A few months ago. Rerin, capital of Sadian, the Throne Room
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"The scouts found signs of fighting and a military camp at the location but no bodies, no debris, and too few bloodstains, Your Majesty."
The Royal Strategist reported to the King of Sadian. The few survivors of their expedition were all insane, speaking of an endless horde of al-Mi'raj that fought like demons. Seasoned rank two and three knights and nobles, fleeing the horned rabbits. Preposterous.
The King slammed his fist on the armrest and glared over the throne room. The nobles that opposed the attack on Windemere gained prestige, while the warmongering party, himself included, lost everything they invested in the campaign. Why did he have to listen to Torgo, that snake? He lost more money than what the alleged Royal descendant and heir to the throne donated.
With perfect timing, a {Messenger Bird} entered through an open window and landed on the steps leading to the King’s dais, vanishing into a small scroll. With a gesture from the sovereign, one of the guards took the scroll and brought it to the Archmagister. After making sure there wasn't any trap or poison, he handed it to the King so he could open it.
He read the message and stood. "All of you, leave me. This court session is adjourned."
The only other people that became aware of the message’s contents were the Queen and the Archmagister.
> Torgo the traitor was executed by orders of Queen Mirina Locksley of Windemere. The [Matriarch], patron goddess of the Kin, Windemere, and Auvani is now the official religion of Windemere.
>
> P.S.: King of Sadian, you have outstanding debt for the cleanup of your mess. Just like six hundred years ago, I'm coming to collect it soon.
He crumpled the piece of parchment. Seething with anger, he burned it with a Fire cantrip and tossed the vanishing ashes down on the stairs. In his mind, his great-grandfather's words rang true. "Covet not Windemere and its treasures. Your ancestors once drew its guardian's wrath and perished."
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Current time, three months after the tree-gates were installed. Windemere, capital of Windemere. One kilometer above the surface
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The three of us sat on the grass of my floating island, enjoying a calm and artificial breeze that blew over the viridescent blades, making them bend and dance. The leaves of the huge rusty fig ruffled under the wind as my lovers and I took shelter from the sun and enjoyed the tree’s shade.
The island was fully operational. I used Lonid’s Royal Palace as the main building along with a handful of others. I had a temple to the Matriarch, a large mansion I could use as a guest house, hostel, or barracks, the floating keep from my previous experiment which I could take out and move across the air independently, a large barn which doubled as stables for horses (no animals yet), and a tall tower I built from scratch.
The palace suffered several modifications. Its days as the heart of the government had ended. The throne room was redecorated and now sported a ten-meter thick flawless crystal slab. It was enchanted with two rings of runes on each rim to be almost indestructible and give ten times magnification of the surface below. Through it, we could see the whole capital as if we were a hundred meters above it. It blocked Light spells and other physical magic. The illusion beneath the lens was one-sided only, so the people below couldn’t see us spying on them.
The whole island was crammed with enchantments. An environmental ward covered the whole island, blocking the heat from being leeched by the cold air outside, maintaining oxygen levels and air pressure similar to the surface. The weather was always a pleasant late-Spring afternoon. Even rain was filtered after a limit, letting only a gentle drizzle pass. Finally, the environmental enchantment also dealt a small amount of damage to any bugs and fungi on the island, unless they were whitelisted.
The weather enchantment was linked to a tall tower, reaching a hundred meters above the island. Through a {Shadow Warp} enchantment, one could access the belvedere-type lookout at the top of the tower from which the surface could be seen for hundreds of miles in all directions. Tuisto’s valley to the east, Sadian, the Uroko gulf and the ocean to the west, the mountains to the south, and to the north, Lonid, Pruinvel, and beyond. On a clear day, we could see the horizon following the curvature of the planet. Spoiler alert, Yznarian was bigger than Earth.
A lazy stream poured from a hill behind the Palace, the only elevated terrain on the island, went around the palace to feed a pond near the main entrance within line of sight of the rusty fig, then from the pond it ran through the length of the island until right before the edge where it poured down into an underground reservoir where it was purified and pumped by another enchantment back to the hill. I had some ornamental freshwater fish and a whole biome with crawfish, algae, and other aquatic creatures living in the pond and stream.
