Chapter 30

The girls did their best to wear him out last night and Kal planned on sleeping in, but Sera had different ideas.

There was a knock on his bedroom door and Kal looked down at the gorgon who was happily suckling his half-hard cock after treating him to a good-morning blowjob. At his questioning look, the gorgon just shrugged and closed her eyes, returning to her task.

“Come in!” he called out.

Velt peeked her head around the door before walking in followed by Graff. Neither of them paid the slightest attention to Sera other than a small wave when she looked over to see who it was. The scene was nothing new to them, though the silver scaled lamia taking up most of the bed was.

“We are heading back home today to get things cleaned up before it starts to snow,” said Velt.

“I thought you were going to winter here?” asked Kal.

“We are but we are also thinking about asking for a few of those fire stones and giving our new home a try now that we have someplace to go if we run into trouble. Veir and a few others are out gathering food to get us stocked up before the ground freezes.”

“Are they trying to get rid of you?” Kal asked, sounding worried.

“Not at all,” Senshu answered from the other side of the bed. “In fact, I think we are more likely to end up harassing these two to distraction by being around all the time. Since none of us can have children, pregnancy and babies are a big deal.”

“Understandable.” He turned back to Velt, “So, is this ‘see you in a few days’ or do you need me to come along?”

“I’m sure we could use your help, but Veir and Cyrene are already going with, so I don’t think we will need you there until we are ready for the rest of our stuff.”

“Stealing my bathmate?” he teased.

“Not really,” said Cyrene, walking out of the bathroom. As they watched, the slime’s dark blue body lightened as it stretched to either side. Moments later an exact copy stood next to her.

Cyrene’s clone turned toward Velt and Graff, “You have me for three days. Time is up if I turn into a puddle.”

Kal frowned, “That seems like overkill Cy. I appreciate the gesture, but it won’t kill me to go without your company for a little bit. That way you don’t need to be in a rush to get back.”

“But I like our baths,” she pouted as her clone flowed back into her body.

“So do I, but keeping me company isn’t worth taking a chance on losing half of your body.”

“I can grow it back.”

“That’s beside the point.”

The slime rolled her eyes, exaggerating the motion by making them much bigger than normal. “Fine.”

After Velt, Graff, and Cyrene left to finish preparing for the journey back to the copse, Senshu looked down at Sera. “She doesn’t care who sees her, does she?”

“Not with those three at least.” Kal put his hands behind his head and relaxed into his pillow. “You won’t catch me complaining.”

A couple of days later, Kal sat in the library staring at the section of the flight rune Kithana claimed was to keep him from freezing. Like the rest of the spell, much of the large and complex sigil was still missing. Its various parts lacked glyphs or entire sections needed to make it function.

He didn’t want to be studying this particular part of the flight rune. He wanted to be studying the main rune in the center, the one that would allow him to fly. Kithana had other ideas, unfortunately, insisting on having this part as well as another complex portion completed before allowing him to begin looking into it.

Sometimes he didn’t feel much like the “Master of the Tower.”

Frustrated with his lack of progress since the other night’s revelation, Kal turned his attention to the other section. Reaching out, he traced the parts of the area with a finger. A small part down by the central rune caught his eye. It looked like part of the hard limit character he swapped for a softer limit on his fire resistance rune. Streaming a little bit of ink from a nearby well, he finished the glyph.

Now he was stuck wondering why Prentas would want to limit how much power was going into the central area. A moment later, Kithana’s comment about running out of power and falling to his death ran through his mind.

Hopping up, he retrieved a book from a section of the bookcase behind where he was working. The area was designated for holding all of his commonly used reference tomes and the one he picked up contained lists of a wide variety of glyphs and sigils. Most of these were familiar from other spellbooks but their patterns weren’t something he could remember off the top of his head since they didn’t appear in spells he often used.

“What are you up to?” asked Kithana, flying over as he grabbed a piece of parchment.

“Just a thought. Let me concentrate.”

