Alignment Lore

The weapon in the Wendigo’s clawed dark hands was now entirely black and gray, scratched up all over and looking like it had been dug up from a grave.

“Done,” she gasped, wiping a copious amount of saliva from the receiver with a napkin given to her by one of her minions. “I did it! It’s mine. And I never want to taste cinnamon ever again. Ughhh.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “You are no longer a hoarding virgin.”

“Bleh,” Wattica hissed, hugging the black and white gun possessively. “It wasn’t easy, okay?”

“I need a shower,” Comet whimpered from Sergey’s lap. “I felt that. Spiritually. It felt like… being licked, devoured sideways by a ghostly, horrid apparition.”

“Is it part of your hoard now?” I asked. “Do you feel less magically famished?”

“Mhmmm.” The Wendigo nodded. “I do feel a tad better, but it’s… feeling empty… like it needs something else.”

“It needs to sit in a Corpse Seeker Dragonheart Engine to fill up,” Sevviya said with a sniff.

“Would that make it limitless?” Wattica wondered.

“No,” the leopard Scrut replied. “That would charge it up each time. The longer it stays in your possession linked to your Fractal Engine heart, the more shots it will be able to hold. Right now it might hold about one very weak shot.”

“Shot of what?” the Wendigo asked.

“Temporary conceptual conversion,” Sevviya clarified. “It will make the target feel intense fear, which will empower your Omnid nature, my Lady.”

“Neat,” Wattica clipped the Gatling gun to her belt. “Feh, I feel magically exhausted.”

“A goodly hoard takes time to build up, your Voidness,” Sevviya added. “Even more so if such is done in the… local environment.”

“Feeeeeghh,” Wattica stretched. “On one hand the locals are easy to feed off, due to their lack of magical resistance… On the other, it is much harder to make a hoard here. Why can’t things just be easy?”

“Reality seeks balance, my Lady,” Sevviya lectured, “Every dimension, dungeon and being wield their own alignment particularities on the scale of Entropy, Linearity and Syntropy which are beneficially positive in some ways and negatively conniving in others. Entropic worlds are easy to cast magic in but are filled with dungeons and monstrous, hungry conceptoids. Linear worlds limit magic but are safer to exist in.”

“What about Syntropic worlds?” I wondered.

“Syntropic worlds are… theoretically possible,” Sevviya answered. “Omnids are an example of a highly Syntropic species, their magic creates self-reinforcing conceptual permanence. Until very recently the Frontenachii High Command considered Linear worlds impossible to gate into. I have no idea how one could possibly reach a fully Syntropic world. Syntropic magic is generally incredibly solidified, crystallized mana aligned to a particular concept.”

“Is the excessive Linearity going to screw over the Greens?” Wattica asked.

“I expect that the Greens are going to have plentiful performance issues, yes,” Sevviya said. “But they will eventually adapt. The Legate Council majority are gambling on Sixth Fleet’s persistence to turn this world into a Pleasure Garden.”

“And if I tell them to piss of?” I asked.

“Won’t work.” Sevviya shook her ginger mane. “If they’re told no by the local Lord they simply appeal to the lower class nobles or even the commoners, send Green Agents across the planet, offer improvements to individual land owners. They’re cautious and meticulous.”

I fell silent, considering what I could do to screw the plans of the Greens.

…

I looked at Galateya with my real body. “Teya, can you claim items too?”

“Uhm,” she said. “If my… half-mad Instructors are to be believed, I can claim a small domain by terraforming it and increase its size as I get stronger. Also… I can consume magical items.”

“Like Wattica just did?” I asked.

“No,” the dragon girl replied far too quickly. “I can break something apart with my claws and eat it whole.”

“Like a sexy snek?” Sage giggled, which earned her another swat from Teya.

“Taniwha stomachs break magical items down completely,” Galateya explained. “Supposedly the more magical… stuff I eat, the more capable my Phase-shift gets. No idea if that’s true on the account that I didn’t get to eat much magical stuff in the bubble.”

“Do your insides reorganize themselves like your outside?” Sage asked.

“Yes,” Galateya replied. “My teeth, tongue, saliva and stomach optimise themselves to melt, deconstruct whatever I eat.”

“So you can eat rocks?” the fox asked.

“Yes.”

“How come making out with A-man didn’t melt his face off then?” Sage mused.

“Because I can control it,” Galateya answered with a dry tone. “I’m not going to melt a person.”

“But you CAN melt a person, yes?” Sage said. “It sounds to me like you can melt anything with yo sexy dwagon mouth.”

“Is this conversation going somewhere?” the dragon girl asked wearily.

“Just thinking outside of boxes.” Sage shrugged. “You’d be, like, totally unbeatable in an all-you-can-eat contest.”

