Introduction To Mechanist Theory

The lecture hall was filled with the scratching of pen to paper as students rushed to keep up with semi-methodical ramblings of Rhea Vafi. Though she stood a slender 5'5", she commanded the front of the lecture hall with the confidence of a champion gladiator. Her simple black silk gown flowed down her body like an onyx waterfall, pooling onto the floor behind her as she paced. A gold chain of tight ringlets pulled the cloth together at her waist accentuating her hips.

Her bare feet stepped lightly across the cool marble flooring of the university lecture hall, one her alabaster skin tone, the other, black as her dress with a band of silver, copper, and gold woven into the skin at the ankle. The anklet created a stark contrast, between her foot and calf -- a demarcation between deep necrosis and the blush of health. Like all things she owned, Rhea wore the deformity proudly -- and elegantly.

It was in her highborn nature to lust for the finer things -- clothes, furniture, leisure partners. She yearned for -- demanded even -- the very best of all of it.

The city of Faros, for all its progressive civilities, still had an aristocracy. And Rhea took advantage of that privilege like a wolf to the throat. It was this privilege that produced her education, then her advancements in artifice, which led to a further increase in her wealth, which led her here.

Lampras University was the heart of the "Shining City" of Faros. Scholars of the softer sciences like sociology, psychology, politics and the like were held in high regard, if not equally, to the hard sciences such as chemistry, physics and geology. But none gave the university such esteem as the high sciences -- magic.

Evocation, necromancy, abjuration, conjuration and many more were held by the school in the highest tiers of respect. Even though high sciences were old and archaic, using science and mathematics to better categorize and advance the ancient rituals of their ancestors had become a trend in the last hundred years or so, advancing the practice beyond mortal imagination.

Rhea was the first real Artificer to make advancements in the field of Mechanism. To make magical items before her work was in truth a mix of ritual, superstition and blind hope -- all things that Rhea despised.

The creation of her first automaton proved to the world that artifice was not reliant on faith or superstition or hope. Instead, it was intelligence, hard work and wealth -- the last of which was probably the most important. This is why Rhea stood before this eclectic group of students of all ages, ancestries and backgrounds. In return for an exorbitant sum of resources, the university and the city's high council asked that she make artifice and Mechanism more accessible to the student body. This was the impetus for what they called "the basics" of artifice. Rhea insisted it be called Introduction to Mechanist Theory.

Rhea detested almost all aspects of the profession of educator. Grading papers, dealing with educational politics and bureaucracy and even the students themselves. But the one thing she did gain satisfaction from was lecturing. There was something about passing knowledge onto others that moved her. Deeply, something inside her swelled at the notions of generations after her benefiting from her work, and here was a direct representation of that notion.

As she spoke, Rhea's train of thought wandered a few steps ahead of her lips and tongue, twisting them into a wry grin as she paused to find her place in the lecture.

"The core of Mechanism," she said, raising her voice above the incessant scratching, "states that the humanoid body -- or any fauna for that matter -- is a functioning machine filled with parts, each assigned a task, working in harmony to accomplish the purpose of the machine."

She paused, leaning gracefully against the marble table behind her. She rested her slender hands along the smooth edge of the stone, feeling its cool surface press into her flesh as she looked about the room. A hulking hunched figure caught her eye. His dark green skin nearly hid the array of tattoos that adorned him.

She lingered on him as she spoke, tracing his form with her gaze, yearning for his well-kept machine to press against hers as the sweat of their work dripped from them.

She arched her back, leaning further away as she languished in daydream even as she continued to speak. The tips of her breast stiffened, gently rubbing against her loose silk as she breathed deeply in the beginning moments of her lust. She squeezed her thighs together in anticipation, unconsciously rotating her hips in a single -- nearly imperceptible -- gyration.

