“Please do” I mentally reply to the voice in my head, “and thank you.”

  “You're welcome,” the cold voice of Death speaks to me, “So… first off… eugh. This must be why she wanted you to have Beyond Morality… the Blessing of Pain from the Joyful Thing. It's… well, numbers boosting.”

  Is that… “Wait, you mean…”

  “The kind of devil that people can turn themselves into directly… by chopping off their limbs, removing non-vital organs, and setting themselves up for an eternity of constant agony during a long ritual. It's… eugh.” My uncle pauses, “Yes. THAT ‘Joyful Thing’. It's a bonus to your ability to avoid blows, to nd blows, to hit harder, and to avoid spells, but… eugh.”

  I feel dirty, “Agreed. Eugh. Moving on? Please?”

  “Heh,” I get a mild chuckle from Uncle C, “Next up is more numbers boosting: Fey Power from the Cu Sith.” He pauses.

  I don't immediately recognize it… “From one of the exotic bestiaries, huh?”

  The Comforter chuckles, “Quite. It's not found in this Fractal, a fey dog that manages graveyard guard duties. Regardless, it will boost your ability to nd blows, hurt your target, and help you both perform and resist various combat maneuvers.”

  “Quite the combat focus…” does she know something I don't?

  “How many devils were you up against earlier?” Oh, hey, Death can be sarcastic.

  “Heh, point. Yeah… I lived. One of them didn't. And I'll be recovering for days, despite how fast I heal.” Good thing for Illusions and my ability to just keep moving.

  “Yeah. I am gd you aren't feeling that. The others… Evasion and Mettle.” Death expins, “Basically any magic that would only partly affect you because of your ability to resist magic, posion, or whatever will instead not affect you at all.”

  “Which brings my immunity to magic even closer to total.” Nice, I guess.

  “Including most things that bypass immunities, yes.” Ah, that's what I'm missing.

  I consider that, “So you've been discussing things with Mom, then?”

  “Yes,” he admits, “I won't actively hide anything from him.”

  “Right. Because of grandpa.” I remember something about that.

  “Got it in one.” Death confirms, “By the way…”

  “Yeah?” I hope this conversation isn't showing on my face. I'm in public.

  “You're pnning on another one of those fast run trips, right?”

  “Yes,” I confirm, “until I can teleport properly, it's the fastest way to get around.”

  “Great… I'd like you to take a ten minute detour…” my uncle gives me a set of coordinates, about thirty miles from the town we're using as a home base, “...and drop off some of those nuts and veggies from your pantry… the stuff that won't go bad for a few months… about five hundred pounds of them… along with a Merchant summon, five of the Caravan Guard summons, and one Trapper build. Have them make camp. When my wayward sister shows….”

  Huh, “You know, I don't think I've ever heard you describe one of my aunts as ‘Wayward’ before.”

  “Dad has her on something of a leave of absence as a mortal for abusing her old position,” my uncle pauses, seeming to consider what to say, “She stuffed herself with power, was starving me out entirely, and was keeping everyone else in the family on as thin of rations as she could manage… except Dad, of course, who doesn't need it and isn't on the distribution list at all… your mother is covering for her”

  Wait… the old Life? Seriously? “‘Wayward’ is the least of what I would call someone who was that much of a…”

  “She's still family,” my uncle interrupts, “Dad loves us all, despite our many fws… which is why I need you to set up the pageant for me. She's supposed to be relearning something here. So when she shows, your summons are to take pity on her, feed her a meal, and offer her safe transport and food in return for preparing their meals and cleaning their gear every day. They're to head to your town, as merchants.”

  Huh? “Wait, my town? What makes you call it…”

  “Your summoned minions outnumber the mortals by over two orders of magnitude.” He pauses to let that sink in, “When over ninety nine percent of the popution of a town will do what a certain person says, up to and including things they KNOW will get them killed, that person rules the town, whether it's official or not. It's yours.”

  Huh. That's… one way of looking at it. “I suppose.”

  “Great.” Uncle C… wait, did he just sigh? Huh… “Now, you're going to need a real person to manage the orphanage you'll build when you get back…”

  “It's a mining town, there aren't any….”

  “The children of Woudrazed. How far along was Richard when you left?”

  I consider, “...he was about ready to pop.”

  “Yes. And do you really think he's going to want ANY reminders of that awful man and his actions?”

  “I suppose I can't bme ...him... for putting the kid up for adoption.”

  “Right. And I want you to hire your aunt to run the orphanage. She can also wet nurse the little ones: Your summons won't be ready for just a little too long, so it's pretty much this or commit the first little one to my care.” Let him or her die, you mean, uncle C.

  “That seems… convoluted.”

