High Priest Korldon Astraides awoke to find himself laying on cold stone. Blinking, he tried to sit up, but spikes of shooting pain brought the memories of the moments before he'd lost consciousness flooding back.

He snarled in anger. That worm had dared to work some sort of Dark sorcery on him, ripping away the Divine Blessings of the Seven Gods of Light. He flooded his body with an Anima Blast spell, grimacing as bones realigned and healed. Staggering to his feet, he looked around.

He had been laying outside the Cathedral of the Light, as poor as it was, along with the clergy who had accompanied him. Huron, the person formerly in charge of the hovel in front of him, was sitting in a simple wooden chair at the top of the steps, talking quietly with some tier five garbage.

"Huron," Korldon spat as he strode up the stairs, shoving the pathetic lifeform to the side, "gather whatever passes for the clergy of this sewer and array them before me. I will be formally taking command of this chapel."

Huron had hurriedly stood, but now he brushed by him as he rushed to the thing Korldon had pushed aside, flooding it with Animancy. "You'd do well to reconsider your tone," Huron didn't even bother to face him as he spoke. "You aren't welcome in Greenwold, and this is now the Church of Vi'Radia. The Banished Pantheon is not to be spoken of, let alone worshipped here."

Korldon snapped. Rage filled him as yet another lesser being defied his will. He raised his hand, blasting a beam of Holy Light to incinerate the heretic.

He stared at his hand as the magic failed to materialize.

"The King explained to me that he revoked the ability to call for the power of Sanctum," Huron said, still not looking at him as he helped the young man to his feet. "That restriction applies to everyone, of course. He felt, and I can't help but agree, that it was necessary to go a bit further for you, in particular, to set an example of sorts."

Huron turned to face him. "The King told me that you won't be able to 'externally express mana' any longer," he shook his head. "You'll be able to cast spells on yourself, but no one, and nothing, else."

Korldon froze, reeling at the very suggestion that anything could bind him in that fashion. A few seconds later, and he knew it was true. He'd attempted to cast half a dozen spells, even going to far as to attempt to heal the wretch who had gotten in his way, hoping that perhaps magic beneficial to others was exempt. It hadn't been.

"Your people aren't under that particular restriction, although King indicated that his claws were always sharp if they decided not to heed your example," Huron finished.

Korldon looked at his clergy members, some of whom were awake but staring off into the distance and a sudden realization shook him.

He was the only one who knew the rituals to move the ship. Rituals that included a Holy Light component. Rituals that not only couldn't he cast, but as the ship was in Greenwold, none of his people could cast either.

Worse, without his Divine Blessings, he wasn't able to commune with the Gods of Light, which meant he couldn't report this disaster back to Parceus. No one could.

Korldon staggered back down the steps, sitting down on the last one.

He was stuck on this backwater planet, with little hope of anyone coming to rescue him. Worse, he didn't have his Divine Blessings, nor his magic. He was helpless.

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Eric Waters bowed respectfully to the King of Greenwold.

"Your Majesty," he began, "could you explain what exactly happened yesterday?"

The King of Greenwold was in his draconic form, sitting on his haunches while he poured out the dimensionally expanded bag full of mana crystals that Eric had provided as The Redoubts tax.

Kellan knew that his proclamation had carried throughout the ritual, and that everyone who had possessed a divine blessing of one of the seven gods of light had witnessed it. It did not, however, include the events leading up to the proclamation.

"The Church of the Light on Parceus sent representatives here, where they assumed leadership of the Church of the Light here in Greenwold. They then demanded that I allow them to take custody of the Earthlings in stasis."

Eric sucked in a breath.

The King smiled sharply. "I denied them thrice before enacting the compact which stripped them of their power. They have lost those skill points permanently, which I suspect will keep them from being anything more than a minor annoyance, while the natives of Thayland will find that they'll regain the skill points they'd offered to receive their now lost blessings."

"Fuck em'" Eric said flatly. He bowed again, this time slightly lower. "Thank you for seeing to the safety of our people."

