*******

It felt like it had been so freaking long to me, honestly, I had simply forgotten about those little shards of Chaos. Just hearing about them shocked me so damn much that I took Merlin up on his offer, with a firm caveat. Yes, I argued with a literal manifestation of a mystical legend, sue me.

[The basics! My non-existent backside!] Kraken complained. [What else was it? What did you promise him? It had to have been something good for this? A freaking knowledge crystal titled, ‘The Basics of Irreverent Wizardry’. I mean, what kind of a douchebag even names their work that?]

I groaned. [I don’t care who freaking wrote it as long as it’s correct! Compound that up with the knowledge we got from the archives in New Miami and get back to me when you’ve got a lesson plan. And besides, I’m freaking gaming the system here, check this out.] I shot Kraken my plan in a tightly wound packet of mental energy down our link as I hustled down the hallway from the Hole into the Lab. Merlin was so happy that I agreed, roughly, to his plea that he sent me back to Earth with my shit and my soul intact and unlocked. Weirdest flex ever, but ancient beings will be dicks on their own schedule. Lyra, Meliad, and Everest didn’t even notice me as I was zapped into my own living room in the Hole. That dude is fucking scary, in the way an ant finds a falling tree scary. If he actually wanted to take me out there would absolutely nothing I could do about it, no ‘ifs’, ‘ands’, or ‘buts’. Turns out though, I lost about three weeks worth of time on my little extra-reality jaunt which probably puts me somewhere in the middle of January.

Now, Virginia winters were a bit weird before magic made its debut but to me it still looked like fall round here. Maybe the seasonal shift is happening? Eh, who cares. The usual blend of oak, birch, and spruce trees had their mix of leaves turning different colors and the pine trees still basically looked the same. The chill I had been expecting wasn’t really there yet but it could just be my upgraded body not noticing it very well. All I really cared about was snow though, and if snow was coming, because the little kid inside of me would insist on taking a damn snow day to which I would wholeheartedly agree, but I digress.

[I think this is in between the realm of what you would call ‘ambitious’ and ‘the kind of insane that Merlin would be proud of,] Kraken started.

[I know, right? Kind of proud of myself for thinking of it. But really, wouldn’t it be a game changer?]

[Well, yes, creating a shrine using the shattered Chaos stones as anchors for a portal so that anybody could get sorceries as long as they meditate long enough near it is very much a ‘game changer’. This is the kind of move that would cause Galactic empires to start moving their very rusty wheels to get a hold of, let alone power hungry wizards jonesing at the idea of more power.]

I strolled on clutching my box even harder. [So, mums the word.]

[So many damn idioms in your head! Yes, keep it silent, secret, swear an order of loyal sorcerers and sorceresses to yourself and take over the multiverse,] he mused. [But it would work, probably, maybe? I mean, who would give the guaranteed chance to gain sorcery on their own and use those ingredients to make what amounts to a portal to the outer dimensional skin of the Sea of Chaos? Few can grasp that kind of delaying self gratification, let alone power hungry humans! Although, y’all aren’t as bad as the gnomes or the Aelves.]

My carnivorous trees snapped at me as I barged into the lab holding my enchanted stone box with five teeny Chaos stone pieces. Crazy thoughts swirled around in my head, visions of being a benevolent sorcerer king, bestowing powers and knowledge for the best of the best even as I fought to settle the land and bring it under my rule. Wow, my megalomania can really rear its evil little head if I’m not careful, haha . . . fuck. Anyways, shoving that little monster back in its cage, the concept still etched out its own little place in my ego.

With my work table near the oversized freezer to the left of the cavern that made up the Lab, I hefted the box on top of it, not even worrying about the carnivorous plants growling behind me. “Five shards, the perfect amount for a ritual, right?” I mused aloud. “A pentagram to form a ritual? This is all theoretical for me, completely based on fiction from pre-Ripple Earth.”

[Yes, close enough. The materials you have on hand should suffice, although I highly recommend you find something to balance out the nature of the fire dragon, who’s bones you plan on using.] Kraken’s clarification was helpful if a bit snarky. [I do not recommend using minotaur bones as they’ll mainly disperse the influx of mana required to start the portaling process. Water dragon bone and musculature would work best as a counterbalance, but you could skip using animal tissue altogether.]

“You thinkin’ something crazy?” I grinned, a bit of evil coming out in a chuckle. “I could totally do this in a way that would fuck with the Karens . . . the main piece would be a crystal ball ringed by the Chaos shards. Just a bit trippy for the biddies.”

