I hadn’t forgotten about the new power that I’d been given during the fracas in the ruins. I’d planned to study it more in the coming days, once the girls were back safely in Juneau. So now that I was back home, I’d start going over the power when I had time.

  Tunnel to Contracted had a lot of potential, but the fact that it cost SP to use, not mana, was something that prevented me from just using it without thought. I had alerted Queen Gemma about it, and she’d insisted that I keep it secret before promising that if I ever had to utilize the power to rescue one of my contracted, she would see to it that I was rewarded.

  The subtext that her daughter as well as herself were both under a Guardian Contract with me went unsaid. But she didn’t need to remind me, I wouldn’t hesitate to step in if needed. Queen Gemma, besides being a fair woman and a good queen as far as I knew, was Rieka’s mother. Even if she’d been a rotten woman, I’d still act to spare Rieka the pain of losing her mother.

  Landing back on Earth after multiple days away, I surveyed my dingy apartment again with a growl of irritation.

  “Why am I still living in this shithole?” I grunted while glaring at the walls with their paper-thin coatings of paint, the cracked seals around the windows, and the threadbare carpet. “I may not be rich, but I have money. I can at least upgrade to something better than a dumpster fire for a living situation.”

  I didn’t need to say it out loud, but I knew the reason.

  It had been the easy route. I spent most of my time with the girls on Cortha nowadays. Days at a time to whole weeks were spent there. I was still on Earth for the majority of my time, but even then I was out running errands, gathering materials, or working on art pieces. The shitty apartment I lived in functioned and it was just easier than moving.

  But it was grating on me now. The dingy surroundings reminded me of working for Dutcher. Of that hopeless feeling I’d had while living paycheck to paycheck.

  Sure, I didn’t have millions in the bank so I could outright buy a condo in a downtown high-rise, but it was time to improve my situation on Earth.

  Money didn’t do me any good sitting in the bank. Between the tax accountant I had hired to manage my taxes and my Bitsy storefront, I was doing damn good so far.

  I had enough in the bank to cover a great deal, and in the worst case scenario I could just camp out somewhere like the national parks. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to such things from the trips to Cortha.

  Hell, homesteading sounds almost fun, I thought with a wry smile. No time like the present to start the process.

  I powered my phone back on and went to get a quick shower. I knew it would be a couple of minutes while my phone powered up, updated itself, and then received any incoming messages or emails. That and getting a proper wash might remind me why I wanted to live in town still and help me get my priorities straight for the future.

  While I was in the shower, I did as we had planned. The four-thousand SP that I had earned for the mission was immediately reinvested into the next rank of Mana Reservoir. I studied the power as its effects trickled through me just as the water did over my skin.

  Mana Reservoir (Moderate) - Cost: 4,000 SP - Grants the Traveler a moderate mana reservoir equivalent to 100 mana. This mana will regenerate at a fixed rate, depending on ambient mana of the environment. Spells cast by the Traveler will pull from this reserve first, then any other mana reservoirs in the Traveler’s possession.

  It was a simple power, doubling the amount of mana that I had available at any one time. No other powers keyed open as a result of taking it, so I just flipped back to the main screen of my interface and watched as the mana spiraled rapidly up from fifty to one-hundred out of one-hundred.

  Regenerates based on the environment… I thought as the hot water soothed my still-sore muscles.

  While the carriage ride had been as comfortable as might be, there was only so much that the primitive shocks and seats they had could do. I didn’t complain about my ass hurting to the girls, mostly because their bottoms likely hurt too. But I had promised myself to look into finding information on how to make them more comfortable so that I could help nudge along the technology on the world some.

  Pulling my thoughts away from my aching thighs and sore butt, I went back to studying the ability. I knew that with powers like Shape-Shifting, I would need to work on them in creative ways to speed up the gain of mastery. And Grant Power would only work on this power when I had the first three ranks mastered.

  With it being so simple a power, all I could think of was finding different ways to fill the well of mana. Which as far as I could tell, basically required me to travel around and experience different concentrations of mana.

  What did the girls say before? Mana would crystallize in areas where the elements aligned with it. So where would unaligned mana congregate? Would the speed at which the reservoir fill be affected by higher concentrations of elemental mana?

  The shrill crescendo of an electric guitar from my cell phone cut through the rushing of the shower and I swore. Slapping the water off, I grabbed a threadbare towel off the back of the toilet—another thing I’m going to have to replace with better—I hurried to the phone.

  I’d originally set up a Flogging Molly song as Jameson’s ringtone to annoy the Irishman. Instead of annoying him, he’d insisted that it was good but proceeded to harass me until I’d let him change it. I’d never heard of Colm McGuinness before, but I couldn’t argue about his skills. The man was a great musician.