"As you would say, 'Semper Fidelis,'" Kellan continued to smile as Eric left the room.

He'd bound that group of people rather tightly to him, and he was certain they'd be paying dividends for a very long time.

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Bob had been warned that he'd be in for a headache when he came back to Thayland, but he was unpleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn't his head that hurt, it was his matrix, which was a sensation he'd hoped to never feel again. Luckily, it wasn't nearly as painful as what he'd experienced previously, nor was it consistent. It was akin to removing a bandaid.

When Mike had popped out of his inventory on a supply run, he'd had a message waiting for him from Annissa. It had explained that the Church of the Light had been disbanded because the group from Parceus had tried to steal the people of Earth from the Dragon. Those people were now pretty well fucked, and the ship they'd arrived on was stuck above Thayland.

Being able to come back to Thayland was fantastic, as he'd been worried about having to launch the IIDS Freedom from Earth, and he'd wanted to spend some time testing the sails before the update.

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The update was a concern. It would be for the best if he could find a new home before the System forced him to change his path. He just wasn't sure if they'd succeed before the update landed.

Still, he was back on Thayland, and going over the revised plans for the Freedom.

"I want to call it the Hydroponics bay, but I was overruled," Jack grumbled.

"The Garden is in the middle of the ship, and functions as our primary source of food, as well as our communal kitchen and gathering place," Amanda explained. "We decided to stagger our individual rooms off a central corridor, rather than what you'd designed originally with multiple corridors closer to the hull. We decided to use that space as a buffer. We're going to build it as a honeycomb, and fill it with water. It'll serve as both armor and shielding."

"I know it might rub some of us the wrong way, but we're going to insist on a standard layout for all the quarters," Dave began. "We've got a ten by ten by ten base, and we're shooting for a five to one expansion on the length and width, with a two for one on the height." He spread out a floor plan that included two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a kitchen, and a combination living/dining room. "By standardizing the design, if we ever need to come get someone out of their quarters, everything will be familiar."

"It helps that our little group is mostly comprised of couples," Amanda added. "We'll have four sets of quarters on either side of the Garden, so even if someone splits up there will be spare rooms."

"The bridge will be at the bow of the ship," Jack said, "as God intended."

"More like that's where you have to cast the Portal ritual from," Jessica interjected.

Jack waved his hand dismissively. "Engineering will be at the stern, where most of our propulsion will be generated."

"Basically, we have the design worked out," Amanda said, gesturing to the pile of papers strewn across the table. "The question is, do we have the mana crystals to build it?"

"Five foot hull sections, forty feet wide by three hundred feet long, figure fifteen hundred or so," Bob murmured.

"So a hundred and fifty thousand mana crystals for the hull," Jessica said.

"Make it two hundred, I don't think that takes into account the actual bow and stern, or the weird shit we'll be doing to fold the masts into the hull," Jack added.

"It's a good thing each of us have been pulling a couple of thousand a day for the past two weeks," Mike said.

"We have enough," Bob agreed. "We might not be able to finish the interior right away, but we can get the hull built, seal it, and confirm it can hold an atmosphere."

"I get that the timer is ticking, but it feels like we're rushing," Bailli said.

"My concern is that when the update arrives, I'm going to have to specialize as a dimensionalist to keep us going out there," Bob admitted. "I've sort of prepared myself for that eventuality, because we don't know how long it will take for us to find some place. Still, I'd like to begin the search before the update. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"Sure," Bailli nodded, "but with those assholes from Parceus grounded, it's less urgent."

"Less urgent, sure," Bob agreed. "But it's still a concern. Maybe even more of a concern now. Mike, what would the Marines do if a unit just dropped off the map, no communication?"

"We'd recon, but ultimately, we'd come for our people," Mike replied flatly.

Bob nodded. "I'm pretty sure that Parceus is going to be sending another ship. It may take it a while to get here, but they're going to send one, and I'd wager that there will be quite a few people aboard. So, I'd like to be far, far away when they get here, because honestly I think that the conflict between the Empire and the Church from Parceus is going to kick off."

