Haley moved through the sun-bright common room of the chief’s hall, electronic clipboard in one hand, the other resting on the gentle swell of her belly. She loved that she was finally really showing, but it reminded her that time was ticking. They all had things to do.

Becky lounged on a wide couch with her feet up, tossing a ball at the roof. Rosa and Lexi sat nearby stitching baby clothes and giggling about some private joke. The elves were off with their own people. Lodie was tinkering with the most elaborate looking dishwashing machine known to man (apparently she hated dishes). Mason’s other conquests were blissfully off in their houses and not Haley’s problem.

But she couldn’t help herself from looking at the beautiful, wonderful women and smiling. She also had to fight a shiver of lust, but she banished the thought until Mason was closer to home.

“Come on, get dressed.” She went through picking up dirty clothes in a whirlwind. “Sylvie and Carl should be here any minute. I want you all there because I need input and you need to know what’s going on.”

The girls all groaned. Lodie promised she’d be done soon and had to be dragged away physically by Becky to get the grease cleaned off.

Carl and Sylvie showed up with polite smiles and some non-alcoholic bubbly. They all sat and ate snacks, and the couple updated them on civilian food stores and the newest wave of immigrants from the holy city.

“Another three hundred arrived yesterday,” Sylvie said, tapping her own notes. “We’ve still got housing coming out of our ears, but the food situation and common areas need work. There’s no problem, exactly, it’s just chaotic right now. We need to track things better, and either get guards or…I don’t know, use the system locked areas or whatever. I don’t want to suddenly realize people have been stealing food and we’re short.”

Haley nodded, thanking God for Sylvie as usual.

“You have full authority, Sylvie, do whatever you think is best.”

“I can’t offer guards,” Carl said, like this wasn’t the first time. “We get a skeleton crew, that’s it. Everyone is going out. Like everyone, including the cowgirl who isn’t listening to me over there.”

“Am too.”

“Everyone.” Carl pointed at himself, and Haley was pretty sure what the fight was really about. “Period. End of. It’s pretty much the only non-negotiable Mason decree.”

Sylvie took a breath and looked at Haley like she might help. She did not.

“Well.” Sylvie shrugged and stared at her pad like it might solve their problem. “We can just use civilian guards. Or…I don’t know. Wolves.” She frowned like this was supposed to be a joke but then changed her mind. “Are there any that are well trained?”

Rosa said it would work, and that yes there were a few. Haley let the others talk and felt her mind drifting. Something about being pregnant had made it hard to focus. Or maybe she just missed Mason.

Nights were the hardest. She would lie in their enormous bed surrounded by the soft breathing of the other girls who decided to join her. Not able to touch, not wanting to touch without him. Aching for the man who owned every inch of her.

He’d been gone for two weeks the first time. When the great tree finally hummed like it was pleased, he’d stepped out looking pale and worn, skin scarred, eyes glowing more than normal. He’d looked so fierce and terrifying she almost pulled away.

Then he’d seen her, and his face transformed into a smile, and she ran across the room and threw herself into his giant arms and felt the world disappear.

He’d carried her straight to the bedroom, the others following like moths to his flame. Mason had been ravenous. He’d taken Haley first, slow and deep, hardly even talking as he took them one by one. By the end the room had smelled of sex and sweat and Mason’s mind-numbing magic. Haley had fallen asleep with his hand on her belly and his seed still leaking down her thighs, utterly content.

But he was gone again by morning. Back to his ancient trees and whatever brutal training regimen he’d put himself on. Haley didn’t complain because he needed her to be strong. She got up and went back to her routine, making things run while he was away.

Whatever she had to endure was nothing compared to him. So she got up early and went into Nassau and moved a hundred things and people a little further forward on her husband’s plan. She was patient, and busy, and kept the world spinning for when her man returned, and her family and her world was whole again. And she never ever thought about it ending.

**

Blake stood in his workshop in the white tower, staring at his newly inscribed system beacon. It was a gift from Psion himself, a kind of vastly superior version of the psionic device he’d once had in Nassau. Back when the town belonged to him.

But this one was on a different level entirely. A psionic sphere of power filled with rejuvenating mana of a hundred different kinds, he need only step inside and start channeling. Inside the beacon, Blake’s psionic powers were enhanced and supported, and took a fraction of their usual cost.

