Even a few minutes after getting out of the metal tube contraption, I’m still woozy.

I can only imagine how it’d be for a mortal.

…

“Are you alright?” Izzy asks, stopping and giving me a concerned look.

“I… think so?” I reply. “Dizzy. Why is everyone else fine?”

She furrows her brow. “You didn’t resist the… oh gods, you did. You absolutely did.”

“Resist what?”

“The seats and harnesses are inlaid with stabilization runes,” Nyx comments. “Unless you’re stupid and block them yourself.”

“But I didn’t block anything?”

“Try, need have. Deliberate? God,” Arty adds.

“Oh.”

…

Another hour of walking later and the spinning finally subsides, so I look around.

It’s… actually not that much different here from the hive, although there’s a bit more smoke…

“Manufacturing districts are often like that,” my former Assistant says.

…

…

“Were we going to the Adventurer’s Guild? I’d have thought that would be somewhere more… central? Where are we?”

Izzy gives me an awkward smile. “You’ll see.”

I can feel that she’s been trying to hide it, but she’s been tense since we got to the Sand Sea, and her tension is only rising.

…

“Should I be expecting to fight something?”

“What?” she gasps. “No, no, nothing like that! Um. Just, I haven’t been here in a long time.”

“Oh. Alright.”

We continue past uniform building after uniform building, although unlike the hive there are actually spaces between them… not that I see much purpose for it. It’s not like there’s anything in them.

The foot traffic is a lot thinner here than when we first got to the plane. I assume it’s because this isn’t the city center, not really an entertainment district. People probably only come here if they have a specific purpose for it, and most people probably don’t. Periodically we’re passed by an assortment of machines on wheels carrying large boxes with unknown contents… probably moving materials from one building to another, I’d guess.

“Yep,” Nyx says, “Most factories don’t make every part or subassembly themselves; they all specialize and interact to produce final products.”

“I see.”

We walk a while further before Izahne suddenly stops in front of one of the buildings and takes a deep breath.

“We’re here.”

“Where exactly are we?” I ask.

She glances toward me, but it feels almost like she’s looking at something past me… far past me. A moment later she says, “Home.”

Pearl gives her a supportive pat on the back.

And then my wife steps forward, swiping her palm across a panel next to the neatly flush door, which glides open smoothly and near-soundlessly.

I follow her inside along with the others, taking in the mass of moving… platforms? What are those?

(Conveyors, they just move things around,) Nyx says in my head… which is probably for the best considering it’s loud in here. In fact, I’m surprised that it was so quiet outside of the building.

Anyway, the conveyors are moving parts all over the place, while runic golems do things like tap them with tools, or fit other things together, or cause sparks to fly from them…

Doing all sorts of things I don’t recognize, of course.

As we reach the back of the large room, Izahne leads us up a metal grate staircase and across a catwalk to an elevated room in the back. She knocks on the door, and without receiving a response opens it.

…To reveal a short mortal, bent over a workbench, oblivious to the world around them.

(Everyone looks short to you, you know. Don’t forget that you’re huge compared to most mortals.)

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Right. I keep forgetting that.

Omorth, the last into the room, closes the door behind us, but the quiet thump and sudden reduction in noise still isn’t enough to get the mortal’s attention.

And we stand in silence for a few moments while they continue to tinker with whatever gadget they have on the workbench.

Then Izahne clears her throat loudly, and they jump.

“Hm? Customers? You need to make an appointment! You can’t just show… up…” they trail off as they turn. Moving their hands as if to rub their eyes, they quickly raise the heavy goggles they seem to have forgotten they were wearing…

“Izzy? Izzy, is that you?”

My wife is radiating conflict, so I very, very gently touch her with consume… it wouldn’t do for her to sag or whatever she usually does here and now. And it seems like it worked, she’s calming down a little bit…

“I’m home, mom. At least for now.”

The mortal – Izahne’s mother, apparently – finishes taking off their… her goggles, as well as a heavy pair of gloves, and tosses them haphazardly on the workbench before turning back around and continuing in a firm tone. “Izahne Sebelle Emari, just where in the hells have you been? You left all your work on me and disappeared! Now you just show back up out of nowhere with… who are all these people? You didn’t even leave a message! Now how exactly am I supposed to feel with you waltzing in like it’s nothing? I –”

“Mom, let me talk!” my wife interrupts. “You keep asking questions and then don’t let me answer!”

The woman sighs. “Well, then. Get on with it and explain yourself. I don’t have all night, I have two people’s work to finish.”

A barb of anger spikes from my wife’s bond, but she grits her teeth and tamps it down. “You could at least pretend to be the tiniest amount more hospitable. I came here to introduce you to my wife.”

Ah, that shut her up. And now her eyes rapidly move through my retainers…

They didn’t stop long on me though.

Huh.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” Izzy counters.

Her mother crosses her arms. “Which one is it?”

“Can we at least sit down for this?”

And a massive sigh is her response.

“Enough,” I say in a dark tone.

