Chapter 266

A New Day, Another Chance to Get In My Own Way

Poof.

One second the world was a chaotic swirl of colors and objects coming to life, only to be quickly settled back into place just the way it was before. The next, Penelope and I burst through time and space, aided by my fourth Simulacrum, who took off three Confidential minutes to help Penelope and me come up with a new game plan.

“And time,” I say the minute all three of us, my fourth Simulacrum, Penelope, and I all rush forward emerging from the portal that has us shooting forward into a giant ball of fluffy goodness.

“Oof,” Penelope lets out a breath as she impacts the giant double deluxe king size mattress of fluffy goodness before us.

Glow.

For a second, bright eyes glow as the mattress that we have crashed into momentarily awakens, only to feel not only my Simulacrum’s aura, but my multiple healing and regenerative auras that instantly put the girl back to a restful slumber.

“Huff, huff… wheeze… I am not in anywhere near good enough shape to do that,” Penelope wheezed out, pulling up her head as she tried to breath through the dense patches of fur that feel more like a sky blanket than anything else.

“It’s okay, you did well for your first time.” I state.

Penelope settles down for a moment, but then perks up as she realizes what I just said.

“Wait, you mean it, I can go on an adventure like that with you in the future?” Penelope asks.

“Yeah, why not?” I ask.

Penelope pausing just looks at me with a serious face for a moment before answering, “because no one ever wants to go on a mission like that with me. I mean who wants to go do cool things with the Tailor, it would be best if she just stayed behind in the rear and didn’t get in anyone’s way.”

“Ah, you were fine, and besides next time we should be able to do more, especially now that I know you are on board.” I replied, seeing her energetic state and while I did have to call in my Simulacrum to help get everything I needed to get done completed, it was sort of fun to be with Penelope.

“And you mean it? None of that will get tied back to us?” Penelope says, her face beaming with a smile.

“Ahh, I get it. You’ve got the Bonnie syndrome,” I reply.

“Bonnie syndrome?”

“Yeah, you get your first taste of crime and are addicted to the thrill,” I respond.

Shallow steady breathing.

By now, Penelope is finally able to calm herself enough to finally breathe properly, though a quick Healing scan shows that her dopamine levels are still off the charts.

“Does it ever get old?” Penelope finally asks after a moment to contemplate.

“If it does, then you aren’t doing it right.” I reply.

“Oh, like mumble.” Penelope said.

I paused and stared at her for a moment, but then my mind realizes what happened.

“Oh, the child filters,” I say, trying to understand what word Penelope said.

“Wait, mumble, you can’t hear me say, mumble?” Penelope asked, then paused, “oh I just got a warning for saying an inappropriate word in front of a minor. That is, wow…”

“Yep, only four more years, then I’ll be considered a big girl.” I reply.

“Four? I thought you were closer than that?” Penelope asked.

“I mean, I should be, but who knows.” I say, realizing that her words have an ominous ring to them, one that speaks of impending doom. Then I make the mistake of speaking my geas to life, “on no.”

“What?” Penelope asks, clearly relaxed for a moment, then instantly concerned. “You don’t think they could realize what we did?”

“No, not that. And they shouldn’t find out until after it is done.” I reply.

Chuckle.

With that Penelope just laughs into her hand as she no doubt imagines all the things that could happen from our focused three minutes of work.

Finally, after a few more minutes of fitful giggles before ultimately being able to calm down long enough to think about other things.

“I can’t believe a place like that didn’t have security of some kind?” Penelope asked.

“Oh they did, it was pretty good, if I do say so myself.” I admit.

“But yet, we got through?”

“You did see the mid-term I just gave the Magical Resonance folks, right?” I ask back.

“Yeah, but to see you go from bypassing a self-repairing and strengthening ward, to that, where the wards were not even touched.”

“Yep, soon all of my students should be able to bypass that level of security, at a minimum.”

“At a minimum?” Penelope parrots back.

