The Sixth School Book II Ch. 019

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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

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Chapter Nineteen: Desire...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Because it wanted to...

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The sounds of debauchery filled the air all around Greg as he sat cross-legged in the middle of the brothel. Just as had been the case aboveground, no one here seemed to notice his presence. Like an invisible obstacle, people just moved around the two of them whenever they were in the way. Greg's eyes were closed even as he allowed himself to sense it. The fire that burned brightly in this establishment. The fire of desire. It was the force behind all life. An unquenchable fire whose embers were the next generation of any species it burned. A tyrant that very few have the discipline to overcome. Chains that few possess the strength to break. Hooks in the flesh that made one into a marionette, moving and dancing to a tune that they couldn't see, hear, or break out of.

Greg could feel it all around him. The sparks that flew with every touch, the fire that burned in both men and women as they teased, toyed, and ravaged each other. Of course, there were drugs involved. Unlike in his older world where most drugs dulled the senses, the ones used in this brothel did the opposite. They heightened one's sensitivity to touch. They increased one's pleasure from sexual acts, they increased one's vigor, keeping them going for hours on end. They even had drugs to keep them from achieving orgasm just so they could go at it for longer. All in all, it was the perfect cocktail for the orgy Greg had seen take place at this establishment almost every night for the past month. This, at least, is what it looked like on the surface. When Greg peered underneath the mundane, however, a completely different scene played out for him.

These people were all slaves, and desire was the slave-master driving them. He could almost hear the clanking of the chains as desire dragged men from the streets above into this little den of depravity. He could almost see the people themselves grabbing the hooks that desire had driven into them. But rather than pull them out, they pushed them deeper as they took drugs that would shut down their higher faculties of reason and only enhance their basest desires. He would then watch them dance like puppets to the tune of their master, desire. They burned with the flame of desire and loved every second of it. On several occasions during the past month, Greg had been reminded of what his familiar had told him back when she had been telling him about the different levels of willpower.

"Pain is harsh and jarring. It can't be denied, explained away, or reasoned with! When you are subjected to it, you'll know it. Pleasure... pleasure, on the other hand, is a silent poison. You won't even notice it as it slowly seeps into your system. When subjected to pain, you will try to run away from it. When it comes to pleasure, however, you'll be the one seeking it out. Even more terrifying to consider is the fact that you might even be aware of what this pleasure is doing to you, and yet you won't stop. I'm not for even a second making light of how much pain people can be made to suffer. However, when it comes to corrupting people and twisting them into something not even they can recognize, then pain doesn't even have half the power that pleasure has in that respect. Pain may break you but pleasure... pleasure will make a slave of you!"

Pleasure was the bait offered by desire.

It was the glittering prize that kept the one being ensnared enthralled. The blindfold kept them from noticing the chains they were being wrapped in. Fulfill your desires and you will be happy. Indulge that deep craving and you can keep misery at bay. Lose yourself in the pleasure you feel now and forget whatever troubles come tomorrow. It was almost chilling for Greg to watch these people all around him indulge in their carnal desire, not because he was a prude in any way, but because it felt like he was watching slaves. And this wasn't slavery in the sense that someone was forced to do something they didn't want to. Bad as that was, this was far more insidious. Here, the slave had been seduced into loving his chains. To actively seek out his chains just for the promise of a little more pleasure! To lose themselves in it...

***

Calyn reached forward, picked the cup of red blossom tea off the table and brought it to her lips. Taking a sip, Calyn closed her eyes even as the rich taste of the tea spread across her tongue. It was this particular beverage that had made this establishment the number-one teahouse in the city of Kelden. It was such a hit that the establishment was named after it, the red blossom teahouse. It had always been a favorite of hers and the idea of not being able to taste it for another hundred cycles was torture. She'd have to buy a significant batch to keep with her that she could ration and have at least a cup whenever the craving struck her. Calyn didn't have the money to pay for the cup that she was currently taking or the expensive room on the top floor of the establishment she currently occupied. Neither one of these facts, however, bothered her in the least. Kelden was a city less than a day outside of territory controlled by the Sydrak clan. The bill for anything she had while here or took thereafter would be sent directly to the clan.

They had been in this city for six days now. Calyn hadn't been lying when she told Roka that it would take her aunt a little over a week to reach the city. This was why she was shocked when the door to the room she had reserved flew open and standing behind it was Aunt Lina. Before she knew it, Calyn was on her feet and across the room. Just three months ago, she'd been certain that she wouldn't see this woman for another hundred cycles. Seeing her now soothed a deep ache that Calyn had never allowed herself to acknowledge, lest it break her. "It's okay child, everything's going to be okay," Aunt Lina spoke comfortingly, one hand hugging her back while the other gently stroked her hair.

