We encountered two more small groups of the shadow monsters in the tunnel on our way out. Neither of which lasted for longer than a few seconds, as Shayla had quickly surrounded and burned them away with her trio of light spells.
I honestly thought it was cute watching her work, as the fluffy antennae that sprouted from Shayla’s head flicked and mirrored the gestures of her spell rod, as if they each commanded one of the orbs themselves. I just couldn’t figure out a way to tell her that without the shy girl losing it.
When we got back to the ruined station, I widened out the narrow tunnel through the rockfall further. I took the time to spread my earth mana through it to ensure that the tunnel was sturdy. At the far end I created another stone cap for it along with instructions on the other side for the researchers that we knew would come after us.
We paused on the station platform for Kassandra to study that last sealed doorway that remained there. We’d passed it multiple times but the runes that sealed it continued to shift and change each time we came by.
“We are spending the night outside. I want to take one last shot at it before we head back,” Kassandra had said insistently, writing down the runes in her book before following the rest of us back up to the surface.
It was late afternoon, with maybe three or so hours left before the sun vanished behind the horizon. We would have to head back before midday tomorrow, so we had a bit of time to relax now.
Rather than tramping all the way back around to the waterfall to camp, we just went down the hill to camp in the trees near the spring and its included statue. My Manipulate Element made getting a flat campsite easy enough. I did most of the set up, with the four girls conspiring together with Kassandra to solve this one last mystery before we left.
Getting the tent set up was easy enough, since I could shift my bodily proportions to pin things in place and my strength had no problems moving the bundles of cloth around on my own. I’d gotten it set and collected firewood in the nearby woods to prepare for that night.
I was just about to start that going when Jane bounced over to me, her tufty tail flicking back and forth above her head in excitement.
“Hey Jane, what’s up?” I asked as she approached.
I’d been in the process of tamping down a pit for the fire, figuring I might as well make this spot comfortable since we’d be leaving the site behind for the researchers the queen would be sending eventually.
“The sky?” she said blandly, glancing upwards and I snorted at her unintended joke. I was still finding little idioms that didn’t translate properly between worlds, so her confusion was honestly cute because I knew it was earnest.
“I was meaning ‘what did you need?’ I suppose its a thing from my world,” I explained again as the bouncy mouse girl stopped in front of me, her head tilting cutely which sent her rounded ears swaying.
“Odd term, but I think I get it. Kass sent me over to help you get dinner ready since it’s getting late. We figured out the seal on the door mostly, Kassandra is just checking her notes to make sure.”
“Got it. Any preferences for food?” I asked, finishing smoothing out the fire pit so that the low bowl of packed soil was ready, then I started setting up the wood from the pile I’d collected.
“Something sweet. You did promise us treats,” Jane said accusingly and I shot her a grin over my shoulder. “What? You did! And I distinctly don’t remember you sharing any down in the log room.”
“Because I didn’t want to make a mess. Plus, I figured you wouldn’t want to leave stains or crumbs on the documents down there.” I shrugged before looking back at the fire pit.
A quiet, repeated thump of a small foot stomping came for a moment, then Jane grumped her way around to help me set the fire up.
“I’ll share after dinner,” I promised and the scowl immediately lifted from the mouse kin’s face, leaving behind a bright smile.
“Okay, that I can accept. Then something hot… Stew?”
The two of us puttered around pulling various bits out of the dimensional bag that Rieka had left with me to get the tent set up.
I learned a bit more about Jane while we did. She’d apparently always been passionate about learning and books, which explained a lot to me about why she was upset leaving behind the ones that we did. It also made a lot of sense why she was as interested in the historic aspects of these structures too.
“The ancient humans have so many mysteries around them,” Jane was saying as we sat next to the fire in the growing darkness. The stew bubbled away in the squat pot nearby, and I was expecting Kassandra and the others to come over and join us any minute now from the clear spot that she’d been drawing runes on the ground in.
“Like what? I might be able to help shed some light on them, but I can’t guarantee that the humans here on Cortha are anything like the ones from my homeworld.” I’d used a touch of the Manipulate Element ability to pull seats up out of the ground so we weren’t just sitting on grass. Jane bounced on hers in excitement.
“Most of what information we have of the humans comes from pictographs and murals. The issue is that there is a lot of conflicting information. Some images show the humans as being great tool makers, and others as wizards of renown with thunderous powers. I know that you are a Traveler and that your powers stem from that, Liam. But what about back home? What is more true on your world?”
