by Bruce Sentar
“But spirits are very rare, and one born of a grand dao is very, very rare.” Sasha curbed his excitement.
“Either way, you are helpful, Cherry. We wouldn’t have been able to make this cart without you,” Dar smiled at the dryad.
She beamed at the praise before her focus shifted back to the tree, as she fussed about tending to the bark and leaves.
“So, where are we going?” Dar asked Sasha.
“Going?” she asked, confused.
Dar smirked. “I’m your bodyguard, remember? I don’t think it is the normal arrangement for the bodyguard to pick the destination. Unless you plan to stay in Bellhaven with the rest of these folks.”
Sasha wrinkled her nose. “No, I don’t like the large cities. I’m not sure where we’ll end up, but as my bodyguard, you’ll be by my side, I’m sure.”
Dar chuckled at her assessment and focused back on putting one foot in front of the other while he thought about what his dao path might be.
Chapter 6
They had settled down at sunset; the villagers were doing their best to create makeshift shelters for the night with whatever they had been able to bring with them.
While some set up camp, others went into the nearby area and harvested more wood to feed the fires and build stronger protections for the night. Everybody bustled around, focused on their tasks and contributing to the greater whole.
Watching the efficiency of it, Dar realized that, while this world didn’t have all the luxuries he was used to, the people were better able to live off the land. They were survivors.
Women sat by the fire, trimming extra branches, and using knives to shear the ends to sharp points, before hardening the ends in the fire. It was a practiced ritual. Daughters sat next to their mothers, following along with the motions and learning how to make the spears.
Other men and women were busy creating the fires to warm them. They worked in teams; the men cut the branches while the women hauled them to the fire. Some of the youngest girls and boys were making cordage as their siblings leashed leafy branches together to be hoisted up against a tree.
“Cherry, do you think you could help them finish those before dark?” Dar turned, hoping she would be willing to speed the process.
The dryad shrugged, and he felt the surge of mana crackle in the air.
He realized he probably should have given some sort of warning when the villagers jumped back with a start as fresh limbs sprouted from the ground. The limbs continued moving up, lifting the roofs to create small structures.
A few of the little girls looked over to Cherry, jumping and clapping with glee. The mothers seemed more hesitant but provided a nod of thanks.
Sasha chuckled. “You are getting some admirers, Lug. If you can convince Cherry to stay with you, I might even consider you a wizard and have some of those girls on their knees calling you ‘milord’.”
Not his cup of tea, but Sasha was just teasing.
Unsurprised at what Cherry could do by this point, Dar still found it amazing to watch each time. There was so much to learn about the magic in this world, especially if he was going to take on the devils. And he needed to amass power and others to fight by his side. No pressure.
Looking up, Dar noticed a few men glowering in Cherry’s direction, but he recognized their glowers for what they were: fear.
Dar stepped forward, catching their attention and raising a brow in a ‘do we have a problem’ gesture. Apparently, it translated across worlds well because the men quickly averted their eyes.
“You want one too?” Cherry asked, oblivious to the hostile exchange.
“If you would please,” Sasha said before Dar came out of his thoughts.
Unlike the other simple lean-tos, Cherry formed a small hut just big enough to fit a twin mattress. Unfortunately, they didn’t have one of those; he hoped the ground wasn’t too hard tonight.
The count stepped up to the small hut, looking it over. The count clearly wanted to make it his, but he knew he had no right. Dar stood, waiting for the man to move past his jealousy and get to whatever had brought him over.
“So, which one of you will be on guard tonight?” the count asked, stepping into their area.
Sasha snorted. “Neither of us. You will post someone to keep watch and wake us if they need us. We are of no use to you exhausted.”
The count’s smile twitched. He had already lost one negotiation with Sasha, so Dar knew losing another wasn’t going to sit well with the overly prideful man. Dar had seen this type many times before, those that lash out when their pride is wounded.
“Listen here, witch—”
A ribbon came out of nowhere and tied itself around the man’s mouth like a gag.
“I think we are done here, don’t you think?” Sasha let more ribbons come out of her dress and dance in the wind, reminding the count who had the power in this situation.
Count Tint snorted for the last word, walking away, his face puffy and red with anger.
“Did you have to antagonize him? We will be with him for at least a week, and I’d rather not wake up to a knife at our throats,” Dar sighed.
“He deserved it. He hates me simply for what I am. Besides, you are going to take off your clothes and get in there with me.” She pointed to the shelter Cherry had made.
Taken by surprise at her casual statement, Dar backed a step away. He thought their arrangement had been clear in their previous conversation. It was definitely tempting though; Sasha was gorgeous.
Sometimes when she spoke, he couldn’t take his gaze away from her blue eyes. And when the wind caught her long dark hair and made it dance and wrap around her waist and ample curves, it was hard to not be distracted. But after knowing a deeper relationship, a quick fling seemed like a bad idea, especially with his employer.
Sasha rolled her eyes as she took in his stance. “Lug, I just want to study the enchantments on you. It’ll be easier if you take your clothes off...”
