Without the added effect of the air being thick with mana, moving through the trapped tunnel was much easier than it had been before at the Ice Field research facility.

  My Manipulate Element

  I marked each of them as we went, having taken the lump of chalk from Jane. While she’d been doing just fine before, I didn’t like to let any of the girls move ahead of me while traps were still a possibility.

  The small scholar had pouted at first, obviously having wanted to help me more, but she calmed down when I asked her to specifically keep watch for threats while I worked. From then on, Jane remained glued to my hip with her spell rod ready and her fluffy tail wiggling over her head like some kind of targeting antennae.

  We only had two minor incidents, both caused by me when I was moving too quickly and brushed the trigger plate accidentally with the lump of chalk.

  The first mistake summoned a mosquito the size of a soccer ball that shed an icy fog as its wings buzzed—Rieka shot that one down with a single casting of her spell. The second one I triggered conjured three glowing beetles that radiated waves of heat—Jane sliced them apart with a wide blade of wind that sent their burning bodies tumbling away from us.

  Each time one of the summons appeared and was slain, the bodies dissolved into fragments of mana mere seconds after they were killed.

  “Still surprised by that,” Kassandra muttered thoughtfully after the fiery beetles dissolved and we continued down the hallway.

  “How so?” I asked, risking a glance back to check on the dwarf lamia.

  Kassandra had her arms crossed and was thoughtfully rubbing her chin with her free hand, while her spell rod dangled from her free hand. The redheaded sorceress was staring at the spot where the beetles had burnt into sparkling motes of mana as she slithered past it, but quickly turned her attention back to me.

  “The way they dissolved is just like when a pact summon is destroyed. I’m sure you remember how that happened from the competition, right?”

  I couldn’t suppress the shudder as my mind immediately launched back to the memory of the freezing cold sensation as Gyrallia’s icy blood covered me, or the searing pain of the polar worm’s jaws closing over me.

  “Cold, Liam?” Jane asked teasingly and when I glanced down at her, she was pointing at my chest.

  While I’d been bare-chested before, to not shred clothes if I had to shift suddenly, I realized that I was now sporting a dense coat of shaggy brown fur that reminded me of a bear. A thought caused the hair to retreat back into my skin and I gave the mousy scholar a smile.

  “I guess I was. That polar worm was cold,” I said by way of answer and Jane grimaced in understanding.

  Since I didn’t want to think about the fact that my body had utilized the Shape-Shifting

  “Wait,” I said quickly and the group ground to a halt. I checked the hall ahead of us, but it was empty save for skeletons and more fallen stones from the ceiling, so I turned back to them.

  Silently, I studied each of my girls. Rieka’s ears were perked up and ready, her tail wiggling slowly behind her in excitement. Kassandra shot me a cheeky wink and a grin, swaying back and forth on her serpentine tail. Shayla gave me a small smile while her antennae bobbled back and forth nervously, furling and unfurling like nervous hands. And Jane darted looks between me and back down the tunnel, still keeping watch for me.

  “Girls, this is partially my fault for not saying anything yet, so I’m not upset with you for forgetting.” That statement made Kassandra’s playful expression fall away and Rieka’s tail still as I continued after pausing for a moment. “But where is your armor?”

  Rieka groaned immediately and slapped her forehead with one hand while the other three all winced in unison.

  “I knew we forgot something…” Shayla complained quietly, her antennae balling up and her face falling.

  “It’s fine,” I said quickly, not wanting the girls to beat themselves up over it. “But you all commissioned armor in a rush since you had the funds, and this is dangerous. You didn’t forget it, did you?”

  “No, I have them,” Kassandra piped up, holstering her spell rod and pulling her hip-bag around. “I made sure to pick up everyone's equipment from Uncle Silas before we left. I just kept forgetting to hand it out.”

  “The downside of these dimensional bags,” Shayla murmured, toying with her spell rod. “I unpacked and repacked mine a good… six times? I think it was six times before I was convinced I hadn’t forgotten anything since it’s not always the easiest to find something small inside them.”

  Kassandra quickly produced canvas-wrapped bundles from her hip bag that she piled on the ground, letting each of them know which was theirs.

  “Let’s change into them right now,” Rieka said after a moment’s hesitation. “These are intended to be worn over clothes, and while they won’t be the most comfortable since we aren’t wearing proper under-armor garments, it’s not going to kill us.”

