Metaworld Chronicles

As a Goddess, a glowing, golden goddess, the first thing Gwen attempted post-pacification of her new city was the establishment of a regional Regent’s office.

She failed, after discovering that, impossibly, Quetzalcoatl did not run her nation on… paperwork. It was run on vibes and faith; through terror and sacrifice. That was the true miracle of Neo Tenochtitlan.

That or Malakath had kept a tight rein on things; only now, every tether had been slackened. Either way, the stress drove her halo to erratically splutter, turning her office into a disco at dusk.

By now, she had accepted the fact that she could not turn off the glow—at least without some explicit level of instruction in Faith Magic. As a victim of apotheosis without consent, she was doing the best she could using her existing Divination skill sets to tune out the murmuring prayers, as well as repurposing Sympathetic Life-Link to redirect the latent energy associated with Faith into her World Tree.

She hadn’t slept for a week—which was just as well, because the work was unending. Without Data Slates, running a city by command via word of mouth really did rely on faith.

“Take a break?” Slylth, thankfully, had seen enough of Suilven’s administrative methodology to shoulder some of her burdens. Golos and Ariel, on the other hand—

“I am okay.” Her temple throbbed. She had gotten the fervency down to a hum, at least. It was at a volume she could work through, unlike the flood that kept her sleepless and debilitated for hours whenever she relaxed. “We got… more work.”

She did indeed have more work.

The work was a necessary distraction.

At the converted “office” that had been the old temple’s exterior, her new citizens begged for an audience to make their petitions.

Gwen tried to think of them as government employees—they themselves saw each other as competitive sycophants.

Elder Coatls, capable of rudimentary speech, slithered low with their great jade heads bowed; Jaguar Chieftains with their spotted arms crossed over their chests came to requisition SPAM and other holy objects that they may praise her in the Thunderer's name. A Cōātlīcue at the front, begging a blessing of her own, carried a child too young to understand why the sky had changed gods twice in one week.

“Goddess.” The snake-woman’s Nahuatl came out fractured, grief-thick, pushing the flower-wreathed child until she landed at Gwen’s feet. “What should we do?”

Watching this gargantuan half-serpent, half-lady creature with four arms and no bra, she desperately wanted to tell them that she had been a god for a matter of days and did not know what she was doing either.

The Cōātlīcue had not brought her child to be baptised.

The child was an offering.

“Well, NO MORE SACRIFICES, for one,” the Pale Priestess’ command radiated across the heavens. She gave the child a drop of Golden Mead, then sent the pair home as her emissaries.

Unfortunately, old habits died hard. Her new administrators were the old priest class, who were sure they had to somehow satisfy their new God's whims.

To themselves, they were saving their people.

To Gwen, these psychopaths were sacrificing animals and people in secret, as if she might pop up out of the gore and praise them for really reading her mind.

After a dozen such cases, she simply Soul-Tapped the old priestesses. She watched the Serpent women convulse like fresh eels thrown onto the riverbanks before finally rising with an understanding that superseded language and culture. No More Sacrifices.

With sacrifices halting all over the city, a small riot broke out—until Ariel pacified them.

Then another riot broke out—in the underhives when some sod couldn’t be convinced, so Golos showed her people a new tenet—if someone tries to sacrifice your kids, sacrifice them to Golos.

Whatever the case, the Pale Goddess could do no wrong. Whenever she consulted people, they asked her what she wanted, praised her for being humble, and begged her to do as she willed—for the correct thing to do was whatever her edict demanded.

This, Gwen thought, was probably how tyrants, despots, and Godkings came about.

By day four, she stopped asking and started informing— “Xlealy! Take excavation teams one, seven and nine and rebuild the well on the third terrace first. Corix, take the troops and secure the main granary. Ixicur, clear the rubble, leave the debris. Someone will take care of it later. The buildings themselves must be ready to receive resupplies.”

