3.21  Topped Off


    Training with Maddy was a lot more hands-on than with Sabina. Maddy went over academic topics as they cropped up, and was happy to indulge Zoey’s questions—or gently shoot them down when they could be tooplex to answer in earnest—but Maddy focused on the applied side of spellcasting, overall.


    “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Zoey said. “I know you’re the expert here, but why am I still casting ice spikes? Shouldn’t I be working on new spells?”


    They’d been going at it for about an hour. Zoey’s reservoir of mana was running low. Or, ‘lust’, more urately, since Zoey’s spells didn’t operate on the more mundane resource avable to mages. That would need to be taken care of, shortly. Some indeterminate distance away, Rosalie was carrying around the linking te … and when she saw Zoey harden, she would ‘recharge’ her.


    That alone had been quite the distraction. How couldn’t it be? She’d had to focus intensely on the lesson, because identally letting herself harden meant Rosalie would think it was time for a recharge. Which would lead to an awkward few moments, having to scurry away from Maddy while Rosalie worked away.


    Sheesh. What a situation.


    Fortunately, distractions were easy toe by. Spellcasting was hard work. Even after just an hour, Zoey was drained, and not just in the sense of mana, but a less-defined way, like having worked a set of muscles to their limit that she hadn’t known existed. A sheen of sweat coated her skin from the effort.


    “Oh, we will,” Maddy said. “But it’s important we catch you up to speed on the basics, first. Techniques and stuff. Easier to do when you’re casting the same spell over and over. I can’t believe you weren’t using a flourish!”


    ‘Flourish’ seemed to be the term that Maddy used for the physical crutch—the tracing of her fingers, or sometimes staff, in the air—for summoning spell circles and filling them with glyphs. While not strictly necessary, Zoey had found imitating Maddy made constructing the spell quicker. When Rosalie had taught her, Zoey had simply built the spell inside her head. It wasn’t immensely easier, using a flourish, but noticeably, for sure.


    And Maddy’s argument made sense. Zoey was improving; her ice spike wasing to life more fluidly, and Maddy had even shown her how to make tiny modifications to the diagram to adjust the spell''s bulk or speed—which were inversely proportional to each other, seeing how the mana needed to go to one or the other.


    It was odd, the modifications. Maddy demonstrated the changes, and Zoey could <em>intuit </em>what they would do, even before she implemented them. Like Maddy had said, her arcana rune gave her heaps of built-in knowledge. To be fair, that was the only way Zoey would’ve ever been able to cast an ice spike in the first ce, seeing how Rosalie was no mage. Zoey was surprised she even knew <em>some </em>spells. Part of her tutge, undoubtedly—her parents covering their bases, at least in a small way, in case Rosalie received a mage-type ss. Or, that was Zoey’s best guess.


    “But,” Maddy said, amused, “if you want to move on, we can get started on some other spells. It’s gonna be a lot of banging your head against the wall, though … and a lot of wasted mana. By sticking with your ice spike, we could make some actual progress. I thought it’d help encourage you.”


    “That’s fine,” Zoey said. “You don’t have to worry about me getting frustrated.” She paused. “Or, giving up, at least.” She might get frustrated. She was only human. “An ice spike is one of the easiest spells to learn, right?”


    Maddy pursed her lips, then sheepishly said, “Yeah, kind of.”


    “So a defensive spell like ‘ice armor’ would take much longer. More than an hour or two.”


    “We’ll be hunkering down for a while,” Maddy agreed. “Er, it only took you an hour or two to learn ice spike?”


    “Yeah? Why?” Was it a good pace? Rosalie hadn’t seem particrly impressed, back in the first shard. Then again, Rosalie would be impossible to impress when it came topetency.


    Maddy thought about it. “Well, objectively … I guess not really. But for a novice without any training? Faster than I’d expect.”


    “Mildly above average. That’s me.”


    Maddyughed. “More than mildly. But yeah, sure, we’ll start on reading spell forms, then work away at a first-circle ice armor. How’s your mana situation?”


    Right. That. “I should probably top up.”


    A pause. Zoey knew Delta had briefed Maddy on what exactly that meant … if Maddy’s quickly coloring cheeks didn’t give it away.


    “Right,” Maddy said, coughing into her hand. “Reconvene in an hour?”


    Zoey had gotten so used to Delta and Rosalie’s easy eptance of her ss that Maddy’s awkward reaction—the reasonable, default one when confronted with Zoey’s ss details—was twice as embarrassing … a flush picked up on Zoey’s cheeks, too.


    “Probably just a half-hour,” Zoey said. “That fine?”


    “S-Sure.”


    “Okay. Uh. See you then.”


    Still blushing, Zoey left the training room, closing the door behind her. Did Maddy know exactly how Zoey would be ‘taking care of it’? Had Delta told her about the teleporting panties? If not, what did Maddy assume Zoey was heading off to do? Meet up with Delta or Rosalie in person? That would exin why she’d suggested a full hour break, despite how, with the convenient item Zoey was wearing, it probably wouldn’t even take the full half-hour.