  “You all change one at a time, the other three look out for the one changing. I’ll cover the tunnel,” I said quickly and turned around.

  “Liam, you know that none of us are going to mind if you watch, right?” Kassandra teased, and I snorted in amusement.

  “I know that, Kass. But I know that if I’m watching, at least one of you is going to try and tempt or tease me into something. That can wait till we aren’t inside a tomb.”

  “Ah, fair I suppose,” Kassandra said in a coy tone. “Though it would help lift the gloom in the air a bit. Besides, I’m curious to see what sort of sounds Jane—mmph!”

  “Enough of that, Kass,” Rieka said mock-sternly. “Do as our Traveler commands and get changed, since you are so eager to strip down.”

  “But it's ,” Kassandra protested in a faux-whine.

  I still heard the muffled rustle of clothing a moment later, telling me that Kassandra was stripping off at least part of her clothing. I wasn’t surprised, since my mischievous lover liked to wear under-bust corsets and those wouldn’t go well beneath armor.

  The girls were quick about it, working together to help each other change. Thankfully, Rieka had some martial training and that included armor, so she helped the other girls do up the buckles and ensure things fit.

  When I finally turned back to survey them, my quartet of lovely student-sorceresses had transformed from a mixed group of noblewomen to four prepared combatants.

  Rieka looked the most comfortable in her outfit, the leather of her outfit was a dark blue in color with flat steel rings as big as a quarter stitched into the surface to add further reinforcement. It fit her like a second skin, compressing her full bust down and clinging to her body closely enough to protect, but not so much that it would impede her movement. The jacket hung to mid thigh, with the chest secured on the left side with a collection of toggles. She’d changed out to a pair of armored boots that ran to just above her knee.

  Jane was bouncing from foot-to-foot, tugging on her armor as she tried to shift it to a comfortable position. Like Rieka, she was wearing a leather and metal jacket, though Jane’s was far smaller and the leather was dyed a dark green. Like Rieka, she had armored boots on that protected her feet and calves, leaving only a brief space of thigh exposed between the jacket and the boots.

  Shayla’s choice in armor differed from the other girls in a major way, since she had wings. Sure, Jane and Rieka had tails which required specific cutouts in their armor, but Shayla’s wings required a very different setup to her armor. The full-figured moth woman’s outfit was more of an armored corset, leaving the tops of her prodigious breasts exposed while swooping low in the back to not get in the way of her wings.

  The trade-off was that her thighs had better coverage, with her long boots coming up to mid-thigh under the bottom edge of her tunic, the top being held in place with a wide belt set with metal plates. Shayla had also taken the time to bind up her masses of thick, chocolate-colored hair into a plump bun at the back of her head. The whole look gave her an oddly barbarian-queen vibe with the rich brown leather contrasting against the polished metal rings, her pale skin, and lush figure.

  Shayla blushed when I studied her, toying with the bodice of her armored jacket. It was clear she was a little uncomfortable leaving so much of her chest bare, since she normally wore sun-dresses, but she looked gorgeous in it.

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  And finally there was Kassandra. The dwarf-lamia had the least covering of the four, but that was due to her natural scales and serpentine tail. They didn’t really make armor for lamia of any size, not practically at least. So Kassandra ended up in an outfit halfway between Shayla’s and Rieka’s, with the cut being more like Shayla’s to accommodate her larger bust, but the jacket actually closing over her chest to hide my favorite bit of freckled skin. She’d also tied her hair back, but Kassandra hadn’t gone as far as Shayla in pinning it into a bun. Instead, it was a chunky ponytail that fluffed out behind her back, the russet-colored strands matching the dark red of the leather.

  “Happy, Liam?” Kassandra asked with a cheeky smile.

  “Definitely. Have you ladies had time to get the enchantments worked into them?” I asked, giving the girls another quick once over.

  “Not yet,” Jane answered quickly. “Kassandra and I brought the supplies to do it, but we didn’t have time before we left to actually get the enchantments worked out. It’s more complicated than I’d thought initially.”

  “Still, the armor will do some to help protect us, and we need to get used to wearing it,” Rieka said firmly, shaking her head from side to side and making her pointed wolf ears flop back and forth.

