TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 03

"Are you kidding? Stone doesn't float." Daxas pointed out, her expression clearly showing that she was questioning his sanity.

"Neither does silver, but if you set a wine goblet into a washbasin, it will."

The wolf girl was clearly skeptical.

"I worked at an inn when I was younger, I've seen this with my own eyes, I'm certain we can adapt it to work with stone as well." He looked around quickly, checking the distance to the forest edge, "Ria," he called.

The image of a sprite appeared next to his hip and flitted up to his shoulder. "Yes, Master Kal?"

"I need the tent and also need to know about how big of an item you can store," he asked her.

"The largest thing I've had as far as density was the pile of dirt and such where you got me from. If it's dimensions you're after, then the bookshelves in your library. Over time we bags of holding forget what we stored for previous owners unless it was something of particular interest. My last one was a pervert and the ones before never stored anything bigger than your shelves."

"Umm... did the last one ever put anything bigger into you?" Kal hissed and ducked away from the indignant sprite as she backhanded him across the ear, it was hard to escape someone sitting on your shoulder. "Wait! That wasn't what I meant! Did he ever store anything bigger than the bookshelves?!"

"Humph... No, he didn't," she responded then sat back down on his shoulder, hard enough he was worried it might leave a bruise.

"This is insanity!" cried Daxas, "First, you're talking about making a boat out of stone. Second, you're talking about carving out a canoe from a piece of rock. That will take days! Third... I know what silver is, but I have no clue what a goblet looks like," she finished lamely.

"Base, stem, cup or bell," explained Kal making motions with his hands in the shapes of each part. "The base and stem sink but the bell will float when set into the water. If Ria can handle it, I'll make two boats the size of the large bookshelves I have in here," he said holding up the piece of folded white material.

"Fine, so I'll humor you and say you can make a stone boat," said the wolf. "How do you plan on carving these out within the next few hours? I know your magic can make you fast and strong but doing what you are suggesting seems thoroughly impossible. Finally, where are you going to make these?"

Ria piped up from Kal's shoulder, "She has a point on the last part. Gerda, Bas or granite would be fine, but you wouldn't want to try to do this with Sandy."

"Gerda, Bas, Sandy? At least I understood the word granite. Are these names you use for different types of rocks further out west?"

Kal chuckled, "No, Bas, Gerda, and Sandy are the names of my rock golem lovers. Instead of given names, they call each other by their rock types, which changes as they get older. Gerda chose her name not long after she met me, but the other golems still call her Lime."

Daxas glared at the ghostly sprite, "were you trying to confuse me?"

Ria shrugged, "No, I wasn't. Kal and I have been traveling by ourselves for the last few months, I knew he would understand what I meant."

Daxas's eyes widened, "Last few months... I'm sorry are you two...?"

"No," replied Kal shaking his head.

"Not yet."

Human and wolf both looked at the sprite in surprise. The bag's avatar grinned over at the wolf, "It's not because he hasn't wanted it, or I haven't been willing. Kal just has one problem," she leaned over and reached back, taking a cheek in each hand and presenting her bottom to the mage. Kal gave a small start and looked down, groaning as his shoulder's slumped. "I make his dick little," Ria stated.

"I don't understand," said the wolf, wondering why Kal was now leaning forward and studying her body closely.

Since Kal was preoccupied with the wolf, the sprite answered. "His cock is magic..."

"Enchanted," mumbled Kal.

"...enchanted," repeated Ria, rolling her eyes.

Kal suddenly looked very relieved and straightened up, adjusting the bulge in his trousers. "A man can have a magic dick without it being enchanted."

"Whatever," she said waving off his comment, "the enchantment does a bunch of other stuff, but the main part is that it makes him the perfect size for whoever he's with. One of his lovers is an oni and stands about so tall," she said flitting up above Kal's head. "When he fucks her, that thing turns into a monster!" The sprite floated down and resumed her perch, "I'm sure you can guess what happens when he thinks about having sex with me."