“The Dungeon Seeds,” I said, a lightbulb igniting in my head. “Could you eat them to increase your terraforming power?”

“Uhhh… presumably… yes,” Galateya said.

“Yass!” Sage first-pumped. “The empowered T-beast can totally make Sagetopia bloom dimensionally! And if she eats enough Seeds… I bet she could turn into a dragon we can ride! Eeeeee! Endless Story style, except with more Mile High Club shenanigans!”

Galateya rolled her eyes at the excited Skinwalker.

“What about you?” I glanced at Sage. “Can you eat artifacts?”

“Skinwalkers eat flesh and souls, not artifacts, bruh,” she replied. “Very… selectively too if we want to stay sane. I wouldn’t want to contain random antagonistic souls, that’d fuck up my foxy-psyche. I’ve a theme I’m sticking with. Chewing on stuff outside of it would mess up the focus of the skulk. Specificity creates greater Syntropic power.”

She sighed.

“When I was younger, I… considered saving everyone dying on Earth in the skulk… Unfortunately doing so would drive me insane,” she said. “Humans are made from separate desires and dreams, the clash of such would create Entropy in my little personal heaven, decay it and me into… unwholesome badness. I’ve chosen Raelle Knight specifically for her pure, kind heart and love of foxes.”

“Hrm. What are Skinwalkers born as?” I wondered, picturing a vague flesh lump in my head.

“Ah,” Sage smiled. “Here, I’ve got tons of pics of me saved from when I was a smol spawnling. Uno momento.”

She grabbed the keyboard and typed stuff into the search bar and then opened a folder.

The first photo that loaded displayed a crib. Inside, I saw… a crystalline figurine? No, a newborn girl… except she was clear. Transparent. Refractive at the edges, light passing through her head and breaking into colorful rainbows on the white linen cloth lining the crib.

“That is definitely not how I pictured newborn Skinwalkers,” I said. “You look like a Swarovski crystal figurine. Very pretty too.”

“Skinwalkers are born pure, clear,” Sage said. “We don’t become… this fleshy.” She gestured at herself. “Till we nom our first soul.”

She flipped to another photo. I recognized Mrs. Vale holding an even prettier crystal baby swatted up in a bundle, crystalline, transparent hair casting a million rainbows.

“Why do you look so adorably cute?” Teya asked.

“Skinwalkers are born as mimicry-of-desire-engines,” Sage explained, “As newborns we’re… akin to mirrors that reflect expectations. I looked like this because my mom expected, wanted me to look like this. Also, until we chew on our first soul, we breast-feed on pure, liquid mana! Skinwalker facts 101!”

She flipped through more photos showing the crystal baby turning into a crystal toddler, chatting away about other misc baby facts.

I focused my attention on my Emperor-self.

“Are your sisters worried about you now?” I asked the un-festived Herald.

“Uhhh…” Comet winced. “Presumably. Rudy knows exactly where I am… but I don’t know if she will call another reindeer to aid me or simply wait for me to handle the situation or do nothing till I… die.”

“How many times have you died for your cause?” I asked.

“Many,” Comet sighed. “Many worlds attempted to resist our gifts in various ways. I do not fear torture nor execution as I will simply be reborn in the Workshop, my body reforged anew. You might have caught me for the moment, but you cannot stop all of my Sisters or our Saint, Emperor. You can slow us down, but the See-Mass Spirit is already here. Our souls are…”

“Wattica, put a Lazarus bracelet on her,” I said, interrupting Comet’s rant.

“With pleasure,” the Wendigo snapped her fingers and one of her prads pulled out a black centipede from a pocket and snapped it onto Comet’s wrist.

Solara yelped, trying to claw the bracelet off, but the hexagonal-segment-shaped centipede coiled tight, fusing to her.

“Wha-what have you done?” She glared at me.

“Your soul isn’t going anywhere without my permission,” I said.

The Maned Wolf swallowed nervously.

“Relax,” I added. “I’ve no plans to torture you. This is simply a precaution so you don’t chew your veins open to be reborn in the Festivus dungeon. The Omnid bracelet will hang onto your soul until you get incarnated on one of my warships.”

Comet stared at me, clearly not believing in my statements.

“How many other reindeer are out there?” I asked conversationally.

Comet’s throat worked silently for a bit.

“More than five,” she managed. “Less than… twenty.”

“That’s a pretty wide range,” I observed. “Also I know that there are nine. Can you give me names? Just first names. I’m trying to picture the team dynamic here.”

“I cannot reveal things that would compromise—”

“I’m not asking for their current coordinates or weaknesses,” I interrupted her. “Also, I can already pretty much guess their names, judging by the whole See-Mass theme you’ve got going.”

