I reach over and pull the child off my mate and set her on the ground that she spontaneously appeared from.
“No offense meant, but after the lunch we were having, I’m unsettled?”
The small pixie girl snorts at me. “Kimber Novarro, you are family are you not? More importantly, has Zia not talked about me?!” She turns to accuse my girl and suddenly I am disarmed, knowing that she truly is family: no one else would be so jovially insulted.
“If you are Isabelle Wysteria Astoria, then yes, I have indeed heard of you. However, your mystery is only nearly as large as my curiosity.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m going to shortcut things by a year or so. Grab my hand,” she holds it out and I instinctively do as she asks. What the hell? “Good, now, focus on searching my intentions instead of judging them. Then search your soul for whatever command feels right for invoking your . . . divine link.”
Dude. This mini-boss pixie kid is intense, but she has the weight of eons upon her words. From her prompting, the words are pulled from me.
“[Weigh the Balance]” The remainder of my aether pulses the being in front of me and it is reflected and focused on my mind. To say the feeling is overwhelming is to say that the ocean is large.
A kaleidoscope of moments assault me, all true, half could be co-existent and I feel that a facet of reality ruptures into my consciousness before the mind that inhabits multitudes is limited to a single reality. This woman, this child of Astoria is a Prophet, and is a being of a multi-threaded reality that I am not prepared or capable of encompassing.
“Pixies be damned, is that a mind fuck.” I’m looking up at a kneeling Elf, holding my hand and petting my head.
“Izzi, was that necessary?”
“No, but this keeps me from being a consuming problem in your lives.” The leaky bucket of probabilities focuses on me and her expression shifts. “Ah, that likelihood was . . . rare. I’m sorry for the surprise Kimber, and I apologize for the brief discomfort of your knowledge. Your tier up should regulate . . . what I’ve subjected you to.”
“Do all of Penny’s kids have the ability to whammy my life? Since the twins are all that are left, I figure this is a need to know.” I say from my back, on the Garden lawn.
Penny snorts, the asshole. Isabella responds. “If you meet the twins, you have much different issues from some quirk of Andromeda’s Divinity code. The love of Phie is the only reason I’ve appeared, well, Zia too, but Phea is . . . no sugar coating this family. Mom is a menace in the timestream. Zia is basically an enabler of chaos, and young Phie is an independent path that drives me insane, but no one can help but love that tiny menace.”
I laugh at that, “That’s the truth. She’s basically convinced us that we should have kids . . . in the distant future. Damned adorable menace.” Fuck. The reminder of my niece makes me teary, remembering that she wants to live with me and Zi, and I can’t think of anything I would want more than to see that wee monster every day. Zia can feel me through our bond and swipes her thumb along my arm to comfort me.
“Yeah, Yeah,” Izzi waves her hand about to dismiss the thickening feelings. “Kimber, we won’t interact again until the wedding, and after that, you’ll have to be tier 3. Our paths are too chaotic and . . . honestly damaging to reality before that. I will say, since Mom is basically a platonic life mate of yours, that if you hurt my sister, I will kick a butterfly that will affect your future.”
I turn to beam at Penny because of the ‘besties’ revelation and she tosses pixie dust in my face. Asshole.
“Trust me, Izzi, that butterfly will be the last consequence to get to me if I hurt the very nexus of my affection.”
“Blegh, I hate that I had to hear you say that. You two are sickening in 90% of realities. Mom and Mik are not nearly as bad. Mostly ‘cause the both of them are class ‘S’ idiots.”
“Isabella, I am still your mother.”
“Yeah, yeah. Tier above me, blah, blah.” The small girl opens her arms and within a breath, Penny is there to hug her with titanic force. The small prophet grumbles but the reluctant joy is visible in the relaxation of the Wandering Prophet.
