A Crowded Chessboard

“Your great-granny’s fucked in the head too,” Sage commented. “Is sex-slavery and human eugenics a step above or below being murdered by x-mas trees on the ladder of potential horrors we’ve got ourselves here?”

“Yeah, no shit,” Galateya hissed.

“I’d rather not give Legate Ixthia more ammunition and bug her over every little thing that we can…” Sage began.

“Can what?” Galateya growled. “Sage, this is serious!”

“It is indeed a super cereal issue,” the fox agreed. “But it’s our cereal to chew on. Your great-grandmother will probably try to swat the Sleigh out of the sky with a moon chunk or something. Which ain’t gonna work. That’s a dungeon-ship powered by like a bazillion bound souls. At best she’ll cause the Sleigh to temporarily dive into another dimension. At worst, Saint Nikky will target your great-grandmother’s ship and then you won’t have a Legate on your side trying to make you the Baroness of Earth.”

Galateya crossed her arms, looking like she’d prefer the outcome of her great-grandmother getting turned into a festive tree.

“We have to be smarter about this,” Sage said. “I’m a fox. Foxes sneak. They don’t smash their way in like dragons. Regular dungeon manifestations are hell-a-dangerous. A mobile one that can target entire planets with syntropic overwritery? That’s like ultra-mega-rare-pokemon Galactass level jamboree.”

Galateya let out a draconic huff.

“As for the Omnid Stabalists. They’ve their own interests in this dimension. Obvious business is that they’re trying to legally fuck over the Frontenachii by digging up as much evidence of their crimes as possible to sue and censure their corporate branches in Omnithornia. Howevah, we don’t know what their hidden business is,” Sage added. “The Stabalists present themselves as harbingers of fairness or whatever, but in reality they’re still Omnids. Dragons who desire power, knowledge and all that shebang. Right now, ‘cus of our lovely Emperor’s takedown of the Frontenachii warship, they might show us some respect, but ‘das about it. A bigly might IF we keep up the appearance of being a power to be reckoned with. For all we know—they might want Nikky’s Sleigh to eat our planet!”

“WHY?!” Galateya choked.

“To catch her in the act of eating planets,” Sage explained. “Duh.”

“So they’d sacrifice our Earth?” I asked.

“Maybe, like, not all of it.” Sage shrugged. “But some of it, for sho’. Always remember, they serve the interests of the Omnithornian Senate and Omnicorp consortiums. The amount of shits they give about our Earth and its human and Omnid inhabitants is on the low end.”

“Right. We have Laika up there.” I pointed at the ceiling. “Hating humanity hard because we probably remind her of the man who betrayed her. How old is she even?”

“Twenty-ish I think,” Sage answered. “Maybe older if she was rewound or incarnated often. She is an inexperienced Astral diver with waaaaaaaaay too much power in her hands. Is how I got into her head so easy peasy.”

“Who else?” I added.

“The Eight Heralds,” Sage said. “Reindeer sisters. We know where one of them is, thanks to your Seattle cell. Miss Comet Evergreen is getting drunk with the humans, looking for the Emperor. If I’m reading things right, she’s a scout, a seeder who plants the infection vectors. She either carries the See-Mass dungeon Seeds on her or has already planted them somewhere.”

“Planted them where?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Sage shrugged. “I only Astral-project good. I don’t sniff seed locations. I just know that the Seeds exist ‘cus Laika dreamt ‘bout ‘em chewing up her homeworld and feels bad.”

“Why haven’t they bloomed?” I asked.

“’Cause our planet sucks.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Magic-wise,” she clarified with a grin. “Our Aether is thick as shit. Linear. Boring. It is like trying to grow a tropical orchid in a concrete parking lot in… Alaska during winter. The Seeds are hungry, buuuut there is no food. No ambient mana to fuel the dungeon-bloom reaction. The Saint’s engine is stalled because Earth is too mundane to eat.”

“So we are safe?” Galateya asked hopefully.

“Noppers.” Sage shook her head. “Our boring-ass parking lot was safe. Until about an hour ago.”

“What happened an hour ago?” Galateya asked.

“The Gardeners arrived,” Sage clarified. “The Sixth Fleet is planning to terraform all of our concrete parking. They bring Life Seeders. They bring magrad-infused rivers. Most importantly, they bring their own massive Dimensional Gates to pump raw Aether into the environment to make their plants grow.”

“And water the Saint’s seeds,” I finished.

“Ye,” Sage said. “The Frontenachii Sixth Fleet will land, open their gates to fix our world, and inadvertently provide the juice needed for the Coniferous Conversion to go critical. Once those seeds get a taste of high-octane mana… Boom. Jingle bells all the way to the apocalypse. Heh. It’s like the opposite of Judge Doom’s parking lot plan.”

