The girls and I spent the rest of the day lazing in the sun and just enjoying being in the fresh air once more. I wanted to explain to them the new power I’d gotten, but it was impossible to ignore the draw of just wanting to snuggle in the bright sunlight and savor the scent of their skin.
We had spent the last nearly forty-eight hours in a mixture of fights for our lives, and digging for treasure underground. And now we needed a break.
The only thing that the three of us did that was remotely responsible that day was going to check on the cave to ensure that Kassandra’s wardstones remained charged.
I put on pants at that point, much to the disappointment of my girls. They understood the reasoning though, since we were moving away from the camp. Both girls refused to change out of my shirts, something that pleased me greatly.
In the mid-afternoon, Rieka and Kassandra decided to spread our ‘loot’ out on a cloth to look it over and see what all we had dragged out of the ruins. For the sake of security, we decided to do it inside the tent, also so that we wouldn’t lose anything in the grass.
By unspoken agreement, we left the case of palladium coins tucked into the dimensional bag.
First laid out was the samoflange. The knobbly bit of tarnished metal glimmered dully under its tarnish. I’d taken a moment to scrub at it with a bit of soap and, while it wasn’t easy, enough of the tarnish had scrubbed away to confirm the identity of the metal as silver.
Next to the samoflange, Rieka set the four jars full of quietly vibrating elemental crystals. Three of them were nearly two-thirds full of the colored sprays of crystallized mana, and the one for earth mana was almost entirely full as Rieka had added the ones we’d recovered to the jar. She also set the empty containers down that she had taken as well, since they were also an item recovered from the ruins.
Set on the cloth next to the crystals were one of each of the deck-sized ingots of silver and gold with their ancient stamp impressed in the face.
“I’d put the weight of those bars to be around a pound each,” Rieka murmured quietly, tapping on the silver bar with one delicate finger as we all stared at them in the dim light of the tent.
I sat in the middle of the two of them, watching as Rieka reached into her bag and began counting under her breath while she sat with her back tucked into my side.
Kassandra then wriggled her way under one arm and up onto my lap so that her back pressed to my chest. She watched Rieka count with fascination, and I swear I could hear the gears turning in my redheaded lover’s mind.
“There are forty-one bars of the gold and seventy-nine of the silver,” Rieka murmured quietly while she drew her hand out of the bag.
My heart ached in my chest suddenly, while a ringing started in my ears.
The girls were talking to each other, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The sheer idea that we had pulled forty plus pounds of gold out of that ruin was making my mind boggle. I had no idea what gold was worth back home, but I could only imagine that one third of forty pounds of the stuff would be worth quite a bit.
If you can even sell it, Liam, I forcibly reminded myself with a shake of the head. It’s not like you could just walk into a bank and bang a bar of gold on the counter to deposit it. Focus on what you can do. You’ve got some ridiculous powers right now, and that is only going to get more outlandish when you cash in the points from this trip.
The hope that new powers gave me was enough to at least quash the ringing in my ears before the girls noticed my freak out.
“…lot we can do with that kind of money. I know that we can use the mana for school, but I’ll be the first to admit that I plan on investing a good chunk of my share into my lands. The season is too late to plant more trees in the orchards. But, if I start the process now, they can get land cleared and ready to expand in the spring. Also, the village would welcome the repairs to the roads and public buildings that the money can provide,” Kassandra was saying from her spot on my lap.
The serpentine woman’s hips wiggled slightly as she made herself comfortable and my arms went around her automatically to hold her in place.
“Agreed. I think expanding the local constable’s forces would be good for me, at the very least. Will you speak to your parents for me about investing in a trading caravan as well? I know that is their primary income, but diversifying will help me. Especially if I can bring more trade into the territory,” Rieka said with a serious look on her slim face. I couldn’t help but smile at how intense my wolf-eared princess was looking at the moment.
“Fair. What about the coins, though? The ones that we can liquidate.” Kassandra quickly added on the last bit to clarify when Rieka’s expression turned downward.