Oh. He grinned, abashed; he had misunderstood again. Though he wasn’t sure that his hard stance would hold up during her studies of his body in the small hut.
Clearing his throat, he tried to recover. “What about food? We should eat first.”
Smiling to herself, clearly enjoying the moment, Sasha just watched him for a moment before agreeing and walking into the camp to solve that particular problem.
He was safe for the moment. “Hey, Cherry, think you can make the shelter smaller?”
“I’d have to remake it, and I’m getting tired.” She gave an oversized yawn given her petite frame. The dryad looked like a college girl, but sometimes her actions made him question just how old she was.
Sasha was already coming back, with what looked like jerky in hand. “Here, eat up.” She handed him half of it while devouring her own.
“You have to savor it,” Dar teased while taking a bite of what was pretty much shoe leather. His grin faltered as he tried to chew through the food.
Sasha laughed, motioning him forward. “Shirt off, Lug.”
He rolled his eyes, but he had agreed to this as part of the deal. “Fine. I’m keeping my pants on though.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Every part of you is enchanted; I could find a dao character that resonates with me anywhere on you.” She crawled into the shelter.
“How about tonight you just stick to my back?”
Sasha looked like she wanted to argue but relented. “There’s probably enough on your back to keep me occupied for the night, but you’ll have to take off your pants, eventually.”
She didn’t seem to care about what else other people could interpret that as, her sole focus being on the dao. Sometimes, he had to remind himself she wasn’t human despite how she looked; she was a demon born from some beast forming an understanding of a dao.
Dar took off his shirt, working to hide his blush as he moved into the shelter, turning his back to her.
He sighed as he sat down. The ground was hard, but it was still a
needed reprieve. It had been a long day, and now it was starting to all catch up with him. Awakening in a new world, dealing with new monsters and magic, and even dying… it was a lot to take in.
The weight of it all settled firmly on him and threatened to bury him. All of the day’s experiences became like a yawning chasm before him, with all the weight of what he was sent here to do pushing down on him further.
He settled into the shelter, laying down as Sasha slid up behind him.
She scooted close until he could feel the softness of her body pressing against his back. It was distracting enough to pull him from the brief melancholy that had seeped into his thoughts.
He could already feel his pants tighten as her chest pressed against him, and her warm breath tickled his neck. He was suddenly very glad that he was facing away so she couldn’t spot his growing member.
“Do you have to be so close?”
“It’s really small.” Her breath washed over his neck, sending tingles all the way south as his pants grew even tighter. Her arm snaked over his shoulder and her hand rested on his chest.
Dar wondered if she was doing it on purpose. She had made her views on humans clear; they were a passing distraction. A pet, as she had said before. Even if she was making a pass, he would not play along.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he grumbled, but his body betrayed him, feeling aroused at the contact.
Sasha shushed him. “I’m getting comfortable.”
She was incredibly soft as her chest rubbed against his back and finally settled.
A part of Dar wanted nothing but to embrace the warmth of her body, but the other half still felt like he was betraying Lily. Either way, Sasha was so soft and comfortable, he felt himself drift off to sleep almost instantly.
***
“Hmm?” He made a confused noise as he found himself on a neatly trimmed lawn with a table-sized tree stump.
I was just falling asleep. Is this a lucid dream?
Dar jumped and tried to fly, but nothing happened. If this was a lucid dream, it was the clearest one he’d ever had, but something told him it was more.
He paid more attention to his surroundings. All around him were neatly stacked stone walls. On one side, however, rose a dark sweeping stone keep. It was like some sort of castle out of the medieval ages, with a menacing wrought-iron gate barring the entrance.
Dar stepped up and tried to open it, but it was firmly locked shut. No matter what he tried or where he looked, he couldn’t find the way to enter the stone keep.
Grumbling, he stepped back. “What’s the point of a gate if it never opens?”
There wasn’t much else here except that stump and the ring of dark, loamy soil around it. He stepped up and looked closer. In the middle of the stump, a fresh green stem poked out of the crack in the center, like it was trying to grow again.
“Hey, little guy.” He poked the sapling that had just started to grow its first leaf.
But when he touched it, he felt a connection to himself, down in his gut. Dar realized that it was touching the same place where he’d felt the warmth when he’d eaten the dryad’s cherries.
“No way.” Puzzled, he touched the sapling again, and there it was, like a strange connection between this space and his body. It almost felt like a world within himself.
The little sapling was somehow tied to him. He just stared at it, feeling the situation threaten to overwhelm him.
What was he supposed to do with this space?
As if to answer him, mist in the shape of a gremlin floated down and was buried in the soil. The tree grew ever so slightly as the roots seemed to devour the devil before the naked eye.
“I need to feed you?” he asked the tree. In response, he got a vision of items, food, and yes, even cherries being placed in the ring of black soil. The tree seemed to use them for nutrients, sucking the dao out of them.
In the vision, the sapling grew a bit more, and Dar noticed something different about it. The buds held shimmering characters, dao characters.
A shiver went through Dar as he realized what this might mean. If he could feed this tree, he’d gain access to many, many dao characters. Maybe even enough to walk his dao path to the end.
