For the time of the training, Ian hadn't really left the house at all, so he was surprised to see that the old HQ building was outright gone. Knox said that when she has time she'll grow some normal giant oaks around these three so they blend in the same as she had done around her house back in the previous place. Ian hadn't gone outside so he didn't know just how well Knox had masked her previous dwelling, but Kenneth said he wouldn't be able to find the place.
Knox said only elves from Bluemeadow tribe stepped by from time to time to buy certain potions their own alchemist didn't brew. His non-elf clients found the place by taking encrypted teleportation circles at various undead gathering spots. Encrypted in a way to prevent the use of tracking spells, location detection spells, divination spells, etc. only gemheart SOS signal artifact had broken through everything and given away his location, other than Purple and elves no one knew where he lived regardless if they had visited him or not. Purple, too, had sent him clients not by direct teleporting, but by sending them to the encrypted circles not to compromise Knox's safety measures.
But Knox hadn't grown a forest just to hide her house, giant oak forests often grew on rotting leylines to purify them, so most astrals stayed away - regular ones not to get sick from the potential leyline rot - dark ones to avoid the oaks feeding on them, it was a good method to 'make the backyard safe', but something she did only because she was a homely person, giant oak forests were not the best places for undead to linger in.
But, Knox mentioned, passing paladin parties camped near her house pretty often, one party had even used the side of her house tree as a tent anchor. They took the risk of a potential leyline rot to regenerate a wound of their teammate. Giant oak forests were commonly known as 'no astral zones' and no one sane would burn or destroy one for ten more different reasons. Among them - giant oak acorns were tasty. Elves found Knox's house while gathering those and left Knox gifts in exchange for taking the acorns, figuring it was Knox's planting, which got them talking eventually.
As for how Knox grew the house - made a hefty sacrifice and summoned a Hollie to do the work, Hollies complete their contract and happily die in peace on their own, they were that kind of beings and dead things tell no tales.
And then Ian got to finally look around the new Police HQ they had grown and, lookie here, they had even gotten August to set up a pair of portals in it. Kenneth filled in that they ditched the underground parking lot plan, August set up the portal to clean up a mess of his treants in parks all around smacking normies for littering and his colleagues now sat with sunglasses and typed something on the table.
"Uh, Aheal technology," Kenneth said and got out sunglasses for all of them, as they put them on they discovered that-- there was a lot of stuff that had gone digital, there was a huge map floating above them with pointer markings of missions in progress-- all the colleagues who did type, typed on hologram keyboards looking into hologram screens and the sunglasses did not block out any light. Virtual reality, huh?
It was amusing how they had become like a certain movie team of people in black suits dealing with odd happenings. And in this virtual reality space of screens and maps and floating pages of information, they looked like they all had regular transparent glasses on, probably just to imply they all saw the same thing.
Ian got a lot of smiles and waves, true it had been almost forever since they had time to just share a meal and talk, after the raid he had spent almost all his time with other people and they hadn't managed to catch up on the wedding pre-party either. But it was early so not many were around, they'd only show up in an hour at breakfast time.
"Only this floor is like that," Kenneth said taking off the sunglasses and walked upstairs - pointing to seven doors, "Nothing interesting here, we replicated the rooms so well it's almost disappointing, just that there's a lot more light in them and wood finish," Shower rooms, Sparring rooms, Kenneth's workshop, Potion storage, and Archive (that had changed from being on the same floor with office to moving up).
They did peek in to find that was the case, only those who hadn't been to any of those places before had curious looks. The only room that had iffy feeling aether was the Archive - they couldn't just rewrite and redo it all, so understandable.
The floor up was a far bigger dining room, the table was huge! It wasn't just for sixty people-- But it was spaced out just perfectly for setting up meals, the kitchen had also grown a lot in size and now contained all sorts of peculiar-looking objects in it and-- hey! One section of it now looked just like the kitchen in the lake-house with fresh greens, fruits and vegetables growing in drawers and above them. There were also crystal flasks with mushroom growths, cooking and working surfaces under which it would be easy to add embero stones
This was the most exciting-looking kitchen Ian had ever seen in his life and there was some free space seeming to be begging to add more stuff in them-- and wasn't there also a place for his cauldron right there--
"Welcome to your workshop," Kenneth said with a smile and Ian finally figured why Kenneth was ready to flash-burn Knox.
