The Delights of Cunning Artifice

“Master Velkon’yss! What a joyous surprise! Truly, it has been too long.”

Rizeth kept his disdain for the svirfneblin’s over-friendly demeanour tucked behind a carefully neutral expression. He inclined his head very slightly, which still managed to encourage Zietta’s enthusiasm. The deep gnome pushed aside the ledger he had been scratching in and clasped his hands together, favouring Rizeth with the debatable merits of his undivided attention.

“What can I provide for you, good Master? Maintenance on some of my previous work, perhaps? Or, I do have some new designs I have been wanting to try out, and I have not had a suitable client in quite some time. You always were—”

Rizeth set a slip of paper down on the counter. Zietta, blessedly, ceased his ramblings to read it, though his lips worked soundlessly over the words. He may have been a great genius at artificing, but at most other things he was a slow study. Fortunately for the both of them, the deep gnome was not a student at the Arcanum.

Zietta scratched at his bulbous nose.

“Well, that’s simple enough, I suppose, but are you certain you don’t want—”

Rizeth raised an eyebrow. Zietta deflated.

“Alright. And your usual discount, of course, and I will deliver it personally to your estate in Qu’ellor’harl, as per our previous arrangement?”

“If you would be so kind.”

“…not even a little adjustment? Just a small modification, perhaps, here I could—”

“Master Oreeyes,” Rizeth said in a warning tone.

“Alright, alright, as you wish! I shall begin at once, good Master Velkon’yss.”

Zietta tucked Rizeth’s note into the pocket of his overalls and hopped off of his stool, briefly vanishing behind the high stone counter. His head poked around the side as Rizeth was making for the door.

“And Rizeth?”

“What, Zietta?” He levelled a cold look back over his shoulder. Zietta was grinning.

“It’s good to see you again.”

The summons had instructed him to bring his essay on artificing directly to Master Velkon’yss’ quarters at once. Ashenivir could not help but be a little confused as he descended through the Arcanum with scroll tube in hand. He levitated quickly down the central well of the south staircase, tapping the tube against his leg, wondering. Was the Master simply being efficient, having him hand over work at the same time as attending to serve him again? Or were the two connected, and if so, what might it mean?

The door opened to his first knock, the mage hand flickering behind him to nudge it closed as he stepped through. Master Velkon’yss was, as usual, seated at his desk and bent over a stack of papers—other essays, no doubt, for the assignment had been given to all in his class.

Ashenivir hesitated, then went to his knees and bowed his head, holding out the scroll tube across flat, upturned palms. He was slowly learning Master Velkon’yss’ preferences in regard to positioning, and tried to offer those he felt most appropriate in cases where he was uncertain.

He did not raise his head even when he heard Master Velkon’yss slide his chair back and cross the room towards him. The scroll tube was plucked from his hands, then pressed under his chin to lift his head.

“Your swift obedience is duly noted, apprentice,” said Master Velkon’yss.

Ashenivir could not help flushing with heat when he looked up at his Master this way. He had always felt a special pleasure at being on his knees, but somehow the way Rizeth looked at him held such weight as he had not come across before. It was like a physical thing, keeping him in place as powerfully as any hand.

Master Velkon’yss regarded him a moment more, then stepped away. He set the scroll tube on the desk atop his other papers, then went to a low drawer in one of the wall cabinets and withdrew something. He kept it hidden in his hands, so that Ashenivir could not see what it was until it dangled inches from his face.

A gag.

His heart thudded faster.

“This excites you,” Master Velkon’yss observed. Ashenivir nodded, gaze fixed upon the black leather of the gag. “Interesting. Now, open your mouth.”

Ashenivir obeyed, and the hard ball was slipped between his lips. He settled his teeth around it, feeling a slight resistance, and held very still as Master Velkon’yss fastened the strap around his head with motions not slow but deliberate and precise, ensuring Ashenivir was acutely aware of exactly what was happening. He scraped his nails up the edges of Ashenivir’s ears as he drew his hands away, making him shiver.

