Monster wrangler 2 a lit.., p.5
Monster Wrangler 2: A LitRPG Fantasy, page 5
It also stirred the python in his pants. If he didn’t change the subject, and soon, his trouser snake would transform said trousers into a tent.
“Ah…I meant to ask you something,” Wilder said as he cast about for something to change the subject. He nodded towards the kobold work crew as they continued digging and setting stones in a circle off to the side of the cottage. “What exactly are the dragonkin up to? Is this some kind of project that Mikla and the Executor want completed?”
Zara’s eyes brightened at that. “Oh, that was pure serendipity! Do you remember when we first created the cottage, stables, and the rest of our compound?”
“Do I remember?” Wilder let out a snort. “As if I could forget that night!”
Wilder’s mind cast back to the magic of that evening spent under the twin full moons of Navishala. Zara had shown him how the merging of two individual’s Reputation and Building points could be used to create finished buildings out of raw stone and lumber.
“When we first cast our mind’s eye outwards, the first spot we picked had a flaw in it,” she explained. “As it turns out, dragonkin are excellent miners and dowsers. The crack in the underlying bedrock leads down to an underground spring. So they’re building a well for us as a sort of wedding present.”
“Are they now?” Wilder said with a grin. “That’s a damn fine present.”
How my perspective has changed, he mused. Back on Earth, this might not be that impressive. But here on Navishala, it’s a real benefit. No more having to walk down to the stream to get water to drink, cook or bathe in!
“I agree, and it’ll make a lot of things easier,” Zara said. “As for Mikla and her father, they should be back soon. They went down to Kells Town with an escort to pick up more stone and lumber for the compound.”
“We’re expanding, I take it?” Wilder asked.
The dryad’s ears bobbed with excitement. “Of course! We’re still waiting on the right person to do our handfasting ceremony. Once it takes place, and Mikla’s magic is added to ours, then we’ll definitely be adding to the cottage and to our compound as a whole!”
“Now that is music to my ears.”
The Navishala equivalent to a marriage ceremony wasn’t just a legal formality. It was the formation of a sacred bond, one that would bring new benefits both magical and physical.
Once again, Wilder realized how his perspective had changed since arriving in this new world. Back on Earth, he’d all but given up on finding a woman who he could build a life with.
And now, he found himself excited at the prospect of having a pair of women who wanted to create a family with him.
The clop of hooves announced Pendry’s arrival. The tall lad had brought up a pair of horses from the stable. Together, he and Wilder hitched up the new team to the front of the wagon.
“That’s done it, Boss,” Pendry said as he handed the reins to Wilder. “The other three horses have been fed and watered as you ordered. Quinn’s got Ambrus done up proper with some liniment. We’ll check up on the old fellow tomorrow morning.”
“And I’ll see about using my magic,” Zara added. “I should at least be able to take away some of the horse’s pain.
“Good work, Pendry,” Wilder said. “Make sure you all get a bite to eat from the kobold cooks before you head back into town.”
Pendry made a polite bow and headed off. Zara turned back to Wilder as he climbed up into the wagon’s buckboard seat.
“You’re not going to stay for a meal?” she asked.
Wilder shook his head.
“Patrick stashed an oat cake in the bag next to the seat here,” he said. “It’ll keep me for a while. I need to get our shift cat up through that pass so I can release him into your valley proper. Especially before the sedative I gave him wears off. Will you keep the home fires burning for me, darlin’?”
He bent down a little so that his dryad lover could step up and kiss him once more on the cheek. He felt the imprint of her lips afterwards on his skin like a pleasantly warm glow.
“You’ll be coming home to more than just burning fires,” Zara said mischievously. “I’d say that you’ll have your hands full with two women who’ll want all of your attention.”
With that pleasant thought coursing through his veins, Wilder got the wagon moving. He looked back over his shoulder once more as he headed up towards the silver-gray cleft in the hills ahead.
Zara had remained where she was, watching him ride off. She waved, then blew him a kiss. He returned the gesture and looked down into the wagon bed. The shift cat remained snoozing peacefully.