Bermont and Chilli were both beaming with how smug they felt about shocking him like this and-- it was lucky the three of them were standing close to one another because Ian and Nelly couldn't help but tackle them in joy and cover them in 'I love yous.' Their home kitchen was just the right type of cozy and sweet for having warm breakfasts on weekends, but this one was-- heaven!! He couldn't wait to make all kinds of things, but--
Sniffle. "We're out of aether essence--" Ian said.
Kenneth laughed. "Just how much stuff do you intend to make for one breakfast?"
"No, I just--" Ian's eyes glimmered looking at all the different cooking surfaces and tools.
"You can take your time trying them all," Kenneth said. "Let's sort out your storage from the raid after breakfast and you can all head to hunt after lunch or dinner-- depending on how long it takes to sort it out, your gods will be helping I presume."
"Of course," Valerie said and the rest of them nodded.
"Also--" Kenneth spoke up then told Ian about the crazy artifacts in this place. Bermont kept bringing in whatever seemed like it would fit and Chilli sorted them all out, almost everything in this room was an artifact, including the table which cleaned itself, removed empty dishes and could do things like refill glasses as long as full containers were placed on it. Kenneth fed the table wine bottles of all kinds, it stored them in itself and now Kenneth only needed to ask for it to refill them. "I have no idea about the limits, but it can store meal sets as well, and ask it for menu."
Ian placed a hand on the table and thought to it - [menu, please,] and a menu appeared along with serving amount and Ian took it curiously flipping over.
It was amusing to see what had almost run out, what was plenty still-- there was no Seaserpent stew or none of the glazed Seaserpent meat dishes he picked up from Sirens remaining, hee-- Ian had no idea Kenneth had stored up some white aligned hot chocolate, there were even a bit of all the dark aligned drinks they made in Guild's kitchen and even some ambrosia of all types they had brewed and also Kenneth's cooking - Lasagna, bread of all kinds, spaghetti dishes, risottos, tiramisu
"It doesn't show dark aligned stuff to me, because I can't eat it," Kenneth said, "Lorelei figured on the first day you can make requests on what to offer too," he added that it was possible to ask menu on certain food types and drink types as well. Kenneth said he had already fed any kind of tableware imaginable into the table, so it could serve things itself and it followed instructions like - 'add a tablespoon of fried pumpkin seeds from this container when serving pumpkin soup.' And it cut up lasagna itself, very perfectly at that, so Kenneth didn't bother anymore - spatial magic.
"It puts empty bottles, platters, barrels and the like on the table when no one is eating," Kenneth added, then smiled, "it also offers people stuff if they keep sitting but are done with their meal or if they sit down, but have no idea what to have," then he cracked up a bit - "Chilli was explaining to Purple in detail about your troublesome habits, this is the solution so you would stop getting up to make extra stuff for people. That table has appraisal - if you feed it drinks, foods, and snacks with various effects it will pick things out, so focus on your meal, not other people, that's one of the things that's keeping you away from raising your appraisal right now."
Ian and Nelly both snuggled up to Chilli, grateful she was looking out for them like that, then also up to Kenneth and Bermont because all three of them had done amazing things for them.
"And we ought to make some food, now," Kenneth said, because while enough was stored to last them for breakfast, there was a shortage of desserts, there was almost no coffee and passing the menu around all alchemists got some ideas on what they could add-in. And they set to work and Ian felt blessed that his workshop was not the type meant for one person to work in-- there was both enough space and tools for all of those who wanted to join in, to join in.
Ian made plenty of coffee of as many kinds he could imagine, feeding completed cups, mugs and glasses into the table and Nelly did that with teas, making them beautiful with fruit slices and leaves floating within. Chilli weaved up small and elegant cream parfaits, that being the quickest thing to make and had the witches help her with peeling and seeding fruits for those, Ian's gods got everyone else involved to assist them - with grinding something, peeling or other small things they could do, only Bermont got a free pass to stand by Ian and watch him make coffees with a smile, he was busy with that.
