M. Tress Writes
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Summoned by Monster Girls - Chapter 111
🕑 Added 2025-02-04 09:00:02 +0000 UTCOur first time passing through this darkened tunnel was intimidating. Despite the fact that it had a very limited route of possible attacks from threats, and really only extended out of sight ahead or behind us, it still was eerie.
The unsettling sensation might have been due to the ruins of the station and the train, as well as the deadly threat’s we’d dealt with on our way down here. Or it might have just been as basic as a fear of the dark.
Having Shayla along with us handily banished that darkness and the creeping fear that accompanied it. And that wasn’t just because of how comforting it felt to have the beautiful moth woman pressed into my side.
The light that Shayla’s spell rod cast handily built out the temporary light stones that Kassandra had created with a few runes the last time we’d come here. While the light stones served the purpose and shed enough light to see by, they were only about the size of a lemon on average and would only cast good light out about twenty to thirty feet in either direction.
Shayla quadrupled that.
The glowing orb on the tip of her spell rod glared with all the ferocity of a burning magnesium flame and it washed some colors out of the environment with how bright it was. The only places that there were shadows for something to hide in were spaces that had something solid to block the light, like the narrow strips behind the support pillars that held up the roof overhead.
Before we made it more than ten feet, I made sure to put one of my lesser-used powers into play, just because it made no sense to ignore it.
Ward Companion (Minor) was exactly as the name suggested, a minor ward that would alert me if something threatened the target. I had high hopes that it would eventually develop into some kind of defensive measure, but before that I needed to train it and see if it would unlock a higher order tier at a later date.
Since they’d been down this route before and actually encountered the scuttling horrors that existed in the permanent darkness of the tunnel, Rieka and Kassandra kept close to me while I walked with Shayla. The glow of the light spell made the moth woman a target, so I wanted to ensure I was ready to defend her at all times. Jane was the only one who I had to keep reminding to stay close, as the excitable mouse woman wanted to roam around and inspect everything that she could lay her little hands on.
“I am astonished that these metal rails lasted this long. Even in a closed environment like this one, you would expect iron to be far more corroded, but if you disregarded the cave in, you could potentially ride whatever contraption had taken to them originally,” Jane chirped happily, bouncing along slightly ahead of us before bending over to inspect the metal rails again.
The mouse kin’s tail twitched inquisitively, dancing behind her like a rather fuzzy snake that was trying to catch a bird.
“Don’t get too far off, Jane,” Rieka warned her for me. My princess kept pace to our right at the center of the tunnel with her spell rod held ready, covering Shayla’s other side. “I know Shayla destroyed a lot of the shadow monsters before, but we have no idea how they breed or if there are more down here.”
“We should try and exterminate them. If we are going to turn over this site to the queen for her study once we give it a last check for Liam, then we should try our best to ensure it’s safe. It would be horrible if a scholar was hurt while down here if the guards weren’t very attentive,” Jane said, standing upright once more, holding a small iron bar as long as her hand up to look at it.
I recognized the object in her hand as a rail-road spike, or something similar enough to fulfill the same duty here. It was triangular in shape rather than square, and the top third was pitted with rust but the bottom section was entirely clear of the corrosion, though it looked very old.
“Yes, but we never know what we might encounter, so be vigilant,” Kassandra insisted firmly from my left where she slithered along. As one of the shortest present, she chose to hug the wall as it would impede her the least of our group.
“I am vigilant! Trust me, mouse kin are born of a prey species, so we are always aware of our surroundings for our own safety,” Jane said, waving off the concern with a smile, using the rail-road spike as a baton.
I shared a silent look with Shayla, who nodded and we picked up our pace slightly to ensure we stayed plenty close to the energetic mouse woman as she bounced back and forth, inspecting everything curiously.
We didn’t encounter any of the shadow creatures until we’d been walking for a good few hours.
The fact that the track led so deep into the mountains, always sloping down slightly, made me wonder what had prompted the extreme level of security for this sort of thing. While it took us almost half a day to travel down the tunnel, the train would have likely made the trip in half an hour at most. And I was pondering the implications of that when Jane, who had been studying a section of wall that was scraped in an odd pattern, stiffened.
