Metal Mage 9

by Eric Vall

  “Hah!” Grot growled with a guttural laugh. “You’re one of a kind, ye’ know that? It’s a shame Temin’s not half the man ye’ are. Save me a lot of trouble.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the words, and Hulsan shook his head to himself while my women raised their brows in surprise.

  “Well, hopefully things will cool off a bit now,” I finally said, “seeing as we have an understanding.”

  “Aye,” Grot said in a low voice. “We’ve got an understandin’ with you. Don’t mean Temin’s got an understandin’. And ye’ can tell him that, too. He shows his face out here, and we’ll fuckin’ eat him. We don’t want no dealings with Illaria. We work with you, or no one.”

  “Fair enough,” I muttered under my breath, but my focus was distracted as I dug to the bottom of the bone pile, and dozens of gems glinted up at me in the firelight. “Holy shit.”

  “Take as many as ye’ need,” Grot called over his shoulder as his four women rose to tear his kill apart for him.

  My pulse quickened as the power of the hoard of gems sifted through my veins, and I suddenly understood how pirates felt. The stash of channeling gems was truly priceless, and I couldn’t resist grabbing up handfuls to let them glitter in my palms in every shade and frequency. Some were as big as the chunk of amber I had in the shop back in Falmount, but others were as small as my thumbnail. Their frequency was still incredibly strong, though, and I spent a few minutes exploring the differences between them all.

  I didn’t want to rob the ogres of their hoard, and given we had an understanding, I could most likely get more channeling gems from them any time I needed now. Hell, if they would stop eating an entire race for me, they probably wouldn’t object to anything I asked for, and the notion made me think back on Hulsan’s words from the day before.

  Against all odds, I’d be leaving Jagruel with a personal alliance with the most barbaric race in the realm, and it only took me two days to gain it. Now, I was drinking and feasting with their ruler like it was nothing, and I couldn’t deny, Hulsan had a point. Temin never could have accomplished as much in so little time, and I doubted the Elders of Aurum or the Elite of Nalnora could have either.

  Which was pretty fucking badass.

  It was a shame no one else in this realm had learned how to get shit done as effectively as me, but as long as I could do what I was sent here to do, I’d gladly carry on as I’d been doing.

  So, I grabbed three channeling gems that felt incredibly potent despite their smaller size, and I headed back to the fire with Rosh buzzing in my legs and the power of the gems coursing through my veins.

  Then I sent my women to cut up my kill for me, and as they served me fresh mugs of Rosh and thick slabs of charred bird, I explained to Grot what an automaton was and what he could expect from the one I’d be sending him in a week.

  The ogre ruler’s bloody brown eyes glinted greedily as I explained the way my weaponry worked, the abilities of the automaton, and where to get ahold of me if he needed anything else, but then an ogre woman passed by, and Grot’s attention shifted immediately.

  He let out a carnal growl as he hungrily eyed the woman, and I recognized her long braid and bloody club the second I looked over.

  It was the same ogre woman who’d been watching Haragh since we got back from the forest, but when she turned to meet Grot’s hungry gaze, a vicious snarl left her throat as she bared her teeth. Then she walked off to leave the ruler glaring at her ogre ass, and I raised my brows as I glanced sidelong at Haragh.

  The half-ogre was stubbornly staring at his mug, though, and when Grot let out an irritated grunt and stood to bring his women outside and kill something, I nudged Haragh.

  “Staring at your drink will never get you laid,” I informed the half-ogre.

  “So?” he grunted, and I sighed.

  “Go talk to her,” I cajoled. “She hates Grot, so you know she’s probably got good taste. Plus, she’s been eyeing you for the last hour.”

  “I know,” Haragh mumbled, and he downed his Rosh in two long gulps.

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Aurora giggled.

  Haragh shrugged and refilled his mug. “She’ll probably tear my head off just for talkin’ to her.”

  “No, she won’t,” Cayla tried with a reassuring smile.

  “Ye’ sure about that?” Haragh asked flatly, and we all turned around to crane our necks above the sea of hulking ogres.