Let’s get you to your new home, buddy, he thought. And then…well, I have a hell of a lot to look forward to when I get back. A surplus of riches that any man would enjoy, before or after a handfasting.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DRYAD AND THE SYANTI
The coming of night pulled a veil of sparkling white stars across the blue-black sky. Navishala’s twin moons peeked over the eastern horizon, both a shade off their full phase. Together, they cast their buttery yellow-white light across the landscape.
Though Wilder was tired, the two horses pulling his wagon had been working hard as well. He let them continue at a walking pace as they exited the pass that ran from the Zarahina Valley back down to Foxford.
He spotted the twinkling of lights that marked the sanctuary’s main compound. A few came from the cottage windows. Two more marked the repaired section of the bridge over Fox Run.
A whole string of lanterns marked the kobold convoy of wagons parked at the compound’s southern edge. The dragonkin had offloaded much of their cargo to convert the wagons into remarkably comfortable sleeping areas.
Wilder looked on with no small amount of satisfaction as he continued along the road. He had reason to be pleased.
The release of the displacer beast had gone successfully and without drama. He’d taken the wagon out roughly to the spot where he and Zara had loosed Bucky’s bramble wolf parents.
Once there, he’d offloaded the big cat, laid it carefully onto the grass, and released it from its bonds. He’d then driven the wagon around a hundred yards away. Wilder got off the buckboard seat and sat at the end of the wagon’s open loading end to watch and wait.
The last thing he wanted to happen after all his hard work was for something to come along and eat the shift cat while it lay helpless in a field.
After close to an hour, as the sunset drew near, Wilder spotted movement. The big cat’s tentacles rose, swaying like a pair of drunk pythons. Then the animal itself followed suit, its four legs wobbling for a moment before steadying out.
Then it took off in a flash. The feline loped away from the wagon and across the wide field until it reached the cover of the tree line at the far end. It paused and looked back at Wilder with what he could only describe as a feline scowl.
Yeah, I can practically see the middle finger you’re giving me, Wilder thought, amused. Can’t say I blame you in the slightest, pal.
The cat’s green eyes flashed along with a growl from its fanged mouth. Then it vanished. Not by simply disappearing into the underbrush. Instead, it winked out of existence via its magical talent of teleportation.
Wilder spotted a brief movement of branches deep within the underbrush, but that was all.
It was a pleasant memory, but he put it out of his mind as the wagon rattled along. He heard a rustle as he crossed the zone of the outermost pastures. Then he spotted a familiar pair of glowing red eyes watching him from behind one of the post fences.
Wilder might have been alarmed, but he knew those eyes. Furthermore, the horses drawing the now-empty wagon didn’t spook at the familiar scent.
“Yeah, I see the mighty hunter,” he said affectionately. “Go on, Bucky, see about takin’ out some of the varmints we’ve got out here.”
The young bramble wolf made a soft canine chuff! and the eyes vanished. Wilder kept the horses moving along the road. Another quarter-hour, and he pulled them to a stop right next to the cottage he now shared with Zara and Mikla.
He climbed down, then raised his arms and laced the fingers of his hands together. Then he stretched his back to get out the kinks that had developed over the course of the ride. A series of fleshy pop-pop sounds later, and he unhitched the horses from the now-empty wagon.
Once again, the cottage’s front door opened, and a beautiful blonde dryad emerged to join him. This time, she had a small basket in her hand. He swept her up in one arm, kissing her as if he hadn’t seen her in days.
“By Artemis’ bow!” Zara exclaimed as they broke their kiss. “Someone is happy to be home, I would say.”
Wilder grinned and nuzzled her neck.
“Happy, hungry, and horny,” he said. “I get that way when I’ve successfully wrangled and released something big and ferocious.”
“Then Mikla and I are going to fix those problems for you,” Zara said even as she put the basket in his hand. “That’s a new bar of soap, a new brush, and a towel in here. My love, I appreciate the scents of nature, but you smell of dried sweat, crushed grass, and multiple kinds of ground-in dirt.”