The sprite nodded as Kal began building a rune on the paper, often glancing at the book laid out next to him. Thankfully this wasn’t like the Haste rune where he had to make the runes work together. Some offered information while others checked it against a set of conditions and all of it was used to allow or cut power to a featherfall rune.

He looked at Kithana, “Do we have any small, low-quality mana crystals?”

“Drop it!” he yelled up to the top of the tower where Molo was leaning over the parapet. She happened to be the first person he ran into and drafted the frog-girl to help with his experiment.

The large piece of leather with the rune he constructed flipped a few times as it fell, but for the most part, it dropped like a rock.

“This is going to be a pain,” he grumbled, picking up the piece of hide. He made a few small adjustments to the ink and discharged the crystal a little bit before looking up at Molo. “I’ll be up in a second!” he called out.

“Stay there!” the frog-girl yelled back. In the time it took for him to look confused, the frog-girl’s red tongue impacted the piece of leather he was holding and dragged it out of his hands. A second later there was a loud “Ow!” from Molo as the leather slapped her in the face.

Kal called up to the top of the tower in worry while Kithana was laughing so hard she couldn’t fly.

It took three more drops until the hide fell slowly, then dropped normally, then slowed again before coming to rest on the ground.

“Very interesting. Care to explain how it works?” asked Kithana after Kal was done celebrating a successful test.

“This here checks how high the rune is from the ground. This one checks how much magic is left in the crystal. When that level drops below the point I set down here,” he pointed to a ring lower down, “it cuts the power to the featherfall rune. It then lets the power flow again when this,” he pointed to the first glyph, “tells it that the rune is close to landing.”

“That’s fine if you are falling from the height of the tower but what if you are up above the clouds?”

“It won’t matter. From playing around with some harpy friends, I know that no matter how far I fall, after a certain distance I don’t fall any faster. I can set everything up for that speed.”

“Well done Kal. It isn’t the same as what Prentas did, but he was also a lot more cautious about falling than you seem to be. You should probably get that copied then go thank Molo for her help. She deserves it for saving you all those trips to the top, not to mention getting smacked by the first two.” After the second time getting slapped by the leather, the frog girl began putting her hands out to stop the piece of hide before it had the chance to hit her in the face.

Following Kithana’s suggestion, he found Molo waiting for him in his bedroom which was only two levels below the top of the tower. The frog girl was very interesting because there were no outward signs of genitals. Her breasts looked completely smooth but running his hand over them he could feel a slight roughness where nipples would be and from the woman’s gasps, they were just as sensitive. Her sex was a slit between her legs and there were no lips or a mound of any sort, just her unusually smooth skin. Even stranger, her backdoor was also completely smooth instead of the normal pucker.

That didn’t keep her from feeling things as much as any of the other women. Like her nipples, there was a small, slightly rougher spot just above her sex that acted as a clit. Touching around her opening achieved the same kinds of reactions as the rest of the women, it was just a little strange to not feel any lips as he did it.

When Kal entered the room he found her on the bed, which he expected. Instead of looking wanton and sultry, she was kneeling with her tongue hanging out and a pleading look on her face as she pointed to it.

“Helph.”

“What happened?”

“Thung noth thuppothed to thtop bethor gething back to muh mouth. It hurth.”

Kal winced at the idea, especially after considering how fast it moved. Walking over, he quickly healed her.

“Mmmm much better,” she said, moving the appendage around once he was done. Her eyes turned playful, “Now get out of those clothes so I can test it properly.”

Kal smiled, “As you wish.”

“You said there was a different way besides all the crap I’ve been going through trying to figure out this damn spell,” Kal growled at Kithana. Throwing his vambrace with the area burned during the sprite’s trial onto the table in the library, he glared at her, “You could have mentioned that it’s really just a high-powered version of the acclimation spell.”

“The what spell?” the sprite seemed genuinely confused.

Kal took a small piece of parchment and quickly redrew the rune. “That,” he said, holding it out.

“That’s curious,” she said taking the paper from him, “did you make this?”

“No, it’s in one of my books about runesmithing.”

