Stairway to Somewhere (Multicross SI?)
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13. Digestion
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There was, of course, the problem of where to put all the shit I had stolen… er, requisitioned.
I had two hundred gnomes, one hundred enchanted boxes of samples of different strains of the T-Abyss and bio-organic weapons, a fully operational satellite capable of beaming down a blast of solar light powerful enough to wreck a modern city, and most underrated and underappreciated of all… I had herbs.
Plants in general had a special place in Resident Evil. The flower species known as Stairway of the Sun grown in a specific underground cavern were eaten by the god-king candidates of a specific neolithic West African tribe, giving them superhuman abilities in the few who survived the extreme viral conditions caused by the flower. Umbrella Corporation used this specific flower to trigger inactive junk DNA known as Progenitor. And it was from this initial step that Umbrella's greater ambitions were born.
I couldn't spend the effort to find that flower, not yet, not now. I didn't have the capabilities for utilizing it yet. However, within the Resident Evil universe, the effect of plants having supernatural powers was not restricted to this single species.
Herbs existed in this specific world both as a lore concept and as the primary healing items within the games. I wasn't so sure that I could find them in Terragrigia, but considering how so many of them just laid about…
… as a low level alchemist, I couldn't just ignore the potential of their existence.
The internet on the Resident Evil Earth in late-middle 2004 was still in its early, Wild Wild West stages of development. However, even in this time, there were still remedial websites with resources on the herb topic. Truly, this world was far more developed in bio-sciences than the original Earth I had come from, if only because the resources available here were just slightly different, and slightly more plentiful.
Herbs came in different colors; red, yellow, green, blue, and different strains of each color. But they came in colors, without any specific branding or names… a strange aspect of this specific world, perhaps.
By 2003, it was apparently common knowledge on this Earth that green herbs recovered physical health and reduced fatigue, blue neutralized toxins, yellow mixed with green promoted permanent physical health betterment, and red amplified the effects of all other types of herbs. They were widely used by this year around the world as a deterrence against bioterrorism for their active immune function in fighting viral infection.
In other words, this shit be magical, in a fucking non-magic world.
I still needed to learn and level up herbalism, however.
Only then could I begin my interbreeding and grafting projects with Azerothian native plants. Only then could I perfect the materials I used, so that I could step further into the unknown territories of alchemical mastery! I had a sudden urge to laugh maniacally.
Ah.
But the city of Terragrigia only kept green herbs around—the others not being commercial products that were shipped around the world. Furthermore, even though I had stolen half the city's supply of green herbs, I didn't have a lot of place to put it all. Or all the other things I had, like the satellite, the gnomes, and the samples.
Of course, I had warehouse space, but that was for things I produced or the products I had already acquired, like guns and tanks and stuff. And I also ran into the problem that it was against the kingdom's laws to allow other races within the kingdom without specific warrants from empowered individuals—the Convocation, the King, the Grand Magister, and so on.
Damn ambitions. I saw the prizes before my eyes, and I went for them, without realizing how I couldn't digest these gains. As the idiom went, the eyes bigger than the stomach.
… fuck it.
"Medea, make some temporary residences for the gnomes." I signed off on it in documentation. One of the first rules of business was document everything lest someone fucked you. In the modern world, we did it by sending each other emails, but I didn't have that luxury here.
"Yes, Master." My Caster nodded demurely.
"Alleria," I turned to my sister, whom I had eventually allowed to sit in these meetings since I wasn't going to keep her out of the family corporation. "Go hire some of the common farmers from the village and have them help plant half of the green herbs in the inventory."
"What about the other half?" My little sister raised a hand and asked.
I huffed. "Just keep them potted for now. Divide both among the villagers. See how they care for both. I'll want the data on this, because they aren't native to Azerothian soil, air, or water. Give… rewards for better care, but I don't want inventory going missing. Have some of the guards keep tabs on this. Might as well increase wages too, since we're increasing labor."
"Got it," she nodded.
"… what am I going to do with the doomsday satellite?" I muttered through steepled fingers.
The Merchant shuffled, and we turned our attention to him. "Well, boss, you could just toss it back into space, couldn't ya'?"
I shook my head. "No. I don't have the precision to place it exactly in geostationary orbit and I don't have the energy to study how to do it perfectly and I have the energy to go take the data from the other world, especially now that they have their guard up about this… grand theft satellite."
"I can take a look…" Medea volunteered.
"Thank you, dear," I pat her inner thigh and held my palm against the warmth of her skin as she squirmed. "But I also want to take a look inside. It'll be a pain to get it down since each time we move it so much leave a lot of room for it to get damaged… they don't have magic, so it's rather fragile."
"Then we can only keep it in storage for now." The Merchant pouted, "It would have made such a nice weapon too, against your enemies, boss. Like the trolls?"
"Right," I nodded, but I didn't want to say that I didn't want to use it against the trolls because they kept forces within the kingdom busy enough that they didn't have the energy to look my way. If I got rid of them, I would have a lot of interested fellows looking for what this was, and just how I had achieved this. "But until we have confidence in our control of it, we cannot do that. It will be a long term project that I wish to put the gnomes on."
"Will those little people be alright…?" Alleria frowned. "Some of them are so cute, but some of them are hideous, brother. Almost all of them had burned their eyebrows off already… maybe we shouldn't have taught them magic."
And there it was. The gnomes weren't stationary, and I couldn't just keep them in storage. I didn't have the spell for that yet. So I kept them busy learning language, modern technologies, and arcane magic. Of course the little tryhards tried to do it all, and all them blew themselves up with fireballs. It was like herding two hundred Dungeons and Dragons player characters. I wondered if I should have just given up, but the knowledge was already in them so I couldn't just let them loose, and I didn't have the heart to just put those little critters down. "… I'm sure they'll be fine as long as they stay in the village. Tell them to practice their physical skills more. That'll keep them too exhausted to blow up the world."
"I was afraid you would say that." Alleria laughed nervously.
"What?" I grumbled, "Did one of them run off into the forest?"
My sister pointedly did not meet my gaze.
Ah, fuck.
"I found them, boss." The Merchant smirked. "There's two pairs of them. I think they got into some kind of pissing match… ah, because they were in different clans. 'Who could bring back the best present for the Great Teacher', was it?"
"So I can't even punish them too harshly for what they did, is that what you're saying?" I didn't have the time for this! Suddenly, I had the urge to punt a gnome. "Alright, just coordinate with Medea and bring them back… you know what, have each clan nominate five members to be their clan leaders, and then pick one of their five to be the clan head. Let them sort themselves out."
"Ah, self-policing. That'll work." He sounded sarcastic, and I was sure that he had a point.
But I felt like a forum admin too tire of forum members shitting their own bed. "Just let them be like that for now. We can punish the clan as a whole for breaking the rules, but we can still reward the individuals for initiative and forward thinking. There, we pit the interests of the whole against the interests of the individuals."
