"How many more do you think are gonna come?" Lisa asked, her hands clasped over her lap. "We've been baking out here for seven hours."

"There's a group approaching now," Bath chortled. "Stop pouting; it's time to show these verdora your strength."

Lisa rolled her eyes. "Yup, as I've been doing for the past seven hours."

Within the span of a few minutes, the group of verdora fell within Lisa's line of sight. She exhaled a puff of air, then straightened up her spine. When the group of at least fifty-strong reached the lake, Lisa extended out an arm. As she did so, flames jetted out from her palm and formed a glistening corona above her head.

"Subjects of Illudis," Lisa boomed, "do you approach doubting the power of your new deities?"

Bath grinned, knowing that the group below wouldn't be able to see the expression. 'She's mastered the imperious face," he noted gleefully, taking pride in knowing that she used his very own expression as a model. Of course, Bath had no actual evidence that this was the case...But who else would she be emulating?

The verdora below didn't respond immediately; several at the front of the group chattered in hushed whispers before one, at the front, spoke: "We're incredulous that two...deities...from another planet have come to Illudis," the verdora said back, his voice nearly elevated to a shout. "What is your purpose here?"

The edges of Lisa's mouth curved up, looking incredibly predatory on her stone-cold facade. "You verdora don't seem to understand," Lisa replied, voice saccharine. "Our purpose doesn't matter. We are indomitable; we are gods. What we will, we do, and our will is to deliver the universe out of its age of darkness." Lisa took in a deep, dramatic breath. "We will continue on our path until all have self-determination," Lisa explained. "You appear confused," Lisa said sadly, as she had every time previous. "Then let me make this simple: all present have heard some form of the phrase, 'life isn't fair,' correct?"

Lisa didn't bother waiting for a response: she knew that the verdora did, indeed, have this saying. "Why is life unfair? Let us enlighten you: life is unfair because sapients lack control over their own lives. They are subjects of a greater system, cogs in a wheel." Her smile widened, while her eyes gleamed in the light of the fire. "We have come to liberate you."

As she finished speaking, Lisa pressed her feet against the base of the throne. Then, she pushed off, rocketing herself into the air and directing her motion with magnetic sense. In a split second, she was hovering only ten feet from the verdora below. Lisa pointed her arms up and out before slamming them downward toward the water. Suddenly, the water began to rise, completely ensnared within her magnetic sense. At the same time, a bough of dragonleaf lashed out from the depths of the lake, forming the center of a large vortex just under Lisa's feet.

The verdora watched this with inscrutable expressions, though Lisa could feel their awestruck shells all the same. As they looked on, the stream of water continued to cycle around her. Its form gradually solidified into the image of an Asian dragon, its long bodice contorting and dancing in the air around Lisa, flowing into and out of the water.

Finally, as the dragon began to burgeon in size, Lisa's mouth curved into a self-assured smirk. The dragon descended toward the group on the shore, undoubtedly intending to crash into them. This next part was the trickiest of all, but Lisa had been practicing now it for several hours.

All below flinched and looked on in horror as the dragon came closer. Twenty feet...five feet...Then, a fiery wall encircled each of the people present. This wall of flames appeared to vaporize and effortlessly reflect the water, no small feat considering the thousand-foot-long form of the dragon and the speed at which it crashed. There was, of course, a trick to this: the water wasn't actually rebuffed by the flame shield. Instead, Lisa simply controlled both of them, making use of strategically-placed superconductive magnets beneath the terrain of the shore to magnify her magnetic sense's range.

The end result was, to the verdora observer, that Lisa had performed many seemingly-impossible feats without showing any signs of exertion. Lisa couldn't help but feel elated by the awe and fear of the verdora below.

"Who is the leader of this contingent?" Lisa asked, nearly causing a few verdora to fall to the ground in shock, as though her voice was imbued with a newfound power.

Unsurprisingly, the verdora who asked the questions earlier spoke up. "I am the leader," he replied robotically, his expression visibly dazed. "What do you want with us?"

Now Lisa returned to the throne, letting Bath take over. He smiled, then flicked his hand casually, causing a flurry of vines to dart out from the lake below. As they grew, building upon the dragonleaf spike that Lisa had grown during her own display, Bath floated over. Then, he placed his hand over the spike, causing the entire dragonleaf complex to shudder. He was suspended in the air such that his eyes were level with the 4/5 mark of the spike's length. Without warning, he jabbed his left arm into the writhing dragonleaf spike, withdrawing a spherical, greenish object.

"This is a city-seed," Bath stated cooly. "Your task is to make a flourishing city. Juserin has already given you the details as to the purpose of out religion, the Church of the Dragon." Bath narrowed his eyes. "Plant this seed at the center of a city you deem worthy of our righteous bestowal," he bellowed. "If there are no further question, begone."

After the verdora left, Lisa raised an eyebrow, leaning out over the edge of her throne to look at Bath. "You know what I'm curious about?"

