The Summit of Teeth

“How’s the update progressing?” I asked the Datamancer who was walking around me while thoughtfully tapping her rings together as crystalline-metal robot arms flashed across my body.

“Allllllmost done,” Kawathra clicked. “Gotta make you shine like the sun!”

[You could always go naked,] Sage offered. [Assert dominance through aggressive nudity. Das’ berry fox-coded.]

[I’ll pass,] I chortled.

Noona stood beside me, now wearing a hooded black cloak pulled low over her face. Her white scales and gemstone-tipped bits were fully concealed beneath the outfit, making her look like a curvy assassin-monk.

“Ready for the big show?” I asked her.

“Absolutely the opposite of ready,” she muttered. “I still think that this is a terrible idea and that we’re walking into a trap.”

“Same,” I said. “Alas, the show must go on. At worst we’ll lose these gun unit bods. Kawthy packed ’em with magitek, nuclear and chemical explosives so they won’t be able to capture and extract data from em.”

“Yep, yep.” Kawathra bobbed, finally releasing me from the robot arm clutches. “Cape’s armed. You’re both walking bombs. If anything goes sideways, you can angrily explode in their faces. Commander Wattica is waiting outside with her escort. I’ll be providing real-time intelligence.”

[As will I! Like a guardian angel… of doom,] Sage giggled, Arctus relocating to the top of my head and unfolding eerily into a crown-like halo of fox eyes. Fox-eye wings blossomed behind my shoulders.

“Oh wow,” Noona breathed out, turning her shawl-covered face to stare at me. “You look… imposing.”

[Das’ how we roll,] Sage giggled. [Everi-one gets too distracted staring at the wings of fox souls, while I leer at them from the Abyss and learn their secretses. Ke ke ke.]

[Aight. Head to the transit room,] Kawathra said. [Wattica’s already there.]

The back section of the Seeker unlocked like an aperture, crystalline wall melting away.

[Relax. It’ll be fine,] I V-cast at Noona who nervously rubbed her gloved hands as she followed me. [You survived a century as a warship. You can survive a meeting.]

[I… hope so.] Noona let out. [It’s great to have a copy of my original body back and yet I feel so small… and defenceless compared to the warship-me.]

We reached the transit room. Wattica was indeed waiting there, surrounded by her kobold girls dressed in Sage’s shirts and friendship bracelets. The Wendigo had Kawathra print her a “Pirate-themed” outfit and was now sporting a leather jacket and captain’s hat atop of the meme shirt, the tongue-claimed gray striped gatling gun hanging at her side.

“Ah, Emperor!” Wattica clapped. “Will the Princess be joining our delegation?”

“No,” I said. “She’s preoccupied with other, more important matters of the local Ministry of Magic State. She might attend the next meeting if this one goes well and nobody gets shot in the head today.”

Yes, the very important matter of behaving like a dog around me, rolling me in the sand, getting a collar, licking a doorknob and currently napping with my human self after a rather nice dream of Neverland sex.

“Aight,” the Wendigo said. She tapped her V-ring. “Gate to the Abyssal Sorrow!”

A crystal ring unfolded from the floor and then a dark slit tore open in its center expanding into a shimmering oval of distorted space. After the black ripple popped, a room of dark hexagon-textured metal and blue rune-light appeared behind it.

“Gate’s stable, come on in.” A moth woman in a hexasuit stretched out on a couch waved at us, feet resting on the lap of a male pradavarian cheetah.

I stepped through first. Noona walked on my right side, Wattica to my left.

Wattica’s prad soldiers marched in formation behind, symbiote guns at the ready.

We quickly left the gate room, the Deathmoth Omnid blessing us with the “Nice shirts!” commentary.

Commander Sillicia waited for us in the antechamber room outside of the gate room.

“Wattica,” Sillicia said, standing up and eyeing the pirate outfit with mild disdain.

“Sillicia,” Wattica replied.

Deep silence stretched between them. Two Wendigo Commanders seemed to size each other up.

“Heard you got fired,” Sillicia said flatly.

