“There are many things to do starting tomorrow so I'm giving you the day off, Troy. I would suggest resting up... Wren, your life energy is low but more alarming than that is your Spiritual energy. I mean, it would be fine if you were a human but you're practically hollow...Well, I should say was. What have you been eating?” Ephyra said after launching directly into her diatribe of duties complete with succinct schedules and summaries.

“Um, my void tulpa, Tartarus ate the scary reality wound thingy,” Wren added lamely.

Ephyra's alternating amusement and seriousness flipped to a look of pure horror. “ You ate a god killer curse and you're fine!?”

“Is that what it was? So, should I be worried?” Wren said as his insides started twisting in a familiar pattern of anxiety.

“It is made from the suffering and hatred of 108 mortals willing to sacrifice their souls to kill their once loved deity, at least this version is. It's not really capable of killing a being who's experienced apotheosis but it's capable of crippling or even killing a demigod and most definitely capable of taking out their mortal progeny in a way that would leave no chance for revival. Any other mortal being who touched it would have their life snuffed out like a candle. I'd say, if something bad was going to happen it would have. It does raise some interesting questions on what the exact difference is between sprites, astral forms and these tulpas that you have.

Whatever the cause of such a mysterious transmutation, it is supplementing your dregs of spiritual energy in a container so large you were slowly evaporating in it. Your current form was shaped, correct? At the level such a being would have to be at to do such a thing, it is either an insane genius who had a great deal of faith in your ability to adapt to terrifying problems or a lucky moron. My wager would be on desperate, though what kind of desperate would cause a being of at least my level of power to snatch up a mortal and sacrifice some if not all of it's ability to reproduce naturally to forcefully restructure you into it's own progeny is beyond me... Oh, excuse me.”

Ephyra stopped her lecture with a look on her face like she had suddenly developed a particularly intense bout of indigestion. Moving herself in a squatting position, thankfully away from them, she held up an index finger in the universal sign for 'wait a moment' as she grunted a few times followed by the discernible sound of something striking the water. Wren, not knowing what the etiquette of such a situation should be maintained polite eye contact with the nearly self proclaimed deity, while Troy kept his eyes glued to the water in morbid curiosity.

“Apologies. As preparations for possibly dealing with many mortal men who may be friendly to my god-grandson I fertilized a clutch, only one egg formed sadly. After laying a clutch my desire to reproduce is controllable for decades. Now where was I?”

As Troy watched the egg roll precariously around the dark hole by the strangely pearlescent rock he asked, “And you don't seem to care what happens to it? If it's not too hard to take care of maybe I could?”

It's fine? Without a school it likely will not survive to hatch anyway. I could see why the two of you might be interested in it,” she said with casual disinterest.

“Um, why would we both be interested?” Wren said warily as Troy waded out after the egg like it was a new toy to play with.

“Oh, I suppose that was a bit presumptuous of me. Most men who survive my affections usually show interest in that particular clutch. I assumed that since you would know how this pathetic, one egg, clutch formed after your calling mark returned, you might show the typical reactions of concern. I have to say, after preparing to tolerate inane ranting, I'm pleasantly surprised,” she said with a relieved smile.

Breaking out in a cold sweat, Wren shouted, “Troy, you might not want to be rolling it around your arms or do any other kind of ball tricks. Just bring it back carefully...please.” Troy, sensing through the bond, a tinge of hysteria missing from his voice, did as he was told, looking a little put out.

To keep her talking on a subject she obviously did not have any interest in, he couched his questions in the manor a new pet owner might ask care instructions of a pet store shop attendant and to keep from having, what was likely to be a totally different kind of meltdown, he made sure to move back the personal experiences of his call mark to the back of the queue for now. The casual academic approach to the rearing of her young managed to hold her attention for a few minutes before she insisted getting back on task. And after taking the egg away from Troy with a promise of an explanation, placing it in the center of the energy pools of his storage, that's exactly what they did.

