LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 24 (Patreon)

Mira took some time to talk with Soneares and Morwen before retreating back into the penthouse. They were both intelligent and capable young women who were, by the nature of the realm they lived and worked in, more conversant with the System and these incursions than she could hope to be yet.

"The incursions are a common semi-natural disaster in this reality," Soneares explained.

They'd taken over a conference room that seemed to have originally belonged to a professional coworking company that had since sold their space and equipment to Adra for pennies on the dollar. Morwen had excused herself to get coffee for everyone, while Soneares brought Mira up to speed on the state of this universe.

Soneares had shucked her tasteful blazer to reveal the silky and backless shell blouse she wore underneath and let her wings out. She'd been keeping them in since the local humans only knew so much about the otherworldly visitors they were hosting, who'd come to help them out. The world leaders here were allegedly building up to an announcement, but they wanted the Gates brought under control first. Mira could hardly blame them for wanting to only deal with one panic at at time.

"We only have theories about the origin of the dungeon incursions," Soneares continued. She hitched one hip on the side of a desk and stood with her arms crossed. "We do know they have artificial origins and they were probably used as a vehicle for colonization for a race that no longer exists. You may have noticed that the Gates have almost all appeared near large urban areas; major population centers, basically. Left unchecked, they can and whave wiped out underdeveloped civilizations within a few decades. "

"I had," Mira sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"The Triumvirate is an alliance of intelligent and magically potent societies who had previously suffered from incursions and who also felt the dungeons were an important source of renewable materials. The demons, elves, and dragons have all been around long enough to laugh at the myth of a post-scarcity economy." She paused to shake her head. "The leaders who would come together to create the Triumvirate realized that the incursions may have been pacified in their own worlds, but the younger races were being exterminated. They tried for a time to assist when and where they could, but it became rapidly obvious that they would never have the personnel or resources to be everywhere, all at once. They came together and harnessed the power of an entity known as the System to follow the incursions and empower capable individuals and provide them with the guidance they'd need to save themselves."

"…and, in doing so, provide the Triumvirate with a steady supply of resources they didn't need to harvest themselves?" Mira guessed.

Soneares chuckled and nodded. "You have seen into the heart of the matter, your Grace. There are now other sponsorship entities aside from the Triumvirate, but the Triumvirate was the first. We have been accused of using the System as a light colonization force, but our forebears made the mistake of first teaching the System to enforce contract law and then promising that they would always respect the sovereignty of our client planets. There's only so much colonization that can happen in the traditional sense."

"I'm sure immigration is something entirely different," Mira said and got another nod of concession from Soneares.

"Yes, by accepting the protection and guidance of the Triumvirate, this world had to agree to certain immigration policies. Not every nation agreed to our terms and they are now facing the dungeons alone."

Typical, but Mira deliberately steered the conversation back to get the answer to a question that had been bugging her. "How do you know that the originators of the dungeons aren't around anymore?"

Soneares shrugged. "We have never found any evidence of new occupants moving onto cleared planets. We've seen unchecked dungeons strip all life off an entire planet and nothing had moved in, not even after hundred or thousands of years. The dungeons ramp down in activity once the world is pacified, but keep releasing their creatures into the surrounding area. Afterward, the dungeon creatures just die off on their own. They don't breed or feed or settle into hunting ranges. They just run around looking for enemies to fight until they exhaust themselves and then they lay down to die. If that is the first stage of someone's invasion plan, they have never shown up to execute the next stage."

Morwen returned with their coffees and Mira spent a while questioning them about the Triumvirate.

In short, they weren't especially unique among interspecies alliances. They were old, powerful, and rich. They planned on staying that way. Rescuing the younger races was less about any humanitarian impulses as it was maintaining diversity in the universe. After a certain point, every old species ran out of innovation. They needed to import younger perspectives and problem-solving frameworks every so often and you couldn't do that if the dungeons were wiping everyone else out.

Regarding archmagi, it was just what the System had described. Every species got one Archmage. When that archmage died, another one would be designated by the System and only that person would be able to submit new spells to the System for dispersal.

Some people revered their Archmage. Some people enslaved them. Most of them tried to exploit theirs, at least at first. Mira didn't plan to allow herself to be exploited, but she had to admit that she was in a bad position.

Eventually, she had to call a halt to her questions and retreat to the penthouse.

The leftover exhaustion of surviving in the dungeon was starting to catch up to her and she was torn between wanting to run in circles and laying down to sleep for ten weeks. Adra followed her to their room. He was in his Mason body. He'd propped his Illya body up in his study because someone kept flying camera drones up to the windows and he was in the mood to let them catch a few pictures for the news.

Once they were alone, Mira's mood took an abrupt hairpin turn and she realized that she was finally alone with her own damn husband after days and days of separation. She asked herself if she had the energy for what she suddenly wanted to do and decided—yes. Yes, she did.

Adra had preceded her into the bedroom and had just turned to see what was keeping her. Mira noted he was just close enough to the bed that he'd land on the mattress if she pushed him backwards, so she did.

He landed with a surprised noise that got a lot less surprised and more interested when she straddled his hips, caught him by the wrists, and pinned his hands over his head.

"I don't think we've broken this bed in, yet," she purred.

"I…" a strange look flickered through Adra's face and his gaze dipped down. "…one moment, darling."

Mira felt an unaccustomed pang of hesitation. She'd never had to put much work into seducing Adra and she had never failed at it. "What's the matter?"

A wave of red started to creep up from his collar. "Forgive me, my love, but I am giving this body a very explicit direction and it is refusing to comply."

Mira sat up, ardor cooling, and in doing so she realized what the problem was. Her bottom was resting directly on his groin and she didn't even feel a twitch of activity going on down there. What in heaven's na…?

She gasped and both her hands flew up to cover her mouth as she realized she did have a good theory for what had happened and it tumbled right out of her mouth, "Oh no, he really was using anabolic steroids!"

Adra propped himself up on his elbows. "Darling, I will trouble you to explain that statement immediately."

She winced. "I'm sorry, my love. It's a theory I've had about what Mason was doing on the night I awoke. I found an empty pill cup on Samira's table, but there were no notes in her file that she'd been given any medications. Since then, I've realized that she can have panic attacks under the right circumstances. I suspected that Mason had someone slip her an opioid pill or something similar. Mason has the symptoms of long-term steroid abuse; his thinning hair, the muscles, his persistent acne. That means he would have an easily accessible supply of them. Opiates and anabolic steroids can have a very bad interaction. I suspected he was trying to manufacture a medical crisis where the doctors would be forced to run a tox screen on Samira in spite of her parents' standing orders; one that she would now fail. I think she realized what he'd given her and her sobriety was so important to her that she had a panic attack—a very bad one; bad enough to feel like she was dying."

Adra's face was now fully red. "Perhaps, but could you explain what this has to do with…?" he gestured to the vicinity of his groin.

Oh, right.

Mira winced. "Erectile dysfunction is a common symptom of withdrawal from steroid abuse."

"That's it. I have reached my absolute limit!" Adra exclaimed. He lifted her off his lap and set her on the mattress.

"Adra?" Mira asked, alarmed.

At that moment, the door slammed open and Adra's other body entered, already pulling off his tie. The Mason body stood and stomped out of the bedroom while his Illya body picked her up and placed her on his lap instead.

Adra laid back, put his hands back over his head, and caught her eye before he said, "Please continue."

Note: He's been putting up with a lot from that body, OK. ED was the final straw.