Long Live the Emperor: Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Count Grandhill or his daughter had come to see him since his capture. He’d been left in his room as though forgotten, and only his window told him any time at all had passed. Alvin knew they were playing games. Isolation could drive a man mad as surely as torture, and he had little doubt Count Grandhill wanted the upper hand in negotiations when he spoke with his prisoner.

It was a good plan. Enough time like this, and Alvin would be desperate for someone to talk to. They could sneak a maid in their employ into his room, and he’d be upon her like a fly on honey.

But unfortunately for them, Clover had snuck into his room without a soul noticing, and there she stayed. With her powers, vanishing the moment a guard peered into the room was easy. And she was willing to chat with Alvin as much as he liked, which made Count Grandhill’s plan to psychologically torment Alvin moot.

That was where the upsides to Clover abruptly ended. While she was lovely to look at and happy to keep him company, what he wanted from her and what she wanted from him were two completely different things. He wanted to learn Dreamwalking and spirit summoning. Her concerns were less intellectual and more physical.

“Alvin, when are we going to have sex?” Clover demanded.

“After I have all this figured out.” Alvin gestured around him.

He was still wary of his new companion. Why was she here? Was she who she said she was?

He’d been tricked into a poor deal once already. He had no intention of repeating that mistake.

Clover sighed, toying with the drapes hanging over Alvin’s bed with the tip of her toes. She was, of course, completely naked, as she had been ever since her first appearance. Her trick for appearing and disappearing didn’t allow her to bring clothes with her, and she was unwilling to wear any of Alvin’s spare clothes.

At first, Alvin thought she was using that magic trick to arouse him again, but Clover promised any reaction he was experiencing was natural. He supposed he couldn’t complain too much. If Clover declared herself the second most beautiful woman in the world, he wasn’t sure anyone else would have the guts to name themselves the first.

No, pitting her against human women would be unfair. Clover had admitted that she’d taken the body she was wearing and rebuilt it like a sculptor molding clay, all to create what she thought would appeal to him. He wasn’t sure if the green-haired dryad was exactly to his tastes, but he couldn’t complain about her either. From her toned legs to her perky breasts, every part of her body was worthy of songs and paintings.

“So let’s go through Dreamwalking again,” Alvin said. “I want to be sure I got your explanation right.”

“It’s the thingy where you close your eyes and bounce about without all the pesky body things,” Clover explained unhelpfully. She waved her hand as though the answer was obvious.

“I’d like something a bit more exact than that, please,” Alvin said.

“Then sex?” Clover asked hopefully.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Dreamwalking is the ability to walk the Dreamrealm. This realm is made up of all the mortal dreams across all the countless worlds. It can be used to explore other dimensions, learn otherworldly knowledge, or contact the natives of that realm. Spirits like me are natives of the Dreamrealm. Sometimes we’re helpful spirits. Other times we’re evil demons,” Clover flopped over on the sheets onto her belly, waving her perky ass at Alvin as she lay on her stomach and toyed with his pillow.

“That isn’t everything.”

“Dreamwalking depends a lot on the dreamwalker’s personal beliefs, their emotional stability, and their skill. Landscapes vary wildly, from a train filled with beautiful women to a death trap populated entirely by cannibals. It depends on the dreamer who made them.” Clover nuzzled Alvin’s pillow, legs kicking out ward to scatter the sheets onto the floor. Alvin bent over to toss them back onto the bed.

“So I have an advantage when dreamwalking?” Alvin appreciated the thought of having any sort of edge at all.

“Yep. Me! If you wanna try, I know a great place to have sex in the dreamrealm,” Clover offered.

Alvin shook his head. “I still have a lot of work to do right here.”

“Ugh... we’ve been in this room for four days! And you won’t even have sex with me! I’m bored!” Clover groaned.

“Later, I promise. So that’s Dreamwalking. Now go over spirits again,” Alvin prompted.

“Ugh...” Clover rolled over again, though she kept her arms wrapped around the pillow. She flung her legs into the air and, in one elegant motion, rolled to her knees to fix Alvin with an exhausted expression. “Humans find or bond spirits like me. To summon one, you need to provide a supply of real-world energy. This can be blood, mana, or sexual energy.”

Clover shuffled closer until she was whispering into Alvin’s ear again. She winked as she spoke of sexual energy, and Alvin knew what was coming based on what he’d learned of her personality over the past few days. “Here’s a secret. I prefer the last one.”

“I don’t think that’s a secret,” Alvin frowned.

“Is too! If I had another summoner, I’d be all ‘Sacrifice your twelve cups of your blood and ten years of your farm’s harvest to me, and maybe I’ll cure your leprosy’ or something like that.” Clover scrunched up her face and shook her head as though she was reliving a bad memory. “And then I’d cure his leprosy but make him really ugly after. Like, give him a crooked nose and a big wart right on his forehead...”

She giggled to herself, and Alvin had the distinct impression that those exact words had been exchanged at some point in the past.

