by Eric Vall
It was a lot of painstaking and tedious work. I started at the center point of the life rune and worked to embed copper into the rune’s grooves. Again, I didn’t know how my power worked exactly, but the rune felt like the focal point of my power, so I began there and worked outward. I had to re-soften the iron as I went to embed the copper wiring inch by precious inch throughout the rest of the machine, and it took a lot of concentration and attention to detail. Once I wound the wires deep into the animatron’s chest, I then extended them out into the right arm.
I concentrated more copper around the shoulder and elbow joints and in the arm itself since these were the parts that needed to move quickly and efficiently. The hands and fingers were also a complicated mess of copper, but as the work got finer and more detailed, I found I didn’t mind as much. I felt like Dr. Frankenstein as I hunched over my metallic creation, one-part doctor and three-parts mad scientist. The wires also gleamed beautifully as I buried them into the iron, and I could almost feel myself develop a god complex.
Nearly two hours later, I finished wiring the right arm and wiped at my brow as sweat dripped into my eyes.
“Okay,” I said with an excited grin. “Now, let’s see if this works.”
Cayla and Aurora perked up from where they had been playing with Stan as I upgraded his big brother.
“You finished?” Cayla asked as she practically skipped over to my side. Her blue eyes were bright with eagerness, and she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.
“Finished enough for a test run,” I replied. “I’ve wired the entire right arm, but I need to see if this works like I’m hoping it will first.”
“Then what are you waiting for,” Aurora said as she walked up and knocked my hip with her own. “Let’s see the fruits of your labor.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I saluted the Ignis Mage, and then I turned back to the animatron and cleared my throat.
“Alright, big guy,” I said as I summoned my magic back up to the surface and unleashed it. “Moment of truth. Lift your right arm above your head.”
Even though I was hoping he would respond immediately, I still wasn’t prepared when his arm shot up into the air almost before the command was fully out of my mouth.
Cayla gasped beside me, and Aurora grinned as she reached down and squeezed my hand.
“It worked,” Cayla breathed, and her wide blue eyes sparkled with awe. “He moves faster than Stan even.”
The little stickman jumped from the princess’s hand and landed on the table beside his larger relative. Then he patted the machine’s side as if in pride.
“Great job, big guy,” I said as a broad smile broke out across my face. “Now can you extend your arm out in front of you and touch the tips of your fingers to your thumb?”
Big Guy, as I now affectionately decided to call him, kept his arm lifted in the air and did just as I instructed smoothly and perfectly.
“Amazing.” Excitement bubbled in my chest, and my magic writhed in my veins as if in celebration. “Well, that solves that problem. Now I just have to figure out where to get more copper from for the rest of him.”
“Does Gwain not have any more?” Cayla questioned as her eyes darted to the supply closet.
I shook my head. “He only had a little bit, and I’ve already used it all up.”
“Hmm,” the princess hummed as her brow furrowed, “I think… I might have a solution.”
My eyebrows rose toward my hairline. “I’m all ears.”
“As I’ve said before, Cedis isn’t a rich kingdom,” Cayla started, “but we do still have a treasury. There might be some copper coins there that we could use. It would not be a lot, but enough to finish this machine I think.”
“I’m still going to need more iron to make the bottom half,” I said with a frown.
Cayla pursed her lips in thought, but then her eyes widened. “Oh! We could go to the mines.”
“Mines?” I echoed in excitement. “I like mines.”
“Well, technically it’s just one big mine,” the princess explained. “It used to be the largest and most profitable in Cedis before Camus Dred took over. My father was forced to collapse and abandon it, which is why Gwain’s stores are so low now, but with your powers, Mason, we could dig it out again.”
“Perfect,” I said with a broad grin as I clapped my hands together. “Field trip! But it’ll take us time to pack and actually get there, and I want to have two working arms by the end of today. So, let’s head down to the treasury now and see how much copper we can find. Sound like a plan?”
Aurora, Cayla, and Stan nodded in unison.
Chapter 8
“Alright, princess,” I said with a grin as the workshop door shut behind us. “Lead the way.”
“The treasury is located deep beneath the castle,” Cayla said as she glanced between Aurora and me. “It will take us a while to get there.”
“Not if we hurry,” I joked as I began to jog in place. “Now, what do you say about getting down to the vault and having us a little scavenger hunt? Ooh, maybe we can make this even more interesting and wager which one of us will find it first.”
A smile broke out across Cayla’s face. “That is rather unfair, I believe. You have your metal magic, an advantage neither I nor Aurora possess. It will be easier for you to find the copper coins.”
“Is that an excuse I hear?” I asked as I cupped my hand over my ear. “Are you, Princess Balmier, afraid that you’ll lose?”
Cayla narrowed her eyes at me and lifted her chin proudly. “What are the stakes?”
I tapped a finger against my lips in thought, and then I dragged my eyes up the princess’s flowing skirts before I settled on the tight corset that kept her breasts lifted toward her face.
“I can think of a few things,” I replied as I suggestively waggled my eyebrows. “Mainly which one of us will get to undress first when we make it back to my bedroom.”
