It didn’t take long for Kassandra to get the door resealed and us back up into the sunlight. Since this was the second time she’d done it and had the additional help from the new girls. Shayla stuck close, refining her sketches and visual records of what she’d seen.
When everyone was out of the cave and I’d sealed up the opening once more, we all trooped back down the mountain towards the road and back home. The girls moved in formation, with Jane and Kassandra chattering away about the potential historical significance of the ruins and what they hoped to learn. Rieka kept pace with me, striking up a conversation with Shayla off and on while the moth woman continued to lightly cling to the back of my right arm.
“I’m both looking forward to the end of semester competition and dreading it,” Shayla admitted while we worked our way through the trees and onto the road. “I know that Liam will do well, but I also don’t want him to get hurt, either.”
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured the moth woman gently. “I’ve been working on more than a few ideas of how I can utilize my Shape-Shifting ability. When I get home, I’m also going to pour more of my points into boosting my stats as high as I can before the competition. I’m already pretty sure that I will have no problem with it.”
“Confidence is good, but you know the perils of overconfidence, so I won’t restate them,” Rieka cautioned, shooting me a cute smile while her ears bounced in time with her steps. “Not that you need to worry, Liam. You have every right to be confident in yourself, given what I saw when you came to me and my mother’s rescue the other day.”
“Any luck finding out what was going on with that? Or the other issues you’ve had?” I asked, getting a sad shake of the head from her.
“No, the only reason my mother isn’t insisting I always have a guard with me at the moment is because I have you. Your actions that day impressed her quite a bit, so she is trusting my safety to you.” Rieka said the last part with a bright wink towards me.
“I do my best.” I returned her wink before slinging an arm around Rieka’s waist to pull her into my side in a hug before releasing her so she didn’t stumble. The wolf-eared princess giggled, skipping a step further away from me to stay further out of range.
“How can we best support Liam, then?” Shayla asked, her head tilting to the right and both fluffy fronds of her antennae stretching out towards me before relaxing.
“Summon him as often as possible,” Kassandra chirped from further ahead, shifting to lean back even as she slithered forward, until her back arched so sharply that her head was nearly upside down. This caused gravity to snatch hold of her glorious assets and threaten to have them fall right out of her top. As it was, I spotted the rosy curve of a nipple starting to slip free.
“Only as you can afford. I know Liam well enough that he’d feel bad if you put yourself in a financial bind by spending too much,” added Rieka seriously. “We told you before, you can communicate with Liam via the bond you now share. So we can figure out a schedule that works best for everyone and then let him know. The important thing is going to be clearly stating what you need from him with as much detail when you summon him—”
“Right!” Kassandra interrupted again, still not straightening, but she did reach up with both hands to keep her breasts from tumbling free of her top. “Our Liam is such a good person that he’ll just jump right in to do what you need if he sees it, but he won’t get rewarded unless we tell him what we need.”
“They are right,” I added to the explanation. “The rules are different, since I’m not a normal summon. As a Traveler, I have a different set of rules and guidelines that I follow. I don’t know exactly how it works for a regular summon, but mine revolve around completing those tasks that Rieka and Kass mentioned. For example…”
I let the sentence trail off and closed my eyes to bring up my System interface. The Contracts tab was one that I didn’t reference much, since I usually completed things as soon as they came up. But I still had one job open currently, the one that I’d gotten the previous day when we headed out here.
“So what my current job is to: ‘Assist your contracted companions, Kassandra Silverscale, Rieka Coldeye, Shayla Valo, and Jane Carsan, with initial training and introduction to the Ruined Human Research Complex and return them home safely.’ Which means that as soon as we get back to campus, it should mark as complete and award me the System Points that I use to acquire abilities.”
“What qualifies as a task?” Shayla asked, tugging lightly on my sleeve to get my attention.
I spared a moment to be amused at how ridiculous a thought it was that I could possibly ignore the over six foot tall buxom moth woman that was walking only inches away from me before I answered.
“It can be just about anything. The system awards points based on complexity and danger of tasks, though only up to a certain threshold, which is the maximum potential ‘share’ I could earn from being called. That is based on the mana cost to summon me, if what I’ve been told is accurate. I think the simplest task I’ve been given was helping Kass and Rieka plan which missions to take for a longer trip later in the week. That and helping warm Kass up,” I said the last part with a smirk to the dwarf lamia, who returned it with a wide grin of her own before straightening.
“That was one of the better moments surrounding my nearly freezing to death.” Kassandra’s comment got concerned noises from Jane and Shayla, so she expounded on what had happened to both of them.
While we walked, I snagged Rieka’s hand when she returned to walking close to my side. The wolf-eared princess shot me a curious look and then blushed lightly when I blew her a kiss.
<><><>
We returned to Juneau without any further issues. No ambushes along the road, no signs of monsters, or even anything at all. The road was calm and quiet, something that Rieka said indicated the Hunt and Trade hall was hard at work keeping things safe and monster populations down. I thought it was a good and a bad thing, as the contracts we’d taken in the past to hunt down specific monsters had been the most lucrative ones, but Rieka and Kassandra were both flush with cash at the moment.
