4/13/25

I have finished and tested the shadow-gun ritual. I injured myself trying to do it in an emergency because the demon on the loose managed to try a direct assassination. Thankfully, the assassin brought no gas nor flames, and I was able to do a poor imitation of it in the bathroom.

Unfortunately, the attempt ate most of my left arm’s shadow in the process and my arm is cold and weak.

I’m being moved into one of the Chevaliers and keeping Natal. The one was going to be assigned to me has been changed while we were out. It is to be assigned to the replacements that will come.

I do not know if it will be redesigned or not. I haven’t had the time or ability to find out recently. But one thing I have had is the occasion to throw some of that goo into the demon’s face. Well, the shadow of the goo, but the idea still holds.

This was very dangerous, and the reaction of the demon only furthers the idea that someone counted as mighty wants this world for a pleasure den. Still in the skin of a mortal woman, the demon began to prepare a frightful, soul-rending assault, before stopping cold.

I have heard that such powerful attacks tend to imprint something of the demon on the world when used, and if a much stronger one wanted this world to only dance to one master, the pause makes perfect sense.

So, at the very least I can rest better knowing that the worst displays of power are off the table for a long time. Too bad for my children’s children that I can’t do anything to prevent the worst showing up for them, unless this world’s movement around the tower will do something about it.

I want to write more today to make up for the sudden end I had to do last time, but everything else is washed away by the excitement of the assassination and spitting in the demon’s face.

What else is worth joining these two events? I know not. I know not.

4/14/25

Got to avoid another day of school. What I could wear by this point was deemed inappropriate for classes and that amuses me. So uptight.

Inappropriate would be showing up in a butcher’s apron that had only been used an hour ago. Inappropriate would be intentionally showing off that I was only wearing sandals and a dress. Inappropriate would be

Had to stop and get some anti-flea spray. As it turns out, the assassin was quite filthy and left behind a pain of fleas. Combined with the remains of the goo’s itching and I occasionally find myself in a horrible situation. If the chemicals don’t work quickly, I will request a move and some kind of cleaning in the medical facilities.

Because the attempt to go back failed, I managed to have enough time to find out some more information on the two new pilots. Two similar looking but unrelated people. I don’t know if somebody has a fetish, some kind of belief in the luck of twins, or what, but it’s amazing that they found two people that looked so alike and yet were not related.

I’ll do a proper recording of them when I have names, but they are both quite striking. Perhaps it’s just a very good case of lighting for the pictures, but they looked quite impressive. Strong facial features, a good light in the eyes, and so forth.

Also managed to find out that while the new knight armor will be renamed, it won’t be changed. So will whichever Chevalier gets assigned to the new recruit. Also, now that I think about it, between both factories all combinations of pilot and knight armor gender have been matched. I wonder how this will turn out.

They seem to know that for a human, going from a male to a female knight armor is bad, and know exactly how bad and why. It’s just that the hidden leaders haven’t come up with a really good explanation that obscures the magical origins and nature of the knight armors.

Discovering this is either a sign that those secret masters are slipping due to stress, or that I got quite lucky. I won’t try again soon.

4/15/25

Got to fight while still a little itchy. It was interesting. It was probably a bit of an image nightmare, considering this demon tried to peel me out of the knight armor and managed to expose a good bit of me to sunlight.

I don’t think the demon on this side is as well informed as it thinks. Ben was not completely gone, and so for his last battle, Chevalier Vert easily slays a demon whose body had probably been remodeled to be unstoppable as long as it was able to fight one on one. It might have even been designed to slay Natal and Natal alone, if I was willing to speculate in ways I’d likely never be able to confirm.

I made sure Ben got a great going-away present. The best I could manage. I once again find myself wishing I knew more enchanting, because it’s not going to last long. Hopefully, though, it lasts just long enough to get Odette’s lungs healed up enough for her to get a semblance of her old life back. Oh, to be able to recharge such things at a distance!

Which is a good enough bridge to my next point of writing. Master Alissa managed another contact. It was a strong dream bridge, which is a good sign. I’m still unsure when she might be able to come over physically, but the strength of the bridge is a good sign.

I had to break the news that the twins would be gone, which saddened her. The exoticness (to her) of the new pair was quite heartening, though.

It also put in my head cognizance of how much smaller this world is compared to home. Or however it was she wanted me to word that. It doesn’t matter, I don’t recall it much outside of the shared dream and it’s not that important in the bigger picture. The sheer differences of life (in the big picture) are sure to impress Alissa.

And probably also make me look impressively jaded because I’ve lived in this society for two months and have adapted incredibly well. The flawed dream training likely helped in that regard. Ah, to be able to let master see their spell at work.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She’d either laugh, cry, or both.

I have also had an interesting offer made back home. Some of my blood, and the ability to shift freely in exchange for the patronage of the Madorra. I will definitely have to talk with master about this and hopefully manage to get them into my two world exploiting scheme, but only so far.

If they knew too much, I’m sure that they’d get too greedy for my wants. And too greedy can mean too much spread, competition, or worse things.

My master is going to try and bring some information about them across the dream bridge, because I don’t know much about them.

I know they’re pledged to the king and queen of my homelands (and thus the lands I was in when studying under master Alissa), are probably really important because I don’t know their rank, and not much else.

It’ll certainly be interesting to know why they want those two things of me. I can think of a number of possible things ranging from a mostly harmless curse sink to a contraceptive charm.

4/16/25

Going to sleep early lead to some gains in the dream bridge’s stability. Gains in the bridge’s stability lead to me being distracted through the day. Being distracted through the day meant that if only I was cleared to go back to school, I would have had a great ending to this trio.

