TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 01

Dai's eyes nearly bugged out of their head as he stared at Kal. His built-in ability to detect lies had already confirmed that the mage was telling the truth, however, that didn't make the bag of holding's avatar feel any better. "That bitch...!" anything else the little man might have said was cut off as Kal backhanded him across the room. The bag's avatar faded out as he flew, returning to his bag before he hit one of the bookshelves. The magic user's eyes glowed bright blue as he stared in the direction the ghostly figure had gone.

"Dai," he called. Long moments went by as he waited for the bag of holding finally give in to the summons. As soon as the ghostly green man began to appear the mage reached out and grabbed him around the chest, pulling the avatar up so they were nearly nose to nose.

"How did..."

"Shut up, qiu-Dai," Ikuno had told Kal at one point that despite all of his bluster about serving nobility his name literally meant 'bag' or 'sack'. After a particularly nasty encounter with the disagreeable little fellow, Kal offhandedly asked Ikuno what the word for 'ball' was in that language. Kal was quite certain that the translation was likely off but from the look on Dai's face, he knew quite well that he had just been called a ball sack. "Ikuno gave her life to save me. If I hear another unkind word about her out of your mouth I will keep her promise of filling you full of manure and leaving you at the bottom of a lava lake to rot for the rest of eternity."

The little man's eyes were wide with shock, partly because of what the mage had told him and partly because this man was somehow preventing him from returning to his bag. Not to mention that the human shouldn't have been able to strike him in the first place. Kal opened his hand once Dai had nodded his head that he understood.

"Ria," the mage called and a moment later a ghostly image of a sprite appeared next to his own bag of holding that was tied to his belt.

"Yes, Master Kal?" the avatar said cheerfully before shooting a knowing glare at the other bag of holding, she had heard some of the tales concerning her green counterpart.

"I need you to store everything that Dai is going to bring out." He turned back to the little man standing on the cloud, "Dai, transfer everything you have to the floor out there," he waved towards the layered furs by the bed that Ikuno used as an area rug. "Let's start with the items that will be the most useful on a long journey."

---

Kal and the wolf girl were now approaching the first item Dai had produced, a magical tent made for elven nobles in a long-forgotten age. It was believed that the tents were created in the same era as the bags of holding, however, Kal's special sight made him think otherwise. The bit of reading he had done on Ria, Dai and others like them suggested that the items placed in a bag of holding were stored in a tiny pocket dimension. The tent, on the other hand, appeared to warp the space around it, shrinking down to a piece of folded cloth only a little bigger than his hand or stretching, when set up, to the size of a large room on the inside. There was also the small fact that Dai and Ria both could put the tent inside them but could not put the other bag of holding inside themselves. When Kal asked about this Ria attempted to explain something about pocket dimensions within pocket dimensions, he had her stop when she started talking about tearing a rift in the dimensions and possibly destroying the universe.

The tent changed its appearance according to the owner's wishes and ranged from bright white with gold trim, plain white or gray, to doing it's best to hide wherever it was placed. The wispy light Kal was following looked like it disappeared into the forest ahead, the outline of the tent remaining nearly indistinguishable from its surroundings until they were nearly on top of it.

Kal unsealed the flap and moved to the side allowing the wolf girl to enter first, "It's magic, watch your step."

The woman gave him a quizzical glance before slipping past the mage and entering the small shelter. The wolf immediately stumbled down the three steps going down just inside the entrance, catching herself before she fell face first on the lush green carpet inside. Kal sighed as he stepped inside and sealed the flap behind him. His own first time entering the tent had been similar, hence the warning which had obviously gone unheeded.

The wolf girl stared about in amazement, hardly able to believe her eyes that this was the small camouflaged tent she had seen from the outside. The room she stood in was enormous by her reckoning, The soft green carpet ran off on all directions until it met with walls that looked to be an off-white canvas material. In the very center was a circular area where the carpet gave way to marble tiles with an indentation in the middle where a smokeless magical fire burned.

