Congratulations! More than 200 System Registered Entities have joined both the Nightmare Swarm Faction and the Nightmare Hive Faction Capital. Your Faction Leader Feat upgrades to Rank 2, and the Capital can be upgraded from Outpost to Town.

Error! Upgrade delayed until a location has been chosen for your Faction Core.

Omega scanned the basic follower data for nearby humanoid Faction Members

Grill Smith C(10) Orc Chef Paladin 0.1m away, Invite sent, Unconscious

Tiffany Arch-Crusher E(253) Tr’Ogre-Mage, Aetherial Princess 1.2m away

Sarah Arch-Horno D(15) Halfling Sous Chef 3m away

Junior Omega E(239) Apprentice Nightmare Tamer 300m Away

Junior Omega must be the extra clump of nanites Omega Scout cut off from the hivemind to go on a secret mission. Seeing as Omega had previously seen that an Eldritch being joined her faction, and now the Separated Nanites had created a whole new system entity, that must have been who Tamed the unknown creature from the third pit. She looked forward to connecting with Jr Omega’s nanites to find out what she had done exactly.

The distance away from Junior was ticking down as she got closer, so Omega Turned to the Trollish girl she had just rebuilt and the Stunned looking Halfling girl.

She coughed to get their attention. “-cough- So…. I am Doctor Omega, I know your names are Tiffany and Sarah, but could either of you tell me what is going on?”

The halfling girl was apoplectic “what do you mean ‘what’s going on?’? That is what I wanna know; is Grill gonna be okay? What happened to him? What did you do to Tiffany?”

The Troll Girl seemed a little detached from her emotions in contrast. She ignored the other girl's tirade and tried to answer “Mr. Smith was teaching Sarah, Billy and I what wasteland vegetation was edible or good for cooking when a Horde of Explosive Zombie children, colloquially known as Mini-Boomers, began to destroy the Orphanage Billy and I lived at.”

The Halfling Girl stared slack-jawed at her unexpectedly wordy companion.

“Mr. Smith carried 3 of us all the way here in the hopes of finding a friend of his who often came to these caves. Billy was turned just as we got to the bottom of the ladder over there” the troll girl pointed to where they had come in. “Then you showed up and massacred the zombies and somehow instead of becoming a mindless Kamikaze weapon, I am now much smarter, stronger and faster then a Troll toddler should be”

Omega Brightened up, thrilled to explain “Well I was trying to stop the zombie infection from turning you, The passed out orc got possessed, and made some kind of food out of the Angels wings, in that dish, the God or whatever that Possessed Grill, merged the light and life mana of the natural angel, With The Death and Darkness Mana of the Zombie Infection to create Aetheric Mana, a fusion, not just of the 4 base manas, but also any of the other normal 2 mana fusions, Soul, Entropy, Divine, and Shadow Manas respectively.”

“So I took this gifted mana, and modified some of the Zombie Plague to be an Aetherial Plague that Targets the Zombie Plague, and converts it in the same way the Zombie Plague converts people.”

Doctor Omega pointed in the direction they had come in. “So, Wanna see if you can turn your friend Billy Aetherial too?”

A Zombie Boy glowing with explosive goo within him was lifted out of one of the zombie restraining Pits. He was unmoving except for his head; which thrashed about looking for a target.

Now The Tiffany Girl Looked concerned “are you sure he won't go boom if I get close?”

Omega Assured the Girl “No no, I have Cut off his connection to the rest of his body, for now, he can’t activate his self destruct protocols. Just walk up next to his restrained body and your body should instinctively know how to ‘save’ him.”

Sarah looked like she wanted to stop the Toddler, even if they were roughly the same size. Omega could see fear and caution keep the poor Halfling frozen.

Tiffany Followed Omegas vague instructions, She knew what the girl had to do, but figured if the girl knew what would happen, she might resist the unknown natural impulse.

Sure enough, Tiffany got close to the mostly paralyzed zombie boy, She quickly went from looking determined to help the boy, to vomiting smokey goo all over his head. She looked horrified at first, then the goo soaked into the boy, and her expression became one of wonder as the rotten black veins in the elven boy receded. His splotchy Skin became a Milky Grey colour, Hair turned Black. The pulsing orange Goo within disappeared. By the time his transformation was over, he looked like an Elf child of a rare Subspecies or something.

Omega deactivated the nanites stopping the boy from commanding the rest of his body and moved them to check out the changes.

He sat up, Looking confused until he Spotted Tiffany, Then he Dropped to a knee before her “Thank you, your majesty, I swear my life and soul Into your service until you no longer have need of me.”

A flash Of light Connected the boy and girl for a moment, Then Omega got an alert for a new follower.

Congratulations! Princess Tiffany Has a new Follower, as her faction Leader, Her followers are yours as well. New Follower: Billy Arch-Grave E(89) Atherial Half-Elf Child.

Well shit, that is one way to grow the team.

Based on a quick look at his abilities, the aetherial upgrade gives a large boost or change to the racial powers of the target, and change the Zombie powers into those racial ones, or new Aetherial Powers, like his explosive goo organ changed as well and he can also change minor undead into Aetherials, but his version of the power costs less Xp the level up, which means it is going to have limits, that her version does not.

As for his racial powers he was a half-elf before, so his affinity with any skill and slightly accelerated learning from being human, was about doubled, making it the same strength as a full-blooded human. His elven blood would now allow his base lifespan to be about 1000 years instead of the 400ish of a normal half-elf. His elven magical talent was also boosted, but would still not grant him the Minor Aether Control power like Tiffany. He was kind of a chubby zombie, but he looked much thinner and a little skeletal now, like the transformation had burned away excess as fuel to empower the change.

