Chapter 307: Team Princess (Legally distinct from other princess groups)

Chapter 307: Team Princess (Legally distinct from other princess groups)

As the Littan world summit rapidly approached, I took some time to lay down the Closet’s reality anchor in Hiward’s capital city, Foundation. Hiward’s Central Delver Authority had kicked the question of whether placing the anchor at my old penthouse was chill or not over to border control. Border control was very confused, since Foundation was at the center of Hiward, and as such was not anywhere close to Hiward’s borders. This led to a series of misunderstandings comical enough to serve as the plot of a trashy afternoon sitcom.

I eventually got it all sorted, and now there was a guy named Fed hanging out in my penthouse all day to check passports and handle customs. I had total control over the portal and it wasn’t officially open yet, so Fed wouldn’t have much to do for now. After that, I went over to Bluewren to visit some old friends at Ashen Vineyards, with Lito and Myria along for the ride. It was a whole road-trip filler episode, you’ll be glad we skipped it. I’m not here to bore you with the cable-TV quality adventures.

Papa Junior was pulling overtime with his work on Gracorvus, so I decided to head back and take care of Closetland while the master smith was working his magic. Varrin would bring the shield back to me once it was ready.

Time was at a premium, and there was one final task for me to oversee before I took the stage in front of all the world’s most important movers and shakers.

Closetland was hosting tryouts for the B-team.

*****

There had been a lot of discussion about establishing a second main Delver party over the prior few months. Ishi’s mother, Her Silver Majesty, had banned her daughter from any further Delving once she’d hit Level 21, but had changed her tune after meeting Fortune’s Folly. The Dragon Ruler had ordered Ishi to start leveling again and signed me up to find the princess a new crew without much concern over my willingness or ability to do so. Despite having known me for all of a day, she seemed to think I had the connections to help Ishi out with sourcing some talented Delvers.

Her Silver Majesty was correct.

Ishi was a spellbow with a lot of control options. She used Dimensional magic to lock people down, delete the light and air from a large area, or just send people flying all over the place. She also had some limited healing and recovery capabilities with her Telekinetic Surgery skill, and Shielding and mirror abilities from Mystical Magic. Altogether, some solid control and support. Plus, she had even more health than I did, despite having way less Fortitude, because Dragons were overpowered!

As overpowered as their libido was overpowering.

As filled with cheats as they were filled with passion.

Unbalanced at all turns, save for their perfect, symmetrical sexiness.

…

Moving on, Ishi didn’t want to hand off the entire talent-scouting process to me and had insisted on sparring with any hopefuls to get a sense of their abilities. So, on the eve of my global royal debut, I found myself in a sealed-off training room, watching Joma do some warm-up stretches while we waited for the princess to arrive.

The Mittakan martial artist was one level below Ishi at 20, which was about as close as anyone could expect to get when building a new team. Joma had a focus on melee and mobility, and would presumably be bringing Nottagator along with her. The yeti/abomination duo would make for a solid frontline, providing a lot of tank to the new party, with a healthy dose of spank on top.

Cloaky might help, too? Maybe? I was unclear on the divine spawn’s capabilities.

Five minutes before the assigned start time, I felt Ishi’s soul appear behind me as she was silently deposited by one of Grotto’s teleports. She strode closer, and a warm hand trailed down my back as the Dragon princess nudged herself beneath my arm. I chuckled as I turned the awkward cuddle into a proper side hug, letting my own hand find her waist.

“Your Majesty,” said Ishi. A hint of mischief in her ocean-blue eyes undercut the formal address.

“Your Highness,” I replied. Her hand began to drift lower until it threatened impropriety, at which point a gentle pinch in just the right spot near her hip had the woman nimbly spin and step away to avoid declaring how ticklish she was to the room.

“How was Hiward?” she asked, grinning and tucking away a rebellious strand of midnight hair.

“A complex mixture of productive, nostalgic, weepy, and inspiring,” I said, before summoning a wand from my inventory with a red bow tied around its length. I held it out to the princess. “A souvenir, for your collection.”

Ishi raised an eyebrow and stepped forward–dangerously close to being back in tickling range–then plucked the wand from my hand. She looked it over, her expert eye dissecting the craftsmanship. “Well-made,” she said, then held it up, ribbon swaying through the air. “Should I identify it, or would you prefer that I be ‘surprised’ by the imbued spell again?”

