Well, I guess now I actually know what my financial advisor has been doing with my assets…

Whether I understood any of that is another question entirely, but if nothing else I’ve been made aware that he’s definitely been busy. Also, our dealings with Sekhmet and her… oh, what was the word… silverfish? Sending cat?

(Syndicate,) Nyx cuts in out of nowhere.

…

(What?)

Sorry, I’m just momentarily surprised every time you talk to me these days. I still miss it, you know. You’re a talented advisor.

(And you’re literally me with a cosmic thing attached,) she snarks back.

And she’s not wrong, but I guess that’s fine.

It’s not like either of us can do anything about it anyway.

Meanwhile, I’ve simply been relaxing in my fox wife’s bed while she peacefully rests next to me, thoroughly wrapped around my right side. She always did like the right, which works out well considering Izahne always slept on my left.

Not that any of us need to sleep anyway, but that doesn’t matter right now.

She wants to. She wants this little piece of normalcy, from the times before everything fell apart. And I’ll admit… I wouldn’t mind a piece of that life either.

It seemed so simple in comparison to everything that’s happened since.

Even so… despite my current repose with Artemis, I can’t help but wonder what my second first wife is up to. I know she’s been running her own dungeon, a thing I made no attempts to resist when she simply elbowed the designed final boss out of the way and established herself there. I’d even told Rose to let it happen, even rearranging the configuration to be more like the old forest dungeon was for me.

The subterranean dungeon below my castle… still hasn’t been finished, not since I rebuilt the original structure aboveground. The words of creation are possibly a little too convenient considering restoring it is as simple as telling it to happen, not even needing to go stone by stone. I’ve even restored the large stone golems, instructing them to obey me unconditionally with Vivianne as my second-in-command as my defensive coordinator.

…

I wonder what minutiae she’ll have for me in the morning when I present myself at my throne room in the space between space as I do every morning.

Not that any morning is actually discernable from night in the absence of the sun and the refusal of the moon to set; a good thing in my mind, considering to me it symbolizes my own watchful eye over my people, and I’ve had my clergy reinforce that idea.

Which then brings me to my clergy. My cult. They’ve grown massively in number in lockstep with the increasing population, a large number of them now not even my homunculi. We had a great deal of volunteers among the others of my plane.

…

…

Izahne always wanted children. I remember. Even though she only mentioned it on the one occasion… she was devastated when she found out she couldn’t as an undead.

And my nightwalkers are the same. I can’t help but wonder if they want their own as well.

I could probably make arrangements for them to apply to one of the many Rose clones to have their own child created… the major issue with which is the lack of aging the undead show, and nightwalkers are no exception.

Or… maybe I could just modify their definition to allow aging up to a certain age, after which they simply stop aging…

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

…

…

Screw it. I’m doing it. All of my current ones seem to be the same age with no differences other than minor visual ones, at least enough to tell them apart. Rose seems convinced that it’s because adventurers would reject the thought that they’re individual monsters rather than just templated clones if they all looked the same.

Which is fine.

Rose, I intone.

Yes, master, the dungeon core responds. It’s rather convenient to have her at my beck and call, although I still don’t exactly know how to feel about it effectively being an appliance.

I wonder if that means I have an automated society not too far off from the kind that Nyx once mentioned, the self-running subdistricts of the Sand Sea, with administrative automatons designed by Vulcan himself.

Maybe so, just by an existing type of magical construct instead of a newly designed one. Maybe his are more specialized to the task instead of repurposed for it.

But I digress. Rose is projecting simple attentiveness as though it would wait forever for my commands.

Which it would.

And even so, I shouldn’t keep it waiting. So, well…

“{Race Alter Nightwalker InitialAge 0 AgeRate 1 MaxAge 370}.”

And it is done. I chose four hundred as the maximum age because if I remember right, Izahne was around that age when she became truly mine. When I stole her from Themis.

When I awoke, in the proverbial sense rather than literal.

And Rose is still waiting.

I want you to implement a system in which my nightwalkers can apply to have a child or children created, no more than two at a time.

Unfortunately, my master, the dungeon core avatar begins, nightwalkers as a race are unable to-

I fixed it, I cut in. They can age now, up to a normal age of four hundred for them.

I see.

Anyway, coordinate with Vivianne to make sure it’s fairly and smartly implemented. She can probably handle that a lot better than I can, considering administrative detail has never been my strong suit.

It shall be so, it projects in my mind. Good.

Good.

…

I think Izzy would be happy with this.

If she wanted to, she could even have children created for her.

Although… I wonder. She’s no longer a nightwalker… not in the same sense or anything like it anyway.

I wonder if she can just have children the normal way.

Maybe.

Either way, at this point I have a feeling that it won’t matter, at least not in regard to myself.

Maybe someday. But not now.

…

…

And now I’m conflicted.

Part of me wants to tell her I’ve done this… but I can’t help but worry that she’ll simply turn around and get one.

I know she’s smarter than that… if she wants to consider continuing her life a it is, she won’t. That being said though… maybe she wants a change.

If she really wanted to, I obviously wouldn’t stop her.

Nor would I want to.

I can’t say I particularly want children myself, but if it’s what she wanted I’d act in my best capacity to support her, and help raise it.

I’d already expected as much to be honest, although I’d half expected she’d simply take in one of the displaced children among the population much like I had with Olive so long ago…

Not that she needed me to… although I can’t help but wonder if that would have been possible if she hadn’t already been fixated on me.

I’m still not sure what to think about that, or how to feel about it. We need to talk more about it, that’s for sure.

One thing I do know, however, is that we’ll find a way to be fine. I just don’t know what that ‘fine’ looks like.

Ah, speaking of my wife, she begins to stir faintly next to me. A few moments later, she opens her eyes to blink groggily and glance around the room before letting out an exaggerated yawn showing her many sharp teeth.

“Good morning, my love,” I quietly intone. After all, even if I’m not truly able to experience the motion in any respect, I do still remember how it felt when I was able.

And that memory is enough. It’ll have to be enough, I don’t have any other choice.

…

I suppose I could try using the words of creation, I muse as Artemis locks eyes with me with a small smile, clearly perfectly willing to stay in this position for as long as I’m willing.

And that’s fine.

I’m in no rush to move about the day, and this place is comfortable, not least of all because she’s here.

Probably because she’s here, to be fair. Nobody else needs to be present.

Although my left side still feels decidedly empty. When exactly did I grow accustomed to that old sleeping arrangement?

I don’t know. Astraea’s memories can’t help me here… she can’t remember things that she didn’t experience, not directly… although if I focus on it I do feel some level of disjointed conflict in what I recall… the experience of both being in and watching someone else through the same eyes. The depersonalization is disorienting, that’s for sure.

But that doesn’t particularly matter right now

I sigh quietly, eyes still lost in my wife’s. It feels unfair to be thinking of someone else when I’m here with her.

But I still feel like I have to do something. I have to make some kind of move, or nothing will ever change.

So I take a breath and hold Arty closer, giving her a quick lip press on her own before resting her head on my shoulder. For some reason I feel like I shouldn’t be looking in her eyes while I do this.

And I project my thoughts to my other wife, in her dungeon or wherever she may be at the moment.

I miss you.