10
Feeling a bit overwhelmed I return to my quarters in order to process it all with a glass of chocolate milk. I am almost done with the delicious beverage when Blasphemy walks in saying, “I have located all of the required shards and fragments, one however is in the possession of a sentient being. What are your orders captain?” Before I can respond Zka follows her in looking both nervous and excited as her coloration is fluctuating rapidly through shades ranging the whole rainbow. Behind her, Blasphemy's former newest crew mate, Nens also walks in looking to be in the same state as Zka although her skin remains flawlessly white while her antennas are flailing wildly, and Gigan came in behind her chirping happily. Again I feel like I'm missing something.
“Congratulations on the formation of your harem captain. I am overjoyed to have helped you to have fulfilled one of your goals.” Blasphemy extols. Wait, that's right, I remember her scanning my brain back when we first met in order to be able to best assist me in achieving my objectives. Well, damn.
“Congratulations!” Nens and Zka cheered while Gigan chirped enthusiastically before I find myself suddenly surrounded and ensconced in a group hug. I find this situation oddly shocking for multiple reasons but first among them is the behavior of Gigan, it has never dawned on me that Gigan could be a female.
Several hours later I gently disentangle myself and head to the armory in order to add some high technology to my equipment. I choose a a pair of small drones that were essentially blasphemites a third of a meter long, and a quantum rail battle riffle. The thing about blasphemites is that they are scaled down replicas of Blasphemy and yet they are Blasphemy they are part of her and connected to her and have all the same capabilities just scaled down. The quantum rail battle riffle uses replicator tech to create rounds that are electromagnetically accelerated in a vacuum to ridiculous speed then via strange science are shifted instantaneously to a position a millimeter away from the target before being free to expend its energy. I am about to grab some practice with the riffle when Blasphemy finds me.
“According to local legend found at the hall of the seeders rule, coincidentally the only thing on this planet I can not enter or scan, passive systems of observation only let me see its surface and hear the ultra sonic hum it emits, in 27 days the seeders will arrive to harvest this world for soldiers.” Blasphemy says before continuing, “I have located all of the necessary shards and fragments, however some of them are in the possession of sentient beings. One is a sizable fragment and the rest are basic shards. Also I have gained the ability to spread your territorial shadows via myself and my blasphemites, Nens, Zka, And Gigan also seemingly spread your territorial shadows, this appears to be a passive ability. The new 'mates' do not have this ability.” She smiles widely saying that. Based on the data I have acquired this is due to either the orbs, or the mating likely because of some innate aspect of your new species. Likely it is a result of some combination of both options.” She giggles at that, “What are your orders captain?”
“Are you running the infiltration and expansion protocols? If you can spread my shadows do so only if it does not impair your systems. Conduct trade using these spare fragments but hold of of seeking the ones in the wild.” I hand her all of my loose orb pieces, “i think we should use the gathering of the rest in order to power level the ladies. Lets try to do the same for the rest of the crew as well. Since my clones are still kicking I'm going to go talk to the 'mates” now. Make arrangements of teams and shifts for those teams to train together, I want the mates to teach local skills and knowledge while the crew teaches crew duties, tech use, and other universal knowledge and skills. OK I'm off.” Fun, fun, fun.
“Captain, so as not to inadvertently offend them I recommend meeting them as a group first,” Blasphemy advises, “they are currently in the mess hall.” She seems quite bubbly since this whole mating thing started.
Well, if my ship is happy so am I. “Oh yeah! How is crew moral?”
“Quite high captain. If you'll excuse me I'll conduct the trades while arranging working out a system and logistics for your current objective.” Then she was gone, her laughter lingering behind her.
And so I was alone, and to be honest rather under the influence of social anxiety and nervousness, I've never been overly fond of groups. As I was on my way to the mess hall I had an idea, I realized that although I didn't know these ladies my clones had been with them this whole time, and so I made the shadows consume them.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
When I entered the room I noticed that the off duty crew was there as well and everyone was chatting freely, however that stopped suddenly as soon as I was noticed. All the heads present turned towards me in silence, amused expressions on the faces of the crew and a veritable cornucopia of expressions born by the “mates.” So many faces I can't yet read.