Comet squirmed on Sergey’s lap. The astrophysicist kept up the gentle ear-scratching, which seemed to help her relax.

“Your team is named after the nine reindeer, yes?” I pressed.

“Yes.” She ground out.

“Okay, Rudy and Comet. Who else? I’m trying to remember… there’s a song, right? Something about a reindeer with a glowing nose?”

Comet’s ears flattened. “I cannot confirm or deny specific—”

“Dancer?” I threw out randomly. “Prancer? Pretty sure those are from the song.”

Comet flinched at the names. I was on the right path.

“Is Prancer a friend of yours?” I asked casually. “What species is she? I don’t desire to hurt anyone, I’m simply curious about the… diversity of your charity-workplace.”

“Hyena,” Comet mumbled out.

“And Dancer?”

“Peacock.”

“A peacock reindeer, hum? Very graceful, I imagine.”

Comet nodded reluctantly.

“What about the speedy one?” I continued. “Dasher, right?”

“Dasher,” Comet confirmed. “She’s… she’s special. She’s… Our Saint’s… partner.”

“Oh, the boss’s girlfriend? What’s she like?”

“Mothman Omnid,” Comet said. “She operates… dimensional gates, moves us from world to world. Very powerful. Loyal. Utterly devoted to the deconstruction of narrative-bound worlds.”

I filed the revelation away. The gate controller was romantically involved with the dungeon master.

“And the clever one is…” I kept the questions friendly and non-threatening.

“Vixen.” Comet’s voice dropped. “Leech prad. She handles… infiltration. Manipulation. Healing.”

“Sounds delightful. The strong one?”

“Donner. Shark. She handles… structural problems.”

“By structural problems you mean…?”

“Things that need to be broken.” Comet shrugged. “Places that need to be cracked open.”

“Who else? Someone flashy maybe?”

“Blitzen. Electric eel. She handles… rapid response, can create storms.”

“There’s another one, right?” I tapped my masked chin. “Something about love?”

“Cupid.” Comet said. “A prad… Millipede. Red and black and gold. She… she spreads joy.”

“So,” I said, counting on my fingers. “Dasher the Mothman, Dancer the Peacock, Prancer the Hyena, Vixen the Leech, you as Comet, Cupid the Millipede, Donner the Shark, Blitzen the Eel, and Rudy the… dog?”

“Mutt,” Comet corrected. “Yes.”

“Nine reindeer.” I leaned back. “And the Sleigh itself? Does it have a… personality? A living avatar? Like the Frontenachii ships?”

“The See-Mass Spirit,” Comet whispered. “She is the Sleigh’s Avatar. The Workshop too. She sings.”

“She sings?”

“Yes.”

“This interrogation is far too polite,” Wattica observed. “Normally there would be more screaming and cutting fingers off by now.”

“I prefer conversation,” I shrugged. “Violence is pointless if her Blood Pact ignites her blood and kills her for revealing too much.”

I yawned and glanced at the monitor clock in Sage’s loft. It was 2 AM and I was starting to get woozy from being awake for far too damn long.

“Right then,” I said. “This pub has rooms upstairs. You can rent all of them and stay here tonight. Comet, please don’t attempt to escape. The Corpse Seeker outside is watching. Think of your current position as… a holiday vacation. Sergey, you’re in charge of Comet. Wattica, you and your division can rest here tonight. If any other reindeer come to the pub to retrieve Comet, make gun units throw furniture to trap them. I’ll be on the roof, meditating on how to best resolve the dungeon issue… and will come downstairs if any other Heralds show up.”

“Will do, Lord Administrator!” the Wendigo Commander saluted me.

I disconnected from the Emperor gun unit.

“Kawathra, take over,” I yawned again. “Walk the Emperor upstairs, make him sit on the roof in a regal pose or something. I’ve sleep business to attend to.”

“On it,” the Datamancer commented via the neural interface.

“Great job, Emperor-sama.” Sage petted me as we both slid lower on her bed. “You did well today.”

The wall computer screens dimmed one by one.

“No rest for the wicked,” I murmured as Sage pulled a lush, red-white blanket with dancing fox patterns over me and Galateya.

“Eternal rulership is a bitch,” Sage laughed, kissing me.

I returned the mind-melting kiss, letting the tension of the endlessly seeming day bleed out of my muscles. It was a slow, lazy feeling, devoid of the frantic, reality-shattering lust from our sexcapades in the shack-jungle.

This was… pure comfort.

The kind of comfort that I had always dreamt about, but never found until Shady invaded my grandfather’s mansion.

Shady, I thought blearily, sandwiched between the cozy warm hugs of a fox and dragon. I wonder how she’s doing now. Is she going to be massively bothered by Sage or…