“What?!” Lilith asked, leaping up from the bed.

“They placed a tracking spell on Alex. We disarmed it when she got here and examined her, but they must have gotten enough information to force their way in. I would’ve given more advanced warning, but they’ve been using countermeasures to divination, and I only just got through it. We’ve prepared a portal at the house for you to head through that’ll send you to another Council member’s demiplane, and we’re having you and all the younger students evacuate through it while we secure this place. Kali, you’ll be helping with the defense here.”

Kali nodded grimly, and the two hurriedly left the room.

“Are we…going to be OK?” Raphael asked in a small voice, looking at the door.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Lilith assured her, “We’ll just stay a bit at that other plane and then come back. No big deal.”

Carmen looked at the others. “Alright. Let’s get moving, we can’t afford to waste time.”

A short while later, the younger students, Lilith, Carmen, Vithi, Judy, Alex, and Nashra were gathered in front of Lilith’s house, where an oval-shaped mass of swirling blackness, at least 20 feet in diameter, was quietly waiting above a complicated magical formation. Lilith was, unfortunately, not able to see enough of it for Decipher to record it, but she wasn’t concerned about that at the moment.

“Alright, everyone here?” Nashra asked, looking around and counting the students under her breath. “Good. My name’s Nashra, and I’m the senior student who’s been put in charge of watching you all. Everyone get into the portal, and once everyone is inside, I’ll walk in and the magic will complete, sending us all to Councilwoman Elenoa’s demiplane. When this place has been secured, someone over there will make another portal and send us back, alright?”

An earthquake rocked the area and Nashra’s expression darkened. “Hurry. They’ll be here soon.”

As the children filed into the portal, more earthquakes came, increasing in intensity as time passed. A tense few minutes later, everyone but Nashra was inside. She walked in and the portal vanished, leaving only a broken formation on the cracked ground.

“This…isn’t grandma’s plane.” Raphael whispered. The group had appeared in the middle of a heavily wooded area and judging by the slope of the ground and the jagged peaks they could see peeking over the treetops, they were likely on a mountain, or at least the hills on the foot of one.

Lilith frowned, looking up. Wherever they were, it was night out, and Lilith was attempting to use the moon and stars to determine which way was north, to…limited success. The most glaring flaw in this plan was the fact that either it was a new moon, or the moon was currently hidden by clouds or trees, or something.

“Anyone have any clue where we are?” Lilith asked, pulling out her phone. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t any service.

“Probably in the Wildlands, if I had to guess.” Vithi said, looking around. “Most inter-planar spells use Haven as a sort of default plane for if there’s an error in the destination, so chances are we’re there. And, giving our lack of service and general surroundings, we’re nowhere near the inhabited part of Haven, so that really only leaves the Wildlands. The spell must have been broken up by the earthquake, and so it sent us here instead.”

“What’s our plan, then? Wait here to be rescued? I heard that it’s best to stay put when people are looking for you.” Judy asked.

Alex shook her head. “Maybe on Earth, but not here, and certainly not in this situation. In the Wildlands, there tend to be a lot of dangerous predators, and this far out we can’t be sure we’re not in the authority zone of something really nasty, like a dragon. To make things worse, Elenoa won’t have any way to know where we are, and the people in dad’s plane are going to be too busy to even know we’re missing, at least for a few hours. Even then, I don’t think they’ll be able to craft a teleport to this exact location, so right now, our first priority should be finding somewhere safe, and then finding some way of contacting…well, anyone.”

At this, she looked towards Emily, who frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t have a way of contacting my family. I haven’t been given any reason to be too secretive, so I’ve just been using my phone for the most part.”

Lilith sighed. “Alright, let’s take stock of our resources. Nashra, you’re in charge here, right? Gather everyone around.”

Nashra raised an eyebrow but did as she was told. “Everyone gather around. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but something went wrong with the teleport.” She paused, looking at Lilith with a small smile. “Seeing as how we are no longer in the controlled situation we once were, I’m going to be putting Lilith in charge. I’m afraid I’m not a very good leader, and Lilith’s our best option right now for…several reasons. Lilith?”

The children began to murmur at this, save for Raphael, Emily, and Thiala.