  Across the cave, the ogre woman was bashing her club against another ogre’s skull with one hand while she balanced her bubbling mug of Rosh in the other. The battered ogre stumbled back as he clutched at his bloody head, and after she planted her boot in his gut, he let out a pained roar as he went flying into a lava fall.

  His screams were drowned out within seconds as his boiling body was swallowed up by the sea, and the ogre woman snorted before taking a long glug of Rosh. Then she belched and shoved a rogue ogre out of the way so she could take his seat from him.

  “Okay, I see your point,” I muttered as I turned back to Haragh, “but that’s no reason not to try! Sometimes you’ve just gotta take a chance, man. Aurora could’ve burned me alive the first time we met, but she didn’t, and now look where we are.”

  It was slightly drunken logic, but I had five brimming mugs of Rosh in me now, so nothing seemed too difficult anymore. Even wooing a scary ass ogre chick struck me as a totally surmountable task, especially since it wouldn’t be me trying to do it.

  “I guess ye’ve got a point,” Haragh allowed.

  “A solid point,” I said with a tipsy nod. “Go for it.”

  “But … I don’t even know what I’d say to her,” Haragh admitted anxiously.

  “Hell, say anything!” I chuckled. “Tell her she’s good at mauling shit. She’d probably like that.”

  Haragh furrowed his brows thoughtfully. “She is good at maulin’.”

  “The best,” Aurora agreed. “I’ve never seen a woman decapitate a man with her bare hands before.”

  “There you go!” I laughed as I sent Cayla to refill my mug. “Tell her that, too. Why not?”

  “And tell her she has a very impressive club,” Deya suggested. “It’s bigger than many of the others I’ve seen here, and she seems to put it to good use.”

  “Make sure you compliment how beautiful she is, too,” Cayla added as she knelt to deliver my drink to me, and I grinned as I admired her leather clad cleavage. “She clearly values her hygiene more than the others, because she isn’t covered in sweat and mud. She’ll appreciate that you notice how well she takes care of herself.”

  “I don’t know,” Haragh grumbled as he rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. “That’s a lot to just walk up and say to an ogre woman. Ye’ really gotta have a pride or somethin’ that sets you apart from the rest to do somethin’ so bold. Grot’s fuckin’ huge, ye’ know? That’s what he’s got, and now he’s got four women too, so he could have his pick of the litter. I’m just half an ogre without a pride. That’s not much to brag about.”

  “But she didn’t want Grot looking at her,” Aurora pointed out.

  “And you’re a strong, brave, and loyal half of an ogre,” Deya added with a sweet smile.

  “And fuck prides,” I said a little too loudly as I lowered my mug. “It’s not about how many you get, it’s about quality, dude. One thing at a time, and that there is a quality ogre woman.”

  “She really is a hell of an ogre woman,” Haragh sighed with a goofy grin.

  “Uh-huh,” I nodded, “and you’re a hell of a half-ogre. You kill shit, you’ve got Terra powers, you’re a Defender of the Order, and no one knows gems as well as you. It’s a shame we don’t have any now, or you could use that.”

  “I’ve got gems,” Haragh said as he perked up a bit, and he dug in both of his pockets to pull out two heaping handfuls of rubies. “Dorinick said he didn’t need ‘em.”

  “Daaamn,” I mused. “That’s a fuck ton of rubies.”

  “Yeah, I though
t I might make a pin for the clasp of my cloak,” he said with a shrug. “Somethin’ a bit flashy.”

  I nodded. “That’s one option, or--”

  “Make her a huge ruby!” Cayla gasped. “I can guarantee no one else in Jagruel can do that.”

  “She’d love it,” Aurora assured him.

  Haragh bit his lip nervously as he looked back at the ogre woman once more, and I grinned drunkenly from ear to ear.

  “Like a damn magnet,” I chuckled as I nudged his arm. “Dorinick knows a thing or two. I say go for it. If she tries to kill you … well then that’s a clear no, but at least you wouldn’t be sitting in Illaria wondering what might’ve happened if you took the chance.”

  Haragh looked ready to throw up from how nervous he was as he pocketed his rubies and downed his Rosh, but Aurora wasn’t about to let him drop the ball on this.

  “She’s heading out,” the half-elf hissed. “Go kill something with her! Use huge boulders to do it, too, that’ll be a good way to show off your magery before you do the ruby thing!”