“Instead of canceling out the way air moves, it uses the Tardius and Motus glyphs to cool the body down when it’s extremely warm. Very simple, very smart.”

Grabbing a piece of leather, Kal quickly formed a rune in the air in front of him with ink and set it into the hide. Powering the rune, it looked much like the previous one only without the ring. “See?” he asked, waving with his unoccupied hand.

Kithana sniffed, “No, but I can smell it and I can see that you replaced Tardius with Sisto in the rune and changed the target, so it stops the air instead of just slowing it down. The result is nearly identical, but the method is different. I’m honestly disappointed you realized this, there was a lot more I felt you needed to learn before getting to this point.”

“I can worry about that when I return with Ikuno. Once we have taken care of Azrin and she is safe, then I will have all the time in the world for studying magic’s intricacies. But right now, I need to get this done,” he said pointing at the flight rune. “Also, if I use a more powerful variant of the acclimation spell instead of the one Prentas used, that only leaves the big rune in the middle.”

Kithana sighed heavily, “I need to think about how I’m going to do this. Come back tomorrow.”

“I have work to do here. You come back tomorrow,” said the mage as he sat down.

The sprite’s mouth worked for a moment before she flew out in a huff.

“After yesterday you should be thankful I’m doing this for you,” said the sprite as she and Kal made their way down into the bowels of the tower. The spiral stair they were descending had small glowing stones set into the wall that lit up as they passed. Kal was surprised to find this even existed when Kithana showed it to him shortly after he arrived. The tower above ground was already large but from Kithana’s description of the various levels and the rooms that branched off each, saying the tower was massive seemed more apt.

“You said I was now the Master of the Tower. I didn’t appreciate you telling me to get out of what is supposed to be my library. Besides, I did still have work to do.” He looked around, “I haven’t been this far yet, what’s down here?”

“Master of the Tower or not, there are still some things I’m not comfortable with you knowing and some things that are simply too powerful for me to just hand to someone as young and inexperienced as you. Honestly, this is one of them, but for yours and Ikuno’s sakes I’m going to make an exception.”

“Is the ability to fly so rare?”

“No, but the ability to fly safely is. Over in the desert lands, they have carpets to take them across the dunes, but they don’t go much higher than a human’s knee and are only slightly faster than a camel.”

“What’s a camel?”

Kithana checked to see if he was joking before answering. “Like a horse but suited for hot, arid climates. They have a big hump on their back that stores water, some of them have two. You’ll see them when you have to cross the desert.”

Kal hoped that it didn’t look anything like the image in his head, they would be very difficult to ride.

“We’re here,” said the sprite as they reached a landing on the spiral staircase. The door was made of iron yet there wasn’t any sign of a keyhole. Kithana put a hand on the door and concentrated for a moment before the door swung open on squeaky hinges.

“Magnetism?” asked the mage.

“Yes, a very difficult magic to master or even learn. Prentas used it to take out the entire Montaran army. Before you ask, no, I won’t teach it to you. That is a path you will need to walk on your own.”

Remembering Ikuno’s description of how the army died, he decided not to press the sprite further. Confident as he was, he wasn’t sure he wanted that kind of power.

As the door swung open, Kal was expecting rows upon rows of books containing all of this forbidden knowledge. Instead, a lone wooden wardrobe stood against the back wall.

Kithana flew over and beckoned him to follow. “Do not touch except for what I tell you to and once I open the door, do not speak until we get back upstairs, understood?

Kal nodded.

There were no fancy magical locks this time as the sprite grabbed one of the handles and tugged the door of the large cabinet open. Something that looked to have once been a woman stood before him but large parts had dried and crumbled, coating the bottom of the wardrobe with a thick layer of dust. Only half of the head was intact and both arms had fallen off, one of which took most of the shoulder and breast along with it. Her legs and lower torso were surprisingly intact other than looking shrunken and chalky from age.

Kithana flew close to the woman’s face but the soft breath of her wings shook more dust loose, making her already indistinct features disappear further. The sprite backed off quickly then bowed her head toward the woman before flying down to the bottom of the cabinet. Carefully blowing away the dust, she revealed a wooden box beneath. Kithana pointed at the latch then at him before curling her arm as though showing off her muscles.

