NEVRAS

    Having received a few good gifts for preserving food, getting salt, and fresh water, we set out but were promptly stopped by my mom and dad. Dad gave us some milk to put in the Preserver, saying, “You need strong bones to fight evil. And what would you do if you developed osteoporosis?” It was raw milk, of course. Pasteurization had been condemned for centuries, and thermalization we''d just tried to no avail. But more than that, it was cultured milk, proven to also give us some healthy bacteria (that couldn''t cast spells). Mom gave me some oranges and bananas and told me, “I don''t want you getting scurvy either. And eat your vegetables!” Oh, honestly! “I''m going now!” I shouted as I got on the boat with Ambrosia. “And remember to change your...” but we put up sail before she could embarrass me any more.

    “Where should we go?” I asked Ambrosia. She pointed with clear purpose, “That way.” That was in the direction of Opening. What could she want there? Ah, right, this was her homeland. Surely they would able to help us get stronger. How clever!

    AMBROSIA

    Actually, I just pointed randomly and acted like I knew where we were going. But come to think of it, Yazim Jianne was over in that direction. And who knows, maybe we could find some sidequest to distract everyone. Acting on that random impulse however meant going out of our way for a few days. The wind blew hard in the opposite direction, so we couldn’t go anywhere. We parked our boat back at Phoenix, and went back to Nevras''s mother, against his better judgement. “Mom, we''re trapped here for awhile,” Nevras requested, “will you keep our boat here while we fly Bahamut over?”

    She nodded. It seemed such a shame to have all that gear and leave it behind, but I guess we had to. If only, we had something to bring our boat with us... But that was impossible. It was simply too big! I scrounged through my backpack. Hmmm, a bomb bag for carrying bombs. Useful, but not here. My cooking gear was likewise no use. We carried some potions and herbs that always seemed to be underused since we had a dedicated healer. We had arrows for long range attacks, and I decided to put these on the ship since this is where they saw the most use. Let''s see... a jar of nightcrawlers. I also put this on the ship. If we needed to do fishing, these were great. Otherwise, they would keep. After the New Earth, God made certain creatures immortal: coral, certain strains of algae, beneficial bacteria, and worms. They couldn''t confer immortality on others, but they would keep until being eaten. Aside from the food on the ship, we had some rations of dried meat and some remaining grain-bean buns.

    Researchers found that uncooked oats and rice when compared to other grains could last 3-5 years in storage, and dried beans lasted even longer. On the other hand, fresh cooked bread only would last about a week, so they devised a dried bread. Oats and rice were mashed together with beans, a damp cloth was placed to allow cultures to grow, then the mix was gently steamed, much like Chinese plain buns. When fresh, such buns were soft with an interesting salty taste. But this dough was typically fast-dried with magic. Wrapped in waterproof wrapping, these lasted for years. But they kinda sucked since they had to basically be eaten with water or tea, but they were nutritious enough for a long trip. Besides, compared to the price of other rations, they gave them away.

    Anyway, I stuffed those back in, along with the bomb bag, bombs, and the cooking gear while I continued to look at the contents we''d dumped. There was a For Sale Sign, which I might want to use on those rare potions, if stuff ever got desperate. There were also Gorgon Anklets, Poison Armlets, and Echo Rings. The latter would protect those who could be silenced from such, although antimagic or Dispel would not be affected. I hadn''t enough for everyone but enough for me, Azrael, and Elias to have Gorgon Anklets; enough for Elias, Zoe, and Azrael to have Echo Rings; and enough for everyone but Aqorm, Lilith and Michael to get poison immunity. They didn''t need it anyway. After this, most of us were immune to petrifaction, poison, and silence if it even became a problem. We had Jump Boots, a Lantern, and our Party Tent, all of which I moved to a side compartment of the bag so they could easily be reached. I put on the upgraded Fire Ring on my finger making a mental note to use it more, as I remembered all the nights cooking where this would have saved some serious trouble. I found the First Flint, and shoved it back into the backpack. Then I looked at what was left.

    So did Queen Victoria. “Hey,” she asked, “where did you get that? That''s a Transport Coin!” I remembered that the others didn''t remember I had gone back in time, so I gave a noncommittal answer about having found it, or “it was a birthday present.” I gulped suddenly. Victoria shrugged, “Well I guess you don''t want to know how you can use it to solve your problem then.” I requested a private audience, and told her the truth. After listening carefully, she nodded, then brought the rest of us in.

    “This Coin,” she explained, “can be attuned to link with the ship you currently have, so that you can summon it from anywhere. My court sorcerers will do the former, but to summon it, you will need a talented sorcerer to use the teleportation link. We cannot spare them, so you''ll have to figure this out yourself.” I understood, and nodded as I said, “I know of one in Opening, where we''re going. Don''t worry.”

    The sorcerers went to the port and did some complicated ritual which created a line of yellowish light from the Coin to the ship. We took the Transport Coin back, and then got on Bahamut. She carried us back to Opening quickly, and we dismounted and headed into town.