  “Okay, fuck it,” Haragh said with a harried nod, and he slowly got up on wobblily legs.

  “Yeees!” I chuckled. “You’ve got this! Just remember you can make earthquakes, and mountains, and shit. That’s way more than any of these other ogres can do.”

  “Hell yeah, it is,” Haragh growled as he straightened up a bit, and he crossed the cave with long, confident strides as the ogre woman headed into the fading dusk with her bloody club propped up on her shoulder.

  “What if she does try to kill him?” Deya asked uneasily once he was gone.

  I furrowed my brow. “I mean … he could probably fight her off.”

  Aurora chuckled as she sauntered over to grab my empty mug, and I admired her singed and stockinged legs as she bent over the vat of Rosh to refill it for me.

  I had every intention of pacing myself this time since it was our last night in Jagruel, and I kind of wanted to remember some things about the place, but that didn’t exactly pan out. Rosh really was a tricky thing, and before I knew it, I’d downed thirteen giant mugs of the stuff and taught all of the ogres what a fist bump was. Then I rerouted the lava flows so some of them would flow down the inner walls and liven the place up a bit, and they pooled into a gleaming orange river that encircled the whole cave before it poured out into the sea.

  I took all sorts of liberties with my women, too, but none of them seemed to mind feeding me scraps of meat or undoing a few of the upper clasps on their tops while they did so. Deya even got rid of her sheer white skirt so I could enjoy the view of her bare ass and silk thong while she fetched me my drinks, and all of them got into the habit of saying, “Yes, Mason,” whenever I ordered them around.

  I was honestly too drunk to tell which of us was enjoying the whole arrangement more, but I kind of got the sense it was Deya, because her cheeks were bright pink all evening, and she couldn’t resist tucking kisses just beneath the collar of my shirt whenever she passed by.

  An hour or so later, Grot returned to the cave fuming about some ogre bitch and Haragh, and I just sat there chuckling to myself as I swayed merrily through the entire conversation. After that, everything got hazy, but my women and Hulsan made sure I made it back to the forest without getting eaten, and when I woke up, I was surrounded by several large glass jugs of some slimy green sludge.

  “The fuck is this?” I mumbled as I forced my groggy eyes to open a bit further.

  “That is strixal,” Deya informed me as she stoked the lizard she already had charring on the fire, and Aurora smirked from her side.

  “Okay,” I muttered, and I picked up a jug to open it. The greenish sludge smelled kind of like fruit cocktail, and when I swiped a bit to taste it, it reminded me of lemon meringue pie with a consistency nearly identical to pudding. “Not bad, but why is it all here?”

  “Haragh’s dad brought it to the caves for you,” Aurora said. “Remember? You asked him to bring you some next time you saw him, so he whipped up a few batches before the celebration.”

  “Huh,” I said as I furrowed my brow and ate a bit more. “Yeah, I don’t remember any of that, but alright. What’s it made of?”

  “Mashed wyvern eyeballs and some ogre seasonings,” Deya replied casually, and a violent gag closed my throat.

  “You can’t be serious,” I groaned.

  Aurora was laughing her ass off, though. “What’s wrong? You ate a whole jar on our first night in Jagruel.”

  “And two more last night,” Deya added. “Haragh’s father was quite proud. Apparently, he makes the best strixal in Jagruel.”

  I grimaced as I closed the jar, and I eyed the dozen or so others surrounding me before I noticed ten ogre sized barrels stacked beside the Mustang.

  “What are those?”

  “That is your first shipment of Rosh,” Aurora said. “Grot is determined to keep up a steady supply, though, so you volunteered to have your battle dragon pick up more whenever we run out in Falmount. He was very impressed, and the two of you bumped fists on the agreement. So, that happened.”

  Deya giggled and sent me a little wave, and I tried to resist the urge to bury my head in the dirt.

  “Yikes. The dragon thing went straight to my head, then.”

  “I don’t mind,” Deya said with a shrug. “I like it when you brag about me.”

  “Where are the others?” I chuckled as I got up to stretch some life back into my limbs.

  “Hulsan went for a walk to see how his knee was doing,” Aurora informed me, “and Cayla is still sleeping in the Mustang. I think we all know where Haragh spent the night.”

