"It's complicated," Cyrus told Lyda. "But essentially, I'm able to manipulate aether on a greater level than most gods."

"Aether?" She asked.

"The mythical substance which makes up all of existence, known and unknown," he answered, then thought for a few moments, pausing in his transfer of the dics, one in his hand. "You know the beastkin, beastman, beastfolk, demihumans, and so on that are found in stories, shows, and anime?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"They don't exist," he told her. "Not in reality. They're a purely fantasy creature. However, some gods who are experts at shaping, transmutation, and healing magics can turn someone into one. Despite that, it's not something which can last for long, and nor are they able to reproduce and create more – the children would still be human or whatever they were, and the actual subjects will end up dying directly because of it, even if they manage to live a few years past the change."

His ears melded into his head, hair growing in their place as if it came in naturally like that, and a pair of triangular, black wolf's ears grew out of the top of his heads, situated off to the sides, right at where the top met the sides. At the same time, his irises turned golden and a black wolf's tail grew out of his back just above his ass, his natural hair turning black.

"By manipulating aether," he said. "I can turn fantasy into reality. I didn't just change my physical body, but also my genetic makeup. I did it seamlessly and in a living being. If I were to sleep with a human, they would be half-human and half-demihuman while still being a demigod. I could turn a woman into a demihuman, sleep with her, and produce a demihuman demigod. Or I could turn a man and a woman both into them, and their children, if they slept with each other, would be demihumans."

"He's powerful," Owen told Lyda.

"Just as we are," Max added.

"But we each have our own domains," Luke told her.

"Though Cyrus can still manipulate time rather well," the triplets said in unison.

"How do they do that?" Lyda looked at Cyrus, who had returned to sorting the discs.

"They're linked mentally," he answered as he returned to his natural appearance and genetics. "It's not telepathy, but something even more intimate and powerful.

"Plus," he fixed his dark blue eyes on her. "They're gods of time. It wouldn't be an issue for them to slip out of time, discuss what to say, then slip back in without the shenanigan being noticed."

"That's true," Owen said.

"Except for one thing," Max nodded.

"Cyrus is unaffected by our time magics yet somehow linked to them at the same time," Luke stated.

"So when we do that, he slips out of time as well," the triplets said in unison.

"Feel free to look around the shop," Cyrus told Lyda. "We'll be staying in the apartment upstairs for the night. I'll make lunch after I finish this."

"You cook?" She asked.

"I had to learn," Cyrus answered. "To feed us. These idiots prefer ordering pizza, and I had to clean up the boxes from their orders."

"If we didn't already have a lover right now," Owen said. "We'd offer to let you experience what it's like to sleep with three guys at once, since Cyrus hasn't claimed you as his girl."

"We'd offer anyway," Max added with a wink. "You felt how inexperienced he was, and noticed how much he hates touching."

"You know," Luke grinned. "I bet you could've gotten the Elemental Token while on the islands."

"Why?" Lyda asked, and Cyrus could tell the sudden change in topic confused her.

"Because," Cyrus said. "They'd probably have been impressed by your ability to convince me to have sex with you even once. At least one likely would have offered up an Elemental Token for that. We'll come across elementals again, we can check to verify if you want."

"I get the feeling that's not the normal way to impress them and earn their token."

"It's not," Cyrus told her. "You have to impress them with a feat of elemental magic of their own element, usually. No one really understands that, and the few who think it does have to do with wielding their element… fail to impress them."

"They're living bodies of the elements," Luke told her. "So it would take quite a lot to impress them. You know, we aren't actually in a committed relationship, and she knows it's just for the sex and that we might get with others. We know she's sleeping with, like, three other guys right now, too. Want to try some of this stuff with us? I never thought to use extremely tiny electric zaps as an arousal thing."

Cyrus ignored them as Lyda agreed to give it a try, then his brothers and Lyda made their way to the back. Finally having some peace, Cyrus continued to sort the discs. When he finished, he closed the briefcase and began taking the stacks of discs to the back room.

