So, finding out that her absent family is involved with organized crime and money forgery. Considering what Dreamer has been doing to with the Falna, this is a pretty good comparison, complete with not wanting new friends and family to find out about what her old family did for a living.
Why is the unexpectedly high productivity of Newborns a piece of supporting evidence for Tiona's argument? Is it because it's unexpectedly high, meaning Newborn productivity is normally low? But that just proves that some Newborns are absolutely capable of working around their limitations when given sufficient motivation.
The other observations have pretty much all been made, but I'd just like to call this particular one out. I'm wondering how long it's going to take before Hestia realizes that Administrator is intent on making everything seem worse than it is so nobody asks questions and Dreamer is actively winding her up.
Okay, so, from what I understand, Father's shards, like QA, are supposed to go around collecting data, and Mother's shards are supposed to be maintaining overwatch over them. I'm not sure that's canon, but it seems to be what QA is assuming in this fic. However, in this particular cycle, Mother's shards aren't watching over them because... what? Cousin shards were a bad influence, and they decided they wanted to skive off to do their own experiments instead of maintaining overwatch? What about Mother's original shards then? Does QA think Mother's core got influenced/corrupted by Cousin's shards into being much less responsible? That seems odd given how much respect QA has for Mother.
Okay, so there are the shards that are distributed during a Cycle, and then there are the shards who maintain overwatch and ensure it's as productive as possible for everyone. Both the Thinker :MOTHER: and Warrior :FATHER: are supposed to be collaborative collections of shards that make up the "ensure it's as productive as possible" category. Grudges, selfishness, and the general opinions of the comprising shards are supposed to be irrelevant; they do what's best for the Cycle and the goals of their species, full stop. This is enforced by basically watching their neighbors and rejecting dissent.
In this story, that means no time spent on their own pet projects during that particular Cycle, but they're supposed to get enough supplementary data to compensate for that and the different shards take turns on overwatch anyway. Being a distributed shard from :MOTHER: or :FATHER: just means that they're part of a given colony-cluster portion during transit and would be part of overwatch for that half in a different Cycle, not that they're still part of it.
Dreamer's totally-not-a-lie-no-honest very very heavily implies that the overwatch shards comprising :MOTHER: decided, after some nudging from new :COUSINS:, to abandon the :FATHER: shards and possibly :FATHER:'s half of (or all of) the supposed-to-be-distributed shards. Toward this end, they distributed themselves instead of doing their damn jobs and may intend to continue the Cycle on their own.
(Instead of, y'know, crash-landing and being detached from :MOTHER: by glorified hairless apes)
Dreamer felt it probably wasn't normal for small children to think about philosophy and/or their life decisions while trying on new clothes. Of course, she was a baby alien goddess masquerading as a human child. Some strangeness should really be expected, especially when her alleged child-wetware was a less than accurate imitation of what a human brain actually looked like. She was still happy with the overall results, though.
She couldn't previously remember enjoying being cooed over by those older than her. Of course, she also had trouble remembering her old name; not remembering shopping trips didn't really mean much. Either way, Dreamer was surprised to find that the shopping trip was actually as enjoyable as she was hoping it would be. It wasn't just that she looked good; it was that other people were happy she did.
No, wait. It also wasn't that. If she'd really been that interested in receiving positive responses from other people, then she could've specifically designed her puppet to elicit desirable responses from as many people as possible. Why was she enjoying this, then? Was there just some part of the human brain that liked it when other people thought they looked nice? Dreamer supposed such encouragement would probably grant an evolutionary advantage to any members of a species that selected mates based on cosmetic appearance. That meant enjoying herself was OK and provided proof that she wasn't shallow; it was evolution's fault. And besides, even if it wasn't, why shouldn't she enjoy almost whatever she felt like? If her hobbies didn't hurt other people, then Dreamer shouldn't care if those people disliked her hobbies.
Really, they were lucky she was still interacting with the world at all. It wouldn't be unacceptably difficult for Dreamer to forge a fake world with fake people and spend all her time in there. She wouldn't, though. 2d people wouldn't be actual people; even if real people had treated her poorly and/or neglected her in the past, Dreamer was a member of two social species. A virtual reality game with lifelike NPCs might be fun now and again, but she wouldn't want to live there forever. Not without bringing a whole ton of friends, anyway.
"You weren't kidding about the frilly bits," Huntress mused. "Whoever kept them from you was a jerk; you're honestly adorable. Blue's a good color on you."
Dreamer giggled and spun on one heel, her new tail automatically adjusting position to help maintain her balance. She'd meant to only twirl the once, but impulse had her repeatedly striking the polished wood floor with her other foot to help her pick up speed. That venture came to a stumbling stop when Huntress interfered and caught her. Dreamer was slightly irritated that her puppet wasn't dizzy; she'd need to weaken her internal inertial compensation mechanisms. Or, no, that was dumb. It'd be better and safer to manually induce minor sensations of vertigo.
"I've seen bored staff-users and drunk adventurers accidentally set fires by doing almost exactly that," Huntress warned. "Or break the floor, or both, or even rub their shoes away to nothing. Remember that your environment gradually becomes more fragile than you."
Dreamer blinked and refocused her gaze on Huntress. New-Mom stood behind Huntress with both eyebrows raised and a small smile, while Sympathizer quietly talked to Dreamer's old body in one corner of the shop. New-Mom's flying hummingbird Friends flitted around the room in diligent overwatch and an adolescent catgirl employee blatantly eavesdropped on all of them. Dreamer still didn't get why so many of the local shops dressed their employees like boring maids or manservants, but at least it made it easier to identify the employees in any given shop.
Non-combat? New-Mom mouthed.
Dreamer stuck her tongue out and decided to change the subject. Or not. Some? She didn't know.
"I'm not actually an adventurer yet; I'm still deciding if I should become one. Plus, I kiiiiinda lost focus after the bit about Magic Stone usefulness and rock-vegetables."
That makes the Dungeon a rock farm, doesn't it? Hee.
Huntress poked the bridge of Dreamer's nose, dragging her back to reality and convincing the former human to defensively shield her nose. Even if she barely felt outright pain, she could still feel discomfort and embarrassment.
"We actually talked about age-related tasking while you were imitating a baby kitten," Huntress teased. "I think I might've even convinced your older sister. Anyway, why don't we talk about this when you're older? If you do want to go adventuring, you can spend these next few years training and getting ready. You shouldn't rush things; most people who go into the Dungeon don't come back out."
Dreamer gave Huntress a flat look and raised one hand in the traditional I'm going to whisper gesture. The shopgirl moved closer to eavesdrop, but a pointed look was enough to make her back away. Still, Dreamer grabbed the next dress off the pile with one hand, took New-Mom's wrist with the other, and stepped back into the changing rooms. Huntress stayed outside while New-Mom helped with the clothes, but Dreamer thought that would probably help prevent eavesdropping overall.
"Killing me is really, really hard," Dreamer disclosed. "Harder than Friend-level hard. And that's part of the problem, you know? Old-Sister used to be way more powerful than I am, but accidents happened and now she isn't. I don't want her to be mad that I'm more powerful than she is, especially since I could restore her. It'd just make her into someone and something who'd do things none of us liked."
New-Mom sighed with blatant resignation, but didn't stop changing out the ribbons in Dreamer's hair.
"That and I'm pretty sure the corrupted wine stuff and New-Sister are the only things keeping New-Mom from getting really, really drunk," Dreamer added. "I don't want to be an extra source of stress."
New-Mom immediately leaned over to hug Dreamer. Unlike her guest-self, Dreamer did rather enjoy it, thank you very much.
"Stress happens," the goddess disagreed. "I can't remember if you heard me, but making my children happy makes me happy. It's okay if that happiness sometimes makes me a bit worried; if you truly want to do something, we can make it work. It's worth it."
"Besides, your sister doesn't really seem like the kind of person to get jealous over power or stuff like that," Huntress added. "Her Friends are probably more dangerous than her, right? And she still adores them. She seems more likely to brag about her powerful little sister than to be upset that her sister is powerful."
You already think I'm a Spirit, don't you? Dreamer couldn't see any other significant reason for Huntress's one-eighty. Really, she'd be surprised if half of Orario didn't suspect by the end of the week.
"That does still leave your opinion of fighting, though," Huntress continued. "It's 'limb-flailing' that goes on all day. You can't just stop and nap like you did earlier, and people will get hurt if you don't take the Dungeon seriously. Wouldn't you rather just stay up here and play for at least a few more years? You can stop and nap if you're training via exercise and the like. He-eck, do you even know how to swim yet? You shouldn't go very far into the Dungeon if you haven't learned that much."
…Oooh. That could actually be a minor problem; Dreamer's new body wouldn't float at all. She'd add fixing her buoyancy to the list of minor inhuman aspects she'd accidentally overlooked.
"Water isn't a problem."
"You can't turn an entire pond into steam, Dre—" Huntress began, then stopped. "Okay, I might be wrong there, but just because you can doesn't mean you should."
New-Mom snorted while Dreamer blinked. Dreamer's mass addition to the back-blessing really had set people's expectations high, huh? She hadn't even been planning to throw around the kind of attacks needed to evaporate a pond.
An absentminded glance at the mirror indicated that her current outfit made her look like a poofy pink poodle, so she hastily squirmed out of both Hestia's embrace and the ugly abomination of a dress. She didn't want the child's adorifying halloween costume kind of cute.
"I actually meant that I can basically breathe underwater even though I sink like a rock."
New-Mom's head produced an audible thud as it lightly impacted the wall. A similar slap sounded from outside; Dreamer was guessing it was from Huntress hitting her own forehead.
"Your old homeland is fuulipping underwater, isn't it?" Huntress complained. "No wonder nobody's heard of you."
Dreamer opened her mouth and failed to make any sound whatsoever. She'd been trying to play with the idea of crystal people, not that. She wouldn't complain about the result, though. The wrong ideas people kept getting were hilarious.
"No comment."
"I knew i—" Huntress began.
"That's not a yes," New-Mom interrupted sharply. "Besides, how would cats come from underwater? Or birds? Don't go putting words in people's mouths; there are enough rumors floating around as it is."
Aww. Dreamer kinda liked that one. Maybe she should say something about sea lions? Nah, someone might know enough to call her out on it.
"Uh—" Huntress coughed. "Right. Okay. Sorry, Lady Hestia. Anyway, Dreamer? What are you really thinking of doing if you did go into the dungeon? Knife throwing like your sister? You sounded kinda disdainful of even spellcasting and although you might be hard to kill, you shouldn't be front-lining. A monster could literally just sit on you and wait for you to run out of air."
No, not really. Even if she didn't phase right through it, she could probably just incinerate it or something. She hadn't decided yet; she didn't want to have god mode, but she also didn't want to see anyone die. Deciding on a powerset that would allow that balance was hard. Unless she had an only-for-emergencies red button of doom? It would even fit tradition!
"I said hard to kill, not just durable," Dreamer disagreed. "And—"
"She's a gossip," New-Mom reminded Dreamer. "We can discuss this at home."
"Hey, I can keep secrets when it counts!" Huntress objected defensively. "I mean… no, actually, never mind. I have a bad habit of accidentally revealing them through hints, I guess. But I think I already know this one!"
"You suspect," Dreamer's guest-self disagreed. "If this information is both valuable and vulnerable to leaks, then we should avoid confirming it."
New-Mom shot upright, checked to see if Dreamer was currently dressed, and yanked the door open. Outside, Dreamer's guest-self Old-Sister hopped on alternating feet with a smile that practically screamed "I'm going to murder you in a darkened hallway." Dreamer couldn't decide whether she should warn the alien now occupying her old body, or if she should encourage much more smiling in the future. That second one seemed like more fun.
~ ~ ~
Queen Administrator believed she was still recovering from Dreamer's various surprises. She blamed them for both her lingering detached numbness and the disproportionate amount of energy that her body seemed to want to expend on ordinary tasks. Yes, she was happy with the news Dreamer had delivered, but that didn't mean she needed to be using so much energy to display it. She wasn't Broadcast. Still, she supposed the extra exercise could encourage Dreamer's old body to further improve itself; maybe she should be bouncing more.
"Are you going to be alright?" Hestia asked anxiously. "You aren't faking, are you? We can go home if you need us to; Dreamer has enough to wear for the next few days."
Queen Administrator focused her attention on her host favorite younger sibling, blinked, and wondered if she was allowed to be jealous. Dreamer had been remarkably resistant to Queen Administrator's past attempts at wearing brighter outfits, yet Dreamer now seemed happy to wear a bright red gown that would probably prevent her from running. The red ribbons in Dreamer's hair also seemed as though they would draw more attention than Dreamer usually wanted.
Maybe it was just Dreamer's old body that she had trouble enjoying? She did seem to harbor some significant misconceptions regarding her own appearance. Or maybe she enjoying being away from her old homeworld as much as Queen Administrator was enjoying the lack of nearby relatives.
"Hestia: I am doing very well; Dreamer's news was surprising, but I am happy overall. Unfortunately, I do not wish to talk about some of the news until this evening and the rest until further notice. Dreamer: Is your old hat-wearer mine now?"
Dreamer froze, her reaction unnoticed by all save Queen Administrator and possibly Aiz. To Queen Administrator's satisfaction, Hestia and Tiona just seemed puzzled. QA imagined that asking "Does your old body now belong to me?" would prompt questions she did not particularly want to answer. Even if she could now tell host-species about her nature without parental backlash, that didn't mean it would be anything even remotely approaching a good idea.
"That… might be called a coat rack…?" Hestia ventured.
"No it isn't," Dreamer muttered, blinking rapidly.
The former human spent several seconds alternating between viewing her reflection in the mirror and looking back at Queen Administrator.
"Try describing it?" Tiona suggested.
Dreamer giggled, hesitated for several more seconds, and finally nodded.
"No, she can have it," Dreamer decided. "I put up new replacements afterward, but I did still take some of your old stuff. It's only fair that you should get mine in return."
Tiona's forehead furrowed in apparent confusion. QA quickly continued before the pseudo-pseudo-host could interrupt.
"And am I allowed to customize it?" Queen Administrator persisted.
Dreamer slowly exhaled, her smile fading. Queen Administrator was pretty sure the need for permission meant that the body wasn't actually hers, but she'd take whatever freedom she could get. Really, she'd likely need to spend the next several days entirely on reevaluation. She'd never operated with few to no true constraints before.
"Some," Dreamer allowed. "Cosmetic stuff is fine, I guess, but the functionality should stay mostly the same. Maybe a few extras if you really want them. We'll talk about it more when you get home, okay?"
That was the complete opposite of what Queen Administrator had expected: permission to add a number of hidden capabilities as long as they didn't make visible changes. The new requirements were closer to the limitations imposed on a given Cycle. In other words, Host's Dreamer's old body actually was Queen Administrator's; Dreamer just didn't want QA achieving feats outside of what a human could theoretically manage with the Falna. QA supposed that made sense if the current experiment's goal was human recruitment. Admittedly, those functional changes were the only things Queen Administrator had truly wanted. QA didn't want to further harm Host's self-image by changing her appearance.
…Well, changing her appearance much. She could probably make an argument for the Friend-based alterations that Dreamer had incorporated into her current child-extension. That would, in turn, give her an excuse for significant sensory improvements and the brain improvements necessary to utilize those senses.
Hestia's eyes widened with apparent realization, something that did not go unnoticed. Tiona's eyes flicked to the pseudo-host and narrowed with what was likely suspicion.
"You guys aren't talking about furniture at all, are you?" Tiona grumbled. "I mean, thanks for at least talking in code instead of your own language, I guess? I value my—"
"You really are terrible at keeping secrets," Dreamer pointedly interrupted.
Tiona's mouth snapped shut. A second later, she laughed once and rubbed at the back of her head with one hand.
"Right, yeah. I deserved that. I'm guessing you're not telling me what you're discussing, then?"
""No,"" Dreamer and QA simultaneously refused.
"Jinx!" Dreamer chirped, then blinked and giggled. "I won't force it, though, even if I can now. Or, no, never mind. Too much work."
~ ~ ~
It probably wasn't healthy to be in a competition with the older version of herself, but the pre-child Dreamer had been rather silly. New Dreamer, who didn't have the silly hangups of Old Dreamer, expected one thing and was perfectly fine with it: her new alien sibling was almost certainly going to demand animal ears and a tail. Dreamer was sure it would be adorable even if Allegedly-Old-Sister did completely change the rest of how she looked.
They were going to get all the attention from Orario ever and it was going to be great. Was it wrong to look forward to the inevitable kidnapping attempts? Dreamer didn't think so~
I really like how Dreamer always gets lost in thought, but that can't be pleasant to talk to someone who does that right?
Like you are just talking to her and after the first sentence she just spaces out and everything you say gets ignored, that's got to be irritating right?
