A salty breeze flowed over Kiara’s sunkissed skin, ruffling the roughspun gray dress she’d been given. The air was filled with seagulls as they searched for their meals. Their calls were accompanied by the intermittent roar of crashing waves far below Kiara. She sat on a sun-bleached stone that was roughly a little over half her height. Her onyx eyes reflected the unending sea like polished black mirrors. The stone rested amongst some other similarly sized stones, though, it was hard to tell what it’d been before; nature had already reclaimed most of the tall perch, though she would not have been surprised if it’d been some stone watchtower.

It’d been an… An odd morning, waking up in some foreign world and becoming an ‘angel’ - whatever that meant. Still, it gave Kiara a lot to think about and she had taken a walk to put her thoughts in order. Though, she’d been pointed in this direction because it was apparently the safest spot in the vicinity; it was also the most barren place she’d seen. Dull yellow and orange trees grew here and there behind her all the way to where it began to slope up to where a massive derelict fortress sat.

The cottage she’d been taken to existed somewhere in between her and that, where the last small wispy smoke trail broke through the thin canopy. It was no wonder, as the cliff’s edge was mostly barren and filled with rocky boulders. Kiara understood that the cottage lived on the edge and that probably meant the person that’d taken them in was on the fringes of whatever society lived here… That honestly made her slightly upset. Verne, the old man who lived in the cottage, was such a lovely man. Ester was with her right now, helping him around his home as a sign of gratitude for what he did. He also had a small wooden idol of the Goddess above his hearth. The thing looked about as old as he was.

“I used to love coming here, once upon a time,” A soft female voice broke the ambiance, causing Kiara to jump slightly before giving a reproachful glare towards the deity, in a white sundress, in question. “It used to be a small stone home the priests in the fort behind us had built for me. It was simple in its build, but they made it with love. Right where we’re sitting, the main support beam used to beam. In fact, this very block was its base.”

She ran a hand over the stone with a tender touch before she continued. “Once a month, I used to come to Red Leaves’ Spring to visit the orphanage that sprung up in the wake of the previous war. Beastmen, elves, humans, dwarves, and even some lesser fae races came; brought by the pilgrims on their way to the Starry temple. That’s the name I gave my temple - you can see it from here.”

The Goddess then pointed towards the monolithic structure that seemed to rise from the sea, its bricks covered in crawling with moss. Even from a distance, and abandoned, the structure was grand. Then, she continued. “They would be cared for by the devoted that lived within the walls and its surroundings. Most of the orphans would become acolytes and assist in the day to day functions. When I visited, all the formal day to day things would be shelved, and we’d run amongst the red maple trees like wild wolves.”

A sad, distant smile appeared on her lips. “We used to hunt down wild berries and some of the older kids would hunt a few rabbits before we’d take them to the church to feast on. Some of the White Mothers - what the nuns who cared for the children were called - would scold us before eventually letting us be!”

“You let your nuns scold you?” Kiara jumped in.

The blue-haired woman gave her a toothy grin that was almost as dashing as Ester’s grin. “Of course! I may be a God, but I’m not picky about being scolded, especially when I kept sneaking snacks to the orphans before bed. They would be like, ‘Miss Avery! Please stop feeding the children sugar before bed! It’s expensive!’ - then I would be like ‘I know!’ and slap a 1-kilo gold bar on the Head Mother’s desk as I walked out for the night!”

“Miss Avery?” Kiara asked, wondering if that was the Goddess’s real name. She’d previously introduced herself, but only by her titles. “Is that your name?”

“Mm,” She nodded as she giggled to herself. “And she used to get so red in the face! It was hilarious~” Her sweet melodious laughter felt natural, so natural, and even the cool autumn breeze began to warm slightly as she did so. Kiara had barely noticed it, but she carried a cold aura around her. And it disappeared when she began to talk about the past, replaced with a warm welcoming air that felt like a cool summer day underneath the shade.

