“Hmm,” Shayla mumbled thoughtfully.

  She paused her light orb and brought it sailing back to us. This sent another ripple of gold through the thin veins of mineral trapped inside the walls. Her wings flapped slowly as she positioned the light orb to where it would shine directly into the mouth of the cave, and I immediately realized what she was doing.

  Shayla was positioning it like the setting sun.

  “I think that would count,” I laughed, catching the moth woman’s gaze and winking broadly at her. “The sun would definitely ‘gild’ this section while it did the same at sunset.”

  The quiet laughter from my other three girls told me that they all understood as well, saving me from having to explain. I hadn’t expected anything less though, my girls were clever ones.

  “Do you think that this cave might be connected to the directions we were given?” Kassandra asked, the dwarf lamia slithering over to curl around my ankles and lean into my side. She pointedly didn’t tighten her wrap around my feet so as not to impede me if I had to leap into action.

  “I’d put good money on it. Shall we head deeper then, or do you ladies need a moment longer to rest?” I suggested, my fatigue having melted away already in excitement.

  “Liam—” Rieka began, and from her tone I could tell that she was about to chastise me. But Shayla interrupted her before the princess could get going.

  “Give me a few minutes to get a drink and catch my breath. Not all of us are as strong as you, Liam.”

  I immediately ducked my head and shot her a wry smile. I’d immediately forgotten how rough the climb had been on my winged companion, but she just continued to smile at me sweetly, telling me with her bearing that it was fine and she forgave me.

  The girls were quick to break out waterskins, reminding me of just how thirsty of a business climbing was. I made sure that all of my girls forgave my momentary lapse in judgment from excitement by breaking out a small box of meringues to help them restore their energy with a bit of sugar.

  Those light and airy cookies were a hit with the girls, and soon the sugar had them all ready to move once more.

  Shayla led the way with her light spell, guiding it into the cave ahead of us. While the girls had caught their breath, I’d stood watch at the cave mouth with it behind me, just in case something decided to come out. A bit of Shape-Shifting

  Moving in an inverted wedge, with me at the tip, then Jane and Kassandra on either side, followed by Shayla and Rieka behind them, we entered the cave.

  At first glance, the cave had appeared fairly shallow, running only about forty feet back into the mountain before it cut off into another flat wall. But with the assistance of Shayla’s light and my Manipulate Element

  I went first, with Shayla’s light spell attached to my left fist. I’d shifted both my arms into the contracted dactyl clubs like a mantis shrimp, figuring that the explosive, close-range power would be handy in this situation.

  , I thought wryly as I shifted my left arm around, using the rounded nub of bone to shield my eyes from the direct light of the spell.

  Jane was the first to follow me through the crack, the miniature scholar easily fitting through and taking up her position guarding my flank without hesitation, her long tail brushing against my back like an extra hand while she readied her spell rod.

  “This room is too regular,” Jane murmured a moment later, speaking over the quiet rasp of Kassandra’s scales on the stone.

  “How so?” I asked, studying the walls and the floor carefully.

  This section of the cave was much like the outer one, with the interlocking layers of pale stone and the glimmer of reflected light shining when the light spell hit it just right. The walls weren’t smooth by any means, but they did have oddly regular planes to them. The floor itself was far from smooth, with dips and ruts in it that would catch our feet if we weren’t careful, but none were more than a quarter-inch deep and looked rounded by water.

  “Caves tend to be smooth when polished by the wind or water,” Jane explained, using the toe of her boot to scrape at the rock underfoot for a moment. “The outer cave I could believe being somewhat wind-polished, but back here? It shouldn’t be. There should be more dust and sand. Also, why are there no signs of an animal using this for a den?”

  “All good points,” Rieka said as she wiggled through next. “This cave feels like an ideal place for a big predator to nest, and with it shielded from the weather like this, there should still be remains of a den or nest if one was living here.”

  Kassandra didn’t speak, just settling in at my side and keeping her spell rod trained into the darkness. The fact that my mischief macaroni was not cracking jokes told me that she could feel the weight in the air too.

  “Everyone be careful,” I urged as Shayla squeezed through to join us at last. “Keep close watch on the ground so you don’t trip, but also because I wouldn’t be surprised if there are traps here too. This is likely one of those concealed entrances like for the Shadow Mountain facility.”

  “Maybe, I’m still wondering about that,” Jane interjected as I started forward. “There was no mention of something in this area on that copper map we found at Shadow Mountain.”

  “It’s possible that it was established after the fact,” Rieka suggested. “Maybe after whatever disaster that befell that facility. They sealed it up and never went back.”

  “Or this is a higher-security location,” Jane replied, and I could hear the nervous excitement in her tone. “If what was found in Shadow Mountain and Ice Field was anything to go on, it makes me wonder and worry a bit over what might be here.”

