I know I probably looked absolutely ridiculous as I walked with Jane on my shoulders and the little mouse kin woman worked to scratch out the report in general terms while we walked. It only took about an hour to get down the bulk of what we’d observed down in the facility eked out for Gemma.
“I don’t like the idea of leaving you four alone,” I protested when Jane finally finished it and handed the report over to Rieka to mark with her signature as a means to verify it.
“We will be fine, Liam. We’ve already established that if you are summoned while you were already on a mission, the System routes you back to the first task when you finish the second. Just don’t hang around and flirt with the queen, okay?” Kassandra said with a grin.
The idea that I would flirt with her mother apparently broke Rieka, who just stared at Kassandra with her ears pinned back and eyes wide.
While Rieka stood aghast at what Kassandra had said, apparently stuck between horrified and disbelieving of the idea that I’d flirt with her mother, I reached up to carefully lift Jane down.
Jane didn’t struggle as much this time, probably because she could see what I was planning to do, and I was able to set her down lightly on her feet. I carefully plucked the document from Rieka’s unmoving fingers before sending the message to Queen Coldeye that I was ready to deliver the report.
Gemma Coldeye has sent a non-urgent request for your presence regarding a special report from her daughter, Rieka Coldeye.
Transit? View summoning?
So I knew what I was getting into, I selected the ‘View Summoning’ option first. I needed to know if I was going to show up in the middle of some important meeting, a private room, or the audience chamber. Given my current outfit was fairly common clothes, I could adjust as needed.
The image that appeared before my eyes was of Rieka’s mother, Queen Gemma Coldeye, sitting at one end of a long table. Arrayed to either side of the table were easily a dozen or more well dressed men and women of clearly noble standing.
I didn’t realize I was smirking until Rieka poked me in the side and I opened my eyes once more to see my wolf-eared lover grinning at me.
“Do it, but don’t scare them too badly, okay love?” Rieka said, only coloring faintly while using the term of endearment. My princess was still getting used to being so open about herself even when only around the other girls and me. But I could tell from the wicked twinkle in her eyes, she knew exactly what my plan was.
“As you command, my princess,” I replied with a wide grin and leaned in to give her a kiss before quickly stripping out of my shirt.
<><><>
Gemma sat in her meeting drumming her fingers on the tabletop impatiently. She’d done the simple pact ritual with the human Traveler at her daughter's suggestion to utilize the communication features and ease of reporting. This was the first actual test of how well it would work to have the human carry messages. While she wasn’t sure what to think of the creature or its obvious affection to her daughter, it was clear that the human Traveler was dangerous.
“—is clear that there is increased aggression from the northeastern tribes. We should be looking at sending additional forces to support the border there in case one of their raids pushes through the Ironclaw forces,” droned one of her advisers. The stout man was twiddling his mustache with one hand while his pointed fox ears twitched amongst the graying strands.
Of course you want additional material support sent north, that means that your own lands are better secured, Gemma thought acidly, though she didn’t allow thought to show on her face.
The balancing act of supporting her nobles and allowing them to handle their own problems was an ongoing effort for her. The day that one of her daughters could take over for her would be pleasant, but she knew that she would not ever truly retire.
Even when one of her daughters sat the throne, Gemma would continue to support them for decades after, just as her own mother had done. That way she could focus on producing heirs of her own and the important rearing that was necessary to form strong bonds.
I hope whichever of my daughters that succeeds the throne has better luck managing their sisters than I did, Gemma thought with an internal sigh. It was one of the reasons she’d instituted the competition for the seat with her own daughters, as there had been so many fights between her own sisters and herself for the hereditary positions.
Gemma’s introspection and the report from the baron were interrupted by a loud crackling noise that made the guards that had previously stood at attention to either side of the room, silent as statues, leap to action. Swords cleared scabbards as they immediately closed in on the disturbance. She hadn’t warned any of the guards or her advisers, curious to see how her daughter’s protector handled this situation.
A flash of multicolored light, as if someone had found a way to trap a rainbow in a jar and then set it loose at once, and then the human stood there in front of her.
Only this wasn’t the human she remembered making the pact with, not entirely at least.
Liam had been six and a half feet of solid muscle with short cropped hair and intelligent eyes. If he’d had a pair of wolf ears at that moment, she’d have started pushing Rieka to pursue the young man for what he’d accomplished in the competition.
What now stood between the wall and her guards was half monstrous nightmare, half killing machine.
Gone were the otherworldly clothes and the thoughtful expression. In their place was a suit of segmented armor made of a mixture of dark chitin and scales that looked like polished black stone edged in brilliant silver. Liam’s face remained the same, but his eyes were now pitiless black orbs that glimmered like two spheres of polished jet. The line of his jaw was hard, sharp, and square, like someone had chopped him from marble. What skin that showed on his face was a burnished red that reminded her of her daughter’s friend, Kassandra Silverscale.
The segmented armor covered his head, arms, and legs from the waist down. This left an extremely chiseled chest on display with a myriad of knotted scars showing a lifetime of fighting and surviving. Claws like hooked daggers protruded from thick fingers on all four hands the man had on his four powerful arms. A pair of wings lay folded neatly at his back, the hooked wing-claws tucked into each other at his throat to turn them into a living cape while a short-cropped mass of chitinous spikes served as his hair.