  “I’m just glad that you didn’t try and get us in chainmail or plate,” Shayla murmured quietly, grimacing as she pulled at the wide belt around her waist. “This is already so constricting…”

  “You aren’t having your breasts mashed flat at least,” Jane grumbled, staring down at her nearly flat chest. Jane already had the smallest bust of my four girls and the little mouse kin’s armor made the gentle swell of her breasts vanish under the leather.

  “If Shayla’s breasts were mashed flat, I’m pretty sure she’d suffocate from the pressure,” Kassandra snickered before shooting me a wicked glance. “They do make quite the presentation like this, though. I think Liam likes it. If you want, Shayla, I can have my seamstress fit you for some corsets like mine when we get back?”

  Shayla blushed red immediately, her eyes darting between the ground and my face. I didn’t respond to Kassandra’s question, not wanting to encourage her, but apparently the look on my face was enough to convince Shayla because she bit her lip before giving Kassandra a nod of agreement.

  We got moving then, traveling deeper into the mountain now. I continued to mark out and avoid the traps that I was able to locate.

  The hardest ones to spot were in the middle of the corridor, and that was because they lay directly on top of the conduit that was conveying power to the traps. The others I was able to locate easily enough as the conduit branched out to them, but the centermost ones I had to scan for the slight misalignments or miniature connections to the power source.

  Thankfully, we didn’t have problems with triggering any more of the traps. My girls were wary and made sure not to lean against any walls or even get close to them, even though I was checking and marking stones on the walls that had the similar traps.

  Turning the corner, we found the end of the hallway partially blocked by another rock fall that was supported by a large, bent iron door.

  “Well, that will make things somewhat easier,” Rieka mumbled as we approached. “Door’s already open, just partially blocked…”

  Testing the rubble gingerly, I found that it was actually one solid piece that had sheared off and crashed down and was actually fairly stable. It took me only a minute or two to widen the passage to let us through and into the next room.

  When we’d searched the other research facilities, they’d been mostly empty, with the ravages of time claiming anything organic that it could despite the overbearing sensation of timelessness that hung in the air. That same timeless sensation hung over us now, as if the world itself was watching and waiting in a moment of indrawn breath, but there was far more to this place than had been in the others.

  The first room that we entered was a large reception space. Stone desks sat against the far wall to one side of another set of large metal doors, though the actual doors lay in twisted wreckage on the ground inside the first room. Skeletons were scattered all over the polished stone floor, bones churned and scattered by something vile until it was impossible to tell just how many bodies had been here. But with them so mixed about and damaged, I doubted they would rise again.

  Large pillars supported the high, arching ceiling in three places, with the fourth having been knocked over and the stone ceiling sagged on that corner of the room showing that it was not stable. I sent a pulse of earth magic through it using Manipulate Element

  The signs of combat were everywhere. Melted and scratched stone, scorch marks, and ancient bloodstains. The air felt musty and stale, but not sour or wrong.

  , I thought.

  A ripple of mana went past me, and I glanced back at Jane to find the miniature scholar murmuring a spell for a long moment before her eyes popped open. She gave me a nod and explained.

  “The air is foul down here, but not dangerous.”

  “Thanks, Jane. Was just thinking about that, actually.”

  Jane gave me a broad smile that made her teeth sparkle in the light of Shayla’s constructs.

  “I thought about it after our last trip, with the mana being so dense in the air. I got to thinking about other contaminants that might end up in the air and did some research to come up with that spell.”

  “Smart girl,” I congratulated her, dropping a hand on the wide, fluffy mass of hair that sat between her large mouse ears and gave it a stroke. Jane hummed happily at the affection, her long tail winding around my arm affectionately before we refocused ourselves.

  “Liam, do you sense any more traps in this area?” Rieka asked once I was done congratulating Jane.

  I spread my senses out, checking the anteroom carefully. While there was the central cable that supported the traps running under the floor here, it flowed through the room without diverting more than once. A single connection ran behind the stone desks and I walked over to check them carefully.

  Another ancient, dessicated corpse lay behind the desk, its chest and ribs crushed into fragments. I traced the precious metal connection to a wide stone plate set behind the desk and smirked.

  “Burglar alarm maybe? Or just a silent alarm, I think,” I murmured, beckoning the girls over to look at it.