Instead of anger though, my princess frowned thoughtfully while stroking one hand over the loose braid she’d thrown her hair into.
“The silver we can just use and circulate normally. The gold… might be good to hold on to for the future. Spend some of it to spread it around so it doesn’t draw attention. Imprints vary all over, but the purity will tell and satisfy most merchants. The platinum coins, though?” Rieka bit her lip hard enough that her pale skin turned bone white.
“There are so few of those coins, maybe two dozen total. We can drip them into the economy, especially if I use the money changers back in the capital next time I go to visit my mother,” Rieka said after a long moment of silence.
“Then that is what we will do,” Kassandra said decisively. “I’d rather you sell them to your mother, or at least secure them in the royal vault for now.”
Rieka looked like she wanted to object, but her ears drooped and she nodded once.
“I can do that. Mother will ask what they are, to give approval. But I don’t think she will complain. Especially if I tell her it is money I am planning to invest.” Rieka turned thoughtful at this and nodded after a moment. “You should talk to your professor, see if there is anyone that they know of that collects human-era artifacts. We might spread them around that way too. Pose it as a rare find from an unnamed ruin. As long as we don’t sell more than one or two of them to an individual…”
“That’s a good way of doing it.” I joined the conversation a moment later. “I remember reading about a man who found a bunch of old, gold coins that he sold through a rare coin dealer. And it would be good to have some of them placed in a collection, or secured in a museum, too.”
“That’s a good idea. We will have to see what kind of options we can get. Part of me wants to report this to the Queen, regardless of what other secrets we might miss out on. I don’t know about you two, but I was rather concerned about something dangerous escaping out into the countryside while we were down there.” Rieka’s ears were drooping once more, and I didn’t like seeing my wolf-eared princess sad. But Kassandra spoke before I could.
“I’m not surprised that you aren’t worried about the treasure, Rieka,” Kassandra said with a grin. “And you make a good point. Why don’t we reserve judgment on that until after Liam’s lady-friend gets back to us? She’s got people checking the ruin for dangerous stuff like that freaky sack-beast that jumped us in the summoning room?”
“First of all, she’s not a lady-friend. She’s just a friend,” I protested.
“Who is a lady?” countered Kassandra. I rolled my eyes at her smirking grin and continued.
“Who is a lady. A lady who could melt my body by touching me, just like that creature’s blood was doing,” I reminded them. Rieka nodded seriously, but Kassandra’s smirk did not fade away. “But yes, that's what she said they were going to do. It wasn’t her that sent investigators, though, it was her boss.”
“Is her boss cute?” Kassandra immediately jumped on that idea, eyes twinkling madly behind her silver-rimmed spectacles.
“I can’t say I’m an excellent judge of such things, but HE is rather handsome. If you like eight-foot-tall behemoths with green skin and antlers?”
“I mean, I like tall guys? I’m firmly interested in you after all, Liam.” Kassandra’s grin remained firmly in place. “But I only have room for one giant in my coils, so you don’t have to worry.”
“I’m not a giant,” I protested, which got a snigger from both of the girls.
“Liam, you tower over me. From my perspective, you are all giants,” Kassandra snarked while shooting a meaningful look at my crotch.
“She’s right though, you are rather large compared to most men that both of us know,” Rieka said blithely before her mind caught up with what she said and her cheeks flamed with a blush.
“Anyway, I’ll check with Cariad to see what she thinks. I can see where you are coming from, Rieka. There is no reason to get greedy. We did get quite a haul from this place. And if we continue to pick through it, the Queen might get suspicious when we do eventually turn it over. But Kassandra is also right that you should get whatever resources you can out of it.”
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“WE should get the resources we can out of it,” Kassandra insisted, her face turning into a serious mask. “I know that you can’t take it back with you, Liam. But we are reserving a share of what we collect that is yours.”
“You don’t have to do that. You girls are already paying me for the service of protecting you via the SP.”
