Dark Fate, Chapter 248 (Patreon)

Chapter 284 – Family Dinner

After letting the women have most of the day to fawn over Mhyreth, and the children, we’d gathered for dinner in the private dining room used for meals with family and friends, rather than the formal dining hall used for state affairs. Everyone was gathered here, including Aura and the younger Lilith, who I noticed was sporting a new piece of jewelry. Thankfully, the explanation was rather simple.

“Little Lilith had another True Prophecy?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” Aura nodded. “While we were meeting the Demon Lord’s wives. We aren’t certain whether it is a prophecy of this timeline’s future, or one of the other ones, just like we can’t tell whether it is a prophecy for the Sol system, or for the Jharix system, since she was looking at Ms. Aelina at the time. Regardless, I’ve transmitted the text of the prophecy to the intelligence department with the appropriate flags, as is normal for a prophecy with unclear origin, and given a copy to your guests, just in case it ‘follows them home’.”

I nodded once. “Good thinking, Aura. While the timestrikes in the system makes prophecy less reliable than normal, it needs to be taken into account, all the same. So, I take it that this has something to do with Little Lilith’s pretty new necklace?” I smiled at the child as I said that, to show I was including her in the conversation. Little things like that mattered, especially since Lilith was very smart, and mature, for her age.

“Yes, Daddy,” she beamed. “Auntie Talia and Auntie Hibari helped me pick it out, and Auntie Rachel enchanted it. It offers me immunity against psychic influence and time shifts. Granny Orinona believes it should help keep me from getting more ‘bleedthrough’ from my older self.”

“That’s great, sweetheart,” I said. “I know Big Lilith was upset that she couldn’t be around you as much anymore. So, do you know what was causing it?”

“Granny Orinona said it was probably the big scream from the squid ship Ms. Ran designed for Ms. Sissari.”

I glanced at the greater succubus, and she nodded. “Yes, the psychic scream, combined with the spell you used to answer her, and the repeated timestrikes in this system, is the likely cause.” Orinona paused, and then said, “Aelina and I believe that wearing the warding necklace should help prevent any further bleedthrough between the two Liliths. Especially if her class ends up being a more magically-inclined one than the elder Lilith’s. She should wear it when not in a warded space, at least until her System unlocks. The defensive bonus to mental effects provided by the [Demon’s Soulbrand Tattoo] you gave her is a good general effect, but it is not sufficient to counter effects that are both mental and temporal, especially as it is a percentage-based increase, and ten percent of ten is a negligible increase, especially compared to larger effects.”

“Ah,” Big Lilith gasped, her eyes wide. “That would be why the ‘bleedthrough’ was all one-way! It isn’t that Little Me’s thoughts or experiences couldn’t flow back to me, but her thoughts didn’t have the same passive weight behind them, because her level is lower, and my defenses are far higher, at a base state.”

Aelina chuckled. “Yes, that’s the most likely reason. Thankfully, it does not look like there will be any true damage, especially since things were caught early. The younger Lilith will remain smarter than a child her age should be, and with a wider vocabulary, though others will catch up to her in time, if she doesn’t put in effort to improve herself. With the contact blocked by the necklace, the psychic link between the two of you will likely heal by the time her System unlocks, years from now. Think of it like an ear piercing where you went too long without wearing earrings, and the hole sealed up, or an old wound that can only be seen by some faint scars left behind.”

I smiled at her, and said, “Well, I am most appreciative. I do my best to care for the kids, but obviously those of us who were originally from Earth are trying to catch up to the rest of the galaxy when it comes to what is possible under the System, and there are cases where we do not know what we do not know. And since any kind of time magic beyond simple haste, slow, or stasis spells tend to be discouraged, for obvious reasons, there is even less information about how to deal with an older version of an individual from a different timeline interacting with their younger self.”

Yhrath chuckled. “I’m sure my brides had just as much fun with the puzzle as they did doting on all the children.” Saida started to protest, but the Demon Lord just raised an eyebrow at her, and said, “Are you going to try and tell me you weren’t doting on all the kids, especially when they started calling you some form of ‘grandmom’?”

Saida laughed, and said, “Oh, you should have seen Ori and Aeli when the younger Lilith called them Granny. Especially since all the other women were Aunties. I didn’t mind, of course, and neither did Hespa, since both of us are over two hundred and fifty galactic standard years, and still look like we’re no more than eighty. But these other two?” She made a show of sighing and shaking her head. “Not even one hundred. They simply weren’t ready for it.”

“Listen, you pointy-eared menace,” Aelina snapped in a playful tone. “Putting Ori to the side, I’m of Atlantean lines, not the nearly immortal types you and Hespa are! We know you’re both old enough to be my grandmother, much less little Lilith’s, but if I hadn’t tiered up a couple times, I’d be dead by now. I don’t need reminding of it!”

“Putting me to the side?” Orinona’s tone was as frosty as a winter storm in Alaska. “I’m barely ninety, and Mhyrsha is only twenty! I shouldn’t be getting called Granny!”

I glanced at the ‘Earth’ part of the delegation, and said, “Remember what we learned from the Commonwealth, and others. A galactic standard year, under the System, is roughly two years on Earth. Split into ten ‘cycles’ which are a little more than two months long.”

