Chapter 773: Just Desserts

Maeve had not gained enough levels during the active siege of Kastoria to reach CLR sixty, though she had come close. Since neither her primary nor her secondary classes were combat oriented, she didn’t get much in the way of experience from fighting enemies, be it in melee or at range. However, she did get a lot of bonus experience from all the Demons who were slain, which made it so that when the battle was over, she didn’t have much to go to get the last little bit she needed to unlock the next level and get to CLR sixty.

The single level she had gained in Shapeshifting Spy had been level forty, which meant Maeve had gained ten free attribute points to use as she liked. An additional five free points had come from the two levels she had gained in Penumbral Infiltrator, which had gone from eighteen to twenty, so her total points she had to distribute were fifteen. While she didn’t use magic often, Maeve decided to put thirteen of those points into her Focus attribute so that she would have a much larger reserve to call upon when needed. Sure, the only time she used magic was when she was operating enchanted items, but with how many magic items she was constantly interacting with thanks to Sabina’s many wonders, having a higher pool to draw on was a practical choice. The remaining two points didn’t need to go anywhere specific, so she had put them into Agility, both because higher Agility was helpful for her shapeshifting, and because it made the number a nice, even sixty total.

The single skill that Maeve had gained at level nineteen in her secondary class was one that was complimentary to her other skills, both natural and acquired, though as a Fetch it wasn’t a skill that she technically needed.

Infiltrator’s Contortion was intended for the use of any race, since anyone could take an infiltrator class, not just Fetch. However, the final line was an additional compatibility that only a Fetch or a hybrid offspring would be able to take advantage of. When Maeve had first told Jadis of the skill, she had thought that the description was fairly unimpressive as skills went when compared to what other classes offered at level nineteen. Then the shapeshifting spy had shown off how it allowed her to compress her body so tightly against Jadis’ skin that she could literally wear Maeve like a padded shirt and she had revised her opinion.

Having achieved CLR sixty, Maeve had been presented with the usual three choices. Much to both her and Jadis’ delight, all three on offer were bonded classes, and all looked to be excellent choices. However, as the discussion on which of the options she should pick shifted from hours into days, a different sort of problem from what most people suffered had surfaced. All three choices were good. Really good. Excellent, even. Only, each of the three went in entirely different directions from each other while still being strongly compatible with her other classes. No matter which Maeve picked, she would grow exponentially in power, just in three uniquely different ways.

Spoiled for choice was the phrase Jadis would have used if she hadn’t felt doing so would be hypocritical of her.

The first class offered to Maeve had been Bonded Umbral Assassin. As an extension of the Penumbral line of classes, Umbral Assassin was a combat class that focused on killing targets from the shadows, utilizing powerful illusions to remain completely undetected. An attractive option just for the skills and spells that would cloak Maeve in darkness and keep her hidden, though having more abilities that helped her do damage would be a welcome addition to her repertoire.

The second option made available to her had been Bonded Spymaster of Sophistry. This class was a strictly non-combat one that would provide Maeve with skills to improve her spy craft. Spymaster was a straightforward upgrade to a spy, while the Sophistry modifier meant that she would be granted skills that focused on both obscuring the truth as well as revealing it, depending on the situation. While it wasn’t as flashy a title as Umbral Assassin, Spymaster of Sophistry had strong utility for someone who favored a support role over actively engaging in combat.

The third and final class on the list for Maeve was Bonded Master of Metamorphosis. Unlike the other two, Master of Metamorphosis was not a progression of her primary or secondary classes, but instead a route made available to her due to her race. The class would focus on enhancing her shapeshifting abilities, opening up unique options for transformation that a normal Fetch would never be able to perform on their own. It was also the class that they knew the least about, since the Children of Destarious were particularly tight-lipped when it came to their physical abilities and the classes that were associated with them. However, from what information they could gather in the archives and from Destarious’ temple, they knew that metamorphosis classes were the sort that allowed for shapeshifting such as what the Chimera had performed in the cultist-dug pit under Thracina. Considering the dangerous Fetch had been able to transform into a hydra, a massive beast that required far too much mass than a normal Fetch would be capable of, the class had an obvious draw to it for reasons of power and flexibility.