    Maybe it was the awkwardness of Zoey’s departure, all of Maddy’s blushing, or just regr excitement at what would be happening, but to Zoey’s horror, halfway down the hallway, she started to stir.


    <em>Not yet</em>, she chided herself. Zoey picked up her pace. <em>Not here. Let me get to a restroom or something.</em>


    The good news was that Rosalie was off doing her own things. She wouldn’t be watching Zoey’s cock like a hawk. It might take a moment for her to notice—


    A pair of soft lips pressed into Zoey’s cock head. Zoey stumbled and nearly fell. A woman passing down the hall gave her an odd look.


    What the hell? Was Rosalie <em>waiting </em>for her to get hard? She hadn’t even fully sprung up, yet, and already she was peppering Zoey’s tip with kisses?


    Shit. She had to get somewhere private. Maybe she should have stayed in the training room? But that was where Maddy was. Better than losing herposure in front of strangers, though, wasn’t it?


    And, she realized, horrified—she didn’t know where the restrooms were.


    Half a city away, Rosalie opened her mouth, taking Zoey’s tip into her warm, wet mouth. She sucked away, tickling and stroking Zoey with her tongue.


    Zoey groaned. That drew another look from a passerby. The mage training halls weren’t the most crowded things, but some people filtered past.


    Her face was burning. She was out in public, having her cock sucked. By <em>Rosalie</em>. Maybe they should’ve organized a clearer signal than just, ‘when I get hard’. Zoey could pull out of the panties, she supposed … but only if she were in private. Could hardly do that here.


    Rosalie’s stroking and bobbing picked up speed. Zoey desperately fought away a moan. Mortified, she approached the receptionist desk, having arrived back to the central hall—where the tall ck mana regeneration obelisk sat.


    “Hey,” Zoey said breathlessly, and frantically, “where’s, uh, the restroom?”


    The receptionist gave her an odd look—the fourth or fifth she’d gotten as Zoey fled to the desk—which was fair, considering the state Zoey was in. She was red-faced and panting. Half of it was arousal, half of it was pure, crystallized mortification. She was having her cock sucked as she spoke to this woman. Why did that set her skin on fire?


    Rosalie stopped teasing. She plunged down, taking Zoey’s cock into her throat. Tight muscles squeezed around Zoey’s length almost before she knew what was happening. Rosalie was getting better at that—she’d swallowed Zoey’s fourteen inches in one smooth motion.


    Zoey only barely didn’t moan. She did let out a whimper.


    The receptionist blinked rapidly at her. She pointed. “Down that hall. Second door on the right.”


    “Thank—“ Zoey gasped as Rosalie bobbed on her cock. “Thank you.” Zoey scampered away.


    She received two more questioning looks as she shakily fled down the hallway. The bathroom was blessedly empty; she shut herself into a stall and copsed onto the closed toilet seat.


    She’d made it.


    Not without making an embarrassment of herself, but she’d made it. Maybe the whimpers and breathless groans the others had heard escape her mouth could be exined away by … something. Because obviously they wouldn’t assume the truth.


    Rosalie continued bobbing her head up and down, swallowing Zoey’s cock. Zoey squirmed in pleasure, trying to be quiet, but unable to help the groans. Rosalie had worked into a rhythm.


    Zoey wanted more. A more active role. She hastily wiggled down her pants—Rosalie eagerly sucking her cock the whole away through—then her panties. Zoey’s cock—wet, recently pleasured—popped out of the portal; she felt it slide out of Rosalie’s throat as she tugged them off.


    Zoey removed the panties entirely, then turned them inside out. She pinned the panties—shimmering ck portal facing outward—to the stall door, then waddled up to it. She poked her cock through, then started thrusting.


    This hadn’t been the n, but Rosalie rejoined her lips to Zoey’s cock eagerly, catching the humping appendage. Zoey’s cock sank into her throat, and she started jerking even more frantically. The stall door rattled with the force of Zoey’s hips smacking into it. The bathroom was empty, so she was fine.


    Half a city away, Zoey’s pping hips plunged fourteen inches of girlcock up and down Rosalie’s coaxing throat.


    Zoey had been building up stamina for the past several days, but the searing embarrassment of having been out in public had her falling apart faster than she should have. And, Rosalie was getting way too good at this, at using her throat to pleasure Zoey. How long had Zoey been thrusting, and Rosalie hadn’t pulled back for air?


    Zoey groaned and let go, her climax washing over her.


    “Fucking … take it …” Zoey moaned, pping her hips forward onest time. Hot strings ejected from her length, stuffing Rosalie’s stomach full. She felt, though didn’t hear, Rosalie choking on her cock as it emptied into her. Her cock pumped and pumped, and Zoey imagined Rosalie’s eyes fluttering as her prodigious load sloshed around in her stomach. She was taking the whole thing … every drop. That girl was a devil.


    Shuddering, emptied and satisfied, Zoey fell back, sitting with a thump.