“You may have noticed, apprentice,” he said, straightening up, “that you cannot speak right now.”

Ashenivir nodded. Already his mouth was watering around the gag and he swallowed.

“I am going to do several things to you today,” Master Velkon’yss continued. “If you need me to stop—”

He took Ashenivir’s arm and lifted it, sliding his thumb slowly up Ashenivir’s palm and along his first two fingers.

“You will tap three times, quickly, wherever you can reach. Show me that you can do this.”

He released Ashenivir’s hand and at once Ashenivir reached out and tapped three times against the Master’s thigh. Rizeth raised an eyebrow.

“You wish me to stop already, apprentice? We have barely begun!”

Ashenivir shook his head wildly, hair flying about his face. He could make only muffled, incoherent noises of protest around the gag, and a slick of drool dampened his chin.

“Now you look as you should when you kneel for me,” Master Velkon’yss said, brushing Ashenivir’s hair back from his face and holding his head still. “Flushed and in disarray. Very good, apprentice.”

Ashenivir blinked. He had not thought Rizeth the type to tease in that way. It still felt good, though—felt wonderful, in fact, to have the Master pull his strings so easily. He swallowed again, working his jaw around the gag. He was surprised by how comfortable it was, and how well-made. Where in Mythen Thaelas had Master Velkon’yss had gotten such a thing?

“Now,” Master Velkon’yss said, “you have no doubt turned out an adequate essay on artificing, and I suspect it shall be one of a very few I might actually tolerate reading. But I have promised you private tutelage and so you, my apprentice,” he caressed Ashenivir’s face, took his chin firmly. “You will get the benefit of a much more intimate look at the effects magical artifice can accomplish.”

Ashenivir moaned eagerly. He knew a little of the kind of…toy…that artificing could construct, he even had a few minor items of his own, acquired with great secrecy and care and used near to the point of ruin. The manner of thing Master Velkon’yss might have made or acquired would, judging by the quality of the gag alone, certainly be far more interesting than anything Ashenivir had managed to get his hands on. The Master seemed pleased at the reaction his words had created, and released Ashenivir’s chin.

“First, however, there is the matter of your essay. I cannot instruct you in a practical sense until I have discerned the level of your theoretical knowledge. Up,” he commanded, and Ashenivir rose. “Strip. Leave your clothes by the door. From now on, when you come to me—unless I have instructed otherwise—you will remove them and place them there the moment the door closes. For when it does, you belong to my commands for the duration of our engagement. Am I understood?”

Ashenivir nodded.

“Speak it,” Rizeth said, the corner of his mouth curving wickedly. The sounds Ashenivir made only vaguely resembled words, muffled around the gag and causing yet more drool to slick his chin. A little dripped down onto his chest and he trembled.

“Good, apprentice. Now, I do believe I gave you an order.”

When Ashenivir was naked, Master Velkon’yss put him on his knees on a low, flat cushion laid out by his desk, and took up the scroll tube containing his essay. He tugged out the neatly rolled papers and spread them flat—Ashenivir watched those slender hands with greedy eyes. The quick, precise movements, the firm press of fingers against parchment, the quiet confidence held within them. Those hands tended to fill his fantasies, and had done even before they had ever been laid upon him. A whimper escaped him and Rizeth glanced over.

“You need something already, apprentice?”

Ashenivir nodded, and Master Velkon’yss noted where his gaze lingered, curling his fingers under his palm. Then he reached out and slipped two fingers under Ashenivir’s chin, withdrawing them a moment later, wet with spit. He rubbed over them with a thumb in a motion that could not have been better calculated to drive Ashenivir insane.

“My, but you are always so hungry when you visit. I suppose you may have a little something to sate your appetite for now, whilst I examine your work.”

Out of the same drawer he had taken the gag from, Master Velkon’yss took something silvery, a chain dangling between his fingers. Ashenivir made wordless, eager sounds when he saw the metal clips to which the chain was attached. He had his arms behind his back, as the Master liked, and squeezed his elbows tight.