Lilith frowned, stepping forward. “Alright, this is going to sound crazy, but…you remember how Geb said there was a new Perfect Chimera? That’s me.” To illustrate her point, she removed the bracelet providing the illusion, causing a gasp from the assembled children. “I…have something that might help us, but I can understand if some of you don’t want to do it.” She quickly explained about her Benevolent Leader, Vessel, and Ruler’s Right skills.

“I have a contract that’s not very binding and can be broken by either side at any time” Carmen added. “It basically will just let Lilith know if any of you disobey her, won’t force you to listen to her or anything. But it’s enough to activate those skills so I think it’s for the best if you all bind yourselves to her. That’ll at least let us communicate in case someone gets lost.”

Thomas raised a hand. “If we do, will you fix Raphael? It’s weird seeing him like this.”

“No, that’s a bad idea, Thomas. It’s a waste of mana and we can’t afford to do that until we’re somewhere safer.” To everyone’s surprise, Raphael was the one to shoot down the suggestion. “I think we should do it, for now. Kali said the entire Council examined Lilith, so she should be safe. We’re not in a position where we can really afford to be picky.” She walked up to Lilith. “Alright, do it now. The less time we’re in the open, the better.”

Sending the information over now. Carmen said mentally. And, in case you were wondering about what I was reading, don’t get your hopes up. It’s just stuff on poisons, no new spells or abilities we’re getting out of it, aside from variety in our secretions.

After the information was received, Lilith quickly made a contract with everyone and had them store 10% of their magic in her. In Lilith’s eyes, the most notable gains from this were a sharp increase in her flight capability from those who could fly, and a massive boost to mana regeneration while sleeping courtesy of Nashra.

“Alright, let’s pool our resources here. Vithi should have a fridge or at least something similar in her lair. The lair in general will let us store things, but the fridge in particular will let us keep some extra food. Which brings us to our next point, food and water. Does anyone have a way to search for edible plants or animals, or are able to create some with magic?”

“I can detect poison!” Thiala volunteered.

“Good. How detailed does that detection get? Does it tell you anything about the poison or does it just tell you that poison exists?”

“Um, I can get a feel for how badly it would hurt me.”

“Alright, it’s better than nothing. We’ll have you test our food before we eat it. Go over to Carmen and chant the spell, then go stand to the side. We’ll form a group based on producing food.”

“Kay!” Thiala walked over to Carmen, while the rest of the kids looked confused.

“Forgive me for asking,” Emily said, “But isn’t that a waste of mana, like Raphael just mentioned?”

Lilith shook her head. “I have an ability that lets me perfectly replicate any spell I’ve heard or seen written down, as well as any magic formations I see. So, chanting the spell for me will let me use the spell as well. I do have some resistance to poison, so until we can determine whether or not the spell will detect if there’s poison that I’m immune to, we’ll have to double up, but hopefully it will, and I can give Emily some backup. Anyway, anyone else have relevant skills?”

Roughly an hour later, the children had been divided into several groups. The first was the sustenance group, led by Emily, containing those who had skills that could be used to catch prey, cook food, purify water, and otherwise secure a stable supply of sustenance. The second was the security group, led by Alex, full of the group’s best combatants and scouts, who would keep an eye on the sustenance group during excursions. And last was the shelter group, led by Veit, comprised of children with skills that would be useful in providing a stable place for them to live while working. Any children that didn’t fit neatly into one of these groups was assigned to a “miscellaneous” group, who would be tasked with any odd jobs that came up or assigned to assist one of the other groups should the need arise.

“Alright everyone, our first order of business is to find a source of water. After that, we’ll back off about a mile and look for a place to set up camp. Until that point, no one is to leave the main group, even to use the bathroom. If you have to go, we’ll find a spot and keep watch while you go. I know it’s embarrassing, but we can’t be too safe. Even in the future, no one is to be out without at least 4 other people, at least until we can determine how safe this area is.”

Carmen, how goes it? Anything you can see? Lilith asked. She had sent Carmen to fly upwards and look for water, as well as to see whether or not she could determine if there was anything obviously dangerous in the area.

Coming back now. Found a river a few miles away, think we should camp out in one of the hills by it. There wasn’t anything large enough to see from the sky, but that doesn’t mean nothing dangerous is about. Didn’t run into anything aside from the occasional bird while flying. Did unlock Night Vision, though, so I’m sending that over now.

Anyway, I should be back momentarily. Get the kids ready to go and I’ll lead you to where I think is best.