No one said anything, and the Merchant just nodded. Finally, Medea finished jotting it down, perhaps with more details that she added herself. That was a freedom I more than lavished upon her. "Then I shall carry out your will, Master."
"What's left?" I asked.
"The smelly boxes," Alleria answered.
I blinked. Turning to Caster, I asked, "I thought they were enchanted not to leak?"
Medea blushed. "Master… I have been a pompous woman. You were right, my expectations were oft not fitting how things turn out, and I have been too cavalier in my predictions. Will you punish me so?"
"Alleria can help. It's good that you own up to your flaws. Don't hide these things. Communication is key to a good marriage," I said, while not ever really speaking fully on what I felt. I looked apologetically towards Alleria. "Sorry, little sister. It seems I had not been home long enough to realize the error in my methods. I will erect a new warehouse and laboratory for biomancy work and seal it myself. Maybe a permanent slow time array on the samples."
"That might be the only option for now…" Medea frowned. She tapped her pen against her lip, bouncing against her plump flesh with ever stroke. "However… this does bring to question if it was not just the smells that leaked from the containment, Master."
"How bad it is?" I asked.
"Many spells were layered when I began protecting this territory, Master." She answered, "The storage containers themselves were temporary measures, whereas the protections on this land are powered by the leylines of this world with power enough to start a few Holy Grail Wars on yearly output. One of the first was to protect from disease, considering the work we had done thus far, Master."
"But I can still smell it if I go near that warehouse?" Alleria frowned.
"Tracking contamination shall not be overly difficult," Medea waved her hands, and a map of the land appeared before us, like some kind of three-dimensional hologram. The warehouse was hot, while the few meters around it were red.
"… T-Abyss could subvert even plankton into aiding in its reproduction." I noted, and then thought for a moment. "Alright, focus efforts on an area-wide disease cleansing spell targeting it. Try not to harm anything not infected… and spare the samples, will you?"
She smiled. Ah, that was a murderous look. "Of course, Master."
"And try not to destroy the village," I added. I had enough to deal with with the gnomes learning magic. Ah, what a misstep—I needed to make some kind of gnome auditor… like an IRS, but instead of being for taxes, they went after gnomes who went too deep into mad magical science bullshit.
And then there was my Caster, who could already destroy entire cities with the magic being funneled into her pert body.
Medea gave me a 'who, me?' sort of look that made my spine tingle. "Of course, Master."
"Finally…" I looked down at my desk.
The crystal vial shone in the sunlight and hummed with the power of the arcane. This was before the Sunwell had taken on the elemental Light as its underlying foundations. I had been holding onto this for a long time, but not as long as Illidan held onto his vials of the waters of the Well of Eternity. Mine wasn't nearly as potent, but it was sourced from the same stuff, and there were ways to purify, amplify, and grow it from what I had.
I held it up and watched its hypnotic glow contrast against the sun's light that shone in through the windows. Even at this step of my journey, it still held immense powers—one of the main reasons why I didn't feel acting against Silvermoon was a possible move. "… the water of the Sunwell. What to do with this?"
Stairway to Somewhere (Multicross SI?)
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Interlude 4. A Troll POW ASMR Transcript
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"Now, let's see… I should be more professional about this. How are you feeling? Good? Cage not too tight? It wasn't built for a troll, sadly. All-purpose, but you guys are so tall, you know?"
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"Ahem, right, let's see. Log start, day 1…"
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"… Do you know what this is, Subject Eighty-Four? They're called the Ancient Scrolls of Meitre. My senpai lent this set to me. Thanks for all the good work I did with the gnomes. They belong to my teacher, you see, and they're one of the remaining full copies of the originals. Those are lost however."
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"Pity, right?"
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"Yes, I would have liked to see them."
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"They aren't sheepskin! Don't call them that, silly. And they aren't loincloth either… really, what have you been eating out there to rot your own head like this? Ahem, right, let me get started with the procedure…"
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"Hm? You have to understand, arcane magic theory didn't appear out of nowhere. Before it, we were more like the human geomancers and shamans of the south, except we used arcane energy, fucked trees, or worshiped the moon. Because trees are… knotty, get it?"
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"Ah, anyway, nice things, these scrolls. They're the foundation of all magical theory for my people, but that's just because we just sort of forgot there were other ways of using energy outside of the arcane."
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"You can't read what's on here? Ah, well, I didn't figure you for a literate type, anyway. It's funny in its simplicity, really."
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"Meitre's scrolls are supposed to be final year apprentice work, but I'm basically two ranks above 'apprentice'… so I see a lot of the hidden things beyond what's there for the students to learn. Fun, right, Subject Eighty-Four?"
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"Well, I have to practice my biomancy somehow… or else it'll always be stuck around the level of casting shitty-ass false life like a badly optimized wizard in Dungeons and Dragons."
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"Still… I want to see… can enough magic twist you into something like the kaldorei? To answer that, let's do some science."
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"You're squirming too much, silly."
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"Well, let's see… hm, I see. I see."
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"Oh, don't cry so much, that's rather unbecoming of you."
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"Hello, hello! Guten Morgen! I hope you're doing well, Subject Eighty-Four!"
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"Ah, no, no. No more stuffing you with magic. It was awfully tiring… good for exercising my magical muscles, however. So you can thank your stars and moons for that."
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"Ha? Your… name?"
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"Don't be silly. Your name is Subject Eighty-Four."
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"… You are not a free troll. You are a number."
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"Still filled with that silly idealism? Ah, don't be so upset, I didn't mean any offense by it."
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"No, I have to test a specific magical effect today. I see that you've recovered my our last sessions! Good. The chains not too tight, I hope? Didn't think you'd become some kind of mutant dire troll, but shows what I know, right?"
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"See, I was grave-robbing the other day… ah, it happened so fast, but anyway, no one was going to use the corpse, certainly not Kiritsugu."
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"… it is rather unlucky not everything of his body survived, but that's why we have magic. It took a while, you know?"
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"He's got this time magic that's rather interesting. We managed to salvage it, so I'll be looking to make it into a ring or amulet or something. A tattoo might work too… how do you think I'd look with a tattoo? Not too shabby, right?"
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"Ha, ha, yes, I know I'm rather handsome."
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"Did you just call me a shota? Ah, I'll take what I can get, I guess. Good on you, Subject Eighty-Four."
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"The real treasure is the man's body… ah, don't look at me like that, I didn't mean anything lewd by it. I'm not going to do anything to you, anyway. So don't worry."
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"You guys have this tendency to heal, which is real neat."
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"Yes, yes, a gift of the loa. I know, I know. I'm not ignorant. That's nice and all, but which loa? All of them together? How is it genetic, though? Because certainly your regeneration ability doesn't correspond with your faithfulness, you know? I tested, Subject Eighty-Four."