He could hook himself up like a spider in a web of power, and split apart his mind.

It vastly increased the speed he could make constructs. He could Dreamwalk or watch the world through his mentally influenced targets, casting his perception across the world. With his Mental Multitudes, he was usually doing all of it at once.

The words ‘House of Blake’ were inscribed across the top of his beacon in multi-colored, Primordial chaos. It still made him smile. He stepped inside and accepted the prompt to begin with a lazy flick of his finger. He felt the subtle shift of power settle across his shoulders like a second skin.

There were constructs to make. Orcs and goblins to influence. People to watch and understand so he could eventually manipulate, or outright control.

Most of it gave him little spikes of experience. Small, yes, but they added up. He didn’t need to go into ‘dungeons’ like the others. With his new beacon and his mind split, he only had to do what he was already doing, and he’d out-level most of the others in time.

He had that now. Plenty of it. And nothing in the world to stop his growing web of power.

The House of Blake.

He smiled again as he started splitting his brain into a dozen partitions.

It was small for now—only Seul-ki and Ilya and a tower full of orcs. But that just meant they had room and opportunity for aggressive and ambitious expansion. He’d recruit the goblins soon enough. Then he’d start winning players and civilians from the holy city.

Anyone not specifically in Mason’s house was fair game as far as he was concerned. He’d bring hundreds to the orc towers. Maybe thousands. He could create almost anything they’d need with his Making powers.

Dozens of new constructs stood in in neat rows along his workshop walls: bigger, sleeker, armed with new knowledge and even crystals and some other civilian boosts he’d discovered could modify them.

Ilya’s tower was nearly full and couldn’t ‘control’ many more. But he’d discovered he could also send them to the holy city to be maintained by the city itself. They’d protect it well, and be trivial for him to ‘unmake’ if they were ever a problem. Or temporarily control if he had the inclination.

He worked for a few hours, then on a whim decided to go to Ilya and Seul-ki. In the last few weeks he’d stopped trying to keep them separate, making it clear he wanted both in his bed. Ilya hadn’t said a word, just bringing in more closets and making space in the master bedroom.

He found them trying on clothes—the orc lady’s belly growing much faster than a human’s would. She was naked except her jewelry and a loin cloth, and she turned and smiled as she saw him inspecting.

Seul-ki knelt beside her in nothing but black silk stockings, dark hair loose. Blake’s blood heated at the sight. Both women were pregnant with his children. The future of his house. It was hard to imagine being a father, but he found it didn’t bother him. He had so much to teach, and so much to learn.

“Welcome, my lord,” Ilya almost cooed. “I thought you’d be working all day. We were getting ready.”

He smiled and gestured the servants out, mentally commanding two constructs to guard the door. Now that he was the lord of the tower, he could control them all, just as Ilya could. He had hundreds of constructs defending him here. A tribe of powerful goblins he’d soon force into his employ. An orc army he’d bind to his will.

Ilya pulled Seul-ki to her feet, running her hands down her sides.

“Would you like us now, lord? Or are you hungry?”

Yes. He was very hungry. He took both women to his bed, a fraction of his mind soon lost in the moans and soft flesh and warm, wet pleasure. But most partitions had turned back to the board. They tested moves, they grew the pieces.

Mason was off playing druid with one of his girls. That wasn’t surprising. It had always been in Mason’s nature to hide away from the world when a crisis was over.

But not Blake. Blake would build. Constructs, alliances, knowledge. If the doom came like his brother predicted, Blake wouldn’t stand behind him—but beside him, as an equal. Or maybe just a little ahead.

Let whatever it is come.

He groaned and did some of his own, hands behind his head as the women pleasured him.

He and Mason would stop the doom. Side by side. They’d be brothers again, this world at their feet. Blake would find a way to gain immortality. And in the endless years to follow, their little squabble in the early game would be like a funny anecdote you told at a party. That time the Nimitz brothers fought for awhile before saving the world.

Blake smiled at the ceiling, holding Seul-ki’s head. He could hardly wait for the future. Because no matter what, no matter how long it took or what it cost, it would eventually belong to him.

