Umeko wasn’t sure what to do after Arlie’s rather abrupt departure. So she simply sat down, and went about finishing her breakfast. While in her mind, she was trying to think about what she would do to pass the time until Arlie got back. However, she didn’t really know the local area or the people. She briefly considered going out back and practicing her martial arts. Umeko decided against that because she preferred to practice with a partner, and again she didn’t really know anyone here.

She had just finished breakfast when the twins entered the main room. The one went straight for the kitchen and the other Lily approached her. “Arlie leave or something?”

She nodded, and said, “She said something about having a pet to sell, and mentioned she would be back in a couple of hours.”

Lily smiled, and replied, “In that case, you can come help me clean the basement.”

“Basement?”

“Oh, yes. Arlie never showed you the entrance. Well, it needs some reorganizing. I have been working on it, but you can tell that Arlie just tossed things down there at random. Its a miracle she could find anything in there.”

Umeko had heard statements like that before, and they were often exaggerations. So she did not take her seriously. It wasn’t until after Lily took her downstairs to the basement that she understood.

The basement entrance was hidden behind a bookshelf in the main room of the house. The stairs leading down were narrow and worn with age. The first few spaces including the library seemed well organized and maintained, but that wasn’t the case with the storage areas behind a hidden wall.

Once past the wall, the area changed completely. Everywhere she looked there was random junk piled up. Chests were overflowing with objects, and there were just stacks of crates placed anywhere that seemed convenient. A few of the rooms off to the side of the long and wide room they had entered looked far more organized than the space they were standing in, the crates stacked neatly. The shelves neatly arranged.

Lily pointed to a messy room off to the side, and said, “You start with that one, and if you need me I’ll be in that room over there.” As she finished she indicated another room that also looked messy.

Umeko sighed and decided to get this over with, even though she was already regretting this. She weaved her way through the maze of a room to the doorway, being extra careful not to knock things over with her wings. As she navigated she studied some of the items she passed. Large metal objects were stacked in piles, along with smaller pieces. Resting on the end of a long metal cylinder with a rounded end was a necklace with a nice ruby gem in it. The cylinder looked a bit more interesting to her, mainly the long blue slit on the rounded end. She couldn’t see the rest of it thanks to it being buried in junk, but her implanted knowledge was telling her that this item was some kind of weapon.

On impulse, she cleared a bit of debris away from the side of the cylinder, and found some text printed on its side. It was Ancient Solean, but that didn’t matter. The symbols quickly rearranged themselves so that she could read them. Evidently, they had been enchanted so anyone could read them. The symbols said, “Type four replica laser cannon. .2 MJ output. Not intended for combat.”

She didn’t understand what an MJ was, but she had the distinct feeling that .2 of one was very small. This was clearly meant to be a display weapon, but given that it was buried in junk it didn’t exactly do that very well.

Deciding to leave it alone, she made her way to the room Lily had asked her to clean.

Entering the room, she found it wasn’t as bad as it looked from outside. There were a few piles of junk, and some open crates that were poorly packed. On the far wall was a small display shelf with three prominently placed blue and white spheres. Each one had a series of ancient characters prominently emblazed above the button on the blue part of the sphere. Curious she approached the spheres and picked one up.

It was clearly a capture sphere not unlike the one, she had scene Arlie use. Brushing the ancient text with her fingers she felt an odd tingle, and then the letters rearranged themselves to spell out a name. In clear text, the symbols said, “Wendy Marvell.”

The name meant nothing to her, but she did find herself wondering why this Wendy was inside a capture sphere and sitting on a shelf in Arlie’s massive basement. However, she lacked any information with which to speculate. Sure she could think up a few theories, but she didn’t know who was in the sphere. The name implied a person, but she didn’t know anything about the person in the sphere. It did occur to her that, being placed inside the sphere was a punishment, and she decided it best to leave the sphere be for now. So she placed back where it had been. Settling it into a nice hollow on the left side of the small shelf. Naturally, she planned to ask Arlie a few questions about that sphere later.

In the meantime, she focused her efforts on bringing some semblance of order back to this room.

Lily stared at the notification for several minutes. Her mind needed that time to process what it had said.

The bra was pretty much identical to the panties, but now that she had both she could see the set bonuses and they were pretty good. She was glad that she had chosen to wear her Legendary Panties today.

Her mom was a bit busy confronting the two gods in the room. Something Lily didn’t think would go over very well. Well, she was focusing on Erosi, and it seemed a lot like she was venting her frustrations to the goddess. Lily just tuned her out, and instead, she stipped out of her dress. Thankfully Mom was too busy venting to notice, and she was able to avoid the predictable rant.