“Comes from wrasslin’ shift cats,” Wilder said with a shrug. “You’re right, though. I’ll have to grab a lantern from the porch so I can make my way down to the creek.”
“You can grab a lantern from the porch, but you only need to walk around to the back of the house now,” she corrected him. “After the dragonkin completed the well, we drew up some water to make a hot bath for you.”
“A hot bath? Damn, did Artemis hear my prayers or what?”
“Maybe she was listening in from the next room,” Zara laughed. “And it’s not so much hot, it’s warm.”
“I ain’t complaining! Darlin’, after months of cold stream water, it could be lukewarm and still feel like paradise.”
“Then paradise awaits you. Go on, I’ll bring the horses to the stable.”
Zara gave Wilder a playful slap on his butt as he headed off towards the porch. Still smiling, he snatched up a lantern and walked around the corner of the cottage. The curtains had been drawn, but some light filtered through, helping his lantern illuminate the environs.
“Oh, hot damn!” he chuckled. “Sight for sore eyes.”
Sitting before him, no more than ten yards beyond the cottage’s back door, was an oblong metal tub used for washing clothes. It had been filled with water and set atop a pair of flat stones, each the size and shape of a cinder block.
In between the stones and under the main body of the tub lay a small pile of glimmering coals. The deep, barely-there scarlet light told him that the fire had been lit quite a while ago, and allowed to burn down.
A quick dip of his hand in the tub’s water confirmed that the contents were as warm as a rain shower during Texas high summer.
Wilder shucked off his clothes with abandon. He set the basket next to the tub and carefully climbed in. The bulk of his lean, muscular body made the water slosh out a little on the ends, but he was beyond caring.
Instead, he let out a sigh, along with a mental thank-you to Artemis. Then he settled in up to the base of his neck and let the warmth proceed to soak in.
In order to sink that deep, he had to bend his legs to fit in the tub. That left his wet knees exposed to the relatively chilly open air. Wilder ignored it until he felt that he’d soaked enough.
Now this is a damn fine hillbilly hot tub, he thought. If only the tub in question had another six to eight inches at the far end! But that’s all scratch for the chickens. I’ve got to give the ladies a big thank-you for this.
He reached down and snatched up the basket. A quick rummage rewarded him with a towel, a wooden scrub brush made with hog bristles, and a bar of pine-tar soap.
Wilder put the towel back and set the basket aside. He dipped the soap in the warm water, working the little black bar in his hands until it finally made suds. From there, he used it along with the brush to scrub every inch from head to toe.
He climbed out after dunking his head a couple times for a good rinse. The night air made his skin tingle as he toweled off. He set his dirty clothes in one pile on a nearby bench, the used soap and brush on another.
After wrapping the towel around his waist, Wilder put his forearm to his nose for a test smell. To him, the post-washing aroma of pine tar soap always reminded him of pine cleaner mixed with wood smoke. This bar gave his skin that exact combination of aromas.
I smell like a campfire someone made from a mess of green pine boughs, he thought ruefully, as he headed up to the cottage’s back door. But at least that’s an improvement over dry grass, sweat, and mud.
Wilder pushed his way inside. Flickering, reddish light came from a fire that glimmered from within the hearth.
By contrast, a steady golden luminescence shined out from a set of heavy storm lanterns that Zara had placed atop the built-in wall shelves. Together, the two light sources gave everything inside the bedroom a luminous, magical glow.
Four more lanterns had been lit and set on the bare floor, casting their glow upon a wooden sleigh bed. The carved scrolled headboard had been adorned with wine-colored pillows atop a set of creamy white sheets.
Of course, all the furnishings were merely setting compared with the main event: the hot half-naked dryad that lay upon those cream-colored sheets. Zara stretched languidly, letting her platinum white-blonde hair tumble across one of her elven ears and down her shoulder.
Zara’s stunningly sexy pose grabbed Wilder’s attention, but not all of it. Even as the breath whistled from his lungs, his eyes went to the corner of the room. They’d traded some vet-related house calls with a village carpenter in exchange for a small studio desk.