She switched tones between request, demand, and command, ultimately settling on the language of edicts, and edicts were a language these people had never stopped speaking, even after their old order died screaming in a temple. She then watched relief efforts move through the city like the weather, and hated how smoothly Faith turned the tide in the city's favour.

Street by street. Wells before granaries, granaries before temples, temples into administrative offices. That was the whole of her plan until the Dwarves arrived, until her Tower crossed many thousand miles of open water and sent down the bureaucrats that would bring order and ordinance to a city.

And she still needed to go to Tryfan. She still needed to sit across from Solana and ask what the hell Malakath meant by the family drama.

Until then, she was stuck here, at a desk, in front of a “Pilgrimage”, doing administrative goddess work, and trying to survive her own divinity.

Shalkar.

The Bunker.

Natalia Volkova had seen men work. She had also seen, insofar as the metonym could carry the fact, how men worked, from behind their eyes. Moscow Tower might have a reputation for corruption and kleptomaniac bureaucrats, but during the Great War, its Logistics Corps could break down a Mage Flight in full battle gear and restage the same dozen men and women across the continent in nine hours flat.

Even so, having picked the brain of many of Moscow’s finest, she had never seen anything like her lover’s ability to manage inventory.

Presently, she was watching Richard and his team—about two dozen of them: Humans, Dwarves, Rat-kin, Mermen, a Centaur, and, more recently, a lizard-kin who answered to Dhànthárian—orbit the situation table, each holding Message Devices and dataslates.

Richard was somehow running three Messages at the same time, and holding two conversations.

“Tell Hanmoul I want the fabricator engines cold-staged at Deepholm’s western gate by morning. Crewed and ready to move. Levitators, not legs—there’s a lot of water in that lake city.”

“Strun’s Exterminators need Liquid HDM replenishments, healing potions and Golden Mead. Send double rations. Get them there before the Tower arrives.”

“Seventeen thousand tons of processed Fish SPAMs from the Fifth Vel is to reroute to Dyar Morkk, B23-J98, Section III-323-44. Grains to go through Section I-32-31. Pork SPAM goes through Puerto Vallarta instead, priority cargo. GO!”

She watched the magic happen for about an hour, until the people surrounding him were all gone, and Richard was once again alone.

Shalkar’s Majordomo unwound the Divination Magic—

—then slumped into his mesh-patterned chair.

Natalia slid over the armrest, applying a mind-massaging technique that relaxed the brain’s overstressed chemicals, simultaneously inducing a state of quickened clarity.

He gave her hand a squeeze, simultaneously keeping an eye on the living sand that made up the logistical terminal at the base of Shalkar’s World Tree, deep inside the Geo Front.

Dwarven convoys, rerouted to Neo Tenochtitlan.

A week's grain reserve, re-flagged as disaster relief before London's customs could tax it as export.

Rat-kin labour battalions, pulled off three unfinished projects and started on a fourth.

Two hundred thousand healing injectors, requisitioned from the Ordo Bath clinics before they could protest.

And dozens of entries, both to and from.

Natalia had heard that the Regent was a logistics wunderkin.

It would seem her cousin was no less talented.

He caught her looking once all the aides were gone. “What?”

“Just… admiring,” Natalia replied in heavily accented English. She could speak perfectly if Richard desired, but he said that he preferred her natural accent. “Where I come from, that kind of efficiency will get you killed.”

With a tug, he pulled her off balance. Feigning resistance, she fell into his lap.

The ease of working in Shalkar made her uneasy. She had spent a decade being taught that competence looked like a knife. Watching him work, she found she had to revise everything Moscow had taught her. Competence, it turned out, was a man who never needed to gloat, or shout, or mock his inferiors. Competence was the man who told people what needed doing without threatening their families, or cutting their rations when they fell short. Richard had effectively ruled Shalkar for almost two years now, and the city turned with a smoothness that was, frankly, admirable.

