Chapter 24: Spy
Once we get to the guild, I turn to Cecilia.
“Do you have a dismantling room here?”
“Yes. We have a normal one and an anonymous one.”
“Show me that one.”
She shows me to the underground dismantling room. Not as big as Orora’s, but it is going to fit the bullgoose, and it has this hooks and chains on the ceiling that help with the process. This will work.
I put on my armor, the night is starting to fall. I portal myself to the region with the bullgooses, and start doing a search, locating a place with a lot of stone statues. I find one, half a mile south. I don’t know if, at this level, its petrification effect would even work with me, but I still do the mana rejection spell, and move forward. As last time, my mana keeps falling, but it doesn’t really change much, given the amount of mana I have right now.
Sure enough, more and more status, each time they get more and more brittle. Then I see the animal, after I come out from behind a bush. It turns it’s head sideways, still munching on the grass.
I walk forward. It lowers it’s head, and charges in to me. I hadn’t taken my sword out, so I just punch it in the middle of the head.
It flies six feet back, and drops on the ground, limp. I grab it by the front paws, and throw it through a gate to the dismantling room. I place the hind lags on the hooks, and start the work with dismantling it.
It takes a couple of hours, the beast is big. But I get upstairs to the floor level, and ask the girls to come. The guild still has a couple of people, so Cecilia can’t come. She looks at me, with a face as if I am abusing her. The dragonesses get to the dismantling room. They spit fire and take their pieces of stake from the hanging beast.
The leather is on the side. It is very soft, and somewhat resistant. I am used with dragon leather levels, and this is not quite there. But it is kind of close, though.
After the girls have eaten, I can see that I overestimated the food need. By a lot. They ate the meat around the neck and went up, until a little past the front legs. It is a lot, but I though they would eat more than that.
Muninn ate about as much as me. He is now sleeping on a table.
I myself had my fill as well. I feel like one of those snakes that eat an elephant, then stay still for months digesting it.
Cecilia comes down at some point, and she sees us, the pleasure on our faces. She sees that some parts are burned, and understands how that work.
She casts some fire magic, burns a little of meat, cuts with a knife puts it in her mouth. I am looking, intrigued.
“I didn’t know that you could do fire magic.”
“Have you asked?”
“You have a point.”
“I may not look like it, but I actually was an adventurer. I stopped at steel, but I could have reached mithril if I wanted to. The guild only hires former adventurers. We have some views on the matters that civilians just don’t have.”
And then she gets another piece of meat. She eats until she has her fill.
“Where can we store this?”
“Can we leave it where it is?”
“I can, this branch is practically ours… But… Won’t it go bad?”
“No, too much mana to go bad. The one that Piotr had was still good for consumption.”
“Oh, really? I didn’t know that was a thing.”
“Me neither, but I checked.”
She shrugged.
“What are you going to do with the leather, horns and bones?”
“I was thinking about using the leather for the saddle project. I am just considering the changes to it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The idea was that we would have one saddle for me to use on Piotr, and another for you to use on Shandon. I thought of this because you two are close, so I thought it would be less awkward. But now, if one of the others doesn’t mind, I could ride her, and I could leave Piotr alone. The other two can assume their form and just fly.”
“This is so, so, so…”
“So what?”
“I don’t even know. Most things, you at least hear in legends. I have never heard of a human, titan, or god mounting a dragon. I wish I could show that to my parents! Hahaha. They always thought I would be better off trying to snare a noble.”
“Well, they are not a display for the circus. If they are ok with that, we can do that, but you have to make sure they are comfortable. Remember, they are your… sisters.”
Cecilia turns to the three new dragonesses. She has this mischievous smile…
“Hey, sisters, I was thinking… What do you say we visit my parents, flying, and then… One of you gets to be rode by Marcelo all the way there… And another one can get rode by him, his masculine power on top of you, on the way back?”
“Yes, yes, please my lord, that would be educational, no?”
“Meeting our sister’s parents is important, right my lord?”
Aquamarine is just nodding, shyly.
I hold the bridge of my nose.
“Ok, you won. But it has to be some place that other people will not see us.”
“Yay, thank you, my lord… Hey, this is catchy.”
I can see a headache coming.
I woke up to a sea of beautiful women surrounding me. Shandon, Aquamarine, Opal, Ruby, and Cecilia all gazed at me with varying degrees of interest. Cecilia, with a mana hangover, winced at the morning light, while the others seemed eager to get started.
