M. Tress Writes
patreon
Summoned by Monster Girls - Chapter 88
🕑 Added 2024-11-16 09:00:03 +0000 UTCShayla Valo and Jane Carsan have requested your presence regarding the creation of a Guardian contract.
Transit? View Summoning?
“Right on schedule.” I muttered, checking my phone before plugging it in on the kitchen table, then standing.
I’d been experimenting with the gold I’d collected from the river, testing and refining it to see what I could do while I waited, since it was something I could do without creating a mess.
My research had revealed that most jewelry grade gold was actually under the traditional twenty-four karat designation. Instead, it varied as far down as to fourteen karat in America. Apparently this was to boost the strength of the metal and proof it against daily wear and tear.
I’d learned that, while I could mold and call gold to me, I couldn’t actually alloy it with other metals yet, not without a crucible. I’d been trying to make rose gold by alloying in copper, but it required more mana than I actually had at this time.
Taking a moment to check myself over, I sighed. Since my nice new clothes had been destroyed by first the fight with the bandits after helping Rieka, and then the subsequent impact of Hurricane Kassandra when I’d returned to my lover, I was wearing my second-best set of duds.
I had on a blue button-down and my sole pair of khaki pants, a set of jeans that hadn’t fit me before all the extra training the girls had put me through, along with my work boots.
I’d debated trying to run to a store nearby to get new clothes, but my girls had worn me out after the marathon they had put me through the previous day. Though, despite the fact I’d missed it when the System awarded the quest, I’d earned another four hundred SP from pleasing my ladies.
Toggling the Transit option before I could hesitate, I felt the jerk of the System catching me up and whirling me through space and time.
As light, color, scent, and sound raced past me in a maelstrom, I relaxed and let it blow along by without trying to perceive it. The universe flowed, oozed, jumped, and twitched while I considered my situation.
I remember Cariad mentioning that this, I mentally waved a hand at the surrounding chaos, is the System taking me along established routes between worlds. It feels longer than it actually is because of perception. And all of it done to preserve the membranes between realities. The whole System is built around the idea of following these pathways when traveling between universes. A dimensional level of ‘keep off the grass’ I think she said?
That last thought had me snickering as I touched down and my feet felt hard stone under me. I was greeted by a sight that I had only seen once before, and several that I had seen quite often.
The first was the great summoning room underneath Rue House, the common living house for those who had decided to specialize in summoning. It was a stone room lit by torches, with a massive, elaborate formation carved into the floor and filled in with glittering metal.
I glanced over to the section that had been damaged when I came here the first time. The damage had actually been the reason the ritual had caught me up and transported me here in the first place, but the bent section was smooth once more.
So I turned my eyes to the second familiar—and far more welcoming—sight besides the echoing stone room.
My girls.
Kassandra and Rieka were at the back of the room. Kassandra bouncing happily in place with her hands cupped in front of her mouth to hide a smile and clearly resisting the urge to try to throw herself at me over the runic figures on the ground. My princess, on the other hand, was the picture of demure patience while she stood next to Kassandra with one hand on the holstered spell rod at her hip.
As my eyes locked with Rieka’s, she blushed slightly and tilted her head to one side, exposing the edge of a hickey on her pale throat that had hidden under her shirt before while a proud smile snuck across her full lips.
Not wanting to be rude to my new summoners, I nodded to my girls before turning my attention back to Shayla and Jane. The two stood at the front of the little group, next to a small bowl worked into the floor that held a stack of silver and gold coins whose rainbow luster was fading while their mana drained into the summoning circle.
Shayla was wearing a loose dress in a light peach color, belted in at her waist with a red sash that draped over her full hips. The fluffy white ruffs at her wrists and neck, as well as her antennae wiggling above her head, made the unadorned dress look regal, regardless. The whole look tied together with her lush form to remind me of a juicy peach waiting for a bite, but the innocent and joyful smile on her face tamped down that image to tame it some.
Behind the woman, her large and delicate moth wings flared slightly, the red and tan patterns on white looking like large eyes looming over her shoulders before she folded them back once more.
