B 3 C 38: FLIGHT OF THE GODBEASTS

Teuila and I rush to embrace Luni who leaps into my arms. Mat sits sullenly in his cloak off to one side. I don’t know how to even begin approaching him, but right now all I want to do is reunite with Luni and make sure we’re okay, that our relationship is okay. Well, over there is someone that I also want to verify is really Penina, the pearlescent spheriform otter that Te and Lu think of as a sister.

Lu breaks into my thinkspace asking, “Really, is that all you want to do?” She waggles her eyebrows salaciously.

I’m so elated to hear Luni joking with me, teasing me, tears of joy stream down my face as I spin her about in reality and thinkspace simultaneously.

I telepathically whisper, an almost silent plea begging forgiveness, “Lu, I love you, I love you, I love you, I’ve missed you. Oh how I have missed you so. There were times when I thought you hated me. My heart ached so badly. I nearly broke away from my quest to seek you out and beg forgiveness.”

Lu shushes me, “Shh, I know, My Hero, I know. I’m sorry that I had to let those words, feelings, signals, and messages be our last contact for so long. I love you too. Always have, always will. Peni’s here. She doesn’t talk, like Oli, but I’m sure it’s her.” Luni gazes towards Penina being held by another otter.

After the wistful gaze, Lu continues, “Can you believe it? The one holding her thinks of her like a daughter, but she talked to me about this dragon that transformed into a human child and was eaten by a kraken. Apparently the sea exploded shortly after that.” I snort with laughter for a moment, accidentally interrupting Luni. She finishes, ”I figured that was you.”

I nod, laughing and crying simultaneously. Despite my mirth, I hazard to ask, “Lu, what do we do about Mat? What questions should I even ask? Where do we stand?”

Luni answers my question by producing a mental image of a pair of magisteel handcuffs. She asks, “Remember these? I snagged a couple of pairs too. Most magic stops working when someone is wearing them. Thankfully Mat doesn’t have inventory magic, or he could slip out of them. Still, I think he’s less hellbent on vengeance, and more sullen than anything. The book snapped him out of some of what he was going through. He’s never going to be the same though. He’ll obviously work with us on the big project, but after that, I don’t know.”

I nod somberly. We’re okay, we’re okay. After all this time, we’re okay. I can hardly believe it. Lu and I drop from private thinkspace to embrace Teuila together. Te and I take time to catch up with Morgan, the captain of the Undine. I have to apologize for my part in the deaths of Sal and Har.

Dream has been taking care of warning various groups of Mataalii’s impending return, to keep them from taking vengeance on him. She’s been able to hint at, or state how required his presence will be for the upcoming events. Hopefully that’s all that needs to have happened to keep the peace for now. I’ve got a feeling we’ll need Mat and the six books at some point to help solve the metaphysical problems with the shield.

Teuila hip-checks me, drawing my attention, “Come on lazybones, get that bonebrain out of that bonehead of yours, our Lu is home. And you!” Teuila turns to Luni, “Taking off like that? I should throttle you! I, I, I, I’m so mad at you!”

Despite her words, Teuila’s standing in front of Luni, looking like she wants to slap Lu in the face, but tears are streaming down her cheeks. Lu cautiously steps forward to hug Teuila. Te returns the embrace, sobbing softly. Despite her bravery, and the facade of an unflappable warrior, Teuila is a tender soul at heart. I smile halfheartedly at the pair. If we could get Lil and Lucky, we’d have our inner circle back together.

Lu’s telepathic avatar shakes her head, “Lil and Lucky will be busy til the end of it all. We’ll probably have to stop by to see them once or twice before then, but for the most part, they’re digging in three directions, well, sort of four. They’re digging hundreds of miles of tunnels.”

Oh, so Lil is solving the barrier color issue, redirecting the ley lines. I wonder if that will also solve the energy issue. Lu once again shakes her head at my train of thought. Darn. Still, no wonder we haven’t been reunited yet. I’d offer to go help Lil, but between my mana problems, and the fact that I’m probably needed here for the construction effort, it probably wouldn’t do any good.

While Lu and Te are having their embrace, sorting out their emotions with each other, I approach the otter holding Penina. Lu makes a surprised noise, saying something to the effect of oh yeah, and suddenly a massive party of critterkin joins as a sub party under Luni. That solves one problem I was about to address.

I hesitantly ask, “Hi, do you remember me from the beach near Eimsas? I’m sorry for frightening you.”

The motherly one holding Penina answers, “Another Shellcracker, insistent that my Peni is actually yours?”

I balk, gulping down my feelings, “I, well, I’m not possessive of her or anything, she just looks exactly like one of our long lost family members. We’ve had it happen once before, when one was lost to us, a long time later an egg spawned in a new location, and from that egg came Olioli. I can’t explain it, but I barely understand the rules of our world, so that’s nothing new.”

The otter woman stares me up and down with a slightly displeased, mostly neutral expression worn on her face. She responds, “Be that as it may, she is my family, my child. After what happened in that horrid town, after all the family I’ve lost, I won’t let anyone or anything take her from me.”

Realization dawns on me and I nod somberly. I don’t know how I’m going to break this to Laomati, unless I convince this woman to join the Shellcracker clan, then Peni will stay forever lost to us.

I press my luck, “Would you mind telling me your name? I’m Reggie Shellcracker.”

Her lower lip rises slightly pursed as she scrunches her nose, squinting at me. Relenting, she answers, “I’m Gail. Just Gail.”

I greet her, “Hello Gail. I’m sorry for your losses, but I’m pleased to meet you. I hope that you forge a happy life in the safety of our community. If there’s anything I can do to help you find peace and happiness, let me know.”

Gail continues to eye me suspiciously, but she shrugs and turns to walk away with Peni. I heave a sigh. I suppose that could have gone worse. I felt bad not even getting to address Peni, it was like she was in the center of the conversation, but being treated as some sort of ornamentation, not a person capable of expressing her own desires. I know that like Oli, this incarnation of Peni can’t talk, but, that doesn’t mean that either of them lack sapience, does it?

Huffing as I heave another sigh, I shake my head vigorously, rattling loose the thought train I’d been pursuing in the hopes of finding something else to think about. I turn my gaze back to Luni and Teuila. They’re now conversing with Morgan, the captain of the Undine. I suppose that there is someone else that I should talk to. Someone I’ve been avoiding even thinking about talking to.

I approach Mataalii. I notice he isn’t wearing magisteel cuffs at the moment. I assume Luni holds them as a sort of threat over Mat in case he should fall back towards evilness. This is it, this is me confronting the brother who has always hated me. Once in my life I thought he was jealous and wanted to be like me. What he actually was saying was a stuttered attempt to indicate that I knew what he wanted was power. “You, you know.” I misinterpreted it, and gave him one of my danger wraps. I see he isn’t wearing that either at the moment. At least he’s in the sub party under Luni.

While not making eye contact, I mumble, “Hi ‘Ali. Sorry about killing you. Welcome back.”

Mataalii scoffs, “Pft, sorry for killing you? That’s the best you’ve got? Wha-”

I interrupt, “Excuse me!? What more do you want from me? You killed people! Innocent people! You tried to kill me, repeatedly! You destroyed our home! You could, you could have killed Lao. Mat you almost killed her. She died. She died on the Night of All Burn. Teuila and the phoenix are the only reasons she’s alive now. You killed Lao. What can I possibly say that’s civil, that keeps the peace between us? You’ve always hated me, and you’re right, I failed to protect our family several times over. But it turns out, that failure was failing to protect them from situations that you caused. You were the danger I couldn’t protect them from.”

Mat grumbles, “You shouldn’t have been in the family to have to protect them in the first place.”

Frustrated, I growl, “Get over it brother! We’re family! We have a chance to save the rest of the Shellcrackers that are left. I don’t care how you feel about me, but we’re going to be working together whether you like it or not. Just, just think about the Mana twins for even half a second, would you? They barely survived several situations that you created.”

I finally look Mataalii dead in the eyes, and I see tears streaming down his cheeks as he growls back, “I know! I. I know.” He trails off to silence. There’s an uneasy air between us, and my heart literally aches at the moment as if there’s a sharp pain stabbing into it from the front.

I sigh. Telling someone to get over it is never the right move. Whatever emotions they’re dealing with, they have to deal with at their own pace, but Mat has been harboring hatred for years. There comes a point when something negatively impacting your life is a thing you have to confront and change at its source. I’m sure he thinks of me as the source, but the source is internal, it’s his own hatred or insecurity. He literally has to either get past that hatred, or put it aside somehow.

What about me though? Should I forgive him? I offered up a real apology. I am sorry for having killed him. I don’t want to have killed anyone, least of all family. He was murdering and destroying settlements though. He had to be stopped. I’m willing to write that off as external control, or influence. I’m willing to give this version of Mat a fresh start. I’d just prefer to do that without some toxic hatred lingering and festering that will threaten to boil over and hurt everyone we care about again.

No, I wouldn’t just prefer it, I demand it. It isn’t fair to anyone else that his dislike of me puts them in danger.

I confront him, “Mat. Mat! Look at me. Promise me that whatever anger or hatred you foster, whatever you do, that it stays between me and you. No one else ever has to get hurt again. Got it?”

Mat mumbles, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Frustrated, I sigh and stalk off. That’s probably as close as I’ll get to a guarantee that he won’t lash out at the others. I no longer feel like mingling or reminiscing, or reconnecting. I certainly don’t feel like speaking further with Morgan about Har and Sal. I stand at the deck railing, leaning over it, fidgeting with my fingers, twiddling them.

It strikes me that the Undine is going to need to be used as housing for a while, if our construction efforts on the shield are going to meet Maka-Akari’s expectations of haste. Now that Mat is here, as is the fulgurite, we’ll need to begin the work of preparing all the materials into easily handleable chunks. Beyond that, the construction crews we do have, critterkin and human alike, are going to have to basically drop everything else to create the shield’s latticework. Some specialists are going to have to work with the fulgurite to create the lenses. I figure there will be either three, five, or three hundred sixty lenses. Some number that makes sense for projecting a hemispherical dome, or maybe an entire sphere. Yeah, we want the lumber warrens, the groundwater, and the saltwater moat to remain safe as well. Spice and Teodora will have the answers about that relatively soon. If we’re lucky, they’ll have the plans drawn up by the time the ships make their way through to the moat.