“You are incorrigible,” Cayla teased, but a smirk slid onto her face. “I accept your terms. May the best woman win.”
I grinned and opened my mouth to respond, but then the princess whipped around and broke into a flat-out sprint. I gaped after her and turned to glance at Aurora, but the half-elf bolted past me in a blur of blue hair and white robes.
“Too slow, Mason,” the Ignis Mage laughed over her shoulder, and then she used her enhanced elven speed to catch up with Cayla right before the princess took a hard right at the end of the hall.
“That’s cheating,” I called after them as I began to run, but I was laughing all the way.
It took us about ten minutes to wind our way through the bowels of the castle, and several times I almost got lost when Cayla and Aurora slipped out of sight and down a side hall I didn’t see at first. Eventually, though, I rounded a corner and the hallway dead-ended into a pair of huge wooden doors twenty yards ahead of me. Two great torches sat sentinel on either side of the doors, and Aurora and Cayla stood right in the center.
“Nice of you to join us,” Aurora teased as I jogged up to them only slightly out of breath.
“Say the cheaters,” I panted, but I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.
After weeks of monsters and weapons and evil bastards, it felt good to just have some fun for once, even if it was only for a few minutes.
“Is that an excuse I hear?” Cayla quipped as she threw my own words back at me with a smirk.
“Not at all,” I replied as I straightened my spine and took a deep breath. “Now, are we going to open these doors or are we just going to stand here looking pretty?”
“Well, you are quite nice to look at,” Aurora said as she dragged her eyes up and down my frame. When she met my gaze, her pink tongue darted out to swipe across her lower lip, and my eyes locked in on her mouth.
“Right back at you,” I replied with a wink. “But I’ll wait until after I win to claim my prizes.”
Aurora narrowed her eyes. “We shall see about that, Defender Flynt.” Then she wh
irled around to face the door, and the ends of her long blue hair whipped across my face.
“Are we ready now?” Cayla asked as she reached out and grasped the heavy, iron door handle.
“Yes,” Aurora and I responded in unison.
“Crack her open,” I added as I stretched my arms before me and rolled my neck from side to side.
A sly grin spread across Cayla’s face, and then she wrenched the door open just enough for her to dart inside. Aurora leapt forward before I could blink and also shimmied her way through the gap and into the treasury, but the space was too small for my broad shoulders to squeeze through.
“Very sad that the two of you have to resort to playing dirty,” I called out as I wrapped my hand around the handle and yanked it open the rest of the way.
“Sorry, Mason, I cannot hear you,” Cayla called from the shadowy depths of the vault. “I am too busy winning.”
“We’ll see about that,” I muttered, and then I plunged into the treasury.
The room was vast, cavernous, and cold. It was also pitch black, save for the weak light of the hall at my back, but I could hear the echoes of the women’s footsteps reverberate off the walls and presumably high ceilings.
“Are we doing this blind?” I called into the darkness. I raised my arms out in front of me and bumped into something wooden. “I can’t see a thing!”
“I used to play here all the time as a child,” Cayla laughed from the shadows. “I am getting around just fine.”
“Me too,” Aurora quipped from somewhere to my left.
“You have built-in night vision, Defender Solana,” I pointed out with a frown. “I am a mere and lowly human.”
“Uh-huh,” the half-elf called back, but then I heard the sound of her rummaging through something.
Fine. If that was how they wanted to play this, I could play dirty, too.
I took a deep breath and shut my eyes. There was little change in what I saw, but I abandoned my useless sight for something stronger. As I listened to Cayla and Aurora pick their way through the vault, I sent out tendrils of magic into the dark. They stretched like vines across the floor, and I concentrated as they sent back vague impressions of what the treasury looked like.
I was right when I said it sounded vast. The cavern had to be nearly fifty yards in diameter, and the ceiling, dotted with stalactites as long as I was, rested almost one hundred meters above our heads. The room itself was full of odds and ends, but the details of them were fuzzy. I could tell there was a lot of furniture, a lot of big pieces made of wood, but I couldn’t make out more than their vague shapes. That didn’t matter though. I wasn’t looking for an armchair. I was looking for riches.
I sent out another burst of magic and tried to home in on any metal that called to me. Immediately I was bombarded with vague metallic impressions, but I tried to focus it more as I searched for copper. As the seconds dragged by, I started to worry that Cayla had been wrong and there were no copper coins, but then it happened. My power brushed up against a large chest, about the size of several shoeboxes stacked on top of each other, that sat on the opposite end of the vault, on a stone table pressed up against the far wall. The magic told me that there was something made from the earth tucked inside that box, and when I fully turned my attention to it, the chest almost seemed to glow in my mind’s eye, like a beacon.
I snapped open my eyes, and a grin bloomed across my face.
“Gotcha,” I muttered, and then I strode confidently across the pitch black room as I let my magic guide the way.
By the time I reached the chest, the power in my veins had begun to vibrate.
“Hey guys,” I called out over my shoulder, “I think I found something.”
“Damn,” I heard Aurora curse in the darkness behind me, but then there was the sound of footsteps as both women walked toward the sound of my voice.