Just to her right and slightly back was Jane. The woman was much smaller, almost five feet tall, I guessed, but she looked far more tiny with Shayla looming over her like she was.
Jane wore a long-sleeved blouse in a light green and a flowing knee-length black skirt decorated with a rippling wave embroidery in blue on the hem. Her short black hair floated upright in a fluffy mohawk that looked like it might grow up to be a pompadour if she put more product in it.
The large, rounded mouse ears on top of Jane’s head flicked and rotated as she stared at me. A slender appendage flicked behind her, a mouse tail that ended in a tuft of fur. The tail itself was even longer than she was tall, looming up to the same height as Shayla’s head at over six feet in height, even with the curve to it.
“Ladies, it is a pleasure to see you again,” I said gently after several long seconds had passed in silence.
Both girls started, with Jane blinking her large, dark-brown eyes rapidly while Shayla tilted her head inquisitively. Then Kassandra giggled from behind them and both girls flushed.
“Good day to you, Traveler Liam.” It was Shayla who spoke up first, gripping the edges of her skirt with two fingers on each hand and dipping into a curtsy. Jane scrambled to do the same, nearly tripping on her own feet in the process. Both of their secondary animal appendages flared when they bowed, Shayla’s wings flicking out while Jane’s tail did a rapid little dance behind her.
“Yes, thank you for accepting our call for assistance,” Jane rapped out in a hurry.
“It did help that I was expecting to hear from you. Now please, relax. I should be the one to apologize to you two for having to skip out so quickly the other day.”
“That was because duty called and you had to answer,” Shayla said gently, straightening once more. The moth kin woman was smiling gently as she studied me, her eyes intent as if she was cataloging my appearance for something. A faint blush still colored her cheeks. I noticed her hands sat folded over her stomach as well, but the tips of her wings were vibrating.
Is she trembling? That won’t do. I don’t want any of my contracted partners afraid of me, I thought.
“And I would be happy to take up such a duty for either of you, if that is what you wanted? I am here at your summons today, Lady Valo and Lady Carsan. What did you want to talk about?” My more formal speech and respectful address seemed to relax the two, as the trembling faded from Shayla’s wings and the nervous twitch of Jane’s long tail slowed.
“I want in.” Jane’s statement was concise and delivered with confidence. A confidence that was abruptly challenged when all eyes turned to her and she blushed furiously at the sudden attention, though she did elaborate. “I want to join your group for the summoning class and the extracurricular training. I tried to go it on my own and that blew up in my face. I think I offended my previous partner, the sylph. They never really responded like I saw the others doing or you did for the princess and Lady Silverscale.”
A dart of movement from the aforementioned ‘lady’ drew my gaze over Jane’s shoulder to Kassandra, who was grinning broadly and bobbing her eyebrows while making a lewd gesture until Rieka slapped her in the shoulder.
Fighting my desire to roll my eyes at the girls and their antics, I returned my attention to Jane. The small mouse kin woman was staring at me with hope glimmering in her large brown eyes while wringing her hands in front of her.
It’s like she expects me to refuse her? I thought in surprise, doing my best to keep that emotion off my face. I didn’t want her to misunderstand it after all. She really doesn’t think as well of herself, does she?
To give myself time to consider the implications of Jane’s desperation, I turned my attention back to the softly-smiling Shayla.
“And you, Lady Valo?”
“Please, I’m not a lady,” Shayla said demurely, gesturing with one hand dismissively. “I’m just a common-born girl with talent. If others heard you calling me a lady—”
“Liam would show up to slap them around if you needed him to,” Kassandra interjected, unable to resist the temptation to speak. “He’s good at slapping dow—ow! What was that for?!”
Rieka had smacked Kassandra on the back of the head and was ignoring the pointed glare from her smaller companion as she directed a kind smile to the two new girls.
“Please, continue you two,” Rieka said and gestured towards me and Shayla.
“Miss Valo then?” I asked, offering a compromise that was still respectful to Shayla. The moth kin woman’s smile broadened, and she nodded once, her antennae bouncing slightly before going back to carefully wafting back and forth over her head like two fluffy fans. “Miss Valo, what is it that you need? Though my powers may be limited at the moment,” Kassandra snorted derisively at that statement, “I will do whatever I can to fulfill your request.”
