Author’s Corner: Greetings. Salutations. Enjoy.

For the next hour or so until dinner, Sharon and Tokemi were talking with each other. Okay, so Sharon was talking and Tokemi was enjoying the cuddly softness of her fur. I wasn’t getting jealous, I swear!

Anyways, when Celeste sent us the message that it was time for the big meeting, Tokemi suddenly seemed worried. Smiling down to her, I picked her up and held her in my arms. “Just stick with me, and there’s nothing to be afraid of, alright?”

She nodded weakly at that, but Sharon pouted at the sudden loss of fluffy loli. Hah, take that! My turn with her. After leaving the room, I set her down so that she could walk next to me, though she still held on to my hand. And every time we got near someone in the halls, she would flinch slightly. I wasn’t really that concerned, seeing as how she was just born today. If not for my intervention, she likely wouldn’t even be able to speak yet.

For a moment, I considered the pros and cons of using my Soul Arts to teach babies. However, I got rid of that idea because of its inherent silliness. Instead, I focused on the agenda for the upcoming meeting. This was… probably not the nicest way I could go about it, but it was something I had to do nonetheless, for her sake.

When we arrived at the mess hall, I was… overwhelmed. In all honesty, this was the first time I had seen the entire crew in one room. I didn’t quite realize how many of them there were! The mess hall itself was just barely big enough to accommodate everyone, and it was easy to spot the mix of races. Elves were still vastly more common than any others, but now there were also several from other races as well.

I wasn’t the only one that noticed this, because I heard a small whimper from beside me, and the hand I was holding tightened around my own. Shaking my head, I gently pulled her along. Necessary evil… necessary evil… Though thankfully, Tokemi was still walking on her own, just hesitantly.

Moving to the front of the mess hall, I cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention, as if it wasn’t already on me and the stranger I was almost dragging along. Then, I began speaking, using my com as a mic to transmit my voice throughout the room.

“Everyone, I’m sure you all have heard some news today. I’m here to help clear it all up, and to let everyone know what is happening. First of all, I would like to introduce someone new to the ship.” I was planning on bringing my hand up to pat Tokemi’s head, but she refused to let my hand go, so I sighed reluctantly. “This is Tokemi, and she’ll be joining us starting today. I’d like to ask everyone to be kind to her.”

I gave that a moment to sink in before the outbursts started. Most of it was just ‘Welcome to the crew’, but there were a few others as well.

“She’s so cute…”

“So fluffy looking! Where did you get her?”

“Tokemi! Let’s be friends!” That last one was said by the only other little girl on the ship, who was roughly the same age(physically) as Tokemi herself. Of course, she said that while running at the girl, and jumped into the air to give the girl a big hug.

Unfortunately… that was when everything froze.

Time Mana surge detected, synchronizing. Mana flow redirected. Time flow stabilized.

As the window said, there was another rush of time mana towards Tokemi, but there was also a brief scream heard from her. “Not again… not again… no… please…” She slowly let go of my hand and crouched down onto the floor, curling up into a ball and rocking back and forth.

Shaking my head, I knelt down next to her. Though, she seemed not to notice me until I put my hand at her shoulder. At that point, she jumped as if something struck her. “But… but… you stopped… it stopped everything… why…?”

I only smiled to her, patting her head gently. So fluffy! “I told you everything would be okay, didn’t I?” She froze for a moment, before nodding weakly. “Now, how about we see if we can’t get back to the party?” Her eyes widened, in a strange mix of hope and fear.

“We can… un-stop?”

I nodded my head to her. “That’s what we’re about to find out.” I then stood up, and held my hand out for her. “Shall we?” She seemed to think about it for a moment, before taking my hand and standing next to me. I then pointed to the girl frozen in midair. “And that’s Tessa. She’s a nice girl. Try to get along with her, okay?” At this, Tokemi’s brows furrowed before she hesitantly nodded her head. Though, she did suddenly move to the other side of me.

Chuckling as I understood why, I could only put on a knowing smile. “Now, let’s get out of here.” I closed my eyes and focused, pulling on my control over Time Mana. This was far more than I was used to dealing with at once, especially considering that the program I had recently installed contradicts what I am doing.

Slowly, I grabbed the time mana that had been rushing towards Tokemi, and forcefully spread it out through the room in order to dissipate it. The process was… less than completely successful. Even with all of my focus, I could only return us to half of normal time. However, that seemed to cheer Tokemi up, and that in turn made the rest of the time mana dissipate on its own.

Tessa, who had been lined up perfectly to give Tokemi a flying hug, had suddenly lost her target. “Ohnowhere’dshego!?” She shouted out in a rapid voice before crashing into the ground where the other girl had stood just moments before. In a panic, she stood up and looked around, before seeing the silver haired foxgirl and walking over to her. “Are you okay? You vanished! That was kind of cool, though.”

“...Yeah…” Was the only response that Tokemi offered as she hid herself more on the opposite side of me, which actually put her in front of the rest of the crew. I guess overactive girl warrants more wariness than hundreds of other people combined?

“Oh good.” Tessa smiled, relieved. “I’m Tessa, by the way! Can we be friends?”

Tokemi froze at that, looking at something ahead of her, before mumbling under her breath. Tessa then also seemed to read something in front of her. “Yay, a new friend!” She then went to hug Tokemi again, but this time the latter visibly restrained herself from panicking, and slowly returned the hug.

“Aww…”

“Well, guess we’ve got another kid on the ship now?”

There were varying responses from the crew at this turn of events, but I cleared my throat again. “Now, with that out of the way, my next announcement. As I said when we arrived at this planet, I wasn’t sure quite how long we would be here. However, I can safely say now that we will be leaving in two more weeks.”