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"I'm not doing this for no reason. Oh, did you eat yet? I should feed you something. Can't let you get too tired… ah, don't worry. This isn't minced troll meat like last time."
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"Hm? Yes, it's troll ears."
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"Oh, come now, you need your protein. Can't have you lacking energy for regeneration, you know? Or else, how am I going to test these Kiritsugu-brand arrows?"
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"It's not a silly name, is it?"
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"I named it after the man himself! Don't worry. It's not going to hurt any more than any of the other experiments… I hope."
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"Right, right, I should get started. Sorry about that! Ahem. Log start, day 61…"
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"Oops! Sorry!"
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"… subject seems to be healing, but growing cancerous tumors. Fascinating… I guess I did mimic his nature to a degree with magic, didn't I? Oh, hey, you're coming back a bit from that on the edges… see, even conceptual bullshit can be overcome with enough willpower and power. And more power."
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"Huh… it's going deep."
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"Now, what if I try to use arcane healing on the wound…?"
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"Sigh."
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"I guess we'll just have to sever it all. I know you can grow back your fingers and toes, so a leg shouldn't be too off."
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"You can do it, I believe in you, Subject Eighty-Four!"
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"… so, according to the technobabble of Resident Evil, at least half of humans' DNA were junk DNA residual from viral infections of ancient humans and that it was the Progenitor and the virus' descendants that caused the junk DNA function and change infected individuals."
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"When I leaked the T-Abyss. I found that it wasn't dangerous to anything on Azeroth. How peculiar, right?"
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"For all that it was infectious and powerful and incurable in the current Resident Evil Earth that I had a connection to, nothing on Azeroth shared junk DNA with what was on that world. Not our planets, not our bugs, not our beasts, and definitely not our people."
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"It's nice, you know, Eight-Four? Gives me reason to take it apart. A lot more pressure and much harder, but I find that to be more rewarding."
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"Ha ha, I called you Eight-Four. It's a nickname. Makes us closer like that, don't you think?"
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"But anyway, I have samples. I have the DNA. I have the code, and I have how people were before and after. Sure, I don't have the Progenitor, but that would never have worked as it was. Even Umbrella had to splice it."
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"Ah, don't worry about Umbrella. Oh, don't look at me like I'm mentioning some hidden, evil loa like Hakkar or something. Don't be silly. Hakkar doesn't exist."
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"Alright, maybe I lied, but don't worry about it. Your soul will be long gone by the time he rolls around."
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"Anyway I have magic, and I have plants, and I have ways to magically tie these plants to the concept of the sun. And I have you trolls, who have such robust bodies and hearty immune systems."
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"I wouldn't say you're the perfect subject. Sorry, sorry, but that's the truth. Perfection is fleeting, a literal moving goal post."
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"Why? Lots of reasons, really! I'll take that second groan as a request for me to elaborate!"
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"After all, technically, we might share similar ancestors, though who knows how high elf DNA had been warped by the Well of Eternity and then once more by the Sunwell. We'll have to see what happens."
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"… might hurt a bit, but I have to start somewhere. Eventually, I'll get to zygotes, but until then, we'll get to know each other a lot better, I think. Right, then, ah… Log start, day 182…"
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"Hey, how's your day been going? Ah, I've been getting worked over by all the other stuff, you know how it is. Always busy, and all that. Hm? Why would I talk so much? Ha ha, do I though?"
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"Ah, I am a bit wordy, aren't I?"
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"Thanks for the compliment, Ayy-Four!"
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"I guess I feel like I've been too reserved outside. Maybe that's it?"
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"Hmm… or it could be because I just want some words to fill between the silence and all the screaming? Your neighbors aren't as well behaved as you, you know? They scream too much."
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"Yes, it does not help that they regenerate their throats. Maybe I should see to a remove procedure?"
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"Maybe not. That would eat up too much time, plus it's so cosmetic."
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"Oh, and I don't want to deprive you of the meaningful conversations you might have! Can't forget that. Research says if people stay in solitary confinement too long, their brains degrade or something. So even if you can't see them, or anything really, it's nice to know that you have neighbors, right?"
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"Alright, alright. Truth is, I also wanted to polish up my social skills a little. Be nice, be polite. You know how it is. I've been too much of a hikkineet shut-in, so I get a bit of social anxiety sometimes when I go out. Isn't it great you're helping me out so much?"
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"Ah, that. Well. Because I have already made it so that you have no way of escape? There is that too."
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"There is no trap. There is no exit. Don't worry your pretty little head. Silly."
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"Did I tell you your new schedule? We'll start the entire cycle all over again next week. I want to see what happens if you go through the gauntlet a lot. Curiosity, really. Tough break, friend… not everyone gets to be the control test subject."
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"Should I start now? Hm, what was it again? Log start, day, ah, 3605…? It's hard to keep track because you're all kept in a sphere of time magic, you see? They use this to age wine bottles by a hundred years in a single year in Silvermoon and Suramar, if I remember correctly."
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"Anyway, was it 3650 or 3605? Let me see yesterday's notes. Your yesterday, not mine, ha ha."
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"It's good to see you holding up so nicely. The silencing spell is so much more efficient than taking your throat out, yes."
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"I hope you understand that you've given your life to something worthwhile, anyway. Science stops for no test subject, Ayy-Four."
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"Ha ha, Ayy-Four. What a silly nickname."
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"… Let's start with the arcane injections now, shall we?"
Undercurrents
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"Ah, the Stairway of the Sun. Such a delicate, little flower. So much promise." I took a sniff into the bouquet.
The woman opposite of me wore a red silk qipao with golden butterflies embroidered on one side, with high slits accentuating her lily-white, tights-covered thighs. She smiled at me and batted her eyelashes, though the common knowledge between us said this was more a ritual than flirtation. "I trust the previous batch satisfied you?"
The previous batch proved an easy alchemical graft onto the peacebloom strains that blossomed near Silvermoon. I nodded, "Thank you, Miss Wong."
"Please. We are working so intimately."
"Ada, then."
She stood with a wider smile. This woman, Ada Wong, used a false name, but she had wormed her way into becoming my contact on the Resident Evil Earth. Cooperation with her proved fruitful, and less time intensive than if I dedicated my time to doing all the things I delegated to her and the organizations she represented.
And she was affiliated with many secret societies and organizations of the world. Each one of them thought she was here on their behalf. How she was able to play so many of them off each other showed a sort of devilish genius on her part, and that was proven again in that she was capable of finding me.
They didn't know what I was, not really, so they offered… a hand of friendship, which was worthless, and an offer to trade. And that was where things started.
"The people behind me are curious, Lirath. For one with such capabilities, why do you require such simple things?" Ada watched me for tells, perhaps just out of habit, but elves had different tells than humans.