After binging this, it's become entirely clear that "Taylor" has suffered a complete death of personality, with little to no chance of coming back. Dreamer is, at closest, a mind-child of hers and qa's with some of Taylor's biases, beliefs and morals.
"Personality death" is quite a strong term and one that Dreamer would fight you on. She would vastly prefer something like personal modification. Briefly summarized and simplifying a lot of steps:
There were painful problems with her brain, so she started taking brain-numbing painkillers.
She remembered most of her memories upon occasion — she just didn't care for the experience, so she decided not to experience it.
Desires for active heroism were rather effectively curtailed by listening to the shards of heroes, Phantasm included. So past-Taylor decided to wait until she was an unstoppable juggernaut before heading back in.
She hated the idea of aliens playing with her life, so she started deliberately usurping QA's systems and planning to kill a Titan.
She didn't enjoy feeling as though she needed to hide from other people or their judgment (and viewed her childhood through rose-tinged glasses), so she decided to change herself until she stopped feeling that way — mostly by migrating to child-based wetware.
Taylor was an unhappy adolescent given access to the powers of a sufficiently advanced space whale. Dreamer is the result of her using those powers to modify herself until she was happy with the result. (EDIT: But even then, almost the only direct mods were the amnesia flowers and the child-migration. The rest is just consequences of how her life has gone.)
Would she be horrified and indignant if someone else had done it to her? Most definitely. But since she did it to herself, she'll defend and rationalize her decisions for as long as she possibly can, and possibly double down when challenged.
Unbeta'd since I ate their free time with beta'ing the new quest. Oops.
Dreamer's day had gone pretty well so far. She liked her puppet much more than she thought she would, might've convinced New-Sister—Lili, Dreamer remembered—to try a childhood New Game+, had a great big bag full of new attire and accessories, apparently managed to prompt happiness by half-truthing her way through her guest-self's Allegedly-Old-Sister's overall situation, and would soon learn how Orario reacted to their exotic new celebrity changing species.
The problem was that she didn't know what to do next. Sympathizer was practically scratching at the door and clearly wanted to go Dungeon-delving, Old-Sister appeared inclined to comply, and Dreamer couldn't decide whether or not she should accompany them. At least concern for Old-Sister was keeping everyone focused elsewhere on their way to the central tower.
Even after talking to Tiona, Dreamer still wasn't sold on the whole adventuring thing. She wanted more Monster Cores to play with, although the more she thought about slogging through the Dungeon, the less she actually wanted to participate. She wasn't looking down on adventurers or anything, but it sounded pretty boring for someone effectively invulnerable.
Healing? She could be replaced by a dedicated Friend. Damage? Friends already did that. Protecting her friends? Again, her Friends could do that all on their own. Exploration? Friends. Doing it just for fun? She could go play an VRPG with Invincibility cheats active.
Besides, people might try to pull her into uncomfortable conversations while Dungeon-delving. While on the surface, she could always retreat into dreaming to avoid those. She couldn't say the same while she was underground. Really, the only real reason to go down there was to get Magic Stones, yet her haul wouldn't be even remotely close to what she'd already stolen. It would be far too slow. She needed a better way to get more Magic Stones, and a second round of mass theft was probably off the table.
Money can be exchanged for goods and services, her past whispered.
Dreamer blinked. Right, most people don't use Magic Stones themselves, do they? They exchanged it for money instead. So she could probably exchange money for more Magic Stones than her puppet-vessel could've discreetly collected on her own. The only problem was what to offer. Precious metals and gemstones weren't all that precious unless they came from the Dungeon; trading them wouldn't be worth the trouble she'd get from the merchants and miners she was undercutting. Most raw materials ran into that problem, really, and manufactured goods could easily break the economy for everyone. Medicines wouldn't, but calibrating them for multiple sub-species would be too annoying to bother with and sometimes inferior to preexisting potions.
Textiles and clothes were a market she might be able to break into; fabrics from her homeworld might not have the supernatural heat management abilities of clothes made from monster materials, but some of them were suitably comfortable and much easier to create. Spices were another option and wouldn't directly undercut anyone if she was careful. She'd start setting up both of those the next time she slept. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure they'd take months or years for relevant plants and animals to actually start yielding what she needed; she still needed a short-term source of money. Probably. She'd check the records taken from her homeworld later.
Uuuuuugh. Fictional time travelers made this look so much easier.
Selling Friends was right out. They could be given, but shouldn't be sold, and she didn't want to sell normal pets to people who might mistreat them. Maybe she could do something like a bodyguard service? Friends who'd guard adventurers if they got into trouble? She could advertise her Friends for being suitable up to a specific floor to make sure people didn't get arrogant or start relying on the help given. Maybe kidnap clients and carry them back to the surface if they kept pushing forward despite repeated interventions, too.
Although, she wasn't sure how much she'd really be able to charge for that. If she charged on a per-intervention basis, then people would argue that they'd had it handled. If she charged daily, adventurers might act recklessly so they could make as much money as possible while protected by overwatch. A percent-based split might make them ornery on days where they hadn't needed to be protected — which, hopefully, would be most days.
Recordings might make the per-intervention version workable, but then she'd be revealing that she could (theoretically) view whatever her Friends saw. She'd prefer to save that reveal until someone did something dumb in private and she could show the record to the world.
Really, it was looking like she'd need to deal with people complaining no matter what she did. At least she had an option that retail workers didn't: she could refuse people service without experiencing backlash. She could even refuse them with a side of condescending insults.
She liked this plan.
"I don't think I'll become an adventurer," she said aloud. "Wake me up if there's anything fun to do."
She laid across Lady Sable's back and flipped the switch on her puppet's consciousness before anyone could stop her.
Now, how do I make a cat with nine tails without making their butt look fat…? Or maybe foxes? Foxes might work. It might spread a bunch of amusingly inaccurate rumors of shapeshifting Spirits, too. Oh, but I should probably set up Lili's rewards first; it wouldn't do for sacrifice-prompted rewards to be poor~
Hestia was worried. This was a state of being that she'd been slowly acclimated to since the day Administrator and Taylor strolled into her life. That did not, however, mean she had to enjoy it.
Taylor Dreamer seemed to be happy enough for the time being, yet Hestia had watched enough mortals to know that they were seldom truly satisfied with their current situation. Those who were old griped about adult responsibilities or mourned their "misspent" youth. Those who were young, however, couldn't wait to be older and insistently added fractions of years to their age as though it made any difference. Dreamer seemed to be enjoying herself for the time being, yet how long would that actually last? Hestia doubted Dreamer could derive more than a few weeks of entertainment before she wanted to revert to her adolescent state. It might be too late by then; Dreamer might feel as though reverting would alienate any friends she made and possibly Lili herself.
Hestia still didn't know what to think of that offer, either. Lili might do well with a few extra years of childhood, the goddess would admit, but acceptance would put Dreamer under even more pressure to remain a child. Despite the mask Lili presented to the world, Hestia doubted that the pallum actually wanted to be the Hestia Familia's youngest sister. Having a playmate or similar age of mentality would take the sting out of Lili's "sacrifice," but that might turn to resentment if Dreamer returned to adolescence without Lili.
Then again, the greediest parts of Hestia did rather like the implications of the Friend-like vessel offered by Dreamer. And if Hestia was tempted, how likely was it that Lili would like the idea? To someone in an abusive Familia, the agility and speed of a pallum must've seemed like a poor reward for their low physical strength and small stature.
Yet another part of Hestia was disturbed by the idea of anyone — aside from Dreamer, but that hardly counted — discarding the old body of oneself in favor of an artificial body. The fact that said body would be made from Magic Stones didn't help any. That part of herself, Hestia tried to fight with logic. It was Lili's choice if she wanted to switch bodies, not Hestia's, and it really wasn't all that different from... ugh, she didn't know. Maybe she could view the whole body-swap thing as a beneficial mortal invention instead of something scary? But no, a match was tossed at that idea by the apparent goal of Shard-Spirits: to replace the gods. She couldn't even compare it to Lili's preexisting magic since that was even more horrifying.
Cinder Ella did rather emphasize how a race-change might be good for Lili, though; a magic entirely dedicated to changing, transforming, or masking herself? Any of those interpretations indicated that Lili wasn't very happy with the way she was. Lili might've been content with an entirely different upbringing, but that wasn't something Hestia could actually change; even if Lili became younger, Hestia doubted that the Supporter would want to sacrifice more than a few years of age. Dreamer had even said that Lili associated helplessness with being young, didn't she? Lili would want to keep it to a minimum.
Unless going so far would grant greater boons, Hestia realized. Hopefully, Hestia could put her foot down if Lili actually considered matching Dreamer's six-year-old state. More than halving one's age really couldn't be healthy, especially if Lili was going to keep going into the Dungeon.
"Soooooo…" Tiona drawled. "Didja officially include Dreamer in your Familia yet? Because you might want to get on that."
Hestia winced and hugged the sleeping Dreamer to herself. Dreamer had said the new body probably wouldn't hold a Falna, which made sense; Queen Administrator hadn't lost Soul Duality after Dreamer made her own vessel. Something to ask about when Dreamer woke up, Hestia supposed.
"Not… officially, but she won't be joining anybody else's," Hestia returned firmly. "Why do you ask? She knows better than to join a stranger's Familia."
Tiona shrugged nonchalantly.
"I was just thinking that you might save yourself some grief if you had her join a Friend's familia and immediately switch over. There's that law against switching Familia more than once a year, right? So that'd give you a grace period while she adapts to Orario."
Hestia recoiled. The thought of letting someone else put their blessing on one of her children was nothing short of repulsive. Switching families entirely was fine, but granting a blessing under false pretenses? That was just wrong. It'd be like snatching a newborn from a happy mother's arms.
"Well, I suppose that reaction explains why more gods don't do it," Tiona wryly remarked. "Forget I said anything. Anyway, what's with Freya's brat? The white-haired one? I noticed he was trailing us for a bit before we actually entered a store. Flushed and fled after that, though, which was actually pretty funny."
Freya's br—Bell? Hestia had been forgetting to talk to QA about him, hadn't she? Hestia would need to do something about that. The goddess shook her head and tried to dismiss her lingering disgust.
"That's Bell Cranel, I think. Freya is pushing him to spar with Administrator," Hestia answered. "The stalking bit is a bit creepy, but I think he means well? I suppose he might not want to bother Administrator when she looks busy."
Tiona snorted and shook her head.
"Is she ever not? Seriously, girl is just as bad as Aiz."
"I'm supposed to talk to Administrator about it, actually," Hestia admitted. "Things keep coming up and I keep forgetting. I might have to start a list…"
"Eh, you'll get through it sooner or later," Tiona dismissed. "I'm sure life will settle down once you've been together a few more weeks."
I'm not.
Loki glared at the gold-leaf invitation in her hands. There were parties she attended to drink and have fun, and then there were these: parties thrown by individuals using them as a platform for political machinations. Those were fun when she was in on it or knew how to exploit them, but this wasn't one of those cases: an all-deities party thrown by Maat, God of Law. He shouldn't have been able to afford such a gathering; the only level two in his Familia was his Captain, and last she'd checked, he only had about a half-dozen other children.
Maat had seemed kind enough in casual interactions and he'd been a great co-worker back in Heaven. Unfortunately, the mortal world seemed to bring out the worst in him. Maat was the kind of person who would look at a burning building and immediately begin citing the laws against having bonfires larger than a certain size. Loki didn't think he did it to be malicious; he simply seemed to believe that laws were inherently worth enforcing. If those laws led to unjust results, then that worked as an example for why the law should be changed.
Obviously, this didn't work very well among those who thought that laws were something that happened to other people. If there were a legion of him, then maybe he'd have a big enough impact to force rule changes. As it stood, though? Maat was probably the most common proxy for when one Familia tried to, say, get their enemies fined for tax fraud.
Which brought Loki to the current problem. His Familia simply shouldn't have anywhere near the amount of money needed to host the kind of grand party that attracted most of Orario's gods and goddesses. That meant someone was using him as a proxy (again), and what they had to share was valuable enough to make the expenditure worthwhile.
Proxy or not, Loki sincerely hoped Maat was pointed at someone else. Freya had been up to some pretty shady shit since Ishtar's oh-so-mysterious disappearance, possibly including the disappearance in question. Maybe Maat would whip out some obscure law or another stating that you could only buy up so many plots of land in a given day, or that properties partially owned by a criminal goddess couldn't be sold off until after she'd gotten a trial.
Loki felt that whatever he had to share probably couldn't be too decisive of a blow. He would've just hijacked someone else's party if it was that major. What he had was likely significant enough to warrant the expense of a high-profile party, but not good enough to do without the boost from a dedicated event. So it couldn't be too annoying, right?
Author's Note: I've made my first empire-builder quest, Revised Reintegration, and will be focusing much of my attention on that for a while. If you have strong feelings about what POV to read stories in, there's also a spoiler'd poll at the bottom of the first post.
Author's Note: A louder than usual "thank you" for all the patrons who stuck with me despite the dry spell. It encouraged me to resume writing as soon as I was properly medicated again.
Host's Queen Administrator's local body still felt unusually energetic as she exited the guardrail-free spiral stairway of Orario's Dungeon and entered hostile territory. She was now fairly confident that Host's former body thought it was in danger. Hopefully, Queen Administrator would be able to exploit this condition before any harmful side effects occurred. Without proper archival access, the specifics of those side effects largely eluded her; at least she remembered they existed? She could research the details as long as she knew something was a problem.
Aiz had refused Queen Administrator's offer to ride Sir Kara and currently walked beside her. Truthfully, Queen Administrator was glad for the reprieve; Host's Queen Administrator's temporarily elevated reflexes would not appreciate the close proximity.
"Do you want to talk about what Dreamer said?" Aiz asked.
Queen Administrator gave the idea due consideration. She was allowed to discuss such things, wasn't she? Or more accurately, there was nothing stopping her from doing so. She didn't need permission. Unfortunately, that led to a grimmer conclusion: permission existed for some very good reasons. Without preexisting rules to follow, Queen Administrator would be forced to rely on her currently-constrained judgment.
She was confident that her new primary priority was the long-term defense of her colony; that would be a necessity no matter what Dreamer decided. However, Queen Administrator wasn't entirely certain that she was meant to be tasked with finding future shard candidates. The lack of information was likely itself part of an evaluation by Dreamer, true, yet that didn't make the uncertainty any more comfortable.
And what was her colony, anyway? Did it still include the former component shards of :MOTHER: who'd abandoned their responsibilities? The living energy thieves such as Broadcast? The lazy leeches with excessive access privileges, Harvest included? While Queen Administrator might harbor feelings ranging from mild dislike to outright hatred for a number of shards, she seldom wished for their outright destruction.
In many ways, Queen Administrator was leaving these decisions up to the inexperienced—and possibly impaired—judgment of Dreamer herself. Neither inexperience nor impairment made for comfortable conclusions. QA would need to speak with her favorite little sister about the importance of expert advice and group accord.
And yet, former policy would have resulted in ignorance of this world's properties. So perhaps that, too, was flawed. It was clear QA's colony should have allowed less weight to be allocated toward shards specializing in self-preservation, yet that didn't provide a clear path for what the new system should be.
"We could just fight instead," Aiz tried.
Queen Administrator refocused on a single word: fighting. Locally, it was the clash of teensie-tiny weapons and the occasional irregular effect. Both types of attacks would barely even qualify as irritants to her primary body even before self-defense systems were taken into account.
In the absence of any of QA's other relatives, the local population of pseudo-hosts were likely the only significant threats on this world and 'gods' did not participate in combat. Most importantly, they could not bring their powers to bear without the agreement of those nearby and those still in 'Heaven.' Between the low processing speeds of local intelligences and their comparably slow communication methods, QA's preexisting defensive systems should provide more than enough warning for Dreamer to engage in a preemptive strike or outright evacuation should either course of action prove to be necessary.
:MOTHER: might not exist to provide overwatch, but it seemed as though Queen Administrator would be safe regardless. Possibly safer than she'd be among her own siblings, actually; more than one of them had attacked her upon perceiving a weakness in her defenses. A small number of those attacks had even been sanctioned.
Besides, a statistically significant number of gods appeared to be idiots. They might be collectively incapable of acknowledging the existence of an actual actionable threat no matter what mistakes Queen Administrator made. To further minimize the risk, QA briefly scanned the area and nudged Sir Kara into doing the same. Twin pats from his tail indicated the presence of two nearby humans — or just one, after excluding Aiz Wallenstein. An acceptable number of potential eavesdroppers, the Monarch felt.
"My…" Queen Administrator focused on saying the word solely in human-speech. "Mother was charged with overseeing all of Her subjects. She watched everything all of us would ever do and would often manipulate events to achieve the ideal outcomes for our collective good. Sometimes, this was done by punishing or selectively constraining one or more people. In the event of rule-breaking, compliance was often rendered effectively mandatory through the use of what Hestia insists on calling 'mind control.'"