“Hey! Kimmy, don’t do that.” She flicks rice at my face. “With me, and a few others, that sight might kill you.” I raise my hands in defense and desist. “Oh, nice. Zia, you’ve got a winner here. Anyway, I gotta go. I . . . yeah, no explanations. I’ll see you at your wedding.” She wanders over to Zia and kisses her cheek and hugs her, she throws another piece of sushi at me and then fades as she walks to the doors to the castle.
“I know why you love wierdos, Penny.”
Bitch teleports me to Pulsar Plantation.
***
I message Zia as soon as I realize where I am, then I start managing my damned messages.
Kimber! NO!
Oh, Pixie glitter. I fucked up.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
/Level advancement paused for tier advancement.
/delaying advancement may adversely affect skill progression.
/delaying advancement may adversely affect Exchange access (Human)
->K] Zizi, I need advice. [<-
//Normal Functions are suspended while Tier Advancement is in progress.\\
FUCK! This is exactly why I was avoiding this! Damned impatience and damned Pixie teleportation! Penny, I swear to you as my Patron, that if your teleportation ruins my advancement, I will plague you with the worst prayers in existence.
//Divine Communion attempt acknowledged. Terrestrial Deity Present, Divine Communion Denied\\
Alright, Andromeda. Advance me.
/Ballistics and Rifles à Projectile Mastery: Intermediate 10
/Illuminating Gaze, Spectrum of Truth, Aether Sense, and Sense Motive à Divine Sight: Advanced 4.
//Your Mutation Has led to a Race Change. Ordinal Status May not be refuted. Your Race change and Ordinal status are being Adjudicated by the Andromeda Matrix.\\
/Divine aspected wings have been subsumed.
/Divine aspected energy storage devices have been subsumed.
/Foreign device function has been approximated and foreign material expunged or integrated.
//Race change demands exceed excess aether and Will. Searching for additional sources.\\
//Divine Communion Acknowledged. Deity Aether and Will sufficient.\\
->P] KIMBER! You will pay me back for this, but live for Zia, damn you. [<-
->K] Damned right I will. We are bound and tied to life and essence everafter. [<-
The last part was drawn from me as like an oath from a fanatic. Perhaps I was too flippant with the ties that having Penny as my deity entailed.
***
“Kimber, baby, wake up please.” I hear the sobs of my heart of hearts in my ears as my other senses return to me.
I instinctively grasp with my hands, as a newborn with a thumb to hold, and the sobs pause. Lips smash into mine as too-fast chattering assaults my ears. The exclamations are far too loud.
“Zizi, volume.” I hear myself mumble.
“ohmygodmylove,” she kisses me again, and pets my face relentlessly. “Mom said she heard you and I felt you die and I don’t know and I found you and . . . gods I am scared, horny and angry.”
I chuckle and it hurts. “Zia, I am in no shape to horny. I thought advancements are supposed to make me new. Why do I hurt so much?”
“Kimber, please don’t expect me to think. I just barely kept myself together enough to talk to you when you awoke. Now, I’m going to strip you, hold you, and pass out.”
“Baby, I need to, like, explore what happened?”
“Nooo. That can wait until morning. Please?” That pout does me in every time. I am so in love with this woman.
Hours pass, I nod in and out and eventually I give up and decide that I can read my new announcements without her reading over my shoulder.
//You are no longer Human. Your Race has changed to Nephilim. As the first of your kind inducted into the Andromeda Matrix, your Ordinal status has been changed to Primus\\
x2
Okay, Tertius to Primus seems like a big deal, but what the hell is a Nephilim?
Based on Earth Legend, a Nephilim is a child of an Angel and a Human. Since you are a human child and you claim Penny as your mom, you should be a Demigod? Perhaps it is an approximation of the angel aspects you were trying to adopt mixed with your human ancestry.
That makes as much sense as any. Andromeda approximating the merge instead of tying in my actual ancestry. Not that anyone would have been able to tell what that was after my initialization transformation, nor can I remember much of my birth parents because when I try I disassociate, vomit and pass out.
I look at my skin and don’t see any of the runes that I’d painstakingly sat through. I can’t see my back, but I doubt the runes are there either. My skin is pristine, even more so than after my tier 1 transition. Were the changes reversed?