On the other side of the rusty fig, I had a fruit orchard and some crops growing. I felt like I was playing Skyblock Honeydew Valley.
Our perimeter was surrounded by a stone parapet right at the edge of the island. It was my solution to the “involuntary bungee jump” dilemma. A continuous stone parapet with enchanted rods inside the stone, each projecting a Force wall on the outside that covered its own section and the two on each side. Someone would need to break three consecutive sections to create a gap. Damage received was split between the overlapping barriers so attacks on the Force wall needed to deplete the MP pool of three enchantments. They reached only ten meters up, enough to keep people from falling to their deaths but not enough to block flying intruders.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The basement held storerooms (currently empty), and a massive space where I maintained another {Shadow Workshop} crowded with vats of demon carcasses. Best of all, if no other sentient creatures were on the island, I could send it to the item box (and brace my fall with my wings). The {Shadow Workshop} would stop working and whatever was inside would spill in the basement but it was doable.
The base of the tower held two enchantments, a {Mana Wellspring} and another to block divination magic. Not even Marlowe could peek up here. This floating island was meant to be idyllic and private. Only the world’s biggest voyeurs, the idiotic Gods could peek in here. I wished Lorna was here with me to see it. To see how Windemere survived a major crisis and came out of it stronger than ever.
“Haru?”
Why was Wyxnos taking so long to fix her soul? How difficult could it be?
“Haru? You have ‘the look’ again,” Mirina remarked. “Did you hear anything about our preparations for your birthday?”
I felt a warm hand rubbing my back. Then another from the other side.
“Let the seating arrangement for the party aside, Mirina. Put it out,” Jocelin said. “Let it out, share your pain with us. We’re here for you.”
I blinked away tears I didn’t know I had.
Yes, we came up here to see about using the finished island as a venue for my birthday party in a week. I wanted something modest but no, the [Queen]’s lover and resident deity allegedly had to throw a big party.
“Thanks. But it is not fair for me to be sad with you two here. I’m sorry.”
“Hey!” The [Queen] protested.
“Don’t apologize for your feelings,” Trinity added. “But share them with us. What troubles our Goddess and creator?” She finished with a mocking tone.
I felt I was betraying them. “I made a bargain with the Gods,” I confessed. “In exchange for delaying my vengeance against the dragons, Wyxnos is working on repairing Lorna’s soul.”
“Your wife, the [Queen]?” Jocelin asked, just to confirm and keep the conversation going.
I nodded. “Yes. But he’s been vague as to how long it’ll take to finish. I had Galbarar vouch for his work, so I don’t think they lied to me,”
Mirina grunted a chuckle of agreement. She was a devout follower of the deity. “We understand,” she cooed.
“I feel like I’m cheating on you,” I confessed.
They each grabbed one of my hands.
“Will you abandon us if she comes back to life?” Jocelin asked, her voice trembling with hidden anxiety.
“No!” I protested immediately, hugging them both with my extended six-meter-long tails. “I’m going to add her to my harem.” Let’s be meta. Every isekai’d person deserved one. “Maybe the other girls too. No. I… I like you two. I think we have awesome chemistry.” I pulled them closer. “I won’t let you go unless you want to.”
It was too early to talk about love. We had awesome chemistry and the feelings were mutual but they hadn’t yet grown that far. Even with Lorna, we first started with a burning passion (and magical toys) before becoming rock solid. And now what I had with these two went almost the same way (with better magical toys). We would get there eventually, once we had time to get to know each other.
“Unless you can grow a dick and some muscle, you’ll have trouble getting Marisol to join,” Mirina joked.
“She can shapeshift, Mi,” Jocelin remarked.
“Not into a male...” I shook my head. I knew one way to grow something. Using {Chimeric Transformation} to change my genitals into a spotted hyena’s. The female’s clitoris was shaped into a pseudopenis similar to a male’s. But it was totally different from a human penis. And I wasn’t into bestiality. Even though the beast would be me. Well, I guess that practice wasn’t so frowned upon among the kin. Some werewolves in Theirian did mate with ordinary wolves as well as humans and wolf-kin.