It’s weird, ecological and weather systems don’t work the way that science from fakeworld says they should work, yet more and more things seem to have requirements similar to that world as time passes.

Anyway, to get home, it’s going to take around five and a half hours or so based on what I think our current travel speed is. I think we’re at about 13 knots with the boost of Quetzlcoatl’s blessing. We’re roughly thirty miles south along the coast from the locks of the canal, then the canal is fifty miles long. Yeah, that sounds about right. It’s a good thing Luni had her contingent here cut up the fulgurite and place it on that barge in massive chunks, otherwise it would have been difficult to get the entire beach length and width through the canal.

I hear Luni and Teuila exchanging words nearby. Te asks Lu, “You want to handle this, or should I? My Wonderpunk is stewing over there.”

I can hear Luni shoving Teuila out of the way and whispering, “I got this.”

Suddenly I hear Lu’s bootsteps slapping across the deck quickly as she rushes in my direction. As I turn to catch her, she leaps into me with all her might, bowling us over the edge of the railing into the sea. I can see Teuila facepalming as Lu and I topple over into empty air.

I shapeshift several times quickly up and down my evolutionary line to right myself in the air while holding Lu, ending in draconic form. I flare my wings as our feet scrape the surface of the sea, and Lu begins humming softly while she nestles her head against my scaly chest. Her embrace is warm, comforting. Lu’s dress flares upwards, threatening to flip, until enough of the sea spray wets its edges, weighing it down. The surf is cool upon the heels of my feet. The updraft along the side of the ship is strong enough to keep us gliding on even keel, enough to even regain altitude. The ship begins skipping into the air again thanks to Quetzalcoatl’s blessing, and we rise along with it.

I will say that hurtling headlong into the sea is a pretty solid distraction, and I definitely wasn’t expecting it. A smile creeps across my face, stronger on my left side. I inhale and exhale slow, content breaths while holding Luni aloft. I might as well catch Lu up on everything while we’re down here, even though I told her most of it only a short while ago, in the time loop. Lu nods while nuzzling my collarbone, as if agreeing that I should catch her up on things anyway.

I start, “So, we’re going to be making the shield, you already know that, and you know that we got the idea after having talked to each of the four lesser gods on this continent, but I haven’t told you about our adventures in meeting them yet.”

Lu withdraws her face from my shoulder for a moment to gaze up into my eyes, smiling. I continue, “You were there the first time I dove down into where Lord Deckard Agni, the Pure and Desolate sleeps. The second time I went back was right after, well, right after I killed Mat, you revived him, and left.” I sigh slightly, a single tear edging out of the corner of my left eye.

Carrying on, I say, “When there, you know most of what I learned, but there’s also an entire ecosystem on his back that is incredibly deadly. I took it as a chance to train, once I realized that I could use Lord Agni himself as an infinite wellspring of mana. That may have been a mistake, because my powers and skills grew incredibly rapidly during that time. I’m not sure if I was fighting for my life for hours or days to be honest. When I returned to the Miracle Oak settlement, my powers were too strong for my body, using them all day and night for a while ruined my body, and probably my mind.” Lu coos comfortingly as she grips me tightly.

I surmise, “I had probably the worst bout of self-doubt that I’d ever had. I was a complete mess, physically and emotionally. When I use my powers with any intensity now, they begin to tear apart my insides, threatening to burst outwards. Jaz, Dream, and Lao, and even Luna, all helped make sure I didn’t overdo it after that terrible night. When Lao was helping me, I began the forging of a relationship with purest Umbra, the endless darkness of the vast beyond past the edges of the universe. I can’t connect with it in any meaningful way yet, nor derive my power from it, entirely in place of Radiance as I wish. Still, there’s something to it.”

Lu queries, “Do you think we need to run another radiant purge for you? Would that stop your overpowered pains?”

I shrug, unsure, “No idea, I doubt it. I try my best to keep Radiance and its use as low as possible. Still, while fighting along Lord Agni’s back I picked up a few tricks, and two new forms. One of them is completely ruined from my trip through Leviathan’s innards. I’ll get to that in a second. Te’ll never let me live it down.”

Luni raises an eyebrow with curiosity as she meets my gaze. She doesn’t interrupt however as I explain, “You somehow already had Elder Tolkenstein ready to hand us a map to the Elysium Ascent, did you even know what you were giving us? Where you were sending us?”

Lu shakes her head, answering, “No, I just knew it was important that you have that map, there’s um. You did more than just send the ‘me’ of right then back. You sent all of the ‘Me’s from so many timelines back, and they each faded when, well, I guess this timeline solidified or something. Whenever we passed a point where they made a different choice, or something else happened. They didn’t always tell me why we were doing things. Sometimes I can be a bit of a butt with all the mystery.”

I snort with laughter as Luni self-deprecates, acknowledging one of the main complaints most of our inner circle have with Lu’s secrecy. She cuffs me on the cheek ever so slightly before cupping it and kissing me.

When Lu relents and releases my scaled lips, I continue, “Well, regardless, the Elysium Ascent is where we met Lady Tenith Grayl, the Sky Unending. She’s so beautiful, this enormous serpentine dragon, she has these enormous whiskers and impressive mane that’s like a beard. Her scales are cerulean, and reflective, and refractive, so the lightning storm that constantly follows her makes her light up like the cosmos itself. She’s also a massive dork, in the best way possible. She chatters like a schoolgirl, and is eager for gossip and stories. She’s amazing, she called us friends.”

I heave a sigh, “Even so, she won’t stop the convergence. I understand why, since they’re all awakening, Tenny can finally stop her lonely boring routine of shutting her brain off and flying her cycle of storms endlessly. She gets to see her siblings. Oh yeah, she wants us to call her Tenny, seriously.” Luni looks incredulous as I refer to a goddess by a cutesy nickname, but lets me continue regardless.

I pause for a moment to collect my thoughts, “Oh, right, after Tenny, we went to see Leviathan. If I could put one of them back to sleep permanently, or kill one of them, it would be Leviathan. Of the four, he is the only one that is actively hostile to mortals, and wants us wiped out. He ate Teuila and me. Teuila was able to get out along her arrow path somehow, I think she unlocked a new ability when she figured out how to keep a tether of mana running from her bow to the mana arrow. I had to take a longer route to escape.”

Lu butts in, “You what? Wait, what route?”

I groan, “Ugh, don’t make me say it.”

Lu looks quizzical, “No really, what do you mean?”

I roll my eyes, avoiding her gaze, “I used the forms that I unlocked fighting on Lord Agni’s back to go through Leviathan’s digestive system. I lucked out that at the end of it all, one thin membrane was the only thing blocking my way out what would be the rear exit. Not that any of us have one of those.”

Lu snickers until she accidentally snorts with laughter, then she covers her mouth with one hand, hiding the fact that she’s still laughing.

I chuckle along with her a moment while rolling my eyes in mock exasperation, “Anyway, while I was in there, I had to risk something pretty bad. The two new forms? They come with some sort of sentience that wants control. If I use a lot of mana, I can fight off that control. The first form I could almost afford if I took breaks, but it was melting while traveling through Leviathan. The second form though, I couldn’t afford the amount of mana to fight off that control, so I sort of met with the consciousness in the more powerful form. It calls itself The King, or King, which makes some sense, since I took it from a Mite-Hulk King. I swear, since you seem to know some of the things from fakeworld too, you’d swear his personality was ripped straight from campy B Horror cinema.”

Luni pretends to whistle innocently as I accuse her of having memories similar to mine. Sure Lu, sure. After all this time, I wouldn’t be surprised if I accidentally left one of my personalities inside Lu with my time shenanigans, and that that personality shared our fakeworld memories with her.

Lu waggles her eyebrows, “Leaving things inside me now, huh? Phrasing.” I blush furiously. See what I mean? That wouldn’t have any meaning if she didn’t have some fakeworld context.

Lu interrupts my train of thought, “Maybe I just spend a lot of time talking to a lot of humans. Hm, think of that?”

I snort, scoffing, “You’ve been teasing me with fakeworld contextual hints since way before we even knew humans existed. Even those other timeline personalities in you seemed like they didn’t reveal it before we ended up in Eimsas, Geawerene’s frontier town. You were way too surprised, like the rest of us. Plus, we can’t talk to humans! Well, you can’t, I can. Unless I did leave a piece of me inside you, oh stop it, put your eyebrows down, you meanie.”

I blush as Lu continues to use her expressions alone to tease me. I jokingly roar with frustration, “Argh, you got me way off topic! You butt! You’re such a distraction!”

Lu chimes in, laughing gleefully, “Hehehe, but you’re so fun to tease!”

I roll my eyes but can’t help smiling as widely as possible, “You complete meanie, heh.” I have to blink tears of mirth out of my eyes so I can continue to see as we glide along next to the Undine. Where even was I in the conversation?

Lu wrangles my thought train, “Something about coming out alright in the end. I bet you were relieved when you were out of Leviathan, huh? Removing King probably felt like taking a huge load off. It’s funny that he was your number two form attempt.”

I snort with laughter again, caught by surprise, “You’re as bad as Teuila! And you complain about Agwai’s puns, sheesh! Hah.”

Lu relents, “Okay okay, go on, please?”

I regain my composure, “Oh, right, yeah. King and I got out of there, and I haven’t risked using that form since. He took over my left arm near the end and wouldn’t give it back. Anyway, the next stop was Maka-Akari, Gaea’s Cradle. We had to go through that dungeon that Teuila found, and of course we ended up shattering the last of the tricolor barriers that previously existed in the land. The four of us blew the lid off the cragbeast warren, the lava destroyed our pond and its blue barrier that would show up during Vampguppy’s rage phase, and Te and I had to fight inside the green barrier room.”

Luni nudges for me to elucidate, so I do, “Oh, right, the boss, it, um, glp, it seemed like it was a dracolich, but it was actually an invisible, glp, Mind Blower.”

Pain and fear grip my body and mind. My muscles spasming and locking my wings in place is the only thing keeping Luni and me from toppling into the sea. I have to literally ride out my panic attack, losing some ground on the Undine as my glide slows without micro-adjustments of my wings. Lu coos softly while stroking my scalp and neck, patiently waiting out the panic.

