After the third day, Bath reminded Lisa that she needed to return to school eventually. She promptly raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Wait, I'm actually going to finish the whole college thing?" she asked.

"Why rush?"

She looked at him as though trying to peer into his line of reasoning. "Haven't we been rushing this entire time? Forming the Church of the Dragon feels like it's been a giant sprint to the finish."

Bath graced her with an amused smile. "You think that this is rushing?"

"Then what is it?"

"Lisa, this is efficiency: using my power to at least a good portion of its actual capacity. Why, how long should we have taken to create COTD?"

Her mouth flattened into a line, twitching with amusement. "Most people would say that establishing a world-changing religion should take place over the course of years rather than days."

Bath rolled his eyes in a show of playfulness. "But why spend years, playing by these human rules and expectations? Lisa: our sights are on the stars, on universes beyond our reckonings. Earth is the staging ground for our conquest; we can't afford to be less than efficient."

Lisa rolled her eyes at the melodrama, then sighed, unsure of how to phrase her thoughts. "Bath, I'm exhausted. I feel like while you can keep up this kind of breakneck pace, I'm...well. Even with enhancements you've given me, I'm unable to find time to organize my thoughts."

Now Bath gave her a confused look. "I know. Which is why I proposed you go back to Alens."

Lisa sighed exasperatedly. "But every moment I'm away from here is a moment I'll be regretting. How could I ever concentrate on any of my classes when I have all of this going on? What the hell is college in the face of conquering the universe? The big WD? Come on. You can't tell me that going to college even makes sense at this point."

Bath's expression now turned rather poignant, whistful. Perhaps, even, sad. "I think you underestimate the value of being yourself, a human, spending time with others."

"What do you--"

"Lisa. Think about how long all of this is going to take. Even going at maximum efficiency, how long will it take to conquer all the nearby worlds?"

Brow furrowed, Lisa regarded him in silence.

Sighing, Bath continued on. "And think on how long it'll take until we reach the Core Worlds." There was no doubt in Bath's voice, no 'if'; just 'when.' "I'm thinking of college as an important investment."

Lisa shook her head. "No. I'm fine with how things have been going. What do we even learn in college, anyways, that I can't find in abundance on my chip reader or on the internet?"

"What are your parents going to think?"

Lisa snorted softly, her body bent up into itself where she leaned into the wall. "They're going to think this is all pretty fucking amazing," Lisa chuckled darkly. "You know all the famous people that didn't finish college. People like Abraham Lincoln, or really anybody before the 20th century. I'd wager high school now is equivalent to higher education of the past."

"You know who else didn't attend college?" A humorous smile lit up his face. "Simon Cowell--" Lisa slapped him, though he continued on with a more sober expression. " Stalin. Mussolini. Hitler. All the most famous authoritarians of the past century."

Lisa closed her eyes. "Bath..."

"You know what they all had in common? Shiny weapons and self-taught ideology. People who worshiped them. I want to avoid a similar outcome in you."

Lisa's eyes darted up to meet Bath's, her expression hurt. "You seriously think--"

In an instant, Bath was in front of Lisa, his hand cradling her chin. "I'm relying on you to be the brains of this operation. In all the world beyond, I will rely on you to connect with and understand sapients. I can act the role well enough, at the end of the day, but you're going to be the face that sapients will relate with. The approachable yin to my distant yang."

Lisa wasn't at all sold my Bath's argument. "Don't push all that responsibility onto me. You're more than able to understand humans; why do you think I'll be better than yourself at understanding aliens!?"

"A presentiment. Maybe a premonition."

Lisa slapped away his arm. "The hell."

"Just think."

"Stop saying that, please," Lisa said with a pained smile. "I am thinking."

"What's the likelihood that you and I would have ever met? The chance that we would have found out about the gates, kursi, all this crap? You even mentioned it a few days ago when you were asking about religion, that coincidence is everywhere around us. Perhaps the biggest coincidence of all is the fact that a full half of sapient species all closely resemble one another.