“Resigned,” Wattica corrected. “Third Fleet Admiral got demoted for being an incompetent knob and I didn’t want to hang out with the Greens, so I found myself a fancier position.”

“Yeah?”

“I work for Princess Aquillianne now.” Wattica grinned.

“What’s with the getups?”

“New uniforms courtesy of the human Administrator! Aren’t they neat?”

“They’re certainly… unique.” Sillicia eyed the meme shirts with a half smirk, then turned to me. “Emperor. The Council Chamber is prepared. Follow me.”

[These two taste like they have history,] Sage commented.

[Rivals? Old friends? Exes?] I threw my guesses at her.

[Likely all three,] Sage considered. [Wendigo social dynamics seem to operate on a spectrum between ‘mortal enemy’ and ‘begrudging cuddle partner’ with very little in between. Lel. They’ve definitely smacked each other around in the Coliseum recently. Sillicia tastes like n’ over-achievin’ nerd while Wattica’s more of a layabout rich jock.]

We followed Sillicia through long corridors of dark hexasteel, past checkpoints staffed by prad soldiers who snapped to attention as we passed. The Abyssal Sorrow was a smaller, planer-looking vessel than the destroyed Slayer’s Sword, but still was quite gargantuan by my human standards, doors and halls made for tall, antlered Omnids.

In about seven minutes, we arrived in the Council Chamber.

The room was massive. Oval. Tiered like an amphitheatre. The ceiling arched high above, honeycombed with hexagonal viewports showing stars and the blue curve of planet Earth.

At the chamber’s center sat an octagonal table of black metal, surrounded by concentric rings of elevated seating. And filling those rings…

[Three thousand, four hundred and twelve registered Frontenachii Legates,] Kawathra chattered rapidly in my mind. [The full Imperial legislative body! Signatures from across all colonial holdings. The Third Fleet Legates are in person in the first ring. Sixth Fleet Legates are on the other side, behind Admiral Colette. Everyone beyond ring one is projected. This is the single largest Frontenachii political assembly I have ever witnessed! You’ve really wiggled their britches, my liege.]

[Like a really terrible parliament ‘dat eats people,] Sage added. [Fun.]

I looked at the numerous Legates. Most were Wendigos. A few other Omnitypes, like Dragons, Shucks, etc. Some lounged in their seats with aristocratic disinterest, being served drinks, snacks or being serviced by their male attendants. Others immediately turned their heads my way, glowing eyes fixed on my person. A low murmur of conversation rolled through the chamber like distant thunder.

On the central floor itself, the physical attendees had arranged themselves in distinct clusters around the metal table in magisteel, gothic-style seats.

[To your left is the Stabalist Concordat delegation.] Kawathra whispered in my head.

Five colorful figures sat together, their attire strikingly different from the Frontenachii’s extra-dark aesthetic. Modern tailoring. Silver-gray fabric with subtle dark or light blue accents and minimal ornamentation. They looked like they had stepped out of a high-end corporate office on the California coast, that is if such an office happened to be staffed by seven-foot-tall mythological beings.

[To the right, Admiral Colette Frontenachii,] Kawathra said. [Agromancer Archmage, Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu Omnid.]

Colette herself was definitely unmistakable.

Aquatic colors undulated slowly between teal and deep emerald in hypnotic waves across her body, dragon scales fading into bioluminescent fronds along her shoulders and the crown of her head. She was slightly taller than Noona and looked exactly like the dryad duplicate, a stunning coral reef entwined with a dragon. Underwater-style flowers bloomed and died slowly across her fishing-net style dress covered in colorful seashells. Her mane was a cascade of living kelp threaded with tiny bioluminescent organisms which flickered like a million stars. Moss populated her large horns.

[Her kobolds are all herbivores: bovine, insectoid, lepidoptera.] Kawathra added.

