Evelyn, as it turned out, did not sleep through my ass slap in the shower.

She hadn’t been able to fall asleep after, and was being a real grump about it. Spending the day shopping and then working in her furnace room with the door closed. She looked straight through me as she held her fork, barely touching the fish on her plate that I’d gotten especially for her. More than anything she was just zoned out though. With her nocturnal sleep pattern this was basically pushing into the morning after an all-nighter for her.

Tisha had mostly ignored the meat and focused on the vegetables, breads and sweets. I mentally made a note of that, wondering if it was what elves ate for the most part.

Jade coughed quietly, trying to get some energy into the dead-silent dining room in my house. The room was cramped and formed for a very singular purpose. One that didn’t necessarily mean a ton of room at the table. I’d designed the whole place long and thin like a submarine. It meant that we were all squeezed in pretty tight.

Jade sat at my left, with Tisha to my right. Evelyn was across from us, and the spare chairs ran on to our left. The little kitchen was in that direction and was absolutely spotless. I’d paid Heartsbreech—the chipper elf that’d helped me and Jade take out the first wave of orcs that came after Clontikus—to put together a spread for us. He’d agreed happily and even managed to swipe me another of Mayor Gartus’ ancient dwarven beers. While I was at it I had him stock the kitchen with some elven food staples, and even some pricier foods and spices.

It’d be nice for Tisha to have that on hand if she stuck around.

Heartsbreech had refused any kind of payment no matter how hard I tried. Only saying, “You’ve killed Duke Meekro. That’s payment enough for many meals.” I’d left him enough gold to cover the kitchen supplies though. Dropping it in a cookie jar so he’d take the damn money.

I sipped the amazing beer that the elf had brought me, marveling at the range of spices and flavors that followed the initial hoppy pucker and the final whiskey-like burn. I’d split the bottle with everyone at the table, mostly for us just to get a taste.

“So,” I said, filling the silence that had come after we finished our meal. “First of all, cheers to all of us for successfully defending the town.” I lifted my hand in a toast. Evelyn snapped out of her sleep-deprived haze and joined the toast with Tisha and Jade. We sipped in silence and I went on. “I’m thinking our next move is to hijack ourselves an airship and then take out Duke Meedle Manageer.”

Evelyn seemed to be awake for the first time, either from what I’d said or the excellent beer. She looked down at her fish and then at me. Picking up her fork and digging into it. Frowning slightly as the meal had gone cold. I reached a hand out and gave the salmon a quick scorch, lifting up one of the nearby knives and slathering some butter onto it.

She looked up to me and gave me an exhausted smile, leaning her head on the hand she had propped on the table. “I’m all for it. Grabbing the ship, and of course getting the Duke,” she said, giving me a tiny nod in place of a verbal thank you for the fish. She took a bite and gasped at the flavor, wriggling in her chair and then sinking back into it with a sigh.

“You know I support these kinds of missions, Luis, but I don’t think this is something we should just jump straight into. Do you even know where Duke Meedle’s keep is?” Jade asked.

I shrugged. “Well, no. That shouldn’t be hard to figure out though. I’m sure you know.” She seemed to know a lot more than she let on.

“He’s in Featherton. It’s the city where all of Lord Manageer’s airships are manufactured. It has twice the population of Titanus, a lot more technology, and way more mages.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll plan a lot more this time. Something concrete. We won’t be in a hurry.” I didn’t mention the kidnapping in front of Tisha. I didn’t plan on letting it happen again, and it wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to advertise when I was trying to bring her into the harem.

She raised a hand timidly like a schoolgirl. I leaned back and pointed at her to go ahead. “Are you really… serious? I mean, you can’t be serious right?”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I dug into some peppered bacon and then a chicken breast. My new body constantly craved meat, and I was starting to think it might help me restore my magical stamina faster. The food was incredible. So good that I almost wanted to bring Heartsbreech along as a live-in chef.