"There is something at work here, pushing us in certain directions behind the scenes. I have a feeling that as we continue onward, toward the Core, we'll gain further glimpses into the intentions of this moving force."

"I agree with you about the coincidence stuff, but what does this have to do with college?"

Bath was silent for a moment as he readjusted his strategy. "I want you to understand human networks. I need you to use Alens as a testing ground for your own mind manipulation. I want to see if, by spending time in the same place and constantly touching the shells of those around you, you'll be able to better understand the minds of sapients."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Why can't I do that here?"

"Everybody here is under a permanent kind of sedation," Bath reminded her. "You can't use them as test subjects with all the kursi controlling them, even if said control is minor."

"Fine. How about this: I go to college half the time, and spend the other half here. Every morning to afternoon at Alens, the rest of the time at Basalith. Good?" This plan was contingent on Bath being able to get away from Basalith; Lisa was expecting that he'd refuse.

Instead, he just shrugged, his eyes gleaming. "Fine. You and I can attend together, then. We aren't really needed here, after all."

Now Lisa's eyes were bugging out of her head as she thought of the implications of his acceptance of her plan. "You didn't finish...?"

"The city defense plant? I actually finished it thirty seconds ago during our conversation. What wonderful timing!

"In a few days, I want to test leaving the city for extended periods of time. I'll always be ready to come back in the event that the plant fails in its defensive duty, though I'm hoping that it'll succeed. This is a preliminary test to model what will happen when we'll go off world."

Lisa's eyes turned thoughtful. "Why didn't you just mention this earlier?"

Bath flashed her a tooth-filled grin. "The plant still wasn't done."

---

Lisa and Bath spent the next hour outlining how they would be engaging with Basalith over the coming month, including how long they would spend within the city's confines. The idea, according to Bath, was to wean the city off of them so that it could stand on its own. Bath seemed to think such a process would take a year, while Lisa was more pessimistic.

"People move really slow, Bath," Lisa reminded him.

"I suppose..." Bath admitted grudgingly, though still optimistic that fervor over his granted boons would lead people to hurry Basalith's self-sufficiency along. He believed that once the first city could stand on its own, COTD could expand out at a rapid pace without him needing to personally intervene. Ideally, Bath hoped that he could use these initial COTD cities as seeds which would expand out to conquer entire planets, saving him an immense amount of time doing to conquering personally.

A few hours after Lisa and Bath's conversation, Dean returned to campus with his family whom he'd gathered the day before.

"We're all here," he stated, walking forward towards the city entrance, knowing that Bath would hear him. The line to get in, at this point, was winding in loops for several miles. He had every expectation that Bath would grant them all special treatment and let them in ahead of everyone else.

"Dean," a clipped, disembodied voice sounded out. "Wonderful."

Bath now appeared next to Dean, in front of his family. Bath's predatory air caused them all to take a step back. "Your son has assumed a powerful role in the COTD as one of my direct subordinates. You should all be proud." The family took another step back, not knowing exactly who this bizarre, teleporting person was. After all, no pictures of Bath were available online.

The family members began to shriek as Bath hoisted them into the air via essence tendrils, levitating them over the huge crowd and ushering them into the city. Below, thousands of people looked on in extreme confusion as the panicking family of six zoomed through the air and into the city. To everyone below, it was just one more mystery adding to the allure of the newly-formed city.

(Later, videos of it went up on Wikipedia, and some people began to worry that COTD was abducting people. Thankfully, personal accounts from all within the city soon put these myths to rest.)

After getting his family settled in, Dean left. He really didn't want to talk to them right now about everything that was happening. They still didn't know that he was the Knight or that he had any abilities, nor did they know that they'd just been received by COTD's Dragon himself.