Calyn had to bury her face in her aunt's shoulder to keep tears from flowing down her face. For a fleeting moment, all was right with the world. Calyn felt safe as all the questions and choices she had been wondering over fell away. For a single endless moment, all the problems she had been turning in her head no longer mattered. All that mattered was the comforting embrace of this woman. That moment, however, shattered when a different voice reached her from behind her aunt. "How touching. I hope you missed me just as much," Nerissa spoke up.

Calyn's eyes opened as she aimed a glare over her aunt's shoulder at her cousin "What are you doing here?" She questioned rather waspishly.

"Cousin, you wound me," Nerissa replied with a smile, clearly unbothered by the hostility coming from Calyn. "Father was concerned for you, so he sent me to check up on you. And this is how you receive me?" She questioned, feigning being hurt.

Calyn immediately read in between the lines. The clan head hadn't been willing to let her meet her aunt alone. Unless there had been some falling out in the three months that Calyn hadn't been present, her aunt was probably still with the faction belonging to her father, the clan head's brother. Given the seriousness with which the clan regarded the possibility of enmity with Roka, the clan head wasn't willing to take any chances. He had sent Nerissa as a pair of ears that she could trust to relay everything that happened at this meeting. Calyn could immediately understand the wisdom in this. Aunt Lina was the woman that had raised her ever since she was a child. Worse yet, she was allied with Calyn's father. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that they might be tempted to do something stupid for her sake. There needed to be someone at this meeting who would place the interests of the clan above personal ones.

Finally pulling away from her aunt, the two of them walked into the room with her cousin trailing behind them. Calyn took those few moments to compose herself. Being able to understand the clan head's rationale, didn't in any way diminish her annoyance at the clear lack of trust this move showed. She was, after all, the one who chose to reveal everything that she had done. If she was the kind of person willing to compromise the clan for her own interests, then she'd have kept silent from the start and acted as if nothing had happened. Even worse, Roka had plainly told her that she would have gotten away with it if she had. It wasn't even remotely amusing to have her commitment to the clan questioned after all that she had done.

"Shouldn't he have picked someone less... burdened?" Calyn questioned, her gaze dropping to her cousin's midriff. She had already been three months pregnant back when she revealed it to them in Ethavel. Now, three months later, she was six months along and the prominence of her belly couldn't be hidden. As a body enhancer, Calyn knew that pregnancy presented zero challenges to her cousin. Right up until the birth itself, she would be perfectly fine, her body comfortably capable of dealing with another being inside her.

"I am pregnant cousin, not witless," Nerissa answered with a dismissive wave of the hand even as a servant walked into the room carrying a chair for her. Calyn had only expected her aunt so there had only been one other seat at the table apart from hers. "Which is why, for the life of me, I can't understand why you would choose to bring a calamity this close to clan territory?" Her cousin questioned once the servant was gone and all three of them were seated. What little amusement she'd been feigning vanished as her tone became frigid.

Despite Calyn's dislike for her cousin, it was a fair question to ask. From the look in her eyes, her aunt also seemed interested in the answer to this question. "I haven't," Calyn answered with a sigh, looking back down to her tea. She then launched into an explanation of everything that happened since they parted ways. Had Roka turned out to be everything they feared he would, then Calyn never would have asked him to land near her clan's territory. The very reason she had even admitted to everything was because she wished to keep her clan safe. Why would she then turn around and bring him over to her clan if she thought he posed a danger to them? "... He's been in secluded meditation since we left Ethavel," Calyn at last came to the end of her explanation.

There was a long silence following her words. Calyn could tell that both her aunt and cousin were just as caught off guard by the situation she found herself in as she was. "So, you haven't interacted with the deity at all since we were at the Governor's castle?" Aunt Lina questioned, some relief in her voice.

Calyn shook her head. "No. If Roka is to be believed, then he isn't even interested in me," she stated.

"And what about you?" Aunt Lina questioned. The woman had always been capable of seeing right through her even when she tried to be stoic. Calyn had tried to give a neutral report of everything that had happened since they parted ways and yet she had somehow picked up on the fact that something was bothering her...

***

"Would you say that fire is evil?"

Greg's eyes opened when Morpheus broke his now month-long silence. His brow furrowed as he considered the question. For all his eccentricities, Morpheus was still far more experienced and in touch with the world's laws than he was. Odd as the question sounded, Greg wasn't willing to disregard it. "No, I wouldn't say that it's evil," he replied.

