I focused on the [Lucid Dreamer] skill and reality around me warped as if it was suddenly observed through a giant concave lens. The view of late summer of 1971 Aralsk rippled away into nothing. In moments, it was just Delta and me standing in a completely barren, white, square room.

As I looked down at myself the safety equipment on me melted away, showing a generic outfit, likely woven together from my memories of myself wearing casual clothes. Delta still looked like a teenage Soviet pioneer with blue eyes and silver hair. She tilted her head at me curiously.

The edges of the empty room wobbled ever so slightly, probably since my Lucid-dreamer skill was only LV 0.

“Stats” I said, trying to focus my mind on something that wasn’t formed by my sleep-addled mind.

Name: Dante Alan Skyisle Age: 5 months [since birth] Species & Subtype: male - human - newborn Level: 8 Experience: 3122/4050 Health: 8/8 Stamina: 8/8 Mana: 8/8 Mana regen: 8 m/hr [x10] Strength: 1 Agility: 1 Dexterity: 1 Vitality: 5 Charisma: 1 Magic: 40 Luck: 1 Intelligence: 190 Wisdom: 1 Soul: 74 [-10] Skills: [ Modify - Create - Life LV 121] [ Mindspace LV 74 ] [ Universal Comprehension LV 1] [Info-tether LV 33] [Soul Devourer LV 2] [Wardsmith LV 15] : [Rewind] [Lucid Dreamer LV 0] [Improved Mana Regen LV 10] Vows: [Sacrifice of: Destruction, Infoscope & Transient Soul] Affliction: [Soul Hunter's Kiss] [Cellular damage] Investiture points: 2

I recalled that I had advanced to Level 8 and gained another skill slot while modifying the house wards and gained the [Wardsmith] skill to boot, which made me better at designing the [Temporal Rewind] ward hexagram. I had also invested 38 points into magic. Getting to 40 points in Magic gave me the [Improved Mana Regen] skill. I had modified it to Level 10 which amplified my mana regeneration speed by ten. It was a big necessity since I was constantly modifying the house wards deep inside of the walls and the ground through Delta for months, one micrometer at a time.

In time, I had learned to wield Delta using the Tether skill with fantastic precision, which allowed me to build the most precise and powerful [Temporal Rewind] rune possible. When I slept, she scanned the wards for errors and when I was awake, I modified the wards. It went on and on for months, but the end result proved itself to be a success today.

The walls of the white room wobbled precariously. I focused my mind on my other plans. I wanted to do other things, now that I was lucid inside of my dream. Ah, right. My Infoscope! It was time to check on Delta’s overall progress. I aimed Delta at herself by commanding her with the [Tether] spell. Over the past months we had gotten pretty good at rapid command-action communication like this. It had allowed me to go around the rather laughable Sacrifice-Vow, which basically blocked me from forming my own Infoscope using mana, but didn’t prevent me from simply ordering Delta around.

Delta’s stats flashed in front of my eyes.

Name: Delta Alana Skyisle Age: 5 months Species: Homomagicus [+ 4 in base Agility & Dexterity] Affinity: Infoscope [Affiliated skill bonus] Specialization: Soul hunter [+ Soul Devourer skill] Level: 5 Experience: 996/1800 Health: 5/5 Stamina: 5/5 Mana: 5/5 Mana regen: 5 m/hr Strength: 0 Agility: 0 [+4] [-3%] Dexterity: 0 [+4] [-3%] Vitality: 1 Charisma: 0 Magic: 1 Luck: 0 Intelligence: 239 [-3%] Wisdom: 0 Soul: 73 [-10] [-3%] Skills: [Infoscope LV 188] [x2] [-2%] [Soul-Devourer LV 5] [Info-tether LV 70] [Beemancer LV 12] [Vox Colony LV 9] Vows: Sacrifice of: [Destruction] Affliction: [Soul Decay - various]

My eyes went down all of the lines. Her Agility and Dexterity were now at:

0 [+4] [-3%]. Minus three percent?! What?!

Her Intelligence now sat at 239 as she put 25 points from Level 5 evolution into it. It was also suffering from the minus percentile! Damn it!

