“It’s an honor to be here, sir.” said a famed, fifth-ranked, knight of the Palmas Kingdom. His eyes shining like stars as he shook the hands of his childhood hero.

“Ah, nah, I’m glad you could make it. Why don’t you go inside and get something to drink?” said Jarek. Patting the shoulder of the younger man and pointing him towards the bar.

“Hon, Why are all these people at our house?” said Olivia. Whispering as she stood at her husband's side, greeting the endless line of guests that entered their family’s compound.

Jarek shrugged, looking slightly sheepish. Scratching his cheek like a child caught in the middle of making a mess.

“I might have been somewhat unclear when I was using that “AI secretary” that Eddy installed on my ship.” he said.

Olivia sighed and rolled her eyes, whilst keeping a smile on her face for the guests. Her husband was quick enough at understanding all the combat-oriented tech that their son kept introducing, but grasping the administrative bits and lifestyle-focused odds and ends often seemed to escape him.

The second night of the family get together ended up turning into a proper event and becoming something closer to a large banquet, a favored down by one of their neighbors led to Jarek extending an invitation.

One invitation became two invitations and before anyone really knew what had happened on the night of the dinner the had a line of higher guests just waiting to greet them and make their respects.

The vis-Oddmunds hosted their closest friends and allies for the first portion, they allowed the rest of folk that no one really knew afterwards in afterwards.

There was a mixture of notable figures from the county and renown figures from throughout the continent and beyond.

The Foresters were there, and it was a surprise of all but those few who really had a sense of how far in the world the little clan had come, that the old count of Otmar had bothered wrangled an invitation for himself and a few of his favored sons and daughters. Even coming in person.

A very confused Carlo Oddmund head of the main Oddmund clan, and a few of his younguns, had stopped by to see just what the fuss was about, having heard the sounds of the banquet from the main family’s compound, and ended up leaving with more questions than answers.

There were more than few famous faces from the Einrode duchy and others from even farther out who’d come to the arid Emerald Steppes.

Overall, the vis-Oddmunds little get together had turned out be far more star studded than any of the family had expected and Olivia’s staff ended up having to enlist the aid of several of the local eateries to see them all fed.

They were using one of the family’s ships to create a spatial-distortion field above the family’s manse, which was the only reason that they could comfortably fit all of the guests within their yard.

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Eventually things settled down, and all their guests went home. Later that night all the core members of the family met in the dining room to discuss a little business amongst themselves and have some after dinner drinks. They drank honeyed flower-wine and spiced devil-wood ale, a traditional Palmas nightcap.

Young Miss Patricia was there too, brought along by her beau Wally, at the urging and approval of his mother.

She wasn’t quite family yet, but if the promise band she wore around her arm was any indication that would soon cease to be an issue. Besides, she and her mother were actually quite high up in the family’s plans. Old Missus Patterson wasn’t always a humble boarding house matron. The Patterson family was much like the vis-Oddmunds, except with a worse streak of luck. It always chilled Olivia’s heart to think of what could have happened had her husband been killed instead of merely wounded, and had their sons been directly drawn into the family’s conflict instead of being able to grow in the relative safety of the countryside.

Patricia Patterson was currently an only child, but she hadn’t always been so, and it was not by any choice of her mother, or her dear departed siblings.

“So, Egon here says are ships are as good as building shits as they are at blowing shit up. Is that true, kiddo?” said Jarek. Eyes twinkling in anticipation.

“Ships?” muttered Patty. More than a little confused, Wallace had given her a rough sketch of some of the things that she and the rest of the non- vis-Oddmund portion of the Oedheim clan revival plan had been left out of the loop on. Most of it was confusing, all of it, was far fetched, and for the most part she wasn’t entirely sure she heard most of it correctly.

Wallace had just barely filled her in, thirty minutes before the family gathered, saying that if she and he were going to get serious, there were probably a few things she might want to get filled in on. Such as the true nature of the mysterious family asset that was making what everyone had been believed to be a grueling decades long slog into a brisk walk in through the forest.

The family turned towards Edwin who sat rubbing his eyes looking sleepy.

“Huh? Oh, yeah...Or rather, why is it that none of you guys know anything about the things I send. I send manuals, and wikis, and video tutorials whenever a new feature gets added. At least watch the tutorials.”

“I watch the tutorials, dear. Their lovely.” said Olivia. Her tone a soothing one. Patting her cranky son’s arm.

“I do too.” said Vanessa. Actually meaning it this time, her experience with the ship’s destructive capabilities having awakened an interest in her concerning what the fleet her husband had gifted her and the rest of their family was capable.

“So, they can build stuff?” said Egon. Leaning in towards his young brother, wearing a look that made him look like he was about to eat the smaller Jotun.

“Yes, Of course they can. How would they able to self-repair, or fabricate new equipment if they couldn’t build stuff. The ship print’s can make materials and parts, and each ship comes with several swarms of construction bots.”

