Summoned by Monster Girls

While neither Rieka nor I were surprised at Kassandra’s revelation, it was the reason we were here after all, the blunt statement occupied our thoughts throughout the hike back to camp.

Kassandra had set the password to get past the wards as my last name once more, something she was sure was a secret to the locals save for the two of them. We collected the pots from the camp before doubling back to the lake to get water before trooping back up to the tent. Rieka and Kass carried the cooking pot and tea-kettle, respectively, while I lugged the cauldron behind them.

The girls spent part of that walk whispering back and forth between each other. I was curious, but chose not to pry into their conversation.

Kassandra immediately dove into her notes from our previous trip while Rieka and I got the fire going and prepared dinner.

Hot soup with fresh bread we’d bought in town made for a good, if simple, meal. Kass spent most of the meal writing in her notebook and mumbling to herself distractedly. Enough so that we had to remind her to stop and eat while her food was warm.

Rieka and I planned out the next morning. I wanted to get the annoying parts out of the way to ensure the girls broke even on the trip at the very least. While we talked, Kassandra continued to scribble in a leather-bound notebook, muttering to herself the entire time. Even when reminded to eat, she continued to mumble thoughtfully and kept stopping to change something in her notes.

The three of us took turns using the hot water from the cauldron, which had been heating slowly while we prepared and ate dinner, and a bit of cloth to wipe off the dust of the day. The opportunity to tease me was what got Kassandra to put away her notebook finally.

I gave the girls space by going to the other side of the tent while they washed, to the amused smiles of both girls. Neither one bothered to leave when I stripped down to wipe off. Kassandra watched me with a hungry look to her eyes while Rieka tried to be more subtle by sneaking glances while her tail bounced slowly behind her. I would have been self conscious, but all the work I’d put in to get into proper shape once more helped a lot.

When we’d all finished eating and gotten cleaned up, the girls and I piled into the tent as the sun vanished behind the mountains above us.

I was surprised again by the fact that Rieka hadn’t insisted on a second tent this trip, since we had the space for it in the dimensional pouch finally. I was even more surprised when Rieka changed into her nightclothes right in front of me while Kassandra was digging her own out of the bag.

I averted my eyes from Rieka as best I could, but I didn’t miss the flash of white panties and her dark nipples against her lightly-tanned skin just before Rieka tugged on a soft, knee-length tunic in a light blue.

Kassandra found her night-clothes and then slithered over to the entrance of the tent with them and her spell rod. While Kassandra made the gestures with her spell rod to power up the wards for the night, Rieka guided me to the bedding without looking me in the eye.

She had laid out all three of our bedrolls next to each other. I’d expected Kassandra to snuggle me for warmth like the last time, but was surprised Rieka tugged me down onto the pile of blankets before tucking herself into the crook of my shoulder. Apparently, she had decided she was going to be using me as a pillow with her back against my side.

I’d shifted my eyes to be better able to see in the dark as soon as the sun had gone down while we cleaned up from dinner. That shift was still in place when Rieka had pushed herself into the position tucked into my side. This meant I could see the dark blush on her cheeks as well as feel the warmth of it when she snuggled into my shoulder. She was tense at first, but the wolf-eared woman began to relax when I just squeezed her closer with the arm she’d wrapped around herself.

“Sleep well, Rieka,” I whispered under the noise of Kassandra changing into her own nightclothes, doing my best not to stare at the expanse of pale flesh that the dwarf lamia was displaying only feet away. Kassandra was smirking down at me the entire time, clearly aware of how much I was appreciating the view.

“You do the same, Liam. We are going to be busy tomorrow.” Rieka’s voice was slightly nervous, but she gave a quiet, happy sigh when I squeezed her a second time.

Kassandra chose that moment to slither over, bundling her mass of red curls back in a loose braid held with a leather tie.

As I watched my lover get ready for sleep, I couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing something familiar. I’d missed it at first, between being distracted reassuring Rieka and trying not to stare at Kassandra’s soft body. What she had chosen as a nightshirt normally wouldn’t have been anything especially sexy by itself. However, the fact she was wearing the shirt I’d left behind by accident like a dress, and the small woman was absolutely swimming in it, was surprisingly hot.

A woman wearing a man’s shirt is like a flag on a conquered fortress, or something like that, I thought with a smirk. I doubt I’ll ever fully conquer that minx, but it’s fun to try.

“Kass?” I asked and she shot me a devilish grin before her amused eyes bounced from my face to Rieka’s in the near total darkness of the tent.