The mouse-eared woman’s sudden change in posture and mood was easily enough to catch my attention and I turned to check on her.
Jane’s tail, normally mobile with the fuzzy tuft on the tip, was sticking out behind her and the tuft was puffed out like a downy fluff of cotton.
“Jane?”
“Scraping,” she answered my question without hesitation, her voice in a low hiss. “I can hear something scratching over the stone and coming towards us from further up the tunnel.” Jane pointed in the direction we were moving.
Since we hadn’t yet found the burrows built into the side wall of the tunnel, I figured I knew what it was that she was hearing. This was also close to the area that had the burrows set into the wall at the midpoint of the tunnel, the ones that I’d sealed up as best as I could when we were here last.
“Be ready if something attacks us,” I warned. “Hoping that Shayla’s light will keep them at bay, but who knows how the minds of creatures made of shadow work?”
There was a chorus of nods that circled our group, with Jane scampering back to take up a position at my rear. It had been her spot the entire time, but she’d been too busy inquisitively studying the tunnel thus far to actually assume it.
All four of my girls had their spell rods out now, and I gently unhooked my arm from Shayla’s to be able to move easily. I’d opted for a set of old jeans and a cheap t-shirt, since I didn’t want to hesitate to shift if I needed to and just tear out of the thing.
I had a change of clothes in my Dimensional Pocket ability, the only thing in that place besides the gold I’d recovered from ‘panning’ to use in my jewelry crafting, and the abundant sweet bribes for my girls.
It was barely five seconds after Jane got to her spot that the scraping and scratching noises grew loud enough for me to recognize them.
“That’s them all right,” I grumbled, shaking my arms out and playing my mind over the different forms of Shape-Shifting that I could use in order to properly deal with them.
While I had the major rank of the ability now and far more mass to work with, I didn’t want to risk the girls with something that wasn’t tried and true unless I absolutely had to.
A low hissing noise echoed in the tunnel as we continued forward at a steady pace. A flicker of night-black chitin caught the light and smoked briefly before a storm of scampering noises raced in the darkness ahead of us. They clicked and clacked like a hundred crabs storming over top of each other.
“Shayla?” I asked.
The lushly-figured moth woman nodded from her spot to my right and back. The gesture sent her antennae bobbing slightly and that cast a thin shadow over the ground in front of us as they swayed in front of her light source.
A racing, skittering noise immediately broke out as the darkness boiled and a half-dozen scuttling monsters that looked like someone had taken a scaled-down version of the Xenomorph and crossbred it with a giant ant, raced out of the darkness along that thread of shadow, using it as shelter to try and get closer to us.
Before they made it ten feet, their carapaces began to smoke and dissolve. Shayla leaning back moved her antennae out of the way of the light and all six of the monsters immediately began flailing about. Two turned to reverse, the other four scrambled directly at us, probably in some vain attempt to destroy the light source hurting them.
Before any made it more than five or six feet, Shayla gave a shooing gesture with her spell rod, and the glowing mote of light on the tip flicked forward to splash down and explode in a brilliant flare of light about a hundred yards down the tunnel.
What the flaring mote of light revealed was an entire carpet of the scuttling monsters waiting just beyond the line of shadows. There had to be hundreds of the little monsters.
The six that had tried to charge us evaporated into puffs of black smoke, degrading into raw shadow stuff in mere seconds under the close passage of the brilliant ball of light. Those that the light passed over and anything within about five feet of it did the same. When the spell hit the ground, it flared brightly and stuck there, destroying a ripple of more than a hundred of the little monsters and illuminating the width of the tunnel.
A scrambling mass of scraping claws came as those trapped on our side of the light turned to charge us, but Shayla was already conjuring another of the light spells.
“Radiance,” I heard Shayla mumble quietly, only really hearing it due to her proximity to me.
The light sphere popped into life again on the tip of her rod. And the wave of scuttling monsters that had been charging us faltered and then wilted under the storm of spells from my girls. I barely had to do anything to keep the dozens of night-black monsters from them.
