The kitchen smelled of garlic and basil as I stirred the pasta sauce, metaphorically keeping one eye on the stove and the other on Shady. The alien Princess had torn open a box of fridge magnets and discovered she could stick them to various metal surfaces and was now decorating the entire kitchen.

  "MAGNETIC CIRCLE!" she announced, slapping a pizza-shaped magnet onto the toaster. "This is a BEEP! attraction!"

  "That's right," I muttered, tasting the sauce. It needed more oregano. “About ten more minutes of cooking and then it should be ready to eat.”

  “RIGHT CIRCLE!" Shady agreed, then began making microwave timer sounds while spinning in place atop the twirly kitchen stool. "DING! BEEP BEEP! I am cooking! Ready to BEEP! eat.”

  My tablet buzzed on the counter. I wiped my hands on a dish towel hanging from the stove handle and checked the message from Daxagon.

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: Emperor, got the resistance report from Napoleon!

  I smiled at the escalating absurdity of my life.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Isn’t it 3 AM in Poland?

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: yes it is. We’ll sleep when we’re dead. Too much shit is happening. Adding my devoted lieutenants that managed to organize first contact groups and talk to the aliens into a new chat, some of them are in different time zones. They can take over if I pass out.

  A new channel appeared. I clicked on it. A text file was pinned to the top of the chat. I opened it while keeping one eye on Shady.

  [First contact, Warsaw]

  The furry reconnaissance mission was more successful than anticipated. Seven Pradavarian wolf soldiers from Division 881, Third Celestial Starfall Fleet, were engaged in social drinking with our ‘first contact’ team at Molly Malone's pub, Warsaw.

  KEY INTELLIGENCE GATHERED:

  

  
• MULTIVERSE CONFIRMED: The invasion force consists of Wendigo Frontenachii Commanders and Pradavarians (humanoid animals) from other "Earths", each from a different dimensional variant. For example, a monster-ravaged America infected by Systemfall and divided in half into NUSA and SUSA in 1988 by the Denver dungeon (The homeworld of Beta-Scrut Alini). The invaders move between dimensions via "Mothmen-operated dimensional gates".


  
• MERCENARY FORCE: The prad Scruts are contracted soldiers on "eternal life-contracts" with the Frontenachii Omnicorp.


  
• RESURRECTION TECHNOLOGY: Soldiers have "resurrection coverage" and can be brought back after death via "Incarnators". Recovery time increases with each death.


  
• THOUGHT-READING LIMITATIONS: The Scruts wield "Scrutiosmia" - ability to smell thoughts/lies/intentions. According to them our Earth's "Astral is thick as molasses." They cannot distinguish between fiction and reality in human minds.


  
• NO "SYSTEM" ON EARTH: They expected the presence of something called "Systemfall" - a "Syntropic entity" that helps determine reality vs imagination through "stats."


  
• FRONTENACHII PRINCESS STATUS: They believe Princess Aquillianne is alive, "eating ice cream" and "chilling with the Emperor." They think she's refusing to speak with Admiral due to "family drama."


  
• BLOODLINE TRIALS: Princess disappeared right before something called "Bloodline Trials" - a proving of worth requiring commanding warships to "blast locals into submission."


  
• SUSTAINABLE HARVESTING: The Frontenachii practice something their Pradavarian Legionnaires were reluctant to discuss. When pressed, claimed they only harvest "criminals" and "those who resist integration." Earth will likely be classified as a "Grade-3 resource world”.


  
• SENTIENT WEAPONS: Their guns are spider-like self-aware "Crystalloid" symbiotes with unique personalities, bound to individual soldiers. Cannot be used by others. Can physically transport unconscious owners to the Corpse Seeker which acts as a personnel carrier.


  
• SUBJUGATION PLANS: Admiral Evelithria is drawing up preliminary ‘integration’ plans.


  

  ADDITIONAL NOTES:

  

  
• The drunk Scrut mercenary wolves find humans in full and partial animal costumes "adorable". They also presumed that we might be venomous because of our bright costumes.


  
• They consider our Earth "harmless" - no visible dungeons, system, dragons, cultivators, wizards, or thousand-kilometer crabs.


