Wenlianna and Ahok work diligently in the Citadel’s main laboratory, where there are all sorts of prototypes, sketches, notes, and books piled on virtually every horizontal surface. The brunette feels a little bad, since most of the laboratory is designed around the standard medium-sized humanoids, such as humans, Uhl’tall, dattakoriens, and Chi’rinnis, who make up the bulk of the Fievegal’s ‘interior’ civil servants. She is a little taller than a typical goblin, but she is shorter than even the petite young Stalvaltan heiress.

  That said, Ahok is never deterred, working skillfully on whatever surface she needs to, including the floor, as long as the work gets done. More than once, Wenlianna and Ahok have been caught by Aramellianna in a seated position across from each other as they scribbled schematics and other notes on a blueprint.

  Right now, Wenlianna is examining the magic-absorption properties of Hekate’s tail fur, which seems to act as a sort of ‘funnel’ from what the young brunette can tell, pulling in mana from around the feldrok teen, which is what explains how she can recover such a vast pool of mana with little more difficulty than a typical human mage recovers their own stamina. Like any living thing, Hekate’s body is the part that does the conversion, most likely, from the raw mana of the world to the ‘refined’ form of mana that enables the use of spells, but her hair and fur seem to act as conduits to constantly replenish that amount.

  Further deepening the mystery of how mana flows, interacts with, and shapes the world, the ‘carbon nanotubes’ that Daniel believes makes up the massive columns buried deep in the ground and shelled with more typical coal have an apparently similar ability to gather and conduct mana, allowing Wenlianna to use the small chunk Daniel gave her to slowly charge an enhanced magic crystal merely leaving the two in direct contact. It can even conduct via mana tubing, which is how most magic circuits are connected in Zenkon’s current technology.

  Ahok states as she inspects the special microscope Daniel commissioned, though it’s only in the early stages, since they don’t have a large selection of lenses yet. “I can kind of see the fabric-like structure, but the ‘threads’ are still too small to see.”

  “Daniel did say the fibers themselves would be very difficult to discern even with a regular microscope,” replies Wenlianna. She has her own glasses, which she affectionately cares for, because she knows how precious the lenses are.

  “Those kobolds are working on more lenses, but will it really make that much of a difference?” asks the half-goblin Chief Magic Artisan of the Fievegal.

  “I’m sure of it!” exclaims Wenlianna excitedly.

  “But, glass is especially difficult to imbue with spells or enchant…”

  “Mm-hmm!” replies Wenlianna, and she takes her glasses off, handing them to Ahok. “It won’t make much of a difference, but try holding these over the eye piece of the microscope and move them closer and further away.”

  Ahok nods and agrees, doing as instructed. While Wenlianna’s eyesight is too poor on its own to really know if it makes a difference, Daniel explained by showing her the lenses before they were installed in the device.

  More importantly, though not as eagle-eyed as dattakoriens or gatonines, goblins are notorious for their good eyesight, which Wenlianna has heard many times from the Stalvaltan Guards since coming to the Citadel. Though the various goblin military troops have truly become elites in their own right, the Stalvaltan Guards have generational experience. And, even so, the powerful battlemages find difficulty ambushing the goblins, especially of Grendel Three and Grendel Six. Even the smallest sparkle or glint of metal or glass from rifle scopes and armor catches their eyes.

  And Ahok hums to confirm Wenlianna’s suspicion. Though it’s a relatively minor amount of magnification, a highly attentive and detail-oriented goblin like Ahok wouldn’t miss it. “I see! So, we’ll keep adding lenses! This makes sense!”

  “Yes! And, I’m hoping that, between the two of us, we can find the right combination of spellcraft AND these lenses to allow us to see even smaller.” Wenlianna shakes her fist, declaring, “Earth technology won’t stay out of my reach forever!”