Shayla considered it for several long moments. Jane did her best to be patient standing beside the larger woman, but it was obvious that she was anxious to get the contract in place from the nervous twitches of her long tail.
Another partner I’ll be able to read with the motions of their tail. I wonder if they are intentional non-verbal cues that I’m just interpreting, or entirely unconscious? I thought while waiting, my improved mental scores seizing on an idea that I would have totally disregarded in the past.
“You know that I’m an artist,” Shayla said after a long moment, her pitch-black eyes rising to meet mine once more. It was hard to tell where she was looking without a pupil, but I had a pretty good idea that she was staring directly at me. “What I want more than anything is to see sights that have gone unseen by others for a long time. Hear about or experience things that are new and different. All of this to feed my art and give me new material for my creations. To do that, I need to travel. To travel, I need to be safe. While I have magic, I’m not as confident as your other companions while wielding it in combat. So joining your group for extracurricular training would be good, and having the ability to call on you for protection would be even better.”
I considered her words for a long moment before nodding.
“I think I can do that. Something I could do is tell you all sorts of stories from both my world, as well as describe the sights that I see and experience every time I cross the dimensional membranes. I’ve never seen the same view more than once.” My simple statement had Shayla’s eyes widening and the curled tips of her antennae straightening out, trembling slightly in excitement. “Well then, how do we proceed?”
My question brought both of the new girls back to earth with surprising rapidity as they both blinked in unison and then shrugged.
“I’m not sure. When I summoned the sylph before, it was just a verbal contract…” Jane said after a moment, bouncing from foot to foot with nervous energy.
“And I’ve never completed one of these summoning pacts before…” Shayla said a moment later.
I glanced at my two current contracted companions with a questioning look and got a shrug from both of them as well.
Well crud, I thought while rubbing at my right wrist idly with my left hand. Even through the shirt, I could feel the faint texture of my bond tattoos linking me to the girls. That contact sent my mind sliding back through time to remember when I agreed to assist Kassandra and Rieka.
“I, Kassandra Silverscale, accept the guardian pact with Liam the human.”
“I, Rieka Coldeye, accept the guardian pact with Liam the human.”
The scene played out behind my eyes with me scaring the other people at the summoning by crossing the summoning circle and being able to just walk over and touch the girls. They’d made those statements and reached out to touch me, but I’d caught their hands and kissed the back of them. After my lips had touched their hands, the tattoos had appeared.
Tattoos that are linked to my Guardian abilities, I thought and smiled slightly.
I stepped forward without a thought, my foot passing directly over top of the summoning matrix set into the ground. I didn’t realize I was crossing over parts of the diagram that I shouldn’t have been able to until Jane gasped in surprise and backed up several steps instinctively.
“What? How? You shouldn’t be able to—what about the protective arrays?” the mouse kin woman stuttered in surprise.
Shayla looked back at the smaller woman, blinking in curiosity, while Kassandra felt the need to answer Jane’s question.
“That’s not the strangest thing you are going to see Liam do if you go through with this, Jane! You should get used to it.”
“It’s probably something related to the fact that those arrays are designed to contain summoned monsters. And, while Liam is a monster to those that threaten us, he’s not an actual monster, he’s a Traveler,” Rieka explained more intelligently while elbowing Kassandra again.
Not wanting to crowd Jane, I angled over to stand in front of Shayla, who had not moved. The tall moth kin woman turned her attention back to me, a soft smile playing over her lips as she waited. Her antennae dipped low, stretching like they were reaching towards me for a moment before she reached up and smoothed them back again.
“The process is simple. May I have your hand?” I held my hand out to her and Shayla did not hesitate to lay her delicate hand in mine. “Just repeat after me and push like you were pushing mana into a spell. You don’t need to actually project it at me, though, just your intent.”
Shayla nodded shyly, her cheeks pinking again and her wings fluttering briefly.
