It was finally time. After the massive injuries she had suffered, Araniell's healing was almost complete. Melody had spent the last two hours furiously pacing about. She had tried to focus on her Interface and her now-massive stock of experience, but she just couldn't focus. The only thing she had managed to do was set her Swarm to Absorb Bremain's corpse. That had required several upgrades. Apparently, the mana in his body had been too dense for her Swarm to manage.

WAAAAAA!

Melody nearly jumped out of her skin. Whipping around, she realized that the loud whining, screeching sound was coming from the pod. She sprinted over, joined in a second by Loghain.

"What is it? Did something go wrong? What's happened?"

"I don't know!" Melody frantically started poking at the holographic Interface on the white surface only to see the giant message, front and center. She sighed in relief, dismissing the message and the ear-grating alarm with it. "Everything is fine. That was the alarm to let us know Mom is healed. She'll be out in a minute."

Loghain stared at her. "Why would that be the alarm to let you know that everything worked?"

"How should I know? That's the default." Melody shrugged, her heart slowing down from its previous racing beat. "I didn't pick it. That's just how it's set up."

Loghain shook his head before focusing on the pod. Melody joined him in waiting for her mother. She was indescribably happy to hear she had recovered. When she saw her mother after her fight with Bremain… So many broken bones, her delicate wings bent completely out of shape, with sections of fractured bone clearly visible through her feathers, like little bone needles sticking through her flesh. It had been horrifying to look at.

There was a small hum, and the opening in the pod flashed back into existence. After Melody had made the force field in place over the entrance opaque, the whole pod had looked like a smooth, featureless ten-foot tall white cylinder. Now the door-sized opening in the side was back, showing Melody's mother standing there, completely unharmed.

Wow, the pod even put her armor back on. Melody idly noted, remembering the machine removing them when they had first placed her mother's limp, broken body inside. Now she had her sleek, black and white armor on once again. The leather and bone armor gave the small woman an air of danger that Melody had recently learned was very warranted.

"Mom!" Melody slammed into her mother, wrapping her arms around her waist, digging her fingers into her mother's feathery hair, and not letting go. "I'm so glad this worked. I wasn't sure."

"Now, now, little bird. What's happened? The last I remember, that brute had gotten ahold of me. Did my family intervene?" Arainell gently ran her fingers through her daughter's chocolate locks, so similar in color to her own feathers.

Melody shook her head, rubbing her face uncomfortably into the bone plates on the torso of her mother's armor. "Nope. Tia stopped in. I guess the way Gun was using that power boost thing was against some rule. She got rid of that extra big, spikey form Bremain had, and then she left."

Arainell looked to Loghain questioningly.

He sighed. "Well, my lady, you see…" He then ran through the event that had transpired after Arainell's injuries, with the obvious exclusion of everything that had happened while he had been frozen. "I don't know what the little miss is referring to. None of us saw it. Only the Turtlephant lose his Warform and regress several tiers halfway through killing you."

"You're sure of what you saw?" Arainell asked, looking at her daughter, who hadn't let go through Loghain's explanation.

Melody recognized that look. It was the one her mother gave her when she was trying to figure out if Melody was lying. "Yes. Tia showed up, told off Gun, then left. Everything was frozen when they talked. That's why no one remembers."

Arainell looked at her for a long moment. Then she let out a sigh. "Alright. We have even more to talk to my grandmother about, it seems. Where's my bow? We need to get moving. What's the condition of the transport?"

"Your bow is over here," Loghain gestured toward the transport, which had several guards moving around it. The guards had not been idle for the past few hours. They had managed to get the giant vehicle upright through a combination of magic and raw brute force. Now several of them were poking and prodding it, producing various magical sparks and sounds that Melody didn't understand. "We managed to restore basic functions with the help of the miss."

Melody had been producing various quantities of specific materials at the request of several guards. She had discovered that with her purchase of the upgrade that let her see the breakdown of what materials were in her Resources tab, she now had an option called Reconstitute, which let her bring those materials back. They had been using them to fix the transport. Though Melody had no idea how the spleen of an Electope or the bile sac of a Pertoltoad was helpful. Then again, physical magic was really confusing to her in general. She was lucky her Interface simplified it massively.

"Mmm. How far from the barrier are we?" Arainell looked at the transport contemplatively.

"Several hundred miles."

"I might fly us there. It would be faster."

Loghain had a pained look on his face. "My lady, please. We don't know what else Gun might try. It isn't safe."

Arainell waved her hand. "Nonsense. The fact that he threw a member of the court families means he was using local resources only. I can't think of any other cast-offs of appreciable power to be a concern."

"...Still."

Arianell sighed. "If you insist. How long?"

"We could leave immediately, but if you give us an hour, we should have it back in near peak condition. The spell hands tell me the materials Melody can make are apparently perfect for physical magic."

"I think the swarm makes it that way on purpose," Melody interjected, still holding onto her mother. "That's why I can enchant stuff so easily. The materials I'm making aren't the same as they were before. I'm pretty sure I only Absorbed one Petroltoad. I've made four bile sacs. It's not actually putting back together what was Absorbed."

"Then what is it doing?"

Melody shrugged. "How should I know? I don't understand most of how my class works. I got experience from him," She gestured to the partially Absorbed corpse of Bremain. Despite all the upgrades she had made, the Swarm had only made its way through a third of his bulk. "Even though you killed him. I didn't know that was a thing."

"Yes, perhaps that's something we should look into.' Arianell interjected. "If you can gain experience without dealing the killing blow, that means you don't need to come out here."