  Ahok snickers, and she hands the brunette’s glasses back, which Wenlianna puts back on to be able to see properly again. The goblin playfully replies, “I don’t know if it really counts, since we use magic devices…”

  “Yes, and we have ‘fantasy mythical god monsters’,” quotes the young artisan in English. “But, who else can fight them? Other than you, I suppose…”

  Ahok goes quiet, and Wenlianna panics as she realizes her own folly, “Oh gosh! No! I meant… Oh… I meant that to sound cool, but… I’m sorry.”

  The goblin does her best to smile, replying softly, “No, no! It’s alright. I just… At first, I wanted credit, but… after seeing it in action…” She trails off, deep in thought.

  “Regardless, your work was a true feat of spellcraft, Ahok! I don’t… really like building weapons myself, but to make something so powerful…” The brunette holds her lab-smock’s sleeve in front of her face as she averts her eyes. “I can count on one hand the number of people who can make something so splendid.”

  Ahok giggles nervously, scratching her cheek as she blushes slightly. “You flatter me. Sadly, it’s my goblin blood, no doubt. I have a million ideas for bringing death, but just a handful for helping…”

  There’s a soft knock on the door just as Ahok is finishing, and it cracks open enough for a familiar male voice to ask, “It’s me, Daniel. Just me. May I enter?”

  Wenlianna starts to instinctively respond, excited more than she should be to see her own consort and official fiance. But, she halts and looks to Ahok, deferring to her.

  The goblin twitches, looking right back at Wenlianna. “M-Me?”

  “Of course,” replies Wenlianna softly. “If you refuse, I’ll fire him and send him on his way!” The brunette puffs herself up as she says this with a proud smile. It’s easy to hear Daniel scoff outside of the inner lab, which is kept private for Ahok’s benefit, mostly. She’s got her own entrance and exit from the room so she can avoid coming across any men as much as possible. She still has some lingering fear about what happened, but true to his word, in spite of appearances, Daniel always treats the half-goblin artisan with the utmost respect.

  “I… But, you’re… the Empress…” murmurs Ahok, still unused to them deferring to her.

  “I can call on the radio if you’re not comfortable with me in the same room,” states Daniel from the door.

  Ahok panics, exclaiming, “N-No! Don’t be silly! Y-Your Grace! Please, enter. I serve at your leisure.”

  Daniel enters with calm motions, since he usually tries not to hurry about things if he doesn’t have to, and because he doesn’t want to startle the timid artisan.

  “Lady Ahok,” states Daniel as he enters. He approaches Wenlianna as the goblin returns his greeting with a polite bow.

  “Your Grace.”

  “Mukori,” adds the mechanic in a slightly devious tone, which causes Wenlianna to blush a little.

  “Mukori,” replies the brunette, during which Daniel takes a lock of her hair to kiss it gently, lest he make it too awkward for Ahok.

  He then addresses both of them. “The mana devices worked great, but they filled up immediately. Hekate is offloading the excess mana she absorbed in the process. I came by to run a few ideas by you two, if you don’t mind.”

  “Does that include Doephluev?” asks Wenlianna.

  Daniel flinches and whips around to look, but no one’s there.

  Wenlianna adds a little bitterly, “I just meant this is usually the time she appears.”

  The otherworlder sighs, facing the two ladies again. “I asked her to go rest, but we’ll see how that turns out. I don’t need to exclude anyone from planning, though. I just wanted to bounce ideas with you two first where it’s quiet.”

  “I… uh… can leave you two to start planning in even more private,” offers Ahok bashfully.

  Wenlianna glances at her with rosy cheeks, and then darts her gaze back and forth between Daniel and the goblin magic artisan, stuck on whether or not she wants to accept.

  “Don’t worry about Wenlianna. I’ll handle her later.”

  “Geez! Daniel!” whines the brunette as she hides her face as much as her smock will allow. Even Ahok is slightly embarrassed by the bluntness, but Daniel crouching to her level reminds everyone that there’s a serious task.

  “Jokes aside, I’d like to mine the mana while we’re fighting the fire.”