"What if you watched it burn a whole village, would you then say that it's evil?" Morpheus pressed.

"I'd say that whoever started it is the evil one," Greg replied after pausing for a second.

"What if it wasn't started by anyone? What if lighting struck a dead tree, setting it on fire? What if that fire spreads to other trees around it leading to a forest fire? What if that fire then spreads to a village nearby, burning those living there to ashes? Would you then say that fire is evil?" He questioned.

"I... I would say that it's tragic that so many people died, but no... fire is not evil," Greg replied.

"You are like someone who learned about fire by watching it burn a village of people. This is a brothel, Greg. People don't come here to meditate on the grander mysteries of life. They come here to indulge their basest desires, sometimes even to their own detriment. To use this as your basis for understanding desire is like trying to understand fire by listening to the screams of those it burns. Just like the fire, there is nothing inherently evil or good about desire. It's all a question of who is in control. If you are controlled by your desires you're like a man on fire, burning until you're eventually consumed. On the other hand, if you take all desire away from a man, then he becomes no different from a doll that draws breath. Feed him and give him water and he'll go on drawing breath. But, is he really living?"

"To lose yourself to your desire is not good, neither is completely ridding oneself of them. Rather, like the hand holding the steering wheel, you need to stay in control. Desire is the vehicle that drives you to where you wish to be, but only if you never take your hand off the steering wheel. The road will be treacherous. And like an untamed steed, your desires will not want to be controlled, But so long as you never let go of the reins, you will never lose yourself to your desires," Morpheus spoke with the force of an unbending will. The deity didn't make use of his powers, he didn't even let a smidgen of his aura leak, and yet, Greg had never been more keenly aware that he was sitting before a deity. Looking into the old monk's eyes, Greg got the sense that it would be easier to move a mountain than to move him. Hell, once his will was set on something, the whole world would be moved before Morpheus was. That was the kind of unbreakable will Morpheus possessed. A will that would see the world bend and break before it ever did.

"Thank you," Greg stated genuinely. To begin with, the deity's correction had been essential. To mistake what he saw here as the entirety of desire would have led Greg to have a flawed understanding of the law of desire. He didn't need to be a genius to realize that starting with a flawed understanding of any law would leave one unable to get far in the demi tier. The correction might have seemed trivial at first glance, but in reality, it was like starting in the wrong direction when you needed to travel a thousand miles. In the first few steps, the deviation might seem trivial, but the further down the path you went, the more impactful that initial error would prove to be.

Even more than the correction, however, was the extra demonstration that Morpheus had given. Thus far, Greg had been lost in trying to understand the law of desire and hadn't put any thought into how one's will played into taking control of a law. It was one of those things that only became obvious once one thought about it. The laws of reality weren't going to be bent by one who didn't have the requisite force of will to get them to yield. To manipulate the laws of the world, you didn't ask nicely. You needed to impose on the world a will even more unbending than the very laws that it operated on. Greg recognized that he hadn't caught a glimpse of the deity's will by accident. Morpheus had put it on display for him as a guidepost. A marker of how tempered his will had to be if he wished to climb to the heights that the deity had.

Seeing that Greg had gotten the message, Morpheus smiled darkly. "All that said, just because you weren't entirely right, doesn't mean that you're entirely wrong," he said, his gaze moving to the people around. "Desires uncontrolled can be a chain. A shackle around the neck that people will willingly put on." The smile on his lips turned chilling as he turned back to him. "But if they are slaves to desire, what will they be to the one who controls desire itself?" He questioned...

***

"Count on you to make a trivial thing overly complicated," Nerissa spoke with a roll of the eyes.

Calyn had been forced to share her doubts with Aunt Lina in Nerissa's presence. She had tried to get her cousin to give her a moment of privacy with her aunt but with a smile on her face, Nerissa had flatly refused. She had been sent here to safeguard the clan's interests, and that's exactly what she intended to do, Calyn's desire for privacy be damned. In a way, Calyn couldn't fault her. She had been given a task by the clan head and was seeing it through to the best of her ability. That's what any loyal member of the clan should do. On the other hand, Calyn could clearly see it in her eyes, the pleasure Nerissa took in the fact that she didn't allow her any privacy. Calyn was once again reminded why she had been so adamant that her marriage to Deriel be called off. It wasn't that she cared all that much about the faithfulness of the scoundrel. It didn't matter to her one way or the other who the young man chose to sleep with. Rather, it was her cousin that she'd wished to get away from.

