"Halt!" the guard said as we approached the city gates. "What's going on here?"
"Just returning to the city," I replied. "Is anything the matter?"
The other guard next to him shifted in place but pretended to still be looking at the small line of guild workers and foragers returning from the fields. Meanwhile, the man who had stopped us frowned. He looked at me, then at the girls, his frown deepening when he had to crane his neck all the way up just to look at the huge dragoness standing just a few paces behind me.
I lifted my hand, showing four chains connecting it to four collars around the girls' necks.
"They are mine and under control, guard," I said. "You can check my guild token if you need to."
He did just that. I felt some sort of scanning magic detect the token, gleaning information from it. Despite Bib's reassurances that his hack, which we paid one gold a day for, would do its job, I still felt my back tingle a little. Zery tensed up behind me, which didn't go unnoticed. The guard gripped his weapon, which I suppose made sense given the fact that he was staring down at a dragon almost four meters tall who looked just about ready to pounce on him.
"You are free to enter," the man said through gritted teeth. "Watch your slaves, worker."
I nodded, no doubt irritating the man with my shit-eating grin. "I always do," I said, making sure to ogle Zery—who was the least clothed of us all.
The man grunted, lingering in front of the tiny side door for a moment longer than was necessary before relenting and letting us pass. Zery had to bend almost at ninety degrees to fit, folding her wings against her back so that they wouldn't get stuck.
She was smiling ear to ear, sharp teeth fully on display. "Hah, already making trouble."
Vespera shared her glee, happy beyond belief that their decisions were already creating problems for me. And they would create more, I knew.
The girls showed up as slaved monsters, hiding the nature of the bond and their status as great races, but that was it. Everything else about our status was wide open, especially the fact that we shared a last name and that there was something more than just slavery going on here.
When we finally met up with Ted, we found that the coordinates he had given us pointed to a tea place in a fancy establishment near the center of the city. The lithos block was bright and clean, and only a faint haze of smoke hung about the ceiling, near the crystal lights. Trees and greenery abounded, especially in the private garden where he was sitting, sipping fancy tea in a small gazebo providing shade from the artificial sunlight.
"I'll be," the dwarf said as he rose to his feet to greet us. "Your harem expands again."
I didn't worry about his loud voice, having felt the subtle magic of a sound suppression ward thanks to my new magic-attuned senses.
"Who are the new additions?" he asked.
"Ted, I introduce to you Calla Nightguard and Zery Nightguard," I said.
The dragon puffed out her chest and her wings twitched a little when she realized that I had not used her full name, rather her nickname, given what she had told me yesterday.
"Girls, this is Ted," I said. It was more for his sake than for theirs, since they had looked through my memories and had even witnessed the induction dinner through the bond.
"Nightguard?" the dwarf asked. His eyes flashed with magic, and a frown appeared on his face. "They all share your last name now, plain for everybody to see."
I nodded proudly, the feeling echoed in the others as well. The proudest of all was, of course, the dragon, while Calla was feeling suddenly self-conscious under the dwarf's scrutiny. Despite his diminutive stature, he could be intense when he wasn't being all amused like he usually was.
"Told you you'd be making waves," Ted said, apparently satisfied. "And you will. For now, let's enjoy some tea. You can sit wherever you want."
I took place at the table, lounging on reclining chairs that were only comfortable because of my stats. Vespera sat beside me, taking my hand, while the others went to lounge on the manicured grass of the garden, using Zery as a pillow.
"A dragon and a dryad, huh?" Ted asked. "Let me guess, lad, the dragon told you to stop hiding your bond."
"We were all in on it," I said.
The dwarf shook his head. "Whatever. Plenty of eccentric people in the city, I guess. The dryad, is she who I think she is?"
There was a lot of catching up that followed. Some more warnings as well, before we switched to planning and scheming. Today's meeting was going to be rather important for Ted's power plays, after all.
After we had planned and schemed enough, we switched back to pleasantries and business. We made plans for the transmutation of the stone to refit the outer wall, and talked logistics.
"Your bond changed, didn't it?" the dwarf asked. "Your mana capacity got even crazier now. We'll have to be careful."
"Or not," I ventured. "I'm kinda tired of pretending and stuff. Let's just work normally and see what happens, how about it?"
"I…" Ted began, before pausing. "I suppose you do have the means to deal with possible unpleasantries. Because they will happen if you keep parading yourself, your girls and your power around like this."
"Then people will learn to mind their own business," Zery said, switching from lying on the grass to sitting cross-legged near us. It made her as tall as I was while standing, which meant quite a bit taller than the sitting dwarf.
Ted shrugged. "I s'pose they will. You are members of the club, though. Behave accordingly."