“My God-grandson thinks it prudent for you to take Jaden and claim his inheritance in light of the current problem. He has made a personal request for you to build a sturdy, temporary shelter for him and his wife on the surface to wait out the next few days after you are finished. I'll reinvigorate your convalescing friend so he can accompany you. Troy will stay to help me with duties here and complete his training as best as possible given the time constraint.

More like become a hostage to ensure I return and not run off till all the crazy genocidal cleansing is done you mean. And as long as I don't burst that innocent bubble of his, he gets to keep benefiting. I read you loud and clear. No worries, I have a mission to complete and a personal vendetta to settle.

The knowing and slightly frosty smiles being shared between the two had Troy giving a slightly annoyed look at them.

“Since you have friends on the way, I'll attend to my duties. Troy I believe that you'll learn immensely from observing my activities over the next few days. You'll be one of a few mortals to witness two events that esteemed scholars of magic have declared an impossibility outside of the divine. I'm afraid I'll have to insist on soul bindings of secrecy though. Farewell for now, and if we chance to not meet again Wren, enjoy the frustrating privilege of rearing my daughter.” Ephyra said before slipping down the river sinkhole.

“I'm the one who asked for it,” Troy mumbled to no one in particular while sulking.

Troy settled on spending a good portion of his precious break catching up on some sleep, which was fine with Wren since he needed time to not only finally discharge his promise to Rohn but also to sift through the memories of his calling mark to find out just what the hell those two crazy immortals did with it.

With Troy and Little Gray sawing logs, Wren had a much needed hour of quiet contemplation he determinedly spent with the queue off and pushing any and all worries out of his mind before Rohn showed up with Rohna.

“Greetings, brother Wren. You look a great deal more calm than I saw you this morning,” Rohn said, not sure if it was a good or bad sign.

“It's amazing what a single hour of peace can bring you if you spend it right.” Wren said dryly.

“Then I don't wish to take any more of your time of peace than necessary. Such time will likely be of short supply in the coming days,” Rohn said decisively as he went into standby mode with the precision of a trained soldier.

After sharing a minimum of social niceties and after extending a vastly unnecessary amount of apology, sorrow and praise that was sincere enough to count as genuine for a fourteen year old she and Wren were more than ready to begin.

With an egregious, to the point of redundant, knowledge of the biology pertaining to any bloodline this girl might have and a great deal more experience in the manipulation of it beyond his own intuitive fumbling, it took no more than ten minutes and a lot less essence expenditure to accomplish near triple the positive results he fished from Rohn. Some of that, he had to admit, was also because she was still in formative years.

Leaving her to rest on the divan in the viewing portion of the pavilion, Wren asked Rohn to take a walk with him while explaining everything he'd done, serving the dual purpose of giving Rohn a heads up of everything to expect but also to give him an edge in controlling the development of his young teenage girl.

Rohn attentively listened as Wren explained, “She shares your talent for shadow conjuring but unlike yours it's pure and in later years she will be much more powerful. Additionally, she will live for a long time. If I was to wager a guess it would be about three to four-hundred years. I've teased apart the restrictions on her fertility and significantly increased her pregnancy survival chances.”

After going over a few more surprises that might pop up, Wren took a few minutes to clean up his previous work on Rohn. He drummed up a bit more life extension, increased fertility and even managed to awaken an energy inefficient but instantaneous short range shadow to shadow teleportation. As a topper gift he jotted down what shadow conjure models Glaucous had inadvertently given him with a cajoled promise to learn them thoroughly before teaching them directly to his daughter along with a summary of how to stimulate the awakening of essence pools he could use on his son.

Let no one say I don't keep my damn promises... Well, from here on out, let no one say I don't keep my promises. Sorry, mom.

An overcome Rohn gave words and a few material gifts of thanks paired with an overly long hug. And if Rohn's not so little soldier rising to salute, before Wren broke said hug, was anything to go off of, he had an obvious desire to show a more intimate form of gratitude. After collecting his daughter, as he was walking away, Rohn said, “Since the beauty doesn't wish to be conquered by this warrior, I guess I'll have to put your gifts to good use, insuring that you have plenty of nieces and nephews to spoil in the future.