  I grinned as I recalled the fury of Grot when he found out Haragh was out with the ogre woman who had shot him down, and Aurora sent me a proud little smirk.

  “Good for him,” I chuckled.

  “It’s about time,” the half-elf agreed. “Haragh deserves a woman like her. At least I think he does. I still don’t know anything about her except how scary she can be.”

  “Well, as soon as the others are back, we should head out,” I decided. “I want to get straight to work on those pistols and make sure everything’s going alright at the infirmary. Shoshanne will be happy we’re getting back early, too.”

  “First, you are going to eat a hearty breakfast,” Deya said curtly as she pulled the charred lizard off the flames. “Last night, you said I could boss you around whenever I want because I was cute enough to get away with it, so I am enforcing that now.”

  I raised my brows. “That does sound like something I’d say … ”

  “Oh, you said that and much, much more,” Aurora chuckled as I sat between her and Deya.

  “I don’t doubt it,” I mumbled, “but I wish Hulsan hadn’t heard it all. That’s kind of awkward.”

  “He thought it was hilarious,” Aurora assured me, “and I’d say he’s more convinced than ever you’re wasting that potential of yours. Grot told you the ogres would be glad to kill off any enemies of yours, any time, any where, with no questions asked. I swear Hulsan’s eyes nearly fell out of his head.”

  “I honestly never imagined the ogres would be so accommodating,” I admitted as Deya sliced off a piece of lizard meat, and I grinned when she slipped it into my mouth for me as well.

  “I wouldn’t call them accommodating,” the beautiful elf mused. “They simply respect you. Perhaps not many have earned their respect, so it means more to them that they can put their trust in you.”

  “True,” I allowed as she offered up another bite. “Either way, I hope Temin doesn’t get the wrong idea. I was supposed to mend the divide between Illaria and Jagruel, but I think I just enlisted the entire nation into my army instead.”

  “Temin respects you, too,” Aurora pointed out. “He’ll understand.”

  “Maybe,” I sighed.

  “What did you mean the other day,” Deya asked as she crinkled her brow, “when you said Temin wasn’t your king?”

  “I meant just that,” I said
with a shrug. “You know I’m not from around here, and I don’t see much cause for pledging my loyalty to anyone in particular in this realm. I’m only trying to take the Master down in any way I can. Temin’s a good guy, and he’s trying to protect Illaria. I think we can both use each other’s help, but I consider him more of a friend than my ruler.”

  Deya raised her pink brows as she slipped another chunk of meat onto my tongue. “My father underestimated you. I’ve never known a man to come and go as you do amongst so many nations, or befriend rulers within days. When you came to Nalnora, my father said you were one of Temin’s puppets, but all your work to accomplish requires patience and understanding beyond what that implies. I wish he hadn’t been so condescending toward you.”

  “Me too,” I chuckled, “but it doesn’t matter. I technically stole his beautiful daughter away and got his son to teach me how to use rune magic, so I’d say we’re even.”

  It was another hour before Hulsan returned, and I spent most of that time making love to my three women. At first Deya went down on me while I used my tongue to bring Aurora through three orgasms. Then Cayla woke up, and with some careful maneuvering, we switched positions so Deya rode my cock while Cayla rode my face and I fingered Aurora; all while we lay on the hood of the Mustang. Once I heard Hulsan getting closer, though, we wrapped things up while Deya did her best not to screech too loudly when I filled her with my cum, and by the time the old man strolled out of the trees, all four of us had redressed and were enjoying the post-orgasm bliss while cuddled around the fire.

  Now that I was fully satiated, my mind was churning through all the work I had to get done as soon as we got back, and it was decided the women would check in on the training sessions for me so I could get straight to the shop.

  Hulsan planned to visit the infirmary at the Oculus to make sure his knee was alright, and he refused my offer to have Shoshanne tend to it for him.

  “I reckon she’s got her hands full taking care of those runes,” the old man muttered.

  “Raynor could take a look for you, though,” I pointed out. “He’s an Aer Mage who--”

  “I know who Raynor is,” Hulsan snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re trustin’ that old coot with healin’ work?”