Okay on to the next test. “Tiffany, do you wanna try an adult zombie from the horde?” she pulled another zombie out of the storage pits. This time a regular zombified adult, no upgrades.

The girl nodded and walked over to the next test subject, another mostly still zombie with a thrashing head. Once a Woman, not local, someone who has been a zombie for over a decade, limbs reattached or regenerated with outside dark magic a few times(the angels work most likely). Quite a few variables Omega was curious to see the effects of.

“This is a much better plan then mine was, you are so amazing, mistress” The Little Smokey grey Imp looking creature that the angel had become praised the young girl doing a sort of mid-air hover bow. Omega had forgotten about him after she finished altering him, she wondered if he had some new stealth-based powers, and decided to check the data feeds from his internal nanites later and see what stealth power might make him hard to think about.

The troll girl seemed to have also forgotten about her new minion, she scowled at it before saying. “I don’t want to hear flattery from you! Worm!”

Her eyes changed into a swirling Vortex Of All 9 Energies Under her supposedly Minor Command and small vortexes appeared in the air around the bootlicking mephit, out of these vortexes, Smokey chains of energy wrapped up the creature in his bowed pose, including a muzzle to stop him from speaking, and dropped him to the floor in a chained heap”

“Kneel, and pray that I can bring some of your horrors back into balance, you owe this world a debt, you owe these people their SOULS, I WILL GRIND YOURS TO DUST IF THAT IS WHAT IT TAKES TO FIX A TENTH OF YOUR DAMAGE.” The tiny girls had instinctively cast blood boil mid tirade, so she had temporarily grown half a meter in height, and was wreathed in a red aura by the time she was done screaming at the Imp shaped minor elemental.

Omega was kind of glad the creature pissed her off and gave her a demonstration of the child's power. The blood rage should be making her tear the creature apart, but her troll biology was healing the damage to her mind and body faster then her magic could damage herself, she was more like an empowered Gestalt of an Ogre mage and Troll rather than a half breed. The results were a vast power boost, while she seemed angry, it was not the suicidal rage an Ogre would normally be feeling in such a state. The boosts to her mental faculties from the Aetherial template must be a large factor in her massively impressive willpower. Still, Omega used her nanites to dull the girl’s pain from the constant damage, healing cycle. No reason her nanite infected allies cant get some benefits from her constant internal intrusion.

Azreal the Mephit looked like he might shit himself. It was pretty clear; he had hoped for a better reception upon reminding his master of his existence.

The Girl took a calming breath, before turning to the Zombie woman and vomiting on her face, the effects were faster this time, maybe because of the blood boil spell still active. Moments later another Ex-Zombie was kneeling before Tiffany

Congratulations! Princess Tiffany Has a new Follower, as her faction Leader, Her followers are yours as well. New Follower: Chantal ChipMaster C(3) Atherial Human Hacker

Billy and Chantal Each gave the Mephit a good kick before everyone was ready to finish up with the rest of the Zombies.

They discovered dead zombies were no good, even if mostly repaired. The imp was allowed to talk so he could tell him did not have the power to reanimate dead zombies, but he could use them as parts to augment other undead. That was not good enough for the growing crowd of Aetherial who gave him another round of kicks, Omega Healed the creature a bit to stop him from dying just yet.

The Zombie horrors became Aetheric Horrors and seemed to be more like smart animals that obeyed the Princess, but without her around Omega guessed they might eat an Aetherial person given the chance, but when she brought this up Tiffany created a large smokey vortex and sent the Aether Tanks, Aetheric Arachnoids and other assorted Ex-zombie horrors through with instructions eat excess death energy in the area. Omega Assumed this was another part of the girls Aether Princess class, she seemed to be a natural ruler of the Aetheric sub-plane and could sense imbalances in the Aether force and was sending the creatures in to eat the imbalance caused by the zombie horde, she guessed this Aether plane was like the spirit world or the shadow plane her teleportation tech used, but all mixed together.

She immediately made another mental note to use her borrowed Minor Aether Control power to alter the teleport tech she got from Holy to use this Aether Plane instead, it might be better and more efficient in the same way the Aether Mana was a better, higher, version of the Shadow Mana. So many new doors opened by this power set, and no info on it in her Basic Information skill meant it was not a normal basic power. The uncharted territory was a true Scientists favourite place to be.

Now there was the problem of splitting up, the fewer people that went back to the ruined orphanage, the more stealthy the trip would be. The Mephit had confessed he planned to go back in a few days to collect his new zombie child horde, the ones who died in the blast would draw in the entropic energy caused by all the senseless death and reform into fresh mini boomers, so while the adults who died either had already become zombies or zombie food, the bits of dead children could still be potentially ‘saved’.

Omega wanted to go see that happen too, but she also needed to talk to the AI and plan, See what they both could buy from Holly the poor shop crystal hologram person. Finnish clearing the rubble and repairing the top floor of the dungeon. Place her faction Core. Omega Scout still had lots of work to do with the ant colony. She needed to drag the Orc inside for a medical checkup. She didn't have time to go with the Aetherial party to town just yet.

This is of course when her new daughter showed up, and Mr. Thing was, apparently, a tentacle horror puppy...

Omega Excitedly re-connected the child's nanites to the swarm, most of which were acting as the girl's left eye at the moment. How had her daughter already lost an eye.....?