“Construction bots?” said Patricia. Her brows bunching as she tried to follow the conversation.

“Robots...er golems... that build things and put things together. They look like bugs but each of them possesses more skill than your average master craftsman in the capital.” said Vanessa. Explaining for the other woman.

“How well and how fast can these swarms build?” asked Olivia. A few thoughts and ideas flitting through her mind.

“Well...let’s say we decided to destroy all of Palmas after all...and just you know flatten everything…”

“We can do that?!” exclaimed Patty.

“ Shh, I’ll fill you in later.”said Wallace. Calming down his alarmed paramore, with a joking look that hid his own growing concerns and uncertainties with the fact that his family had long since ceased to merely be a power in the nation and had reached a point where stirring the seas, melting the mountains and giving the whole world a fright wasn’t impossible.

It helped that Wallace had been hiding these concerns from his family and the men that were under him for some time now. Having first come to an understanding of where he and his family stood after single-handedly taking out a group that the Palmas kingdom might have needed to send an army to subdue.

“...If we destroyed all of Palmas today, all the swarms on all our ships could build a new Palmas in about three month's time. If we told them to just make more of themselves using the rubble, and they spent a week or so just multiplying they could halve the rebuild time, and build the kingdom better and bigger than it originally was, in just six weeks.” said Edwin.

There was a lull, as the family sat absorbing that information.

Jarek, Olivia and Egon, who all shared the duty of handling the family’s defensive and logistical planning all shared a look.

Jarek sighed, not knowing what expression to make. The way his son spoke was enough to both warm and chill the blood. If it weren’t for Jarek reminding himself that the sort of unjustified mass murder that would be involved in just unrestrainedly using all of his son’s shiny toys, wasn’t the same thing as merely exterminating along a lineage or group, he might well have given in to that dark little voice in his head.

“Nh...Well, then. That’s good to know.” said Jarek. Glancing over at his wife and knowing without even asking her, that in her mind’s eyes there were visions of fortress cities, paved roads, and instantly built, heavily secured compounds dancing in her head.

“Hehe...any time, dad. Also, since we’re all here, before we move on to the next thing, I was kind of wondering when you guys would be okay with moving past the twelfth rank.”

“Huh?” said Egon.

“Twelfth rank...I thought there were only ten?” muttered Patty. Whispering in Wallace’s ear.

“Move past the what-what now?” said Wallace.

Jarek just stared at his son, thinking absolutely nothing, simply giving himself time to breathe. Then whilst still keeping his expression he steepled and unsteepled his fingers and then tried to search his memory for one of those “bulletins” that his son liked to send the family whenever he came up with new absurdities for them to make use of.

“I’m afraid you’re gonna have to explain that a bit for us, sug.” said Olivia. Patting her husbands back to remind him that he’d forgotten actually breathe while he was busy buying himself time to breathe.

Edwin blinked a bit of light flickering in and out of his eyeballs before, his blue-silver irises returned to normal.

“Er, yeah...So….I think it was about two...no...it was three weeks ago. I sent a message to everyone that ascension chambers and enriched-elements were ready.”

“Enriched-elements?” said Vanessa. Shivering, a little when she imagined the idea of having undergo another transformative process with her husband’s “nanites”.

“You know...like the stuff we already have inside us, but with a little more juice inside to hasten that whole pesky cultivation thing and a few extra components I couldn’t build in the current strain of elements because I lacked raw energy required to process them. I mean no point in wasting time with efficient methods right? I harvested a few stars, with no habitable worlds in their goldilocks zones. I sort of melted them down...except you can’t melt stars since they’re made of fire and plasma and stuff, so...maybe that’s a bad way to describe it. That’s besides the point though. What I’m trying to say, is if we’re going to be fighting gods we’ll be ready. After all, we’ll need some immortal operators if we’re going to be making full use of my anti-divine weaponry …I even got a modified strain of the elements going for some of the more trusted people amongst your forces. So that you can promote the power of anyone that you want to bring past the twelfth layer with us. It’s got most of the basic functions of the stuff that’ll be inside of us but none of the special permissions or extras.”

Wallace stared at his brother and then blinked away the headache he felt coming on. He wasn’t even going to bother asking who or what a goldilocks zone was. Smiling wryly he responded for their shell-shocked parents, aware that somebody needed to say something.

“So you’ve got a mixture of god-formula lying around for us to take? Cool. Alright how about we all take it on Thursday?”

Edwin nodded typing into the empty air and noting it down on his calendar.

“Got it.., we’ll all undergo the process on Thursday. I’ll get some of the full solution for Patty there since she’ll be joining the family soon. You guys better not forget about this, the whole process is a pain to prepare, but it only takes like...six hours so….we might as well just get it over with.” said Edwin. Leaving his older brother gaping. The sarcasm in Wallace’s tone having completely slipped the younger Jotun’s notice.

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