After raiding the little repair room for supplies, we found two other small sets of gadgets that were made of mana-infused metals.
One of the things that we found was a box full of what looked like bolts with triangular heads and were made of copper. The other was a single oddly-ruffled plate of metal that reminded me somewhat of a small square of sheet metal, made of copper as well. These all went into Rieka’s dimensional bag for later sale.
Shayla and Jane were both excited by the influx of funds that the mana-silver would bring for them, reminding Kassandra, Rieka, and I of the other haul we’d pulled out of here before, back when we’d dove into the ruins the first time and nearly gotten killed by the dimensional beast.
The three of us shared a small smile as we closed up the door, but made sure that the runic locks were not put back into place. No need to make the researchers' jobs harder.
I still need to find out what Rieka determined for the value of those coins. Maybe she can sell them to her mother now that we are gonna be revealing the place, I thought while gently herding all four of the girls up to the surface once more.
We needed to get moving to make the best time back to the academy. The sun had already risen over the horizon and driven off the initial chill of the morning. Though not all of the dew drops had vanished from various bits of greenery based off of the faint mist I could see through the entrance ramp of what legitimately felt like an ancient parking garage to me.
“Okay, give me just a minute to disable this blocker. You still wanted us to seal up everything, right Rieka?” Kassandra gestured to the runes she’d drawn out on the ground around that first large door that led into the outer station.
“Yeah, lock it down please? Just erase everything you normally leave behind. I’ll take a report back to my mother about this place and include your notes on how you broke the enchantments. That way the scholars that mother sends can try and figure out better, then fail.” Rieka’s smile was broad and her tail stirred happily behind her as she said that.
In response to the wolf-eared princess’ assertions, Kassandra actually blushed and it was absolutely adorable to see. My dwarf-lamia gave her friend a sharp nod and then carefully disabled the runes one at a time. In the past, she’d left most of the work drawn out on the ancient cave floor, but this time Kassandra swiped the chalk away with her hand or wiggled her coils over a section to smear and remove the chalk if it was larger than her hand.
The door eased closed once more and runes flared into life before fading out of sight, leaving it looking like a large set of iron doors hanging ominously in the cave wall.
“Should we, I don’t know, leave some kind of warning behind for anyone else coming along? Like that the door is dangerous?” Jane asked nervously, bouncing from foot to foot as she stared up at the big door.
“It’ll all be in my report to the queen,” Rieka said with a shake of her head. “I don’t see a reason to make it any more complicated really. It would only undermine the security of the place if we left too many clues lying around.”
“Fair point,” Jane said with a sharp nod, clearly using Rieka’s words to toss aside any concerns she had.
When Kassandra finished off the last of her erasing, the group of us headed out along the soil ramp I’d reinforced previously. The light of the morning and the warmth of the sun felt surprisingly good after spending even just a few hours under the earth.
I took in the look of the early morning sun glimmering off a thousand different beads of moisture in the grass around the entrance as the girls formed up. I dragged in a lungful of crisp air that carried only the smells of green and growing things to me. Well, that and the various smells that clung to my girls.
Turning to Rieka with a smile, I quirked an eyebrow to her.
“How did you want me to block this up, love?” The question made my wolfish princess blush furiously. Apparently, my confident girl was still getting used to public terms of endearment.
“Block the entrance, please? I want to make sure this is as secure as possible. I’m going to go pry up some of the bricks from the ruin nearby and I can make a sign over the entrance.”
Rieka turned to go and do just that, but I shifted to catch her, throwing an arm around her waist and pulling her into my side.
“No need, my princess. You have a Traveler at your beck and call, tell me what you want the sign to look like and I can replicate it with my Elemental Manipulation, that way you don’t have to shift any more of the structures around.”
Rieka continued to blush, but melted into my side and laid her head on my shoulder for a moment before she spoke.
“Can you make three earthen bricks and lay them out like this?” She made a zig-zag pattern like a lightning bolt and I nodded.
“That’s easy. Anything else?”
“If you could imprint the letters RC to GC on the bottom of the middle one, that’ll be enough,” Rieka continued.
I nodded and leaned in to steal a kiss, making my princess eep in surprise for a moment before I released her to focus.
