“And then you just, what, dropped a [Fireball] on their heads and set them all on fire? That’s hilarious!” Kain said as he tried to hold back his laughter. His kids were of his own blood, as could be seen with their lack of compassion to any who sought to harm Darksol.

“But that isn’t the best part of our involvement,” Raziel added, hoping to entertain his father a bit more.

“Oh? Do go on, if dousing those idiots in incendiary goo and then setting them on fire isn’t the best part of this, and the carpet-bombardment of that stupidly named city isn’t either, I’ve got to know exactly what moment you are the proudest of.”

“Raz, please don’t-.” Elizabeth tried to interject, but Raziel wasn’t stopping for anyone.

“This requires some backstory, by the way. During ‘Magic Studies Class’, I think, Elizabeth was bored out of her mind and made a new spell.”

“Oh?” Kain was now even more interested than he was prior. “A new spell isn’t something easy to create. Not to mention, a lot of the most commonly conceived of ones have already been made as well… What kind of spell is it?”

“Raz, please!”

“It was a spell that created a temporary beehive filled with angry bees over a target. The hive would then fall of its own gravity and smash itself on the target or the nearest surface beneath itself. Instant stinging bees anywhere!” Raziel continued, uncaring of his sister’s quiet discontent.

“That is hilarious,” Kain said with a near monotone voice but a massive grin plastered on his face, a clear sign he was absolutely beside himself with mirth. “Why did you make it, Lizzy?”

Kain’s question made Elizabeth… uncomfortable. Thankfully, or unthankfully depending on who you asked, Raziel was up to the task of explaining.

“Well, she wanted to throw bees at people, but our inventory ability prevents us from having living creatures in it. Likewise, holding a hive of angry bees and throwing it can result in said bees attacking us, too. Finally, beehives are remarkably fragile, and not at all designed to be thrown. Those reasons, along with the reason that it would be funny as hell to see, were the impetus behind the spell [Bee Bomb]. Which, of course, leads into our proudest moment during the push deeper into Arbiana.”

“Please, for the love of God, stop it….” Elizabeth moaned as she hid her face.

“I suppose you should stop, Razzy. Your sister is getting uncomfortable.” Kain said, now wondering with even more intensity what achievement that Raz and Liz were both so proud of but that Liz would rather keep out of mind.

“No, no. It needs to be said.” Raziel continued, once again intending to embarrass his sister even more as payback for all the games he lost against her aboard the flying warships. “She and I decided to take a leave of absence for a while and conduct our own individual attacks. I am proud to say that I found a place full of people who were, by some random chance, nearly all allergic to bee stings.”

Kain’s face shifted slightly. “Well, that’s certainly a way to wipe out an entire city! Extermination by Angry Bees!”

“Oh, but that isn’t the best part of my little attack. They weren’t fatally allergic. Instead, due to what I can only assume was a quirk of mixed-species genetics, they all instead got so itchy that they ended up going mad and killed themselves! They couldn’t eat, they couldn’t sleep, they couldn’t even put on their clothes, that was how much their bodies itched, both inside and out! Eventually, they just accepted that death would be preferable to being eternally itchy and unable to do anything aside from writhe in agony.”

At Raziel’s words, Kain burst out laughing. That shit was funny, at least in his eyes.

“As funny as that was, if Elizabeth doesn’t want to talk about her escapade, she doesn’t have to.”

Kain’s words were music to his daughter’s ears, but Raziel didn’t let the victor of nearly 95% of the tabletop games that they had played go without intending to deal a few blows more.

“As for Lizzy? Well, those she stung also suffered in a different way. But, you see, she stayed a while longer and was more up-close and personal. They all went mad from itchiness to, but because they had repeatedly seen the person responsible for making them that way, they began to worship her.”

“Raz, if you say anything more, I swear to any and all Gods and/ or lack thereof that I will make you regret ever opening your dumb mouth.”

“They began to call her ‘Captain Bees’ and started singing some kind of weird variation on a very, very terrible theme song. ‘When Captain Bees throws her Mighty Hive! All foes before her gaze just can’t survive!’ Almost as funny as the time one of our geniuses turned himself into a pickle. That was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen.”

As Kain tried to keep from laughing, he realized that his son had made yet another reference to Earth's pop-culture. With each time they talked, Kain was getting more and more convinced that his kids were reincarnators. As Elizabeth began to smack her brother around, Kain felt glad that his kids still cared for him, despite his years-long absence.

“So, you said that there are new threats to face.” Kain said, trying to break up the fight, which ended up succeeding.

“Oh, yeah. There are elves occupying nearly all of the Arcfiran continent and apparently, there are ultra-capitalist dwarves that hold the entirety of North and South America. To the East there is the Oriant Co-Prosperity Sphere, which is run by beastmen… the kind that is basically humans but with animal ears and tails, which means they aren’t the fully furry kind.” Replied Elizabeth as she stopped her assault on her brother.

‘Again,’ thought Kain, ‘one of my kids made another reference...’ “So, in your opinion, who is the bigger threat?”

Elizabeth kept her brother’s mouth shut as she spoke to her father, now not trusting that Raziel would be able to stop himself from poking fun at her again.

“The Oriant Co-Prosperity Sphere. Zalga was almost beaten to a bloody pulp by some nine-tailed fox woman during her attempted attack deeper into the Shadow Sea, so if they have something like that, then they would likely be the bigger threat of the three.”

“Then we had best start preparing for another war, no? I expect this fox-woman to be a cause for much collateral damage.” Kain grumbled, clearly irritated that he would not get much of a chance to take things in slowly.

“Actually,” Raziel said as he managed to get free from his sister’s grip, “that fox-woman, Da Ji, is here in Necrograd. She apparently was sent to make a non-aggression pact with us, but neither mother nor Zalga nor anyone else wanted to get close to her. Mom and Zalga didn’t want to for obvious reasons, but this Da Ji has one hell of a high Charisma score because unless we send undead to tend to her, she just ends up turning everyone into a thrall.”

Kain sighed, accepted his duty, and stood up from his seat.

“Well, it looks like I’ll be the one to hopefully keep an enemy off our backs while we deal with everything else. Wish me luck, kids, for diplomacy is a war in and of itself…”