Misaki watched the two young girls leave with the maids, and sighed. It was painfully obvious that the two had been abused, and quite heavily by their previous guardian. She had a feeling it would be a long time before those two were ready for society. She just hoped they would be happy with the arrangements that she had made for them. A nice little out of the way house on a beach with only a few neighbors. Mostly demons that had gotten lucky and had children of their own. Unfortunately, there weren’t any kids their age in that neighborhood. While at least there were not at first. She summoned a few young demons to fix that. Normally she would just summon a mature demon, but she did summon kids for safe zones. It helped set the feel she wanted for her towns. She hoped they would make friends, and of course, to that end, she figured she would introduce them to Lily, Megan, and Celine.

Of course, first, she needed to get back, and have that conversation with Melisa. Her dungeon sight told her that she was already at the house. However, before she could leave the gate activated.

Kuron was settled into a chair staring at a note. Phyllis had not yet answered her question. She did not yet understand what it was Phyllis was apologizing for or what she thought was her fault. Finally, Phyllis sat down, and sighed, “So what do you know about guilds? Ones recognized by the gods?”

“They tend to be the ones that have been around for a while. Not to mention a bit tight-lipped, but they do have some of the best training methods in the world. At least according to their specialty. Why mention guilds?”

She leaned forward, and said, “Well it seems that guilds have a special system, and the gods recognize any guild that establishes itself. I bought a guild trait and it is responsible for what happened yesterday.”

Kuron gave her a look. She had always suspected that guilds have some kind of special system or a unique form of access to the system. Just everyone was so tightlipped about it, that she never knew for certain. She knew why of course. It was information control, plain and simple. The guilds did not want that information known to the general public, and they likely were even more tightlipped with other guilds. Divulging whatever these ‘guild traits’ are, was giving them information that could be used against you. Adventurers were reluctant to divulge their skills for the same reason. “...I guess you got recognized. I think I can guess why. Anyway, what is this guild trait? How is it responsible for yesterday?”

Phyllis’ eyes had an odd glint, the same one from earlier as she began a weird grin, “Well, what do you think of my clothes?”

Kuron was confused, her clothes? What did that have to do with this conversation. She had not really paid attention, so she looked, and then her eyes widened. She could not believe she had missed that. Phyllis was not actually wearing anything, and she had not even noticed. She heard a knock at the door, but neither moved to answer as a maid said she would get it. Instead, she focused on the shocking thing in front of her, “How long have you been naked?”

Phyllis leaned forward that odd glint in her eye, “Since I went to wake you, and found you exploring your new form. Anyway, to answer your earlier question, I picked up a social trait that was meant to prevent people from taking special notice of nudity. I never thought it also referred to their own nudity. It seems to work quite well in that regard, though”

“I found it quite useful,” interrupted a voice, and they looked over to see Melissa and a demon standing there. The demon being the speaker. Standing next to her was a rather naked guild aide fidgeting a bit as she looked around, suddenly she spoke, “So where is Misaki?”

“She had something to do. However, she did say that it won’t take long, and suggested you wait for her,” replied Phyllis.

As the gate opened, Arlie looked over to Ariala, “Alright, I will see you in a few days.”

Before she could step through, Ariala spoke, “Wait! Before I forget there is one thing I wanted to ask you about. When you left you took the Demon’s Blade with you, but I have not seen it since I got here. What happened to it?”

Arlie blinked, and looked over, “Let me guess, your advisors are worried about it, since it is outside their control, yes?”

She nodded, and Arlie said, “Right now I have her moored in a hidden port. Don’t worry about her.”