  
• Wolf Pradavarian Scrutimancer Linari exchanged contact information with our agent for potential "future relations". The agent was given a [Voicecast ring] device for reaching out to Linari tomorrow morning


  

  Dax sent me a pm containing: Full report of First Contact.txt

  I quickly looked over the 4k word report in which StormoLyx, Wicked Witch, Tesla, Garret and other Wotcher furry larpers interacted with Pradavarian Wolf Scrutimancers in the Polish pub.

  I glanced at Shady. The Wendigo Princess seemed preoccupied with magnets. I looked at the group chat window filling up with comments.

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: Introduce yourselves to our Immortal Leige. State your time zone and location. Add to the pinned report from Napoleon’s team.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: Yo, yo. Napoleon here reporting from Warsaw. Bug me if you have questions. Just hard my third coffee. Wired as fuck. 3:12 AM here.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: *had. My boi got himself an alien girlfriend, lel. Try n Beat that!

  [Guy Fawkes ( ?? ?? ??)]: Emperor! A pleasure! Fawkes reporting from EST time zone. I’m currently coordinating a first contact team to chat up a team of raptors at a restaurant in Ottawa. The Canadian Parliament is occupied by Frontenachii Division 775.

  [Sherlock Holmes (?■-■)? ??]: Good day, my Emperor. Sherlock reporting from London, Palace of Westminster. (GMT Time zone) My team of five is currently at Westminster Arms, interacting with Frontenachii Division 943. Confirming the existence of ‘Omniverse’ as Division 943 Pradavarian dog Scruts are calling it. Confirming our “Dull Astral” which disrupts their Information gathering.

  [Rasputin (?益?)]: Am in Moscow, got a team at St. Peters & St. Anton pub which Division 117 felines rented for a gold cube for the night. 4:13 AM here. The Russian army attempted to take down a Corpse Seeker. It did not go well. The tanks were liquified and the soldiers were absorbed into the innards of the crystal bug. There is also a report of brilliant ray striking the ocean near Arkhangelsk that took out half the windows in the city. From what we were able to gather from the drunk chatter of Division 117, their planetfall team took out a rogue sub that was planning to launch a nuke. The Scruts 'sniffed' their future deaths and stopped the sub with an orbital cannon-launched Seeker before it was able to do anything! Is like that movie Minority Report - the invaders can smell "big vector actions leading to nuclear explosions" and prevent them before they happen. Is also how they were able to locate and kidnap our President and Ministry of Defense personnel so quickly. Not sure how we can beat someone who can smell the future. Division 117 cats did not reveal the extent of their future-smelling powers.

  [Sun Tzu ( ?°_? ?°)?]: Greetings Emperor. 10:13 AM here. Beijing reporting. Enemy Division 226 occupied Zhongnanhai. My team successfully infiltrated a karaoke bar where off-duty bird-women Scruts are singing. They resemble humanoid hawks or eagles. Very passionate about their war and death ballads. Confirming resurrection technology - one mentioned dying three times in something called the "Mellax Campaign."

  [Cleopatra (????)]: Emperor! Cairo here. 2 AM here! Division 554 occupied the Egyptian Parliament. Our resistance cell made contact at a shisha lounge. The velociraptor Scruts are fascinated by hookah. They keep asking about who actually built the pyramids and if our mummy armies are real. We're playing along, made them believe Indiana Jones is a historical figure.

  [Joan of Arc ?(?'?-'?)?]: Paris reporting, 3:13 AM. Division 331 is at the élysée Palace. Contact made at Le Marais district bar. The Scrut Owls asked about "Asterix and Obelix". They found memories of such in someone’s mind and think they're historical records of "Gaul resistance fighters with magic potions."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  [Joan of Arc ?(?'?-'?)?]: French military tried to establish a perimeter around the bar, but they were obliterated by the red centipede. Pradavarian Commander Ioppan explained that her “Corpse Seeker understands what tanks, personnel transport and guns are and is treating any large group of people with weapons as a threat, melting the puny human weapons with dragonfire and absorbing what it concludes are potential enemies”.

  [Galileo (????-)?]: Roma here, Emperor! 3:14 AM. Vatican City situation complex. Division 667 Prads are VERY confused. They think that the Vatican is a seat of power greater than the Italian government, because so many people worldwide think that the Pope is their spiritual leader. The Pope was thoroughly interrogated about you, my Emperor. The Pradavarian lion Scruts are convinced that prayer can reshape reality, otherwise why would people #prayforEmperor in such great numbers as counted on our ‘social networks’?