“Firstly welcome aboard the star-ship Blasphemy. Secondly if you do not wish to remain here say so and we will send you wherever you want to go.” seems like a good place to start. Having absorbed the clones I already knew their stats and basic information and so I continued. “If you want to stay, awesome. I hope you will enjoy your time with us.” With that out of the way I brought them up to speed and led them to the armory, where I pulled all the looted equipment out of shadow storage. Sadly it did not remain neatly on the table, instead spilling all over the place. The “mates” were generally astounded by the volume and variety of items, and so, “Help yourselves to whats here. If you have any questions I can appraise things for you. Sorry about the mess.”
It seem the mess was trivial as they all began shopping as it were while chatting about the various things. While that was going on I asked Blasphemy via blasphemites if she could access my shadow storage, amazingly she could, so I asked her to assign someone to sorting and cataloging its contents. I also asked her to have someone clean up the mess of items that was sure to remain after the “mates” finished choosing their load outs. After about an hour they had all claimed both magical and technological equipment.
On to the next phase. Blasphemy and I sorted the mates into 8 groups formed into the most balanced parties possible according to the skill sets available before creating clones to accompany them. They then dispersed according to Blasphemy's directions to power level and collect the needed shards. I then gathered my own squad comprised of myself and ten members of the crew. Zka,did the same, as did Blasphemy, and Gigan, our objective is to find out if the crew can also level up and if so, to do it. So far only Blasphemy and Gigan can access the menu and the theory is that they gained access when they began bonding shards to form their orbs of creation. The plan is to grind experience to level them up and if that doesn't work give them each a shard and try again. If on the other hand it does work we will begin rotating the crew into endless hoard waves, well at least for a while. I also want to know if tech weapons can be used to gain experience towards leveling as well.
Blasphemy had found us each of us an appropriate cave system so all we had to do was walk in and the waves would begin and the deeper we went in the harder the waves would become. As I was simply providing support and safety I used that time to ponder weather or not we can find a way to accomplish such a thing back on the ship. The crew killed the enemies, and I cleaned up the bodies and collected the loot, and after only a few minutes people began to level no matter what gear they used. They also gained menu access, interestingly enough as soon as they leveled the first time. They also each had two classes from the beginning, the first was their posting on the crew (science officer or helmsman for example),while the second was always special agent. This continued for eight hours thanks to my stockpile of accessories eliminating the need for food water and sleep, although once I was in the midst of it I realized that the android crew members probably don't need them. I'll ask about it later. Once they leveled up they redoubled their efforts so when the eight hours passed and everyone returned to the ship everyone had improved tremendously. We repeated the process with the second, and finally the third group of crew and conveniently by this time the required shards had been collected. This process resulted in the depopulation of half of all the mindless monsters' spawn sights, this time they were scattered around the planet as opposed to my initial depopulation of an entire region. Thinking about that I told Blasphemy we should build a theme park around the goblin maze, she liked that idea, alas I had other things to do before I could be diverted to theme park planning. And so I'm off to bestow mating gifts to what will become my very own inter-species harem.
This time I met them on the observation deck, this time Blasphemy, Zka, Nens, and Gigan were there as well. As soon as I arrived they gathered behind me. As the women lined up before me Blasphemy handed me a shard, I handed it to the spellweaver Alissy who sat beside Zka. Blasphemy then handed me another shard and I passed it to a storm titan named Tysa who then sat beside Nens. A void dragon named Sofia received her shard next and sat beside Alissy. Thirty times more I handed out a crystal and the mate would take her place among the others. Once they had all sat in a circle they bonded their shards. I then had blasphemy distribute the proper pile of shards to each of them and watched as they fused them one by one into increasingly large fragments until finally with a chime they were whole, and then the voice sounded in my head, “Orbs of creation restored. Mass bonding ritual complete. Unique trait unlocked. Trait gained. Aura of contentment.”
As I watched the orbs vanish into my mates, even though I was certain there would be anatomical barriers that just can't be crossed, I found myself thinking I will at least try to treat them all equally, though likely in different ways. Next Blasphemy passed out the blasphemite clouds and led them to the med bay to receive bio-boosters.
I went to my quarters to meditate, well to try to.