When I come to, we have lost so much ground that we’ve almost landed on the barge. We’re at the very rear of the procession of ships at the moment. I mumble, “So, uh, when we got in the room, a big spell hit us, with like, a comet, or meteor. It pretty much wrecked us right off the bat, mostly Teuila since she’s less thermally resistant. Then two more spells came in quick succession, one that I was sure was going to kill Teuila, so I intercepted it, and it nearly killed me. Then another one that sealed my magic for basically the whole fight. That fight sucked, because the invisible thing kept bringing the dracolich back. We got some nifty trinkets from the fight though, this holy aura double wrist-mounted crossbow for example. A staff that has tons of spells in it, including one that lets me see aura, a harness for Lil, another weird orbital stone thing for Teuila. A ring for her as well, it seems to reflect magic somewhat. Since she almost died to a single spell, I felt it prudent for her to wear it. Oh, we got a ton of currency, so I bought this for you.”

I fish around in my mental inventory for the object I bought Luni, there was only one of it in a single shop interface. I pull out a backpack plushie that looks reminiscent of Lil’s base form. I also pull out a cute red silk necktie. We land on the barge so I can hand the items to Luni. Lu immediately tosses the tie over her head, tying it loosely around her neck, and she straps the backpack plush on the same shoulder as her harp.

Luni bounces up and down clapping her hands excitedly as she squees with glee, “Eee, My Hero, you’re so sweet and thoughtful, thank you!”

I hiccup, not realizing I’d been holding my breath in order to not whistle at Luni when she put the tie on. I guess you could say she takes my breath away. It’s just a cute little accessory, but it’s so out of place in our world, and yet it causes me to look at Luni in a whole new light.

Lu smirks, “Really, that’s all it takes to flip your switch? Usually it’s the other way around, not putting clothes on.”

I blush heatedly, furiously. She is so mean. See what I mean? I rattle my brain about by shaking my head vigorously to return to my previous train of thought.

I ramble, “You, I, err, grr, how do you even. No. Nope. Just nope. Not even going to engage. You’re so mean, and I love you for it.”

“And you love me for it.” Luni completes my sentence at the same time, then says, “Jinx.”

I chuckle, smirking, “Anyway you bubbly goon. We survived, obviously, though just barely. Then we talked to Maka-Akari who basically said she’d buy us some time if she could sense that we’re actually working on the shield of lacrimosa trifecta, which is what we need the fulgurite and porous stone for. When I last checked, Spice and Teodora were like, maybe eighty percent done with the plans for the shield yesterday. I figure they’ll probably be done by the time the ships arrive.”

Lu smirks in return, “I’m sure they will. Hey, drop that form for a bit? I’ve got something to show you.” Luni hops down between some massive blocks of fulgurite into darkness where I can no longer see her.

I oblige, dropping to my cherubic form and lowering myself into the crevasse. The edge of the fulgurite is sharp and I lose my grip, tumbling a few feet, wedging myself against Luni in the crevasse, reminiscent of our time in the cragbeast warren.

I flush with embarrassment, “You planned this, didn’t you?”

Luni grins and audaciously replies, “Yep! Heeee.”

I joke, “Just couldn’t wait to get me alone, huh?”

Luni jokes back, “Well duh. That’s what I wanted to show you, me and you all tight together. Wink wink.”

She literally just said wink wink, I’d roll my eyes if I weren’t blushing so hard pressed up against her soft curves. My heart is fluttering so rapidly. Argh, she’s way too good at this kind of teasing.

Luni continues joking while riding my thoughts, “Why thank you.” She ends her thanks with a wink that I can feel as her eyelashes tickle my neck.

I sigh, relenting, snuggling in against Luni. It’s not like I wasn’t aching for pretty much exactly this for several weeks now. It’s fun to have her tease me, and I’m glad to have her back, in all of her teasing glory. Plus I love and revere her so much. We’ve been through so much together, and she has done so much for us, and the timeline. She might very well be the most important being in all of existence right now, as far as this timeline is concerned. Hm, I wonder how I got the time skill the first time around. Maybe the first obelisk breaking was always going to give the time skill to me anyway, but having Luni channel the time skill this time around is what allowed me to have her be the biggest part of the grand plan.

Luni pouts, “You started that train off so fun, is that really what you want to think about right now?”

Flushing with embarrassment, I argue, “Well, I’m kind of stuck, both with whatever direction my thought trains take, and well, against your full, shapely, um, lovely curves. Phew, I almost used other words there.”

Luni smirks and salaciously asks, “Like what? Luscious? Voluptuous? Ample?”

I gulp and sputter, barely able to catch my breath as the heat rises through my face to my eartips.

Luni seems to sober up slightly, “Reggie? Do you, um. Do you think if Teuila had all the curves, and I didn’t, that you wouldn’t even pay attention to me?”

I frown, “How could you think that? I love and fell in love with Teuila without her being curvaceous.”

Lu presses, “Just if, if hypothetically, if Te had everything you liked about me, this version of me, and I didn’t, do you think we’d ever have gotten this close?”

Now it’s my turn to pout, “Lu, I love you, I don’t know who you’d be without your personality, our shared experiences, your humor, maybe even your body. How could I tell you how I might feel about that person who doesn’t exist? She wouldn’t be you. If you were a different person, would I still have fallen in love with you? Well, maybe, if that person tried as hard as you did to take care of me and tease me and build up our friendship. But would she? If she didn’t have your personality?”

Luni frowns, then gnaws on her bottom lip as she seems to get lost in thought. I nuzzle my face into her hair, and we slip slightly lower in the crevasse, smooshing more tightly against each other. I imagine that some other version of Luni that didn’t work so hard to make me notice and love her would probably be completely wrapped up in her relationship with Lil. Still, this Luni is our Lu. She’s our Lu and I’m so glad she’s back. I wish I could fight off whatever self-doubt she’s experiencing, but I don’t want to lie, even in hypotheticals. I think that personally, all versions of me have probably loved all versions of her throughout time, at some point or another in our lives. Why else would I have given her the fate of the timeline, of possibly the entire universe?

Luni seems to cheer up slightly as she playfully sinks her teeth into my collarbone, nipping lightly.

I joke, “Ow, help, I’m being eaten alive by a voracious voluptuous beastie. Hehe.”

Luni tries to free one arm to playfully smack me in the face. I can tell that’s what she wants to do, but she can’t get her arm free. I try not to laugh at her for being the cause of her own predicament and inability. We’d probably Shellcracker Family Slap Fight if our limbs were free. Luni gives up trying to slap me and instead presses tighter up against me for a moment.

My head swims at the sensation as I blush. Lu grins and says, “Mission accomplished, nyeh.”

When Luni sticks her tongue out to partially blow a raspberry, her tongue ends up partially in my ear, and we both have a mild panic set in, or something. Now I get to tease Lu, “I didn’t realize Lil taught you to be a scalemate tongue tie-er. Been hanging around with a lot of Nagas, have we?”

Luni playfully fumes, “Oh shut up, I didn’t realize your face was so close.”

I laugh, “How could you not realize my face was so close, you just scrunched up against me even tighter only a second before. Is the meanie getting her just desserts? Hm, now there’s a gross train of thought, my ear being someone’s dessert. Oh that reminds me, a few nights back, I woke up with my ear in Teuila’s mouth, and she was nomming in her sleep, she totally denied it though, hah!”

Luni laughs along with me, “Te will never admit that happened, will she?”

I agree, “Probably not, but still, it was funny. I’m sorry that you missed out on so many family cuddle piles because of me and the needs of the timeline Lu. I’m sorry that we missed out on being together because of me and the timeline. I’m, I’m just sorry. I missed you so much.”

Luni coos softly, “Shhh, I know, I know. It’s, well, not okay exactly, but I knew what I was getting into, more or less. I don’t want to waste a moment now that I’m back. I sort of know, hm, no, can’t tell you that yet either.”

My face screws up. My jaw can’t drop any lower from the revelation, but I can almost guarantee Luni was going to say she sort of knows how many moments we have left.

Lu interrupts my thought train, “Bup bup bup, no guessing, My Hero. Enough of that.”

Luni further interrupts my thoughts with her lips in another fashion as they meet mine. I feel as if I melt like putty against her. I can probably redact the rest of our time spent stuck here until we get home.

As the barge slows to a halt, Lu and I are fairly certain we’ve arrived at the settlement, so we begin working to extricate ourselves.

As we struggle to untangle our limbs and inch upwards, I say, “Te’s probably worried about us.”

Luni responds, “Nah, I told her this was going to happen.”

I pause my extrication, flabbergasted, I ask, “You what? You knew this was going to happen?”

Lu answers while laughing, “No no, not like, not exactly this. I said I wanted some private time with you, and I was going to knock you into the sea to get it if I had to.”

I find myself chuckling as I wear half a smile, smirking wide. I try to request, “Lu, maybe if you put your foot there? Or your hand on my knee, you could get up first? Ow, wait, oof, okay, keep going.”

Luni giggles while slowly using me as a perch to climb out of the crevasse. The edges on these slabs of fulgurite are simultaneously smooth and sharp, so I worry she’s going to cut herself. I use some inventory magic to place some clay handholds. They won’t support either of our weight for long since they’re not fired into place, but they should soften any grips as we clamber out, using our backs and legs to brace ourselves between walls of the crevasse.

Once we’re finally free, I lightly bump into Luni, leaning on her, playfully going limp so that she has to catch all of my weight. Lu grunts and shoves me back to a standing position while I laugh. She then playfully baps me in the face, leaving her hand on it. I chase her hand away with one of mine. Her other hand baps my face, I chase that one away as well. We repeat this for a dozen seconds, laughing all the while, until Luni lets me catch her hands. I smile wide, staring into her eyes before assuming my draconic form and taking flight, carrying her aloft.

As usual, Lu got me out of my own head and kept me happily distracted, but the pressing issues are rather serious, so I can’t ignore them for long. I’m truly, incredibly lucky to have the inner circle that I do.

I expect to see Teuila leaping off the deck of the Undine, but I don’t. Instead, I see her working with the crew to secure the sails, tie everything down, hauling the gangplank into position, and helping unload people and provisions.

Hm, that brings to light a new point. We’re going to need an endless supply of currency for the ofbloods and rezzers that are assembled to be kept in food and certain supplies. I know that they can turn profits by gathering some materials, and crafting those into things to sell at the shops, but some of us are hunters, not crafters. We might need to create a small hunting zone with respawning hostiles to handle this many new people. It won’t be safe to head to the insect warren to hunt when the convergence begins. Linti would go crazy without something to hunt. Fishing just won’t cut it for some of us.

