Chapter 21 #2
Alongside the awareness came another warmth, lower, more physical. His skin felt more sensitive. The fabric of his shirt suddenly seemed coarser than it had a minute ago.
“Anything?” Luna asked. She had moved from her bed to his, sitting cross-legged next to him.
“Slight visual distortion. No magical perception change. Also, I feel warm.”
“That’s the enhancer. It opens the body up.” She watched him with an intensity that went beyond clinical observation. “We should make this more fun.”
“More fun how?”
“A game. Every time we try a new substance, we each take off a piece of clothing. That’ll keep it interesting, and honestly, it’s getting hot in here anyway.”
Alsen shrugged. The room was indeed warm, especially after drinking Starwater…
or whatever it was. Ah, so she figured that since her curse made her magically less attractive, she could get him drugged to decrease the required threshold.
An interesting experiment, though he wouldn’t usually experiment on himself. “Sure.”
“We’ve had the first piece. You start.”
Alsen rolled his eyes and pulled off his boots. He should have taken them off earlier, anyway.
Luna dropped on her back, lifted up her pelvis and legs, and pulled off her pants. She bent so that her legs came all the way over her head, so she took the pants off and dropped them on the floor between the beds. She folded back into a cross-legged sitting position. “Next one is Spiralroot.”
Alsen watched her prepare it, wondering if Starwater wasn’t, perhaps, too effective on her. Luna probably dosed herself based on the experience from her original body. But the soul didn’t bring any physical resistances with it, so her new body might have had none.
He had it easier. No resistance from the old body meant he could only do better in the new one.
She mixed the Spiralroot powder into more Starwater. It made it taste like dirt and regret. Within minutes, the room started doing things rooms shouldn’t do. The walls breathed. The ceiling developed a slight rotation, barely perceptible, like the whole inn sat on a lazy turntable.
Luna giggled. That was new. “The floor looks like it’s made of water.”
Alsen stared at the floor. It did, in fact, look like water. Dark, gently rippling water. He reached down to touch it. Solid wood. His hand disagreed with his eyes, which created a sensation so disorienting that he laughed.
“Okay,” he said, trying to focus. “This is stronger. Let me try something.”
He pulled on his power. The mana responded sluggishly, as if moving through something thick.
He pushed his awareness outward, past the physical, reaching for the boundary between worlds.
For a split second, something flickered.
A shimmer at the edge of perception, like heat rising from stone, but luminous. Then it was gone.
“I saw something,” he said.
“What?”
“I don’t know. It was like... a shimmer. Between here and somewhere else.”
Luna bobbed her head side to side. “That could have been the edge of the dream world. Or not. Not like I’ve ever seen it. But, more importantly, the second round means the second piece of clothing comes off.”
Alsen pulled off a sock. Nothing said he had to take off both at once.
Luna turned, bent over, hooked her thumbs into her undergarments, and slid them off. She stepped out of them, dropping back into a sit on the bed next to Alsen. She did this with the casualness of someone removing a hat.
“All right,” Alsen said. “Let’s try the next one.”
Luna stared at him for a few seconds, but then got up. Arching her body so that it looked like she would dislocate something, Luna fashioned a pipe from a piece of wood and her dagger. She stuffed it with some of the drugs. Alsen couldn’t remember its name. “Help me with fire?”
Alsen flicked his finger, setting the powder in the pipe ablaze. After all the campfire making, he had perfect control over setting things on fire.
She dropped on the bed again, this time stretching her bare legs over his lap. She took a long puff.
He took the pipe, taking one himself. The room tilted sideways.
Colors intensified until the lantern light looked like liquid gold pouring across the table.
The physical warmth from the enhancer had deepened into something ambient, a pleasant buzz across his entire body that made everything feel good to touch.
She leaned closer. “Anything?”
“Nope. This one heats me up further, but doesn’t do much spiritually.”
Luna sat on his lap, almost pressing her chest against him. “Really? You’ve noticed nothing.”
He shrugged. “The visual effects are fascinating,” he said, staring at his spellbook on the nightstand. It appeared to be emitting a faint hum that he could see as well as hear, a vibration in the air around it, like concentric rings in water. “But no hint of other spheres.”
She caught his chin and turned his face toward hers. “Look at me.”
He did. “Yeah?”
“Nothing at all?”
He looked her over. Aside from being half-naked, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary about her. “What are you aiming at?”
Luna released a defeated sigh. She let go of his chin and went for the bag. “Let’s try something heavier then.” She pulled out a few drugs and pushed them together into two balls.
Alsen watched her work. She did a lot of extra movement now, unlike ever before. But she still ended up being precise.
Luna walked back to the bed, sat straight into his lap, grabbed his face, and forced him to look at her again. “Do you find me attractive?”
“You’re perfectly aesthetically balanced.”
“Aesthetically… balanced?”
“Yes, you’ve got a great body and facial symmetry, and excellent torso-to-leg length ratio. The long legs fit perfectly with how you move and fight, and your long, slim fingers seem to function great for using daggers.”
She exhaled through her nose, long and slow. “You’re impossible.” She shoved the other drug ball into his mouth, through the lips past the teeth, straight to the throat.
He barely managed to swallow.
The drugs hit him like a horse kick in the head. His vision blurred. He burst into laughter before she even pulled the fingers out of his mouth.
Alsen’s perception of time and space collapsed. The blurry fever dream of colors ended with him sitting collapsed by the window, his consciousness leaving him behind.
He woke on the floor. Sunlight shone in from outside like a personal attack. The angle suggested a time approaching noon. His head hurt as if someone had used it for an anvil. His throat felt as if filled with sand, and his eyes, damn, they were so dry.
He rubbed his face. What happened last night?
He tried to recollect last night. Everything went fine until the composite drug ball. Then he attempted to leave his body with his spirit, unsuccessfully. Luna pulled him up to dance, only making him fall over.
She then refilled the pipe. He missed with the ignition spell, setting ablaze the pouch with the drug rather than the pipe. That filled the whole room with teal smoke.
His memory got even worse after that, turning into disjointed pictures. He tried to peer into the world beyond. Luna tried to pull him to the bed.
He drew a ritual circle, making another attempt to at least reach the spiritual layer of existence.
The next memory picture was him vomiting, then Luna furiously masturbating in his sleeping bag, then him trying to clean the vomit, failing and thus falling over, attempting an improvised dream walk, only to stay giggling on the floor, then…
Alsen paused. What did he just remember? His haze passed a bit.