But the laughter didn’t last long, and neither did the summer air as the laughter slowly died along with her toothy grin; even the light in those golden eyes died slightly. “She was a sweet old beastwoman, in her late sixties. I’d known her since she was just a little fur baby crawling around in her mother’s furs. To be honest, she was the only one who could talk to me that way. I’d been her godmother. Her grandmother had also been my goddaughter, and her mother before - five generations back to when I met their ancestor who’d become a good friend of mine.”

“What happened to her?” Kiara asked, sliding a little closer to comfort the woman. Despite being a deity, Kiara could only see a sad teenager. The woman looked no older than her after all. “Too all of this?”

“Remember when I said I was the Goddess of all of this?” Avery asked in return. “Being this realm’s warden - that’s the official term given to us deities who run the Pantheon’s and their subsequent realities - I have to keep it functioning on a technical level. Tears, in reality, Pantheon hiccups, or anomalies that’d appear when something isn’t tuned. That being said, having a fragmented Pantheon created a lot of… Hiccups and anomalies.”

“And that means…?” Kiara didn’t see how that connected to the Head Mother’s story.

Avery continued. “That means I have to disappear unexpectedly for an uncertain amount of time. One time, a massive tear in reality created… Some nasty monsters rampaged across the continent, upsetting the 20-odd kingdoms that existed. It happened because I’d found the second last fragment and set it in its place. Many wars broke out afterward and that led me to establish the Starry Temple. A sort of de facto ‘do this again, and I’ll send my templars out and kill you’.”

“And…?” Kiara was waiting to see how this connected.

“And… her husband and children had been killed in the last war before I managed to get back,” Avery admitted. “I managed to find her, and thankfully, she didn’t hate me. I hired her to take care of the orphans that popped up because of… My inability to foresee what happened… Another anomaly eventually happened twenty years later that pulled me away for… About a hundred years.”

“So she passed of old age?” Kiara asked, figuring that’s what she wanted to say, but probably felt too ashamed to say she missed her funeral.

“No, of another war…” Avery admitted as her hands dropped into her lap. “The anomaly was far more complex than I’d expected it to be. Eventually - mind you, this was what I could piece together -, a few unsavory characters noticed my absence in the slow responses in the church. Once it was found out that I had disappeared, they raged another war and then another. Then a few minor gods rose and waged war on my church. She was called when they besieged Red Leaves’ Spring.”

Kiara’s jaw clenched as she looked away, disgusted with her initial guess. “O-Oh…”

“She was a good woman,” Avery said. “A far better person than I could ever hope to be.”

The conversation fell silent as the seagulls filled the void with their calls, along with the crashing of the waves. Kiara didn’t know what to say to that as Avery stared at the rubble that sat on the edge of the cliff several feet ahead of her until something dark rose in her. Something her father had taught her since she was young, something she’d never understood until now. Vengeance is sweet when it’s for something important…

Kiara wanted to ask if she ever tried to get vengeance but the woman had already gotten to her feet and dusted off her pristine white dress. With a sigh, she stared over the ocean with a longing stare before she turned away and headed towards the steps leading towards the cottage. This left the teen alone with her question, though, after some thought, she decided she didn’t want to know the answer to the question.

⧪ ⧪

“Welcome back, My Lady,” A raspy male’s voice greeted the Goddess as she stepped between two vine-covered stone columns and into what must have been a stone plaza at some point in history. The voice’s owner, a frail old man who sat at a small wooden table, set his clay cup down as they came in. Ester was weeding a raised garden on her knees but smiled at Kiara as she followed after Avery.

The old plaza had no actual walls, but the ruined white brick wall that marked the edge of the courtyard rose up and down as if it were a mountain ridge. Several strange vines danced along the stone boundary until it met with the tall derelict wall that was Fort Redleaf. And that rose as high as 60ft, with its lowest points being 30-odd feet. Those points were obviously damaged and had been patched with makeshift wooden plank fill-ins. It’d been done so haphazardly that if Kiara had brought their company’s OSHA inspector, he’d throw himself off the side of the cliff just for seeing it.