There looked to be more responses coming to that, so I raised my hand to stop them. “When we leave here, we will start on a long journey. This journey will likely take us over a year to complete, however I have been… assured that it’s worth it.” Malthan better not be planning for me to go so far out of my way without suitable compensation! “The purpose of this journey is to meet another race, known as the Qu’Lopti. I have received information that suggests that without our assistance, this race will die out within a few years. And, given the purpose of this ship and crew, I suppose that means we have to do something about it.”

There were a few chuckles from the gathered people at that, but a large grumbling sound from a particular fox-girl shut everyone up for a moment. Only a moment, mind you, before the outbursts of laughing. “Now, let’s eat.” I grinned slightly, and led Tokemi to have her first meal in… ever.

For the next few days, I spent my time playing with Tokemi. Well, even if I tried to do something else she would latch onto me as soon as I stood up. Even when we all slept, there was now one more body on the bed. My night life suddenly ran away!

While I was playing with her, I would occasionally try to teach her about her magic, in order to help her control it. However… she did not seem to grasp the concepts very easily. This couldn’t be helped, considering her actual age. You don’t teach kids math within a week of them learning how to talk, after all.

I considered using my Soul Arts to give her the knowledge she needed, but decided against it. If I made her rely on me cheating every time I wanted to teach her something, she’d never properly learn anything on her own! And as long as I was free, there was no risk of her ‘time hiccups’ as we had taken to calling them.

Of course, this was not a good long term solution, so I began laying out plans for a way to stop her time hiccups even when I wasn’t around. By the way, I actually had her go all the way through one of her hiccups in order to figure out how long they were. No, I did not make her go through it alone, I sat with her. I even taught her how to play patty-cake to pass the time and distract her. I didn’t actually want to make her go through it, but I needed to know how long the hiccups lasted.

The answer was that the hiccup we waited out lasted for almost two hours, and she seemed to think it was a rather long one. That made me relieved, because it meant that she hadn’t been spending days in them like we had been afraid of. In the meantime, all of this work with time mana brought me up to 10% Time Affinity… which introduced a whole series of problems.

Something I hadn’t noticed before, but really should have. When my Time Affinity hit 10%, and I began passively absorbing time mana, time was in a constantly slowed state for me. I had to modify my Limiter program in order to change my perceived time to normal levels. Though now, I had to get used to my body responding faster than I expected it to.

As for things that I should have noticed before, I noticed only when I stopped absorbing mana in order to fix my time. My body suddenly became lighter! I hadn’t really noticed due to the constant training, and the fact that I started practicing my Gravity Affinity on the Ha’vosh planet with increased gravity, but I had been constantly placing myself under roughly 50% extra gravity.

Well, if I ever need a sudden burst of speed, I can always just reset the Limiter program, and stop absorbing gravity mana. At that point, I should get speed far surpassing my normal. Maybe, it might even be able to approach the speed from that demon in the dungeon. Unlikely, but I would at least not lose so miserably against it.

Now, there were other developments over the course of the two weeks that we had left, and I’ll try to go over them real quick. I personally did not do much aside from start practicing a new affinity, the Animal Affinity. I figured that it would be a good idea to learn that one, as maybe it would prove to be a key step for one of my grove upgrades. Thankfully, I could use Tokemi to help me cultivate that affinity. What? You think I’m just using this as an excuse for extra cuddle time? I would never!

With Celeste… she went on a rampage through the goblin dungeons. From the reports of other teams, she went in there solo, massacred everything, and then used some technique to cause the monsters to wither quickly. When I confronted her about it, she said that she was using the Soul Arts to return her level to what it had been as quickly as possible. That way, she could get started on her factory before we left.

Since I didn’t go back down to the dungeons, Sharon and Yin didn’t seem that interested in it either. Yin spent her days watching Yang, while Sharon alternated between training with her animals and playing with Tokemi. It was funny watching her call out Priscilla, who pulled the little fox girl up into a big hug.

The most surprising out of anyone, though, was my parents… When they heard about Tokemi, they came to spoil her a bit. But when they weren’t around, they also challenged the dungeons. Unlike others, however, they only went in a two person team. That did not seem to stop them, as the two of them easily reached the eighth floor of the goblin dungeon by the end of the two weeks.

I tried to talk my mom out of going to the dungeons, because Celeste didn’t have the Deus Ex spares ready yet, so one death really would mean the end for her. However, she told me that Celeste uploaded a link between my mom’s mind and a terminal on the ship. That way, even if she died, we could bring her back like we did with Celeste. Though, even taking that into account, my dad completely prioritized her safety while dungeon diving. With their teamwork, she managed not to die once. She had to run away from the battle several times, but between her own growing shadow abilities, and my dad being able to teleport them out, she stayed safe.

Let’s see… Nathan’s team actually made quite a bit of progress as well. They managed to fully conquer the goblin dungeon, going all the way to the tenth floor. Apparently, they were the first team to successfully clear a dungeon, and were each granted special items as a reward. I didn’t really find out what all of their items were, but I learned that Nathan’s was a book of infinite pages. He specifically requested it in order to write down all of his runes, because that was apparently easier for him than having me do brain surgery…. Okay, I couldn’t blame him.

Anyone else…? Yo and Kismet kept training, all the way until it was time to leave. I was actually worried that they might forget to come back for a while. Tessa… well, she was spending as much time as possible around Tokemi, and therefor around me as well. I was rather glad to see that the two of them were getting along so well.

Now, there are just a couple of days left until it’s time to leave for the Qu’Lopti world… and I can’t help but feel like I’m forgetting something. Eh, I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually!