Love Crafted, page 15
The professor stands at the front of the class and smiles at everyone. You narrow your eyes. There’s something sinister about the lady. “Ethics, the study of what is and isn’t morally acceptable. Etiquette, the art of social decorum and societal procedures, and Eugenics, the science of breeding and assisted evolution. Three subjects that are vastly different on the surface but, as you will soon learn, are actually linked at their core.”
The professor begins to pace. “Some of you will aim your careers towards the healing arts, others will wish to become tamers and genetic manipulators in the hopes of one day becoming the next inventor of the goblin or orc. Others will wish to join the illustrious Inquisition as I myself have done and will want to know why the many rules and regulations of the Inquisition exist. And all of you who wish to become a proper mage needs to know how to address another mage in society.”
She stops at the very front of the class again, and this time you think you’re not the only one who noticed that there’s something wrong with her smile. “We will begin with the most complex and controversial subject. Eugenics. The art of breeding and creating new species. Starting from human stock has long become both illegal and taboo, but that doesn’t prevent the art from thriving. From creatures bred of Familiar stock meant to work in dangerous conditions to warrior species built for combat to new and interesting pet-like creatures. We may be the apex, the greatest species on this Earth, but as we experiment and elevate more creatures we may soon find ourselves with new neighbours and new adversaries.”
The professor picks a book from one of the student’s desks and gestures at it. “Please open your textbooks to page seven and complete exercise one A.”
There’s a lot of scrambling for books and such, not that Abigail needs to do that because you’re the best and you already slipped her textbook onto her desk before the weird professor lady had finished.
“Abigail,” you ask. “You’re not going to do breeding stuff, right?”
“What? No, of course not, that’s—”
“Miss Abigail Normal,” the professor’s voice snaps across the room like a whip crack. “I do not recall giving anyone permission to speak. If your Familiar will be a distraction it can be removed from the room.”
You glare at the lady but all she does is perk one eyebrow at you. Maybe she’d react more if you smacked her around with some tentacles?
“Am I understood?” she asks.
“You’re very mean,” you tell the lady. The class goes quiet, people stopping halfway towards getting their books to stare between you and the professor.
“And you are distracting my class,” the professor says.
“No, you are by being a big idiot.”
There’s a gasp and quite a few stifled giggles from all the students and the professor’s face begins to match the red of her robes.
“Dreamer, sweetie,” Abigail says quickly. “There’s a nice room right next to this one where you can wait. It’ll be a lot more fun. Don’t you want to go wait there? Just for a bit?”
“Miss Normal, control your Familiar or I’ll have you suspended!” the professor says over the chuckles and laughs.
You look at Abigail, then at the still red-faced professor. “Fine,” you say. “But I’ll still be here with you,” you say as you get up. Then, in a louder voice so that the professor can hear. “And that old lady is still stupid. She’s just what I would expect from a mortal species backsliding into idiocy.”
If she suspends Abigail then you’ll suspend her.
With a huff you leave the classroom and let the door smack close behind you. It sucks not being near Abigail, but you still have a bunch of tentacles in the room, a whole lot of them with eyes and mouths and ears and other things that let you know what’s going on.
The professor doesn’t try anything after making a big lecture about proper behaviour, which is good because Abigail would be upset if you broke her teacher.
You cross your arms like Daphne and Abigail do when they’re upset and stomp over to the room next to the classroom. It’s a small place, meant for Familiars to wait around while their Summoners are in class. It’s filled with platforms at different levels, little plush beds, and a corner box filled with sawdust that smells like poop. A huge window at the back lets in a bunch of light that’s splashing onto the familiar form of Wuffles who is laying down on a carpet.
You stomp over to the dire wolf. “I’m using you as a pillow,” you tell her before letting go of your body and flopping onto Wuffles with a whump.
“Bad day?” someone asks.
You’re currently buried in a thick pile of grumbling, growling fur. But Wuffles is being too lazy to bite you out of her sides and you’re in too soft a spot to move, so you sprout a tentacle out of your neck and make it grow an eye.
There’s a squirrel on a desk nearby, a big one. It’s wearing a small blue vest and has a pair of glasses tied to its face by some twine. There’s a big book opened below it.
“Who’re you?” you ask.
The squirrel chitters a little, then clears its throat. “Sigmund Squirrel, at your service milady. May I ask who, and what, you are?”
“I’m Dreamer, and I’m Abigail’s.”
Sigmund nods a few times. “Wonderful, truly. What brings you here, Dreamer?”
“The professor’s an idiot,” you explain.
“Ah, I see,” the squirrel says. “How unfortunate. Say, miss Dreamer, if you tell me what happens in greater detail I may be able to trade that knowledge for more knowledge.” Sigmund reaches into his vest and pulls out a tiny notebook, no bigger than your thumb, and then a teeny-tiny pen that fits in his little hands. “I’m something of a gossip psychologist, you see.”
“Oh, that’s neat. I could tell you all sorts of stuff in exchange for other things,” you say.
“Excellent. So, please, tell me what happened in class just now.” Sigmund pushes his glasses up, the lenses flashing as they reflect the room’s light. “And tell me how it made you feel?”