And an hour later Ian noticed that the table had trained all of them to do just one thing - trust it about what they actually want most. The only people who got out menus were those who sat by it the first time, but even they - Ian included - just asked the table to pick out what it recommends, because it felt fun to check. And on that meal Ian did properly focus on eating because this dragon collection darling (what else could it be?) was perfect at keeping all mouths busy with it's charming recommendation cards that appeared looking like seating cards - as Bermont finished eating he got - [Would you like some ambrosia dedicated to you?]
But speaking about breakfast conversations -
They teased Paisley about 'you sure wiped the floor with us' and Paisley was red and then they teased him about the food screwing him too.
"Are you that set on getting cursed?" Paisley asked, completely red-- that was the thing with cursed books he later explained, having sat right next to Ian, "Cursed books are not actually books that use curse words."
Ian nodded. "I know, I phrased it oddly-- I meant to say I didn't care and that the only major change in you was swearing."
Ian got another wave of warm looks, then Paisley said - "If you touch an angry cursed book they curse you, I was angry all the time for about a millennia and a half."
Paisley said an army had come after her, aiming to kill her and take her rune and she was on the border of aether exhaustion, there was nothing she could use, so she ended herself first so there would totally be no rune forming. She said she'd rather go undead than let some mongrels harvest her like corn and that led to a cursed tome forming.
They still got her. Not as a rune, but as a tome. And she kept being angry and cursing anyone who came to learn from her, yet even if she was like that - angry, seething, unwilling and full of curses, she was treated very gently and her anger gradually faded, but she was a very difficult book to learn from still. Lacus's tome was a child's play in comparison.
When Grisham got her she was a cursed book who cursed people half the time, but her self-awareness had more or less returned, he offered to craft her into a pseudo artifact - or give her an ability to talk to those who read her rather than being the tome she was, then she could either rewrite herself for more clarity or never teach anyone from then on, because that was the thing that made her so angry, to begin with - her knowledge being taken without her willingness to give it.
"You know, it wasn't fun even for a cursed book to know that all her unwanted students ended up dead, my theory has a lot of preconditions to use well." Paisley decided to only teach it to someone who fits and what better place for a book to live than a huge library. After meeting other Catalogues Paisley asked to be hired with the agreement that she would only work when she isn't angry and when she was angry she would go hang out in cursed records section and for two centuries she had angry days, but through working, talking, reading and living like that, she ended up calming down enough for her to be calm more or less all the time.
"So your students," Ian got a feeling she-- didn't take those when alive.
"Mhm, all dead, either thanks to my curses or using my theory, some were cute like you and struggled through by trying everything and anything. They didn't intend for it, but I got their memories as they read and tried to figure things out and at one point they all dropped off," Paisley's mouth formed a pout, "for a bit there I got a fright if that didn't end up happening to you too, you said it would take a month, but two months had passed."
"Sorry," Ian said again and Paisley reached out to ruffle his hair.
"It was just paranoia," Paisley said, "Lacus's theory wouldn't kill an elemental being, you wouldn't die even if you ended up freezing yourself a few times. The fact that you can casually breathe it out without getting frostbite is a better sign than any." Paisley added that this current body was no good for it, but that she could do the same back when she was alive.
Crimson Paisley had been an ifrit. A pure fire aligned being like Rowan. Very human all things considered, just pure fire aligned. Ifrits could marry and live with humans, but their children often died from elemental fevers as their young bodies tried to adjust to their own nature. Ifrits were not popular mates for regular humans, but fire mages found them very desirable - that had been the case for the past ten millennia. Paisley, too, had a fire mage as a father and she was the first child after twenty-three that ended up surviving her sweet sixteen.
"I know it sounds awful, but in our family, it was just normal to wake up and find a sibling gone," Paisley said, "my parents just shrugged, held a small feast to celebrate them moving on to a new life, thanked them for being a good child or sibling. Yes, it was sad, but we knew they would come back just in a different shape and have a new adventure and that if we live long enough we might meet them. We weren't afraid to go to sleep - we knew that we would wake up someplace."