The clamps, he saw as Rizeth brought them to him, were oddly shaped. They bulged at the ends with something like an oval vial, accented with copper inlays—runes, he thought they might be. With swift, sure motions Master Velkon’yss attached the cold clamps to his nipples, and Ashenivir panted eagerly against the gag, arching into the brief touch of his Master’s fingers. The connecting chain dangled against his chest, chilly silver metal that he was certain must look very pretty against his deep purple skin.

“Pay attention to how they function, apprentice,” Master Velkon’yss said, re-seating himself at his desk. “You will learn far more from experience than pure theory—and you will learn still more each time I come across an error of any kind in your work.”

Indeed, the clamps had already activated, a low, continuous vibration buzzing faintly against Ashenivir’s skin. This, combined with the pinching grip of them on his nipples, conspired to send a coil of hollow heat through his belly and as he knelt there watching the Master read, he grew hard with some swiftness.

He kept his arms behind his back, though. He did not have permission to touch himself.

However, he had not been told to keep silent and so he did not. The vibrations rolled through him, carrying waves of pleasure that shuddered from his nipples through his chest to express their effect in gag-muffled gasps and drool-accented groans. Spit dripped onto his bare legs, and, very occasionally, onto his cock. This only made him moan louder, rocking a little in desperation.

Master Velkon’yss paid him no mind, reading through Ashenivir’s work as calmly as though he were not there. At length he set the first page aside, lifted the second and, after a moment’s examination, frowned.

“The derivative turn of phrase I could forgive, apprentice—but a misspelling as well? Clumsy, very clumsy.”

He reached down and touched the phials attached to the clamps, whose weight had thus far been a mere pleasant pull on Ashenivir’s nipples. There was a subtle click and something shifted within the phials. Ashenivir gasped as the weight suddenly increased, the clamps tightening to compensate. A brief flash of pain lit through him, glittering and wonderful, and he moaned his delight as Rizeth sat back.

“I hope you are recalling your studies, apprentice,” he said. “Have you grasped the key feature of their construction yet?”

Ashenivir shook his head, and the movement was enough to jostle the clamps, whose sway made him moan again.

“Hm. Keep at it, apprentice. I am certain you have motivation enough to puzzle it out.”

With that, he returned to Ashenivir’s work, now and then making a quick note upon it.

Ashenivir had not thought he had made so many errors in his work, but Rizeth continued to call them out one after another and with each one the clamps grew heavier, the gag wetter, and his untouched cock harder. He could not even ask permission to touch himself, he could only moan around the gag in increasing desperation, waiting for Master Velkon’yss to finish reading.

Apprentice Zauvym’s work was quite good. The mistakes that he called out were there, he was not inventing errors, but they were minor at best. An inexperienced turn of phrase here, a careless misspelling there, a few erroneous assumptions that were only to be expected from a student. Still, it was in all other respects an excellent piece of work, and far better researched than most of the others in the stack on his desk.

“Despite the errors,” he said at last, setting the essay aside, “you have produced a competently thorough analysis of the basic principles of artificing. I do hope, apprentice, that you did not neglect your other studies in completing this.”

Ashenivir shook his head, making a muffled noise of delightfully indignant protest. The sounds he produced whilst gagged were most enjoyable indeed and, Rizeth noted, he had kept his hands behind his back despite his evident arousal. He had given no order for such a thing, yet Ashenivir clearly assumed that he should not indulge himself without explicit permission.

Such obedience…

“Good,” Rizeth said aloud. “Because if it should come to my attention that you neglect a single one of your other responsibilities in favour of work I assign you…” he trailed off, letting the implication hang between them.

Ashenivir nodded. With drool dripping around the gag, his face flushed and his eyes shining, he made quite a pleasing sight. Rizeth reached down and deactivated the graviturgy effects in the clamps. Ashenivir sat back with a sigh as the extra weight was removed.

Fine as he looked with the clamps on, Rizeth had no desire to overuse them, so he removed them now, the act making Ashenivir whimper and twitch beneath his touch. His nipples were swollen, sensitive, and Rizeth could not resist first brushing his fingertips over them, then pinching each lightly in turn. Ashenivir made a sweet, high sound and closed his eyes against the intensity of the sensation.

