Echoes Of The Seven

After the orientation, the trio found themselves going their separate ways. Jaxie and Alex went off to get better acquainted with the various facilities for combatant training, and also to learn more about the schedule for various lessons. Eris, on the other hand, went back to her new workshop.

First, it was rearranging everything in the room that wasn’t bolted down, and even some of that stuff, too. Thanks to several blocks and tackles and various pulley systems attached to the ceiling, Eris was able to shift the anvil, stove, tables, loom, cabinets, and even the forge. It had been built on a large metal plate with about two dozen eyehooks surrounding the edges, letting it be secured onto the pulleys and moved around the room despite weighing close to two thousand pounds. The only thing that Eris couldn’t move right away was the sink because of the plumbing. However, it conveniently happened to be in the exact spot that she would have wanted for her reorganizing anyway. Even if it hadn’t been, it wouldn’t be much of an issue for long. One look underneath told Eris that everything operated on the same principles as it did back in Kelshiir, and she repaired the plumbing for an abandoned distillery. Extending some pipes to move a sink would be child’s play.

She had the rolling shutter open for no particular reason other than simply letting the air flow. Moving around an entire workshop- albeit a small one- was hard work and doing it in a stuffy room certainly wouldn’t help. After the first few times that non-crafter people doing their daily shopping came by and asked if she was selling anything yet, Eris fished out the chalkboard provided in the workshop and set up a sign saying that she wasn’t open for business or commissions yet. That let her finish organizing the entire room without interruptions in just under two hours.

When the elevator doors opened to reveal the Dump, Eris’s heart skipped several beats. It wasn’t even a room, really. It was more like an underground square cavern the size of a sports stadium with sixty-foot ceilings, dozens of support pillars, and runic lanterns hanging from the ceiling to cast a surprisingly bright glow over the piles of material scattered on the floor.

It was even better than the trash piles of Kelshiir, which had been one of Eris’s favourite spots. All that scrap to work with and pick from was delightful, and this was exactly the same in that feeling of joy. However, the Dump underneath the CDF was already organized in the same way that Eris spent years doing. Plus, it wasn’t outside and exposed to the elements.

Eris could see a thirty-foot pile of scrap wood from broken dressers, tables, tool handles, and other things, whereas next to it was an even bigger pile of entirely metal junk. Lots of it was twisted and broken blades or weapons, but Eris could see dented bells, rusted armour, segments of cast-iron fences, and even some cracked rails that probably came right from the tracks of the monorails or even the train that brought her from one side of the continent to the other.

There were piles of porcelain, fabric, clay, leather, and even one of vegetation in varying states of rot. Meanwhile, the front of the room where Eris was standing had about a dozen large shelves lined with bags, sacks and jugs of ingredients that seemed relatively fresh. Nothing special, but at least it seemed to serve as an unlimited supply of potatoes, oats, milk, cheese, and some basic alchemy reagents.

A number of people were walking around collecting whatever they desired, and Eris noted that many of them had small wagons to help with the process. That would become one of her first projects in her long list of things she needed to make to help properly set herself up. For now, she resorted to many, many trips of taking material by hand and bringing it up to her workshop.

The hours ticked away while Eris worked- letting her hands fly free with tools and scraps as she pulled together her crafts with a speed she was still impressed by. When Jaxie and Alex eventually stopped by the shop for dinner, Eris had already made multiple chairs so that they could sit and enjoy several baked potatoes after she closed the shutter. That was after she had crafted a wagon, several new pots, pans, buckets and baskets of varying sizes, a few of the tools she wasn’t able to bring from home and weren’t provided for her- like an extra-large auriou rasp- and finally a simple bed with leather padding that was tucked into a corner of the room.

“Didn’t the forge used to be over there?” Alex mumbled through a bite of potato and pointed with her fork. Eris nodded and swallowed her own mouthful.

“Yeah. I moved everything around a bit. I didn’t like the layout it had before.”

“It looks like how you had it at the distillery,” Jaxie noted. Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Huh?”

“Don’t you see it?” Jaxie held up her hands to point in various directions. “Imagine we’re in the little lounging area beside the front door. The forge is off to the right, shelves on the left wall, with the big worktable directly across from us. There’s even that little kitchen section in the corner and the tables in the center of the room beside the anvil.”

“Oh, I see it now.”

Eris shrugged. “It’s just easier for me this way.”

“I once moved the nightstand to clean underneath it and put it back an inch too far to the left by mistake.” Jaxie chuckled. “Didn’t stop Ell from asking me about it…”

Eris blushed. “I like it when things are consistent, okay? When stuff changes from what I’m used to, I get… itchy.”

“Itchy?” Alex asked. Eris nodded.

“Yeah. Like if you have to scratch an itch on your arm, but that itch is in your head. Now you can’t reach it and you have to ignore it but that doesn’t stop it from being there.”

“You could always stick a screwdriver up your nose and wiggle it around a little bit, see if that helps.” Jaxie grinned. Eris rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Just eat your damned potatoes.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jaxie chuckled into another bite. The room fell quiet for a few moments aside from the sounds of eating. Eventually, Jaxie was the one that broke the silence. Naturally, she did it in her ever-blunt hammer strike of a way.

