What We Do to Survive

The blare of my alarm spell woke both me and my houseguest. Her head perked up, long ears twitching and she yelled something inaudible through her gag. I hurriedly got dressed, I hadn’t left much time for myself before the meeting and I still needed to eat, noting the minor flaw in her restraints as I went.

Her head was mostly immobile, the rigid tube in her throat forcing her to keep her head tilted back, but she still had more range of movement than I was fully comfortable with. I’d also left her ears unplugged, not wanting to deprive her of all sensory inputs, but that might prove thoroughly inconvenient over time. I would have to make something for that, maybe something easily removable so I could only put it in when I didn’t want her overhearing anything?

For now, I quickly transmuted a block of stone I kept on my table for alchemy practice into soft wax. Wax was actually a pretty tricky material to create with alchemy, especially if you wanted it to have specific physical properties. Professor Meadows had only shown us the technique a few weeks before.

Trying to avoid forcing it too deep, I carefully stuffed each of her ears with the malleable wax. When I got to work on her second ear, she tried to jerk her head away, but it was futile. Once I was done, I hit her with a mild pain spell and a swat on her firm behind, giving her something to think about while I was gone.

With that issue dealt with, I took a swig of nutrient potion, something to get me through the afternoon since I’d missed lunch, and for the second time in a day rushed from my room. I threw a backward glance at the elf’s dangling breasts, the unpleasant texture of the nutrient potion lingering at the back of my throat.

Beyond the high mana content that made it valuable in spell-craft and potions making, elven milk was both incredibly nutritious, able to feed a man for a day with just a glass, and delicious. I’d never tried the stuff before of course, it was a type B restricted substance in most nations, but I’d heard the stories. As soon as I could find a reliable way to trigger her lactation…

I arrived at Professor Igor’s office with several minutes to spare. Unlike the more unassuming door to Professor Meadows’ abode, Professor Igor took no measure to hide his immense wealth and power.

The door was carved from a single piece of black ironwood and inlayed with symbols etched in gold and gems. It radiated an overwhelming aura of power, the enchantments on the wood thrumming with barely contained might. Though the simple stone walls of the office seemed like a glaring weak point in the door’s protections, I knew from my past visit that the inner walls of the office were paneled with overlapping sheets of the nearly indestructible wood. Professor Igor took his safety, and the security of his possessions and research, very seriously.

At exactly five p.m., the door slid smoothly open as I prepared to knock, and I heard the soft voice of the Professor call out from the depths of the space. “Come on in, Mr. Hunter, I will be with you in just a moment.”

I stepped into the room, taking a moment to look around the opulent, if somewhat off putting interior. The professor’s choice of decoration was somewhat eclectic, solid gold busts set next to ancient manuscripts and magical nicknacks.

Most strikingly however was the other theme that dominated the office’s ‘decorations’.. The room was positively filled with bodies and body parts, preserved in jars, set on pedestals, and hung on the walls. Some sort of twitching humanoid was impaled in a corner, missing all its limbs and with stumpy wings growing out of its back. A metal rod passed through its crotch and up out of its mouth, yet it was clearly still alive.

Two perfectly preserved fox beastkin, a man and a woman, floated serenely in glass tanks filled with clear fluid. Only the horrible rictus of pain on their faces and the bloodless pallor of their skin betrayed their likely agonizing end.

I pointedly ignored some of the other horrors proudly on display on the walls and shelves. I was pretty sure I recognized one of the preserved heads I saw as Queen Valorous, who had been overthrown just a few weeks before I was accepted into Avalon. I did not want to know why her remains were here of all places.

I had only just taken a seat in one of the hardback chairs in front of the desk when Professor Igor himself emerged from a back door, wiping his suspiciously red-stained hands on his off-pink apron. He shot me a bright smile as he plopped down into the large armchair across from me, propping his legs up on one of the few clear spots on his heavily cluttered desk.

Professor Igor was a slight man, several inches shorter than my own six feet and very thin. With his mud-brown hair and eyes, he was one of the most ordinary looking Professors I’d met so far. As usual, he was dressed in his regular work clothes, a white smock belted at the waist with a heavily stained apron fastened over it. The handles of two large cleavers stuck out of the apron’s pockets, and I’d seen just how adept he was with those blades.

“So kid, what can I help you with today? Bet it’s got something to do with that elf lass you went and caught, Mindy? Molly? Whatever her name was.”

I visibly started in my seat, half rising with my eyes darting around the room in a moment of panic. He chuckled, waiving a hand in a relaxed gesture.

“Oh don’t worry, I ain’t gonna tell anyone. You did a good job, don’t think even most of the staff saw you do it.” I relaxed slightly, settling back into my seat. I hadn’t really expected for my actions to be completely unnoticed, but seeing it mentioned so casually was still jarring.

“Um, yes sir. Thank you sir.” I floundered slightly, unsure what to say. “Um, it’s Mistletoe actually.”

“Ah, it doesn’t matter anymore now, does it. Don’t seem to me like you plan to be letting her go any time soon, else you wouldn’t be coming to me!” He laughed again, waving broadly at the array of sentient remains scattered throughout his office. “My victims rarely leave my care intact, or at least not in the same state they entered it.”

As if to highlight his point, a tall, bare-chested woman chose that moment to clop into the room, her hooves tapping loudly against the hardwood floors of the office. She was dressed in nothing but a skirt and collar, revealing the lines of stitches that crisscrossed her body. In her arms she carried a tray with two cups and a small teapot.

I recognized her legs as belonging to a bovide, a rare subspecies of beastkin. Her torso and arms were a mismatch of pieces, the miscolored bits of skin a clear giveaway to the differing ‘materials’ she was made from. Her head was even stranger, just smooth skin with no obvious mouth, eyes, or any other features. The only other part of her I could really place were the breasts, they were too large and perfect to be anything other than an elf’s.

