Tales From the Fae – Part V: The Academy of Dana

Chapter 11 – Lessons in Humility

“I had no idea there were things like that out there,” said Candice, staring at the chalk circle and frowning.

“Tell me about it,” agreed Douglas. I noticed that he was sitting a bit stiffly and realized that he must be fighting down an erection. I felt a little sorry for him. It’s one thing for a female to be aroused in public. Beyond the scents and minor visual clues, it’s pretty easy for us to hide our sexual states. The poor guy looked like he had just swallowed a live kitten.

Even Michelle was still blushing, and she usually had more control over her body than any of us. “There is a rumor in the combat rooms,” she added, “that the Seelie humans are being trained for a possible Fae war.”

We all stared at her as though she were a snake.

“Are you serious?” asked Candice. The other just shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s just a rumor. But it would certainly explain quite a bit. Like why we need to know how to defend ourselves against a trap that could kill us.”

“From the Unseelie Court?” Douglas looked incredulous.

“Who else would have that kind of magic at their disposal?” I offered. “Unless I’m misinformed, this wouldn’t be the first time the courts have come to all out war.”

Douglas nodded, being the resident expert on Fae history in our little foursome. “It’s true. There have been at least two full-blown wars, and a fair number of smaller skirmishes recorded. Even now, the two sides of the Fae don’t really have formal relations. It would appear that tensions are rising once again.”

Rachael returned with Penelope, who looked as though she wanted to run and hide. We could see that she was still weak on her feet, and embarrassed beyond words. To my surprise, one of the boys in the class stood up as she passed and cried, “Three cheers for Penelope!” To which several others immediately rose and added, “Hip, hip, hooray!! Hip, hip, hooray!!” By the third cheer, everyone was standing and contributing their voices. The girl blushed at the attention, but quickly brightened, and was even smiling by the time she reached her seat.

“Well done, class,” said Rachael, when everyone had quieted down. “And well done, Miss Fairchild, whose bravery, even in the face of utmost terror, has earned her three gold Celidon marks.”

I heard Douglas whistle softly in appreciation. Obviously, her reward was quite the prize, and I made a mental note to ask him how a coin of this type converted to the other forms of currency.

“Being calm and controlled during an attack can make the difference between life and death, as you have seen. To this end, I am going to allow you all to have the same chance to get used to a magical attack of this nature…”

Candice’s eyes went wide, and my own heart rate shot through the roof.

“… by working with disabled versions the same trap.”

“Whew!” Sighed the pig-tailed girl. “I was beginning to think we were all going to have to step into that circle and let that thing strangle us.”

Rachael went to a shelf and brought down a bronze bowl full of palm-sized glossy black stones, each alike. She came around the class and handed one to each student, explaining their use as she did.

“These are original Tuatha practice tomes, which are really nothing more than objects that easily take enchantments for use by students. In this case, they have each been given a modified trap for you to work with. To make it active, you need only set it on the floor in front of you. Since we are still working in a magic-visible state, you will see a trip-circle about four feet in diameter. When you are ready to test the defensive charm I am also about to give you, you simply walk into the circle to activate the trap. I warn you, these are only disabled in that they are missing the final phase of the trap that Miss Fairchild just demonstrated. If you execute the charm correctly, you will be able to defeat the attack. If you get into trouble, call for my assistance and I will free you myself so that you can try it again. Please spread out and begin.”

The defensive charm was a simple one, at least for Candice and me, and consisted of little more than a small collection of known glyphs arranged to hit the trap in a preordained sequence. It was activated through the MOS as a hand-controlled operation, and I saw what Rachael was saying about being prepared with a verbal version of the charm. It was a simple sequence, but time-consuming. If you acted at once, and didn’t panic, there would be plenty of time to issue the commands needed before things got sticky, but it would be far more effective to write a voice operated version, or even an autonomous glyph. I shelved that train of though for another day and concentrated on the task at hand.

Around the room, others were doing the same, and some rather hasty students (I thought) were already stepping into their respective circles. I stopped for a moment and watched so as to avoid any mistakes they might make. One girl messed up the charm and was thigh deep in blue tentacles and nearly in a state of panic before she managed to get it right and the trap vanished. Another was already calling for Rachael’s help. She had dropped her stone on the ground at her feet and accidentally set it off before she had even looked at the defensive charm. She was just starting to make short gasps of rising pleasure by the time the nymph reached her.

I sighed and checked what I needed to do one more time before I set my own tome on the floor and stepped quickly back. At once the marking circle sprang into view along with the alien-looking trap, waiting for a victim.

“Here we go,” I said to myself and stepped forward.

