READER'S ENTRY: A Sinister Plot (Part 1)

A Sinister Plot (Part 1)

by BLZBub

Mutants were seen as many thing by many people. An unfortunate majority saw them as people to be avoided and shunned. There were also people who hated them rather violently and wanted them eradicated, deriding them as monsters and inhuman creatures. But mutants were still human, even if their appearances and powers placed them well outside the normal margin of humanity. But even so, they had a lifespan that was usually the same as normal humans, though some mutants were considerably different.

James Logan, more commonly known as Wolverine, had a power that was quite rare even among other mutants. It wasn’t his adamantium skeleton or impressive claws, though they were very well known. Wolverine had a healing factor that was outmatched by very few. His body could recover from virtually every injury within minutes at most. His reinforced skeleton made him even more impervious to harm. That remarkable healing factor also extended to the revitalizing of his cells, which gave him an exceedingly long life. Even after being born in the 19^th century, he was still going strong and barely looked like a man who could have been his own great-great grandfather.

However, despite his nearly indestructible body, Wolverine was not immortal. His aging rate may have appeared to have stopped after his late 20’s, but he could still feel the effects of time. He didn’t look like he was getting older, but Logan could feel that old age was starting to catch up. He wasn’t able to exert as much energy as he used to and he was noticing his wits were starting to dull. For someone who’s lived such a long and action-filled life as Logan had, the idea of becoming feeble was rather off-putting.

A solution to Logan’s problem was not quite so simple to find. There were plenty of self-help books that were meant to help with oncoming old age, but they didn’t help much. Besides, they were written for people who aged at a significantly different rate from Logan. Perhaps what he needed was some time out in the country, away from all the noise of civilization.

For some reason that Logan had yet to identify, he felt a calling towards a certain isolated piece of forest that was quite a long ways off from any civilized part. As Logan walked through the woods, he started to wonder what had drawn him out here. There were more convenient places for him to walk in nature. It was almost like everything for the last few weeks were a precursor to him arriving in this forest. Was he being called here…or directed?

Just as Logan was thinking that, his sharp ears heard the whistle of several flying projectiles. He unsheathed his claws and jumped away, slashing around him. The barrage of tranquilizer darts mostly missed him and several of them were deflected by his claws. But a few had managed to land in his skin. Logan ignored the darts for the moment. It would take a lot more tranquilizer than that to overcome his healing factor. That was when it felt like somewhat was physically squeezing his brain. Logan cried out in pain and tried to fight the feeling off, but it was as adamant as his skull. More darts flew out and hit him, his head too racked with pain to put a lot of effort into dodging or deflecting them. Eventually, the combination of his agonized pain and the tranquilizer in his system overcame him and everything went black.

--

[Lab Report of Mister Sinister (Nathanial Essex)]

Day 1

Wolverine (James Logan) was not as hard to capture as I had originally expected. For all his cunning, he has neglected to build up mental defenses against psychic attacks. I had taken a page from Mesmero’s book and subtly probed him for the last few weeks, making him think he was starting to get old and he needed to reconnect with nature. I had to be gradual, experience has taught me that others will believe foreign thoughts are their own if they’re not thrust in so abruptly. Afterwards, it was merely a simple matter of setting the traps. I could only observe Wolverine’s capture via cameras as the telepathic stun device would have had a quicker effect on me than it had on Wolverine. But now the legendary Weapon X is in my custody and I can begin molding him into a perfect warrior for my needs.

Day 3

There has been a delay in my repurposing of Wolverine that is as unfortunate as it is ironic. It would seem that Logan’s belief that old age was catching up with him was not merely a placebo suggestion that I inserted into his mind. His healing factor is tremendously efficient, but it was not made to run forever. It is still quite rapid now, but I’ve found that it is showing signs of decaying. At the rate of decay, I project that his body will soon be aging at a normal rate and his healing factor will a quarter as efficient as it was before. This will not work with my long-term plans. I must find a way to solve this problem.

Day 4

Cloning is not a viable option. While I’ve been able to preserve myself by placing my mind in a series of clone bodies, this cannot be applied to Wolverine so simply. The primary reason is that I only possess the means of cloning his organic components which means a new body would lack his adamantium bones. His reinforced skeleton is one of the reasons he is such a valuable asset and I cannot do without them. Adamantium is not so easy to procure so I would not be able to enforce a clone’s body with that indestructible alloy. Clearly my only option is to reverse time’s effect on Wolverine’s body.

