01 - Matriarch Domakun

A storm rumbled outside; rain sluiced down from the heavens and bent the long grass outside. It dripped along the window pane, leaving behind long watery smears that distorted the distant lights of the city. A flash of light cracked across the sky, silhouetting the tall swaying pines in the the distance and sending a rumble that rattled the window panes and shook the burning oil lamp beside the figure.

Maya Sullivan looked at the rain and set her hand against the glass, it was cold and as she pulled her hand away, she saw her hand print upon it. She shivered slightly and looked down at the sheet of paper that sat before her. The lamp light flickered and the words before her swayed in the light.

Journaling was something she never had a compulsion to do. There were no diaries for her brothers to raid, where she told her darkest secrets for her parents to stumble across. It was equal parts of not having a life worth recording and not wanting to leave written evidence of what she had done. If it was worth remembering, it would be.

The pen scratched across the sheet of paper. She wrote for a minute and then stopped. She looked down at the sheet of paper before her and crumbled it.

Maya took a long breath and rubbed her hand across her head. The stubble was a strange feeling she still hadn’t gotten used to. Nana stated she could use a little system tech magic and regrow her hair, but Maya was once again hesitant to begin the process. She wondered if it was the same thing that had prevented her from getting her hand fixed. Definitely not the same, one had been a limb, this was just hair. Maya sighed and scratched her head once more. It was the second time she had her brain messed with by Nan and the AI hadn’t even bothered to buy her a drink.

For the last three standard days Maya had been convalescing. She had been ordered by Nan to not do anything strenuous, which meant not returning to the RSH and raiding the hopefully intact hiveship she had stolen. Normally, she would have made a quip and then done just exactly that, but it didn’t take Maya long to realize not all was well with her brain. She had immediately passed out when she tried opening the doorway back into the RSH.

That meant she had to close the doorway to the space station and when she passed out, everyone was sort of trapped within the Cage for a day. Nan had lectured her about using her newfound abilities, the skills she had gained in the fight against the hiveship were what caused all her problems. Continuing to play around with abilities and skills she knew nothing about was something Nan had put her robotic foot down on.

Maya had obeyed, it was one thing to fight a hiveship and nearly die. It was an entirely different thing to try and open a dimensional threshold and nearly die. She wasn’t about to go out trying to open a door, if she was gonna go out it’d be with sparklers and a bomb big enough to cause the System some annoyance.

With her mortality reaffirmed, Maya had decided to take Nan’s advice. She had created her small rustic room and sequestered herself within it.

It was on of the only few times in many months that Maya had the time to just do nothing. There were no deal to be made, there were no rogue AIs that needed killing, there was no crazy happenings like the mana purge or the weird chaos lightning storm. All there was to do was to lay in bed.

She couldn’t even do heavy thinking, there were the engineering problems that the Astronauts were figuring out. A smart bunch they were and already they had begun learning how to tinker with system tech. Roci and Scotty were their tutors in that regard, but Maya had wanted to play too, but Nan’s orders were order she could not get around.

So she sat in bed and played with her status screen.

Level up! (Level 100)

It had been a shock when she first saw it. It was what she had been aiming for since she had Seared herself. It was the goal that meant she would be able to start manipulating essence mana and thereby become one of the most powerful SIL in the multiverse.

Sitting bald headed and aching from many wounds, Maya did not feel all that powerful. She looked at her status page and began opening some of the messages she had chose to ignore.

Centennium Prime

You are the first of your species to reach level 100.

+ Knowledge Token

+ Pathways Vol I, II, & III

Centennium

You have reached level 100.

+ 5 Luck

+ 5 Fortitude

+ 5 Foundation

Domination

You have defeated and dominated a being of higher levels and Tier than you. Impressive and terrifying.

+ Presence I

+ Flaws I

Touched by Mana

You have survived contact with condensed, liquid mana. Many rarely do.

+ 10 Luck

Blood and Mana

The most ancient forms of power were of blood and mana, you have used Intention and Will to bind technology to yourself. A good idea or a terrible one? Only time will tell.

+ Will I

+ 10 Fortitude

Immense Power

You have access to Tesseracts, one of the greatest sources of power in the Integrated Multiverse.

+ Tesseracts and You Vol. I, II, & III

+ 5 Fortitude

The Stars are Yours

You are the first of your species to build a livable space station.