  Jane and Kassandra threaded behind the desk, moving carefully to not disturb the dead after poking it a few times to make sure the skeleton would stay unmoving. The two quickly studied the panel and came to the same conclusion.

  “It’s an alarm, I think. Maybe something to summon guards or security, but I doubt it’s the key to the traps or defenses,” Jane said after a bit of studying.

  “It would make sense if it the defenses. But no one would put the off switch out front like this. I bet we have to find the source of the wards and the power to turn it off, just like in the space under the Ice Field facility,” Kassandra finished.

  “Fine. Keep watch and step carefully. We don’t know if they’d trap the inside of their own facility or not,” I told them and got a round of nods from the girls.

  We moved through the next set of doors carefully, with me in the lead as was usual. Being inside another of these facilities had me on edge again, so I didn’t hesitate on my combat Shape-Shifting

  I reduced my height some, but converted my lower legs into a quadrupedal form like that of a cougar for balance. Elongating my torso gave me the space to add a second set of arms, which I equipped with the dactyl clubs of the mantis shrimp, sized up for my own body. My regular arms were converted into massive scorpion stingers on flexible tails.

  Since my upper limit was three-hundred percent of my native body mass, I was working with around six hundred pounds of convertible mass. That allowed for quite a bit of flexibility, but would still mean that my maximum weight was six hundred pounds.

  Now, six hundred pounds may not sound like much, but a male silverback gorilla would normally weigh around three-hundred and fifty pounds. By comparison, a grizzly bear could weigh between four and eight-hundred pounds. Which meant that, theoretically, I could shift into an average-sized grizzly bear at this point.

  But where was the fun in that?

  Instead, I turned myself into a four-legged, four-armed combat monstrosity with dense scales armoring any part of my body that was bare skin.

  “When are you going to shift a tail again, Liam?” Kassandra asked as we crossed the threshold into the next room, her tone pouty.

  “When I can use a bit more weight,” I replied with a laugh. “Or next time that I’m doing it for fun and practice. I’m not as good on a tail as you are.”

  “You just need practice,” Kassandra purred and I could the eyebrow wiggles in her voice. “I’m happy to help you practice whenever you want. It would be interesting to go through town with another lamia my size that wasn’t one of my parents for once.”

  “You don’t want him to shift in the bedroom?” Jane asked, her voice caught between curiosity and, oddly enough, worry.

  “No. I like my Liam in his natural form for that, though there might be some fun things he can shift his tongue or fingers into for a bit of play,” Kassandra replied in a sultry tone. “He is who he is, and that’s what I fell in love with. Not what he could make himself into for me.”

  “Ah, good. I was a bit concerned there for a moment. Especially considering how… outspoken you can get,” Jane reassured her friend, the relief obvious in her tone. The two of them shared a quiet laugh.

  , I thought idly as I scanned the next room, my eyes shifting to an owl’s to pierce the darkness better even as Shayla maneuvered her light spell into the room.

  The second room was in far worse repair than the first had been. While the ceiling had collapsed in one spot in the outer anteroom, this space was mostly closed off on one whole side. It was like something had bitten down on the outside of the building and just crushed the ceiling and floor together and divided the room in half.

  Loose rubble was strewn all over the floor haphazardly, and even my Manipulate Elementfelt stable, having settled long ago. But I was still wary.

  Two doors opened off the room, one on the far wall, and another right next to it at a ninety-degree angle. Both doors were closed and had rubble piled in front of them as well as showing several dents from flying stones too.

  The whole place felt like one of the larger staging rooms in the other ruins, where it might have been a waiting room, a guard room, or some kind of social space for whoever worked here in the past. But now it was nothing more than a badly damaged tomb.

  “Hang on a sec, girls,” I said, coming to a stop a few steps in. Obediently, the girls formed up behind me, with Jane and Kassandra on my right, while Rieka and Shayla took my left.

  Focusing, I pushed a pulse of earth magic forward, following the conduit of precious metals through the ground as it wound under the rubble.

  I thought to myself.

  The conduit veered off to the right suddenly, towards the two doors that were still exposed. But before I could confirm which door it went through, the conduit passed under something that resonated with imbued magic like a struck bell.

  A grinding, crunching noise came next as what I’d taken for a hunk of rubble directly in front of us shifted and twisted, lashing out with a massive stone fist directly at me.

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