  “Mine it?” asks Wenlianna, confused.

  Daniel nods. “Not literally, like coal, but it might as well be a tree waiting to be tapped for syrup or a beehive for honey. We physically can ‘tap’ the mana, so to speak, but…”

  “Volume is an issue,” murmurs Ahok as she pieces it together.

  “Exactly. And, if it could be done quickly enough and in great enough volume, we might be able to defeat the mana fire simply by starving the ‘stars’ of mana.”

  Wenlianna and Ahok both perk up at these words. They haven’t seen the mana fire themselves, but they have heard about it a bit, and Ochibenara has been permitted to hear about the “Children of the Star”, as she calls the embers that spread the spell continuously.

  Zenkon has some understanding of typical fire, since many living beings, sapient or otherwise, can summon flames using magic since early times. But, having such conveniences at a person’s fingertips has limited some of the technological understanding of the fabric of the world, since magic is generally used as the platform of science before anything else.

  As such, while they don’t use the word ‘phlogiston’ for the essence of a material that ‘escapes’ when it burns, like some piece of a material’s atomic structure, they don’t know enough about elements and other fundamentals, putting them sometime in the 17th or 18th century in terms of science, even when they were already in the late 19th to early 20th with some of their technological advancements through magic devices.

  That said, Wenlianna lives at the cutting edge with unique access to Daniel and his phone, which has accelerated her decades or even a couple of centuries ahead of the rest of Zenkon. She and Ahok understand his metaphors in this case, and it’s their understanding of magic devices in their current forms that will allow Daniel to be able to strip off the mana being radiated, like a solar array pointed at the ground, rather than the sky.

  “To make something on the scale needed would be difficult,” murmurs Wenlianna as she thinks. “For starters, the donation diamonds are the largest ones in the world, and we had to disguise them just so people don’t realize how valuable they are.”

  Daniel nods in agreement. The mana donation diamonds serving as ‘enhanced magic crystals’, several of which were borrowed for the mission, were summoned via magic with the Citadel, rather than formed through the process Daniel and Wenlianna developed.

  “I know it’s not practical, since we don’t have the spare mana in the Citadel to make more. I was hoping maybe you’ve made some discoveries with the CNT material we found.”

  “Well, it does absorb mana similar to Hekate’s hair and fur,” replies the human artisan. “But, it doesn’t seem to store the magical energy quite as well as diamond does. If anything, it acts a bit like the way you described magnets.” Wenlianna sets a piece of paper on the floor as she takes a seat next to Daniel, who is still crouching, and Ahok, who is standing.

  The brunette draws out a basic sketch of the CNT, a glass sphere, and a generic ‘mana source’, and she draws something that reminds Daniel exactly of visualizations of magnetic fields, with concentric loops typically drawn from north to south to represent the direction the magnetic field flows through the air around the magnet.

  Wenlianna explains, “I’m only working on a hypothesis right now, but when I put a small glass sphere against one end, the glass will start to glow automatically. If I add mana at this end,...” She points to the end opposite of the glass sphere on her drawing, “...the glow intensifies. If I put two glass spheres on either end, though, it seems like one glows more than the other. This suggests to me that something is directing the mana in a direction, not just simply conducting it. I think it might be an imbalance of the fibers of the material, but also, possibly, part of a design I can’t see. It would fit with Hekate’s fur being similarly mana absorptive and conductive.”

  “The problem is, we don’t have enough lenses on the microscope to observe more closely,” explains Ahok. “I think the kobolds started working on it, but we haven’t heard from them since.”

  “I asked Xyreko to have them focus on making lenses for glasses of various prescriptions,” replies the mechanic. “The microscope can come later, but there’s actually a finite amount of magnification that can be done solely by optical lenses.”

  Both magic artisans stare at him expectantly, including Ahok, who seems to be getting more comfortable with Daniel, though relatively no one else of a male persuasion.