They were all women, towering and kind-faced grazing and pollinating species. A Holstein cow prad with enormous brown eyes and a floral crown woven into her horns stood to Colette’s immediate right. Behind her, a butterfly prad with iridescent wings folded against her back whispered into the ear of an ant prad whose segmented antennae swiveled left and right. A deer prad with a crown of white antlers and a melancholic expression clutched a mage staff. They were all wearing dark green tank tops with green aprons featuring flower-themed circular logos of various colors. Numerous potion and crystal bottles inhabited leather belts wrapped around their waists.

[Why aren’t any of them wearing pants? Stupid sexy herbivores.] Sage giggled.

Commander Sillicia took her seat in the back and her predator kobold soldiers spread out across the room.

Saint Nikky sat beside the Stabalist delegation. She looked just as she had in Laika’s nightmare, a goat-like Omnid, massive, dark-furred, as tall and muscular as Shady. 

The Krampus was dressed in the most ridiculously festive outfit imaginable: A crimson velvet coat trimmed with white fur and golden thread. Her horns were decorated with tinsel and small, twinkling ornaments with a red and white hat sitting atop her head. A Santa-style sack, huge and bulging, sat at her hooved feet.

Her smile was broad and far too sweet-looking, reaching her large red eyes.

[Yeeesh,] Sage growled. [Full Festivus artificery loadout. Sweater, boots, belt, pants, ornaments, sack. Bad newses, this one… A mall Santa who eats worlds. Da’ sack ‘s a dimensional fold for sho. Big enough to pull out an army of kobolds! Brrrrr.]

Saint Nikky caught me staring, winked at me and raised a steaming red mug covered in decorative snowflakes in a cheerful toast.

Finally, at the apex of the central floor, elevated on a dais of dark crystal, sat Legate Ixthia Frontenachii. A gray wolf-prad was at her feet, wearing a collar studded with small sapphires.

[Ixthia and her bold’ Bradberry Pimm are a projection too,] Kawathra voiced.

[Hrm. Wattica and Sillicia are the only Wendigo gals present in person.] Sage added. [This does not bode well for us if they decide to blow up the Sorrow.]

[You think that the Wendigos would blow up the Stabalists?] I wondered.

[Maaaaybe,] Sage mused. [Going to keep tasting the Astral, try to figure out what’s what. Room feels… heavy with Syntropy for sho… Ah-huh. There are Corpse Seekers in the floor n’ walls… many Seekers in the walls. Serious badness.]

[It’s a trap,] Noona hissed. [I knew it! They’re going to absorb us and then locate our real bodies by following the connection!]

[If absorbed, your gun-unit bodies will implode instead of exploding.] Kawathra said.

[They can scan us faster than we can blink, think of counters, move faster than…] Noona’s worry increased a pitch more.

I frowned internally.

[Nope. I can lag the local Weapon-net enough for them not to get anything out while you detonate,] Kawathra insisted, alleviating such concerns.

I reached my empty side of the table with Wattica and Noona.

The murmur in the chamber died as three thousand holographic Wendigos stared at me with glowing red, violet, silver, blue and yellow eyes.

I definitely felt like a mouse standing in a room full of owls, and possibly the only thing keeping me alive was the fact that I was an interesting and clever mouse, my real body far away in Cascade.

Noona and Wattica and I sat down.

The Stabalist in the center of the group rose.

[A Quetzalcoatl,] Kawathra commented.

I knew the word from Central American mythology, but the reality exceeded all artistic interpretations by a factor of a thousand. The Omnid man stood almost seven feet tall, a serpentine dragon wreathed in rainbow feathers. Emerald, turquoise, gold, scarlet and violet plumage covered his head and shoulders, casting a rainbow halo around his head. His serpentine face was angular and proud, golden eyes intelligent, set in scales of polished, iridescent jade. A long, feather-tipped tail swayed behind him.

His silver-gray uniform bore a simple rank insignia on the collar. 

“Emperor of Earth,” the Quetzalcoatl addressed me with a friendly smile. “On behalf of the Stabalist Concordat Diplomatic Corps, I welcome you to these proceedings. I am Captain Argon Nova, senior diplomatic envoy and arbiter of this summit.”