[Or you could do the smart thing and establish control over the closest settlement first and use them as the gateway to taking over New Miami. Once you control the coast, it’s Manifest Destiny all over again.]

The squid spirit is full of good points, which is why I keep him around. Stashing the shards away in the freezer after covering them in a thin layer of conjured platinum, I settled in for the night so I could start the day off right. After putting my unconscious in full-on organization mode so most of my plans would be made by the time I woke up, I went up to the Hole and let myself have a natural night’s rest.

Morning greeted me after a solid ten hours of shut-eye caused my stomach to protest my negligence, meal cubes not being the current object of desire. “Rebellious organ.” I complained, hopping out of my bed and stripping off all my gear as I went to the wall and started making a bathtub fit for a king. Granite sides, marble steps and handlebars with gold filigree conjured and etched into the side, the setup looked perfect. A quick channel of water sorcery had the tub filled up and I jumped in to get clean, not even caring about the water temperature. Conjured sand, as fine as could be, was all I needed for a good scrub. After a luxurious ten minutes of peace and quiet, I slowly and carefully cleaned each piece of my equipment and put it on. The weaponry didn’t need need sharpening at all but still warranted an inspection.

Svalinn, my dragon-soul gauntlets, had merged with the Granite Gauntlets, giving the set unique abilities. Svalinn’s normal function was magical armor, able to generate a pure shield of magical energy, but also able to absorb or eat mana and energy in such a way as to be a draining shield. Offensively, Svalinn had teeth, or blades that extended from the outer sides of my forearms which would serve in a pinch. With the Granite Gauntlets merged with Svalinn, simply gripping things could cover them in a shell of conjured stone, and holding anything long enough would actually petrify it.

Poseidon’s Trident still sat in my arm, a bluish tattoo that held a magical focus for water sorcery that I frankly didn’t really need. Mainly, it would serve as a backup weapon or something to bestow on a valued ally, but I wasn’t really sure if it would function well if it were away from me for too long as its magical signature was partially subsumed by SAW, my Centauri nano-tech armor.

SAW in and of itself was a bit over the top, as anything would be if it were made from nano-tech. The simple nature of the devices that made up the structure of SAW allowed them to create runic structures or magical tattoos to perfectly shore up my own deficiencies. Usually, the runic patterns were focused on defense, absorbing enemy projections of mana and draining kinetic energy from high powered bullets or physical weapons wielded by brutes stronger than elephants. General blunt trauma is a good way to deal with squishy humans and this was attempt number two to fix that weakness but my upgraded body has a lot more in the way of physical durability. “Kraken, while I’m thinking about it, overhaul SAW’s rune structure to focus more on radar-like capabilities and stealth,” I ordered. “Do keep a minimum kinetic and mana draining diagram that can be on a low level circuit but we need to shift the focus as I’m not as weak as a standard human anymore.”

[Done.]

My internal review of my gear continued as I looked over the Dagger of Rending, or ‘Setan Kober’ as SAW called it. It was as beautiful as it was deadly, the diamond blade with a wrapped handle of cold iron, braided with gold, silver, and Yggdrasil wood. Its resting place was on my left calf, a sort of backup last-ditch weapon that could probably drain a dragon’s lifeforce dry if given enough time. In my mind, I viewed it as a pseudo vampire fang, perfectly suited for massive enemies if I was on my last leg.

What blew my mind though was Yggdrasil’s Wrath, a weapon grown from the World Tree itself but one that my soul-tree had grabbed for its own purposes. Looking inward, I could see a tattoo of the mace outlined on the chest of the faux-personage. I remember something about a ‘Doomsday Protocol’ but SAW didn’t exactly give me a description.

My wing-hoverboard combo is pretty sweet, the former using solar and heat intake runes as well as anti-gravity to fly and the latter using the same to hover. The wings doubled as extra surface area to recharge batteries on the go as the hoverboard can use leylines to charge and ride at the same time, a pretty ingenious setup for myself, economical and environmentally friendly.

The last thing I had to check were my extra mana batteries, of which I had almost a literal ton. Most of them were stored in Gungnir’s spatial storage area but my hoverboard had six dedicated extra large batteries attached to them and SAW had a few lining my back and my chest that doubled as armor plates. Those have a nice coating of tungsten to prevent any kind of fracturing.

“I’m pretty much good to go.” I muttered to myself.

[Yes you are, so stop putting off talking to people,] Kraken admonished, sounding like a parent while folding his tentacles over themselves. [It’s easy, walk in there, take over, and then get busy making yourself a nice house in the woods near the town. They offered it to you last time but you didn’t take it.]