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  The mechanic sighs, taking a more comfortable cross-legged seat on the hard floor, rather than continuing to kneel. “It’ll take time to explain in detail, but the simple version is, the things we are trying to see are too close to the same size as the things we’re using to see them. That’s not entirely accurate, but close enough for a quick and dirty explanation, I hope. I suppose… somewhat like if you tried to use the top of your head instead of your fingers to feel the shape of a statue.”

  The two women scoff and giggle, but as they think about it, the analogy makes a bit of sense.

  Ahok asks, “So, how do we study the carbons fur and her Greatness’s fur?”

  “For now, we don’t. Not visually,” replies Daniel. “To make a powerful enough microscope to see such things, I don’t have the know-how to make the Earth version. I don’t even fully know how they worked, other than what they used to do the looking. That said, as always,...”

  “Magic!” declares Wenlianna confidently as she gives Daniel a pair of finger guns using the wrong fingers with a smug look of triumph.

  He laughs and gives an approving nod. “Back to the issue at hand, though, I take it the columns won’t be useful to us for this?”

  “I’m afraid not. Just based on what we know, the coal shell probably served as a storage base for the enchanted boulders, as relatively weak as it would be compared to diamond or salt. And, the CNT interior gathered raw mana and slowly refined it. We might be able to use them to gather some mana, but it won’t be very much.” Wenlianna cups her chin, saying, “We could probably use the airship to strip the mana to keep it afloat. At the very least, we could use it as a mana-sink to give it somewhere to go.”

  “Worth a shot,” replies Daniel. “But, that puts a lot of people in the path of extreme danger, so I don’t necessarily want to use it.”

  The brunette smiles softly. “Yes, it’d be perfect if we had the spare mana to use golems to pilot it, but it was the only thing I could think of that expends mana quickly enough that can be moved near the fire.”

  “It’s a good idea,” replies Daniel. “Just dangerous.” He takes a breath and sighs. “We’ll ask the two airship crews for volunteers, and if we can get enough to man it continuously,...”

  “I-... I think… I have an idea…” offers Ahok as she raises her hand sheepishly.

  Daniel and Wenlianna both look at her, and Ahok speaks softly, “Forgive me if this is a bit overzealous, but… C-... Couldn’t we open a portal, like the Fiendbreaker?”

  “A portal?” asks Wenlianna.

  Daniel digests it, though. They could certainly do so, but how effective it would be depends highly on whether or not free-flowing mana can transition across the portal. The reason he’s doubtful is that light doesn’t cross portals. It reminds Daniel of a classic gag in older cartoons; a hole that often was ‘peeled’ off of the surface it was on and moved around freely for comedic effect. While not as oppressive or sinister as something like a black hole, nor as mystical as a typical sci-fi wormhole, the portals stand out as seemingly two-dimensional black surfaces with swirling mana that gives them ‘depth’ at the edges. Regardless of the appearance, objects can pass freely across the surface, traversing seemingly any distance through physical space in an instant by bypassing the space in between.

  “We can try to test it,” replies Daniel. “But, I’m afraid mana won’t cross the threshold of the portal itself.”

  “But, things carrying mana can,” points out Wenlianna brightly. “We’ll run a couple of tests. Though…”

  “Even a small portal being sustained will eat up a lot of mana,” replies Daniel. “Which we’re woefully short on already.”

  “If it does work, it’ll be the best use of the buried columns,” replies Ahok.

  When the other two look at her, she borrows Wenlianna’s pencil to sketch on the drawing sheet. “The carbons fur columns draw mana in, from what we’re speculating, so if we can open a large portal, and then slide one of the columns through it,...”

  “We’ll have a continuous mana-mining ‘drill’!” exclaims Wenlianna brightly. “And, we can try to tap it directly into the Citadel’s core. As long as the incoming mana exceeds the portal sustenance, it should sustain itself as long as we want!”

  “I like it. I’ll ask Xyreko to start making preparations and check on where everyone else is at. If you two need anything else, let me know.”