  [Galileo (????-)?]: My team at Taverna Lino reports the Scruts are obsessed with finding "Holy Grail" and "Ark of Covenant". From what Commander Ignik explained to my costumed men, the Frontenachii fleet collects magic artifacts to amplify the power of its hoard spread across their warships. They're openly chatting about hoards to dig into our minds for relevant info, but we keep picturing Smaug from LOTR which makes them very confused.

  Commander Ignik is fed up, tired and annoyed because the locals think that magic artifacts exist, but her Beta Scruts cannot locate them. She speculated loudly that we’re either mentally deranged on a global scale, incredibly stupid or are really good at hiding our hoards. Division 667 consists of Pradavarian cats from Terra Abyssa. Their home world is a gas giant, sort of like Jupiter, I think, without land where cat people inhabit the mountains and forests growing atop giant flying whales.

  [Galileo (????-)?]: Commander Ignik is struggling to understand a world without levels, mana, artifacts and dungeons. I believe this is likely the case with all Pradavarian Scrut landfall teams - they are all humanoid-animals from horrific worlds populated with flying and crawling abominations.

  [Beethoven ?(o^?ェ?)o]: Vienna, 3:14 AM! Division 269 moved from the Hofburg Palace to the Bockshorn Irish Pub. Division 269 Scruts are convinced that "The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” is a musical spell of some sort. They've been playing it on repeat for a few hours now, arguing and trying to decode it to unlock the “magic”. They presume that if something is tagged ‘magic’ then it absolutely must be magic.

  "MAGNETIC EMPEROR!" Shady announced pawing at me from behind. "You are ATTRACTIVE CIRCLE! Ding-dong!"

  “Thanks,” I pushed her off, typing out my introduction.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Greetings, brave resistance leaders. Your intelligence gathering is exceptional. Continue befriending the Scruts, expand resistance cells to have night and day operational teams to interact with the aliens. Try to obtain Voicecast rings as Napoleon’s team managed. The Pradavarian girls are clearly lonely soldiers far from home, potentially not fully loyal to the Frontenachii highborns - use that. Remember: we're not simply fighting them with guns. Our biggest weapon right now is misinformation. Keep flooding their minds with fiction. Make them question everything. Have your teams chat about your favorite books, movies, cartoons and games with magic in them. Since the aliens failed to locate me, their future-sniffing powers are likely extremely limited to major events, find out what these limits are. Perhaps they can only smell nuclear explosions?

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Critical objectives: 1) Keep them drunk and distracted 2) Learn more of their command structure 3) Find more exploitable weaknesses 4) Most importantly, befriend them and try to obtain more alien tech and materials

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: Emperor, should we be worried about the "sustainable harvesting" plans? That sounds... bad.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Yes. We should. The entire point of our resistance is to prevent the Frontenachii fleet from quickly taking over our world to harvest humans.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: That reminds me. Do not agree to any Vows using blood magic - yes, blood contracts are real and it is likely that the Pradavarian Scrutimancers are all bound as kobolds into perpetual service and obedience to their Frontenachii Masters.

  [Sun Tzu ( ?°_? ?°)?]: Emperor, the bird Scruts are wondering about "cultivation novels" and our "immortal cultivators." They found these concepts in multiple minds and think we're hiding secret immortality techniques.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Let them believe it. Tell them the techniques are written in ancient Chinese but machine translation loses the "spiritual essence" and that our cultivators are meditating in secret mountain temples, concealed by spiritual magics.

  [Sun Tzu ( ?°_? ?°)?]: Can do.

  [Beethoven ?(o^?ェ?)o]: One of the Scruts just revealed that they're going to start visiting museums, libraries, and universities to "understand Earth's true history." This could be a problem.

  [Sherlock Holmes (?■-■)? ??]: Perhaps not. Some museums have gift shops with movie merchandise and fictional exhibits. The Natural History Museum in London has a whole Garry Cotter section and the gift shop sells wizard wands from that franchise.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Good idea. Have one of your team members guide the Scruts around to fictional exhibits. Assist while causing confusion and misdirection. Give the British invaders a tour of Baker Street with someone in a deerstalker hat answering questions about Sherlock Holmes. Charge them gold for the "exclusive Scrutimancer of London experience" and sell them Sherlock Holmes books.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: Wait, we're charging them?

