Seeing visions as I was dragged through the dimensional membranes by the power of the summoning was normal. I’d gotten used to seeing bare snippets of impossible scenes. Everything from impossible cityscapes, to massive rolling forests, to soaring mountains.
This was the first time I’d seen space, though.
Swirling nebulae in pinks, purples, and oranges raced past. A twinkle of light off of metal made me think I’d seen some vast ship as it cruised through the depths of space. But before I could even fully conceptualize what I was seeing, I felt the impact in my ankles of landing on the other side.
My vision swirled slightly as the flashing lights and colors cleared, but I could clearly remember what I’d seen. My improved mental scores had gone to work and recorded it all for me. A massive ship, shaped somewhat like a scale, weaving amongst the twisting nebulae and dragging streamers of light behind it in its wake.
The happy squeal of my shortest lover shook me out of the contemplation of the vision only a second before Kassandra crashed into me.
“Liam! Missed you so much!” the lithe dwarf-lamia cheered as she threw herself into my arms.
I’d been expecting the assault, as this was fairly normal for Kassandra, so I braced as soon as my feet touched down. Thankfully, she was coming at me from the front. I was able to catch the several hundred pounds of flying dwarf-lamia and turn with the motion to bleed off her momentum.
Kassandra used this opportunity to wrap the fourteen plus feet of scaled tail around my hips a few times, clinging to me while her arms went around my neck and hauled me into a kiss. I didn’t exactly fight it, happy to have her in my arms again.
“Hello, Nugget. Missed you too,” I murmured once our kiss ended, shifting my grip to support her against my hip while her tail squeezed me rhythmically in a continuing hug.
Using her pet name, one I’d given her because she was both ‘small and precious to me’, made her grin widen even more. Kassandra’s slitted brown eyes sparkled behind her silver-rimmed glasses, which she straightened now that she had greeted me. The mass of her red-brown hair in its bombshell curls bounced happily while she continued to cling to me.
“Kass, that was very rude you know.” Rieka’s voice came from just behind me and I turned to find my platinum-blonde princess pretending to glower at the two of us. Before I could say anything, Rieka continued. “You know that I was the one to summon him this time. So I should get to greet him first.”
“You snooze, you lose. He’s our Liam after all,” Kassandra replied primly, though she couldn’t hide the devilish grin that was creasing her cheeks as she snuggled in closer to me.
To prevent a fight, even a playful one, from breaking out between the two of them, I shifted to open my right side and held my arm out to her.
Rieka took the invitation, tucking herself into my side and laying her head on my shoulder.
“Missed you, my princess,” I murmured quietly into one of the black-dusted peaks of her pale wolf’s ears. The ear flicked delicately as my breath tickled the soft interior, and Rieka blushed.
“Missed you too, my Liam. While I appreciate being able to talk to you with the power, I still missed you a lot,” she said quietly, and I felt a soft pressure on my throat when she kissed me there.
I didn’t expect even that from my princess, given that she was more shy than Kassandra and also more aware of her station. Rieka tended to express herself more fully when we were not being observed. Given that they had summoned me to the same arena as before for a class, I knew that this was not anywhere near private enough for her.
Glancing around while hugging my girls, I surveyed the arena and the different clumps of students. The majority of them were standing alone with a summon of some kind, either standing near or perched on them. A few groups stood together with a singular larger summon nearby.
People had brilliantly colored birds, lizards, and other flying creatures flitting about near them. Some had wolves, cats, and other terrestrial animals either sitting or prancing about their group. All of those present had some kind of obvious elemental alignment, from feathers or fur made of fire to stony plates of armor to mist or water clinging to them.
There were a few that had the more advanced elements. I saw two girls standing with a black panther that had six legs and electricity coursing through its fur, and a trio with a turtle that appeared to have magma flowing over the surface of its shell but not actually dripping off.
“So, how long do we have?” I asked, refusing to give up my grip on the girls. “Also, where is Shayla? I figured she’d be here.”
“She’s currently excused from this portion of the class, as she joined it late. The official reason is so that she can take the time to prepare a ritual to summon a partner, but she’s actually painting, I think.” Rieka was the one to answer me, her words tickling my neck slightly. “She’ll perform the ritual to summon you this weekend. We already have the room reserved in the basement of Rue House to do it. With your full name, it should be no problem. If you are okay with us telling her?”
Rieka bit her lip hesitantly and her ears wilted slightly, clearly worried I would say no as they had laid these plans without me.
