“No, you aren’t fooling me. You already have a bond with your animal, Luke of Machines. I can sense it. I don’t know why you want to tease an old Beastmaster, but I won’t let that bother me. Now, let me help you with a second bond,” Savine said and sat down closer to the both of them.

  She stared him in the eyes and tapped her mouth with a knuckle. Luke guessed that meant she was lying for anyone listening in to their conversation. He wiggled his hands to agree with her. He felt kind of bad now, he should have been more circumspect since they were in public. He couldn’t hear the conversations of any of his neighbors, but anyone with a high enough Perception could probably hear him.

  “Yes, sorry for teasing you. Jinx and I already have a bond, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get her into the building,” Luke said.

  Savine smiled and said, “I’ll just have to add a fee at the end for teasing an old dwarf. On to business. There are three different kinds of bonds that I can grant. The first is the most common, a domination bond. You would be the master in the relationship, and Jinx would follow your every command. It’s perfect for animals that are used in hunts, but it does have the side effect of making the animals irritable and unsuited for companionship.”

  Luke slashed his hands down but said nothing.

  “I see you aren’t interested in that option. The second option is more popular for those that call their beast a pet. It’s an empathic bond, where the beast feels deep affection for the owner and will do anything to please them. The main difference is they will often protect their owners instead of venturing out to fight monsters. If they are forced to spend long periods without their owners, they often fall into depression.

  “Lastly, we have a communication bond. I can add it to either of the first two bonds and it grants you and your pet the ability to understand each other’s vocalizations. I will point out this doesn’t increase their intelligence, so a dull animal won’t provide stimulating conversation.”

  Luke sat up straighter. “We only have need of the last one, the communication bond.”

  She looked at Jinx and then back at him. “Are you sure, Luke of Machines? There are other types of bonds available from other Beastmasters if you are unsatisfied with my selection.”

  “No, no. I am quite sure. All I wish to purchase today is a communication bond,” Luke said firmly.

  She sighed and said, “It’s your garden, I’ll let you tend it. Hold still. This won’t take long.”

  The Beastmaster clapped her hands together and held them tight. A look of deep concentration was chiseled into her face. After a few moments, her hands started glowing amber. The glow grew brighter and brighter. Then she stood up and walked forward, her hands outstretched. Jinx tried to flinch away, but Luke held her tight long enough for Savine to touch her head and his at the same time.

  A headache bloomed across Luke’s mind like a camera flash. He blinked away tears and then the pain was gone. Beastmaster Savine was already packing up her chair and fiddling with her cart.

  “Is that it? Are you done?” Luke asked her.

  Jinx whipped her head around and stuck her nose in his face. She hissed and Luke heard, “What the hell did you say?”

  Luke laughed and shoved her back a bit. “I guess it worked. We can understand each other now.”

  Jinx responded with a soft yowl. “You sound so weird and strange. I don’t like that I can understand you now.”

  “Really? That’s your reaction? Come on. You’ve been my pet for most of your life and you finally get the chance to talk to me. Don’t you have anything you would like to say?”

  Jinx chittered. “You have grossly misunderstood our relationship, Luke. You are my servant and occasional companion. I do not belong to you, you belong to me.” She huffed and phased out of his arms.

  “Sure, sure. I’m your human, but you are my cat. Don’t forget who provides the food in this relationship.”

  “That reminds me. I can smell you have three more fishes on you. Give them to me now,” Jinx purred.

  “Alright, but you have to promise not to leave this room until I say it’s time to go.”

  “I promise. Give the fishes now. And get more treats from the short one. She has many treats on her moving furniture.”

  Luke handed over all of the dried fish he had and bought several cubes of fatty monster meat wrapped in minty leaves. Jinx finished the fishes while he completed the transaction and nosed the treats in his hands.

  “I suppose it is good that you can talk now,” Jinx chittered. “Give me one now and tell the tall slithery to hold on to the others. I need you to groom me after my meal.”