Rizeth was growing to enjoy just how responsive the apprentice was. Just how far would he be willing to go?

“Your grasp of the basic concepts is adequate,” he said. “And I am certain you have by now understood the construction of the clamps—am I correct in that assumption?”

Ashenivir nodded, looking as though he very much wanted to explain what he had learned, biting down on the gag in frustration.

“You will have your voice back eventually, apprentice.” Rizeth directed him to his feet and into the bedroom. He closed the door behind them, sealing them in the quiet dimness of the chamber. He had imbued the sconces within with continual flames in faerie fire blues and purples, casting everything in softly shifting light and elegant shadows.

He had Ashenivir stand in the centre of the room, legs apart enough to allow access should Rizeth want it, still with his elbows clasped behind his back. He tucked the apprentice’s hair behind his ears, toying with the unravelling braids at his temples and tugging one just enough to draw a whimper.

“Artificers are capable of much,” he began, pacing slowly around Ashenivir. “As wizards, we may imbue items with unique magical properties, as weak or as powerful as we ourselves are. Artificers also make use of magic, but they rely upon the intricacies of construction and mechanics to achieve their desired effects. A wand of lightning is a marvel—trapping lightning in a jar to power a gauntlet is engineering.”

He noted Ashenivir’s shiver at the mention of lightning. The apprentice had enjoyed the cantrip play with such energies—the prickling shock, the involuntary spasms, the buzz of pain; all seemed to be things he found highly pleasurable.

“I have three items for you, apprentice. One you have already experienced,” he went to the small chest Zietta had delivered to his estate earlier that day, waiting now on the bed. He felt Ashenivir’s eager eyes on him as he reached inside, and angled his body to block the view, hiding a smile at the small noise of frustration the apprentice made.

Zietta Oreeyes had once crafted far more complex items for him, had once furnished him with a vast collection of interesting toys and tools. Most were long gone now, and besides, he would rather have new for a new…he wouldn’t say submissive just yet, only apprentice. For now.

The two items he took from the chest were simple enough. A gauntlet, though not the kind a Darksong Knight would ever wear; and a gleaming metal phallus whose unassuming exterior hid a host of more interesting features.

Rizeth tugged the gauntlet onto his left hand, felt it click and shift as it drew on the Weave infusing his drow blood to power itself. With him as a living power source, it would last as long as he needed it to. Keeping that hand behind his back and out of sight as he returned to Ashenivir, he was privately delighted at the look on the apprentice’s face at the sight of the toy. His eyes darted from the toy to Rizeth’s face and back again, as though wondering if he were really seeing what was in front of him.

“I have no doubt that you have seen such things before, apprentice,” he said, and Ashenivir nodded. “But I doubt that you have experienced one quite like this.”

He moved closer and drew the cool, metal tip down Ashenivir’s neck, over his collarbone, his chest, his stomach; slid it over the inside of his thigh, teasing between his legs. Ashenivir’s head tipped back, a needy noise trailing another slick of drool that dripped from his chin, but he held his position.

“Ordinarily I would have you wet this yourself,” he brought the toy back up, tapped Ashenivir’s cheek. “But since I am still enjoying you gagged, that will serve for another time.”

He used the dildo to push Ashenivir’s head to the side, practically able to feel the heat radiating from his flushed face. He kept his own lust well-hidden, but it was there—how could it fail to be, with such a sight before him? How could he not react to such a beautiful boy, so pliant to his every word, his every touch?

Rizeth stepped away.

“Kneel on the bed,” he instructed. “All fours. Head down.”

Ashenivir stumbled as he made his way over, clearly too worked up to keep his balance. Rizeth briefly entertained thoughts of a long, long scene, of an entire day—more, perhaps—driving him to the utmost edge of control. He rather thought the apprentice would enjoy that. He tucked the idea away for later.