“They didn’t offer it,” I snapped. “I didn’t want it, I didn’t want to deal with administrative bullshit. Fix this, go kill that, my needs and my wants, I can already see an avalanche of shit to do on a freaking list for me if I do that. Fuck!”

Kraken pulled me into the mindscape. “Listen,” he bubbled, his voice audible in the mindscape. Kraken’s squid like body floated as he gestured, a homey living room firming out of the fog. I took a seat on the big couch and conjured up a nice cup of coffee for myself, kicking my feet up. Pointing at the floating holographic tv in the center, he started bringing up people’s faces and putting them in groups. “Being a leader in a magical community is less about doing all the shit work yourself and more about delegation.”

“Right, got that.” I agreed, pointing at the groups and adding labels. “Jamal hunts and fucks, keeping the dryads happy and near the town, and they double as sentries and scouts. Cassandra and Lovera seem to work well together and probably head up their research department. Mark and Scott are the head of the main fighting force available as well as resource attainment. Remy, Fernando, Tommy’s hick group, and the rest fill in as the ‘general townspeople’, and Stacy if I remember correctly is in charge of childcare and something else.”

“Logistics,” Kraken filled in. “But that role may have been split off by now. Both of those are too time consuming for one mortal.”

“Sure, but they have plenty of people for that. So how’s it going to work with me waltzing in and declaring, ‘oh hey guys, I’m back and in charge’?” I mocked. “Seriously, sounds pretty stupid to me.”

Kraken’s glare only made me chuckle. “What?” I laughed. “You look like a grumpy squid, it’s funny.” The glare continued. “Fine, just a little walk in the park, declare my supremacy via orders from on High and then have a little homestead. Got it.”

“The flippancy of your attitude is what will make this difficult. One the other hand, if you approach this with the seriousness that this matter deserves, then the pieces will fall into place. Strength is respected now. I’ve seen your memories of how all humans more or less fell into the category of weak and powerless. Weaponry and numbers determined strength, but now true power can shine through. Magic allows you to cut through the facade. Who gave them several sources of power, the generator and the hydro-kinetic converter and the sunstone pyre? Who gave them ammunition facilities and elemental wands? Who summoned and bound elementals and gifted an industrial flesh golem?”

Again, the squid has a point, several in fact. Irritating that I have a Scion of Knowledge serving as my conscience, my butthurt conscience. Whoops, saw the glare from thinking that thought. “Ok, ok, got it. Make peace or kick ass.” I grumbled all the way out of my own mindscape, running out of my house into the smoothie jungle. “Oh Meliaaaad!”

“Master! You’ve returned!” The gorgeous hamadryad stalked out of the woods, her stature large enough to rest her head on a two story building. Every detail of her flesh was on full display, a veritable supermodel giantess with clothing made from leaves that rather drew more attention to her curves than hid them.

“Hot damn you’ve gotten tall!” I exclaimed, wishing I was two stories tall now. “What the hell has Everest been feeding you?” My joking caused her to blush.

“My lord sorcerer,” she whispered. “I have missed you, but it is never a good idea to comment on a woman’s weight. This power is so grand that I cannot diminish myself for at least a decade.”

“Well, you’re almost thirty feet of sexy right now. Kinda like the view.” It’s not helpful that her aura was leaking out, tugging on the knots of my own locked up sex drive like a pit bull yanking on a rope. And what makes the banging, hahaha, more insistent is that I’ve started coming to terms with the fact that my woman is basically not my woman anymore. If anything, she’s God’s woman, or the Tree of the Universe’s, kinda like your girlfriend deciding to be a nun for a few years to ‘find herself’ but promising to marry you after her journey. Really makes you feel kinda shitty even that’s only loosely a parallel. And Meliad, wow, Meliad is easy. Not the cheap way, the drunken chick at the bar trying to make out with everyone, but the kind where she genuinely wanted me because I’ve claimed this land and she’s planted in it. She could quite honestly be my very own forest wife if I wanted.

“That doesn’t make it right,” I muttered to myself. Clearing my throat, I looked back up to her after readjusting my hormones again. “Where’d you and your sisters plant the normal fruits, like bananas, apples, and pears?”

Kneeling in front of me and giving me the world’s largest eyeful of giantess cleavage, Meliad shyly grinned and opened her palm in front of me. “Every part of this forest is connected to me now, my lord sorcerer. Simply ask for any fruit, any dryad, or anything within the reaches of the canopy and it shall be yours.” Small piles of apples, bananas, pears, grapes and even berries were grouped in her hand, each giving off their delectable scent with nary a bruise in sight.