That was an easy enough question to answer, but I gave it some thought first just to get my mind in order.
“Back home… Well there is mana and we have legends of wizards and the like, those who can use mana. But as for people who could actually do stuff like throw fireballs or conjure lightning?” I shook my head with a sigh. Jane tilted her head the other direction, her tail still flicking animatedly behind her as she waited for me to elaborate.
“They don’t really exist. Not that we can find at least. Science has expanded leaps and bounds to the point where we have tools that can shoot jets of flame or propel bits of metal at ridiculous speeds. I mean…” I trailed off and then accessed my Dimensional Pocket ability. A moment later I had my .357 revolver in my hand.
Jane watched with rapt attention as I checked the weapon over, gave the cylinder a spin and then emptied out the rounds into my hand. I checked the cylinder again before offering her the weapon.
“That’s a gun. It fires these,” I held up one of the rounds in my palm. “If you think of it like a… crossbow is probably the closest to be honest. If you think of it like a crossbow that reloads itself then you are close.”
“How fast can it fire?” Jane accepted the large weapon with a grunt, surprised at the weight of the weapon and began inspecting it.
“As fast as you can pull the trigger. Each shot uses up one of the rounds though,” I held up the cartridges again. “And when you use them all, the weapon stops working until you reload it again. We have guns like that which fire everything from a bullet the size of a pebble to ones that fire rounds as big as my head or larger, but those are used on ships.”
“Fascinating. And how quick do they fire?”
“I can show you if you want. Honestly, the advent of guns in the human world changed so many things that had stagnated for so long.”
I accepted the pistol back and loaded a single cartridge into it, carefully lining it up so it was the chamber that was next to fire.
Taking careful aim at a branch protruding high off of a tree, I was about to squeeze the trigger when I remembered the other girls and stopped.
Before Jane could ask why I had hesitated, I turned to look at the other three who were picking up their things. I then glanced back at the mouse eared girl and explained.
“It makes a very loud noise. And it wouldn’t be nice to scare the others. It’s the other reason I haven’t used it much yet.”
Jane pouted but nodded in understanding.
“What’s that, Liam?” Rieka asked as the other trio wandered past to tuck their things into the tent.
“A gun, it's a weapon from back home. Jane had questions about humans on Earth and I was going to demonstrate it for her. But it’s really loud and I didn’t want to scare you all,” I explained.
“Ooh, I want to see. One second!” Kassandra chirped and slithered faster back to the tent.
Shayla rolled her eyes, her antennae bopping back and forth in amusement, as she followed Kassandra. Rieka paused though, studying the weapon in my hand.
“How come you’ve never mentioned guns to us before, Liam?” Rieka asked gently. “For that matter, why not use one?”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“I only got the Dimensional Pocket recently. Before that, I couldn’t even bring anything with me,” I answered slowly. “And as to why… well I have reservations about showing it off and maybe throwing off the development timeline of your world. Guns caused a massive amount of chaos in my world. Ended a lot of royal lines and empires.”
“But it’s so small…” Rieka muttered as she continued to study the pistol in my hand from a respectful distance.
“No it’s not! Liam is hu—oh you were talking about something else,” Kassandra interjected as she slithered up behind me and threw her arms over my shoulders to pull me back into her. The little dwarf lamia didn’t put her mass into it, so the gesture only tugged me about a little bit rather than pulling me right off my seat.
“Okay, let him demonstrate. I’m really curious what it does!” Jane protested, her left foot tapping on the ground in irritation.
“It’ll be really loud. Please, all of you, cover or plug your ears for me?” I asked and waited for the girls to comply. Since I couldn’t cover my own ears with my hands, I just used Shape-Shifting to put a scale barrier over them instead.
In the muffled silence that followed, I took aim at the branch I had earlier and carefully pulled the trigger.
The roar of the weapon firing was more of a rumble I felt up my arm. The vastly increased strength I had meant that the recoil was negligible and the weapon never strayed off target. My target, the wrist-thick branch, exploded into broken shards and the end tumbled free.
I restored my hearing a moment later to hear the boom of the weapon firing echoing down the mountainside and winced.
Remembered my girls, but I bet that scared the hell out of anyone else on the mountain or nearby. Oh well, it’s just one shot. I doubt anyone could use it to find us anyway.