The wolf thought for a moment before grinning wickedly, "I wanna see it."

"What!?" Kal stared at Daxas in shock. "Wait! No!" he cried, "we are supposed to be rescuing the girls in the slaver's den tonight not making my cock do tricks for your two's entertainment." The wolf girl's ears and tail drooped as Ria mumbled an apology. "To answer your question, Ria, on my way to the outflow I saw an outcropping that looked like granite not too far down the riverbed," he continued. The mage looked down at the fabric square in his hand, "Dammit now I wish I had set this up anyway, I was going to take a look at those shelves for a reference, but it would take too long and we're losing daylight." He looked at Daxas, "As I said, it's not far. Are you running or am I carrying you?"

"Running," she said with a smile, her legs and arms already shifting to their canine forms.

"I'd like to stay out for a bit if you don't mind," said the bag's avatar.

Nodding, Kal led them out of the forest. Once they reached the trail in the old riverbed, all three bolted to the south.

------

The mage had been excited to find out he'd been correct; the outcropping was in fact granite. The wolf girl watched in amusement as Kal reached toward the rock face, acting like he was grabbing something. Her mirth turned into astonishment when he pulled back and a rectangular slab of granite four paces long, a hand wide and standing up to her knee, slid out of the rock face. He then made a motion like he was cutting it down the middle and with a push out to each side, opened the slab up like an eye.

The granite voiced its displeasure about being manipulated in such a manner and loud cracks echoed off the stone rock face as it popped in numerous places, small seams of various minerals shattering under the strain as they flexed and bent. Kal was now going about the fully widened, and almost square, stone boat and fixing those areas by magically vibrating those sections until they melted then holding them in place with geomancy as they cooled.

"Is it wise for you to be out for so long?" Daxas asked Ria, they stood off to the side as they watched Kal make repairs to the first stone boat. "I thought you got tired after a while."

Ria smiled from her place on the wolf girl's shoulder, "That was when I was trying to stay invisible and silent. I could sit here and talk to you all day and probably well into tomorrow before I needed to return to my bag."

"You seemed excited about the idea of being with him, do you love him?"

The sprite looked over at the mage before answering, "No, I don't. I care about him, and I enjoy his company, but what you see before you is that leather bag hanging on his hip. I may have a personality but I'm a thing, not a person. I don't know if it's even possible for me to feel love. Because of what I am the ability to love might be a bad thing."

"How so?"

"We are essentially indestructible, and therefore immortal. Our creators made our memories imperfect to help us deal with the passage of time. As we take new masters, the old ones fade, and only major events survive that culling. I see how much Kal cares about his women, he would give his life for any of them without a second thought. It's hard for me to imagine three thousand years from now, the sadness I would feel if I ever loved someone so much that those memories never faded.

"By the way, I think you are quickly on your way to being one of his women, from his perspective at least," she looked down at the wolf girl's stomach, "and not just because of your little one either."

"I'm an alpha, I'll not be owned by anyone," growled Daxas, now glaring at Kal as he started on the second of the stone canoes.

"Owned?" the sprite laughed, "it's more like 'included.' The only ones he 'owns' are the two who gave themselves to him utterly and completely. To be honest, if you ever saw him and Ikuno together you'd wonder at times who belonged to who. I sometimes think Bea did it more for the security of being owned. She has a man who will protect her, even though he may not be around all the time, as well as being able to have a child any time she wants by a good father." Ria's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "I also heard that she has a serious thing for strong men and she pissed him off to the point he punched straight through a tree the first time they met! A little while later she came back, nearly begging him to give her a baby."

"Are you two talking about me?" asked Kal, eyeing them from inside the second canoe.

"Why would you think that?" said Ria, trying and failing to look innocent.

"Because you got quiet," he deadpanned, "If there's one thing I've learned from all of my women it's: If you are in earshot and the women suddenly get quiet, there's either a baby asleep somewhere or they're talking about you."

"Fair enough, but we were actually talking about how you met Bea."