She felt herself pause and gently bite her lip. She continued a vacant regurgitation of facts as her eyes began to peel the skin from the orc, revealing the deep red of his muscles as they tensed and relaxed as he wrote. Her mind wandered further as she pictured the orc, approaching -- wholly skinless -- and lifting her onto the stone table. His lower tusks jutting from his soft skinless lips pressed into her pale neck as his tongue lapped her near-marble white skin. She felt a rush of blood swim between her thighs as she imagined the tip of his swollen--

Wait.

No.

If he was skinless, it's possible he couldn't have an erection. She wasn't sure off the top of her head if the blood would burst from the organ's tissue if not contained by its encasing flesh.

This flash of logic snapped her back to the lecture hall as she filed the thought away for later. She wasn't sure how long it had been since she last spoke.

Realizing the eyes of a dozen students were all up from their notes and upon her, Rhea padded her way behind the stone table and slipped back into her sandals, feeling the toes of her right foot slip into their leather sheath. She glanced down to make sure the left foot made it into its destination, and indeed saw its blackened flesh glide into her dark-stained sandal.

"Mister," she said, trailing off as she quickly looked over her seating chart. "Tueglas," she said, intentionally mispronouncing it as "two-glass," instead of the open orcish "ah" sound. She'd rather be seen as culturally ignorant than as a sex-crazed hedonist wet at the very thought of one of her students ramming his--

"Yeah?" The orc's mouth hung softly agape as he realized she had called on him. She raised an eyebrow at his response. Arnak shook off the befuddlement and stiffened his back as he cleared his throat of the gravel that would have soaked Rhea's undergarments -- had she worn any that day. "Sorry. Yes. Professor. Professor Vari. Ma'am."

A streak of lightning burst from the tips of Rhea's nipples as electricity rippled down her body. She clenched her thighs at the word "ma'am," feeling the moisture beginning to slip from inside her.

He was such a good boy.

"Would you mind terribly standing and giving a bit of a demonstration?" She made sure to put bits of inflection into her highborn accent. She knew he liked that.

"Yeah," he said, only half realizing he shot straight up from his seat. "I mean, no, I don't mind Professor Vari." He now stood at his full frame, towering above the other students, especially over the halfling girl sitting beside him -- her stocky three-foot-four inches compared to his somewhere beyond seven feet.

She looked up briefly in awe but began to look anywhere else as she realized Mr. Tueglas' cock was already partially erect. Rhea's mouth became hungrily envious of the tableau.

As he turned to walk behind his row of fellow students, he adjusted himself as clandestinely as men of his age and uncontrollable anatomy often think they can -- which is hardly clandestine at all.

He wore a single stretch of cloth that hung from his shoulders, cinched at the middle by a leather belt -- a common fashion among athletes and soldiers. It stretched down only just above the knee, giving a free range of movement in the arms and legs, which for the most part were exposed. Arnak -- this was Mr. Tueglas' first name -- even wore a shortsword on his hip. He had most likely tucked his now hidden member into his belt, where she thought with no doubt it was now throbbing at its restraints.

"Come now Mr. Tueglas," she said, motioning down to the front of the lecture hall where she stood, doing her best to feign impatience. The tone of condescension sparked something in Arnak's brain, spurring him into a light jog down the deep set of steps from his third-row seat and by her side like an obedient pet now looking for his rewarding treat -- which would not come until later.

"Now Mr. Tueglas," she said, not looking at him but instead out into the audience. "You strike me as a bit of an athlete. Correct?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, giving a bit of a prideful smirk.

"Would you be so kind as to extend your right arm out to the side so that it is parallel with the floor, please?"

Arnak lifted out his left hand for a moment, then his right, getting it parallel with the floor as she'd asked. He was slow, but very good at taking direction.

"Now as you all can see, Mr. Tueglas' lack of body fat -- and considerable workout schedule -- gives us the opportunity to inspect his musculature and bone structure quite easily, without the use of post-mortem autopsy." A brief wave of low laughter swept the hall. "Mr. Teuglas, raise the fingertips of your right hand up to your cheek please, bending at the elbow and leaving your shoulder straight."