Day 8

The irony continues. The very healing factor that is the reason I am trying to rejuvenate Wolverine’s body is keeping me from doing so. I have administered several youth serums, but his immunity system keeps negating them before they could benefit him. If it weren’t for the psionic suspension chamber that was keeping him unconscious, my tranquilizers would have worn out long ago. I may be forced to more drastic measures.

Day 10

It has come to my last resort. Wolverine’s immunity system has been negating all the youth serums I have been trying to use on him. But I’ve noticed that the stronger ones are able to have some effect before the immunity system wipes it out. Of course, this makes the immunity system more stronger and narrows my options. But there is one youth serum that should be able to overpower Wolverine’s healing factor and return him to his prime. However, there is a reason I considered it a last resort. This youth serum was created for actresses to keep them from losing their beauty and appeal. A rather vain purpose, but the formula is surprisingly effective. One memorable usage caused a senior actress who was getting ready to retire to revert back to the starlet she had been decades ago.

Such a potent serum should be able to work on Wolverine, but there is a problem. A primary ingredient of the serum is a large portion of estrogen. I highly expect this large megadose to have effects on Wolverine’s body that cannot be mitigated. I attempted to create a substitute formula that’s derived from testosterone. The effects of that serum…are less than satisfactory. The subjects I used it on did regain their youth, but they resembled cavemen more than what they did when they were originally that age. I’ve run out of alternatives. I’ll have to give Wolverine the original formula and be ready to adjust for the results.

Day 11

There are rare times where the results of experiments go beyond even my own expectations. I’ve administrated a large dose of the estrogen-based youth serum to Wolverine’s body. I monitored his vital signs for the usual indications that his body was soon going to fight off the foreign substance. But while there was some initial struggle, this formula is pushing through the defenses. Now all that remained was to observe the results.

In order to facilitate any physical changes that will occurred, I have administrated a solution into Wolverine’s systems that will temporarily make his adamantium skeleton as malleable as ordinary bones. Fortunately, I didn’t have nearly as hard a time getting that to work as the youth formula. My precaution was definitely good foresight as once the formula had taken effect, Wolverine’s body immediately started to condense in mass. All of his muscles began shrinking as his skeletal system became much lither in shape. I observe that Wolverine does not change in height, but he was a shorter man to begin with.

The first sign that this transition will be more than just making Wolverine thinner was when the copious hair on his body all retracted beneath the skin. His facial hair, including his pronounced sideburns, were also withdrawn. Conversely, the hair on his scalp extended to a considerable length. Without the facial hair obstructing the view, I was able to see that his face was also changing, becoming smaller, narrower, and a slight increase in eye and lip size. The rest of his body also became lither in form, though not emaciated. The only parts that were getting thicker where his hips, backside, and thighs.

At this point, Logan could have easily passed as a very effeminate man. The estrogen had a considerable effect upon his body and for a few moments, I had thought the process was complete. But then his pectorals, considerably reduced by this point, started bulging and swelling. They were not regaining their former mass the same way, becoming more spherical than flat. It was not long before his manhood inverted itself. A scan confirmed that new internal organs were manifesting, namely a fully-functional womb.

Even I did not expect the drastic effect the formula would have on Wolverine. While he has been physically reverted to his mid-20’s, he also been physically altered into a complete woman. I will admit that Wolverine is now considerably attractive. While her muscles have been reduced in mass, they are still quite prominent for a woman. The muscle tone does not interfere with her feminine figure. It occurs to me that several superheroines have similar builds to hers, why is this a recurrent theme? Regardless, she should still be an effective warrior, thought the mental rewrite will be more extensive than before.

Day 14

Reprogramming Wolverine’s mind was a considerable challenge, especially since I have to repress nearly 200 years of her being a man. If it weren’t for Wolverine’s earlier amnesia episodes, this may have been almost impossible. I’ve decided to go with a blank slate for her past. She shall not recall anything, though her personality may be more brutish than most women. It shall take considerable time to create and implant 24 years worth of false memories into her head, though I’ve at least made a start on her new persona. Her name shall be Laura Kinney, one of my most loyal mutant servants. That at least seems to have taken root if only because there are no contradicting memories.

Before the youthening process had began, I had removed Logan’s claws to keep him from hurting himself. When I attempted to reinsert them into Laura, I soon found that her arms lacked the size to hold all three claws without potentially causing some difficulties. Therefore, I reinserted two claws into each of her forearms and placed the remaining two inside her feet. She has shown the ability to extend her foot claws as easily as her arm claws. These foot claws will be very useful to deploy in surprise attacks, the knives in the boots, so to speak.