With an idle wave of my hand, I form an ashen chair for each of us, arranged around a similarly ashen low table. “Arty dear, I’m sorry, but would you? You make better tea than anyone else here.”

By the time Izahne’s mother has processed what just happened, I’ve already taken my seat – the most luxurious of the set – and my retainers are scrambling to take theirs as well. I felt conflict from Omorth at first, unquestionably about whether a guard should be sitting at the same table as their charge, but I pressure him until he relents.

My fox wife is already serving tea by the time the unfriendly woman sit as well. I silently stare her down until Arty finishes and takes her seat next to me, with my other wife to my opposite side.

“Well Izzy, you said I’d see, and I’m definitely seeing,” I say as I idly take her hand in mine.

“So, you’re the one,” her mother starts in a sharp tone. “I don’t know who you think you are, but –”

“Then I’ll tell you who I am.”

Omorth starts to rise as if to do it for me as he has in the past, but I dismissively raise my hand. “No, I’ll do it. This is a family matter; I’m not going to stand on ceremony.”

Returning the woman’s glare, I continue. “My name is Nemesis. I am the goddess of envy, night, and hunger, as well as your daughter’s wife.”

“A motherfucking god? You ran away and married a god? Are you out of your damned mind, girl?” she continues to rant.

“YES SHE DID,” I snap back. “Now you WILL pretend to show some civility. I have introduced myself. Now you will do the same.”

Gritting her teeth she answers, “Sodaca. That girl’s mother.”

“You need to stop calling her ‘girl’. She’s not a child.”

“She’s my child, and that’s all that matters. I don’t care if you claim to be her wife, but this is my family, not yours, and you have no say here whether you’re a god or a garbage rat.”

I actually feel the point when my temper boils over.

Releasing my physical form, I explode into a wave of swirling ash and fill the room, blocking out visibility.

And I glare at her from an inch away, my disembodied eyes reflecting back blue in the now-terrified woman’s.

YOU WILL SHOW PROPER RESPECT, I grate directly into her mind. THE ONLY REASON I HAVEN’T ALREADY REWARDED YOUR INSOLENCE WITH DESTROYING YOUR SOUL IS BECAUSE I KNOW MY WIFE WOULD MOURN YOU.

In a flash I reform my body, one hand on each of her chair’s armrests, my daggerlike teeth an inch from her face.

“So at least pretend to be civil,” I say quietly in my flutelike voice.

“N-Nemesis!” Izzy blurts, starting to rise as though to stop me, but with a snap of my fingers I’ve already rapidly dispersed and reformed sitting again in my chair. I idly manifest a pair of feelers to retrieve my teacup and saucer from the low table.

“Come now, everyone. Artemis brewed this for us, it’s not every day that a goddess brews tea for you herself.”

I feel Arty puff up with pride at the comment, but I know she can tell I was saying it for dramatic effect.

Clearly that doesn’t bother her.

But my comment definitely makes Sodaca tense, and then quickly reach for the teacup closest to her…

And is shaking so much she almost drops it… or would have if I hadn’t manifested another pair of feelers to catch them without spilling a drop. “Try harder, mortal. We aren’t going to kill you.”

From the look on her face and the heavy swallow she forces down, I can tell Izzy’s mother doesn’t believe me.

I sigh.

“We really are married, mom,” my wife says quietly.

“Then at least tell me. Where did you go? Why? Why did you leave?”

“I… I couldn’t take it anymore. The monotony…”

“So you left because you were bored? Is that really all?”

Izzy opens her mouth to shoot back an answer but then pauses.

“I expected better of you, gir-Izzy,” Sodaca says, catching herself with a worried glance at me. I offer her a pleasant smile – or at least it would be if I weren’t still showing my pointed teeth.

Having the option of concealing them was truly a wonderful discovery.

“Maybe you could do it, but I’m not you,” Izahne says quietly. “So when I met a priest, and his god offered me a Class –”

“You threw away your Class?” her mother asks in disbelief. “You were over level three-hundred. How can you just… waste that?”

“Alright, I’m going to cut in here. I understand that most mortals consider it rude to use Identify on someone without their consent. Izzy, do you consent?” I ask.

My wife nods.

“Then you, Sodaca. Use Identify on your daughter.”

Her eyes flicker to the telltale gray for a spilt second, and then she stares in disbelief.

“Yes, that’s the reaction I expected. In a decade, your daughter has gained more levels as my consort than she did during three-hundred and seventy years of tinkering with scraps of metal. I’ll admit that I don’t understand your fixation on her doing this work for you, but she clearly doesn’t want to, and I support her in that. I’ll support her in everything else too, so you don’t need to worry about that either. She is mine, and everything that comes with being mine.”

We sit in silence as I wait for her shock to wear off. When it finally does, she quietly says, “It doesn’t matter what else I say. You stole my daughter from me. Please, just… just leave. It’s fine if she’s yours now.”

I feel a trickle of hope in Izzy’s bond, until…

“She’s certainly not my daughter. Not anymore.”