The whole thing would have been worshipful, almost mythological, had Natalia not seen her golden mistress in the mindscape, haloed and resplendent, and understood the true meaning of "mythological".

If Gwen was a deity now—what did that make Richard? What did that make her?

“Dick?”

“Yes, Nat?”

“Are we priests now?”

Richard chortled, exhaling jet streams of air through his nostrils. “Do you want to be a priestess? I think… you would make a very cute one. Naughty, too, full of sin.”

Natalia had lost the ability to blush a long time ago. Emotions like embarrassment and shame had been beaten out of the Sparrows with both rods of steel and maces of the mind.

She blushed now just so that Richard could see that she was still human, that Moscow hadn’t taken everything out of her.

“I am serious.”

“Well, if we are priests,” Richard smirked at her, his hand growing inappropriate. “Then let us at least get a religious tax exemption out of it.”

Natalia laughed, really laughed.

“That's settled then,” Richard’s hands were very naughty indeed. “What do our hawks say from the north?”

Natalia straightened herself and swatted away his fingers.

“Moscow is mobilising again,” Natalia sighed. “Any part of Shalkar is better than no part of Shalkar, I guess.”

“Well then…” Richard rolled his eyes with exasperation. A secret war was still a war, and that meant more work. “I guess it’s time your Sparrowhawks got to work. Do they have enough Golden Mead? The distilled stuff, I mean.”

Natalia nodded. She could almost see it with her eyes. All those oligarchs in Moscow, salivating over a steady supply of the very thing Shalkar had starved her former nation from ever possessing.

She wondered, for a moment, what would happen if her agents paired the youth-inducing liquor with evangelical pamphlets, perhaps a golden can of SPAM with her holiness' likeness.

Richard was right.

Natalia’s lips went to his nape.

She really did make a wicked priestess.

Arica.

For almost a week, Oliver Edwards dreamt of a golden Regent with a glowing halo, worn upon a full head of piled hair with ringlets so voluminous that each strand moved in slow motion, like in those American hair commercials.

The commercials lied.

In the witching hours, he had dreamt of walking beside the Regent, his own hair long and luscious, flowing with the mana droplets in the wind, keeping the chill on his skull at bay. It had been a strange dream because there were others there as well, with faces he recognised. The most prominent of his companions had been Lei-bup, who was more defined than the rest.

Then he remembered that the Sea Witches had burst into his office and told him that Lei-bup had gone to the Great Shoal in the Deep, and he had grown inexplicably sad.

He hadn't spent much time with the Mer, but what they had accomplished in Shalkar and in Arica was nothing short of generational.

When his sadness grew excessive, Ollie woke up in paradise, to the sound of bird songs, salty air, and baldness.

His bed smelled like kombu, though Ollie had long since gotten used to the scent.

This was because the rumours were true. Arica’s Regent had, in his loneliness, taken up with the Mermaids, who were certainly no maids, as Ollie would know. Nothing would come of this interspecies sortie, of course, even if Ollie was lorded as one of the Pale Priestess’ most trusted followers.

At first, he was worried about what his middle-class mage parents in London might think. But the mermaids never complained or cared about him having hair, because male Mer didn’t have growths that resembled hair, and being the Regent of Arica, he was very popular with the aesthetically pleasing Mermaid Mer.

He ate his breakfast at work, fed by the local girls, Mer, of course, with their dainty little fingers, feeding him spoonfuls of caviar with ponzu sauce on sticky rice—a delicacy that originated from the food stalls surrounding the Water Gate below Shalkar.

He was a dozen data slates deep when his office’s long-range Message device fired up, and Richard’s voice cut through the static, dry as ever, wanting confirmation that the Fifth Vel grain shipments had cleared his harbour.

They had cleared, of course. Ollie had personally made sure of it.

65,000 tonnes of it, re-flagged from Nagalese to Peruvian, to evade the US naval forces on the lookout for suspicious shipments to Central America. Yes, the Dyar Morkk network was reliable and safer—but really, there was no challenging the sheer bulk that was ocean freight.