Bath mirrored her expression with a lopsided grin. "Why the verdora have such toothy mouths?"

Lisa snorted. "Not even close. Do you think the verdora have video games?"

"Why?"

Lisa chuckled. "This would be so much easier to explain if they knew how to play the Sims."

---

"I never would have expected," Edgewood began, his fur-lined coat whipping against his well-muscled frame, "that COTD would lead to this." His hand wrapped firmly around the rope of the sail rigging, one foot planted on the ship's rail, while the other on the deck. The smell of seawater drifted into his nose, accompanied by the rushing spray of the Baltic Sea.

All around, several hundred other seafaring vessels could be seen, ranging from enormous, ostentatious clippers and galleons to smaller carracks and even one-person sailboats.

"Nothing here looks newer than 200 years," Edgewood muttered disdainfully. Though, he had to admit that these recently-grown ships exuded a charm that military and trade vessels of the past few decades lacked. Moreover, because dragonleaf was extremely buoyant and could be molded into any shape with enough time and path point investment, the ship fad had rapidly overcome Kray City.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Considering the fact that humans also had access to numerous quasi-sapients, such as the ever-helpful and impressively nimble-fingered squirrel quasies, people had little trouble finding enough hands to work their decadent ships.

"Y'know, I could have one of those enormous ships too," Edgewood frowned as he looked over to the raptor on the deck of his custom-made, two-sail...whatever-ma-call-it; Edgewood never bothered to give the ship a proper model name. As one of the three leaders of Kray City, he had path points in abundance, and while Edgewood hadn't invested into the land-shaping path, he could easily commission Black faction to make the "ship to end all ships."

"I could," Edgewood insisted after seeing the raptor click its claws and give him a somewhat pitying expression, its eyes tracking the mast of an elegant, swift-approaching galleon. "Dandy, right?" He asked, confirming the raptor's name. The raptor gurgled in assent. "Don't give me that kind of look. All those sailboats you see are outdated eyesores. Now this baby, here, is a dragonleaf-refurbished, modern, top-of-the-line sports sailboat from before COTD." He sighed as the raptor's eyes began to go blank with boredom.

"You've only just got on the ship," Edgewood grumbled menacingly. "Wait until we catch a good wind, then you'll see."

---

Kayt looked over the Kray City Spire's balcony, her eyes fixed on the coastline and sea pooling into Neva Bay. Having established the city-seed just outside of St. Petersburg a mile or so from the shore, she had an excellent view of the sea and its lively waters.

"At least people are being productive," she thought with a sigh. "I would've thought people needed more time to recover after the birds." She stuck an arm over the balcony, enjoying the sensation of the light, salt-scented wind over her hand.

She smiled. "Then again, with all the free time people have..." Nimesh glided over to the window, her face innocent and goofy, her tongue flapping out into the air. Kayt leapt up onto the balcony's ledge, then jumped onto Nimesh's neck. The wolf pivoted expertly to accept the load, then beat her white, angelic wings to gain altitude.

'Most people would've thought me crazy for investing all my path points in flesh-shaping,' Kayt transmitted to Nimesh as she stroked the wolf's silky fur.

'They're fools,' Nimesh replied confidently back. 'Now, I can fly.'' She transmitted this last phrase as though it, alone, served evidence of Kayt's excellent choice in path point investment.

In truth, Kayt really had invested an absurd amount of points into flesh-shaping. While she did invest points into land-shaping and constitution, she had already invested a whopping 1290 points into the flesh-shaping path. Many of these points came from being leader of Kray City, as controlling the city-seed netted her a solid ten points per day. That meant, in around a month, she'd make 300 path points. The remaining points, however, were made up by her diligence in practice.

Flesh-shaping was an absurdly hard path, making it fairly unpopular beyond the basic tier which offered automatic healing on top of the caretaker boons. Sure, flesh-shaping made it really easy to mess someone's body up beyond repair, but the same could be said for essentially every other path. Actually shaping bodily tissue in a desired manner while keeping said tissue alive and functional was, unfortunately, far more difficult than most expected.

'What shall we try today?' Kayt mused, her hands moving methodically over Nimesh's tense shoulders. 'Seems like the wings are a definite keeper.'

Nimesh transmitted the image of a wet, bloody, mammalian heart that proceeded to explode into red muck. In reply, Kayt transmitted back the image of a red, cartoon heart bursting into many small, sparkly, pink hearts. "Love you, too," Kayt said out loud.

'Make them bigger,' Nimesh suggested. 'Maybe make me bigger!'

Kayt leaned her cheek into Nimesh's neck. 'You wouldn't fit through any doors,' Kayt reminded her. 'Besides, big wings won't help you fly faster.'

Nimesh transmitted back the color of vomit.