“What is it, Liam?” Kassandra responded with a sweet smile from where she sat at the base of the pile of blankets. She didn’t wait for a response before diving under the bottom of the blankets and burrowing up alongside me.

A moment later, her head popped out beside mine and she claimed my other shoulder, but facing me instead of looking away.

I considered my next words for a moment before giving a mental shrug. I wrapped my free arm around Kassandra to pull her tight to my side so I could press a kiss to the tip of her button nose. Kassandra let out a happy ‘eep’ noise before giggling quietly at the squeeze of the hug while I spoke.

“You look good in my shirt. Better without it, but you look good in it,” I whispered into her hair before sharing an actual goodnight kiss.

<><><>

“I don’t want us to separate. It’s not that I don’t trust either of you to be able to take care of yourselves, but I am here to protect both of you. I can’t do that if you split up,” I grumbled while the three of us tromped through the early morning towards the lake.

I had slept well the previous night, something I was thankful for since I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to change that if it hadn’t happened naturally. Rieka ended up wrapped around the arm she had claimed like it was a stuffed animal or a pillow, while Kassandra wrapped herself around the rest of me in her bid to steal all of my body heat.

“I know, Liam. But if any of us are going to be safe somewhere, it would be Kass while she’s setting up the ritual to break the enchantment on the door,” Rieka cajoled. “She can set up a basic ward-line on the cave mouth to warn her if anything comes along. But it is going to take hours to actually set the ritual up, as she has to carve it into the walls and floor.”

“Rieka is right, Liam. Of the two of us, I will have the easiest time of it. That’s why we are gathering the wardstones from the lake. I can modify and set them up as a barrier just inside the cave. I promise to wait for you two before I actually power up the ritual to unlock the door. I know it’s not perfect, but it is the most efficient use of our time.” Kassandra twisted her lithe body to smile reassuringly at me over her shoulder while not slowing down her forward movement.

“I still don’t like it. Enough things have happened recently that it makes me nervous to have one of you where I cannot look after you.” Some would have interpreted my words as domineering and controlling, but thankfully Kassandra knew why I was having trouble. Instead of being offended, she just blew me a kiss.

We collected the stones from the small section of bank that we’d used to bathe the last time we were here and proceeded up the slope and through the fruit trees to the meadow.

Rieka blushed the entire time we were on that part of the shore, no doubt remembering the fact that she’d burst in on Kassandra and I while we were enjoying each other’s bodies. She’d thought we were under attack and came to help, to be fair Kassandra had been screaming quite a bit though.

The wolf-eared woman was still fighting with her shyness, it seemed. She was getting over it though. Rieka had been the one to suggest that she and I head into the nearby forest to finish collecting what we could to satisfy the other requests the girls had gotten. Meanwhile, Kassandra would work with the runic spellwork that was her forte to drain the protective spells off the door in the cave.

Arriving at the semi-hidden cave, Kassandra took another half an hour to modify the runes on the bricks to produce a deterrent barrier like she did with the camp. Once that was done, she set them up by the former den of the crag hunter in the upper meadow. While she did that, I scouted the interior of the cave intensely to ensure nothing would be trapped inside with her.

I protested a few more times about leaving her behind, but my bespectacled lover insisted that I go ‘do something constructive’ with Rieka while she handled the boring part of seeing what was behind the door. She did promise she would evacuate the cave and invert her ward line if the door opened unexpectedly while we were gone.

Rieka and I agreed to head back to the cave at noon, which would give Kassandra plenty of time to get the array’s set up so we could crack the door.

When we headed back across the meadow, I continued to idly thumb the bond-tattoos on my forearm. The only sensation I could get from Kassandra’s mark was anticipation and excitement though. The eerie sensation of the meadow and the cave continued to linger in my mind though.

Rieka was silent as we walked into the trees that backed the meadow, heading back to the edge of the lake to pick up the trail of the spring foxes we’d spotted the previous day.

At first, the wolf-eared woman acted slightly nervous but I couldn’t figure out why. This wasn’t the first time we’d been alone together. I chalked it up to a changing dynamic between us. Or maybe the fact that we were out in the countryside for once, rather than back in a town or her mother’s castle.

The silence stretched on long enough that I was beginning to worry that something was really wrong and maybe she’d come to regret snuggling with Kassandra and I the previous night. It had started with just her back tucked to my side, but Rieka had woken up being pressed even more firmly into my side as Kassandra’s long tail had wound around us both in the night. That had made waking up both awkward and difficult, but amusing for Kassandra.

