The next morning, all of the students who were involved in the teleporter mishap were seated together in a classroom, with Kali, Elenoa, and Tunem at the front.

“Alright.” Kali said, sitting on the teacher’s desk and kicking her feet. “I’ve gotten a basic outline of what happened, but we need more details.”

Tunem frowned at her behavior but nodded in agreement. “Go ahead and talk about everything that happened. When that’s finished, I’ll have you write about the environment you were in. There’s still too much we don’t know about the Wildlands, so any little bit helps.”

“Anyway,” Kali said, “who’s willing to speak up?”

The classroom was silent, many of the students glancing towards Lilith and Carmen.

“Can’t be me.” Carmen said lazily, glancing at Elenoa. “Someone else.”

The silence lasted a moment longer, before Raphael spoke up. “Um, we went through the portal and found ourselves somewhere really weird.” She said, much to the relief of her classmates. “We figured it was the Wildlands, so Nashra decided to put Lilith in charge, because of her abilities. Carmen flew out looking for water, and we split into groups based on our talents. Then we went and found a hill that we made into a temporary base and went out to gather food. That lasted for a week or two, until all of a sudden miss Siph showed up.”

Elenoa raised an eyebrow, prompting Raphael to stop talking. “Why call her miss Siph?” She asked.

“Miss Siph didn’t want us to call her by just her name.” Raphael said. “Oh, but she said it’s fine to call her Lilith’s mom too. Anyway, Carmen and Lilith went out and talked with her, and then miss Siph decided to take us back to her place. She had us dig out some extra space and do some farming, but that’s about it. Most of the day she and Lilith would be out hunting for food or training together, so we didn’t have much to do. Then Councilwoman Kali called, and we came back.”

“I see.” Kali said. “Anyone have anything to add?”

Thiala raised a hand and began talking after Kali called on her. “Um, why did you make Lilith get rid of my contract? I thought I said I wanted to keep it.” Her question was met with nodding from many of her classmates.

“Councilwoman Elenoa decided there was too much of a threat that the contract was affecting your minds. To help relieve that fear, we decided it would be best if Lilith dissolved all the contracts now, and if any of you wanted a new one you could talk to her again later.”

“Not now.” Elenoa said, causing Thiala to close her mouth. “For now, I’m going to be taking each one of you out one by one and hearing personally what happened to you. You can work on writing up that stuff for Tunem while you wait. As for you,” she said, glaring at Lilith, “you’re not allowed to speak with anyone. You sit tight there and wait until I’m finished.”

“Why?” Thiala asked. “That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or not.” Elenoa snapped. “Just do it. And none of you are allowed to talk with her either, got it? Raphael, you’re first.” Not waiting for Raphael to follow, she strode out of the room.

After she left, Kali hopped down from the desk and walked over to Lilith. “Sheesh. As you can see, it runs in the family.”

Lilith tilted her head but said nothing.

“Relax,” Kali said, “it’s totally fine to talk to me. I’m not involved, and she doesn’t have the authority to stop me anyway, not unless Tunem says not to, but he’s fine with it, right?” She said, looking to Tunem, who nodded.

“So, I thought Elenoa was the one that asked you to teach Raphael a lesson?” Lilith asked.

Kali shrugged. “Yeah, just makes her a hypocrite. I think she thinks that she deserves that sort of respect or something, due to her position. Real stick-in-the-mud, she’s had her position ever since the war. I figured the least I could do for the world is prevent another kid from ending up that way, so I took her up on it.”

“How long have you had your position?”

“A few decades. Previous guy retired, and I was second-in-command, so naturally I got the job. Letting a demon be in the Council was pretty controversial at the time, but everyone’s fine with it now.” She frowned, looking at the door. “Most everyone, anyway. I’m pretty sure Elenoa’s still not over the war.”

“Hold up.” Lilith said, raising her hands. “What’s this war you’re talking about?”