Laura has showing great capacity for hand-to-hand combat. She might not possess as much brute strength as Logan, but her nimble form makes her considerably agile and she is quickly adapting to a new fighting style that will allow her to make devastating kicks with her foot claws. While Laura was not the warrior I had envisioned when I originally captured Logan, she is proving to be as adapt a warrior as I could have hoped for. Perhaps I shall give her the stealth and infiltration training to become an assassin. I imagine she would be quite effective.

But though she has expressed loyalty to me, I can tell she feels doubt. I shall have to be swift in designing her false life memories. But programming it via computer is not able to produce something convincing enough within the short span of time. Perhaps I shall use my less-successful gender-inversion test subject to hasten the process. A pity only I will be able to appreciate the irony.


Follow ups: Part 2, Part 3

READER'S ENTRY: The Seven (Hourglass)

Only one more entry to go, but it's probably Ageiss won't make it before the month ends and will have to finish it on December, which category will be Christmas, by the way.

The Seven (Hourglass)

by Ageiss

Heidy, who had just turned 12, was probably the smartest one out of the selected kids, at least before their transformations, as most of their changes had also increased their mental capacities.

Her Mineral was greenish and had two distinct crystalline formations above. She was nervous, as was natural. Though she was confident the process would go smoothly (five kids had already transformed successfully, after all), she wondered what life would bring her as an adult, super-powered woman. In a few hours, she wouldn’t even be a human any more.

The process went as easily as she had been assured. The Mineral was absorbed rapidly and she started growing 10 minutes after stepping out of the chamber.

In the brink of puberty, Heidy had noticed her breasts had started to develop just a few weeks earlier, when she had already been selected by the Council. But what had been only an indefinite puffing started to increase their mass within her hands in just seconds, as her height shot up radically and her round face gained beautiful, mature looking angles.

She remained very slender, but she also saw with enjoyment that she was developing noticeable curves in all the right places. Her long legs were shapely and her breasts, if not huge, were ripe and sizable within the brassiere she had been given, just the right proportions for her narrow waist.

24-years-old Heidy was more than pleased with the way she had turned out. She was definitely a looker, and as she turned to face her reflection in a mirror she could barely reach minutes earlier, she undid her hair, letting her golden mane flow down.

She put on a yellow sweater to better preserve her modesty before the scientists and members of the Council, wishing she could have some privacy before she would explore her looks more carefully.

Luckily, they didn’t insist in checking on her alien physiology just yet, and she was released much quickly than she anticipated.

Now that they knew her actual measurements, they delivered a full wardrobe in her room and she tried it out immediately.

She had a couple of large mirrors, and she soon got very familiar with her new appearance. She thought she was very lucky to have become so attractive.

There was of course the matter of her powers, and she would have to wait before finding if they were as wonderful as her face and body. There was nothing immediately noticeable, nor did she want to be submitted to endless tests just yet.

But it turned out she discovered her abilities accidentally.

She had just put on her nightie, and was ready to sleep a bit, when she received a visit from her 13-years-old sister Klara.

“You look so pretty!” was her fist comment.

Heidy thought her formerly older sister looked tiny now, and started to feel a bit self-conscious. She loved her sister and hoped this wouldn’t put a barrier in their relationship.

“How do you feel?”

“It’s wonderful,” admitted Heidy. Then she looked at Klara blushing a bit. “I wish you could be this age too.”

Klara smiled, but she suddenly started to shiver. Something was happening. Then Heidy realized it. Her sister was also growing and developing into an adult, much quickly than her own transformation had been.

Breasts emerged as her face aged by a decade in seconds, and she slid from her armchair to the floor. She didn’t seem to be in pain, though, but the power of the change seemed to be very intense, and she closed her eyes as she glided her enlarging hands over her whole body. Her clothes were straining, but soon they also changed into a very revealing dress, stockings and quite high heels.

“Heidy, what just happened to me?” asked Klara in fear with her adult voice, deeper than even Heidy’s had become.

“I don’t know, but this has to be related to my own change! Are you alright?”

“Yeah…” said her sister rising from the floor and looking down at herself in disbelief. “You’re right, this feels wonderful.”

She smiled and suddenly didn’t seem scared any more, but smug and happy.

Klara placed on the table the lamp she had turned over during her transformation and sat on the armchair again.

“But… how can this be? It’s not just my body,” she said touching her cleavage bellow the deep neck of her dress as she crossed her legs. “My hair is styled differently, and I even have make-up.”

