Turns out there was quite a bit to run to the post office for Bitsy. My storefront had apparently caught someone’s attention, and an influencer I didn’t recognize had ordered some pieces.
That had pushed a great deal of interest to the listings and cleaned me out of jewelry. So most of the next several days were put into rebuilding my stock after I’d shipped it all out and trying to keep up with the incoming orders.
Shayla had called me the next day. To pose for her, as well as do several other things to her that made her antennae ball up in pleasure. Something that the moth-woman was still surprisingly shy about, but her mannerisms were just so adorable—and her antennae were so honest—so it was easy to know what was really going through her mind.
Kassandra demanded I spend some time with her as well, but she didn’t bother with any sort of constructed excuse like Shayla had, and her demands were more to the tune of ‘show up wearing a smile and nothing else!’
I would be a fool to not listen to my Nugget’s demands. She’d proceeded to drag me into bed and coil up around me for the next several hours while we talked, kissed, fucked, and just got to catch up.
Rieka and Jane didn’t bother me, but I knew that Rieka was busy preparing more reports for her mother and Jane was working on plotting our next location to check using that ancient copper map we’d recovered and hidden away. But I had plans to spoil them both when I got the chance, as Kassandra had let drop the fact that Jane really liked fancy tea, and I already knew Rieka’s weakness for specific sweets.
Between doting on my girls, I acted as a mouthpiece to convey information between Rieka and her mother, mostly specific questions that the queen had regarding the ruins and things that they might expect to find there. Most of which revolved around confirming the iron mine with infused veins of metal as well as confirming how much ore was present in the infused state, which I had no answer for.
My evenings were mostly caught up with filling the back orders for different custom pieces of jewelry. Since my offerings had been mostly singular large pearls as pendant settings on gold chains or paired earrings, it was simple enough to hammer through them, though I blew through my entire stock of gold and my home-made shimmer-conch pearls.
The pearls were easy enough to restock, as I was getting more and more used to the ways that my body could twist and change. It no longer felt odd to have my hand turn into what would be an entirely different organism.
It was honestly more strange to sit there and pop TUMS like they were candy to keep my body well-stocked with the necessary ingredients to make the pearls.
The gold was a slightly harder thing to acquire. While now that I had access to Dimensional Pocket I could bring metals back from Cortha if I wanted to, but that would have required that I start cutting into the money Kassandra was handling for me. Money I’d just given her weeks ago to invest and I knew that investments like that would take time to pay off and become liquid again.
Which is why I was hip deep in another stream pretending to pan for gold while I used Manipulate Element to draw ore into the pan. It was getting late into the evening though, and the sun was already starting to drop below the horizon, sending long shadows over the creek I was in. It was cold but not utterly freezing, thankfully. That didn’t stop me from doing some covert Shape-Shifting to insulate my hands and legs so that they weren’t as vulnerable to that chill though.
The thick mud underneath my bare feet shifted slightly, almost vibrating in response to the power I had buried in it. While my Manipulate Element ability was still lower rank than Shape-Shifting and had hit its mastery maximum, I was still learning tricks and refining my control over it. The realization that when the mastery bar was full, I could still refine and grow, helped push me to still keep practicing.
I could feel the sparkle of the gold dust as it shook itself free of the sucking and packed mud. The failing light of the day shimmered on the individual specks of glittering metal as they flowed into my black, plastic gold pan, piling up as I pretended to swish it back and forth. When enough would accumulate, I used the same power to compress the gold sand into a nugget and then tapped it with a finger underwater to send it into my Dimensional Pocket.
“Not a bad plan you have here, Liam.”
The familiar, airy voice made me jump in surprise, but I was practiced enough to not lose track of the hundreds of tiny specks of gold I was pulling out of the mud. Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted the speaker as she crouched on a boulder by the shore, the wane light of the day glimmering in her eyes and making the neat white dress shirt she wore glow faintly.
“Cari, how are you doing? I didn’t expect to see you out here like this, is it safe for you?” I asked the daemon, taking her appearance in with a glance.