Even though I knew it was coming, the strange feeling of having just stepped into a living, breathing creature made me gasp softly. A half second later it felt as though my ankles were submerged in some cartoon-like quick-drying rubber cement. I could vaguely move them, but they were completely encased and held. There was a soft buzzing sensation, and I also noticed warmth, which further added to the idea that the trap itself was a living animal that was about to try and eat me alive.

My heart rate was quickly rising, and the adrenaline rush was almost enough to overpower my sense of will by itself. Taking a deep breath, I carefully called up my MOS and began the sequence for the counter-charm while trying to ignore the blue tendrils that were slowly making their way up my bare legs. I had chosen to wear only shorts that morning since the tunnels had been getting a bit hot and humid of late. Most of the rest of the class was dressed the same way. In the back of my mind, I fervently wished I had chosen to dress more modestly that morning. The strange liquid fingers had just slipped over my knees when I finished the sequence and they abruptly disappeared.

I smiled and dusted off my hands. “Piece of cake,” I said smugly as I stepped away from the black stone.

“Was it, Miss Summers,” said the somewhat angry voice of my professor behind me. I stopped cold and winced. “Perhaps you would like to try it again in conditions that aren’t quite so idyllic?!”

I started to turn around and explain. “No, I was just… OOMPH!” Abruptly I was hit by what I can only describe as a massive ball of bright-yellow energy. If not for the enchantment covering the whole room, I doubt I would have seen anything at all. As it was, I was suddenly flying up and backwards. I took most of the impact on my rear, but the blast completely knocked the wind out of me so that it took me a moment to realize that Rachael had hit me with just enough force to launch me right into the center of the trap that Douglas had just set up on the floor in front of him.

Ignoring the fact that I couldn’t breathe for the moment, I started to feel a familiar buzzing around my buttocks, hands, and ankles. If I could have levitated, I’m sure I would have been sitting on the ceiling about then. Instead, I snapped my hands upward before they were frozen where they were. I managed to get my left one up in time, and then realized that I had only succeeded because that hand had landed outside of the circle.

“Oh shit!…” I gasped, trying desperately to suck in more air. The new wave of adrenaline that was rushing through my bloodstream wasn’t helping me to relax. It also didn’t help that I could already feel the slippery warmth of the trap’s tentacles reaching around my thighs and into the leg holes of my shorts. Others were climbing my trapped right arm as well as pushing under the bottom of my shirt from behind. By the time I finally got a decent breath, there were already tentacles reaching up for my free left hand.

“Hey! That’s not fair,” I heard Candice complain as she raced over with several others who had heard the Professor’s angry words.

“Fair?!” Bellowed the nymph. “What’s fairness have to do with it?! Do you think an enemy is going to be fair when they place such a trap for YOU? The whole point is to catch you off guard! Trust me when I say that such a trap will almost certainly be set to catch you when you are least expecting it, and most vulnerable. They will wait until you are weak and tired, and thinking you are safe from harm. This is the nasty side of magic, Miss Mellions, so you had better get used to having surprises dumped in your lap and prepare for them, because your enemy isn’t going to wait until you’re at your best to attack. They’re going to hit you when you’re down, and it’ll be with every scrap of unfairness they can muster. Count on it!”

I heard the Fae woman’s words, but I was too busy right about then to really pay attention. Working your MOS with one hand is tricky to begin with. Some functions are almost impossible to execute without a second hand for fine control. But to make things really challenging, there were tendrils slowly curling around my left elbow and wrist. Almost at once I had to fight just to keep them from pulling my arm down. I knew that once it was drawn to my side, it would stay there and I would be helpless. The tentacles weren’t that strong, but they were relentless, and there were more and more of them with each passing second.

There was also the added problem of the quickly increasing sexual distraction to deal with. But how do you ignore something that your own body is generating? It’s like trying to talk with your mom on the phone while having sex… Really, really intense sex.

I had my MOS open and was cursing myself for having closed the path to the counter-charm after I had defeated my own trap. I filed it away thinking that I wouldn’t need it until later. Stupid. Down in my lap, the liquid fingers of my aggressor were slipping around my panties and feeling me up in a big way. It really didn’t help that I landed on my backside with my legs basically spread open in front of me, a fact that the trap exploited immediately by locking me in that position and then slowly drawing my thighs apart even further. I was pretty much wide open and already horny as hell, so it didn’t take much foreplay to get me squirming.

There’s really nothing humanly comparable to having a magical entity do you, but I’ll try to describe things as best I can.

About the same time I started the charm sequence, a half-dozen thin, warm, vibrating tendrils had slipped under my cotton t-shirt, climbed languidly up my chest, and were swirling around my nipples, which were as hard as rocks and felt about the size of Kansas.