I got the girls back to their dorm buildings. All four of them were actually staying in Rue House, to my surprise, but apparently even Shayla had selected to live there. She’d explained it as hoping to eventually bond with a summon who could convey to her the images of its home so she could render them in her paintings.
Once we actually arrived back at Juneau, though, the System sent me an alert stating my mission was now complete and I was up another twelve-hundred points.
I gave all four of the girls goodbyes, the degree of which depended on the girl. Kassandra and Rieka got kisses. Shayla, to my surprise, accepted a hug. Jane had returned to her more nervous attitude, so I gave her a polite bow and kissed the back of her hand when she offered it to me.
When I was leaning back and saw the surprised look on her slim features, I realized she’d been expecting a handshake, but it was too late to do it now. It didn’t look like Jane objected to my actions, though, based on the faint reddening of her cheeks.
Just before I left, I activated one of my new abilities. I’d forgotten about it until the system had sent me the award message for the mission, then I kicked myself for not practicing it during our trip. I used the Ward Companion ability and laid it on each of the girls, explaining what it was, and they all expressed gratitude over the idea that I’d be made aware if something threatened one of them. This would allow me to alert one of the others if the one threatened didn’t summon me immediately.
“Seriously, that has a lot of potential,” Rieka muttered, staring at one of her hands after the glow from the effect faded. “Even if it’s just some kind of magical alert. I wish you had a way to teach folk some of these powers. I’d feel a lot safer if my mother’s guards had something similar.”
“I’ll look into it,” I promised my princess, getting a happy smile and a wag from her plush tail. “You four look out for each other while I’m gone. Don’t hesitate to call me if you need me for anything though. I’m at your service.”
With a final kiss from Kassandra, this one she initially tried to press to the front of my pants but I recognized the mischief in her eyes and kneeled to give her a safer target for being in public, Rieka made the requisite spell gestures to send me home.
<><><>
The next two weeks passed in a blur. The girls would summon me every other day for whatever task they could come up with.
Everything from spell training with Kassandra so I could be her space-heater, working with Jane to improve her very basic understanding of earth magic, helping Rieka with her ‘homework’ by doting on her, and talking with Shayla to describe some of the scenes that I’d seen while traveling between the worlds.
It was the last one that confused me the most. I’d offered several times to act as a model for her, given that it was clearly something that she had wanted in the past. But the shy moth woman had demurred each time, blushing rather fiercely in response to my suggestion but never outright refusing, just delaying.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The repeated summons brought with them a trickle of SP, usually fifty to a hundred points per event as they weren’t particularly difficult or dangerous, but because each of my partners summoned me at least once a week, I’d racked up another eight hundred SP in those first two of the four weeks until the summoning competition. That pushed me well past the three thousand SP available mark.
I’d decided already to finish off my stat increases. The day I got back from the trip with the girls, I tapped the last three uses of the Enhance Self (Moderate) power to finish maxing out all six of my stats for that tier. I hadn’t maxed any of them yet, which would have triggered the unlock for the next tier of Enhance Self, so that allowed me to plan what to do with the rest of the points.
Thankfully, the changes were minor enough and spread out such that I didn’t trigger another angry visit from Cariad, either. Adding ten points to each of my stats just left me couch-bound for a few hours.
Name - Liam Cosgrave
Strength - 80
Agility - 77
Fortitude - 82
Willpower - 80
Mental Acuity - 78
Wisdom - 77
I’d spent a bit of time thinking about how amusing it was to remember myself only a few short months previous, back when five points of extra strength had been such a huge thing. Even now, I was pretty sure I could handily bench my truck, though I had to resist the urge to go try. My luck, I’d tear the bumper off or something.
The System, being the helpful little monster that it was, promptly showered me with the next idea that it could come up with to get me to spend more points, as well as dropping an additional alert, too.
New Powers available in the System interface.
Congratulations, Traveler.
Enhance Self (Major) - Cost: 1250 SP - Increase personal stats by 60 points, can be spread out at once, up to a maximum of two-hundred and fifty points per stat beyond (Moderate) 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.
Before I could do more than goggle at the idea of a single purchase of this power adding sixty points to a single stat, the additional alert flashed with even more fanfare.
Congratulations, Traveler.
You have passed a major threshold in the System store.
By expending more than ten-thousand points total, you have shown commitment to your role as a Traveler.
In appreciation, the System will be granting you one power, selected at random, from the following available to you:
Enhance Self (Major)
Shape-Shifting (Elemental Alignment)
Drain Reservoir
Empower Reservoir
Stand by for selection.
Just like before, it gave me only a moment to think over what I’d seen before it populated with the results. I did have time to think that if I could figure out when these thresholds were coming, I might be able to trick the System into giving me an expensive power for free. Which, I would later wonder, might be why it selected the one it did.
