Font Of Fertility Ch 28

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All Characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.

This story is a continuation of the Font of Fertility series. I suggest reading Chapter 1 if you have not already. This chapter includes only a bit of sexual reference, but lots of magic stuff.

Jeremiah has a long night of magical issues.

Returning Dramatis Personae

- Jeremiah 'Jerry' Grant - Seat of Fertility, aka. Powerful Sex Shaman

- Lauren Baxley - Public girlfriend, Jerry's Prime in the magic world, closest friend and confidant

- Leandro de la Roca - Spanish Paladín of the Orden de la Espada de Piedra, protector of the Stone Sword

- Lindsey Baxley - Girlfriend/Concubine, Lauren's step-sister via marriage, girl-genius

- Stacey Wilde - Girlfriend/Concubine, godchild of Jerry's parents, athletic

- Esmerelda - Seat of Death, aka. Powerful Death Wizard, second-youngest Seat, weirdo

Referenced Characters

- Ayoub Nicali - Former Seat of Life and skilled warrior, his seat is currently empty. Died mysteriously.

- Benji - Jerry's guy friend from high school, the one with the attitude

- Ezekiel - Former Seat of Fertility, his death caused Jeremiah's ascension

- Gao - An ancient bladesmith, either an Ascended or potentially even a Seat, who crafted the 'demon blades.'

- Houdini - The famous magician, who was mundane. Attempted to gain the secrets of magic from Esmerelda but was rebuffed.

- Jay - Jerry's best guy friend from high school

- Ndia - Eldest Seat of Fertility, aka. The Most Powerful Sex Shaman

- Poi Fung - Former Seat of Death, occupied Esmerelda's seat before his death

- Uwe - Seat of Death, aka. Powerful Death Wizard, second-eldest

- Xi Zuang - Seat of Life, aka. Powerful Experience Wizard

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For a night that was supposed to be relatively quiet, just breaking in the penthouse with my girls, things had gotten out of hand really quickly.

"I still think I should come," Lauren said. I was busy getting dressed out of the tiny duffel bag worth of my own luggage that I'd brought on the 'move Lindsey and Stacey back to school' road trip. At some point, I would need to start getting more clothes to keep in the penthouse for when I teleportaled in, but that hadn't exactly been a priority yet.

"Most other situations, I would agree," I said as I pulled on a pair of jeans and started looking for my belt. "Lauren, I don't ever want you to feel like I'm cutting you out of things, but Esmerelda sounded

pissed

and I'd rather not risk any of you as collateral damage. And my magic levels aren't- I need to be able to be as quick as possible if I'm going to reduce the amount of magic I expend if things go poorly."

"Do you honestly think Esemerelda would turn on you that quickly?" Lauren asked. "She was willing to be friendly...ish."

"I don't know," I said, feeling the exasperation in my voice. "I just don't know. I wouldn't have thought so, but she

was

a little emotionally unstable at the dinner, and someone had to have put that shadow thing on me. What if it was, like, her pet? What if I just kicked her dog and locked it in a cage?"

Lauren grimaced and sighed, coming over as I was feeding my belt through the loops and taking it from me, doing it up herself before looking into my eyes. "Don't let her push you around, but be apologetic if that's the case. It

is

her fault if she did that though. You couldn't have known."

"I know," I said, taking a breath and then kissing her. "I need to go. Hell, she might have been the one who made the ghost ninjas to begin with and

that

is what she's pissed about."

"Really doesn't seem like her style," Lauren grimaced. I already knew that her guess was Xi Zuang, the creepy Life Seat that we hadn't really interacted with. He was high on my list as well, but the fact that they were

ghosts

made it feel like a Death Seat thing, so Uwe was high up there too. His territory was anchored in the UK as far as I understood, and they'd had their fingers in East Asia as much as the US had during the 20th century, so it was possible he'd imported some ninja skulls or something.

"I know, but we're still trying to piece things together," I said. "They've all been working around each other for centuries. If it isn't Esmerelda hunting Leandro, then she probably knows who it could be."

Lauren kissed me again, tugging a little on the front of the sweater I had put on. I wasn't sure how else I could reassure her, so I just kissed her back and tried to play it off by giving her butt a squeeze. That made her smirk a little into our kiss.