"Good morning, my lord," they chimed in unison, their voices like music to my ears.
I smiled, feeling like the luckiest man alive. "Good morning, girls." My eyes roamed over their bodies, taking in the sight of their naked flesh.
Shandon, with her athletic build and fiery personality, leaned in to kiss me. Her lips were warm and inviting, and I couldn't help but respond with passion.
Meanwhile, Aquamarine, Opal, and Ruby watched with varying degrees of curiosity. Aquamarine, the shy one, blushed at the sight of our kiss, while Opal, with her milf mentality, seemed to be mentally preparing herself for the morning's activities. Ruby, on the other hand, looked like a kid in a candy store, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Okay, my lord," Shandon said, breaking away from our kiss. "We've been discussing, and we think it's time we all got a little more... comfortable with each other."
I raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Oh? And what did you have in mind?"
Shandon smiled mischievously.
"Well, we thought we could start with a little wake-up mating. You know, get the blood flowing."
I grinned, feeling my cock stir to life.
"I think that's a fantastic idea."
With a chorus of giggles, the mate sisters descended upon me, their hands and lips roaming my body. Ruby was the first to take my cock in her mouth, her enthusiasm evident in the way she sucked and licked me. Opal followed, her experienced hands stroking my chest and shoulders. Aquamarine, still a little shy, hesitated at first, but soon found herself lost in the moment, her touch sending shivers down my spine.
And Shandon, my lovely Shandon, took charge, directing the others with a confident air. She knew just what to do to get me hard and eager, and soon I was buried deep inside her, the others watching with varying degrees of fascination.
This is a very good way to start the day.
After a lot of complaints from Cecilia, and having my fill, we got dressed and went downstairs. We went all the way to the dismantling room, and had some more bullgoose barbecue. Cecilia actually just had some stew.
The four dragonesses apparently didn’t understand. When I saw their expression watching Cecilia having the stew, I noted.
“For humans in general, the bullgoose has so much mana that it gives a hangover. It makes you feel bad the following day.”
They just shrugged, and kept on the bullgoose.
After the breakfast, got our social clothes and went over to Rajesh’s. I wanted to get started on the saddles.
“Hello, my friend, how are you?”
“I am well, thanks for asking. How are you?”
“I couldn’t be happier. I know that you are human, but I would guess you might have heard how the dragon material you allowed us to have did in battle?”
“Yes, congratulations.”
“Does this impact our friendship in any way?”
“No, it doesn’t. They received as much, if not more, material than you did. Most of it ended up in the hands of nobles that would never get to the front lines. It became trophies. That’s the price you pay when you think trophies of something you didn’t fight for are more important than your soldiers.”
“Wow, it is amazing how alike we think. But, changing the subject, what happened last time you were here? Did you have some trouble with the dragons?”
“Another dragon attacked a friend dragon. I just had to solve the situation.”
“Solve the situation?”
“Yes. Anyway, can we talk to the leather artificer again… What’s his name?”
“Mahendra. I am going to send for him.”
“Thank you. Do you have any place where I could bring the dragon in? A place without eyes?”
“How big is the dragon?”
“About half the size of the one I got you…?”
“Sure, let me see what I can do.”
He goes to the door, and talks something to the guard. The guard goes away.
He comes back, sits on the sofa and we started to chit-chat. The situation is improving. By using some druid magic, they accelerated the growth of some cultures, and they were already having some of the results of the now a little less scarce water. He is very enthusiastic about this.
He also mentions that research on Naturalism is moving forward. He says it is going to be their secret weapon moving forward. I tell him that my biggest advantage is that I have some Nature knowledge, and that allows me to use magic more efficiently. By doing subtler alterations to Nature, I can accomplish better results with less mana. Just like they are accomplishing boiling water without mana at all.
Now he is looking weird at my face again.
The guard says that the room is ready. The party with my girls, Muninn, the emperor and myself start moving towards it. We arrive at this big room, it is like an in-doors sports stadium, but the ground is a dusty one.
I whisper to the king, asking him if he has stealth guards. He says no. I think of killing the spy, but then the emperor wouldn’t be able to question him… So I just grab it by its neck, and lift it off the ground. By the weight, a female. She can’t really breath, but raises her hands in surrender. I drop her. She takes off the hood. The emperor is shocked.