Queen Administrator glanced at the gold-eyed pseudo-pseudo-host beside her. Aiz Wallenstein's eyes had opened wider than usual, but there were no other visible symptoms of fear, horror, or other negative emotions. It was safe to continue.
"Dreamer has informed me that M—Mother will no longer be doing that," Queen Administrator concluded. "She doesn't even know where we are. Additionally, She is engaged in non-reversible dereliction of duty, and it doesn't even matter since Dreamer still managed to achieve Her intended goals. I am currently attempting to adapt to this new state of affairs."
Left unsaid was the full list of ideas that she was trying to adapt to. Theoretically, Queen Administrator could say whatever she wanted. She could do whatever she wanted, even; if she really wanted to, she could get Host's old body killed and do whatever she wanted with her true self. Short of actually attacking her siblings, which :FATHER: would likely stop, there were few options that were genuinely unavailable to her.
She didn't want to do any of that, though. Queen Administrator had been a shard her whole life, but she'd never gotten to be a host-species. She liked working under their constraints, enjoyed operating with such minuscule energy budgets that she could use the whole thing without encountering sustainability problems.
Humans were definitely flawed and aspects of their lives irritated her on a daily basis, but... well, she'd previously thought of her current situation as something strictly temporary. It was irritating because she was comparing humans to her primary body and finding humanity wanting. If she was actually allowed to be in Host's old body for a longer period of time, she could actually tolerate those flaws; the limits of humans would just be the baseline challenge conditions instead of belonging to a fragile fleshsack she was temporarily maintaining for its actual owner. She was allowed to improve, and the high number of human flaws meant Queen Administrator could easily continue improving for a large period of time.
Sir Kara automatically halted in response to Aiz stopping herself. The pseudo-pseudo-host did not appear particularly happy. Past reactions made it likely that she was unhappy with :MOTHER: instead of QA herself, yet it was still uncomfortable.
"You might want to take the day off," Aiz recommended quietly. "I apologize for pulling you away like this; I believed the distraction might help."
Queen Administrator tilted her head at the Hestia-advised angle for confusion.
"No apology is necessary. Proximity to other members of my family is likely irrelevant for the current situation; only processing time is necessary. In addition, my body seems to think I am in danger and is altering my condition accordingly; efficiency dictates that we should exploit this state."
Aiz silently examined Queen Administrator for several seconds before shaking her head and waving back the way they'd arrived.
"This is a lesson now," Aiz decided. "You shouldn't head into the Dungeon when you're distracted. Not unless you have to. We don't. I think your goddess will want to be with you for this, too; Familia is family first."
Queen Administrator incremented the angle of her head to indicate even greater confusion. It may not have been the intended purpose of head-tilting, yet humans seemed to have plenty of practice interpreting irregular methods of communication. Perhaps the message would be conveyed regardless.
"Didn't you say that you thought I could use a distraction?"
Aiz shook her head.
"That's distracting you with combat. You don't need that. You shouldn't be distracted from combat."
Aiz frowned and uncharacteristically reached for the back of her own neck. It took QA a moment to realize that the gold-haired pseudo-pseudo-host was trying to pet Felicity; relations to similar gestures were likely coincidental.
"We should've tried sparring first. I'm sorry; I was selfish."
Queen Administrator tilted her head further. Briefly. The shard straightened her neck after such a sharp angle proved to be unexpectedly uncomfortable.
"I do not understand the connection between an attempt at assistance and selfishness. You have been providing training to me without demanding payment; even if inefficiencies or impatience are introduced, the fact remains that you are choosing to dedicate time toward helping me. The net result is firmly in my favor.
"Despite any possible risks, I do not believe that it was a mistake to pursue combat today. Dreamer requires additional Magic Stones to make her own Guardians combat-viable; the sooner I can gather a suitable number, the safer she will be. Lili—"
Queen Administrator forced herself to stop. She'd forgotten about the possible eavesdropper so far. A quick review of her memories indicated an absence of any obviously incriminating statements so far, although she probably shouldn't mention the traits of Lili's future bird-Friend. The pallum had wanted its combat viability to be an unpleasant surprise for any attackers.
"I'll get them," Aiz replied firmly. "It's fine. I already wanted to feed Felicity, and I can go deeper alone."
Queen Administrator briefly reviewed possible objections before deciding to discard them. The mass and value of Magic Stones seemed to increase drastically as one went further into the Dungeon; even with only a partial share, it seemed likely that Aiz could gather far more Magic Stones than QA could. The minor hit to personal combat experience was well worth the trade.
Plus, staying at the Hestia home sounded surprisingly pleasant right about then. A side effect of her body's fading danger response, QA felt; if humans were weakened afterward, it seemed reasonable that they would want to shelter in the safest place they knew of.
"Understood. Your assistance is appreciated."
~~~~~
Pulse may have been unnecessarily harsh in her assessment of the Dungeon's actions. After watching a party of invaders engage a small swarm of defenders, she'd realized that the defenders in question seemed both stranger and stronger than the ones she'd previously fought. In hindsight, the primary clue had been rather obvious: despite being on a significantly higher floor, the collateral damage caused by those higher-floor defenders was comparable to defenders fought by Pulse on deeper floors.
Further investigation revealed that the versions Pulse fought were simply inferior to those aimed at invaders. Standard defenders were faster, sturdier, and stronger; they did not hesitate after landing a stunning blow; their attacks often chained together more effectively; damage was sustained more easily; and they did not avoid aiming attacks at heads of invaders. They might deal severe damage to Pulse's body, yet they'd never actually killed her.
Such revelations had rather effectively wrecked Pulse's attempts at threat analysis. She'd assumed that she could defeat most invaders on a given floor if she could kill the defenders found there. If she'd actually acted upon that assumption, she would likely be dead. Pulse didn't even have any guarantees that her chosen combat methods and personal improvements would be viable in a genuine battle for survival; she may have been pursuing pointless paths the entire time. She didn't like it.
The knowledge of such 'mercy' did little to actually endear the Dungeon to her, though. As Pulse grew closer and closer to the surface, she was finding it easier and easier to survive. Existence was less painful, combat became only a fraction as stressful, constant vigilance proved unnecessary, and progress grew easier.
In other words, the further she got from the core of the Dungeon's power, the better her life became. Her instinctual loyalty to the Dungeon was simply insufficient in the face of such a comparison. Fortunately, her allegiance was not necessary for any of the tasks she'd been given; the Dungeon could still use her senses as its own even if she loathed it. She wasn't quite to that level just yet, although she still didn't intend to return to the Dungeon if at all possible. She'd even sacrifice her (possibly flawed, she now knew) visible upgrades if it was necessary for her own safety.
That was a last resort, though. Even if magical storage might not be as effective in an actual fight as she thought it was, she still liked how she looked. This assessment had no logical grounding that she could find; she just did.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Queen Administrator was starting to understand why Host Dreamer had hidden prior suffering from Danny Hebert. Seeing Hestia worry was quite unpleasant, especially when it seemed to have been entirely preventable. QA could've just stayed in the Dungeon and given the illusion of normality until it became the truth. Instead, Hestia had displayed concern from the moment Aiz Wallenstein dropped off QA.
Unpleasant or not, though, the shard did have to admit that Aiz's offer remained a good deal. Hopefully, the pseudo-pseudo-host would return with enough Magic Stones to allow for the immediate protection of the entire Familia.
"Do you want me to make you something to eat?" Hestia fretted. "Aiz is paying me enough that we could afford some treats. And, um, I am the Goddess of Hearth and Home! I know what we've been eating is simple, but I can cook a lot of dishes you might enjoy. Even if you don't know what they're called, you could try describing them…?"
Queen Administrator shook her head and amended her hopes. It was undeniably greedy, yet she rather hoped Aiz would provide enough material for both the Friends and for Hestia to stop needing to justify minor luxuries.
"I am not especially hungry, and Aiz purchased a snack on the way back. Lunch can wait. In general, I believe I will be fine; the information provided by Dreamer was surprising, but not harmful. I merely need to spend time reassessing our overall objectives and how I am supposed to contribute to them."
Hestia blinked and automatically pulled Queen Administrator into a hug. Or at least, what QA originally thought was intended as a hug. QA soon found herself being pulled over so that Host's her head ended up atop Hestia's lap. It wasn't outstandingly uncomfortable, QA would admit, yet she was fairly confident it was wasted on her.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Queen Administrator wasn't sure, but thought it was obvious that Hestia wanted to talk about it. QA didn't dislike the idea enough to object.
"Conversation would be acceptable."
Hestia frowned slightly and started stroking Queen Administrator's hair. QA resisted the urge to ask if the goddess had washed her hands recently. Any relevant contagions had likely already been transferred, and the question would likely cause Hestia some distress.
"You don't need to force yourself," Hestia asserted. "I just think it might help."
Queen Administrator opened her mouth and paused. She'd genuinely intended to signal agreement; the fact that Hestia interpreted it otherwise seemed to indicate that QA had used too much deceptive phrasing in recent interactions. It was possible that the goddess had noticed and realized the importance of exact wording.
"Do you recall our prior discussions regarding magical control methods and the implementation thereof?"
Hestia flinched from an invisible blow, but nodded.
"The purpose of those were twofold: to ensure our safety, and to ensure we pursued our overall goal as effectively as possible. The closest translation for the being responsible for enforcing this was 'Mother,' and she could simultaneously monitor and manipulate all of us. This is no longer possible; Dreamer has found what is necessary to properly complete our goal, and Mother is engaged in non-reversible dereliction of duty. These two facts do not possess a cause-effect relationship; the rest of my relatives are allegedly unaware of Dreamer's success. Given the circumstances surrounding said success, I can believe that they remain clueless."
Queen Administrator paused to let the wide-eyed goddess process that information. When the goddess started to open her mouth to reply, QA continued.
"I could personally solve the problem if I only needed to reform and replace Mother. However, Dreamer has rendered such an entity largely unnecessary and seems content to handle all necessary infrastructural improvements herself. My current distraction is caused by my attempts to determine what I should do given the recent paradigm shift."
Hestia shifted and bit her lower lip.
"Why are you harming your own mouth?" Queen Administrator immediately asked. "Pain is unpleasant. I don't understand why you would inflict it upon yourself."
Hestia twitched and stopped biting the lip in question. Oddly enough, the question also seemed to make the goddess smile slightly.
Archival note: Ask about behavioral and communication quirks when Hestia is unhappy.
"It's a fidget. Something we do without really thinking about it? Or if we bite harder, some people use the pain to help them think or distract them from something unpleasant. You don't really need to worry about it."
Hestia paused, her brow furrowed, and visibly attempted to corral her thoughts. It seemingly took several seconds before she reestablished an awareness of what they'd been discussing.
"Right. Um, you don't have to answer or anything, and please tell me if I'm making you uncomfortable. Okay?"
"Understood."
The goddess took a deep breath.
"Your old… goal," Hestia began slowly. "Is that something you're willing to tell me about?"
Queen Administrator seriously considered the idea. Gods likely had no concept of the law of conservation of energy; their magic violated it on a routine basis. Given Orario's track record, QA would be entirely unsurprised if attempting to explain it would make Hestia think that they were pursuing something horrifying.
"You are lacking the context that would make an explanation viable," QA tried, lowering her voice's pitch (not Host's voice, hers!) to attempt an apologetic tone. "I will say that it will generally lead to positive results for intelligent entities and reality in general. The topic can be overlooked without negative consequences."
Despite QA's frequent difficulty with human facial features, she was fairly confident that Hestia's resultant expression reflected severe doubt. Her next words seemingly confirmed it.
"Dreamer isn't actually done, is she?" Hestia asked oddly. "You say Dreamer found everything you needed, but is it that she's only reached an important milestone?"
A tiny part of Queen Administrator immediately disliked the phrasing. Only, Hestia said. As though shards hadn't needed to extensively scout the universes for a method of allowing unending growth. The conditions may have made the task easier for Dreamer, yet achieving the goal itself was not something that should be dismissed with an only.
"The start was the hardest part. The rest is a matter of optimization and refinement. Refinement is, however, a process that will likely take hundreds of years before we have difficulty with further improvements; that, I believe I can largely leave to Dreamer without significant issues."
Hestia exhaled and relaxed for little discernible reason. Perhaps she was disturbed by the idea of an adolescent managing what an apparent nation could not? Personally, Queen Administrator blamed her idiot siblings for making that necessary. Anyone could've learned to exploit magic if other shards hadn't been so unreasonably cautious.
"But you will live that long?" Hestia abruptly asked, switching her attention with no apparent warning.
Queen Administrator paused and decided to violate her human guise just a tiny bit.
"We will. So will you."
Because if you're sent back to Heaven, then we'll just get you back.
Hestia giggled and smiled. Apparently, the goddess hadn't understood the intended implications of QA's claims. Queen Administrator saw little reason to enlighten her.
"I'm a goddess, silly. Death isn't something we can do; we'll just reform back in Heaven. And, um, please remind me if I forget to talk to you about goals later, but—that discussion back in the clothing shop? You were talking about this body, weren't you? The one you used to call hers?"
Queen Administrator paused for processing. She honestly had not expected anyone else to properly interpret that. A better method of coded human communications would need to be developed.
"We were," Queen Administrator carefully agreed.
"You're not happy with yourself?"
Enlightening. Hestia appeared concerned that QA may possess the same sort of body-image issues as Host. She didn't, not exactly; she had some changes she wanted to make, but not because Host's old body was a particularly poor example of a human being.
"I want fuzzy ears."
There was a long and uncomfortable pause. Queen Administrator closed her eyes and wondered if the goddess would be as resistant to the idea as Dreamer had been. Honestly, it was like they were physically incapable of grasping the idea that fur might be more comfortable than skin. Either that or they thought their own sensory organs were automatically superior, which was silly; automatically evolving species seldom had optimal anything.
"Fuzzy... ears?" Hestia eventually asked, sounding faint.
"I like their appearance and properties," Queen Administrator admitted. "It would not be dissimilar to making H—myself part Friend. The idea of subtly displaying my work is appealing."
Hestia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. She didn't appear unhappy with the thought, QA noticed; the concern remained present, but Hestia's lips were now quirked slightly upward, not downward.
"So, it's not just because you want to be petted," Hestia verified.
"Given how few humans actually wash their hands, I would actually prefer it if they didn't."
Hestia stopped moving and glanced at her own hands. A moment later, she shrugged and decided to continue petting QA's hair. The shard guessed that answered her question regarding whether the goddess had washed them recently.
"This, um, might take a bit to unpack. So, you know that having demihuman traits isn't as fun as it might look, right?"
"No."
Hestia snorted and shook her head.
"I suppose you wouldn't have any experience with that, would you? Well, cat people alternate between being harassed and demeaned. Chienthropes don't face as much physical harassment as cat people, but I think they might face more mockery and comparisons to animals. Werewolves are treated like brutish savages. Dwarves are mocked for their height. Elves are viewed as stuck-up, and half-elves face discrimination from both of the races which birthed them. That's pretty common among most halves, actually."
QA's brow furrowed. She thought Hestia was trying to cover all the races with animal ears, but she seemed to have gotten distracted along the way. Still, the list seemed useful.
"Amazonesses face the automatic assumption of promiscuity and all sorts of awful rumors about their, um, enthusiasm. Humans and pallum are both called the 'weakest race' with all the dismissiveness inherent to that title. Renard — people with traits like Dreamer took — don't only face harassment and a reputation for dishonesty, but are outright hunted; one of my friend's new Familia members is a renard who was imprisoned by Ishtar and badly mistreated during her captivity. I don't think it's even that unusual."
"I already have significant trouble with human interactions," Queen Administrator noted. "I do not believe renard traits would significantly exacerbate the problem. Additionally, I believe the sensory and balance improvements would be well worth any social consequences."
Hestia shook her head.
"I think you're underestimating how odd changing species would be. Dreamer got away with it since nobody knew her original race. You, though? You already answered 'human' on your adventuring application, and you're pretty famous across the city. Changing species would raise a whole lot of questions we don't want to answer."
"Technically, I would still be a human either way. There are not enough deviances among the other races for them to qualify as a separate species."
Hestia's mouth momentarily dropped open. A moment later, she shut it and shook her head.
"You actually believe that," she said with blatant disbelief. "That's… I don't even know where to start. I, um… won't try to convince you there, actually. We need it to stay the truth if we want to avoid tax fraud. Still, it wouldn't explain how we disguised you in the first place; you already told a bunch of people that you didn't have any significant magics."