I had asked for many things, not just these flowers. It probably confused some of those power brokers and kingmakers of this Earth, but what I offered in exchange—a new source of power and information into the unknown—provoked such thirsts. In the end, I answered, "I am a collector of humans."
"Oh?" She raised an elegant eyebrow at that.
"Not like that." I chuckled and acted as if I were merely mimicking her species. "There are infinite universes, each unique, all accessible to me. Most of those have humans. Many of these humans are ones without the Progenitor in their world, and thus, without any of these bioterrorists, bio-organic weapons, and miracle virus. That makes the things from this world a bit of a collectible, you see?"
"Like baseball cards?" Ada scoffed, and even her sneer looked… enticing. It could not be denied that she was a beauty. Her features were a mix of Asian and Caucasian, with a sort of perfection in form that only came from an assortment of different talents. Talents I had no doubts she collected over a great career as a spy.
I hummed to myself. "I suppose I do see your world as a little more than a set of stamps to be collected. Why? Does that offend your senses that this is all your entire reality is worth? That this might be all that your universe really is? Does this make you question your own existence and purpose?"
"'And therefore as a stranger give it welcome'," She quoted with a finger trailing the cleavage of her breasts. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy'. I would like to see it, if at all possible, Lirath."
"But how would you know that it is a different world, and I had not just teleported you? How would you know that such a thing was not just an illusion I had placed over your eyes? How do you know what is real and what is not?" I wondered.
"If you can do those things," Ada blinked, "Then it is all the same a kind of proof."
"To follow me would mean to sell your services to me," I added.
She strutted towards me until we were inches apart. Intoxicating, dangerous, enigmatic—the way she carried herself said so much, yet so little. "That doesn't sound so bad."
"Why would you subordinate yourself to me?" I knew it was a lie. Magic didn't lie even if her tone, her expressions, her words, and her body all did. At least part of her did not want to go into the greater multiverse, and she did not want to see it for all it held. But just because it was a lie did not mean I knew her reasoning, and just because it was a lie did not mean it could not be true.
"I am intrigued by the possibilities. Curiosity killed the cat… but a curious mind has gotten us this far." She turned, as if to make for leaving already. It was her answer, then. "You won't take me, will you? There is no gain in that. I understand, Lirath."
"… I suppose you are not without merit." I admitted. "And even if you die, I can find your soul. I can read your mind. I know what you're worth well enough… What do you want in return from me? Reality warping powers? Immortality?"
Ada looked at me from over her shoulder. A slight twist of the lips and a slight grin, she asked with false hope in her voice, "Are you really considering it?"
"… I will want other things from your world, of course." I considered it.
I could see why collecting waifus was so addicting.
Maybe I could make a business out of it?
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Twenty years inside for my prisoners was two and a half months for me on the outside.
It was longer than necessary, just as the sample size of one thousand was larger than necessary. With all the dangers involved, how could I not be careful with such experimentation?
Good thing Elsharin had provided me with the Ancient Scrolls of Meitre. There was no way that I could have figured out how to make the time dilation field as effectively as the shal'dorei would—they had a pillar of creation, a titan artifact, associated with the Titan of Time, and they turned it into a font of power.
I had to figure it out the old fashioned way, but it was a grand thesis that required a lot of time just spend doing calculations. Even with magic enhancing my mind, I found that my physical limitations had been… limiting…
… and that was where the utilization of the tools availed to me from the Resident Evil Earth came into play.
Several principles of sorts governed how that world worked. Energy did not come from nowhere. Matter could not be created from nothing. Science, not superstition. There was no magic.
So how did these viruses turn regular people into superhuman monsters later in the series? A lot of monsters, such as Tyrants, could be explained through extra nutrient use and specialized hormone treatments and so on and so forth, but there was weird shit with some guy just turning into a mutant tyrannosaurus rex that shot bone missiles. Where did that extra energy come from? Where did that extra mass come from? Especially in a world without magic?
The magical benefits of greater strength, durability, regeneration, and shape changing didn't come from nowhere. Just as parts of some functions were activated, others were changed or deactivated. The result was on average a greater base to work off of. Any beneficial magic effects that came after would only become amplified by this base attribute increase.
As the virus strains become more and more refined over the years, they interfered less and less with the host body's original functions—less attacking the immune system, less killing the brain, less of all of that stuff. I had to thank Umbrella and the like minded peoples for all their sacrifices so that I could gain so much from them. It would have taken me another year outside of the dilation field to figure out all of this knowledge on my own, even if I had extra helpers.
And I did get some extra helpers for this. I filtered through my gnomes, who had adapted to living in the shadows of Windrunner Village's northern end that was hidden in the forest. Some of them were smart and loyal, kept their mouths shut and didn't dabble in dangerous shit as much as their fellows. Out of the two hundred, I could say that only Pent and Punt were of this quality, so I moved them over to this project to help me along.
… Gnomes at this stage in their civilization weren't very creative with names.
So I found what changes the different strains of the Progenitor made in humans. The next step was filtering advantages and disadvantages, and after that it was looking into putting these changes into Azerothian genetics.
The problem I faced was translating what I learned in how Resident Evil viruses twisted human genetics into functional changes to a grown elven body… mine, to be more precise. We weren't even remotely similar in genetic structure, for one. For another, I haven't even started to learn about my own genetics—it wasn't even a field of study in the kingdom.
The gnomes and the humans native to Azeroth weren't viable test subjects. They were too different, being created by titans and twisted by old gods.
In the end, Amani trolls were the only option—sort of like testing on simians on Earth.
It was the most cost effective option.
More inefficient methods existed, of course. I could have tried to clone some elves. That would have taken a long time considering the maturation period, unless I wanted to go the long route of studying more branches of this field that I originally intended. I had learned a lot about traveling to different timelines and dimensions thanks to all my jaunts… so I could have snatched some test subjects from nearby timelines. There would have been no multiverse breaching, so it would have been less energy intensive and required less study. For example, no one would complain if some bodies disappeared during the Scourge Invasion of Quel'Thalas. They'd probably just be written off as victims of Arthas.
It was a thought, anyway. In the end, I had to admit that this turned out not to be a short term project, but a rather long term one.
Of the one thousand test subjects, about eight hundred of them died.
One hundred of them turned into the mindless, until I figured out the bug there.
Another fifty died after I tried to empower them by feeding raw arcane energies into their cells after adjusting them for absorption and creation of this type of energy as high elves were capable of, a crude effort in trying to make trolls more like the Eevees of Azeroth, er, elves.
Of the remaining fifty, only three survived when I tried to combine the effects of arcane empowerment with the general effects of the virus strains. Most of these abilities were forms of greater energy efficiency, greater strength and stamina, high regeneration, and varying forms of energy to matter conversion. Not all of them stuck, of course.