Nodding in understanding, he flipped the badly rusted latch up and opened the box. Inside were three stacks of emeralds, each of them identical as far as he could tell. The sprite ran a hand over the surfaces of the top three then shook her head. She then motioned to Kal as though taking each of them out and stacking the gems in her hand. Once the mage removed the top three she checked the next layer and found the one she wanted on the right. Grabbing the large emerald, she grunted as she flew it up to his other hand then indicated he put the other ones back.

A moment later she sternly repeated the motion as he looked at the other emeralds then back at her with an exaggerated pout.

Once everything was returned to its place, Kithana had him close the doors after a sad wave at the clay woman. Letting the mage lead the way, the sprite locked the room behind them and followed him upstairs.

Back in the library, Kal held up the emerald. “What does this have to do with the flight rune?” he asked.

“The pattern is stored in it, along with any notes Prentas may have made on it.”

“How do we get to it? Shine a light through it and onto the wall?”

Kithana shook her head, “Unfortunately, no. The only person who can read the emerald is Sapphire.”

“The golem?”

The sprite nodded, “She made them and is the only one who can get the information, unless you know a golem out there who has progressed beyond rock and into the gem stage. According to Veir, Sapphire is on her way here. At most, she should only be a few more days.”

Kal peered at the gem, “How did she put it on here?” The idea of a gem holding information wasn’t new to Kal. The gargoyles he and Ikuno ran across had rubies that acted as a power supply and contained the instructions dictating their behavior.

“Honestly, I don’t know. It was something she and Prentas figured out when I was gone for a while. Saph refuses to tell me because she says I wouldn’t understand. Somehow, she writes the information into the crystal as she forms them. One of the rooms we passed down below has these lining its walls. Each one holds the means of recreating one of the original monster girls.”

“Couldn’t you and Prentas have remade all the ones killed by the Montarans?”

Kithana shook her head, “Those are blank slates. They would look the same but different experiences make different personalities. The girls killed by the Montaran army are truly dead. Prentas couldn’t bear the thought of seeing familiar faces on a different person and chose not to make more than one.”

“Can I ask who?”

“Senshu.”

“That makes sense, she would be on the front line when they attacked.”

Kithana shook her head, “Prentas had her run away with Molo and Oona as escorts. They were trying to get her out of his spell’s range. Her helmet is mithril, but her swords, armor, and scales are all steel.”

“So, she didn’t make it.”

“Normally a lodestone barely reacts to Senshu’s scales, but that wasn’t enough to save her from the power of Prentas’s spell.”

“From what I know of him, he probably didn’t take killing one of his ‘daughters’ well.”

“That’s an understatement. What happened to Senshu is also the most likely reason she took such a shine to you. Of all the girls she has the fewest memories of Prentas. Enough talk of the past, since we are here in the library, what would you like to work on while we wait for Saph?”

“Have everything?” asked Kal, standing outside the door to the guest room Velt and Graff claimed for their stay here.

“I think so,” said the vixen. “Veir made it sound like she might be visiting fairly often. If we forgot anything I’m sure she will bring it to us.”

“Only Veir?”

“Let’s not get into that, Senshu was right about how the others would act towards us,” she looked over at Graff. “We never should have told them Kal was fathering our kits.”

“So who all is coming with?”

“Just Veir, we narrowed things down by saying they had to be able to keep up with the three of us sprinting since Sera is staying. I think they got the hint that we didn’t want a bunch of company. I’m certain a few of them can move faster than us, but backed out after Veir claimed dibs”

“I’m still a little surprised about Sera.”

“We aren’t. Having her strength back means a lot to her and despite it taking a week, or however long it was, to fade, she hates the idea of losing it again.”

“I haven’t found anything besides Senshu’s helm that is made of mithril. For all Prentas’s magic power, he wasn’t big on artifacts and items. Either that or they are one of those things I need to ‘earn’ access to by coming back regularly. Not that it would matter much. Even without all of this,” he looked around the wide hallway they were standing in, “I’d still be coming back to visit my daughters.”