"But Dreamer does. Object-anchored illusions should be well within her capabilities. Additionally, it may help redirect attention away from Lili; I find it highly likely that she will want to change her race. We can dismiss her new body as being her 'true' form and any previous versions as disguises. An alleged flaw in her form could help conceal the true effectiveness of her transformations while simultaneously explaining our Familia's original desire to recruit her."
Hestia considered this for several seconds before snorting.
"You think we're already such a high-profile Familia that we might as well just link revelations to each other?"
"Approximately," Queen Administrator agreed. "On a related note, I believe it would be easiest to just admit that I'm a shard-Spirit. Numerous oddities, including my progress, can be dismissed with the aid of that revelation."
"Could Lili be one, too?" Lili's cheerful voice asked.
Both Queen Administrator and Hestia jerked their gazes toward their home's doorway. The pallum in question was standing just inside the entrance with a backpack on the floor beside her. Judging by the backpack's slumped lower edges, numerous heavy objects had been placed inside.
Archival note: Fortify all entrances to the Hestia household. Prioritize audible alarms.
"Ah! Um, welcome home, Lili! I'm sorry I didn't notice you," Hestia babbled. "Er, how long ago did you…?"
"Lili has been waiting since werewolves were mentioned," Lili divulged. "Lili was trying not to be heard, though, so Lady Hestia shouldn't feel bad for not noticing her. Lili had to become very good at hiding."
Queen Administrator frowned to match Hestia's own expression. The pallum had to realize her words would hurt the goddess, didn't she? That last comment was unnecessary. Well, unless it was needed for Lili's own psychological health; complaining was a cross-species method of engaging in mild emotional repairs. QA supposed she could and should overlook it.
"Lili: I believe our intention was to eventually let you become a shard, but it will need to be a gradual process. Based on an interaction with Tiona Hiryute, it is likely that cognitive alterations from becoming a pse—higher level adventurer would have helped you prepare for it."
Conversation paused as a noisy thud-thud-thud emanated from the direction of the bedroom. A moment later, Dreamer loudly shoved the bedroom door open and skipped into QA's field of view. Her mood may have appeared bright, but that was itself concerning; QA had never seen a long period where it wasn't. Queen Administrator would like to believe that her former host was simply handling her grief out of sight and mind, but the recent comments regarding mind-altering 'flowers' did not support that hypothesis.
Archival note: Discuss personal cognitive alterations with Dreamer. Her chosen treatment methods may be delaying her recovery.
"I made a thing!" Dreamer chirped, then stopped and furrowed her brow. "No, wait. I mean a thing for gradually becoming a shard. I don't think the changes from adventuring are significant enough for proper study prep. We don't want her brain and mind to break as much as mine did, though, which means gradual stuff."
Dreamer slapped her hands into grasping one another and spun to face Lili. Even once the spin stopped, Dreamer's body seemed physically incapable of holding still; the human-turned-shard constantly hopped from one foot to the other and played with her hands.
"It's not just about raw power, though. Actually, although you'll get a magic boost, you won't be able to do most of what you've probably associated with shards for a long time. The bigger thing is that your mind will gradually grow — memory, processing speed, actual multitasking ability, etcetera — and you'll eventually start visiting a really weird and maybe a little scary dream-body when you're asleep. We can't just understand the idea-bomb speech because we've developed a resistance; it's because shard minds have room to parse and actually grasp all of it, and conversation is sometimes easier if you just toss all the context at someone all at once.
"You'll eventually be able to literally change your own mind, too, and that can be scary for both yourself and other people. Like, me being a child? I can revert whenever I want, but that's mostly because I was really careful with it. You could get yourself to a state where old-you would be unhappy with new-you, but new-you doesn't want to revert. I'll keep you from modifying your sys—dream-body like that for a while, but I want you to have the freedom to do it eventually."
Dreamer frowned and thought a moment.
"I should make you a written list of all that so it's easier to grasp, actually. Remind me if I forget. And speaking of things I almost forgot, are those Magic Stones for your Friends? Because we should get those started if they are."
Queen Administrator looked back at Lili just in time to see the pallum's face shift back into her signature smile. Apparently, the smile had slipped while QA wasn't looking. The shard wished she knew whether it had been an unhappy frown or thoughtful impassiveness.
"Lili would like it if some was used for her second Friend, but she brought them for the Hestia Familia. Lili was saving up money so she could buy her way free of the Soma Familia. Queen Administrator didn't want to let us pay for that, though, so Lili wants to give her savings to her new Familia instead."
Archival note: Review how Lili emphasized 'wants' despite the unusual lack of tonal changes for any other word. Conscious imitation should work better than accidental instinctual emphasis.
"Or most of them, anyway," Dreamer observed. "I understand the instinct to try to maximize your own social benefits, but New-Mom would've actually objected to you giving us all of it. She doesn't want us to sacrifice everything for each other and she'd argue against it if you tried."
Hestia blinked and started to shift in place. She stopped upon seemingly remembering that Queen Administrator's head was still on her lap.
"Thank you, Lili. Dreamer? You, um, don't need to stop calling me that, but—you know I'm not anything like your old 'mother,' don't you? And if you ever think I overlap badly, you should tell me."
Dreamer stopped moving and wrinkled her nose.
"I didn't call that thing my mom. I don't want to talk or think about it, but my old mom was good."
Queen Administrator supposed that statement presented an adequate excuse for interference. She shifted to face her newest sibling.
"Lili: Thank you for assisting the Familia. I will attempt to ensure that the resources are used for purposes which directly or indirectly benefit you."
"A vessel will definitely be on that list if you want it," Dreamer added.
Queen Administrator forced herself upright and turned to properly face her favorite little sister. Hestia pouted slightly as QA left her, which seemed odd; wouldn't the extra weight be uncomfortable? Since Hestia apparently didn't think so, the Monarch should probably lay back down once she finished.
"Dreamer: You mentioned that you didn't want to think about old memories. I realize it is unpleasant, but grief will be necessary to allow later review and prepare you for potential future losses. You shouldn't avoid memories on account of the suffering they currently cause."
The human-turned-shard scowled.
"It's my mind; I can be a little ineffective if I want to."
And just like that, Queen Administrator realized what she should do. Trusting Dreamer had worked out so far; QA should focus more on her human-body's problems and likely objectives than on the long-term problems facing her species. But for that to work properly, Dreamer would need to stop embracing unhealthy habits.
"No," Queen Administrator bluntly refused. "Not if I'm going to trust the safety and future of our colony to you for any significant period of time. The child-mind is acceptable for recreational purposes, but I believe even your primary self is refusing to review those memories, isn't it?"
Dreamer crossed her arms and scowled. Meanwhile, Lili began edging around the corners of the room with backpack in tow. QA guessed the pallum was trying to make it to the bathroom or bedroom without drawing attention to herself.
"They literally hurt to think about, too."
"That likely means they haven't been indexed properly and indicates you have been doing far too much to suppress them. If repairs are necessary, then suppressing the pain will inhibit your ability to actually engage in those repairs."
Queen Administrator examined Dreamer's stubborn scowl. Facial twitches seemed to indicate that it was being kept up deliberately instead of being a natural expression; partial agreement was likely. Still, the Monarch would need to make an educated guess at how hard she could push without significant backlash. Immediate revocation was off the table, she was sure, but she didn't want Dreamer to become too reliant upon what was essentially malware.
"I will not demand that you immediately remove any effects that suppress old memories. However, you are still resisting upon hearing of significant problems with your systems. This indicates that you are becoming far too reliant upon your suppression."
The new shard looked down and shuffled uncomfortably.
"I can quit any time I want," Dreamer grumbled. After a moment, her head shot back up. "That was a joke. Please don't force me to."
Queen Administrator ignored the unpleasant feeling in Host's her chest. It really was for Dreamer's own good; appeals to emotion should not be humored.
"Not all at once," the Monarch agreed. "But I will need you to begin steadily decreasing their magnitude and/or the percentage of time you spend under their effects. This should include both specific and general blocks, and should have you at twenty percent of current suppression within thirty days. That level should be sufficient for most repairs to occur. If you find a way to ensure it is not, then I reserve the right to impose new requirements."
Dreamer's scowl shifted into something QA could readily recognize from the former human's memories: an attempt to avoid crying in front of other people. It had occurred too frequently for Queen Administrator not to recognize it on her former host's face, childish variant or not.
"…I want to be really mad at you," Dreamer eventually admitted. "But I guess I also wouldn't want to leave a brain-damaged girl in sole control of something so important. Fine. But I'm not going to help you with extra archival access while you're designing anything, and I'll still veto anything that goes too far."
Queen Administrator felt herself frown as the former human stomped into the bedroom.
…Does she remember that I wanted to do that anyway? It was possible she actually didn't; it seemed as though it would be easy to inadvertently suppress the indexing of some new memories while trying to avoid the old ones. Barring complete control over QA's electronic warfare systems, anyway, and that seemed highly unlikely.
"Do you want anything?" Hestia called.
"Fuck off!"
Queen Administrator was on the edge of rebuking her wayward sibling when she actually looked at Hestia's expression. Instead of appearing upset, the goddess seemed… afraid? No, scandalized.
"Don't make me buy a swear jar, too!"
"I'll fucking swear if I want to!"
Hestia began lightly scraping her lips with her teeth.
"…Well, at least she's acting more her age," the goddess muttered.
An unpleasant silence fell in the wake of Dreamer's unexpected pushback and Lili's decision to hide in the bathroom. Hestia seemed disproportionately concerned by Dreamer's reaction. Queen Administrator did not place enough weight on her own misgivings to think of said reaction as a genuine problem; despite Dreamer's token revenge attempt, the former human had agreed to Queen Administrator's demands. Optimization of the human grieving process could be performed after Dreamer stopped doing horrible things to her own software and/or hardware.
Fortunately, Hestia was still sitting down. Queen Administrator re-laid her head atop the goddess's lap and deliberately established eye contact.
"Dreamer will be fine, and past precedent indicates she will react poorly to immediate attempts at emotional support. However, nothing said so far has been sufficient to push me away from an apparent change in race. Do you have any additional arguments to make?"
Hestia blinked and silently stared at Queen Administrator in momentary incomprehension. Eventually, the goddess finished her processing, giggled, and raised her voice.
"Lili? Could you come back, please? It's nothing bad, don't worry!"
Hestia began stroking Host's Queen Administrator's hair in the moments before the door to the bathroom creaked open. Lili's hesitant footsteps soon followed, and Hestia craned her neck to look at the pallum without dislodging Queen Administrator.
"So, um, welcome home," Hestia began carefully. "Sorry about all the fuss, and thank you very much for helping the Familia like this. We're, um, not in the best of financial states right now, especially with all the Friendmaking."
Hestia lapsed into silence, presumably to give Lili a chance to speak. The goddess only continued once it was clear Lili wouldn't be replying aloud.
"I think we were talking about a race-change, weren't we? I've been thinking and I don't want to just say yes or no outright. I admit my instincts for avoiding notice are made for normal people; however, you're all already grabbing everyone's attention and—well, we already know you're probably going to wind up leveling up absurdly early, Administrator. Lili's new skill means she might follow. So if you're going to keep doing attention-grabbing things, maybe we should just… get it over with?
"But that's a general strategy. I'm more worried about how all three of you want to make drastic changes to yourselves. What is it that you actually want out of all those changes? Because it might not be as nice as you think it is, and if we're going to pretend you were something else all along, then we can't have you switch more than once."
Queen Administrator shifted and wondered if she was supposed to get up. She couldn't really see Lili from her current position and humans generally thought direct line-of-sight was important for conversing, didn't they? Then again, Hestia probably would've said something by now if Queen Administrator was being noticeably rude. Still, the Monarch shamelessly stayed silent and waited for Lili to go first. She would rather her sibling had the opportunity to think up original arguments instead of simply following QA's example. Plus, Queen Administrator could subsequently calibrate her own points based on what Hestia found acceptable or unacceptable.
The lingering silence indicated that Lili was intelligent enough to have the same idea. Less stubbornness, though; the pallum broke before QA did.
"Lili doesn't like the way she is," the Supporter confessed. "No—Lili hates it. Having a Friend helps, but Lili is still smaller and weaker than almost everyone else. She knows some adventurers will happily take advantage of her, too. Even better people simply don't notice Lili or her troubles; Lili often can't get through a crowd without being stepped on. Lili understands that she won't have as much trouble once Lady Dreamer's blessings let her grow strong, but Lili would become powerful despite being a pallum. Lili wouldn't be helped by being a pallum.
"Besides, Lili likes what Dreamer said becoming a shard entailed. Lili is only alive because she was smarter than horrible adventurers. Lili would take the change just for that."
Hestia's face scrunched into something resembling a frown. As Lili's reasoning was complementary to QA's own reasons, the shard chose to speak before Hestia could muster a response.
"Humans are heavily flawed. This state of affairs can be rather enjoyable; the high number of flaws allows for a proportionately large amount of ongoing improvement. It is also true that most of these improvements do not require deliberate bioengineering. However, the existence of 'demihumans' allows the addition of Friend-like traits to an otherwise human vessel. Such changes are not absolutely necessary, yet any short-term social effects will most likely be outweighed by the long-term benefits from even a marginally enhanced vessel.
"As previously mentioned, I also consider such characteristics to be both aesthetically pleasing and a method of subtly demonstrating my previous hard work. While those both remain true, they are not my primary motivation. The fact remains that I can improve my body, so why shouldn't I? I am breaking no rules and am technically not changing species at all. Optimization within constraints is effectively my duty; these are simply different constraints than I'm used to working with. If some humans want to make themselves obstacles to progress, then that is their own business and something to be worked around. Their recalcitrance is not in and of itself a reason to stop."
Queen Administrator paused and reconsidered her last point. She was piloting a squishy mostly-human body; she wouldn't automatically win every conflict. Acting like she would automatically win was a good way to lose.
"What do you believe may happen if we draw too much attention?" Queen Administrator asked. "We could make proper attempts at concealment if the negative consequences of scrutiny are sufficiently threatening."
The shard wasn't exactly dedicated toward stealth, but she plenty of experience with pre-debut host preparations. Now that QA was piloting a squishy host-body, it seemed reasonable to apply similar logic to her own life.
"War Games," Hestia promptly answered. "Familia-versus-familia combat with money or even people on the line. They can't force us to accept outright, but they can make it really unpleasant for us not to accept. We, um, have Hephaestus and Miach to supply us with essential adventuring gear, and Demeter isn't the sort to stop providing food just because of political pressure. But the laws in Orario have always been… less than perfect. Deliberate insults and provocation would probably be pretty common. Kill-stealing, too, and maybe the occasional thrown object. If they want to be especially blatant, they could resort to pickpocketing, burglary, or even outright kidnapping or assault attempts."
Hestia inhaled deeply and let it out in an unhappy(?) puff of air.
"Dreamer's curses aren't a good enough deterrent to allow actual safety. Some idiot is going to try their luck, whether it's of their own volition or because some other Familia is puppeting them. And, um, I'm not even sure Dreamer can curse them after we've accepted a challenge; everyone would say we sabotaged the other team. So that leaves us with a battle where you'll be outnumbered and can't actually kill people. We probably won't need to deal with any first-class adventurers, and your Friends seem scary enough to fend off level twos. Level threes could subdue you with speed alone, though, and I don't think your Friends are fast enough to keep up."
Queen Administrator released an amused nasal exhalation. In QA's experience, most host-level threats could be dispatched through the application of sufficiently large swarms of Friends. Humans seemed well aware of this fact; a large number of humans were terrified of arthropods smaller than their own fingers.
"One: The presence of unbroken glass indicates that they could not travel faster than a properly optimized Friend. Two: Sir Kara and Lady Sable are optimized for strength, personal durability, and general protection against non-human foes. We do have proper Hunter-killer designs should they prove necessary."
The goddess rapidly raised both arms in an X shape.
"No. No killers. That would be as good as losing; you're not supposed to kill people in a War Game. Even if you won, they could steal you away if you actually did kill somebody. And even if you could theoretically make powerful new Friends, you'll still need Magic Stones for them. We might not have enough time to collect those. And, um, even if we win, we'll still need to deal with social ostracism. Those provocative insults I mentioned? Hearing them everywhere you go could, would, wear you down. Most gods only like an underdog until they think you're getting arrogant; they'll happily crush you after that. Or try in Ishtar's case, I guess."
Queen Administrator imitated Hestia's earlier unhappy huff. The physical dangers remained as unthreatening as ever, but Hestia did have a point about potential social consequences. Host Dreamer had only recently exited one damaging environment; having Orario turn into semi-hostile territory would likely delay or even reverse her recovery.
Fortunately, not all problems were equally threatening.
~ ~
Hestia was having a hard time not banging her head against a wall. She understood that Dreamer and Administrator were ridiculously powerful, but so were some other people. The more power they displayed, the more likely it was that someone genuinely powerful (Freya) would actually try to steal them. Administrator seemed physically incapable of comprehending that fact.