“Ah, right, you wouldn’t know.” Kali said, tapping her chin and humming for a second. “Somewhere in the realm of 2,200 to 2,500 years ago, humans got really militaristic. Unlike most other species, they natively have short lifespans, so their population started getting really big.”

“Wouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“No, because longer lifespan comes with a couple of built-in blocks to that. First, a longer lifespan means a longer period of time spent as a child. For instance, most demons have a native lifespan of about 1500 years, so someone is still a child until they’re over 100. The second effect is that the longer your lifespan is, the less fertile you are. Gestation takes longer and it’s harder to conceive a child. For those who’ve gained eternal youth, they’re completely sterile, unless the population of their species becomes very low. In that case, every member of the species gets a “fertility enhancement” aspect that lets them conceive much easier. This ties into the reasons there are so many non-human children at this school. First, humans learn faster than most any other race, meaning they take overall less time in school. To handle this, the curriculum for each “grade” is repeated every year. Most humans only need one year for each “grade”, but many longer-lived races need anywhere from 5 to 10 to get the same benefit. The second reason is that we’re still, relatively speaking, fresh off of the “fertility enhancement” for many species. Meaning those who were born under that enhancement are having their kids now. As time continues, as finding someone fertile that’s compatible with you will become harder, and as the number of fertile couples drops, the number of kids will drop and eventually it’ll reach a vague sort of equilibrium.

“Anyway, the humans started expanding to get more resources, and the other races eventually started to band together. Of course, this wasn’t a unanimous thing – humans were on both sides of the conflict, and there were a couple of people from other races aiding the humans. It was decided that, when the humans were pushed back, the most powerful spellcasters would search for another, better plane we could stay on, while leaving the humans, save those aiding the other races, on our old home. At that point, we would remove memory of magic from them, and keep watch to make sure it doesn’t come back. Many demons thought this was too harsh, so they switched sides. The angels were leading the coalition, and were not particularly happy with this news, thus causing the rift between angels and demons. They went so far as to start a smear campaign against demons, to make sure any human on Earth who happens to meet one wouldn’t listen to it. Anyway, I heard the war was pretty brutal, but the humans eventually lost, and we ended up where we are now. The Protectorate is basically the remnants of that alliance, and the Society of Light are the remnants of the defeated humans. Still fighting the same fight. Oh, and before you ask, I was born after the war, so I don’t have any of that race baggage. A person’s a person, you know?” Kali shrugged noncommittally. “Anyway, I want details from you! Don’t spare anything, miss stick-in-the-mud is going to take a while!”

Elenoa was seated across from Raphael in the classroom next to the one they were in before. She shot the girl a pitying look. “Alright, I’ve completely isolated the room. You can say what really happened now, Lilith can’t hear you.”

Raphael frowned. “I…told you what really happened. That’s it, really.”

Elenoa let out a short laugh. “So, she’s even gotten to the point where she can fool Kali, eh? That dragon’s got to have something to do with it. Well, let’s see if I can do anything about that…”

“G-grandma? What are you talking about? You’re scaring me.”

Elenoa ignored her granddaughter’s words, chanting a spell. As she finished, a ray of bright light appeared around Raphael, glowing softly before vanishing. Raphael flinched suddenly, grabbing her head. Elenoa frowned, inspecting the girl in front of her. “Hm. That should have returned you to your base form, mentally and physically. How are you feeling? You should have been purged of any of her lingering influence.”

Raphael grimaced, looking at his grandmother. “What was that for?!”

Elenoa’s frown deepened. “The least you could be is grateful. I returned you to your normal mental state, which clearly did something, based on your reaction.”

“Yeah, it “did something”!” He replied bitterly. “I was feeling perfectly fine as I was until you barged in. And for the record, no, the story isn’t any different! That’s what really happened! All you did was remove what made me ambivalent towards my physical alteration! And we were well aware that that was there! That wasn’t any sort of secret!” He stood up and moved towards the door. “Now, if that’s all you wanted, I’m leaving.”