"Alright," Bailli said reluctantly. "It's just going to be a little tight, I think."

"So we're going to be assembling this in orbit, right?" Jack asked.

"Why?" Bob asked. "We can assemble it here and just portal it up when we're done."

Jack facepalmed. "Yeah, that makes sense," he grumbled.

"What are we building it out of?" Jessica asked. "I'm guessing not obsidian."

"Porcelian," Dave replied. "Once we've build the hull, we'll use a ritual to fuse it together as a single piece. Should be quite strong, as well as acting as secondary sheilding from mana."

"We're still planning to keep it black, right?" Eddi asked.

"Yep, between the color and the rituals to absorb any ambient mana that hits the hull, we should be pretty stealthy," Dave said.

"So where are we building it?" Wayna asked.

"I've got the perfect little cove picked out," Bob said. "It's a little chilly, but there aren't any neighbors."

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Monroe crouched, perfectly still. The forest around him was silent, the only sound the whisper of the wind through the pine needles and the snow falling gently all around. The forest knew there was a predator on the hunt.

He'd moved slowly, so slowly through the dead pine needles, until he could not only smell, but see his prey. The large many-spikes had moved around to the other side of a large snow bank, no doubt sweeping aside the snow with it's spikes to uncover the dead-plant things that it ate.

Monroe waited. The wind had shifted, and while it wouldn't carry his scent to his prey, he could no longer smell his prey either. But he'd seen, so now he waited.

And waited. And waited. Finally, he saw the prey's spikes emerge from the side of the snowbank.

Monroe attacked, bursting through the snowbank and leaping to land atop the many-spike prey, latching onto its neck. The prey let out a call of terror before he punctured its windpipe, silencing it. The hunt had taken a long time, but the finale was over in moments. Once Monroe was sure it was dead, he shifted his bite, and began to drag it back to his human-servant.

He'd developed a taste for the way prey tasted when it was seared over the bright-hot. Fire.

Monroe knew that his human-servant had all the food he would ever need, but he enjoyed hunting, and his human-servant, while much better at it than he'd once been, still needed the occasional demonstration to help inspire him.

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"He used to bring me mice," Bob said as he dug his fingers into Monroe's ruff.

He'd had to accept that he couldn't really give Monroe the devotion he deserved in his human form. He was just too small. His pinacle form was barely able to exert enough leverage to get the good itchy places scratched.

"Now he brings you Elk," Jessica said as she stripped off her coat.

Bob had quickly hollowed out and enlarged the small cave he'd found, which allowed for everyone to setup their tents, as well as making room for a open stone stove at the front, which radiated heat back into the cave.

When Monroe had returned back to the cove, he'd been dragging a massive elk behind him.

Clearly, his imperial majesty was tired of bear, boar, and tuna.

The smell of roasting elk filled the cave, and Monroe had plopped himself down directly in front of the fire, where he could bask in both the heat of the fire and the smell of the roasting meat.

"He's the mightiest of all hunters, aren't you buddy," Bob crooned as he dug deep into Monroe's ruff, just behind his ears. Monroe increased the volume of his purr to indicate that he did know that he was the mightiest hunter.

"He's so loud," Jessica giggled as she reached out started scratching the base of Monroe's tail with both hands. "And somehow, even fluffier. I can barely get through it," she complained.

"Yeah," Bob agreed, then pulled what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a garden rake out of his inventory. "Try this," he suggested. "I should probably just build a bigger slicker brush, but for the moment, it works."

As Jessica began raking Monroe's luxurious coat, turning the purr motor up to a solid six, Bob peered around the stove, looking toward the Freedom. It was amazing what you could accomplish in only a week. The scaffolding they'd built stretched a full three hundred and twenty feet off the ground, and the hull was slowly taking shape.

They'd decided to build the central corridor first, and had built it out of the same material, creating a sort of hull within the hull. They'd completed that this afternoon while Monroe was out hunting.

Bob smiled as Monroe caught his hand, which had fallen idle, and gave it an experimental lick.

Freedom. He could almost taste it.