Dean acted like his old, quiet, kind self as he helped to get his family up to speed on life in Basalith. He was more than a little disappointed to find that nobody in his family thought that anything was wrong, noticed something off about his demeanor. He intentionally let a few questionable things slip from time to time in the hopes that his mom or dad would say something, his big sister would take him aside and ask him if anything was on his mind.

And yet, nobody said a thing. They all just marveled over the admittedly insane interior of the city with its stunning green skyscrapers and thousands of tabard-toting residents. This aspect was new even to Dean.

'How the hell did this city get a whole tabard system in the day that I was away?' he grumbled to himself. 'It's literally insane. Then again...' what wasn't insane when his roommate, Bath, was involved?

Unwilling to associate himself with Bath after their last, rather unnerving, phone conversation, Dean decided to find the Church.

"Bath," he called out. "Where is the Church?"

"Oh, Lisa's in the Anima welcoming people as usual." Bath's voice sounded oddly tinny from behind Dean's ears.

Lisa? So that was her name. "Oh. Does she get any breaks?"

"She can have one now," Bath transmitted back.

"Wait what? No no don't--"

"She's coming now. Follow the arrows."

---

Lisa had been extremely surprised when Bath appeared next to her, 90% transparent, to tell her to take a break for a moment and talk to Dean.

"Why? I something wrong?"

Bath looked up towards the ceiling of the Anima. A small sigh escaped his lips. "I think he needs a friend."

Lisa's eyes widened. "Oh."

"I convinced him to stay here, to get a handle on his abilities. He brought his family today. He's decided to stop college in favor of taking a full-time part in COTD's activities."

A sad expression fell over Lisa's face. "wait, really?" Lisa had been absolutely adamant about not going to school until Bath had told her his plan to make the city independent of their control. That was a sacrifice that she was willing to make for herself. But the thought of Dean, a random guy pulled into COTD, having his entire life upended made her feel guilty.

As if sensing her thoughts, Bath stepped closer, draped his right arm over her shoulders, and pulled her into a side hug. "If you feel bad about changing his life's trajectory, what the hell do you think we're doing if we conquer all of Earth?" Not to mention other worlds.

"I know," Lisa sighed. "It's for the best, anyways. He's going to be a big shot in the new world order."

"Now talk to him." Bath disappeared, leaving a trail of pulsing, green colored arrows for Lisa to follow. A kursi came up to her to take her place.

Lisa followed the arrows outside to a park bench by the Anima's exterior. Lisa sat on the bench, confident that Bath was concealing her presence from any onlookers.

After a minute, Dean came walking around a building's corner, then proceeded on to the park bench where Lisa was sitting. He looked rather uncertain going forward, then jumped, startled, as he came within a foot of Lisa's sitting form.

"You're already here!" he uttered. "Jesus." He put a hand to his head. "I'm sorry Bath dragged you away to talk to me."

"It's fine. I needed a break," Lisa replied with a smile. "What's been on your mind?"

"Tabards! Where the hell did all these tabards come from?" Lisa began to laugh, causing Dean to chuckle with her. "No, seriously! I was gone for a single day. How...?"

Lisa smirked. "Bath. I told him the new faction system might not be the best idea..." Lisa rolled her eyes, then gave Dean a kind look. "You can join my faction, if you want. Bath's the Dusk faction, in black, while I'm the Dawn faction."

"What's the point of factions, anyway?"

Lisa gave a small shrug. "Honestly, I'm not 100% sure." She didn't know if she wanted to tell Dean about Bath's idea for an actual church system arising out of the factions. "We'll probably have competitions between the different factions and use the factions to push people harder. It's more fun, after all, to work towards goals while racing against someone else."

Dean nodded slowly. That did make sense. "Okay. How do I get a tabard?"

"Just say 'Dawn' like it's a proper noun."

Dean snorted. "That's so..."

Lisa gave him a serious, pointed look, stopping the sentence in its tracks. Then she grinned, breaking the tension, mirth in her eyes. "Just say it!"

"...Dawn."

---

END OF PART 4