“Liam?” It was Shayla’s gentle voice that broke me out of my fugue as I stared at the skull.

  Turning to look over my shoulder, I found all four of my girls crowded close behind me. Rieka had her back to me, studying the exam table with her spell rod out, while Jane and Kassandra scanned the room and the other cages with an intense focus.

  “We need to leave,” I said numbly, the tang of entropic energy still echoing through my mind. Heavy enough that it felt like it was laying on top of my tongue.

  It was a testament to my girls and their trust in me that not one of them argued with me. We still had a portion of the facility to explore, and didn’t really have any treasure to show for the trip and the risk we’d undergone, but they did not hesitate in the slightest.

  “Liam, lead us out then. Shayla, you are with me watching the rear,” Rieka ordered briskly and the girls adjusted before waiting for me to take the lead.

  I had something important to do first, and closed my eyes to focus on my System interface.

  Liam

  I bit my lip as I sent the message off. I wanted to add more to it, to warn her or something, but I also didn’t want to prejudice the DSR personnel about what I had found. If my assumptions were correct—and I was fairly certain that they were—then shit was about to go down here.

  That thought was further confirmed with just how fast I got a response from Cariad. My daemon caseworker was always quick to get back to me, usually responding within minutes. But less than five seconds passed before my vision flashed and the reply arrived.

  Cariad

  Liam

  Glancing back towards the cage with the sad skeleton sitting inside it, I grimaced briefly as I considered what I’d just sent. I needed to confirm my suspicions before I left with the girls.

  “Girls, I need a mana coin. Any denomination will do, but I’m drained dry,” I said quietly.

  Jane was the first to fish out a shimmering copper coin from her pouch and toss it to me without a word. I could tell they wanted to ask questions, but I needed to get this done fast so we could be on our way.

  So, holding the mana copper in my left hand, I focused on my right and used Manipulate Element

  A flick of my hand tossed the rice-grain sized mote of entropic energy into the cage. It hit the metal floor and rolled, shimmering with malevolent power before winking out of existence when my mana bottomed out.

  Leaving behind an undamaged metal floor to the cage.

  I thought grimly and pushed myself to my feet.

  Silently, I returned the drained coin to Jane, who tucked it into her pouch once more with wide eyes. All of my girls had seen me manipulate the entropic energy before, with devastating results. I’d melted through solid doors, stone and metal alike, as well as in combat without a problem. So seeing something resist the power was intimidating.

  I couldn’t feel the resonance of entropic energy from the metal, so I tapped it lightly with one fingertip with no reaction, which confirmed that the metal was one of the strangely neutral alloys like what Cariad had given me to make her jewelry with.

  “Let’s get moving,” I said quietly, and padded for the door.

  The girls moved into formation behind me without hesitation, and we began to work our way out of the complex.

  We’d made it to the ruined room with the remains of the golem before the DSR personnel arrived.

  Just like last time, the air rippled faintly before tearing like worn cloth to reveal a bland hallway on the far side. Six daemons stepped through quickly, the rend in reality sealing behind them the moment the last one had crossed over.

  Also like before, they were all dressed in some variety of tactical gear or armor, with Cerebaton leading the group and Cariad at his side. The other four guards fanned out warily, but I recognized several of them from the last time this had happened.

  “Traveler, you requested DSR assistance?” Cerebaton said, crouching so that his branching antlers wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. “Please report the disturbance.” He spoke with a stiff formality that Cerebaton hadn’t used in a while, so I had a feeling that this was something to do with official protocol.

  “Remains, Cerebaton,” I replied bluntly before indicating the door. “Through there, I found mummified remains that I believe the DSR needs to take custody of.”

  No sooner had I finished than the four guards with Cerebaton darted past the girls and through the door, not waiting for a signal from Cerebaton or Cariad.

  Something about how disquiet I was feeling must have shown on my face, because Cariad spoke up, her forehead wrinkling in concern.

  “Liam, is everything—” Cariad wasn’t able to finish her sentence before swearing oaths erupted from the far side of the doorway and her eyes widened.

  “System preserve! Captain, we have a daemon in here!”

  I grimaced again, my fears confirmed as Cerebaton’s face hardened into stone.

  “Traveler, we appreciate you notifying us of this. Rest assured that the DSR will handle this. Please, seal the way behind you.”

  Cerebaton’s voice was tight with fury, but I knew the big man well enough to know that it wasn’t directed at me in the slightest. All four of Cariad’s eyes were wide with fear, though the electric-blue set wasn’t looking at me. They were instead directed towards the room the guards had vanished into.

  “Powers of creation, they are right,” Cariad whispered fearfully. “What could have trapped—”

  “Miss Davies!” Cerebaton snapped, cutting her off sharply again. “This is an internal matter now. Focus!”

  Cariad jerked when Cerebaton barked her name, all four eyes reorienting onto her superior and she stiffened before nodding sharply.

  “Understood, Mr. Cerebaton,” she said quietly before shooting me an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry Liam, I shouldn’t have said that. Please do as Mr. Cerebaton said and seal the way behind you. When we are done, this place will be as if it never existed.”

