[R18] Chains for Master

Rykard gazed out into the world of untapped potential. Rubbing his chin, he made a quick choice between the first six sides. The sole pass that led out of his home Hexagon was aligned to the south-east, so they were currently at that corner of the frame of black stone. As he did not feel like walking, the choice of where to place his first Hexagon was between the frames south and south-east of his starting point. On a whim, Rykard went with the latter.

There was no definite strategy to it. Not yet, anyway. Maybe he would keep going in that direction to force an early confrontation against the other competitors, maybe he would consolidate his current region, or maybe he would just…

"Are you going to draw a dick on the map?" Miyo asked, a little bit of amusement swinging in her level-headed tone.

"I am just contemplating the possibility," Rykard responded with a guiltless smirk.

Miyo sighed, smiled, and shook her head all at the same time.

Choice of the where made, Rykard now had to choose the what. Ten words, that was his limit. Not wasting too much thought on it, he went with a fundamental idea. Loudly, for the gods to hear, he declared his request. "A rich land full of basic resources to draw upon!"

The stone under his feet began to buzz. The ocean of freshwater beneath them stirred. Purple and golden runes filled the air, erecting a semi-translucent wall that caged in the empty air of the hexagonal frame. Rykard studied the runes as closely as he could. Some of them he knew, others were unknown to him. Even if he understood the complex framework of magic that was at work here, he could never hope to replicate it. Several dozen gods were involved in the rituals. Several hundreds, if not thousands, partook in the shaping of the new world. All of them were beings of pure mana. Powerful as he was, he was still mortal. Perhaps he would become a god one day, but he wasn't one yet.

Walking up to the network of runes, he put his hand against it. It was like his hand was pushing against a magnet. After a few centimetres, it became strictly impossible to get further. Peering through the runes as best he could, he saw chunks of dirt spawn in. Ton by ton, rock, sediment, and pebbles appeared out of thin air, rising up within the confines of the magic.

Within a few minutes, what had been an empty piece of comb was filled out with a vast mountainous landscape. Truly mountainous. Unlike the Hexagon behind, the one in front of them started with a rim of mountains and only grew higher towards the centre. It was a massive mountain chain… well, a massive mountain hexagon. Here and there, mountains slightly extended out of the frame, settling onto the black stone.

"Are you sure those words were chosen wisely?" Miyo asked, arms crossed under her breasts. "You gave the gods much ambiguity. You know that this all is partly for their amusement. Each time you give them room for interpretation, the dice get rolled."

"Whatever ridiculously literate interpretation of my words they throw at me, I will probably find myself amused." Rykard turned back to his fox woman and claimed her lips for a goodbye kiss and her tits for a goodbye squeeze. "I'll find out how they chose to interpret my words. You return home and do what I told you to."

"Only because I like the way you look at me." Miyo gave him a flirtatious wink, before dropping to her knees. Orderly, she tucked her feet under her soft butt and put her hands on her lap, "I wish you the greatest success, Master. May you find the resources we need and, perhaps…" She leaned forwards, until she had her nose buried in his crotch. Staring up at him, she continued in a muffled voice, "...another woman worthy of sharing this with."

Rykard was tempted to check if she still knew how to suppress her gag reflex. Knowing what was going on in his head, Miyo quickly pulled back and stood up. Six tails waved mischievously. "You're lucky I have work to do."

"All according to plan," Miyo responded with a soft chuckle. "Now, before I tempt you further, I shall take my leave."

Rykard hated to see her leave, but he loved to watch her go. The vixen had mastered the art of swinging her hips and tails in such a manner that her plush backside was readily visible during its most jiggly moments. To run after her and remind her who she obeyed was an option. 'I'll be using that cumdump again soon enough,' he calmed himself and turned around. 'Now, if I remember the lessons correctly…' He reached out to the divine connection and requested a map.

It was a basic one, but it would suffice to find his way around. 'No cities? Did the gods give me a Hexagon without people in it?' he wondered and scratched the back of his head. 'Let's see.' Rykard stepped onto the grass of the new Hexagon. It felt a little harder than the one back home, although that probably had more to do with the rocky soil underneath. "I claim this land!" Rykard declared out loud.

No reaction. The divine connection did not acknowledge the Hexagon as conquered.

'Alright, there have to be some people, or at least something else that has to acknowledge me as ruler,' Rykard analysed and looked at the map again. It hung as an illusionary window in front of him in the air, sort of like the images he conjured to represent his strengths. He moved it a little to the side, so it wasn't in the way as he walked. Then, he set out to find some people.