"Oh, come on, Mom! Not this again!" Melody yelled, dispatching herself from her mother's side.

"Melody, you are not safe out here! Gun has held a grudge against our family for some time. Now he's attacking you specifically."

"I know!" Melody continued to yell. She had put it together from the most recent event. "That's what happened to Auntie too, right? She isn't on a long quest. She…She died."

"...Yes, little bird. I'm sorry." Arainell reached for her daughter, only for Melody to jump back.

"Then why do you keep wanting to stop me?!" Melody practically spat. "I can't do anything! All I want is to be strong enough that you won't have to protect me! Why do you want to stop me?!" All her fear and anger was exploding out. She had been so afraid… And now this!

"Melody…" Arainell's face was full of pain. "I just want you to be safe. You don't need to do anything."

"I don't want to do nothing! You never let me out of the house since Auntie left! I don't have any friends! I just stay home and play games and listen to my teachers all day! Besides, you want me to be safe? Who said I was safe? The world doesn't care what you want. Auntie told me that."

"I know its hard, but if you just stayed home you-"

"Gun was in my bedroom!" Melody shrieked.

"...What?"

"I saw him! When I got my class, I woke up, and I saw swirling red stuff over my bed. I thought I was dreaming that until I saw him today. He was in my room! If he wants to hurt me, there's nothing you could do. He's a god Mom."

"..." Arianell looked torn. Melody wasn't sure that Gun could actually hurt her. It seemed like the gods had to follow some kind of rules, but she was sure that he would find a way to hurt her that didn't involve him attacking her directly. He was the god of war. He'd figure something out, and Melody wanted to be ready. Plus, she was tired of being cooped up at home.

Before Melody could react, her mother was in front of her, scooping her up in a tight hug. Melody tried to push her way out of it, but she wasn't having any real effect, considering how strong her mother was.

"Oh, my little bird. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Fine. We'll find ways for you to train this class of yours. I will insist that we go about it in a safe manner, though."

Melody sighed, relaxing into the inescapable hug. "...Ok."

It was more like an hour and a half before the spell hands among the guards said they had fixed as much of the transport as they could. Melody had to produce materials for them several more times, and they were draining some of her rarer Resources. She still wasn't sure how the whole system worked, but she had guesses. The Resource tab was split by mana type. Because of her upgrade, Melody could see what materials contained those mana types, and she could reproduce those materials. As far as she could figure, so long as she had the appropriate amounts of those mana types, she could produce an endless amount of that material, even if she had only Absorbed it once.

She looked at Bremain's giant corpse. The Swarm was still working its way through his hulking body. If Melody's Idea was correct, that meant she could produce more of Bremain's parts, like his shell plates, if she killed and Absorbed enough lower-tier Beasts to get the correct Resources, which was pretty cool.

She also checked her experience total. Even after her spending spree to save her mother, Melody still had 6,725,223 experience left. That spending spree had left her with one glaring issue, though. She had accepted a class change without looking at what it entailed. Currently, she had no way to look at her class, so she went about fixing that.

She had always known she had the option to view her Portfolio if she just bought a few upgrades, but Melody had never felt the need to make the investment. It's not like there was much for her to learn. Melody already knew what was on her Portfolio from her last visit to a Priest, and it wasn't like it was going to have changed at all in the last week. Unfortunately, she did need to know what had changed with her class, so she went about getting the upgrades necessary.

The first one ended up being another purchase from the shop. She needed a 'Mana Gland Complete Soul Tether', which cost a million experience. There was a reason Melody hadn't bothered investing in this. After she bought it, she pulled up the user manual in the construction tab.

This was completely different. Apparently, this qualified as a cybernetic enhancement, like Loghain's eye. It would construct itself directly on her body. For that to work, she had to purchase something to take a scan of her body, so the Swarm knew where to put it. Luckily the user manual actually gave a list of items that would do that. She went with a 'Surveillance Drone' with an added 'Biological Scanner', since she could use it for other things. All the other options were more stationary, or she couldn't think of a situation where she would reuse them.

The drone was cool. It had four rotor-based motors on limbs around the central body, which had a camera on the bottom mounted to an omnidirectional stabilizer. According to the Construction menu, the camera already had the scanner in it. So she just turned it on and used the control it came with to point the camera at her. She would have to spend some time with the controls to use it with any amount of skill.

That all complete, the menu finally allowed her to add the Tether. She did read the whole user's manual first. Melody wasn't going to put something in her body that she didn't know about. That sounded dangerous. It ended up being a good idea. The Soul Tether was the basis for many more cybernetic systems she could buy. Most important right now, though, were the suggested enchantments.

Melody ended up adding two enchantments from the list. The first was supposed to improve her Mana Capacity. Melody didn't know any magic, but being able to increase one of her primary abilities was super tempting. The second was a defensive improvement that would make damaging her mana gland significantly harder. She figured that was also a solid, straightforward improvement.

With a click, the Swarm started. Melody felt a tingle running down her spine, and that was it. It tingled for a few minutes, and the Soul Tether was done. Checking her Interface, she saw that she could finally get the upgrade she was looking for. With a click, a new tab was added to the Interface. She clicked it.

Melody vonShodenburg

Class: Nanomachine User (Novice)

Abilities

Least Strength 27

Lesser Speed 2

Lesser Dexterity 24

Least Constitution 45

Low Mana Capacity 1

Lesser Cognition 14

Skill

Beginner Tactics 3. Beginner Mathematics 5. Novice Science 2. Neophyte Firearms 1.