Though there were no walls besides those surrounding the room the mage had dedicated areas here and there for specific tasks. To the right, a set of shelves holding magical ingredients while various concoctions and potions bubbled away on a nearby table marked the wizard's alchemy laboratory. A little way further on, numerous bookcases with a table and chairs set before them made up a small library. On the table, a bird of prey's leg rose up from an ornate wooden base and gripped a brightly glowing crystal orb. As she looked about, the girl paused briefly on the plain wooden pedestal near the entrance holding a book with a cover the same color as the carpet. The flowing script on the front was pretty but wolf packs rarely needed the ability to read so it was typically only taught to those destined to become alphas and betas.

The other side of the room only held a bed and another set of shelves containing a variety of foodstuffs and cooking implements.

Seeing the bed, the girl immediately ran over and crawled on top of it swaying her hips back and forth sensuously while her tail made the nearby air thick with her musk. She looked over her shoulder as her rescuer approached, her eyes lidded with lust as she whimpered with need.

Kal took a moment to appreciate that the change to canine legs started at her upper thigh leaving her rear delectably human. Gritting his teeth he fought down the urge to drop his pants and take her then and there. "No," he said, "before I do anything else with you we need to get that collar off."

The wolf whined in disappointment, which quickly turned to anger at being denied. The growl that escaped her lips was cut off by a yelp of pain as the collar punished her for turning on her master.

The human shook his head, "I don't want to have to worry about you getting hurt every time you do something I may not like. Collar first, then we can take care of your needs."

Attacking one's master, even if it's for pleasurable activities, elicited one of the worst punishments the collar could mete out. Despite the fire in her body, the jolt she just received was enough to convince her that the human's way might be wiser.

Kal motioned for her to turn around and lift her chin, still wary of what the collar's magic might consider a command. The wolf girl reluctantly did as he asked while giving him a mournful look that tugged at the mage's heartstrings. The young wizard suddenly found himself wanting to give in, not because he was horny but just to make her happy once again.

Kal shook his head to clear away the thoughts, catching a faint flash of disappointment on the girl's face in the process. He'd have to be more careful in the future, none of the books he had read on dog girls mentioned anything about this ability. This was his first major interaction with a monster girl since he left home and he was already finding things that the scholars had missed. Then again, if it weren't for his capacity to see the magic emanating from her as the feeling came over him, he might have dismissed it as just feeling sorry for the girl.

"Ria."

A ghostly form coalesced next to the leather pouch on his belt and a very tired looking sprite floated up in front of Kal's face. "Sorry, Master Kal, I held out as long as I could. I made it part way out of the area before having to give up but I'm not sure where in the city we were, I didn't think to fly higher until I started fading."

"That's fine, Ria, we'll figure it out later. More pressing is getting this girl's collar off. Do you think you might be able to store it?" Kal asked.

"Since you are the official owner now I should be able to, but not right now," said the little avatar.

"What? Why?"

"I'm too tired right now to transfer anything, in or out. I'll need a few hours of rest before I can even try. Sorry, Kal."

"Damn... can't be helped I guess. I'll call you in a couple of hours." As Ria faded away, Kal adjusted himself in his trousers and looked over at the wolf girl. "Neither one of us are going to last until she's ready, are we?" it was more of a statement than a question. As the implications of his words sunk in, a huge grin split the woman's face and she quickly turned around, presenting herself once again.

The young mage smiled to himself as he began to undress, this wasn't how he had wanted this to happen but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it.

---

Kal slowly woke up as the fire in the middle of the tent brightened. The shelter seemed to be able to read his mind to some extent, dimming the magical fire when he went to sleep and brightening to wake him, either in the morning or, as in this case, when he just wanted to take a short nap. He had a feeling that all of this was explained in detail by the green book sitting on the pedestal by the entrance. Unfortunately, he couldn't read elvish other than what he had needed to figure out the command for packing the tent up.

The wolf girl curled up against him whimpered in her sleep when she felt him move but didn't wake completely. While most of the women he had been with took some pleasure in cleaning him up after sex, his groin had never received a tongue bath quite as extensive as what the wolf had given him before pressing her back against his chest and nodding off.