+ Interstellar Traveler Guide I & II

+ 5 Mental Strength

Unified

There are technologies have been lost to time. Union technology has been rediscovered by you.

+ Union Tech Fundamentals Vol. I, II, III, IV, & V

+ 10 Foundation

Space Based I

Your corporation has expanded beyond your home planet and taken to the stars.

+ 4 Mental Dexterity

+ 1 Lostamira Personal Shuttle - mid-grade, Tier 1

Rogue Antagonist I

Can’t we all just get along? No? Death and destruction has been wrought by your hands against rogue AIs.

+ 4 Physical Strength

+ 1 Hatimongo Rogue Slayer Officer Sword - mid-grade, Tier 1

Anti-rogue AI Enchantment: only can be used by SIL

Hatimongo Eversharp Enchantment: Always sharp, never dull.

Rogue’s Doom Pulse Enchantment: A mana pulse disruption field is created to stun a rogue AI. Channeling mana will triple the mana pulse.

Waste Not, Want Not I

Some would call it trash, but others would call it resources.

+ 4 Mental Perception

+ 1 Recycler’s Token

The Edge of Death I

There’s a fine line between life and death and you seem to enjoy standing upon that edge.

+ 4 Physical Recovery

+ 1 Life Potion, high-grade, Tier 1

High-Grade Achieved

Congratulations upon the leveling to high-grade (levels 75-100).

+ 5 Foundation

+ 5 Fortitude

+ 5 Luck

[Technomancer] Level 5

You have chosen the path of the technomancer and some technology will do your bidding.

+ 4 Mental Willpower

[Intellectual Property Thief] Level 5

Some SIL hold IP sacred, others see it as a shortcut.

+ 2 Mental Channel

[Technology Adaption] Level 5

Adapt a piece of tech for a purpose it was not intended for.

+ 2 Mental Stamina

[Tech Modder] Level 6

Take a piece of tech and modify it to your own needs.

+ 2 Mental Dexterity

[Rogue Tech Mechanic] Level 4

Your rogue AI on the fritz? Pick up a wrench and find the shade of a tree.

+ 1 Mental Endurance

[Rogue Tech Technician] Level 2

With the right tools and knowledge, you can repair rogue AIs.

+ 2 Mental Dexterity

[Reverse Engineer] Level 4

Some SIL create, some SIL build, some SIL take another SIL’s Creation and figure out how to build it.

+ 2 Mental Perception

You have reached Level 100! You have 10 Pending Occupational Bonuses to Apply.

Intention III

Dimensional Inventory IV

Dimensional Awareness VII

Dimensional Threshold V

It was a long and impressive list, Maya had to admit. There were more notifications, but the bulk of them were level increases in various occupational abilities; none, from what she saw, were significant changes. No, level 10’s anywhere.

The last time she had checked her status page and levels had been in the first fight at the mana lake with Bell. She had defeated a lot of rogue AIs in and around the BR before she finally took the fight to the hiveship, but Maya still hadn’t figured out the math behind it.

She had used her [Raid Leader] ability to put Tender and Bell into the raid squad, where they could all share experience gains based on levels. Tender had been level 50 and Bell had been somewhere around the same area also. Before she had defeated the three Tier 2 rogue AIs in the Cage, she had been only level 62.

It was the end of the fight, where the Blob and the last Executioner had been destroyed that bothered Maya. She hadn’t gotten any death notifications from the System, yet somehow she had been awarded some experience points that had pushed her into the level 100 range. Bell and Tender had got nothing after the defeat of the first Executioner ant, even when she ‘removed’ the hiveship mind.

Something was amiss and Maya couldn’t pin point it. She had tried going through the data and the logs from the battle, but the numbers were not as she was expecting. Somewhere she had gained experience points, but she didn’t know from what or whom.

She brought up her status page once more and stared at it. There was a lot of points to distribute and once she accepted the level gain, she would no longer be on easy street. As a Tier 2 SIL with low levels, she had been blessed with only needing half of the experience points to gain a level. It was still a lot of experience points, but far less than a normal SIL would need.

Now that she was a low-grade, Tier 2 SIL, she wasn’t getting that little bonus anymore. The real struggle would begin now as levels would come slower and slower. The future looked somewhat grim, as she had no mana channels to work with. A fundamental feature of any SIL were their mana channels, which allowed non-combat SIL to use mana to improve their occupational abilities, like a [Smith] or an [Engineer].