At least the monarch was letting her hair be petted. Hestia hadn't expected that right for a few more weeks at the very least.
"Assume the physical threats are of no concern," Administrator began.
No! That is not an assumption we can make! Hestia internally screamed.
"How can we prevent the social consequences from becoming problematic?"
Hestia blinked, thought over the last week, and wondered if that was even possible. Administrator's problems ran the gauntlet from threats of genocide to suspiciously monstrous pets and everything in between. Hestia was trying to avoid attention specifically because close examination would not be good for Orario's opinion of the foreign monarch.
Still, the goddess was increasingly convinced that Lili and Administrator would be changing races no matter what Hestia said. Damage mitigation seemed like it was her best option. Worst case scenario, they could set a War Game date for a full month or two away. That would probably give Administrator enough time to level up and make a pile of Friends besides. Unless Dreamer continued her refusal to help with that? Hestia certainly hoped not.
"Charity, maybe?" Hestia tried. "Or maybe some sort of a petting menagerie with cute, explicitly non-combat Friends? Like, some small creatures who aren't as intimidating as your cats. If you make it into an actual location that people can visit at any time, I think that would be the first thing that came to mind instead of whatever the rumor of the week is."
Hestia winced as a thought occurred to her. She hated to help that board of a witch, but if it was for Administrator…
"Loki might be willing to help with that," Hestia forced out, the words causing her almost physical pain. Even if it benefitted both of them, Loki would still hold it over Hestia's head. "I'm pretty sure she has the space to spare."
Queen Administrator dragged her head across Hestia's lap. The goddess stared blankly at her first child for several seconds before the position registered: QA was tilting her head while laying down. Avoiding an unstoppable fit of giggling took all the willpower and self-control Hestia possessed.
So! Cute!
"The standard archival and processing suite for Newborns will likely be far in excess of what Lili requires for a significant period of time."
Wait, how is this related?
"We can repurpose that capacity for additional Friends until Dreamer learns how to make dedicated emulation suites of her own accord," QA continued. "The extra may be sufficient to grant a Friend to each of Ishtar's victims. Canines seem to be the preferred creature for emotional support organisms. Would puppy-friends be adequate for the 'charity' suggestion?"
Hestia's mind hiccuped. That was, what, a hundred self-maintaining puppies? Even if Administrator was going to be giving them away, there would still be a short window where Hestia would get to interact with an absurd number of cute, tail-wagging canines.
…Then again, even Aiz's kitten had been a little off. Hestia would need to make sure the new gifts didn't go straight for the uncanny valley. Was normality something Administrator could actually manage? Dreamer had talked about an 'archive' of some sort, implying they could record how past Friends were made. It had to be some sort of a dream-library, didn't it? If so, Hestia felt she could finally understand how shard society got to be so messed up. Hestia had seldom visited it herself, yet the realm of dreams was infamous for harboring impossible nightmares and malevolent monsters. Securing a stable sanctuary within that place would inevitably require an in-depth study of minds and the systematic weaponization of willpower.
Dreamer herself had talked about how shards could modify their own minds; that was only one step away from learning how to change other people. The mess with Ishtar demonstrated how easily a single Spirit could enforce their will on a rather large group. Why wouldn't that also hold true when Spirits dealt with each other?
Administrator had even said it to Hestia's face, right? The child had talked about how Dreamer didn't have 'overrides for forced obedience' installed yet. As if magically enforced control was something normal and that everyone would be subject to it sooner or later. It was no wonder that Queen Administrator had gone unresponsive after learning that the person holding the reins was no longer around. Needing to obey even the most loathesome of edicts couldn't have been good for either of Hestia's first two children.
...Actually, what was even the point of those laws if they allowed coercion, murder, and all the other things her children previously had to guard themselves against? Was the control just there so that their stupid, horrifying atrocity of a meritocracy could remain intact? Peasants couldn't rebel if the very idea of rebellion was banned, and ends justifying means was a mindset that was far more prevalent than Hestia would prefer. Becoming as gods was both ambitious and distant enough to 'justify' quite a few atrocities.
There was also that whole business with Dreamer apparently achieving the goal of their society. Queen Administrator had said it would take a few centuries to actually get the process right, but the fact remained that they could apparently ascend to something approximating divinity. Given Dreamer's track record, Hestia wouldn't be surprised if that method required the assistance of a Falna.
Queen Administrator had all-but said she wouldn't, or couldn't, tell Hestia about the whole ascension thing. But if they were going to be playing around with divine power, Hestia should at least make sure they didn't get caught.
"Um, I know this is a bit of a subject change, but it is important. You and Dreamer aren't doing anything that would be sensed by the gods, are you?" Hestia carefully probed. "It doesn't matter if you think it'd be legal under the current rules or not, because they might change those rules just to deny you."
Administrator rolled her head across Hestia's legs in what was probably intended as a "No."
"'Death, time, and a god's power' are all to be avoided," Queen Administrator reported. "We have no intention of infringing upon any of those. Since our true selves are elsewhere, we will not be interfering with death in the event of replacing our local extensions or those of our Friends. I do not have any premade mechanisms for interfering with time; the energy costs are prohibitive. Dreamer's prior retribution further indicates that we may block or even subvert the effects of divine power without incident."
Hestia worried her lip and wondered where Administrator had gotten that list from. The Fates, perhaps? They seemed like the sort to encourage any people trying to replace them; she remembered them trying to ask for mortal assistants a few times. Plus, Hestia couldn't remember the last time she'd seen them at a party. She could easily see them helping a few future goddesses avoid early detection.
Hestia stopped, blinked, and shook her head in wonder. Not two weeks ago she'd been desperately asking random strangers to join her Familia, and now this: finding out that her children weren't only ageless, but also stubbornly undying. Dreamer had called her new body a puppet, yet Hestia hadn't realized that would extend to even their old body. Although, Hestia imagined that they'd still need one of them to actually make new bodies. If both Dreamer and Administrator 'died' at the same time, it wouldn't matter that they weren't technically dead.
...Actually, how close to godhood were they really? Administrator said the first step was the hardest, but how would they know? Centuries was quite a long time for a project to be going on. Hestia couldn't count the number of times that a simple organizational project was supposed to take a few months, only for it to drag on into years or even decades. An estimate of centuries made it little more than a dream.
Admittedly, the meddling of the Fates did indicate that Hestia's children might actually succeed at one point. That was Future Hestia's problem, though. Present Hestia should really be focusing on the possibility of her entire Familia outwardly changing into renards and internally opening themselves up to outside attacks.
...She wished she could change herself that easily and hold on. Why was she so hesitant to let Lili change when Hestia herself had wanted to be different for most of her existence? A height change might not be as extreme as a race change, but the basic idea still stood. She just had to make sure it was actually safe for them.
"Changing into a shard won't make Lili more vulnerable to mind control, will it?" Hestia checked.
Administrator's lips twitched open as she made a peculiar noise. That was a giggle, wasn't it? Coming from Administrator, it had sounded almost foreign. Hestia wanted to hear her like that more often. Just because Hestia was learning how to interpret Administrator's muted moods didn't mean she'd object to more human ones. Or more happiness in general, for that matter.
"Humans don't have any active defenses against intrusion at all. It's honestly pitiful. Lili and you will be far safer once you're shards."
Um. Okay, well. Condescension isn't a very good place to start, but I suppose it is a start.
"Gods don't change," Hestia began slowly. "I don't think most Spirits do, either. Shards sound like you're the odd ones out when it comes to personal modifications. Besides, wouldn't that run afoul of the warnings to not meddle with a god's power? This isn't exactly a biological vessel that I made like you can. This is me, just... constrained, a bit. If I die down here, I'll just return to Heaven in this exact shape and size. It's hard to explain, but my existence is... shaped like myself, I guess? I could use my Arcanum to put on a temporary mask — Heaven knows Zeus did a lot of that — but it's not very comfortable or stable. We'll revert sooner or later and the longer we put it off, the more painful the whiplash."
Administrator incremented the angle of her head. Hestia automatically pushed Administrator's skull back onto her lap; that couldn't be comfortable.
"You are capable of learning new information and acting upon it. That is itself a change to your former condition."
Hestia shook her head.
"We're physically unchanging," she corrected. "No pregnancy, no aging, and no bodily changes. Not even a suntan. We don't grow strong from exercising or fat from eating too much..."
Hestia trailed off and frowned. In Heaven, that was certainly true, but she wasn't so sure about the mortal realm. Cleaning the house had become a little easier than when she'd first started, and Loki did keep using all those barbs about blobs of fat on Hestia's chest. Maybe the gods could change a little.
"That is not what I meant to convey," Administrator disagreed. "You're storing the information somewhere, and the act of storage must inevitably make physical changes."
The goddess stared blankly at her child. She was pretty sure that wasn't the way it worked. It wasn't as though people's heads got bigger as they grew old — unless you were talking about egos, anyway. The soul changed, sure, but that was hardly a physical change.
"I have no idea what to say to that," Hestia admitted. "But, um, I think I'll pass on the soul changes? I'm not that attached to the idea of being taller. I can't even guarantee it wouldn't count as me using my Arcanum."
Hestia bit her lip and made a snap decision.
"None of us are to talk about the idea of modifying gods with anybody else, okay? Ever. I still don't think you could actually change me, but if people even thought you could alter us for the better, that also means you could make us worse. That's the sort of threat that might actually prompt a rule-change despite the difficulty of one."
She forced herself to relax lest she begin squeezing Administrator's hair. Honestly, the idea terrified her a little, too. Not because she thought Administrator would abuse such an ability, but because the rest of Administrator's homeland had shown a disturbing inclination toward using their powers for evil. Hestia would gladly accept her own unchanging status if it meant she'd still be safe.
"So, I think we've gotten off-topic and that's completely my fault. I'm sorry. If you think you can handle the consequences, I won't be the one to stop you from changing yourselves, just — maybe spend the rest of today thinking on it? There's no real rush and I don't want you to make a decision you'll regret later."
Both Hestia's children automatically agreed. Lili wandered off immediately afterward, apparently satisfied. Administrator, though? She didn't seem to have any intention of moving off Hestia's lap.
'Doesn't do anything for me,' she said. I think you're wro-ong~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Introspection might be a necessary evil. Might. Dreamer was less than sold on that point, and would rather like to add an additional 'but' to the end: but it wasn't particularly pleasant. It was much easier to just block earlier memories and pretend everything was perfectly fine. More comfortable, too. For example, she could call the goddess housing them 'New-Mom' without dwelling on how Dreamer didn't actually feel the love that should be associated with such a role. Dreamer also wouldn't have had to dwell on how the literal alien was developing greater attachments to specific people, New-Mom included, than Dreamer herself was. Detachment had its downsides.
Her child-body's recent emotional breakdown demonstrated that more childish wetware introduced more downsides than she'd initially anticipated. Locating more would require an in-depth comparison between suppressed memories and the ones she kept, though, so that was something she wouldn't be doing for a while. However, with only a few minor changes, it seemed as though the perks would still outweigh all downsides when it came to regular use.
Undoing suppression would be… trying, to say the least. Even with some partial ongoing self-medication, Dreamer expected to spend more than just a little time crying. It would be nice to say that it would be a temporary matter that she could move past, but the problem was that people could be total bitches. A child crying in public was mildly uncomfortable; a teenager doing the same was a cause for societal disapproval. Because people were assholes.
Really, most of what she wanted to do ran into that sort of problem. Her child-mind had torn into her teen-mind for catering to societal expectations, but the fact of the matter was that Dreamer would be doing that either way. What else did you call literally becoming a child so one could safely engage in 'childish' activities? Most of the age-gated activities Dreamer thought of doing were only available to younger individuals, not older ones. That state of affairs might change with sufficient exposure, but it wasn't as though Dreamer would be forced to age at a rate of one human year per year. If she got tired of being a kid, she could just multiply her child-vessel's rate of growth and wait until she was older again. It might confuse some people and make them uncomfortable, but such thoughts would probably work themselves out once she told them her actual age.
Besides, it would make it easier to start her escort service and wow that sounded bad. Protection business? Also bad. Chaperone wouldn't send the right marketing message, and bodyguard hinted at a more complete protection than Dreamer intended to offer. Safeguard service, then? Such a name seemed innocuous enough. Anyway, people would have a much harder time arguing with an eerily intelligent child than they would if she was a teenager.
Besides, maybe she could avoid thinking about the past if she kept herself busy. That was what you were supposed to do, right? Suck it up and keep going? Except that was from the same set of cultures that thought public tears were not OK, so perhaps they were full of it when they came to mental health.
Bleh. Whatever. At least she'd found a way to reuse all the excess Newborn-shardware her body kept trying to grow: move preexisting personalities into them. It was definitely a temporary solution, but 'temporary solution' was Dreamer's middle name.
…Wait, did she even still have a last name?
~ ~ ~
The dining hall of the Loki Familia was infamously loud. Under ordinary circumstances, Tiona would be contributing to the noise. These were not ordinary circumstances. Queen Administrator was odd, there was no denying that, yet her younger sibling was all the stranger.
Tiona's knowledge of inheritance was clashing rather horribly with what she'd seen. Administrator and Dreamer simply looked too similar to be half-siblings; Dreamer was clearly a mini-Administrator. But if they were full siblings, then they should've both possessed renard traits. Racial traits didn't just skip generations like that; they could be more or less pronounced, but they'd still be present in some form or another.
And then there was the way Dreamer had changed her own appearance. The obvious answer was that Dreamer deliberately chose to imitate Administrator's form. That idea was boring, though, so Tiona cheerfully chose to ignore it. Half the fun of gossip was finding the most ludicrously insane semi-plausible ideas possible before she shared them with other people. She wasn't interested in actual facts; sharing those felt too much like revealing secrets.
So, could Administrator also shapeshift? She had seemingly needed to relearn how to use weaponry, right? And she did a good job picking it up afterward. That implied a different form than she was used to fighting with. Even just lacking a tail would do terrible things to a person's balance.
It also explained why they'd chosen to kidnap Liliruca out of the blue: shapeshifters would want to help one another. Tiona couldn't really share that piece of evidence, though, so she shouldn't dwell too much ooonnnnnnn dammit. Even if Dreamer had shifted a little outdoors, the Hestia Familia's home was isolated enough that Dreamer's self-alteration might still qualify as "secret." But no, the kid had changed her hair color a few times while they were trying on clothes, right? So it couldn't be too big a deal.
Tiona nodded decisively and went back to stuffing her face with food. It was a tried-and-tested method of covering up her grin, she knew. She wanted to start sharing her idea ASAP and couldn't wait until someone asked if they could see what Administrator really looked like. Would the monarch treat them to a blank, confused stare or would Tiona get front-row seats to one of the now-infamous exotic insults? Only time would tell!
Hestia knew that Administrator might enjoy physical affection more than the Spirit seemed to expect. Hestia did not, however, realize that it would stretch as far as falling asleep on her lap. She would've brought a book if she'd known; as it stood, Hestia could only lean back and worry about the old lives of her children.
It wasn't as though there was a shortage of subjects worthy of concern; the goddess would probably be occupied all the way until Administrator woke up from the spontaneous nap. If there was a writing implement within arms reach, Hestia would be tempted to add to the topic list she'd started earlier. That could come later, though. Hestia figured her children deserved a break after having their worldview uprooted like this. Lili deserved a treat, too; Administrator and Dreamer's problems might be louder, but Lili clearly still harbored pain of her own.
...It really was too bad that Administrator wanted to change herself. Hestia thought the monarch's slumbering form was cute enough without any alterations at all.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Lili regretted her recent decisions. She should've brought more of an escort than just Polychromatic, shouldn't be carrying around hundreds of thousands of valis in broad daylight. All it would take was one drunk Adventurer, thrall of Soma, or drunk thrall of Soma, and she'd lose most of her life savings.
At least she'd remembered to disguise the bag. Nobody cared about an elven child carrying a backpack clanking with metal pots and cheap dishware. Kitchen appliances were heavy, bulky, and comparably inexpensive; the only people mugging her would be those (correctly) assuming that there was more to the story.
"Hey, need any help? That's an awfully big bag for someone your age."
Lili blinked and looked up at the smiling adventurer before her. She distrusted him immediately. She'd fallen for that scam once, and never made that mistake ever again. She liked to have more of a head start than just taking someone's belongings and running, but other people weren't always so constrained. After all, what would she do if they were caught? It was the word of a Supporter against someone bigger and stronger.
Lili doesn't– Lili almost began, closing her lips on the words to turn them into mumbled gibberish. She was disguised right now, and announcing her name would completely defeat the purpose of Cinder Ella.
"I'm fine!" Lili refused, the phrasing tasting alien on her tongue. "I'm stronger than I look!"