“Ok, I think it’s time for us to see those scientists after all.”

Heidy took her sister to the labs, and everyone was impressed by the story of the two women.

Klara was analyzed and she was found to be a 24-year-old woman.

“Her physical form travelled through time,” theorize the head scientist. “That would explain the clothes. That’s what she would be wearing tonight in exactly 11 years.”

So Heidy’s powers started to be analyzed. She could apparently produce “chronal energy”, which could increase or decrease the age of a person or object. She had accidentally used it on Klara as she wished she was older.

Her sister didn’t mind, though. She loved her time as an adult, which came abruptly to an end the next day. It seemed the chronal energy wore off automatically within 24 hours.

Heidy used the energy to purposely regress the head scientist into a pretty girl in her twenties. She was surprised to find the woman had been a redhead in her youth.

Heidy’s powers were quite cool, though maybe they wouldn’t be as valuable in a fight as some of her colleagues’ were. But she could make her enemies too young or too old and incapacitate them, now that she thought about it, or age their weapons into rust.

But she found a very weaponizable ability the next day, as she laid in the pool.

She wondered if instead of regressing or progressing an object, she could just stop time. Indeed, the water splash produced by The Mass as he hit the pool just froze there in the air. That’s how she realized she could stop time in small areas, though the effect only lasted a minute.

And the chronal energy still had its most powerful application in store.

She was just out of the shower when she felt a powerful surge of energy surrounding her.

The next few seconds were highly bizarre. She felt she was trapped in an endless portal composed of shifting mirrors. But as soon as she rationalized that, it was over.

She found herself standing in her room, except it wasn’t her room any more. The décor was different and it seemed kind of… old-fashioned.

There were some clothes on the closet still, and she put on some of them on. She got out.

It seemed the building housed some kind of government facility now. She found a newspaper and quickly checked it.

Her heart jumped. August 9, 1974. That was the date, and that explained why everything looked so old. The chronal energy actually allowed her to time travel!

“Hey, miss! Who are you? Are you allowed in here?” asked a guard who quickly approached her.

Heidy panicked. Back in the 70’s, nobody knew about the Minerals or The Seven. She couldn’t explain her presence.

She tried to summon the energy and travel voluntarily, concentrating her mind in going forward, not backwards. She opened her eyes.

It worked. Things were slightly different, but a calendar on the wall informed her she had only travelled 5 years. It was late in the night this time, though, and she hoped she could escape the building and explore Finland, decades before her birth.

Back on the present, Klara was scared. She had just entered her sister room and she vanished into thin air. She immediately alerted the scientist, but then, in a quick flash, Heidy materialized right there in the lab, wearing a curious t-shirt and drinking from an old-style soda bottle.

“Heidy! Where were you? I saw you vanishing five minutes ago!”

“Five minutes?” asked Heidy with a smile. “Well, I just spent three days in 1979.”

Heidy’s time-travelling abilities were quite potent. As soon as she mastered the technique, she could appear in virtually any date, as long as it was in the past, not any further than the times she had already lived.

What made her incredibly powerful was that she was able to change things around and thus alter her present. But she could also be a silent witness to historical events and had grown to love her small trips to the past.

Her favorite decades were the 40’s and the 50’s, and she had even acquired some vehicles to use during her time incursions. She had to be very careful, though. Any change could bring devastating consequences.

Everything was made easier by her latest discovery, though. While she couldn’t travel to the future, she could visualize many possible timelines and outcomes, which made her know which decisions were the best, at least most times.

That talent made her a master strategist, and that, coupled with her natural leadership skills soon turned Heidy into the de-facto head of The Seven, even though she usually planned the missions instead of taking direct part on most of them.

But sometimes she handled the most difficult missions, those which involved changing something in the past, like the time she had to infiltrate a gang on the 70’s so that her teammates on the present could terminate the threat of its former leader, who would end up becoming a dangerous arms dealer.

Despite her high rank, she didn’t chose a codename at first, and it was only after a celebration at the team’s yacht, after completing a challenging assignment, when she decided.

“Hourglass,” she said. “And It’s not because of this body,” she thought, looking down at her bikini-clad figure.

Heidy also used her powers regularly to make her sister into a grown woman. Klara loved the experience, and that way they could go out together more naturally.

Her age-changing powers had also ensued an interesting discovery. It seemed neither Heidy nor the rest of The Seven would ever be affected by age. She had tested her chronal energy and tried to age each of them by decades, only to discover they were always healthy and young-looking. It was yet another gift from the Minerals to those seven lucky children.