“SP that you earn from your work. This is a bonus. Don’t argue, Liam. Rieka and I agreed on this a while back. If you do end up with some way to take things back with you, then we want you to have funds as well. Worst case, it means you have money you can use while you are here.” Kassandra rolled over to squint up at me, her hands propped on her generous hips and the tip of her serpentine tail flicked irritably.
Knowing that I was over-matched at this point, I just raised my hands in surrender. Having some money on this side would be handy. And it meant that the girls would have a slush fund to buy me gear, which meant that I didn’t need to feel bad about them getting me armor now.
Not that I really need armor, I thought with a slight smile, glancing down at my arms. With a flicker of thought, I sent a ripple of red-black scales racing up my arms before returning it to skin. Going to need to experiment and do some research to find out what the best natural armor is out there, but it might be worthwhile to forgo the leather armor. It’s not like it’s helped me enough to be worth the weight anymore. I should see if there are any animals with naturally metallic skin or scales, too. Even if Earth doesn’t have them, I’ve already proven that I can adopt and adapt functions of creatures from this world. Elemental types still evade me, but I think that’s because I don’t have that elemental shift ability?
Thinking about the abilities and the points I’d earned, it reminded me that two of my three System assigned quests had been completed. Which meant I finally had the SP to pick up some of my other abilities.
Kassandra, satisfied with my lack of argument, went back to discussing with Rieka about how they might get the platinum coins with the strange imprints into the market. They both agreed that, even if they turned the information of the site over to the Queen, it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan in place. While they talked, I closed my eyes to look over my ability options.
I still had the rest of Enhance Self that I could utilize, and it would be an easy improvement to make. Before, I’d hesitated boosting it to give myself time to adjust, but that excuse was getting thin. I’d been able to get used to it on the fly before and, until Cariad got back to me, I had time to burn. I also had the points now to purchase Shape-Shifting (Mass Control), something I’d been looking forward to for a while. There was also the next rank of Manipulate Element to consider, too.
Turning the options over in my mind, I weighed them against each other. Enhance Self did not have a mastery effect, it was either done, or it wasn’t. Shape-Shifting (Moderate) still had a good chunk of its bar to fill, and having the extra mass from the (Mass Control) variant would help with that. I used Manipulate Element as a filler and support right now, so it wasn’t a tremendous boost. But I already had ideas of how I could twist it around and use it for the future to maybe earn some money back home.
Oh, quit with the debating, I chastised myself. You know exactly what you want to do. You have another sizable chunk coming when you drop the girls off, but you still have, like, half a week left before then.
Smirking, I checked my total to find that I had one-thousand and seventy SP on hand right now before I made my choices.
First, I spent eight-hundred SP to buy Shape-Shifting (Mass Control). That brought my total down to two-hundred and seventy SP. I’d considered burning it up before but hesitated. Now I was regretting that, it would have been better to have the extra strength in the ruins.
So I spent two-hundred and fifty of that for five separate instances of Enhance Self (Lesser). This left me with twenty SP remaining for now, and I considered my purchases.
Shape-Shifting (Mass Control) - Cost: 800 SP - (requires Shape-Shifting (Moderate)) Allows for the shift to affect mass of user by up to three times the stated limit in the highest tier available.
No question that one is going to be useful, I thought to myself. My current limit is half my body-mass as shifted material. Last time I weighed myself, I was two-oh-five, and not much of that was extra body-fat anymore. So a bit over three-hundred pounds of moldable mass now. I wonder what I’d look like at five-hundred pounds of efficient body-mass? Would it let me pack on an extra three-hundred pounds? It did with the smaller amounts… hmm.
The thought brought a smile to my face, and I turned my attention back to the other purchase.
Enhance Self (Lesser) - Cost: 50 SP - Increase personal stats by 5 points. These points can be spread out, up to a maximum of ten points per stat beyond (Minor) effects. May be selected multiple times. If the previous tier was not fully exploited, that opportunity is not lost. Previous tier will become unavailable once max points are allotted from it.
I’d bought it five times, so I had twenty-five points available. I knew that I’d maxed out my mental stats before, so it was purely physical stats that I could put the twenty-five points into, but that made the math easy.
