Max was proud of the room she had made in such little time.

Three steps led down to a large circular, cozy, sunken sitting area through the door. A lip surrounded the designated sitting area, holding rocks that had low-light enchantments or air-purifying spells to maintain a nice and gentle breeze. Large paneless windows near the ceiling let in the moonlight and let out smoke. A central brazier was burning soft-smelling aromatics and lowly lit up the night-breeze-infused room, and overstuffed pillows in a riot of colors were on fluffy, elf-woven, and soft rugs in varying shades of forest green. The circular walls had carved murals that mirrored the anchor images-- trees and wolves, bats and flowers. A subtle reminder of what tied all of them together, hopefully.

Everything was textured to be soft and dreamy. Cushioned fabrics and complementary colors. She used every technique she could think of, from multiple psyches and uncounted universes, to put the inhabitants at ease after eavesdropping on the arguing duo.

As the others entered the room, Max threw on a simple linen shift and sat with her legs criss-crossed on the floor near a short side table with space to hold the food for the four full-sized people and the body of a fist-sized spider. "I have snacks and tea if you want to do this all civilized-like. That's how I was hoping this would go, anyways."

She pulled out the promised goods from her system storage and snorted, "Well, tonight I was hoping to catch Princess unprepared and to tease and torment him a bit with Puppy and have some fun after days of blood and horror, but this conversation needs to happen, with all of us here, eventually. May as well do it now, I suppose." She placed down a tray of finger sandwiches and a delicate porcelain pot of steeping tea. She even provided the little plates they'd need to enjoy the sandwiches mess-free and matching, tiny little tea cups to drink from.

The others came in to sit on the floor with her, with the vampire choosing a spot too close and Puppy choosing a spot too far away. She tried to shake off the feeling that she should be touching him non-stop. The feeling of wrongness that she wasn't. Was he feeling the same way?

Green cleared his throat and drew her longing eyes away from Puppy. "Thank you for the refreshment, cousin." He was much subdued since Miles's speech. He took a deep breath and said, "I find myself at a loss in dealing with my temper since the leech mangled our betrothal anchor. I apologize for my actions and words. Not to the leech, but to you and your sci... Mate Consort."

Max hummed, shrugged, and returned her eyes to Puppy. "No harm done on my end. I wasn't the one who was subjected to it."

"Be that as it may..." Green started, but was interrupted by Miles.

"Have you noticed anything else? Maybe a new shifted form? A stronger sense of smell? A craving for blood? Hidden tentacles? A new-found weakness for romance? A system initiation?" He asked from the tabletop.

Max paused lifting a sandwich to her lips and looked to Miles. "Oh! Is that what's different about my thinking?"

"I believe so, yes. You've been much dreamier lately. I think maybe you got that instead of fangs." Miles's little leg patted the air as if to calm her down. It was unneeded. "We need to update our species notes to add that romantic weaknesses are inherent to the blood-sucking species and aren't just quirky personality traits."

"Huh." She shrugged and took a bite of the food. "Wild." She said with her mouth half full, "Makes sense, though."

The vampire was slowly scooting closer to her and paused in surprise. "Wait. Who got the Voice of the Gods?!?"

Green looked alarmed. "Tentacles?"

Miles answered both with, "Those are just hypotheticals. Not all of them are options or have happened."

They both relaxed. One said tentatively, "I've noticed that I can... commune with the shadows in this realm. Like, all the darkness in the realm is more mine, if that makes sense?" Princess sighed a dreamy sigh. "It might be the perfect blend of the perfect people for the perfect place. Even if you released me from your bargain right now, I'd never leave. This world is perfect for me." He leaned into her personal space. "I am grateful every day that I had the luck to stalk that elf back to the treasure he was hoarding."

Miles continued and disregarded the vampire, "Hmm. And other than the anger, anything else, Mr. Green?"

