Blake blinked away from his constructs when he started tasting blood. His lips had cracked, apparently. When was the last time he'd drunk water? Or swallowed, for that matter…

"Patron..."

Blake turned to find Seul-ki wobbling on her feet, hand still on his arm. As he did, most of his joints popped or cracked. He could feel himself trembling and winced that he'd probably gotten lost in creation too long this time. He put a steadying hand to Seul-ki, then eased both of their abused bodies to the nearby couch.

"We're done," he soothed. "You did extremely well, Seul-ki. We managed almost double today."

"It's almost morning, Patron," she said, and Blake blinked and glanced out a tower window to see the dim glow from a rising sun.

"Oh. Well. Even so, we made tremendous progress. Sleep."

"What are you doing?" Seul-ki mumbled, eyes already closing as Blake lay her down beside a sleeping Annie. He stroked her hair and smiled, ignoring the question until she slept.

Blake had been making constructs now for several days with little rest. He'd lost count of how many, precisely, but at least fifty. Their overall design had definitely improved with practice, though he'd kept most to some variation of a 'roman' soldier armed with spears and stabbing swords and some kind of shield. But he made a handful of psionic defenders designed to smash and grab, too.

Somewhere around the second day, after basically passing out, he'd also decided it was time to pay some attention to his body. He used True Making to design a kind of home gym, and committed himself to using it for at least ten per cent of the time he employed his brain. It wasn't easy.

But Blake didn't play to lose. So every day before he slept, no matter how tired or disinterested, he went to his little gym and did his best to remember Mason's many failed lessons.

"I don't need muscles, Mason. If you haven't noticed, I don't exactly struggle with women."

"Jesus Christ, it's not about women. It's about..." Mason had rolled his eyes in their parent's exercise room—a place well upkept but rarely used by anyone except Mason. "Wouldn't you like to, I don’t know, win a fight once in your life?"

Blake had laughed back then. "That's why I have you. Anyway, fist fights are very eighth grade, brother of mine. Everyone's my friend now. So who would I fight?"

He’d always had an excuse like that. Some reason not to do the things he didn't want to. Some slick answer for Mason or his friends, his parents, teachers, and girlfriends. He always got away with it.

But today was a new day. And a new Blake. And while the best liars innately had the ability to lie to themselves, Blake had endeavored to call out his own bullshit. At least for now.

So he lifted the stupid weight above his chest and groaned, often tempted to use Telekinesis, despite it defeating the point.

The system had already made him considerably stronger than he'd ever been in the old world, but he still couldn't bench more than about a hundred and fifty pounds. And one morning, presumably in boredom, he'd seen little Annie lay down and lifted something approaching three hundred.

She was a physical player. He knew that. But watching the tiny red head utterly destroy him had been something of a wake up call. Or at least hard on his ego.

So he did his best. And every day he checked his statistics, but his 'strength' never improved. He supposed it was a bit laughable to think he'd make progress in so little time. In the 'real' world it took months and likely years to build real muscle. Blake intended to stay at it, but hoped in the new world the system sped things up a little.

He went for maybe an hour before he gorged himself on mystery orc food and slept, dreaming of True Making and an army of constructs.

The dream constructs replicated around him in circles, popping up with an almost cartoonish sound until they surrounded the orc towers, then began to fill the plains with an endless army. He couldn't help but smile, seeing himself in the center, the unstoppable puppet master, the greatest creator since the Makers. No. Greater.

Some of the constructs began to change. To become more aesthetically pleasing. More human. To become...beautiful women. Soon they were more like sex dolls than his mighty legionnaires, and started transforming Blake's dream into an entirely different genre of story.

"Patron?"

Blake blinked his eyes open and groaned as he saw Seul-ki's long hair. She wasn't yet in her disguise, her real, beautiful face looking tired but happy as she smiled down at him.

"Yes, my dear?" he smiled and reached for her, realizing her chest was only covered by a sheet. "Jesus you're gorgeous," he said, sliding the fabric away to reveal the girl's incredible, round breasts. But he blinked. They looked...wrong. The nipples somehow...plastic.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Patron?" she said again, her mouth moving robotically. Blake realized he must still be dreaming and tried to wake. But 'Seul-ki's' eyes narrowed and hardened. "Patron?" she said, this time harsher, angrier. She lifted a knife from beneath the sheet, holding it high in the air.

"Don't," Blake said, trying but failing to get his arms up in time.

Seul-ki stabbed him exactly where the orc had stabbed him when he was trying to control its mind to fight the orc 'king'. He'd never fully understood what happened—only sensing a kind of snapping in the creature, a small chance that his mind magic must have held to enrage or break his target.

Seul-ki stabbed him again and again, screaming 'Patron! Patron!' as he flailed uselessly, his hands soon soaked in his own blood. He woke with a start, grabbing at his chest and throwing his legs off the couch as Psionic Shield triggered and he saw a few weights lifted and ready to throw with Telekinesis.

"Patron?"

Blake stood and held up a hand, soon recognizing Annie as she watched him with impassive eyes. He took a few slow, deep breaths.

"Please call me Blake, Annie. I'm no longer anyone's patron."