    NEVRAS

    Ambrosia had been different lately. Rather than being focused on finishing her quest quickly, she appeared instead to be goofing off. Rather than being peeved at this, however, I kinda liked it. She''d occasionally sing or recite poetry, she spent more time cuddling, and actually started kissing me some, at least when she was sure the others weren''t looking. I had a feeling she would balk at actually having sex, but for now we were closer and more intimate than we had been in months.

    We came to the town of Opening, and it was as bad as I remember. Guards were posted on the walls around the town, but unlike last time, there were none preventing exit. They had taken Ambrosia''s advice, and were now getting their money through prostitution. I saw the town guards propositioning people left and right, and then going inside the strange metal huts that Opening was known for.

    We tried our hardest to ignore this, and instead explored the town. We skipped over the bank, having more money than we knew what to do with but being unable to spend it due to screwed up economy. We skipped many of the shops for the same reason. I loved shopping, but unlike Phoenix, Opening had been fully okay with schemes to make money connected to the Mark. You could be tracked whenever you spent anything. Having Big Brother (so to speak) look over your shoulder whenever you bought something basically killed the fun of it. Yeah, only a portion of towns actually embraced the program, but I had trouble keeping track of it, and the ones that did looked at you like a criminal. We skipped the chockablock houses in the slums area, and we skipped the weird-looking monolith near the bank. We did stop near a poster for bounty hunting wanted posters. Ah, so this is how Sera and Phim got paying gigs. It looked like they had creature hunts as well. I might try this later. But not here, definitely. They probably wouldn''t pay us in real money here.

    Having nothing better to do, I looked around town, until a thought occurred to me. There were two places that I hadn''t checked, the graveyard where I saw Sarai''s gravestone and that weird mansion that seemed at odds with all other houses in the town.

    First, I checked the mansion. I knocked but after waiting for a few minutes, I decided nobody must be home. So I went to visit the graveyard. We indeed found Yazim Jianne there. He was adding some Forget-Me-Nots to his wife''s grave when he turned around and freaked out by the number of us standing over him. As he was kinda a squishy wizard, he decided to teleport away.

    As everyone knows, teleportation involves converting the body into light, and moving at that speed. Since opaque objects don''t allow light to enter, he couldn''t move into the house if the door was closed. So where did he go? I followed him back to the direction of the mansion, but he was gone. What happened to him?

    YAZIM JIANNE

    Glass windows are permeable to anyone teleporting, unless they are tinted, frosted, or stained glass. The same was true of metallic screens, since they are just porous enough that small particles can filter though. Although I had come to trust the one named Ambrosia, her friends likely blamed me for bringing ruin to the New Earth. I would have to defend myself.

    As I wanted to bring Sarai back, I had turned to studies of the making of various types of chimera. I''m sure you''ve heard of homunculi from various legends. But as far as I know, such legends are nonsense. Artificial creatures are categorized in three major categories: undead, chimera, and golems. What people call homunculi are actually one of two things, flesh golems or true chimera. There is no such thing as a fire chimera, sorry.

    But there are fire elementals. In fact, I have a water elemental to draw baths for me, and a fire elemental to heat my oven, an air elemental to dry my hair, and an earth elemental for my flowers indoors. They''re alive and they need payment. When I''m gone out for a bit, they just scrounge around, but I gave them nice chunks of wood or fish or whatever as rewards for their services. They were cute little buggers, and damned handy.

    Undead are reanimated by magic, and it is possible to make creepy composite undead. Like, one guy chopped up dead people and made a Death Sausage, adding teeth at one end. Golems are nonliving, although the same energy that animates the golem can also cause all organic material to live. A golem made from leaves and wood and grass blurs the line of life and death, but ultimately golems are considered animated matter not life.

    Lastly there are chimera, which must be made from living bodies. Many of the patched-together ones wound up dying on the operating table. Without their juicy vital goodness, they just wobbled around half-heartedly. Zombie chimera are just no good, the nerves are already stiff from rigor mortis, and then the added challenge of merging bodies makes them worthless. That''s why modern chimera typically are made by alchemy or lifeweaving magic to splice together living bodies seamlessly. Genes are merged too.