Graff grunted and grabbed Velt’s shoulder for support as she hunched over.

“Are you good, honey?” asked the vixen, though she wasn’t acting very concerned.

“I’m fine, just the thought of him coming back to see his kids hit me kind of hard.” She turned a leg outward and looked down at her inner thigh. “Dammit, I’m dripping. I’ll need to wipe this off or my fur will be soaked when we go outside,” she said, stepping back into their room.

Velt leaned close and whispered, “Her heat is coming on, certain thoughts set her off very easily. That’s another reason why we are doing this now.”

“I can hear you, Velt. These big ears aren’t just for show,” the doe called out from inside the room.

Out on the plains, Kal called for a meal break around noon. Veir landed next to them as the square of canvas finished unfurling into a tent, the raven-styled harpy looking on with interest.

“There’s one of those in the shrine in the basement of the tower, it used to belong to Father’s lover, Lady Te’thalas.” Veir gave him a sidelong glance, “This is a different one, right?”

“Yes, this is a different one,” answered Kal. “Kithana showed me the shrine.” Though he didn’t mention it to the harpy, the sprite also told him of Prentas’s gruesome accounts of each of his friend’s deaths. Despite the awful tale, Kal was happy the ancient mage turned his sorrow into a drive to make things better, instead of becoming bitter and obsessive like Azrin.

As he was about to unseal the magical shelter he felt something cold on his forehead, reaching up, his finger came away wet. A moment later the air was filled with gently drifting snowflakes.

“I guess it’s a good thing I figured out how to stay warm while flying,” he said before speaking the command word to open the tent. As the vixen and doe went inside he turned to Veir, “Would you mind helping me test something?”

“I’ll test whatever you want me to,” she said with a glance at his groin. Though things between them started rocky, some of the other girls finally convinced Veir to give the mage a chance. No one was more surprised than Kal when he retired for the night and found the raven waiting for him in the master’s quarters.

The harpy’s no-nonsense attitude translated to the bedroom as well. She didn’t hesitate to tell him what she enjoyed and what wasn’t working. At first, he was a little put off by this as he had been with enough women he felt like he didn’t need such specific instructions. That changed when he heard how the bird-girl was gushing about his skills in bed the next day and how much she looked forward to her next turn. He did find it odd that she was insistent he not put his cock inside her sex, though it was very hard to complain when she so willingly offered her bottom. Later, Kithana explained to him that because she was based on the raven, which mated for life, Veir’s sex was reserved only for her mate.

He heard rumors that the plant-girl, Oona, had taken over his bedroom assignments to make sure none of the women went without. This didn’t surprise him since she acted as the tower’s chronicler and secretary. Sera didn’t seem to mind as she got three times the number of nights with him as the others. Since he was expecting to see more of her and Senshu together, that was likely four times more now. These assignments didn’t include occasional trysts during the day, like his bath with Velt.

The original monster girls had a loose idea of seniority based upon which generation they fell into. According to Kithana there were six of these generations each one getting more complex than the last. Senshu and Molo were both of the sixth and final generation, Veir and Oona were fourth gen while Cyrene was third.

There were a few of the second generation of original monster girls that regularly approached him for relief outside of their turns in the bedroom. With him constantly around they were having a more difficult time controlling their urges than those created later on. They were also the oldest of the women, and Sapphire was the eldest among them. From his understanding, the very first of Prentas’s creations mostly stayed near the city and were the first to be killed after the Montarans wiped out Te’thalas.

“Tempting, but I actually need you to help test a rune I just developed. I need to make sure it will keep me warm while flying in the cold,” he said as they entered the tent. Velt was already working on setting up the fire pit in the middle to cook their lunch.

“What can I do?” she asked, sounding dubious.

“Take me up in the air and drop me.”

“I am not helping you test the one you and Molo were playing with. My sisters will pluck out all of my feathers if I tell them you ended up a stain on the ground.”