Down in my lap, a similar team of filaments was calmly drawing open my flower so that yet another group could reach inside me and begin what was possibly the most intimate session of coitus I have ever experienced. I say ‘intimate’ because there were perhaps a dozen or so very fine tendrils that were literally searching my depths and caressing every tiny fold and corner of my womanhood along the way until they were tickling my cervix.

I can truthfully say that it took every bit of will I had not to reach my free hand down into my lap in an effort to halt (or at least slow down) the waves of near black-out level pleasure that were washing up from my pelvic region. As it was, I faltered and almost had to start the charm sequence over when my arm was drawn down a few inches and I lost further mobility.

My heart was pounding in my ears, and I was starting to get that semi-nauseous rumble in my belly that meant that I was close to having an orgasm. I knew that if I did, it was over. I always lost it when I came, and more than one lover had commented on my aggressive vocalness when I peaked. Could I hold a careful and delicate sequence of fine-motor commands while I was launched into sexual orbit? Excuse the pun, but no fucking way.

So what it came down to was whether I could get the counter-charm completed before the oversized vibrator I was strapped to got my rocks off. And make no mistake, it WAS going to get me off if I didn’t stop it, that was as certain as the rising of the sun. And if it did, I was going to end up just like Penelope… held helpless while I was fucked senseless.

I was close, both with the completion of the charm, and in my state of nearing bliss. I was actually beginning to think I might just whip this thing, and that thought helped to keep me in the here and now. But what was nagging me was that I knew I had made a few minor errors in the compilation of my defense, so I wasn’t at all sure that the damn thing would actually work as it should. They were within tolerance, but barely. Combined, it might be enough to fizzle the spell.

As I worked out the last few pieces, I felt a coolness at my chest and glanced down briefly. The magical construct I was seated on had decided to pull a fast one on me and had sent some of its tentacles over my shoulders and was lifting up my shirt. As my breasts were exposed to the world in all their aroused glory, I momentarily freaked and by reflex started to move my free hand to pull it down again. But my captor was waiting for that and slipped a few new tendrils around my bent arm and drew it inward toward my chest.

“Nooo!!” I moaned, knowing that it had me. Once it secured my arm I wouldn’t be able to complete the spell, and I had only one damn connection left to make. I was so close!

In desperation, I stretched with all my strength and reached out with my fingers alone, just tweaking my MOS. The final component of the charm fell into place and the counter-spell was activated.

And nothing happened.

It’s hard to explain the dichotomy of feelings that passed through my brain at that moment. One part of me was wracked by confusion and grief. I felt completely cheated and depressed at having failed when I thought I had won. But there was another side of me that was about to blossom into ecstasy, and it’s a little hard to have an orgasm, especially one you have been trying to fight off for so unbelievably long, without getting a little happy.

I glanced up and saw the faces of my classmates staring down at me. Candice had her hand over her mouth in shock, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of Michelle looking on with utter disbelief. But by far the most poignant visage that looked back at me was the one belonging to Douglas. His eyes held both guilt (probably for it having been his own trap that had caught me) and a shocking level of everyday male lust. He could do little more than stand there and watch while I writhed and gasped and moaned into what was soon sure to be a mind-numbing orgasm. It was more than any guy should have to take, especially one that I knew already had a crush on me.

But there was nothing I could do. Gripped by loss, I had finally reached the end of my strength, and the tentacles behind me started to draw my torso backwards to the floor. At the same time, the magical lover that bound me pulled one last trick it had been saving. It quite suddenly sent bunch of fine buzzing tendrils down into my lap, where they reached in and found the very aroused button of my clitoris. Something akin to lightning flashed through my brain and my back arched up while my head snapped backward and I screamed out in ecstasy.

The next few minutes were a bit fuzzy to me. I vaguely remember the passage of time, but how long I actually bucked and gasped and made happy cries could have been a minute or a week. The next thing I remember, Candice was slapping my back and helping me to my feet while she yelled, “You did it! You did it!”

I started to fall to the ground when my legs gave out on me, and Michelle caught me and supported me on my other side. Between the two of them, they got me over to a couch and set me down.

“You did it, Miranda!” Continued Candice. “I thought for sure you failed to complete the spell.”

“Ughnnnn,” I moaned, still recovering. “So did I. What the hell happened?”

“The errors you introduced into the charm diluted its immediate effectiveness,” said a stern voice at my shoulder. I turned and saw Rachael standing there with her arms crossed over her chest. “There was a delay before the trap was dispelled. I hope, Miss Summers, that you have learned not to be quite so cocky.” She then leaned in closer to my ear and whispered, “And if you ever take the strength of your abilities for granted in my class again, child, I’ll make that little orgy with the construct you just had seem like a friendly peck on the cheek. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Ma’am…” I said meekly.