  Luke chuckled and did as she asked. He realized that they both thought they were in charge and neither was actually correct. It would take some time for them to find their new normal.

  His Earth trade goods were bought up by the next few carts that drove by. He sent them on their way afterwards because they didn’t have anything interesting to sell. Still, he got good money for the spices and chocolate. The VR goggles weren’t worth much, but the mechanical pocket watches were an instant hit. He sold a dozen of them for 700 whites.

  When the last of his goods were sold, Luke counted up all the orbs. He had the equivalent of 18.6 million dollars in cores in front of him. Not that he could get that much money if he brought it all home. This many high tier monster cores would crater the market. Besides, he wanted to buy some stuff here on Kalibutan. Particularly runes if he could get them to sell him some.

  A half hour later, he had bought some interesting trinkets, but no runes. He sent Kruro out to talk to the attendant and arrange something.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  A few minutes later a tall and stately elf slowly walked up to his room. He wore a tight blue tunic, covered in silver glowing runes. A hovering platform followed him autonomously, avoiding obstacles and sticking close to its owner. There were dozens of inscribed objects atop the cart, everything from teacups to spell rifles.

  He gave Luke an appraising eye and said, “Greetings, Luke of Machines. I am Omosefe of Runes. I don’t usually wander this high up on the tower, but I suspect my time won’t be wasted. How may I enrich both of our lives?”

  As he talked, Jinx padded over to the hovering platform and sniffed at the merchandise. It didn’t take her long to decide the runework wasn’t interesting and lay back down in front of Luke.

  Luke gave her pets as he talked. “Greetings Omosefe of Runes. I believe you are correct-”

  He was cut off by Jinx when she suddenly stood up and jerked her head towards the back wall. The bay window there gave them a good view of the outer city and the bright blue sky above.

  The sky was darkening north of the building, like a cloud was forming midair. Luke heard people nearby shouting with surprise and swearing in panic. He got up and walked to the window. If he craned his neck to the left, he could see the source of the darkening sky. A wave of goosebumps washed over his skin.

  Something was pushing up against the sky, like the sky was a backdrop and someone was poking through from behind. The protrusion swelled up and suddenly burst, sending shards of sky scattering everywhere. An enormous shape slid through the new hole in reality, dripping with black ichor. It was as big as the building he was in and it slowly dropped towards the city about three miles away.

  It took a few moments for Luke to understand what he was looking at. The part of his mind that categorized objects was having a fit. This thing was an abhorrent mix of squirming tentacles and sharp metal edges. It was like Cthulhu had sex with a spaceship and this was the child that neither wanted to claim.

  It had three bulbous sections, each mostly made of black metal. In between sections of metal, void black flesh pulsed and wept a thick liquid. The sections were held together with thick tentacles and the front and back sections had four huge tentacles that split in two, and then in two again, until they were tessellated into black static.

  The black ichor covering the otherworldly thing dripped down faster than it fell through the sky. Luke watched as it hit one of the taller buildings and puffed into smoke. A moment after the smoke cleared, a portion of the building cracked, then crumbled and fell.

  Three lights lit up on the top of the castle in the city center and then streaked across the sky. Red, blue, and yellow lights headed directly for the abomination. They stopped a few hundred feet below the slowly falling tentacle horror and hovered in the air for a moment. Luke squinted and thought he saw the shape of people in the lights.

  All across the city, blue lights lit up on the tops of buildings. They shone bright and then speared forward, attacking the black abomination. The trio of lights joined their own magic to the fight. Waves of stuttering blue, a spear of fire, and a dozen bone white projectiles all shot forward, knocking the monster back up, up, up.

  It flailed its tentacles around but the bright lights quickly avoided the strikes. The combined efforts pushed the pulsating black thing up through the hole in reality. It tried to hold on, but the attacks were too strong. Its tentacles were burned away and the abomination fell backward through the shattered sky.

