job. Now..." Well, now he was the most obscene. Ashyr chose not to finish that thought, though. There was plenty of time to tease him about it once the danger was over and he could be safely distracted by his embarrassment. There would be enough of that as it was for now.

A more serious (but not quite as serious as before Caleldir was cleansed) mood settled over the party once they passed the threshold of the still-corrupt portion of the Monastery (it was difficult to be entirely serious, considering Caleldir was with them and wearing one of them on his cock). They shuffled Althaia to lead the way and Dahlia to watch their backs with the rest of them in random order in the middle. Thus, they began the second and more difficult half of their objective.

"With things being this way," Caleldir nodded his head towards Nirza, who was attached to him. "I am not going to be of any help. Wouldn't it be better to just let the Neverborn hold me prisoner?"

"We have been through this," Faraia said with sad patience. "If you are taken, Dahlia and I will also be taken. And I think that Nirza might have some trouble maintaining her body without me and you here. So the party will be severely weakened."

"This is a pretty good way to travel," Nirza said. She pumped her hips up and down a few times, then spun around into a sort of doggy style position, her legs locked around Caleldir, facing forward. Experimentally, she pumped herself back and forth a few more times. "It is good to be weightless. Cannot phase through Caleldir, though. Probably not through Faraia or Dahlia either."

It was fortunate that at least Althaia was paying attention to the road ahead. The rest of the party was still getting used to the fact that there was a ghost on Caleldir's cock. The nymph interrupted the conversation. "Enemies ahead."

And, there were. Once more, some rather grotesquely mutated lizard-like monsters rushed in to attack.

Althaia was the first to engage the enemy, as would be expected. She took out a few of the lizards fairly quickly. Meanwhile, Faraia grabbed a number of them with her telekinesis and slammed them against the walls and floor.

The rest of the party leaped into action. The members that had been working together from the beginning had honed their coordination. In a pinch, they would be perfectly fine without Dahlia, Faraia, and Nirza to bolster their strength. In theory. In practice, it seemed worth it to keep Caleldir around despite his complaints.

This was made quite obvious with the actions of one member in particular: Dahlia. With sadistic, giggling glee she flew head-first at the nearest enemy combatant with nothing but wing, tail, and claw to rend flesh and break bones. For the time being, she was testing her current strength with only a few spells to buff herself. What better creatures to test herself on than the random fodder the Shifting Halls threw at them?

Nirza was having a bit more trouble, at least at first. Then she discovered that since she could fly and Caleldir was attached to her she could move him wherever she wanted to go without waiting on him to respond. It was not easy to summon the concentration to cast spells, but manageable.

The first wave of lizards - being utterly outmatched - was not a challenge to defeat. But as the party was cleaning up the last of them a large golem made of exposed bone, strands of stone, pulsing flesh, and fused iron trembled into the room. It was followed by another wave of lizards. Althaia gripped her blade and lunged for the golem but the damned thing turned out to be a spellcaster and opened a portal underneath her. The paladin fell through and vanished.

As the party's spellcasters pelted the golem most of their magic dissipated harmlessly into it. It was clear the party was in for quite a fight.

Initially, Dahlia didn't take the incoming golem very seriously. How hard could it be compared to those lizard things? She probably could have taken all of them by herself (which may have been overconfidence talking). But soon it became apparent that the strange, ugly thing was going to be much more of a problem. She bared her teeth in a feral grin of excitement.

For her part, Selene decided to fight fire with fire. Or, more accurately, rock with rock. The mage used her chunk of black opal to grow into her own golem form that she used on occasion. Her appearance, however, was almost nothing like the hideous rock and flesh. Her huge, vaguely feminine body shone with the natural inner fire of the material she was made of. But with beauty came strength that added to her magical and psionic abilities. With a contralto roar, she hurled herself at the golem.

Ashyr and Bard focused on the lizards that came with the golem.

Hadlyn continued to heal where she could. When that wasn't necessary, she tried her divine magicks against the big foe, hoping that it was only arcane and psionic magic that it was so resistant to. It was worth a try, but divine magic did not do much more than the other sources.

Still, the golem was much less of a threat now that the party switched tactics. It did attempt to portal away some of the party when they attacked, but was unsuccessful in getting rid of anyone Althaia. It almost got Abanonda twice but Faraia managed to pull the martial artist out of the portal just before she fell into it.

The acid from Ylene's stealthy blades and the collective physical assaults of the others did the trick. The golem was forced to focus most of its attention on Selene's improved form. Thus distracted, it was eventually worn down with a minimum of injuries. Still, when the golem finally fell apart, the party was left breathless and, for the moment, weakened. Althaia still had not found her way back yet.

Nirza gasped. "Damn, that is one hell of a way to fight." She swiveled her body around to embrace Caleldir again. "All of that movement... it really made concentration difficult."

"I do not think I did anything useful," Caleldir panted.

"Well, the party members that are only here because you are were very useful," Faraia pointed out with a slight, awkward smile.

"We should rest for a moment then continue," Abanonda said in a low voice. "Maybe have someone switch with Nirza."