The wolf girl's pheromones had an aphrodisiac effect that was relatively mild compared to those he had experienced from other monster girls. They also did not have the ability to keep him hard for ages like the Aradelle's powder or make him produce huge quantities of semen like Bea's dust. In fact, once Kal decided that he was going to take care of her, the effects of her heat on him were completely canceled out by his compatibility enchantment and he had to resort to the rejuvenating spell Ikuno had taught him just to last long enough to finally sate the woman.

He was sad to admit that waking up with another person made him miss the women he had left back home. Perra, Gerda, Bea, and Aradelle; he'd spent a final night with each of them before leaving and those had been the last times he'd slept in a bed with someone since he left. Closing his eyes, he focused on the bonds he shared with each of them. Distance dimmed their presence and the responses he received were much like someone waving back at him from across a canyon. Even Bas, who lived far east of his hometown and for the longest time had been the closest to him in his travels, had started to fade

Perra, however, was slightly stronger because of a second connection they shared through a pendant he had made for her birthday. She was able to convey her annoyance at dealing with morning sickness before letting him know that Eludora, he and Aradelle's daughter, was doing well. It still caught him as strange at times that his eldest child was currently a sapling in a small clearing out in the forest, then again, he was the one who decided to have a kid with a plant girl. Sadly, he was too far away to check up on his other daughter, Adalena. Her mother, Bea, didn't have the help of something like Perra's amulet.

He was still saddened by the one voice that was missing: Ikuno's. The large blue-skinned woman had been attacked on the astral plane, but her attacker had made sure she was still able to move her body. Unfortunately, Kal had been sleeping next to her at the time and ended up taking the full brunt of her razor-sharp claws as he desperately tried to heal himself. She'd nearly killed him by the time her enemy let her return to her body completely. In order to save Kal's life, she fed her own lifeforce into her healing spells, using it to replace the blood and tissues that she had unknowingly ripped away moments before.

Ikuno wasn't dead, however. She was a type of nature spirit called an oni that originated from a people far to the east. The shrines that house their spirit make oni effectively immortal, as long as their shrine stands they will return to it and begin rebuilding their body instead of dying. That's what Ikuno was doing now, building up her strength so she could come back to life.

The wolf girl stirred, distracting him from his somber thoughts. Reminiscing could wait, there was a girl who needed a slave collar removed lying in front of him.

"Ria," he called out softly. The little sprite appeared in the middle of the pile of his clothes laying on the floor where he had undressed. She nimbly stepped over one of his trouser legs before taking to the air and flitting over to hover in front of the mage and wolf.

"How can I help you, Master Kal?"

"The collar, can you remove it?"

The sprite blushed, which made the ghostly figure's cheeks momentarily turn transparent. "Sorry! I forgot! I was still pretty groggy the last time you summoned me." She flew over to the girl and hovered around the collar, inspecting it from all sides. "It doesn't seem to be warded so there shouldn't be an issue. I'm surprised you didn't just crack the crystal powering it with geomancy instead of waiting for me."

"The thought crossed my mind but I felt this way would be safer if the collars end up being trapped."

Ria stared at him, as did the wolf girl once she had turned a bit and could look him in the eyes. Their expressions indicated that the thought hadn't occurred to them.

"Why would you think that?" asked the bag of holding's avatar, "did you hear something back at the kennel?"

"Nothing specific, I just felt it was odd that the wizard who made them needed to take them off as well. Almost as if he needed to do something more involved than just snipping a silver wire or snapping a shard of crystal. Besides," Kal shrugged, "if I were running that type of operation it's what I would do. Those who follow the rules get charged a second time for removing the collar. Those who don't, never get the chance to tell anyone."

"If that's what you would do as a slaver then I'm happy you are one of the good guys," said the sprite, the woman in front of him nodded in agreement.

"Store the collar, please," he asked the bag of holding's avatar, the looks both of the women were giving him were making him feel uncomfortable, there was no reason they should need to feel wary around him.