He ran the dildo up the inside of Ashenivir’s already trembling thigh, touching a button on the base as he did so. Hair-thin slits in the shaft began to ooze lubricant, coating it so that when the tip brushed against Ashenivir’s entrance it was already slick. Ashenivir hummed a low sound of want and rocked back.

Rizeth teased him a little longer, light circles and false thrusts until Ashenivir was making incomprehensible begging noises and had drenched the dark sheets below his head with drool. Then he adjusted his grip and slowly worked the toy inside.

The sound Ashenivir made as it bottomed out decided him. He hadn’t been certain until now if he was going to fuck him, if he wanted to take that step. It was important, to him. It was a…commitment, of sorts. But, dear Goddess, that sound.

He was going to fuck him. He wanted those sounds all for himself.

Ashenivir panted heavily around the gag, clutching at the sheets with pale-knuckled fists as Master Velkon’yss fucked him open with the toy, slick and cold at first, soon warm and wonderful, filling him with rolling waves of pleasure. He had never had the nerve to ask his other partners to use his own devices on him—now he knew what he had been missing, and that playing by himself would never feel quite the same again.

But his Master had promised three devices. Clamps, now this—what else could there be? He had kept one hand behind his back when he had stepped away from the chest, and he had spoken of lightning in a jar. Was that mere example or did he have some such thing?

Ashenivir struggled to form coherent thoughts, his mind flung apart again and again with each thrust into him. He rocked his hips back in time and was so gone in the pleasure that it took him a moment to realise that Master Velkon’yss was no longer behind him.

No longer behind him, but the toy continued to pound into him, moving on its own, and then—

Ashenivir gasped as cold metal clicked up over his hips, something unfolding and latching on about his waist and thighs. The unseen harness held the toy inside him, kept it fucking him without the need for a hand on it. The mechanical apparatus fucked him deeper than Master Velkon’yss had, harder and faster, unrelenting in its motions, which drew deep, juddering moans from him.

Goddess, he was so hard he could hardly stand it.

“Good, apprentice,” Rizeth’s voice at his ear, the Master leaning over him, close. There was something on his hand, some sort of glove of metal and glass, a flicker of blue-white light. “Very good. We are almost done. I trust you have learned much from this demonstration?”

Ashenivir nodded furiously, his yes! muffled by the gag. His jaw ached in some distant place that didn’t matter. The gloved—no, gauntleted—hand came towards him, and when it touched his shoulder it loosed lightning through his body.

Ashenivir howled.

It was much, much more powerful than the cantrips had been, sending his whole body into spasm. He could see the lightning arcing over his skin, leaping along his body as Master Velkon’yss slid his hand over his shoulder, his back. It cast bright, jumping shadows on the walls, and Ashenivir’s eyes rolled back in his head. He was nothing but a raw nerve, fucked and ignited, nothing left but sensation. He couldn’t think, could barely breathe.

And then a hand touched his cock.

Even the gag could barely restrict the noise that leapt from him as Master Velkon’yss stroked him, quick and deliberate. No tease, no play, the gauntlet still tracing lightning down his body. He nearly screamed when he came, so loud that the whole Arcanum must have heard it, and all the strength left his body in one great rush.

He collapsed onto the bed, shuddering, gasping, spent.

A soft click stilled the machine inside him. Metal retracted and he whimpered as it was tugged free, faint spasms still twitching through his limbs. Aftershocks of ghost-lightning seemed to crackle across his skin even after Master Velkon’yss moved away.

Ashenivir didn’t know how long he lay there, whining softly as his mind tried to pull itself back together.

Eventually, he was rolled to his back and the gag taken gently from his mouth. He drew a great, heaving breath, closing his aching jaw at last. Master Velkon’yss sat next to him.

“Th–thank you, Master.” Ashenivir’s voice was hoarse, words were hard to piece together. Another aftershock rolled through him and he shut his eyes. He tried to thank the Master again, but all that came out was a mumbled whine.

A light hand settled on his thigh, and he sighed to hear his Master’s voice.

“You are welcome, apprentice.”