If one used mana while they were doing an occupation, they would gain experience from it, the same as one would if they were battling a mana mutation. It wasn’t as fast or intense as fighting monsters, but it was a safe and steady method of gaining levels. In addition for every ten levels one gained in an occupational ability and every ten levels one gained in personal levels, they would gain an occupational bonus. That bonus would be applied to their occupational ability, thereby making it better, gaining boosts in experience gains and the quality of their craft.

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Maya had seared her mana channels away. Technically, being pulled into a dimensional instability as Integration was occurring in her universe and Earth being upgraded to a Tier 2 planet to become a Point of Contact for the System, had scrambled up her insides. She had been pumped full of transformative essence mana right out of the System’s spigot. Then she had been dumped into a dimensional plane where essence mana did not exist, so the essence mana that had been pumped into her began killing her own mana channels and began replacing it with channels that would allow her to use essence mana.

As she had been low level, the usage of such essence mana channels would have killed her. She hadn’t known at the time, but in the battle against Shen she had finally called upon the essence mana to aid her, which had Seared her and would have led to her death if the System hadn’t intervened.

Maya shook her head, it had been a wild and crazy four months. So much had happened, but she knew that was only the surface. There was so much other thing she needed to do now. There was Earth that still needed help, she had eventually look for her family, she had to return to the rainbow sky hellscape (RSH) and begin salvaging the hiveship, and she had to deal with the craziness that was already going on in the RSH. Chuckles the Dragon had said that things would get interesting as Maintenance in the RSH continued.

The big rogue AIs, the ones with plenty of mana to throw around, would become desperate. They would begin fighting and killing one another, trying to survive however long Maintenance lasted. As Maya was stuck in the RSH for the next five hundred standard years, she would eventually have to deal with those rogue AIs.

She was not looking forward to that.

There was a knock on the door to the room. Maya paused in her writing. It was a simple door, wooden slats hung by heavy cast iron hinges and with a copper knob.

“They’re arriving,” a voice said softly.

Maya looked down at what she had written and then nodded. She picked up the papers and a moment later they dissolved into the air. From the desk a tablet rose up and Maya picked that up. She headed to the door, not bothering to open it, but instead making the room disappear around her.

Yosi stood waiting for Maya.

“Are you ready?” Yosi asked.

Maya rolled her neck and cracked her knuckles. “Born ready.”

***

The Cage was silent as Yosi and Maya made their way across it. Although Maya could have contracted the Cage or moved it so that they were at the meeting area, she did not. Instead she took the time to calm herself and take slow breaths as they walked through stacks of machinery, tools, resources, and work areas.

Maya had to admit the Cage had changed a lot since she had fought Shen inside of it so long ago. It felt more lived in now that she had spent ten days within it. The Astronauts had also been spending more of their time within the Cage, the access to gravity, real beds, and the draw of the Engineering VR gear and sped up time were what kept them coming back. Then there were Tender, Roci, Veskari, Nan, and Scotty. They were all working on various projects, mostly with the black goo netting and gaining more mana to power the Cage.

Even with the forty plus tesseracts that they had regained from Roci, the Cage was still burning an unbelievable amount of mana to maintain its presence. Maya would have preferred to return to the RSH, but Nan was a system tech AI and her lack of black goo was an issue. Although Tender had begun resolving that issue by chopping up a piece of tesseract and then using it to power Nan’s mobile body. It was such a success that Tender was in the process of creating her a completely new system tech body, the reshaped tesseract having more than enough power to keep her AI core running for years.

Only Yosi and Veskari were truly aware at the vast amount of credits they were ‘wasting’ on Nan’s new body. Well, Bell probably would have popped a blood vessel too, but he wasn’t around to witness it. They had plenty of tesseracts to play with and if Tender and she had hacked the hiveship correctly, its own stores of liquid mana would be safe.

Maya paused as she saw a shimmer in the wall of the Cage. It was a momentary distortion of the bare metallic bulkhead, flashing a slight violet and casting a faint glow. Maya had been seeing those ‘distortions’ often since she had awakened. It bothered her enough that she had investigated even though Nan had ordered bedrest.