I’ll have to bring the idea of constructing a hunting zone up to Spice and Teodora momentarily. They might be able to assign a crew that can handle such excavation who wouldn’t be great at expediting the construction of the shield anyway. If not, the shield is the more important construction. Maybe it will be as simple as capturing a bread golem and putting it in a cave that’s carved with a small pond, and sandy beach.

Speaking of Spice and Teodora, it looks like nearly the entire population of the settlement is in the plaza, milling about in excitement at the prospect of having newcomers on ships. I’m sure there’s some apprehension too, but at least I can spot the two of them each carrying half a dozen or more rolls of vellum. The plans must be complete, or nearly complete. I land Lu and myself amidst the crowd near the two of them.

I request, “Lu, do you think you could handle catching up a few of the important figures on what’s going on, to keep apprehension at a minimum? Maybe find Bettie, fill her in, and let her talk to Sir Reginald and Priss. Then go see Lao and Ag, they miss you terribly, and you deserve to get to relax while you catch up with them.”

Luni beams a smile my way, “Yes, yes, yes yes yes, totally. Mwah, you’re the best. I’ll see you later, Hero.” Luni kissing me basically mid-sentence broadens the smile on my face wide to my eyes once again.

I wave over Spice and Teodora, and Teodora begins immediately, “Ye daft punk, I dinnae know how ye did it, but ye did it. That’s most of the materials right there alone tae start the construction. Though we’ll be needing plenty more by the time we’re through, apparently ye have that covered though too, dinnae ye?”

I nod, but as I’m about to speak, Teodora continues, “Well, ye’ll be having all my crews on this for months tae even see half of it constructed. Do ye have any clue how long we have before we need tae have this thing running?”

I respond, “I think we have a couple, maybe a few months at most.”

Teodora sighs exasperatedly, “Tsk, Ye’re lucky ye brought in new bodies too. Think any of them would object tae working on this? If ye can keep up materials, I can set supervisors and sub supervisors even for the unskilled tae help out.”

As I’m about to respond, Spice cuts in, “I’m sure Reggie will work something out so that everyone is chipping in Teddy. If not Reggie, then Luni, now that she’s back, or Bettie. Come on, we’re both excited to show Rej these plans, we’ve been working day and night for half a week.”

Teodora acquiesces, “Alright, alright, ye’ve got me there. Lets get tae the plans, go ahead and show them tae our wild one here.”

Spice excitedly drags me aside, with Teodora following along quickly. We enter the nearest unoccupied building, the Shellcracker residence of course. Here, Spice pulls a large drafting table from his inventory, an action that surprises me slightly. I can’t even keep up with remembering which of us rezzers have inventory magic anymore, or how much capacity each of them have. I could be reading everyone’s stat pages repeatedly I guess, but that would be exhausting. Spice unrolls the first of six massive sheets of vellum, revealing complex blueprints that I can barely wrap my head around.

Spice elaborates, “So, this right here, this will be the foundation that we have, we’ll have to go to bedrock, we’ve made the most efficient support structure we could, to save as much time as possible before getting to the actual construction.” Spice unrolls another sheet of vellum, “And this, this is the base, the first layer of the latticework, and the next parchment is the simultaneous scaffolding we’ll have going up alongside of it. Thankfully, even though this will be a massive construction, the majority of the shield will be metaphysical, magic and energy. We need lattice-work, lenses, refractory agents, and energy tunnels. Teodora had great ideas on how to cut the amount of material needed in dozens of places without risking structural integrity. I went a bit overboard in the first few drafts.”

I nod along while whistling low, appreciatively. Spice and Teodora have put in a massive amount of work already on this project, just in these plans. All the math along the margins, everything about this is tremendously impressive.

I hazard to ask, “What’s it going to take to start working the foundation down to bedrock? I’d like to get started as soon as possible. Also, you mentioned energy channels, could you make sure that one opening is aimed directly towards the Naga’s settlement? I’m fairly certain we’ll be reuniting with a dear friend soon enough, who will have been working on exactly that.”

Spice and Teddy look stunned momentarily. Teodora breaks the stunned silence by whistling a low note of appreciation. She asks, “Ye really have put everything intae this havenae ye? Well, ye’ll be in luck. The foundry and forges ye set up can churn out enough steel tae basically pour the foundation down tunnels like post-holes. Some of them human mages can set about tae creating the post holes with their magics. We can have the foundation done in a week if we have enough money tae buy all the coke and steel.”

I glance at the over forty million currency that I got as my share of raiding the most recent dungeon with Teuila. Currency that the boss alone provided half of which. Between this, and magical inventory duplication shenanigans, I’m pretty certain I’ve got their monetary needs covered for now. Relying on me isn’t a permanent solution for the settlement though. As far as I know, I’m the only one that can duplicate with space magic. If something happens to me, I want the settlement to remain safe, however long the cataclysm of the convergence lasts. I guess it’s no wonder that Luni said I wouldn’t see Lil til near the end of it all.

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I sigh, thinking of my dearest, oldest friend, “I can probably handle the monetary needs, just tell me what to buy, from which vendors, and let me know if anything rare needs to be duplicated. I’ll make myself available twenty four seven. I guess that’s why I can’t go help Lil out with the digging. TQ must be guiding Lucky and Lil on what to do, and it’s probably taking months to do it all by themselves.”

Spice’s eyes widen in realization, “That’s who you were talking about? Oh, I get it now! Just how long have you been working towards this plan?”

I chuckle as I wear a wry smile. I don’t answer though. It wouldn’t be a lie to say my entire life, and even before my life, I had been working to this point. Not long ago, I sent the basic framework for becoming the me of today back into my spirit self, and possibly beyond.

Teodora and Spice give me lists of materials to start purchasing, values and quantities, there’s certainly many many millions worth of material to acquire. I bid them farewell as I head off to the shops to see who is currently helming them, to see if I can knock any of the rarer, more expensive materials off of the list. I can then spend time duplicating them.

After several hours of shopping, and creating Umbral duplicates of either expensive objects to sell, or of rare, expensive objects that are needed, I feel rather exhausted. It has been an exciting day. I even created an umbral duplicate of an entire shop structure. The most basic, smallest market stall possible, but still, it could come in handy someday.

As I’m leaning against a wall with my eyes closed, my danger wraps warn me of an incoming attack, but I don’t bother dodging as I get slugged in the shoulder by Linti. I grin at her with my eyes still closed, catching her fist as it connects with my shoulder. I pivot, spin, and rotate my hand enough that Linti ends up unbalanced, flipping around to face away, falling backwards into my arms.

Grinning, I greet her, “Hi Lin. Big day. Everything’s about to start. Lu is finally home.”

Linti actually allows herself to purr as she leans back into me, then catches herself, and coughs gruffly to play it off. She then gets serious, “Does that mean your little shit of a brother is back as well?”

Most of us ‘rezzers tend to avoid harsh language, I’m not exactly sure why, but hearing Linti use an expletive definitely informs me just how deadly serious I have to take this conversation.

I carefully answer, “He is here, and Luni has coerced him to help. I’m not sure if she took away any of his mobility powers somehow, but she does have him wary of the constant threat of these.”

I place a pair of magisteel handcuffs on Linti’s wrists, apparating them with inventory magic. She struggles against them momentarily before growling, “I, grr, I can’t get out of them. My magic isn’t working.”

I nod as I recall them to my inventory. Hoping to sooth her, I state, “That’s what we’re holding over Mat’s head for now, at the bare minimum. He has also been changed by his book. I’m not exactly sure how, but he’s definitely stewing, and regretful in some ways. I wouldn’t confront him asking for an apology, but you could probably hurt him emotionally if you thought about what to say for a bit. Please don’t though. We need his magic.”

Linti continues to growl and grumble, shoving away from me, leaving my embrace. She stalks off, but then stalks back, and aims her claws flatly at my throat. I don’t even blink, as my eyes are still closed. Linti sighs in frustration and slumps against me, bashing into me a tad hard.

Linti rants, “First, you expect me to just drop years of animosity with scalekind out of the blue, because you somehow brokered peace. No, first you show up out of the blue and frustrate me to no end, holding back the entire time. Then your jerk of a brother nearly kills me and my family. Then you expect me to drop the animosity. I still can’t help but grit my teeth every time I think about it when I’m out hunting, that I’m leaving my family alone next to dozens of serpents. I know they’re not alone, and Spring is powerful now, but still. Then the whole thing with me not being able to help you in whatever big time ends up being the most critical, or I frickin’ die. Shellcracker, you make some gorram big asks.”

I gulp, “I’m, I’m really sorry Linti. You mean so much to me, Hunter. I wouldn’t make these asks if you weren’t so important to me.”

She grumbles and playfully leans her head sideways fast enough, hard enough to headbutt me lightly. The bump hurts for a moment, but I quietly chuckle regardless. As I’m about to hug Linti and talk further, she shoves herself upwards and away again.

As she walks away, she calls back, “You said Lu’s back, right Shellcracker? In that case, I’m going to get back to work at stealing your girlfriends.”

I chuckle again as Linti stalks away with all the confident air of a predator seeking its prey. I’m not sure who I’m more worried for, Luni, or Linti. They can both be merciless flirts in different ways.

After dropping off the majority of the required shoppable resources, I gaze out over the throng of people still milling about in the plaza. It has been long enough that it’s late evening now, the sun has already set, and still people are mingling excitedly. I seek out Bettie to let her know that I need her help setting up groups of people willing to help from any and all factions. She occasionally lets slip one of her worried ‘your grace’s or other affectations that refer to me as human noble, but for the most part, she’s motherly, yet authoritative. I sigh as I recall that she was a mother. I’m fairly certain her child didn’t make it out of Eimsas.

After that, I stop by the Undine to see if Morgan is willing to have his crew help. As expected, Morgan seems jovial, even in accepting additional responsibility. He even lets me know who to talk to among the ‘rezzers aboard the ships to set up groups of workers. I take care of that as quickly as I can, because my energy and wakefulness are waning. Everyone is willing to do their part, whether or not they know exactly what’s coming, and what’s at stake.

We have one or two individuals that some people might classify as lazy, but they’re either just laid-back, or they’re thinkers or artists. I’m not going to begrudge them living their lives the way they wish. Enough people want to work to feel fulfilled, that things get done. We don’t have to act on capitalistic intentions when things literally magically spawn and respawn.