“My father has a penchant for moving things around,” Cayla grumbled as she shuffled up behind me. “If it weren’t for that, I would have found them the instant we entered the vault.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” I teased, and then I turned to my other side where I could feel Aurora hovering behind my shoulder. “Defender Solana, I could use a little light if you please.”
The static of magic arced through the air, and then a flame flickered to life right behind my elbow. Aurora pressed herself close against my back as she held her hand and fire over my shoulder.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“Perfect,” I replied with a smile. “Thank you, dear.”
Aurora rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, you won. Now, will you please open the chest before we all die of anticipation?”
“Yes, please,” Cayla agreed, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her nod emphatically.
“Can I at least get a drum roll?” I asked, but when neither woman answered I added, “Stan?”
Cayla pressed herself tightly against my side, and then I felt the stickman clamber from her shoulder to mine before he used my arm as a slide down to the stone table. When he came to my wrist, he jumped off and marched up to the side of the large and ornate chest that we all huddled around. Then, he lifted his little matchstick arms and drummed them against the metal box. The noise was barely audible, but it was enough to make me chuckle.
“Thanks, buddy,” I said down to the stick figure. “Great job.”
Stan took a step back and nodded his little head before he walked toward the edge of the table and looked up at Cayla. The princess immediately reached out to pick him up, and then she set him back on her shoulder.
“And now, without further ado,” I announced dramatically as I set my hand on the chest’s latch. There was a keyed lock set along the lid, but I just used my magic to slip into the mechanism and unlock it from the inside. Then I wrapped my fingers under the lip of the lid and shoved upwards.
The chest opened with a loud creak, and dust billowed out everywhere, but I barely noticed any of that as my eyes landed on the treasures inside. Since Cedis was a small and relatively poor kingdom, by comparison, the chest wasn’t exactly overflowing with wealth, but it was definitely more riches than I had ever laid my eyes on back on Earth. Dozens of gold and silver chains and coins winked up at me under the flickering light of Aurora’s flame, but I barely paused on those as I continued to search for what we came for, for the things that had called to me from across the darkened room.
My magic writhed in my veins, eager to be set loose, so I let it, and my power immediately zeroed in on the bottom of the chest.
I held my breath as I reached out and plunged my hands into the mound of riches. The metal was cool against my skin, and I suppressed a shiver as my fingers dug deeper and deeper.
Suddenly, I brushed up against something that was almost hot to the touch. I made a fist around my prize, and then I drew my arm back to the surface.
My hand trembled finely as I withdrew it from the chest, and it was only when I began to feel lightheaded that I realized I wasn’t breathing. I sucked in an inhale as my vision began to swim, and then I flipped my hand over and slowly revealed the objects in my palm.
Copper coins the size of quarters glinted up at me. There was at least a dozen of them, and my power told me there were a lot more at the bottom of the chest. For something so small and mundane, it sure looked beautiful to me.
“Looks like I win our wager,” I declared as I looked at the two women beside me.
“Will that be enough to finish your machine, Mason?” Cayla asked as she turned to me with a smile.
“It’s definitely a start,” I replied with a smile, “though I want to head to that mine as soon as possible.”
“So we will start work in the morning then, yes?” Aurora asked as she looked into my eyes.
“I actually wanted to finish the torso tonight at least,” I replied with a frown.
“But don’t you want to claim your prize?” Cayla purred as she suddenly pressed herself against my side. “Because I must inform you, it
is bad manners for a princess to not follow through on her word, and you did, in fact, win our wager.”
I looked down at the princess to find her eyes hooded and her bottom lip pulled taut between her teeth. Immediately, my blood rocketed down south, and arousal flared in me so fast and hot that I felt a little lightheaded.
“Oh, well I guess the other arm could wait until morning,” I muttered as I zeroed in on her wet lips.
“Good,” Aurora whispered on my other side as she rose up on her tiptoes and nipped at my ear. “Shall we retire to your room to celebrate your victory then?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Cayla beat me to it.
“What’s wrong with right here?” she giggled, and I watched as she turned and gently placed Stan on the table beside the chest before she turned back to me.
“Umm…” My eyes darted back to the ajar door at the entrance. “Shouldn’t we--?”
“Should we what, Mason?” Cayla asked, and I looked back at her just in time to watch her reach behind the nape of her neck and unlace the bindings of her dress. They came undone with a rasp, and then the princess slowly slid her arms from the sleeves and let the top portion of the dress fall and pool around her waist.
Her pink nipples pebbled in the cold cavern air, and my mouth watered with the desire to draw them into my warm mouth and bite down.
“I… uhhh….” I stuttered as my eyes trailed past her breasts and down toward her flat stomach. The blue dress bunched against Cayla’s hips, and the princess wiggled as she pushed the rest of the fabric down and to the floor.
Then the raven-haired beauty stood bare before me, and my eyes devoured the glorious sight. Her body was slim and smooth and virtually hairless, save for the small triangle of jet black curls that sat at the apex of her thighs. Cayla spread her legs slightly, and I could see wetness gleam at the very center of her.
“Well?” the princess remarked as she arched an eyebrow. “Are you going to join me?”
“Yes,” I growled emphatically, and then my hands began to tear at the laces of my own leather breeches.