“After the last time, it's probably better for you to identify it first.”

“I’m glad you’ve finally learned that lesson,” she said with a haughty smile. She focused on the wand for a second, then pursed her lips in confusion. “What is the point of this?”

I spread my arms wide. “Style!”

Ishi hummed thoughtfully, then spun the wand through the air with a flourish. The ribbon twirled and caught the air with a perfect amount of flair, and Ishi spread her silver wings as the wand activated, striking a regal pose.

There was a puff of smoke, and a flock of a dozen white doves flew out from behind her, scattering into the room.

“Bravo!” I said, applauding. Ishi bowed gracefully, as though receiving applause was only natural. Then she held up the wand and gave it another skeptical look.

“Where do the doves come from?” she asked.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“No idea.” I looked around at the twelve birds flitting about the room. Then, as quickly as they’d come, the birds popped back out of existence. “I know that they’re real

“It’s a Dimensional spell,” said Ishi. “Do you think the wandmaker has a room filled with doves that the spell is keyed to?”

“They might have some kind of dove stasis field to store them in,” I added, thinking of how Nuralie could keep live frogs in her inventory.

“Hmm. Well, thank you.” Ishi vanished the wand into her inventory and came back into grappling range. She wrapped her arms around me and floated up a few inches to give me a lingering kiss. “I love it. It will fit in nicely next to the snail wand.”

“I thought you hated the snail wand?”

“I do. This one will balance out the display case.”

We were then rudely reminded that we weren’t alone.

“Can I come back later?” asked Joma. “Once you two are done trading fluids?”

Ishi dropped back onto the ground and spun to face the mini-yeti. “There will be no fluid exchange this afternoon,” she said primly. “Are you ready for your tryout?”

The Iskarim crossed her white furry arms. “Why do I even have to try out?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” said Ishi. “Because I said that you must.”

Joma rolled her eyes. “What about the, uh, princess privilege?”

“The princess privilege only applies to social outings,” said Ishi. “This is a matter of business.”

“Fine, fine,” said Joma, dropping her arms. “Can we fight now?”

“Yes! Let me juhh-shit!” The moment Ishi answered, Joma launched forward, furry fists flying towards the taller woman’s jaw.

I approved of this tactic.

If Ishi had needed more time to prepare, she shouldn't have led with “Yes.”

Joma’s fur and what little skin could be seen beneath it transformed into a silvery metal as she took her first swing. Ishi barely managed to throw up a Force Shield, burning a healthy amount of mana to cause Joma’s fist to crack off of the barrier rather than Ishi’s face. It didn’t stop the smaller woman from using her momentum to tackle Ishi.

I neatly stepped to one side to let the pair of them rocket past.

Ishi teleported out of Joma’s grasp, appearing twenty feet off the ground. A set of dense wooden armor began to grow over the princess’s body, while a bow appeared in her hand, and a staff and shield appeared in the air beside her. Before she could nock an arrow, however, Joma had halted her momentum and launched up from the ground at Ishi’s new position. Ishi swore and rotated her hovering shield to intercept even as she spread her wings and flew off to one side at several hundred miles per hour.

Joma rotated her body to hit the shield feet-first, springing away from its surface, hitting the ground, and immediately rocketing back up towards Ishi with enough force to crack the stone. Ishi loosed an arrow, which Joma batted aside. While the arrow failed to land on the Iskarim, it exploded just behind Joma as she sailed past. The detonation released a potent wave of gravitational forces, halting the mini-yeti and yanking her backwards. This was followed by another arrow and a spell from Ishi’s staff, creating an orb of lightless, crushing vacuum, into which Joma disappeared.

Not even a fraction of a second went by before Joma was hurtling towards the ground again, this time with Cloaky fluttering at her back. Despite taking the multi-spell attack, the only sign of damage was a few of the Iskarim’s hairs being out of place. Of course, with Spatial damage, the wounds below the surface were often times much more lethal than the obvious harm.

Regardless, Joma looked like she’d hardly taken a hit, and with Cloaky behind her, she no longer needed to bounce from floor to ceiling, but could fly directly towards Ishi.