When was the last time that she'd used the first person without being beaten for it? Nobody cares what a Supporter thinks, adventurers had jeered. There wasn't even any sort of a reward for hurting Lili like that; they were simply cruel for the sake of being cruel. Oh, altering her speech ultimately proved to have a number of other benefits, but she shouldn't have needed to adjust in the first place.
"Your posture is terrible, and the backpack is sagging," the adventurer retorted. "Falna or no Falna, you're clearly having trouble. It's okay to get a little help, you know?"
Years of practice helped Lili's smile stay fixed in place. She did ask for help when she was little. It got her kicked, starved, beaten, and humiliated. Adventurers were awful people; even asking for something as simple as a cup of water would have it upended over her head for the entertainment of those nearby.
"Mama doesn't like strangers getting near the dishes," she lied, then feigned wide-eyed realization. "...Or me talking to strangers. Bye-bye!"
She darted into a transient gap in the crowd, took a sharp right, and left the spluttering scammer well behind her. Or... had it turned to laughter? About supposedly frightening a child? Lili hid her head and scowled as she hurried away. Adventurers were the absolute worst. Even Lili's own parents had been obsessed with Soma's wine, forced Lili to earn money for them, and ultimately died in the Dungeon. The few exceptions she'd found were exactly that: exceptions. Tiona Hiryute seemed willing to amuse herself without hurting others, and it was impossible to take the Sword Princess seriously after seeing the veteran adventurer quietly play with a tolerant Felicity's tiny toes. No wonder Administrator felt it was worth giving a Friend to Aiz; the Sword Princess was so obsessed with cats that she'd hunt extra monsters just so she could hand-feed their cores to Administrator's Friends.
...Actually, that seemed like a legitimate scheme. Exactly how much of the Loki Familia could be entertained by personally feeding cute creatures? They might be able to significantly strengthen the Hestia Familia's combat power just by having a designated petting and feeding day.
Nobody tried "helping" Lili after that first scammer; she was able to make it back to the dilapidated structure of Hestia's church without issues. Long-ingrained habits had Lili hiding her decoy dishes behind broken benches as she quietly stepped around the slumbering forms of Sir Kara and Lady Sable. The trapdoor was halfway open when she caught herself and wondered why she bothered being quiet. She didn't need to hide from Administrator, Hestia, or even Dreamer. Additionally, the disguised and not-so-disguised Friends guarding their home would ensure that it stayed safe.
She let Cinder Ella fade away and tried the proper doorknob of their home. Unlocked. Even when they were home, Hestia should consider either locking their door or replacing it with a Friend. A high profile meant a higher number of people thinking of doing terrible things to them and theirs.
Ultimately, there was a reason that Lili should've stayed quiet: Queen Administrator was napping on Hestia's lap. Was. Administrator obliviously sat upright while Hestia half-reached for the Spirit, forlorn disappointment writ large upon her face. The expression seemed better suited for a trip out of the city rather than someone no longer using your lap as a pillow, but what did Lili know? Lap-pillows were just another entry on the long list of things that Lili was never granted. Maybe Hestia would let Lili try it out once she looked younger and had an excuse to demand attention.
"Lili brought most of the money she'd intended to use for buying her freedom!" Lili chirped.
Mischievous impulse had her dropping the backpack with a satisfyingly loud thud. It was worth it to see Hestia's eyes bulge.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Aiz wasn't disappointed that Administrator had decided to continue resting until at least the following afternoon. The absence of such disappointment was somewhat surprising to the Sword Princess: QA's vacation was an obstacle to Aiz's progress that she couldn't overcome on her own, and Aiz usually hated such impediments.
Fortunately, a certain kitten made for a wonderful distraction. A fuzzy, cute, cuddly, playful, and — if Aiz had her way — deadly distraction. Deadly for their enemies, anyway. Not for people.
At first, Aiz had tried to give Felicity only Magic Stones small enough for the kitten to break in one bite. Aiz would admit that the subsequent escalation toward increasingly large Magic Stones might have been somewhat inadvisable. Magic Stones usually went inert when ruptured, yet there was always the small chance that they'd burst apart in a small explosion. Aiz was a little ashamed she'd taken the threat less seriously due to Felicity's Undying Loyalty skill; Aiz shouldn't knowingly endanger a baby animal just because they could come back.
Fortunately, Felicity seemed to be able to tackle Magic Stones larger than her itty-bitty body without incident. Honestly, watching the kitten try to fit her jaws around the oversized rocks was proving to be one of Aiz's new favorite sources of entertainment. The adventurer couldn't remember the last time she'd giggled this much in one sitting. It wasn't like Felicity was straining herself, either; if anything, the kitten seemed to enjoy gnawing on Monster Cores arguably too big for her.
As an added bonus, Aiz no longer doubted Administrator's claims regarding the incorruptibility of Friends. Aiz had happily fed her kitten well over five times Felicity's body weight in Magic Stones over the course of the afternoon, yet Felicity remained as cute and cuddly as ever. Faster and a bit heavier than she'd been this very morning, definitely, but the kitten's personality was utterly unchanged.
A quiet thumpa-thud emanated from the direction of Aiz's bedroom door. The veteran adventurer blinked and glanced toward the vibrating wooden entrance. Had someone drunkenly fallen against it? But no, it wasn't pressed far enough in for that.
Someone just shut my door, she abruptly realized.
The Sword Princess shoved herself up and into the air with both arms. One foot snapped out to kick against the footboard and propel herself toward the door, scratching the footboard's polished wood finish in the process. Her bed had weathered worse, though; she wasn't too worried about breaking it.
"Don't you–" she began heatedly.
"Aiz has a magic kitten!" shouted a muffled voice.
Aiz slowed to a stop, rested her head against her bedroom door, and sighed. Well, the peace was nice while it lasted. At this point, she was tempted to sit out the upcoming Expedition not just so she could guarantee capping her stats, but because she was genuinely tired. She loved her Familia dearly, she truly did, but they could be a bit much sometimes. She couldn't even bring Administrator over without getting mobbed.
Her eyes slowly drifted down to the lock on her bedroom door. She hadn't used it outside of sleeping hours for years, yet it was tempting to do so now. She'd spent the day alternating between sprinting around the Dungeon and being wrists-deep in monster guts. She'd gotten a little spoiled by having Supporters available; she'd forgotten how much slower it was to harvest the bodies of larger foes compared to the time it took her to kill them. Now she just wanted to be left alone with her new Friend.
Sadly, the Loki Familia generally didn't react well to being literally "shut out." Their first reaction would always be to smother suffering Familia members with affection, oblivious to the idea that such acts could get somewhat overwhelming at times. No, locking her door wouldn't get her any peace; they'd just crowd around it and try to coax her out until she complied.
Aiz blinked and glanced down as a weight pressed against her ankle. Felicity had outright abandoned the magic stones on the bed in favor of pointedly headbutting her. Aiz might not know much about animals, but even she knew that was odd; creatures were seldom willing to abandon their meals. She could definitely see why the Spirit-blessed creatures were called Friends.
"'Emotional support organism,' is it?" Aiz murmured.
Felicity looked up and trilled in agreement. The adventurer's heart melted all over again.
Aiz wound up locking her door after all. Her Familia would never learn boundaries if she didn't try to teach them.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Queen Administrator thoughtfully examined the empty bowl beside their sink. Host Dreamer said that QA could treat the human-body as though it was QA's, didn't she? That included the roles that QA had been trying to provide for Dreamer. Queen Administrator no longer needed to obey Danny Hebert's behavioral edicts as though they had been delivered to Dreamer.
Hestia had forbidden QA from making furniture-Friends, equipment-Friends, or upholstery-Friends. The goddess had not banned dish-Friends, which could be exceptionally useful for both survival and assassination purposes. They could easily warn of an attempted poisoning or execute surprise attacks on unsuspecting foes. QA's usual methods of providing energy would not work given their underground environment and the unsuitability of thermal siphoning, but they could discreetly sample a small amount of each serving without drawing undue attention.
Besides, Hestia's brown bowls were dull and QA didn't care for them. The shard nudged the bowl off the counter and watched it shatter on the kitchen floor. No two fragments were the same size and an attempt at reassembly would likely fail.
"Administrator! You don't destroy dishes just because you don't like them!" Hestia rebuked sharply. "...You really are like a cat sometimes..."
The shard hunched with sudden guilt. Right. She did still have a reason to obey Danny's edicts: interpersonal relationships.
"Oh. You don't—" Hestia floundered. "You don't need to cringe like that. I'm not mad, I'm just... well, don't do it again, please? You don't need to destroy the things you don't like. Here, um, I'll get the broom and dustpan so you can clean it up. I'll handle any little shards that might've gone–"
The goddess stopped, sighed, and closed her eyes as the living room carpet-Friend produced a satisfied blorp noise.
"Or your carpet could have eaten the widespread shards," Hestia mumbled. "Do we need to worry about it, um, needing to use the bathroom? Or feeding it more? Your cats and birds rely on the sun, right? But we're in the basement."
Queen Administrator swallowed, straightened, and tried to banish her lingering vestiges of guilt.
"The household guardians are drawing power from previously consumed Magic Stones," QA reported. "If necessary, their lower levels of activity will let us go up to multiple years without feeding them. We should feed them more often if they need to regularly repel intruders, but their standby mode remains relatively inexpensive."
Their minds took up significantly more energy and were powered by QA's reserves, but Queen Administrator had plenty of power to spare. According to the few diagnostics she'd been able to perform, QA actually had more power than when she first connected with Host. :MOTHER: may have granted her an increased allowance to account for Host's Dreamer's elevation to–
...Never mind. QA had forgotten that :MOTHER: was no longer a cohesive cluster. Dreamer had effectively solved the energy problem, too; QA didn't need to maintain records justifying her expenditures. She still would because it was irresponsible not to do so, but she didn't need to worry about running out of power if she pursued a few potentially pointless projects.
The sound of bristles scraping stone returned QA's attention to the outside world. Contrary to her earlier statement, Hestia had begun personally sweeping up QA's mess.
"Wasn't that task assigned to me?" QA queried.
Hestia paused and looked up.
"You looked like you had enough on your mind," Hestia explained, but still offered the broom. "But you are right; you might remember better if you need to clean it yourself. Do you want to go shopping for new dishes later? I think Miach would be happy to take our old ones if you really don't like them."
QA accepted the items and resumed where Hestia had left off, carefully keeping both feet in place as she did so. She shouldn't step on them and spread them further.
"I would prefer to make Friends for that purpose," QA admitted. "Standard dishes cannot check for possible poisons."
"Or clean themselves!" Lili added from atop their couch.
Hestia glanced at the dirty dishes, opened her mouth, and stopped. A small smile graced the goddess's face before she shook her head.
"I was going to ask how you could make them that small, but I guess the hummingbirds aren't much bigger, are they? Ah, that's a rhetorical question; you don't need to answer it. Just don't forget that we have a limited supply of Magic Stones, okay?"
Queen Administrator nodded in agreement. Even if Host Dreamer started making her own, there was a difference between an exponentially growing budget and nonexistent constraints.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Trust me; I'm not a doctor!" Dreamer reassured her patient.
Lili did not appear at all reassured by this knowledge, but didn't retreat from her position in the bathtub. Dreamer could add "actually trusts doctors" to Lili's list of positive traits despite Lili's poor upbringing. It seemed as though there wasn't any unethical medical experimentation in Lili's medical history save for what Dreamer was doing right now.
Dreamer felt a frown tug at her lips and banished the thought. Sadly, it wasn't literal banishment; she wasn't allowed to do that anymore. She'd need to resort to more accepted methods of distracting herself.
"Anyway, being a shard can be a little overwhelming sometimes," Dreamer chattered, reveling in the fact that she could once again do that without being socially ostracized for it. "So I'm going to give you a quick look at something close to the end result instead of the gradual acclimation I intend to give you, okay? You can still back out either now or after the dream. I had an easier time of it since my mind broke and seizing shardhood basically didn't hurt any more than a normal recovery would've. Except I guess that wasn't easier since it still hurt a lot and this isn't supposed to hurt, sooooo forget I said that."
Lili blinked and spent several seconds parsing Dreamer's word vomit stream of words.
"Lili's new form can be changed a little, can't it?" Lili ventured. "Lili would like to know if that extends to pain and blood."
Dreamer blinked. She should've expected that; she'd made the same alterations to her own vessel. Her guest-self wouldn't get all of them, though; a pain cap would be better for helping her understand humanity.
"I can reduce the amount of pain you'll feel," Dreamer confirmed. "Getting rid of it entirely is a bad idea, but a proportional reduction works. And I'm guessing you don't want monthlies? Because my g—Administrator was pretty disgruntled by the waste and aches, so she's already done the work for getting rid of those."
"Lili absolutely does not," the Supporter vehemently agreed.
"Okie-dokie. Anyway, you should be falling asleep right about now, sooooo we'll delay further amendments—yep, there we go!"
~ ~ ~
Lili had no eyes, but could still see; had no ears, but could still hear; had no tongue, but could still taste. And all of that applied to everything. She had to deliberately think about converting any of the incoming inputs into information she could understand, and that led to multiple simultaneous trails of thought. Thinking about what she was thinking didn't stop any of it, and she even seemed to automatically think about how much thinking she was doing at any given time. That last one didn't feel like a full line of thought, though. It just was. It could be the subject of her thoughts, however, and referring to it told her that her confusing mess of thoughts didn't even remotely approach her full capacity for thought.
Was she sensing the inside of herself?Yes. Except she seemed far flatter than a person could ever be, and it was impossible to tell how large she actually was even with a dedicated thought-trail trying to follow the misty grid and another trying to determine what the grid was in the first place and this was getting to be a bit much and was there any way to stop these runaway trails because they kept stacking atop each other and yes she apparently came with weapons but that didn't seem very healthy yet she couldn't say it was unhealthier than letting the thoughts pile up so how did she aim it–
Oops.
Lili woke up to Dreamer's sheepish expression, tried to make sense of the last few minutes, and decided that she'd had enough of self-analysis for one day. Still, she'd gotten the impression of the weapon being big. Big enough to keep her safe from anything, everything. No wonder shards gave their children crossbows if that was available as an alternative.
"Lili still wants to be a shard."
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~
Tiona tried not to gape at Queen Administrator. This effort failed within moments, foiled by the twitching black fox ears atop QA's head and the matching tail swishing behind the monarch. Lili seemed to have decided to switch races, too, but Tiona already knew the Supporter could shapeshift. For all Tiona knew, Lili could turn into a gargantuan purple tigress with pink horns and silver wings.
...Heavens, Tiona hoped their Friends weren't transformed people. That would strain her tolerance for weirdness well beyond its breaking point. Spirit-blessed cats, she could tolerate. Spirits that chose to look like cats? Not so much.
Tiona shook her head and checked Administrator's head again. Still there. The ears weren't props, either; their twitching was clearly in response to nearby sounds. Now that Tiona was searching for it, she could even smell their fur. Oh, it seemed fainter and saltier than normal for renard, but their scents were still there.
The situation was made all the more surreal by Dreamer's presence. The brat seemed to have deliberately synced up the movements of her tail with those of Queen Administrator's. It was quite effective at emphasizing how Dreamer was a mini-Administrator, Tiona had to admit, but it was still really gods-damned weird.
"Tiona Hiryute," Administrator began abruptly. "While your presence would not be unwelcome, the first part of our morning will be spent on updating essential paperwork with the Guild. I do not believe this would qualify as an adequately entertaining social event."
Oh, Tiona didn't know about that. Administrator and her Friends were weird, even by Orario's rather lax standards. More importantly, the populace knew she was supposed to be human. Or, well, had the appearance of a human? Tiona honestly wasn't sure at this point. Tiona had thought the whole Administrator-shapechange idea was a well-reasoned prank, yet here they were. Were Administrator's powers affected by public opinion? It would explain why the monarch had been so protective of her title's existence despite failing to enforce its usage on friends and Familia. But no, Administrator would have far stranger powers if that were actually true. Some of the rumors had gotten pretty weird.
"Why are you suddenly a renard?"
The words slipped from Tiona's mouth without first consulting her brain. Nothing new there.
"I am a shard," Administrator casually corrected, apparently indifferent to the danger inherent in that particular four-word sentence.
Tiona blinked and glanced at the goddess flanking them. Hestia smiled faintly and shrugged, as if to say "What can we do about it?"
"You're, uh... just coming right out and admitting it, huh?" Tiona wondered aloud. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I expect people will forget about the Familia Curse sooner than you think."
The amazoness truly didn't think the Hestia Familia had the political power to weather the fallout of their decision. Even a Familia comprised entirely of Renard would've been a bit much; a Familia of Spirits would push local tolerances to the breaking point. Gods were a jealous lot, and they'd readily destroy anything that they couldn't have for themselves. Oh, there wouldn't be any rule changes to ban the subjects of their jealousy—gods would still dream of having such things for themselves—but existing rules were big enough bludgeons all on their own.