A tug and a thought pulled the earth together over the entrance to the ruins. It flowed closed in a fashion reminiscent of honey spreading over a hot plate. I hardened the earth to give it stability before urging topsoil into place carrying grass to cover the hole up. A moment later, three solid bricks each about the size of my foot popped out of the dirt and I flipped one over to show the letters to Rieka.
“That’ll work just fine,” the princess mumbled, her tail wagging away happily while Kassandra teased her in a low voice.
“Why those letters?” Shayla asked thoughtfully, the moth woman’s antennae bopping back and forth curiously while she watched me work with a distracted smile on her lips.
“My and my mother’s initials. Rieka Coldeye to Gemma Coldeye, intending it as a symbol to mark this as me gifting or sending something to her so that they know this is the correct location,” Rieka explained, reaching up to smooth her hair back and tuck an errant strand of platinum blonde behind one of her pointed wolf ears.
“Ah… I didn’t realize the queen’s first name was Gemma,” Shayla said, blinking slowly. “What?”
The last part was said in response to the odd looks the other three women were giving her.
“I suppose it does make sense. Everyone refers to her as ‘Queen Coldeye’ in conversation, or just ‘the queen’ and the like,” Kassandra said a moment later, a grin twisting her lips.
“That is true,” Rieka joined her scaled friend in a wry smile. “I just forget sometimes, she’s always been my mother, but she’s only ‘Queen Coldeye’ in front of other people. I’ve just gotten used to seeing her in that way.”
I quickly laid out the bricks in the pattern that Rieka had asked and dusted my hands off, studying them one last time.
When I turned back to the girls to let them know we could get moving, I found all four of them staring with small smiles, though only Shayla and Jane were blushing now.
“What?” I asked.
“Have I mentioned how good your butt looks in those pants, Liam?” Kassandra said with an exaggerated waggle of her eyebrows.
The dwarf lamia slithered up to press herself to my side and reached up to snag my shirt with one hand. Knowing what she was aiming to do next, and not wanting to let her stretch out my clothes, I bent down with a smile and gave my loving linguini a kiss.
Kassandra purred into the contact, bonelessly molding herself to me in a way that only a lamia could pull off. It was only when Rieka cleared her throat a moment later that she finally separated and let me free with a sigh and a pop of the seal on our lips breaking.
“Fiiiine,” Kassandra whined and playfully huffed before turning to lead the way down the mountain. The motion sent the wind rippling through her mane of curls, making the red mass dance and bounce energetically while they stirred in the passing air.
The shimmer of the light on her hair and how it reflected off her red and tan scales reminded me of just how beautiful my dwarf lamia was. When she turned to glance back over her shoulder at us and shoot me a playful wink, it also reminded me just how much I loved her and she loved me in return.
<><><>
“So, what is the plan for the next week? Do you ladies need me for anything in particular? The academy just finished a semester right?” I asked during a lull in the conversation while we headed back.
The girls had kept things lively, mostly discussing what we’d found in the ruins and what sort of information we might be able to draw from the discoveries. Jane was having a bit of trouble as the rambunctious mouse-girl kept trying to read while walking. I was worried enough that she was going to trip and hurt herself that I’d offered to give her a piggyback ride.
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Jane, of course, went bright red at the suggestion and tucked away the book on wind magic that she’d been trying to poke through.
Kassandra, who would never pass up an opportunity to poke a bit of fun and make inappropriate comments, promptly seized on the opportunity to cause some trouble with the smaller woman.
“You should. Liam is a very smooth ride, Jane. I highly recommend it!”
The speed at which Kassandra was wiggling her eyebrows at the mouse woman was nearly enough to cause its own breeze, and had the result of making Jane blush even harder, enough that her large, rounded mouse ears began to darken from the blood rushing to them.
“Legitimately, Jane. If you want to read that bad, I don’t mind. I’m not going to notice the weight at this point,” I said gently, trying to ease the smaller woman’s embarrassment.
Jane stared down at the dirt of the road for several long moments before something shifted in the woman. She locked eyes with Kassandra before turning her determined look towards me.
“I’ll take you up on that, Liam. I really do want to start studying those books to see if there is anything else I can learn right now that will help me do more to contribute to our group. If you are offering to help me with that, then I have no reason to refuse.”
“Woo!” Kassandra cheered, before speeding up her slithers to get to safety away from Rieka, the princess shooting her friend dirty looks for the blatant teasing.