If you were even a touch more pushy, you and I wouldn't be able to stay good brothers anymore, Rohn.

After waking Little Gray and getting him to drink some water and take a few bites of mashed fruit with bean paste, Wren helped him relieve himself and wiped him down before letting the winded Grimalkin drift back to sleep.

***

After three or four good hours of evening spent, I decided to open my journal for a quick update.

You know that egg thing right? Well, after digesting the memories of my call mark astral double, about said creation, I was more than a little perturbed. After throwing a righteous shit fit over the God-killing curse, and some stern prompting from Ephyra, he wanted to put a few counter measures in place.

Being the considerate but ultimately EQ cripple that he is, Glaucous realized I would probably need my full capabilities at any moment and the only way that Ephyra could fill in for him here was to address her instinct issue so he came up with a ridiculous win-win-win. You see, he had some steam to blow off and she had an itch she needed scratched before she was safe for work and I still had about two more weeks worth of slave labor left on the mark. The only rub was that even though I had 'Outsider Energy' (what they call Eldritch Essence) in my mark to temporarily make my double a 'real boy' with, my double had zero spiritual essence outside of the scant little the astral realm granted it for stability, not to mention next to zero LE in it since Glaucous had been having a blast playing around with enchantments he knew but had no way of using without squandering 'Faith'.

Being the highly efficient and non fuck giving entity she is, Ephyra had apparently collected enough of Troy's 'esteem' ,caused by an earlier incident of mine, (refer to inner journal 1) to serve as a vessel for spiritual essence and also serve as a solid organic base to fill in the spaces my double's EE provided blanks apparently have. After a little mystical mumbo-jumbo later my double was ready for rock and roll.

Soooo, the extra special kick in the metaphorical tender spot to this horror story (from my perspective at least) was that while Glaucous was stuffing my double's turkey he started complaining about how he couldn't truly enjoy 'giving in to his impulses' with something he didn't have to worry about breaking because my double's life like movements and prerecorded stock phrases weren't doing it for him. Taking that as an official order of his summoner, astral me sent a request to, my then sleeping, self to requisition Lustitia who has just enough self awareness to answer the request without conscious me's approval. Apparently, subconscious me doesn't care about shit when I'm sleeping except to stay that way till my body and brain tell it different.

Imagine Glaucous' surprise (or better...don't) when all of a sudden his lovely little destruction resistant blow up doll flairs up to bat shit crazy levels of active participation as Lustitia told the base personality to scoot over to the passenger seat and shut the fuck up (it had this covered.) Oh, and get this,anything (and I do mean anything) that isn't a direct threat to it's existence revs it up, the more intense the better. Fear? Loves it. Pain? Craves it. Humiliation? Begs for more. The only thing Lustitia even tried to fight against was the end of Ephyra's turn at bat and that, conversely, only made it more enjoyable for her!

The only thing that kept this from becoming a full force rape trauma for me is that the real me is just a passive observer. I even have a fast forward button but did I think of using it, paralyzed in 'watching slow motion train wreck mode'? No. Sadly I did not. Now I can't erase the things I saw Lustitia make my doppelganger do and say, which I found far more disturbing than when Ephyra turned this BDSM instructional video into a snuff film. In my opinion, that was the best part since that meant it was over!

Nooow to the little guy.

After watching the 'banned in all fifty states and all but a few countries' masterpiece my call mark crafted for me and definitely not holding myself and crying a little (no witnesses, no proof,) I still had a good hour or two before nerves and excess energy would let me rest...When I first took out the egg all I intended on doing was just running a bit of essence through it, just see what it looked like under the hood, but when I saw that a touch of Glaucous' residual energy in it had it's structure color coded and tabbed like a factory S.O.P. I felt like kissing the bloody mangled corpse of him in my mind.