Paisley said she later met other ifrit and few of them had a good time growing up or had the mindset to have their own later, raising an ifrit child takes a lot of guts. Took thirty children on average per one survivor. It was very lucky if twins or triplets came around - those had the best survival chances, the youngest siblings who survived after Paisley were twins, but that said two elder twin siblings both burned in a fever together.
Ian asked about the wording - 'burned in fever' and found out they did physically burn up, not leaving even ashes behind. So their beds were all unburnable - the kids just went missing and the bed was hot.
Paisley said her childhood had been very lax and sunny otherwise, the full-on studying started after she reached her sixteen, but she had been excited about it - they were all raised with the idea that they need to grow well and if they grow up, then they'll get to spend a lot of time with daddy and become awesome mages, but for that, they needed to do their best to eat well, move around a lot and sleep.
Ian asked if living in dryad domains wasn't an option and Paisley replied that no - then an ifrit would never be able to leave one or use magic outside of one. It was just like that - one in thirty could adjust, twenty-nine could not - the one who could would be a pure elemental mage with a close to unlimited lifespan if not killed, the rest were the price for the attempt to get one like that.
"Royalty, aren't you Paisley's relative?" Sloane asked.
Royalty squinted at Sloane - "distant enough for it to stop counting, her younger brother was my great-great-great, add a few more great, grandfather." Only female ifrit could give birth to pure ones, males were lucky or unlucky in that they could also father halves that did not have that mortality rate, but didn't have the lifespan either.
In some vague sense Ian had avoided judging that army who came after Paisley having a feeling there was something under it. The fact that Valerie thought Paisley was tricking him despite herself having been a misunderstood undead was a hint.
The way Paisley viewed life and death was not the same as most saw it, because she was who she was and she had quite the temper to add to that. He didn't find her less adorable and maybe he was hopelessly attracted to the fact that two evil gods, Kenneth and Paxton, and most people in their group did not take her lightly at all despite her currently weak form. She likely could and would literally wipe the floor with them if need be, fire aligned or not, and she was spiteful enough to go for it at the risk of burning herself up and he loved something about it way too much.
"So," Brielle spoke up after they all had been completely mesmerized by listening or eavesdropping on their conversation with Paisley. "Are they all now Police members." She looked at Ian's party and Paisley who were all dining with them.
"Yes," Kenneth replied before any of them could say a thing. "It would make no sense for outsiders to be in our headquarters, right?" Kenneth had a poker face.
Paxton started laughing, then the rest of them caught on-- they had all been played. Knox looked like she had been expecting this and smiled looking at the rest of them like 'welcome to the club' Valerie didn't seem too surprised either. Others were amused, but no one objected.
"I already gave them our IDs too," Kenneth mentioned.
Oh! So they had now completely become an organization with shades! Ian felt tempted to use puns about them being shady now. Paxton called forth the shades observing them, then stored them away again.
"Important to note," Kenneth said looking towards the Oracle trio (there used to be one in harbor, two in the capital, now all of them were here) who were sitting next to each other and having tea right now, all with shades still on. "Knox, Valerie, Khalil, Lane, and Amina can't leave new dryad domains. That is absolute for the following nine months." The Oracles all nodded and gestured their understanding about that.
"Ian," Brielle spoke up, "I understood about Sirens and Arachnes somewhat, but if you are that driven to propagate due to Daedalus raid, perhaps it's better to just stay home?"
"I think she has a point," Paisley agreed, "If I wasn't a homunculus I would be very worried about now."
"Ah, Paisley, you didn't hear?" Sloane noted, "Ian almost got pregnant with Grisham's child before he made him into a god, I'm almost certain Rylan gave you that body with the hope of that happening."
Paisley blinked. "Wouldn't it fix the problem if I got Ian pregnant instead, then?"
Ian turned red--
"You can't," Bermont said, "Ian promised to make dragons with me till our first one hatches, Tiamat said that would take about four years, and after that Ian promised to have Grisham's child."