The [Beemancer] skill I had developed for her, had allowed Delta far greater control of the bee colony through the Queen Bee. The [Vox Colony] was a spell that made the swarm buzz in a certain resonance to produce an emulation of human speech which we had used to terrify the Overseer into total surrender and the divine Vow.

I couldn't figure out what the [-%] all over her chart was until I saw the last line.

Oh! She really was tired. Tired to the point of having developed an affliction.

"Delta," I sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Hrmmm?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I had pushed you too far. You have a soul-decay affliction."

"I pushed myself, boss. You don't always fly me around via the Tether. I spent a lot of time skirting the surface of the Astral Ocean inside of the ward trying to learn more about everything so that we could make an awesome [Rewind]." She rubbed the back of her neck. "It was worth it in the end though! Mom and dad are alive, not headless and cut in half."

"Please don't remind me," I shuddered.

"I'll get over the Affliction, don't worry!" Delta had a little, adorable smile on her face. She was proud of what we had accomplished together. "Just give me a couple of weeks of rest. Maybe three weeks? A week for each percentile?"

Her face glitched into a pondering expression.

"I don't think rest alone will do it," I said, unfolding the [Soul Decay] affliction.

The affliction expressed itself as [Information storage corruption], [Speed reduction], [Identification decay] and [Soul Decay]. It seemed that only the Tether and Bee-related skills weren't breaking down, since she had used them the least.

"Damn it, Delta! Why didn't you tell me about this earlier!" I bellowed in anger. "Communication between us is important! You should always tell me if you're afflicted with something like this! Don't bloody hide it!"

Delta folded from my yell, looking down. "I was focused on finishing the Rewind hexagram. It had to be perfect."

"This is serious, damn it! It's data corruption!" I yelled.

This wasn't good news. I had gotten so preoccupied with protecting the house I didn't pay attention to her Infoscope body.

"You've been collecting and storing obscene amounts of data in your [Intelligence] skill. I'll have to design a skill for you that will be responsible for data cleaning passes to check for data integrity," I pondered out loud. "A... soul-parity checker and Cyclic Redundancies Check."

Delta nodded. "I feel like we can't keep calling things just a 'skill'. For example the Intelligence skill is more of a magical computational circuit data-drive."

"We'll give it a name then. Magidrive, maybe?" I commented and then returned to glaring at her. She was trying to derail the conversation!

"Not bad," she shrugged.

"How are you in my dream anyway?" I asked "How did you get in here?"

"Tethered myself to your brain," she answered. "You needed my help to deal with the nightmares."

"You can do that?" My eyebrows went up. "Tether yourself to a human brain?"

"My Tether is getting pretty damn powerful." She flexed. "Seriously though, it wouldn't work with some other brain. I know your brain inside and out because you've spent months investigating it yourself. It only took me an hour to inject an avatar of myself into your dream."

"If you can insert yourself into my dream then perhaps you can insert yourself into controlling my body too!" I declared.

"Why…?" Delta squinted at me.

"We are trading places," I continued. "You need to stop gathering new information while the defragmenter fixes your affliction. I'll direct the bees in your stead using the Infoscope. Both of our tethers are strong enough to go across the entire house now."

"Why?"

"I want to talk to my parents as an adult. In the meanwhile, you're going to get all of the love and hugs from mom. You've earned it."

"Woe is me, not my bees!" Delta whined with a fake-looking expression of disappointment. "Such betrayal!"

"Delta, stop horsing around," I said sternly.

She looked up at me with a pout.

"As a doctor I'm assigning you 3 weeks of hugs and defragmentation, stat."

"What if I don't want to be a dumb human baby, doc?" Her lips became a thin line.

"I am ordering you to spend time with mom as a newborn. This isn't a discussion. We are switching places for three weeks and that's final."

"Fine," she groaned loudly, but I noticed that sparks of curiosity started to twinkle in her eyes.

"Good." I nodded. I was the adult. She was an extremely inexperienced soul. If anything, she'd probably do a far better job as a newborn.

"I'm not you, you know." Delta must have caught onto my train of thought. "And you're probably totally going to screw up being Great-Aunt Delta. Mom might notice the switch."

"Let her notice! Children grow and develop. I'll explain things to her if it stresses her out. Don't worry," I assured her. "As for being Delta... I can handle it. I've got a plan."