  “Yes. Dad's orders. Every single one of us, at one point or another, is stepping in to keep her alive… generally barely so. She has gone through a rather lot of hardship in the st few decades. So: Are you up for it?”

  “Yeah. It's well within my capabilities and doesn't sound like it'll take much.”

  “Right,” the voice of the grave pauses, “most of the time I'll just be asking you to talk to someone. The Prophet's Gift is really supposed to be more of an identification card than anything else: Some impossible thing that nobody else can do to demonstrate that, yes, this person speaks for one of the pantheon.”

  “So how did it become…” I'm not sure how to phrase it.

  “A competition to see who was strongest?” Death chuckles, “it's just the nature of people.” He considers a moment, “but that's really all I have for you right now.”

  “Thank you, uncle.”

  “You're welcome….” his voice fades from my head.

  Of course, the rest of the world kept moving while I spoke with my uncle. Roger and Aldamen are shaking hands… I guess that means they're done? They're both coming here, along with the daughter…

  The halfling introduces the newcomer, “So everyone, this is Aldamen's daughter, Vanessa.” Where Aldamen favors her orcish side… I can barely tell Vanessa has any orcish ancestry at all. Okay, her ears are just slightly pointer than usual, as are her canines… but that's it. She could trivially pass for fully human if I wasn't actively looking for such signs. Her full head of wavy raven locks frames her down to her waist, emphasizing her delicate neck, narrow shoulders, and wide hips rather well. She's dressed rather conservatively, her dress going down to her wrists and ankles, her neckline actually at her neck. It's a simple brown dress, and downpys her chest a little, which is admittedly pretty nice despite the downpying.

  The daughter looks quite angry, and is muttering under her breath… something about her mom tricking her? Eh, whatever.

  Aldamen mutters back, “I was quite clear that the ring was for you and you alone,” before greeting us all, “So, good to see you all again! How soon can we go?”

  Ah, I think I get it, “We can go whenever. You're both clear on the rules?”

  “No bbbing about anything we learn on the trip, yes,” the essentially human daughter rolls her eyes, “Now let's get out of here before the Duke has us killed.”

  The guildmaster rolls her eyes as she looks at her daughter, “He'll calm down after he gets his son a Break Enchantment spell… give him a few months.” She turns back to us, “But yeah, we need to get going as soon as possible.”

  Yeah, that tells me roughly what happened. Our party leader looks around, “Anyone else got any business here?”

  “I was pnning on getting some meat animals for breeding before we go,” I pipe up, “I noticed everyone was a little tired of vegetables.”

  Roger looks at Wesley and Bearcw, both of whom lick their lips, and so the halfling nods, “Given how your spells have changed up our budgeting, and just how popur that idea is, we can use party funds for it. I'll come with.” He takes a breath and switches to sign nguage, “Bearcw, Wesley… would you please escort our guests into their quarters for the trip?”

  “Sure, come on…” the party half-orc nods, stands, and bows, speaking verbally, “this way, dies….” the elf and half-orc lead our guests up to our room, and the halfling lingers.

  “I didn't want to say anything in front of our guests,” Roger gets up as we start heading out, “but where's Last Shadow?”

  “Temporarily deceased,” I sign, “I was ambushed st night.” I pause, “I fought them off… eventually… but Last Shadow died in the alpha strike. She'll be fine by this time tomorrow. I'm covering my own wounds with illusions. I'll be fine, but I don't exactly look presentable right now.”

  “You got up from being a popsicle in a matter of seconds, how bad…”

  “Very,” I interrupt, “by all sane logic I shouldn't be standing. But I have a job to do for my uncle….”

  “Dare I ask?”

  I find I can’t answer fully. Huh. “Eh. Dropping off some food and some fake people to rescue someone who's time hasn't come yet. I’ll summon the fake people and get the food from my pantry… doesn't cost us anything but a few minutes of time.”

  “This would be from…” he pauses a moment, “The Comforter?”

  Picking a name carefully, huh? “Yeah.”

  “Well… I don't want to get on his bad side, so…” Roger shrugs and we head off, we buy a male pony, a male draft horse, a rooster, a male pig, a couple female pigs, a couple of cows, and a bull.

  The party leader raises an eyebrow at my choices, and I chuckle, as I reply in sign, “I can keep summons around long enough for them to breed, but at least one must be fully real for it to work. Chickens, horses, and ponies I can get from spells, so I only need half the equation for those. Cows and pigs are not, so I need breeding pairs.”

  Roger nods as I move my Keyhome door and shuffle the animals inside, get them to the pantry, summon the associated females, set up some Experts to manage their care, and collect the quarter ton of nuts and veggies.

  We then head out….