Back in the sixties, Hourglass stretched her hourglass-like frame after her last relaxation trip. She would now travel back to the day the last Mineral had been used on a girl named Camille.

Previous stories:

Prologue

Lady Specter
Amazonia
Elemental Girl
The Mass
Natura

Follow up:

Split Woman

READER'S ENTRY: The Changeling's Challenge (Part 7)

The Changeling's Challenge (Part 7)

by BLZBub

Eventually, Adria persuaded Shanna to visit the mortal realm to see what all has changed. It took quite a while for Shanna to adjust to being human again. Her body didn’t change much asides from the size and shape of her ears, but her senses felt so much duller and she had less access to her magic than in Underhill.

The world had changed quite a lot for Shanna. If she hadn’t been given the wine of knowledge, she’d be incapable of keeping up with anything regarding this modern world. Even so, the vast improvement in technology was overwhelming. But she was certainly able to enjoy the books that were not so rare. Like many poor people in her original time, Shanna never learned how to read, though she spent a lot of time learning how while she was a changeling and her reading skill improved even further after she finished the Calling of the Mage. Admittedly, the subjects of these new books were a bit hard to follow at times even with her gifted knowledge. But Shanna was taking her time to read as much as she could.

Adria was slightly disappointed with Shanna’s decision to stick with reading books while in the mortal realm. She didn’t even try to show off her adult body. But Shanna had always been more modest than Adria and it looks like she’ll not be changing that any time soon.

Adria, on the other hand, always reveled in dressing up in human clothing that was designed to show off her figure. But she didn’t throw herself into senseless passion as thoughtlessly as she did during her trial. For instance, her choice of clothing for this trip was somewhat more conservative, showing less skin than before. Though that didn’t stop her from thrusting out her chest and swaying her hips.

Adria won’t be spending all of her time visiting the mortal realm just for pleasure. She was a lady now that and that came with responsibilities. As well as honing her fighting skills and being diplomat with other fae races, she had a purpose for visiting the mortal realms. She was to look for more children who would benefit from being swapped for a faerie child. Technically, there were unlimited options as the population of the human race was exponentially larger than in her old time. But not every child would do well in Underhill and the changelings that were brought here would not be left in bad homes. Underhill still needed changelings to take and give and each one held so much potential.

Previous stories: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

READER'S ENTRY: The Changeling's Challenge (Part 6)

The Changeling's Challenge (Part 6)

by BLZBub

The next morning, Adria woke up to feel a heightened awareness throughout her whole body. She reached hands up and felt her ears. They were pointed again, far more pointed than before. She went to the mirror and look at herself. Her hair seemed to be a paler gold than before and her ears were quite long and pointed. But elf ears come in a variety of shapes and sizes and hers looked no more outlandish than any other’s. More importantly, it showed that she was finally an elf woman like she had dreamed of.

Adria went to her wardrobe and put on the top she had tried last night and the other garments that went with it. As she expected, her clothes covered not too much and it was tight across her chest and pelvis, leaving nothing to imagination. There were also a tiara that she had found that she decided to put on. She wasn’t actual royalty, but small decorations like this were pretty common among the nobles.

Adria went outside and took a deep breath. Her sense felt more alive now that she was an elf. She could the magic tingling within her and she wanted to try out her new abilities. And she knew just where to start. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed here, but she wanted to see if Shanna had finished her Calling by now. Unless Shanna had gone to the mortal realm, it should be easy for Adria to find her here. But first she’ll need to see a dwarf about acquiring something.

As a lady, Adria did not require a staff to work magic, but it helped her to focus it. She liked the unique pattern of its head which somehow complimented her tiara. Adria had knowledge of a few basic spells, like a locater spell that would lead to whomever she was seeking in this realm. Shanna must in a place that Adria hadn’t been before as the option to teleport there wasn’t an option, not that Adria had the skill to teleport yet. But she did not loathe the lengthy walk. It allowed her to see parts of Underhill she hadn’t seen before. She had no idea that there were grasslands like this and the long grass gently tickled her bare skin instead of making it itch like it would in the mortal realm.

Eventually, Adria came to a small tower which the locater spell was pointing firmly to. She went up to the door and knocked upon it. After a minute, the door opened and an elf woman greeted her. Her dark hair and her eyes were the only things recognizable. “Shanna?” asked Adria.

The elf woman gave a confused look before asking, “Adria? Can it actually be you?”