“Liam?” Rieka finally spoke as we picked our way along the lake shore by the waterfall, looking for fresh tracks.

“Yes, Rieka? What’s up?” I did my best to sound at ease. It seemed to work, as she shot me a small smile before continuing.

“I didn’t make things awkward last night, did I?”

“Awkward how?”

“By curling up with you like that. It occurred to me this morning that I never asked if it was okay…,” Rieka let the sentence trail off and I glanced over. Her ears had wilted down to either side and her expressive tail was hanging limp behind her. She was the picture of a guilty puppy and it tugged at my heart in a way that was entirely unfair.

I glanced around quickly to check our surroundings before turning fully to the platinum-blonde and folding her into a hug that she hadn’t expected. Rieka squeaked in surprise and went stiff as a board for a moment before relaxing into the hug and burying her face in my chest. A moment later, her arms threaded around my waist to return the hug.

“You didn’t make anything awkward, Rieka,” I reassured her and she let out a shuddering breath. Rieka spoke a moment later, her voice muffled from where her face was pressed into my chest.

“Thank you. I worried because you are a good person and I don’t want to take advantage of you. But I see how you interact with Kass and I am a bit…jealous of that connection.” The last part of the sentence was spoken near a whisper.

I took a moment to consider my feelings, but nothing had changed. As much as I loved my redheaded trouble-noodle, I could tell a deep affection was forming for the woman in my arms too. Kassandra had warned me that it was coming and I’d had time to come to terms with it. Apparently the little trouble maker knew me well, even with our limited interactions. Rieka wasn’t like Kassandra though, she wasn’t going to throw herself at me. She was too constrained to do something like that. I could only imagine how knotted up Rieka must be feeling, with how she would oscillate between confident and shy alternately around me.

“You don’t have to feel jealous, Rieka,” I murmured into her hair, pressing a kiss to her scalp between the pointed tips of her wolf ears. Rieka let out a quiet whine of frustration.

“But Kass—,” she started to say, pushing at my chest lightly to try and back me up some, but I pulled her tighter.

“Knows and approves.” Rieka twitched in my arms. She then pushed harder on my chest. This time I let her push back enough so she could look up at me.

Her icy-blue eyes were moist and she chewed her bottom lip in concern. Without speaking, she demanded I explain with her eyes.

“Kass and I have talked a few times. In her words, she doesn’t plan on trying to claim me exclusively.” I couldn’t hide the smile as I continued. “I have permission to ‘chase your fluffy tail around the glen’ if that is what we want. So, if you want to find a closer connection, don’t let worries about hurting her stop you. She’s already told me she isn’t bothered by it. If you have concerns, voice them so we can talk them out. But don’t worry about Kass getting jealous of us. As long as we communicate, things will be fine. Communicate, and trust that one of us will speak up if there is a problem.”

Rieka stared up at me for several long seconds while her wilted ears slowly perked back up. A small, reserved smile graced her features a moment later while she worked to show a calm front. The fact her tail was whipping up a storm behind her made the attempt at being calm into a lie almost immediately.

“Thank you, Liam,” Rieka murmured before standing up on tiptoes and pressing her lips to mine in a long, slow kiss.

A possessive growl formed deep in my throat and I pulled Rieka against me again. I could feel her shivering in my arms as she clung onto me to continue the kiss. Our lips locked and tongues slowly emerged to dance between us while I held the wolf-eared woman to me for several long minutes. As we kissed, Rieka shifted and ground her hips into my thigh. Even through her riding pants and my jeans, I could feel the heat of her core against me and I knew she could feel my own arousal as well.

While I could likely have shifted somehow to be able to breathe through my ears so I didn’t have to stop kissing Rieka, I didn’t get the chance to.

Rieka had to come up for air before I did and we separated with a gasp and a pop of lips disconnecting. Rieka leaned into me drunkenly, clinging on for balance and I was happy to cradle her there while she found her feet once more.

“Thank you, Liam,” Rieka repeated, tucking her face into my shoulder. Her tail was furiously wagging still, the fluffy banner making a shushing noise while it caressed the air behind her.

