Arlie smiled as she heard what Phyllis wanted for them. She had a lovely idea in mind for the knights, and Arlie found she wanted to cut loose a bit so she decided to have some fun with the knights first. She would need to boost their power a bit to really have fun, but she knew exactly how to do that, and where she could cut loose without effecting the mortals of this world.

“Sounds fun, but I really want to have fun with them first. Anyway, I should teach you your first lesson on mana flow, and if their is anything else you want help with on the female gender I can help. Just I can’t help you with some things, makeup, local human fashion, walking in heels, and periods all come to mind,” said Arlie. Phyllis frowned and asked, “So why can’t you help with those? I have an idea for a couple, but...”

Arlie answered before she finished the question, “Well I will start with the obvious ones. For fashion, I can’t help because I haven’t been in this world for many a Mycanna. As for heels, in case you haven’t noticed Solean females don’t walk on their toes, and heels are a human invention. No other culture even uses them. The whole ‘suffer to be beautiful’ concept that spawned heels and corsets are unique to humans.

Makeup is also pretty obvious. I am a shapeshifter, and as such, it is just a total waste of time, effort and resources. Why bother with all those powders and creams when you can just change your face with a thought. Although it ain’t all that popular outside of the lower nobility back on Valiere. A good flesh-shaper while more expensive is far cheaper in the long run. So the upper nobility just hire the services of a flesh-shaper. As for those below the lower nobility, well they can’t even afford makeup so they don’t bother. Now periods is less obvious, but long story short Solean females don’t have a menstrual cycle. In other words, I have never experienced one. So I can’t give you advice on them, but I doubt you need it. I think you will need more advice on pregnancy.”

Phyllis patted her stomach, and tilted her head, “So you have been pregnant before?”

Arlie nodded, and replied, “Oh yes many times. The first time was during the Great Solean-Darkation war. I was still a man then. However during a routine inspection, my ship was attacked by a Darkation fleet that had managed to slip past the front lines, and one of my mates was fatally wounded. Our medical bay had been destroyed and my other mates weren’t with me at the time. She was pregnant at the time with a daughter of mine. So since I couldn’t save her, I saved the child. She was months from due, so I transformed myself, and used a spell to transfer her to my womb. That child was Ariala, Milith’s mother. I had to carry her to term. The transfer spell is risky, and so it was safer for the child to only risk it once.

The next one was many Mycanna later after I retired from the throne. At the time I had sealed most of my powers, and my memories away. Being an immortal can get quite boring at times. So I created a spell that would let me experience life again with fresh eyes. Of course, none of that affected my sexuality, so a certain meddling dragon decided to help me out. Blessed me and my girlfriend of the time. The next few months were awkward, to say the least.”

Arlie watched her face as she processed that and while she knew some of what she said meant nothing to Phyllis it wasn’t important enough to explain. After a moment's silence, she asked, “What exactly is a Mycanna? From context, I assume it is a unit of time.”

“Sorry, it is a Solean time unit, equivalent to twenty thousand years. Anyway, we seem to have gotten off-topic. Pay attention, mana flow is very important as it not only affects how the pregnancy affects you, but also the ease of the birth...” began Arlie as she started her lesson.

Arlie stood up and left the room. She had just ended the lesson as she had noticed that Phyllis’s attention was drifting and Ren had come over hungry. Speaking of hungry, she was feeling hungry herself, and decided to ask for a meal after she took care of their problem. She picked up Ren and left the room while giving her access to a teat so that she could drink. As Ren was drinking her fill, she thought of her plans.

She couldn’t take Ren with her while she went and dealt with the knights. Which meant she needed someone to watch her. Fortunately, she was in a town filled with trustworthy young women. She just needed to find the right one. Misaki would make a decent babysitter, but she knew that until the threat was gone she would be a bit distracted. It had showed while she was playing with Ren. So instead she turned her mind’s eye onto the town. She dismissed most of the women there for one reason or another, and then she noted Emily’s household. Emily herself was completely distracted as she was engrossed with an experiment in her alchemy lab, but the two demons babysitting her daughters did catch Arlie’s eye. While a human would just dismiss them out of hand as untrustworthy Arlie saw them as the most trustworthy. Especially since they would not discriminate against Ren for being an Arachnid.

She waited until Ren had her fill and then opened a portal to Emily’s living room. Stepping through Arlie took stock of what she was seeing. The demoness Crystal was chasing the younger girl around the room playfully. Who was wearing only a single pair of panties on her head. The older girl was still clothed, well partially her top was missing, and was playing a game with the other Demoness Ruby. Arlie thanks to her powers already knew their names. She wasn’t actually omniscient, but many made the mistake of thinking she was. She rarely bothered to correct them since it often worked to her advantage. She put little Ren down and got Ruby’s attention.

Ruby looked up with a little bit of surprise, and asked, “How did you get in here?”

“I opened a portal. Name’s Arlie. Your mistress summoned me, and I need a babysitter for an hour or two. Care to take up the role?” asked Arlie. Ruby looked down and saw the little spider girl looking around curiously. She was clearly not expecting to be asked to babysit. Arlie knew it was because, like most demons, she expected to have to do some convincing before the question came up.

“I think I did sense her using that ritual. I thought it was supposed to summon a male, but sure I can babysit. I’m already watching two kids, another won’t make a difference.”

Then before she could even say what she was going to say next, Arlie interrupted, “good, I’ll pay you for the trouble, and don’t worry she just ate. So just watch her, and play a few games with her.” Then she left via a portal, leaving a speechless Ruby. Who muttered, “I hadn’t even agreed yet,” a couple minutes after she left. Then she looked down at the naked little spider girl. She knelt and then asked her, “what do you want to do?”