“Verne, my dearest worshiper~!” Avery cooed, shedding the dark aura around her within a heartbeat. “It’s been almost four hours since I’d last seen you, how are you doing?”

Without missing a beat, the woman strutted across the stone floor, ignoring the weeding maid as she threw jealous daggers at her and took a seat beside the old man - sitting on thin air as if there were a chair beneath her. Verne acted as if it was a natural occurrence. “Four hours, yes. I may be mortal, but I’m old and I live in the safety part of the outer fort, four hours is not enough for something big to happen.”

True enough, Verne’s cottage, a thatched roof and pitiful thing that rested against the fort’s wall was strategically placed. From what Ester and Kiara had seen, it was placed in the least desirable location: a rocky ledge with the only easily inhabited area being a ruined plaza about 20ftx20ft. All the plants that weren’t the hardy sickly trees that grew between the rocks lived within that stone plaza, in raised beds. The rest of the surrounding ground was dead dirt filled with rocks.

“You say that, but even just a minute is enough for something important to be missed if you blinked,” Avery retorted with a dramatic sigh.

Verne rolled his eyes. “Is that way you dropped two girls on my doorstep after not visiting for a year…?”

Avery’s playful expression froze for a moment before she immediately changed the subject. “Kiara~, I do believe I never showed you how to properly use your new abilities. Come, come, I’ll walk you through it right now.”

“Tsk, coward,” Verne chirped before he took a sip from his cup.

“Not,” Avery said without looking at him.

“If the Hearth Mother says so,” Verne gave up and poured more into his cup, and judging from the smell as Kiara walked up to Avery, it was some sort of tea.

“I was wondering when we’d eventually get to that,” Kiara quipped as she stood before her new boss. “So, what is it? Do I get some crazy ass scythe to swing around? Maybe shoot lasers from my eyes”

It was obvious that Kiara was joking but the sudden change in the blue-haired woman’s expression made a shiver run up her spine. In response, Avery’s eyes turned into two mirthful crescent moons as her lips pulled into a mischievous grin. “What if I told you it gave you the ability to see through clothes?”

Kiara, not reading the situation, believed the woman was serious. “What kind of ‘Angel of death’ would have the ability to see through clothes? That’s kinda… Lame.”

“Oh, but most definitely is not~” Avery continued as her eyes found Ester, glaring daggers at her and shaking her head in a not so subtle command to stop. It only made the Goddess’s smile pull tighter. “But you’d definitely have to check your enemies - for hidden weapons of course. You wouldn’t want to be caught unawares, would you?”

Even Verne gave the woman a disgusted glance as he muttered “Troublemaker,” into his tea. Kiara, on the other hand, nodded as if these words held some semblance of reason.

Avery continued. “You’d have to thoroughly check, here, here, and --” She ran her fingers to her breasts, which her dress hugged with heavenly grace before the hand stopped at her stomach. Just as her hand was about to go down between her legs, Ester finally blew her lid.

“What the hell are you trying to teach her?!” Ester roared, her bare feet slapping the stone floor with purpose as she stomped towards them. “That’s not a fucking power, so why don’t you stop messing with her and actually teach her how to use whatever fucking power you--”

“Est!” Kiara cried out in horror as her friend stomped past her. She pulled her back, even though Ester was technically stronger than her. “Stop that! She’s our Boss now and you can’t--”

Ester, red in the face, tried to lunge at the goddess when Kiara put herself between them. That brought the raging lioness to heel. “Do. Not. Teach. Her. Bad. Things.”

It took a moment, but it finally clicked in Kiara’s head their Goddess was alluding to. She felt the heat rush to her cheeks while trying not to let it show. Despite huffing with righteous anger, Ester did not miss the sudden, yet slight, widening of her miss’s eyes as the realization set itself in. She just clicked her tongue, shot a warning glare at the blue-haired girl before she backed off slightly.

