Chapter Eight
Kassie stretched her back. She had the new magical circles done. Even with her Earth-enchanted chisel that let her carve stone like it was wax, it still took time. It had to be done carefully. She tested them all by saying the special word.
"Asud Gu."
It roughly meant, "Move Hand," in the magical tongue. In essence, a hand of magic would grab her and move her. It had taken some deduction to come across that combination to get the teleportation circle to work after having studied it.
Any mage could do this, but they would have to know the word. If she could figure it out, so could they. Sadly, every halfling that she moved through it could remember it. Would the secret be secure? It was a worry for Kassie considering the location of the teleportation hall in the dungeon.
She would talk to Leo about it.
"I'm finished with the carving,"
she said as she stood in the middle of the room.
"Excellent,"
Leo answered over the bond. Suddenly, some of the circles and their spots vanished, changing the shape of the room. He moved the dungeon bypass, the Astovin, and the Sharithin circles out of here. It happened so fast, Kassie felt like it had always been this way.
Dungeon builders...
Then she stood in the Vault beside Leo. He glanced down at her, smiling. The room had a faint hint of pussy.
He must have made new monster girls,
she thought.
"I think you can't have the teleportation hub off your throne room," she said. "Any mage
can
use it. And I wasn't exactly hiding the phrase getting my people out of Sharithin. Thousands heard it."
His brow knitted and he gripped the Void Crystal. "I moved it off to the guard post that Paanee and Baaghi live in. And they'll have some company soon. I have two more companions I'll stick in there."
"Two?" Kassie asked. Anger rippled in her.
"Sulanga's?"
"Three of them are willing to serve me," said Leo. "I think Paetu, she's the djinn, and the harpies are better used outside of the dungeon. Air patrol. They can circle the skies above the village. Watch out for dangers."
Kassie swallowed her anger. It was difficult. She remembered what Paetu had done to Sharithin. And the other ones.
They were serving a different master. Leo isn't that bastard.
"I suppose that's for the best."
"Yeah," he said. "I was going to awaken them. Do you want to stay? Or should we start returning your people to Sharithin? I have the embassy set up there. Usiku is running it with five pixies for guards. Obviously, if something happens, I can flood far more defenders into it to help protect the city."
Kassie mulled it over. "It's late. We can start evacuating them tomorrow morning."
Leo grinned. "So you want to stay to meet the new monster girls. See that they're not the same monster that hurt your people."
"I thought I hid my anger better than that," Kassie muttered.
He smiled. "Naw, I got it. Why wouldn't you be... furious with them. They were the faces of Sulanga's oppression. They attacked you."
"I'll stay," she said.
Leo nodded and grabbed the Void Crystal. His expression went slack for a moment. Souleen, whom Kassie could barely see since she barely stood at eye-level with the base of the gem, quivered with excitement.
"Well, I'll leave you to it," Kassie said, not sure she wanted to stick around to meeting Sulanga's monster girls.
"Paetu, appear," he said as she slipped out.
* \ * / *
Shadows danced and from them spun a dusky-skinned woman with black hair and big breasts. Gold rings pierced her dark nipples and matching bracers clad her wrists. They looked more like manacles but lacked the chains. She had a hairless pussy that already beaded with dew.
"Leo," said Paetu, a shiver running through her. "Oh, this is strange to be free of my brother-in-law's cruelty."
"Brother-in-law?" I asked, blinking.
"Yes." A sneer spread on her lips. "He always lusted after me. Tried to bed me many times, the pig. I would never have touched him, but then he brought me to this world and..." She shuddered. "Thank you for killing that sadist!"
"Uh, yeah, you're welcome," I said, knowing it could hardly compare to the anger that was in her eyes. This wild rage. "I'm sorry that he did that to you."
She glanced at me, her large breasts swaying back and forth. Her eyes studied me, flicking up and down. "I'm not the real me," she said. "I figured that out. He survived the freak wind that knocked him off the roof he was working on. Broke both his legs, but he survived. I learned that from the others he brought in, especially from Peda. His mother."
"That's why she chose not to serve me," I said. "She actually liked him."
Paetu nodded. "I suppose she did. Pity, she hadn't strangled him in his sleep." She sighed. "I'm not the real me. I've thought about that a lot. The real me is still back in our world with my husband. She must have had her baby by now."
Another bit of pain swept over Paetu's eyes. I swallowed as I watched her grieve for the child she would never get to see. How pregnant had she been? I had no idea. I didn't know what to say to her as she closed her eyes.
When they opened, they stared at me. Her big breasts quivered. I wasn't sure what to say. "Do you want to go back to sleep?"