“Yep, that will be my goal for them. Set them all up on an obstacle course with different locked doors, hidden traps and make them solve everything they can within a certain time limit.” I say, revealing my final plans to Penelope of the processes I imagine my students being able to accomplish once they are done.

“So not just theoretical knowledge, but a hands on practical? That will be amazing. I just hope I live up to your expectations before you leave us.” Penelope states.

There is a pause, before my mind catches up to the words she said there at the end.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“What do you mean, before I leave you?” I ask, somewhat confused.

“Oh come on, you know eventually the thrill of adventure will call for you. That one day you will have explored up to the mystical thousandth floor of the Arcanarus Tower, that you will have made SVC into SVU, not the copyrighted version, and you will be on to your next great adventure. An adventure that the rest of us will only hear about in small snippets and minor details.” Penelope says, sounding serious at first, then her voice taking on a more whimsical tone.

Listening to her talk, I can hear the call of adventure lurking deep within her. There is almost a restless quality that wishes to resonate with an adventurous spirit like the one she described.

“Well, I must warn you. Deep down, I am probably one of the most boring people you will ever meet. I really do two things, magic, well all forms of energy, which to me are just different variations of magic. And of course reading.” I replied.

“You created murder bots, what were they called again?”

“They are the Teleiotís, and they are not murder bots. They are a recently freed form of sentient machines.”

“That murder people by the dozens.”

“Allegedly.”

“Allegedly? There were dozens of corpses around that Rahul went all crazy on and began smiling saying he would free you from your forced marriage with his minor army that he was summoning from the corpses of the dead.” Penelope replied.

“Yeah, necromancers are the ultimate force multiplier, one death equals two soldiers.” I reply, shaking my head, normally I would have stopped the Litch, but I just didn’t have it in me. The Litch wouldn’t bother my Teleiotís, and I did think that the Legrand Empire needed a bit of a distraction right about now.

“Two?” Penelope parroted.

“Yeah, one dead person provides a body, and a spirit that can both fight independently for the same depraved Litch.” I answered truthfully.

Hearing that Penelope just shivered disgustedly.

“And you let him?”

“Let him nothing, he was in super possessive mode. Which meant, either I beat him down and then wait for him to do something to catch my attention, which would most likely be during tomorrow's wedding. Or I point him towards the enemy and let him do what he was going to do anyways.” I reply, giving out my master plan.

Hearing that, Penelope just paused as she took in my comments. Then she seemed to pause as slowly came to a seeming reluctant agreement with my logic.

“All I can say is that I am glad you are on our side. I could only imagine going up against you when you are focused.”

“What do you mean, I am always focused.” I reply, and then I hear the words only to realize that I don’t quite believe them myself.

“I’m just saying, you’ve already done what? Taken out two high yield resource mines. Created a nearly unstoppable killing force of murder, I mean Teleiotís, who needed minimal repairs after all the forces they managed to render useless. Then of course there is the random scar you created in the middle of their capital. Most of which you seemingly stumbled across by mistake or happenstance. No, anyone that went against an army with you as an opposing force would need to question their sanity.” Penelope replied.

Hearing the words, she spoke of my deeds with a sense of pride. While I just heard several events that seemingly started benign, but then spiraled out of control.

“Yeah, I will probably need to calm down.” I reply truthfully.

“Calm down? What no, if this comes to war, and by all means it looks like it will. If it does, then you will need to dial it up to eleven. If these were events by happenstance, then you might need to force future events to unfold.” Penelope responds.

Hearing her words, I can’t help but inwardly cringe at the idea that I might be responsible for deaths.

Just as is the case with the soldiers that were allegedly killed by the Teleiotís, and those bodies that the now focused Litch will use to fight against the Legrand Empire. Anything I do from here on out will likely have casualties associated with each action taken.

Perhaps seeing my internal conflict playing across my face, Penelope asks, “changing subjects, where did you find the NPC disabling sand? And most importantly, how can we get you to deliver more to Legrand’s major supply areas.”