To make matters even more intimidating, he loomed at over eight feet in height with another three feet of space taken up above his head for the spreading rack of antlers that were bone-white in color with faint hints of red at the sharp tips, as if they’d been recently used for weapons.
Absolute silence echoed throughout the room, so deafening that it became a physical manifestation by itself. A thick cloud that threatened to strangle the first person to break that silence as the aura of a hungry predator washed out from the being standing resolute in front of them all. Even the guards, seasoned veterans all of them, were rock still and frozen like rabbits beneath the hawk’s eye.
The beast in front of her panned his depthless black eyes over the group and something flicked behind him, drawing Gemma’s attention to the long, thin tail that ended in a bladed fan reminiscent of a halberd’s blade waving behind the creature.
“Queen Gemma Coldeye.”
The words were spoken in a voice so deep that the table in front of Gemma rattled and more than a few of the frozen nobles flinched instinctively.
“Speak,” Gemma said coolly. The only reason she was able to maintain her decorum at the moment was she knew this was Liam the Traveler in front of her. The being she had contracted to come to her aid in times of need, and carry messages for her in a secured manner.
The creature that has been protecting my youngest daughter for months now. Rieka, what did you do to find such a beast? Gemma thought as she waited for Liam’s response. She couldn’t help that her estimations of little Rieka rose several notches, adjusting her placing in the family ranking for who would inherit her throne one day.
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“I bring you the news requested from my ward, Princess Rieka Coldeye,” Liam growled. She hadn’t thought his voice could go lower, but it was deep enough that the noise caused the porcelain teacups on the table to rattle on their saucers.
One massive hand, easily enough to engulf her entire head and with claws that verged on swords made of black glass, extended and presented a tiny roll of white parchment, tied with a sky-blue ribbon that she knew was one of her daughter’s hair-ribbons.
Her guards, bless their dedication, tensed as the massive paw reached towards them, but held their ranks and did not strike out at the potential threat in front of them.
“I appreciate your prompt presentation, Liam,” Gemma said in a neutral tone as she saw exactly what the creature was offering her.
She saw the faint twitch of his lips that indicated a suppressed smile, the arrogant tilt of his head that told her he knew how dangerous he was, but the lax state of his muscles showing that he had no intention of acting at the moment. So she decided to double down on the act as well and see how he would respond.
“Let him through,” Gemma ordered her guards.
The trained guards only hesitated a moment before parting to allow the enormous creature to take a pair of steps forward.
Liam immediately moved forward and the sharp click that echoed through the room drew eyes towards a pair of massive, scaled feet that bore claws just as deadly as his hands. It took the creature only a pair of steps to cover the eight feet of distance between where he’d appeared and the queen. Liam stretched the last step out and took a knee to hold out the serving-platter-sized hand which held the scroll.
Gemma reached out and plucked the tiny round of parchment from his hand with a nod.
“Your task is complete, Traveler. Return to your ward and resume your watch,” Gemma said haughtily and she saw the twinkle in Liam’s eye deepen before he gave her a short bow that made the spreading rack of antlers whistle dangerously as they cut the air.
“As you command, good Queen. Call me should you ever have need,” Liam rumbled in response.
This time, due to the proximity of the creature, she felt the words echo in her chest like a struck drum. Gemma nodded once and Liam surged to his feet. Covertly, she made the gestures under the table with one of her many concealed wands and another flare of light, again like someone had found a way to condense a rainbow down into a shawl and threw it at the creature, then he was gone.
The silence that had dominated the room immediately fell to bedlam as her advisers lost it. Gemma could barely hold in her grin. In less than fifteen seconds, this human creature had given her a potent weapon and threat that would keep her advisers—who were made up of a number of her nobles both loyal and not—in check.
Indeed, my daughter, you have done well in binding this creature to you, Gemma thought with a grin as she broke the seal on the report and gave it a quick skim, intending to set it aside for now.
But the information contained within made the fur on her ears and tail puff out in surprise while her mind raced. What was contained in this simple report had the potential to change quite a bit after all, but only if handled correctly.
<><><>
“That was easily the most epic threat I’ve ever made,” I said with a laugh as the combination of Shape-Shifting reversed itself.
I’d borrowed aspects of several different things, but using a daemon as the base got me most of the effect. I’d actually felt Shape-Shifting tug on my entropic magic to weave it in, but I’d suppressed that. The last thing I needed was for that energy to consume the scroll before I could deliver it.
“I bet a few of my mother’s people soiled themselves. How big was the meeting that you interrupted?” Rieka said with a giggle, her tail whipping up a storm behind her.
“Oh probably a good three dozen or so,” I said as I finally returned to my normal height and the wings folded away into my back.
“So that was a full council meeting. That’ll make anyone who has been plotting against mother reconsider their plans for the future,” Rieka sniggered with a wicked grin on her lips.
“I liked the wings…” Shayla mumbled from her spot in the shade by the side of the road.