When she had killed the Blob and somehow managed to fuse rogue tech and system tech to her Will, with the addition of tesseracts and the liquid mana, it had changed some of the components within the Cage. The Union tech that the System told her about, she had the knowledge cubes, but currently she her queue was still the Engineering knowledge cubes she had started after the first trip to Haltor’s World.

The Cage had consumed the the tesseract packs that they had created. Of the fifty-five packs they had brought into the Cage, only seven remained. The other forty-eight had been somehow consumed by the Cage when she had been fighting the Blob. Tender and Roci were still trying to figure that out, Maya herself didn’t even know what really happened during that time. She had been trying to survive the Blob’s attack and used anything she could grasp onto.

The Blood and Mana title hinted at what she did, but Maya needed someone to explain it to her. She had fused herself with the Cage, making it stronger, making herself able to manipulate it far better than she could before. It was an extension of herself now.

It was uncharted territory.

The System called it Union tech, but Maya could feel the difference in the Cage itself. She could feel the system tech components moving around, the majority of the Cage was high-grade, Tier 2 components. Then there were the rogue tech components, components that she had ripped and consumed from the Blob and the Executioner ants. She could feel the rogue tech components swirling around in the Cage mix around her, along with the tesseracts that had been also consumed. On top of that there were the Union tech components that stood out sharply in her Cage senses. Everything combined together made a volitive mixture and Maya didn’t know if that would lead to trouble down the line.

One of the bigger mysteries was what happened to the all the rogue AIs she had killed within the Cage itself, once she managed to regain control of it. She had destroyed two Tier 2 rogue AIs and scores of their smaller cannon fodder brethren, yet she had never received experience or notifications about their deaths.

Which all lead Maya to the biggest mystery of all. How were they still powering the Cage? She had nearly used up all the fifty-five tesseracts they had on hand, losing a few of them in the destruction of the BR. Her own math showed that each pack of 200Mg only kept the Cage running for five hours. They had lost all their liquid mana when the Blob tried killing her and they had been forced to return to the space station and grab the tesseracts she had given to Roci.

That power should have run out two days before. The fifty packs that Roci had would have only powered the Cage for 250 hours, eight standard days. It had been ten, almost eleven days, since she had gone into her coma. Yet, the Cage was still powered and there were not much discussions about the need to get more power. Although she knew that Tender and Roci and Veskari were working on the whole black goo mana net and charging the Category 5 mana core they had left behind on the space station.

The data was a mess and Maya was still trying to parse out what had happened. Three days wasn’t enough and she felt she was on the scent of something bigger. Then they had received word that Bell’s matriarch wanted to see them.

Bell had returned home. It was something Maya was still wrapping her head around. Although she hadn’t been with him for that long, going on only three months since he had shown up one day, half crazed and trying to kill her. She felt their relationship had grown into a strong friendship, one where she could and did put her life in his hands and he had come through. It was the latter that had cause him to return to his homeworld.

The golden ticket that the System had given her to give to him, he had used it. She was dying, her brain turning to mush; he had managed to get her to make a doorway to his home. She didn’t remember it, but Yosi said she had barely managed. She had opened the doorway, Bell had run off into his world, and several hours later returned with potions that were far stronger and more reliable than even the best of Nan’s medicine.

The tale went that he had robbed his House of high-grade potions and kicked the asses of the guards there. Once he saw that Maya would be saved, that the potions were working, he had returned to face the judgment of his House. Apparently robbing expensive potions was frowned upon.

But he had used the golden ticket. He had left the Cage and returned to the multiverse at large. He could never return to the rainbow sky hellscape. Maya sighed as they entered the meeting room. It was similar to the one she had met Peg in. A large room, a wooden table, and some chairs.

This time, though, it was only Yosi and Maya who were in attendance. The House Domakun matriarch was a Tier 3 entity, she was far stronger than Maya and from her own experiences, the stronger one got the more of a dick they were.

She had kicked everyone out of the Cage, including Roci and Tender. They would only be casualties if things went tits up. Yosi had demanded to be with her, after all she was a Sullivan and had mentioned she missed out on all the leveling Bell, Tender, and Maya had undergone. Maya couldn’t deny her, she was an adult and knew the risks, also she had more merchant levels than Maya did.

That had been another mystery that needed to be solved. Tender had leveled during the fight against the hiveship. The only thing that came to mind was Tender’s liquid mana bath had changed something more within him, not just bumping him up to level 50, but also allowing him to gain experience from defeated foes. It was something they were both eager to test out once they returned to the RSH.