After moving all of the discs, he sat at one of the many desks covered in various gadgets, computers, books, and random other things and opened up one of the CD cases, pulling out the fourth movie in the series that they were missing.

He placed it into a tray and pushed it into the appropriate machine, before opening up a box with two dozen clear orbs inside of it. Cyrus pulled one out and stuck it in a holder attached to the same machine, then pressed a button. The recosphere slot withdrew and the light beside it turned green, then he began to work converting the ancient movie into a readable format.

The tone for the shop sounded as Cyrus waited for the conversion to run, so he made his way to the front, where a man wearing plain clothes, with sandy-blond hair and brown eyes waited. He was scrawny, but Cyrus could feel the immense magical power within him. A power which meant his scrawny frame meant nothing in a fight.

"Kylnar," Cyrus gave him a surprised look. "It isn't often you come down to the surface, much less to our shop."

"I know," the god smiled as he approached the counter. "I wanted to see how you were doing. Lena told me that you decided to help the woman you slept with on her quest to reach the island."

"I'm second-guessing my decision," Cyrus admitted. "If I leave my brothers alone for that long…"

"The world will be fine," Kylnar smiled. "You could probably leave them along for a few months before intervention would actually be necessary."

"They'd cause a lot of problems before then," Cyrus muttered.

"Perhaps," Kylnar shrugged. "But we are gods. Sometimes, the mortals need to have things shaken up to make the world more interesting for us."

Cyrus began walking back to the office, and Kylnar followed, sitting beside him when the younger god sat. The younger god knew the older one had some business there, and it likely involved the devices in the back. The timing was oddly coincidental with Cyrus having just returned, but it was possible that Kylnar was intending to speak with the triplets instead.

"I wanted to put in a request," Kylnar handed Cyrus a paper with twenty titles on it. "Movies and shows you just purchased. Could you make an extra copy of these and send them up?"

The list told Cyrus that Kylnar had been waiting for Cyrus to return, and had no doubt watched the events in the shop, entering only once the others had gone upstairs. Cyrus accepted the list, then sorted through the stacks of discs to find the titles.

"I have a second list," Kylnar set it beside the first. "Of movies and shows you and the triplets already converted that I wish to give a try."

"I'll make sure they know to have it done," Cyrus told Kylnar. "Since I'll be leaving again for the trip."

"Thank you," Kylnar said. "You aren't giving her all of the tokens she needs? She'd only need the Blessed Token after that."

"It wouldn't be much of a quest," Cyrus said. "If she didn't go after the tokens. I'll give her the Dungeon Token because of how difficult it would be and how pointless it would be for me to do all of the work on the way down and up. She earned the Silver Token speaking with Aunt Lena, and will probably find the Mystery Token at some point. The Forest Token won't be an issue to obtain, I just need to take her to one of the 'ruins' Rynovar made in a forest. If she's determined, she'll pass the trial of the Blessed Ones. The Elemental Token might cause some issue, but I'm sure she'll manage it."

Kylnar nodded, and Cyrus realized that part of the reason the god had come down was to ask him about that.

"Rynovar wanted to make sure I don't just cheat her through," Cyrus said.

"He figured you wouldn't," Kylnar told him. "But decided to have me check, just in case you decided to."

"I take it," Cyrus muttered. "He had some sort of bribe planned in case I was going to cheat her to only needing the Blessed Token after the Silver Oracle's visit?"

"He has a Golden Josh Manakao Figurine still in the original box," Kylnar nodded. "It's yours if you don't. He doesn't care if you take her to the places, since she still ends up going on a journey."

"And the quest is partly about the journey."

"Yes," Kylnar said. "And he's also hoping the journey helps you."

"Helps me?" Cyrus raised an eyebrow at the god.

"Yes," Kylnar told him. "Help you. You're going to be traveling with a young woman you had sex with. He's hoping it helps you learn to loosen up and relax a little, maybe to come to deal with your issues over physical contact, even if it's only for one person."

Cyrus groaned, allowing his head to slam into the desk, and Kylnar laughed.

