Lia had just finished talking about their conflict with their Lord of Monsters when Jerry came back, Kali and Judy in tow. “I’m afraid I can’t see what any of their stuff does.” He said. “Or, rather, I don’t get the instinctual knowledge I got when looking at the people from my planes. I suspect it’ll be the same if I look at the people from Amy’s planes. Lilith, have you looked at them yet?”
“I don’t know how to.” Lilith replied. “Or, at least, not well enough that I felt there was a point in doing so.”
“We’ll teach you.” Jerry said. “And we’ll have you inspect everyone once you learn, there might well be things you can see that we can’t.”
“I suppose that’s possible.” Lilith admitted. “So…what now?”
“Now, I want to openly talk with everyone and get a grasp of how everyone is feeling, explain a bit more about what we do know and what we’ll be doing. So, to start with, I want to hear concerns that we might have regarding our operation here. Does anyone aside from Amelia have any?”
“Hey!” Amelia protested. “My opinions are valid too!”
Jerry gave her a flat look. “Everyone who knows you knows that you’re going to complain about this taking too much of your time.” He said. “If you have any other complaints, I would be willing to hear them, but you have made that particular complaint clear multiple times now.”
“Fine.” Amelia harumphed, folding her arms. “I’ll be sure to say when I think of one.”
“Amelia, this really is that important.” Connie said gently. “Jerry’s just concerned about all of our futures, and is trying to protect everyone as best he can. I know this doesn’t help us in the short term, but long term this is the most important thing we can be doing.”
“I know, I know.” Amelia said grumpily. “I just wish it hadn’t been so sudden or that I had been given a choice.”
“You and me both.” Jerry said sadly. “But war seldom gives you an opportunity to prepare, or a choice on if you wish to participate.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Amelia replied. “Get on with it.”
“I did have a concern, actually.” Rose said. “I’m unsure how helpful most of us will be here; perhaps our time might be better spent preparing our own planes instead of helping in this new one.”
“Ah, my apologies, I must have given the wrong impression.” Jerry said. “Only Amelia will be regularly helping with this new plane; I simply plan to have the rest of you meet up from time to time to discuss things and check on our progress. For now, I wanted to get everyone up to speed with my findings and conjectures, and I wanted to see what you thought of them.”
“Conjectures?” Tess asked. “What kind of conjectures?”
“Looking over the circumstances of the people who have been touched, and the effects they have been given, I’ve noticed some commonalities. Firstly, effects; to give everyone a quick rundown, Ellie had her soul tweaked so as to more efficiently process Mana, which manifested as her system giving her maximum stats when it could. Maven was the ability to better understand others, to know what they want even if they themselves don’t. Fortune simply received bonuses to the strength of her luck manipulation, and Tess was given the ability to treat Higher Beings as monsters for her Class, allowing her to easily permanently kill them, steal their abilities, and even convert them to her side.
“Rose was given a great aptitude for teaching others and learning new things, and Connie was made able to process Worship more efficiently, extracting large amounts of energy from even the small amounts Blood Money gives. Amelia received very little tampering besides the manipulation of events that led her to her current position, and Lia was made more persuasive and proficient in manipulating others. People are more willing to listen to her, her words are more persuasive than they would otherwise be, and her mental magic is greatly boosted for the purpose of overcoming the natural resistance Higher Beings have to it.”
“Wait, are you telling me I’ve been brainwashing people my entire life any time I so much as say hi?!” Lia asked, taken aback.
“Not quite.” Jerry replied. “It’s more like people are predisposed to feeling comfortable around you; it’s sort of like how being well-dressed or otherwise carrying an air of authority makes people more inclined to listen to you, just more pronounced and impossible to notice without actively looking for tampering that wouldn’t trip magical detection. People who are hostile to you from the start aren’t going to suddenly not be hostile, but people who are on the fence will likely want to hear you out first. You just haven’t seen much of that because most people are hostile to you the moment they know who you are.”
“O-oh.” Lia replied. “That’s…better, I think? I mean, I’m brainwashing people anyway but it’s good that it’s not happening without my knowledge or the ability to…not do it. Still not super enthused about it and what it means for the foundations of my relationships, but…not much I can do about it.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think it really impacts the formation of any sort of intimate relationship.” Jerry said. “It’s about persuasiveness and obedience, not feelings of affection or the like. Perhaps it’s a boost initially, but afterwards it’s really not a factor. Besides, if it’s an innate aspect of yourself…does it really matter how it affected your relationships? Your relationships are also affected by your physical appearance, the sound of your voice, and other such things, why is this different?”
“It just is.” Lia said uncomfortably. “But we can unpack this later, we’ve gone off-subject.”
“Right, right, sorry.” Jerry said. “We’re unaware of the full extent of what Lilith has, but we know a few things. For one, she is able to actively use eldritch abilities with no effort or any threat to her sanity, and as such has access to materials that we’re unable to easily replicate. She gains all abilities of anyone she is remotely “in charge of”, has the ability to automatically understand any form of communication, and can even grant safe, if watered-down, versions of eldritch abilities to others.