A cute, dragonkin female in an equally revealing outfit sat at the desk. She diligently flipped through individual sheets in a solid ream of paperwork.
Her lizard-like tail thrashed back and forth, silent proof that whatever she was working on annoyed her.
As a mature kobold female, Mikla Silverbelt was covered head to clawed toes in supple diamond-shaped green scales. Those shifted to orange along the underside of her throat and down the front of her lean and muscular torso.
Her face was decidedly heart-shaped and feminine, with a pair of wide, golden eyes surrounded by a lush outline of coal-black lashes. She also had a pair of dark horns that spiraled backwards from a point just above her temples.
These framed a red and blue crest of tiny feathers attached to long filaments. These felt like downy feathers when one ran a hand through them, and they made her look both alien and irrepressibly cute to Wilder.
“Oh, come on, Mikla,” Zara sighed. “We both appreciate your diligence, but by Artemis’ bow, how can you have your nose in a book when there’s a handsome, nearly naked man in the room?”
The dragonkin female replied in a voice that carried a trace of gravel in it, like most of her kind.
“It’s just so exasperating!” she declared as she rustled the papers in her hand in annoyance. “Mikla is a trained syanti, she should be able to untangle this mess of invoices and purchases! But so much of it is mislabeled, badly recorded, or just illegible!”
Wilder shook his head, though in amusement rather than frustration. As a species, kobolds avoided the use of the word ‘I’ in conversation. It still took some adjusting to get used to the dragon’s way of speaking.
Additionally, Mikla was the daughter of the Executor, the de facto ruler over the Silverbelt clan. Since the kobolds were a sort of ‘travelling merchant’ species, Mikla had been trained as a syanti.
That meant she was a dragonkin fluent (according to his Loremaster knowledge) in Finance, Accounting, Negotiation, and Contracts.
Mikla may be the descendant of dragons, Wilder thought to himself. But she’s an accountant at heart. I wish I’d known her back when I was trying to do my taxes. Or when I was setting up non-profit nature preserves anywhere south of Outer Podunkerton.
Zara gestured helplessly and looked over to Wilder.
“Mikla’s been at this all evening,” she explained, before giving him a curious look. “You’re the monster wrangler, perhaps you can convince her to set the pen and paper aside?”
“Normally, I work best with nets, catch poles, and tranquilizers,” Wilder said. “But…what the hell, I’ll give it a try.”
With that said, he went over to the desk. The lantern light made the orange scales at Mikla’s throat glow warmly. Wilder’s gaze traveled further down the dragonkin’s body, enjoying the trip all the way.
Zara had swapped out her earlier outfit for an ivory-colored soft-cup brassiere and a set of similar white low-rise panties. Mikla had selected a near-identical outfit, with a set of green cups that sculpted the soft mounds atop her chest and matching panties.
Her bright green scales fairly glimmered in the dim light. Wilder reached out to touch the tiny scar that marked her upper arm where she’d taken an arrow wound. He’d had to dose her with an antidote and let Zara seal the cut with her magic.
“Mikla,” Wilder said softly as she looked up at his touch. “I know the syanti part of you wants to kick this problem to the curb. But it can wait until tomorrow, can’t it?”
The kobold cocked her head at him. “Wait? Yet…Goodman Wilder, there is so much left for Mikla to do!”
Despite her protestation, Wilder heard uncertainty in her voice. He moved his hand from her scar to under her chin. Then he tilted her chin up towards him even as he leaned down to plant a kiss on her lips.
She melted into his kiss, returning his passion with a swipe of her rough tongue. Mikla let out a groan as Wilder took in her scent. Where Zara’s skin and hair smelled ever so slightly like wildflowers, the pretty dragonkin’s scent reminded him of freshly cut cucumbers.
“Yes,” Wilder agreed, “there is plenty for Mikla to do. Right here, with me.”
He moved his hand once more, setting aside the papers in Mikla’s grasp. Wilder interlaced his fingers with hers for a moment.