Natalia’s projection came through a moment later, wiggling her perfect brows when she saw Ollie being pampered by a pair of mermaids. She told him to ready the harbour to receive Shalkar Tower. The total fuel expenditure for Pacific transit would require about half of Arica’s reserves, as well as food, water, and material replenishments. She also told him that the Tower had received a warning from the FedEx Tower in Hawaii, and that if Ollie felt like it, he could pass the message on to Lei-bup’s people.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

At noon, while Ollie enjoyed a coconut, the LR Message Device flickered into life once more.

Lord Ravenport, the Duke of Norfolk, regarded him in his colourful, locally made shirt, his tropical fruit platter, hand-picked to entice healthy hair and nail growth, and the Mer-girls behind him, and grew concerned.

“You’ve… gone native?” The Minister of Foreign Affairs quickly collected himself. “Not… that it is any of my business.”

When Ollie tried to explain that it was hot and that his office was less humid without cooling Glyphs, or that men from Cuzco had unbelievably lush hair, Ravenport told him he didn’t care.

“Just… ignore any orders that come from anyone but the Ministry, or your Regent, for now,” the Duke pinched his brows. “We’re putting out fires here. The Ordos are in an uproar. Washington thinks that she’s trying to take the central continent for herself. Someone’s bound to make a move on you there, since you’re her largest deep-water port.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, milord.” Ollie raised a coconut, complete with a pair of paper umbrellas.

The Duke looked like he had something to say, but ultimately decided against it. The Message ended without further requests or questions.

Ollie stepped from his chair, into the wide open deck of his hilltop office, then lifted into the air over Arica.

Blessed Arica, white and bean-green, draped across the headland like a colourful towel over an ivory beach. To the north, past the breakwater, the deep-water port did its unglamorous work: cranes, gantries, the honest business of unloading Dwarven steel from Deepholm and Creature Cores from the Fifth Vel. South of the harbour wall, the town changed, transforming into white terraces cut into green hillside, a boardwalk strung with handcrafted lanterns, a resort built for guests who mostly hadn't arrived yet. Word, or so Richard said, was still spreading. Once the conflict died down and Shalkar’s Golden Mead could be spared, the place would be packed to the hilt.

About two nautical miles out from Arica’s waterline lay their new “lagoon.” Aristotle had journeyed north, and in its absence it had left the largest shedding on record: acres of living chitin and cast-off coral sloughing free of that vast hide, settling into the seabed, and blooming. What had emerged from the wreckage of a land god's old skin was, absurdly, a lagoon within the bay itself, a bioluminescent, jewel-toned underwater paradise more beautiful than anything his eight years of working with the Regent around the world had ever produced.

Even now, Mermaids chased each other through the shallows in a game with rules only they understood, tails flashing turquoise and gold where the light struck the water. Sea Witches farmed coral where the shallows met the deep, adding gardens to the incline. Along the long wooden wharfs, Mer fishermen hauled up nets heavy with the lagoon's absurd new bounty, calling prices to each other in the easy shorthand of Mer who no longer worried whether the catch would be enough. Kelp farmers worked the shoreline in patient rows, bundling wet green ropes of harvest for the drying racks, and somewhere further down, a Sea Witch was training a pair of acolytes in their Siren songs, watched by a ring of Incan men with split-grins.

Ollie Edwards, Regent of Arica, ran a hand through his absent hair, feeling the breeze run through his Arica shirt made from breathable local plant fibres.

Life was hard, being the Regent of Arica.

I should get a hat, Ollie thought. One of those hats from that island off the US coast—toquilla straw, a structured crown, with clean, understated lines. He'd have the band done in Shalkar blue.

London.

Westminster.

The Foreign Affairs Office.

Morrigan sat on her perch, the very same perch that had survived nine monarchs and eleven Popes, watching the proceedings of mortal men downstairs.