"Rest would be wonderful," Selene agreed. Since the fighting concluded, she had returned to her true form and was sitting on the floor looking a bit haggard. There was a reason why she didn't whip out the form every chance she got; it was physically exhausting. At least it was better now that she had gone up in power, but she still didn't much feel like walking around for a while.

Hadlyn nodded. "Maybe it will give the Paladin a chance to come back to us. I really hope we don't have to go looking for her..."

"The paladin should be back soon enough," Abanonda remarked. "I noted that the portal that golem almost dropped me in was to a holding cell near here, and I really doubt that such a thing can hold Althaia. She has too much power at her disposal."

"Ah. Good." Hadlyn glanced between Caleldir, Nirza, and Selene. "As for who should 'ride' next, it should probably be Selene until we get to Birchborn's tower. I will be the least hindered by the connection, after all. Ritualistic coupling was my job, and I've had to endure much worse than Caleldir." The priestess chuckled. "Abyss, it might even help me concentrate more."

Nirza nodded when Hadlyn made her suggestion. "Technically, we are in Birchborn's Tower right now, but we have a few floors left. Anyway, Selene next."

"Sorry about this, Selene," Caleldir said ruefully.

The mage's lips twisted in an expression of ambivalence. As much as she loved coupling with Caleldir, she was still not sure how she liked traipsing all over the Monastery like that. It was incredibly undignified. "Fine, fine. You're right," Selene agreed reluctantly. With a put-upon sigh, she stood and walked over to Caleldir. Again she made a face when she realized that this also meant sharing space in the most alarmingly intimate manner with Nirza. "This is a really weird plan..." She grumbled before clenching her teeth and performing the switch. Her teeth didn't unclench until it was just her and Caleldir tangled together, with her facing him (she wasn't about to try to bend and flex as Nirza had.)

The rest of the party idly watched and rested. They were amused but decided against more teasing for their own various reasons. There was some snickering, however, from Ashyr.

It was then that Althaia strode in. "Fight is over, I see," she said ruefully. She caught sight of Selene on Caleldir and snickered a bit too. "What a bizarre plan. You know, technically I could probably still fight while riding Caleldir. At some point, I should get a turn."

"You are a bit on the tall side for that," Nirza commented. "Ylene would probably do better since she is so tiny. Easier to move around."

"Let us just move on," Caleldir said in an annoyed tone.

Despite her reservations, Selene found herself not entirely hating her position tied to Caleldir. He seemed much more annoyed about it than she did, in the end. It was just... comfortable to wrap her legs and arms around him, to share his warmth. And she didn't have to walk, which was a welcome change after that physical exertion of her golem form. It could have been better; she could have been carried around in a chair by four pretty humanoid specimens. That was incredibly unlikely to happen here.

"Ylene does seem like a more feasible option," Selene agreed. "She may even be able to do some fighting like that, though of course she wouldn't be as useful as she would be separate from Caleldir. If necessary, she can be used... er, if that's not too objectionable, darling."

The catfolk swallowed, and her grey face darkened. "Um. No that's fine," she said in an almost inaudible voice. The way she licked her lips in the next moment, however, suggested that that was more than fine. Everyone had recently gotten to 'ride' Caleldir except her (and Althaia) and she was beginning to get rather jealous.

Caleldir watched Ylene's expression carefully. So, the Catgirl did like the prospect. Yay. He had that to look forward to. He decided to say nothing for the moment, though, merely gripping Selene's rear a bit and walking on.

"Sorry, Althaia. I think they're right," Ashyr said with a crooked smirk. "We'll have a nice 'celebration' afterwards to make it up to you. Good to see you made it back, by the way. The party isn't the same without you." The last part was said with a genuine smile and an affectionate (mostly) sisterly caress down her back.

"I look forward to getting my chance after this mission, then," Althaia said mildly. "I would complain about my being passed over for the Caleldir-containment duty to be unfair, but I suppose that if we separate Faraia from Caleldra, then she never got a turn on Caleldir either. And neither did Dahlia, though she seems to be enjoying this whole thing too much to be pitied."

"I think that me being around in this situation is an unnecessary distraction," Caleldir groused. "We are in one of the most dangerous places on the Material Plane and the main topic is who should be having sex with me during fights."

"Well, to be fair, having sex with you during fights is making this place less dangerous," Nirza pointed out.

"More enemies incoming," Faraia said in a slightly resentful tone.

Indeed, as they ascended another floor, they ran right smack into another group of Birchborn's experiments. This time it seemed to be giant cyborg spiders infused with Elementals.

"Ah, these," Caleldir noted. "They will change their elemental composition depending on what you attack them with. They are only vulnerable to their opposite element. Physical attacks, unless elementally charged, will be useless. Normal magic along with their same-type element will heal them. Psionic attacks will work as normal. Except for the psionic ones, which function like the magical ones, except psionic."

"Lovely," Abanonda said. "Good thing I learned the arts of the Elemental Fist." With that, she swung into action followed by the rest of the party.