“I didn’t even see what happened. There was just a flash from the tip there and the branch broke free,” Rieka muttered in wonder and I shrugged. I flicked open the cylinder and pulled out the spent casing, showing it to Rieka.
“The bullet, that’s this part at the tip, is all that came out. But it was moving at hundreds of feet per second. Bullets like this can punch right through plate armor and fly thousands of feet.”
My explanation didn’t need to go further, as Rieka’s already light skin paled to a chalky white color. I could tell she had recognized the implications.
The other three girls just stared in surprise as I quickly loaded the other rounds back into the gun and then flipped it into my Dimensional Pocket.
“I have it just in case, but I hope I never need to use it. The only reason I’d bring more with me would be if Rieka’s mum—”
“No,” Rieka cut me off sharply, her pointed ears flicking upright from where she’d had them laid flat to her skull. Her expression of fear had hardened into one of determination. “Do not tell my mother about these, do not show them to her. Just don’t.”
“Rieka, if it was between seeing you and your family getting hurt and unleashing the hell that is modern firearms on the world?” I replied, meeting her icy blue eyes calmly and making it clear that I wouldn’t hesitate to abuse the power if needed.
My princess grimaced and her ears laid back again in frustration.
“It would change the face of warfare as we know it. If the designs or even one of them was captured by the wrong people, then they would likely roll right over top of many other kingdoms in an unstoppable wave if they could make enough of these guns,” Kassandra muttered in horror.
I turned in place and wrapped my arm around Kassandra’s waist, pulling her around me and into my lap. The dwarf lamia didn’t resist the gesture, wriggling forward on her scaled tail to settle in and then wrap herself around me, seeking comfort at the horrors she was imagining now.
“And I’d do it if it was necessary to protect any of you,” I muttered into Kassandra’s curls, drawing in a deep breath of the musky, cinnamon scent of her hair. I felt Kassandra’s coils tense to give me a squeezing hug from my calves to my hips while her arms wrapped around my chest.
“Then it’ll be up to us to not ever put you in a position to need to do that,” Rieka said firmly and I glanced back to my blonde lover. She was staring intently at me with an odd look on her face, but it melted into an affectionate smile.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could do with some dinner,” Jane said after the silence stretched on for a few more moments. “Liam and I made stew, and he promised me sweets afterwards.”
At the mention of sweets, all the girls grew more animated and talk resumed on more general topics for the day.
Kassandra remained draped over my lap the whole time, while the other girls made it a point to sit as close as they could. There were a lot of affectionate and casual touches, even from Jane who looked torn between asking more questions to satiate her curiosity and regretting having brought it up.
<><><>
Waking up buried in women was as amusing this time as it was when it happened previously. This time, it was Shayla who lay on top of me, the lushly figured moth woman draped on my chest and using it as a pillow while her wings spread to each side under the blankets to keep the others warm. Rieka on my left and Kassandra on my right kept me pinned. Jane was still pretending to be my helmet though, which was adorable in its own way.
Since we had to get moving though, we weren’t able to linger as much as I would have liked. It took a bit of prodding, but the cake donuts that I had set aside for breakfast helped salve any morning grumps, even from Kassandra who was not normally a morning person due to the cold.
Packing up the tent was even quicker with all five of us working to do it before we made one last trip down into the ruins to check that sealed door.
“Should we leave the entrance open for the queen’s people?” Jane asked as we strode down the long hallway to the ancient station.
“No,” Rieka was quick to assert. “I’ll leave a marker in the grass, like a few stones strategically placed, but I don’t want to risk someone else stumbling in here before my mother’s people can reach it.”
“Do you think she’ll want us to show her folk the way here?” Shayla asked distractedly.
The moth woman had her charcoal and notebook out again, carefully sketching as she walked along. It looked like she was drafting an image of the hallway right now.
“It’s possible, but unlikely. I intend to give them extensive directions so that she can keep things under wraps. If needed though, I can come out here on horseback to show them during the week,” Rieka said with a shrug.
“Not without me,” I said pointedly and Rieka shot me a smile.
“Like I’d go anywhere without my guardian.” Her answer was so smooth that it immediately neutralized any irritation I’d had and I just nodded to her while my heart swelled with affection for the wolfish princess.