Presently, swirling below her feathery self, was a conspiracy of Seneschals from the Crown’s Ordos, convened in an emergency meeting with her Master, the Duke of Norfolk, regarding the birth of a new Demi-deity.

Morrigan decided on the notion of Demi because the original Gods of Faith Magic were older than the magic itself. They, like herself, were Elementals given human shape, worshipped and moulded by Faith until all they knew of themselves were the stories that had shaped them thus.

Comparatively, Demi-deities were closer to Elves, beings that had transcended the mortal coil through the many means available to those who knew where to look, what to kill, who to consume. When Morrigan first met the Regent all those years ago, when she was still a sorceress struggling with middle-tier Arcanistry, Gwen had already imbibed the Essence of a God.

Not a “God” of men like Morrigan’s former self.

Not a “Demi-God,” like the Emperors of old.

But a true Elemental, a Land God that had existed since the Prime Material took form.

And now, with that as her foundation, she had achieved what very few Human Mages had ever attained in Human history—apotheosis via psychic coalescence.

So it was nothing short of absurdity for Morrigan to sit on the roof and hear these mortal men and women decide what to do with Gwen, as if their decisions had any bearing on whether Gwen was or was not a Goddess and could or could not grant miracles.

Nonetheless, as a goddess of secrets, she feasted.

Knight-Commander Alaric Vane of the Ordo St George was now addressing the gathering. He wore his Order’s robes like a verdict: his dress plates chased with dragon-slaying reliefs, Saint George's lance mid-thrust across the pauldrons. A scarlet drape, heavy with gold thread, fell from one shoulder like a wound. Above his cuirass, he had a hawk's face—hooked nose, unblinking eyes, blue and relentless.

“No, she is NOT Henry Kilroy, who knew his limits and helped us build the world into what it is today. SHE is a human woman fed on souls with borrowed Necromancy. No amount of Golden Mead will change that fact. She will subvert our efforts, grow despotic with power, and catalyse the Second Great War.”

“Alaric, Alaric, you don’t know the girl as we do,” Seneschal Ashburn spoke with both gauntleted hands raised. “The amount of good she has done for the Mageocracy is beyond what you can imagine. From infrastructure to banking, from the reach of our power to our new alliances—not even Lord Ravenport can say that he could have done the same.”

“This is true,” her Master concurred. “I should point out that she is successful because of House Ravenport’s support. I think we can agree that my performances were more than adequate—even before she showed up out of Shanghai.”

“Either way, our hands are tied.” The man who spoke with apathetic arrogance was Prelate Alistair Cavendish of the Knights of the Garter, serving under the Queen. Of all the knights, his garb was the most outlandish, consisting of Griffin feathers and Griffin skin cloaks, wreathed at the collar with Griffin down. They were the Griffin Knights, the most potent of the Queen’s honour guard. “Her Majesty has offered no comment. Parliament must decide for itself how to deal with the Regent. Besides, she hasn't even gone rogue. Isn't this all a bit premature?”

“Is it premature to stop a world descending into Undeath?” Vane growled at the rest of the Knight-Commanders. “We've already fought a dozen wars over less reasonable threats. Remember the Giants at Gibraltar? Those Lycanthropian tribals in the Niger Delta? That woman deals in the Void; we know what happened with the last Void Witch, and that was when Henry was still alive.”

Her Master finally joined the fray. “The giants didn't build us a functioning continental underground railway service, did they? Did the Lycanthropian Tribals of Dwarven Magitech that we are even now using to build expand our frontiers?”

The Master of St George's growled. “Shall we switch masters then? From the Nazarene to the Pale Goddess?”

“All I'm saying is… why are you arguing with infrastructure?” Ravenport leaned back. “Besides, what do you want? Should we kill her? With what? Write her a polite letter and tell her to go to the bottom of the Tower of London and meditate where the anti-magic plates are? If you believe that she's that stupid, then you can't possibly believe that she's dangerous.”