“Taking everything into account, I have found some similarities in the abilities gifted to us and the circumstances of those who hold them. In terms of circumstances, I couldn’t help but notice the prevalence of male to female sex changes amongst those granted abilities and those close to them, as well as a predisposition towards lesbianism.
“I don’t believe that holds any importance for our work going forward, and I think it’s just the whim of the Elder Gods who are ‘backing’ us, but if you happen to interact with other Higher Beings and Administrators in our faction, keep an eye out for those signs; it might be worth investigating people that both of those apply to see if they have been touched by the eldritch.
“On a more immediately relevant note, I believe that we have been given ‘themed’ abilities, for lack of a better term. Aside from the abilities that are straight up power boosts, most of the abilities granted to us seem to center around other people in some fashion, and especially facilitate and incentivize having others join us, be it through persuasion or force. If this is true, then I think it’s safe to assume that the other factions will have similarly themed abilities; probably raw combat power for the Anarchists, and…probably some kind of buff or mind control emphasis for the Empire, though I can’t be quite as sure for them.”
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“Great.” Eve said dryly. “I’m glad to hear that we get the power of friendship while everyone else gets the power of violence.”
“But, Aunt Eve, if we flip some of their people, then we get the power of violence too.” Ellie pointed out, smirking slightly. “Though I can’t help but agree that we’ve got the short end of the stick here.”
“We also have a huge head start and have been given the capability to make a breakthrough with systems; the Elder Gods believe a game in which the outcome is certain is boring, so we must have a pretty decent chance of coming out on top if we work hard.” Jerry said. “We’re potentially even favored to win if we make the first move as we hope we will.”
“But…we need to completely overhaul everything to conform to the new system, and that’s a lot of work.” Eve said. “You have to actually make the update, prep your planes for the update, and get people used to it after, and that takes a lot of time.”
“Exactly.” Jerry said. “So, we’re starting ASAP. For those of you that aren’t Lilith or Amelia, I’d like it if you took some time and deeply examined yourselves, try to get a feel for what is the eldritch power given to you and what is ‘normal’. It is entirely possible that, as you learn more about the eldritch and experiment with what you’ve been given, you may unlock even more aspects of the ability we don’t know about.
“I imagine most of you won’t get anything new, but even so, it’s good to learn how better to control this in preparation for the future. The better you can use it, the better our chances of survival are. As for prep, your Administrators will be the ones handling the prep for the system overhaul, so don’t worry about that unless they ask for your help, just focus on yourselves.”
“What does this mean for people like me?” Ellie asked. “I just have more efficient Mana processing, apparently, and I’m not sure how to even go about ‘training’ that.”
“Ask Amy for help.” Jerry said. “She’ll be able to guide you to figuring out how to differentiate between the eldritch and the normal. Once you have that figured out, you can begin refining the ability and exploring its potential. Even the straightforward effects are significantly more complex than you would think at first. A significant amount of work goes into even just making you process Mana more efficiently, so there is plenty for you to learn.”
Ellie nodded. “I see. I’ll mess around with it, then.”
“Come to think of it, what are we supposed to do?” Rose asked, motioning at her wives. “We have a war going on, we don’t have a huge amount of free time.”
“I know, your group will have the hardest time, but I’ll help walk you through it, and the war will provide plenty of time to get used to using your power. Besides, the war will take no more than a decade and a half now that I’ve lifted restrictions on the gods that are on your side, and you’ll have decades and decades afterward to dedicate to this training.”
“If we have those decades, we should be given time to take care of this war and then you can make me come do all this plane development nonsense.” Amelia grumbled. “Surely fifteen years won’t make a huge difference.”
Connie put her hand on Amelia’s shoulder. “It can, and it very well might. The sooner we finish our work, the more likely it is that our opponents are caught unprepared. And if they’re caught unprepared, then things become infinitely safer for us.”
“Amelia, just remember that doing this will help us too.” Rose said. “Just like when our system was updated before, we can expect our own strength to grow as you innovate here and bring the results back to our system. And I’m sure that, if the time comes that you’re too lonely, some of us can come with you from time to time.”
“Lilith’s a nice woman.” Connie added. “I’m sure you two could get along if you put some effort in.”
“For the record, I’m more than willing to be friends.” Lilith said. “We’re going to be working together in the future, I would much rather be on good terms than be at odds with each other.”
“Can you try, for us?” Lia asked Amelia. “Please? I know you would rather be doing other things, but this seems really important, and it’s not their fault that we’re in this situation.”
“Believe me, if we could resolve this peacefully, we would.” Jerry said. “But we can’t. The other factions are warmongers and will conquer us at the first opportunity. The world of Administrators is eat or be eaten, and ideals of peace can only be enforced by being stronger than everyone else. It only takes one would-be conqueror to embroil society in chaos.”