Now before I did anything to the innocent little bystander, I will admit to a couple of dark thoughts that were quickly dismissed like; 'If I hadn't asked that first question and Troy hadn't fetched it like a damn golden retriever then it would have rolled to oblivion without either of us being the wiser.' and 'Troy doesn't know anything yet so if I released it back into the wild he might be a little miffed but he'd forget about it eventually, probably'. Even though I'm an official pro-choicer, unofficially I just couldn't do it. In an evil mad scientist kind of way, it was my kid, sorta. Well, it was sorta Troy's too but I like to deal with existential crisis' one at a time. Ultimately I decided that if I was gonna claim the bugger I was gonna do what I could to give it as fair a shake as possible, at least by my standard of fair. Feel free to disagree, inheritor but keep in mind my position at the time before judging.

Now, it's not as if I had a chromosomal map printed out but because of the tabs I clearly knew what came from whom and my intuition feelings gave me clear enough clues on what all the outer and middle tabs did. Why the tabbed binder metaphor instead of pond and fish you might be asking? Simple, a conglomerate of dividing cells doesn't have a 'pond' and technically all the 'fish' are close to the surface. Changing it's developmental destiny was so easy, in fact, it was frightening. The only thing that made it hard was just how delicate the thing was. Pull a tab too hard or the wrong one and all the pages will fall out of the binder making it like it never was. We'll just pretend the factory's floor is lava so the metaphor works okay... moving on.

The first thing that popped in my mind when I was trying to figure out what I should do, if anything, was Ephyra's statement that she never had boys, a clear indicator that changing this one fact would send a whole slew of her pages to the bottom of the binder where they won't be read. It was also a clear indicator that it was a seriously heavy change capable of spilling all the pages. Lucky for me I still had miracle juice and my intuition was screaming that Glaucous, in his 'leave it to fate' kinda way, left this color coding tab system for me. This was a bit inferred, on my part, but I took it as his unspoken agreement that leaving this kid to develop 'au naturel' was bad and nobody would object except maybe the mother who didn't care at all, (an assumption I didn't know was wrong until a few moments ago but I'll get to that.) The other idea my intuition was strongly reacting to positively, was that said 'miracle juice' (formally known as the stuff inside the Mark of Faith) would be highly responsive to aiding me and a hella safer to use.

Sending a brief prayer of forgiveness to the goddess of feminism I called on the mark to ensure my little omelet would have a wiener, with a whispered promise that in the future I would let any more kids I have be what randomness or the creator intended their gender to be, as long as it didn't make them instinct driven cannibals.

From a genetic perspective, this knocked the balance to me having a solid half with the other half being a non-existent child of Troy and Ephyra. I was cool with that until I saw the details of what that balance was. Imagine an effeminate Aqua Man. Nuff said.

I wanted to give the zygote the best I could without getting too handsy and pissing fate off so I thought about it and came to this somewhat biased and assumptive conclusion: I had the best race given power growth potential. Troy had the best physique (at least for what I thought most dudes would want to look like) and Ephyra had the best spiritual strength (I mean, I don't know how much that's expressed genetically but it's gotta be there somewhere right?) The first change took next to nothing from the mark, this change took it down to a fifth. After making sure nothing was tragically out of place I quit. Good or bad, right or wrong I was done.

Last score seen before turning off the T.V.: On the pure genetic scale superficially it looked like Troy and I were a 55/45 him dominant split, poor Ephyra reduced to a surrogate eggshell maker. On the energy spectrum though, I have a sixty, Ephyra has a twenty-five and poor Troy weighs in at a ten with Glaucous having five. Well, I was kind of using his 'Faith' as a medium for change. That's gonna leave a fingerprint, like the one my split thumb left on the shell. Back into the incubator you go, little man. An incubator that might be it's home for quite some time, or not. Originally it could take years to hatch

After a bumbling Troy made his way to me I broke the news gently... by ripping the band-aid off with mach force. Following 'You're gonna be a daddy' with 'No seriously and this is why...' according to some is not that gentle. Am I the only person who sees swift delivery as mercy?