Shayla kept her light spell up, flicking her rod back and forth to flicker the light and lure some closer before directing it at them to stun or burn the monsters. Kassandra sent blasts of sharp ice shards into the creatures, shredding whole swathes of them and slowing those that she did not kill. Rieka had the other side of the group, bouncing small bolts of lightning between the scuttling monsters like she was tossing rubber balls at them. And Jane would direct cutting blasts of wind into the group to drive them back or rip legs off the scrambling monsters.
Only three of the several dozen made it within range for me to strike, and I just shifted my right arm into a segmented and armored approximation of a scorpion’s tail before using the sharp spike at the end to ruthlessly smash the monsters to pieces.
Walking forward, Shayla flicked the light spell currently attached to her rod forward once more, driving back the scuttling horde and thinning them out further. Another flick allowed her to collect the burning orb of light that was her first spell as we passed it.
“This is going to be so much easier with Shayla,” Kassandra laughed, bouncing happily as she wound her way along next to me.
“Damn straight. Easy mode is something I can definitely embrace considering how tense the last time was that we were in here,” I replied, shifting my right arm back to normal and slinging it around Shayla’s waist to pull her against my hip.
My beautiful moth girl just blushed as the others all heaped more compliments on her as well, but I could tell from the small smile and the way her antennae flicked out like little fists that she was proud despite her embarrassment.
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While I wasn’t sure if we eliminated the scuttling shadow monsters entirely, we only had to repeat the light-leapfrog maneuver three more times before we didn’t catch any of them. Jane said she could still hear scratching, but it was distant and moving away from us.
When we got to the area with the burrows in the wall, the much greater illumination of Shayla’s spell showed me the burrows in the ceiling that I’d missed when I initially sealed this area up.
We paused there long enough for me to use my Manipulate Element ability to seal those others as well, with Shayla leaving one of her two light spells in that area to act as a further marker and to deal with any of the monsters that came through when we were gone.
After sealing those burrows up, we remained unmolested for the rest of the trip down the tunnel.
All of us were dragging pretty heavily when we made it to the massive iron door sealing the entrance to the station on the far side of the tunnel. Like before, I made use of Manipulate Element to shift stone out of the way. Since I’d done it before and left most of that tunnel open behind me, I didn’t need to tap into some of the earth mana crystals that the girls still had on hand.
The station on this end of the tunnel was more elaborate, and also in worse condition, than the one we’d originated at.
While the first station we’d started at was worn with time and marked with age, this one showed signs of the combat that had shut down the entire complex. With the additional context of the sack-like monster we’d found deep within the complex, I now had an idea of what had caused some of the damage as well as the deep gouges in the floor and walls.
While Jane and Shayla peered about curiously, Rieka, Kassandra, and I hurried our tired group up onto the platform and to one side into what I guessed had been a lounge or restaurant at some time. We’d previously prepared the area to serve as an impromptu camp by clearing away the debris of the wrecked furniture and the like. It was a decent little bolt hole, as it only had the one door leading into it and a few small vents for moving air through the complex, and the door could be barricaded shut.
While Jane was immediately drawn to the small vents, the rest of us set out bedding and discussed who’d be on watch first. Even with us barricaded in a room like this, I insisted that one of us at least be awake to warn the others if something weird happened.
Since Jane was so curious about the vents and how the complex was able to maintain enough breathable air this far below the mountain, she volunteered to be our first member on watch rotation.
Rather than bother to set up the tent, the girls all just laid out their bedding in one large pile while I shifted some of the old benches into position to block the door closed and wedged them with my earth magic.
While I could have just sealed the doors by merging the metal, I was still running short on the mana necessary since I’d burrowed through the rock around the large door on the tracks earlier.
Shayla asked me to shape a small hollow in the wall by the door, so I created a little cup-like depression and she deposited her light spell in the hollow. The rock lip shaded it enough that none of us would be blinded by looking that way directly, but it still provided fairly bright light to the rest of the room for now.