The view screen that showed the world outside of the Cage was active and Maya peered into the alien world. Bell had got her to make the doorway inside of what appeared to be a courtyard, Maya could see some hanging vines, reddish flowers blooming, and a simple wall that appeared to be adobe. She didn’t know what to expect, but something more alien than a simple courtyard.

From what she could see of the sky, it was a more purplish color than she was used to, but the courtyard was still bathed in bright yellow light of the sun.

Within the courtyard stood a lot of Bell looking people. Blue skinned, four armed, and draped in finery that screamed ultra-rich. They were milling around the courtyard, talking and whispering to one another, but all were waiting for someone, the big cheese, the head honcho, the lady supreme.

They didn’t have to wait long, but Maya within the Cage idled the time by perusing the data she had been looking over for the last few days. There had to be a hint as to where all the experience points went when she killed those rogue AIs.

Yosi paced back and forth, adjusting the formal business suit she wore. It was the same one she had worn when they met with Pegarios and his people. Maya looked down and noticed she was wearing a stained ship suit. Although she could change outfits at will, cleaning those outfits was a whole different matter.

Maya dug into her inventory as the gathered crowd parted to reveal a tall elderly woman. The bright golden hair that Bell and the others in the courtyard had, was a dull copper and Maya could see the age lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth. She still walked straight and proud though, her eyes radiating intelligence and looking as if she were peering through the Cage wall and at Maya.

She found a clean shipsuit and quickly put it on. Bell made an appearance before the elder woman, he said something and then led the way into the Cage.

Maya took a deep breath and smiled.

“Hey, Bell,” she said.

***

Velseramara Domakun, mid-grade, Tier 3

Maya didn’t know all that much about Bell’s family. The most he spoke of the matriarch of House Domakun was that she had fought in a war against interstellar invaders a thousand years before. She had created a House that was dedicated to the craft of [Alchemy]. The Domakun family was powerful, as it seemed that each Tier 3 House was a nation unto itself.

She never pried but Bell had dropped a few hints about the subject. Especially when he claimed that there was tension between the Houses and the death of many mid-grade SIL due to the dimensional instability that had brought Bell to the RSH, might lead to a lot more strife.

There was an almost physical aura of command and presence to the woman as she entered the Cage. Maya felt an urge to be differential and bow to the woman as she graced her dirty little interdimensional cage. She looked at Maya and her expression was devoid of any feeling, so much so that it almost felt like a slap.

“Hiya!” Maya said cheerfully, she extended a hand. “Sooo glad to meet you, Ma’am. Bell’s been totally agog about how awesome you are, so it’s a real pleasure to meet you.”

The woman looked down at Maya’s extended hand and her golden eyes flashed toward Bell. The look petrified him and he could only stand there, his mouth slightly agape and hands limp.

“This?” the Matriarch of House Domakun asked.

“Oh, shit,” Maya said stepping back. “It’s gonna be one of those kinds of talks.”

Four more figures entered the Cage, they were all soldiers.

“Oh, shit,” Maya said again.

“I am Velseramara Domakun!” the woman announced. “You have returned a son of House Domakun, we thank you for that. Yet as a son of House Domakun, he is tied to this House and what is his belongs to the House.”

“That’s new to me. I didn’t know you were a communist, Bell,” Maya said.

“I’m not. Whatever that is.”

“Silence. Your betters are talking, child.” Velseramara commanded. Maya could almost feel the weight of her words, they wanted to snap her jaws shut, to stop the words from coming out of her mouth.

Maya grinned painfully. “Would you like some refreshments? I have ration bars and water…”

“Bellmoro Domakun is a partner in this Sullivan Survival Society. Yes, child, the System gave me the details. For credits you can find out anything from the System,” the woman said. “Bellmoro is male and he cannot own anything. Therefore his share in this Sullivan Survival Society belongs to House Domakun.”

“That’s a stretch,” Maya said.

“There is System Law and there is SIL law,” the woman said. “SIL law always trumps System Law.”

Maya blinked and turned to Yosi. “That true?”

Yosi frowned and nodded. “It is. The System… uh… doesn’t override other SIL’s laws. Although most do just go by the laws the System has already created, but some… uh… like to add more to them.”

“Like the lack of male suffrage on this planet?”