"Tell me, cousin, if Roka were to order you to do something right now, would you do it?" Nerissa asked.

Calyn was tempted to ignore her cousin just on principle. She, however, realized just how childish she would look and didn't want to give Nerissa that win. Besides, her aunt had remained quiet meaning that she saw some merit in what her cousin was trying to convey. Choosing not to focus on Nerissa, Calyn turned her attention to the question itself. Through both his words and his actions, Roka had made it clear that he didn't have any interest in holding any power over her. But now that she thought about it, Calyn realized that should this change, she could only lower her head and comply. Even if the deity didn't show up, Roka's guard was a lethal threat to her. Calyn had sat in on enough of their training fights to know this without a shadow of a doubt.

Even Roka, with all his strength and speed, regularly left their training bouts beaten and bloody. He might have an edge on Olivia in terms of pure brute strength. Olivia, however, had him beat when it came to speed, and as far as skill and combat experience was concerned, they weren't even in the same world. Roka might as well have been a child trying to fight a skilled adult. Despite this gulf in fighting ability, Olivia was completely loyal to Roka. If he ordered her to kill Calyn, she'd probably find her throat slit even before she could think to defend herself. Just because Roka didn't lord over her, didn't mean he didn't have the power to. She was only free in so far as the young man allowed it. "Yes," she found herself replying, her tone relaying just how unsettling she found the prospect.

"Then what dilemma is there?" Nerissa questioned. "Whatever freedom you still believe yourself to have is just an illusion and nothing more. Should he wish it, you'd be on your knees and serving him every which way he desires. You cling to an illusion of freedom out of some misbegotten pride and allow that to blind you to the monumental opportunity before you. Rather than a slave he had to force into his bed, you have the chance to take the reins into your hands and use what little feminine charms you still have to win him over. Rather than make it an antagonistic relationship, you could give him what you know he wants and gain his favor that way! How is this not obvious to you?" Nerissa questioned. Despite the subtle barb that her cousin had slipped into her diatribe, she seemed genuinely confused.

"You haven't been around him at all. Despite the power he has, Roka isn't a tyrant. He is content to do his own thing and let others do theirs. All this time, he had the chance to do all that you are suggesting, and yet he hasn't. He's barely even used me as a servant let alone taken liberties with me as you suggest," Calyn countered.

"And that is better?" Nerissa shot back. The incredulity in her voice relayed that she didn't think this to be the case. "Cousin, you have at your side someone linked to an actual god and you somehow think that fading into the background is your best course of action? Play this correctly and you could end up gleaning knowledge from a deity, and yet you sit here wondering if you should continue pretending that you're free? It would seem I misjudged just how obsessed you are with ascension and gaining more power," Nerissa said in a mocking tone. "But even if you are, for whatever reason, personally uninterested, have you paused to consider just how much of a boon it would be for the clan to have someone capable of calling on the power of a deity as an ally? The merit of such an action would be enough to have you named as the next clan head!" Her cousin stated causing Calyn's eyes to go wide.

Calyn's shock didn't stem from the possibility of becoming the next clan head. The position held no appeal for her. Instead, that Nerissa would be willing to give her a strategy of gaining a position she so coveted was the real shock to her. Nerissa must have immediately understood Calyn's thinking as her eyes narrowed in genuine anger. "Do not for even a moment think that I am any less loyal or dutiful to my clan than you Cousin," She said acidly. "Do you really think I'd put my ambition to be clan-head above the possibility of the clan gaining a deity as an ally?" She questioned. Calyn was caught off guard by the vehemence in Nerissa's voice. Despite all of Calyn's misgivings about her cousin, she could see in her anger and hear it in Nerissa's voice, the same kind of loyalty and dedication to the clan that had driven Calyn to be honest about what had happened with her and Roka. It surprised her, but she found herself believing her cousin. Much as she desired the position of clan head, Nerissa would be willing to let it go in order to gain someone like Roka as an ally.

The anger, however, quickly faded as the confident smile Calyn was used to seeing on her cousin returned. "But just because you stumbled on this bit of luck, don't think that I won't put up a fight. You'll be gone for a hundred cycles, dear cousin. A hundred cycles in which I'll be doing everything I can to fortify my position in the clan. If you wish to be the next leader of the Sydrak clan, you are going to have to bring everything you've got, dear cousin. Anything less, and don't even dream of being anything other than my underling," Nerissa declared with ironclad certainty.