“What do I mean? There’s no way you can kill him. The dukes are surrounded by too many orcs and too much leechium. Not to mention all the wizards. It’s impossible,” Tisha said. Her warm full voice dropped into an exasperated sigh at the end.

“Duke,” Evelyn corrected. Emphasizing a lack of an ‘s’. “Duke Meekro is dead.” She smiled wickedly and pointed a finger at me. “You have Luis to thank for that one.”

“And her,” I said doing a little round of applause for Evelyn and tipping my head toward her.

“What?” Tisha asked. Her face was slack with shock.

“Has word not spread? Damn. I should have brought it up at the show,” I said. A flood of thoughts pouring into my brain about our music. “And damn do I wish we could get our hands on a microphone. This no electricity thing is really grinding my gears.” Tisha gave me a long hungry look when I dropped that metaphor. I wondered what would happen if I could really get her next to an airship engine.

“A microphone?” Jade asked. Her own interest flared at the mention of something she probably had never heard of.

“Oh,” I said, forgetting that it was a strange device for her. I quickly turned toward Tisha and said, “Just to get this out of the way: I was sent here from another dimension and time by the Goddess of Chaos. I might say some words you’ve never heard from time to time—or be completely clueless about something that seems commonplace to you.”

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She squinted her eyes and twisted her head a quarter of an inch to the left. Trying to see whether or not I was serious. With Jade and Evelyn already clued in, it felt more fun to drop that monster fact casually. I had to keep reminding myself to cultivate more fun so I could grow stronger.

It could literally save all of our lives.

“The microphone is an amplification device. Typically used in concert or lecture settings. You hold it like this,” I said, picking up a chicken drumstick by the bone and putting it up to my lips. “Then anything you say is transmitted through a cable into a speaker or amplifier.” I raised my other hand up in the two fingers down and two fingers up heavy metal horns. “I never realized how important it was until I started missing it.”

Jade nodded slowly and her eyes went out of focus in the way they did when I knew she was thinking deeply. I almost continued, but I wanted to let her churn the idea in her head. If we could get our hands on some amplification equipment we could apply it to the instruments.

Hell, just having a vocal mic would be incredible. I never realized how much power it gave you on stage until I couldn’t use one.

Tisha was squinting at me seriously now. Clearly unable to tell if I was really committing to pranking her with this extended I’m from another dimension bit.

“I think we might be able to make that happen, Luis,” Jade said.

The chicken wing fell out of my hand mid-bite, though I managed to still keep the meat I was chewing in my mouth. “Don’t fuck with me, Jade,” I said. “Are you serious?”

She nodded her two-tone eyes, her horns glinting in the low candlelight that lit the room. “We’ll need to talk to the Lion’s Maw. They might know a way.”

“Lion’s Maw?” I asked. My mind drifted toward something that I couldn’t place.

“You could call them the resistance, I guess,” Jade said, flashing a quick look over at Tisha. Under normal circumstances she probably wouldn’t have disclosed something like this. Then again, we’d put on a rock show in open rebellion against Lord Manageer’s empire. None of this was exactly breaking news.

“Is their sigil an open lion’s mouth with a sword piercing through it?” I asked, remembering the trio of plate-armor wearing spectators who’d observed my execution—attempted execution—from the shadows. Happy to watch without doing anything.

Not much of a resistance, really.

I’d had to get us out of that one myself.

“Yes, that’s it,” Jade said. She seemed surprised that I’d known.

I grunted, not thrilled with the prospect of joining forces with those do-nothings. “How the hell are they going to help?”

She tapped her long pointed nail on her plate, buying time to think. “Do you remember what we talked about when we first had our lunch on top of the tent?” Evelyn had spaced out again and was eating her fish almost robotically. Her head was dipping from time to time into an almost seated sleep. Tisha was focused on her drink and pretending not to listen to us talk openly about rebellion.

“Yes,” I said, wondering why she wasn’t just coming out and saying it. Then remembering in passing that she’d talked about a secret group that was sabotaging electricity throughout the Shimmerlands and even the entire planet at large.

