William found himself lying completely still, his body surrounded by the three women who seemed incredibly satisfied. Their bodies were pressed against his, each of them squeezing against him.
After a few more hours of them snuggling up together, he noticed Lenore starting to sit up, and then she reached for the robes that had been neatly folded to the side.
William watched her as she carefully arranged the silk robes around her perfect figure, the fabric clinging to her curves in a way that would send shivers down any man's spine.
"Hey," he murmured softly, "where are you heading to?" He slowly got up from his lying position, making a point of being careful not to disturb the other two women who were still comfortably laying in bed.
Lenore gave a gentle chuckle, "Just follow me, and you'll find out for yourself."
William rose from his bed and began reaching for his leather pants and boots, his chest and abdomen exposed to the cool air that drifted in from outside the tower.
After securing the waistband of his trousers and standing up to his full height, he went ahead and cracked his joints, then followed Lenore as she walked down the hallway.
As William followed Lenore inside the cylindrical teleportation device, he found himself transported into what looked like a personal workshop, filled with a variety of what he presumed were more prototype automatons, arranged in different shapes and sizes.
Some of them were even crackling with chaotic magical lightning.
"Wow, I'm not going to even attempt to lie, this is impressive!" He picked up a small device that sparked at his touch and singed his fingers forcing him to drop it back onto the workstation.
William winced, shaking his hand and then licking the now scorched skin on his fingertips.
Lenore, seeing this, let out a warm, inviting laugh that seemed to spread a sense of comfort throughout the room, and then she offered him a pair of gloves.
The gloves looked thick and insulated, making one assume they were designed to protect his hands from the crackling energy.
As William began the ritual of putting on his gloves, a previously unseen energy surged through them, and runes, previously unknown, started to tingle and pulse alive along the front and back surfaces.
This surge of energy prompted him once again to reach out his hand towards the small device nestled upon the workstation.
The device, just as it did before, started to produce crackling magical lightning, but this time, William was miraculously left unharmed.
With his gloved fingers gripping the sparking device, he watched as the lightning danced across its surface, manifesting as restless veins of light beneath the metal shell.
It hummed.
Then it twitched.
A tiny click sounded from within its casing.
"Lenore," William began carefully, "was it supposed to..."
The device unfolded.
Not cracked.
Not broke.
Unfolded.
Panels split along invisible seams.
Slender, metallic limbs extended outwards with an eerie precision, each joint clicking into place with the delicate, mechanical certainty of a well-oiled machine.
Eight legs, thin as quills and tipped with needle-point claws, sprang free.
The lightning stopped crackling.
Instead, a faint blue glow pulsed from its core.
William stared at the mechanical spider now perched in his palm.
The construct tilted what might generously be called its head.
Then it leapt.
William flinched as the creature landed on his forearm, its movements surprisingly smooth and impossibly fluid.
The tiny claws tapped rhythmically against his glove, and then, when it reached his shoulder, they began to tap against his bare skin.
It was warm.
Not burning.
Warm, almost like a creature that's actually alive, if that heartbeat were made of lightning instead of blood.
"Lenore," he said once more, his voice this time slower and more deliberate, as it crawled across the skin of his collarbone and then up the side of his neck towards his ear, "why is it inspecting me like that?"
She watched with open delight, arms folded loosely within her sleeves.
"It's calibrating." She said with eyes like stars.
"Calibrating what?" he couldn't help but ask.
"You!" She said happily.
The spider paused at his jaw, its core flaring brighter.
Fine filaments extended from beneath its chassis, brushing lightly against his skin.
He felt a faint prickling sensation, not painful but invasive, as if it were tasting the air around him.
"Comforting," he muttered.
The construct circled behind his head, then descended across his other shoulder and down his arm.
When it reached his hand again, it stopped.
Folded.
Legs are retracting back into their initial positions, and the panels are swiftly sliding shut, one by one.
It vanished in a flash, leaving behind nothing but a harmless-looking device resting once again in his palm, emitting a faint, almost inaudible humming sound.
"It was originally meant as a magical scouting unit, but I could never get it to work right. In essence, it assesses the inherent magical aura of whatever creature or object it first makes physical contact with, and then promptly reverts to its normally inactive, dormant state! She gestured towards it with her finger, giving it a rather formal and somewhat educational feel.
William listened with a keen and focused expression in his eyes as Lenore explained the various devices she had been working on, although she admitted she was still far from fully realizing their full potential.
The last item she showed him was a small wooden rod, pulsating with runes that each seemed to contain the energy of magical lightning.
"This here is the only item I have managed to create that doesn't have something inherently wrong with it!" She pointed the wand-like rod towards a distant target and channeled some of her magical energy into it, the runes along its surface beginning to glow brighter with intensely but somehow contained magical energy before she unleashed it.
CRACKLE!
BOOOOOM!
The wand unleashed a bolt of incredibly thick, magical lightning that struck the target before William even had a chance to comprehend what was happening.
The target seemed to explode from the inside out, sending out shards of metal and leather, each marred by scorching marks and crackling with chaotic bolts of electricity as they collided against the surrounding walls.
William gasped, "Such intensity, from an object... That's impressive!"
Lenore watched the last few, flickering sparks of lightning crawl across the ruined target before she turned back to William, her eyes now sparkling with something far more intense than just simple pride.
"Power is impressive," she said lightly, "Creation is superior."
William held the tiny device in his palm, his gaze sweeping across the smoldering remains scattered across the workshop floor. "You're actually suggesting?"