“ ‘I, Shayla Valo, accept the guardian pact with Liam the human,’ ” I started out and Shayla repeated it back to me, her voice slightly tremulous but the excitement clear in her eyes.
When she finished her statement, I bent over the hand I held in mine and pressed my lips lightly to her knuckles, then waited.
The familiar burning sensation on my right arm told me that my hunch had been correct.
Not wanting to make Shayla uncomfortable, I released her hand and stepped back to bow to her slightly once more.
“I am at your service, Miss Valo.”
“I look forward to working with you, Sir Liam,” was her response.
“Oh, I’m no ‘sir’, that is for certain,” I laughed, letting the seriousness of the moment drop away and held up a hand.
“Not if my mother has her way,” Rieka interjected, drawing all eyes to her. She shrugged, a small smile on her lips. “What? You rescued two members of the royal family and a half-dozen nobles from bandits. My mother may have been obstinate about giving me credit for you doing it, but she recognizes that you are not some mindless beast. That bottle of crystals I gave you the other day was just the first part of her repayment.”
“Speaking of!” Kassandra interjected, one hand diving into her bodice and returning with the glass bottle. “You forgot these, Liam!”
“No, I didn’t forget them,” I countered, fighting the urge to laugh at the reactions of Jane and Shayla at seeing Kassandra rooting around in her shirt. “More important matters distracted me.”
“You hear that, Rieka? We are ‘more important matters,’ ” Kassandra said with a grin, nudging her friend with an elbow. “Finish up bonding with Jane and then you can put these to use!”
At Kassandra’s blunt statement, Jane turned back to look at me curiously, her tail flicking once in anxiety.
I stepped slightly to one side, standing intentionally on the inside of the last ring of the diagram on the floor. I hadn’t felt anything crossing it, but I also remembered Cariad’s statement previously that they had tracked me so easily when I ‘went missing’ the first time because I didn’t leave the circle. Also, it seemed to reassure Jane with the illusion that the barrier restrained me, despite the fact I had just reached past it for Shayla.
The mouse woman took a deep breath and let it out slowly before nodding and stepping forward. Without me needing to ask, she held out her hand towards me and repeated the same oath that the other three had used.
“I, Jane Carsan, accept the guardian pact with Liam the human.”
My lips brushed the back of her hand and an electric tingle ran up my hand before sinking into my forearm as a burning tingle. I released Jane’s hand and stepped back. Carefully unbuttoning my shirt-sleeve first, I held up my arm for the four girls to see.
“These are my bond-marks,” I said simply, pointing to the first, a sinuous rune that wound around itself. “This one is for Kassandra Silverscale, my first.” I gave her a wink.
Kassandra stuck her tongue out while she slithered forward, clearly sensing that the ritualistic part was done and everyone could relax. Rieka came along with her friend as I turned my attention back to the other two.
“This one is for Rieka Coldeye, my second bond. And she was only second because Kass threw herself at me before she could react.” I shot Rieka a smile, and she shrugged with her hands spread in a ‘what can you do?’ motion. The second tattoo was more jagged, and I realized now that I was looking at it. The shape reminded me of a stylized lightning bolt over a mountain.
“And the other two? Are those us?” Shayla asked, her voice trembling with excitement and I nodded while smiling at her.
“Yes, this one is yours, my third.” I pointed to the next one in the line and studied it carefully. While Kassandra’s had been sinuous and circular, and Rieka’s had been jagged and stylized, the one for Shayla was both simple and elegant. It was a profile of a butterfly wing, but with the inner patterns that made it up shaped in the sharp style of stained glass with a four pointed sun surrounding it.
“I don’t get it. What do they mean?” Jane had edged even closer, her toes right on the line of the diagram now as she peered at my arm, the tip of her nose wiggling while she gnawed at her thumbnail thoughtfully and studied the four marks. “I get the symbolism of the others, but mine doesn’t make sense? Why is it a book?”
I studied the fourth mark, then glanced at the short woman in front of me. I didn’t know how to explain to Jane that she reminded me of a young, somewhat nerdy but still sexy, librarian in her modest outfit. The way her ears twitched and rotated and her tail flicked back and forth only added on to the cuteness factor of the entire image for me too. Her symbol was a book, but its design had swirling lines coming off of it, as if the wind was blowing dust off of the stylized book.
