Chapter 18

Welcome back!

It had been forever since I did one of these when I put it at the beginning of Just a Sip and I’d forgotten how much I miss it. This really is the only means I have of conversing with all of my readers at once. So ... I’m going to leave all of the Patreon stuff in the note at the bottom of the chapter but keep what you see below for the new readers. On with the chapter!

For those of you reading The Runesmith Chronicles for the first time I recommend starting with the first book, Oni and the Farmer. Mostly so you have a better understanding of how things like the magic system works and what’s going on as I often reference earlier chapters/books.

Edited/Proofread by - oldfart and 2muchdiggity

Kal sighed with exasperation at the vendor. “This only goes up to Lantaris, not beyond,” he said, his voice barely above a growl as he held up the map he’d just purchased.

“Then pick one up in Lantaris when you get there. All my maps stop at the city anyway. You’ve seen the map now, so you aren’t getting your silver back,” snapped the merchant before waving off the mage and his hooded companion.

Kal hardly cared about the silver. He was more annoyed that the map stopped at the church’s home city and didn’t show any of the geography beyond. From Ikuno’s stories, he had an idea of what to look for when searching for Prentas’s Tower and had hoped that a map of the area would give him some clues about where to start.

Grumbling under his breath he rolled the map back up and stuck one end inside Ria’s bag. The merchant started when the parchment disappeared as if dropped into a hole.

A good number of the hawkers in this town were at least passingly familiar with bags of holding and their avatars. This was in large part because it was on the main trading road and ran from the Eastern Ocean all the way west, supposedly until it ran into the ocean there as well. This particular town was also at the crossroads where the road from the dwarven kingdom ran south all the way to the Southern Ocean. On the way, it passed through the capital of the small kingdom Telsin resided in.

A bag of holding’s avatar was typically ignored until needed. However, Ria’s new look was unusual enough to cause quite a stir and draw a lot of unwanted attention. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if Kal were alone, but they didn’t need anyone looking too closely at the female figure next to him with the hood of her travel cloak pulled over her face. After everything he had put the gorgon through, he felt guilty leaving Sera by herself as he went into the town and got supplies.

With so many people curious about what was under the woman’s hood, the situation nearly got out of hand if not for an unexpected savior in the form of a small child. The young girl looked up into the gorgon’s hood and loudly asked what was wrong with her face. Kal quickly drew Sera up into his arms so she could hide against him while explaining to the child that it was from an accident many years ago and that she didn’t like people staring at her because of it. In a bit of quick thinking, he also mentioned that he wouldn’t do business with those who tried to get a peek. Since he had already bought quite a bit, news spread through the market like wildfire and the remainder of the merchants they visited acted like the hooded woman next to him didn’t even exist.

That was also when Ria decided that she would stay out of sight unless he got something that he couldn’t place in her bag. Even then, she would store the item and immediately follow the speck of light into the leather pouch.

The butcher was especially excited with Kal as the mage nearly bought out his entire stock. Hunting on the road wasn’t difficult by any means, but after the encounter with the will-o’-wisp, Kal’s taste for the activity had soured somewhat. Out of juvenile spite, he also purchased the entirety of the butcher’s meager offerings of elk meat. One way or another he would find out what it tasted like.

The butcher’s shop held a surprise for the mage. A cool room.

Cool rooms weren’t really all that exciting. Telsin’s butcher had a large shack out behind his shop that had been covered in clay and earth to keep the temperature stable. It was there that he hung various meats to age and it was always at a significantly lower temp than the outside air during the summer. What this butcher had was a step above that. His wasn’t a cool room but a cold room.

Since Kal made no effort to hide that he was a magic-user, part of his payment was to recharge the mechanism keeping the outbuilding’s temperature down. The young wizard was extremely excited, hoping to see some ice magic in this seemingly innocuous stone cylinder.