Brielle pursed her lips looking at Ian - "You are not actually worried about your survival in Daedalus?"
"No," Ian replied. "Children happen due to love, too much ambrosia, and personal motives - Bermont gets stronger by having children and Paxton wants a witten shape?"
Paxton nodded. "Easiest method to get phase-shifting and aether drain in history and you get a cute feral kid, bonus: Mom will get off my back about grandchildren and Willow clan will take care of the kid while we're away on raids, or-- if I kick the bucket. Sloane, Royal, aren't you guys starting to regret about now - can you handle that many?"
"Hm? Hedwig says he's the best thing we've ever gotten, no regrets," Sloane replied, "and puh-lease - ferals are pure elementals, mages will die to recruit them for their schools in the super unlikely case we kick the buckets and run out of helping hands, and I mean, if they get Ian's obedient 'I love you master and will do whatever you say' nature then they'll get a master and a lover at the same time and be set for life."
Ian sipped his drink with a peculiar look about how they viewed him.
"Good idea," Royalty said, "In that super unlikely case I'll ask Hedwig to send my girl to a rich water mage who feels like he'd be happy with a slutty, but talented wife."
Juniper nodded. "Mom said she'll always welcome Lysander, he'll be a good drinker, dwarves will accept and respect him even if he's not a dwarf. Not worried either."
"Sisters, other clans will help out in the one in a million chance Willow clan can't handle them," Christine said. "And right, Amina, Valerie, Khalil and Lane," she said, "Delta clan will be more than honored to have your kids in the one in a million chance we all kick the bucket."
"I'm almost certain Knox will adopt them," Valerie said.
"Mhm, I'm a homely type," Knox nodded. "I will raise them to be good slutty little alchemist priests. They won't be annoying like those Rembrandt brats."
"That's a relief," Amina noted.
"Now I can feel reassured about that one in a million case scenario," Khalil nodded.
"Kenneth aren't you glad?" Lane asked, "Our collaboration with Ian will be in good hands."
"What good hands, Knox will gladly teach the Jeguze ones to poison their twin," Kenneth said.
Khalil shrugged - "Not like we'd stop that from happening even if we don't kick the bucket."
"Natural selection," Lane nodded.
Ian didn't know what to say to that-- well, mothers had a right to make some choices but-- "Kenneth, is there some way we can make sure they stay in new dryad domains, at least? So the dumber sibling trains regeneration from the poisons, not dies?"
"Chilli can you spare two kids to attach to the cute ones?" Kenneth asked.
Chilli made thumbs up and Ian let out a relieved breath. Jeguze instincts couldn't be helped, probably, but as long as they survive, it ought to be fine.
"Then I'm sure the du--" Ian smiled-- "cuter one will love their sibling even so, we all love you after all. And if it's Knox raising them, they will grow up busy seducing others, not much time to poison their sibling." Ian smiled at Knox and Knox smiled back, there were so many chairs between them, so he prayed - [I'm sure you'll do well,] And Knox made a wonderfully alluring expression as she nodded.
All their collegues had eyes of a dead fish as they got up in silence and went back to work.
Aubrey noted to Brielle, "Guess we'll get a ladyboss soon enough."
"That's a given, but will the kid be a jeguze or a feral?" Brielle asked.
Jayden said - "Aren't you more worried you'll end up like that?"
Adrian added - "You mean - we all?"
"I'm weirded out about how not weirded out I am about the idea," Jayden said. "But I mean, even Ian can't handle the whole police department on top of everyone, that would bring his lover count to like-- 300? Who the hell can handle 300?"
Knox snorted, then started laughing.
Paisley looked distraught.
And Ian smiled. Was it really-- just up to him? Bermont looked amused, Chilli finished her dessert not perturbed in the least and everyone else made disbelieving smiles at that line.
Paxton got up, then smiled, putting on the shades. "Okay, boss, what do I do?"
Sloane snorted putting on shades as well. "Yes, boss!"
Kenneth squinted at them-- "I'll call you minion six and minion seven."
"Who are the first five?" Paxton asked.