Her aunt had kept quiet all through. Calyn, however, couldn't fault her. Despite her dislike for Nerissa, her cousin had cut right through the fog of the situation and made the choice before her rather easy to see...

***

It was a subtle feeling. A lot like looking at a ray of light for a long enough time that you get the sensation that you can reach out and tug on it like a string. Despite his words of caution about thinking that what he saw in this brothel represented the entirety of desire, Morpheus still had him stay here and immerse himself in its true nature. After all, if you wanted something, you had to go where it was most abundant. Other than a few comments here and there when Greg started to drift in unproductive directions, Morpheus had largely remained silent, not wishing to interfere with how Greg connected to the law of desire. It was, after all, supposed to be him connecting to the law in a way he most resonated with, not the one he was instructed to follow.

Perhaps it was the fact that he was an elemental mage that inclined to think of it this way, but to him, desire was like a flame. Its intensity varied from one individual to the next, but it was always there. Greg had been watching yet another orgy take place, the patrons having lost themselves to desire. Greg had been sitting in the middle of an inferno. All around him, flames of desire, both natural and drug-induced, raged. If someone had stopped him in the moment and asked him what he was reaching for, he wouldn't have been able to answer. He probably would have even lost the tenuous connection he'd established by overthinking it. However, no one did. For a split second, Greg was completely lost to himself. He'd immersed himself so deeply into the flames raging around him that he ceased to be. For an infinitesimal moment, the line between himself and the fire he was studying faded and suddenly, he was the fire.

Greg instantly knew that he was dead.

It was too late to do anything about it, but in those last moments, Greg couldn't help but remember Morpheus' warning right before they began this whole ordeal. "The laws are not dead, or things that can easily be tamed by mortals. They define reality. If you think that your mortal mind can easily grasp them, think again." It now occurred to Greg that, despite having heard it, he hadn't really paid any mind to the warning. Right up until this very moment.

A vast and ancient will turned its attention to him. Almost immediately, Greg realized that he hadn't just touched on the passions of a few orgy goers. Instead, he had touched on a force that had been there for as long as complex living beings had been around. Greg had gone in with the mind of corralling a law into control like some puppy. In reality, the thing he had touched on was no puppy, it wasn't even a fierce dragon. If anything, the fiercest dragon that Greg could imagine was little more than a puppy to this force. This was like taking a sip of water only to find that you had tried to swallow the volume of an ocean in one go. Or like trying to light a candle, only to find that it burned with the heat of the sun. Greg was like a paper figurine that had arrogantly walked into a furnace.

To the mortal mind, desire was little more than a concept. A state of mind that people experience from time to time. At the level of Law, however, Desire was every bit as real and tangible a phenomenon as a brick to the face. This was one of the nodes in the wireframe of reality. A small one, but nonetheless, a corner of the laws on which the very universe operated. It wasn't a living breathing being. It was barely more intelligent than a child. Greg, however, immediately recognized that he didn't have anywhere near the force of will he'd need to control such a force. At the level of law, desire was such a pure and unbending force that wanted what it wanted and wouldn't be denied.

Greg thought he knew what desire was. What possessed him the moment he connected to this law, however, rid him of any such notion. He thought that desire was simply to want something. As his mind fragmented under the onslaught of this primal force, however, Greg realized that this barely scratched the surface. True desire didn't just stop at wanting, at its core, desire refused to be denied. If the world tried to deny it, it would destroy the world. If it was the gods that tried to deny it, they would fall. If reality tried to deny it, then desire would redefine reality itself to get at what it wanted. There were more insights to be gleaned from his contact with such a powerful force. A second after coming in contact with it, however, any intelligent thought or impulse he had was snuffed out.

In much the same way a dry log would be consumed by fire, Desire was burning up Greg's very existence, ridding it of everything that wasn't desire. In this context that Greg had immersed himself in for the past few weeks, desire expressed itself in the form of lust. Even as he felt himself come apart, Greg could only think about sex. No, he didn't just want to fuck. He was no longer a conscious being looking to procreate. Rather, he had become the embodiment of the very desire itself! He wasn't just one of the revelers in this orgy, instead, he was in every single one of them. Losing his very sense of self, Greg became the very embodiment of the law of lust inside the brothel.

Unbeknownst to him, the bodies of those involved in the orgy would later be discovered still entangled with one another in lewd positions. Like people possessed by some powerful external force, they would continue to fuck until they first tired, then were dehydrated, then collapsed on one another. And still, they wouldn't stop moving. Everyone present had become the marionette of some primal force that was only interested in one thing...

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