Rykard did not feel like bothering with the terrain, not if there was an alternative. The Hexagon was massive, the size of an imperial duchy and traversing the mountains for all of that distance would be a drain on time that he just did not care for.

Assumedly, whatever people there were, they would be living where the land was at its flattest and where fresh water was the most readily available. Conveniently, there was a lake in the north-west of the Hexagon. Travelling the flat frame would be infinitely easier. The distance involved was still half a day's march.

'Half a day for regular people, anyway,' Rykard thought and did a cocky smirk. He engaged in a leisurely sprint. With his superhuman physiology, that was more akin to a sprint. Thanks to his impressive stamina, he could keep that pace up for hours with minimal breaks. Food and water would become an issue if he did it for the entire day. The latter, at least, he was guaranteed to find at his location.

An expected six hours of travel were cut down to less than two.

Rykard was met with the splendid sight of the massive lake. It bordered a thin stretch of grassland on one side and the mountains on the other. Part of the outskirts of the natural stone formations sloped off into the expansive body of water. It went on for kilometres, sparkling under the inoffensive light of the new sun of this realm.

'I only just realised that the temperature is… normal,' Rykard thought, as he jogged up to the shore. 'Neither hot nor cold - just normal. I wonder when the weather will begin to take shape in this world?'

Standing at the edge of the water, Rykard stared at his reflection. There was a bit of wind, created from the temperature difference between the frozen mountaintops and the lukewarm base level. Divine magic appeared to keep the ecosystem balanced for the time being, or at least slow the transition to the point the local life could adjust to the changes without further harm.

Squatting down, he concentrated for a moment and conjured himself a cup. A glass of water later, he took a look around in more detail, checking if people lived along the shore.

Rykard's keen eyes… were not even that necessary. It was a flat lake in a flat part of the terrain. Spotting the rather obvious unusual thing in that environment did not take long.

It wasn't a person, although one could be excused to think it was one from a distance. As Rykard approached, it became more and more apparent that he was heading towards some kind of statue. The plinth was carved straight out of the mountain stone, but the statue itself seemed to have been placed there later. Parts of the paint were breaking off due to the long time unattended, revealing a layer of metal underneath. 'A basic resource drawn upon…' Rykard intuited and then snorted to himself. 'Did they really take my words that literally or is that just coincidence?'

Ignoring that detail, Rykard put a hand to his chin and beheld the statue in its details. It was a very lifelike piece of artwork. The metal had been shaped expertly into curves and skimpy clothes. The paint did the rest to create the alluring image of a dragon girl, or whatever they called that species on this Hexagon. Horns, scaled limbs, digitigrade legs and, of course, the tail. This particular depiction of a redheaded dragon girl was bending forwards, while tugging at a white drape that barely even hid her medium-sized chest. Her mouth was agape, her white teeth painted to the sharpest of details.

Rykard hummed out loud, looking at those teeth. He had ever-been the connoisseur of fangs. Something about sharp teeth made blowjobs all the more enticing, even if he wanted them involved as little as possible. Must have been the aspect of danger. Even Miyo had little fangs, although they were limited to her canines, the vixen that she was.

'Let's find out if there's more to this than a random statue,' Rykard decided and set his eyes on a path that led deeper into the mountains. The statue was like a seductive waystone and he was going to find out where it led.

As he advanced up and through the mountain road, he found several more of these statues. Some were freshly painted, others had not been tended to for years. All of them were made of metal and carefully adorned with brush strokes, evoking images that were as close to lifelike as they could be. Almost exclusively, they depicted dragon girls in various lewd poses. Skirts raised halfway up the thighs, doing splits, stretching towards the sky, all of that in just enough clothes to have an excuse of taste.

Rykard stopped repeatedly along the path, just marvelling at the craftsmanship. More than once, he checked if the underwear had been drawn and he found that it always was. 'The attention to detail is truly marvellous,' he thought. Just to be safe, he also cast a few Alteration spells that checked whether he was dealing with some kind of metal-medusa situation. He was not, they were just really good statues.

Eventually, the path led him to a small assortment of houses. Just three of them, clustered around a shared well and a few fields. From a distance, he spotted a couple of people working in those fields. They had been given a few hours to recover from the surprise that their Exile Hexagon was chosen, so it wasn't too surprising to see them back at their usual work. They needed to survive somehow, after all, and whatever the basic resource was he got from this Hexagon, it certainly was not an abundance of food.

'Time to plan my entrance strategy,' Rykard thought, halfway hiding behind an outcrop of the mountain. 'I could just waltz in there, or I could sneak up on them to make sure they're not hostile… not that they could really do anything to me even if they were.' Rykard chuckled to himself. 'Well, I suppose I could stumble over a rock and fall on a pitchfork, that's always a risk.'