I retire to the Shellcracker residence, its second floor is complete, and there’s now doors in all the doorways. It even has a cellar. Inside I find Elder Winter snoozing, surrounded by the spheriform cats of our family. I find Olioli gnawing on furniture, being watched over by Agwai, and I sense the faintest presence from the second story. I wave to Agwai as I ascend to the second level.

Luni in an exasperated tone telepathically sends, “Please come rescue me.”

I nearly bolt straight to her location, but I realize she’s being slightly facetious. As I round a corner, there in an open doorway, Lin and Lu are playing another game of affection-sharing. Luni kisses Linti on the cheek, then shoves her playfully aside to stride in my direction. Linti actually pouts, for the briefest moment, and sends angry telepathic waves denying my current thought train.

Lu and I both bite our lips, pursing them to try to stifle our laughter. Lu calls back, “Oh come on Lightning, let’s go snuggle, you jealous Judy.”

Linti starts to try to deny that she even wants to join, but relents, and the three of us enter the door that they had been blocking. There’s a fairly plush bed, untouched, along one of its walls. It looks like our family members have been making some wealth, and spending it on niceties to finish and furnish our home while I wasn’t paying attention. I suppose Linti has been making bank with all of her hunting, and Teuila too probably.

The three of us lay in the bed, Linti and I on either side of Luni. I raise an eyebrow at Linti, Lightning Hunter from the opposite side of Luni. Lin reaches over Lu and playfully shoves me hard enough that I roll off of the bed, laughing.

I send a telepathic feeler out for Teuila to see if she’s nearby. She says she’s making friends on the Undine and the two other ships, and will be home later tonight, so I let her know which room we’re in, in case I’m already asleep by the time she gets back.

Luni and Linti chat low, quietly, and it’s not long before I’m beginning to fall asleep, holding Luni. I want to stay awake and chat with them, to join in on their conversation, but I’m simply exhausted by everything that’s been happening recently, and all the work I’ll start having to do in the morning. I’ll be using my space magic and thermokinesis for easily a dozen hours every day for the next few months.

The last thing I hear before I fall asleep is Linti saying, “Look, Reggie’s my bud, my pal, my, y’know, whatever. I don’t like this prophecy thing you dumped on them Lu. You didn’t see the hurt in their eyes when they were trying to get me to take the second choice.”

Luni’s shoulders droop and she feels sad in my arms as I drift to sleep holding her. My dreams are uneventful, I think.

As I awaken, I realize Teuila is flopped across the three of us, increasing all of our gravity, so I can’t get up. At least not without waking the others. At some point, Luni somehow rolled over to face me while we slept, and I just now noticed that we’re sleeping lip-to-lip, noses nestled against each other. I nuzzle Lu softly as I lay in bed awaiting everyone else’s awakening. She nips at my nose playfully, clueing me in that she’s actually awake as well. Linti groans and tries to shove Teuila off, but I can feel our gravity increase even further as she tries.

I hear a faint crackle of electricity, and Teuila quietly hisses, “Don’t you dare! Eep!”

A tiny jolt shocks the four of us as Linti lets a miniscule amount of voltage course across Teuila’s feet. I’d say the fact that she nailed herself as well meant that her plan backfired, but she’s immune to harm from electricity. Linti is struggling to stifle her laughter as the three of us have sparks lingering along our limbs and hair. Our hair is also ridiculously poofed from the sudden shock that raised our hackles.

Te grumbles, “Oo you massive butt, I’m going to get you back when we’re hunting today.”

Linti sticks her tongue out at Teuila, blowing a raspberry as a challenge, “Nyeh, I’d like to see you try, Toots.” Lin bolts out of bed and sets off out of the residence at a sprint with Teuila chasing after her.

Luni giggles, “How long has it been like this between the two of them?”

I shrug, “I think this is about the most playful it has been. I think they went from friendly rivals to falling in love pretty quickly, and are falling more in love every day. Maybe. Neither would or could say that though. Lin would just deny it, and Te would struggle to convey it. Though Lin has said she loves us, flat out.”

Luni gnaws on her lip contemplatively, “Hm, alright I suppose. I do really hate her though, you know? Well, I mean, not really really, but it’s just so frustrating. She’s so stupidly pretty, and skilled, and exciting, and just, just. Ugh. You’re a butt for finding her.”

I laugh, “Excuse me? I’m a butt for meeting someone that you and Te are both falling for?”

Luni blows a raspberry, “Nyeh, yes, exactly.”

I can’t help laughing further. Still, I stand and bodily lift Luni out of the bed, spinning her around in my arms. We embrace for several minutes, kissing the whole while, before we start our day.

I begin, “I don’t know what you’re going to–”

Luni interrupts me, placing a finger on my lips, then smooshing it around my face. She explains, “I’ll be at your side, from now on, until the end of this mess. Every minute. I’m not going to miss another moment.”

I can’t describe how happy that makes me. After being without Luni for so long, having cycled through various worries and fears about how she truly felt about me, I truly can’t find the words to express this joy.

As I meet with Teodora and Spice, I realize another reason Luni is going to stay with me, every minute of every day. Because I’ll be spending almost as much time with Mat during the entire project. Thankfully, they have one more project for me today before we’ll even be able to start forming the pumice from the ships and barge into usable chunks.

Teodora requests, “Ye’ve got tae get a smidge more fulgurite if ye can. We cannae chance mistakes costing the final construction to be incomplete, so we need a few hundred spare cubic meters. Do ye think ye can swing that?”

I ponder for only a moment before nodding.

Teodora acknowledges my acquiescence, “Good, if ye get that done today, rest yerself up. We’ll be putting ye tae work starting tomorrow. We’ll construct scaffolding, and essentially siege towers today while the ground crews blast out the foundation holes. Alright, get, can’t ye see we’re busy?”

Teodora laughs as she shoos Luni and me away. Spice shrugs at her jocular nature when I raise an eyebrow towards him. Sugar and Magnus hang back nearby, they look like they’re bonding, either about construction and destruction, or about their shared jealousy of Teodora.

Still, Lu and I have a goal. We walk to the lumber warrens to snag a bit of lumber on the way out. I’ve got enough lumber and clay now, so I wrap my arms around Luni’s waist, place my hands on her hips, assume my draconic form, and take to the skies. Once there, I summon the cushioned vehicle around us. Luni nods appreciatively as I blast us off eastward. I can’t reach even close to the same velocity that I’m able to hit with Teuila’s aid from her gravity oriented magics, but it still only takes a fraction of an hour to reach the coast

Setting us down, I drop back down to cherubic form and sit in the sand, mostly bare, save the Valkyrie leggings. I dig my heels into the sand and wiggle my toes as the cool sand begins warming with the sun’s early dawn rays. Luni sits next to me, leaning against my right side. She shapes sand into a mound and appears to be constructing a crude castle or mountain, until she draws a face in it. The face doesn’t hold shape since we didn’t intentionally muddy the sand with water.

As Lu and I rest against one another, I busy myself in my inventory as I’ve always done over the years, almost passively, nearly innately. This time though, I have a purpose. I create a loose conveyor belt of logs that should also serve as a raft if I’ve done the tying and lashing correctly. I then set a flat sheet of fired clay atop it. I nudge Luni playfully and nip at her ear as I stand. She sighs and joins me in standing. There’s a slightly worried look in her eyes, but her thoughts are muddled to me, I can’t quite read them. She smiles at me as I try though.

I deploy the raft conveyor sort of vehicle, and begin scooping sand atop it. Luni follows suit wordlessly. We work for several hours with a mix of manual relocation, and inventory magic. Before I try to glass the load I’ve created, I need to test out how much fulgurite is made from a single one of my lowest mana lightning bolts.

Luni gazes on at me worriedly as I aim a finger towards the beach sands to our north. Loosing a single one hundred mana lightning bolt, I cringe in pain as the mana courses through my system, threatening to burst forth from my muscles. I could swear tears well up in Luni’s eyes for a brief moment.

Lu mumbles, “I could see it. I saw the stress under your skin. You must be hurting so bad. That was really the lowest power you could muster, wasn’t it? You have those magic limitations, certain energy costs or whatever are the minimum requirements for things. You can’t hold back any more than that. My poor Hero.”

I wear a lopsided smile, half a frown. I’m upset that I’m making Luni worry about me, but I’m happy that she cares so much. She’s right though. One hundred energy is what it costs to activate a spell. Certain magical effects, generally ongoing things, can be activated at less cost, but manifestations of an element or an attack as a spell have that minimum requirement. Now it’s time to see just how much fulgurite I can create in a single blast with nearly all of my mana as a single spell. I know there’s some kind of multiplier more than as if I had just fired off a bunch of one hundred mana bolts. The low bolt created maybe a cubic foot of fulgurite.

I let loose the blast that takes about fifty five hundred mana north along the beach. The mana courses through my body, rocking me to my very core, nearly bowling me over. As the blast races northward, the primary bolt leaves arcing trails to each side that seek ground. These secondary bolts leave a web of fulgurite in their wake along the sides of the primary branch that extends for thousands of feet.

I black out for the briefest of moments and begin falling, yet I’m caught by Luni. I nearly fall out of her grasp as I’m slick with blood, my internal lacerations broke through my skin with that blast. If I made a cubic foot with the smallest blast, I ended up making dozens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of fulgurite with the blast that took up most of my energy. That is definitely explosive growth of an exponential modifier. It’s not the same as miles upon miles of beach being glassed by a limit break, but it’s still really impressive.

I slip from Luni’s grasp and flump onto the ground, panting. While slumped in the sand my head swims slightly in an exhausted daze. Luni plays with my hair as she kneels behind me, draping herself lightly over my shoulders, helping to prop me up from behind. I’ll tell Spice and Teodora if they need more fulgurite, that I created this long streak. For now, I can put a little less force into glassing this load of sand on my makeshift raft after I meditate for a bit.

Luni nods along with my thought train, swaying lightly side to side against the side of my head. When I’ve recovered enough mana, I try to approximate the amount of power I’ll need to shape an overhead bolt before I facepalm. I withdraw my thunderstick from my inventory. The staff that conjures thunder and lightning. I can feel Luni smirking from behind me, and she’s trying not to laugh at me, since she knows I just hurt myself for basically no reason, but I’m still hurt after all, and she does worry.

Standing unsteadily, I aim the thunderstick towards the amassed pile of sand. Luni helps support me, whispering her usual, “You got this Hero, always have, always will,” in my ear.