He was disappointed. The rune was actually fire based and only served to gather the heat from the air around it on one side and expel it from a complementary rune on the other. It was similar to how the air collection system on his leather mask worked but exchanged only heat and not the air itself.

“The wizard who made these said something I’ve never quite understood,” said the butcher as he unlocked the metal holder the stone cylinder was in. “Since you are so interested in them, I thought you might be able to tell me what it means.”

Kal took the runed piece of stone gingerly. “What’s that?” he asked, hoping that the butcher might leave him alone for a few seconds so he could take a closer look at it while making his eyes glow.

“There is no such thing as cold, only a lack of heat.”

Kal was about to dismiss the comment as a fellow wizard’s silly attempt to be cryptic and mysterious but stopped before saying anything. He had a feeling there was something important in that phrase, though he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

“You look like you might have an idea,” said the butcher.

Kal shook his head, “Sadly, no. But it seems like something I should understand.” He thought on the phrase for a few more seconds before turning his attention back to the cylinder.

He already had a good idea of how it worked. Besides the runes on either end, he could make out a tiny wire running through it, silver probably, that acted as a conduit between them. An offshoot of the wire appeared to be wrapped around a small mana crystal which was the mechanism’s power source. Near as Kal could tell it must have been a fairly low-quality as it barely took anything in from its surroundings. He fed power into the stone and directed it toward the crystal but immediately had to back off as his ability to see magic showed the shard vibrating violently.

“Dammit, that noise is back,” said the butcher in a worried tone.

“The crystal inside is going to shatter.”

“What?! Stop then!”

“Not right this second, but flaws in poor crystals get worse with use. The defects grow each time they get emptied and charged.” Kal’s brow furrowed, “I have one that I could replace it with, but it would be much higher quality, to the point of not being worth it.”

“What do you mean, ‘not worth it’?”

“I mean that it’s almost flawless. On the market, it would be worth your entire shop three times over.” That number was probably higher, but he didn’t want to seem like a braggart. Plus, he had noticed something odd in the runes.

“Oh...” said the butcher meekly before sighing.

“I’m not interested in owning your shop any more than you are interested in selling it to me. However, I might be willing to do a trade with you. There is a lot more going on in these runes than I thought at first glance. I’d like to study them some more. Could you spare this for a day or so?” the mage asked while holding up the cylinder.

The butcher shook his head, “No. Even if it will break in the future, I need it until then. I maintain far more stock than most other butchers I’ve met, I can’t take the chance on it getting too warm in here and having my meat spoil.” He walked over to a corner and picked up an identical cylinder, only this one had a small hole in one side where its crystal had failed. “But you can take a look at this one.”

Kal went ahead and purchased one of the local inn’s ‘suites’ which consisted of a larger bed and a slightly larger room than the regular fare. It was also located above the dining area on the inn’s second story and the chimney for the downstairs fireplace ran up the far wall for warmth. The room’s table was currently littered with the map he had purchased, the stone cylinder he was currently inspecting, and some of the spellbooks Kal had received from Sera when she left her underground home behind.

He wouldn’t have gotten a room at all except that Sera was insanely curious about what staying at an inn was like. She made the argument that doing something like this would be better now than when they got closer to Lantaris. Here, they might get run out of town if someone discovered she was a monster girl. Closer to the church’s headquarters, the same situation might get them killed.

As soon as he locked the door, the gorgon immediately stripped her clothes off. The perceived danger of so many humans close by while she strode around the room naked was turning her on immensely. This made it very difficult for Kal to concentrate on the stone cylinder, especially when a breast with a strip of emerald scales beneath it was shoved into his face.

Without taking his eyes off the butcher’s cooling mechanism he leaned over and sucked the offered nipple into his mouth. A gasp and a quiet moan came from the gorgon as his tongue ran over the sensitive nub. The moan cut off abruptly when Kal turned the piece of stone over to inspect the other side and she realized she didn’t quite have his full attention.