"I'm not suggesting, I'm offering to teach you if you desire to learn," she said, her tone firm yet not amused.
She then began to move towards a large central worktable, which sat directly in the middle of the room.
Its surface was an intricate mosaic, composed of concentric circles of inlaid silver, each one faintly glowing with a soft, inner light.
"You've wielded force. Let us see if you can shape it into a rune for later use."
From beneath the table she retrieved a length of dark wood, polished but unadorned.
It was no thicker than a finger, its grain tight and subtly spiraled.
"This is a creation of my own, combining the very best qualities of both Sussur wood and Deeproot wood," she explained. "It is incredibly resilient and incredibly receptive to magic. Furthermore, it will not fracture or break at all when exposed to extreme magical energy!" She explained before handing the strange wooden rod to William.
William took the rod from her hand.
It felt deceptively simple.
Light.
Smooth.
Harmless.
His fingers wrapped around it tightly, and he took a deep, slow breath, inhaling the familiar sense of warmth and comfort that filled his chest.
The same current that had answered him in battle.
The same power that had shattered stone and bent lightning to his will.
"Channel," Lenore said softly, stepping back just enough to give him space. "Do not force."
He nodded, then he tried.
At first, nothing.
He concentrated deeply, focusing his will inward as he searched for that hidden wellspring of energy that seemed to be coiled up deep within his chest.
It stirred sluggishly, like something reluctant to wake.
He pushed harder.
The wood warmed in his grip.
A faint, flickering light danced across its surface, but it sputtered and died almost immediately, as though it was a flame that had been denied oxygen.
William's jaw tightened.
This time, he made another attempt, focusing on guiding the energy flow rather than simply allowing it to surge in.
He imagined it flowing down his arm in a steady stream.
Instead, it surged.
The rod vibrated violently in his hand.
The air filled with a sharp, jarring hum, accompanied by a chaotic release of magic that seemed to erupt outwards in all directions.
Yet, the magic vanished completely, as if it had been completely absorbed and rendered useless.
Meanwhile, the very walls surrounding them hummed to life, glowing faintly with protective runes that seemed to suck up the escaping magical energy from the wand.
Lenore's eyes narrowed, not in disappointment but in interest.
"Your power resists confinement," she observed. "It does not like being shaped."
William exhaled sharply through his nose.
A palpable pressure started to build within him, emanating from deep within his core and radiating outwards, spreading throughout his being.
His heartbeat deepened, slower and heavier.
A noticeable warmth seemed to seep into his very bones, causing a noticeable rise in temperature around him.
He tried to contain it.
He failed.
The transformation wasn't a sudden, dramatic explosion but rather a gradual, quiet surrender.
Dark energy rippled across his body.
His skin began to show that faint crimson color beneath the surface, as if his face was glowing with a soft, banked ember.
Horns curved subtly from his brow.
His eyes now burned with a light that was far beyond mortal intensity.
The air around him felt thick and suffocating, radiating an infernal heat that caused thin, distorted ripples to warp not only William's own body but also the wand he was holding, making its edges seem to twist and distort.
His Devil state.
The wand did not reject this power.
It drank it.
William's breathing steadied.
Previously, his magic had felt like a storm gathering force, desperately trying to find a way out. However, now, it felt significantly more contained, as though its energy was tightly pressed into a shape
Focused.
Dense.
He guided the infernal energy down his arm again.
This time it obeyed.
Not wild lightning, like Lenore's.
A controlled, molten current.
The rod started to glow, but it wasn't the characteristic violet arcs typical of lightning magic; instead, it emanated a deep, smoldering red.
At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a very faint line, barely visible, running along the natural grain of the wood, almost as if it were a shallow crack that had formed as the wood was cooling.
Then the line branched.
A rune, sharp-edged and deliberate in its appearance, materialized and began to carve itself into existence along the side.
It pulsed once.
The pulse shook the table.
William's fingers tightened further, and he watched as the rune began to flare brighter, its light growing more intense until it swelled and filled the space around it, as if the magic contained within it were simply too vast to fit comfortably.
The lines did not fracture.
They expanded.
Runic veins, which had previously emanated from the original sigil, began to split outward, branching into intricate patterns as they snaked along the wand's surface.
With each new line that came into being, there was a sense of precise, geometric intention behind it.
The shapes were arranged with great care, interlocking neatly and forming a harmonious whole.
Circles nested within jagged strokes.
Symbols that felt older than spoken language.
The glow intensified.
Red. Not bright like flame, but deep.
Commanding.
The color of embers at the heart of a furnace.
Following the initial hum, a low and steady sound emerged. It felt controlled, as if there was a deliberate hand guiding its flow.
William's gaze fell upon his creation, his demonic eyes gleaming with an unsettling intensity as he took in the intricate network of glowing lines that crisscrossed its surface.
He could feel it now.
Not just power.
Containment.
His magic, once a powerful and uncontrolled force that seemed to be spilling outward in a storm, now felt more contained and controlled.
It was moving in channels.
Directed.
Disciplined.
Lenore took a tentative step forward, her figure illuminated by the fiery red light, making her features glow with a molten light.
"Fascinating," she murmured, her voice barely a whisper, as she reached towards it with her hand.
Despite her hesitation, she managed to stop just short of actually reaching out and touching it, a sense of dread washing over her as she drew closer. However, William was entirely engrossed in the shimmering blue prompt that had materialized directly in front of him, his attention completely consumed.
[Wandcraft skill gained - Wandcraft (Level 1)]
[DING - Infernal wand created... Level up!]