“Anytime you want, Rieka. Whenever you are ready for more, I’m happy to give it.” I brought one hand up to stroke her soft ears and she let out a happy moan. “If all you want is kisses and cuddles, that is fine. If you want more, just tell me. I need you to do this for me, okay? I’m just a guy, and guys are generally oblivious to subtle hints. You don’t have to be as blatant as Kass, she’s unsubtle enough for three girls. Just please, say it plainly to me if you want more? That way I know, for a fact, you are comfortable.”

“Yes, Liam. I can do that.” Rieka rubbed her face into my chest a bit more before continuing to speak, her voice muffled again. “Regardless of the line of succession, I am still a princess. So I cannot be as blunt as Kassandra, at least not in public.”

“In public. We aren’t in public right now,” I murmured gently into one ear and a shiver ran down Rieka’s body, causing her tail to still for a moment.

“Exactly,” she breathed and the arms around my waist squeezed me tighter. “But for now, I need to talk plainly with Kassandra.” Rieka released her grip on me and stepped away when I did the same. A happy smile sat on her lips and she wiped at her moist eyes with delicate fingers. “It’s not that I don’t trust your word, Liam. But Kass and I do need to discuss what we are both comfortable with and where things may lead.” I gave her a questioning look but she just shook her head without speaking.

Deciding to try and dismiss a bit of the tension I could still see in Rieka’s features, I carefully considered my words before I spoke again.

“Makes sense, you two have to decide how best to share your ‘pet human’ after all. Just make sure to take me for plenty of walks and keep my water bowl fresh,” I teased, getting a surprised laugh from the wolf-eared girl and a slap on the shoulder.

<><><>

Rieka and I continued our patrol of the lake. Unfortunately, the spring fox tracks were several days old and we lost them only a few dozen feet into the trees when the ground firmed up.

Instead, Rieka started teaching me how to properly collect the herbs and mushrooms that were part of the other requests that we would be trying to fill. When the sun began to reach its midpoint overhead, we headed back to the cave where we’d left Kassandra.

We’d come in from the forest side rather than along the ‘road’ that came up from the ruined fountain, having to swing higher up the mountain to avoid passing by the crag hunter’s bones.

The feeling of being out of place was even stronger coming out of the trees and it made the hair on my arms stand up. Tapping the tattoo that marked my bond with Kassandra told me that she was still working happily away.

“Every time we come back to this field, it makes me feel odd,” I muttered as we crossed the open meadow between the remnants of walls and bones of the buildings.

“I get what you mean,” Rieka said gently from her place at my side.

While we’d been searching through the woods, the wolf-eared princess had slowly but surely edged closer and closer to me. It culminated in her walking with her right arm tucked into the elbow of my left, insisting that my right remain free if something were to jump out and I needed to act.

“It feels like something is watching, or waiting, for something to happen. There is a sense of anticipation; like we are missing some important sign here. Mother told me about a similar feeling she’d had when visiting an ancient battlefield up along the western border. The land itself felt like it was holding its breath, even though the war was centuries passed.” Her voice remained quiet as she explained, as if concerned over waking something best left asleep.

“You comparing this to an old battlefield is not a reassuring thought, Rieka,” I muttered, scanning the trees and the tall grass warily. I felt the woman on my arm wince in response.

“Yes, probably not the best image to have. Let's find Kass though. If I know her, she’s either done or mostly so. And likely getting a bit annoyed at the idea of having to wait for us.”

The two of us picked up our pace and hurried over to the entrance to the cave. The only sound I heard was the rustling of the wind in the grass and a quiet moan of shifting tree branches rubbing against each other in the same wind.

Speaking the password out loud felt weird to me. I’d almost forgotten to, but Rieka yanked me to a stop and insisted before we crossed the line of carefully hidden bricks. There was a quiet pop as the wards powered down and we ducked into the cave.

Kassandra was working on the far side of the open space, surrounded by glowing, blue glyphs carved into the rock of the wall. She had her graver in her right hand while she held the light-stone in her left.

The dwarf lamia glanced up when we came sliding down the slope and nodded once, sending a ripple of reflected light through her mane of red curls and a brief flash over her spectacles.

“How’s it going, Kass?” Rieka called without removing her arm from mine as we hurried through the strange hush of the cave.

“Good, almost got this finished,” Kassandra said distractedly. She carefully widened one of the lines she cut into the wall before blowing on the cut lightly to clear the dust out. Kassandra considered it a moment before continuing to speak, her voice thick with amusement. “I don’t need to ask how you did, I can tell that you two had a good time.”

Rieka blushed furiously but didn’t pull away, which I considered a win. Instead, the platinum-blonde towed me over to her friend a little faster and we came to a stop in front of the large, iron door.