“And if I believe she's far more cunning?”

“Then…” Ravenport folded his arms. “You should travel back in time before we sent her off to the South Pole. You could have nipped the bud there, but the Mageocracy let her fight it out for nine months. NINE MONTHS—Alaric! My daughter was there with her, as you should know. Where the hell were your men?”

The Master of St George glowered like a lumen bulb. “We’re all going to die then. Because you won't bite the hand that feeds.”

“Now, now,” Ashburn came between the men. “May I suggest something?”

The men regarded the Seneschal.

“Shameful as it might be to rely on a Knight Companion, we still have Saint Elvia in the Ordo. She's a close companion to the Regent, and I believe she can keep our region grounded. Rectrix St Claire has suggested that perhaps Elvia could teach our Regent something of Faith Magic, before she is led… astray.”

“Is she a leash? Or is she a sacrifice?” Vane paced the floor. “Faith aside, is there any reason to trust this Yinglong? Drummond, what do you think of this? The Red Dragon that’s tied to our Regent, that’s your jurisdiction.”

“Milord Vane,” Dean Drummond coughed, adjusting the dark-green ceremonial plate at his shoulder, the way a man straightens his tie before a management review. "There are sixteen of us in Scotland, and Lord Sythinthimryr has been gracious enough not to revise that number. Once a year we see off the Wyld Hunt at her behest, because one does not really refuse an Ancient Red Dragon asking nicely. So insofar as mythical Dragons go, Knight Commander—we consider ourselves entirely sorted."

Knight Commander Vane pinched his brows. Morrigan stifled a croak. Invariably, Faith happens. Humanity loves to worship. Those who spend too much time around immortal beings start to question the validity of their own ephemeral existence, from which there is only a small leap of faith until they start praying. In the old days, it was a matter of survival. In the modern day, it is the nihilistic repetition of daily life.

“I shall send the Saintess then?” Ashburn asked.

"Use her. Gently. As a hand extended, not a leash,” her Master always gave the best advice. Indeed, the easiest way to have the Regent revolt would be to tie Elvia Lindholm onto a pole and light a grand old witch fire beneath. “Those in favour?”

A flurry of “Ayes” met the room.

“Good, that is what I shall present to our peers. And her Majesty.”

Morrigan’s master said nothing more, because he knew just how stupid it was to measure out a collar for something that had no dimensions. Nonetheless, his master must let his friends try; because that’s what friends were for.

For the public, an illusion of a collar was acceptable, even though everyone could see the leash flopping in the wind.

Morrigan, tipsy on conspiracy, wondered if Gwen was willing to lend a fellow goddess a hand.

Sydney

The Tower.

The War Room.

Gunther stood at the LR Message crystal, arms folded, listening to Mycroft’s voice crackle out of it with the patience of a man who had been framing the same solutions for about a week.

The geometric design of his new device, installed by Dwarven artisans, was one of many improvements to the infrastructure of Sydney Tower originating from Shalkar. Sydney, unlike the other Towers of the Commonwealth, felt no qualms when shifting from US-made Magitech commissioned by the Mageocracy to Shalkarian Dwarf-tech, partly because Gunther trusted his Sister-in-craft, and largely because Dwarven artisans melted like wax in a furnace if made to lie about a product’s mechanical specifications.

“—Washington is making noises about ‘unilateral humanitarian access,’ which is their way of saying we’d like some of what she’s having,” Mycroft’s voice spoke with unveiled amusement and a smidgen of admiration for the audacity of a nation fearing a hit to its military industrial complex. “Westminster isn’t much better. The Middle Faction in the Ministry wants to canonise her; the other half wants a committee to study whether that’s treason against the Crown, who is the head of our Church. Naturally, Moscow smells blood the moment they notice the Regent is stuck elsewhere. I’d put good money on Popov, though Richard says he’s got things under control…”

Gunther considered all of this.