“What’s wrong with curing people?” Alvin asked.

“Back when you were alive for the first time, you told me to always watch out for scammers!” Clover explained. “Anyone who tries to get my services without my master’s permission is a scammer!”

“I see...”

To Alvin, it seemed like she was the one pulling a scam. Twelve cups would have a large healthy man passed out unconscious on the ground and on the verge of death, let alone someone sick enough to need magical healing to cure them. And ten years of a farm’s harvest lost to her? What was the farmer supposed to eat in the meantime?

Perhaps those books of Aldrich’s had been right to think of spirits like Clover as demons. If they didn’t like you, they could truly make your life miserable with a bargain like that.

“Alright, so you can summon spirits with energy, preferably a kind of energy they like to use to manifest with. And if the spirit is particularly powerful, like you, they can take over the body of the caster and have a human vessel to inhabit.” Alvin gestured to Clover. According to what little rumors he’d heard, the previous owner of her body had been named Agatha. But Agatha had made enemies of the wrong demons, and she’d chosen to sell her body to save her soul.

“Yep,” Clover said, face beaming in a wide smile. “Now come to bed!”

Alvin found he did want to go to bed, though not for the reason Clover wanted.

“If we went to sleep, could you help me get to the Dreamrealm? I want to try dreamwalking,” Alvin asked.

Clover shrugged. “Sure, especially if you let me help you.”

“Help how?” Alvin asked.

“Dreamwalking needs a special mental state. Humans use incense or special drinks. But I can do much better with these.” Clover wiggled her fingers at Alvin and winked.

“I think I’ll manage on my own.”

“Oh, come on! It won’t hurt.”

Alvin was still visibly suspicious.

Clover pouted, sticking out her lip adorably. “Without my help, you’ll be exploring the Dreamrealm alone. Any big, bad, evil spirit could swallow you whole.”

“Alright,” Alvin sighed. “I’ll accept any help you can offer.”

“Yay!” Clover said as she patted the bed next to her.

Alvin lay on the bed, and the moment he did so, he felt Clover’s hands reach for his crotch. He’d expected something like this, so he simply lay in wait.

“I have your permission to do the thing again, right?” Clover asked. “To make your blood pump all hot and fun and stuff.”

“Yes, but only as much as is needed to make sure I can dreamwalk properly. No more,” Alvin said.

Clover purred in his ear, pressing herself up against his side while she cupped Alvin’s manhood through his pants. Her fingers were warm, and he was hard beneath her grasp. His breathing quickened, and he felt more alert than ever. This wasn’t exactly lulling him into quiet meditation.

Her hand slipped beneath the hem of his pants, and the touch of her skin against his felt ten times as good as before. He sensed her power at work on his body, and he tensed again even as his cock hardened and demanded more attention.

“Clover,” he whispered, “I’m trying to sleep.”

“I know,” she replied. “But I can’t help it. I’ve waited so damn long...” Clover kept stroking him, and Alvin couldn’t help but let out a groan.

“You promise you’re going to guide me through the Dreamrealm?” Alvin asked.

Clover planted a kiss on his cheek even as her fingers continued to work up and down his length. “Promise.”

Her voice in his ear seemed even more alluring, and he was far more conscious of her presence right beside him. Under the intense sensations of her body pressing against his, he felt his awareness of the other parts of his body fading. The world slowly drifted away, and his eyes closed without any effort on his part. All the while, Clover’s gentle stroking continued, sending rhythmic pulses of pleasure up his spine.

The first thing Alvin noticed was the color. The shrouded light of the back of his eyelids faded away and was replaced by the bright light of a swirling multitude of colors far more alive than anything in the drab world of reality. He took a deep breath, and the sweet fragrance of unfamiliar flowers filled his lungs.

When the world finally took shape, he realized he was sitting in an unfamiliar meadow. The sun shone high in the sky, casting a warm glow over everything it touched. The grass curled up over his legs and chest, tickling his bare skin. Clover’s bare breasts were pressed up against his side. Her lips were tucked into the crook of his neck, and her hand stroked his shaft.

He sat up and saw an unfamiliar castle in the distance. It stood tall and beautiful, turrets reaching high into the sky. Several rows of walls rose up into the sky along a winding road that would be just about unassailable against any invading force.

Something felt familiar about it, but also wrong. A closer look showed the castle wasn’t in as good shape as it appeared. The walls were crumbling, the windows were broken, and ivy had claimed possession of most of the stonework. The castle looked more like a haunted ruin than the place of beauty and peace he knew it should have been.

A shiver ran down Alvin’s spine as Clover’s fingers finally left his manhood. His heart ached at the loss, and he knew Clover would finish him off if he asked. But he had more important things to do, and he wasn’t about to give into what she wanted until he knew more.