'Stop moping,' Kayt scolded. 'How about this: why don't we work on changing your tail to give you better control?' By far, fine-control was the area in which the newly-winged wolf lacked. Nimesh began to pant excitedly at the idea, so Kayt nodded and started working.

A month ago--heck, a week ago--she might've freaked out at the thought of doing what could only be called surgery on a flying creature; however, she turned around and crawled backward over Nimesh's back and rump to grip her tail. Thankfully, the wolf hadn't really been using her tail anyway, and continued her flight in a steady fashion, her wings effortlessly riding the sea breeze.

Kayt got to work with practiced efficiency: she knew her subject and knew herself, allowing her to start flesh-shaping Nimesh's tail immediately without first mapping out the target area. First, she shed all of the tail's fur, leaving her with a rather unglamorous whip of pale flesh. She quickly grew the tail out, drawing from the reservoir of undifferentiated flesh and bone she kept stationary in her backpack at all times. For a huge job like wings, Kayt would need to spend at least a day gathering up the requisite flesh and bone before beginning the procedure. However, for the tail, the flesh in her bag would suffice.

She simply grabbed a handful of flesh with one hand while wrapping her legs squarely around the wolf's stomach and hips for support. Then, she thwacked the lump of flesh onto Nimesh's naked tail. She quickly ran her waiting right hand over the biological tissue while her left hand returned to the backpack to fetch out more gore-like tissue.

Were anyone to see the scene, an impossibility given how high the duo were in the air, they'd likely feel sick. However, as Kayt worked, Nimesh only transmitted warm, happy feelings and scenes of ripping rabbits and soldiers to shreds. 'Smells like dinner,' Nimesh said, whining with desire.

"Shhh," Kayt murmured offhandedly, her concentration fully focused on her work. Deciding where to grow and place the new bones, vessels, muscle, and keratin feathers demanded her most rapt attention. Thankfully, Kayt had already dissected and studied numerous birds over the past week, and so had a good grasp of how their tails functioned. However, Kayt also recognized that while birds lacked bones in their tails, Nimesh didn't: this discrepancy gave Kayt ample room to experiment with design.

After an hour of feverish flesh-shaping, Kayt let out a groan of relief and lifted her slimy hands to the sky. "It's done!" she crooned. She squirmed her way back onto the wolf's neck, then held out her hands in front of the wolf's muzzle one at a time. Nimesh eagerly cleaned the hands of any biological leftovers before looking at Kayt with expectant puppy eyes.

'Can I use it?' she asked.

Kayt smiled and ruffled the fur on her head. 'Be careful: the tail is a lot stronger than you're used to. No sudden--'

Nimesh's tongue pressed flat against the right side of her face as she suddenly dive-bombed down toward the water. Her enhanced reflexes enabled her to quickly get the hang of the new tail: she whipped through the air with the speed of a (normal) falcon and the precision of a honing-missile. Kayt hung on tight to Nimesh's neck, flattening her body to the wolf's back.

Nimesh looked back for a moment at Kayt, her lips pulled back in a grin over black and pink gums and sharp, white teeth.

"Don't take your eyes off the--" Kayt yelled in warning. The wolf was traveling faster than before; now that she was gliding only a few feet over the surface of the water, she was right in the line of fire for the Baltic Sea's many sailboats. Right as Nimesh swiveled her head back toward the front, her wing clipped the sail of a small, unfashionably-simple, two-person sailboat.

"Kayt!" a familiar voice roared. However, Kayt was already a hundred feet away and getting further by the second. Her eyes grew wide, then crinkled in carefree amusement.

'Can you believe that little ship is Edgewood's!?' Kayt transmitted to Nimesh, laughing raucously into the biting wind. Her smile quickly dissipated as she looked back. 'Shit, he's actually keeping pace with us,' she transmitted. 'How the hell is he going so fast in that little boat?'

'He wants to race?' Nimesh growled excitedly, muscles bunching with excitement.

"You bitches almost broke my sail," Edgewood bellowed angrily from behind. "And then you started laughing! Making fun of my boat like Dandy, here?"

Kayt gave the back of Nimesh's head a dubious expression. 'Dandy? Is that his raptor?'

'Maybe a girlfriend,' Nimesh transmitted back.

Despite Kayt's initial hilarity over the boat's diminutive size and unadorned aesthetic, she had to admit that it was exceptionally fast.

"Wanna race?" she called out. As she did so, Nimesh wagged her tail in a taunting gesture that nearly spun her into the sea's cresting waves before she self-corrected.

Edgewood snorted angrily at the sloppy display. "Bet you a hundred PP," he called out.

Nimesh howled. 'Excellent: more points means more flesh-shaping.'

Kayt nodded and rubbed Nimesh's right ear. "You're on." Nimesh circled back around to Edgewood's approaching ship. Right as the two were perfectly overlayed, Kayt yelled, "Start!"

As she did, two enormous serpents crested out of the water, tugging the sailboat behind them.