Arriving on the station platform, I gave the room another pointed scan to ensure it was safe before the girls came onto it. We made a beeline for the sealed door to the side of the platform and Kassandra set to work with Jane and Rieka’s help. Shayla flipped back to her sketch of the station and went about filling in as many details as she could while I stood watch over everyone.
Kassandra spent a good thirty minutes setting up the runic effects that would neutralize the protections on the door. She double and triple checked her notes and then had both Jane and Rieka check it as well before the three women empowered different parts of the array.
The shimmering on the door faded as if someone had poured oil over it abruptly and all three of the girls gave sighs of relief.
“With reactions like that, I am a little concerned that you weren’t sure it would work,” I said warily as I stepped past the girls to check the door.
“We weren’t,” Shayla answered after I had already pressed a hand to the door and gave it a push. It swung slightly then clicked against the jamb, refusing to go further. “But it’s impossible to be really sure. We were mostly sure that it would work fine.”
“How sure?” I asked, suppressing a growl before wiggling a finger into the crack and giving the door a tug.
“Mostly,” Kassandra repeated with a cheeky grin when I turned my unimpressed look on her. “If it didn’t work, the door would have kept glowing. We were sure enough that it wouldn’t backfire, which is why we risked it.”
“Warn me next time, okay?” I got the door open far enough to get hold of it and then pulled it back, allowing the overhead lights from the station to fill the hallway.
Like most of the rest of the underground structure, it was made of smooth stone with the inset lights set high on the wall to either side. The passage turned after only four feet and vanished off to the left and out of sight.
I led the way in silently, peeking around the corner to ensure that there wasn’t anything threatening, but the tunnel only went for another ten or so feet before terminating at another metal door, this one with a heavily tarnished metal sign set in the middle with raised lettering on it.
I snorted in amusement and relaxed, the girls responding similarly to me at my actions.
“Well, what does it say?” Kassandra demanded after a long moment of waiting and I turned to smile down at my dwarf lamia.
“Potentially something really useful. I get why it was so heavily locked up though,” I said.
Kassandra pouted up at me, her slitted eyes squinting in irritation while her bottom lip stuck out in annoyance.
“What does the sign say, Liam?” my dwarf lamia demanded.
I debated teasing her more, but decided it would be better not to wind her up too much. No knowing what she might do as revenge.
“ ‘Parts Storage.’ Come on, let's have a look inside.” My words triggered thoughtful expressions on all four, but Rieka’s eyebrows went up a moment later as she likely came to the same idea as I did.
The door was locked, but it gave in to pressure from my Manipulate Element ability shaping the lock out of the way when Kassandra confirmed the door wasn’t locked.
Inside the door was another large room that had tools hanging from pegs on the walls. Plates of preformed iron rusted quietly in the corner while bins of gizmos sat beside buckets of waldos and trays of dohickies. I had no idea what any of them were for, but there was a good supply of them in here.
“I bet this is where they stored everything needed to maintain the trains. Though I’m surprised that they had it out here and not at the complex,” I muttered, poking through the tools that hung on the wall. Wrenches looked the same no matter where you went, but these were made of corroded iron and it was clear that this place had not been as well shielded from the passage of time as other locations.
“I’m not. If they dug into the mountain from here, they’d need to store supplies close at hand to run the trains back and forth. Mines work on the same purpose. You keep a set deep inside for quick repairs, but why transport everything deep if you don’t have to?” Kassandra answered from where she inspected rusty bolts in a crate by the wall.
“How do you know that?” Jane asked curiously.
“I’ve helped my parents set up operations for a few,” Kassandra responded with a shrug.
A squeal of metal on metal made us all jump and spin to look at its source.
“Found them!” Rieka crowed from one corner and all of us hurried to see what it was that the princess was talking about.
Set into the underside of one large counter was a thick, armored box. Time and rust had warped the box enough that she’d been able to force it open using one of the wrenches from the wall.
While most of the other metal in the room had been corroded by time and moisture, what lay within the locked panel glittered in the light with high polish and the oil-spill sheen of mana. Five of the strange, misshapen bars sat in slots on a faded wooden rack.
“What were those called again?” Kassandra asked and I reached in to fish out one of the silver objects and inspected it carefully. Unlike the first one I’d held, it was only lightly tarnished, so it was easy to make out the inscription on the side. I snickered and tapped the countertop with it. The mana infusion to the metal making it shimmer like a soap bubble.
“Samoflange.”