“Indeed, I’ve finished my Calling yesterday and it looks like you’ve already finished yours,” said Adria.

Shanna blushed and said, “Well, it turned out that I had a talent for magic. I’m not fully trained yet, but I have a lot of promise. But you’re nobility now. How did you passed your trial?”

“Let me in and I’ll tell you all about it,” said Adria.

“Of course, come in,” said Shanna as the two elven women walked inside.

Shanna’s tower was a bit on the utilitarian side. Evidently she was like Adria; recent come into her power and had yet to choose whether to upgrade her home or move to a different one. Adria was glad she had a friend who was on the same level as her. It’ll give them something to bond over as they eventually moved up.

Once the two of them got settled, Adria told Shanna all about her Calling from defeating the kelpie to going to the mortal realm. She had adjust her vocabulary as Shanna had no idea how much the mortal realm had changed since her time but Adria did go into a lot of detail.

“I guess that does explain why the changelings aren’t told everything about the Calling of the Lord,” said Shanna, “I’ve known a lot of changelings who wanted to go back home and they would have taken that route out.”

“Would you have done it?” asked Adria.

“I’m not sure,” said Shanna, “I’ve thought of going back, it’d be easier if I went back to my own time. But I’m really sure. Besides, I’m much better at magic than I am at using a sword or bow. I was lucky I was able to get enough magical power for when I faced my Unseelie opponent.”

“So what did you fight? A troll, ogre, manticore?” asked Adria.

“Actually, it was an imp,” said Shanna.

“An imp?” asked Adria with some confusion. Demons didn’t truly count as fae so they were rarely seen or welcomed in Underhill. But any demon, even a small imp, that had managed to stay here for a long time without being thrown out or slain would be able to grow more powerful by feeding on the excess magic of the realm.

“Well, it wasn’t just an imp. This imp managed to become the leader of a small gang of goblins. They were really more like a group of bandits than a major threat, but I put a stop to them before they could get any more serious,” said Shanna.

“You beat them all by yourself? That’s pretty impressive,” said Adria, “How did you do it?”

“A few ice spells. Imps hate the cold, especially since they usually live in a much hotter region. One good blast and the imp poofed. The goblins were a challenge afterwards but I froze them stiff,” said Shanna, “After that, I was escorted to where I could do my magical training. Compared to the imp and goblins, passing my biggest trial was a snap.”

“Well, you’ve definitely gotten a sexy body out of it,” said Adria. Shanna’s outfit was more modest than Adria’s, only really showing off her cleavage and her upper legs. But there was no doubt that her body was probably as curvy as Adria’s and her face was quite beautiful and exotic.

Shanna blushed heavily and said, “I’m still getting used to this body. I’m not used to be so tall and, well, curvy.”

“I bet you haven’t been around too many men,” said Adria. Shanna’s face went completely pink at that. “I thought as much. Shanna, you’re a woman now. There’s no need for you to be here in this tower. We should be exploring, seeing more of this realm.”

“But I haven’t completed my training yet,” said Shanna.

“I said exploring, not adventuring. We’ll keep out of trouble. We’re just going to enjoy our new selves. Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered what it was like to do all the things the adult elves do,” said Adria.

“Well, I am curious,” said Shanna.

“There you go, let’s go have some fun,” said Adria.

The two elven women some time exploring one of Underhill’s cities. Dwarves had a large hand in constructing the city so it was more made of stone than it was of wood. This was a cosmopolitan area where the various races of the Seelie could live in. Elves may prefer the beauty of nature, but they were capable of adapting to urban areas, especially ones that used to be human.

“Things are easier to look at when you’re not only four feet tall,” said Adria. A group of nearby dwarves gave her an annoyed look at that. “Sorry, I was a changeling until very recently. I didn’t mean to offend you.” The dwarves shrugged at that before going on their way.

“Living in this city would be exciting than living in a lone tower in the middle of nowhere,” said Shanna.

“Besides, not so many men would be coming to your tower,” said Adria, causing Shanna to blush even more, “We need to work on making your more comfortable around guys.”

“Maybe later. I want to be able to enjoy the benefits of my Calling first,” said Shanna.

“And you know what one of the benefits are?” asked Adria, “Be able to journey to the mortal realm. It’s not a bad place to visit.”

“Already? But you just got back,” said Shanna.

“I don’t mean a long vacation and I don’t mean right now. Maybe once we’re better with our new abilities, we’ll take a trip up there. There’s so much to do here right now.”

Previous stories: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Follow up: Part 7