“What would the Commonwealth say… If I paid Popov a visit?”

The crystal flickered; Mycroft swore.

“Right, no visit then,” Gunther grinned. “I was joking, your Grace.”

“You’re picking up the worst habits from her,” Mycroft groaned. “If and when she pacifies the Undead in that region, we can tell Moscow to kick rocks, maybe even replace Popov, but until then…”

“It does seem like the sort of thing that might happen, doesn’t it?” Gunther scratched his chin. “Demi-Goddess, eh?”

“Small miracles, that sort of thing. Unexplainable, generally helpful phenomena, the kind of thing the Catholic Church keeps contained in its halls, and we maintain through Relics.”

Gunther considered the implications. “You’re sending Elvia out again?”

“Not by choice,” Mycroft shrugged on the lumen screen. “The alternative is to do nothing.”

“Yeah… that’s not going to work.”

“No.”

“Right, leave it with me, then. I’ll go and speak to her. She’s in Neo Tenochtitlan?”

“Indeed. Her new capital in the Americas…”

Gunther winced. “Right… when you put it like that…”

“I leave her in your capable hands. Master Shultz.”

The screen flickered, then died.

Gunther stepped into nothingness, then reappeared in the Tower’s penthouse suite.

“How was your meeting?” Alesia sat in bed, rubbing her eyes. “I spoke to Yue earlier; she’s organising help from the Halflings. They’re wanting to repay Gwen for what she did back during the Auckland incursion.”

“That’s nice,” Gunther said, his eyes falling on his wife’s body until his gaze landed on her belly.

“It’s a little early… if you want to feel…”

“No, no,” Gunther shook his head. “I was just thinking.”

Alesia hugged her knees. “I don’t like what you’re thinking. She’s still our sister. And Yue is still her friend. Demi-God or whatever the hell they’re classifying her now.”

Gunther slid beside his wife, slipped his hand beneath the covers to her blushing face, then pressed his hand flat against her stomach. As before, he circulated his Mana, and he felt it there, the beginnings of a mana spark, its signature faint… but absolutely present.

“You don’t think—” Alesia’s expression grew worried. “We're not a part of her Sympathetic Life-link.”

“I don’t know,” Gunther said, then recalled Mycroft’s complaint.

Small miracles, that sort of thing. Unexplainable, generally helpful phenomena.

It might not be as ridiculous as Yinglong’s blessing of Ayxin and Jun’s marriage, but… The amount of Essence-Infused Mao-tai and Golden Mead they had drunk since Gwen started producing them could probably purchase a small island nation.

“Do you think it’s her?” Alesia said anyway, because someone had to, and because his wife had no filters.

Gunther chose to say no, absolutely not, but before he could make his mind known, his wife had resolved his worries.

“If she did help.” Alesia punched the air, grinning at him with unadulterated joy. “Gwennie can be the DEMI-GOD-MOTHER!”

Muscles Gunther did not know existed unclenched. This… he felt, was why he loved his woman.

Puerto Vallarta

One week later.

Shalkar’s Tower arrived at its first destination.

It did not sail into the bay so much as shunt into empty space, foregrounding its arrival with a Mandala large enough to blot out the sun.

For the Mer and the survivors of the Mer’s rescue, the horizon simply stopped being empty. One heartbeat, open water; the next, a small tsunami below and a whirlwind above.

Shalkar Tower's spearhead prow shunted through the last fold of Mandala-space with a concussion that boomed through the air and rolled flat across the bay, sending the Coatls up in a screaming, scattering veil of rainbow hues. Seawater didn't part so much as sunder, displacing outward in a ring that capsized a thousand fishing skiffs still limping home from the relief lines. The air itself seemed to lean away from its unfathomable mass, with mana bleeding off the hull in visible sheets, gold and violet, like heat off a runway.

And that was just the tip.