Galateya frowned. “We have to stop the Sixth Fleet then.”

“We can’t fight a whole fleet,” I said. “I destroyed the Slayer’s Sword with a clever trick because Evelithria let Shady, Nexxali and me into the incarnation temple like an idiot. And even if we stop the Gardeners, Saint Nikky is still up there.”

“Ye. We need to deal with the source,” Sage suggested. “Laika. She is the navigator who guides the Sleigh. If we take her out, or change her mind…”

“Change her mind?” Galateya scoffed. “How?! Did you see her dream? She was burned alive, Sage. You can’t debate that kind of trauma.”

“You don’t know dat’ for sure,” Sage mused, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. “Every dog wants to be a good boy. Or girl. Deep down. Saint Nikky screwed her desire for validation into a weapon. Maybe we can unscrew it?”

“She is a Pradavarian with a grudge,” Galateya argued. “A soldier bound by a blood pact to a Krampus Omnid. Pradavarian contracts are absolute. I know this. I’ve been smacked with a magisteel cane by my heartless prad Instructors often enough.”

“Blood contracts can be broken,” I said, looking at the dragon. “Shady and I managed to break Nexxali’s contract.”

“From what you’ve explained,” Galateya said. “Nexxali’s been wiggling her contract with her internal songs for over a decade. She was practically already free.”

I shrugged.

“Laika is running on pure hate,” Sage said. “Hate is strong, but it is brittle. It burns hot and fast.”

“And she is lonely,” I added, thinking of the solitary, forsaken figure in the capsule. “She wanted to come home… wanted a family. Nikky gave her a planet-murdering job, not a home.”

“Yass,” Sage agreed. “I think that we gotta seduce her. Seduce all the reindeers out from under Nikky’s nose!”

“Seriously?” Galateya stared at us. “How are we ‘seducing’ that prad dog? She’s up on a warship in space!”

“We can’t seduce her from down here,” I agreed. “But we have a connection. Right?”

“‘Das right! Laika wants to find the Wizard of Darkfall,” Sage confirmed. “She is hunting my signal. All I gotta do is…”

“Let her find you,” I finished. “Give her a target. Lure her in.”

Sage grinned, showing her chompers. “I do like being bait. I am delicious. Very snackable.”

“So you’re going to seduce her in the Astral?” I asked.

“Nu,” Sage said. “My seduction powers work best in person. I’m not the Miss Universe Hotness contest winner in the Astral, more like a biblical angel with too many fox eyes.”

The dragon girl sighed.

“I can’t come out into the open right off the bat, only trap Laika in her dream for a while. Overall, I’ll be your shadow, your backup, your door. Teya will help too. Laika is backed by the Sleigh warship. It’s dangerous to go alone against shit like that. Gotta have a team. We’ll grind the dog down together tonight!”

“We can use the resistance too,” I added. “Comet is in Seattle. Maybe we could feed her bad intel through Sergey. Or lead her to a location we can trap her in?”

“Sagetopia?” Galateya asked.

“Maybe after we seduce the dog,” Sage mused. “Can’t manage two bigly jobs at once.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think that it’s a good idea to reveal Sage’s spooky, magic village to Saint Nikky. The festivus will bloom there more effectively, right?”

“Tru’ ‘dat,” Sage agreed. “We can’t lead the reindeer to Sagetopia, their apocalypse-mass Seeds would be waaaay too dangerous there, probs take out the valley and Cascade to boot. The Heralds of See-Mass gotta be kept in locations with as little mana as possible, that way they won’t be able to do much damage.”

“Sage, where is Saint Nikky herself?” Galateya chewed on her bottom lip.

“Dunno,” Sage said. “Maybe down on the planet? Orrrr more likely, chatting up the new Frontenachii Admiral and the Stabalists. She’s not looking for me or if she is looking for me, she’s not burning a massive hole through the Astral like Laika is. Also, I like what A-man did with Stormy-O. We should do the same with Sergey. Use him to mess with Comet.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Hrm. I should update Kawthy about all this stuff, get her to help out.”

Sage nodded.

I grabbed the keyboard, opened a new Grome browser window, logged in my personal account and started typing a message to Piotr.

[Ashlawd]: yo dude, you with bird or wolf?

Stormy-O: bird. Chilling in Seeker. she ranting my ears off w 100500 rando asks. Had a good time w Linari in the forest, she got called up by Sillicia to do sniff work or smth a few hours ago.

