Someone tried to attack Jo and me the other day. It happens on occasion. Sometimes the local powers-that-be get wise to our store and get greedy. Sometimes we drew the attention of a troublesome criminal element. Sometimes we accidentally stepped on the toes of various demonic, fae, or alien invaders. That was just a normal consequence of running a business that could shake the flow of fate.

One couldn’t go insane and commit an omnicidal massacre every time…The karmic costs accumulated far too quickly, and if you weren’t completely insane and/or heartless you’d inevitably end up regretting at least a few of the collateral killings. I knew this from my experience as a villain. This was the sole reason the Republic of Everlast was still standing after attempting to assassinate us.

I won’t say that Jo and I didn’t stop over a few key sites in Everlast for a little minor vandalism and leg-breaking, but for the time being, we had no intention of removing them from the map. They’d have to do more than annoy us to earn that kind of reaction. After reporting the issue to our friend and customer, Mayor Tony, we headed back to the store. I increased the security measures for our operations within Rinnegata-Nome. Then shortly afterward, we switched our attention to the going on of another server.

I took Josephine, and our young employee, Brandy, to a Server by the name of Ferrum-Hiems-Mons. Ferrum-Hiems for short. It was a world where most of the landmass was made up of mountain peaks. Everything below the mountains was drowned in a swirling, mist-covered, sea of dark frost. It was nasty stuff that several tens of thousands of kelvins below absolute zero, which physically should have been impossible, but somehow, wasn’t, because that’s just how things tended to turn out when magic was involved. I guess that figures, the average magic-rich world should have had a colossal amount of gravity unsuitable to life, considering their scale.

Even more remarkable, there were things living below the mountains. Horrific things. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that outside of the mountain peaks the whole server was one big wilderness zone, ruin, and wasteland. Which made it, precisely the perfect area for me to take Jo so she could work off the huge murder-boner that those idiots in Everlast had triggered.

We were taking Brandy with us because Brandy asked, and honestly, she seemed to be into going hunting with us these days, so I wanted to support whatever she was working towards. She was a good egg, a hard worker, and had thus far been a fairly solid employee making our lives easier in small but meaningful ways. Thus I tried to return her goodwill with full sincerity.

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“What do you think?” said Ellis.

Brandy started with wide eyes at the mechanized suit that stood before her. The metal and crystal suit was purple, with rounded pauldrons. The forms given to its upper and lower-body almost made the suit look like a woman in a dress, with the lighter-purple metal that went from the forearms down to the hands, suggesting the existence of gloves. The “bustle”, or bell, of the dress, was actually an attachment. A carrier that was meant for the transportation and storage of a large number of auxiliary equipment.

Based on the specs being displayed to her via the system screen, Brandy could see that the suit was geared towards defensive capability, and the support of her skills. The suit’s internals and materials were capable of reducing anything short of a nuclear bomb detonating right in front of her, to something slightly less than a love tap and a light breeze. Then there was the suit’s defensive equipment, a whole suite of fields, shields, and constantly running passive-spells that turned the escargot into something closer to a walking fortress. The suit possessed its own inventory, and carried a literal army made of tens of thousands war-dolls and mechanized-puppets. As well as some standard munitions, such as rifles, spell-shotguns, a war-hammer, and a few other odds and ends. Brandy could feel her friend’s good intentions and concern for her safety, just by looking at the numbers reflected in the suit’s status.

“I….I think it’s good. Better than good. Thank you,” said Brandy. Feeling warm and fuzzy in her chest.

“Good...I’m glad you like it,” said Ellis. Smiling lightly, the effect almost blew out Brandy’s nervous system because he’d forgotten to wear the glamour that made him look ‘normal’ and after more than two years of living together, Brandy still wasn’t used to how impossibly handsome the man looked.

More important than the suit, was the meaning and sentiment behind the suit. As she grew stronger, Brandy had realized that the Holsts were also still growing stronger, despite their own already insane level of strength. This gift wasn’t just her employer letting her know he wanted her to stay safe. It was Ellis, showing her that he’d seen her efforts, and her intentions. It was Ellis cluing her in, that he realized that she’d reached a point where she could properly sense the distance between herself, and the two of them. This suit was him letting Brandy know that despite the widening gap, he and Jo had no intention of leaving her behind. They had no intention of discarding her.