Like always, Cariad was dressed in nice business clothes, which made her stand out all the more heavily while she crouched by the side of a random stream in the suburbs. A crisp, white shirt clung to her full chest like a second skin, with the top three buttons undone to reveal an expanse of blue-gray skin that, while still generous, was not ridiculous. A pinstriped black pencil skirt clung to the most striking part of her figure, a set of luscious hips that tied into a plump bottom. Long, opera-style gloves covered her hands and vanished up her sleeves, while a set of opaque stockings clung to her legs doing the same to disappear under the hem of her skirt. Sensible business shoes held her small feet safe from the rough stone she crouched on, the short heel giving just a touch more definition to her calves.
“Good to see you as well, Liam. Don’t worry about me though, I’m fine. It’s dark enough out that no one will notice what is different about me. I appreciate your concern though.” Cariad treated me to a bright smile that glittered against her blue-gray skin.
I watched as Cariad tucked one errant lock of her strawberry-colored hair behind her ear while she watched me work. The mass of hair hung down her back, weighted by its sheer size except for the last foot or so where the curl returned to it and the hair bounced back up as a cohesive mass.
“What brings you out here, if I can ask?” I disappeared another nugget into my storage power before glancing back at Cariad. A faint flash of baby-blue from under her skirt made me blink as she shifted and adjusted her balance.
Was that what I think it was? No, there’s no way she just flashed her panties at me, I thought while keeping a straight face.
“Just checking on you, Liam,” Cariad replied, her smile still firmly fixed to her face, deepening the dimples that perched on her cheeks while she watched me. “It’s interesting to watch you work like this. I wonder if anyone else has thought of this particular application of Manipulate Element in the past.”
“I would expect so. It can’t be that clever of a usage since I’m still at the lower levels of the skill,” I replied, drawing in another mass of flakes and sand from the water.
I’d spread out a lot further up and downstream than before, pulling the material out and guiding it back to me with careful attention to detail. The only reason I could find and draw on so many tiny fragments of minerals was my vastly increased mental stats.
“You’d think that,” Cariad countered, shifting again and swaying on her heels before settling once more, still crouched with her knees pointing my way. “But most people at the lower end of the skill ranges focus on combat usage. It’s only once they reach the intermediate or master tiers that they really start working on the esoteric applications.”
“I mean, I am kind of doing that with Shape-Shifting after all?” I answered, running my senses up along the stream bed without looking up.
I found a small handful of fragments that I missed and began to stir them loose from the clinging mud. There were multiple layers of the gold fragments littered through the layers of silt and mud in the stream. Since they were so small, it was easy enough to agitate the moist soil just enough to wiggle them free and extract them.
“True. I had half-expected you to shift Shape-Shifting into a secondary role once you unlocked proper magic. It’s a path that a lot of Travelers take, at least based on the historical information I have been able to find. It’s most often used as an accessory rather than a primary focus like you are doing,” Cariad said, shuffling again on her heels.
The scrape of the sole against the stone drew my attention that way once more and I caught another flash of pale blue from under her skirt.
Maybe it’s just her slip, I thought while trying to keep my focus locked in on the gold I was gathering to distract myself. And maybe it’s not. The fun line to walk of ‘is this intentional or accidental’ because each direction has its own proper reaction that I can consider, but they don’t really have a safe crossover…
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“I always feel like I’m only barely scraping the surface of what is proper usage of Shape-Shifting,” I said instead of something dumb, trying to keep the conversation on a proper subject. “There are so many options that it can be blinding at times. But I don’t want to fall into using only what I’m comfortable with either.”
“Don’t feel bad about that, Liam,” Cariad advised, shifting again to maintain her balance. “You’ve got a lot of time ahead of you to work on this. You are young and powerful, so you will have many years of time to refine your skills. I know Mr. Cerebaton advised you that the early levels will be the easiest and quickest to gain mastery over. From there it’s a matter of experimentation. It is wrong to think that you’d come up with every single variation possible even in the months that you’ve been active.”
Her words struck a chord in my heart, and an entirely different one than the view was striking too. Cariad had supported me wholeheartedly since I had met her, offering good advice and a solid support structure whenever I needed it. That support was a goodly portion of why my affection for her came naturally.
“Not saying that I don’t believe you, Cari. Just that… Well, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing a lot of opportunities to make the most of my powers is all.”
“Time and experience will help you figure that out. Don’t beat yourself up about mistakes made, just realize that they are opportunities that you can capture on your next attempt. You are also wrestling with vastly increased stats that will take you time to adjust to as well. Sure, your mental stats are higher, but you haven’t quite figured out how to use them. Your mind is a muscle too, at least in how it’s utilized.”