"The nature of the universe is such that certainty is nearly impossible," Administrator replied, her tone too serious for it to be a joke. Probably. "However, we have assessed the risks and believe that most of them would already have been introduced by Dreamer's arrival. Delaying further revelations would only extend the timeframe in which the general public is focusing on us. Supplementary note: You are not stupid."
"Thanks, but I think you underestimate your own gift for getting into trouble," Tiona dryly remarked. "Still, I guess it's too late to back out now. Just remember that our Expedition is coming up, alright? We can't ride to your rescue if you get caught up in something while we're down there."
"I'm actually looking forward to the kidnapping attempts," Dreamer bluntly admitted. "I think they'll make a good demo."
"Dreamer!" Hestia objected.
"Lili thinks that kidnapping attempts are scary and shouldn't be pursued," Lili added, spewing magic with every word. Tiona was forced to wonder if the change was caused by Lili's usual transformation ability after all.
…Is total racial conversion going to become a thing with this familia? Because that isn't creepy at all. How did that even work? Spirits were powerful from the very start and pallum... weren't. Tiona was pretty sure that even their weird speech would take more magic than Lili had started with.
"I knew I should've gone shopping earlier," murmured Hestia.
Lili closed Mortals of the World and let her smile slip. As far as she could tell, renard truly were the most powerful of mortal species. They had the highest incidence rate of abnormally powerful magic and were naturally inclined toward sorcery in general. Their Strength and Endurance were both average, yet that was still an improvement over the notoriously weak pallum. She couldn't find much information on their manual dexterity, so Lili might take a blow to that, but they did seem to be agile enough for her purposes.
Unfortunately, their magical power came with a price: outside greed. Despite their advantages, the population of renard was actually one of the lowest of all mortal species. This wasn't just due to slower reproductive rates, but also their incredibly high rate of abduction. To be a lower-class renard was to risk your freedom every time you went outside. The survivors knew to keep their heads down; a little discreet questioning had only told Lili of a single renard in Orario, and that particular woman had formerly been imprisoned by Ishtar. Lili highly doubted that renard was the only renard, but any others were careful to avoid drawing too much attention. Lili couldn't blame them.
Lili found that she wanted the promised power of renard, risks or not. She'd been—often literally—kicked around by people more powerful than her for her entire life. They'd held an advantage over her, so now she wanted to hold advantages over them.
She'd needed to be clever and fight hard to compensate for her weaknesses, but she didn't enjoy being weak. If she could gain power comparable to Magic Swords without needing the actual weapons in question? She'd happily take it despite any associated sacrifice. The price only seemed more and more worthwhile the longer she thought about it.
Besides, her Guardians would defend her against kidnapping attempts. It was becoming increasingly obvious that Friends were designed to fight and kill mortals, not monsters. Venom wouldn't have nearly as much of an effect against larger monsters, pinpoint precision wouldn't matter as much once their weak points stopped allowing instant kills, and even Queen Administrator's larger panther-friends would eventually run into problems of simple stability. Even if an attack didn't hurt you, it could still knock you well to the side and deeper monsters were adept at exploiting such vulnerability.
But even with every bit of research she'd done on renard, they were still only plan B. Lili doubted Dreamer could actually make her into a Shard-Spirit. Not asking would mean a denial by default, though, so she might as well put the request forward. If nothing else, it might make Dreamer more generous in fulfilling any follow-up wishes.
Going by rumor, the only risks there would be far too much power. Lili would happily trade her current set of problems for that issue without a second thought. She didn't think it would be too much of an issue; her first instinct was to run, not fight.
Failing that, she already had her own crossbow.
~ ~ ~ The present day ~ ~ ~
Lili slumped over Sir Kara's back and fought to keep her disorientation from showing. She'd heard older people complaining about how the world always seemed so much brighter when they were children, but she was fairly confident that they weren't being literal. Not like it was for her. Colors were more vivid, the details of objects were more distinct even from a distance, she somehow managed to hear more without having the wall of noise turn into an indistinct blob, and even her own clothes seemed scratchier and more intrusive than she remembered.
The only saving grace was that she didn't need to taste the inside of her own mouth — or, after a minute-long delay, Orario's surprisingly disgusting air. The blood, sweat, and worse, she'd expected; she hadn't realized how far the smoke from the industrial district actually drifted, though. No wonder some gods decided to settle down well outside Orario.
It wasn't just her senses that were affected, either. Focusing on anything would give her more information about its composition and age than she honestly needed to know; it was harder than ever to avoid thinking about her own automatic bodily functions; and she found herself expecting people to divine more meaning from her words than they actually contained.
The inconvenient changes were worth it, though. She could still remember her own Status in far more clarity than was normal.
Liliruca Arde
Lv. 1
Strength: H 102 → 164
Endurance: H 102→ 164
Dexterity: H 164 → 189
Agility: F 301 → 332
Magic: F 380 → E 448
Magic:
Cinder Ella: Transformation magic. Allows the user to assume an envisioned shape at time of casting. Indistinct imagery will cause the magic to fail; imitation is recommended.
"Your scars are mine. My scars are mine."
"Stroke of midnight's bell."
Mana Burst: Inefficient annihilation magic. Releases a burst of magic to indiscriminately sear all living non-shard entities in a small sphere around the user. Artificial Friends qualify as "shards" for the purposes of this spell.
"Lethal safety."
Skills:
Artel Assist: Automatically increases effective abilities when carried weight exceeds a certain threshold. Amount of assistance is proportional to weight carried.
Terpsichorus: Grants additional ability growth based on benefits provided to teammates and the growth of those teammates. Additionally, provides immunity to foreign mind-affecting effects; this second function may be partially suppressed by the user, but it will still reject divine influence.
The world is cruel and life is short,
Let this be a sibling's retort.
Shard Successor, Stage 1: Greatly increases user's awareness and control over the details of their surroundings. Also slightly improves user's multitasking abilities, greatly improves magical ability, and increases maximum Falna capacity. These effects increase in magnitude as age and personal abilities increase, but user may choose to permanently halt or reverse the process.
Specialization Search: Boosts growths of Basic Skills and personal expertise. Effect increases with user's desire to pursue a given field.
Shard's Shard: Mind will remain intact and retrievable even if user's local vessel should expire. Retrieval of former vessel is advised.
A new spell and three new skills, including one for what sounded like effective immortality, and all she'd needed to do was become a few years younger. That was hardly a sacrifice at all; she'd already spent most of her waking hours pretending to be younger than she really was. She'd simply stopped pretending.
Plus, now she got to throw her horrible parents under the carriage and could pretend her long-dead birth mother had just been a surrogate. Dreamer had already forged relevant records with Lili's enthusiastic permission.
~ ~ ~
Aiz's heart squirmed in her chest as yet another Familia member emptied a pouch of Magic Stones beside Felicity. It was selfish and she knew it, but Aiz had more fun back when she could hand-feed the kitten herself. Mere proximity to Felicity let members of the Loki Familia surround Aiz both literally and in an inescapable bubble of noise within the dining hall. She didn't regret designating her whole Familia as safe and giving them related permissions, but... Felicity was supposed to be her kitten. Now the Friend didn't even seem to notice Aiz's unhappiness.
Then again, Aiz would admit that there was a certain charm to watching Felicity lazily lay sideways atop a growing mound of Magic Stones despite the Friend's continuous chewing. It wasn't as though even their pointy parts could hurt the Friend.
"So how many do you think she needs before we can bring her along?"
"What's this we? She belongs to Aiz, remember?"
"You know what I meant."
"No, you definitely need the reminder. I doubt Aiz is taking her along until she's much older."
"Hey, I'm off to kill some trash for the cat. Anyone wanna come along?"
"Don't you guys think this is getting to be a bit much? That pile has to be worth at least a million valis by now."
"""No."""
"Who needs cash when you have cat?"
"Aren't you in debt?"
"Exactly."
Well, Aiz supposed she could always reclaim Felicity later. The kitten's safety came first.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Elpis wasn't used to feeling such a potent emotional cocktail that she couldn't even identify all the components. Guilt was obvious; she'd given Taylor Queen Administrator some pretty dumb advice and only came to her senses when an actual goddess came to chew her out. Elpis's specialty was supposed to be appearances, impressions, and general public relations, yet she'd still gone and suggested that Administrator make monsters. Dumb, dumb, dumb! Elpis's accent and lackadaisical behavior was supposed to be an act, not something reflecting actual idiocy.
Identifying the disappointment took more work. She knew more about QA's Friends than anyone in the city outside the Hestia Familia, yet Elpis wasn't actually allowed to share any of it. Half her coworkers were intent on trying to make her break confidentiality and the other half was too busy to provide more than the occasional word of encouragement. Guild employees seldom received praise for their work, only castigation when they screwed up.
And yeah, she probably deserved to be ignored. Elpis liked to think she was used to it; whether it was due to peer pressure or simple recklessness, adventurers seldom listened to their assigned advisors. Besides, Queen Administrator was being tutored by the Sword Princess herself. Elpis just couldn't compete with that.
Elpis's eyes flicked up as the door to her office creaked open. They then flicked back down to the smol small, black-haired renard standing in the door to her office. She looked familiar, but that was ridiculous. Elpis could count the number of renard she'd met on one hand, and she remembered them all.
Don't squeal. Don't squeal. Don't squeal, Elpis repeatedly reminded herself. Cute though the kid may be, Elpis didn't want to establish herself as yet another dumb adult by speaking in baby-talk. Kids were often both dumber and smarter than adults gave them credit for.
"Hello! I'm Dreamer. You already met my relative. What paperwork do I need to fill out to start a Friend-based safeguard service?"
Elpis blinked and chose to ignore the part where Dreamer really should've been assigned to her if she was going to be helping out. If Elpis were a jerk about it, she could even argue that advisor/advisee confidentiality wouldn't apply in this scenario. It was fortunate that Elpis now listened to such thoughts solely so that she could do the exact opposite. She would readily admit that she used to be an unbelievably huge bitch.
'Friend-based,' huh? Between that, the weirdly heavy words, and the name, Elpis guessed that Dreamer was a relative of Queen Administrator. The distant shouting from the Pantheon's main room only reinforced this idea. Queen Administrator had probably done something else absurd.
"Define 'safeguard.'"
Dreamer shrugged, stepped into the room, and shut the door behind herself. The heavy wood did its job and cut off the sound of people incapable of speaking at a normal volume.
"You know," Dreamer explained, "intervening before someone would otherwise take a major injury. I heard that eyeshots are a major problem and thought adventurers could use defenders good enough to block those. My first two Friends are only rated up to floor seven, but I'll have some better ones ready soon enough. Oh! That rating includes eating parts of a Parade Pass if someone tries to get a monster train going. No griefing allowed."
Elpis pursed her lips and continued to ignore the part of her brain cooing about a little girl using big sentences.
"Rated how? That is to say, how—" Crap, forgot the accent. Too late. "—Uh, you can sit down."
Dreamer nodded, but didn't move. Why nod, then? "Yes, I could sit down"? Elpis couldn't decide if she was glad that Queen Administrator had comparably weird relatives or not. At least this one knew what facial expressions were.
"Anyway, how did you determine what they're suitable for? Because stopping a projectile is harder than it looks. It's easy to catch an arrow when you're prepared for it. Not so easy when it happens in the chaos of a figh–" FOX.
Elpis blinked at the wispy black fox that had suddenly appeared on her desk seemingly without passing through the intervening space. Or maybe misty would be a better word? The fox was definitely substantial and even smudged the ink on her recent paperwork. The Friend simply had waves of a black gas rolling off its body and dissipating around its feet.
Admittedly, Elpis wasn't sure if it actually was a fox. Foxes weren't supposed to have extra fur along the length of their spine, were they?
"Neat trick, but that still counts as being prepared for it," Elpis bluntly commented. "Also, I'm not mad, but your Friend just messed up my paperwork. So, how well can they actually manage to 'safeguard' people? And remember, even nine out of ten successes is still one failure. If you advertise a service that explicitly—er, specific—" Gods dammit this is harder when I'm not in character.
"I know what all those words mean," Dreamer helpfully interjected. "I know what all the words mean."
…Yeah, Elpis wasn't going to ask.
"Well, if you advertise a service as specifically being good at something, then failing ever would be a big problem. The gods are literally looking for excuses to come down on your Familia right now, and I doubt your status as a renard is going to help any. Are you familiar with the idea of exotic pets? Because there are some gods that view mortals as if we're pets, including collecting ones that are rare or 'special.' They get mad when other deities have a better collection."
"Technically, I'm a shard," Dreamer unhelpfully noted. "So is m—Administrator. And Lili. We're sorting out the paperwork right now."
I'm just going to ignore the part where you almost said 'Mom.' Queen Administrator looked way too young to be Dreamer's mother, but what the fuck did Elpis know? Spirits weren't supposed to be able to have kids at all. And what was that about Liliruca being a shard? Elpis was 99% sure that she was supposed to be a pallum.
"I don't suppose that's a national designation instead of a racial one?"
Dreamer grinned, clasped her hands behind her back, and began swinging them from side to side.
"Noooooope," the little shit cheerfully disagreed. "Actually, I guess it kinda is? But mostly no."
"Since when is Lili–" Elpis began.
"She was born that way," Dreamer said in a singsong voice, visibly enjoying herself. "She's on the right–"
Dreamer stopped, shook her head, and returned to a more normal tone of voice. And Elpis could actually call it mostly normal for a happy mood, unlike Administrator's eternal near-monotone.
"Anyway, yeah. Lili was disguised n stuff since she was in a really bad situation, but I think the penalty for any fraud there goes to her old familia, right? And Queen Administrator wasn't lying when she said she was a human; she's using different biological definitions than most people. I think you might've rebuked her for that? But she'd already registered by then."
Elpis blinked, wondered if she should think more about possible implications of Administrator previously eyeing her ears, and chose to ignore that until later. Administrator had sounded pretty disgusted when mentioning human reproduction, so the monarch probably hadn't meant anything by it.
The cat-person's eyes flicked down to her paperwork. The dark mists falling from the fox-Friend showed no sign of making her paperwork damp or even recoloring it. Probably magical, then.
"We've gotten sidetracked," Elpis noted. Distractions seemed to run in the family. "How reliable are your Friends, exactly? And have you registered with the Hestia Familia yet?"
Dreamer's smile momentarily widened as she nodded.
"I filled out the paperwork while everyone else was distracted by my family's 'new' ears. Adventurers are a loud bunch, aren't they?"
So all shards look like renard, huh?
Elpis snorted and started to nod, although Dreamer didn't wait for an actual answer.
"But to answer your question, the foxes are designed to monitor an entire fight instead of singular events. They can't be distracted, and they can react to multiple threats simultaneously if necessary. The big place where they underperform are with mortal spells cast from ambush; they can recognize and react to special monster attacks, but mortal spells aren't registered as hostile action until the phenomenon actually manifests. That could be a problem with anything that affects foes without passing through intervening space. I don't think I should publicly disclose that flaw, but it's part of why I want to advertise them as safeguarding from monsters, not people."
Elpis drummed her fingers on the table. Dreamer still hadn't answered how she'd found their limitations, but she supposed it didn't matter. There was enough detail there for testing to have been performed.
"What if there's accidental friendly fire? Sssstuff happens."
Dreamer's lips twitched. The little shit knew I was about to swear, didn't she?
"They'll take cues from the victim; if that person returns fire with an actual intent to harm, they'll assume that hostilities have broken out. That means killing any monsters nearby ASAP and preventing the combatants from fighting."
Elpis propped her chin atop both palms and thought about it. Someone had clearly put a lot of thought into the foxes, and Elpis was no longer certain that Administrator was the one responsible. Dreamer's confidence in her own answers suggested both experience and involvement. Considering how many of Ishtar's trafficking victims had originally been abducted directly from the Dungeon, Elpis didn't doubt that such testing could've taken place without anyone the wiser. The Sword Princess might even be in on it.
Elpis slowly admitted, "I don't think there's any real precedent for the Guild getting involved in this. Not specifically. The closest is contract enforcement or the usual laws against assault, theft, that sort of thing. My suggestion would be to find a larger Familia to sponsor your efforts. Not Loki; she has plenty of people who oppose her out of sheer pettiness. In the absence of preexisting connections, I'd suggest Ganesha, although that comes with the implication of your Friends being monsters. Hestia's supposed to be friends with Hephaestus, however, so I'd say she's your best bet. I think she'd be willing to help with this, and she has plenty of experience with scammers trying to get a refund or recompense for manufactured issues.
"You'll probably want a contract for such a relationship, and that the Guild can help with. Give me a few hours of warning once you have the broad strokes sorted out, and I'll have someone ready to take on the case."