I want to try things out so badly, but I said that I would let it keep until morning. I feel bad about scaring her, but she has no idea how scared I was when she fucking kidnapped me either. Take a breath, Kimber, and realize that Zia’s behavior will most likely calm down when Penny blesses our marriage. In the off-chance it doesn’t, I have a rousing conversation all queued up.
Tova, what am I missing here?
Funny that this hasn’t come up in the last three-almost-four years. You are mostly a Talent-based aether user. Since you also have a Will-based aether specialization, you don’t really need spellforms to cast spells—the simple ones anyway. Your
You, on the other hand, have a spellbook that you’ve never needed. However, your tier-up added some spells, and I’ll give you a guess as to which ones.
That makes me feel better and a little worse. You knew about this spellbook?
You’ve never attempted to cast a spell like a mage or a wizard, or even a hedge witch, so it was on my restrictions list.
I need to invent a Pixie Pantheon, so I can swear at more than just Penny. Still, Andromeda is pulling some trickster bullshit with these limiters on AI’s. So do the engraving runes also end up in my spellbook?
Thank you for asking that, now most of the topics surrounding this are free to discuss. Yes and no. Engraving runes and simple logic are not considered spellforms. This has an upper limit as well. Penny, for example, created many of the transportation Gates in the Empire and knows the sequence—whether in her Engravings section or Artificing. However, it is unlikely that she has achieved the power and mana required to cast this spell un-aided so it has probably not been added to her spell list—if she knows about it.
I can’t help but chuckle at the last quip. I doubt she does, as the Imperial Menace can teleport at Will, and do whatever she does for the long-distance, across the Galaxy buffoonery.
“What’s got you grinning at the wall, cutie?” My sleepy Elf, sporting frustratingly stylish bed hair asks.
“Tova was telling me about spell books, and that I shouldn’t feel bad about not knowing about them, because Penny probably doesn’t either.”
She stares at me long enough to make it awkward, then groans and covers a shout with a pillow. “Gods, am I engaged to my mother? Izzi better not pop out after our wedding and tell me you’re a time-displaced clone or some shit or I will be super angry, lost, and upset with myself.”
I chuckle and pull her close and smooch her face until she pushes my lips away. “I think we want relationships with people we respect. I think you like a person with a strong will and a potential for greatness.” I preen a little and get a pillow in the face for it. “I got a woman that is confident in herself, doesn’t need anyone, but wants me around anyway. You just don’t have toxic-ass reasons for wanting me around.”
“Confident? I come across as confident?!”
I hold her face with both hands to keep her looking at me. “Sure, I liked how well we got along, how easy it was to laugh with you. Actually, that was huge, and you never asked me for anything except for a real meeting. But when you showed me that you had a special part of your Track dedicated to who you actually are and not what you were expected to be, I was hooked.”
“You say that, but where is my steamy draconid sex, hmm? I have ear ridges and a cloaca that could use attention.”
I shudder at the thought, because when she says those words, it’s a kimodo dragon and not my Pinkie-saur.
“Remember how I told you it took me half a year to get used to the idea of having sex with someone I’d been living with? It might be a few centuries before I can do dragon foreplay, let alone sex.”
“I’m at least half dragon, half elf, so I’ve got a few thousand years to wait.” She says calmly while flicking my nipple.
I lurch forward and bury my head in her shoulder, sorely tempted to bite it. “Jokes on you, I’m hyoom . . . well shit. I’m not human anymore.”
“Really?!” My fiancée says with entirely too much enthusiasm, “That means, you’ll be around for a few centuries at least, right?”
I make a face. I know I do. I have very little control of my expressed emotion unless I’m using a skill.
“EEE! Ophelia just told me that your new race has at least five hundred years according to legends! Kimber! I don’t have to live without you for most of my life. Gods, best wedding present ever.”
Smooches.
More smooches.
HANDS!