CHAPTER 52: OF BONDS AND NAMES

"I greet my new master."

The words rang out like a gong stunning all of us, even Dawn looked quite surprised her little head recoiling back around my neck where previously it was poking out in curiosity. I take me a moment but I manage to get out a response. "U-umm hi there, I’m glad to meet you too?"

The dryad doesn’t respond to that so I scratch my chin a touch unsure as to what I’m supposed to do in this situation. "Do you have a name?"

This does seem to get a reaction and the dryad responds. "This iteration has no name."

I blink in confusion at that response. "What do you mean by this iteration?"

"The form that is created is dependent on my master, as such I have been formed. Previous masters have summoned different forms with different abilities." The dryad informs me.

"Hu well that’s pretty cool." I mumble out not really intending to say that out loud. Then I shake my head to clear my thoughts and decide to ask some important questions. "Can you tell me about your abilities? And what I can expect to unlock when I am able to power more than a single one of the containers in the staff?"

The dryad tilts its? Her? Head and takes a moment to respond. "It would appear that master is quite weak this time. My abilities are currently limited to basic control of flora around me along with a biking to provide basic boosts to a number of allies. I am unable to know what other abilities I will unlock when master can power them."

I probabally should feel slightly insulted by her calling me weak, excpecially when I can hear Kana snickering besides me. But in all honesty this is a gold ranked staff and I’m in the early stages of Iron so it’s already damn impressive that I can even activate the smallest part of its powers. Nodding to myself I’m about to ask another question when the dryad speaks up again.

"Master will you not form a bond with me? Am I not worthy of that?" The dryad asks in what I can only say is a tone of self deprecation and sadness, as if me not offering it/ her. I’m just going to call her a her as she has a female voice. A bond is a insult towards her, despite me not even knowing this was an option.

However I rush to get a reply out. "What? Oh no it’s not that! I-I just didn’t even know that was an option, or know how to do that in the first place to be honest.." I awkwardly look away and scratch the back of my head in embarrassment.

The dryad however, seems... relieved at this fact as her tone when replying is much warmer and has a hint of hope in it. "Then will master form a bond with me?"

I hesitate but do reply. "Perhaps. But before we do so could you tell me more about this bond? What benefits will it bring and what potential risks does it pose? And most importantly, will this impact my bond between myself and Dawn? If it does then I’m afraid we will not be able to bond!" After all even if it meant giving up on an incredible power boost, if it meant hurting or removing my bond to Dawn I couldn’t bring myself to even consider it.

"The bond has a number of benefits, primary among them is that I will be able to remain summoned at all times, and will be able to retreat within your soul when needed. Additionally the mana required to keep me summoned will be drastically reduced, I can already feel that you are barely able to maintain the mana needed to keep me summoned." And she was right on that last point, once she was summoned I began to notice that the mama within that singular reservoir started to drop at an alarming rate, even with my entire mana regen which I thought was quite impressive I was only barley breaking even. If I tried to cast other spell I would quickly go into the red.

And then if we considered the other benefits.. wait my mind caught up to one point she said. "Wait what do you mean you will be able to retreat into my soul!? That doesn’t sound healthy."

However to my surprise it wasn’t the dryad that responded but Amanda who did. "Iv heard of summons like that before, it is rare that it comes from a staff but particularly powerful summons can reside in their summoners soul. It is actually quite beneficial to the summoner as it trains the soul aspect passively." She paused for a moment her eyes alight with interest and then continued. "I say form the bond Lilly, I see no downsides to this."

"Hmm okay I’m leaning towards saying yes, but are their any other effects that this may cause?" I was already pretty sure I’d go ahead with the bonding, whatever that really meant. But may as well try to fully understand it better before going through with it.

"There is one more key benefit. I will slowly adapt to better suit your afinities."

"Well I see no issues with that, then sure let’s form a bond. How do we go about doing that?" I ask the dryad, I really needed to give her a name didn’t I? Oh well that’s a problem for future me.

Upon my confirmation despite not having any clear facial features or showing any visible reaction I could swear that the dryad was happy. "I can initiate the process, you need only accept." She told me.