    Of course, any decent student of genetic theory started with oozes. They were complex splice of bacteria and fungi. They ranged from droplets (slimes), to jellyfish-like critters with whip-like flagella (jellies), to those with a firm shape like a diamond or cube (pudding). They were squishy but couldn''t be killed without destroying their core. They were a mess though, everywhere they went the left a sort of mold that I had to clean with bleach. These would be my front-line troops. Surely they would stop them. I set a Slimeborn named Dewdrop to lead them, picked more for her aptitude in bed than her courage or leadership ability. I trusted she would run away fairly quickly, but while she was there, she would give the oozes morale. As though most oozes had enough sentience to really have some a thing. sea??h thё N??elFirё.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    If not, I had beast chimera, hybrid chimera, and true chimera. My hybrid chimera were fishmen and batmen, the former I armed with crossbows and the latter due to their high agility I gave bladed weapons like swords, knives, and spears. These were my foot soldiers throughout the house. The beast chimera were more like tanks, they were big and sturdy, and some had breath weapons. One type was a creature with the head of a snow leopard, the front hooves and torso of an ibex, and the back end of a snake. It could wrap itself around trees and it could do a peculiar hop-crawl that would be cute and funny, except for their ability to breathe frost. There were also those who had a head of a pig, midsection and wings of a hawk, and rear of a zebra. Due to their ability to fly around and their acid bite, they were dangerous enemies as well. Oh yes, and a three-headed cat that behaved as strategist for the other chimera.

    And you may ask, what is a true chimera? Well, human beings are a composite of many genetic species, as scientists in the 20th century discovered when mapping them. There are a host of ideas from certain races, as many as 145 genes from 40 different animal species, which are then part of the makeup of humans along with their unique genes. A true chimera has no human genes at all, but enough animal genes to cobble together a being that can think, talk, and act as a human but had many of the advantages of the animals they were made from. I had only one of these, a woman I named Surrogate Lover # 2 (#1 was a being that I planned to give an artificial soul to, but the plan sorta kinda fell through when a demon betrayed me). She could sprout wings or claws or fangs, she could breathe water or air, and she had prehensile feet. But to a casual observer, she was a regular girl. She was a lover, but she was sterile like all artificial crossbreeds. Unlike a natural crossbreed, the chromosome number is unequal, so they cannot reproduce, even with another chimera of the same type. Not that they would manage to meet her. She was not for defense except as a last result. She was for my... entertainment, while the others took care of intruders. She was very entertaining...

    NEVRAS

    Ambrosia seemed to trust this sorcerer but I didn''t even know him. But I trusted her, even when it seemed like she was trying to trick me, because the outcome was usually good. I supposed it might be possible that all of this training was just a waste of time, but even if that were the case, the fact is she did it to spend time with me. So since her intentions were good, I decided to ignore this possibility entirely and believe that she legit wanted us to train. This didn''t mean, however, that I had my guard down. I fully expected traps within this mansion. What I didn''t expect was to be attacked by creatures right as soon as I entered.

    As soon as the door opened, oozes of all sorts rushed out. I hated jellies. In the past, when I tried to attack them, some of them had a powerful digestive system strong enough to corrode steel. I wasn''t sure how my sword would hold up, but I decided to give it a try. I lunged at one of the jellies, slashing it towards its core. To my surprise the weapon was untouched. I looked at how the weapon got slimed though, and realized I would have to be careful with that heart-shaped pudding that wobbled slowly towards us, because it was substantially thicker. I had just enough time to think about this when I had to dodge a whip from the side. I looked around and noticed I had about thirty of these suckers to fight, all by myself. The others had their own critters to deal with.

    Behind all of those, there was a Slimbeborn cheering them on, but she took one look at me, blushed, and puddled herself into a storm drain. We didn''t pursue. Slimeborns could have all manner of emotions, including shyness, but the truth was that she was more dangerous than the others. There was no sense cornering her.

    Ambrosia and Aqorm were working together against the slimes. There were a few of them, somewhere above a hundred or two. Lilith looked around for a bit, then decided to join them. Ambrosia, decided to turn her Conception tool into a big mallet, figuring that a good splatter would deal with them. She wasn''t wrong, but well, you couldn''t effectively swing such a thing like a sword, you pretty much had to swing it overhead like that, making her attacks slow but brutal. Luckily, the slimes didn''t have anything caustic. They just attacked by bouncing at people, knocking them over and sliming them. The problem was, these things were unpredictable since they could do stuff like jump and stick to the ground to suddenly change direction, so she couldn''t use her dodge technique. Aqorm wasn''t much good against the slimes themselves but managed to keep Ambrosia from being body-slammed to a large extent. Lilith was the real star in this battle though, as her savage style of fighting involved slashing one slime to bits, stabbing another with her tail, and grabbing her pet rock Christina to splatter a bunch of densely packed ones. Unfortunately, when the population got down to less than half, they started reproducing by fission. I looked at my own jellies, which I was making progress against by knocking them back with my shield, and dispensing each with sword techniques. They too were trying to reproduce! There was no end to this!

    Michael, Zoe, and Azrael were working together against the pudding ooze. It was tough, because its thick body tended to protect its core from harm, and the three were having trouble agreeing what method would work the best against its body. I''d help out if I wasn''t busy fending off my own critters.

    Elias was alternating between healing and using alchemy. He had his brewing pot out and starting throwing something in water, then quickly shut the lid, and put it to “vibrate” mode. It rattled and shook, mixing whatever it was correctly. While he healed our acid burns, and the bruises we got from whips and body slams, the pot contained to rattle. Yet I had no idea what he was cooking.