  “Of course!” says Ahok brightly as she watches Daniel rise to a kneel.

  He then asks, “Lady Ahok,... Can you think of any reason the void artillery sparked the fire?”

  Her bright smile softens into one of concern. She shakes her head solemnly, murmuring, “I’m afraid not, your Grace. I’ve gone over all of the theories I know, but the void spells combines all elements of mana to concentrate together as… a bubble, I suppose is the best way to put it. A bubble of a new element, in essence; annihilation. One sphere is annihilation given form. Two scatters their annihilation energy over a larger area. Even if all of the mana of two full castings were condensed together, it should still possess the annihilation trait, and I would have expected that annihilation element to spread even further by a comparable expansion as a single pair.”

  As Daniel listens, he is brought back to the more archaic views on fire, let alone the early fears of atomic weapons.

  Until a principle is actually understood down to its fundamentals, it simply isn’t. And, while it isn’t understood fundamentally, people will come up with explanations that are believable, from various gods, spirits, and fantastical beings to explain “giant’s steps”, “fairy rings”, and “the Flying Dutchman”, among countless other phenomena.

  Ahok is going on what she knows, and she successfully developed the void artillery using the current magical theories and accepted formulas.

  Keyword being “current”.

  There was a time on Earth when the sun orbited the human homeworld, when one could eventually sail off of the edge of the world, and when radiation was the be-all, end-all for medicine because of the initial observations of humanity. It took many centuries in some cases to truly understand things that modern Earthlings are taught as children.

  What that means is that the most recently observed facts contradict the known theories, meaning there is a fundamental flaw buried in the theories based on an inability to test the outcome. Only Senn is said to have ever been powerful enough to singlehandedly cast the void annihilation spell that Ahok refined into a weapon, so there was no one to cast it a second time alongside her to see what would happen.

  And, good thing, too.

  Think, Daniel… Why would it have done that? Is it like the difference between a star becoming a black hole or a white dwarf? Would mana even fit into Earth physics systems? The mana flame is sustaining itself, but why? Why is it doing that? There shouldn’t be enough energy to sustain the degeneracy of matter… So, why?

  Daniel cups his forehead as he tries to process his thought, and Wenlianna asks gently, “Mukori? Wh-... What is it?”

  “I just… If it were a normal fire, the options are numerous; starve it of oxygen, starve it of fuel, disrupt the reaction, or isolate the ignition from the rest. ‘Easy’ isn’t the right word, but… We could deal with it with relative ease with all of our resources. But, this…” He sighs in frustration.

  “I’m sorry…” murmurs Ahok softly.

  “What? No! This isn’t your fault, Ahok!” urges Daniel. “I just… I can’t wrap my head around it. Even stars like the sun eventually die. So, why is a spell continuing to destroy matter?”

  No, not destroy, thinks the mechanic to himself. Converting. But, even so, conservation of energy… There’s no way the act of converting mana can be more efficient.

  Daniel stands up slowly, still deep in thought.

  “I’ll try to study the theories and spell formulas again,” offers Ahok. “If it was a smaller spell, we might be able to use a dispel or interruption. I… once came across a field called ‘spell interdiction’, but it was outside of my scope, so…” The goblin fidgets and looks away. “I… didn’t read it.”

  “‘Spell interdiction’,” repeats Daniel thoughtfully. “I’ll ask the other ladies, particularly Senn.”

  “I-If you need a distraction afterwards, we can talk about steam engines,” offers Wenlianna, trying to lighten the mood. It’s obvious that Daniel is frustrated at being so far in the dark about what they’re up against. Unlike the monsters he’s faced, he can’t just hammer out a magic bullet or quickly throw magic into making fiction reality. He doesn’t know what his ‘enemy’ actually is, so he is struggling to fight it.

  Regardless, he can appreciate the brunette trying to help comfort him so that he doesn’t try to carry the weight of the world.