Lilith relayed the information to the children (having had the conversation include only the adults, so as not to alarm the kids if there was an issue), and when Carmen landed a few minutes later, they quickly set off. They hiked for somewhere in the realm of two hours, and fortunately during that time they didn’t encounter anything that would give the group any threat. In fact, aside from a few small rodents, they didn’t encounter anything. The woods were eerily still, and Lilith was glad when eventually Carmen motioned for them to stop.

“Alright,” Carmen said, “shelter squad, it’s on you. We’ll need a single room big enough for all of us for now, we can make it bigger and fancier later.”

At her command, the team began work. Their first step was to create a hole in the hill big enough for a person to walk through, sending the moved earth over to Vithi, who took it into her lair. From there, they proceeded to dig into the hillside, transmuting the dirt on the outside of the room into a more solid stone, as well as transmuting support pillars liberally. When they began to run out of mana, Lilith transferred some from her storage, and when that ran out, she took from everyone and gave it to the team, using herself as an intermediary to transform the mana into a state the kids could safely use. Roughly thirty minutes after the process began, the kids had managed to hollow out a room large enough for the 30-odd people to stay in, at least for the night. To finish it up, Carmen and Vithi transmuted a simple “door” for the entrance, a large oval-shaped piece of wood with a single large twig sticking out of it. Carmen rapidly accelerated the growth of the twig, causing a large bush to sprout, controlling the growth so that the roots spread throughout the wood and formed a rudimentary hinge with the surrounding dirt. Panting slightly, she pushed the door open from the inside and had everyone enter. It was dark and cold inside, but after Vithi took the rest of the removed dirt into her lair, she brought out several candles and a multitude of blankets, which she spread across the floor, creating several crude beds.

As soon as the last blanket was laid down, the message flashed across Lilith’s vision. Everyone else seemed to feel it too; the kids immediately perked up and began to murmur amongst themselves. “Alright, everyone, quiet down, we still have things to do before morning.” Lilith said, and the children all turned towards here.

“As some of you may have guessed, I just got an Aspect that strengthened you all. To be exact, you’ll all be more powerful while providing for children, and any children under my control will learn more easily from anyone under my control. But that means nothing if we all get killed. So, here’s the plan. Shelter squad, you all go sleep. Even if you’re not tired, try and take a nap or something, we’ll need you rested to expand this place later. Sustenance and security, you split into two groups. One group is going to forage and set traps, while the other group is going to go get drinking water. Vithi and Carmen will be in charge of the water group, Alex and Nashra will head up the other, and Judy and I will stay here and keep watch. I need all of you to be back before morning; we don’t know what’s out there during the day, so at that point we’ll rest here while Carmen scouts the area.”

A short while later, and the groups had set out. Vithi was currently inside her lair, shaping some of the excess dirt into crude barrels with which to store the water. They had found that, as Carmen was technically a part of Lilith, she was able to enter and exit her lair through either Carmen or Lilith. As such, they had determined that it would be most efficient if Vithi would go with Carmen to the river, so they could fill bigger containers of water and transport them back via the lair.

Hey, Carmen, can we talk? Vithi asked.

Sure thing, what do you need? Carmen responded absently, maintaining her focus on her surroundings as she spoke

Do you think you could talk with Darragh for us? We could see if he could contact someone or something

Oh yeah, him, I totally forgot. To be honest, he’s not around. He didn’t make it into Tunem’s place with us, so he’s certainly not here. I doubt he would have been any help, anyway, it wouldn’t have been of much benefit to him.

Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate, I guess. And, uh, thanks for helping out so much. I might have been wrong about you, sorry.

No, I totally understand. I didn’t exactly make the greatest first impression. I was pretty mad and lost control. But, in the end, I’m still Lilith. I can’t not help out.

Mind if I ask why you’re calling her Lilith instead of Lucas now?

Two reasons. First, now that I have a separate name, there’s not much need to differentiate us like that. Second, she’s completely acclimatized, a side-effect of the transformation, I think. Honestly, she’d probably find it stranger to be called Lucas at the moment.

Does that mean she’s given up on turning herself back?

There was a lengthy pause as Carmen digested this. To tell you the truth, yes. Well, at least for now. I don’t think she’s even thought about it for a couple of weeks, and she certainly isn’t thinking about it now. And until something comes up like meeting with our parents, at this rate she’ll think about it less and less, so I don’t it’s going to come up for a while.