“How much more do you need to do?” Rieka asked, finally releasing my arm in order to take the light stone from Kassandra. She held it up for her friend to work.

“A few more runes in the array, then we are ready to power it up. I’ve been slowly filling the sets with mana as I went” Kassandra gestured distractedly at the already glowing runes.

“I’d meant to ask earlier, but didn’t want to distract you. What is the plan with all of these anyway?” I gestured towards the runes.

While the translation power that the System gave me when I first became a Traveler allowed me to read, speak, and understand any native language of a world I was on or called to, these runes didn’t have clean translations. They embodied concepts, rather than direct words, and it was a bit overwhelming as my brain tried to process multiple meanings at once.

For example, one rune in particular implied strength, virility, healing, and growth all at once. I wasn’t sure which of the four concepts was the exact definition Kassandra was tapping into with it, as it stood alone without any others attached to it yet.

“Most of the array is set up to peel back or weaken individual layers of the wards worked into the door itself,” Kassandra explained while carefully cutting another angular line to match her first. She blew at an errant strand of hair for a moment before Rieka tucked it behind an ear for her, getting a smile of thanks from the dwarf lamia. “That's most of the runes on the right side of the door. They aren’t disabling the defenses, simply unfolding them from the door so we can safely open it. I want to study the rune work on both sides of the door when I can do so without destroying them. Normally, the spell runes will wrap from one side of the door to the other, to keep a casual observer from finding how to break the enchantment. There are also likely bits and pieces worked into filigree or disguised as decoration too. Part of why I didn’t try and open it when we found it the first time. I needed to study it.”

“That and we’d just had a bit of a life-or-death battle,” I teased. Kassandra chuckled in response before replying.

“Trust me, Liam. If I could have opened it that day, I would have. Battle or not. My curiosity will not be denied!”

“What about the door itself? I know you girls cast by drawing mana from metal, and the iron of the door has that same shimmer as the iron coins you use. What’s stopping you from just using it to cast a bunch of spells?” I stood well back from the girls and watched as Kassandra worked. It was Rieka who answered my question while Kassandra carefully scraped away with the sharp tool.

“The mana imbued in the door is sealed behind a barrier. That’s part of what Kassandra is doing. She’s disconnecting the protective measures from the power source that is the metal of the door. To actually be able to access the mana in the metal, we’d need to disassemble the door entirely. At least we would if it’s set up like most locked portals that I’m familiar with. The runes that actually seal the metal of the door from outside tapping will be worked on the joints and underside of the inlay.”

“Well damn, there goes that idea.” The girls giggled at my response, almost perfectly in tune. The sound echoed oddly in the strangely silent cave. I felt another shiver run down my spine.

Letting them work without bothering them, I studied the runes and symbols that Kassandra had drawn.

Now that the girls had given me some context, I could see how the different symbols would work to counteract runes on the door. One that I was able to interpret was a chain of symbols that basically boiled down to ‘bind, power, target, ground, dissipate’ that led off of a rune circle full of intricate symbols that are all related to electricity and retribution.

So that basically is to direct any electrical traps on the door to dissipate into the ground. Interesting, I thought while examining the marks. I kind of want to study this more, but it’s not like I can bring back books from here to research while the girls don’t need me. Too bad I can’t just…stay here. I’d miss a few people, mostly just Jameson, but would make things so much simpler.

“There!” Kassandra’s declaration broke me from my distracted attempts to understand the runes.

I glanced over at her to see that she had her spell rod in her hand and was carefully running the tip along the lines she’d carved in the stone. The runes she was working to counter looked to be whatever was holding the door shut. It had runes for ‘earth, seal, close, and bond’ in the circle on the edge of the door, but Kassandra had carved counters for all the visible ones and several more on top of that.

“Should we, I don’t know, step back?” I asked while Rieka watched her friend empower the construct in fascination.

Rieka twitched at my words and looked back at me in surprise, as if she hadn’t considered that idea until that moment. Before Rieka could speak though, the last of the symbols finished glowing and there came a loud cracking noise of something breaking.

All three of us jumped. Rieka and Kassandra jumped back from the door and I lunged towards them.

Moving on autopilot, I wrapped an arm around each of their waists and spun about to put myself between them and the door as the runic arrays on the door glowed brightly. I wasn’t able to drag the entirety of Kassandra’s length into shelter behind me, but I got most of her despite my back’s protest at her larger mass.