The pair had several more exchanges, with Joma’s assault rebuffed by Ishi’s shields and then punished by a spell arrow follow-up. Even so, Joma avoided the worst of the attacks, and those that did land didn’t have a huge impact. The little yeti was tough. Still, it all began to add up.

Ishi took a bone-shaking haymaker to the face, completely dislocating her jaw, but Ishi traded the hit for an arrow point-blank in Joma’s chest. It landed alongside a spell that tore the smaller woman away, wrung her body like a rag, and slammed her into the ground below. Joma was firmly on the back foot after fifteen seconds of high-octane combat.

The mini-yeti’s showing was certainly good enough to earn her a team position, even though she was clearly about to lose the round.

Until a pair of gigantic, humanoid arms reached out from the wall behind Ishi. The surprise limbs shimmered a translucent violet as they passed through the solid wall behind the princess, reforming into pale flesh and sickly scales as they dug thick fingers into Ishi’s chest and abdomen.

The arms were followed by a wide mouth filled with flat, dripping teeth, phasing through the wall and releasing a bellowing moan like the cries of a thousand wounded owls.

Ishi’s expression went from surprise, to pain, then finally to irritation as she teleported out of Nottagator’s grasp a moment before the big girl snapped her jaw down where Ishi’s head had just been. Nottagator took a moment to examine her empty claws, then whipped her head to where Ishi had reappeared. The Atrocidile finished crawling from the wall, its body flickering back and forth from a ghostly phantom to a solid beast powerful enough to dig its fingers into the rock beneath it like it were made of wet sand.

Nottagator made a show of crawling a few dozen feet towards where Ishi now hovered, before letting out a mocking chuff as the princess launched a few arrows in her direction. Nottagator phased down into the ground, passing through the stone, cleanly avoiding the arrows and leaving only a few claw marks behind to signal its passing.

Joma took advantage of Nottagator’s diversion, disappearing in a blur and reappearing just behind Ishi. Five glowing motes of light formed around the Iskarim’s fist and sank into her knuckles. The woman’s fist and arm coiled and tensed with so much power that my ears popped as the air pressure in the room shifted.

Joma swung for the base of Ishi’s skull, but the Dragon princess wasn’t blind. Ishi didn’t have the time or space to dodge Joma’s attack, but she wasn’t built around dodging. Ishi used Mirror of Force, dropping a thick layer of Shielding over herself and duplicating Joma’s attack right back at the little pugilist.

The Shielding wasn’t anywhere near enough to counter Joma’s serious punch, and as the straight connected, all five of the glowing motes released a wave of kinetic power, the air snapped, and the ground trembled as a pressure wave pulsed out from the impact. This all happened again, at the same time, in the opposite direction, as a reflection of Joma’s fist smashed into her own nose with the same catastrophic forces.

Both fighters were sent hurtling away from one another for a brief instant, but Ishi flared her wings and Joma dug her hands and feet into the ground, both stopping before they could collide with a wall.

As Ishi and Joma stared one another down, Nottagator phased up through the ground behind Ishi, mouth open wide in search of a draconic snack. I took this opportunity to call the match, and I teleported between Nottagator and Ishi.

“Down, girl,” I said, holding up a hand. While I didn’t have the same rapport that Joma had with Nottagator, the Atrocidile still recognized me as the co-arbiter of the Delve she was attached to. That put me in a similar role as the one Grotto held, which meant Nottagator sort of thought of me as a parental figure.

Nottagator took a moment to consider whether she was in the mood to dismember and eat her daddy, but decided it would be too much trouble. Instead, her body flickered in and out of corporeality as she sank back down into the ground.

“Okay!” I shouted. “Let’s call this round done.”

Joma turned and spat a wad of blood onto the ground. Ishi nodded, then reached up with both hands to grip her jaw and crack it back into place. After, she began prying away pieces of her armor where Nottagator’s grab had crushed it down into her flesh. The armor regrew to fill the holes as Ishi fed mana into it. The princess floated to the center of the room, only relaxing once she was as far as possible from any of the room’s surfaces, keeping a not-so-subtle eye out for the Atrocidile’s return.

“Ishi,” I said. “Verdict and feedback?”