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“Awwe~” Avery feigned disappointment. “Sorry, my sweet little raven, but your dove said I can’t teach you how to wage homicidal war against religious fanatics.”

“Wait-what?” Kiara pivoted on her heel. “What the hell are--”

Ester cut her off. “No, that’s fine. It was the other thing.”

“Man~” Avery cooed. “Stickler, stickler. I see, then you can teach her that other thing for me then~”

That joke made the old man lurch forward, tea spraying from his nose along with some snot as he began to cough. Kiara was about to rush to his side to make sure he wasn’t choking, but Avery waved her hand and a clean white linen towel appeared on the table beside him. He quickly scooped it up before sitting back up and cleaned himself. “My Lady, I do believe that’s going… A little too far. Mistress Morrigan would be… Displeased, if she heard you speaking like that.”

Avery suddenly went pale and looked around her in panic before she turned to Verne. “Is she here?”

“No,” He shook his head. “At least, not that I am aware of.”

“W-Who’s Morrigan…?” Both Ester and Kiara asked in unison, both slightly afraid of the person in question to suddenly make their new boss act that way.

“She is Our Lady’s wife,” Verne explained. “Holy Dragon Morrigan, Lordess of the Death and It would be more apt to say that Mistress Morrigan is your… Direct supervisor. Lady Avery is, or at least, was known to be quite the troublemaker. Lady Morrigan was known for being a more… Stiffer character and often, a lot of her jokes get taken into a literal sense.”

“Morrigan is… An actual dragon…?” Kiara asked, a little scared and a little curious.

Verne nodded his confirmation. “Yes, as is Lady Avery - well, her real form is what you see now and she can take on any form, but she prefers to take on the form of a dragon.”

“Anyways~!” Avery clapped her hands and everyone turned to her. “Shall we get back to the topic at hand?”

“Us talking to your wife for sexua--” Ester began before getting cut off by Avery.

“I did nothing of that matter, do not accuse me of such crimes,” Avery said with a deadpan expression and tone.

Kiara decided to intervene before they went at each other again. “Let’s please get back on topic. I feel like I might get a migraine if this continues…”

“Please do,” Verne sighed. “I’m old and it’s about time for my afternoon nap.”

“Ohh!” Avery perked up and turned to Verne. “It’s already about time?”

“Yes,” Verne nodded before she gestured to Kiara. “So, if I may, I believe you should explain to the young girl and her friend what they’re supposed to be doing and how. It’s not good to leave them in the dark.”

“Mm,” Avery nodded as before she turned back to Kiara. “Shall we?”

“Please do,” Kiara sighed.

Avery smiled, though, it seemed to be a polite smile rather than a mischievous one. “So, let’s get to brass tacks. Your power is more or less a support system integrated with your implant. This was to prevent you from becoming overpowered out the gate. You won’t be able to use magic, but you can if you want later on. You’ll see how once you get the hang of your system. I fixed your implant, so go ahead and turn it on.”

Kiara nodded as Ester watched on with interest. Using just her thoughts, her implant exited safe-mode. A red line scrolled down her vision before her family crest appeared in a semi-transparent blue fashion in her vision’s center, obstructing most of her view before it disappeared and reappeared again. Though, now it was in its normal augmented reality vision. The cross hovered just above the ground, with lines of code scrolling through it before it disappeared. The chatbox appeared along with the system messages.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

SYSTEM : Welcome back

SYSTEM : System cannot connect to C.W.I Starlink satellites. Attempting to connect to secondary networks.

SYSTEM : Warning, no known system networks found.

SYSTEM : Warning, unknown programs installed inside O.I hardware. Unauthorized access to system can res !@)(#I@_#)@_

SYSTEM : Program authorization confirmed.

SYSTEM : New networked detected, you are now connected to ‘The Mad Cat House’. You full service.