Back out in the main living room, Stacey and Lindsey were busy. Lindsey was taking pictures of the Stone Sword with her phone in the kitchen, using the greater lighting to help illuminate whatever tiny runes she was finding. Anything she could start piecing together about it could be important - the fact that it really did seem to be made of stone but

felt

like a black hole when I was attuned with the Rod of Ash and Hew was concerning. Stacey, meanwhile, was using sticky notes to flag all the damage that had been done during the fight. When the ghost ninjas burst in through the windows and I'd stopped the glass from splashing the entire room I'd done a decent amount of damage to the furniture and floors - fixing specific things, instead of generally 'fixing the room,' would reduce the magical cost even if it took longer.

Leandro, meanwhile, looked like he was on edge and alert for another attack. He was sitting on one of the stools near the kitchen island, perched on the edge, his eyes travelling across the large window wall that looked out over the city. The fact that the knife block was positioned near him, rather than back on the counter, wasn't lost on me - I'd turned his sword into a spirit prison, and his other sword could split continents based on legends, so he was currently without a proper defensive weapon.

"Alright, I've only got a minute or two before we're supposed to meet," I said. "Did you figure anything out, Linds?"

"These are a completely different style than the stuff from the skulls, the Rod, and the Sanctum," Lindsey said. "It's like completely different languages and alphabets, and I've got zero in the way of reference materials."

"OK, thanks for trying," I said. "Stace, any thoughts?"

"Tell Esmerelda if she's pissed she should try trusting you instead of doing things behind your back," Stacey said.

"We don't know if she did," I said.

"Oh, please, Jeremiah," Stacey sighed. "She's either behind the ninjas, or the shadow thing, or both. That's the only way she would know what happened so fast. And my money is on the shadow thing."

I nodded and pinched the bridge of my nose for a moment as I thought. Having multiple highly intelligent, opinionated girlfriends was great right up until they all started thinking on the same wavelength. "Alright," I decided to just agree rather than hash out my other theories with the time crunch. "Leandro - you've still got my Sanctuary, but I swear to whatever deity or higher power your Order believes in, if you do anything to piss off these three I'll turn you inside out and then ship you snail mail to whoever is hunting you. Preserved in salt."

"OK, a bit much," Lauren said as she gave me a look.

I let out a breath, knowing she was right, but Leandro beat me to the punch. "I understand what you mean, Lor- Jeremiah," he said, catching himself before calling me 'Lord Seat' again. "I swear not to abuse the hospitality of your home or household, and will give my life for them if necessary."

"Thank you," I said, then glanced at Lauren again. She nodded, her jaw clenched. It was time. Still, I felt uncomfortable leaving them when there could be another wave of ghost ninjas or something worse coming after Leandro. I went and tugged one of Stacey's sticky notes off of the couch and focused, putting a spell into it and then handing it to Lauren. "If there's an emergency, rip this and I'll know," I said.

"Did you just make me a medic alert button out of a sticky note?" Lauren snorted.

"Actually, that gives me an idea," Lindsey said, looking up from her notes in the kitchen. "But, uh, not for right now."

"Tear in case of emergency," Lauren said with a nod.

"I'll be back," I said to everyone, trying to reassure myself as much as them, and headed for the bedroom door. Then I stopped, pivoting on my heel. "Soon. I'll be back soon. I wasn't trying to make a pun."

All three of my girlfriends groaned, and I turned and grabbed the door handle for the bedroom. I was just forming the teleportal spell in my mind as I heard Leandro say, "I don't get it. What was the pun?"

- - - - -

With limited locations where I knew we'd both been, I ended up suggesting that Esmerelda and I meet up outside Ezekiel's Sanctum. I already knew that

she

knew where it was since she'd pretty much admitted to helping Ezekiel make it using the Rod. And considering how volatile she'd sounded, I wasn't exactly ready to meet her at the restaurant in Miami again.

It was still mid-afternoon on the island as I popped the seal on the old bunker top that was the first 'line of defence' for the Sanctum. I'd teleportaled in as usual and climbed my way out, not wanting to keep her waiting. Of course, once I was up and out, Esmerelda wasn't there yet. I closed the bunker hatch and took a breath, looking out across the side of the volcano and to the ocean. Every time I went out there, even during the awkward stuff with Jay and Benji, I was struck by how different it was from home. Beautiful, yeah, but it almost didn't feel real.