Jane’s new determination cracked when I slowed enough to walk alongside her.
“How do you wan—eek!” Jane squeaked in surprise when I scooped her up with a hand on either hip and hoisted her into the air.
It still astonished me to experience just how strong I was now. I was reminded every time I could catch Kassandra when my dwarf lamia threw herself at me. Despite barely coming up to the middle of my stomach, Kassandra still weighed around four to five hundred pounds due to the length of her body. So when I picked up someone just as small but without the added mass of the long tail, it startled me and I overcompensated a bit.
Jane’s squeal went up several octaves as she went high into the air, but I kept hold of her slender hips and set her onto my shoulders as if that was what I had intended to do the entire time.
My head rocked slightly a moment later when Jane smacked me on the back of my head before wrapping her arms around my head to keep herself in place.
“Liam! I wasn’t ready yet! What would you have done if you dropped me?!” Jane wiggled furiously while clinging to my head, clearly worried she’d still fall.
I had her in place before she could wiggle enough to fall off, and pressed her thighs down into my shoulders to steady her. This had the added effect of pulling her slim torso tight against the back of my head, which had the bonus of mushing her small breasts to me.
Jane squeaked again in surprise, clinging tighter while her long tail whipped around for a moment before wrapping around my neck and then Jane again like a seatbelt.
“Ack!” I managed to get out before the surprisingly strong bundle of muscle wound tighter.
“Easy, Jane. Liam’s got you. No need to choke him to death,” Shayla said to try and reassure the smaller girl. Jane let out another squeak and the deathgrip her tail had on my neck relaxed enough to let me breathe.
“What she said,” I croaked and patted Jane’s right thigh before squeezing it reassuringly. She made an indescribable noise and pressed herself into me, with her thighs squeezing my neck from behind.
“He said piggy-back! Not on his shoulders,” Jane protested weakly as the girls tittered now that they were reassured she wasn’t about to throttle me.
“Jane, dear Jane. I say with all the love in my heart for you,” Kassandra said gently, drawing the mouse girl’s eyes to her. “You are far too small to wrap around Liam like that.”
The words themselves were innocent enough, but the way that Kassandra said them made the intent far too clear and salacious. I didn’t need to see Jane’s face to know she was once again blushing furiously. So I decided to say something to try and give her an out.
“You can use my head as a book rest like this, Jane. I’ll make sure you are steady so you can just focus on reading.”
I could feel the little mouse girl’s eyes boring into the top of my head for a long moment while Kassandra mumbled something about how cute the image was.
“Fine,” Jane said in the same tone that she’d used earlier when she had apparently resolved herself to accept before I’d startled her.
Guess just picking her up like that out of the blue was the issue? I thought and nearly shrugged, but given that Jane still had her tail wrapped around my neck, I arrested the impulse and just kept walking.
There was some rustling behind my left ear and then I felt a gentle weight on my head as Jane took me at my word and rested the slim volume on my scalp.
“Anyway,” I said after a minute or two of walking in silence. “Rieka, do you think your mum is going to move quickly to claim the location and get folks in there?”
“Depends on what you consider to be quick,” Rieka said with a shrug, though she was watching as Jane balanced on my shoulders like a child, carefully studying the book in her hands. “It’ll take time to bring together the right kind of specialists for such a research program. Honestly? What will decide things more is if she believes that she needs to secure the site with troops or not. Mother may decide to send a military detachment to prepare the area for study first.”
“Did you want me to send her a message?” I asked, wanting to figure out how to ease her burden right now.
My princess opened her mouth to say something and then stopped with a quiet sigh before slapping her hand over her face in exasperation. Kassandra snickered quietly at Rieka’s expression of self-recrimination while Shayla just glanced between them curiously.
“Yes, Liam. That would be for the best if you could. Then we can figure out what my mother needs to do this properly. Let her know I can write up a physical report of what we found and either have it sent by courier, or you can deliver it if she is willing to summon you for the task.”
Reach out to your contracted companion, Gemma Coldeye, on behalf of her daughter to ensure the information regarding the ancient human ruins is properly conveyed. Ensure that your companion, Rieka Coldeye, knows what is needed to complete her report.
Reward - 50 SP
“Oh, that’s neat…” I muttered as the words that burned their way across my vision faded.