The real question was, did I want to have sex with Marisol using a spotted hyena’s genitals? No? I mean, I hadn’t had penetrative sex with a woman ever since I died back in NY and I kinda missed it but in the end, I decided to skip it. I could imagine Marisol would be quite curious but no. Nope. Let’s wrap this one up as a hard pass.
“Not happening. I can’t grow one,” I declared with finality.
Mirina just rolled her eyes but Jocelin sighed. I nudged her with my elbow and asked what was that with a questioning glance.
“I wouldn’t mind it,” she confessed.
“Sorry. I could…” I was thinking of the thing you mount on a harness but that was another option. Enchanting everything on this island granted me a handful of [Enchanter] Proficiency, mostly because each enchantment was brand new. On the second point, I got a new Ability to pick but I hadn’t decided which yet.
“Oh. I have an enchantment ability to pick. There’s an ability available that allows me to make enchantments that can transmit sensory information between the enchanted item and the wearer. I think it is used to create spy items, like tiny ears that can hear from afar, or hidden eyes to watch your enemies, but I think it could be used to transmit the feeling of touch too.”
She stared back in disbelief. “You’d waste an Ability pick on that?”
Mirina chimed in after the satin girl, “Unless you really miss having one, I think we are pretty satisfied with what we have now.” She put emphasis on the “really” part.
“No, not really,” I replied to the [Queen]. I missed it but not “really missed”.
“Then it is settled. Pick something useful for more than just fooling around.”
“But it could be used to communicate from afar,” I rebutted. “Imagine, a pair of linked devices that could be turned on and off, transmitting sight and hearing across large distances.”
Yup. Magical cellphones.
“There are spells for that.”
But not for anyone to use, I almost replied. Almost. “Okay, I’m picking something else”, I let the subject drop. I remembered Loki had me cursed to not speak of technology. I also knew the Pantheon wanted this world to remain stuck in an eternal medieval fantasy and I didn’t want to antagonize the whole cadre of deities.
I wanted to be left alone by them but maybe that was impossible. Shoving aside the worries about my incoming match with the dragon-bitch and the anxiety surrounding Lorna’s return, I cleared my mind using {Compartmentalized Mind}, Apricot’s secret power. Then I made my pick.
> Enchanter [ 557 / 557 ]. Select 1 Ability
>
> * Inscribe Glass: You can enchant glass, obsidian, and crystal. Increase available points and durability by (Proficiency/5)%. This has no effect on gemstones and other crystalline substances.
This ability had synergy with [Rune Scriber] if I carved runes into the glass. With that out of the way, I purged out my stress with a peal of laughter and squeezed the two.
“Hey, there’s a custom back in my first world,” I started as if I was going to reveal a great secret. “Of a secret club for lovers up high. It’s called the ‘Mile High Club’….”
I trailed off as my ears perked at a tingling sensation. Pandora thrummed in my chest. My gaze was drawn far to the west.
“There she goes again,” Mirina sighed.
“No. I’m not drifting off into my own thoughts this time,” I replied. “Something big happened in Rerin. I can feel it.”
“Out with it. What happened? Another attack? Another war?” Jocelin’s crystal-icy cool broke a bit.
“No, nothing bad, I guess. They consecrated a big-ass cathedral to the Matriarch. Something is up, I think I need to go there.”
Mirina wriggled free of the fur coat wrapped around her and stood, straightening her dress. “We’re going with you,” she declared. “I doubt Sadian is doing it out of the goodness of their heart. They never replied to that letter you sent and I think you’re right. Windemere is back on track, we need to stop ignoring our neighbors.”
Jocelin too escaped my tail cocoon and stood next to the [Queen]. “I’m coming too.”
They were both level 144 with a five-fused Class. Unless something really sinister was happening there, they’d be safe with me.
Giving up my dreams of joining the club, I shifted gears. “Okay. Let’s go then.”