Description: Allan is chosen by a goddess to save the shortstacks of another world.
Author's note: Unlike my other stories, this one does not contain any erotic transformations. This is a slow burn isekai harem romance with shortstacks. Each chapter will contain romance and at least one sex scene. If any of that offends you or you are under 18 years old, do not read this. All the characters in erotic situations in this story are over 18 years old.
Inspired by the Shortstack Girlfriend Genie choose your own adventure by Penn_Dragon.
Chapter 1: Delving With Dwarves
Stolna, paladin of Shorsena, was in trouble. She had ventured into the deep mines to find a group of young initiates who had gone missing from the temple. The mines were dangerous, but dwarves were hardy folk, and did not shy away from danger. She was certain she could find the children before they got hurt.
Then she got surrounded by shadow wolves.
Stolna was a trained fighter, and managed to kill more than a few with her mighty hammer, but there were too many of them. She raised her hammer high and called upon the name of Shorsena before slamming her hammer to the ground. Holy fire spread in a ring from her, burning the wolves. A couple more dropped dead, but still more came. She deflected some with her shield and broke the skulls of a few more with her hammer, but one finally got a lucky shot on her leg, limiting her mobility. Then one grabbed her hammer arm. Its teeth didn't penetrate her bracers, but its jaws crushed the bones in her arm. She cried out as her hammer dropped from her limp fingers. She managed to break its neck with her shield, but without her weapon, the wolves gained initiative. They circled her, grabbing any part of her they could. She screamed as their black teeth pierced her flesh.
But a dwarf does not go down so easily. She smashed as many as she could with her shield, and whipped the wolf gripping her broken arm around as a makeshift flail.
All this only bought her a few more seconds. She was strong, but there were too many wolves. In the time it took her to attack one wolf, five others would strike. Where their teeth broke her skin, their shadows penetrated her muscles, filling her with darkness and cold. She felt her limbs slow and weaken. Soon she would be filled with shadow and unable to move.
Stolna, paladin of Shorsena, knew she was about to die.
In a final act of desperation, she cried "Shorsena, guardian of the small, save me!" but she did not think it would do her any good. Despite having paladins like Stolna, Shorsena was a fertility goddess, not a goddess of war. It was said she could save the desperate, but those whom she saved were taken from this world no one could say where. Stolna did not want to leave the children unrescued, but there was nothing more she could do. She hoped that if Shorsena took her, it would be somewhere she could make a difference.
Stolna heard music. She looked up and saw a light in the distance. It wasn't another dwarf, like she might have hoped; dwarves didn't need lights in the mines. Was this the goddess come to take her away? This music did not sound like heavenly harps and choirs, it sounded like a ... lute? Who would bring a lute into a mine? Rather than the light melodies Stolna might have expected played by celestial hands, the music was a series of harsh, sharp, discordant chords. Stolna wasn't an expert in musical expression, but there was an emotion in these chords. No, she realized, not an emotion, a threat. The music, if it was music, said "Be afraid. Run, or you will die." If Stolna weren't a dwarf, with a steadfast heart, she might have wanted to run, even with her torn leg tendons.
The music got louder and the light got brighter, and Stolna realized that the wolves had stopped and become silent. They weren't growling, marking, or howling, and they had stopped attacking her. Another couple of chopped chords and the wolves gripping her let go. They were all fixated upon the light. The music grew in volume and intensity, and the wolves all ran away as a pack.
After the wolves ran away, the music played a bit longer, then stopped. Stolna stared at the light as it approached. Eventually she could make out the shape of the person holding it. They were tall.
It was a man.
A human man.
He held a bead of light in one hand and some kind of lute in the other. He was dressed in well-fitting traveler's clothes.
And he was in the mine. A human in the mines could mean nothing good. There was no way he got here by himself, which meant there had to be more somewhere. Stolna tried to back away from the man as he approached, but her muscles betrayed her.
"Are you all right?" he asked her. His face and words radiated concern, but she wouldn't trust him so quickly. How had he ensorcelled the wolves? Anyone who could command monsters so easily was too powerful to not be wary around.
"Stay back, human!" she commanded.
He stopped and crouched down. He peered at her trail of blood in the dirt. "That doesn't look good," he said. "Here, let me try something." He tucked the light into his mouth, which cast ominous shadows on his face. He pulled a small book out of his pocket and flipped through it. When he found the page he wanted, he set the book on the ground. Then he knelt before the book and began to play a song on his lute.
"What are you..." she began, but then she felt warmth spreading through her body. The cold darkness of the shadow wolves receded from her blood. She could feel her wounds knit together. Her tendons repaired and she could move her leg again. With a crack, the bones in her arm snapped back together. She opened and closed her hand, marveling at the lack of pain. In less than a minute, he had completely healed her body.