Elenoa grit her teeth. “No, it’s not, and you’re not leaving until I say you can leave, you hear? Sit back down and we’re going to go through the whole experience day by day, starting with when you and Carmen had that fight.”

A while later, Elenoa re-appeared in the classroom, a very grumpy Raphael in tow. “The punishment is officially over.” She said, glaring at Carmen. “You’ll be explaining exactly what you did to my grandson, and then you’ll be changing him back. Now.”

Carmen stared at Elenoa for a few seconds. When Elenoa huffed and demanded she hurry, Carmen just made a “zipped-lips” gesture.

“Are you an idiot?! I obviously am going to let you talk to me if I need you to explain something. Now speak.”

Carmen smiled, standing and stretching. “I simply applied to Raphael the same effects that were applied to me when I changed. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Then why can’t I change him back?!”

Carmen gave her a condescending look. “I told you, same effect. That’s her base form right now. You’d have to at least be able to change that, and my understanding is you’re not very proficient in transformation. It’s not surprising, really.”

Elenoa glared at her. “Don’t talk down to me! I’m in charge, so do as I say!”

Carmen returned her glare with a cold look. “I believe you misunderstand the nature of our relationship right now. Currently, the Council has decided Tunem and Kali are my overseers. Even if it was them, though, I wouldn’t let them order me around like this.”

Carmen began telepathically transmitting her message to Elenoa as well, letting Unknowable Entity and Horrid Fascination apply fully through the words, causing Elenoa to flinch in surprise as the assault hit her.

Keeping the line of communication open but speaking the words out loud for the benefit of the others, Carmen continued. “I’m not a tool for you to use whenever you want, I’m a person, not a toy. If any of you want me to do something, you’re going to ask, like you would ask a friend, and I’ll think about it.”

Lilith grabbed Carmen’s arm. “I think that’s enough, Carmen. Rude or not, they’re in charge here. We have to be respectful.”

Carmen growled slightly. “Authority does not equal respect. Revolutions happen for a reason.”

“We’ll talk about this later. For now, back down.” Lilith said.

“…Fine.” Carmen said, sitting back down and letting her telepathic link drop. Ignoring Elenoa’s gaze, she put her feet up and shut her eyes. “I’m tapping out of this conversation. I’ve said my piece, good cop can talk now.”

Lilith stood up awkwardly. “I’m not against turning Raphael back to normal, provided that’s what she wants.”

“I-I’m fine for now.” Raphael said nervously. “So long as you get the mental portion back. Grandma got rid of it when she was trying to turn me back.”

Elenoa shot Raphael a surprised look. “Are you feeling OK? Was my cleanse not effective enough? I know you! You’d hate this!”

Raphael looked at Elenoa defiantly. “I have my reasons! I’ve been maturing lately!”

Elenoa pinched her nose. “Nope. Not letting that woman mess with your mind any more than she already has. Denied.”

“I’ll do it, then. We know I’m safe.” Kali said suddenly. “Besides, it’s not your job to decide what Raphael does with her body.”

Elenoa turned to Tunem, who shook his head. “Kali’s right again. For now, we’ll let Raphael do as she pleases. At the next Council meeting, we’ll bring this matter to the table, and get a full decision. Continue your discussions with the children.”

Elenoa huffed, taking another kid out of the room.

After Elenoa had finished talking with each of the children, and they had turned in the reports they had written, Tunem gave the group time to let any children who wished to reform a contract with Lilith do so. Roughly three fourths of the class, including, to Lilith’s surprise, Nashra, decided it was too much trouble to wait around for Lilith to get to them, and decided to wander out back to whatever they were going to do with the day. After Kali took Raphael aside and reapplied the mental effects of her transformation (much to Raphael’s relief), Lilith was somewhat surprised to find Raphael in line to reestablish her contract, and even more surprised to find that she was the only one of her group (excluding Emily, who wasn’t really a member of the group anymore and didn’t have her contract stripped in the first place) willing to do so. Once that was finished, Lilith was given some free time. Carmen had followed Tunem when he left, no doubt off to pester him to let her read some magical text, and was trailed by Kali.