He had a jitter of excitement before he realized he didn’t even know how to bring things into this space. He certainly wasn’t eating a whole freaking troll to bring it here.
But the tree had an answer for him, showing him another illusion of him standing before a pile of weapons and somehow drawing them into his belly button. Or, at least, it looked like that’s what he was doing. He drew them into the space behind his navel, and then the same weapons were showering down into this space.
“Amazing. Bring things in here that contain dao and feed you, and you’ll help me on my dao path?” Dar said, looking at the little sapling with a bit of awe.
The first leaf had started to unfurl from the bud, and Dar could just feel the potential from the dao it would reveal, but it wasn’t fully formed.
He decided to call the little sapling his ‘dao tree’. Smiling, he stood up and stepped back. The stump was so large—was that from his past life? Had he managed to cultivate a tree that large once?
Sasha had said that humans couldn’t form a dao, but this was definitely something. It left him with so many questions, ones he wished he had had more time with Lilith to get answers to.
But he knew without a doubt that this was unique. A chance for him to plot his own dao path and grow far faster than Sasha had indicated was possible.
He was curious if Sasha knew anything about this. However, given the hunger she’d had after seeing his enchantments and talking about Cherry’s dao, he decided it was probably best to keep it quiet for now. They were becoming friends, but he was still new to this world.
For now, he sat on the stump and relaxed.
***
Something rustled against him, and Dar blinked himself out of his strange dream. The rational part of his brain that was trying to reassert that it was just a dream couldn't combat the natural feeling of heat he could now identify behind his navel.
Whatever it was, it had been real, and it was connected to this new body.
Opening his eyes further, he realized the soft light of dawn was bleeding into their shelter.
Somehow, he’d managed to sleep through the night on the hard dirt floor, but it became clearer to him how as he felt Sasha’s soft body curled up against his chest. Her softness easily compensated for the rough ground.
How had this happened? He looked down, feeling better that at least her clothes were on. He almost laughed when he saw that she was still wearing that wide-brimmed hat.
She shifted, and her pert butt rubbed against his crotch, igniting a lustful fire in Dar.
His morning wood pressed in between her legs, and it would be even more obvious if he tried to adjust or shift away. She made a slight movement again, and he cursed to himself.
Images of him flipping Sasha over on her back and plunging into her soft delicate depths got stuck in his head playing on repeat.
He pinched his eyes closed and tried to think of something else. He wanted to subdue his cock, but her body resting up against him kept his thoughts coming back. He fixed the image of a giant slug alien from an old Solar Wars movie into his mind to try and calm himself down.
Hurried footsteps came from outside their shelter, pacing several times in front before seeming to finally make up their mind. Soft steps entered their hut, and even in the slight light of dawn, he could see him for the young boy he was.
“Um, sir, you need to get up—the watch thinks something is coming.” His soft start of a whisper became louder as he gathered himself. By the end, it was enough that Sasha woke.
Dar used the opportunity to spring to his feet, hoping to avoid an awkward ‘good morning’ moment, but his erection caught on her butt and sprang back like one of those spring door stops.
Struggling to maintain his composure, he kn
ew then there was no way she hadn’t noticed, but he ignored it anyway. He tucked it to the side casually and promptly followed the boy without looking back.
The boy led him to a number of guardsmen.
“What’s wrong?” Dar whispered to the man on watch, as he heard Sasha getting herself out of the shelter.
“Morning to you too.” Her tone had a teasing hint to it.
An older man glared at both of them as he walked up. “I hope you aren’t flirting with a monster,” he addressed Dar, ignoring Sasha.
“I don’t see a monster here, do you?” Dar pointedly looked around and right past Sasha. “What did you have your son wake us up for?”
“Direwolves. We saw one scout the camp and then head back into the forest,” he said, glancing about.
“Direwolves?” Dar asked Sasha, the guard becoming puzzled at his question.
“Thank you. We’ll prepare,” Sasha replied before Dar asked any more questions, pulling him away to talk. “Direwolves are basically horse-sized wolves and fairly intelligent. He had good reason to worry if one scouted us. Just like wolves, they travel in packs; it will come back with friends.”
“Are they devils?” he asked.
Sasha gave him a confused frown. “No… they are monsters.”
He shrugged. “Okay, so less scary? I can deal with that.”
Sasha started to respond, but a low growl seemed to ripple from the woods.
“Fuck,” Sasha cursed and was already moving in the direction it came from, Dar hot on her heels. Ribbons exploded from her dress and snagged the first wolf that charged towards the camp.
Dar got his first look at the creature by the light of the fire and early dawn.
It was a soot-black wolf, with a muzzle large enough to snap a man in half. It was a terrifying monster, but he had just fought a dozen trolls and somehow it wasn’t quite as scary as it should be.
Then it covered the ground between them in a quick lunge that nearly caught Sasha by surprise.
The direwolf growled and snapped teeth that were nearly as long as his forearm at Sasha, but she managed to lean away while her ribbons exploded out of her dress and held it off by inches.