"Also," the older god added. "You looked quite adorable as a wolfboy."

Cyrus groaned again.

"You didn't tell her that you could grant her affinities," Kylnar said once the younger god lifted his head up. "Why?"

"I didn't feel Rynovar would be happy with me doing it to a mortal."

"He doesn't care," Kylnar told him. "He gives you free reign to do as you please, you know. As long as you don't violate the Rules of the Divine, he doesn't mind anything you do."

"I've never created mana veins," Cyrus shook his head. "That's a feat of aether magic I'm nervous to try. I'd rather not find out how many people Rynovar experimented on just to manage it for that one person."

He could adjust them a little, but not create them entirely, and granting an elemental affinity would require creating entirely new mana veins in the subject.

"The god of aether," Kylnar chuckled. "Nervous to do something with aether."

"We all have our limits," Cyrus stood and walked to the kitchen behind them, Kylnar following. "On what it is we will and won't do. There are magics even you won't perform, despite them being so easy for you."

Such as blood magics and soul magics. From what Cyrus knew, only twenty gods in the entire universe even possessed the ability to affect souls, and seven of them were on Earth. Not a single one of the Earthen gods would perform soul magics, however. Push things too far, or attempt to twist the souls rather than anything attached to them, and the soul would slip away, often with severe backlash against the mage performing it.

With blood magics, Cyrus knew that Kylnar was simply uncomfortable with performing them.

"You have a point," Kylnar chuckled as Cyrus fixed them snacks. "I've always wondered, but why do you have a mini kitchen down here when the apartment has a full one?"

"Makes it easier to respond to the front for whoever's watching the shop," Cyrus answered, then paused for a moment. That wasn't actually an issue for the four gods who lived there. "And the triplets put it in one day while I was picking up an item."

They took their snacks back to the back room and sat down, Cyrus pulling up a program on another computer, beginning to play chess against someone else.

"You could always play chess against me," Kylnar told him.

"Your genius is beyond me," Cyrus said. "I'll lose every time."

"It was worth a try," Kylnar laughed. "Finding a good chess opponent is hard once I restricted myself to this world. Only phoenixes could really compare to me, and those are beings who've lived many lives."

They fell silent for several minutes as Cyrus played, Kylnar watching without giving any hints or advice. Eventually, Cyrus glanced at the older god.

"If we're sending the recospheres up," he said. "There's no reason for you to stay here."

"I can't hang out with my favorite young god?" Kylnar asked. "Your brothers might have invented most of the tech in here, Cyrus, but you're still a genius in your own way. It's fun having conversations about magic research with you. I know you've created at least one or two new spells and items since we last talked."

Cyrus paused, then sighed.

"I was hoping you wouldn't have found out about that."

He could have attempted to pull a mortal act and pretend to not know what Kylnar was talking about and simply bring up one or two of his projects, but he wasn't that sort of person. He might pull it with most beings, but not Kylnar. If the god mentioned something as vague as that, then he knew something as specific as what Cyrus had created.

"A temporal prison is an interesting thing," Kylnar said. "I know you created it to trap your brothers should they do something extreme, but still. It's impressive."

"I just hope I never have to use it," Cyrus muttered, cramming the last of his snack into his mouth.

"You care about them more than you'll admit," Kylnar said. "You wouldn't have looked out for them all this time if you didn't. You could have left them up to getting into trouble with Rynovar over their antics, yet keep them from crossing the line even though there's no reason to. I doubt you'd ever use the temporal prison, even if they did something which would warrant it."

Cyrus paused in his chewing at that, then shook his head and finished, swallowing. Kylnar was right – he'd probably never use the temporal prison on his brothers, even though they were who he created it for.

It was a powerful piece of time magic that would be nigh unbreakable, even for a trio of gods of time. Even for the three most powerful gods of time in the entire universe.

"I suppose I should leave," Kylnar told Cyrus. "But before I go, would you mind doing something for me?"

"Do something?" Cyrus asked. "What?"