Congratulations Traveler.
The System has awarded you: Shape-Shifting (Elemental Alignment).
May it serve you well going forward.
Shape-Shifting (Elemental Alignment) - Cost: 0 SP (Threshold Reward) - (Requires Manipulate Element of some form to provide elemental energy.) Allows for the inclusion of elemental effects to the animal forms created with Shape-Shifting, though no spells are usable, allowing elemental damage via natural weapons.
One of the first things I had to do as soon as the changes settled was to test the new power to make sure that it didn’t somehow force my Manipulate Element earth magic to always affect my shifts.
Thankfully, it just added an extra effect. I could, with a small cost in mana, add additional effects to my Shape-Shifting. It allowed for denser armor, adding stone or metallic elements to the shift without it costing extra mass by instead substituting mana. So I tucked the ability away as something to experiment with and tried not to kick myself for hesitating on the cheap power earlier, which caused it to waste my System award.
For the next two weeks, any time I wasn’t with the girls, training with Cerebaton, or experimenting with my Manipulate Element ability to make jewelry samples, I was working on my Shape-Shifting. I didn’t know what the next rank would cost, but I knew it would be a fair chunk. After the burn of getting an ability that I vaguely remembered only cost two-hundred SP as a ‘threshold reward,’ I didn’t want to hesitate.
From what I had observed of the abilities as the System further refined itself, I had two more major ranks of Shape-Shifting after the one I was working on currently. And given how big the jump in available mass had been with the current rank, I was anxious to see what it might unlock. But the mastery bar for the ability stubbornly remained around nine hundred and twenty of a thousand, not moving a single point up the entire week of practice.
Unlike my Shape-Shifting ability, my Manipulate Element and Mana Reservoir both gained quite a bit, with Mana Reservoir three-fourths of the way through its mastery bar for the lesser tier, and Manipulate Element actually hitting mastery.
Unfortunately for me, I had been knee deep in another of the local creeks using Manipulate Element to call gold into my hand. The sudden flash of light around my vision startled me badly enough that I’d slipped and fallen face-first into the icy water, soaking myself to the bone.
I’d managed to keep hold of the walnut-sized lump of gold dust and flakes, but it broke my concentration.
When I stopped flailing about and got back to my feet, I’d stomped out of the river and dripped my way back to the truck, cramming the gold into my Dimensional Pocket ability in the meantime to keep it safe. Which was good because my screams and profanity had attracted the attention of a bicycle cop, who proceeded to question me as to what I’d been doing in the creek.
Once I’d satisfied the officer’s nosy disposition and gotten my soaked self into my old rig, I’d read over the alert.
Power Manipulate Element (Lesser) has achieved Mastery 1000/1000.
New Powers available in the System interface.
Congratulations, Traveler.
“Great,” I muttered while swiping chill water from my eyes and cranking the heater on the old truck as high as I could. I was sitting on the old wool blanket I kept in the truck for emergencies to keep from soaking the seat at the moment. “I wonder if there is a power unlocked to get rid of being soaked.”
Even though I knew I should wait until I got home and got changed, I couldn’t help but dig through the menus to the Powers tab and see what had been unlocked.
The first ability that I found was the next rank of the Manipulate Element power I was familiar with.
Manipulate Element (Moderate) - Cost: 1600 SP - User has achieved competency with one of their chosen elements.
Manipulate Elements (Minor) can now be used to select opposing elements though they cannot increase more than two levels below highest element (Ex - If fire is Moderate and Earth lesser, caster may select Water for Minor but not Air as Earth is only at Lesser).
This can be selected multiple times for alternate elements.
“Handy, I suppose. It means once I take that one, I can unlock the other three to at least have access to them, but it does limit which ones I want to be stronger. Still, access is access. Dunno if I’ll make much use of that. Earth does everything I need it to and the girls have a good handle on the other elements,” I muttered, thinking it over. It would be beneficial to take still, since Rachel Cedarfall had asked me to train her as well, and by having all four elements to use, I could potentially train the girls better too.
Something to consider later, I thought and set the idea aside. I still don’t have the SP yet to mess around, and the only power I’ve really bottlenecked on is Shape-Shifting. I wonder if I should use the pure mana crystals to try to boost it? Would that be the smart play right now with the tournament looming?
While I considered it, I flipped down and read over the other ability that had unlocked.
Manipulate Element (Primal) - Cost: 800 SP - Select Light, Dark, Time, Entropy. User may add them to the list available at Minor level and improve as normal. The opposing element of one chosen is forever lost.
May be chosen one additional time for one of the second set of opposing elements.
“Huh… that’s actually pretty cool,” I muttered, twisting the knob on the heater to blast a bit more hot air over my chilled skin. “I know the girls talked about how Shayla having light magic was a big thing, since it was primal magic. I definitely need to talk to them about this…”
Even with my eyes closed, my attention drifted back to the different options for primal magic.
Light, Dark, Time, and… Entropy?