“I won’t….I won’t let you down, sir,” said Brandy. Her hands balled up into tight fists, her eyes just a tad bloodshot.

“Heh, It never even occurred to me to worry about that. But like, there’s no need to take this super seriously. Just stay with the group, and do what feels right out there, and we’ll try to back you up. We’re going out there to have fun, after all,” said Ellis. Laughing softly and unleashing another wave of devastating charm.

“Er, right,” said Brandy. Nodding.

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Josephine strode forward in her Sun-Eater armor. Her armor gleamed in the bleak and bright winter sun, until she and her group had reached a certain depth within the thick and frothy frost sea. The golden orange-yellow escargot had gone through another series of upgrades and overhauls since her last hunt, and she had to break it again to get that sensation of running in a second skin back. Behind her, lay her pack. Her family. Her best friends in the entity multiverse.

There was her new friend, her new training buddy. A shy, earnest girl, with just enough hunter in her, enough “beast” in her, to make her feel like real kin. A girl who was stronger than she thought she was, and was getting even stronger all the time, making Jo want to get stronger in turn. Then there was Jo’s mate, her sweetie-pie. Once he was her cutie-pie, her precious protection target, back when she was lost and all alone, with no more royalty, politicians, or other high-value personnel to trail behind. Now he was a mountain, an unassailable pillar in her life. Now he protected her, helping rein in her killer instincts, while also letting her be free to be her truest self.

Besides their shared past, she strongly suspected that he had an even bigger beast living inside of him. She sometimes saw it, like catching hints of a sea monster in the depths of the ocean. Whatever "it" was it was massive and it made her feel tingly in ways good and bad. Ellis didn't just feel like kin. He felt like home, and that sense of familiarity explained how readily he accepted her eccentricities. Jo was self-aware enough to know that she'd been made in a way that others would consider...problematic, or excessively dangerous, but her Ellis never seemed to judge her, nor did he try to make her become something that she wasn't.

Jo felt a profound joy as she and her packmates meandered down one of Ferrum-Hiems' many ten thousand mile-high mountains. A joy that came from being surrounded by people you loved and respected, while doing the things you found joy and satisfaction in. Her mood was riding high, simply by going on this little hike with her best-est pal. Finally spotting something that she could kill pushed her good mood to a new peak.

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We ran into our first troop of frost-giants and my wife went merrily apeshit. She held a chainsaw in one hand, and a void-cannon in the other hand, and her height-swelled by another two-dozen feet, not-quite matching the 50-foot tall giants. As the helmet on her escargot shifted to accommodate the more canine form of her head, I could see her grinning, her long pink tongue lolling out from between her metal teeth. I was expecting a small fight, but it seemed we’d been “ambushed”. There were some 100-foot-tall frost-giants inbound. Holding massive clubs the size of small icebergs.

“Big guts...Big guts...Tasty, tasty…Imma tear you all open and eat you all up,” growled Jo. Her voice deepened. Her body and soul radiating an ecstatic and maniacal killing intent.

I did my part, quickly raising a shield that would block a spell of endless winter that had been cast by one of the 100-foot tall giants. Jo then surged forwards, half on two feet, half on four. Punting the smaller 20 and 30-foot giants out of her way. Shoulder tackling the 40 and 50-foot giants, leaving them lying flat on the ground as she made a beeline for the 100-foot tall giants.

For her part, Brandy was no slouch, unleashing her war-dolls and mechanical puppets. The 20 to 50-foot tall monsters of plush and metal came running out. Each war-doll was quite literally “armed” with gatling guns. The mechanical puppets had actual arms and hands, and were equipped with plasma swords, kinetic shields, and bespelled spears.

I summoned a troop of knights, pawns, and bishops, to serve as support. Only interfering directly, when one of the 100-foot tall frost-giant mages and a few of the 1000 foot tall frost-giant elders that were watching a great distance away, tried to throw something into the fight. Overall, it was a pretty fun evening, and Jo, Brandy, and I ended up walking away feeling a whole lot closer, once everything was said and done.