Yosi nodded. She looked to Bell. “Really?”

Bell nodded.

“Why?”

“It’s cultural,” Bell said and did not expand on it.

“Do not talk to him,” Velseramara snapped. “He is nothing. You speak to me, child.”

Maya sighed. She turned away from Velseramara and walked around the conference table she had set up. She sat down heavily on a cushioned chair and kicked her feet up onto the table.

“Look, Ma’am. I’m sure you’re the top dog in your neck of the woods and all that, but you’re speaking to the head of House Sullivan and that ‘nothing’ you mention is my friend.”

“This is nonsense. In fact, the shares that you have given him, one quarter is incorrect. You cannot have AIs and rogue AIs as business partners, this must be rectified. You shall split this company in half and we shall take our rightful share.” The woman looked around, the greed almost shining in her eyes. “With this device we can expand even greater.”

“Yo, my boobs are down here,” Maya said. “You spoke of laws, so let me do a little lawyering of my own. Y’see, I did know that you can buy info from the System, it’s crazy, like who needs spies when you can just drop some credits and the ole Sys tosses you the info you need. Well, public information, anyways. So, Bell is like main branch fam, right? Anyway, as main branch there’s this pressure to make good on the family name, therefore any gender in the main branch is allowed to own property, make deals, etc. Also, as he was a mid-grade [Alchemist] this allowed him to create his own mini company so that he could sell the potions he created to the family itself. He was like an outside consultant, contracted to work in your labs making potions that he sold to you and you sold elsewhere. I get it, you need a paper trail for tax purposes. Therefore as an [Alchemist] and mid-grade he got a lot more ‘rights’ as it were.”

“He is not mid grade,” the Matriarch stated.

“Yeah, he totally leveled pretty hardcore in the last few weeks. Battles and rogue AIs and crazy hi-jinks occurring. It’s been fun.” Maya smiled. “It’s crazy that low-grade are barely worth looking after in your family, but mid-grade are offered labs to work in and price reductions in the materials they buy, but then once you get to high-grade, suddenly you can’t poop without being coddled and kept from going anywhere. You lose everything that you gained and it’s time to ‘serve the family’ because you’ve got good levels and can be invested into to grow more.”

“It is how it always is done,” the woman said.

“When he got snapped up in the instability, he was declared dead. His contract rescinded, his company assets taken over by House Domakun, and any and all debts transferring to the next of kin. That by all accounts has severed his connections to House Domakun, legally speaking.”

“That is nonsense, he is not dead.”

“According to the laws of your nation state, the act of declaring someone dead is final, even if it was done in error. That’s an interesting law, because the examples I’ve read show its been used to strip ‘unsavory’ people of wealth, property, and rank. The only way to get out of this is to sign an indentured System enforced contract. The unsavory folk get their money and property back, but are forever under the thumb of the family.

“Once they’ve been declared dead, they can sign the contract or go on their merry way and try surviving. Bell did the latter, he was in the RSH and survived. We formed a company together, as he was dead at time according to your laws, he is legally in his rights to own a portion of that company.”

“Nonsense,” the woman hissed. “He is high-grade.”

“According to your own laws, he needs to be certified by a… “Council of Blood”?”

“Council of Blood Chosen,” Bell clarified.

“Yeah, high ranking peeps in your family. He’s not considered high-grade until that happens. I hear it’s a real big deal, like no one can just bypass it happening. They have to be certified by the Council or they’ll still be considered mid-grade. I hear it’s used as a punishment of sorts too.”

Maya summoned a ration bar and chewed on it. “But don’t despair,” Maya said. “I like Bell and he spoke so highly of his family,” Maya smiled as the woman scowled. “I’m a [Merchant] you see? I make deals, find deals, throw around some credits to chum the waters, Merchant things. I hear Domakun is the name to buy if you’re looking for quality potions.”

Velseramara glared at Maya.

“I also hear ya’ll are in a bit of a war.”

Velseramara glared even harder at Maya.

“Systems says ya’ll lost some ports due to blockades. Some high leveled mages locked down your logistic portals, that House Hakoma and House Lasamun are joining forces and marching, funded by other Houses that want to see you knocked down a peg or two. It’s an interesting bit of politics going on, ya’ll have been on the verge of war for generations and a few people die on a gathering expedition and suddenly it’s world war one out there.