Okay he's calm enough to be reasonably rational and start to notice I'm not really listening to his repetitive monologue. There was one little tidbit about Ephyra not really being a bad mom that was good to know. It's just that she typically laid in the upwards of dozens in a clutch and they take a long time to be more than just animals. She just picked her survivors back up once they awakened sapience to guide them. A little piece said in her defense, before waltzing back to his own self-pity

Peace out.

***

“Like I said, Ephyra said that these eggs can take years, even a decade to hatch. Pushing it closer to our side of the equation is not gonna change that too much, probably,” Wren started strong but finished weak.

“Just a me thing, but I really don't like it when you say something like it's fact and end it like you don't really know,” Troy said testily.

Wren sighed, “Fair enough. I'd promise to stop doing it but I don't want to make promises I might break just because I forgot I made them.”

“You know, as much as I used to pretend to be the player everyone thought I was, I was so careful not to knock a girl up. I was scared of being stuck in a relationship like my parents,” Troy said, looking like he was winding back up.

“Um, what girl are you being stuck with?” Wren said, trying to throw a cog in Troy's thought process.

“I, You know what I mean-”

“ I do and you're so freaked out you're tilting at windmills.”

“What does that mean!?”

“Old literary reference. Not that important. What is important is this...Would you rather I not told you?” Wren posed.

“I, I don't know.”

“After you've spent a day or two chewing it over, get back with me. If I spoon fed you the answers now it would just piss you off, even if I was right. Hell, especially if I'm right. Nobody likes a know it all,” Wren let out a sigh before continuing, “For my part, I fixed him up some and put him in my extra pool room to incubate. Everything else is a question for another day, when thinking about things with a clearer head will actually accomplish something. It's how I've been dealing with all the other crazy shit that's been happening since we got here.

“They did all that to you, I-”

“Troy, that was my stunt double. It disturbed the hell right out of me but ultimately I was watching uncensored reality T.V. That said, I see no reason why we can't be mad at the two beings that could crush us with a sneeze, do you? Let's go down swinging!” Wren said, trying a half smile on for size.

Fuck it. Give a little ground to cheer him up.

“Gay couples back home would have to pay out the nose for what we got for free, a surrogate child with both our DNA. Take it like this, a mysterious sea princess gave us a magical baby egg. Better than that male pregnancy stuff my niece showed me from a Japanese comic once. Now that's shit's scary... I'd ask where it's supposed to come out from but I don't think I want to know!” Wren finished up by throwing an arm over Troy's shoulder, finally getting some emotionally positive feedback,

“So is that what we are now, a couple?” Troy asked a little too energetically for Wren's liking.

Okay. Gave a little ground, draw a new line.

“If you feel a need to slap a label on it... Doesn't mean I give you the right to get bent out of shape if I hit on girls. Doesn't mean I'm ready to sword fight with you quite yet either. What it does mean, is that you can warn off other guys that look like they want to be more than friends. It means if I wake up with a flashlight poking in my back, I'll just bunch up the covers instead of freaking out and that as long as you don't make it too obvious I don't mind you peeking on me when I'm cleaning up. Hell, if I'm in a good mood I might even put on a show but don't count on it.”

Suddenly feeling inspired, Wren said, “And when the day comes I'm down with bum darts, until I can find a steady girl that accepts us, you better be ready for some target practice. I'll never feel like just being your bitch is enough. You got me?”

There, putting the shoe on the other foot should buy m-

“Um, yeah...sure, that's cool,” Despite not being able to look Wren in the eye, there was no hesitation.

“Well, since you napped most of the day away, you're probably wired for sound but I gotta get some quality sleep tonight. Going topside tomorrow. Would you mind making sure Little Gray gets some water in him and has a chance to take care of business before doing your thing, if 'Chick of the Sea' doesn't do her thing for him soon? ” Wren said.

“I guess but if you're going to lay down, could I hold you while you fall asleep?” Troy asked a little sheepishly.

“For all thirty seconds that'll take? Sure. Just...try to keep your rifle in the gun case, alright?”

And except for a few minutes of unavoidable interruption, when Ephyra made good her word to fix up Grimalkin, the night was peaceful, despite Troy not being able to honor Wren's last request.