  The cracks across the sky were slowly widening, but a wave of bright light rose up from the city and concentrated on the hole. The cracks healed, the hole repaired, and the sky brightened again.

  Luke took a deep shuddering gasp. He hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath. He turned to see Omosefe of Runes had joined him at the window.

  “What the hell was that?” Luke asked.

  “The Others. Their third attack on the city this year. Makes me want to run in terror every time. Although I admit, we got off light this time. Looks like we only lost a few buildings. A few months ago when they attacked from the mountains, only one of the Triumvirate was available to fight it. We lost a half dozen city estates before he could end the threat.”

  “The Others. I’ve heard of them, didn’t know that was real until this moment. But I was told the gods fought the Others, not the Triumvirate."

  “That wasn’t a fight, that was an incursion we pushed back. Anyone can affect them once they are in our realm. The gods are the only ones that can repair the sky and fight them on their side of the divide. They spend most of their time defending our world from their devastation. I can’t imagine what would happen if we didn’t have their protection.”

  Luke glanced around the clear skies. There was much more going on than he had realized. Apparently the gods weren’t only unfathomable beings that demanded sapient sacrifice, they were also the protectors of this reality.

  This little tidbit just shot up to the top of his list of things Earth needed to know about. The governments of the world might want to consider closing all the portals so that we could avoid the attention of the Others. Earth didn’t have the same kind of divine protection on its side.

  Omosefe clapped his hands. “Well, now that excitement is over, let us get back to business, shall we?”

  Luke shook himself to refocus. “Yeah, ok. Right. I do want several things. First off, I would like a few books on runes. My education was a bit slapdash so I would be interested in everything from beginner rune books all the way up to master rune diagrams. Anything to round out my education.”

  Omosefe slashed his hands down. “I regret to say that I cannot provide books on runes. Runic education must follow the master and apprentice guidelines to pass on information.”

  “We both know that isn’t true in all cases. Many of the city’s elite simply learn from the family library, as I did,” Luke said and pointed to the stack of books he had gotten from the Falodun estate.

  The svelte elf walked over to the books and started leafing through them as he talked, “Ah, yes. I hadn’t realized you would be part of the aristocracy. My apologies. Luke of Machines evokes a different place in society.”

  This next bit would be a bit tricky. He had to convince Omosefe he was an aristocrat without giving up any details. His helmet was strange, but at least it covered him enough that it wasn’t obvious he was human.

  “Of Machines is my calling for now, I’m sure I will rise to a Lord soon. Surely you’ve heard that the Shuffle is imminent? I wish to augment my knowledge before I am assigned to an estate on the outskirts of civilization.

  “I’m assuming you are willing to sell these reference books and wish to purchase different ones? Why not follow the standard procedure? Surely your noble house could do all of this for you.”

  “Yes, and perhaps if I had planned better I would have done that. But I hadn’t expected my brother to steal four of my household away and start his own bid for Lordship.” Luke flicked his hands. “I won’t bother you with family drama. I have memorized everything in the books you see. What other books can you provide?”

  Omosefe kept leafing through the books and said, “Can and will are different things. Why should I bend the rules all Runewrights must follow just for your convenience?”

  Luke thought furiously. If this was on Earth, Omosefe would be asking for a bribe. But money wasn’t as important on this planet. He had to tempt the elf with something else. “Take a good look at me. Don’t you think that a man like me will do great things in these uncertain times? All that I lack are books of runes to keep me company as I head out into the unknown and battle back those that wish to harm us all. Will you support that effort?”

  Hopefully Omosefe was picking up on the subtext Luke was attempting to lay down. He was trying to say he had a lot of glory so he could be trusted. They were about to go to war with the humans. If he gave him a rune book, he would use it to win the war and spread glory to everyone involved.

  The elf tapped his chin with a book. “I suppose you seem like the trustworthy sort. Let me see what types of books I have in my personal collection.”