"I've noticed that the smell of one kind of mana makes me incredibly hungry. I think the hunger is what is causing the anger." He cleared his throat. "My demesnes are generating much more mana --an impossible amount, really-- and are growing again. It's like I've initiated a dozen colonies of elves into my court. I think I got that from you, cousin." He nodded at her in appreciation and then glared at Princess. "And the sunlight outside of a demesne gives me a splitting migraine. I think that's the curse I got from the leech."

Puppy snickered. "Yeah, been there with the magic hunger. It sucks. But welcome to the ranks of being a magic devourer, I guess?"

Max leaned away from Princess and looked at Green. Upon eye contact, his possibility rolled over her skin and she acknowledged and then ignored it. "Ah. Is it my mana that makes you hunger? We can fix that easy peasy. Puppy has pills that he might be willing to share."

Green's shoulders relaxed and his posture deflated in relief. "That would be lovely. It's only been days, but it's hard to discuss cases or rule a kingdom when I'm so incredibly irked all the time. It's been driving me to distraction. Your magic scythes through the anchor and I can smell it everywhere."

Puppy grinned. "Haha. I'll give you one now to make this conversation more pleasant, but you can [Bargain] with me for some more for later."

Green's face fell. "You wouldn't just give them to me? But you're my consort."

"Nope. No offense. I'd like to avoid any regrettable shifter connotations." Puppy waived away any offense he may have caused and handed over a single magic supplement pill retrieved from his spacial storage bag.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Oh, he's still pissed from earlier. I love it when people grow spines and it turns out they're made of steel. Max grinned.

"Could you tell your Mate Consort to go easy on me?" Green looked at her in begging askance and then dry swallowed the pill. He did, upon inspection, look as if he was struggling. With both the circumstance and the pill.

She shrugged. "They're his. What's it got to do with me?" She popped the last bite of her sandwich in her mouth and noticed no one else was eating. She wiped her hands on her thighs to dust off crumbs. She redirected to the main conversation she wanted to talk about. "Okay, well... the news. I needed to talk to the two of you about what happened with Puppy's slaves and to ask if I needed to address it with your Conclave."

She told them the whole tale: about the slaves and how they were priests, about the weapon and the humans who stole it. She went into detail about the depravities those poor fuckers went through at the hands of their fellow humans, and then how they ultimately ended up in a sanguina's stable.

Puppy had moved to lay on the floor beside her while she was talking and he rested his head on her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair while spelling out the issue and the possible ramifications to the others and his eyes blinked slower and slower. He needed to be touched just as much as I needed to touch him. Good. I'm not going insane, then.

Princess watched her fingers as they ran through Puppy's hair as if he couldn't decide if he wanted her to run her fingers through his hair, too, or if he wanted to be the one petting Puppy. Green's eyes would dart down to look and then back up to her face, focusing on her mouth as she formed her words or at her free hand as it gestured as she spoke. He would unsubtley catch himself looking at the long lines of Puppy's chest or legs, and then quickly look back at her face. They were all, apparently, relievingly, bitten by the same bug-- no matter what ulterior motives they had brought into this unlikely relationship with them. When she realized that she wasn't struggling with these alien feelings alone, it made her feel better.

She finished up her summary with, "Ouroboros are nightmares to fight when they reach maturity when they are fully grown, but I think it will be relatively easy to deal with as long as it's still small and as long as the humans don't know what they're doing. Which, to be honest, they probably won't. Usually, I have found that the snakes need several centuries, the concentrated efforts of a well-organized cabal, and a determined and seasoned [Dark Lord] to reach maturity and work as intended."

"Ah. It sounds as if you've discovered your first broken capstone quest." Green said. He laid back on his pillow and got comfortable. It seemed as if the magic supplement pill was providing the needed relief and he was mellowing. "The Conclave has an archive of them. You can let them know and they will document it. I find the humans being able to storm in and seize a weapon like this problematic and worrying, though. There should have been safeguards around it that made it so they couldn't have interfered." He ran his fingers through his garishly long, red hair and stared at the ceiling without seeing it. "I would almost guarantee that your priests' life force is needed to fuel the growth of this... monster weapon. Probably, the quest demanded that the priests be ritually sacrificed, or something like that, for a blood witch or sorceror's class evolution. You did good to rescue them and keep them alive, Puppy." He nodded at Puppy like an approving supervisor.