That was, ultimately, what had sold Maeve on the third option. Flexibility. She liked being able to change her shape into whatever was needed in the moment. A class that would give her even more options for shapeshifting was attractive to her, since she could use enhanced shapeshifting both in and out of combat. However, even though that had been the conclusion after the first three days of debate, Maeve had still had trouble committing to the choice. Which was precisely why Jadis had encouraged her translucent lover to wait and select her new class when she was ready. There was no huge rush, especially since they had largely wrapped things up in Kastoria. If she needed a few more days, that was no big deal.

Jadis just hadn’t expected Maeve to take more than a month to make her decision.

“I still think you picked Master of Metamorphosis because you want to do weird sex things with it,” Sorcha commented from her perch on top of their bed.

“Of course she picked it because of weird sex stuff,” Kerr rolled across the bed so that she was lying next to the goblin, then wrapped one arm around her small waist. “Unlike you, Maeve is true to her own self and doesn’t try to deny her innate lewdness.”

“Excuse me?” Sorcha glared at the naked therion. “Who are you calling lewd?”

“I don’t know, who am I calling lewd, size queen.”

“Oh, you slut!”

Snarling like a lion, the tiny green woman leapt on top of the laughing archer and began pinching and biting her wherever she could manage to get hold of Kerr. The two rolled together across the breadth of the bed, forcing both Thea and Sabina to hop off the edge and get out of the way lest they were caught up in the tangle of legs and teeth. Alex, however, didn’t move at all from her seat on the far side and, when the two reached her, inserted her tentacles into the mix, prompting a change in the tenor of the yelps being made.

While most of their group had retired to their bedroom for the evening, not all were present at that moment. Aila, Severina, Meli, and Noct were still in the bathroom with Jay, variously washing up, enjoying the warmth of a bath, or engaging in a few intimate actions. Dys, on the other hand, was in the nursery, gently rocking Hope’s crib as the little Succubus fitfully slept. That still left quite a few in the bedroom who were able to observe and enjoy the sudden lewdness that Kerr had managed to kickstart.

“I don’t know what kind of weird sex stuff you could do with your new skill, Maeve,” Sabina said as her attention flickered between the growing chaos on the distant edge of the massive bed and the Fetch on the floor before her. “I mean, you can already transform into any of us, or become all gooey like you do sometimes, so what else is there to do? I guess you could take on some more exotic forms now, like an imaginary creature, but I don’t think any of us would want to have sex with an animal or magic beast or anything like that.”

“Shapes and, um, textures…” Thea distractedly replied to Sabina’s question, obviously torn between watching the threesome and Maeve experiment. “They, ah, can do more than you m—might think.”

When Sabina turned a questioning eye to Eir, the beatific saint gave her a glowing smile while motioning towards Syd and the shapeshifter latched onto her.

“I imagine that certain insertions would be exceptionally thrilling depending on the material that Maeve chose to mimic.”

Calling out from her seat against the wall, Bridget clarified.

“Like getting your dick sucked by a Golem.”

“Oh!” the smith exclaimed. “Oh, I see! That probably is a weird sensation, because I don’t know if they have spit or any other kind of lubrication, plus they’re made out of stone and they feel like stone when you touch them, but they also move like they are made of flesh, so that has to feel strange when you’re touching them, especially with something like a penis, or a vagina, or a tongue, or—”

“Yeah, we get it, you don’t need to list every body part,” Bridget stopped Sabina’s verbal avalanche before it could go too far. “Anyway, how does that feel, Jadis? Like, good? Or bad? Or…?”

“Weird,” Syd murmured in absentminded response. “Really, really weird.”

Maeve’s starting skill for Bonded Master of Metamorphosis was both unusual and expected. They had known that it would affect her ability to shapeshift. They just hadn’t known exactly what form the alterations would come in. The answer turned out to be many.

“Gah, Maeve, that’s cold!”

“Sorry,” the Fetch murmured from… somewhere. “Controlling my temperature like this is difficult to get used to.”

“Okay, well, try not to give me frostbite. I don’t want Eir to have to regrow my toes.”