[Ashlawd]: give Kawthy your phone I’ve questions for her

Stormy-O: Hi Ash! This is Datamancer Kawathra borrowing my lovely human consort’s phone! Where are you? Why did you break your neural interface? I was tracking you through it to make sure you’re safe from the sneaky Skinwalkers!

“Got a mic here?” I asked, glancing at Sage.

“Yepp.” The naked fox nodded and dug into her pile of electronics and slid a fox-ears themed headset onto my head. “Tharr.”

I pressed the call button. Kawathra’s face appeared on screen.

“Hey Kawthy,” I said. “Sage broke the magic headband you made me, so I’ll need a new one.”

“I already made another one.” The Datamancer bobbed.

“Head into another room, I gotta talk to you about… my future Barony management biz,” I said.

The magpie quickly stepped away from the couch that she was sharing with Piotr, entering a separate chamber inside her Corpse Seeker.

“Relocation complete, conversation is now private,” she said.

“Good,” I began. “Say, what do the Third Fleet Commanders think about the Greens?”

“Predators and Herbivores don’t get along well,” Kawathra replied. “At all. This is a rather unprecedented situation, created by the capital ship’s destruction and the shutdown of the warship manufacturing facility on the Empress’ citadel. The Third and Sixth fleet don’t commonly interact that much. I predict a great deal of escalating tension between the Wendigo Commanders and predator ‘bolds vs the Terraforming Administrators and their herbivore ‘bolds.”

“What Omnid types are Sixth Fleet Commanders?” I asked.

“Nature aligned,” Kawathra clarified. “Similar to Knight Galateya. Admiral Colette Frontenachii is a Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu!”

“Which is what?” I asked.

Kawathra snapped her finger rings and a hologram appeared next to her featuring a very curvy woman with stegosaurus-like features. Brown scales shifted to aquamarine ones like undulating waves. The spines on her back and arms were covered in quirky-looking rapidly blooming and dying plants. A lovely dress crafted entirely from colorful seashells and beads framed her body. A mane of pearlescent, aquamarine scales cascaded across her head like a waterfall of agates sliced into thin sheets.

“She seems… nice,” Galateya commented.

“Admiral Colette is an aquatic-domain aligned Omnid,” Kawathra clarified. “Do not let the seashells and friendly demeanor fool you. The Sixth Fleet High Command operates on a fundamentally different paradigm of power accumulation than the Third. The Wendigos of the Third are hoarders. They gather artifacts, wealth, and spliced enemies into their warships. They build pointy flying castles with terror dungeons. They extract resources, steal thoughts and subjugate populations, etcetera…”

“And the Greens?” I asked.

“They claim Domains,” Kawathra said with a look of distaste. “They function on the principle of Symbiotic Domain Expansion. Admiral Colette does not gain power from what she keeps locked away in a box… She gains pleasure and essence from what she stands upon. Her strength scales exponentially with the square footage of the environment she and her branches successfully terraformed.”

“Like a lawn,” Sage muttered, “an aggressive, magical lawn.”

“Precisely.” Kawathra bobbed. “On a ship or a station, a Gardener is merely a powerful Omnid. On a world they have converted and seeded? They are gods. The domain itself answers, fights for them, blooms with fungal networks, roots, world-trees and corals which slowly manifest Dryad Avatars. Admiral Colette will use ANY means necessary to acquire as much square footage of your planet as possible. She connects ALL Frontenachii colony worlds via a network of dimensional gates from which her Dryads spread their influence via roots, spores and Life Walkers.”

“That seems… worse than railguns,” I sighed.

“It is insidious,” Kawathra agreed. “The Third Fleet breaks you into submission with threats and fear. The Sixth Fleet claims the land you stand upon, infests the air you breathe, and gradually changes all fluids that you drink. Give them a finger to lick and they’ll eventually take over the whole body. They’ll do it with a smile too, ensnare the locals gradually with gifts of free plant-based food, clean air, warmth, happiness and protection from the elements and monsters.”

“Weaponized eco-sustainability?” I mused. “That doesn’t sound too bad on paper.”

“Yes. Don’t fall for their sweet promises, don’t give them an inch of air, sea or land,” Kawathra stated sharply. “Don’t make deals with the Greens, their kobolds or their Dryads. They all work together to gradually take over everything everywhere.”

“I, urm…” Galateya voiced. “I don’t understand how environmental sustainability is bad. Won’t I have to work with Greens, make deals with them to improve the planetary environment if I do become the Baroness of Earth?”

“My ‘dorkable dragon-bun,” Sage voiced. “You are thinking like a child who believes that because the candy is free, the van must be safe.”