I begin a routine similar to a staff kata from cinema in my fakeworld memories. I add more twirls of the staff until I can feel the power coalescing, the air humming with a static charge. When it feels as if I’ve accumulated enough charge, I release it, slamming my staff into the ground, aimed towards the massive mound of sand. A thunderclap nearly bowls me over, but lightning streaks from the sky, through the staff, into the sand for as long as I maintain channeling it. I work the energies through the staff as long as I can, until I hear wood beginning to splinter. I immediately stop channeling and drop the staff back to my inventory. I do not want to find out what happens if a magical staff is destroyed at all, much less one in the active process of channeling dangerous magic.

I walk to the far side of the raft, and lance it with a bolt of mana worth around a thousand energy or so to finish glassing the sand into fulgurite. This feels as if it pauses my heart momentarily, as for a brief moment, I’m unable to catch my breath, or breathe at all. The moment passes as quickly as it arrived, but the pain of the momentary grip on my heart lingers. I begin trying to haul the rolling raft towards the river of the canal, but Luni frowns at me and stops me.

Lu says, “Hold it right there buster, we can get the lock guards to help out with this. They don’t actually need to guard the locks anymore anyway.”

Luni pulls out a mirror and signals to the south where the lock is, and there’s a glint in return in a mere moment. In a few minutes, a small squad approaches from the south, and thankfully it doesn’t take much to convince them to help haul this towards the river. Luni lets her music enhance our progress, and I work along with the guards to haul it into the river. Once it’s set adrift, Luni and I mount it, waving goodbye to the guards.

Lu and I lazily float west along the canal’s river. It would take something like sixteen hours to make the trip at the base rate of flow, but thankfully we’re not lacking in propulsion options. Still, Luni and I are in no hurry. We perch atop the new mini load of fulgurite, and I let myself nap with my head resting in her lap.

Apparently Luni used some sort of magic to speed along our journey, as it’s barely early afternoon when we arrive back at the settlement. I must have been sleeping the entire time, because I feel fantastically refreshed and rested. I squeeze Luni’s thigh appreciatively as I stand slowly. Luni uses the soap stone to clean both of us up, between my bleeding and all the sand, we’d gotten a bit grimy looking.

After informing Teddy and Spice that there’s another massive line of fulgurite available if they need it along the beach north of the canal, they give me instructions on what I’ll be needing to form and shape with Mataalii. They’d already instructed Mat, who seems itching to get started, but everyone agrees that we’ll start the lava manipulation tomorrow. Today, I’ll duplicate a few more things and rest up in preparation for basically endless magic between now and project completion.

Luni and I spend the day walking around the settlement. We find out who needs any extra purchasable supplies, then end up buying or duplicating them. Afterwards, we end up napping in quiet corners. Honestly, it’s not a bad life, if things could go on like this forever, I’d be fine with that.

Linti and Teuila don’t get home until much later than I’m used to seeing them arrive, and they look haggard, spent. Lu and I rush up to them, confused and concerned.

Te, gasping for breath, explains, “Started off fine, wasn’t taking it seriously, hff, had to pay, whoof, Lin back for this morning. Things were silly, pranking back and forth. Oof, ugh, we didn’t even let it get out of hand before something happened. Everything got stronger, faster, harder, bigger, more numerous.”

Luni and I tend to Teuila and Linti’s wounds as tenderly as we can, Lin grumbles that she’s fine all the while, but there are several deep gashes along her abdomen, and patches where her fur has been melted by acid, and the skin beneath is heavily scarred. Even though it was rough on them, they’ve brought back their largest haul yet, maybe double the largest haul they’d ever reeled in before.

As I’ve thought a few times, everything in the world seems to be reaching some sort of critical point. The evidence is more spawns, more lava, more weather, more physics, more spell power, more intrinsic cost to using mana. The list goes on. I don’t know if there’s even going to be a limit, or a cap to all of these changes, or if it’ll go on endlessly. Will we be able to keep up, and still survive? If we even survive the convergence. Luni doesn’t let her thoughts or expressions reveal whether or not she has any foresight.

Teuila tries to convince Lin to meet new friends that she has made on the Undine, but Lin refuses to go aboard a ship. I guess she’s a bit traumatized by water. That’s my fault. Though, after hearing my thought train, Linti denies it, and relents to Teuila. The pair trot off to mingle aboard the Undine. Lu grins at me and thinks teasing thoughts about Linti, sending vague notions as telepathic waves to my brain.

I start, “Hey now, that’s not fair, I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if Lin preyed on your fears Lu.”

Luni retorts, “I know I know, she’s, ugh. She’s confident, but not cocky, because she can back it up. She’s just too, ugh, she’s just too perfect. It’s sort of nice to see she’s still hu, uh, people.”

I raise an eyebrow, “Were you about to say she’s still human?”

Luni whistles innocently and avoids eye contact. Why would that even be a phrase in her lexicon, much less the one she’d resort to in such a circumstance? I peer at Lu more intently, but she shoves my face away and we end up in a Shellcracker Family Slap Fight, laughing all the while.

Distracted by Lu, I barely notice the migraine creeping in across the left half of my head until it’s too late. I’m doubling over clutching my skull, wincing in pain with tears streaming down my cheeks. Luni rushes me to a seated position against her lap and strokes my head comfortingly.

Luni laments, “I was hoping you’d never have these again.”

That’s such a sweet notion, but then I realize, I don’t think I’ve ever had a migraine in Luni’s presence before. What does she mean, ‘again’?

Lu mumbles, “Oops.”

I struggle to ask, “What do you mean oops? Ow, oh gog, my freaking cranium.”

Luni coos in response, “Shhh, shh, never mind, it’s okay, you’re okay, you’ll be okay. Let’s get you somewhere darker and quieter. I’ll get some wet cloths for your eyes. I don’t want to leave your side for a second, but I’ll be right back with wet cloths. Here you go, up into our house, wait on the bed. I love you, my Hero, just wait in there, please.”

Luni takes off quickly to dampen some cloth in some fresh water. Until we set up plumbing for the whole settlement, we still have to get fresh water from a well at the edge of the Miracle Oak’s radius. We might be able to slowly transition the moat into being freshwater as well, over time, since the salinity is already so low, due to the filtration at the locks. Ugh, this hurts my head to think about right now. Actually just thinking hurts my head right now. I lay in the bed that our inner circle used last night and just squeeze my eyes shut in pain.

I let my mind go blank for a while, it can’t have been very long, because Luni is back and stroking my forehead while laying a wet cloth across my eyes. I can’t let this sort of thing stop me from working on the shield in the coming days, this is pretty much the last time that I can be comforted. I’ll have to fight through every pain, and every emotional struggle, and just continue working nearly non stop until the physical needs of the shield are met. I pass out as my head lolls to the side, connecting with Luni’s thigh as she sits against the headboard.

I awaken, encircled by Luni, Linti, and Teuila, each of them holding at least one hand of one of the others. I roll slightly to my left, and end up with a face full of Luni’s curves. Blushing, I roll over to my right, and my face meets Linti’s face. She awakens with a sly grin, releasing the hands she’s holding, to grip the back of my head and lay a passionate kiss on my lips. I blush, since it wasn’t intentional that I woke her up, but it’s immensely pleasurable all the same.

It seems to be still dark out, not even nearing dawn based on the temperature. It’s probably witching hour, maybe a bit later. Luni groans lightly in her sleep and rolls slightly, slapping Linti and me in the face as her limb flops free. The two of us try not to laugh so we don’t wake her up. Teuila snuggles up and rolls across our three bodies, so that she’s no longer laying across our legs, now she’s laying across our torsos. Te’s face rests in the crook of Lin’s neck, and I would swear she’s nomming Lin in her sleep.

My eyes droop as Linti nips my lips once more. We stare into each other’s eyes, blinking slower and slower in unison until I fall asleep once again. When I awaken again, I miss the pre-dawn hour that usually heralds Lin and Te’s awakening to go hunt, and they’ve already left. Luni frets over me as she helps me up, checking my temples and forehead, asking if I have any lingering pains.

I chuckle and wear a wry smile, “No Lu, I’m fine, and even if I weren’t, I can’t let anything stop me from now until we’re finished. Thank you though, My Anchor.”

As we head out to finally start constructing the shield, I only hope we’re able to make enough progress to be noticed by Maka-Akari in time to earn her delay. The days begin to blend together into weeks rather quickly. For others, the work is either tedious, or exhausting but fulfilling. For me, the work is exhausting, tedious, and excruciating, as I’m constantly using my mana and spells to their highest levels. I mostly utilize thermokinesis, and space inventory manipulation skill, but occasionally electrokinesis or acid generation comes in handy as well. Regardless, more and more pains feel as if they’re becoming permanent fixtures across my body.

My suboccipital region of my cranium feels as if it’s in an endless vice. Muscles near certain vertebrae feel twisted and pinched to insane degrees. My biceps, quadriceps, pectorals, and other major muscle groups literally lacerate through my flesh and cause me to bleed frequently. At this point, the construction crews have taken to wearing head coverings, not for their safety, but so that they don’t have to wash my blood out of their hair as it frequently rains down below me as I’m flying about. Luni pressures me to take breaks to hydrate frequently, which I do, gladly. I can’t let myself die while working on this project. Everyone is concerned for my health, but more and more of the true nature of the upcoming events slowly reaches everyone’s ears. There’s a light air of panic about the settlement.

Still, despite all that, having Luni at my side all day every day has lifted my spirits to levels far happier than I had been for quite some time. Not to mention how much happiness is caused by returning home to Linti and Teuila every evening. I still worry about Lil, my precious, oldest friend. How sad they must be without Luni or Dehlia. Maybe Dehlia has awakened from her coma? I can only hope so. Lil deserves happiness. They must be working so hard for us, digging hundreds of miles of tunnels with Lucky. I bet it didn’t take much at all to convince Lil to do it though. I can only imagine Lil thinking ‘It’ll help save everyone if I dig tunnels alone for months on end? Done and done!’

Lil is so pure, and wonderful. I ache to reunite with them and let them know how much I appreciate them. But still, I have to derive as much joy from my current situation as possible to keep pushing through the pain. I have to be able to carry on and finish the project. Mat might be able to do it without me, if the other workers could trust him while he’s shaping lava, but that’s a pretty tall ask. He has been sleeping alone in the crow’s nest of one of the ships he made out of lava. We’ve already deconstructed one of the ships in order to use the pumice it was made of. We allocated communal housing for the critterkin that had been its residents.