As Arnak began to move his fingers to his face, she gently danced her own fingers across his now constricting bicep. "As you can see, the muscle contracts to pull his forearm and allow his hand to move from out here to up here," She glided her fingers across his skin, just barely caressing him, "to up here."

She pictured his now throbbing cock trying to break free from the prison of his leather belt. She had to consciously stop herself from dropping to her knees so as to be the means of its escape.

"Now, Mr. Tuglass," she said, as she ducked under his bicep, taking in the musky scent of his day's activities. She pushed herself onto the cool of the table to be able to look over Arnak's now flexing bicep. "Did you say to yourself, 'I'm going to constrict my bicep, relax my tricep, and pull my forearm closer to my head and extend my fingers to my face?"

"Uh, nah," he said. "I just moved my hand to my face slowly like you told me to."

"And you did it so well, Mr. Tueglas." The class chuckled as she smiled at them. "But yes, you're right. You went to do what you wanted to do, and your body parts acted accordingly."

Rhea hopped down and stepped beside Arnak, letting her hand cup the top of his enormous bicep, which to her felt like patting a warm rock in the midday sun. "Now who can tell me what type of modern machinery would equate to Mr. Tuglas' formidable bicep here."

"Rope and pulley?" A slim elven man in his mid-200s -- looking like a good mid-30s for a human -- raised his hand. He put a question mark at the end of the sentence as he realized he was raising his hand. He lowered it quickly and ran it through his short-cropped brown hair. "Rope and pulley."

"A fine guess, but incorrect all the same," she said lightly. "No, now look here." She began to move Arnak's arm back and forth, contracting and relaxing his bicep, her other hand resting atop it. She could feel his blood pulse through the veins pressing through his dark green skin. For a brief moment, her knees weakened and she clenched his muscle to steady herself. "Do we see any ropes or pulleys?"

"What about a spring?" A gnomish girl in the front row piped up. "It looks like it's coiling up."

"Precisely!" Rhea slapped Arnak's bicep with an audible twack. "The muscles of most humanoids are, in fact, like a coiling spring. Expanding and retracting to create movement." Once again she moved Arnak's arm to and fro, feeling his warmth on her soft skin. She traced a finger over one of the bulging veins in view of the rest of the students. "And what about his veins? In an automaton, what acts as the vessel to bring life to all of its parts?"

"That'd be the wiring, eh?" A gruff dwarven voice bellowed from the front row. "The copper and silver moving the magic through it."

"Very good!" Rhea clapped out enthusiastically. "And what about the heart? Anyone? What pulses the magic through the veins of copper and silver to reach the coiled springs and bring our metal man to life?"

"The drakite!" The shy halfling girl nearly jumped from her seat as she answered.

"Yes!" Rhea let the girl's excitement sweep her up into the invigorating exercise of academia. Lost in the moment she stepped in front of Arnak and slammed her fist into his chest over his heart. He chuckled as it barely registered on him, and made her clutch the side of her hand in brief soreness. "And what about the brain?"

The students fell silent again, looking back and forth at one another.

"Ok let's talk it through." Rhea stepped forward and glanced about the room. Humans, halflings, elves, gnomes, orc and even a minotaur filled the hall for her Introduction to Mechanist Theory class.

It had been two years since the council had asked her to create the applied mechanist program at the college. This was the first time she had been teaching the general public instead of just hopeful artificers.

"What does a brain do?" she asked, looking about the hall.

"It holds all of our knowledge," one student said.

"And it tells our parts what to do," said another.

"Runes?" Arnak's brow was furrowed in heavy thought. "It's runes, right? Because the runes you carve on the machine tell it what it can and can't do. Like instructions or training. The more you need the machine to do, the more runes it takes. That's why Barty took you so long right?"

The class looked briefly confused, and Rhea shot Arnak a stern warning of a glance. The term he used for automaton was a touch too familiar for her liking. But the danger of their relationship's revelation certainly made her eager for his familiar touch.