Subjects Eighty-Four and Nine Hundred also gained extra mass in general, making them sort of like dire trolls. They were over four meters tall and more monsters than trolls. I wanted to see what would happen if I tossed one of them at, say, Berserker. That could be a fun show.
Subject One was my crowning success. Glowing with arcane power, gaining heightened physical abilities, regenerating severed limbs, and looking more elven than troll. She would make a good pet.
But this left me with more questions than answers, and I didn't feel safe enough to test on myself.
I would wait until my gnome scholars matured. At the very least, I needed more laboratory assistants on hand. Maybe I should have taken more gnomes?
.
"Energy never dies…"
"We need focus…"
"When they gazed into my realm, we gazed back into them."
"So lacking in caution…"
"So thirsty for power…"
"Long has it been since one had so fully attempted to steal from us. To bind us. To bring us into their world and consume us. We burn."
"So gifted…"
"So proud…"
"None had come before us like this one, not since Vyr. Not since Vyr had there been one who took so much and left so little. Seek them out. Dominate."
"Power overwhelming…"
"Obliterate…"
Bedside Chatter
.
Alleria slept peacefully.
I sighed in satisfaction at the culmination of my efforts. I had not been so focused on turning her into my sister-wife or extracting short-term ecstasy from our relation, though sometimes I wished I had.
Evident though it had been in how she treated me—with a respect that I did not feel I deserved—Alleria slept peacefully. She slumbered soundlessly through the storm raging outside. It had not even been a decade since she would still run into my room crying about the darkness outside.
She wrapped her arms around one of mine and she entwined her legs around my thigh. When I extricated myself from her embrace, Alleria's sleeping face frowned and grimaced, and she let off a small, puppy-like whine.
For all that she wished to be a ranger general like our mother and inherit our parents' legacy, Alleria proved herself to be a gentle soul. She liked to treat with creatures of the forest more than hunt them, and she didn't think of joining our mother in the borderlands as a method of killing and attack and more as a means to protect the life she loved so much. Recently, she began taking her training more seriously, so that she could protect me.
As I stood above her writhing, dreaming form, I wondered what she was seeing behind those lidded eyes. Her long lashes were so perfect, so enticing. I wanted to eat her up.
Crawling down the bed, I placed myself at her feet. Her slim, petite toes curled as she twisted back and forth on the bed. Whatever was in her dreams must have taken a rather sudden and negative turn. Nevertheless, I leaned close and drew her scent in. My lips trailed up slowly, so that I could mark my territory upon her supple, fragrant flesh, and feel the heat of my tongue dancing atop her skin.
Kisses followed kisses as I drew a twisting, uneven line from her ankles up to her knees, and then to her heated loins. One and two on each side, and then I dipped the tip of my nose down between her thighs. Creamy velvet was the best way I could describe what I found my cheeks pressed between.
Alleria had only barely started to grow a few wisps down here, though there was a flowing grace to every aspect of her body.
I inhaled, taking in the whiff of her essence. The fragrance of her aroma left me dizzy, though it could also be because of the haze of sleep still tossed and turned my mind about like a ship in a storm. Nothing kept me from her, no thin sheet of cloth hid her from me. I did not extend myself to take a taste, but I found myself dizzy for the warmth that her body seemed to hold from me.
Some days, I only wished to hold her and hug her against me. I did not want to take anything from her or to use her or to ravish her… just the warmth of physical embrace and the mental heat of knowing she loved me seemed to sooth that need inside the heart.
Such was the urgency that I drew closer and closer rubbing my face against her, pressing my body inward and my shoulder against her bottom as I wrapped her thighs around my head. I rested the side of my face against her pelvis.
Alleria's tummy rose and fell with her breathing. It was soothing to rest my head here, far more than any pillow in this moment.
But it was not to last, as she was far more sensitive to the movements against her body.
Sleeping girls doujins lied to me.
A change in her breathing.
Alleria shifted as her legs came to life and she stretched. Her back arched and exposed her bare, pearly breasts attractively, while she rubbed her eyes. "Hmm…? Lirath?"
"Mphf," I answered with the lower half of my face still buried in her loins.
"Go back to sleep." She slapped the top of my head.
"Mmm… mm." I denied. She tasted sweet. It wasn't a sugary sweet, of course, but a sort of sweet and sharp, like the mana berries I left about for snacks. I licked my lips, inadvertently licking her. But the true bounty was nevertheless her scent. I buried my nose into her hair. This was so much better than sniffing panties.
Alleria didn't like that, however. She'd gained some fieriness as we had become close once again, and she learned how to better express herself. Perhaps I had been too expressive in my own emotions towards her, but I had never liked to lie to her. So when she didn't like what I did, she might have pinched me… but at this time, she patted my head twice, before lashing out and kicking at me. "… I have a test in the morning, Liiirath. Lemme sleep…"
"Fine, fine," I crawled back up and nuzzled against her developing chest. This was good too. I snuggled against her.
"… now I can't sleep." She huffed.
No doubt, she was pouting.
And no doubt, it was my fault.
"Then, what shall we do to allow you sleep once again?" I smirked into her navel, a teasing sort of tone coloring my words.
"Lirath?" Alleria did not pull away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around my head and started patting me. If I wasn't so dominant in our relationship, I would have liked to play the good boy with her. Thankfully, Medea sated those urges, so I could still be the overpowering older brother with Alleria.
"What is it, Alleria?" I asked.
"Why is there still banging outside?" She frowned. "The storm's passed already."
I closed my eyes. I didn't want to think about that mess. But Alleria waited for an answer, so I sighed, "It's probably the gnomes."
"What did they do this time?" Alleria wondered. She didn't sound mad about it, more like she was curious.
"Ever since we got the machinery from Resident Evil Earth," I started to say. I had told her about my ability to traverse the barrier between worlds with arcane power, but it sort of flew over her head because she wasn't well versed in the limitations of what a regular mage could do. In her head, magic could still solve all problems—it was a mentality that plagued most of the minds of the quel'dorei. "Ever since I got all the machines for them, they took to modifying the yard I allotted them."
"… but there's nothing there these days. I thought you moved them somewhere else?" My little sister sounded confused.
I squeezed up so that I could almost face her. Well, not face her, but to bite against her nape and taste the flesh and sweat and warm of that part of her, and to feed the heat inside. I spoke into her golden hair, smelling of the lilies she bathed with earlier this evening, "They turned the forest behind the gardens into an underground base. Then they covered it with moving parts, so that base would be hidden by a fake forest."
"I feel like I'd regret asking this," Alleria muttered as she drew herself onto her pillow. She had not developed a taste for taking in smells as I had as she liked the friction of skin more. When she was confused in our conversations, she would rub herself against me like a kitten would meow for attention, "But what is a fake forest? Isn't a forest a forest?"