  She adds when he doesn’t respond right away, “We can make an even bigger airship, or a big scary iron drake. You were really excited about the first one, right?”

  Daniel finally laughs softly and offers his hand to help her to her feet, which she gladly accepts. “On Earth, the biggest engines in the world for war machines weren’t steam engines, but…”

  Daniel’s expression drains as the thought really takes shape in his mind. He finishes softly, “Diesel…”

  “Diesel?” asks the human woman.

  Ahok asks curiously, “Is ‘Deesell’ another anti-magic material?”

  Diesel and bunker fuels sometimes need to be pre-heated, don’t they? If a tanker of even bunker c was sitting just below the line, once the spark is lit, its own heat would help sustain the flame…

  Daniel looks at his own hands. He is the only living thing in the world of Zenkon that doesn’t have mana of his own, normally. If Yaulwembor is right, he still has mana since gaining it from a very specific milk, but originally, he had none at all.

  Abiogenesis… The spark of life. The ingredients already existed, so… the spark…

  The wayward mechanic from a faraway world closes his hands into fists.

  Liquid diesel ignited in open air can burn, but slowly. Atomized and compressed, it explodes just like any other internal combustion cycle. I don’t yet know how, but the void artillery spell explodes while expanded, but implodes and burns continuously when condensed. I know I’m forcing the explanation to fit the observations, but…

  “Mukori?” asks Wenlianna as she puts her hands on Daniel’s closed fists.

  He startles both of them when he suddenly snatches the brunette woman and kisses her. She squeaks, but quickly relaxes in his embrace, gripping his shirt.

  With the same suddenness, Daniel swiftly hefts the young woman onto his shoulder, saying excitedly, “I’m borrowing my Mukori for a bit. Keep up the good work, Lady Ahok.”

  Daniel starts to leave, and the two dumbfounded women try to stop him, Wenlianna because she’s startled by being carried over his shoulder all of a sudden, and Ahok because her primary research partner is being kidnapped. “Wait! Your Grace!?” “Daniel!?”

  The relieved otherworlder smirks at the half-goblin. “It’s only for a bit. I’m going to ‘handle’ her, since she may have saved us all.”

  Ahok stares at him, dumbfounded, while Wenlianna squirms and whines as she covers her face in embarrassment. “Da-Mu-Mukori! You can’t say it like that!”

  The mechanic adds as he’s leaving the lab, “The conditions already existed! We can still starve the fire, we just have to figure out what it dislikes!” He stops at the door one last time to look at Ahok again, adding seriously, “Just a quick break, and we’ll be back at it. Spell interdiction, void magic, and maybe even the void artillery spell may be the keys.” He grins. “And, we might just be able to manage with nothing more than anti-magic materials.”

  “I-I’ll start gathering what I can.”

  “Feel free to take a break as well, Lady Ahok. You certainly deserve it.”

  “Mukori! I insist you put me down right this instant!” exclaims Wenlianna.

  “We can do it here, if you want. I just thought it might be awkward for Lady Ahok,” teases the mechanic as he winks at the half-goblin. She smirks, amused and a bit embarrassed as well.

  Wenlianna hides her face again, groaning as she slumps on Daniel’s shoulder. He then says, “Contact Xyreko if you need anything, Lady Ahok. I’ll send Wenlie-Mukori back soon.”

  “Ja-... Uh, Jajanna vo… will-…-fol?” murmurs the half-goblin artisan.

  Daniel laughs. He knows there are about as many dialects for the goblin languages as there are goblins, but he does recognize what she’s trying to say. It’s a goblin ‘blessing’ that Shek and Skloe often say to the villagers. It literally translates to “Make the clan strong” as an encouragement to produce more goblins with which to strengthen any one tribe by numbers. It’s mercenary in the wording, but has become a genuine blessing when goblins of the Fievegal use it, since they really do need numbers to eventually stabilize the fledgling Empire.

  Daniel grins deviously, “I should say the same to you, Lady Ahok.”