    ELIAS

    As everyone knows, isopropyl alcohol kills both mold and bacteria, so it was very effective to something that is basically both. Essentially, unlike many living things which have a layer of skin covering them, oozes have only fat and water cell membranes so alcohol is able to bond to them. This exposes their cores, causing them to lose structure and dissolve. But I wasn''t making isopropyl alcohol. I was brewing rum. The run had quickly fermented and distilled, and I decided to release the excess moisture by removing the stopper. A thick mist filled the air, and the pudding, jellies, and slimes all popped like large bubbles. I put the stopper back on, and after some time passed, I slowly eased off the pressure and bottled this elixir. We might have some of this later, but for right now, we had work to do. Alchemy was originally for this purpose, but it would wait.

    The mansion was built of mostly wood and marble, but its owner didn''t care for a lot of frills. The house was grand in size, but there was no Greek revival architecture, no chandeliers, no decorations to speak of except for a sky roof above our heads. It was like a log cabin had been turned into a mansion, plain to the point of oddity. There were two staircases leading upstairs, and three rooms and an open kitchen on the first floor. The floor in the lobby was cobblestone, great for pitfalls or traps. Lilith wandered over toward the kitchen, as I warned, “Hey watch where you...” she stepped on a pressure plate which released a giant boulder from above. “...step,” I finished. She absently raised her arm as if to rub her eyes, and the boulder shattered into pebbles. Lilith didn''t even notice. She grabbed some chicken from the storage and cooked it in her hand, before tearing at it with her teeth. Seeing everyone shocked, she looked around and noticed the boulder fragments. “How did that get there?” she asked.

    Carefully, we checked each room. The lower right room, an all-wood room, was the mansion''s dining room. It had an long table with slats that could be removed and some lights that looked like modifications of the Glow Orb design. A cabinet held dishes of all sorts, and Ambrosia insisted that Lilith sit down to eat. She didn''t really say how though. The women scrunched her feet and behind into the chair in a squat position, letting her tail wag behind her. The wooden shaker chair had slots where her tail could slip through, and we saw her munching away contentedly without a care in the world. A three-headed calico cat walked by, and demanded petting. These critters could sometimes behave as leaders for other chimera, but this one seemed harmless. Its heads each seemed to have a personality. The left head looked hungry all the time, knowing cats this head would probably only eat food that appeared fresh. The right head looked sleepy, and probably kept the rest of its body well-rested. This middle head was obviously the main head, it was friendly to family and to people who looked like they might like pets, but scared of strangers. It was grumpy if left alone, but also randomly nudged people with its head. We gave it a pet, rubbing near the ears and neck. It started leaning towards us with another head. Lilith petted the other head at the same time, and the third head meowed for attention. After this, the cat rolled over on her belly, and we rubbed that too.

    The rest of us explored more of the house. I walked carefully, just in case anyone needed healing. Aqorm used her sharp eyes to spot traps. She pointed one on the floor that was kinda cross-shaped, and then pressed down on it with her fingertips, pressing slightly on the left side. The trap apparently fired a volley of arrows from left to right at the space around the pressure plate. After it finished, she decided to test out whether there was any ammo left or whether the trap was completely sprung. She pressed this time on the right side of the switch. This time, arrows came from the opposite direction. “Everyone duck!” Aqorm said. She pressed the center, and the arrows flew from all directions. Searching around, Aqorm found four other rock panels that seemed able to be pressed, two long ones and two were round. She pressed the pressure plate up, up, down, down, left, right, left, and right. Then she hit two of the round stones and tried the long stone on the right. The raised stones sunk and we were able to pass the trapped area to our right. We could move freely again!

    “Wait, how''d you know to do that exact pattern?” I asked. Aqorm explained, “Oh that? That''s the secret code to the universe.” We headed to the upper right room, which turned out to be a library. Most of his books appeared to be about time-space theory, strange rituals, or methods of making artificial life through golems and chimera. In one corner of the room was a diary. It seemed to be about his experiments. After his wife died, he started working on making lifeforms, and talking in depth about his deal with Belial and his motives for the deal. It was all very dry and scientific, and I read it as such. But when I looked up, there was not a dry eye, even Lilith who had just walked in after finishing her food. What’s wrong? It was just a notebook with science formulas, why were they getting so emotional?

    Leaving that area, we decided to check through the last room on the first floor, the one which had stone walls and a mithril door. I opened the door and was surprised to notice that the inside of both the door and the wall had bars reinforcing them. I looked around the room and saw test tubes, flickering lights, giant vats, beakers, and several tools like a bunsen burner, droppers, funnels, and the biggest forceps I''d ever seen. And then I saw a few chimera, but not friendly like the cat. I suddenly understood why this door had bars on it. These beasts were a blend of leopard/ibex/snake or pig/hawk/zebra. The flying pigs started flapping their wings to dive-bomb while the others hopped forward. Thinking quickly, I slammed the door shut, and I was about to lock it, when Michael said, “Wait. I''ll fight them off.” Confused, I said, “But... why? The room is well-barricaded, even if they rush the doors. It was obviously designed to keep these beasts in.” Michael drew his sword, “Those things are abominations. They were created not by God but by man through twisted experiments.”