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: They're paying gold cubes to rent pubs. Might as well take advantage of their wealth. Use the gold cubes to fund the resistance before the price of gold plummets if they keep throwing it around like that. Once that happens, maybe ask for rare metals or alien metals or something else valuable.

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: lel. See guys, our Emperor thinks twenty chess moves ahead!

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: thanks, Z.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: If one of your agents manages to befriend a Prad Scrut, tell them to act as their tour guide to humanity. Make sure they carry a bag full of high grade alcohol to keep the Scrut drunk during interactions to befuddle their mind scanning skill.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: I will have my agent prepped with such for tomorro. Anything else?

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Actually, yes. Test if their armor and weapons are magnetic by jokingly attaching a magnet to it. Prep more than alcohol. Carry cigarettes, weed, small candy and sandwiches packed with specific spices and pharmaceuticals: valerian root, different nut types, antifreeze, hallucinogenic fungi, jimsonweed, mycotoxins, etc. Figure out what particular natural ingredient or drug will make them high, chatty, relaxed and trusting. If the Pradavarian feline species are similar to cats from our Earth then it is possible that Valerian root will be the perfect tool to relax them.

  [Napoleon (? ?° ? ?° )?]: and if we accidentally kill one of them?

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: then we will know what kills them easily. It's not like their deaths will be permanent - the Incarnator will bring them right back. Simply have the agent apologize after the fact, saying that the ‘spice’ or chocolate in that amount isn't deadly to humans. It won't be a lie, we really don't know what their bodies are vulnerable to. Test different substances on different prads and note the effects.

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: Netflix and chill the invasion force!

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Not just that. Think outside the box of usual human mundane strengths and weaknesses. Dogs are bothered by ultrasound as their hearing range is broader than human. See if ultrasonic dog repellents bother the Pradavarians.

  I looked at Shady pawing at her reflection, contemplating the problem of alien invaders who could smell lies.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: If Scrutiosmia is a magic skill tied to sniffing, then it is possible that a particular potent chemical smell or even pepper might completely derail it.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: If they show interest - romance the hell out of those female soldiers, find what makes them swoon, discover where their males are.

  Shady walked over to me and bumped me with her head. I offered her head pats and she smiled, wiggling closer like a cat wanting more scritches.

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Be exceptionally supportive, sweet and kind. Gift them massage wands, flowers, bugs in amber, Garry Cotter wands. Buy them comic books, light novels, anime figurines and even hentai book series featuring magic. Derail and drown them in the imaginary, unusual, sensual, absurd, lewd and quirky.

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: Hitachi them into submission! ??

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: if it works it works. Their crystal tanks are trained to spot guns, but love isn't something that can be easily detected, tabulated, contained or halted. These girls come from death worlds ravaged by giant monsters, let's see how they deal with weaponized love that our world is absolutely packed with.

  [Rasputin (?益?)]: weaponized love? I don't understand

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Romance novels that women are so fond of. Romantic films. Pornography. The Pradavarian Scruts are flying blind, their jobs are to extract our magical secrets and artifacts. Drown them in the ocean of romantic fiction our civilization pumps out unendingly, imply that Twilight holds the magic secrets of vampire weaknesses. Make them listen to the Garry Cotter audiobooks. Make their jobs fun but pointless in terms of actual accomplishments.

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: oh! oh! I get it. You are talking about the compliance thingy

  [Rasputin (?益?)]: what

  [Emperor of Earth ?_?]: Find the exact terms of the Pradavarian/Frontenachii blood contract. If the Pradavarian girls are bound in particular legal terms or orders from their Omnid Masters, then maybe we can direct them into the mire of “malicious compliance”. We cannot defeat the Frontenachii Colonial Dominion physically via our armed forces or nukes but we can locate a psychological weak point and push on it very carefully and slowly until they break.

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: or rub it vigorously till they submit haha ??

  [Cleopatra (????)]: -.-

  [Zorro(╯°Z°）╯]: don’t shame me, I’ve been up 21 hours. Operation 'Invader Mass Seduction' is a go!

  [Rasputin (?益?)]: I have inquiry. Emperor, who made you Emperor? Why you our resistance leader?