Arlie emerged from her portal in Misaki’s dungeon right in front of the Archpaladin’s party. His blade going right through her. However, a swipe that should have bisected her in two, instead passed through her body as if it was an apparition. Not even a scratch was left on her body.

“Naughty boy. Be glad I’m not here to fight you. Your opponent is in the room ahead, and I will be taking your friends with me to keep things fair,” said Arlie as she snapped her fingers. In a flash of light, the four knights and Arlie vanished leaving the Archpaladin standing there in the dungeon hallway alone. He wisely guess it would be better to retreat, but looking back he saw a powerful magical barrier blocking his only retreat.

Arlie and the other four reappeared on a floating rock. All around them was an endless expanse of black, and in the distance, small steady lights could be seen in the sky. The knights looked around in shook. None of them knew enough about this environment to be surprised that they weren’t exploding or for that matter that they could breathe.

One of them, the one that had the misfortune with the Arachnid and Lamia demons was the first to speak, looking at Arlie he said, “Your Holiness. May I humbly ask where we are?” He phrased things this way as he could only imagine that they had encountered a goddess.

Arlie had heard his thoughts, but still glared at him, “I will assume it is out of ignorance, but the term ‘your holiness’ is used only by the light faction. As it stokes their silly egos. I am of the Shadow Faction. You will address me as Skylord or Starlord. As for where we are, you call it the Celestial Void. Solean Lords such as myself call it home. I brought you here to play a little game, and be thankful. It is my power that allows you to live here, and even speak. This place has no air, so without my magic keeping you alive, you couldn’t breath, and your bodies will puff up. This also means sound doesn’t travel here. You can only speak here thanks to a spell I cast to allow you to communicate.”

The four looked at each other, and then scanned the void around them. None of them could even understand why they were brought here. While they weren’t showing any outward signs of how they felt, internally they were screaming. Their thoughts were so loud that Arlie could hear them easily. Unless she actively chose to block them. The first knight to speak composed himself first, and said, “Miss Skylord, may I ask why you brought us here?”

She decided to let the addition of miss slide. As she knew he was at least trying to be respectful. “A favor has been called, and a deal struck. You four will be playing a little game before you go off to live your new lives. You don’t have to play my little game, but I do suggest you participate. I will grant boons based on how well you perform, and the winner will even get to keep the artifact I will let you play with during our game.”

Then she was interrupted by a tall darkly tanned knight in the back who yelled, “and who in their right mind would play the games of an evil goddess like you!!?”

Before she could even say a thing the first knight whirled on him, and said, “Are you daft? It doesn’t matter what you think of a goddess, you treat her with respect. Unless you want to wake up tomorrow and find that she has cursed you.”

Arlie was beginning to like the archer knight. He was a bit smarter than his fellows, and a bit wiser as he was willing to hold his tongue. She knew he agreed with the other guy, but at least he was holding his tongue and not lashing out in anger.

Arlie began stripping out of her robe in preparation to shift. She needed her back free or her robe would tear when her wings grew from her back. A few of the knights stared at her, but she paid them no mind. Part of it was her Solean nature, but having lived among humans she understood modesty better. In their case, she just didn’t see them as men. “The rules of the game are simple. I will scatter a few Sytheian Crystals around this void. You will try to gather as many of them as possible during the time limit, and to make things more interesting you will have to survive against me.”

“That doesn’t seem fair! You are a powerful goddess, mortals like us don’t stand a chance,” said the rude knight. Arlie tossed her robe into the air and it vanished when a shadowy vortex swallowed it, and it was quickly followed by her chest wrap. Then her body shimmered as scales erupted across her skin, her feet changed into talons, and wings spread from her back. Then she snapped her fingers and from seemingly nowhere some fabric formed to wrap around her breasts. “There is no rule that says I have to be fair, and especially not to dogs sent after my blood,” replied Arlie, and then she continued, “in fact, I have been quite generous all things considered.”

“Miss Skylord, I think there has been some misunderstanding, we were sent to collect a god-killer not a goddess,” said the Archer Knight. She shook her head, and gave him a look of pity, “you have been woefully underinformed. Allow me to properly introduce myself. I have many titles so I will omit most of them. I am Arlie of Clan Countryman, Progenitor of the Countryman Clan, Last of the First Lords, Keeper of the Lost Lore, Guardian of Forbbiden Lore, Founder of the Eternal Empire, Bane of the Destroyer of Worlds, and the Primordial God Queen. Milith the young girl you were sent after is my granddaughter. Where do you think the power to kill a god came from?” none of them answered the question, and then she prompted them to introduce themselves. She already knew their names, but she wanted them to realize that they had changed. She had already rewritten their names, the rest of the little curse that Phyllis had designed for them would take effect after their little game.

The Archer knight put on a dashing smile, at least what he thought was dashing. Arlie thought it looked silly, and said, “Certainly Skylord, I am Sir Airi ... Wait that isn’t right my name is Airi.” Then he looked around in confusion, and said, “why can’t I get my name right?”

“Easy, I rewrote your past, and changed your name. Not even the system can remember your original name. Its part of those new lives I mentioned the rest will take effect after our little game. Now why don’t the rest of you introduce yourselves,” said Arlie.

The others introduced themselves and were clearly unhappy with their names. Even if they couldn’t remember their old ones. They just knew they weren’t right. The rude one was named Jesse, and the silent ones were Milly, and Rei.

Arlie snapped her fingers, and each of them had a glowing gem appear in their hands attached to a ring. “Locked within those rings is the Power of the Ancients. You will need that power to have any chance in the game. I suggest you use it wisely,” said Arlie then she flew off. Saying she would give them a few minutes to learn the artifacts and then the game would begin.