Pacing impatiently took me further from the bunker than I intended; the ridge went a good way but lacked any meaningful trees or super-tall shrubbery so it wasn't like I was going to miss her. The lower scrub brush was thick though, and I idly started to wonder if Hawaii had any poisonous snakes, or scorpions, or whatever else that could have been a danger hiding among the thick leaves and grass.

"Jeremiah," Esmerelda said, her voice thick with anger and edged in frustration.

I managed not to jump in surprise even though she appeared behind me out of what felt like thin air. Did she teleport in? Fly? Or had Ezekiel shown her teleportaling, or had she figured it out herself?

Turning, I came face to face with an Esmerelda that was somewhere between the one I'd met in the Council chamber space and the one we'd eaten with at dinner. She was dressed in casual clothing for a warm climate - a modest crop top that only revealed an inch or so above her belly button and high-waisted jeans - but her face was painted like a skull and her bad dye-job of pink was gone, replaced by the thick red.

"Esmerelda," I said. "Do you want to start, or should I?"

She sneered slightly, the facepaint twisting, and I wondered if she'd put a bit of magic into it to make it more menacing or emotive. "You killed a creation of mine," she said. "Start there."

"So I assume the thing in my shadow was from you, then?" I asked. "It's not dead, by the way."

Esmerelda glared daggers at me for another moment, then blinked and the anger drained from her face as if she'd rebooted to neutral. "If it's not dead, where is it?"

"It got caught up in a spirit trap I made," I said. "I had no idea it was there until the trap was already deployed. I assume either my runework or the silver I used has cut it off from you."

"Silver doesn't stop magic, it only enhances certain properties," Esmerelda said. "Has your Houdini truly begun piecing together rune work for you already? It's dangerous to play around with things you don't understand."

"That's neither here nor there at the moment," I said. "Look, Esmerelda, I had a judgement petitioner throw himself at my feet and beg for sanctuary because he was being pursued, and

after

I gave it to him my home was invaded by ghost ninjas with a Terminator complex. I'll just ask you straight up - did you-"

The crack and peel of thunder was deafening, and both Esmerelda and I were forced to wince away from it because of the sheer force and closeness. Lightning, on a clear day, would have been shocking enough. Having it hit about fifteen yards uphill from us was brain-dazzling and I instinctively touched my pool of power - first using it to reorient my senses and then keeping my mental hand in it, ready to cast.

"There you are!" Xi Zuang growled as he stepped

out

of the lightning bolt that had struck the rock and frozen in place. It was a blinding crease of light in the landscape, but it thankfully disappeared as soon as he had both feet on the ground. "Jeremiah Grant, you have meddled where you are not wanted. Esmerelda, you have no business here."

I backed away from both of them, edging towards the lip of the ridge. "So my first guess was right, then," I said. "It was

your

creatures that broke into my home and attempted to kill or injure people under my protection."

"You took in a fugitive of the council, you disrespectful whelp," Xi Zuang growled. His face was twisted into a sneering grimace, and he was dressed in what I could only think of as a Buddhist monk robe, but in all black. His body, more revealed than what I'd seen in the Council chamber, was chiselled, hard muscle that could only have been magically crafted. "You disrupt plans that were decided before-"

"Xi Zuang," Esmerelda boomed, her voice impossibly loud and deep as she rose to hover about a foot in the air, wind whipping around her as her eyes turned a black that sucked up light. "Do you think it's wise to simply attempt to dismiss me?"

Zuang, for his part, took his own couple of steps back, spreading us out into a triangle. His muscled arms flexed in irritation and I could see his fingers twitching like he was mentally preparing hand movements for a spell.

I felt

heavily

underprepared for a fight, especially with two other Seats in the open. The closest doorway was the Sanctum hatch and it was a good thirty yards uphill past Xi Zuang. He looked like he was prepared to unleash some sort of spell, though the only thing I had going for me in that regard was that he was now much more focused on Esmerelda than me.

Unfortunately, Esmerelda was starting to look more and more like some primal demigod writhing with power. Her hair and clothing were whipping around in a wind that I couldn't feel and those black eyes seemed to be growing without distending her face, sucking in the light enough that everything around us started to feel washed out and lacking colour.