  The goblin twitches and blushes, bashfully looking aside as she holds her bicep. “I-I’ll… keep it in mind.”

  “Wait, what did she say? What does it mean?” asks Wenlianna.

  “Shh, Mukori. Let’s go.” Daniel carries the brunette out of the lab in spite of her protests, and she complains only a little more, particularly when they pass through the main research center where the rest of the artisans and artificers that have been gathered from among the Uhl’tall, dattakoriens, oni, and a couple of humans from the Stalvaltan Grand Duchy are all working together to advance the smaller projects.

  Once out in the main corridor, where there are a lot fewer people at the moment, Wenlianna finally relaxes on his shoulder. She asks softly, “D-... Mukori… What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I… This… is more aggressive than you usually are with me.”

  Daniel is silent for a moment, and she does her best to prop herself up against his back, trying to crane herself to look at his face. He glances up over her body to make eye contact briefly, and he smiles softly, looking ahead. “Do I need a reason to be turned on by my adorable fiancee?”

  She pouts a little, though her cheeks do feel warm still. “Father used to do this before he went off to battle.”

  This slows Daniel to a stop, and Wenlianna can tell that he has shifted a little. She pets his head, saying softly, “I’m not that dense, Mukori. I know… a lot can happen. You don’t have to go…”

  “I do have to,” murmurs the otherworlder. He gingerly crouches and sets her down on her feet, staying in a kneel in front of her for a moment. “I know the right answer as an Emperor. I know it in my brain. But, in my heart, in my bones… I have to work. I can’t send people in blind when I myself am blind. I know I’m a terrible emperor, but it’s why I insist…”

  Wenlianna cups his cheeks and pulls his face up to look at her. “I told you I’m not that dense, Daniel. I… am scared. I’m scared that, before we hold our first child together, or even get to be married formally,...” She shakes her head, refusing to speak it into existence. “Rather, I’m not protesting as you know some of the others might because of one very important reason.” She leans down and kisses him for a long time. She adds with slight tears in her eyes, but still holding her composure. For the briefest of moments, she could pass as the epitome of stoic grace that is her mother.

  “I trust you. I believe you know your limits, and I believe you will survive. You have consistently defied everyone’s expectations through sheer willpower, and our friends are very powerful. My… co-consorts are very powerful.” She looks disappointed for a moment, but she quickly lifts her head. “I am not a warrior, nor a brave fool who fancies herself a hero. But, I will be the safe haven that you return to when you need to rest.” She adds seriously and sternly, “And, you will return to me, won’t you?”

  Daniel smiles softly, “How could I possibly say no? I don’t want to be fired.”

  She scoffs. “Good. That’s the opposite of what you told me when we first met.” She kisses him again, and then she says, “Now… hurry up and… nnn…” She looks aside with brightly pinkened cheeks. “‘Handle’ me.”

  The otherworlder can’t help but laugh. This time, as he’s standing up, he swiftly scoops her up into a bridal carry, and she giggles approvingly. Daniel holds her close and replies with his most threatening voice, “I hope you’re ready, Mukori. They call me the Harbinger of Calamity for a reason.”

  “I suppose that’ll just make me… the Mother of Calamity,” retorts the brunette with a high level of confidence that surprises Daniel for a moment.

  “Well, now I absolutely can’t fail.” Daniel swiftly takes Wenlianna to her own quarters, since it’ll be quiet there. He is mindful of the fact that they could be interrupted, so he does want to make sure that they have some fun before that happens.

  The fire has him a little on edge, but like Kaeralegier’s dumb joke and the others trying to keep light tones, if he drowns in what the fire could do, he’ll stop living life and ultimately die spiritually long before his body quits.

  A few minutes of rest aren’t going to make a huge difference when he mainly needs mana from the Citadel, as well as his allies to be well-rested.

  They’ll be ready by the time the Empire reaches out, and they’ll have many methods to try.

  ***