Ria waved her hand, just like every other item she had stored the collar turned into a speck of light and floated over to the leather pouch still laying in Kal's pile of clothes. Ria raced it back and held the pouch open as the shimmering mote floated inside.

The wolf girl brought a hand up to her neck, feeling around gingerly as her face took on an expression of elated disbelief. "I'm free?" she said, wincing in reflex to pain that she expected but never materialized.

"Yes," said Kal, smiling. He had expected the girl to jump up and cheer in celebration of her newfound freedom. Instead, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, quietly sobbing in relief.

A ghostly looking sprite fluttered in Kal's face. "Hold her dammit!" hissed an irate looking Ria before zipping away.

The sprite's suggestion was better than what he was doing, which was just staring at her in confusion. Kal slowly turned the distraught woman towards him and held her to his chest as she cried through emotions that ranged from disbelief that her ordeal was over to grief for the rest of her family/pack that she was taken from and were likely far, far away by now.

Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, waking a little over an hour later, once again in the throes of her heat. This time her and Kal's lovemaking was more sensual and much less frantic than the first.

He was surprised when about the time they finished up the fire in the middle of the tent died down to almost nothing, he could hardly believe it had gotten so late so quickly. Casting a glare in the direction of the book and pedestal, he knew that the secret to changing the tent's 'bedtime' had to be in there but was still beyond his knowledge. Even though he had spent a good portion of the day in bed and even taken a nap earlier he knew that it was mostly worthless to try to get anything done in the darkness. Despite the nap, the day had been draining, both physically and emotionally. He didn't complain when the wolf girl pressed her back to his chest again, her breathing quickly becoming deep and even.

---

Kal was woken up by his morning wood being sheathed in something warm and very wet. The hormones had built up overnight and the wolf girl was nearly as frantic as their first time yesterday. Once he had filled her up yet again she leaned over him, catching her breath while he softened inside her.

"I'm sorry," she said, catching herself before she winced. Seeing the confused look on Kal's face she continued, "Yesterday you rescued me and now you've been forced to deal with my heat. It hardly seems like a fitting reward."

Understanding dawned on Kal's face and he burst out in laughter moments later, it was now the wolf's turn to look confused. "I have many women back home and only a few of them are humans. Aradelle is an alarune; Bea is a butterfly; Gerda, Bas, and Sandy are all rock golems; Silma is a salamander; Ikuno is an oni," he held up a hand and ticked off his fingers as he named them, "only Perra and Kahrin are humans and Kahrin isn't really mine she just likes to play around with me and Perra when she can.

"I guess what I'm saying is that I don't have anything against monster girls like some men, so you don't need to feel bad."

"But our scent..."

"Doesn't work on me, I have an enchantment that cancels out anything like that.

"So when we..."

"Yup, that was all me. Well, I did need a little magical help yesterday but that was just to make sure you were satisfied."

She stared down at him, "You are a strange human."

"And you are a horny wolf. What of it?" Kal asked with a smile.

She thought for a moment before shrugging, "Nothing I suppose, it just seems odd."

The wolf girl dismounted his hips then leaned over and started cleaning him with her tongue. Kal relaxed and enjoyed her ministrations until her stomach complained about its lack of food. The mage suddenly felt like a fool for not giving her something to eat yesterday. As his own belly noisily answered hers, he realized that she wasn't the only one he'd forgotten to feed.

"Food?" he asked

"Please!" she answered emphatically.

Kal bounced up out of the bed and pulled some pants and a shirt on before grabbing some ingredients and pans off the nearby shelves. As he turned around four metal poles with chains dangling from around their midpoint rose up out of the marble tiles and came together over the center of the fire. A metal grate that was normally hidden by the flames floated up and attached to the chains just as he crossed from the green carpet onto the smooth white stone.

Curious, the wolf girl got up and walked over to see what the human was doing, she'd seen humans cooking their food before but never up close.

Kal was throwing some veggies into the heated pan when he heard a gasp from behind him. Turning around, he saw the wolf girl staring at him in shock. "What's wrong?"