I couldn't compete with either of them in a fight. That was just utterly true. I didn't have the magic reserves, and I didn't have the experience. Hell, they most likely both lived with defensive countermeasures already established while I felt fucking naked. Violence would be a

big

loss for me no matter which of them came out on top in the end. So I needed to do this some other way, and it wasn't like I could

charm

them into things, and I had no leverage to apply in the moment.

I really only had one card to play to get what I wanted, and at the moment what I wanted was to be left the fuck alone like the unwritten rules of the Council said I should be.

"Alright," I said, throwing up my hands in a flat 'stop' motion to both of them. "Hold on, don't start slinging spells for the sake of your overinflated egos."

Both of them looked at me and I regretted that last bit.

"Here's the way I'm seeing things," I said slowly, the weight of both of their attention on me. "This right here is my territory, as acknowledged by the entire Council. I

invited

Esmerelda here to talk, but I didn't invite you here, Zuang, and you definitely didn't send a friendly notice that you wanted to meet. So here's the fucking deal. I have proof that you have had creatures of your creation actively working in my territory, and not only that but they crashed into my home, threatened the lives of people in my household,

and

tried to kill someone that I had given temporary sanctuary." As I spoke my voice started to rise into an angry growl as my frustration and fear at what

could

have happened fed into my mini monologue. "So the way I see it, motherfucker, is that

you

have some apologising to do."

Esmerelda's black eyes narrowed slightly as she turned to watch Xi Zuang's response.

The Life Seat didn't seem to move, though I had a sense that something

shifted

and he went from an imminently aggressive stance to a guarded one. "You are a

child

, Jeremiah Grant," he spat. "You have no understanding about

what

the Council allows and doesn't allow."

"Except that he isn't

wrong

, even if he doesn't fully understand," Esmerelda said. "Do you admit that the creatures that invaded the home of a Seat of Fertility were your creations?"

"Do you think that I would purposefully break the Council peace?" Xi Zuang snarled. "And that

he

would be my first target?"

"I think the Peace was broken when Ayoub died, so

he

wouldn't be the first if that was you as well," Esmerelda said. Her voice had dimmed from the 'primal deity' state to her regular, sharp snarl of anger but she was still hovering slightly and her eyes still sucked in the light.

"I had nothing to do with Ayoub's death. He ended himself, just like Ezekiel, and Poi Fung before," Xi Zuang said, waving dismissively. "This has never been in question."

"Perhaps not

in

the Council," Esmerelda sneered. "But by those

on

the Council? You can't be so sure."

"How about we focus on the Now, and we can have another friendly chat like this about previous Seats some other time," I said sternly. "I know the centuries probably start to blend together, but the problem

here and now

is that whether you did it purposefully or not, since you are

clearly

the culprit."

Xi Zuang sneered. "If simple, mindless hunters broke into a protected sanctum in pursuit of their prey, it says more about your preparations than my hunters."

"Great," I said. "We have an admission of guilt! What the

fuck

makes you think that you have any right to send 'mindless hunters' into my territory without even a fucking heads up?"

"Hah," he laughed. "You think I feel

guilt

over this little spat?"

I had to work my jaw a bit as I raised my hands, trying to grasp the cultural, or historical, weirdness of talking with someone so

different

. "It's a fucking legal term, you out-of-touch loon. You admit that you are the person behind the attack. That's a great place to start since it's more than anyone has admitted about the

last

time I was attacked by a Seat. Now answer my fucking question."

"Those hunters predate your ascension, little Shaman," Xi Zuang sneered. "I set them on their mission, and they hunt. A mission approved by the council three centuries ago - the hunt for the Demon Blades of Gao."

"Yeah, great," I said. "I don't give a fuck that you all agreed to that mission before I was alive. They are your creatures doing shit in

my

territory."

"Do you honestly believe they are my only machinations on your continent? Or that I am alone in that?" Xi Zuang asked. "You are even more blind and pathetic than I thought. Ezekiel's territory was abandoned, thousands of Ascended were left without an authority to keep them in line and millions of human chattel were left spinning in a rut serving no one. My influence has kept your pathetic home in check since his death, and I have no doubt that others have been doing the same."

I couldn't help but wonder, amid the frustrations and big dog versus little dog shit, if I was marking modern historical changes. Ezekiel ends his extended life shortly after the end of the Cold War, and the US isn't in any wars. Then Xi Zuang, and any other interested Seats, start leaning in and the US gets stuck in the War on Terror and everything starts going to shit as China threatens to become the next world superpower.