I appreciated the pep-talk from Cariad. It really did help to have someone else reassure me that I wasn’t an utter failure for not always spotting the most efficient way to use my abilities. It was another reason why I wasn’t rushing to spend the current influx of SP that I was sitting on. I needed to get a better handle on my powers and make sure that I could use them properly, rather than add another half-understood tool to my options.
There was another scrape of Cariad shifting on her rock and then a yelp of surprise from the daemon. I twisted in place to see that Cariad’s foot had slipped on the rock and she was slowly toppling towards the water, arms cartwheeling to try and stop herself.
I reacted on auto-pilot and the back of my shirt shredded as muscle packed on. I knew that I was too far away, nearly in the middle of the stream and almost ten feet from the bank. Trying to wade over to her would be slow. We had just been talking about thinking outside the box with my Shape-Shifting so my brain seized on it first.
The flexible tendrils that lunged out from my shoulders wove through the air with the speed of striking snakes even as the tips flattened out into scoops like the tips of a squid’s tentacles minus the barbs or suckers.
Cariad was already falling towards the water when the first one wrapped about her shoulders and pressed her upwards. The second quickly wrapped around her waist to steady her and keep the daemon out of the water. I felt a brief burning sensation on my shifted limbs before the pulse of my entropic magic quenched it and then sheathed the limb protectively.
“System bless it!” Cariad swore, snatching at the tendril that had caught her shoulders, pulling it around to look at the rubbery surface in the dim light that still colored the sky. “Liam, you are hurt!”
“Not that much,” I answered calmly, still cradling the otherworldly woman with the pair of flesh-colored squid-tentacles that protruded from my back. They were long enough and weighed enough that I couldn’t shift with them extended like this, otherwise I’d fall into the river as they pulled me to one side.
The rags of my ruined shirt fluttered and fell into the river, still intact enough around my waist that I could feel the chill of the stream’s water as they began to soak up the icy liquid.
Oddly enough, the chill water actually bothered me more than the tingling burn from the brief unshielded contact with Cariad’s bare skin when I’d caught her shoulders.
“Still! While I appreciate you saving me from falling in, I wouldn’t want you to help me if it would hurt you!” Cariad continued to protest as she ran her gloved fingers around the faintly tingling spot on the tendril.
“I’ll heal quickly, don’t worry about it, Cari,” I repeated to reassure her.
Manipulating the tentacles now while I was thinking about it consciously was surprisingly awkward, so I kept her steady with the one she had in her hands while I slowly retracted the other. It felt kind of like hunching my shoulderblades in a shrug, but a shrug that just went on and on and on.
Once I had one free of her, I retracted the shifted mass into my body and that helped my balance even out more.
“You good?” I asked Cariad as she still had hold of the broad tip of the tentacle. The daemon gave a small yelp and released my shifted limb, then promptly overbalanced again and nearly fell.
Wrapping the tentacle around Cariad’s waist, I held on until she had her balance back before releasing her once more. The sensation of her soft hips was absolutely wonderful, but I did my absolute best to not get distracted by it.
When she was balanced once more, I drew the shifted limb back to myself and inspected the injury.
There was a small patch, maybe half the size of my palm, that was raw and red and looked like it had been burned and began to blister. The level of pain that I felt from it was minimal, so I dismissed the injury as well as the shifted limb. Once my balance was settled and easier to manage, I rolled my shoulders and stood up, shoving the gold pan into my Dimensional Pocket as I stood.
“I’m sorry, Liam,” Cariad said, regret heavy in her voice and I blinked up at her on the shore.
“What are you sorry for? You didn’t hurt me directly, it's my own fault. I have a means to protect myself, but I forgot initially. It doesn’t hurt all that much, don’t worry about it.”
Cariad continued to frown as I sloshed through the river and up onto the bank. The rock that she’d been perched on was right next to where I’d left my boots and things, so she shuffled slightly but didn’t hop down right now.
“How is your jewelry doing? Does it need any touch ups or is it holding up?” I asked, trying to get us onto a safer subject.
Thankfully, my ploy worked as Cariad’s smile slowly returned and the daemon shuffled up onto the shore while smoothing out her skirt and shirt with nervous hands.
“Oh they are doing great. I’m still surprised that the glass is holding up so well to the normally corrosive effects of our world. The pearls are just as brilliant as ever too! I’ve gotten quite a few compliments from the others in the office.”