  “Come out ye black and tans, come out and fight me like a man! Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders!” shrilled the bit of electronics as I stomped across the room to snatch it off the counter while dripping all over my crappy carpet.

  Flicking the screen with my thumb, I put the phone to my ear and answered.

  “What the hell do you want, you scrawny excuse for a leprechaun?”

  “Ah, the intrepid businessman finally surfaces! I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to send in the cops for a wellness check. You gotta make sure you keep hydrated during those long wank sessions, dude. You keep passing out like that and you won’t wake up one day.”

  Jameson normally didn’t have much of his brogue showing through when he talked, not unless he was really drunk or upset. The fact I could hear it in his playful teasing immediately cooled any irritation I had at his attempted humor.

  “Was busy, what’s up?”

  “Busy? Liam, I swung by your place twice this last week to try and catch those ladies you kept talking about. Gloria has been asking me about them as well whenever I swing by her family’s bar. You just went dark without any warning and had me fretting.” The worry was still there, but Jameson’s brogue was slowly fading as they talked.

  “Was out camping—” I said defensively, only to be cut off by my friend.

  “Bullshit,” Jameson snapped immediately. “Your truck never moved from the spot you parked it in. I’ll admit you might have caught a ride with one of your supposed coeds, but they’d have to be real first. And there’s no way ladies as fine as you described would still be with you after visiting that trash-heap you call an apartment.”

  “I was with the girls the last week,” I defended. “We really were out of town, far enough to not have service. I literally just turned my phone on a few minutes ago and was getting a shower while it powered on. Speaking of the apartment, I’m going to be looking for a new place soon.”

  “About damn time, your business is finally taking off enough that you can upgrade? I’ll help you look and move too, though honestly you should just toss or burn most of the shit you own already. Wouldn’t want to bring bedbugs with you.” Jameson’s tone told me that he wasn’t going to let the mystery drop, even though he allowed the deflection for the moment.

  “Yeah. I got back from the trip with the girls and was looking at the place. All I can think about is how hopeless this whole place feels.” Accepting that this wasn’t going to be a quick call with Jameson, I stumped back to the bathroom and set the phone on the counter. “You are on speaker, I need to finish drying off.”

  “I get why you’d say that about the apartment. You can only spend so long surrounded by dried cum stains soaked into the walls before you realize you have a masturbation habit,” Jameson said, his voice coming through the speaker even louder and telling me he was doing it intentionally.

  “The girls aren’t here right now,” I called while quickly swiping the water off my skin. “There’s a reason that I haven’t introduced you to them.”

  “Damn,” Jameson swore before laughing. “Well, figured it was worth a shot. Can I level with you dude?”

  “You’d have to get taller to level with me,” I fired back at him, scooping the phone up as I went to the bedroom to hunt for clothes.

  “No jokes right now, Liam. Serious face time,” Jameson replied, his brogue thickening again.

  “All right, Jameson. Speak your piece,” I said, sighing while I rummaged for clean clothes. I kept up on laundry normally, but with how often my clothes got trashed while visiting the girls, I didn’t have much on hand.

  “Moving is good. Your apartment is shit and the area is shit. I’m surprised no one has robbed you yet. I’ve been thinking about offering you my spare room for a while now if you didn’t make the move yourself.”

  “That’s your home office, dude,” I countered immediately, though the fact that Jameson, a professional architect, was thinking about offering me space in his condo made my chest warm.

  “And I have an office at work too. I don’t need two of the damn things,” Jameson replied gruffly. “Look, I know I’ve not been the best of friends lately with how busy things have been. I’m proud as heck of you for finally getting out from under that fat idiot. Moreso that I’m hearing you’ve cut ties with a few jackasses that’ve been using you.”

  “Blame the girls for all of that,” I said before yanking a shirt over my head. “They’ve been the ones teaching me I’m better than that.”

  “Same with the apartment?”

  “Yeah,” I grimaced. “It just took time to realize it. I used to work until I couldn’t think, then just come home and stare at the walls in exhaustion. I’m finally coming out of my slump and realizing I need to keep pushing myself.”

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  “Good. I knew you were smart enough to figure it out eventually, even if I wanted to grab a clue-by-four every so often,” Jameson said, his brogue still hanging on every word. “If these girls are actually teaching you to use that head of yours as something besides a hat-rack, then I definitely have to meet them.”

  I snorted in amusement while thinking of how Jameson might react to meeting my girls. Of all the people I knew, he’d be the most likely to be understanding, but Jameson would have to survive the heart attack of meeting a real life lamia, animal-girl, or moth-woman first.

  Something he’d said resonated in my head and I had to play back his statement.

  Use that head… smart… My brain bounced the ideas back and forth for a second before they connected and I realized something I’d been missing for a while. I groaned loudly before turning and thumping my head into the wall with a solid thunk.

  “Uh, Liam? You aren’t having a quick wank while I’m on the phone with you, are you?” Jameson asked worriedly.