The prow cleared the sky over the harbour mouth and did not stop its swallowing of space—deck after deck, gun-tier after gun-tier, the horizontal battle-barge silhouette Gwen had envisioned two years ago now blotting out an entire quarter of the sky, still descending, still not finished, dwarfing the ruined temple spires below.

Still it came on. Segment after segment, bulkhead and armoured exterior, each with the unique art-deco geometry of Dwarven engineering, each panel etched with both Mandala and Rune Magic.

The rest of the Tower’s body, growing wide before tapering back out, cast a shadow from the coast to the mountains, sending Magic Beasts to flee in every direction.

When the final Levitation Engine cleared the displacement Mandala, a thunderous crack rippled across the ocean below, displacing both water and wind. Gravity, inverted by mana and the mysteries of Magitech, held a conjoined pair of horizontal skyscrapers aloft.

On the bridge, in a spacious cavern modelled after the command centres of its Dwarven Designs, Strun of Clan Jildam, Commander of the Regent’s Militia, reached Deepholm’s companion Commander, Hanmoul Bronzeborn, son of Dwomrul. Together with the pair stood her Marshal, Lulan Li, who had been tapped by Richard to lead the expedition until their mistress could join them.

Presently, they convened beside the enormous teleportation circle at the rear of the command deck, flanked by Rat-kin Executors, Dwarven Greybeard Engineers, and representatives from Shalkar’s Administrative bodies.

The Mandala flickered; motes of Conjuration cascaded, then their new Demi-goddess, the Regent of Shalkar, materialised inside the bridge.

The room, large as it was, filled with golden amber light.

Waves of warmth washed over the crew, diffusing the fatigue of a week’s travel across the Pacific.

Strun reached her first, falling on both knees to supplicate before his Pale Goddess. The Rat-kins fell on their armour as one, creating an enormous clamour. The Dwarves, after a moment of peer pressure-induced faith, lowered their heads.

Lulan was about to kow-tow when the Regent stepped from the dais and demanded that they stop at once.

“Enough!” She snapped, uplifting the Sword Mage and himself from the floor with her mind. “This isn’t… I can’t help this. I can’t turn it off.”

Turn the light off? Strun’s ears twitched. Why would anyone want to turn something so deserved and resplendent “off”? Bathed in the Regent’s light, he could sleep like a ratling cub.

“Your Paleness,” Strun bowed from the waist, whiskers twitching. “Twelve battalions are onboard, ready to make peace. The Foundries are lit, and the Fabricators are ready to be deployed.”

The Dwarven Engineers gave their murmuring affirmation.

“Good,” his Regent relaxed at the good news.

“Regent,” Hanmoul offered their Demi-Goddess a salute. "Aye, got freighters on standby. Fabricators are hot-staged, as Commander Strun said, an' we're ready tae start rebuildin'.” He handed her a slate without preamble. “Richard's telt us the Great Shoal's pacified the whole coastal strip. We can start work soon as the Rat-kin Legions land an' secure the sites.”

“Thank God,” his Regent nodded, already smiling, already digesting the message from Richard.

"Report says two hunnerd an' thirty thousand pacified an' fed, near enough fer resettlin' intae aboot four major industrial ports," Hanmoul said, with the particular pride of a man reading out a job well done. "Fifth Vel crew lost aboot half the toons; there's two ports remainin', but the inland population's largely left intact."

His Regent held the smile for exactly as long as it took her to do the arithmetic.

Oh no… Strun felt his ears twitch. He knew that look.

“Two hundred and thirty thousand pacified?” their Regent’s glow flickered a little before hitting the crew with its full blast, bathing them in onsen water. The air suddenly tasted delicious, like salt lick.

She looked up from the slate, and the harbour, and the giant gouge carved into the town below where Her Paleness’ Aristotle had made landfall, and did not look quite so happy anymore.

“Hanmoul.” Her voice came out very level, and he could smell perspiration, which was how Strun knew she was secreting unhappy chemicals. “What do you mean, pacify?”