Puppy grunted. "Call me Merrick. Only Max gets to call me Puppy. From you, it seems demeaning and I hate it."

"Of course, consort." Green's eyes moved back to the ceiling that was covered with a mural of stars and planets, not of this world, etched in stone.

"A capstone quest, huh?" Max's face fell and she looked angry. Of fucking course it's a capstone quest. Fucking of course. Her fingers continued running through the pup's hair, only more absent-mindedly while she thought of what steps to take.

Princess explained like she didn't know what kind of bag full of fuckery had landed in her court. "The Voice of the Gods planted long and difficult stories throughout the world for those who wanted to advance their classes. The first steps still exist and didn't go away with the shattering. It's said that at the end of the quests, the seekers would get a new spell or class advancement. Sometimes a weapon. There are a few well-documented ones that the Conclave has flagged to avoid now because they are broken and dangerous. Mostly about waking dragons that won't wake up or are long dead, or defeating monsters that either don't exist anymore or never existed, to begin with. One known capstone quest sends the quester to the barren wastes of the southern desert to speak with a sphynx who left through the portal right after the cataclysm."

"Oh. So you're saying... It's a flag. Just like I was telling Miles. Just like having strangers show up on your front porch and having..."

Miles sighed and butted in, "Yes, Max. I even agreed with you on this one. It was obvious."

"So, there are still old flags that are active? And it's known to everyone? And I'm not fucking crazy for recognizing them?" She looked at Miles in triumph.

"Oh, yes. There's a whole department in the Conclave building that documents and studies them."

"I guess I need to go and meet the Conclave so I can go through their archives so we can avoid all the known ones." She grinned and looked down at Puppy. "Or maybe so I can get a dragon to wake up that wants to come live with some elves? That would be cool."

Princess leaned to put a delicate finger on one strand of Puppy's hair, too. He didn't move his finger. Just touched Puppy's hair where Max's fingers would touch his, too. "Most of the sleeping dragons are myths, and the ones who aren't, tend to destroy towns and lay waste to every other life form when they are awake. They are considered cataclysmic threats and everyone unanimously agrees that it is good that they remain asleep." He brushed his finger on hers. "It's one of the few things all can agree on."

Max made a pfft noise. "Who hasn't laid waste to a few towns in their time, though?"

"I haven't," Puppy said, with his eyes remaining closed.

"I haven't," Miles said, raising a leg.

She patted Puppy's head and said, "Well, you guys are still young. I'm sure that with time, you'll lay waste to as many towns as you want, too."

Princess's hand hesitantly touched her forearm. "I will accompany you to the Conclave. I can facilitate introductions and formally introduce you to my progeny if you want. My eldest sits in my seat in proxy for me. He has said that all the Conclave Heads have expressed interest in meeting with you. It will keep all of their agents away from your mound if you go to them, first."

Max touched his hand that was resting on her forearm. Lightly. "Would you try to run if I let you out?"

"Absolutely not. I swear on my blood." He looked at her. "Would you lock me out if I left to do this with you?"

"No. You're going to be my prisoner until the shadow war with the College is done, and we haven't even had the time to start it up yet. It's in the rules. I couldn't release you even if I wanted to." She thought for a minute. Looked at Miles. Shrugged a shoulder. "Okay, sure. I'll meet the Conclave. I can be diplomatic."

"I would also accompany you. To keep the golem from replacing me with Hadrian. And as your Conclave Head. And as your lawyer. And as your consort." Green said from his pillow.

"Don't be so incredibly replaceable and I won't replace you," Miles said factually.

"Sure, I guess. You can come, too." Max thought for a minute. Had an epiphany. Swallowed a calculating grin. Tried for an innocent look. Both Puppy and Green noticed-- one from her smell and the other from reading her micro-expressions. Neither called her on it.

Max: We should get with Beasty and the king after we're done. I have an idea.