“Wait what?” I ask.

“The disabling sands you blasted Timult with. There have been no casualties, but all of the natives of the world who were covered in the sand were taken to a comatose state.” Penelope admits.

“Comatose?” I ask.

“Yeah, they apparently just collapse in on themselves and seem to shut down.” Penelope added.

“How?”

“I don’t know, according to the reports, there is just an odd dust that falls on the natives, that when the dust hits them, they instantly collapse and lose all energy.” Penelope responds.

Hearing that, I pause as I realize that almost sounds exactly like what is happening to Zero.

With a start, I charge energy into my Zero arm tattoo and try to rouse him to a state of consciousness.

Jolt.

Nothing.

I can feel that Zero moved, his tattoo position even vibrates a bit, showing that he is responsive to the stimuli, but he does not come out.

Suddenly feeling a wave of panic come over me, I form a Telepathic link to him.

“Hey, you alive?”

“What? Huh? Yeah, I am.” Zero replies back groggily.

“You doing okay?”

“What, hmm, sure. I’m fine. Just a bit tired is all.” Zero replied, before I could feel his mind going to sleep.

Tingling sensations of a dragon dreaming of flying high in the sky with a pixie on their back.

That’s when I feel something odd.

It takes a moment for me to realize what happened, but Zero was dreaming. Actually having live dreams of the two of us flying in the air together.

This is odd, as I don’t remember this happening previously, even when connecting to Zero’s mind while sleeping.

Normally, he is instantly awake or asleep, one state or the other. In this case he was well somehow between both. I could feel his mind trying to awaken, but then his subconscious pulled him back in and kept dreaming.

“Where do you want to go today?” I hear my voice, or a rendition of my voice echoing in Zero’s mind.

Then without needing to be prodded, Zero responds, “want to go to the grove and back?”

At that point I instantly kill our connection, as it seems that I am delving into possible unwanted territory by spying on his dreams. Odd dreams made even odder by the fact that I don’t know of any grove we have gone to. Yet, after hearing him speak, I could almost imagine the spot within my mind.

In my mind, I imagine a patch of plants growing in a sea of desert sands.

Once again, I am reminded of building our outpost here in the blighted lands, but this is different. Somehow harder to build, but simultaneously more enjoyable due the level of effort required, then gone.

“You okay?” Penelope asks.

“What, yeah.” I reply.

Then as if on cue, Mr. Kujo chose that moment to bolt upright and stare off into the distance.

Rustle.

“Wait, what was that?” Penelope asked, her voice suddenly concerned.

“What? That’s just Kujo.” I reply.

Focusing my mental thoughts in the direction that Kujo is now pointing, I quickly see what roused him from his slumber.

GRRRR!

“Holy, shiza.” Penelope screams as she pulls out a magically glowing stick from her pocket. “WHAAA!”

With her sudden screaming, Ms. Kujo shakes awake too and raises her own head to stare at what caused Penelope to scream.

“Calm down,” I say to both Penelope and Ms. Kujo. Then realizing that Kujo will just be anxious here, if I don’t set him loose, I give him the command. “Go on and get him.”

Shift.

With the command, Kujo phases out of reality for a moment, leaving an empty space where he was lying down comfortably a moment ago. With Kujo gone, Ms. Kujo takes one last look at Penelope, before going back to resting on the ground.

Penelope still has out her magic stick, which I realize now is emitting some type of light in the darkness around us. During this time, she looks down to see that the soft fluffy bed that she has been resting on is in fact a very large and massive dire phase wolf.

At this point, dawning recognition crosses Penelope’s face, and I can almost see panic taking over.

“Calm down, you are safe here.” I state.

“I thought you said you were taking me to your bedroom?” Penelope hisses but tries to keep her voice down so not to disturb the comfortably resting dire phase wolf under her.