  I couldn’t really argue with Jane’s statement there. The last two human ruins we’d investigated had concealed both their own threats and treasures in equal measure. But we were coming here with a very specific reason. This was the first real favor that Cariad had asked of me, as I didn’t count the previous requests to keep my eyes open for problems and to double check the Shadow Mountain for issues, since we’d been planning to go anyway.

  I thought abruptly.

  As if summoned by my thoughts, a flicker of neon light raced around the edges of my vision and words printed themselves in midair.

  

  

  

  

  I blinked away the notification rapidly as my heart rate skyrocketed for several seconds while my stomach tried to fall out through my asshole.

  The System, by and large, did not react to my thoughts or requests. The extra-dimensional supercomputer that administered the Traveler program and helped the DSR to maintain the dimensional membrane was content to act as a ‘Help’ section on occasion, but this was the time it had directly responded to my thoughts.

  The first time, the System had printed a single-word response to my internal monologue about it intervening directly when we’d first headed into the Ice Field facility. The fact that it my thoughts was terrifying enough, but with a second time that it did so—and by assigning me a specific mission—meant that a pattern was forming.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  asked, I thought as the cave we were in began to turn, curving to the left while narrowing to about ten feet across now.

  I didn’t expect the System to answer my thought then, but didn’t discount it either. It was more of a bit of defensive snark that I’d picked up from Kassandra. So when more glowing words burned themselves across my vision, I had to bite my tongue to avoid swearing out loud.

  

  

  

  

  “Just had to open my big mouth,” I growled under my breath.

  “What was that, Liam?” Kassandra asked and I felt a soft hand on my elbow.

  Glancing down at the lovely redhead next to me, I gave her a reassuring smile. This was not the time to worry her with my problems, or even mention them really. My girls had enough issues to be getting on with right now, and so did I for that matter.

  Deciding that this was firmly in the range of ‘problems for Future-Me to deal with,’ I set aside my concerns for now and pressed onwards.

  The smooth cavern walls continued to narrow, winding back and forth for a good two or three hundred feet before it finally terminated in another sheer wall. This one, however, did not conceal a hidden passage to one side of it.

  Though it was a shorter distance to travel, we still took our time and covered it at a slow walk, warily studying the walls and floors for any indications of traps or other irregularities. But nothing was showing. If anything, the cave was suspicious in its of aberrations, something that Jane mentioned several times during the walk.

  “This doesn’t make sense. There should be something here. A crack in the stone, a dip in the floor where water pooled… something! Caves don’t form naturally this cleanly. Liam, do you sense any earth magic at work? I’d almost expect this to have been a hermit's refuge, but we haven’t even seen signs of a camp like soot on the walls!”

  “Nope,” I answered the energetic mouse kin without hesitation. “I’ve been running my Manipulate Element

  Jane let out a rather cute growl of frustration at that revelation and kicked the wall next to her with one booted foot before glaring up at the stone wall in front of her.

  “Do you think that we got overly excited, Liam? Believing that we’d be lucky enough to locate the entrance at the first possible cave that we ran into?” Rieka asked, shifting up to stand right behind me.

  I felt a soft weight press into my back as my wolfish princess leaned into me, standing on her tiptoes to put her chin on my shoulder.

  The scent of ozone filled my lungs, as the smell of her lightning magic clung tightly to Rieka. It was oddly reassuring to me, knowing that my lover had such power at her fingertips but trusted in me to protect her.

  use I thought with a grin.

  My mind immediately turned to the rarely used tab in my System interface, where it listed my connections with the girls. Every single one of my contracts was a ‘Guardian Contract,’ even the one I had with Queen Gemma. Though the queen’s was still only a rank one contract, while the last time I’d checked the girls, they’d had anywhere between a rank two to a rank five contract.

  I thought.

  “What is next, then?” Kassandra asked, slithering around me warily to lay one hand on the stone wall in front of us.

  The bright light of Shayla’s spell sent glimmering threads through her mass of red curls and further highlighted the way her rich red scales shifted through the colors of fire and down into an earthy brown. The effect of the light gave my serpentine lover an ephemeral appearance that made my heart ache.

  “This cave would be an ideal base camp to keep exploring the hills from, but we still have a good chunk of the day to keep going. I don’t know if we should double back here for the night, rest here now, or what,” Rieka replied, her breath tickling my ear. “You are sure that there aren't any lingering signs of earth magic, Liam?”

  “No, nothing like at the Ice Field facility. The stone there literally resisted my powers, but here it feels like normal,” I answered. But just to be sure, I pulsed a bit of mana through the stone all around us.

  Manipulate ElementShape-Shifting

  This technique though was probably my most used one, as it reached into the earth all around me and basically ‘mapped’ it in my mind. I could tell where soft soil was, since that was far easier to manipulate than hard stones. I could find stones as well, since they resisted me more than dirt did, and I’d been using it to search for disturbances in the earth as well, which let me track people and monsters.