"The trees are actually auto-turrets hidden behind wood. The bushes are actually hidden missile platforms. The berries are remote cameras. The squirrels and birds are all mechanical, and can both watch and attack," I counted off. I was missing a lot, but this probably covered most of it.
"What happened to the original forest?" Alleria actually sounded distressed there.
I reached around to pat the back of her head. A lot of people liked to pat the front of the head, but really, very few people liked to have their foreheads patted. Alleria especially liked the back of her head and her neck to be patted more. I tried to sooth her, "It's still there. Most of those things are still growing, except the mechanical life, of course. The plants are still plants, just entangled with machines. I couldn't have figured out how to do this in as short a time as they did, honestly."
"They are clever little things, aren't they?" My little sister observed.
"Sometimes," I allowed.
"… is this about the baby again?" She squinted at me through the darkness. We had dark vision of course, so it wasn't like she couldn't see me just because it was a little dark.
I shrugged, causing the covers to move. Ah, there it was—Medea was awake. How long had she been listening in? Was she watching me drink in my sister? Hm… "It was the baby."
"The baby?" Medea asked finally.
My Caster was rather… obsessively interested in making babies. I didn't know what to make of this. Honestly, I felt a bit intimidated because I didn't even know if high elves could make babies with heroic spirits poured into vessels. Then again, elves seemed to be compatible with every race and every energy. We were like the fucking Eevees of this universe. "Pent and Punt had a child. They're deciding to name it Pant when it comes."
"… Gnomes?" She blinked.
"Gnomes." I nodded.
Gnomes.
.
Notes: Thanks to Valor for the inspiration. Lmao, panty sniffing.
Baby's First Ritual
.
"Something isn't working," Medea observed.
I frowned. "What am I doing wrong?"
This was supposed to be a grand occasion. I had experimented with a summoning spell of the Azerothian arcane variant that had not been cast in a long time.
The calculations took weeks, and the efforts of my entire research team. Medea, Alleria, Pent, Punt, and a dozen trained bodyguards were all here in my fucking basement to watch me do a summoning ritual. I had this whole shit planned. I had plans and back-up plans, traps and traps within traps. If an archmage or a magister knew what I was doing, they would have said I was audacious, ran to the other side of the kingdom, and then looked to see how I would die.
Wasn't this ritual supposed to be easier than the ones I had already completed successfully?
Unlike those rituals where I tried to summon a possible, submissive ally from outside of our universe, or even our multiverse, this specific summoning ritual reached 'only' into another dimension or plane of existence within the Warcraft universe. Honestly, it was less energy intensive by my understanding. Probably. But since I wasn't using the Diablo version of arcane power—I was using the arcane energies of the Warcraft variant, I found myself rather overdrawn.
I had to admit that this was a miscalculation on my part.
Probably.
Alright, I had been drunk on victory after victory. Two successful summonings did not make a summoning master, but I had thought of myself as one because nothing went wrong for so long.
I had become cocky since I had summoned for myself one undying monster of a salesperson and a great harem manager waifu who also doubled as a housewife and subservient maid with access to a whole world full of waifus behind her. Sure, I still prepared for failure. That was why all these traps, bodyguards, and assistants were for. But this was something else.
Well, a part of me was happy that I failed here instead of some split-second fatal choice. I wasn't good with those.
Yet, I had called all these people here… and they were watching.
I felt my face grow hot.
I was dizzy.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Where was the overpowering arcane elemental that could destroy half the kingdom just from its appearance?
The specific summoning spell I had in mind was one that we reverse-engineered from the brief hints alluded to by the Ancient Scrolls of Meitre. The ancient sorcerer Meitre was a night elf wizard famous for his in depth research such that his works were the foundations of the magic theories that Quel'Thalas was based off of. That particular feat wasn't entirely impressive considering the kingdom was founded by basically snobby nobles and their servants, all of whom were exiled by hippy tree-fuckers. Looking at the kingdom from that perspective didn't shed a kind light on how our culture was forged.
Meitre himself had disappeared from historical records somewhere between the time of the end of the War of the Ancients and the Founding of Quel'Thalas. That also didn't really matter because while everyone argued about what happened to him, he didn't have anything I needed at this very moment.
Instead, within those ancient scrolls he had left behind, he not only left means of which to learn magic, but also the sources of his power.
I knew about this because the scrolls were a part of the mage's legendary artifact quest line in the game.
At least three references were made in the third scroll to an entity known as Aluneth, if the hints could be puzzled out. No specific mentions, of course, but there were more than enough hints to spell out how to find this ancient entity of the arcane dimension and to coax it into service. Aluneth was one of Meitre's sources of power.
In World of Warcraft: Legion, Aluneth was also the name of one of the three mage artifacts powerful enough to end or save the world. This one specifically dealt with the arcane element, whereas the other two dealt with fire and frost. I had guessed in the lore that it was the most potent of the three. Of the other two, one was the flaming toothpick of the Sunstriders and the other was an icy popsicle of the Guardian… the first was held by the king of the kingdom, so nuts to that, and the other didn't exist yet.
Somewhere in the next three thousand years in the alternate timeline of the future, Aegwynn the Guardian (and one of the most powerful mages in history) would find this ancient arcane elemental and bind it to her will by sealing it inside a powerful staff, also called Aluneth. However, it would fight against her and not support her when she needed it most, so she would eventually abandon it.
I had sought this powerful arcane entity for my own means, both as a battery due to what I learned from the Archon spell and as a possible ally or force multiplier. There weren't many in this universe that weren't already being watched by a hostile or suspicious entity.
Aluneth wasn't even originally something I had planned on. It was all those damned trolls' fault.
Test Subject One had changed from what looked like an ugly troll into a somewhat passable feral looking night elf. With her, I had utilized arcane empowerment before the first trial of the modified genetic modification concoction, so I had some optimism in that regard. In essence, the prototype serums worked after what was several dozen years within my knock-off of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. The Archon spell and my knowledge of how the Guardian was created taught me that extreme arcane empowerment was a viable path too. So I thought, why not try to combine the two and make something far more effective.
Of course, I wasn't about to enslave Aluneth just from the start. I just wanted to feel it out, originally. But now I felt embarrassed with it not even showing up. Aluneth had been my first choice, and I wanted to see if my work with the ancient scrolls was something effective rather than a waste of time.
So I tried to coax it into our material plane of existence somehow.
Somehow.
Except nothing worked to summon Aluneth. This was the one fucking thing I wanted from these scrolls. I could have gotten everything else relating to magic from somewhere else what with the thousands of years since these scrolls were written. I had this whole shit planned, with traps and binding circles and all sorts of shit ready… but nothing came.
"… so what am I doing wrong?" I asked.
"I apologize for my failure, Master." My Caster bowed.
I waved at her hurriedly. "It's nothing to do with you… It's my own lack of knowledge. I was self-taught, and you have only access to the materials that I do."