“Let’s just say they can help. But it’s going to be hard to reach them. I know of a place we can go, but it’s an incredibly long journey and we’ll never make it on foot,” Jade said.

“Perfect,” I said slapping my hands together and rubbing them furiously. “Then it’s agreed that we’ll sky jack us an airship.”

Jade nodded tentatively, then more enthusiastically. “If we have a plan—a good plan—then I’m in. There’s no half-assing this. We need to do it the right way if are going to do it at all.”

“Agreed,” I said, looking over at Tisha. “How would you like to join us as our mechanic for the job?” She startled as if touched by a cattle prod, then looked over at me.

“Seriously? You barely even know me. I could be an agent of Lord Manageer for all you know,” she said, unable to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the absurdity of the statement. “I’m not, just so you know,” she clarified immediately.

“If you are, you did a terrible job out there helping us kill that monster spider,” I said with a smile. “And I don’t know, I just get feelings about people sometimes. I knew Jade and Evelyn were worth trusting. I feel the same way about you.”

I opened myself as honestly as I could while I said it. Giving her a genuine smile. I knew it was true, though not exactly why. For a moment I wondered if I was just letting myself be led around by my dick, but I knew that wasn’t it. Somehow. Instinct, I guess.

“I’m not so sure,” she said. Her voice was almost a whisper. “I have a nice little spot made for myself here and joining a revolution sounds insane, honestly.” She covered her mouth and added, “No offense… I mean no offense intended.”

Jade scoffed. “No worries, honey. We all know how deep we are into this.” Tisha blushed again at Jade using the pet name. I idly wondered if she’d have any blood left in her body after tonight with all the blushing.

I wanted to push, but I felt that wasn’t the best way to get her involved. I couldn’t help but add a bit more though. “Frankly, we need you,” I said. “Evelyn knows her way around metal and smithing—there’s no doubt about that. She bought the engine for the RV though, and I don’t think any of us have anything close to the expertise it would take to run an airship.”

“It would take a crew. You know that right?” she asked.

“How many?” I asked.

Tisha shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess at least eight? That’s just to fly the thing. I’d be able to see if there were any defensive wards on the airship’s exterior—or magical traps within. On top of stealing it though, there’s maintenance and all that.”

I suppressed a frown. That was a bit more than I was hoping for. Then again, we weren’t exactly normal. With my powers I could probably do the work of four or five people. “Good to know about your powers,” I said. “I didn’t even know that was possible. I haven’t run into any wards yet.” I briefly wondered how we’d managed that with Duke Meekro, but decided to ask Tisha about that later. We had plenty going on for now.

Even with reduced staff, we could probably man the ship using our magic.

Hell, if we set things up right I could probably steer the ship without using a control panel just by using my powers.

“So…” I said summing things up. “We need to get in touch with the resistance, find an airship to steal, and then kill Duke Meedle.” The list was absolutely insane, but already had me fired up. “And of course, put on at least one show. Hopefully with microphones in hand.”

Jade forced a smile that was mostly teeth. “Sounds simple enough,” she said.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” I said to Tisha. “But will you stick around? I have that secret project tomorrow I was hoping to get your help with.”

Her blue eyes flashed with interest. “Secret project? What’s that?”

“Meet me here tomorrow morning at eight and you’ll find out,” I said, using the mystery to reel her in. Also not saying it out loud because I still wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.

I was going to try and build us a stealth jet.

“Jade, do you have any of that camouflage paint left over from the show?” I asked.

“Yeah, tons,” she said. “I bought way too much mercurium when I made the initial batch and poured all of my bonus sex magic into it. Seemed useful down the line. We got enough to paint a house, really.” Tisha’s pale face deepened into an even redder flush at the mention of sex. Her head cocked slightly again at the mention of sex magic.

“Perfect,” I said. “Because that’s exactly what we’ll be doing.”