Flipping back to my character sheet, where the three mental stats sat grayed out and the three physical ones were not, I considered my current stats.
Name - Liam Cosgrave
Strength - 20
Agility - 17
Fortitude - 22
Willpower - 30
Mental Acuity - 28
Wisdom - 27
I blinked at the numbers for a moment, as they had increased slightly since the last time I’d looked at them.
Pretty sure my strength and agility went up a point naturally. Maybe all that training that I’ve been doing back home? I think my wisdom went up too… school of hard knocks?
Shrugging, I slotted the points in and studied the results.
Name - Liam Cosgrave
Strength - 30
Agility - 22
Fortitude - 32
Willpower - 30
Mental Acuity - 28
Wisdom - 27
Dunno if dumping ten points each into strength and fortitude was the good call, but I feel like agility is the one I can let slide a bit since my shifting will give me the extra nimbleness I might need. Better to not let it get too far out of whack. I’ll make sure to grab the last five points for it after I get ‘paid’ when I get Kass and Rieka home at the end of the week, I thought with a satisfied smile and stretched my arms over my head.
Opening my eyes, I was about to ask the girls what they had decided with the coins when another System message raced across my vision.
Processing changes… … … Changes applied to Travelers’ body.
New neural and physical pathways are being forged.
It is recommended that the Traveler rest to allow System time to make changes.
Crap! I thought a moment too late as my head swam and I felt a ripple travel through my body, something akin to a cramp combined with an involuntary muscle twitch. It would have tipped me over backwards if the girls hadn’t snuggled up against my sides and I grimaced.
Apparently, both of my girls felt the shift and twitch from me, and they turned to look up at me in concern.
“Liam, are you okay?” Rieka was the first to speak, but Kassandra nodded rapidly in agreement with her question.
“I’m fine. I just… spent some of the SP that I’d earned already to boost my skills,” I gritted out as my muscles writhed again. “One thing I boosted was my general bodily health and strength, and it feels weird as the System is adjusting me. I need to rest.”
“Oh, well, that is no problem. Here, you pack this up Rieka and I’ll make sure Liam is comfortable!” Kassandra said quickly, gesturing to the piled loot laying on the floor of the tent.
Rieka nodded in agreement and began to pack the jars of crystals, ingots, and boxes of coins back into her dimensional sack. Meanwhile, Kassandra slithered around until she was behind me and tugged me to crawl backwards until I was amongst the nest of bedding again.
“Okay, now to make sure you are plenty comfortable, Liam,” purred Kassandra.
I was about to ask her what she meant when my serpentine lover rapidly unlaced her under-bust corset and tossed it aside, before unbuttoning the russet-brown top she’d been wearing.
When the milky curves of her full breasts danced into view, I lost track of what protest or question I might have had. When she wriggled around so that she was laying against the piled pillows and drew me down to pillow my head on her soft chest, I stopped caring as the soft feeling against my head banished all other concerns.
“There we go, Liam. You rest and recover. Rieka and I can use this time to review our notes and figure out what we can report on this. Until we get the all-clear from your friend, then we can’t even go back in. And at this point, hunting for alchemical components feels a bit… lackluster with what we already recovered,” Kassandra purred happily, stroking my hair.
“Fair. Love you, Kass,” I murmured, grimacing when another twitch ran through my legs this time.
“Love you too, Liam. Now get comfy and relax.”
“You spend enough time looking after the two of us. Let us look after you,” Rieka murmured as she knee-walked up to me before turning to curl up against my side.
The platinum blonde settled in to use my chest as a pillow while she folded her legs up to lean a notebook against them. She began making notes on the parchment inside the leather-bound book while humming thoughtfully.
Without thinking, I set my hand on her head and began stroking her fluffy ears gently, like Kassandra was lightly finger-combing my hair. Rieka cooed happily at the touch.
Snuggled up with my girls, I let myself relax and drift off into a nap as my body began to shift and change to accommodate my improved stats. Just before I fell asleep, I reminded myself to explain the communication power with the girls when I woke up next.