This wasn't incorrect.
We shared experiment data. As one of the first magus, Medea seemed to have some conceptual advantages in figuring things out, despite it being a different system entirely.
"Perhaps you should look to the education of your master, Lord Lirath?" One of my guards asked.
I gave him a look and he wilted. While I encouraged opinions, I wasn't so much in control of my feelings. Right now, I could guess that I looked somewhat upset. I closed my eyes and sighed. It wasn't the guard's fault, I told myself. I had been running away from this for far too long. "… Master Kelen did not leave me with a method to communicate with him and his mailbox hadn't been checked in years. Elsharin told me."
"… this Elsharin child annoys me." Medea squinted strangely, some bitter emotions tainting her voice, like a child who was told she needed to share her toys.
"She has been helpful." I noted.
Caster sighed, "Master, you are in a bind. Perhaps we should seek other options?"
"That's… interesting… coming from you." I blinked at her. "Who are you and what did you do with my Medea?"
She chuckled in her throaty, seductive way—with her fingers covering her lips like some noble lady. Well, Medea of Colchis was a princess of a bygone era. "Master, you have to inquire about this discretely, but you have no sources. You will have to seek out the knowledge where others are taught…"
On instinct, my eyes darted to my side to my guards. They were sworn and magically bound to keep my secrets—but the secret utility of Meitre's scrolls was something I didn't want even scryers to find out. "A school. You want me to go to a school."
"It is just a suggestion, and one that I would not like, to be honest… to be away from you, Master…" Medea shook her head, her blue hair swaying. "… but you are set on this path, are you not?"
"You have a point. There aren't many libraries that are accessible in anyway without centuries of investment," I acknowledged—and it would also allow us a lot of other resources afterwards. "Yet only the Academy in Silvermoon would have the vaults of knowledge that would best benefit us. Ah, I don't want to go… I won't be able to hug my Alleria everyday if I do…"
"Sometimes I forget you are still a child, Master, and then you say something like that." My Caster chortled.
"Why not just take it?" Punt, one of the two gnome mages present, bounced.
My first response was to say that stealing or 'borrowing' would have been too much effort. Same with spying on lessons. Yet, on the other hand, if done right, I could probably cut down on time I need to spend on this. On the third tentacle however, there were tertiary benefits to mingling with elves my own age that I often ignored because of the downsides.
I needed to weigh the costs and benefits. Whatever the case, the ritual was a failure. With a wave, I dismissed everyone and started cleaning up the reagents of the ritual.
"Take care of this first—"
.
"—and that's why I'm here," I said to Elsharin.
"Let me understand." She stared at me with blazing sapphire eyes. "You're entirely self-taught like a common mage."
"You knew this already." I nodded.
"You stumbled on some ancient summoning spell for reaching across the planes to ensorcell a being of phenomenal power," She continued as if I hadn't said anything.
I nodded again. "Yes."
"You think you're doing something wrong." Elsharin's eyes narrowed. "So you want Master Kelen to help you. Or some other master. Or to outright steal knowledge until you know what you're lacking."
"Well, when you put it like that…" I pouted. Why couldn't elf girls be more obedient and loving like Alleria?
"… when you are going through this ritual, why didn't you tell me?" She sneered, "So that I can sail across the world and put some distance between you and I?"
"There's no reason to be snippy, I had it under control, probably." I rolled my eyes. I did not have it under control, evident by how the ritual failed, but I wasn't about to just admit it to her. She was my peer and fellow apprentice, after all, and not my mom.
Elsharin rubbed her forehead. "And you won't tell me what it is? You know what, you don't need to. I'm no expert in the school of conjuration or the art of summoning. Master Kelen would laugh at your face and send you away though… our master was always more of a 'learn as you do' type of teacher."
"Is that why he hasn't shown up to teach me anything?" I wondered.
"Now who's being snippy?" She huffed.
I raised my hands. "Can you help?"
The older elven lady paused for a moment. She tapped her chin pondering on the topic. "I do remember a girl who was rather interested in conjuration. Her passion was a tad off-putting, but then again, I didn't really learn much about my own passions then. I do wonder what ever happened to Shinfel…"
"… Shinfel?" I knew that name from somewhere, but it'd been so long since I thought about all the non-relevant characters that I couldn't dredge up this particular memory even with magically enhanced mental capabilities. Then again, if I couldn't remember her, she probably wasn't that important.
"Never you mind her. I doubt she'd made any more headway than I had." Elsharin shook her head before leaning back. "I'm sure master's name will open any door to you… the academies do not have a requirement, only that you wish to study. Of course, you cannot be apprenticed to another master, so you will not be privy to the, ah, good stuff. But that's not what interests you, is it?"
"If it was getting into an academy, I don't even need to sneak in," I replied.
She looked at me again. "I had almost forgotten about that. The direct lineage of Talanas Windrunner. How droll."
"Droll?" I drew myself up to my full height, "I'll have you know my ancestor is one of the pillars of the kingdom!"
Elsharin smirked. "Well, at least you aren't one of those baby boys who boast about their lineage all the time. You would think that being the brat of some five thousand year old elder was their most wonderful accomplishment, by their tones."
"You never know," I shrugged, "Maybe it is?"
"That is… depressing." She then added, "And an accurate summary for the current state of our kingdom."
I gave her a silly look. "Isn't that just more depressing then? Speaking of depressing, my ritual failed, so I need more ritual supplies."
"Don't you make a good fortune from your the produce of your village?" Elsharin asked.
"I might, if I didn't spend so much on expansion recently…" I muttered to myself. 'Teching up' was the main source of the drain on my coffers right now. Building that time chamber, building a secret underground lair, and setting up experiments to gather data basically took all my income… not that I had a lot to begin with.
Rather, maybe I should have started with focusing on the economy.
In Warcraft 3 terms, this was like if I had all of the first tier upgrades researched, but only four peasants mining the gold mine. Or in some other historical uplift stories, it was like if I was trying to research hot air balloons or canal technology before making a distillery, paving roads, or even the printing press.
The problem was there wasn't much I could do. The economy of the kingdom was only so big. The markets of individual villages was only so large. Population only grew by less than a tenth of one percent every year. For all that I could make, there weren't enough buyers. And even if I could gain a total monopoly of every buyer, no one had that much resources. The kingdom was like a medieval kingdom with magic in more ways than one.
Similarly, ritual materials were expensive because there were only a few master artisans who could provide them. So few bought from them to begin with, making it a monopolized niche produce—like how a specific brand of handcrafted cars only catered to a specific crowd at prices only that crowd could afford.
Bah.
"Hm?" I must have been making a face because Elsharin was looking at me like a particularly pleased cat. "Did you say something?"
I grumbled, "I need to get into the magical reagents business."