**

Chinua moved through the flooded corridor with the easy confidence of a man who had already survived worse, trusting the players around him. The mid-tier water dungeon smelled of salt and blood. And they were five instead of six. But then they didn’t need a sixth.

Erik the Swede stood behind Chinua’s shield, a precise man and perhaps even a friend. He was adaptable, brilliant, and had proven himself a dozen times in the Nexus. Little Annie sloshed behind them through the water at waist height, no complaining, no strain, just moving forward like the assassin she was in her crafted matte-black armor. Ahead were his regulars, and newest prestige-class holders—Julio and Adela—eager as hounds on a fresh scent.

Julio’s ‘Tidebreaker’ class was perfect for the water dungeons, and probably reflected his ridiculous luck. The name was more about ‘the tide of battle’, and his ability to swing it. But his defensive power was literally water based, and the wetness clung to him like living armor, forming rippling, arcane plates. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Adela’s ‘Cutting Shadow’ prestige let her almost ignore the terrain. It sort of parted around her, letting her slip through as if she wasn’t there at all. If she activated it, she could even move briefly through walls. She flickered, half-visible, then reappeared ten meters ahead, twin chakrams reflecting a sliver of light.

“Clear,” she whispered at the crossroads of a new set of corridors, voice distorted by the water.

She meant to the left and right. They knew there was an enemy ahead.

Annie’s dark axe shimmered to life in her right hand, the Night Shard in her other. They’d agreed it would be useful for her to have a smaller weapon to use in close quarters. Chinua had expected her to use one or the other at a time, but the deceptively strong little woman had simply moved the big axe to one hand, and nodded, ready to kill, ready to die.

Chinua would have adopted her if he could.

“Engage at will,” he said, his own powers humming to life with arcane energy. They’d killed too many foes together now to need more guidance.

The enemy moved like a school of fish—razor-toothed humanoids the size of big dogs, low in the water with glowing eyes, barbed fins and crude knives. They were fast and dangerous in the water. But so was Chinua’s team. And Chinua’s team didn’t fight fair.

Erik lifted a hand and the water around the creatures filled with ice and slush. Fish-men really didn’t like the cold.

Adela, Annie, and even Julio charged on the support’s weaker, passive current of mana, all their stats and powers improved. The pack of fish-men wasn’t worth an active. Chinua tossed an ice-charged spear ahead of them, the weapon blasting one fish-man off his feet, exploding out in another blast of icy wind.

Julio’s water armor flared at contact, tossing away a half dozen of the confused creatures before he fell back. Annie and Adela did what they did best in chaos.

Blood and body parts sprayed or slopped into the water. Chakras hummed through the air and dinged off the walls, bouncing back and forth in the narrow space with brutal efficiency. Annie’s axe took any head that popped out of the water. She jabbed her dagger in a murderous rhythm beneath.

Chinua lowered his spear, already scanning the tunnels to the sides. The fight was over.

“Any thoughts?”

Erik stepped up beside him.

“I believe the younger Nimitz would say: left, always left.”

Chinua grinned, and the Swede gestured to the right.

“The water looks deeper that way. I predict a kind of submerged section for the largest reward. We’ll have to deal with having little air, however.”

Chinua nodded, watching his team butcher the remaining fish-men like they were chopping wood.

“The scouts said there’s four challenge rooms in these dungeons. We’re not leaving until we’ve cleared at least the third.” He raised his voice for the others to hear. “A little water doesn’t frighten us, does it?”

Julio stalked back laughing, water still dripping from his hair.

“No trouble, Captain! I like watching the girls from behind as they work, ah?”

Adela came back rolling her eyes, but the two were like siblings now.

“Just try to keep up, lover boy. Your passive is the only useful thing about you.”

Annie wiped her weapons off in the water. And gave no reaction whatsoever.

Chinua allowed himself the smallest smile. Yes, they were ready. The whole team was sharpening itself into something lethal. And they had months to improve.

When the doom finally arrived, his five would carve their names into whatever history survived. They would stand beside their leader without shame. And Chinua would keep another promise. As he had to Jeong—to see him dead. As he had to his civilians, and his woman, and to his unborn child—to see them live.

He turned to the right and walked on, the water swallowing his team’s footsteps as they pressed on, deeper into the unknown dark.