After a moment of thought, she made her way back to the house that had been constructed for her. She found Vithi in the living room, playing games on the TV.

“Hey.” Lilith said, sitting down next to her. “How are you holding up? We haven’t had much time to talk lately.”

Vithi paused the game, grabbing another controller and tossing it to Lilith. “Well, I can’t say I’ve expected any of this. It beats sitting around in the lamp doing nothing for years on end, though. More importantly, how are you holding up? It’s bound to have been weirder for you.”

Lilith shrugged, accepting the controller. “It’s been a mixed bag. I’m not exactly pleased with some of the more…frightening abilities I’ve gotten, but it’s also allowed me to meet a lot of new people, like you and mom. I’m not going to deny that my life’s gotten quite a bit more complicated, though.”

Vithi gave a small laugh. “That sounds about right. All the more reason to cherish your downtime, then.”

Lilith nodded in agreement, smiling faintly.

The next day, everyone was back to their normal schedule. That wasn’t to say things were the same, however. Now that the cat was out of the bag, Lilith no longer had to wear the bracelet Tunem had made for her. In addition, Thiala, Raphael, and Emily were given leave to watch Lilith’s private lessons whenever they had free time. So, it came to be that those three, Carmen, and Kali were  with Lilith at her next lesson with Geb.

“Alright.” He said, “I’m curious about this Overflowing Strength Trait. More specifically, I’m wondering how it works with regard to other Traits that enhance strength. If I’m right, this means the boosts from those Traits will be activated twice – once for the human form, and an additional 20% for the boost from the dragon form’s strength. For most anyone with this trait, the difference would be small enough to be irrelevant, the boost from the dragon form far eclipsing the boost they would get in their human form. You’re different, though. Between Eldritch Abomination and any Traits you might get that are similar to Overflowing Strength, your human form has the potential to be just as strong as any dragon, meaning you’ll be getting far more benefit than someone with just one strong form.”

Geb motioned to a contraption set up on the floor. “See the little handle? Go ahead and pull it up as far as you can . That’ll be our baseline.”

Lilith nodded, walking over and grabbing the handle with both hands and pulling. A moment later, Geb motioned for her to let go, and she did.

“Just shy of 412 pounds. Sheesh, where are you packing all that muscle?”

“Do you really want to know?” Carmen asked.

“You know what, yeah, you’re right. Never mind that. Go ahead and suppress any trait that increases your strength, just make sure to tell me by how much is does, if you can, then try again.”

After a moment’s deliberation, Lilith did so. “I picked one that’s just a flat 10% increase.” She said, lifting the handle.

“Somewhere in the realm of 384 to 385.” Geb said. “Looks like Overflowing Strength stacks, otherwise that decrease would have been quite a bit less.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Go ahead and undo that suppression and try and lift the handle with an appendage. I’m curious.” He watched as a tentacle coiled itself around the handle and pulled it out, quite a bit further than it had in either of the other tests. “738. If that’s what you can do with one…well, we better not test with more. Not sure how well it’ll hold up to that kind of force. Man, you’re going to be absolutely terrifying to deal with once you start really picking up enhancements, aren’t you?”

“Really picking up?” Lilith asked.

“Kid, we’ve been averaging one or two Traits a session, and we were laying groundwork to make sure you wouldn’t get injured. Now that we’ve done that, and now that there’s no need to keep things hidden, we’re gonna ramp it up. That being said, we’re going outside. Follow me.” He said, opening one of the classroom’s doors and stepping outside. He led the group to an extremely large pile of dirt, one which had been freshly excavated if Lilith was any judge. He pointed to it. “Dig.”

“What?”