I fought the urge to immediately tell her that it was okay and I didn’t mind, instead considering her request. The girls had told me before that names had power. As a Traveler, if a summoner had my full name, then they could compel me to appear. This was much like the legends around demons and the like.
I’d accidentally given them my full name during our first summoning. And because they’d had it, it was cheaper for my girls to summon me again, but they had not really ever compelled me. It didn’t hurt that my girls were trustworthy either.
“Are there other ways to target the summon?” I asked after a moment of thought.
“If you are okay leaving a bit of blood or some hairs behind, we can use that instead. I just want to make sure that Shayla ends up summoning you. We can’t do it for her and have her bond with you. For it to take properly, she has to summon something herself.” Kassandra was the one to answer this time.
My mischievous noodle leaned back while keeping her coils wrapped around me, adjusting her glasses with one hand while she tugged her underbust corset back into place after her vigorous greeting had caused the garment to shift. This had the effect of making her full bust bounce distractingly, because of course she’d worn a loose shirt with an open bodice.
I swear that she does things like that intentionally just to see if she can get me to blow a mental fuse and start drooling.
“How do others join groups?” I asked, glancing around the room in search of the instructors to see how long we had.
The last thing I wanted to do was reduce my girls’ reputation by being too familiar with them in front of people of authority. Though I doubted Kassandra cared much, or that I’d be able to persuade her to ‘dismount’ until the last possible moment. Already we were getting a few odd looks from the other classmates.
“Usually that same way. The summon is called and they leave behind a token, which is then used as the focus. It’s not as efficient as using the summon’s full name, but it works just fine,” Rieka answered.
Her ears still sat wilted on top of her head. So, once I confirmed if I was in the clear, I used the hand that I had wrapped around her shoulders to reach up and rub the base of those ears.
Rieka reacted immediately, slumping into me with a happy noise. Her tail began to swish back and forth behind her, a fluffy mass of blonde hair with its dark tip glimmering like it had been dipped in ink.
“Do you two trust Shayla?” I asked, not stopping the gentle stimulation I was giving Rieka’s ears.
“Yeah, she’s a good sort. I doubt she’d ever use the information to harm you. The mere fact that you trust her with the information would make her blush as much as Rieka is right now,” Kassandra teased lightly, getting a one-eyed glare from Rieka, though Kassandra was right and a flush was riding high on her cheeks.
“Princess?” I asked, prompting her to add her two cents.
“I trust her. I’ve met plenty of folks who hide their intentions in my mother’s court, and she gives none of those signs,” Rieka mumbled, turning to bury her face in my shoulder while her tail continued to stir the air behind her.
“Then just give her my full name and use that,” I decided with a sigh. “I trust you two more than anything else. And if you trust her, then that is good enough for me.”
We continued to make small talk for a few more minutes until the instructors got back around to us. It was the same two instructors that I remembered from last time.
Instructor Meadowsong, an elf woman with brown hair kept in a severe bun and dressed from neck to ankles in a gray wool dress, this time with blue embroidery, scowled when she saw me. Beside her was Instructor Rainfist, a cat kin man with short black hair on his head and tail with the tip splotched in white and dressed in a simple tunic and pants combo in a forest green.
“Good morning to you three,” Rainfist stepped forward ahead of his scowling companion. “Princess Coldeye, Lady Silverscale, Traveler Liam. It is good to see you are ready for the general testing. At the moment, we are just making the rounds to ensure everyone is ready before we start running folks through the stations.”
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Kassandra and Rieka both nodded to both of the instructors, with Rieka untangling herself from me to stand neatly next to me. Kassandra refused to give up her post pretending to be my belt though, as I had figured.
“I expect proper decorum during the testing,” the grouchy Meadowsong interjected, subtly glaring at Kassandra while my loving noodle ignored the instructor.
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Rainfist said calmly, doing his best to take the conversation back over. The slender cat kin gave me a once over and nodded. “It’s obvious at a glance that you have been training, Traveler Liam. I apologize in advance that some tests might be a bit… demeaning for someone of your obvious intelligence. The school had set them with the traditional summon in mind and we are required to perform them in order to check it off as complete.”
“Can’t be worse than some of the stuff I had to deal with at my last job,” I said with a slight shrug. “I just hope that Instructor Meadowsong will remember our words from last time.” I turned my gaze from the polite cat man to the slightly seething elf woman.