Shalaevar and Ashala, my two High Knelfi pets, chuckled, and Ashala said, “Don’t worry if you don’t remember it. Most people only use Galactic Standard Dates for interstellar correspondence and trade, just like everyone uses System currency, instead of local coin. Everyone knows the value, and anywhere you go where the world is connected to the wider galaxy, you’ll have automatic conversion software easily available.”

Shalaevar wiggled her hand in a gesture that meant ‘maybe’ or ‘sort of’. “Well, yes and no. There are worlds out there that, for one reason or another, are not as technologically advanced as Earth, or the worlds in the Commonwealth. Some simply plateaued at a certain level, because there was no driving force to advance their magic or technology further. Some have suffered cataclysms, erasing advanced technology. And there are a few where the dominant form of life is more focused on biotech, like the Incux. Still, even in those places, the System Shop would allow you to convert local time to System time.”

I frowned, leaning back in my chair. “That brings up an interesting question. Do the Incux have access to the System Shop? Is it available on their worlds?”

It was Yhrath that answered my question. “I used the System Shop’s resources to do some research on the Incux, when they first threatened to spread towards my realm. The System Shop does appear on Incux worlds, as the System seeds them automatically based on population. However, the System Shop primarily deals with creatures as individuals. While it recognizes a hive-mind species, or overmind collectives, and other such things, it still regards individual creatures as individuals. With the Incux being a semi-hivemind, other than some of the ‘queen’ or similar nodes of the network, they lack the mental individuality to make use of the System Shop.”

The elder Lilith nodded. “Indeed. They cannot make proper use of the System Shop, so while the System deposits them on Incux worlds, they are barely used, especially since the System Shop is impervious to attack, and the employees inside are immortal. They cannot consume the System Shop, the hivemind cannot use their overall resources to purchase through individuals, and the ones with enough intelligence to actually be able to use the shop are so far removed from actual combat that they have no System currency, gaining levels through leadership titles and skills rather than fighting. So, it is basically useless to them.”

“For which we should all be thankful,” Hespa said. “If the damn bugs learned about the kind of weapons and other things that are on the System Shop, and actually managed to work out how to get the currency together to buy them? That would be a problem. The last thing we need is the bugs learning how to make biological equivalents of some of the weapons used closer to the galactic core.”

Little Lilith looked at me, and asked, “Daddy, do you think the bugs will be able to learn how to make something like the pulse torpedoes the navy uses?”

I leaned back in my chair to think about that. “Anything is possible, sweetness. But I don’t think they’ll learn that one anytime soon. The science of containing and directing antimatter is complicated, and the smallest mistake is extremely explosive. They’re more likely to figure out the Hypermissiles or Skip Missiles first. They already have FTL engines, even if they’re more biological than technological. Once they’ve experienced getting hit with weapons using FTL to hit targets before the light of the attack reaches them, any survivors will allow the hivemind to start considering how to do the same. The only thing stopping them, so far, is that the Incux do not use physical ammunition, relying mostly on lasers, plasma, and other such things.”

“That is because they lack the enchantment knowledge to create expanded spaces,” Shalaevar nodded. “Without that technology, the size and mass of physical ammunition quickly becomes a limiting factor. And even they solved that, the biotech nature of Incux weaponry means that their natural inclination would be to ‘grow’ the ammunition, which is resources that could be used for other things. The CRN, on the other hand, just has to process an asteroid for raw materials.”

Little Lilith, despite her increased knowledge and vocabulary, was still a kid, and it showed as she turned away from the discussion about ships and space battles, and looked at the elder Lilith. “Big Sis! Now that I’m no longer seeing your past futures, do you think we could learn to fly together? The Red Baroness offered to teach us to fly fighters, right?”

I cleared my throat, and said, “Flying in simulators is fine. Especially since the ones we use are detailed enough to unlock different skills as General Skills. But you are not piloting any ship, much less a fighter, until your System unlocks, and you have full control of your abilities.”

“But Daddy!”

“None of that, little Lilith,” I shook my head. “If you want to learn to operate a vehicle, there is a go-kart track in one of the residential districts, and there are areas in some of the Empire’s holdings on Earth where you can learn to use bikes and other land-based vehicles. But nothing that goes at high speed until your System unlocks, and we’re sure you have the reflexes for it. Especially not anything that goes in air.”

Yhrath chuckled, and said, “Saida, remember when Folre got it in his head to try and ride a dragon when he was barely old enough to speak in complete sentences?” Saida and Hespa laughed at the memory, while the other visitors grinned at a story they no doubt had heard before.

Turning back to me, Yhrath grinned. “Folre, my oldest with Saida, was a very confident brat growing up. Maybe more so than his lineage warranted. At any rate, he got it in his head to try and ‘persuade’ the System to offering him a class or profession devoted to dragon riding when his System unlocked, and he was convinced that the best way to do that was to ride a dragon without it slaying him. All before his System unlocked.”

I laughed, and nodded. “Children are the same everywhere, aren’t they?” Looking back to little Lilith, I said, “And before you ask, the reason you’re not getting up in the air is because if something goes wrong while you’re riding a bike, you get some bruises, and usually a decent story to tell your friends. However, depending on the altitude and speed of a crash from the air, you might not be coming back at all. Understand?”

Little Lilith pouted, but nodded her head. “OK, Daddy. I understand. But we can still do the simulators?”

I chuckled, and nodded once. “Yes, the simulators are fine. Just remember to keep the safety settings on, yes?”

“Yay!”