"My specialty is fire, but I can use whatever," Selene stated with a determined expression. "Everyone should pick a target and stick to that enemy. I don't want anyone messing up my rotation. Caleldir, try to get sort of in the middle of things so we can both fight," The mage yelled out as she singled out a target to hurl her spells at. It was the moment of truth, so to speak: could she concentrate enough to cast spells while every moment slid Caleldir's cock in and out of her?

Caleldir did not have much in the way of spells left at the moment, but he did have magic summoned weapons that he could use to distract enemies. Especially if he used his weapons with telekinesis rather than his hands. Fortunately, he was used to using telekinesis while having sex at this point.

Ashyr stuck near the attached couple to give them extra protection. Yin and Yang were well-suited for this sort of thing. Each was the opposite of the other, after all, and they were made to complement each other. Bard had elemental attacks too, but only one could be active at a time. He fought by his mistress, weaving his own claw and bite attacks into her rotation with the coordination only a ranger and her animal companion could achieve.

The Priestess chose to mostly forgo attacking the enemy directly, instead choosing to buff and heal the more effective elementalists in the party.

Ylene was the least useful in the party for this particular battle. She had a lot of physical and poison attacks that she could do on her own and the spells that Selene transferred to her from her own pool. As an experiment, she and Hadlyn attempted to combine their poison and holy ice spells to see if the holy water used in the spell counted as opposite to poison. It sort of worked.

All told, the bizarre elemental spider-things were a headache, but soon disposed of. And the party moved on up. Until they were attacked by more biomech golems, these ones being shape-changers that changed from one animal to the next, with each animal having a different set of powers.

After dealing with three more floors of enemies of similar caliber, much of the party was exhausted. They decided to take a rest in a sitting room full of creepy (but mostly harmless) paintings. "Did your Birchborn woman make all of those?" Althaia asked Caleldir. "They are very inefficient given how much work would have to go into them."

Caleldir thought for a moment. "Almost certainly. She was always building bizarre, overly complicated creatures in here. Then, suddenly, create something surpassingly efficient and elegant. Then it would be back to the bizarre."

Abanonda stretched. "So, we are nearing the summit where she will no doubt show up, right? Do we have any strategies to defeat her?"

Caleldir, Nirza, and Faraia shared a look with each other. "I am not sure how to do so, honestly," Caleldir confessed. "She is devastatingly powerful. Much more so than anything we have faced before - except maybe that flesh-dragon abomination that helped destroy Duskhaven."

"Well, we do have something that she wants," Faraia said in a soft voice. "She was always very sweet on her star apprentice. Jokingly but seriously tried to seduce him as far back as I can remember."

"That is true," Nirza agreed. "So, uh, seeing some other woman riding his cock into battle might make her mad. Or jealous."

"We only need to get her stationary long enough to force her mother's magical seed into her body," Althaia mused. "We could use Caleldir as bait for that."

"Yeah. That is a good idea." Nirza said sarcastically. "What will we do? Attach the seed to his dick so that when she rapes him it goes right into her pussy?"

"Well, that would purify her." Althaia shrugged.

Ashyr and Dahlia found Althaia's suggestion to be amusing, as was made clear by their snorting and giggling. Everything seemed to be revolving around Caleldir's dick. Well. More than usual.

"Except, if there is a not a woman attached to Caleldir the Neverborn can take him," Nirza added. "Even if that plan was not psychotic."

"Well..." Faraia said in a low voice. "The Neverborn cannot go near one of the Six Pillars while they are still active. If Birchborn is close to him, the Neverborn cannot take him."

Caleldir blinked. "Let us call that Plan C," He interjected. "Plan A being try to feed it to her through trickery or persuasion, and Plan B being to beat her down and force-feed it to her."

Selene was frowning hard. "If we go along with Althaia's plan, then it's very likely that we'll have to deal with Birchborn being a regular sexual partner of Caleldir. I know how it is with you old Deusterrans." She folded her arms beneath her breasts in a stubborn expression. She couldn't help glancing over to Faiara, who she had a feeling was going to be sticking around Caleldir for a very long time after this. "There's more than I would like hanging around him already. We have to do it another way. I vote just talking her down, catching her interest with something a bit less interesting. It must be possible." Her voice dropped to a grumble. "Not that I have much of a say here."

"Yes, technically I am the highest-ranking person here. Though Ashyr could also argue the case that she is in charge here. As can Althaia," Hadlyn observed. "As for my opinion on the matter of restraining Birchborn, I would rather not fight her. Both the talking and the sexual option are preferable."

Ashyr sighed and grinned. "Feeling jealous, Selene?" she asked with a teasing nudge. "But, since both you and Caleldir don't seem to like 'Plan C,' My vote is for Plan A: Trickery or Persuasion. If that doesn't work, then we'll fight."

Althaia shrugged. "I still think that getting Caleldir to have sex with Birchborn will be the best way to resolve this. I do not know how persuasive we can be talking to Birchborn when we have someone she wanted for herself running around with another woman on his cock. I mean, with her fae-blood she is unlikely to be completely possessive, but if she really wanted him..."