In order to get used to her newly enhanced shapeshifting abilities, Maeve had done two things. First, she had reduced the complexity of her form so that she looked like nothing more than a giant ball of mochi set on the floor. The classic slime ball shape that Jadis knew from Earth fantasy games wasn’t the Fetch’s natural form; Maeve had shown her that and that body was best described as a man-sized, chaotically colored amoeba. The butterball shape that Maeve had taken was a choice based on making her material transformations uncomplicated, so that she didn’t have to think about details like fingers or eyeballs.

The second thing the Fetch had done was drag Syd over to her and enveloped her foot in her goo.

“That feels like cold metal,” Syd commented as she watched Maeve transform into something that looked like copper. “Very smooth, very cold.”

“I’m trying to be more room temperature,” the shapeshifter explained as her subtle shifts in her metallic form rippled across her simplified surface. “Actually, am I warming up due to contact with you? Or am I just staying the same temperature?”

“I can’t really tell yet,” Syd replied as she wiggled her toes. “I think we need to wait and see.”

“I hope that’s something that the skill covers, because if I have to consciously change the temp of my body every time it’ll drive me crazy.”

“Like you aren’t crazy already.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you aren’t being freakier about this,” Bridget observed from the sidelines where she watched Maeve practice.”

“Freakier?”

“Yeah, I mean, you could have glued yourself to one of Jadis’ dicks or something to do all this. Really teased the non-existent bollocks off of her.”

“I’m trying to focus on getting these transformations right,” Maeve sighed. “I can’t worry about Jadis squeezing her pudding into me right now.”

“Please don’t call it that…” Syd snorted.

“Which brings me to another point,” Bridget held up a finger. “Is this really all that different from when you are shapeshifting into clothes or things like that? I know you walk around naked all the time, except you don’t look naked because you shapeshifted to have pants on.”

“Sometimes Maeve wears pants,” Sabina interjected, turning her head away from the show Sorcha, Kerr, and Alex were putting on. “She took her pants off a few days ago when we were in the bath.”

“I wear clothing when I think there’s a possibility I might have to take it off,” Maeve jiggled a bit in the smith’s direction. “I can’t take pieces of my self off, so I have to wear pants or boots or whatever when I’m doing a long-term disguise.”

Jiggling herself at Bridget next, she continued her explanation.

“It’s not the same thing as Simulated Equipment, either. I’m copying what someone I’ve seen was wearing when I use that skill, and the replication is basically automatic. I only really think about the specifics in so much as I choose which parts to keep and which to leave out. Otherwise, I’m not consciously making pieces of me into silk of silver. It feels different from this. This Material Metamorphosis skill is harder to master, but I can already tell I have way more fine control. See?”

To illustrate her example, Maeve’s form rapidly shifted between multiple different metals, going from copper to silver to iron and finally to gold. Then, with a visible flex, several different parts of her blobby shape transformed into gemstones, giving her the appearance of a giant golden nugget studded with jewels.

“I never would have been able to take on this form before,” Maeve said with an invisible smile. “Well, I guess I could have taken the same shape, and colored myself to look the same, which would have taken a lot of practice and effort, but I wouldn’t have felt like a gem encrusted golden ball of dough if you touched me.”

“You do, in fact, feel like my foot was incased in gold,” Syd confirmed. “Also, I think you did get warmer with my body heat.”

“Oh, good,” Maeve sighed with relief. “Alright, now let’s try something extra challenging.”

With that, the hard material that had surrounded Syd’s foot went abruptly soft. Maeve’s appearance shifted from gold and jewels to a yellowish creamy color, and her shape melted a bit, flattening out as her stiffness turned limp.

“Oh, come on,” Syd motioned at the giant pile of pudding that had engulfed her right leg. “Really?”

“This feels so weird,” Maeve burbled her commentary.

Then, without preamble, the Fetch’s gooey body slurped its way up Syd’s leg on a direct course for parts well known.

“Ha! I knew it! You just forgot you could have done this with her cock, didn’t you?”

“Shut up, Bridget,” Maeve said while sliding around and into some interesting curves, “and come help me experiment on our Nephilim.”