“Alex, wanna have sex with Eris and I tonight?”

Thankfully, Eris was in between bites. That meant she didn’t choke on my potatoes. Alex wasn’t so lucky.

When she finally coughed up the spuds from her lungs, her eyes were as wide as plates. “Wh-” cough-”What?!”

Jaxie grinned. “First, no need to be so dramatic- I’m just asking a question.”

“But you’re… I mean… huh?”

Eris felt bad for Alex. At least she knew that this conversation was going to happen. Jaxie smacked Alex in the face with it. The brunette shrugged.

“All three of us know that Desire’s Reap is eventually gonna include sex. If we’re gonna stick together for the long run, that’s where the three of us are headed, and that’s if Eris doesn’t get some more weird and wacky Lust skills as she levels up that make us do it even sooner.”

Awkward silence. Jaxie continued.

“Why not put everything out on the table? I think you’re hot, and I wanna fuck you. Eris thinks you’re hot, and she wants to fuck you. I know that you think both of us are hot and you want to fuck us, and we all know that we’re gonna end up fucking eventually anyway because of Eris’s class. With all that said, why wait for it? If we rip the bandage off sooner instead of later, it means we won’t have to tiptoe around the subject anymore.”

Alex was looking with a panicked expression between Eris and Jaxie. Eris truly struggled to meet the blonde’s eyes.

“Besides,” Jaxie said, “it’ll help to show Eris that I have no issues with her doing all sorts of lusty things with other people- whether it’s for her class or just for fun.”

The silence draped over all three of the girl’s shoulders like heavy cloaks. Jaxie took a casual bite of her potatoes while the other two continued to blush and managed to finish the bite before anything changed. She cocked an eyebrow between both of them. “So? What’s the verdict?”

“Like… really?” Alex asked with pure, raw uncertainty. “T-tonight?”

“Doing it while we’re already getting Desire seems like a good time. Unless you want to go for it right now…” she grinned.

Alex squeaked. “Tonight- uh… tonight’s fine. Err- so… really? What kind of… sex are you talking about?”

“Unless Eris has any objections-” Jaxie looked over to the blushing redhead. All Eris could do was turn her face to the floor, remaining as silent as she’s been for the last few minutes, and gently shake her head. Jaxie chuckled.

“Aww, no need to be all shy now. To answer your question,” she turned back to Alex, “I believe the clinical term is penis in vagina. You know, the classics.”

Alex sputtered. Eris coughed. Jaxie laughed.

“Well, her vagina. Mine’s off limits. I’ll do anything and everything else, but nothing below my belt.”

That seemed to get Alex’s attention. She raised an eyebrow, but Eris finally managed to speak and ask a question that had been bothering her for days now.

“It’s not… because of me, is it?”

Jaxie made a face with the most confused expression Eris had ever seen. “What?” Eris wrung her hands together.

“I mean, I did kinda get handsy that first time…”

The Berserker laughed, then reached across the table and held both of Eris’s hands. “You think that a little surprise rub broke something designed to get pounded by something a lot bigger than fingers? Oh, sweetie.”

Before Eris could say anything, Jaxie rubbed her thumbs in little circles across the backs of Eris’s hands.

“No, this has nothing to do with you, or anyone. If you two really want to know, it’s just because it doesn’t feel like it’s mine.” That narrowed a total of four eyebrows. “Fuck, how do I put this?”

She thought for several moments, then let out a sigh.

“You know how when people have their Gifting, it gives them their perfect body? The purest version of themselves?”

Alex and Eris nodded.

“And you know how sometimes it also changes a person’s gender entirely, because that’s who they were meant to be? They don’t belong in the body they have, so it gives them a new one?”

Another nod. Jaxie frowned.

“Well, when I got Gifted, it didn’t change me.”

“Uhh…” was all Eris managed. Jaxie let go of her hands and held them in her own lap.

“In most cases, the Gifting changes as little or as much as people need. Sometimes, it misses the ball. People who don’t want to change are forced into bodies they can’t deal with, and people who need to change get passed over.”

Eris felt a little uncomfortable as the conversation turned to an awkward subject. “You… don’t want to be a girl?”

“It’s not a ‘want’, it’s a ‘need’. Plus, being a girl isn’t the problem. Being a girl is great. I get to look down my shirt and see my cleavage- that shit’s awesome. The problem is that I’m a futa stuck in a female’s body. When I get naked and see a pussy in between my legs there isn’t a single part in my brain that truly sees it as ‘mine’. I was hoping that the Gifting would make the changes but it didn’t and that only made it worse. My one shot at getting the change I needed and it didn’t do it. Now I can’t even pee in the morning without feeling sick with myself.”

“Oh,” was all either of the two girls could say. What else could Eris say? Oh, I’m sorry about your gender dysphoria, want to have another baked potato? Thankfully, Jaxie curled her frown back into a grin.