I’m not sure what Mat’ll do for sleeping arrangements now that we’re going to be melting down the ship he was sleeping in, and using it next for bulk material while we generate more material together. He has completely avoided being caught by Lao, Ag, the twins, or any of the Shellcracker family. He levitates high, out of reach while we work together. I haven’t seen him teleport a single time since he’s been back though. Without that ability, and without the danger-wrap sensory magic, it should be easy to subdue him if we need to. Relatively easy anyway.

We’ve already broken down the barge, and distributed the fulgurite. Teddy and Spice even had several crews make trips to claim the rest of the fulgurite that I sort of accidentally made along the beach north of the canal. So far, as far as physical materials are concerned, we’re at the very least on schedule to meet our needs, if not slightly in surplus. The pumice needs are going to start rising exponentially though now that our foundation and base is constructed, since the volume and area to be covered grows outward and upward. I wonder if Mat and I will be able to keep pace with demands? Or could we perhaps get another source of lava to increase the incoming pumice?

I should not have let myself explore that thought train. It feels like the world quakes as if giving birth. There’s a bright red flash far to the north by northwest, and the rumbling doesn’t end. I can only hazard one guess. Lord Deckard Agni, the Pure and Desolate has awoken, and is beginning his journey. Thankfully, based on the tremors, it doesn’t seem like he’s marching this way at least. Even so, there might be some Mite-Hulks that roam the countryside, now that they’re free of the crust of the earth. Additionally, Lord Agni may be spilling billions of liters of lava in his wake. I wonder if I could create a chute, like a sort of hardened funnel that could direct the lava to a reservoir nearby. Would it be worth the slight delay? It would also give me a chance to set defenses along our northern borders in case the Mite-Hulks are roaming free.

We thankfully have plenty of able warriors, though, sadly, most of them would prove ineffective against the Mite-Hulks. The Mite-Hulks are thermal immune, so fire and ice mages are out. They’re acid immune, so Jaz is out. Lightning has to be done rapidly to break their carapaces and exoskeletons, or has to be aimed through cracks already made in their defenses. Linti could probably take care of a few. Teuila would be the ideal fighter, she can plow holes through defenses like no one’s business. Toxin specialists and wind specialists might be able to work together to poison them, so Brastley and Adom could work together. Our only extremely adept thunder specialist is Sofu, but they would also be an apt fighter to cave in some exoskeletons. There are some apprentice thunder specialists, but I wouldn’t want to risk any of them in one on one fights against the Mite-Hulks, since the Mite-Hulks have those air pistols that could knock the wind out of me with my crazy defenses.

I take a hydration break, waving at Mat to do the same. While on break, I find a messenger to share my concerns with Priss. It’s a bit difficult to communicate everything over the endless rumbling, but they get the majority of what needs to be said. Luni shares my sentiments, we need to be ready to protect the people, especially if that one hyper king is loose, or if the queen respawns and summons a new king for any reason. I don’t know if their spawn location will stay underground, or stay on Lord Agni’s back, or if it will journey to wherever they move to and despawn next.

With the chaotic state of the world reaching a boiling point, everything I’d thought I had figured out about our world seems to continually be in question as more and more changes occur. I can’t risk guessing incorrectly when it comes to whether or not we need to defend ourselves and our shield’s construction project. It’s better to guess the worst case scenario, and prepare for that. That would be the hyper king being loose, the one with the cosmic transformation, and the queen being loose, able to summon a new king of her own, and each coming at us from different directions, and then each of them earning new spawn points where they’re defeated. We’d need to set up daily rotations of hunts to defeat them. Linti and a few of the better human mages should be able to handle the queen, and any regular king that she spawns. Teuila might be able to handle the hyper king on her own, but I’d feel better if she had backup. Mat might be able to conjure a vast enough amount of lava to trap either of them for a few hours at a time, but they would break out eventually, being thermally immune and all.

Luni and I seek out Teddy and Spice to share my concerns, and my idea about the funnel, or lava chute, to direct additional lava to a nearby reservoir. Spice doesn’t think it’s worth it, since we’re on schedule, but Teddy thinks it’s best to be prepared for any eventuality, better safe than sorry, so Spice acquiesces.

The two feel like the easiest plan to put into motion that won’t put me in jeopardy by utilizing too many of my abilities too strongly, is for me to take a break from the massive spellcasting I’ve been doing around here. Then just purchase and duplicate sewage piping to run it all the way from a reservoir about a mile outside of the barrier, up to Fire Biome’s cliff. Teddy and Spice will have a spare crew digging the reservoir so that I don’t need to use my magic to do that, thankfully. I’ll just need to scoop, carve, and pile some stone and metal to direct a portion of any excess lava flow to funnel into the sewage piping. Thankfully the steel we have is rated to withstand both acid, and lava, it has some sort of glass or fiberglass internalized coating. I’m not quite sure on the process used to make it.

Even with the constant tremors, I should be able to accomplish this today, or tomorrow at the latest, and the crew digging the reservoir can expand the reservoir as needed if we somehow get too much of the lava. Luni helps me along with travel music so that we can place all the piping relatively quickly, without having to use my magic to fly and stop every few feet to place more piping. The reservoir crew will also be responsible for checking all the fittings and connections, but they’re honestly not too important, it doesn’t matter if we lose some of the lava, since it will cool around the outside of the pipe and seal itself off, and this lava is only a backup to our primary supply anyway.

The cliff of Fire Biome is nightmarish. It’s almost reminiscent of the Night of All Burn, almost. Thankfully the flow is neither as fast or as heavy as that night, but it’s obvious that Lord Agni is still tunneling, standing as he turns to walk northward, out to the sea. I wonder how the Roc and Phoenix are going to feel about their home getting up and walking away, hah. I really hope they aren’t nearby to have heard my thought. I don’t want to upset them, they’re a very handsome couple that demand respect and privacy. I still have one of their eggs, something I have no idea on what to do with.

Huh, speaking of things in my inventory, there’s a little marker on a lot of things now, well, mostly magical things. SB. What does that mean? Oh look, there’s a little index too. How have I never noticed that? Soul Bound. Cannot be given away or dropped, only destroyed. Really? Huh. Unequipping my danger wraps to my inventory, they’re soul bound now as well. More and more things in the world are becoming more and more complex, as I’ve said before. Another icon is SBOE, Soul Bound Once Equipped. The weird sparking girdle harness thing has that icon. I guess I’d better make sure Lil equips it, since I want them to have it. Still, I re equip my danger wraps, then Lu and I continue with our work.

Poor Luni has been constantly dressing my wounds as I continuously cause and aggravate them over the last few weeks of work. I’d be lost without her. So many times over, in so many ways. I’m the luckiest being in existence to have discovered the ones so beloved to me, and to have had them fall for me.

Luni jokes, “Darn tootin’.”

The return trip is uneventful, we leave a few loose ends for a reservoir crew to tie up, but it’s more pressing to get back to the primary materials generation and distribution. Mat willingly stays up an extra hour or two each night for several nights to catch up on the few hours I’d missed by taking on that side project. It’s actually pretty kind and considerate of him. I’m not sure if he forgives me for taking on that side project, or if he doesn’t care, or if he appreciated the break himself.

It’s a bit hard to sleep, now that the world is constantly trembling nonstop as Lord Agni hoists himself through the crust of the land. The anxiety, nervousness, and lack of rest for everyone is apparent over the next few days of work. I worry that it’s slowing us down, but Spice says we’re still on schedule, even though less and less progress is visible from day to day. I suppose that’s because we’re at a segment where any further height is exponentially more material placement, but I worry that it’s not just a perception issue. Spice and Teddy both reassure me though, that things are proceeding as planned, but that they may need to schedule more days of rest, and more rotations in their workforce, since everyone is having a harder time sleeping.

One day, the shaking suddenly ends. That means Lord Agni has made it to the sea. He’s swimming, hopefully west around the continent. Hopefully as slowly as he can. If we’re in luck, he can take several weeks, or months to meet up with Leviathan, and then perhaps weedle Leviathan into restarting the Hallowed Maelstrom at least one more time, buying us another week or so. Then Tenny will come to collect Maka-Akari, but both might be willing to buy us a bit more time.

You’d think we’d rest easier, now that the shaking has ended. But anxieties are running high since the truth, about what the lack of shaking means, has spread through the settlement. Everyone knows we’re racing against fate at this point. One of my fears comes to fruition as well. The Mite Hulk Queen is spotted traveling south along the pipeline towards the spare lava reservoir. Linti is happy to accept the challenge, but that means a daily grueling battle. We still haven’t seen the Hyper King, or the hordes that the queen has probably spawned along her journey from Fire Biome. If either of those surprise whomever we send after the queen, that could spell disaster.

Teuila, Linti, Adom, Sofu, Jazharn, Brastley, and several of the better apprentice mages, and combat mages of the human forces all group up daily to tackle the threats from the north. Priss agrees that while it’s dangerous to send essentially all of our strongest combatants away every day, that they’re still within a few miles, and we technically still have a massive force on hand that can be directed against any threats that arise. It’s a good thing too, because it seems like a tunnel to the insect warrens opens up outside the southwest edge of the barrier, and there are occasional waves of insects to be fought off. Thankfully having hundreds of fire mages and ice mages on hand who take shifts working on the shield’s construction means that the insect hordes barely register as a threat.

We don’t even need the tiny bread golem dungeon we created at the end of the lumber warrens anymore, with an essentially endless supply of insect meat basically raiding itself for us by coming to our doorstep. Still, aspiring adventuring types head into the warrens daily to tackle the mighty carbohydrate colossus.

The world has reached a boiling point, and right about now, the entire pot is going to tip over. An endless horde of Mite-Hulks is spotted by scouts that look after the Mite-Hulk-Queen hunting party every day, to make sure they don’t get ambushed. The queen had to have been busy in the months since I had left her to respawn on Lord Agni’s back. The fact that she can now respawn within a few minutes journey of our home is unnerving enough, but to have an army breathing down our necks as well is insane. It also sounds like the queen is beginning to respawn faster and faster, at first it seemed like it was nearly two days before she respawned, now it’s barely a day, maybe twenty three hours. It might be safer to devise some sort of method of trapping her far away. I’m honestly still most worried about the Hyper King. I think it can probably travel at light speed. Maybe not act or react at light speed, but at least travel between points that quickly. It also might be able to adapt and evolve, like some sort of super villain. Maybe that means it decided to seek out a peaceful life somewhere in the cosmos, or maybe that means it has been zipping around at lightspeed to scout and spy on all of us to assess all of our powers.