“Dig through it. Don’t bother trying to make a pocket for air, either. That’ll defeat the point. Just dive in.”

“Uh…why?” Lilith wondered, taken aback.

“You’ve got 3 forms of locomotion right now. Walking, flying, and swimming. While far less common among intelligent species, burrowing is just as viable an alternative, and you’d be a fool to not obtain at least some proficiency in it.

“I’ve estimated your lung capacity to be able to last you roughly five minutes at the current level. Don’t come out before then, got it? I’ll have Carmen give you a notice when you’re good to go, but it you feel you can stay longer, do it. Now, go!”

Lilith obediently dived into the dirt and emerged roughly five and a half minutes later.

“Not bad.” Geb said. “Again.”

Fighterman481

Important: So, I did some thinking, and I realized I don't agree with last night me. As I mentioned, I have one more chapter completely written, but it's something of a cliffhanger, and as such I didn't want to post it when I would be away for so long.

However, I realized that:
A. Some people might not agree with that and would rather have the cliffhanger.
B. Cliffhangery as it is, it's a big deal and would be dropping right after a Q&A, so it'd be kind of unfair to do one right before a big reveal.

So, here's what I've decided. I'm going to post that chapter tonight, so that people can ask about it in the Q&A. For anyone who does not wish that cliffhanger, simply don't read it. The glossary will have any updated information from this chapter in a spoiler in the bottom, so it should be fine to read without reading the next chapter so long as you don't open that spoiler. For the Q&A, I would appreciate it if anyone who asks questions pertaining to that chapter does so in a spoiler tag so those who don't want the cliffhanger can still participate.

Anyway, onto the chapter.

I promised you all The Talk.
You're all getting The Talk.

Alright, so here's what's really going down with all that nonsense. Each race has a "hard cap" of unaging or long-lived beings. As it approaches that cap, the fertility of the race as a whole becomes less and less until it eventually hits 0, and the only way to have successful procreation is for one of the species to die. No one's really put this together, as most mass slaughter triggers that "fertility enhancement" aspect (which is a separate thing, and is visible to anyone looking with identification spells), and it's hard to correlate a birth with a death of any given member of an entire species however long ago conception takes for that species. This system is in place to both prevent overpopulation of long-lived races and extinction of any (sentient) race.

Humans are weird in this regard. They're the shortest-lived of the sentient races, and can also obtain longevity rivaling any other race with a little elbow grease. When this happens, they're considered a separate race for the purpose of this system, and any of their kids are either born with that longevity or find it much easier to get it. It's whack.

And that's addendum A to The Talk. Don't worry, it will be back and I'm afraid I'll never truly escape it.

...Well, I only plan to do one more addendum later. But that's only planned things. I'm sure it'll rear its ugly head sooner or later.

So, we also dropped an exposition bomb. Going to be real, when I first started writing this story, I did not expect it to be dropped to explain why someone is racist but what do you know here we are.

This war is the reason for the Veil in the first place. Some of you might be asking "well if they could teleport to this new world why bother with the war? Why not just share the resources?"
The biggest problem with this is that the magic to do so was discovered after the war had begun in earnest, followed closely by the fact that that magic would not have worked before the war. I'll address this soon (tbh I'm at least somewhat planning to in the author's note next chapter, though that might not have the full picture), but after the war had begun people got scared, decided sharing would be a stopgap measure at best, and what do you know this is what ends up happening.

And I guess most of the racism towards demons stems from the angels.

Man I swear I did not intend for them all to be this bad. I'm saddling at least half the blame for the smear campaign on Elenoa, though. Your average angel probably didn't have anything to do with it.

If you're wondering, she managed to get away with it by claiming it was to make sure people would listen to Protectorate agents and not those of the Society (or whatever was around back then. The Society wasn't officially formed until later).

Anyway, that's it for this chapter. Next chapter is pretty short (only like 2500 words), but expect a huge author's note to compensate.