It only took a second of further contemplation to decide that there was absolutely nothing here that could be a threat to him. He was a competitor, chosen by the gods, a person alone worth as much as whatever entire households or armies other competitors brought with them. What did he have to fear from a few mountain dwelling statue painters?

Shoulders back and with confidence in every step, Rykard marched down the rest of the mountain path. He was noticed soon enough and the inhabitants of the small community came to greet him.

There were only three of them, one for each house. All three were of the dragon-related species, marked by the scaled limbs, the horns, and the tails, to name only the most obvious things. Unlike the statues on the way, however, all three were males. A disappointing first encounter for Rykard, who had hoped he'd be met with a nubile dragon girl, or better yet an entire hoard of them.

'I suppose I don't specifically get women if I don't ask for women,' he considered and let his gaze drift over the three, careful not to show his emotions on his face. The stare of an imperial prince was carefully learned, a skill used to inspire mystique and awe in onlookers. It worked like a charm. The three men, all shorter than he was, almost cowered at his presence. With dominance so clearly established, Rykard smirked, breaking the non-magical spell. "I assume you know who or what I am?"

"The Competitor," one of the men was quick to respond.

Rykard nodded dramatically and put his hands on two of the men's shoulders. "That I am and I am hungry! You have the great honour of giving me some grub, how about it?"

The men had no idea how to respond to that and in the confusion, Rykard's presence did the convincing. Five minutes later, he was sitting in a chair that was metal and canvas, eating smoked meat and bread from equally metal plates. Almost everything in the house was made out of metal, to the point that the abundance left the realm of obvious and became almost annoyingly clear. What metal couldn't provide was usually stone or plaster. Wood was rarely seen.

"Did you put up the statues out there?" Rykard asked, between bites. The artists nodded. "Brilliant work! I especially liked the one that was doing the broad-legged squat. Really nice emphasis on the ass and the way her tits got squished between her arms."

"T-that was my work!" one of the dragon men declared.

"I can only reiterate: brilliant work," Rykard gulped down the remains of his meal and clapped his hands. "Alright, now that I am refreshed, how about you tell me what kind of Hexagon I summoned here, exactly? What's your story? Are you the only people around?"

The three men exchanged quick glances, then one of them was chosen to answer the questions for all of them. "'We're the Exile Hexagon of Aulone, a realm that has… absolutely no appreciation for art as you do, sir…?"

"Rykard - King Rykard, if you insist on it," he told them and shrugged. "I don't, at least not right now. Continue?"

"Right, our home world was full of boring prudes and told us in harsh words and low threats that we should continue our glorious quest in the Exile Hexagon. They wanted us gone and we wanted nothing to do with their lack of appreciation for the female form."

"Yeah!" a second man weighed in. "Honestly, I don't think anyone expected that we would get summoned. We've been living here for years."

Rykard nodded a couple of times. The Exile Hexagon was used quite commonly to banish unruly parts of the population in hopes that they would just vanish. "So you live in these mountain homes and paint statues?"

"After we forge them, yes," the first man responded. "You can barely lift a stone around here without stumbling over an iron or copper vein. Metal is ludicrously easy to find here… probably even more so now."

Rykard nodded. The gods wouldn't hand him a partly depleted set of resources, so whatever mines had been exploited previously around here would have been refilled. "Metal is one of the most important resources for any beginning domain… were you self-sufficient?"

"We live in very small communities all across the mountains. By and large we fend for ourselves, although we have nothing to offer besides metal."

In other words, they would not require food, but they wouldn't offer any either. Something that had to be kept in mind for future Hexagons he summoned. More urgent at this time was another question. "You all live apart… that is a bit annoying. I'm supposed to unite you people under my banner," Rykard chuckled as he considered the difficulty of that. "Do you have some sort of general representative I could talk to?"

"No… but… we get together every year by the central lake, to hold a great competition among artists. It's scheduled to happen just a few days from now."

"How convenient - guess I can thank the gods for that 'coincidence'." Rykard chuckled and rolled his neck, considering the implications. This had been a very enlightening conversation, but he doubted he could get anything else out of them that was definitive. The gods had taken his order semi-literally and given him a Hexagon with a great amount of metal that people used as bases for their painted statues. Great skill was required to shape metal into those figures. These artists could be versatile. Alternatively, their immense deposits of ore could be turned into an export. 'Miyo will no doubt be delighted,' he thought to himself, while contemplating his next move.