“I’m with Veir,” Graff piped in, “no getting killed until we have our kits, or after for that matter. You got the thought of our babies getting visited by their father running through my head and I want to see it happen before you off yourself.”

He glanced at the rabbit-girl’s groin.

Graff glared at him, “The idea of you dying squashed that problem before it started.”

Kal rolled his eyes and turned back to Veir, “Not that one. This is a spell that lets me stay warm in most kinds of weather. I’m using the normal one right now,” he said holding up the remade vambrace with the acclimation spell, “but I made a more powerful version for traveling at speed in cold air.”

“You want me to fly as fast as I can while holding you?” asked the harpy.

“No, I want you do drop me. I use my cloak as wings and glide, a single steep dive should let me know if it’s working properly.”

“I can’t for the life of me imagine Father asking me to do something like that. He developed the rune you and Kit are working on but found out he didn’t like being that far off the ground. I can count the number of times I saw him fly above the treetops on one hand.” She held up a wing and wiggled the three fingers at the joint, “As you can see, I have fewer fingers than you do.”

“He didn’t like flying?” Kal asked then looked at her fingers. “Yours are different than the other harpies I know,” he noted.

“I asked him to change them when he cast the spell making our daughters. I hate how human fingers look on my wings. No, he didn’t like flying. That rune you and Molo tested would have scared him half to death.”

Kal looked skeptical, “He had to have known Featherfall.”

“He did, but he didn’t wear his spells the way you do. It becomes a lot harder to cast when you are terrified and the ground is rushing up to meet you.”

“Enough talk,” said Velt, walking up to them and shoving bowls of grilled veggies and meat into their hands, “Lunch is ready.”

The plain turned from yellow to white as they ate even though the snow wasn’t coming down very hard.

As soon as the tent was packed up, Veir hopped onto his shoulders and lifted him into the sky. The vixen and doe were tiny specks dashing along beside the ancient riverbed when Veir let him go. Not bothering with the cloak just yet, he let himself build enough speed that the icy air began to overpower the acclimation spell. Barely able to see, he quickly cast the air shield he used for his trip home with Ruce.

As the rushing wind died down, he felt his body begin to warm. Unfortunately, he hadn’t cast his new spell yet.

Growling in annoyance, he flared the cloak out and caught the wind, leveling out before picking a spot far ahead of Graff and Velt to land.

“Something wrong?” asked Veir, coming down beside him once his feet were back on the ground.

“Yes, I just wasted hours and hours of my time making a spell I didn’t even need.”

“How could you not need it? It’s freezing out here and you don’t have any feathers to keep you warm.”

Kal told her about his high-speed flight with Ruce and gave her a quick description of the air shield and how it worked.

“As soon as it activated and made the wind die down my normal acclimation spell could handle things,” he said. Drawing back the strip of leather with his new rune on it, he pitched it out into the plains.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait before tossing that away,” said the raven before fly-hopping over to where the leather landed. Coming back, she took it from the claws on her feet and handed it to him. “It’s only late fall and only barely below cold enough for snow. If you are up in the frozen wastes or flying above the mountaintops in winter you may still need that.”

Kal grudgingly took the spell back, “I suppose you are right.”

“I just want to mention, if you get this flight rune working, you and I will be fucking in the air.” She blushed slightly, “And ... if you keep coming back to us, I might let you in the front way.”

Kal raised an eyebrow, “That seems sudden. We’ve only been together once and don’t you mate for life?”

“Don’t make me second guess this,” she said, turning darker red. “We girls talk, and I like what I’m hearing. Besides, I wasn’t saying right now, I meant in a couple of years. Also, yes, ravens mate for life but will take a new mate if theirs dies. Once you pass, I will be free to find another.” She paused for a moment, “That sounds terrible when I put it like that.”

“It’s okay. Ikuno is an immortal, remember? That you will be here long after I’m gone isn’t new to me. I find it more interesting that you sound like your mind is made up already,” he said with a hint of a smirk.

“Hush, you,” she said with a glare then checked to see how far away the fox and rabbit girls were. “Did you want to try testing your spell again?”