  “Harsh.”

  The single-word statement from Rieka drew the eyes of both daemons to her, with Cerebaton studying the wolfish princess with a stern expression and Cariad gnawing on her bottom lip in worry.

  “You have a complaint, miss?” Cerebaton asked after a moment of silence.

  Rieka, my sweet and intelligent wolfish princess, propped both fists on her hips and stared up at the man who loomed nearly twice her height as if he was nothing more than an outspoken merchant.

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  “Liam is here at request. We have risked our lives infiltrating this place, and we are expected to hand it over to you without any form of compensation? This is a lost piece of history here and you talk as if you will destroy it without a care,” Rieka said sternly, her fluffy blonde tail hanging low behind her while her wolf ears were pinned back in irritation

  “Because we will,” Cerebaton replied simply. I was glad that the daemon did not assume an offensive posture right now, because the last thing I wanted to do was end up in an actual fight with my mentor and friend. “This location represents knowledge your people should not have. Your knowledge of the DSR and daemons in general is already outside of what is allowed normally, but due to your connection to a Traveler, it is being permitted.”

  “And if we were not connected to Liam?” Rieka asked acidly, her tail twitching once in irritation.

  Cerebaton studied her for a long moment of silence before he responded, the horned man’s eyes flicking away to meet my own for a bare moment before he spoke.

  “Then you would not have been permitted to find out about us in the first place. By our very nature we are able to move between dimensions and pass into places unseen and undetected. We work to protect the different dimensions from destabilizing, and do what we must to save the greatest number of lives.”

  Cerebaton did not have to say it out loud, his implications were clear enough. Cariad had already offered me the opportunity of just forgetting everything once upon a time when I came back from the first summoning, but I doubted they’d bother with something like that for a non-Traveler.

  “Rest assured that I will see Liam properly compensated for notifying us,” Cerebaton said after a long moment of silence. “But understand that some parts of history are best lost and forgotten. Now, please allow us to do our jobs.”

  Rieka continued to stare down the much larger man for a handful of seconds before she nodded sharply, the motion holding all the officiousness my princess could muster before she turned my way, her ice-blue eyes shimmering.

  “Liam, if you would lead us out?”

  “Of course. Cerebaton, I want to know all you are to tell me when you are able. So that I can keep my eye out for anything else that is suspicious,” I said while locking eyes with the daemon man.

  Cerebaton’s yellow eyes narrowed faintly but he nodded once in understanding before turning to hurry down the hallway.

  “Liam, I’m sorry…” Cariad began to say but let the sentence die when I waved a hand to stop her.

  “Nothing to apologize about, Cari. Cerebaton is your boss, so don’t do anything that is going to get you in trouble, okay?” She nodded silently, biting her bottom lip in concern, so I tried to lighten the mood. “I still owe you a dinner or two, so when this is over we need to make sure to arrange that.”

  The smile that crossed her face next was tentative, but fit her normally cheerful features far better than the frown had. Cariad bobbed her head in agreement before turning to hurry after Cerebaton and into the exam room.

  “Let's get going, girls,” I said with a sigh. “I’d like to feel the sun on my face again.”

  “No complaints there,” Kassandra snickered. “It’s getting a bit chilly down here with all this stone. I’d normally complain more, but I know you’ll warm me up, won’t you, Liam?”

  The smothered giggles from the other girls helped re-balance my emotions, and I started forward to head back up to the surface, pondering the best way to seal up the cave behind me so that it wouldn’t raise questions in the future.

  <><><>

  We managed to make it back out before the sun set, but only barely.

  Rather than try and descend the mountain in the shadows of the night, the girls opted to pitch our tent in the cave mouth and make use of some of our newer magical tools that they’d brought with them.

  Kassandra set up the small magical stove to warm our dinner on, while Shayla and Jane helped me set up the tent on the patch of dirt just outside the cave entrance. Rieka helped by laying out the warding runestones that Kassandra had made and refined since that first time up on the mountain.

  All four of my girls were experienced with camping at this point, having gotten used to it over the last several months. No complaints came from them as they worked, instead dividing up the chores like well-oiled machines. The difference was that we had more casual magical tools to use now.

  Rather than having to go to a stream for water, Rieka had a waterskin that was far larger than it appeared at first, holding several barrels worth of water inside it with a spell to purify and freshen the water worked into the leather.

  Kassandra’s stove was an enchanted plate of metal set on three folding legs that would rapidly heat up and provide a cooking surface with minimal magical injections. It was a good stand in for when we couldn’t find wood for a fire, though Kassandra still grumbled at the need to supply it with mana constantly to heat it.

  Jane had discovered a large hide at the market that had come from some kind of air-aligned beast. She’d described it to me once and it sounded something akin to a wooly rhino with six legs, but the hide was naturally springy and made for a wonderful bottom layer in the tent to ensure we had something soft to sleep on. Apparently, the effect came from a mixture of the creature’s natural hair and the air magic that permeated it even after tanning.