The girls had agreed to wait for me to come back to ensure that nothing snuck up on them, and I was glad to see they’d done as I asked. Jane had just plopped down next to the moth woman to read, while Kassandra and Rieka had decided to do some spell drills.
Speaking of my mischief-macaroni, Kassandra was currently holding my clothes hostage while she studied me with a salacious glint in her eyes.
Given that my body was so fluid now from Shape-Shifting and the boost to my personal confidence from having three lovers, I wasn’t shy about being dressed or not around them. But Jane resolutely kept her nose buried in her book while I was without pants.
“Come on, Kass. Let him dress already,” Rieka chuckled, though her tail was still beating fast enough it threatened to lift her off the ground.
“Fiiine,” Kassandra sighed with mock exasperation before slithering forward to hold out my clothes to me.
When I reached to take them from her, she waited until I had a grip on them and then jerked the cloth back towards herself and pulled me down to her level. Then Kassandra let go of the cloth, wrapped her arms around my neck, and hauled me into a passionate kiss.
It was several minutes before my serpentine lover was satisfied enough to set me free, and by that time the girls had gotten ready to leave.
Not wanting to hold them up, I just stuffed my clothes into Dimensional Pocket for now and instead pushed on Shape-Shifting to give me a set of digitigrade legs that ended in hooves and were covered in dense, curly hair. This added a few more inches to my height but would preserve modesty enough that Jane could look at me.
“There. Been meaning to practice with these more,” I said quietly and tapped a hoof on the packed dirt before stepping off and doing a bit of jogging. The legs had no problems propelling me forward and I suddenly started to understand the ‘zoomies’ that some animals got. These legs begged me to run.
Before I could though, burning words blazed their way across my vision and the quest that Rieka had given me, as well as the one that Queen Gemma had generated, completed themselves.
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
COMPLETED
Return to your contracted wards and report success.
Reward - 50 SP
COMPLETED
“Nice,” I muttered with a small smile. A hundred SP wasn’t anything major anymore, but it was still a bit more to go towards my next ability boost.
“Okay, Liam. Tell me everything about what you did. I need to know what happened so I can make the most of it,” Rieka all but demanded, threading her arm through mine on the right and tugging me into motion on the road.
Since I couldn’t ever tell my girls ‘no,’ and I really had no reason to in this situation, I started describing what I’d done while all four of my girls listened raptly.
<><><>
We made it back to Juneau with no problems and the girls were happy to get back to their dorm rooms after getting goodbye kisses for those that were close enough to me that they were comfortable asking for such things. Jane requested a hug, which I gave to the tiny woman without complaint or comment.
From the way she blushed but burrowed into the hug, I knew that the murmurs I’d heard from the other girls about Jane’s interest were likely accurate. But I would respect her right to choose if and when she wanted to go beyond it. If she wasn’t okay with whatever mess it was that Rieka, Kassandra, Shayla, and I had going, then I would happily remain her friend and protector.
Before they sent me back to Earth with my mission complete, Shayla swooped in for one more kiss and murmured in my ear that she wanted another chance to sketch me for painting, but this time in my intimidating form I’d gone to see the queen in.
“I think the queen might like that one as a reminder of the sort of threat she has at hand now,” Shayla said quietly, her antennae happily rubbing themselves over my face like a pair of affectionate kittens.
“And it has nothing to do with the fact I have to strip before changing into that?” I asked playfully. My moth-winged lover blushed furiously and bit her lip in a fashion that was so unconsciously seductive that I immediately hardened in my pants.
Before either of us could act or I could say anything, Kassandra finished the spell to send me home and the jerk of the System taking me away yanked me out of Shayla’s arms and into a maelstrom of light, sound, and sensations.
This time, the visions that slipped past hung around for just a moment longer. I saw two of them.
One was a vision of a man racing along a field of waving grass, mounted on what looked like an elk. A shadow passed over him but before I could make out what it was, the sensation swept me along.
The second one I was able to latch onto was some sort of horrific, devouring monstrosity of a creature that was the size of the Golden Gate Bridge and wiggling horrifically between the stars, only for a brilliant beam of blue light to carve a hole in its side before something hit the front half and the carapace there shattered into a thousand pieces as a result.
Landing in my livingroom with a clop—I hadn’t dismissed the Shape-Shifting created hooves and fur yet—I took a moment to steady myself before clumping over to check my phone on the charger.
A few messages waited for me. Mostly from Jameson, though a few from other people whom I had once considered to be friends. People who had sought to take advantage of me one way or another.
My finger hovered over the Delete Contact button for a moment before I sighed and clicked it. A moment later several conversation histories were purged and left behind only the messages from Jameson.
It was actually the content of those messages that had made my decision, rather than the history of the others. Only Jameson’s messages were asking after my wellbeing and how I’d been doing, if I wanted to meet up to hang out for a beer or something.
Life goes on, I thought with a sigh before I remembered the girls and their parting affections. Not even a majority of it is bad though. I’m rather happy with how things are going right now. Now… shower time and then I should check on the Bitsy store, see if I need to run anything to the post office for shipping.
Shape-Shifting muscles!
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