“You ass!” she said. Pulling her breast from his mouth with a loud pop, she straightened up and smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

“Maybe you should fuck her and let her get it out of her system,” said Ria from her perch on a small stack of spellbooks.

He could almost feel Sera’s approval of the idea radiating off her. “I would love to do just that,” he said holding the piece he was studying in one hand and adjusting the tent in his trousers with the other. The gorgon’s antics had made them somewhat uncomfortable. “But I want to be back on the road tomorrow and that means I only have tonight to study and repair this.”

“What if I keep distracting you until you come to bed with me?” asked Sera leaning forward and giving a little shake that sent her breasts swaying delightfully at the edge of Kal’s vision.

“Then I might have to tie you to the bed.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

Ria’s eyes widened and Kal heard the slap of a hand covering a mouth.

Slowly turning his head, he looked up at the gorgon who seemed just as surprised at what she’d just said.

“Ria, rope.”

“Kal! I was just kidding!” complained Sera. Contrary to her words, she was willingly lifting her head and her serpents were staying out of the way as he tied one of the gorgon’s blindfolds in place. She might have even done it herself, but her hands were securely fastened to the bedposts at the moment.

Kal smiled as he stepped back. The last time he had used these soft ropes had been on Ikuno. Of course, with the large woman’s natural strength she had just role-played that she was securely bound. It was a little more fun using them on the gorgon where she couldn’t just snap the rope with a twist of her wrist.

He blinked a couple of times as memories of the woman easily carrying stone statues of full-sized humans came to mind. Glancing at where the ropes were tied, he realized that if she really wanted to get out she could reduce the bed’s wooden headboard to splinters. With a sigh, the small rush he got from having the woman naked and helpless before him faded away.

Dropping his trousers, he lifted her legs while climbing onto the bed. Kneeling with an ankle in each hand he dragged his cock over her clit before placing it at her entrance and slowly pushing inside. Sera tilted her head back and let out an unusually loud moan as Ria flitted over and laid down just above the gorgon’s pussy, scooting forward on her belly so she could watch.

“This is new,” said Kal, looking down at the sprite.

She smiled up at him. “Not as new as you think. I’ve watched you plenty of times when you forgot to dismiss me. Now that we’ve done something together, I don’t plan on being a distant, unseen spectator anymore.”

“Just a spectator?” he asked, pulling out and nudging the gorgon’s clit with the head of his cock before pushing forward. The angle rubbed the underside of his prick against Sera’s clit as the shaft jutted out over the sprite, nearly obscuring her from view until the base bumped up against the gorgon’s sex and pushed it so it was pointing nearly straight up.

With a mischievous smile, Ria stood and leaned forward. Putting her hands out to steady the cock in front of her, she placed big, open-mouthed kisses along the underside while making her way up toward the head. Pulling his prick down slightly, she kissed the tip a few more times before staring up at him while placing her mouth over the slit and gently teasing it with her tongue.

A shiver ran through Kal as he controlled the urge to thrust forward.

The base of his cock was still pressed up against the gorgon’s clit and the movement made the woman gasp before mewling with need. After a few more of the open-mouthed kisses around the bottom of the head, which made him shiver a second time, she stepped back and said, “Mostly as a spectator.”

“Would you hurry up already?” growled Sera. “Either that or take off the blindfold, so I can see what you two are doing?”

Kal and Ria shared a smile. The gorgon had only asked for the blindfold to be removed, not to be let loose. The mage placed the head of his cock back at the gorgon’s entrance while the sprite resumed her position so she could watch Kal slide into the woman.

He pushed into her slowly, taking a couple of shallow strokes where he felt his prick rub across the small rough spot just inside her pussy before filling her completely. Sera let out another moan that seemed strangely loud for the gorgon.

“Now, if you are good...” he pulled back and pushed into her again, “I’ll come back over here...” another slow stroke and another howling moan from the woman, “and do this every so often...” she was loudly begging for him to go harder and faster now, “until I’m done.”

Kal looked down at the sprite in confusion and mouthed, ‘Why is she doing that?’