  “No, just appreciating my own stupidity,” I growled as my realization crystallized. I swear, I could see the frown of consternation on Cariad’s face.

  I’d been boosting my stats so much lately that I’d forgotten something important about all of it. It’d come up several times while I was training with Cerebaton, and had been a regular subject of conversation with them as we’d worked to train my strength and agility.

  You have to work with the boosted stats to really be able to access their potential. Stretches, weight training, cardio, all of that, Cariad had said. I can help you work out a training plan if you want. But don’t let your mental exercises fall by the wayside either!

  I’d done just that, though. While working my body out, I’d used the increased mental stats to help myself come up with new applications of Shape-Shifting, but not pushed my mind beyond that.

  With all my stats being in the seventies and eighties, I was physically strong enough to pick up my truck if I wanted to. My mental scores were only slightly behind the physical ones, and I hadn’t really tapped into them at all. Partially because I just didn’t have the knowledge to actually use them.

  I need to start studying again, I thought while glaring at the wall in front of me. Something, anything. Brain puzzles, logic puzzles, rote memorization. Fuck… I literally have the power to speak any language gifted by the System, perfectly. I could have been using that to translate shit for people and earn money that way.

  “Liam?” Jameson’s words cut through my ‘big brain’ moment and I blinked.

  “What?”

  “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t stroke out mid-stroke there,” Jameson snorted, clearly amused at his own wordplay. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just hating myself for a minute.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, mate. That’s my job!”

  “Ass.”

  “Damn straight! But back to what I was saying before.” Jameson’s voice abruptly lost its teasing and he was serious once more. “Look, I know you are into these girls, but be careful, okay? Your life is turning around but I don’t want to see it go up in flames because they decided to drop you at a bad point. Or decide to harvest your organs.”

  “Not gonna happen,” I countered immediately and Jameson made a noncommittal noise over the phone.

  “Sure. You just happen to vanish off to gods-know-where for weeks at a time with them and refuse to let them meet other people. Joking aside, this sounds like the sort of shit you see in the lead up to people getting sucked into those cults on the news. You know the kind.”

  “I know the girls aren’t part of a cult, but I appreciate your concern.”

  Jameson’s worries may have come out of left field for me, but when I forced myself to look at it from his point of view: a friend who drops off the radar for long spans of time, mysterious girlfriends, and major personality changes. I could understand his worries.

  “Okay. Well you let me know when you are ready to pull the trigger on moving, and I’ll be there. I expect the normal compensation though!”

  “Pizza and beer, minimum. Maybe I can talk Gloria into having her abuela make up a mess of tamales as well.”

  A snap of fingers loud enough to carry over the line followed that statement.

  “Good call. Also, make sure you touch bases with Gloria. I may have told her about you being out of contact in case she heard from you before I did.”

  “Jesus, dude. Did you print missing person posters?” I laughed. Jameson’s blunt reply sobered me up immediately though.

  “I have the file ready just in case. Look at it from my point of view again dude. The fact you keep going missing—but won’t tell anyone where you are going—is concerning enough. I just want to make sure my buddy is safe.”

  Jameson’s concern was obvious in his voice. I knew some folks would find his continued prying to be annoying or controlling, but I’d known him long enough to undestand that it came from a place of concern. He legitimately was worried about me. The logic of the situation was making my mind spin. Even just the act of realizing I’d been unwittingly keeping myself on a mental ‘leash’ before was causing it to loosen and let my stronger mental scores start to stretch out.

  “I’ll call Gloria next,” I promised after a moment to think.

  “Good man. She’s as worried as I am, but busier with her family’s bar. I get that you can’t tell us where you are going, especially if it’s private land. But check in, would you? Your dad used to do it when he took us camping.”

  I winced at that, nodding in agreement even though Jameson couldn’t see me.

  “That is fair. Look, I got some shit to sort out here. I need to figure out the apartment situation, just this conversation is making me realize that staying in this crappy place is actively making me dumber. I also need to go get yelled at by a worried Hispanic woman.”

  “You are out of range of La Chancla at least, so accept your blessings,” Jameson sniggered.

  “Gloria isn’t old enough to have access to that kind of power,” I said with a snort of laughter. “Her abuela though? She’d lay me out at a hundred yards, guaranteed. All Gloria would have to do is ask her.”

  “Good to have you back in town, Liam. And even better to hear you are doing good,” Jameson said after a long moment of silence. “Seriously. Take care of yourself. We should have a beer sometime this week, I’m sure that will help pacify Gloria if we swing by her place and she can give you a bit of an earful in person.”

  “Dunno if I want to sign up for two doses, but it can't hurt to give her the choice,” I said with a wince.