With her dress out of the way, she slipped the bra on. Instantly it morphed into a cute training bra to match her panties. There weren’t any mirrors conveniently placed in the room, so instead, she opened her status looking for those bonuses. She found the Succubus Princess trait quickly enough. It turned out that the trait granted her the abilities of an evolved succubus, including the tail if she wanted it. However, some of them seemed to be age-restricted. She was not sure she even wanted to use them, but they might prove useful if she needed them.

Then suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by Mom noticing her current state of dress.

Arlie stepped out of the gate, and was greeted with a particle blast to the face. A magical barrier absorbed the alien weapon blast, and she looked at the Liritian that shot at her. There were about a dozen Liritians in the room, and other than the one that shot at her, and another by the door they all looked like scientists. About half of them were male, and the rest were females. All in varied shapes and sizes.

The guard that shot at her was a young man, well maybe it would be more accurate to say, young boy. He was quite cute in the lost kitten sort of way.

She stretched her wings lazily, and said, “You know, its quite rude to shoot at someone for no reason.”

Before the rude boy could say a thing, one of the scientists rushed over to her. She grabbed Arlie and pulled her into an embrace. She exclaimed something about cute, and next thing Arlie knew she was in the girl’s lap being given a nice petting session. Honestly, she saw it coming, but saw no reason to stop the girl.

One of the others came over with a chair and settled across from her. This one a young man seem more interested in the gate, and said, “I hope you forgive Arqula. She loves anything she thinks of as cute, and can’t help but restrain and pet cute aliens. Anyway, may I ask how you were able to activate this artifact? We have been studying it for months and we have been unable to activate it.”

“Well, that easy. I built the thing,” replied Arlie as she shifted a bit to better enjoy the free petting.”

He chuckled, and said, “That’s pretty funny. I take it you mean that your people built this artifact. What are you anyway?”

Arlie looked at him as if he was an idiot, and before she could say anything, the young guard boy yelled, “Are you two stupid!? That’s a Solean Lord!”

Arlie giggled, “At least someone recognizes my race. And no I’m not here to kill anyone. I came here to sell a captured spy. I think she will make a nice pet for someone.” 

The guard looked at the deactivated gate, and then back at her, saying, “You seem to be short one captured spy.”

Arlie smiled and said, “I’ll let her out later.” Then she looked at the young man who asked about the gate. Who now seemed rather confused, “I was rather serious about building that gate. I invented stargate technology. The idea itself though can be traced back over five million years to a small planet in the Sol system. As for what that gate does, it allows for near-instant travel between any two gates. They are part of how the Empire was able to control its territory for as long as it did. Now out of curiosity, how did you find this gate?”

She was kind of curious as she had cloaked it, and it was at the bottom of an ocean. The scientists looked at each other, and even the one petting her paused for a moment. “Wait, this gate is over two million years old. If it was built by the Empire it proves that they were in this region of space when they said they were. It means those claims they sited might be real,” said an older female near the control console.

Arlie looked at the woman, and said, “Don’t worry about that. We both know your government would never have believed mine about its ancient claims to this part of space. Even with proof right before their eyes. Besides your people need this war to grow.”

They shared a few looks, and then the young scientist in the chair said, “Well none of us really want to talk politics anyway. Could you teach us how to use this gate or is that out of the question?

“No, not entirely out of the question. I do have something I want in exchange though.”

“What do you want,” replied the man cautiously.

She leaned back, and lazily extended a talon at the tip hanging from a string was a crystalline tablet. On its surface was etched ancient text, new letters were forming actively. “This is a blood contract. I will teach you how to use the gate, and in exchange, you will pay me for its use. I have laid out my terms on this tablet. Also, I will give the coordinates of a few worlds that may prove interesting to you. They might seem a bit primitive to you, but they merely evolved differently. Personally I would suggest exploring Solkira first, the gate would place you inside a dungeon, but she should be nice enough as long as you aren’t hostile to her.”

What happened soon after was a lot of questions and some negotiation before the scientists agreed on the terms. They even contacted and spoke with the local governor, who gave his consent remotely to the deal. Arlie liked the man, and found it nice how he didn’t let the war get in the way of a profitable exchange. Even if the timing of it happened to interrupt his plans for a date with his wife. Something she understood, and decided to make up for. She gave him her blessing. Next time he makes love to his wife, they will both get the child they have wanted for years, but never got.