I inhaled, feeling the dragon's annoyance. It was echoed by Vespera, while Elyra and Calla were pushing for a more conservative approach. Truth be told, I also didn't like all these phantom chains we were getting tangled up with, especially with the usefulness of the city beginning to look less and less interesting to our eyes.
"Sure," I said, voicing none of our concerns. "Don't worry."
"Good. Ah, he should be here."
Ted rose, waving at a sharply dressed elf standing ramrod straight at the edge of the garden. Seeing him, the elf made a beeline for our gazebo, walking inside the soundproofing barrier and taking a seat on a normal chair next to us.
"Fredrick," Ted said. "He is Sol Nightguard, the man I talked to you about."
Then, turning to me, he said, "Sol, meet Fredrick, from the Freebuilder Association."
We shook hands. The elf's grip was firm at first, before he increased the pressure without breaking eye contact. I began to feel some pain, and it was clear that his stats were higher than mine. When he finally relented and let go, the easy smile on his face betrayed nothing.
Then his gaze passed over the girls, treating them like they were mere objects. His eyes glinted with magic, and he barely suppressed a scoff, which we still noticed due to the fact that it was five of us all watching him. Even if one or two missed a certain reaction or micromovement, one of the others picked it up and relayed it through the bond, adding their own experience and interpretation to it, de facto making it nigh-impossible to hide things from us.
"I have heard," Fredrick said, tone measured but not quite hiding the contempt in his voice as his gaze lingered on Calla. "About your accord with the keeper of the great dryadic tree west of the city. The reports mentioned a lesser dryad, descendant of the originals, but not quite of the same lineage."
His gaze remained on Calla, to the point where Zery and the others shifted a little to shield her from him, much to her relief.
The elf went on unperturbed. "The not-so-quite dryad was, as I recall, a male. Just as it were, recently the sightings of that particular specimen have ceased, and a new dryad appears. She, according to the reports, looks quite like your slave."
"Nice chat," I said. "You from Chasm City?"
The elf blinked at my sudden bluntness. Inwardly, I thanked Vespera for the suggestion. She was good at throwing people off-balance. It was all part of the plan as well, and I could see Ted struggling to hold back a laugh.
"I do reside there," the elf said. "However, I don't see how this information might be pertinent to our conversation."
"And I don't see why you should be bothering poor little Calla," Vespera said, dragging her chair between the elf and me, opposite Ted, and unceremoniously plopping down on it.
The corners of Fredrick's lips twitched, along with a single nostril flaring in annoyance. "You should watch your slaves, Sol Nightguard."
I met his piercing green eyes. I liked Calla's eyes better. "I have something you want, or you wouldn't be here. Ted told me you are interested in artifacts from the dryadic age; something like this?"
I snapped my fingers, enjoying the power play. Zery rose to her feet, towering over the elf and frankly, the whole gazebo. Her wings were slightly open as well, casting the elf in darkness. She grabbed something from a satchel and set it on the table with surprising grace.
The elf's eyes were immediately glued to it.
"I call it a computer," I said. "And you will call it that way too, for ease of understanding. You look interested, Fredrick Slyzarik. Yes, I know who you are, Chasmer."
"Fine," the elf spat. "Name your price, human."
Ted coughed. "Lads," he said, pretending to be the measured mediator. "We are all Great Races here. Let's behave like civilized people."
"Of course," I said syrupily. "I am sure Mr. Fredrick did not mean any disrespect towards my bonded girls."
"Bonded… girls?" the elf stammered. He looked at them, eyes flashing with inspection magic, and his mouth hung open for a moment before slamming shut in nervous tension. "You gave them your last name, and now you think you are equals? You will die gruesomely, human, torn apart by your own slaves."
I tapped the computer on the table. "Eyes here, Chasmer."
The elf scoffed. "I will not tolerate your disrespect any longer. This meeting is over."
"Not so quick," Ted said. He produced a glass vial from his pockets, setting it on the table near the computer. I recognized it, of course. I had given it to him myself. It was half-full with Green. "You know what this is?" he asked.
The elf's eyes widened. "The miracle potion," he whispered. "Another artifact of the dryadic civilization?"
"Maybe," the dwarf said. "Lad says it comes from the same place as that… computer."
Fredrick looked like he had just swallowed a lemon. "I know where it is," he said, ears twitching. "I can just send my people there and take it by force."
Ted chuckled. "Y'all down under are all the same, aren't you? And, pray tell, who would your people be? 'cause last I recall, lad, Chasmers use guild workers for their dirty deeds."
"Don't call me lad," the elf snapped. "And yes, what about it?"