  “Just bust out another of those pretty trinkets for her. When I swung by and talked to her before, her sisters were bitching about not having their own. Fair warning, they might try and squeeze matching gifts out of you too. I’d recommend not giving in if you want to stay on Gloria’s good side.”

  “We will see, have a good one Jameson.”

  We did the normal verbal fencing of goodbyes before I hung up my phone. Staring at the hunk of plastic and glass in my hand, I prodded my mind for ideas.

  I needed things that could help ‘build’ my mental muscles. I immediately thought of those magazines with brain-teaser puzzles in them that I used to see in the check-out stands at the grocery store. I knew there were all sorts of things like that in the app store on my phone.

  “After I message Gloria,” I said, my priorities crystallizing. While the fiery Latina didn’t have access to the dark power of La Chancla, I wasn’t going to leave her annoyed for long.

  I didn’t want to call her, as it was late enough she might be on shift.

  Totally not because I was hoping to dodge being yelled at.

  Checking my messages made me wince, there were six different versions of ‘let me know when you are back in town’ with varying levels of spice from Gloria waiting for me, along with a dozen messages from Jameson and two missed calls from each of them.

  Firing off a quick text message of ‘Hey, back in town. Still getting stuff put away, but wanted to let you know I’m back safe’ to Gloria got the process started. I fully expected to get a call at some point tonight for her to take a turn bawling me out for being away from town so long without checking in.

  I knew some folks would be annoyed that their friends were acting this way, but it warmed my heart to know that at least two people on Earth actually cared if I went missing.

  A sudden flare of purple light around the edges of my vision made me jump and swear, nearly dropping my phone on the floor.

  A moment later, a system message scrolled across my vision.

  Because of course the day wasn’t done being complicated.

  Congratulations, Traveler!

  You have been credited with assistance in ensuring the elimination of an ancient dimensional predator that the System has been searching for.

  As a reward, the System will unlock a single power at no cost to the Traveler.

  Traveler may select between two options:

  Current Available Powers or Lottery

  Current Available Powers will draw from the list of powers the Traveler has access to, but not purchased.

  Lottery will pull from all potential powers available, even those without unlocked prerequisites (excluding those with mastery requirements, such as the Master tier of a power), that the Traveler has potential to eventually learn.

  Current Available Powers // Lottery

  The options sat split and blinking in the middle of my vision and I stared at them thoughtfully for a long moment. The last time the System had pulled from a randomized list, it’d given me something moderately useful. Hower, I was already solid in my plans and skills. I didn’t think anything hanging out that was available currently would be worth it.

  Instead, I was drawn to the potential in the lottery option, because it made me think of the Guardian track, and that was what had given me more than a few powers to specifically protect my girls.

  It’s a bonus power anyway, why not spin the wheel? I thought at last and selected ‘Lottery’ with my mind.

  The Traveler has selected Lottery.

  Processing…

  …

  …

  Power Selected

  You have gained access to the Traveler’s Call (Minor) power.

  Mastery of the new power will open additional avenues of growth for the Traveler.

  Thank you for your assistance, Traveler.

  A ripple of power shivered through my soul and I winced, but didn’t pass out. So I flipped through the menus quickly to see what the new power did, pointedly trying to ignore the last part of the System message. The dimensional supercomputer that administered all these powers hadn’t thanked me before, and it left an odd feeling in my chest that I wasn’t sure I understood.

  I found it in my interface under the listing for Mind powers and goggled at the result it showed.

  Traveler’s Call (Minor) - Cost: 0 SP (System Reward) - At the Traveler’s discretion, you can call out to those whom you have worked with for aid. The Traveler can call out to One contracted partner to assist you at the cost of 10 SP per day. Contracted partner can return to their home dimension at will, at no charge. Can be used on any plane the Traveler is currently present on. Summoned companion can decline the call for assistance, though it will still expend initial SP costs.

  “Shit,” I mumbled as I stared at the power.

  The cost was high, since it was in SP and not mana, but it gave me the option to do something I’d been pondering for a while. I could summon one of the girls to me with it, which meant they could visit Earth if they wanted to. I immediately thought of Shayla and her desire to visit and see other strange vistas, and the girl’s questions about the world I’d come from.

  There are going to be some challenges, I thought while biting my lip. Lamia don’t exist here, and no one is going to buy an excuse like ‘she’s cosplaying’ with a look like that. Definitely need to get a better place to live before I bring one of them here though. I’m not bringing the girls to this shitheap.

  Before I could get lost in thought, my phone began to vibrate and ring in my hand. Glancing down at the screen, I winced when I saw who was calling.

  It was Gloria. She must not have been on shift yet when she got my message. So I flicked the ‘accept call’ button and put the phone to my ear.

  “Liam! Do you have any idea how much I was worried about you?!”

  And thus my battle with the ferocious boss monster known as ‘Angry Latina Woman’ began!

  I hoped I’d survive.

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