Medea of Somewhere
.
A shameful woman like herself did not deserve such happiness, Medea decided. Scarred and blackened by the world and her own experiences, there was nothing good about her in her eyes, as presented to either the era of her birth or in the time of the ritual war. To be even summoned into that modern era, she had to be twisted by interpretations and sundered from the entirety of herself… a pale shadow of what she really could be.
Those were not just modern idea that twisted her, but the very origins of her myth had been one grown from the social upheavals of the Archaic Period. What happened to her and what became of her were also seen from the eyes of those ancient Greeks, further twisting her into what she was now.
For all that she denied the world, she could not escape its hold on her—the titles of sorceress, traitor, schemer… yet as she saw the light of hope, other titles became chains that bound her behavior.
Sorceress, princess, granddaughter of the Sun God Helios… what twisted fate was it that now she bathed in the power of the arcane sun? At first, she did not put her mind to it, as she embraced her role as the faithful sorceress, enchantress, and lover. Her chest had been filled with warmed, and she didn't want those happy days to end.
She didn't want power, or greatness, or glory, or even the acknowledgment and apologies of the gods and the world… she just wanted to be happy.
Her Master wished for her to grow powerful in the arcane, so she tied herself to this world of Azeroth and as its power coursed through her soul, she found she had been changed it by it, and severed from a whole. Never once did Medea admit this to her Master that she was no longer Medea of Colchis, but Medea of… somewhere else, another kingdom and another world. She had not wanted to look back on her shameful past, so it had been her first white lie.
And from there, she felt herself slipping.
But as time passed and she sank into her roles, the training of a princess and the social mores instilled inside her began to rear their head within her heart. How could she, an unwed woman, live within the house of such an unwed boy, without any declared intent? As much as Medea strayed from the idea and hemmed and demurred and stuttered away, she felt the knot in her chest twist and turn. How could she lay hands on the younger sister of her little boy? How could she stay in this house and take advantage of them all, to sup on this happiness, while hiding away her dark past?
So for all her words of intent, Medea kept more and more to herself. A woman had to have her secrets, she comforted herself in thinking. And they weren't big secrets, she had neither harmed her Master's goals nor his interests… she just could not bear to see what would happen if he saw the truth of who she was. As a tainted princess, a scorned woman, and an abandoned sow… how could any man want her?
Medea talked less and listened more. She played with her newfound power on her own and sought little tricks, some of which allowed her to listen in on the subvocalized speech or the most surface of thoughts in the unguarded.
'The news on the borderlands have not been good. The front line of the kingdom is outnumbered twenty to one, and it's only because the Amani are not organized into one true empire that we still have a chance. There are eight different tribal groups of Amani on the border, and they raid each other as much as us, and…' Her Master frowned and spoke to his younger sister, "I worry about Mother's situation."
"I am worried too, Brother. Mother has been on my mind." Alleria, the pure and soft little elven girl with a kind heart, saw the sorrow within her brother's expression. Yet she was thinking something else entirely, 'Brother must be thinking of all the stories the elders tell… where if a man and a woman fought side by side, then they can hold hands and, and, and, even k-kiss… What if Mother remarries?!'
'Would Mother's companions be open to help? I know that the arrogance of our kind means if I just offer charity in military goods, they'll think I'm insulting them by saying that they are poor or weak or incompetent. It wouldn't be a good look for them socially speaking. But then again, soldiers should be practical, right?' Master Lirath stroked his chin and replied, "I don't know Mother's companions very well… I've been too caught up in my own business that I had not acquainted myself with the other ranger commanders."
"… I will work harder, Brother. I-I know that you think I am still too young, b-but I can take care of myself! If I join Mother, then I can…" Despite her act of strength, the petite girl had not talked with many her age. Pampered by her elder brother she might have been, the little girl kill fully grown viral beasts in the practice field.
She was just too shy with strangers.
'What if Mother finds a new paramour? What if someone finds out? We are s-siblings after all…' Alleria rubbed her thighs together in agitation, her little elf ears twitching up and down. "… I can help, I just know it!"
"You don't have to put up such a tough face for me, Alleria." Her Master reached over to pat the small elf's head while also sliding down to rub his fingers along her ears. After a moment, he pulled her into an embrace. 'Ah, I just can't go without my daily dose of Alleria sweetness. Going to an academy is going to be too cruel, I'll probably not have an opportunity to teleport back home every day…'
'Brother! Brother, this-this isn't fair! You, you big bully! If you pat me there and scratch under my chin like that, I'll… I'll… aahn…' Alleria rubbed her face against her older brother's chest and whined like a small kitten. "B-Brother, I am not! I can help persuade Mother!"
"We don't need to persuade Mother," Lirath laughed, "We just need to know who is beside her."
His little sister pouted, "Isn't it better to know Mother's thoughts though?"
'Sending troops to the front line would be too much provocation. Even the King might look into what I've been doing. I need to keep low-key… sending supplies would be pushing it already. Maybe I should try to secretly help from afar, somehow?' Her Master's brow furrowed in thought and it was only after a long, comfortable silence that they parted from their embrace. "If I try to send some people in secret to Mother… ah, but that wouldn't work. Mother is too skilled a tracker for anyone to hide from her sight."
"If you say so then it must be so, Brother." Alleria nodded, her soft cheeks still rosy from their embrace. Her eyes dilated as her delicate, little fingers still laid in her brother's palm. The little sister looked more like a girl staring at her first love…
Medea sighed adoringly in her mind, almost missing what little sister was thinking.
'B-Brother wouldn't capture Mother's new paramour and imprison them, would he? Or… worse? No, Brother is a good lord of the kingdom. He would never hurt other high elves.' Alleria shook her head and smiled. "I trust you, Brother."
'Ahh! Alleria, my little sister, you're so cute when you smile like that! I just want to hold you and pet you and snuggle you and keep you forever!' Master Lirath nodded coldly and patted his little sister's head again. "And I trust you, Alleria."
"Mmm…" The little elf girl leaned into the palm, looking at it as if it could hold up the sky. She smiled secretly to herself, 'I love you, Lord Brother.'
Ahh! Medea could no longer hold her excitement in, so she cast a spell for recording and ran away into her room where she buried her face in her Lirath hug-pillow and squealed.
If she had the supplies, Medea would have broken out her banners and cheered for her favorite little couple. With the knowledge provided by the Grail, she had already conjured up a bandanna with the embroidered words 'Alleria X Lirath OTP', but she dared not show that shameful side of her to her Master.
Truly, she was a shameful woman, Medea acknowledged. And really, she did not deserve the happiness of watching this ship sail. Yet it was right in front of her, and her previous world held no sway over her any longer. Would it have been so wrong for this abandoned woman to know happiness once more?
Perhaps her Master would not be so adverse to dressing up his little sister in all sorts of outfits too…?
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