SYSTEM : Warning - You are out of C.W.I controlled space, notifying Dad.

SYSTEM : Warning - C.W.I servers, C.W.I Cell towers, and C.W.I BattleNet could not be reached. System will attempt at a later date to notify Dad.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

It was… Unsettling to say the least, but to be expected. That left her with a feeling that she could only akin being in the nude and it was not something she liked to feel. Without helping alleviate her sense of being exposed, the minimap popped up with a loading circle. Nothing loaded as it came up with a connection error and closed itself. The only feature that actually worked was the squad feature, one of the few military features her father allowed her to use. It displayed Ester’s name in a small semi-transparent grey box along with a green dot.

At the very least, that’d been her silverling as she turned back to Avery. “It’s online now.

“Good, good.” She nodded before. “Now, you’re going to notice that I gutted all your apps and stuff. Don’t worry, you can get it back if you want, eventually; though it’s gonna take some time and that’ll be in the future, so for now, we’re going to keep it stupidly simple. Try opening the new app.”

Kiara did as directed, using her thoughts, thin fine lines created a web around her in the augmented vision. It slowly danced around her, crisscrossing and creating a cyber area - in her eyes - with a hexagon item that floated were two of the lines intersected. Its background was solid gold with a black cat paw on it, with a dollar sign in it. She grew curious and opened it, revealing something that made her brain stall.

“Err…” Kiara blinked a few times. “Is this--”

“Shush,” Avery wagged her finger. “Speak not of our sins, lest you attract copyright lawyers~”

Kiara couldn’t argue with that logic but in the same breath, why did she have to copy that storefront down to the color scheme?! The app was named Manazon, and line for line, even copied the ‘Daily Deals’ section even though it was empty with a ‘coming soon’ message.

“I was in a rush, so I didn’t bother with trying to avoid those little devils since they don’t even exist on my plane.” Avery chuckled before she sighed. “Back to the topic at hand, it was actually quite the headache to get these up and running for you in time. I actually had to bargain with your plane’s god to smuggle a few dead coders over - or like a hundred. I don’t remember.”

The teen just looked at her in awe before she continued. “Anyways, the storefront will handle just about any logistical problem you’d face, granted you can pay the price for the solutions.”

“You mean… We have to pay for our equipment?” Ester said with the click of her tongue. “I thought we were employees? Aren’t you, as the employer, supposed to provide the equipment?”

Avery just shrugged. “Honestly, if I was making you guys my 24/7 assassins without any freedom, I would; but you’re not that. You have near-total freedom and time to complete your objectives unless noted. In that case, since you have those privileges, you gotta have some cons in there as well. I am definitely not your golden goose - just look at it.”

Kiara did as she was asked and opened it.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

General

* Food

* Tools

Armory

* Weapons

* Armor

* Cybernetics

Attire

* Underwear

* Outerwear

Garage

* Land Vehicles

* Water Vessels

* Air Vehicles

Summons

* Squad Members

* Familiars

Surprise Mechanics

* Loot Boxes

* Daily Gacha

Base

* Fortifications

* Stationary Weapons

* Buildings

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“And what am I supposed to do with this?” Kiara asked.

“This is how you’re going to acquire your gear and anything else you may need,” Avery answered. “I figured it’d be a waste of time, and probably end up getting you killed if you relied on me to get your gear or make you gather it yourself. So, a happy medium.”

Kiara clicked on the General tab, it opened up and revealed a near Walmart-Esque selection of food. She clicked on a loaf of bread, only to find that she couldn’t actually purchase it as it was listed as ‘2cp’. “What the hell is ‘CP’?”

“Cat points!” The Goddess perked up and announced. “See, each monster in this world has a Mana Stone. You can harvest these stones and turn them into CP or just sell them for this world’s currency - anyways, you can purchase everything you need with these.”