The sprite flitted up to his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “She’s bragging on you.”

Kal gave her another confused look, the only one around who Sera could brag to was Ria. The sprite just laughed and pointed downward. It was then he noticed the low-level din coming from downstairs had gone completely silent.

The mage rolled his eyes and took a firm grip on the gorgon’s legs. “Do that, and before I come to bed I’ll do this...” He took about a dozen hard, pounding strokes into the woman, making her screech in pleasure, but stopped before she got close to climaxing.

As he pulled out, she begged him to keep going. Smirking, he ignored her pleas and went back to studying the stone cylinder lying on the table. For the sake of convenience, he didn’t bother putting his pants back on. He regretted that decision a few seconds later when his scrotum discovered the seat of the wooden chair had cooled as he had his fun with the gorgon.

Once he got the runes copied on a piece of parchment, repairing the cooling unit was relatively straightforward. The silver wire that had wrapped around the previous crystal was partially missing, but the changes he was going to make meant that he had more than enough to work with.

Near as he could tell from the working unit there was a cavity where the crystal was, and the wire came out and coiled around the magic power source multiple times to ensure contact if the cylinder were to get jostled. After retrieving one of the smaller crystals he and Gerda had collected, he drained it of his magic and carefully sheared off a small piece. It was smaller than the one he had been able to see in the other cylinder, but the higher quality meant it would still put out more power.

While constantly draining the small crystal by using his stamina rune, Kal carefully wrapped the silver string around the crystalline shard and pushed it into place. With his other hand, he carefully formed the rock around the gem. No matter how much it was bounced or jostled, the wire would never come away from the mana crystal now. After completely enclosing the shard, he covered the small cavity left from the previous crystal’s explosion with another sheet of the surrounding stone to restore its cylindrical shape.

Within seconds the unit began working, pulling heat from the air in front of it and expelling it out the back. Tapping a spot on the front rune, an image of a ring lifted up and floated about a finger’s width from the cylinder face. Placing a finger on an identical dot on the floating ring, he spun the image back and forth, adjusting the speed of the heat transfer. A second ring modified the range of the effect while a third shut down the rune if he turned it too far one direction but reactivated it as soon as he turned it back. He’d have to ask the butcher about that one.

The crystal began to falter when both of the settings were set just above halfway, which was still far above what the butcher needed. At full power, the runes only pulsed weakly every few seconds.

The entire time he was testing the unit, Kal kept thinking about the phrase the butcher had mentioned. “There is no cold, only a lack of heat.” The phrase frustrated him because he felt the answer was right there in front of him, as in it literally had something to do with the cooling abilities of the magic item on the table.

His consternation was interrupted by a shuffling from the bed behind him. Happy to be distracted, he picked up the cylinder and turned it up about halfway before pointing the back side at the gorgon lying on the bed.

The moan that came from Sera this time wasn’t exaggerated like earlier as the waves of warmth washed over her. “Can we keep it?” she mumbled.

Kal smiled, “Sorry, no. But I might be able to make something similar in the future for you, now that I have the runes copied.”

“Mmmm that would be wonderful, and you wouldn’t have to complain about my cold butt anymore.”

“I still haven’t figured out how my acclimation spell can make your entire body warm but still leave your ass cold as ice.”

“Neither have I.” Sera wiggled her hips back and forth and tugged gently at the restraints still tied around her wrists. “Have I been good?”

Turning off the cooling unit and setting it down, he stepped over to the bed. “Yes, I believe you have.”

Kal flipped through the pages of the book he had begun reading before his last session with the gorgon. Sera was currently rolled over on her side facing away from him. Her deep breaths told him that she had fallen fast asleep after he untied her, but not before making her wail like a banshee as she came.

The book in his hands wasn’t actually a spellbook but the journal of a cleric who had the misfortune of attempting to evict the gorgon from her home. It was hard to tell the sex of the author as there was nothing in the diary that might be considered “shameful.” That may have been a wise decision considering they weren’t around to monitor who read it anymore.