Instructor Meadowsong glared back at me for a long second before something changed and she blanched slightly, her face going a bit pale.
“Yes,” the elf woman stammered. “Of course I remember. Ladies, make sure that your human is kept under control. Your scores will suffer if he goes wild.”
“He won’t as long as he’s treated with respect, like most summoned beings of power,” Kassandra replied primly, looking down her nose at the instructor from the greater height of being wrapped around me. It was clearly novel for her, being this tall, and she was enjoying it.
Remain calm while you are being examined for your bonded companion’s class.
Reward - 300 SP
The flare of the words flashing into my vision distracted me for a moment as the System decided that this was when it would offer me the next mission for the girls.
That’s… interesting. I remember the last time I was here for a class it was only one hundred SP. Does that mean that it is going to be harder to maintain my calm? Or is the System just upping my rewards because of power scaling? I thought while Kassandra and Rieka received their instructions regarding the next steps for their class.
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It was actually quite a bit harder to maintain my patience in the following hour. The least demeaning thing that the instructors asked me to do was to allow them to scan me with the same type of divination magic to ascertain my relative stat scores and power levels.
The appreciative whistle from Rainfist and another dismayed look from Meadowsong was all that I needed to know that I was improving nicely in their eyes. I knew exactly what my numbers were after all.
From there, I was expected to navigate through a short obstacle course at the direction of my summoners.
This was something that made sense for the lower intelligence animals that some summoners had. The obstacle course actually tripped up a few of them too. The trio of wolf kin with their armored, burrowing monster actually failed this section, as the massive creature just plowed through the obstacles.
Then I went through a series of basic attacks and commands at the direction of each of the girls. I noticed that they both did not ask me for the more dangerous or esoteric combinations of Shape-Shifting that I had used recently in the underground complex, which made sense as we wanted to keep back some things for the actual competition.
When my turn was done, the instructors released us to observe with the rest of the class. Several of the other summoners had dismissed their companions, while most had kept theirs with them to observe the competition.
Kassandra had been forced to leave her position pretending to be part of my pants earlier. As soon as I settled onto the bench up in the stands, she snuggled up against my side. Her tail twined around my left leg while she tucked herself under my arm. Rieka hesitated at first, but at Kassandra’s urging, she took my right and settled in happily against me.
“Thank you, Liam,” Rieka murmured as we watched Jane direct her wind sprite through the obstacle course down below. “I honestly wasn’t sure what they were going to be testing, but that had to be really demeaning. I will make it up to you.”
“Don’t sweat it.” I brushed her concerns aside while using the arm over her shoulders to squeeze her in a gentle hug, making the wolf woman eep in surprise and smother a giggle. “I’d do far more to help you two. If it bothered me, I would have declined. You know that.”
“Communication is one of the pillars,” Kassandra opined, rubbing her cheek against my chest. “I like this shirt, Liam. You smell a lot nicer now that you aren’t working in that nasty warehouse all the time.”
“Yeah, I attribute that to the conditions. My apartment may not be sprawling, but it is comfortable and clean. Also, my stress levels have been a lot lower since I got free of that cesspit.” I bent to press a kiss to the top of Kassandra’s head, making the dwarf lamia giggle and squeeze me with her tail lightly.
“Have you had any breakthroughs with that? I got more information on the shimmer-nest conch if you need it?” Kassandra peeked up at me through her bangs, a cute smile on her face while her little button nose wrinkled.
“Yeah, I was able to successfully use Shape-Shifting to replicate it and produce some pearls. I also discovered that I can mold metal, slowly, with Manipulate Element as it qualifies as something from the earth. Between those two, I can start making jewelry and selling that. I just have to get some licensing stuff taken care of.”
“That’s amazing, Liam. Could you make us something if we got you the materials?” Rieka asked, her ears perking up while her ice-blue eyes sparkled intently up at me.
“Sure. I just can’t…” I paused as a thought crossed my mind. “I wonder… if I have the shift going when I transfer back, will it also transfer the pearls? And if that works, is it possible to encase some of the local metal in the same way and use that to get it through the whole ‘only transports you and your clothes’ limitation?”
Kassandra hummed thoughtfully, her head tilting back and forth like a rocking horse as she considered it. Rieka was quicker to answer, concern on her aristocratic features.
“That is an idea, but would you get in trouble doing it? You are trying to circumvent the guidelines of this System you keep talking about.”
