Apparently, energy potions were not intended as a replacement for sleep. Elaria had been up all night working her way through the countless preparations and rituals needed for the holiday season to go well, only getting any rest during the few hours between dawn and the start of her shift – and only because Asrielle had been so insistent that she at least lie down for a little while.

The very first thing Elaria had done upon arriving at work was to brew herself a bottle of tongue-tingling magical syrup, and immediately chug the whole thing. For a little while, it worked as she had been expecting – she had felt alert and invigorated, and used her artificial energy surge to get work done all over the temple.

But as it turned out, magic couldn’t overcome the body’s own limits, and with a few hours still to go until lunchtime, Elaria was even more exhausted and fatigued than she had been earlier that morning… and she’d spent the past hour needing to pee like a racehorse, though she’d drank very little and relieved herself before leaving home. At the moment she was in the temple cellar working with other potions, all the while mentally kicking herself for not having looked a little more carefully at the effects of the ingredients she’d used earlier.

And while she did that, she was also hoping that something important would come up and require her presence somewhere else – at least then she wouldn’t have to surround herself with the dripping and trickling from various alchemical instruments.

Under slightly different circumstances, she might have found the whole situation painfully arousing, but right now it was just painful. The pressure had come out of nowhere and was as intense as when she would get home in the evening whenever she explicitly avoided taking a bathroom break at work, and she really wasn’t feeling up to having fun with it right now.

And, of course, since this wasn’t one of those days, she didn’t have any personal rules stopping her from going off and dealing with her need just then. No, she had actual obligations keeping her where she was, looking over all these potions and salves being prepared for various important rituals. She was one of only two people in the temple who knew how to manage all the different variables involved; the other, her former mentor and the Temple Mystic immediately preceding her, was in no position to replace her on account of his many obligations as the High Priest keeping him busy elsewhere.

At least nobody would ever come down to the cellar while Elaria was working, so she had total freedom to squirm and squeeze herself between the legs however much she felt she needed to – and she really needed to. She was practically dancing as she walked around inspecting everything to make sure it was all running smoothly, constantly torturing herself by leaning over and looking closely at all the little streams and the splashing as the equipment did its work.

She just needed to keep herself together until lunchtime. That would totally be possible, right? It was only another few hours; Elaria had waited much longer than that before. Granted, that was usually without feeling so desperate in such a short span of time, but still. She could do it. She had to. If nothing else, she was currently wearing her only clean set of robes, and their being white meant serious trouble if they were to ever become a different color for some reason.

But of course Elaria would never let that happen. A highly-regarded cleric and well-trained mage such as herself shouldn’t have any trouble at all maintaining composure and dignity in public, she figured. In private, of course, was a different matter, but right now Elaria wasn’t safely within the walls of Asrielle’s house where she could let herself be as vulnerable as she wanted.

No, she was at work, and she just needed to do her job and act like a respected and responsible pillar of the community. She needed to hold it. Not an easy task given the circumstances, but then again very little of what she did for the temple was easy anyways – and she normally didn’t allow Asrielle to go easy on her either, so she certainly had the necessary experience with this kind of situation.

It was just a little more intense than what she was used to, so naturally she was struggling to get accustomed to such a pressurized environment. Thankfully she wasn’t wearing any of her special game-related clothes, so her pants weren’t digging into anything, and her robes were certainly more than loose enough to not be a problem, which altogether meant that it would be easier for her to adjust to the searing pressure and weight in her lower belly. Or at least nothing would be making it any harder, at any rate.

How was it even possible for her to feel so full, anyways? Even with that potion obviously having been some sort of diuretic, Elaria couldn’t explain why it had made her so desperate in such a short span of time. Maybe that bottle was bigger than she thought after all…

With a groan, Elaria looked past all the barrels and glass vessels she was inspecting, over at the corner of the cellar. Specifically, at the water pump there and its accompanying drain. That was meant to be a source of water, for brewing purposes; but with all of the potions progressing well, maybe it was time for it to receive some water that had been brewing within Elaria for a while…

It was ultimately her decision, after all. As the Temple Mystic, the whole cellar was her own personal laboratory, and if she said that the drain by the pump in the corner was actually a toilet, who could possibly tell her otherwise? Certainly not High Priest Adrian; even if he weren’t currently overwhelmed with holiday preparations, he would never question Elaria’s judgment on something so trivial, and he was the only one with the authority to properly admonish her.

So, really, it was the obvious solution – she could keep her robes clean, and then get back to work with an empty bladder and clearer head… until the potion’s lingering effects kicked in again, but that was a problem for later.

Her mind made up, Elaria hobbled over to the corner, already tugging up on the bottom of her robes as she moved; all that fabric was bunched up at her waist by the time she got there, at which point she watched her shuffling feet to make sure she was positioned over the drain.

Then, with one hand, she tugged at her pants and underwear to bring them down to her knees, lowering herself into a squat at the same time. She bounced in place for a little bit once she was in position and had her clothes out of the way, taking a moment to reach behind herself and lift up the back side of her robes as well.

Only once she was sure her vestments would retain their pure white color did she release the tenuous hold on her bladder, sighing deeply as she sprayed the metal grating beneath her with a powerful stream; something she was all too familiar with by now, and could always greatly appreciate and enjoy.

Elaria left only a minimal puddle as her urine fell through the gaps of the drain to join so much other discarded water on a gravity-powered trip to somewhere deep underground, where it wouldn’t cause her or anyone else any problems.

As she relieved herself, Elaria couldn’t help but giggle quietly – the sound of her bladder’s contents splashing against metal was unique and therefore fun, something that she could only rarely experience thanks to her extremely limited exposure to metallic surfaces like the grate she was currently spraying.

Her only regret was that Asrielle wasn’t there to share the experience with her; that feisty blonde beauty would certainly have enjoyed watching her kitten squirm and inevitably break. Though maybe it was for the best, since Asrielle would likely end up cracking some terrible-but-endearing joke about holy water or some other silly thing.

When Elaria’s stream finished and she redressed, purposefully returning her underwear and pants to their normal position before she had finished dripping, she figured that Asrielle would just have to settle for a bedtime recounting of the event… or maybe a re-enactment, if Elaria were to come home from work in that sweet spot of stressed enough to need a game to calm down without being so overworked as to simply collapse onto the bed and fall asleep immediately.

That would all be figured out later, though. For now, she had a job to get back to.