“Bell’s my partner in this business venture and he came up with this cool ass idea about us buying some of your potions because ya’ll are becoming strapped for cash.” Maya smiled.

“No.”

“There’s like five Houses that are funding two Houses to attack you. You got a lot of enemies and not that much money anymore, with your ports being blockaded and all. Domakun was great in making potions, but not so great in making soldiers.”

“We hold our own. Even if half fo the Houses tried to invade, we could hold them off for years”

“Yeah, that’s probs what they’re going to do. They’re not trying to conquer you, instead they’re putting an embargo on your entire country. They’re blocking your trade, the life blood of your House,” Maya said. “They’re just gonna sit there and watch as you slowly bleed credits and can’t sell your potions anymore. Also, like half of your reagents and materials are imported from other places.”

“This is where your [Merchant] ability comes into play?” Velseramara asked.

“Totally. I want to buy stuff. You want to sell stuff. I got a magical door that can connect a place with stuff to a place with no stuff. Merchantness.”

“We had an entire world to sell to,” the Matriarch said. “You expect you can do what our traders and merchants did? You think that one woman and a… creature can take their places?”

“I’m pretty over-confident,” Maya grinned.

The Matriarch chuckled.

***

“What was the secret to Bellmoro’s level gains?” the Matriarch asked.

Maya looked to Bell who was sitting there quiet. It was odd departure from his normal personality, but through the entire discussion he had been silent, allowing the Matriarch to speak instead.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“There was hardly any time between the moment he suddenly arrived back into our manor and then stole several bottles of our high-grade potions. Without a word or explanation, he even defeated several of the house guards.”

Maya grinned. “There is no secret to his level gains. He put his life and every one of his limbs on the line to fight alongside me. He risked his life, had my back, and nearly died several times because of it. Those levels he has, he earned through blood and toil,” Maya replied. “He’s had my back for months and there are few people I trust more than him.”

“Hence your ardent defense,” the woman said.

“Yeah, Bell is my bro, just like Tender, Yosi, Roci, and everyone else. He’s been with me from the beginning and if there is anything he ever needs I’l turn over this whole god damn multiverse to get it for him.”

The Matriarch only nodded and looked at Bell.

“It is rare to see an [Alchemist] turn to combat,” she said. “Especially one who was so dedicated to the craft to begin with. He had changed much, to our embarrassment. He now even uses system tech.” There was disappointment in her voice.

“This whole thing is system tech,” Maya replied.

“Partially true,” the Matriarch responded. “The truth of what this place is intrigues me.”

“Mystery is the spice of life,” Maya said, smiling.

“Our family is large and powerful,” the Matriarch said. “It will not miss one [Alchemist]. He can continue on the this path with you. If you value him that much, he shall be a Merchant Liaison between our family and your corporation.”

“Okay…”

“So be it,” the woman rose to her feet. “Until we meet again, Merchant Sullivan.”

Maya rose and nodded to the woman as she left.

“She likes you,” Bell said after the Matriarch left the Cage.

“Jesus. I feel wrung out,” Maya said, flopping face down onto the table.

“She’s Tier 3, do you think you were pulling one over on her?” Bell asked.

Maya raised an eyebrow.

“She took it very, very easy on you.”

“But my awesome deal making skills. I leveled abilities! I saved you from being chained to an alchemy bench for the rest of your life!”

“There are laws and there are norms. No one enforces the no male owning property thing anymore, it’s the old House members that don’t want to change it, everyone ignores it. Although the Council of Blood Chosen is still done, but it’s a celebration and time for festivities with your family.”

Maya groaned.

“Also, the quantity of potions you purchased is far below what the average trader buys,” Bell said.

“Ouch. But my spirits were soaring and I was basking in my own awesomeness, playing a Tier 3 matriarch like she was a fiddle and getting away with it.”

“Maybe next time?”

“All I got was a lot of potions and a gently used Bellmoro.”

“I’m a Liaison now, it’s a pretty good rank for my age and levels.” Bell grinned. “Plus I keep my shares of the company and as a Merchant Liaison I get a portion of the profit from the potions sold to you.”

“Congrats, dude.” Maya said. She stared at the smooth table surface, her breath condensing on it. “You both just played me?”

“The Matriarch is over a thousand standard years old. Don’t take it too hard.”

“Let me wallow in my sorrow.”