Kal frowned, "That was pretty rough, but a necessary lesson," he said before returning to his work.

"Back to what I first asked you," said Daxas, getting the avatar's attention, "you seemed to be excited about the idea of being with him, but you don't love him?"

Ria raised an eyebrow, "No offense, wolf, but no monster girl has the right to say anything about sex without love. Anyway, to answer your question, I still care about Kal and enjoy seeing him happy. He'll never tell you, but this journey has been hard on him. He's alone for the first time since Perra's birthday and from what I can gather, he hadn't slept in a bed by himself in over a year. It doesn't help that he's surrounded by the memories of Ikuno, most of the things in the tent came from her home after she was sent back to her shrine.

"He went from having love and companionship almost constantly to nothing. Worse yet, he seems to be denying himself physical intimacy, even avoiding just pounding a barmaid or some local whore on occasion. You are the first woman he's been with since he struck out." The wolf girl felt a little surge of pride at Ria's words.

"The last thing is probably the smallest of the reasons I've wanted to mess around with Kal. Despite being an avatar for a magic item, I really do enjoy sex. I'm patterned after a sprite and if you've never met one before, they are a lusty bunch, with stretchy, nigh indestructible bodies. If I were a real sprite I would probably be tucked into Kal's pants with his cock inside me as he tried to do his work or have one of your fingers up my pussy as we sat here talking." Ria paused for a moment, "Perhaps, 'lusty,' is an inadequate description. Luckily, my creators didn't make me that bad, but I still enjoy playing around."

"From experience, I can tell you it's quite enjoyable," said Daxas, smiling.

"Lucky bitch."

The wolf girl's eyes darted over to the sprite on her shoulder but saw from Ria's face there was no insult to her words. She was well aware of how most other races used that word.

"Okay, Ria," called Kal. He was walking around the second boat checking the thickness of the side walls with his thumb. He needed them thick enough to withstand bumping up against the sides of the river without breaking and hoped that from the tip of his thumb to the first knuckle would be adequate. "Go ahead and store them."

With a wave of the sprite's hand, the boats vanished, replaced by tiny points of light that floated into the bag on his belt. Kal could have sworn that it took just a fraction of a second longer than usual.

"Those were fine," said Ria, "they may have errors when you get them back out but nothing major, a few bits of dust out of place at most."

"I assumed if something was too big you just wouldn't be able to store it."

"Not quite," she said, "as far as I know, there is no actual limit to what I can store. Larger items just have an increased chance of errors, I could take the lord of Carriston's castle but what comes back out might not even be recognizable."

"Interesting, but time for that later. I know we have a roll of wool batting that I started out with and the bolt of fabric we got from Dai. It may be annoying to hold them over our mouths for hours on end, but we just don't have time to make proper masks."

"Do you mean the insanely expensive silk from Ikuno's homeland that is worth more than gold? The stuff that Dai fawned and fretted over like it was more precious than diamonds?" What started as a giggle got progressively worse as the sprite spoke, "Dai would shit himself if he knew you were going to cut it up to make breathing masks for a bunch of slaves!" Wheezing with laughter, Ria collapsed onto the wolf girl's shoulder then slid forward, rolling down her chest and ramping off the wolf's breast before Daxas caught the little avatar in her outstretched hands.

"Yes," said Kal trying to hold back his smile, "that fabric."

Once Ria had calmed herself it was short work to cut the silk into squares. Ria even had some adhesive for them to affix the wool and they managed to finish the masks as just as the night sky turned too dark to see. Kal was thankful for the sprite's help, without her he imagined that it would be easy to lose track of everything one might put into a bag of holding.

Kal stripped a couple of tall, straight saplings of their limbs before cutting them and giving them to Ria, now they had something to steer and push off from the river's walls with.

As the moon began peeking up over the eastern horizon, Ria faded away and Daxas climbed onto Kal's back. The young mage then took off racing back toward the city of Carriston. They were as ready as they could be and there were girls that needed rescuing.