And just like that I felt a presence reach out to me. It was reminiscent of what happened when I bonded with Dawn except where i felt like that was a bond of equals. This is a bond of servitude with myself clearly being the master in this master servant bond. And whilst I thought that I would feel uncomfortable with the idea of this basically being a bond of slavery, I found no revulsion to this fact. And whilst that brought on a whole host of secondary concerns which I would need to resolve at some point now was not the right time to consider them.

As the presence intensified I felt like I could either accept or deny this bond and so pushing away all extensions thoughts I mentally accepted it.

A bright flash of green light enveloped the dryad, its radiance so bright that we all had to look away. Whilst that was happening I could feel our new bond forming, and slightly more worrying the mana reserve in the staff began to drop rapidly. I tried to push more mana into it but I was already quite low on mana as I had been continually funnelling mana into it this whole time. As the reserves got closer and closer to empty I started to get worried, thankfully though when the reserves hit around 10% the pull decreased. It was still present but it had dropped by more than half.

And it continued to decrease, the reservoir dropped to 5% and it finally evened out and no longer decreased. I let out a sigh of relief.

The dryad was still encased within the dome of green light however. So the 4 of us stood around awkwardly for some time not quite sure what to do till Kana broke the silence with a fact I hadn’t quite considered. "Hey so Lilly, you know how the dryad mentioned that she would better adapt to fit your affinities right?"

I nodded at that so she continued. "Well don’t you have 2 affinities?" I frowned at that not quite getting what she was hinting at, seeing this she continued. "Well you have nature affinity obviously." I nodded. "And don’t you also have a list affinity? I mean your class is Druid of Lust right?" I froze at that, the potential implications running through my head as I began to wonder what a lust attuned dryad could mean. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your outlook I didn’t have long to consider this as I felt a pulse travel along the newly forming bond locking it in place and signifying its completion, along with this the green glow started to fade.

We all turned back to watch as the form of the dryad began to come back into focus as the light dimmed. As it came back into view my mind blanked out as I took in its new form.

Where before it was a vaguely feminine humanoid shape with undefined features. Now what stood in front of us was a definitively female dryad. She stood now at almost 9ft in height dwarfing all of us and nearly doubling my own height. She had wavy green vines framing her face and acting as hair. Where she lacked clear skin before now she had a definitive skin like appearance which only resembled plant matter.

Her face was delicate and alluring with deep green lips that curled into a teasing smile, lime green orbs made her eyes with long lashes to accentuate them. Soft and squishy cheeks showing some plumpness to them but only enough to add to her charm. As for her body, well... damn! With her height increase she also grew in a few other key places. Her bust where before it was only hinted at they now stood proud and loud. Jutting from her chest impressively. Strangely she had no nipples though which caught my attention for a moment before I moved on to her other assets.

A thin waist flared out to wide hips and a plump ass her entire figure screamed of fertility and sex appeal. Her body put even Kana and myself to shame in terms of her proportions, well maybe matching mine when Kana got her way with me some nights just scaled up to be 9ft tall. I could feel myself growing slightly wet just from looking at her and based on the dumbstruck gazes of my two lovers it would appear they felt the same way.

The dryad seemed to also be observing her appearance but didn’t seem as awestruck as the rest of us, as such she managed to speak first. "Well master I must say I wasn’t expecting unlock a second affinity so quickly, but I must say. I do enjoy the lust affinity’s effects so far." I could only dumbly nod in agreement at that moment.

I did eventually pull myself together and managed to stutter out a reply. "I-I’m glad y-you enjoy your new body, I didn’t not expect such a d-drastic change." I could feel my face blushing furiously as I realised that due to the height difference her pubic region was directly in front of me and I could tell that she had all the parts one would expect from a woman down their.

"Hmm i can tell you approve. Master.." her tone dropped a couple of levels with that last word and positively dripped with arrousal causing me to gulp audibly. "But master I must ask." She leant down as she said this and gently extended a arm towards me, her fingers lifted my chin to tilt it upwards so that our eyes met. "Can you please grant me a name master?"

——-

Alrighty folks gonna hold a little contest here on what name the new seductress of a dryad will be called!

Iv got some ideas but if any suggestions get enough likes I might just use it!