It felt like a mixture of sensing someone coming up behind you, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up before you consciously knew they were there, and being on a video call when someone joined it without activating their own camera, with that weird…echo…of another line joining your own.
Oracle was coming closer. I could feel her approach, so I didn’t start yet, instead relaxing as we chatted idly for a few minutes. Heph began telling me about a small child that had braved the dark at the bottom of the Tower, stumbling around until he sent a Golem Servitor to collect him and take him out. I grinned as Seneschal brought up a representation of the boy on the table. I knew exactly who it was, even before the visual reference had solidified. Caron. There were only maybe a dozen kids in total in the Tower, at the minute, anyway, but Caron had stood up to me on the first day. He was tiny, ragged, and, at the time, a slave. Half my size, and with me covered in blood and viscera after slaughtering his former captors, he’d still stood up to me to protect his friend, a girl called Kayt.
The kid had spunk, I’d give him that, and now he was off exploring the Tower on his own? Picking the darkest section of the entire place to go wandering? He either had a bright future as an adventurer ahead of him, or a truly short one as a meal for something.
I liked him.
“We’re here!” called a voice from the doorway, and Oracle rode in on Bob’s head. The massive skeletal minion clattered and shook like a shitting dog as he walked, and I sighed, looking him over.
We’d been in such a rush yesterday, making sure that everyone was okay and safe, that I’d not had time to ‘fix’ Bob yet.
I got up and walked to him, putting one hand on his shoulder in apology, and looking into the fire that burned steadily in his eye sockets.
“I’m sorry, Bob.” I said, shaking my head, “I should have helped you earlier. Once we’re done here, we’ll fix you, okay?” Bob just stared at me stoically and I turned back to Oracle, frowning.
“I know I asked you to come up when you were done, but what about that prick, Lorek? I thought you’d be a while playing with him yet?” I said.
“I decided that he’d learned his lesson or will have soon enough. They were falling over every root and branch out there as they disappeared, and unless you actually want them dead, they’re never going to get out of range before the time runs out. I let them go once they were out of sight. I don’t think they’re going to stick together long out there; such a shame!” she said, grinning darkly.
“I found the Golem sealing up the ground floor and gave it an order to kill them if they came back; otherwise, I just let them run on.” I couldn’t help but grin at that mental image and resumed my seat, even as Oracle landed on the side of the Creation Table, blurring, and then growing to her full-size form.
She stood a little under six foot, with her hair blonde today, a faint golden tan to her skin, and green eyes. She was slim, but very busty, with enormous beautiful wings that slowly fluttered as though caught in a slight breeze.
She was also wearing a bikini so tiny, I knew instinctively that it was physically impossible. There was no way straps so slender could hold that kind of pressure; it would have snapped when she tried to put it on. Oracle coughed, staring at me when I guiltily met her eyes, and grinned like the crazy bugger she was.
Oracle was a wisp, but she was also bonded to me, and had decided, after watching people long ago, that she really wanted to try sex out. She’d gone through my mind when I’d met her, picking up on certain… movies… and memories, and now took great delight in shifting her shape to the most sexually attractive forms I could imagine, while casually dissolving and reforming her outfits for maximum effect.
I had only recently found out that she could become human sized, rather than remaining a foot tall, and I was still a bit weirded out by it all. On one hand, she was literally every straight male fantasy rolled into one body; on the other, she was childlike in her innocence, bonded to serve me, and it just felt wrong to take advantage of that.
Years of being conditioned by the western world into not looking… well, not too overtly, anyway… and feeling embarrassment if you were caught looking, warred with Oracle’s blatant offers, and I knew if I gave in, that’d be it, so for now, until I could sort out my feelings for her, I was keeping my distance. One of the few rules I’d managed to stick to over the years was ‘Don’t shit where you eat,’ and that translated into never having sex with someone you had to see every day, unless you were damn sure about them. I was going to behave myself… sort of, anyway.
My damn traitorous eyes were roaming every chance they got, and as to other parts of my anatomy…down, boy!
I shook myself and refocused on the table before me, seeing Oracle’s clothes shimmer and disappear, reforming slowly into a new outfit and I focused with laser-like precision to keep from looking.
“Okay, then…” I said, a roughness to my voice that I tried to cough away. “We need a plan here. I’m getting Cai, Oren, and Barrett to help me, with Cai focusing on people and organization, Oren on the ship, and Barrett on our