“Yeah, but I don’t plan on using it to bring a ton of stuff back and forth. I just want to use it to bring some small stuff along with me. I still can’t bring a boatload of treasure with me back to sell, as I’d still run into the same problem of liquidating it. But if I could get one of those unmarked bars we got? I could pinch pieces off of it to make the jewelry, that’d save me time and mana too.”
“I’m with Rieka on this. I worry that you would get in trouble for trying to work around the rules. But a benign test would be either going back with some pearls you made while here, or bringing some with you while you are on the other side. That still wouldn’t entirely confirm it works, since they’d be ‘part’ of you for a bit, but the core of the pearl would be whatever you collected. Hrm…” Kassandra went back to thinking intently, picking at her lower lip with two fingers while she thought.
“I’m still surprised that you can mold metal. I guess it makes sense since you could do it with stone before,” Rieka took up the conversation as we watched Jane finish her examination and retreat into the crowd, her summon vanishing in a swirl of smoke as soon as she was declared done. The mouse kin woman flopped onto a seat in a lower tier, looking exhausted and worried.
“I am too, but since the System awarded me that free tier of Mana Reservoir, it is a little easier to work with. Costs a lot of energy to do even small things, but it’s not like I’m using it for much of anything else.” I shrugged again, careful to not dislodge my cuddling lovers.
“Are you still at the minor tier for Manipulate Element?” Rieka asked, her ears perking up slightly.
“Yeah, I didn't see a reason to use the points. I’m at a low enough tide that I was thinking of getting the Empower Reservoir power instead, that way I can discharge the mana into something here to defray the costs for you two.”
“No, don’t do that,” Kassandra interjected into the conversation. “You should get your next tier of Manipulate Element, since it’s going to be used for your livelihood. It’ll be easy to slowly train it up doing that after all, and we are still flush with mana after our little adventure. You should be thinking more about ensuring you are stable first. You’ve done enough to help us along. Remember to focus on yourself, Liam.”
Kassandra’s intense gaze digging into the side of my head made me nod quickly in understanding and acceptance, not wanting to argue with her. She spoke up again a moment later, interrupting my thinking that I could just hold off.
“And don’t hesitate. You should get it now so that any practice you do while here will count. I have this sneaking suspicion that you planned to just not tell us and keep the lower rank.”
Kassandra’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses as she stared at me. I couldn’t help the wry grin before leaning down to boop her nose lightly with mine before dropping a kiss there too.
“You know me too well, Nugget. Okay, I’ll do it your way,” I whispered.
Kassandra let out a low whine when I started to back up without kissing her on the lips. So I returned to do that, getting an enthusiastic response from my dwarf lamia, before straightening.
I mentally accessed my interface and navigated to the power she suggested. Kassandra did have a point that it would be foolish to avoid the chance to train the new rank and it might help with the efficiency of the spell work. Also, with the extra chunk of SP I was earning today, it would balance out quickly.
Manipulate Element (Lesser) - Cost: 400 SP - User has expanded control of one of their chosen elements. This can be selected multiple times to improve companion elements.
Selecting the ability, it glittered for a moment and my count of current SP reduced from fifteen hundred and seventy to eleven hundred and seventy remaining.
With the ability filling in, I could see that it had two distinct branches coming off of it. One that followed the normal structure that would be the next rank, the tier of moderate like my Shape-Shifting was currently. There was also another that branched off to one side like the powers that enhanced the base structure did, like Shape-Shifting (Mass-Control) and Shape-Shifting (Elemental Alignment).
“There we go. Picked it up and I’ll start training it when I work on getting stable back home. Happy?” I smiled down at Kassandra and got her open, loving grin in return.
“Good boy, Liam,” she said sweetly. “We will get you thinking about yourself more often soon.” Any further conversation was interrupted by a loud voice from down on the floor of the arena.
“All right, class. That is everyone. You are dismissed for the rest of the period.” Instructor Rainfist stood towards the center of the pit down below us, calling up to those seated in the stands. “Remember, you have four weeks of time until the actual competition. Don’t get lazy, as the scores from that will make up a large portion of this quarter’s grades!”
“Let’s head back to my room,” Rieka suggested, her tail picking up in speed. “We still have another few hours on the summon yet, and we can spend that relaxing somewhere comfortable.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kassandra chirped, unwinding herself from my leg.
Both my girls turned expectant gazes to me and I just smiled, nodding in agreement as words of light flared across my vision.
Remain calm while you are being examined for your bonded companion’s class.
Reward - 300 SP
COMPLETED