On hover bikes, the Castle is less than five minutes away, and the lights for the outside gardens have just started to come on. Tessa, you and Atropos did a wonderful job. Camacho and Solari snicker as we approach, likely about the shape of my Castle, but it still makes me snort now and again, so who am I to judge?
The colonnade is expectedly empty, and when we arrive at the far courtyard I see two somewhat familiar faces drinking beer at a table.
“If it isn’t my favorite Russian troublemakers.” I walk quickly to Petra and pull her up into a fierce hug. She squeaks a little, but I can’t help squeezing her tight. “I am so glad to see you two.”
“Seems Royalty has been good to you, little rabbit.” Ivanka comes over and kisses my cheek and pats my arm to signal the time to let go of Petra.
“Terrible on my relationships though. You guys want to come up to my Penthouse and have some food and maybe get a little drunk?” I offer to my old friends.
“See Petra, she is part Russian at heart, but softer, like you.”
“I swear, Empress, everyone you know are gay.” I snort at Camacho’s frustration.
“Everyone I like anyway.” I wink at her, silly bisexual Sergeant.
Before Ivanka can start making eyes at more people, I excuse us to the lifts and Solari hands me my pistol back after taking the pulse rifle from Speth. When we close up in the lift, I can finally relax into catch up with friends mode.
“The mantle wears on you doesn’t it?” Petra asks.
“Most of the time it is manageable, but today I had to sit with politicians bickering like children. I’d much rather be working on engines.”
“You have time to research now? You should be busy with government I think.” Ivanka stipulates, drinking what looks like a martini.
“I’m trying to structure my Empire so that the local systems and planets can mostly take care of themselves. We’ll see how that works in the coming years. So far, my latest project for construct helpers has stalled out for several weeks, but with my AI, Tessa, working on it as well, I’ll bet I haven’t lost much if any time.” When the lift stops on 47, both women look confused.
“Well ladies, decision time. Hot tub with drinks first, or lazy river plus discussion, or lounge and eat. Or combinations of said choices?”
“Hot tub while lounging, eating and drinking. I like this as a greeting better than a hug.” She proclaims and starts stripping.
Any excuse to be naked, eh? Sounds like parts of Ivanka’s mind haven’t changed much despite how much her body has. I notice her skin is littered with the off-colored pock marks I saw on her neck and face before. Some are as big as apples. Petra has similar but smaller pocks, but very few on her extremities.
Well, when around Russians, I capitulate. I have the decency to keep my underwear on where my two former shipmates just forego clothing altogether.
“The Empress life has been VERY good to you. Did you aim at only pretty mutations?”
I can’t help but blush at the scrutiny. “N-No. Most of this,” I gesture to myself as I slide into the tub, “is accidental. I have a mild shapeshifting ability, and my subconscious did not think old Penny was very attractive, so here we are. That and some strange metabolic mutations that make me terrible at converting food into nutrients.”
“Can we at least start drinking before talking about mutations?” Petra asks, pleading for us to talk about something else for a bit.
“Ach, sorry love, It’s just she has changed a great deal in the . . . 3 years since we’ve seen each other?”
“More, but we both have been busy. That and I only found out you were alive a few days ago.”
“It seems that your host is being negligent, how may I be of service, Ladies?” Tessa walks out from a door in the wall I didn’t see and into the dry side of the bar area.
“You have a pretty robot servant? Is this what Empress life is about? Surrounding yourself with attractive women and lavish luxury?” Ivanka stares in wonder.
I can’t help but chuckle, “Kind of? But this is Tessa, my AI companion. One of my delayed tier-up boons was a ship which had this chassis on it. Tessa took it as her own. Do we have any Shindek Liquor left?”
“The supplier sent us the rest of what they had yesterday. Four bottles. It’ll be another year before more will be ready. I recommend a Soju-style liquor mixed with your berry beer as a substitute.”
I nod at that, my guests also order their preferred drink and a few more in and we order a snackable food spread.
“Any women keeping your bed warm these days?” Ivanka asks, “we heard about you and Katie taking a break?”
I wince at the idea of discussing my most recent emotional turmoil. “Nope. I have an on again-off again girlfriend, and the Katie thing is still strong, but complicated. So no, Ivanka, I’m not getting laid.”
We have a brief moment of silence or my lack of sex life, and Petra grabs my hand and squeezes it.
“Have you finally settled, Ivanka? Last I saw, you were very solidly in the Petra camp.”
She chuckles at that. “Yes, Petra, my dove, is my partner. But, as a philanderer at heart, she occasionally allows additional people to share a bed with us.”
Petra pokes her partner in the boob, “She still struggles with respecting boundaries, but she is teachable. When she misbehaves I bring back the goat noises.”
I can’t help cackling and choking on my drink and bleating like a goat between bouts of coughing and laughing.
The night continues like that, trading quips, stories about Earth and Astoria, and trying to catch up without discussing the trauma they went through. They assure me that they’ll be staying on Astoria for some time, and that we will be seeing each other often. Despite my emphatic offer that they should stay and cuddle me, they decide to leave for the night around 10pm, or is it am now that the day changes over on the tens? And I decide I might as well prepare to look at my messages.
I recommend the aether bath for this, in case a transformation takes more than you have in reserve.
Bleh, I don’t want to put the head harness back on. Using shields instead of helmets has me spoiled. I walk into the small, isolated area with a cot and a few chairs on the side for an attendant because Francesca complained, and slide into the pool in the floor. The straps are easier than I remember, but I wasn’t exactly thinking coherently then.
/Speth, Solari; if Tessa contacts you, it’s an emergency. Any updates overnight can be reported to her./
/Copy, Admiral./ they both reply in unison.