You nod into Wuffles’ side then begin to recount your adventures in the Ethics, Eugenics and Etiquette class.
“How awful,” Sigmund says. “And how interesting. That’s worth some gossip. What do you want to know about?”
“I don’t know, what’s interesting?”
“Oh my, oh my,” Sigmund says. “There’s plenty of interesting things going on, but perhaps nothing as interesting as the Old Faith’s Club debacle. It seems that something happened, but no one quite knows what. There’s lots of speculation. All that is known for certain is that the Inquisition came and when they left it was with most of the students from the club and something else.”
“Something?” you ask.
“Something big, in a crate, something that smelled of gravy.”
You narrow your eyes. That might need investigating.
Eventually class ends, and Abigail comes back to fetch you and gives you conciliatory hugs in apology for being away for so long.
Lunch is a quick affair that passes in a haze of yummy food and a lot of laughing with your friends, but despite how fun it is you can’t quite focus during that time.
The next class is Magical Preparations and Rituals, and Lady Professor Clearwater is talking.
You should be paying attention. What if Abigail misses a bit and asks you a question? But the talk about making sure everything is just right before conducting a ritual and making sure all the ingredients are well prepared is not nearly as interesting as the problem you have.
Someone kidnapped Pou-tine.
Pou-tine is a friend, a sort of pet that you kept around and nibbled at when your paths crossed. The only reason they’re here is because you called out across the void and asked them to come. There was no way that weird summoning the Old Faith’s Club tried would have worked.
You’re beginning to think that you’re feeling a little guilty.
“Excuse me,” someone says.
The class pauses, every head turning towards the door where a man in a long coat and a bucket hat is standing tall and proud. There’s a big badge on his lapel with a lighthouse shaped like a ‘I’ on it. “May I help you, officer?” Professor Clearwater asks.
“Indeed ma’am, I did not intend to interrupt your class, but I need to speak to some of your students, if you don’t mind.”
There’s a wash of whispers from all the kids in the class at that.
Professor Clearwater nods. “If you could file the proper forms…” she pauses as the man removes an envelope from within his jacket. She nods and turns towards the class. “Very well then, the students won’t be penalized for their absence. I don’t believe we have any at-home work to assign tonight, so if you are called away today you’re quite lucky. I still expect you to inspect the notes of another student so as to avoid falling behind.”
The strange man bows to the professor. “May I have the cooperation of Miss Normal and Miss Pembrooke?”
Abigail and Charlotte both jump in their seats, then they stand up and start collecting their things in a hurry. Abigail stuffs all of it in her purse where you grab it for her without really thinking and Charlotte swings her book bag over a shoulder.
Then the three of you are moving after the man with the bucket hat.
“What’s all this about?” Charlotte asks.
“In a moment, Miss Pembrooke,” he says.
She huffs, but doesn’t push for more questions. You, on the other tentacle, aren’t so calm. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see in a moment.”
“But I want to know now,” you say.
“You’ll have to wait,” he says right back.
“But if you tell me now then I won’t,” you point out.
You notice his fists tightening and are about to poke him some more when Abigail places a hand on your shoulder and shakes her head. You grumble a bit, but stay quiet until you’re brought into a small room with a long table in its middle. You and Abigail and Charlotte are made to sit on one side, all three of you facing a wall with a big mirror.
A mirror with someone standing behind it. There’s a circle etched into the other side of the mirror, and the middle part of that circle is completely transparent on the one side.
They might think they’re clever hiding behind mirrors, but you’ve eaten your share of reflections and mirror dimensions and you won’t be tricked so easily.
Another man walks into the room with Abigail and Charlotte and you. He’s shorter than the first, but his jacket has more badges and his bucket hat has a bunch more feathers and such attached to it. “Miss Normal, Miss Pembrooke, thank you for your time,” he says before pulling up a chair across from you and depositing a suitcase on the table. “We’re waiting for one last… and here she is.”
The door opens up to reveal Daphne who takes in the room at a glance before moving over to sit by Abigail’s side. “I trust this is important?” she snaps at the man with all the badges.
“It is, Miss Daphne of Swinehill.”
Daphne scoffs. “It’s Baroness Daphne of Swinehill, actually.”
He nods. “Pardon me, then.” The man pulls up the suitcase then makes a big show of opening it up and checking some loose sheets within. “We have questions for you three girls, specifically about your involvement with the Old Faith’s club.”
This sounds like it might be the kind of thing that Abigail wouldn’t want you to talk about, so you decide not to say anything at all. Then again, if these people are wondering about the time when Pou-tine came, then maybe they know something you don’t.
The person on the other side of the mirror is a tall, barrel-chested man. His coat hides a suit of armour over cloth and his hat is very tall and covered in sparkly things. He looks very important, and very important people know very important things!
A couple of tentacles sneak sneaky-like into the room from all the darkest corners, then start wiggling through the air towards the big man.
They’re almost there when she spins around and slashes out with a sword that you never even noticed her had. A couple of your tentacles lose their end bits and you wince.