“Hmm?” Jane mumbled into my ear, proving that the little mouse-eared woman was paying attention to our conversation despite the distraction of her spell book.
“I just got a message from the system. Apparently, playing telephone for Rieka is outside the range of my current mission enough that it got one,” I explained.
“Telephone?” Kassandra questioned and I rolled my eyes.
“A long distance communication device from my world. It allowed you to contact anyone in the world as long as you had the right numbers to key into it and were willing to pay the fees. It’s kind of like a hand-held version of what I can do with you ladies.”
That idea appeared to intrigue Kassandra, who began muttering to herself while I tapped the bond tattoo with one finger, found the nascent connection to Queen Coldeye, and sent a mental message to her.
“Queen Coldeye, this is Liam the Traveler. I need to convey a message to you for your daughter, please respond to let me know when you are ready to receive it,” I sent.
The Contact Contracted Companion power worked differently from my System messaging that I used with Cariad and the others. This one was more like a voice-mail system.
“There, I sent off a message to let her know I needed to convey something important and asked her to message me back when she was ready to receive it,” I said aloud.
“Thank you, Liam. Did you mention to her that it wasn’t life-threatening or critical?” Rieka asked and I grimaced.
“No, I forgo—” I started to say but the mental ping of a return message using the power hit me and I played Gemma’s response.
The wolf kin queen’s cool tones rolled through my mind, as if she spoke to the inside of my skull rather than my ear.
“Is my daughter all right? How long is the message that you need to convey and will I need paper to write it down?”
“All of the others are fine. She simply asked me to act as a go-between to make an initial report to confirm if you desired urgency or not with the information,” I responded before glancing over to see Rieka smirking at me.
“Let me guess, she just got back to you and was worried?” Rieka asked and I nodded. “Figures, she’s a good ruler but she is still my mother. She will worry regardless.”
“She shouldn’t worry. Liam is with us after all,” Shayla said and I turned to find my winged lover smiling at me, the sunlight glimmering on her depthless black eyes.
“Love you too, Shayla,” I replied and the moth woman blushed faintly, her antennae balling up slightly.
“Give me the high points, Liam. I’m in a meeting with my advisers, so they will be able to give me feedback immediately if needed,” came the response from Gemma and I took a moment to think it over before sending an answer.
“While on a regular exercise in the mountains we stumbled upon what appeared at first to be a cave system, but turned out to connect to a previously unexplored section of human ruins. We initially entered them to ascertain this and confirm relative safety of the complex. Rieka wanted to know if you wished her to write up a report and have me deliver it by you summoning me, or send it via courier?”
“And now we wait,” I said aloud and all the girls tittered save for Jane, who just turned the page on her book.
I felt the little mouse woman’s tail tighten around my neck for a moment before relaxing, acting remarkably like Kassandra did when the serpentine woman idly kneaded me while we snuggled.
Since I’d long ago passed out more of my diminished stash of sweet bribes to my girls, I struck up a conversation with them regarding what sort of snack they might want to try in the future. Kassandra’s answer of ‘all of them’ was entirely unhelpful, though expected for my redheaded lover.
Due to the sheer length of her body, Kassandra packed away two to three times as much food as the rest of us per meal, so the calorie dense foods were actually something rather appealing for her.
There was only so much that I could tell them, given that I wasn’t exactly a student of sweets normally. My idea of ‘splurging’ on something tasty had been to buy a package of the knock off brand Oreo’s and enjoy those. Which, when I told them about such things, all four of the girls added them to the growing list of sweet bribes I needed to present them with. Along with cheesecake, creme brulee, and fudge…
Gemma’s response came while I was in the middle of trying to describe ribbon candy to the girls and there were a few grumbles when I paused mid-sentence to listen.
“How soon can Rieka get that report ready? That will decide when I can summon you for it.”
“Sounds like your mum wants the summon option, Rieka,” I relayed and shot my wolfish lover a look.
“Hmm… Jane, do you think you could write up there if I dictated to you?” Rieka asked after a moment of consideration.
“Probably. It really depends on how smooth of a ride Liam can be.”
“But the bumpy rides are the most fun!” Kassandra protested with a laugh and Jane groaned behind my head.
I patted the mouse kin’s thigh reassuringly and she eep’d again, her legs and tail tightening on my neck for a moment before she relaxed.
“I can do my best, Jane.”
“Then I’ll do mine.”
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