“Well, if you want to keep making them jealous, I just need a bit more metal to make the mounts and the like. I won’t charge my favorite daemon for something like that. I’ll even make some stuff for free for you to give to friends.”
“Oh? I’m your favorite?” Cariad’s eyes took on a new sparkle at that statement and she tilted her head at a coy angle that sent her bangs bouncing across her face. My heart clenched in my chest at the sheer cuteness of the sight as she linked her arms behind her, the motion thrust her chest out, making it strain against her white shirt.
“Of course, what in the world would make you think otherwise?” I shot back at Cariad while shaking the water off of my limbs. Since my shirt was already trashed from the reactive shifting, I just tore it the rest of the way off and tossed it next to my boots for now.
Cariad’s blue-gray skin darkened even more, her eyes widening as she stared at my chest which was a hell of a confidence boost. But rather than point it out and make the poor girl feel awkward at all, I just kept on moving past it.
“I mean, Cerebaton is a good guy. But he’s spent far too long beating me up with the practice weapons during training to be my favorite. Not to mention, he can’t hold a candle to my caseworker for how sweet and pretty she is.”
“Liam!” Cariad protested, her face growing even darker as she blushed deeper while the other factor that denoted her as a daemon—besides her skin—reacted as well.
The second set of eyes, set higher and to either side of her regular eyes, flared open. These eyes were a bright, electric blue with slitted irises, and flicked wildly as their owner flailed in flustered abandon.
Still so odd seeing those, I thought with a smile and caught one of the eyes with my own. Cariad’s flailing froze and she stared at me with her second set of eyes while her others were squeezed shut while her hands were pressed over her face to cover her blushes.
Cariad had explained to me that her second set of eyes were able to see far more than regular eyes could. She’d been able to study my physical health and powers as well at a glance.
Just one of the cool things about the daemon race. I know that Cerebaton doesn’t have the same vision power, but he’s got that whole ‘eight feet of muscles with two more feet of horns’ thing going. Was fun to steal some of that shape to mess with Rieka’s mum and her people. I didn’t bother to hide the grin that leaked out with that memory either.
“I guess I’ll have to tell Mr. Cerebaton that he’s not your favorite then.” Cariad’s words were muffled behind her hands, though I saw her normal eyes peeking out between her fingers.
“I’ll happily tell him myself. I don’t think he’ll argue either!” I teased back, and Cariad stomped one foot cutely, her low-heeled shoe clicking against the stone she was standing on.
“Liam!”
“What? It’s just the truth! You keep looking after me, making sure I know everything I need to do as well as champion my interests with the others. I know that you’d have done more for me if possible, and likely did a fair bit that I’m not even aware of. So yeah, you are my favorite.”
Cariad’s secondary eyes flicked shut too and she stomped again in such a cute fashion that I couldn’t help myself. I blame my automatic action on how I’d gotten used to comforting and spoiling my girls.
I stepped up onto the rock and pulled Cariad into a hug, one hand going to ruffle just the hair on the top of her head. She stiffened in my arms, but I’d had enough presence of mind to channel the entropic energy through my Shape-Shifting (Elemental Alignment) effect, focusing it into my skin.
On anyone else, it would have made the hug quite painful as that entropic energy started to dissolve them. But with Cariad, it shielded me from her own nature in those handful of spots that would have burned me for touching her bare skin. The clothes she wore were constructed of a neutral material, which was why I’d only been burned in the spot that touched her bare skin. But with this sheath, I was able to give my favorite daemon a hug.
When I didn’t flinch, scream, or collapse in a puff of ashes, Cariad leaned into the hug though she didn’t remove her hands from her face. Instead, she nestled into my chest and let her shoulders drop, relaxing into the hug.
“Thank you, Cariad, for all your help,” I murmured quietly into her hair as I continued to stroke those bright red locks with one hand while the other cradled the otherworldly woman to my chest.
I knew the hug wouldn’t last long, as my mana pool wasn’t large enough to sustain it for more than a few minutes, but I would savor this chance to touch my friend as long as I was able to.
Discord! Feel free to hop on and chat or ask questions.
website for links to my other work as well as updates on this one. It has links to all the other places to find this work too!
Patreon! Additional advance chapters will be available there as well as art and some future projects I'm working on.