Then she stepped through before Ariala could say another word about the Demon’s Blade. Besides even if someone did manage to find that hidden port, Arlie had long ago removed a few key items from the Demon’s Blade. Without those, reactivating the aging war machine was impossible and she was not stupid enough to put those key items in the port. Nope, she had them in scattered weapon caches and warehouses throughout this system. Some of them hidden and trapped with the best magical and technological devices she knew of. The most important of those key items, the Demon’s Blade's AI core was actually hidden in a spatial vault in the deepest part of her basement. Without that none of its systems could function properly. Then again none of them could function without power either, and she removed that too. Hiding those components with similar measures, but under an ancient temple and not her house. Well, several ancient temples actually. In addition, she had even trapped the port itself to keep people from the war machine, deadly radiation and mana disruption field generators made a very effective combo trap. The radiation to kill, and the field generators to prevent the use of magic. She also understood why Ariala’s advisors wanted to know where it was. The Demon’s Blade was a fleet killer, and they were understandably antsy about such a weapon being outside their control. Honestly, it should have been the least of their worries. They had more immediate enemies to worry about and not some phantom enemy that managed to get their hands on an old fleet killer. The old war machine had not even been activated in nearly forty meicanna (Solean time unit roughly equivalent to 20,000 years) Sure Solean technology was built to last, but as old as it is there is bound to be something that would need fixing before it could even be used.

She dismissed her line of thought as she noticed Misaki nearby. “Ah, just the person I was hoping to see. Nice of you to meet me at the gate.”

“Well, I was nearby, although I was not expecting it to activate. It almost never activates.”

Arlie nodded, “Well that may change. A while ago I shared this address. I expect they will start coming any day now. Depends on how long it takes them to organize an exploration team. Anyway, that is not why I came here to see you. I believe you already know, but I have kids on the way.”

Misaki nodded, “Dewari may have mentioned something along those lines. Although I have no idea how that affects me.”

Arlie smiled, “Well it won’t, at least not right away. In about nine years that will be a different story. You see I plan to visit here often over the next few years, and I feel this would be a good environment for my progeny.”

Misaki listened and with an odd expression interjected, “um, Why do I get the feeling that I won’t like where this is going.”

Arlie giggled, “Well I think you might like this, others not so much.”

Misaki shifted posture a bit, and with a worried tone, “Alright what kind of trouble will I have to expect?”

Arlie stopped giggling, and taking a serious stance replied, “Normally my kind segregates our very young children from other races. At first this is because like dragons we have an ability called ‘Reverse Imprinting.’ It is like imprinting, but instead of the child imprinting on the first creature, it sees, seeing it as its mother. The first female to see the child will imprint on her. As for how, we have innate mental abilities and this is a defense mechanism. A mechanism dragons freely exploit, but we prefer not to. The ability is lost later when we start to undergo puberty. 

“Speaking of puberty, that is the important point. We undergo puberty at an extremely young age for a long-lived race, an adaptation from an age long past. In us, it can start as early as seven years of age, although there are a few rare cases of earlier, but in those cases, there are special circumstances involved. Circumstances that are actually fairly easy to control, but not important. What is important is what happens during puberty. Like all races, during puberty, we are subject to rampant hormones, which means we are constantly horny and tend to think mainly of sex. Now combine that with our pheromones and you get a recipe for disaster. We emit magical pheromones when we are seeking a mate and they will affect all races which we are genetically compatible with. They have a slight mind-altering effect and have been known to cause orgies. Thankfully they are relatively weak when we are young, although like many of our abilities, they grow stronger with age.”

Misaki looked thoughtful for a moment, and then her eyes widened, “I think I see the problem. I can just imagine the chaos, especially with the rash of unwanted pregnancies that would be sure to follow. Maybe even a political incident or two if someone important got caught up in it. Also I do have a few questions. First, why the hell do you start puberty so young? Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that like saying a toddler is going through puberty or did I misunderstand your early lifecycle?”

Arlie giggled, “That is an interesting way to put it. Age-wise you would be right, but we mature quite quickly at first. We reach our maximum size around thirteen years of age, puberty often starts around eight or nine and powers mature at fifteen. Then our development levels off considerably. So we don’t end up developing secondary racial characteristics until we are about five hundred years old.