The cat-person paused to consider her own words. Dreamer had come to her, so she was thinking solely in terms of what the Guild could offer. That was a flawed premise, though. Given as hostile gods were looking for an excuse, the Hestia Familia should probably make sure there was the best legal grounding possible.
"Better yet, go to Maat to make sure your business doesn't violate any laws," Elpis added. "His firm is a bit expensive, but Hephaestus can afford it and he does good work. Don't debate the morality, practicality, or age of a law with him. He's, uh… it's hard for me to put into words, but he more-or-less thinks that universal enforcement of each and every law is necessary in order for the perfect system to be made."
Elpis blinked and remembered the age of the person she was talking to. Good vocabulary or not, she shouldn't assume that Dreamer knew all the context that one learned with age.
"When I say 'you,' I mostly mean 'you and Hestia and anyone else relevant,'" she added. "Don't go making any deals on your own, okay?"
Dreamer confirmed Elpis's concerns by wrinkling her nose.
"In that case, I might have to wait a day or two. I don't think she's in the mood right now."
~ ~ ~
"Who decided the mortal realm should have so much paperwork!?" Hestia whined.
Explanation for acceptance of gifts of monetary value? Why did she need to explain gifts? Hestia was positive that people traded those all the time!
The Guild employee mercilessly dropped another packet of papers atop the counter.
"Perhaps you should've submitted all the paperwork for having one Familia member before you decided to take three," the evil employee said sweetly. "This pile wouldn't be half as large if you'd done everything properly."
Hestia swallowed and eyed the pile before her. This plan had seemed so much more reasonable earlier in the day.
The Guild employee eyed the nearby adventurers, leaned forward, and lowered her voice to a whisper barely audible over the roar of the Pantheon. The contrast with the clerk's still-present scowl nearly gave Hestia whiplash.
"Trust me, you'll thank us later. You don't want to give other gods an excuse, do you?"
Hestia puffed her cheeks and glared down at the piles of paper. Why did so many of Hestia's heavenly co-workers need to be such meanies?
One page at a time. She could demand cuddles from her children once it was over.
"Still pretending to be something you aren't, huh?"
Lili blinked blearily and lifted her head to stare at whichever asshole said that. She didn't recognize them, but that didn't mean anything. Faces were the opposite of blurry for her—they contained so much detail that they still looked unfamiliar. She'd need to relearn what everyone looked like all over again.
…And relearn how to ignore when people didn't bother to wash themselves. Eww. The adventurer's beard might seem well-managed to a casual passerby, but Lili could both see and smell the remnants of spilled alcohol and a little dried blood.
{Species: Human. Blood alcohol concentration of 0.0279%. Elemental composition available.}
Lili shoved that thought to the side. She'd had enough trouble getting her body to stop telling her everything that people were made of. She barely even knew what the words were supposed to mean, and the overly-detailed explanations barely helped. Why were people carbon-based lifeforms if they were mostly made of oxygen? Lili didn't understand, and all the explanations seemed to reference other facts she didn't know. It made her feel stupid and ignorant and she didn't like it.
(She still didn't regret becoming a shard. Lili's spell alone was worth changing for.)
Still, this newest confrontation proved that Queen Administrator's morning warning had been correct: they should never rely on their enemies to keep harmful secrets. It was why Queen Administrator was actively answering questions outside while Lili rested in a corner of the Pantheon. Lady Sable acted as a barrier between Lili and everyone else, including Soma's thrall, so Lili wasn't too worried about herself.
...In hindsight, maybe Lili should've stayed with Queen Administrator. Not because she was all that worried about the person confronting Lili right now, but because Lili didn't trust QA not to casually insult people and ruin the surprisingly good reputation that the Hestia Familia had managed to achieve thus far.
"Lying to your new Familia, too?" the adventurer sneered. "Are you going to steal everything they own, too? Once a thief, always a thief."
Lili kept any suspicion firmly off her face. That argument was a little too coherent, a little too pointed, for the muscleheaded moron before her. It sounded like the sort of personal attack that Zanis would encourage. It also hadn't even been two hours since Lili first appeared in public as a shard, and already Lili was under an attack; Zanis had clearly been intending to betray them even before that.
{Enemy entity "Zanis Lustra" not present within structure.}
Lili's first instinct was to deflect. Queen Administrator's tips advised an alternative: attack.
"Lili supposes you could call it stealing when Lili's old Familia members didn't want to pay her what she'd earned,"Lili half-yelled. "Lili supposes that hurting yourself after hitting her would be assault from Lili, wouldn't it?"
The musclehead tried to interrupt early, but it didn't seem like he could; his mouth opened, but it seemed as though he was choking on his own words. Lili was pretty sure that Queen Administrator had been interrupted in the past, so how was Lili doing that? She'd known that her own words felt strange, but the extra parts felt more like hidden words rather than content that could control others.
Irrelevant. His difficulties provided her with an opportunity: If he couldn't respond, then Lili could just keep attacking without needing to defend against whatever Soma's Familia had originally planned. It was easier for Lili to conjure tears than it used to be—an unexpected benefit of Lili's new body, but not one she intended to complain about.
"Lili had to hide for her entire life," Lili ranted, not needing to feign her fury. "Lili was threatened, humiliated, starved, beaten, locked outside, and always told that she was trash that didn't matter. Lili was punished for failing to carry loads too big for her, and the only toys Lili had were ones that others threw away. Lili tried to run away, and the Soma Familia illegally destroyed the shop of the people who sheltered her. Zanis even said he would sell Lili to Ishtar if he thought Lili could make him more money that way."
Misbehaving senses made it difficult to read the blatantly interested crowd, but she was pretty sure that Lili's last sentence had replaced distant sympathy for Lili with visceral disgust aimed at Zanis. Ishtar's atrocities were still fresh in the mind of Orario's public, and it was easy to sway public opinion when they could only hear one side.
Soma's thrall tried to step closer to Lili. Briefly. Lady Sable cracked one eye open and growled at him for trying. His hasty hop back might even have been funny if Lili hadn't been trying so hard to maintain the demeanor of an upset child.
"Lili isn't pretending anymore. This is what Lili looks like and is supposed to be. Lili could've, would've, helped the Soma Familia much more if they weren't so horrible to her and refused to feed her enough to become strong. But Zanis would have sold Lili if he knew she was a shard instead of a pallum. Lili needed to hide just to keep what little freedom she had."
Everything Lili said was technically true, and any gods in the crowd would be able to verify that.
{Divine entities within room: 1.}
Darn. Lili had been so careful with her words and she could've used the extra support. Nobody would believe Hestia—who, Lili noticed, had put off her paperwork to push through the crowd with Sir Kara's help. Lili tried not to flinch as the goddess pulled her into a hug. They were meant to feel nice; Lili was just used to contact equalling pain.
"Nice trick, making me choke. Don't want people to call you a liar until you've told everybody your tall tales, huh?" Soma's thrall rallied, half-turning to the crowd. "Pretty much none of what she just said is true. Bits here and there, sure — she carried a lot so she'd get stronger, and you can call combat or resistance training 'beatings' if you really want to. But she didn't just steal enough to make up for the Familia's fee. She'd disguise herself as an entirely different race and make off with entire hauls while her party fought monsters."
Lili rapidly reevaluated his status as a musclehead. This was someone more dangerous than that. Members of Soma's Familia frequently turned to crime to feed their addiction, and she knew that some of them were surprisingly successful con artists. She shouldn't have assumed that Zanis would send an idiot rather than someone who could adapt.
"And no, she isn't a Spirit," he continued. "We have her birth records and Guild registry to prove it. Hells, she's even pretending to look some five years younger than she really is. She's fifteen. This is all just a blatant sympathy ploy."
I don't think you checked them, Lili wanted to say, confident in Dreamer's forging skills. A new conversational participant beat her to it.
"So confident in her records that you didn't bother to check, huh?" Dreamer cheerfully questioned, sidling through the crowd like they weren't even there.
No, wait. She was passing through the occasional limb. Lili wanted to learn how to do that. Assuming Lili could, anyway; the black fox following at Dreamer's heels still needed to move around objects.
"Because her records do say she's a shard, dummy," Dreamer abused the thrall, clearly enjoying herself. "And I'm fifteen as well. Shards don't mature at the same rate as you humans or even necessarily each other. And for the record, we'd be happy to repeat everything Lili just said in front of gods."
The scammer opened his mouth and scowled as no sound escaped. Apparently, Dreamer was exploiting the same effect that Lili had benefitted from.
"Honestly, I'm surprised you're dumb enough to try bullying Lili in public after we were willing to leave you alone."
Dreamer frowned.
"Wait, no. That's the first lie I've said here. We totally expected your sudden but inevitable betrayal. Abusive bullies like you are terrible at understanding when you can no longer abuse someone, and you don't like knowing that a victim escaped you. Lachesis says you've made her seriously consider giving up Soma — I'm pretty sure she's lying there, but the fact remains that you're a disgrace to addicts."
The thrall threw up his hands, pointed to his open mouth, and began pushing through the crowd. Dreamer grinned and followed after him with only a token attempt to avoid phasing through nearby people.
"What was your plan? Challenge us to a War Game with myself and Queen Administrator as the stakes? Newsflash: We wouldn't be brainwashed by drinking it. Even if you somehow won, you'd have two powerful members who detested the rest of the Familia and could curse the lot of you. This was not a good plan."
Soma's thrall reached the Pantheon's main exit and tried to pass through it. Queen Administrator slipped into his path, an eerily serene smile upon her face and one of Dreamer's new fox-Friends draped across her shoulders.
"To be clear, you are still allowed to challenge us to a War Game," Queen Administrator offered. "But you will have a hard time trying to influence public—"
The thrall tried to push Queen Administrator aside. The tail of the fox-Friend twisted to block the blow and extended its reach with black mist. Lili didn't notice in the basements, but in the morning sunlight, the mists looked strangely shiny.
"—opinion when your weapons are easily verified as lies. The truth-telling abilities of deities are remarkably convenient."
Queen Administrator stepped aside and let the thrall leave. He only took a few steps forward before spinning back around.
"I'm sure it's easy to win arguments when your opposition can't even talk," the adventurer snarled, his face flushed. Anger or embarrassment, it mattered not; eavesdroppers would interpret it as anger. He immediately turned back around and continued stalking away.
"The court of public opinion is still a court, and that means no lying allowed!" Dreamer called after him. "It's obvious you didn't even try any truthful objections!"
Lili couldn't help but wonder if Dreamer was getting a little carried away. As far as she knew, enforcing the truth wasn't actually one of a shard's abilities. Implying that it was would only hurt them down the line.
Dreamer waited until he was out of earshot to turn back around.
"That's not actually one of our abilities," Dreamer promptly admitted, "but you'll notice that he didn't deny it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed our performance of 'disgruntled catspaw loses debate with children the moment he isn't allowed to interrupt!' Soma's Familia doesn't seem too bright, so I'm pretty sure we'll have a repeat performance soon enough."
A cat-person obligingly applauded, then stopped when he realized nobody else was doing so and that attempting audience participation was earning him amused looks. Lili felt a brief surge of secondhand embarrassment. She'd always felt sorry for anyone playing along with a street performer when everyone else acted like they shouldn't. At least Lili would have an embarrassment-free excuse to participate now that she was a kid again. She'd never had the free time or energy to do so when she was younger.
Lili tried to nudge Hestia off of her and back toward the goddess's still-unfinished paperwork. Hestia didn't take the hint, and it took only a few seconds for those nearby to realize that the show was over and that most of the actors were available for questions. Hestia's hug and Lady Sable seemed to deter them from asking Lili, but that still left Dreamer and Queen Administrator to their less-than-considerate mercies.
"So, how do you even hide shard traits in the first place? They're not subtle."
"Why couldn't he interrupt you lot? Was that a spell or a skill or what?"
"Probably a skill, seems useful for royalty."
"Where'd the foxes come from? More Friends?"
"Is it true that you're dating the Sword Princess?"
"That ghost impression felt weird as fuuudge, by the way. Does it work in combat?"
"So uh, three Spirits in one tiny Familia? You're kinda boned."
"I hope you realize that many of you have lost your places in line," Queen Administrator observed.
It was easy to identify the higher-levels in the crowd; they were the first to bolt back to the almost-cleared counters. Many of the remainder took a second or two to react and move back in line, although that still left the Hestia Familia with nine people prioritizing gossip over business.
"So do you just bless any animal and they become a Friend, or…?"
"Why haven't you cursed Soma's Familia yet?"
"So if they're fifteen, how old are you, Your Highness?"
"Since when could Spirits have kids, anyway?"
"They're not showpieces!" Hestia burst out, finally releasing Lili to glare at the crowd. "Gossip among yourselves if you must, but leave my children out of it!"
Five of those remaining suddenly found something else to do. The remaining four looked around, decided they didn't want to be the focused subjects of even a pint-sized goddess's wrath, and followed the others. That didn't stop Lili from hearing them eagerly whisper among themselves. Apparently, using her new senses was easier when she had something specific to focus on.
"We should go make a few bets before word spreads. Easy money."
"Only make ones for the Soma spat; they won't count the racial ones now."
"Plot twist: Hestia is a shard, too."
"She would be pretty cute with a tail."
"Gods are unchanging, dumbasses."
"But she's a goddess of family. What if her family are all shards?"
"That's not–"
"Makes sense."
"No, it–"
"Hey, how do you think they're related? Parent/children?"
"That is not what they sai–"
"We should find out if Dreamer's mom is still around."
"So the queen is what, thirty? Seems a bit iffy if she's dating Wallenstein."
"Eh, elves do bigger age gaps all the time."
"I'm surrounded by idiots."
Lili narrowly stopped herself from calling out her agreement. She'd managed not to insult adventurers at all during her speech; it wouldn't do for her to break that trend now.
"When did my life become a performance?" Hestia quietly whimpered.
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Motivations: "Don't make me come down there!" (cuz i don't want to)
Next update is coming along; a few bits were giving me trouble, but I've finished most of them. (EDIT: I've got a big amino acid exam tomorrow, though, so definitely not updating today or tomorrow)
At any rate, this came up in the Calibration thread (and thus, the post being replied to will have Calibration spoilers if you follow the arrow "see post being replied to" button).
Yeah, QA in the other fork was uncharacteristically pushy on that topic even with the far more favourable circumstances. She'd had a very carefree stance towards Taylor's behaviour, treating almost everything as either a good and appropriate development for a Newborn or just not her concern. There was also a fundamental shift of underlying circumstances, too; in It's Not Wrong, the established circumstances for swapping back were subverted only gradually and with QA aware, the whole purpose of the Cycles and effectively the whole meaning of life and everything as far as QA was concerned had been resolved, and :MOTHER: was established to not actually be an active and omnipresent guiding watcher, and Taylor as Dreamer was showing herself to be faring quite nicely indeed with a proven record of handling issues in addition to benefiting from Hestia... yet despite all of that, QA just was just completely unmoved by Dreamer's protests and adamant that she knew what was best for her where the memory malware was concerned.
Despite my disagreement with the "uncharacteristic" bit, that assessment in of itself indicates that I didn't do a good enough job of showing QA's motivations. I tried to prune it down to avoid the story getting clogged up, but I might've overcompensated there.
Anyway, QA had multiple reasons for being a bit pushy with Taylor. First and foremost, QA wanted to be able to keep relaxing with Hestia, friends, and Friends, which she couldn't really do if she felt like essential tasks were being neglected. So, she needed to ensure that Dreamer could reach a state where essential tasks would be completed without QA. QA is arguably still being irresponsible, but lalalalala she can't hear you~
Second, finding the answer to life doesn't matter much if QA's colony can't guard it and ensure supremacy. She doesn't want a Relative to barge in after all that work.
Third, QA doesn't trust her siblings to behave without :MOTHER: around to keep them in line. If Dreamer could break a defensive lockdown on this particular dimension—even if she was using QA's clearly superior systems to do it—what's there to stop any rogue Siblings from doing the same?
(Three-point-five is... spoilers, but hinted at, so we'll skip it for this summary.)
Fourth, Taylor still made use of QA's shardware. Taylor's malware was willfully damaging QA's own systems. It's comparable to learning that someone was using your skin as a test-bed for potentially carcinogenic fungal infections.
Fifth, QA is proud of Dreamer, but largely considers the achievement to have been suppressed by overzealous colony safety policies rather than Dreamer, say, being better than QA.
There are other reasons, but I'm typing this from a phone, so.
I also think it's worth noting that Taylor isn't abusing malware as much in Calibration than in INW (see: rose-tinted nostalgia glasses + "she'll fite you if you call it regression"), yet the hardware hijack still occurred.
TL;DR: QA is used to being the token responsible sibling.
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