“Are you okay, Dreamer?” Abigail asks you in a whisper. It cuts off the conversation for a moment until you nod.
“I banged my toe,” you lie, then start rocking from side to side while kicking your feet out under the table. There’s a panel there and your feet thump-thump against it with every kick. The girls nod and the man clears his throat before he returns to questioning everyone. Daphne is wearing a smug smile as she answers everything in a way that answers nothing.
The man in the room is having a bit of trouble now. He might have cut a couple of tentacles, but there are billions where those came from and plenty of places where you can open holes in the world to make more pour in.
Soon enough he’s cocooned in them. “You won’t get away with this!” he screams.
You catch the noises before they have time to leave the room. Tentacles covered in mouths and teeth and other things made for speaking start pouring in. “It’s okay, important mister,” you say. “You won’t remember a thing.”
Tentacles dive into his head, slipping past his skull to root around. You’re not quite as careful as you were with Abigail, but you try to stop his head from exploding or anything like that while you search for Pou-tine.
It only takes a moment.
Your meat body frowns at what you learn. Pou-tine is being held captive. Not all of Pou-tine, just a small fraction, but it’s enough that Pou-tine can’t just leave. Like getting a hand caught in a cookie jar that you can’t break because if you do Abigail will be disappointed at you.
You’re going to need to do something about that. Fortunately, you see what they used to trap Pou-tine and it would be trivially easy to break it.
Maybe after class you can free Pou-tine if you have time between clubs.
The girls decided to stick together after the interview, mostly because they had all been excused from class and didn’t really feel like going back, which as far as you’re concerned is great. You get to spend more time with your friends!
“So, have you two decided on any clubs?” Daphne finally asks as she guides the group towards the same small park where you ate lunch.
Charlotte nods. “Just one so far. I’m in the Athletics Club already! Need to keep in shape otherwise sitting down all day will lead to me getting all fat and lethargic.”
“I should exercise more,” Abigail says, but then she makes a face. “But I hate exercising.”
For some reason this is funny and the girl’s laugh. You don’t know why, but you smile anyway because your friends being happy makes you happy.
Charlotte shakes her head, long blonde hair flip-flopping all over. “But really, being at the Academy has been awful for me,” she says before reaching over and pulling her robes off. It leaves her dressed in a long skirt and button-up blouse. With a few deft flicks, she undoes some of the buttons over her tummy. “Look, I’m getting handles. It’s awful.”
Daphne and Abigail are both looking, they’re looking really hard at Charlotte’s tummy, which is mostly flat as far as you can tell, though when she bends forwards the muscles disappear behind a layer of flabby stuff. It’s hard to make out because she has big breasts which the others are also looking at a lot.
“Your tummy doesn’t look as comfy to sleep on as Abigail’s,” you say. “But it’s okay. Maybe if you get strong you can give good hugs to make up for it.”
Charlotte laughs and pulls you into a hug, confirming that yes, her stronger physique does make the hugging experience somewhat better, but she’s not as soft as Abigail. If you had to put numbers to it, which you wouldn’t because numbers are yucky, you would rate it as three quarters as good as an Abigail hug. “You’re adorable, Dreamer,” Charlotte says as she pulls out of the hug, then she pinches your cheek in a way that is most unpleasant. “You make me miss my little siblings.”
“Y-you have a lot of siblings?” Abigail squeaks.
“A few.”
The conversation turns towards talking about people who are not there while you return to considering your issue with Pou-tine. You’re going to have to save them from the machinations of the big mean Inquisition people. The real question isn’t how you’ll do it. That much is easy. It’s how that’s tricky.
You’ve confused yourself again.
“Dreamer?” Abigail asks before patting your head for attention. It works.
“Yes?”
“Daphne and I were talking and, and I think I’ll be joining the Gardening Club… t-temporary. Just to see how things, uh, work out there. And to be near Daphne too. B-but mostly, um. Nevermind. I wanted to know if that was okay with you?”
“That’s the club in the place with all the flowers?” you ask to which Abigail nods. “The one with the hidden nap time beds? Are we going to sleep together there?”
This makes Abigail look sick and red again and Charlotte covers her mouth with a hand and looks away while Abigail starts speaking. You think it’s speaking, but really you don’t understand what she’s saying and the way she waving her arms around wildly doesn’t make things easier to understand.
“Okay,” you say to stop her flailing. “I like that club, it was nice.” And they had tea sets which meant tea food and tea cups which are all yummy. “Are we going now? Because I had something I needed to do.”
That last bit snaps Abigail right back to full attention. Her eyes narrow behind her big glasses. “What sort of things?” she asks.
You decide that it’s best if Abigail doesn’t know. She still has the bapping paper in her purse and she could remove it to bap you at any moment. “Just things.”
“Please elaborate.”
You look away, tongue sticking into one cheeks and lips pursing. “Mmm, it’s nothing that you need to worry about.”
“Dreamer.”
You huff. “I’m going to go help Pou-tine.”
“The… thing the people at the Old Faith’s club tried to… summon?” Charlotte asks. “Is it like, ah, like you.”