  In my mind, it acted somewhat like a radar ping, giving me an impression of my surroundings on the surface, but I could push deeper if I wanted to. I’d been doing just that while we walked, looking for these ‘sleeping stones’ or signs of ancient worked stone. Now, though, I pushed on the stone a little harder, driving the magic in to encompass the large slabs that sat all around us.

  The pulse dislodged a bit of dust and grit, which sifted down from above and made the girls jump in surprise.

  Shayla spoke just as I felt something shift, excitement high in her voice.

  “Wait! Liam, do that again!”

  Rather than pursue the odd shifting sensation I’d felt, I did as Shayla asked and sent another slow pulse of earth magic through the stones and gripped at them with my mana.

  “There!” Shayla lunged forward, her spell rod leading the way to the wall on her right. I had felt something shift again, but it was so small that I couldn’t tell if it was the falling grains of sand and dirt, or something more.

  “What did you find, Shayla?” Kassandra asked, slithering back over her own coils to hurry to where the moth woman was inspecting the wall.

  “The reflected light changed when Liam ran his magic over it. It wasn’t much, but I was looking for any changes. The sparkle shifted just right to catch my attention,” Shayla explained quickly and began to use the metallic tip of her rod like a drumstick, lightly tapping on the wall.

  I stood back to let the girls work, as Jane and Rieka quickly crowded in to join the other two. I didn’t need to be right up on the wall to inspect it anyway, and someone needed to keep watch.

  Turning my back to it, I quickly studied the walls and floor again, looking carefully for any signs of a trap or vector of attack if they were to trip something. When I found nothing, I focused on running my Manipulate Element

  The surface revealed nothing, so as Shayla muttered to herself quietly and Jane rummaged in her back while talking about tools, I sank my Manipulate Element

  The first six inches didn’t reveal anything to me, but just beyond that, I found what we were looking for.

  Buried in the natural stone wall, hidden by the criss-crossing strands of metallic ore that lay between the layered stone, were ancient mechanisms. I’d gotten familiar with picking out pure metals from ores over the last few weeks, and I knew what I could feel. But something was occluding it, preventing me from getting a good feel for what lay on the other side of the stone wall.

  “There is something there,” I advised. “I can feel metal deep in the wall. Be careful.”

  “Agreed. I’m just narrowing it down…” Shayla murmured distractedly.

  I heard the moth woman chant something under her breath and then the stirring of her wings fluttering before she spoke louder.

  “Cover your eyes.”

  “Why do we—” Jane began to ask before she cut off with a yelp.

  I glanced back in time to see Rieka planting her hand over Jane’s face while doing the same for her own and squinted my eyes shut just as the tip of Shayla’s spell rod flared a brilliant white.

  I’d been around people who worked with welders, and the arc of light was as bright as any of those tools. It burned through my closed eyelids and left a dot in my vision, but Shayla’s excited yelp was enough to tell me that whatever she’d done, it had been successful.

  “Found it!”

  I opened my eyes to see Shayla sink her fingers into something that I couldn’t fully discern. It looked like three of her long fingers vanished into midair at about waist high before she twisted those fingers.

  A loud and the grinding of gears followed as something shifted in the wall. What had felt like solid stone before now was only a bare inch thick to my Manipulate Element

  “What the hell was that?” I breathed in surprise, not the only one startled by the development as Shayla turned a grin back on the rest of us.

  “Light magic can do a lot of things,” Shayla explained helpfully. “Everything from warmth to illusions and more. There was a mechanism constructed of light magic, hardened and made clear as glass to blend in with the wall. It was nothing more than a ghost until I charged it with my own power. You could say it was a ‘trick of the light’ until I gave it enough power to manifest.”

  “That…” I let the sentence trail off in confusion as I tried to parse how that worked.

  “How did you think of that?” Jane asked curiously, poking at the air where Shayla had manipulated something and squeaking in surprise when her finger contacted something invisible.

  “The light imagery in the description got me thinking,” Shayla said with a shrug before turning her shy smile fully my way, the fluffy fronds of her antenna wiggling happily. “Did I do good, Liam?”

  “Of course you did, Shayla,” I replied with a laugh and her smile widened further while her antennae did a happy dance.

  “Uh…” Kassandra’s concerned noise drew our attention away from Shayla’s odd discovery to the open doorway. Which was good as I had momentarily forgotten the potential threat that it presented.

  I only had time to shift in that direction when I realized what it was that had caught Kassandra’s attention.

  Shifting my arm around, I shone the light attached to it through the doorway fully, to reveal the rubble-choked passage beyond. Sometime in the distant past, the ceiling had collapsed in that passage, leaving only a ten foot length exposed beyond the opening.

  Ten feet of cracked and damaged stone, and part of a crushed skeleton.

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