    And he was about to destroy them, when we were interrupted again. Spare them, my servant Michael, said God, for I have ordained that even such beings shall have a soul. Mankind will be co-Creators with me, even those these things appear deformed. Just like that, he sheathed his sword, and walked away from the area, without so much as a grunt of complaint.

    We headed toward the stairs, but just as we came to a section between them, some sort of circle glowed with runes, and an alarm sounded. “Huh?!?” Ambrosia said, “I thought you said that you could detect traps!” Aqorm shook her head, as did I. I explained, “That''s a magical circle made from sensing runes. When we stepped here, it sent an alarm whoever is hiding up here.” And so, more chimera crawled out of the woodwork. These appeared to be a hybrid of fish and humans, or bats and humans. And they all had weapons. We were done for.

    NEVRAS

    The others have a difficult time with battles like this, fighting against long-ranged and quick fighters. Ambrosia and Elias largely stayed out of the way, Lilith got another snack, and Michael said something along the lines of not wanting it to be too easy for the group to win and went to the library to find some reading material. Meanwhile, Aqorm took out her knives and chucked them at a few of the fishmen, downing seven of them. The others started cocking their crossbows, and fired on us!

    While only myself, Azrael, and Zoe were actively fighting beyond Aqorm''s lucky throw, they didn''t seem to care. Ambrosia got grazed by a shot, the arrow flying just past her shoulder. Elias moved to heal her, but then Elias got an arrow to the knee. And the hip, and he got shot in the arm. Uh oh, this wasn''t supposed to happen. If our healer died, we''d be in trouble! Besides which, Elias was a decent guy and didn''t deserve this.

    I knew my weapons from being in the military. The arrows would rain down slowly because unlike the average longbow, a crossbow was not designed to hold multiple arrows and took longer to set up. The advantage to a crossbow is higher draw-weight, and the bolts are usually metal, and it takes less strength and training on the part of the person using. But a mini-crossbow like they were using fires only small bolts, and doesn''t have enough power to pierce decent armor. In a test of firing speed against a crossbow, a longbow could fire powerful shots every 5-6 seconds (about 10-11 times a minute), while either crossbow had a lot of setup and thus was closer to 6-7 times a minute. All of us got hit, but it didn''t do much harm to me or Azrael since we wore armor and these were only mini-crossbows. Despite taking several arrows, Elias would be alright as long as he was treated properly.

    We were in real danger, as the chimera creatures continued firing, and Azrael needed to heal multiple people at once. She could use Recover to heal everyone, but there were logistical issues, since she had to remove these bolts one by one while healing. If she made a barrier, she might not have enough mystic power to spare for healing everyone. Fortunately, seeming dumb luck saved everyone. When Elias got knocked back, somehow he landed right on a pressure plate. Unlike the rest of the traps, this one seemed to be designed in case projectiles were fired in this particular area. What a coincidence! Because of this “trap” we were able to avoid getting skewered by arrows, and Elias was able to stay inside this barrier to rest and recover.

    In any case, a big dome of energy covered the area around us and screened out the other arrows. She looked around. Aqorm had no injuries, since as a half-elf, she was trained from birth to reflexively dodge arrows. And Lamarck was right, generations of doing something altered your genetics. Zoe, however had two arrows in her body, in her elbow and near her waist. Lilith and Michael were unhurt. I had blocked their attacks with my shield, and my armor would have lightened damage from attacks anyway. Azrael started to heal everyone. Before Azrael could do any healing though, she would have to heal herself, as she had a bolt in her stomach. If she were to lose consciousness, the barrier would fail, and most of us would die. Carefully but swiftly, she yanked the bolt out of her flesh, and healed herself before continuing. She needed to take a breather from the strain, but she managed to stay conscious during this time. She was very lucky, since where the area hit was near many internal organs, and just a bit closer and it wouldn''t have mattered how fast she healed, she would be dead of blood poisoning before she started. Picking herself up, she started work on those that she could quickly heal, skipping me, Aqorm, Lilith, and Michael. Ambrosia only required a minor heal, and then she moved on to Zoe. She pulled out her arrows a lot more carefully than her own, and healed these one at a time. Elias, on the other hand, despite being last to be healed and having three distinct arrow wounds, she just pulled these out in rapid succession and gave him a generalized healing. Elias stayed to do some healing on himself, since he didn''t trust this rushed treatment. Being largely done with healing, Azrael drank a mana potion after all of that and sat down.