With a wave of her hand, purple, near translucent, stones appeared on the table next to her. Verne hadn’t batted an eye as if this was just par for the course. Ester’s brows furrowed in confusion and Kiara gasped in awe. Avery just smiled as if she was enjoying their reactions.

She continued. “From left to right, the smallest stone - here - is a small mana stone. It’s worth 1cp. Next is a medium mana stone, which is worth 10cp. The next one is a large mana stone, worth 50cp. Last one is a Grand Manastone, which is worth 1,000cp. You’ll only find these in some seriously rare monsters. All you have to do, when you can get the stones, is just think about adding it to your CP wallet. It’s similar to how your p2p transfers work with the implants.”

“And this store will have everything I need?” Kiara asked.

“Mmm.” Avery nodded. “Everything from laced panties to cold-resistant arctic attire. Hell, I could even add in dildos is you---”

Verne coughed out loud, interrupting Avery as she entered the forbidden territory. “Should I call Lady Morrigan…?”

“- And you can get nice rifles, like the AKM, .50 Barret rifles, and maybe even a tank if you want!” Avery acted like she heard nothing and said nothing forbidden, and just rattled off a few completely-not-what-she-was-saying stuff. “Hell, want a 200 ft space station? Bam! In the store! Want an orbital strike to wipe out legions of enemies? BAM - in the store!”

“I-I get it…” Kiara said as she blushed slightly. Ester was behind her, ready to pounce again when Verne shook his head at her. She restrained herself, temporarily. Kiara was beginning to feel the comings of a headache. Ester was normally so angelic and patient, maybe she stressed out completely… “Is there anything else I need to know.”

“Yeah, exit out of the store and there should be another app,” Avery said.

Kiara did as she was asked and found there were several more apps. Three to be exact, each was named ‘Storage’, ‘PawPawMaps’, and ‘HeadQuarters’ respectively. Avery continued. “The first one is Storage. All items you’ve purchased in Manazon can be kept together in a special storage area - it's done via space magic if you’re curious - and there are only 20 slots to start you off. Bullets can stack up to 100, magazines up to 10, and rifles and vehicles are 1 per slot, so you're going to have to get economical with your stuff.”

“Do I get what she has?” Ester asked, slightly annoyed. She didn’t get any of the apps Kiara had been given. “How come I don’t have what she has?”

“Why would you get what she has?” Avery asked. “Are you her maid?”

“I--” Ester glared at the Goddess. “How am I supposed to do my job if I don’t at least get an inventory?”

“You know… That’s a very good point,” Avery snapped her finger. “I’ll give you an inventory.”

“Thank you,” Ester said with a huff.

“Thank you,” Kiara repeated it but in a much more sincere way.

Avery only smiled, raising her chin as if basking in the praise like a child. “Anyways, let's move onto the next one; which is your maps, PawPawMaps. Your Minimap isn’t going to work until we can get some sort of orbital satellite network up, and while the act of completing a viewing network completely with magic to skip the whole process - just the magic alone to complete and keep it running would make you a walking beacon to anyone who can sense magic. So, we’ll work on that later.”

“How long do you think it’d take to get it up?” Kiara asked as she moved onto the Maps app. It showed the entire area, cliffs, sea, and the mountains. A quick circle around her told her that Fort RedLeaf rested on top of the second-highest point on the trail that led to her boss’s temple; putting it exactly a day's walk from it as well. “And why would that be bad?”

“The first question - about a month or so if I actually scoop up the magic to do it all,” Avery said. “But that’s tedious, so I’ll have you do some stuff for me, like maybe kill an entire human army or something. Second question, the amount of magic being burnt would be akin to a nuclear strike in comparable terms, just without the deadly explosion. Even non-magic entities would be able to feel it. It’s just that much magic required to fuel that system in regards to how it functions.”