“Siratra! What is the meaning of this?”
She is kowtowing on the floor.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!!!”
“What is going on?”
The guards are already pointing their spears to her.
“My liege, can I explain?”
“No, Siratra, I ask you, CAN YOU?”
“Yes, I heard that the Great Adventurer was coming, and I wasn’t summoned. I thought I could be near… It was stupid, I am sorry. I am not a spy, I swear! On my life! I just wanted to… Learn…”
I whispered to Rajesh.
“All the first part is true… Somehow, only the last sentence seems to be a lie. Apparently, she is not a spy.”
Mahendra shook his head.
“Siratra, I am going to think about your punishment later. Thank the gods that the Great Adventurer is here, otherwise I would assume you a spy.”
He changed his expression to a dark one.
“And I think you have heard the rumors, right?”
He then softens up the expression again.
“Guards, take her.”
She goes away with the guards, her head low.
“I am sorry for this, friend.”
“Don’t worry. It’s amazing how much she likes Nature, to try to listen in. Specially because you probably would tell her later anyway. If I may, this thing didn’t offend me at all.”
And I shrugged. Rajesh sighed.
“Yes. But no matter the intentions, it was a grave crime. She spied on us, and that means that she spied on me as well. I don’t know how much room for political manipulation I have here, I might have to impose some really cruel punishment. I may be an emperor, but emperors don’t work alone.”
“That might be a waste.”
“Yes, I will see what I can come up with. On another matter, is this room wide enough, friend? I made sure to have all guards removed, no eyes, no ears. At least that I know of.”
“Sure, this will do. Can you give me and my girls just a little privacy, please?”
“Of course. I will be outside the door.”
Once he closes the door, I turn to the girls.
“We have to get your measurements for the saddle, but I didn’t want anyone else to look at you naked in human form.”
“What’s the difference, my lord?”
“He is je-alous. He wants us to only show our bodies to hi-im…” Cecilia answered in a musical voice.
“Well, yes, that is the gist of it. But now I need you girls to transform, preferably without tearing the dresses to shreds.”
While they are undressing, Cecilia turns to me.
“What did you think about that demoness? What’s her name again?”
“Siratra. She seems nice. She is a good girl to talk to.”
“Yes, I noticed the way you were looking at her… Conversationalist bits when she showed her cleavage to you.”
“Fine, I think she is hot. But then again, you all are. She seems nice to have around, but I like all of you, you little teaser.”
I give a kiss on Cecilia’s lips. The four dragonesses are already transformed. Shandon lowers her head, and places her muzzle in front of me. Cecilia stares at me.
“You kissed me, now you have to give them a kiss as well.”
I kiss those four enormous muzzles. It may be some wishful thinking, but they seem to give me some caring looks.
I go over the door, and call the Rajesh and Mahendra. They are absolutely static with the view.
“By the gods, they are so beautiful. But they are different than what I expected. The tales of dragons always depict these beings with horns and spikes.”
“Well, they are females.”
The emperor looks around, and only sees Cecilia. He looks at me, eyes bulginig. I nod, and he understands.
Mahendra’s eyes are bulging.
“Mahendra, I am going to help you do the measurements. If you touch the wrong place, you may get… Digested.”
I know that jealousy is not a pretty thing, but I never said I was the hero.
Mahendra gets closer to Shandon, and looks at her side, looks at the places where the wings are fixed to the body. He looks at her belly.
He asks me something, and she looks at me.
“My lord, he is asking you if I can extend my wing.”
“Please do. He is going to make sure that the saddle doesn’t get in the way of your wings.”
She extends part of the wing out. Mahendra has his mouth open. The then looks at the emperor, and the emperor nods at him. He looks around, and realizes the same thing the emperor had already realized.
Mahendra starts drawing at a paper, furiously. He inspects each of them, they all have very similar shapes.
He gets a very big metric tape, and says something to me. Shonda again helps.
“He is asking to help on some measurements, my lord. He said he is going to be very respectful.”
We go about taking the measurements for all four of them. The width of the neck, the circle around shoulders, the distance between the two front paws. The distance between the shoulder and the wings.
He talks a little with Shandon.
He is back to drawing furiously on the papers.