    Zoe had a longbow, but rarely used it in favor of her scythe. She pulled it out now though. She had to step outside the barrier, as did Aqorm, since arrows and techniques seemed to get screened from both directions. Aqorm managed to take three down in rapid succession with her knives, before dodging out of the way of a stray crossbow shot. I stayed inside, since my techniques would probably destroy the place, and since I was mainly a short-ranged fighter otherwise. I needed to conserve my strength for other fights. The two of them were unprotected from ranged attacks, but it didn''t seem to matter. Zoe fired with enough speed that she drilled a hole through one of them, hitting the wall behind upstairs, before she was even fired on. She plucked another arrow from her quiver, and hit another one, also killing it instantly. She did this three more times. While all of this was happening, Aqorm pulled out her Golden Bow that we had gotten as a result of helping that lady out. The crossbow was designed to string itself using a bar of which pulled the string back when the crossbow cocked, and a sort of hook to keep it in place. She placed the arrow just ahead of the string, folded the bow to pull the string back, pressed forward a small tab that acted as a safety, fitted the bolt all the way back where the string was, and pulled the trigger. Aqorm didn''t have bolts as big or as powerful as Zoe''s and they had a standard bodkin head, rather than the compound head of Zoe''s arrows. They were also shorter and lighter, because it was a mini-crossbow. That is not to say that her weapon was anything like theirs. This is called the Golden Bow because of its color, not because it was made of gold. Actually, it was made of adamant, a material of golden color that was known for its extreme durability and the ability of weapons made from it to pierce hard substances. The strings of the bow themselves were made from adamant, as was the body, as were the bolts, and it was able to take much more pressure, allowing it to penetrate even stone golems as though they were made of cotton. The bolt, though small, drilled right through on of these fishmen from mouth to tail, killing it instantly, and hit something on the other side of the wall upstairs. We heard a high-pitched scream from another room, then rustling like someone or something was leaving the room. Zoe finished off the others, but some angry critters flew at us. These ones were hard to hit with a bow and arrow, so I figured it was my turn.

    Azrael stayed inside the barrier as she had basically spent a ton of mystic power healing everyone, and didn''t want to be injured again. Aqorm and Zoe went inside briefly to switch out their weapons to their regular ones, and rushed outside Zoe was managed to catch quite a few in a combo of Water and Lightning magic, but she spread out a wide net because they had dodged seven or eight single-targeting magic attacks, and to make it effective took more mystic power than she anticipated. She had also used a fair amount of unsuccessful attacks against that pudding earlier. She was magically exhausted, and Azrael looked like she was that way too. The two of them slept, backs to each other, while those recovering guarded them. It was just Aqorm and me left fighting. Aqorm was fast enough to keep up with these bat creatures herself, as long as the odds were close to even, but I was having trouble. My swings were fast, but it wasn''t a solid hit even when I managed to hit these creatures. When I tried to use techniques, they heard me calling out my attack, and quickly dodged or took to the air. I needed something fast, which I could do without calling it out. I needed an answer like Silent Spells for casters, some technique that was designed just as simple very fast strike. Fortunately for me, the nature of techniques is that they are adaptable, so I simplified the concept Speed Slash into one even faster attack that I could use without saying it aloud, and decided this would be known as Swift Strike. A bat leaped towards me, and I surprised it by suddenly raising the speed of my swing, fast enough that it was cut. I cut it again with an uppercut swing, also at much higher speed. I dealt with another which was flying over me preparing to swoop down and stab me with his knife by jumping in the air and delivering a slash, cutting this one in half. Aqorm used geomancy, using the wood from the area she was standing to create a mass of vines that impeded these bat things. After this, we made short work of these creatures.

    With my sword, I cleared away these vines and we put them in the kitchen chimney to be burned later. We all walked upstairs. The second floor had two rooms, the one those bats came from, and a second one on the right. Most of the group walked into the bigger room on the left, except for Lilith and Michael, who weren''t team players. The room had some bureaus and shelves that we could search, but we were worried about some other critter coming in, so we closed the door.

    Some of the book shelves taught us more about what Yazim Jianne had been researching, how he had managed to summon Belial, and there were even notes about what he had in the last few days. Hoping to find out more, I opened a desk, and heard a strange clicking sound. No matter, I found some more useful things in this desk, like an architectural layout for the mansion. I realized the room right next to this one had a staircase to the third floor, and that there was a master bedroom up there. I also found a key. Odd, when I reached toward the desk to close it, I had to stand back a bit, almost like the furniture was closer than a few second ago. But that was impossible, the desk was bolted to the floor! In fact, even the book shelves were. Nothing was moving at all, unless the room itself did, floor and all. I looked at the house schematics, and it noted some of the traps we had encountered earlier in a sort of shorthand that was only understandable later. This room for instance, had a symbol x near the table I had just touched in the room, mentioning something about opening it a certain way. It also had strange arrows extending from the walls on the map. I looked behind me briefly and the bookcase opposite me also seemed closer. Probably, it was just my imagination. The others seemed scared about something. The room was kind of cramped, but I didn''t see any immediate danger.