Kenneth smiled, crossing his legs. "A minion like you doesn't need to know." Paxton was standing, Kenneth was sitting, yet he looked at Paxton in such a sweetly domineering way, Ian felt a bit-- envious. Ian gulped, he wanted Kenneth to play with him like that-- he'd gladly be minion sixty-eight even.
Paxton looked at Kenneth surprised, then grinned. "Alright, Kenneth, on a more serious note - what do we do till lunch or dinner?"
"You know who Cindy is?" Kenneth asked, his expression returning to normal, and Paxton nodded. "Go to her, she's the best person for sorting out new recruits."
"Gotcha," Paxton said and turned to head to the stairs and the rest of the non-alchemists except Bermont and Paisley got up and followed as well.
But for all the sweet temptations Ian had, he was out of aether essences and he could not brew ambrosia for Bermont or make the best food for others if he didn't go hunt-- so-- best sort out the loot now, "Is there any order I should take things out in?"
"I think there's enough space here," Kenneth said and after that they all took three hours to sort out the stuff they had here, all directly edible stuff went into shelves in the jars they were in for now, good for something edible but tastes peculiar or like crap went into another spot and alchemical ingredients that have nothing to do with food went into the third spot.
"Okay, do any of you have an interest in trading edible ingredients for not-food items of equal value?" Kenneth asked. "That arrangement fits Ian, right?"
Ian nodded, he really didn't have any interest in that pile, but the other two were good to tinker with. And then up till it was time to make lunch the three expressed interest and named what they would trade it for more among themselves. If two wanted the same thing, they went for the more delicious offer like cute cats deciding what they all wanted to eat more and about half of the pile was gone like that - Valerie seemed to be carrying most of her foodstuff on her, Knox and Kenneth needed to run over to their workshops and for the remaining items (none of them needed) they called a wisp to trade those for storage items for edible things that needed special care. Chilli made drinks all the while and Nelly soon joined her with making desserts and while Valerie, Knox, and Kenneth did the trading, Ian, Khalil, Lane, and Amina made food, feeding it to the table, using up some of the stuff they had just unpacked.
***
And at lunch, when Ian asked his dungeon raiding mates about how it had gone, they all said the same thing - "Police is run by an alchemist," like it was a mysterious, odd and peculiar thing. "You feel it in everything."
Ian was deeply confused. "Kenneth is an alchemist." That was a fact.
Sloane smiled, to try and explain - "He has bears pretending to be ants and fight tiny larvae like they were ants. It's pain in the ass volunteer work, but kind of hilarious too. It looks like a game of how much of our ability can we cut off while still handling issues like pros, but with a bit of struggle."
"Isn't that a presence issue? Normies would notice if a presence isn't concealed or sealed," Ian checked.
"Not to that level," Royalty replied, "They seal and conceal it about three times more than necessary, it's an extremely safe, but annoying and kind of slow, but efficient method of training. Only an alchemist could devise that and no sane adventurer would sign up for that."
"We're not adventurers, we're Police," Aubrey said. "To me, it seems more insane to live on the edge of your ability and risk your life. But - that's a difference of goals."
"True, I suppose," Royalty said to that.
"The investigations side," Christine said, "Felt like regular exorcist work just that it's volunteer work like I expected, the part I didn't expect is them all acting like they had paranoia like most alchemists are, they prepare like they expect each undead to turn out to be a titan."
"Guild staff is actually weak," Royalty said, "So Grisham being overprotective makes sense, but if the guys here stopped letting Kenneth coddle them into paranoia, all the lost pet and astral issue team except their newest one would be platinum ranks, I think."
"Same about investigations, but mostly Gold rank, only Kane, Aiden, Mattias feel like solid platinum candidates at a glance," Christine added, "I looked into a few cases and it looked like they pulled on other platinum and gold ranks the same thing Kenneth pulled on us in past - ask us to handle the last part of an already theoretically completed case they could have handled themselves perfectly well, mostly with ease."
Ah, about that-- and right, now Ian figured. In the dungeon, they did talk about Ian being a bad 'canary in the cave' case, but-- before Ian could say anything to that, Cindy spoke up -
"No one in our Police department has died on the line of duty since Luna took over, Kenneth didn't coddle us into paranoia," Cindy said, "we are just very aware we are doing a job no one else would do, so we can't risk it."