“This is my bedroom. I can’t help it that my room was quickly confiscated by the Kujos.” I respond.

“And this, your bed that you were bragging about being the softest, that is Ms Kujo?” Penelope asked, her voice still panicked, but she was calming down nicely.

“Yes. Isn’t she soft, as advertised?” I question back.

“Well she is, but why?”

“I’m pretty sure it is her genetically protective layer of glistening fur that is designed to protect against both the rough sands and harsh weather that when treated properly to a diet high in iron and red meat produces a great sheen like this.” I reply.

“No, not that, but… uh, never mind.” Penelope says, and like she said the words that let me know that this is going to be a thing later on, which is why I want to take care of it now. But before I can do anything, Kujo pops back before us.

Appear.

“AHHH!!!!” A boy screams, their voice echoing around the tight enclosure that was my private home, but is now the lair for the Kujos.

“Cass! It has a boy, a, ah, a child…” Penelope stammers out as she jumps from the massif fur blanket that is Ms. Kujo and onto the ground. Though she smartly doesn’t move much closer to Kujo who is right there, menacingly holding its paw over the child.

“Why hello there, fellow regressor. Do you want to tell me what you were doing?” I ask, knowing the answer, but seeing how far this fellow regressor will try to push things.

“I, I wasn’t doing anything, and then this monster attacked me and dragged me here.” The boy speaks.

“Wait, he’s a regressor?” Penelope asks, holding up her magic stick to no doubt bathe the room in light.

As for me the entire room is perfectly bright to my senses. Particularly after I used my Arcane Geomancy here multiple times to have it so this place would be a safe spot that both my Simulacrums and I could get to in case of emergencies.

“Yes he is, he was also warned about what would happen if he stepped out of line.” I reply

“Out of line, I didn’t step anywhere.”

“That’s right, you crawled. More importantly you crawled into the faculty room of Professor De’Gravitas, all while he was conveniently not here to watch over his dorm room.” I reply.

The boy pauses, then proceeds to quickly go into a bad acting job that I will seriously have to recalibrate how bad I remember Battlefield Earth being. In comparison, Battlefield Earth probably could have lost a few of its Razzie awards and handed them over to this guy.

“What? I thought he was there, I needed to discuss joining his class.”

“Through the air vents?” I ask.

“Well, I wanted to get into the faculty building, to see if he would accept me as a student. But then I got lost.” The boy added.

“So your way of finding your way around was to go through the walls?”

“No, I tried to go through a janitorial closet, but then got vacuum sucked into the ceiling ducts, where I managed to make my way out to one of the wall ducts.” He continues.

Hearing him, I just shake my head. “Do you have a certain quota?”

“A quota?” He asks suddenly flustered.

“Yeah, of lies you have to tell each day, lest your brain disintegrates even more than it already has?” I ask.

Then realizing that this might be the best time to strike, I mentally insert my mental Telepathic probes into his mind and read his surface thoughts.

“I needed to get one of those skill books. Apparently there is a quest to not only get the flying skill books from the Thieves Guild, but then I could grab the Skill Fusion skill book and make bank.” The boy thinks.

Hearing his thoughts, I can only kick the person who came up with the stupid idea of rewarding all Thieves Guild members for stealing my sentient skill books, especially now that we have new fused skills that are also a potential double reward.

The fact that someone would not only make highly rewarding quests to steal what are the equivalent of state secrets, but to do so right before Mallory’s wedding day, they must just be asking for trouble.

“That jerk,” I say to myself as I realize I might need to have more protection details around my skill books during the wedding ceremony as well. Especially if little kids are trying, even if they are grown people in the bodies of little kids, it is still a hassle that I would rather not deal with at this very moment.

“What jerk?” Penelope asked, clearly hearing my admonition for myself.

“The person who made stealing skill books a thing, I am going to track them down and have a very terse conversation with them.” I sate, before continuing, “however before then, we are going to do a few things…”