"Ah yes," she said casually. "That's correct Mr. Tueglas. Bartholomew is my greatest work." She circled around Arnak, looking over him appraisingly as a humanoid specimen. "He is a fully functioning, self-governing automaton. His runes took over five years to calculate and nearly a year to engrave into his metal. Every single part of him is etched in runes. Creating his brain." Rhea turned to the class. "I think that's all for today. Class dismissed."

A gentle roar of applause erupted from the several dozen or so students. Arnak returned to his seat to collect his things. As they began to file out, Rhea raised her voice just a bit. "Oh Mr. Tueglas, we need to discuss your upcoming final." She turned and walked through the door at the front of the lecture hall leading into her office. After locking up the lecture hall's front door, Arnak approached with a confident swagger, knowing all too well they wouldn't be discussing the final -- or anything at all.

He reached his arms over his head, rested them on the top of the doorway, and stood filling it, stretching his body like a lazy, vertical cat. He blocked out nearly all the light trying to break through. The office was small and cramped to begin with, so adding him to the mix might be difficult for now. Instead, she let him stand there and without pretense dropped to her knees.

With deft fingers she unclasped his belt and dropped it to the floor with an echoing clatter of the shortsword, releasing his throbbing cock from its leather shackle. She brushed his tunic aside revealing the dark green head glistening with precum as she clutched it, pulsing in her hand. She ran her thumb across the tip of it, smearing the sticky moisture around, slickening her fingers before stroking her hand down the shaft.

"Fuck," was all Arnak could muster.

"You were a very good student today, Mr. Tueglas," she said, pronouncing it correctly this time. "You deserve a little extra attention today."

"Thank you -- ma'am," he stammered.

Her tongue slipped between her lips and licked out at the tip of his eagerly twitching cock head. It nearly engorged itself to meet her tongue in a kiss all their own. She tasted the salty-sweet precum that had formed and slid the head into her mouth. She let her own saliva now dripping from the corners of her mouth slide along the shaft as she took him inch by inch. When finally he pressed against the back of her throat, she slid him back out, just stopping before complete escape so as to allow his cockhead to remain in her hungry mouth. She swirled her tongue around the head again, making sure to suck hard. She heard Arnack's low grunt, feeling his cock swell in her mouth as it pulsed eagerly.

The shaft was now completely covered in their fluids. Her hand slid up and down, milking him from root to tip. She let her saliva-slicked right hand slide past the bottom of his shaft, cupping his heavy sack. She gently massaged it, almost feeling it fill even more with his eager load.

Her right hand returned to sliding the mix of their juices up and down Arnaks shaft, as her left had pushed back the bottom of her own robes. She slipped a finger inside herself, already soaked from the erotic academic foreplay in front of the class. She circled the tips of her fingers around the entrance, getting her fingers slick with excitement before pressing them into her clit.

As she danced her fingers, rhythmically in tune with her bobbing head and pumping arm, she felt herself like a humanoid pleasure machine, stroking, and sucking and circling. She began to pick up her paces, Arnak's cock pumping in and out of her hand and mouth, her fingers moving to her dripping hole while she left her thumb to rub her swollen nub furiously.

As she shoved two fingers into herself, she felt her lips and throat and grasp tighten around Arnak. She began to scream and moan onto his cock, sending vibrations over the head and shaft. She could feel his veins pumping and throbbing as she felt her own orgasm begin to swell.

Waves of pleasure rolled over her as her fingers slammed into her drenched pussy and Arnak began to shoot what would be more cum than her mouth could hold. She pumped the cum into her mouth, gripping his cock in her hand, holding on to it for dear life so as to not collapse from her own quakes of pleasure erupting over her.

She began to swallow what remained in her mouth, the rest overflowing onto his shaft and her now still fingers clenching his cock with every lingering pulse from her own orgasm. But it was all too much as her fingers slid from his limpening member and she collapsed into her own storm of tiny deaths.

"Are you okay?" Arnak asked with an exhausted chuckle.

She looked up at him with listless eyes, her body still as the grave.

"Rhea?" He said with rising concern.

She snapped out of her brief cadaverous state.

"Don't ever call me that."