I stared in a mix of mute horror and fascination as the amalgam creature set the tray down, balanced precariously on a stack of textbooks, then delicately served each of us with a cup from the steaming pot. Once her task was done, she balanced the tray on one palm and stepped away from the table, pot held at the ready in her other hand.

The professor gave me a knowing look as he leaned forward to grab his cup. “So, what do you think of this one? I only finished her a few days ago, an associate sent me some wonderful parts to work with for my birthday!”

“She’s… really something.” I eventually replied, unable to tear my eyes away from her creepily smooth face. “I don’t think I’m quite planning to do anything similar with Mistletoe.”

“Ah, I didn’t really expect you too! If you are interested however, I teach a two semester elective on stitching, though I require at least one year of necromancy and a basic biology class beforehand.”

“Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” I highly doubted I was ever going to sign up for that class sequence, but I certainly wasn’t going to say that aloud now.

“No, no, I imagine it has more to do with some general advice, hmm? How to harvest her properly and keep her contained I imagine?”

I nodded, relieved to be moving on from the rather uncomfortably direction our talk was going. “Yes Professor. My initial plan didn’t really work out very well and I transferred her to a new set of restraints this weekend, but I don’t know enough about elves to really make sure it will hold. Also…” I trailed off, slightly embarrassed by the other question I wanted to ask him.

“Well, I think I can certainly help with that!” He gave me another bright smile, “I imagine you also want to ask how to get her milkers going, no? Definitely the most useful part of an elf if you don’t plan to reuse the meat.”

My rapid nod triggered another laugh, nearly causing him to spill his drink. “Ah, to be young and so easily flustered. I would be happy to give you some tips, I am not inexperienced in keeping my ingredients alive!” Hmm…” he looked thoughtful for a moment as he scanned the content of a shelf beside the desk. “Actually it may be easier to show you. Come along now!”

He sprang from his seat in a movement almost too fast for my eyes to follow. His body might look old and frail, but a master flesh stitcher, no, the master flesh stitcher, was clearly more than he appeared. I followed after him, acutely aware of the abomination quietly trailing behind me, having wordlessly scooped up our abandoned cups and set the pot back on its tray.

He led me through the back door of his office and into a labyrinthine complex of rooms and hallways. Occasionally we would pass an open doorway, and I could not resist taking a quick peak as we went. I regretted it instantly, my eyes registering the mangled corpses of several humans arranged neatly on a row of metal gurneys.

Eventually we stopped by a locked door, the Professor pulling a large ring of keys from somewhere on his person and rifling through them for the right one. After inserting the key, he paused to look back at me.

“Now I apologize for the mess, I don’t go in here very often these days and I’ve sort of let the place go. I don’t expect that your first setup will look anything like this, but maybe consider it something to aspire to.” Then he turned the key and revealed the abomination that waited within.

My first thought was that if any of the elven kingdoms ever learned of this place, Igor would be an even more hunted man than I knew he already was. Sure he was wanted in multiple kingdoms for grave robbery and practicing illegal magic, but Avalon’s power and reputation easily shielded him from any reprisal of that level. This however? Some elf queen might consider this a worthy reason to piss off the greatest mage organization in the world.

Rows of dismembered elves hung in racks that stretched for dozens of meters. Each was just a head and torso, held in place by metal loops secured at the stump of each limb. Thick tubes connected to each exposed nipple draped haphazardly across the floor, trickles of glossy gold-white milk draining into a series of massive tanks embedded in one of the walls. Another series of tubes connected to the gag each one was wearing, leading to a giant feed tank much like the one I was using, just scaled up a thousandfold.

As I took in the room, I silently swore that I would never go this far. I disliked elves in general, and Mistletoe had been a real bitch to everyone, but this was just monstrous. Though he acted like a kindly old man sometimes, always laughing and joking with his students, at that moment I realized how well deserved his reputation as a monster straight out of nightmares really was.

Igor seemed to take my horror as a fascinated interest, because after a moment he began to gush about his setup. “I put this together about two centuries back, right after the war of the red tree. The king was so happy with the help my puppets provided that he handed over a good chunk of the prisoners he’d captured. After some minor medications I did, it produces some 7000 liters a day in total. More than enough to keep me and my colleagues supplied.”

Gesturing to the feed tank, he continued. “The feed is actually a special blend I designed, it’s primarily a mix of their own milk and several waste products the botany classes produce each year. Very cost efficient. The entire setup basically runs itself, I only come in here once every couple years unless I’m showing someone around!” He gave the nearest body a hard slap, leaving a bright red mark on the pale flesh.

“Now then, let me see…” he disappeared deeper into the room, ducking behind one of the racks and out of sight. After a moment I heard him call out, “ah ha”, and he came back carrying a pile of loose papers.

“Here you go, my old notes on the array I used to seal their magic and the potions I fed them to boost their lactation. You’ll probably have to modify the array a little, it’s somewhat outdated and relies on the target being a quadruple amputee!” He let out another chuckle, a hint of madness edging into the laughter. He seemed to find the idea of a limbless torso to be quite amusing.

I quickly flipped through the pages, finding them to be exactly what he described. Clutching them with one hand, I gave a respectful half bow. “Thank you Professor. I will certainly keep that in mind.”

He waved me off, “Happy to, happy to! It’s always a joy to see someone walk down the path on their own. Why, I didn’t kidnap my first living ingredients until I was twice your age!” This time, his laughter was far more cackle than chuckle. “Regardless, I think that will be all for today. I think I will take the opportunity to make some minor modifications in here.” He turned to look at the hoofed puppet who had been standing behind me this entire time, “show him out.” Then, without another word, he spun around and disappeared deeper into his house of horrors.