“Do you like it, master?” Clover asked. “This is your old castle. By the time I was strong enough to build my dreamscape, it was already falling into ruin. The stupid local humans kept stealing stones from it to build their houses over in the next town, so it isn’t as nice as it once was. But when you’re back at full strength, I know you’ll rebuild it even more beautiful than ever!”

“Can you show me around?” Alvin asked.

Clover was more than happy to give him a tour, and Alvin made a note of how he felt and perceived the world around him. He shot a glance down at his fingers and counted all ten. This dream was of far greater detail than any he’d ever had on his own.

Clover showed him the sights around the castle, and Alvin was amazed at how lifelike it all seemed. The sky had a hundred shades from the peak to the horizon, and the clouds slowly shifted in shade as they drifted overhead. Plants rustled in the breeze, and every detail seemed as clear as reality.

Eventually, they came back around to Clover’s meadow, and behind it, she showed him a bubbling brook running through it. The two of them sat down on the soft grass, and Alvin watched as Clover skipped over to the water’s edge. She bent down to cup her hands and take a drink, but just before drinking, she froze midway and straightened.

“What’s wrong?” Alvin asked, but a moment later, the problem revealed itself.

The rustling reeds shook, but not from the wind. A snake lunged out of the brush with poisonous fangs bared. It left the ground entirely, heading straight for Clover’s neck.

For the split second, before it struck, Alvin got a good look at it. The thing was far more massive than it had any right to be. Its body was as thick around as one of his legs, and the hood behind its head was nearly the size of Clover’s chest. Each fang was the size of his hand, and behind them were rows of smaller fangs laying in wait.

But Clover wasn’t scared. She watched it fly toward her with an almost disappointed look on her face, as though she’d been hoping for a snake even bigger and scarier than the one coming for her.

The brush the snake had just lunged from shuddered and shifted, and a web of thorns sprouted from them. They dug into the snake’s body and stopped its lunge short. Its head snapped at Clover, but she was just out of reach. Clover’s thorns dug deeper into the serpent even as it writhed and thrashed in its attempt to get free.

“Master, look! I caught a poison-aspect demon.” Clover bounced to her feet and waved at the massive thrashing snake.

“I see that...” Alvin replied, staying well clear of the monster. Clover seemed entirely too comfortable standing next to something that had to be ten times her weight and desperate to eat her. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Oh, extremely dangerous,” Clover said. “If you’d come here alone, this thing would eat your soul right up! But don’t worry, you have me.”

“What do we do with it?”

“If you really wanted, you could force it to serve you. But I don’t recommend it. I can sense this one is a meany. When humans talk about demons, this is the kind of thing they mean.” Clover gave the snake a smack on the side of its head.

“Yeah, it doesn’t look too friendly.”

With Alvin’s permission to get rid of the snake, Clover gestured to the ground beneath its head, and a thorn as large as she was shot out of the ground and skewered the snake right through its skull. The massive snake froze and toppled over, dead.

After dying, it shrank like a balloon deflating. Soon it was not larger than an ordinary snake, and Clover plucked a branch from a nearby brush that was long and straight, perfectly sized for skewering the snake right down the center. Then she handed the skewered snake off to Alvin.

“Eat up, master! It’ll be good for you!” Clover said.

Alvin accepted the dead, skewered serpent on a stick with a look halfway between disgust and fascination. The thing had been a monster mere moments ago, but now it looked like an ordinary garter snake skewered on a stick. But despite looking normal, it was still a raw snake dripping with blood. The tail was even twitching still. Why did Clover want him to eat this?

“Good for me. How?” Alvin asked.

“It builds muscle!” Clover explained, pumping her own arm.

“Eating snakes in my dreams builds muscle?”

“This was a spirit of the Dreamlands. It is native to this place, and its power belongs here. Make that power your own, and you will find it easier to make this place do what you want it to.” As Clover explained, she waved her hand over the ground, and the grass grew taller.

That was magic, real magic. The kind of magic that could get Alvin out of the bind he was in.

So Alvin ate the snake. It was messy, and its scales got stuck in his teeth, but he reminded himself that this was only a dream. He wasn’t really eating a raw snake, just an imaginary one. It didn’t help with the gooey texture.

Alvin was just about finished when he heard something like the rap of a fist on the door to his room.

“Uh oh. Looks like I have to hide. I’ll help you wake up!” Clover said. She shook Alvin’s shoulder, and he could feel the shaking all the way back to his real body.

The Dreamrealm faded away, and soon it was replaced by the back of his eyelids. He snapped awake just as the door swung open. He climbed out of bed only to find his pants stuck around his ankles, and he fell right over onto his face. He scrambled to right himself as his visitor made himself known.

“Baron Aldrich... uh... I apologize for barging in without more warning. I know there isn’t much to do locked away in here.”

The speaker was Lady Mabel, and she had a scarlet blush on her face as she held her hand in front of her eyes.

Alvin sighed and buttoned up his pants. Clover must have left in a hurry. Looking around the room, she was nowhere to be found.