Best get to it then. My jaw clenches as I warily open my system messages.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Hold up, can we do a term consolidation thing? I can discover spellforms in Engraving and Enchanting, why can’t I just discover spells in Magic? Elemental Magic, Void Magic, Space Magic, etcetera. This would be far easier for new symbiote users to digest.
It’s amusing that you’d interrupt your progress for this, but the Matrix was receptive, save changing the name of a fundamental energy in the universe from aether to anything else.
Thanks Andromeda. Remind me to get you something nice. Maybe a new host on the far side of Earth or something. Then I get a supremely odd feeling of some omnipresent thing focusing on me. It makes me shiver in discomfort and delight at the same time.
I don’t recommend making idle promises to the Matrix. Or getting their attention like that ever again. Tessa shivers with me.
Do you wish to advance to tier 3? Chose an advancement type to continue: Mutation | Tech
Yes I do, I would like my Mutation to focus on consolidation and refinement if at all possible.
Andromeda no, I didn’t mean . . .
// ASSISTANCE APPROVED //
The message is the last thing I physically see before my consciousness is punted through liminal space and I arrive in the white expanse I was in during my last tier upgrade.
“Hello again, life form, designation: Penny Astoria. It was not predicted to see you again so soon.”
“We are aware of the circumstances, no need to explain.” I forgot the Administrators came in pairs. They haven’t manifested yet, so it’s a little unnerving.
“Ahh, we will take that as an invitation to save your negative feelings.” The two androgenous forms fade into my sight. “Your command over your mind and aether are developing enough that intruding on this space without your permission would hurt you.”
“Do you intend to experiment or question us relentlessly while we are here?”
“Hm, certainly experiment, since nothing I create here is physical and the potential for destruction.” I create a couple balls and shoot them into the distance.
“Perhaps not, however, do be careful with advanced techniques. Aether suffuses every concept of space and time that you can conceive. Meaning, that some uses of aether remain effective no matter where you use it.”
“So like if I send this ball.” I shape a ball of aether and lob it, “to a space over there it should work?” before they reply I make a portal and watch the ball disappear.
“Ahh, the Universe thanks you for starting small. ‘Over there’ takes more thought to define in non-dimensional space. In this case, you sent hyper-concentrated aether into a nebula. An interesting experiment, however, it would undoubtedly have altered inhabited space to an uncomfortable degree.”
“Oh crap. Lucky me, I guess?”
“That would accurately describe your existence, yes.”
“Though the concept of ‘Luck’ is tricky to discuss with accuracy.” I still have trouble with the idea that this may or may not be a host of beings using two mouth pieces.
I decide to build a familiar landscape to feel more comfortable in my surroundings, Aelea Lake and Lake Street. I feel a sigh of comfort in my soul as this, this is what home feels like. A small ripple pulses from my head and extends through the setting I’ve created. I walk over to touch a building and it feels like a building. Shrug.
For experimental reasons, I create a pile of different objects for me to destroy. I start with fire. Fire does nothing. Okay. Why? The Administrators say this is just a construct, which means that I’m just shaping raw aether. So I just essentially slapped aether with aether. Huh.
I wonder what happens with the advance techniques, like void? May as well try right?
I sit in a meditative pose and search inside for my whirring vortex or my shimmering aether channels and find none of it. Instead, I find a radiant miniature me sitting calmly in my core. Cool, hello little me. She waves and I giggle.
I attempt to tease out some void energy, bit mini-me seems reluctant to comply. Not that she can’t, but that without developing channels, or a way to neutralize it, the energy might harm my manifestation. Does that have to do with the physicality of manifesting aether is not void automatically? That would mean here, since the aether is already summoned, already ready already, that all it takes is intent? Well, I have plenty of will, so I look at the park bench in front of me and I direct a small portion aether above it to change its purpose to Napalm.
A Bocce ball-sized glob of blackness appears and plops on top of the table. The blob sizzles as it spreads, seeking out more and more material. Once it eats through the wood, it doesn’t drip, it clings to the edges and to itself and continues to eat until the aether that summoned it is spent. Once done, it dries and cracks into a black glittery dust similar to what I saw when I pulled mana from the stuff covering Tessa.
I’m glad it’s not indiscriminate, but I can see why it’s called Nightmare Napalm.
“Before you accidentally destroy yourself, the Matrix is finished with your vessel. You should return. Do you remember how?”
“I think so?”
I close my eyes to search for aether connections to myself, finding none. Then I see radiant me crocheting in a lotus pose, a fine thread leading off into the distance. As soon as my mind touches it, the thread has a texture and a weight to it. If I pull, it might break and I have a feeling that would be terrible. So do I ravel it up and follow it? May as well try. What seems like an hour later, I feel no progress.
Out of frustration, I tug on the yarn and it tugs back, making me stumble. Huh, tougher than I thought. Maybe if I tug and jump towards the yarn’s pull? I try that next and I feel the yarn pulling me through space before my face biffs into the ground.
Wait . . . why is there gravity in my manifested space? A dozen plausible explanations start trying to form in my mind when I see Radiant me slap her hand to her forehead and shake her head. Oh, overthinking am I? I’ll probably feel stupid when I see it? Hmm.
If this place is the same place I came to last time, I must be tied to it somehow . . . no way. There is no way it’s that stupid. I start searching in any spectrum I can possibly perceive and find tiny tethers of will-infused aether anchoring me softly to this area. I concentrate on letting the strands loose and I start drifting. I yank the yarn again, and this time I am pulled through the ground, toward the aether pool at the end of the yarn, my consciousness fading as I approach it.