“As for why, well it is an adaptation, you see at one point in time we were nearly extinct. To combat this we adapted and developed a number of traits, one of which was quite troublesome for us, until we altered our own genome. First, we developed to mature sexually quickly, and we developed our pheromones. They too are an adaptation, you see they not only signal that we are ready but induce readiness in others. Hence being known to cause orgies. In fact, many females exposed to them become desperate to be pregnant. Although after they come off the high of said pheromones they may have different thoughts and often need some counseling to reconcile the mental gymnastics caused by them.
“As for the adaptation that caused us trouble, that would be our hyperfertility, unlike most long-lived races we used to get pregnant extremely easily. We made rabbits look like great apes in comparison to our reproductive rate. Came to be such a problem, that we went and invented the ultimate birth control. We created and introduced to our genome a natural control mechanism that makes us infertile until such time we want to have a child then our hyperfertility kicks back in. Not the only thing we did to our genome at the time though. We fixed a few other problems at the time as well including introducing a resistance factor for our own pheromones. Mainly in regards to the mental effects.”

With a curious look, Misaki asked, “That birth control, could you teach me how to introduce it to people? I think it may have some uses.”

Arlie nodded, “Sure I can. Not for free of course, and do note it works off the subconscious, not the conscious mind. The trigger for it is actually quite simple, and very effective.”

Before she could say more, or work out details the gate suddenly activated. Out walked five Liritians, one of which noticed Arlie and immediately hid behind one of her friends. Misaki noticed them as well, and commented, “I guess today is visiting day, everyone is knocking on my door.”

Elsewhere and just a few days travel outside of Bordertown, a party of adventurers were checking out sites near the roads hunting for monster nests that may have moved in. It was a job put into the guild by the merchants guild every couple of months. Having monsters near the road was bad for trade, so every two months they put in a quest to clear the area within two days of travel of the roads. They were one of nearly thirty parties that had taken the quest, as you needed quite a few parties to effectively clear the road. Sure the army would patrol but they were mainly there to take care of bandits, and since adventurers had more experience with monsters they were better suited to locating nests. Especially since they knew what to look for to indicate monster habitation in the area.

A young woman dressed in leathers stepped out of the trees and looked over the old structure. It was some ruins left behind from a bygone era. They had been here before. The ruins had some expansive catacombs beneath them, and a few months ago they had cleared out a Thrasher Wolf den. She was the scout and was going to check out the ruins for signs of monster habitation.

The rest of her party stepped out of the trees, and took a look at the sun. A middle-aged man of below-average height watched the sky, as a cloud moved to block the morning sun, “Seems it might rain, perhaps we should find some shelter.”

She took a look at the sky, and noted all the grey clouds, “I think we have time, but I would like to check the ruins first. Then we can look for a place to shelter until the rains pass.”

Another man dressed in heavy armor but otherwise unremarkable, said, “I agree. Don’t want another wolf den or something here. Worst case, we can shelter here.”

The last member of their party, a small dwarf girl in the robes of a mage added her opinion. “Yeah, I would rather not get wet. I think we should check the ruins, and shelter here if they are clear. No point risking getting wet.”

She nodded and concurred before leaving her party at the entrance. They would check the perimeter and then come join her. She did not bother asking the party mage to check for monsters with her spells because the rock around here had properties that blocked mana sensing.

She headed straight for a nearby entrance, and carefully checked the first room. Finding nothing, she proceeded into the building. Moving with caution she checked several rooms before coming across a passage she did not remember. Curious and not seeing any signs of danger, she started down the passage.

It did not take long for her to find an old room filled with strange equipment, and in the center was something that drew her sight. There was a tall pedestal with the shattered remains of something round sitting on it, and floating above it was something she had never seen before. A roundish mass of blue-grey flesh with dozens of tentacles hanging off it was floating there. Only one question was in her mind, “What is that strange creature?”

She never sensed the danger until it was too late.