[Cassandra Alana Skyisle]

Just a few hours after Great-Aunt Delta's fight with the Overseer I noticed a rather radical change in Dante's behavior.

Before he was either exceptionally serious looking as if he was always the adult in the room. He also often used to stare blankly right through me or at a nearby wall as if I wasn't there. I didn't have kids before so it's not like I knew what normal newborns were like and I didn't have a chance to talk to any of the other moms in Skyisle.

I looked down at Dante. There it was again! Something really was different about my little angel! An incredibly inquisitive expression, eyes practically twinkling with sparks of curiosity.

His serious, stern, annoyed look was completely gone! In its place was a sly, devious smile that tilted ever so slightly to the right. He wasn't fighting, wasn't crying like usual when he woke up from his nap today. He was simply observing me and making a variety of cute, soft noises.

Even his face had changed somehow, lines softened out as if he was just an adorable... girl?!

Suddenly, I had started to believe my husband's theory about the Goddess Ishita changing Destiny into a boy! Somehow I knew it, felt it in my trembling heart every time I looked at my son today - this was my Destiny!

When I walked to the side of the room and glanced at Dante out of the corner of my eyes… I saw it there! A shining silver crown. My dream had finally come true. Perhaps if I invested more points into Wisdom or Intelligence when I was a teenager I could interpret my dreams better back then, but alas I had chosen the path of Agromancy and Green magic.

I paced around the room, occasionally glancing at the shimmering crown of thorns. It was beautiful.

Something else was really starting to bother me. Five months ago Elder Delta forbade me from leaving the house ward due to the danger of being targeted by our enemies.

Quite frankly, I was beginning to get very antsy. Staying in the house and taking care of the garden, cleaning, cooking and taking care of Dante ate a lot of time... but nevertheless I missed going out to the fields, missed talking to my friends.

I had to talk to Elder Delta, had to ask her if it was safe for me to leave, now that the Redcape Overseer had been subjugated! I opened an elaborate, wooden box next to my bedside, pulled out the Overseer's armacus bracelet from within it, kissed my angel and went to the attic.

. . .

It was 7pm. The sun was setting, casting orange light across the long, coat-covered figure. Great-Aunt Delta was sitting there, her bees noisily buzzing within her coat.

"Elder… Delta?" I inquired.

"No," An incredibly fuzzy, male voice suddenly replied from the figure.

"W-what?!" I nearly fell over in shock. This wasn't Delta! Our Elder could not speak!

"Allow me to introduce myself," the fuzzy voice continued. "My name is professor Vladislav Alexandrovich Kerenski."

"What… what is happening?!" I mumbled. "Who are you?!"

"I am using the bees owned by… my lovely colleague, Delta Alana Skyisle to speak to you using a very special, long-distance, sound-transfer skill."

"Oh!" I relaxed. "You are Elder Delta's colleague from Oz Academia, of course! Forgive me, professor, your voice... surprised me." I recomposed myself and curtsied to the professor. I wasn't sure if he could see me.

"Indeed!" The professor laughed. "Delta and I have worked on many projects together in... Oz. She has told me so much about you, mo... my dear Cassandra!"

"What kind of things?" I blushed slightly, feeling out of place suddenly talking to a new person, who was likely a highly distinguished, high-level Wizard from Oz. I knew that only truly powerful Elder Mages could cast their voices and faces from their towers in Agamemnon to the lowborns below via specially designed blue crystal orbs.

To cast sound across half of the known world was truly an incredible feat!

"All excellent, believe me!" The professor replied. "You are a hard working, talented Agromancer. Do have a seat, Cassandra. Our conversation will be quite… long, I suspect."

I sat down on an armchair and faced the unmoving body of Elder Delta. So... he could see me? Damn it! I didn't even put on makeup today! I wasn't ready for this conversation! I blushed even deeper.

"Please don't fret," Vladislav continued. "I know this call was a bit unplanned, but I simply couldn't resist. I wanted to talk to you…"

"Me?" I blinked. "How is a simple, Level 20 Agromancer from Skyisle of interest to a… distinguished Oz professor?"

"Ah, well… it has everything to do with your son, Dante, my dear Cassandra. You see, his future is essentially of great interest to me."