Or maybe I’m overthinking things, and destroying the queen, especially while it was still in a transformation sequence, meant it despawned, even if it didn’t derez. Still, an army of several thousand Mite-Hulks is approaching from the north, that’s bad enough news. While I’m confident that Linti and Teuila could take down hundreds without backup, thousands at once could spell their doom. Even if it wouldn’t be too hard on them, it’d be an incredibly grueling, long, drawn out battle. That would be on top of dealing with the queen before or after. The queen could be spawning more the entire time that her army is being dealt with. I may need to rely on my own king form once again, ugh. I do not relish the idea of letting that sleeze back into my nervous system. Sure, he’s funny, almost suave and charming, in a gross way, but his ego wants full control, and I don’t trust him.

Mat can basically handle his and my job simultaneously, or do a sort of, ‘go nova’ to produce a lot more material at once, and I could work on that. He’s willing to do either, or alternate, so that he and I can go help defend the northern flank in turns. It’s scary how easily his power could decimate our entire settlement if he harbored any such thoughts. Scarier still that we haven’t even seen the full depth of it.

Between Mat picking up slack, and the reservoir, we’re able to continue on schedule, while also battling on two separate fronts, every day. If we can get the shield constructed, then ignited, or engaged, or whatever you’d call it, we don’t even have to battle on either front. This settlement should be safe from everyone and everything.

Luni is so brave, she’s been accompanying me into battle day after day, every other day now, as we alternate with Mat. The Mite-Hulk forces are picking up strange allies, and accepting fewer losses before retreating, playing more of a guerilla tactic game. I’m battered, bruised, and bloody from the constant battles, but even all of this damage hurts less than utilizing my spells. The queen respawns nearly twice a day now, if the battle with her doesn’t go on for twelve hours on its own to begin with. She’s more cagey, smarter, she retreats further back, summoning more, changing her death point and spawn point to buy herself more time to produce more of a horde each day. Even Linti, our Lightning Hunter, is pretty fed up with dealing with her, day after day. The good news is, the settlement has ridiculous levels of currency now, spread about all of the critterkin families that have inventories, and plenty of the human’s pockets too. We’ll be able to buy provisions for ages to come at this point.

I’m a bit worried for Lil, since their tunnel paths might intersect with the insect warrens in several locations, since the insect warrens seem to now be stretching all across our small continent. Scouts from all corners report more and more holes opening up, out of which familiar beasties crawl. Still, Lil’s a capable fighter, and their stats page indicates that they’ve been growing plenty, so they probably have been fighting nearly nonstop as well. Actually, Dehlia’s stats have been changing too, now that I look at them. Maybe that means she has awakened from her coma, and is helping Lil defend the Nagas’ settlement? One can only hope. Or maybe her brother, Dehlia, has awoken, and is doing the same, while Dehlia remains in a coma. Who knows how it works with two beings inhabiting one body like that. Them sharing a name makes it all the more confusing.

I’m putting in twice the construction effort every other day, alternating with days of grueling combat, and Mat’s doing the same. I’ve been vomiting blood every night as I try to sleep, and getting less and less sleep. I can’t keep this up much longer. There are still several months of construction left. Worse, Tenith Grayl is seen passing overhead towards the south, and can be seen circling in the sky. I’m going to have to beg her to buy us some more time.

Luni demands to come along with me and Teuila. Te is uncertain if she’s willing to let Lin handle the combat without her, even for the few minutes or hours it might take to talk to Tenny, but we go as a trio regardless. Everyone has each other’s backs at this point, even Adom has stopped dicking around poisoning people’s food and drink as pranks. Lu, Te, and I blast off towards where Tenny was last spotted.

On approach, the three of us begin to ooze lightning from every orifice, and barely maintain consciousness as we hear, “Oh hey, it’s my little buddies, the Shellcrackers! I didn’t think any of us would see each other still alive, still in these forms, before the end. Oh oops, oops, that’s right, you mortals can’t handle me talking like this, oops, I’ll shut up now, sorry my little buddies!”

Tears of pain and laughter stream from my eyes. Like I said before, Lady Tenith Grayl, the Sky Unending, is the most massive dork, in the best possible way. She allows us to land on her snout. There’s a mildly painful tingle as constant arcs of electricity leap and bound across her scales, but it’s nowhere near as bad as having our innards and minds flooded with voltage. I link the four of us up, sending a stream of message spark into Tenny that rebound all the way to pass through each of us, so that we can all hear her.

I start, “Tenny, I wouldn’t exactly say that in this situation, it’s good to see you, as happy as I am to see you still in this form. The world feels like it has reached some chaotic critical point. It’s a massive struggle to stay alive. Maka-Akari, Gaea’s Cradle has us constructing a shield of lacrimosa trifecta to cover the whole settlement. She said if she sensed us making an honest effort, she would buy us some time. I think you can tell we’ve been making the effort.”

Tenny responds, “Oh totally, totes totes, awe, baby-girl Maka’s got you all on a big project, that’s sweet. It sounds like that might actually work, it could maybe protect the settlement from the convergence, maybe. I’m still not sure what we do to snuff the mortal’s candle after the convergence, but having that shield couldn’t hurt.”

I nod, “Yeah, it’s sort of our only hope. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to make some sort of excuse to buy us a bit more time?”

Tenny hems and haws, “Well, welllllll, hm. I suppose I could bring the Ascent, if you mortals are done with Quetzalcoatl’s blessing. I could rescind the blessing to take it back, and use that to move the ascent, it would be a bit slow, but Card has reached the Maelstrom. He honestly swam a bit faster than I expected. Faster than he expected too I suppose. He got Levy to remake the Maelstrom once, but Levy’s not falling for it again. Levy’s getting antsy, and probably a bit pissy. So, yeah, about the blessing?”

I look to Lu who shrugs and nods, Teuila nods as well. With their answers, I respond, “It seems like that would be the best thing for all of us, if you would be willing to rescind the blessing, take it back, and use that as an excuse to buy us some more time. I’m sorry to ask you to delay meeting your siblings, for us, b–”

Tenny interrupts my thoughts between sparks, “Awe come on little buddy, you’re like family, you literally told me your whole life story, I feel like I know everything about you. But the situation down there looks pretty grim. Do you really think you have a shot at swinging this?”

I nod grimly, “I think this time around is our only shot at swinging this. This has to be the time we succeed.”

Tenny seems to smile, as her snout moves while her massive eyes close and their edges are tugged slightly sideways. She responds, “Okay then, sure. Pleased to meet you Luni Shellcracker, they told me a lot about you, but they didn’t do your prettiness justice, you’re ravishing my little dear. I’m glad it was you who utilized my blessing. All three of your souls look so kind.”

Luni makes some incomprehensible gestures that I assume are embarrassment at being complimented by a literal goddess, but it almost looks like the cut throat gesture. Maybe she was just fanning her neck to cool the heat of embarrassment. Anyway, Tenny is a sweetheart to call all of our souls kind.

Tenny continues, “It seems like the situation down there is pretty rough, and could use your attention. I’d love to keep my Shellcracker sweetlings around and hear all of your stories, but I guess you’ve gotta go, huh?”

I nod solemnly, “I’m sorry Tenny. If the world were different, if fate weren’t pulling you where it was, I could see us coming to you with new stories and new friends regularly. I wish that was our world.”

Tenny agrees, “Me too Reggie Shellcracker, little buddy, me too. I’m surprised we met again, and I’m glad we met this one last time. You all take care now, you hear? Hopefully you get to live long, happy lives, but things seem like they’re going to be messy for a bit, at the very least. Good luck Shellcrackers.”

I sigh, wipe a tear from my eye, and motion Te and Lu to hug the bridge of Tenny’s nose with me. We all link hands to give her the biggest hug we can, which is still probably less noticeable than if a fly landed on one of us.

We wave goodbye as we leap away from Tenny into the air, plummeting towards our settlement, angling into a hard glide, guided by Teuila’s leaping power, to minimize my magic use. We’re back home within minutes, and Teuila takes off immediately after kissing me goodbye, so that she can help Linti with the battle to the north.

Lu shuffles her feet and avoids my gaze for a while, with her hands behind her back, looking like she’s feeling guilty about something. I start to ask, but she turns away momentarily.

Luni turns back, gnawing on her lips, with tears in her eyes, “Something’s wrong. Lil should be here by now, but we can’t go check for a couple of weeks yet. Not til Tenny gets back at the earliest.”

My mouth makes an ‘o’ as I mildly squint my eyes in surprise at Lu’s words. I’m about to ask for explanations, but again, Luni’s actions interrupt me.

She rushes into my embrace, places her hands on my shoulders and cries into my neck, “I don’t know what to do. None of us planned for this. Lin has to start helping the Nagas evacuate soon, maybe in a couple weeks. I can’t let my jealousy get her killed, I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t, right?”

I coo in response, “Shh, shh, of course I know Lu, of course I believe you, I trust you. My Anchor, I’d never imagine in a thousand years that you would do something like that.

Luni’s lip trembles. As it quivers, I can tell she wants to argue to her own detriment, but I won’t hear of it. Luni sucks back a sob, sighs and holds my hands, wearing a sad look upon her face. Still, we walk towards our next segment of the construction project, including an unshaped mass of pumice that Mataalii has left for us, so that we can continue to work while he takes a turn helping defend the northern flank.

Luni continues to work by my side, taking care of me, or even battling alongside me, day in and day out for several weeks. Tenny returns with the Elysium Ascent in tow, its massive presence casting a shadow over the whole settlement as it passes overhead, eclipsing all light. On the evening of that same day, Brastley seeks me out with a message from Szintoc. Apparently their messages hadn’t been getting through for months now, but this one finally did, and it’s bad news, the Nagas’ settlement is overrun by insects, and they need to evacuate. Lu and I exchange a worried glance.

Spice says the shield is theoretically complete enough to be in an operable stage if we can meet the energy requirements. It wouldn’t last as a stable structure against the test of time, unless everyone continued to work on it until its overall completion, but it could be activated any day now. This means that the six book owners have to get to the temple of time, and the Nagas have to be evacuated. This is the moment, this is the choice that Linti has to make, whether or not she lives or dies. Even if she lives, for some reason we don’t see her for a very long time.