    YAZIM JIANNE

    As you might have guessed, this room slowly compacts up to about 6 feet or so high using a false ceiling. It has comparatively high ceilings so my bat people can rest on the ceiling, but the walls continue to close until crushing others within the room. And no, there aren''t any spikes, nor is it so tight as to crush those within to pulp. Instead, when the trap is triggered, the door locked, and the room remained tight for about an hour or two before unlocking, rending them unconscious from lack of air. I wasn''t cruel enough to suck out all the air in the room, which would make them dead in a matter of minutes. A silent alarm notified me that someone was caught in the trap, and I typically either used them in my experiments or fed them to my chimera. But no more of that now, I had been trying to turn over a new leaf lately. It''s just that people were threatening me by invading my home. I had a right to do with them what I wanted, after all. They were trying to attack me.

    If somehow people climbed over the wall, they had enough air for at least six hours or so and could technically survive until the trap reset. But this too was a trap. There was a motion sensor just above the wall line, and if it noticed anyone, it would send out a supersonic frequency that woke up my bat people. There''s no way they would escape this room. Even if they did, my house had so many traps, even I couldn’t remember them.

    Also, that barrier switch they activated was no coincidence. I had discovered another me setting it up one day. This Yazim Jianne was from the future. He said that he was a time traveler from later this year. Apparently, after the group was drilled through with holes, Belial had decided to go ahead and merge the New Earth with the Realm of Void. This Yazim Jianne came back to sabotage my carefully laid traps. Worse, that her changed the timeline meant he didn''t even exist anymore so I couldn''t even punish myself for disobedience later. I hate Future Me. I mean, I knew that they needed to succeed in order to stop Belial. But still, I had built this house to be safe from the outside world. What were they thinking, coming in here when I was still mourning and meddling?

    NEVRAS

    It may surprise you know that I have mild claustrophobia, which is why I was in denial of what was happening to the room for so long. But then, who really wants to be in a cramped tiny space anyway?

    The walls grew closer, then closer, and even closer. Furniture moved with the floor since was bolted to it, yet somehow the books stayed on the shelf. We tried to stay away from taller furniture as that would completely trap us, instead getting on top of low tables. More troubling, a solid platform just above the bookcases on either side was pulling out. Even if we somehow managed not to be crushed, we would probably suffocate if the top was closed on us. Aqorm, being a half-elf, managed to climb over the bookcase and on the platform. “Grab hold,” she said as she pulled me and Ambrosia up, one at a time. She was stronger than she looked, I guess. Once the two of us were up there, we helped Elias, Zoe, and Azrael up. Only, somehow or other, Azrael stumbled and fell below. The false ceiling closed around her.

    ZOE

    I was not about to let Azrael suffocate to death. The rule of three said, “You can survive three minutes of severe bleeding, without breathable air , or in icy water; you can survive three hours in a harsh environment (extreme heat or cold); you can survive three days without drinkable water; or you can survive three weeks without edible food.” The room had some air still in it, but it wouldn''t last for more than a few hours. I had little time to save her, so I was tense as anything. And yet, I decided to calm myself. This was when my Sage trance was most effective, even though I hadn''t fully mastered it yet. My eyes closed, and suddenly they opened fully, and I was completely transformed. My eyes filled with the color of gold. My hair turned an intense color of silver, and I stepped hard on a section of ceiling, unexpectedly breaking a large section around my feet. I knocked down some of the extended wall sections on the way down, crumbling them to rubble. Azrael, free from being pinned, stepped forward and caught me. I was losing consciousness, since I hadn''t really recovered from all the exertion earlier.

    This shouldn’t happen. My Sage abilities don’t use mystic power, and my body heals itself by absorbing the natural energy known as senju. There is usually a time limit, but as long as I am outside, I can recover from exhaustion and even fairly bad wounds by going into my Sage trance. And of course, beefing up my physical ability and being able to see and touch runes easily is nothing to scoff at easier. But all of this assumes that I have access to natural energy. I looked around at the carved stone, the manmade metal and glass, and the artificial wood of this furniture. I had made a mistake.

    I would definitely pass out here. But it looked liked I wouldn''t suffocate down here. I woke to find myself safe, and Azrael was with me. What had happened?

    AZRAEL

    While Zoe slept, I saw a fishing line come down from above the false ceiling. I was strongly reminded of a Buddhist parable, in which a violent criminal steps aside for one small spider before becoming caught and executed. In the Afterlife, the Buddha sent a strand of spider''s web to pull this wicked man up, but seeing others try to come with him, he struggled against them and the thread broke leaving him down there. This story was a reminder that while the Christ offered Grace to humans in regard to the Afterlife, how you ought to try to treat other creatures as you would want to be treated. In other versions of the story, the evil person gave a beggar an onion, so strands of that... anyway, basically the same story. So I imagine anything would do, not just a spider. I wasn''t going to make the mistake of the criminal. I sent Zoe up first, wrapping her body in fishing line. Then, wrapped it around myself, as the others helped Ambrosia pull me up.