Rose nodded. “That’s the exact reason I’m okay with what the swarm is doing. We can’t really complain when you phrase it like that.”
Amelia sighed. “Fine, I’ll try.” She huffed. “But these three are always my first priority, and that won’t change, no matter what ‘important thing’ we’re doing.”
“And I wouldn’t expect it to.” Lilith said. “In fact, I would be concerned if it did.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Fortune spoke. “Well…I think that’s all the questions everyone on our side has.” She said. “If no one else has any, I think I’d like to head back and start preparing.”
“Actually, I was hoping I could talk with Lia a bit more.” Maven said. “I think there’s a decent synergy between our two abilities, and I wanted to explore that.”
“M-me?” Lia asked in surprise. “I-I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be, I don’t know like…anything about Higher Beings or the eldritch or any of this. I only know what I’ve learned from listening to Connie.”
“That’s fine.” Maven replied. “I can teach you as we go, there aren’t that many differences between Higher Beings and normal people for our purposes.”
“Really?” Lia asked skeptically. “The difference between gods and people seems pretty large.”
“From the sound of things, you were already most of the way there before this, the ability to use Worship is the biggest difference between Higher Beings and normal people.” Maven explained. “It kind of sounds like you don’t have a Domain yet, and that’s where most ‘god powers’ that aren’t normal uses of Worship come from.”
“She’s been given Domain over the swarm, shared with Rose, Amelia, and Connie.” Jerry said. “In the future, we’ll probably end up expanding that and giving her, Rose, and Amelia more unique Domains and abilities.”
“I see.” Maven replied. “Still, not a huge change, I don’t think. You’re plenty qualified for this, Lia. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I always tell you that, and you never listen.” Rose said, smiling and elbowing Lia playfully. “You’d think after all this time it’d set in that you’re not just fourth fiddle to the three of us.”
“But you and Amelia are so strong, and Connie’s a god, and –”
“You’re basically a god too, now.” Tess interrupted. “And, from what I’ve heard, you were more than capable of defeating her in combat before all this. I get where you’re coming from, I had similar thoughts myself for a time, but you can’t let them get to you; no matter what happened to get you to where you are, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re there now, and I have no doubts that you can catch up in power with them in no time.”
“Easy for you to say.” Lia mumbled. “You don’t understand just how monumental Rose and Amelia are for our planes, that’s not something you can catch up to in ‘no time’.”
“S-she does, actually.” Connie said. “Or…she’s been through similar? She doesn’t act it, but she’s the strongest non-Administrator Higher Being in our faction, and she took the spot in only fifty or sixty years.”
“I’m pretty sure that, as of late, Lilith’s dethroned me, though I can’t be totally sure without sparring with her.” Tess said. “And Mom deserves credit too, since neither of us would be where we are without each other.”
“Yeah, but you and I are sort of a package deal when it comes to this.” Fortune said. “There’s no circumstance where we would be fighting apart, and you do most of the hard work, so you get the spot.”
“We’re getting off-topic, though.” Tess said. “Lia, from what I understand, you’re the ‘main’ recipient of eldritch power from your planes, just like Lilith and I; give it some time and you’ll outshine everyone else from your planes, that’s practically a guarantee. When I was starting out, I was depressed because I perceived myself as weak, and constantly compared myself to all the people around me. But, after some of my dear friends and family showed me that I was just getting in my own head and snapped me out of the funk, I realized there were things I could do, and I really began to blossom from there.”
“Give me a day or two after we get home.” Jerry said thoughtfully. “I’m sure I could whip together something that would help bring out your latent potential.”
“I don’t know…” Lia said slowly. “That’s not really mine then, is it?”
“In that case, you would have to argue that much of my power isn’t my own either, and I’m pretty sure you don’t think that way.” Rose objected.
“We can make it something you have to work to activate if it makes you feel better.” Jerry said. “Something that would give incremental benefits but help accelerate you towards your theoretical limit.”
“If we can do that, why don’t we just do it to everyone and dispense with this whole pretense?” Amelia asked impatiently.
“Because it’s expensive.” Jerry replied calmly. “I can’t afford to do it to everyone, or I would. Lia, however, is important enough to warrant such a thing.”
“I’ll think about it.” Lia said. “But…that sounds fine, I guess.”
“I’ll get to work as soon as I’m done here.” Jerry said. “And I think we’re done with questions too, so…let’s everyone but Amelia, Lilith, and Kali are dismissed, thank you for taking the time to come out here tonight. Let’s plan on meeting up every month or so, okay?”
There were some nods, and everyone began to go their separate ways. Jerry and a rather reluctant Amelia walked up to Lilith and Kali, and Jerry gave them a smile. “Well, I think it’s about time we got into the fun stuff. Shall we go?”