“I am not a child,” the dragon rolled her eyes at the fox. “If the Sixth Fleet brings plants that clean the air and feed the hungry, surely that is a net positive? Managing a planet requires resources. If they offer them…”

“The Greens offer dependencies,” Kawathra corrected. “The Sixth Fleet conquers worlds with root systems. Imagine, if you will, a landlord who offers to renovate your house for free. They replace the plumbing, the wiring, the air filtration. It is marvelous! Everything works better than before.”

“That sounds… good?” Galateya ventured.

“Until you realize,” Kawathra waved a clawed hand covered in silver rings, “that the new air filtration whispers for you to obey the Dryad. The new plumbing only accepts water treated with their enzymes. The wiring only connects to their power grid. And if you try to leave? You’ll feel like you can’t breathe properly.”

Galateya frowned.

“You’ll starve and have no idea why. You don’t realise that your own body has been cleverly altered by the environment to be incompatible with the world you used to inhabit,” the bird added.

“Bio-lock-in,” I murmured. “Like Apple… except plants screwing with biology.”

“Yes, oh Wise Emperor,” Kawathra affirmed. “The Gardeners don’t want slaves in chains. Chains break. Chains require guards. They want submissive symbiotes. They want a population that literally suffers without the specific rich mana aether emitted by their World Trees, drones addicted to their delicious plant-based noms.”

She looked pointedly at the dragon girl.

“They will cure cancer, yes. By replacing the human immune system with a fungal network that answers to the Dryads. They will end hunger by growing fruit that is delicious, nutritious, and addictive enough to rewrite your neural pathways to eventually reject all non-Frontenachii-grown food.”

“Yikes,” Sage muttered, “Vegan heroin.”

“Colonization via maximum comfort,” Kawathra continued. “If the locals aren’t already subjugated by the Wendigos into utter panic, the Greens nicely ask for a small patch of land… like a desert, or a wasteland, to prove their goodly intentions via a demo. They will terraform the said wasteland into a paradise.”

“Like good n’ bad cop,” Sage commented.

“Yes. The Terraformers will invite humans in to sample things from the demo Paradise. ‘Look,’ they will say. ‘No disease. No suffering. Perfect weather.’ And the humans will flock to them. They will sign contracts they don’t understand to live in the Garden of Eden. And once they are in, they become part of the Domain. Their thoughts, their biomass, their waste, their souls… it all feeds the roots.”

Galateya frowned. “Okay… And if I am the Baroness… I would be in charge of the contracts, yes? I could regulate them. Force them to use open-source biology… or something?”

“You’re not Baroness yet.” Kawathra let out an avian laugh. “You cannot regulate a weed that grows faster underground than you can cut it from above. Admiral Colette and the Dryad Administrators use ‘Soft Power’, are seemingly diplomatic and overly sweet. In truth, they are utterly relentless. By the time you realize you have lost control of your planet, you will be just another lovely, decorative flower in Colette’s interdimensional bouquet.”

“Cosmic gentrification!” Sage added. “Move in, plant a Whole Foods and magic yoga studios n’ suddenly the locals don’t have an economy, culture, or manufacturing anymore.”

“Basically,” Kawathra agreed. “The Third Fleet steals your magic stuff. The Sixth Fleet smothers your future, removes your industry, eliminates your rebels. If everything is wonderful, if food is basically free, if all of your needs are provided for by the Dryads, why fight the terraforming process?”

I rubbed my chin. “So, on one side, we have the decapitated mess of the Third Fleet, who are confused and angry and want to shoot me. On the other, we have the incoming Sixth Fleet, who want to make us into happy, fruit-addicted tenants. And hovering above it all is Saint Nikky, waiting for the Sixth Fleet to turn on the mana-faucet so she can turn the planet into a Christmas ornament.”

Kawathra tilted her head, processing my words.

“Don’t forget the Stabalists,” Sage added. “Who be watching everything like a HOA board member with a pair of binoculars, waiting to write a fine.”

I nodded.

“A crowded chessboard. Verrrrry crowded,” Sage purred, massaging my head with her fingers.

“We need to confuse and derail them,” I said, a foundation for a plan forming in my head. “Make them all… fight each other. How tightly do the Greens follow signed contracts?”

“Very,” Kawathra said. “The Dryad network basically enforces contracts to the letter.”

“Alright. I’m going to need another Emperor body,” I said. “Plus another neural interface and a gun unit frame to wear.”

“Figured as much.” The Datamancer nodded, the edges of her beak curling up in a cheeky grin. “Since you broke your last one quite dramatically. Both are already made.”

“Great,” I relaxed. “You know what I want before I even have to ask for such. Deliver both to the Books and Nooks ASAP. Also, afterward I need you to make a delivery to Seattle and…”