“It’s because of your desire for knowledge, Jane,” Rieka answered the smaller woman as she came around her side. “I may not know you as well as others, but your craving of knowledge is well known amongst everyone at the academy.”
Jane blushed but nodded, her eyes darting between me, Rieka, and then over at Kassandra. Her tail flicked around her waist in an almost comforting gesture and she caught the tip of it, slowly kneading the fluff on the end in her hands.
“Well, that was a lot simpler than I expected,” Shayla declared a moment later, stretching her arms over her head and letting her wings flare out as well. This had the effect of pulling her simple dress tight to her luscious body, which was a rather distracting sight considering how close the moth kin woman was to me. I got a magnificent view of how shapely her figure was, but I did my best not to stare so I wouldn’t get caught.
“Liam,” Kassandra said. The amusement in her voice made it clear that she had, in fact, caught me staring. Turning to my mischievous noodle, though, I saw only smiles and the glass vial she was offering me. “Absorb these before you forget again. I’m not comfortable hanging on to them.”
I took the bottle and popped the cork, spilling the glittering crystals into my palm.
“Are those…” I heard Jane ask as prompts began to pop up in my vision, and I distantly heard Rieka begin to explain.
The Traveler has encountered a source of pure, unrefined mana.
This pure mana can either be exchanged directly for SP, or used to boost the mastery of powers that have not reached one-hundred percent mastery.
Do you wish to absorb this source?
Yes/No
There was a secondary shimmering at the edges of my vision, but it refused to resolve as the prompt regarding the crystals waited to be resolved. I selected the ‘Yes’ option and the prompt cleared. Remembering what I had to do, I shook the crystals in my hand and set the first one on my tongue. It dissolved a moment later and produced the same message as the first time.
Crystals absorbed 1 of 3
As soon as I finished the three crystals mentioned, the prompt changed again to a familiar sight.
Does the Traveler wish to redeem for System points, or allocate power directly to improving Mastery rating?
SP / Mastery?
Curious about what it would do, I selected ‘SP’ this time, wanting to know how much SP each of the crystals was worth.
Traveler has been awarded 1500 SP.
Neat, so each one is worth 500 SP? That is handy to know. Which means there is about six thousand SP in that bottle… do I want to use it all as SP or should I use it to boost mastery of some powers? I thought idly, weighing my options.
Another flare of light around my vision interrupted my thoughts, and a new message in gold scrolled into view.
Congratulations, Traveler.
You have reached several milestones recently!
Milestones:
Bonded with three or more companions in a Guardian contract while having the Guardian track open to you.
Earned over 10,000 SP total.
Defeated a dimensional parasite.
In recognition of your continued work, the System will unlock additional powers for you to select.
I could hear the girls talking now, more animatedly as they exchanged ideas for how to get Shayla and Jane up to speed with me in time for the exam that was coming up, but I was focused on my Powers listing, searching for this new power.
It was on the last page, titled ‘Spirit’, and it was something I’d been waiting to get for some time. I stared at the interface for several long seconds, reading it over. Trying to figure out if I was seeing things or not.
Dimensional Pocket (Minor) - Cost: 1,000 SP - Grants the user a personal storage space of up to 10 pounds of material or one square foot of space.
Living creatures cannot be placed inside the pocket.
While stored there, objects have no weight and do not age or degrade.
Comments
Tetsu-nii
FINALLY!!!!!!!!! It's also nice that Dimensional Pocket is available to him now. ;P
M. Tress
I couldn't keep it away from him forever, and he finally did something to trigger the power unlock. It was honestly parts of all three achievements that contributed to it xD.
MDMcVay
Sweet, more Harem members, I mean is companions
Eric Lavin
Yes I have also been wondering when he was gonna get storage.... hopefully it gets bigger/ levels up
Freya
Tyftc
Danielle Warvel
Yay! So happy for Liam. He finally got a freaking inventory power!