Flipping forward he saw the last couple of entries were of his or her way down into the caves. The glee and excitement the person seemed to get from the idea of killing the gorgon was sickening. It was also a stark reminder of the territory they were headed into and that the people willing to cause him and Sera harm wouldn’t be commoners with knives and pitchforks but knights and trained magic-users such as paladins and clerics.

He was relieved to be distracted from that train of thought by a light knock coming from the room’s entrance. Standing, Kal looked over at his trousers for a moment before shrugging and stepping over to see what this person wanted. Before greeting his visitor, he made an illusory black curtain behind him to hide Sera and the rest of the room.

As he cracked the door and peeked out, he was treated to the sight of one of the inn’s barmaids standing outside. Of more interest was the woman’s unlaced bodice and the large breasts that were proudly on display.

Since she certainly wasn’t being bashful, he figured it was unnecessary for him as well.

“Can I help you?” he asked, letting the door swing wide.

The woman was a little startled by the man being naked from the waist down but quickly regained her composure. “The innkeeper sent me up here to see if there might be any way I could help you and your lady friend enjoy your time here.”

Kal was confused. “We seem to be enjoying ourselves quite a bit, though I appreciate the offer.”

Sighing the woman explained, “What he’s really wanting me to do is see if I can help you two finish up any quicker. A number of our local patrons have already gone home. Either from the noise or because they’ve gotten all randy from listening to you. I wasn’t even supposed to be working but the girls who were out on the floor have both been assigned to customers for the night.”

As the woman spoke, she kept glancing at his crotch. Kal was enjoying the attention and could hardly blame her interest, he could still feel some dampness remaining after his last bout with the gorgon. He wasn’t going to look down and check, but he imagined that remaining wetness made his cock shimmer in the lamplight of the hallway. While Sera was certainly willing to clean him after sex, he was still hesitant about putting his prick in her mouth knowing there were large and very poisonous fangs tucked up into the woman’s palate behind her normal teeth.

Ria flitted through the illusion and sat on his shoulder, startling the barmaid. She’d been so distracted she hadn’t noticed the rest of the room was hidden.

“Sera probably wouldn’t mind, if that’s what you are worried about. She didn’t have any issues with Kuto, and you explained to her before that you had many women already. I could wake her up and ask if you want,” said the sprite.

Kal nodded toward the sprite before smiling at the barmaid. “I greatly appreciate the offer, but I’ll have to pass. We’ll try to keep things down for the rest of the night.”

The woman glanced at the sprite. “Didn’t she say that your friend was asleep?”

The mage nodded, “She had her fun earlier when things got loud. I’ll be waking her up to have my fun before I retire for the evening. Thank you again and have a good night,” he said closing the door as the woman’s eyes widened at what he just said. They somehow managed to get wider as she glanced down just before the door clicked shut. Thoughts of how he planned on waking Sera had him about half-erect by the time he said goodbye to the barmaid.

Kal faintly made out a grumbled, “Would have been a lot better if you said yes,” through the door followed by a bunch of shuffling that was probably the woman making herself presentable before she walked off.

“I’m surprised, Kal. I thought you would accept. I’m certain she would have been fine with bending over right here for you so you wouldn’t have risked her seeing Sera.”

“The temptation was certainly there. Those were some wonderful tits and more than big enough to wrap around me. Hell, they might be big enough to wrap around Bren,” he said as he returned to the table and sat down, hissing for a second as a couple of his more sensitive body parts touched the cool wood again. “Anyway, I hope I’m not being naïve here, but I would like for the women I’m with to mean something ... that didn’t quite come out like I meant it.”

“You want it to be more than just emptying your balls in a wet hole,” Ria looked down at her groin, “or maybe not so wet.”