“So anyway, that’s all off-limits for me, but there’s nothing stopping you two from stuffing the turkey in the meantime.” She waggled her eyebrows. “So, excited to get balls-deep in an Artificer’s pussy tonight?”

Alex’s face was so red Eris thought a blood vessel would burst.

Through some awkward conversation that Jaxie seemed all-too delighted by, the trio hashed out the remainder of the details about the upcoming threesome like it was a business meeting. Then, Alex and Jaxie took their leave for more combat-related stuff that Eris frankly didn’t understand. That gave Eris about three and a half hours of alone time before she was supposed to come to Jaxie’s dorm. Apparently, her roommate would be out for the night and had no oppositions to Jaxie bringing over a few friends for an hour or so.

Everything was set up and ready, and Eris couldn’t stop her heart from pounding in her chest like a hammer on metal. However, there were a few preparations that Eris wanted to make on her end, too. The first one was simple to put together, but certainly depraved. It’s for Jaxie, she kept telling herself. Even so, it felt very lewd to carve down, sand and smooth a six-inch wooden dick. That wasn’t even the full extent of it. There was a small pile of leather straps resting on one of the other tables that Eris was planning on putting together for a harness- one that the dildo could hook onto and be used as a strap-on.

Sure, Jaxie wouldn’t be getting any real pleasure out of it, but Eris at least wanted to try as much as she could. Jaxie may not have the body of a futa, but maybe being able to fuck Eris like one could help her enjoy the sex a little bit more and keep her from being treated as a third wheel in the upcoming threesome.

The most awkward part about putting the finishing touches on the dildo was the underlying knowledge that it was almost certainly going to end up inside of her within a number of hours. The heat in her chest never faded throughout the entire process. At least it seemed easier to sink into the crafting trance and let her hands do all the work. In fact, she could feel the magic of Novice Artificer leaking into the craft as it came together.

Wait…

Eris paused. In every other craft she had made thus far, there was the knowledge that the magic of her class was being applied, but never a sensation. The closest thing had been spending CP on Resilience, but that was energy within herself being directed into one of her own skills. Now, for some reason, Eris was acutely aware of a connection. Deep inside, on a layer other than physical, Eris could sense a string latched onto her. It was tangled around her hands in complicated knots, and was now wrapped in a complex web around the wooden dick. Eris gently dragged the polishing rag for another swipe along the surface. As she did, more of that energy was tangled across the craft.

“What the…”

Out of pure curiosity, Eris started funneling her CP into Resilience. Though no part of it was visible to the naked eye, Eris could see the strings around the dildo glow brighter and more intense. From a dying ember to a glowing candle, the sex toy was giving off an invisible light that Eris could sense in the deepest parts of her mind.

When Eris finally willed the craft to be ‘finished’, the sensation made her gasp. The string was ripped from her hands and cut itself free, while the rest that had been loosely wrapped around the wooden dick tightened with such tension it almost seemed to morph into the grain of the oak. It got a little bit brighter too, but more importantly, Eris saw that the toy was now giving off actual light instead of mental.

Glowing white lines wrapped around the surface of the dildo, but then shifted into a shade of pale pink that persisted for about three seconds before all of it vanished in the blink of an eye. In an instant, Eris was left holding an ordinary wooden penis with a bewildered expression plastered across her face. She cast a tentative Inspect towards the object.

Lustful Wooden Dildo

Durability: 100%

A well-crafted wooden dildo. Imbued with the essence of Lust. Created by Eris Kadell. Made from oak wood and oil polish.

Provides a Minor boost to Pleasure.

Additional effect: Sharing is Caring

If used on another person, the user receives a portion of the recipient’s Pleasure.

Uhhh…

Eris stared in incredulity at the object in her grasp for a multitude of reasons.

‘Imbued with the essence of Lust’? Nothing she had made previously ever had anything like that as part of the description, or that kind of sensation during the crafting process. Was that because she was an Artificer of Lust and this was something designed for sex?

Furthermore, ‘Provides a Minor boost to Pleasure’? That read exactly like ‘Pleasure’ was a stat just like Strength or Dexterity, but she’d never heard of such a thing. Was that something exclusive to her because she was a sex-based crafter?

And lastly, but certainly not least, Sharing is Caring. If the books that Eris had read about magical crafters were true, none of them ever got any kind of skill that allowed them to put enchantments on an item before level six, and even then, they almost always required crafting the item with special materials to do so. Yet, right now, Eris managed to put an enchantment at first level without intending to and while using the most basic materials possible.

But that effect? Sharing the Pleasure of the recipient? Out of every possible effect that an unintended enchantment could have, why that? After all, Eris technically designed it to be used on herself, and then…

Eris went still as it started to make sense. At least, a tiny bit of sense. She had been making this primarily for Jaxie to use on her- and because of Jaxie’s circumstances she couldn’t truly enjoy sex. She couldn’t feel it, because that would mean playing with genitals she despised having.

Somehow, this simple, stupid wooden dick got an enchantment that let Eris do the one thing she’s been lacking so far in her relationship with Jaxie.

The ability to make her girlfriend cum.