"Ask the dryad over there," Ted nodded towards Calla. "What happens when someone tries to grab this stuff without Sol's authorization? 'Cause you see, the Green is his. He gives it to us because he's an upstanding member of the club, but the stuff is his. Come on. Ask. Go ahead."
Fredrick looked at me with a barely concealed snarl. Then, his gaze moved to Calla. A growl from the dragon still standing behind him forced him to reconsider his facial expression before asking.
"They get asked my riddle," the dryad said in a small voice. "And then they all die. It has been this way for hundreds of years. Only Sol ever answered right. And now, I'm his."
The elf swallowed, but we weren't done. Ted grabbed his shoulder, the gesture friendly enough on the surface, but his eyes were icy.
"You freebuilders think you have free rein up above, but you don't. This stuff here? The Green? I got half the guild staff hooked on it. Sol here, he snaps his fingers and boom. The whole supply vanishes. Suppose you can get past the shield and the riddle, you'd find yourself with a heap of scrap worth nothing, and the whole guild would know you are the one who cut them off from their new favorite drug. Do you know what it does? It gives you ten Vitality per drop, elf. Ten whole stats."
But there was a drawback, of course. One I told Ted about. One the corporations creating the drug had baked into it. Sure, it adds to your lifespan, which in this world translates to the Vitality stat, but the effect only compounds as long as there are nanomachines in your body. Nanomachines that are programmed to break down, faster the more of them there are.
Once you are on the Green, you can never go back. Especially here, with stats. Nobody wants to see their status revert back to normal, not after watching their Vitality soar into triple digits after a few drops. Not when the System barely has any energy, and everyone is forced to fight for scraps of power with low ranked classes and unruly slaves that corrupt the very soul.
"Go back to Chasm City, envoy. Tell your superiors we are willing to trade dryadic artifacts, even the Green, but the upper city is ours."
"Yours, or the guild's?" the elf asked.
Ted smiled, back to his easy, relaxed and amused self. "What difference does it make?" he asked, shrugging.
With that, the elf was gone. Ted laughed, enjoying the last of his tea. "See?" he said. "Making waves."
I nodded.
"I have more computers and artifacts," I told him. "I've studied them already, and they are pretty much useless."
"Aren't you scared of the knowledge you might unleash?" he asked.
"If they can decode what's on the computers," I said.
"Don't underestimate the ingenuity of the races. We may be able to make something of them. Run them through me. The club gets first dibs and pay you the same rate as the freebuilders. Anything we don't need, we sell to them at a premium. You get the same money and much less hassle, not to speak the club will know of your contributions."
"I also want all the information you get from the tech," I said.
"Sure," the dwarf said easily. "Making waves, lad. Making waves. Don't let the lackluster reaction at the induction fool ya. It was mostly for your sake. Welp." He got up, grumbling as he worked out some kinks in his apparently stiff back. "I'll be on my way now. See you at the wall later, to begin transmuting?"
NSFW preview
We remained behind for a while after Ted left. The meeting at the wall was later in the day, after the dwarf was done preparing for the transmutation, and our spot at the teahouse was fully paid for anyway.
Why not enjoy the fake sun, the fake breeze, the background chatter that almost reminded me of neuro-stim high society movies but not quite hit the mark, and the manicured gardens all around?
"I have to admit, it's nice," I said.
"Not as nice as being outside," Zery argued. "But I suppose there is merit in being pampered like this."
She sipped her tea while lounging on an extra-large chair that one of the staff brought for her, sighing in contentment. Her height meant that even though she was almost completely lying down, she still reached with her head above our table. From the outside, we must have looked like a tight-knit group of friends perhaps, although the slave collars gave away our actual relationship, or the pretense of it.
Then I felt something brush against my inner thigh. It didn't take long to divine who it was, although the discovery surprised me. As the little foot explored upward, near my crotch, I saw Calla blush like crazy and avoid my gaze.
Excatly zero of the other girls were surprised, though. They had planned this.
When she finally arrived at her destination, her little digits brushing against the tip of my dick through the fabric of my trousers, I heard a gentle moan from my right. Elyra was contorting in her seat, struggling not to touch herself.
It would be useless, she knew. Also, we were in public, and while Calla's little foot was hidden by the mass of us all huddling around the small table, she wouldn't be as stealthy.
I bit back a moan of pleasure when Calla began to move. "What are you doing?" I asked.
"Getting off," the little dryad said. "I've been feeling pent up ever since last time."
"Well, me too but—"
"No, Sol ours," Vespera said, cutting me off. "You don't understand. It's the mere thought that we can't pleasure ourselves anymore. It's driving us nuts!"
"How come I felt none of that?" I asked.
"We were… trying to resist," she admitted.
"Why?"
"Fine!" Zery declared. "Girls, let's make him understand."
Continues