Sadly the inability to wear undergarments means I’m still not cleared to go regardless of if I attend as male or female. Apparently underwear is part of the dress code, even if it’s not a checked part.

I know because I’ve managed to catch a few people in the act, and noticed a very against rules lack in their outfits. I don’t think most of them noticed, but either way I made sure to leave quickly.

Going back to not being able to go to school, I was able to go out and about today, albeit under guard since there’s still a few more days until there will be back-up. I’m unsure of the policy that ends up delaying transfers until the new knight armor is here, but I am sure it’s pretty useless in this case. I can switch knight armor types, so it doesn’t matter much if I’m having to switch or be limited for a time.

Humans can’t, although I haven’t seen enough human magic users here to be sure if it’s a hard can’t or if it’s just a ‘needs things they do not have’ can’t. Master Alissa would be better equipped to know, and could probably send that information across the bridge, but I think it’d be better for her situation (and my plan’s health) if she offers it and help in exchange for a background and some other aid.

Then it’s money making time, among other times.

Got a message that tomorrow is the day the new armor arrives. Day after, the pilots. Who made that kind of mistake? At best we’d have two people to pilot, me and Rodriguez, the base’s trainer. Rodriguez has had some kind of cancer or surgery that means that getting in a knight armor is going to be worse than projected for her age.

Oh, yes, I managed to get to read some of the pre-production estimates and know why this program is mainly recruiting ages eighteen to twenty-nine. They estimate that health problems will show up outside that range. For under eighteen, it would be very soon and possibly very serious ones, like kidney problems. For over thirty, it’s not as quick but unless the person was in very good health the issues that would show up mean only a few years as a pilot.

And this program is planning for the long run, even if luck hasn’t let them get that. Here alone of five pilots, four didn’t even make the year mark. I may not make the seven year mark they’re aiming for each pilot to have as a lower end of service. For them this must be depressing.

I know the dangers of fighting demons and even with all the advantages of knight armors, the demon in charge wanting this as a pleasure world, and the technology of this world I see seven years as unreasonably optimistic.

If only because the demon in charge will probably want the world more than absolute control before that seven years are up, and then we’re going to be in a real spot of trouble.

I’m going to get my introduction notes set up right now and work more on the dream bridge.

4/17/25

I have to say that the two don’t like as alike in real life as the pictures made them look. Well, real life is something of an exaggeration. Kenneth Ray Jackson (and isn’t that a name), decided to make a group video call.

I didn’t know that phone numbers were a thing we could request. I may have to use this. But back on track, Kenneth Ray Jackson (named for two of his parent’s favorite musicians) and Lettie Da Silva only looked a bit alike in those pictures. Those pictures were taken because it was part of some kind of look-alike contest, the details of which I blanked out of my mind after one realization.

Well, it’s not a confirmed realization, but I think that somebody is going for some kind of strange photogenic composition for the US group. Which bothers me slightly more than the idea that it was because of some kind of superstition.

I am not sure why, but I can hazard a guess. I’d have rather had these two unknowns - they both admitted to a lack of extreme physicality, military, or technological backgrounding - because somebody felt they’d be lucky rather than any other reasons.

Or perhaps there’s other information I haven’t been privy to, and there is other testing that is more important than useful backgrounds?

I think I’ll go with that for the sake of my heart.

This is a thing I need to do because even just recounting that got me discomfited enough to forget what I was going to write.

I’m going to sleep. I need to just not worry about this anymore tonight. Heavens help me if there’s a demon attack tomorrow.

4/18/25

There was a demon attack today. It was just in the EU. I, on the other hand, got to disrupt the portal over here because they again overestimated how quickly knight armors can be moved around. Also, how they get moved in. This group isn’t going to be moved to the EU for an attack in most circumstances.

So I got to shoot what was supposed to be a ‘stealthy’ gate opening closed all because the demons are trying to get clever.

Admittedly, if we did have a policy of moving knight armors around such large distances for an abnormally sized gate, this would have probably succeeded and been pretty bad. Not call in the bombers type bad, but still pretty bad.

The worst case would probably be bomb the city levels of bad, but I think it was a portal intended for capture and not a sustained invasion.

Why? My reasoning is that consanguinary magic probably won’t be guarded by the knight armor’s anti-demon flow and so the demons are counting on obscurity to get around that and try and capture the defenders (meaning me at the moment and Jackson and Silva soon) while out of the knight armors.

I say obscurity because I know about that use of consanguinary magic only because of the dream bridge. The mages here won’t know about it, and the demons seem to not realize how far out pilots are being drawn from.

Of course, this is just based on learning that from Alissa last night. It is entirely possible that they would try and make a continual portal or try to take over the city. Also because kidnappings can lead to leverage, and leverage leads to becoming an unwilling demon slave that is unable to betray the demon except by acting with less energy.

And I’m going to be so happy to make the introduction of this new knight armor. I’m not sure who the mechanics think I’m talking to, but in exchange for not writing the introduction down until tomorrow, I got to get even more information about her.

I also think that changes were made, because I was pretty sure I was scheduled to pilot a male knight armor and a female one (Natal). I just wish I knew if they had another almost completed knight armor and just swapped assignments in, or if hearts were changed around, or if something else has happened to change that.

On the other hand, I have ended up being assigned to a male knight armor, one of the Chevaliers, and a female one, Natal.

Also, there’s going to be an opening of a Canadian factory starting some time next week. I’m hoping it won’t have the same effects as before, but I’m not going to hold out much hope. I will also need to remember that for the dream bridge, and tell master so she can make some preparations. I’m not sure how fast it will be finished or when the draw will start, but it’s best to start preparing soon.