  I had to fight the urge to tease Shayla the most, though. My beautiful moth artist had found and bought half a dozen crystalline lamps that shone with clear white light and hung them around the campsite to ensure we could see easily enough. She’d been so excited to get her hands on them that I had nearly burst into laughter at her ‘love of lamp,’ though I was able to resist teasing her mostly because the joke would have gone over her head.

  Since I didn’t have the same easy way of transporting equipment as the girls did, I instead focused on doing everything I could with my powers to help them with their tasks. Manipulate ElementShape-Shifting

  And did lots of manual lifting.

  “Liam! Put me down!” Jane protested with a laugh as I hoisted the petite scholar into the air. She wriggled in my grip, but only half heartedly.

  Jane’s long tail wrapped around my right arm possessively and clung tightly, so I instead set her on my shoulder. She immediately leaned into my head, wrapping an arm around the top of my head for balance and giggled into my hair.

  “I meant on the ground!” Jane protested in between giggles. I shrugged, making her shriek in surprise and cling tighter, but not stop laughing.

  “You didn’t say that, Jane. You just said ‘put me down,’ so I did!” I replied airily, striding back towards the fire where Kassandra was grilling something savory and doughy smelling.

  Rather than argue more, Jane just hugged my head tighter and brushed her fingers through my hair affectionately. The little scholar had been surprisingly affectionate after our first interlude and officially becoming a couple. She fought less with Kassandra and teased more, which was relieving in its own way. I wanted all my girls to be happy.

  I thought while carefully settling onto my knees beside Kassandra so I wouldn’t dislodge Jane.

  “Did he catch you trying to sneak off back down the tunnel again?” Kassandra asked without looking up from her work.

  The dwarf lamia was frying some kind of dough-balls that were about the size of a Pop-Tart, but from the savory oil sizzling and leaking out of them, I put better odds they were more like a calzone than anything else.

  “I wasn’t trying to sneak off,” Jane protested, shifting so she could slide down my chest and into my lap with a huff. This motion ended up rucking her skirt up in the back and I could feel her soft bottom pressing into my lap.

  Once we had emerged from the caves, the first thing the girls had done before setting camp was to strip out of their armor once more. Each of them had small complaints about the tight-fitting garments chafing and were relieved to be back in casual clothes once more.

  “Then what were you doing to end up in the air like that?” Kassandra teased with a smirk. “You know you could just drag Liam into the tent for a bit. The soundproofing spells don’t work nearly as well on cloth walls, but I don’t think any of us would mind.”

  Jane pinked immediately, but from the way her hips wiggled in my lap I could tell she was immediately tempted by it.

  “None of that, now,” I said with a laugh, wrapping both my arms around Jane and squeezing her to my chest firmly enough that she grunted quietly and I felt her back pop. Hugging the small scholar was always fun, since she folded into my lap so easily.

  “Brute,” Jane squeaked breathlessly when I released her.

  “Ah, but I’m brute,” I teased back, causing Jane’s large mouse ears to darken in a blush while I squeezed her again, gently this time.

  “Such a dork,” Jane mumbled while Kassandra giggled quietly.

  “Liam,” Rieka said from her spot on the other side of Kassandra. “I wanted to apologize for being so confrontational earlier with your contact. I just…”

  The princess grimaced and her pointed wolf ears wilted before she sighed gustily.

  “It’s fine, Rieka,” I reassured her while she fought to find a way to phrase her statement. “I can kind of understand where you were coming from, but I can also understand Cerebaton’s position on it. He’s a good guy, so I know that it was all for the right reasons.”

  “I still shouldn’t have been so confrontational,” Rieka insisted. “We were there to support you for once, not the other way around.”

  “Something to learn from, then?” I offered her a small smile, which she returned shyly. “I do plan on poking him about it later when I get a chance. It’s likely that he just couldn’t answer questions earlier due to the urgency of the situation. Everything was happening quickly and you remember how stressed they were when we found that thing under the Ice Field facility.”

  Rieka nodded, her nostrils flaring in irritation though I couldn’t tell if it was directed at herself or at the situation.

  “So what is next then?” Shayla asked awkwardly into the silence, the moth woman having just returned from the latrine. She settled into place on my other side and leaned into my shoulder idly, her antennae wiggling my direction like little grabby hands demanding attention.

  “Well, we have more time than expected, but we can head down the mountain and catch a carriage towards Kassandra’s lands. I doubt there will be a problem if we show up there a bit early,” Rieka suggested, happy to move on to a better bit of conversation. “Right, Kass?”

  “Ooh yes!” my dwarf lamia squealed happily, wiggling in place on her scaled tail. “I can’t wait to see how things have developed. It’s been months since I last visited and I want to see the progress that is being made! Jane, you’ll love the library I’ve been building. I want your opinion on other books I should be on the lookout for. Shayla, there are a number of beautiful vistas that might inspire you while we are there.”

  Kassandra continued to ramble on excitedly about her lands and what she wanted to show us all, her excitement bleeding off into the rest of us and helping to dismiss the awkwardness of the earlier encounter.

  I thought with a grin as Kassandra began handing out the hot filled loaves to the girls while expounding on her hopes that her orchard had begun an early harvest of her favorite fruit.

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