“With how it functions?” Kiara asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, considering that your implant’s system mainly ran off the internet, it was quite a pain to get it to do basic stuff on its own,” Avery complained. “As cool as that implant is, just about every function it could do was done off the body through the internet in some faraway server. I mean, I do admit it's the only way they were able to make it as small as it was. But it defeated any purpose to have it aside from just being able to see. Don’t fret though, I managed to rebuild it when I healed you so now it is its own thing.”

“Ah, I see…” Kiara most certainly did not see. At most, she understood a small aspect of how her cybernetics actually worked. She knew it was well beyond its time, the reason she knew why now, and that it resided somewhere at the back of her skull. It hugged the brain and somehow read her thoughts and desires. Honestly, she had never really given it much thought beyond the fact that it was her literally lifeblood. She couldn’t imagine a life without her cybernetic eyes. The thought of losing it made her shudder.

“Well then, now that’s out of the way, we can get on with the last tidbit,” The Goddess said. “Headquarters. It’s going to be the summary of your progress, just like in games, it’s going to keep track of what and how many of what you’ve killed, CP lifetime earnings, and other things. Most importantly, it allows you to keep track of your objectives, ones I’ve assigned to you or ones you’ve assigned to yourself. Though, my objectives will be listed as the primary ones. Any questions?”

Kiara nodded. “Why do I need all of this?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Avery asked back. “Honestly, it’s already a cheat in and of itself to give you just a map application. I’m trying to set you up for success rather than just throw you the sharks while asking you to do my bidding. I may be petty and spiteful, but I’m not heartless.”

Well, Kiara couldn’t argue with that explanation. She looked to Ester, who was still holding a grudge against their boss. However, the girl’s expression softened when Kiara looked at her.

“Anything else?” Avery asked as she stood up? “Otherwise, go clean up the house and Verne here will take you for a stroll through the town. You’re obviously going to try and protect this place, so if you’re going to do it, do it right. Case the area, find what’s important and what’s not. Figure out what you can protect and what you can’t. I know it sounds harsh, but you can’t save everyone. I’d like to also warn you that the fort will not be a viable option. Now, go on you rascals.”

Ester just clicked her tongue and walked towards the cottage, eager to get away from the woman. Kiara didn’t follow and instead, stood and bowed before Avery the Hearth Mother at a 45-degree angle for a few moments before she lifted herself back up and smiled. “Thank you, for all of it. It must have been a lot of work.”

The words she spoke came from the heart and the Goddess felt its sincerity. It left her speechless and without showing it, she just returned the smile as Kiara turned and followed after Ester. The two girls went into the cottage and began to clean for Verne. The man in question turned to Avery with a smudge smile.

“I believe I told you she’d appreciate it,” Verne said, his raspy weak voice had disappeared - replaced with a manly deep voice that was out of place for his physical appearance. “She is a good girl, though I worry about that she-devil that follows her.”

“It’s hard to believe mortals can be good,” Avery commented as the smile left her face, replaced with a somber expression as she turned and stared up at the fort above. “I just hope what is to come doesn’t ruin her.”

Verne nodded. “It will be difficult for her. I can tell her mind is repressing last night’s events. Or, maybe she hasn’t digested it fully.”

“Fenrir,” Avery turned back to the old man. “Have I told you that you read too much into people?”

The man chuckled as he shook his head. “At least once a week. That still doesn’t change the fact that she will eventually break. Do not push her too hard, I’m sure you can understand the shock of coming from a peaceful world to this one.”

“There was nothing peaceful about my life…” Avery murmured as she turned back to the cottage. She could still hear the faint complaining of Ester, mixed with Kiara trying to placate her. “But I do agree we will need to keep an eye on the other girl. At least, until we can understand what kind of person she is. I don’t want our hero to be corrupted. Watch over them and guide them for now, I have to talk to Morrigan and actually introduce her to the hero.”

“All will be done by your command, My Lady,” Verne stood and gave a deep bow as Avery disappeared in a swirl of glowing autumn leaves. The scent of warm summer days that promised peace and tranquility filled the air momentarily before it fled. The old man thought about just how symbolically true that was for the future…