The human stopped playing and pulled the light from his mouth. "Did it work?" he asked.
"Yeah," she breathed in wonder. She looked at him. "How? How did you do that?"
"Minuet of Healing," he said, pointing at the book. "Good. I'm glad it worked. I've never done that before."
Stolna looked at him, aghast. "That doesn't explain anything! How did you do that?"
He looked surprised. "Well, I have this book of magic songs, and that one is called the Minuet of Healing. Did I play it wrong?" He peered at the book, as if looking for a mistake.
Stolna stood up and grabbed the front of the human's tunic. She lifted him to his feet and shoved him against a wall. Like most humans, he was taller than her, at least five feet tall. Stolna barely came up to his chest. He dropped his lute and held up his hands in a placating gesture.
"Don't play games with me human," she spat, "I have had a long and trying day, and I refuse to believe that you just scared away wolves and healed my entire body with music, when everyone knows that songs can only heal bruises and paper cuts! Who are you and why are you in this mine!"
"I don't mean to play games," he said, "I swear. My name is Allan, and this is going to sound crazy, but I think I was sent by the goddess to save you!"
"Oh yeah?" she said, not releasing her grip, "which goddess?"
"Um, Shorsey, Shirley, Shirza? Sorry," he said, "I just met her, and I'm bad with names."
"Shorsena?" she prompted.
"Yeah," he said, "Shorsena. She said she was sending me to someone who needed help. And I found you."
Stolna looked at the arm she was using to pin him to the wall, the one he had healed. She remembered calling on Shorsena, then immediately seeing the human's light and hearing his music. Had Shorsena really sent a human? Humans had their own gods, why would one serve the god of smaller folk?
She let him go and backed up. "All right," she said, "I'll trust you for now, but I'll get the entire story out of you later. For now, there are lost children that need our help. But stay close to me: humans aren't allowed in these mines."
It wasn't long before they found the children. They were huddled together in the dark, crying. Apparently they had lost their way. Stolna couldn't get them to stand up and move. Then the human, Allan, handed her the light and asked her to let him try something. He started strumming his lute and singing a song. It was a simple song about a fox stealing chickens from a farmer, but it had the children enthralled. They stopped crying and were even smiling by the end.
Stolna used the opportunity to examine the light Allan had handed her. As she'd thought, it was a magic gem of some sort, but she couldn't place the type. As a dwarf, she had a passing knowledge of minerals, but this eluded her.
When Allan finished his song, the children had calmed down enough that she and him were able to take them by the hand and guide them out of the mines. When they reached Bluerock city, Allan attracted attention, standing heads and shoulders above most of the population, and holding the hands of two laughing children.
Stolna knocked on Allan's door. After they returned to the temple, they returned the initiates to their tutor for discipline and Stolna found Allan accommodations in the guest rooms. Then she had reported to the High Priestess before returning to her room to wash off. While she was covered in blood, no hints of scars remained from her recent ordeal. After bathing, she dressed in more comfortable clothes and braided her long blonde hair. Then she gathered a tray of food and took it to Allan's room. Now that things had calmed down, she was going to get his story.
"Come in," he called.
She opened the door and found him wearing a bathrobe. It was sized for a dwarf, and while Allan was taller than any dwarf, he was also much thinner, so it evened out.
"Sorry for my appearance," he said, "I only have one set of clothes and they took them away to be cleaned." His clothes, which were bright colors, were almost completely brown after a few only a few hours in the mines.
"That's quite alright," she said. She gestured with the tray, "I brought you some food."
"Thank you," he said, "I was famished." He took the tray and set it on the table. He sat on the chair, which was too short for him, so his long legs stuck out. He cut off a piece of cheese and bread and started to eat.
Stolna realized that he was staring at her. "What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said, "just that you look so different out of your armor. I couldn't see your pretty blue eyes or your long blonde hair beneath that helmet, for example."
Stolna hoped she wasn't blushing. "Well, it's only natural to wear armor into battle," she said. "Not everyone ventures into danger armed only with a lute."
"Of course," he said.
"I think," she said, changing the subject, "that it's time you told me your complete story."
He nodded his head. He took a sip of water. "I suppose I owe you that," he said, "though it's going to be hard to believe."
"I've seen you do two impossible things today," she said, "try me."
He nodded again. "Well, for starters, I'm from another world."
She nodded her head. "Right," she said.
"You believe me?"
"I'm starting to," she said. "It's unlikely, but so far it's the only explanation that makes sense. Continue."
"So, the first thing to understand," he said, "is that there is no magic in my world. None. Also, no races besides humans. No dwarves, halflings, goblins, or gnomes. Just humans."