“You are much more to me than a not-so-wet hole. But yes, I’d prefer my dalliances to be more than just a way to empty my balls. Since I have you and Sera, I’d much rather consider the options I care about first before sleeping with some prostitute that I’m going to want to have some connection with afterward.”

“What do you mean by that last part?” asked Ria as she resumed her perch on the stack of books she had been sitting on earlier.

Kal had picked up a book but laid it back down without opening it. “If I had my way, Shella and her pack would be living with Dax and hers, I’ve entertained the idea many times of inviting them to Aradelle’s forest so they would be close enough to visit easily. I may still do that once we get back with Ikuno. Silma is another one. I’m hoping that once we get our city in the mountain up and running that I will be able to find a place for her. Then look at what I did with the mushroom girl. I could have left her alone and she probably would have been fine as Gerda said. Instead, I pulled her into my little circle. Even the girl at the door, I was already thinking of ways to send her off to Kahrin and Bren so I could keep her nearby.”

“Little circle?”

Kal opened his mouth to answer but closed it a moment later with an embarrassed look on his face.

“Maybe you should think about doing that anyway, Kal. I was listening and it seemed like she didn’t have as much say in her nighttime activities as Ellis, Kahrin, and Bren allow their barmaids. I don’t think she wanted to be here until you waved that thing in her face. Of course, I could be wrong. You and Sera were pretty loud earlier and she may have just wanted to know what could make a woman scream like that.”

“I didn’t ‘wave it in her face.’”

Ria laughed, “Like hell you didn’t. Just because you didn’t put her on her knees and shake in in front of her nose doesn’t mean you weren’t showing off.”

“In fairness, she had her tits out when I opened the door.”

Ria rolled her eyes, “Fine, she started it. Are you happy now?”

Kal picked up the book he was reading earlier and said haughtily, “Yes, I am.” Before opening the book and holding it up to hide his smile.

Kal lied.

When he woke Sera up later by rolling her onto her back and sliding his cock in her, he did nothing to try to keep her quiet.

The innkeeper was not happy with them the next morning.

“If you come back tonight, I’m charging you extra for running off my customers.”

Kal opened his mouth but Sera spoke first. “If we come back tonight then I won’t hold back and be as loud as I want,” she snapped, hints of her dwarvish accent seeping into the words of the hooded woman.

“You won’t need to worry, we’ll be back on the road tonight,” said Kal while casting a confused glance at his companion. The innkeeper nodded before stomping off in a huff.

“Wait, Kal,” said Ria as they turned to go.

“Yes?”

“I need your old pack and some silver, about eight should do.”

“What for? And I might need my old pack if I go somewhere I can’t take you.”

“Then buy a new one! Just trust me on this.”

“Okay, you can have my old pack and eight silver,” he said, making it formal so the sprite could do whatever she had planned.

“Thank you!” the sprite flew up and planted a kiss right on his lips before zipping off into the back of the inn. Nine motes of light followed her.

“Never seen one of those be quite that affectionate,” said one of the inn’s other patrons who was sitting nearby enjoying their breakfast.

Kal just smiled back as an answer instead of mentioning that she had been much more ‘affectionate’ in the past. “Let’s go, she’ll catch up,” he said to Sera before heading outside with the gorgon in tow.

The streets were still mostly empty this early in the morning. With so few people around, Kal decided to use the opportunity to ask Sera about her attitude toward the innkeeper.

“Did he do something to piss you off?” asked Kal.

“Who?”

“The innkeeper, I was worried you were about to bite his head off.”

Kal saw the woman take a deep breath before answering. “Sorry about that, with everything you’ve been saying about how humans treat us ... I guess I wanted a little bit of payback.” More quietly, she continued, “And maybe to show them what they are missing by being so hateful toward monster girls.”

“Ahh, so that’s why you were being so loud last night.”

Though he couldn’t see it, Kal was certain the gorgon was blushing beneath her hood.

A high-pitched grunt as Ria pushed the inn’s door open distracted him. A second later she flitted over and plopped down on his shoulder.

“What—”