The girls react differently to his measurements. Shandon reacts in a matter-of-fact way. Ruby giggles when touched at some points, and she is kind of shameless throughout the whole process. Opal keeps a dignity and elegance that would make a noblewoman envious. Aquamarine was, as expected, the shy one.
After he is done, I hand him the bullgoose leather. He says something to Shandon, and she translates.
“He is asking what kind of leather this is.”
He picked a very curved knife he had on his belt, brought the leather to a stand, and tried cutting it. It would not work, the knife wasn’t able to pierce the leather. He asks another question.
“Tell him it is bullgoose.”
Shandon translates.
Mahendra looked at me, and looked again to the leather. He tried cutting a very small piece again, without success. He looked at the emperor. I understood the problem.
“Tell him that in exchange for building the saddles, I will enchant his tools.”
She says that to him, and his eyes are bulging.
“Can I have some privacy again, Rajesh?”
The emperor carries Mahendra out of the room, so that my girls can get dressed.
They get dressed, and my little entourage and I get out, to meet the emperor and Mahendra. Now we are going to his studio.
“Rajesh, I am curious about something… How did you guys process the dragon, if you can’t cut a bullgoose?”
“The dragon’s dismantling was done by the army, and some legendary weapons and relics where used, actually. But we are trying to do this using Mahendra in particular, so I cannot open these resources for him.”
That did make sense. We walk around in the palace, and we get to his workshop.
“How come his workshop is in the palace?”
“When you asked for some help with a leather artisan, we had him moved temporarily to the palace. He is actually very good, we have been using his services a lot.”
“Please tell him to place the tools he is going to have to use on the table.”
Mahendra receives the message, and starts piling things up on the table. That knife he around this waist, some scissors, a couple of needles, a bigger knife, some ingraining tools.
“Shonda, tell him to test each tool as I am done.”
I started my work, and I went through each of them. The knife, the needles, the scissors, the bigger knife, the ingraining tools. I create a neutron crystal on each of them, only on the edges, and did a mono-molecular edge. He was astonished with everything he tried.
The emperor grabbed an engraving too, and hit the stone floor with it, to Mahendra’s desperation. A chunk of rock flew. He then did it slightly on a wood table, and the tools was still sharp. I could see that anyone would have been expelled from the workshop, and giggled a little.
“Shonda, tell him that these should not be sharpened, ever. But they should never loose their edge either.”
He kneels down at the floor, and says something. Shonda translates to me.
“He is saying that he is unworthy of your presents, oh great benevolent Wrax. The saddles should be ready in a month.”
I giggled. I gestured him up, and I shook his hand. I turned to Shandon.
“Tell him to not worry about it. Just make sure the saddles are comfortable for my girls. That is the only thing I am asking.”
She tells him that, and I see some tears in his eye. Rajesh smiles.
“It looks like you would make a more inspiring emperor than I am…” And he laughed.
I giggled.
“Well, it is getting late, and I don’t want to be the reason the demons miss their emperor any longer. We are taking our leave, Rajesh.”
“Thank you for your visit, Great Adventurer.”
“Thank *you*.”
And then I portal ourselves to our guild in Frolk.
I was tired. My social batteries were really low. All my batteries were low, actually. We had a bath, and a normal one at that. Although even in this state, I liked to look at my girls. Are they my girls now? I think that right now I am too tired for even that.
We eat some more bullgoose barbecue. This thing is really, really good. I can’t get tired of this. Apparently, the girls as well. Even Muninn would apparently live inside that thing happily.
The next day, Cecilia and the girls ask to go to Orora. I portal them outside the town. Someone coming out of Leopold’s office, that was never there to start with, would sound weird. Cecilia was promoted to branch master, and apparently that would open some doors to her. She made a secret on what they wanted to do. They would be safe, though. Cecilia has some common sense, and that group could probably face anything in the city.
As agreed, I go over to bring them back by the end of the day. As I am about to enter the city, I see them coming out, giggling and talking. Once they see me, they stop. Even in casual clothes my girls are beautiful. The hug me, we to go the woods, and portal back to Frolk.
After supper, the bullgoose is almost gone. There is enough perhaps for tomorrow’s breakfast. We are discussing about the next barbecue, and end up on being the rest of the leg of the adult dragon. It is the thigh, it is going to have meat for several days in there. We are all too full for any other activities. Why do I keep doing this?
Tomorrow is the day of the party.
I fall asleep soundly.