And…you knowingly did the same thing to Raphael?

Carmen gave a mental shrug. Raphael’s a different case. We can change him back whenever; it’s pretty simple to change an angel. But, honestly, I’m just not sure how I would even go about changing a Perfect Chimera. Our form is elastic enough that whatever changes I try to implement gradually revert back to our “base” form after a while. And any drastic changes made by an outside party are just registered as an alternate form. It’s a stopgap measure at best. So, yeah, I did the same thing, but I expect her to change back whenever she really, really wants to. I even would have done it earlier if she didn’t stop me herself. We can’t afford any discord right now.

I…think I can accept that. Well, let me know when we’re at the river and I’ll come help. Thanks for the talk.

Anything for you, cutie.

Vithi blushed but didn’t respond.

The night passed without incident. A large amount of water was gathered and brought back to the base, as well as a number of berries, nuts, and fruit. Crude traps were set, and everyone made it back without major injury. After the water was retrieved, Lilith made a temporary firepit in a corner, and began to boil some water using fire magic. As magical fire did not produce smoke, the pit wasn’t much more than an indent in the wall where a barrel could be placed and heated, so constructing it was little more than excavating a space and transmuting the surrounding material.

She did that for the next few hours until the other party came back, at which point she went over and began to help test the food for poison. After finding a berry that pinged as “poisonous” to her, she Assimilated it and tested another. To her relief, the berry still registered as poisonous to the sensor, so she proceeded to Assimilate every poisonous plant they came across and helped Thiala sort the plants into “poisonous” and “non-poisonous” piles.

Unfortunately, when everything was sorted, the non-poisonous pile was far smaller than the other two. Only two of the eighteen different food items they found were actually safe to eat; a fruit that vaguely reminded Lilith of an apple, and a small, orange berry.

“Well, at least we found some plants we could eat. I’ll have Carmen see if she can’t collect some of these plants while she’s out. If we’re lucky, we can plant them, stimulate their growth and get a more stable source of them. It’ll have to be relatively far away from here, so we don’t attract any dangerous animals to us, but it’ll be better than nothing.” Lilith said, sighing.

For the time being, she rationed out some food from Vithi’s stores, but she estimated that even at one meal a day, they would be fresh out in a week. When dawn came, she woke up the shelter squad and directed them to create another large room underneath their current one, and had the other kids, Vithi, Judy, and Nashra head to sleep. She and Alex stayed to watch the place, while Carmen went out to look around. At some point in the day, she gained a Trait called All-Nighter that lessened the amount of sleep she needed, but other than that nothing much happened until around noon, when Carmen encountered a large predator.

It had the basic shape of a large cougar, save for a line of spines along the back which crackled and sparked with electricity. Luckily, Carmen had been keeping a few small appendages out in case of emergency, and most of the damage was passed on to those, leaving her with only a light scratch around her neck. After the initial attack, Carmen activated Horrid Fascination, and the cat instantly stopped moving, starting at Carmen in awe. She casually walked up to the thing and decapitated it with a swipe of an appendage. Celebrating their good fortune, she brought the animal back to their base, unaware of the being that had just awoken, sensing the odd power being used in its domain.

Fighterman481

So, survival mode officially activated. Raphael and co might be headstrong, but they're not stupid enough to make trouble when they're in enough as is.

In a way that is completely unrelated to this being mentioned at the end of the chapter, and in no regards directly the result of being within its domain, there are remarkably few dangerous animals about. Mostly animals small enough that they wouldn't be too much of a threat to the group. Whether this is a good or bad thing for the group is completely dependent on the attitude of this being.

As for making Lilith the leader, it really only made sense with her abilities. Those stat bonuses were too valuable to ignore in a survival situation, and so everyone decided to just sort of...deal. Being a Perfect Chimera helped smooth things over a lot, keeping the kids from panicking too much.

Why dig into a hill, and why away from the river? Well, I felt that camping out in the open was far too risky, especially when magic is a factor in the equation and hollowing out a hill isn't too difficult. The reason for camping away from the river is that it would be somewhat risky to stay near a source of water, as animals could be attracted there, or something nasty could be living in the stream.

I don't have much else to say about this chapter, so that'll have to do it for tonight!