“The spell will run for another several hours,” Shayla explained. “Whoever is on watch when it goes out, just wake me and I’ll put another one up.”
“They aren’t too expensive, are they?” Rieka asked from her spot smoothing out the bedrolls.
I glanced over to check on my wolf princess and did a double take. She was currently kneeling in the middle of what looked like a large bed made of everyone’s bedrolls with her back to me. Rieka’s fluffy platinum blonde tail was erect and dancing back and forth slowly, the black marks on the tip of her tail accenting it perfectly. But what was more mesmerizing than her tail was the fact her riding pants were clinging tightly to her firm butt as said butt danced back and forth slowly in counterpoint to her tail.
“No, not really. I’m happy to contribute my share to this venture. I can make up whatever it costs rather easily with what I’ve seen here already,” Shayla was quick to answer, but the moth woman immediately had to muffle a yawn as soon as she was done talking. “Oh my, I apologize. I’m just dead on my feet now.”
“Bed time then,” I said with a grin, and when Shayla gave a sleepy nod and turned to head towards the pile of bedding, I struck.
Shayla let out a rather undignified shriek of surprise when I scooped her up off the ground and into a princess carry. Her wings beat furiously behind her for a moment before she stilled when she realized what I was doing, and instead pouted up at me while her antennae bopped me on the cheek lightly.
“Don’t surprise me like that, Liam,” Shayla grumbled while the other girls giggled at her.
“Apologies,” I said with a small smile for her. “I just thought you’d appreciate getting off your feet a little sooner was all.”
Shayla’s grumbling and her frown faded after a moment and she just pouted before turning to rub her face into my chest with a sigh, her arms folded over her tummy and shelving her generous breasts while she let me carry her.
I settled Shayla onto her bedroll carefully, and she pulled me into a quick kiss before letting me go again. I’d intended to get up and help finish setting things up, but Kassandra was quick to catch me with her muscled serpentine tail and pull me into the bed.
Normally, my dwarf lamia wouldn’t have had the strength to do so, but I hadn’t been expecting it. So when she acted, I was caught by surprise and then she had me falling onto my side between her and Shayla.
“Nope. You are just as tired as we are, Liam. Sleep time for you too,” Kassandra giggled, winding her tail around and between my legs.
“If you insist, Kass,” I laughed quietly, leaning over to nuzzle the top of her head as she wrapped herself around my right arm and wedged said limb between her breasts.
“Oh I do indeed. Help me pin him down, Shayla. Otherwise he’s going to try and wiggle free to go do something productive,” Kassandra demanded, and Shayla shifted to do just that, blushing furiously as she snuggled into my side and used my left arm as a pillow.
“Little help here?” I asked Rieka, who was still kneeling at the foot of the pile of bedding, but had straightened to smirk down at us.
“Oh, I’m happy to help,” Rieka said with a devious grin and grabbed one of the blankets at the bottom of the pile by our feet.
Before I could specify how I wanted her to help, Rieka wriggled over to drape herself across my chest, tugging the blanket over top of herself and the others and effectively sandwiching me in soft flesh on all sides possible.
“You four look adorable and ridiculous,” Jane giggled from her spot by the wall. “Are you sure that you just want to sleep already and not eat something?”
“I have a snack in mind, but I’ll wait a bit to enjoy it,” Kassandra murmured deviously, and I felt her wiggle one hand between me and Rieka to cup my crotch through my clothes, making me jump and getting a giggle out of the other two pressed into me.
Comments
M. Tress
yeah, he's just really hesitant to 'waste' the space he has on something like that. Also, Liam still kinda has a bit of a blind spot. He's sort of in the 'idiot savant' category at the moment since he's hyper intelligent (from stats) but working to figure out how to use it properly. xD
Aaron Henley
If I was Liam, I’d have packed a little gas lantern (or a handcrank-powered one) to save Shay’s mana rather than rejuvenating her orbs every few hours at camp. Dimensional bags are meant to be abused. He could even pack some MREs for a slighty bit better meal than just hardtack and stew.
Freya
Tyftc