"If you like," she said, eyes moving to the floating weights. Something almost like emotion flashed briefly into her eyes. "Did you have a bad dream? I...used to have those."

"Yes," he said, putting them down gently as he scanned his lab. The sun was fully up now and it might have been early afternoon. Pliny the half dead goblin engineer was off in a corner doing...something. Seul-ki was still sleeping. His few un-gifted constructs were guarding the door. Otherwise they were alone.

"An orc just came, but I said you were sleeping," Annie said. "Orc lady wants you to meet her. Something about a council."

An orc council? That sounded bad. Blake expected his construct building time had come to an end.

The orcs would demand action, probably relaying an endless litany of unfortunate events, some of which might even have been the demons. But Blake had built Ilya a small army of True Making meanness. And since nearly all were psionics, they were particularly unstoppable against the goblin wizards.

The poor bastards would discover their magic hardly worked, and they'd be largely forced to destroy the things with brute, physical force. The thought made Blake smile.

And even if somehow the orcs ended up trying to overthrow Ilya, they would die in incredible numbers trying to destroy all those constructs. Blake very much doubted they would even have the ability to bring enough troops. So at least for now, Blake decided, Ilya was safe. From everything but an assassin's knife.

But even there they’d taken precautions. Ilya was hidden away, the goblins locked to their floors with no way up. Under no circumstances would they ever allow a goblin of any kind, let alone an assassin, within any kind of perimeter of Ilya. The threat was too high, the opportunity to great.

Blake thanked Annie and went straight to his orc lover after a quick freshening up. He wasn't sure how much time they had, but it was always best to be prepared. He brought a few constructs, telling Annie she could wait here and watch out for Seul-ki.

"I know you're bored, Annie," Blake tried to soothe her. "But we'll be in a dungeon soon enough, and you can give that new class of yours a proper test."

She stared at him, head turned slightly, no expression whatsoever.

"I'm not bored," she said. Then she stared out the window, completely still.

Blake held back the shiver and went on his way. He really, really needed to start dealing with that.

Soon, he promised himself, right after the orc dungeon. We have plenty of time.

He and his constructs clacked and clattered their way up the stairs, Blake's arms and legs a bit sore, which confused him until he remembered all the working out. He chuckled as he remembered Mason always complaining about stairs.

Then he was on Ilya's floor and walking past guarding constructs, a bit surprised when he thought he heard voices ahead. Ilya was very careful with guests, so he assumed it must be some very trusted ally. Someone she could rely on completely, like a female new member of her house, or...

Blake stopped when he saw the hood of a goblin assassin.

He very nearly sent his constructs charging straight at it, until he then saw the rather unwelcome sight of a young Stoneblood orc lord sitting in a chair near Ilya, smiling and nodding pleasantly at something she said.

"Ah! High Wizard. You slept well, I trust?"

Blake's eyes went from the silent assassin near the window, to Ilya, to the orc lord.

"I did, my lady. Is everything...well?"

She smiled, and he could see it was genuine. She stood and walked to him so he could take her hand and bow slightly.

"Of course. You remember Lord Halvar?"

Blake smiled and nodded. The orc made some kind of...polite grunt, Blake had begun to recognize as an orc upper class greeting. He had yet to try and make the noise himself.

"I was told the council wished to see me," Blake said, still a bit on shaky footing.

"I'm afraid you slept through the meeting," Ilya said, giving him a slightly concerned look. "You've been working too hard. Not that I don't appreciate it." He squeezed her hand a little then let go, and she gestured at the orc and goblin.

"The council has demanded action, though there was some debate on exactly how to proceed. The goblin wizards have proved the stereotypical cowardice of their kind. They attended the meeting, but wouldn’t commit any of themselves to actually enter a portal. In the end, we agreed on a group of you and your human players, a single goblin representative, and one orc lord." She met his eyes, obviously not feeling the need to explain who the orc and goblin would be.

"Aren't your people...vulnerable to demonic magic?” Blake said. “I don't mean to be rude...but, wouldn't bringing Lord Halvar be...something of a liability?"

He saw the flash of anger in the creature's eyes and knew he shouldn't feel pleased about it, but was.

"Halvar is a Soulguard now, Wizard. He has been blessed by the gods for this very purpose. You will find him quite useful, I think."

"Wonderful," Blake said, then glanced at the goblin. "And I suppose the wizards sent me their very best, did they?"

The assassin said nothing, staring with purplish red eyes, the rest of him completely covered in black fabric.

"He isn't much of a talker," Ilya said with a polite smile. "But High Lord, er, Wizard Lord, Master um..."

"Chillik," Blake added helpfully.

"Yes. He promised this was his very best."

"And I see you've already offered him a pass to this level," Blake added, giving Ilya a bit of a chastising look before she grinned.

"Where would we be?" she said, with a slight smile. "If we couldn't trust our friends?"

Blake sighed, glancing at his orc 'rival' and the goblin killer, very glad he had his Psionic Shield.

"Where indeed," he said. "Well. No time like the present, my friends. Shall we go and kill some demons?"

The assassin walked towards the exit without a word. The orc just grunted again, but Blake wasn't sure what this one meant. He rolled his eyes for Ilya's benefit, then went to follow. But Ilya caught his arm…