    We were stuck here for awhile, so we called Lilith and Michael for help, and I heard, “Oh, all right,” coming from outside the door. Without effort, she casually tore the locked door off its hinges, and shattered all the extended wall portions. “Okay everyone,” she said, “come on out!” Carefully, we climbed back down to the tables and such below. I made it outside while carrying her. She was fine now.

    Zoe awoke, and was safe in my arms. She was too cute while she was sleeping to simply wake up, so I told her to rest in my arms. We stopped in the hallway to rest while the others continued toward Yazim Jianne’s stronghold. While the others were gone we curled around each other like two leopard slugs, exploring each other blindly, smelling each other, and tasting each other. Thankfully, they returned much later, not when we were naked and holding each other closely. It wasn’t sexual. We just needed to be close.

    YAZIM JIANNE

    This cannot be! Curses! Foiled again! And other villainous cliche sayings! Scrying the whole event in my crystal ball, I looked around and noticed that they had also taken care of my fishmen, my batmen, and my various breeds of gelatinous creatures. And all they had to do was storm upstairs, and they would kill me as well.

    Surrogate Lover # 2 sensed my fear and anxiety, and told me, “Come to bed dear, there''s no sense fighting people who want to see you.” You know, she had a point, if these people were decent, they would listen to reason. If not, I may as well die like I wanted, killed while having the best sex ever. And so, I set about tearing off Surrogate Lover # 2''s clothing. As she was an experiment, I hadn''t given her fine clothes, just a men''s shirt, short skirt, and long lab jacket. She didn''t even had undergarments, as I wasn''t going to give her Sarai''s stuff.

    As a chimera, she was appealing, in a slightly odd way. She had long healthy-yet-unkempt chestnut hair that extended to her ankles, yellow eyes like a cat, and her ears were very soft. I nibbled on them while I pulled off her shirt and jacket, exposing her perky breasts to me while I also sucked on those. She was obviously aroused, because she groaned softly, and scratched my back. The claws came out. I would need a healer later. I pulled off her skirt, and the lab shoes that I had given her as my research assistant, and then I led her to my bed.

    She was an animal. We lay with each other, having some rough sex, as every now and then she''d forget that I was her master, and animal impulses would take over. I got bitten, scratched, and kicked rather frequently, and somehow made it out alive. I had rougher sex anyway, when I was with Sarai.

    The mark of a villain with regard to sex is that they have pleasure themselves but deny it for their lover, stopping them from coming. But I wasn''t about to do that with a wild girl who could tear my head off if she got upset. I settled for the other mark of a villainous lover, to completely ignore anyone trying to interrupt their sex. And so, when Ambrosia''s little group came along, I just kept on until I climaxed. Then I kept on until she orgasmed. Four times.

    Finally, I looked up, and I addressed them. “So? Are you here to kill me?” I asked. Aqorm answered, “We weren''t gonna, but you kinda made us impatient, so maybe?” Ambrosia hushed her, then shook her head, “We need your help, actually. You can use sorcery, and besides which we got this Transport Coin and wanted to have it altered.” She showed it to me, and I knew. She had in fact returned to the right timeline. This was the Ambrosia I met in the Eternal Town.

    I took a closer look at the Transport Coin. The original design allowed living and nonliving items to be called from other dimensions temporarily. It was a simple summoning spell that had virtually no accuracy when calling from the same dimension. I don''t remember making it for her, but obviously some point in the near future this will happen in her past. That means, I would send some female follower of mine back to the original timeline, according to Ambrosia. Now that we were all together, however, I had a chance to properly look at this.

    It appeared some sorcerers had attuned this Transport Coin to sync better with the ship and the dragon. This was obviously a hack job though, so I worked through the process of resetting the enchantment. When most wonder-workers enchant things, it locks up their mystic power, but sorcery works differently. The ritual did need a source of power, but I had a chart of ley lines, and the nearest one was inches from my doorstep. Since ley lines could gradually renew energy, I had no need to worry.

    Our group made the trip to a nearby canyon, where an exact location contained all the energy I needed. The Transport Coin was a blank slate, able to attune to two objects of my choosing and to summon them correctly this time, drawing them to the location of the Coin. Ordinarily, after using the ritual, I would then need to locate their dragon Bahamut and the exact ship, and attune to them to complete the ritual. However, I already had rough outlines based on their meddling, so recopied all information into one notebook shortly before the ritual. All the words from the notebook started flowing out of the pages and merged into a single custom rune. I did the ritual using ley lines as planned, and linked them up without ever having seen either the dragon or the ship.. Moving to a beach, I used the Transport Coin and I was suddenly staring at a giant ship. We were done. I would be traveling with this group soon.