“I could kiss you, but I’ll wait till you’re human sized again.” Not giving her a chance to respond, I swiped the fruit into Gungnir and hopped onto my hoverboard. “Thanks gorgeous!” I yelled, hauling ass west towards New Richmond. Cowardly, I know, but still, personal progress. I’ll take it.

Gently gliding my way down the Rappahannock River westward felt like a trip down memory lane, but in the way a child remembers his old home being much bigger than it actually was. The beautiful mini-rapids that once entertained thousands during the mild Virginia summers had now become class five rapids rough enough to take down even experienced kayakers. Gone were the days of gentle paddleboarding and tubing, drinking a cooler full of beers without worrying about elephant sized predators lurking beneath the surface. I mean, I didn’t really worry about them, especially when I’m going about forty miles an hour, my water sorcery giving me the ability to shred like Bethany Hamilton. I was doing fine too, the wind in my face, orange juice droplets streaming off my face as I devoured my snack, right until my senses warned me that I had incoming.

Small boulders made of acid slammed into the river, just barely missing as I cranked up the power flow to my hoverboard and pulled hard to the left. Bits and pieces of dead fish floated to the surface in the bubbling froth as I kicked my board onto the river bank and dove down into the river. A piercing shriek blasted the water over and over, tearing my eardrums to shreds even as I tamped down on the pain, forcing myself to focus above the surface of the water. Shoving myself to the side even as my flesh sorcery started working overtime from the damage of intense sound waves rocking my body, grey talons that looked eerily similar to a bird of prey slammed into the area I just vacated. Wrapping myself in a shield of dense mana and surging water, I pushed my body until I could grab its leg. Before it could start to bite, Gungnir lanced out ice blades, slicing the Achilles tendons on both legs as I focused on coating the legs with an ever thickening layer of ice to weigh it down.

Giant jaws filled with yellow teeth slammed down on me, almost hard enough to penetrate my shield fully, and flung me up and out in front of the monster. [Wyvern! Wyvern! Don’t drop your shield!] Kraken freaked. [Anger, acid, and raw strength, wyverns hunt in packs but are generally strong enough to make dragons think twice about attacking them.]

[Grenades don’t care about their feelings.] I grunted mentally, summoning a few and launching them at the wyvern that glared at me with red-green eyes. Each roar was punctuated with an acid loogie but I countered with upswells of water straight from the river we both fought in.

[Hurry! Kill it now before its friends join in!]

Fifteen crystal rounds blasted out, each cratering the massive skull of the beast. Blasting forward on top of the water, I washed its face in water and froze it, holding its maw shut. Gungnir morphed into a mace, humming with power as I sent it straight into the wyvern’s brain. Not waiting for its death throes to subside, I pulled the body down to the river bottom and froze it to a outcropping of rock. Three simultaneous shrieks rang out but quickly were cut off.

“Who fights with the talon of the flock, hmmm?” The raspy voice’s mysteriousness cut off all of the sound in the surrounding area. The playful burble of the river was no more, the wind didn’t whisper and even the usual chatter of the birds was absent.

“Suck a dick you creepy motherfucker!” I yelled, pivoting on the river’s surface, gripping Gungnir and pulling more mana to the fore. “Or come on out so I can give you to the river. Her appetite is never satisfied. If you’re smarter than a zit on a flea, I’d run fast and far.” Silence reigned heavy for a moment like a storm cloud holding its breath.

“Insults from food? Tasty morsels fighting futilely with last breaths? Egg breakers gasping for air?”

The voice came from every direction and even my mental sorcery couldn’t detect where it was coming from. “Humans taste like ass!” I snarled. “You’d know that if you weren’t a worthless piece of alien shit.” Figured that pissing it off would probably be the best option. Angry enemies are lazy enemies, they make stupid mistakes.

An airy chuckle shook the leaves on the trees, but only on the north side of the riverbank. Focusing my senses that way, I still kept slowly pivoting in the water as if I didn’t know anything. Gungnir slowly shifted from mace form to spear form, the crystal orb transforming into a wicked three bladed speartip. [I bet the coinage of your choice that it’s harpies.] Kraken sent.

[I don’t bet against Scions of Knowledge,] I shot back. [The house always gets its due.]

[Hahaha,] he chuckled, shooting me a little packet of info.

[Yeah, the voice is more fucked up than I remember but I’m pretty sure we’ve run into these bastards before. Guess this is why I shoulda taken the time to clean out the nest.] The sky began to blacken as the silence lifted. Blades of wind lashed out, pinging off my shields as others sliced through trees on the river banks. “That's all you got, pussy?!” I kept looking around. “You baby-backed bitch! Festering skank that couldn’t fight a chicken! Eggless wonder! I bet your butthole is so rotten that you split in half everytime you sneeze!” No response. “You’re a flockless son of a pigeon!"