The light of the runes bathed the entire cave we were in with a multitude of different colored lights as the ones on the door lit up and then the others shone brighter. I was already working my Shape-Shifting to reinforce my back and arms with protection while crushing both girls to my chest to keep them as much out of the line of fire as possible.

A moment later, the light show died away and there was a squealing of metal on metal that drilled down and made my teeth hurt. The sound slowly faded away into a distant echo that rang in my ears, but I didn’t move.

“Liam, you can let us go,” Rieka squeaked as the squealing noise faded away entirely.

“Yeah. I appreciate the save, big guy, but it wasn’t necessary. Have more faith in me, Liam,” Kassandra added dryly. She softened her rebuke with a kiss to the cheek.

“Wha?” I asked intelligently and glanced over my shoulder to find the iron doors now hanging part way open, having swung away from us. All of the runic arrays were now dark, leaving just the light stone and what early afternoon light came down from the cave mouth. “Oh.”

Releasing the girls gently back to their own feet/tail, I ran a hand through my hair sheepishly. Kassandra just smirked up at me and gave me a wink while Rieka smiled gently.

“Let's have a look to see what’s on the other side!” Kassandra gushed. Her restraint finally reaching its end, she slithered around me and Rieka to head towards the doors. Not wanting to be left behind, Rieka jogged after her friend and I fell in with them.

Both of the women seemed more intent on finding what lay beyond the door rather than protecting themselves, so I took it upon myself to keep watch.

My eyes had been shifted earlier to account for better vision in the lower light, so I adjusted my shifts to remove the armor from my back and instead changed the skin on my arms into rhino hide before giving myself the fighting claws I’d borrowed from Lady Valda. I debated turning one into the striking tail that I’d been practicing with, but didn’t want to give up having fingers just yet. I’d also have to give up one of the other morphs too.

The door opened into a wide hallway that was at least ten feet across and several hundred feet long. The doors swung the rest of the way open with only a slight push and a squeal of protest until they actually sunk into recesses in the wall itself.

While the cave that we had come from was mostly rough stone, the hallway that led off of it was clearly worked. The walls were smooth, gray stone with only the occasional chip or irregularity in them, same with the ceiling. They were almost smooth enough to have been poured concrete. What caught my attention though, was the floor.

The floor was made up of a mosaic of small, thumb-nail sized tiles of different colors. With the accumulated dust on the floor, there was just a regular grid pattern in the loose, gray powder. The pattern initially caught the girl’s attention and Kassandra swept a section clear with her long tail, and that revealed the colors.

The tiles themselves were regular in shape and formed interlocking patterns in blue, white, and green. The patterns continued to repeat as the tunnel wound off into the distance. It was an abstract, tessellating pattern, rather than anything distinct. But the tiles were only dusty. They shone brightly when the loose, dry powder was stirred up in our passing.

“That is just fascinating. How did they make the tiles so regular?” Kassandra murmured the question into the still air, apparently having fixated on the same part that I had.

“No idea,” Rieka replied. “Let’s see where the tunnel goes.” Kassandra nodded distractedly, fishing out her leather-bound notebook to quickly record what she was observing.

The feeling of familiarity from the other cave was back again. The sensation was similar to back when I’d recognized that the cave looked a lot like a parking area. If I tried to focus on the feeling now, it vanished. So I just let the feeling stir in my mind as we continued along, hoping it would lead to another epiphany.

Since the repeating pattern of the tiles underfoot never changed, I began to study the walls and the ceiling. Nothing stood out at first. But, as we went along, the glow from Rieka’s light stone reflected off of a patch of wall and I stopped the girls to examine it closer.

The patch was roughly the size of a loaf of bread and was protruding slightly from the smooth, regular wall. The ceiling of the tunnel we were in was easily almost ten feet up and the patch that caught my eye was barely a foot from the ceiling. So I had to use Shape-Shifting to extend my arm to prod the curved spot, sacrificing my claws for the moment to let my limb stretch out.

Dust shifted and then fell free as I wiped at the caked-on buildup of what had to have been centuries until I revealed a patch of wall that was a dull yellow in color to the gray of the walls. There was a convex roundness to the protruding part that looked very familiar.

The creeping sensation returned and settled in my mind a moment later as the realization connected as gently as a feather drifting down to land on the ground.

“Lights.” I muttered to myself as I stared up at the panel.

A deep, resonating clunk echoed in the distance and the yellow panel burst into bright illumination that blinded all three of us.