That did it. Three more stone grey wyverns the size of a biplane fell out of the sky spewing acid as a tornado materialized right on top of me. The whipping blades of wind carried the infuriated screams of the harpy, or harpies? I'm not foolish enough to believe that only one was in charge of this weather working. Even though I didn't let me inner musings distract me, the three wyverns were able to land their acid spit in a coordinated assault due to the tornado locking me in position, the rapidly moving air essentially acting as a blender, swirling the acid into a gigantic drill that stripped away at my shield. Giving in to my instincts, I fell back under the surface of the river, fighting quantity with quantity as the rushing roar of the Rappahannock washed away the vile green liquid that smoked even though it hadn't even managed to touch the edges of my armor. Two massive paws and a spiny tail fished around the river for me as I darted about.

[Crystal bullets don't work so well under water!] Kraken cursed.

[Easy day.] I snarl-bubbled, activating Poseidon's Trident. My blue fishing spear materialized in a flash of deep blue light, answering my call. Extending my will through the amplifier, the waters of the river grasped back at the wyverns with a ferocity to match their own. Seven pillars of water complete with bladed fingers of ice tore into them as if they were tissue paper, reaping swathes of flesh as the wyverns struggled and flapped uselessly against a foe that couldn't bleed. In their frenzy, they didn't notice that my focus was on the smaller bladed arms of water that slashed at various weak spots, wing tendons and veins close to the surface. Three minutes of frenzied thrashing only made them bleed out faster, their struggles only growing weaker as bits of them floated on down the river.

Waving my trident, the river tossed the carcasses up on the river bank even as I waited near the bottom of the Rappahannock, allowing the current to dilute and wash away the acidic blood. Rising to the top, I stood on conjured ice floes. "I'm pretty sure I can do this longer than you can produce wyverns!" I yelled, shaking Gungnir and Poseidon's Trident. "I'm still as fresh as a waterfall jumping salmon!"

Creepy silence one again came and went, unnaturally stilling even the ambient sounds. For a handful of moments, the pressure of unfulfilled rage froze even the carefree burble of the river, before letting it snap back into place. "Odd, yes, creepy, even more so, but you're just a like a haunted doll in a murder house. Any idiot with a lick of sense wouldn't be afraid of you." I taunted. "Everybody fear the fucked up child's toy with a knife! Oh wait, this is America where every household has a gun and there's a church on every street corner. Hmmm, I wonder if I should shoot the doll that wants to murder me and then drag it to a church for an exorcism."

"Nonsense will not protect you from me, mortal morsel of meat."

"Look, if you're not going to come on out to me, then I will find you!" I promised. "Liam Neeson ain't got nothing on a determined, pissed off sorcerer with a habit of going above and beyond in the explosives department. I will find you, I will kill you, and then I will use your floating island as my own personal toilet. And if that's not enough of a threat for you to leave me the fuck alone, I will use my magic to turn your half-alive bird-brain carcass into a flesh golem that can't move but looks like a female moose rump, and then stick you in Canada for all the boy moose to enjoy. One solid tweak of moose hormones and I guarantee that you will be railed day in and day by every available moose johnson within eight hundred miles. It will be so damn graphic that a new disease will be named after you, ‘Dicks-lexic’! Now pick up your fucking trash if you get it asshole."

The world's fastest tornado descended and scooped up the three dead wyverns, yanking them up into the sky and off to the north. "North huh?" I muttered, making a note for Kraken to follow up on. "Guess I'll be heading north soon."

My own grumpiness hung over me like a burgeoning storm, which didn’t go over well when I arrived at New Richmond. The little birds were chirping without a care and the sunlight was making everything glisten as if brand new. Small hordes of children chased their familiars while elementals played and built all around them. Even the adults had expressions of general relaxed contentedness that spoke of a time of ease and growing. Most of the trees were heavy with fruit already and the greenhouses in the distance were literally glowing green even as small, personal gardens were showing their bounty. The houses molded from elemental conjured stone sported decorations even as the houses grown from oak displayed new flowing carvings that I just knew came from the wood shaping wands I’d left. At least someone shared my grouchiness.

Acantha, Reeanth, and Versonae stalked out of a dwelling, arguing with each other over something, Versonae’s claws sheathing and unsheathing as Acantha pointed flaming fingers at both of them. Reeanth’s imperious bitch face was no less angry, she just showed it with constant glaring and scathing condescension.