Matias nodded - "And some of the cases we passed over did end up being calamities, Tiberius handled two of them far better than we could have. The one six years ago cost seven people to Galords, would have cost us ten or more and there are far fewer of us around."
"It's far easier to get a new Galord than it is to get a new Policeman too," Brielle said, "Our recruitment barely keeps up with human lifespan making our members die, and Kenneth opted to outsource instead of recruiting up till Ian appeared."
"I didn't want to risk ruining what you already had with badly made recruitments," Kenneth said, "Luna did a lot of crazy nonsense, but her ability to pick people and keep them loyal was unrivaled, I'm relieved it wasn't the crazy nonsense that kept you all loyal.
I figured I'd test things out with you bunch before adding anyone new."
"And that took a decade, huh?" Brielle asked.
"No, I had five more years of testing planned, but passing up on a kid like Ian who obviously had the same values as you guys would be idiotic, Luna also hired as many newly seeing policemen as possible as long as they weren't risk-loving," Kenneth said.
Paxton, Christine, Sloane, Juniper, and Royalty paused--
Then Sloane said - "Kenneth, your not-risk-loving minion no.1 went to flirt up a cursed book, a dragon, Knox Norton, and Valerie Micah, even if he's clueless, you know-- the presences--"
Ian was happy for the title of minion no.1, but-- "I didn't set out to flirt them up."
Paisley nodded, "he just nicely asked for advice to the Catalogue in the right section."
Bermont smiled - "He felt it would be more disrespectful to fall on me than cheat me into losing a twister game round so I fall myself."
Ian was flustered-- "Ok, I was drunk and I didn't think a being of your caliber would find me small and cute and wouldn't mind me falling on you--"
Bermont smiled. "Most of us find humans small and cute, something like falling on us by accident or due to a game wouldn't bother us and we can smell intent, there's no way any of us would be upset at a human who likes us or acts silly due to those feelings."
Even if Ian knew that was the case with Bermont now, it was a relief to hear that was the case for all of them, because he still sometimes had some small lingering doubts about how his attraction might have looked like to Ceruleum or Riveria.
"None of us have also ever killed a human who fell on us by accident otherwise, unless they notice their own situation and decide they will try to poke our eyes out or something along those lines upon noticing who they are falling towards," Bermont said, "Now that is disrespectful."
That certainly was-- "I wouldn't harm a kitten who tries to kill me," Ian noted, though.
"Ian, you wouldn't harm a human who tries that either," Bermont said, "my father was the same way," Bermont huffed and the table offered him a glass of ambrosia, which he did have, "I take my eyes off him for a bit and someone kills him."
That-- "Is that why you are always watching me?" Because to him it looked more like--
"I watch you because you are fun to watch," Bermont said, which sounded like Ian felt it was, "but I dislike taking my eyes off you for that reason," Not for missing the fun part, but because it felt risky, "so it helps you are finding plenty of people to watch you when I can't," Bermont said with a smile, it taking a more amused glint as he looked over at Jayden, "300 sounds about right."
Jayden squinted-- "Bermont, if it's just watching him over, we can all do that, I only meant that he can't possibly handle that many--"
"Jayden," Kenneth said, "Ian always waits for the other person to take a step towards him, you are now doing that.
But this is good timing - if any of you want, I clearly remember a recent case of just how much initiative it actually takes from the other person for it to go anywhere, so most of your concerns are complete rubbish."
At the word 'remember' Brielle had already gotten up on her feet and at the word 'rubbish' she had leaned in for a kiss.
Paisley was the only one among them who had not yet figured what was up and looked startled as a minute after the kiss ended Brielle kissed Aubrey, then the two of them kissed Jayden and Adrian and it spread out--
"Dragon language," he concluded and leaving Paisley out wouldn't be good, so Ian leaned in for a kiss, which Paisley accepted. [5+13 is?] - [18] and they had a conversation and memory exchange where Ian filled Paisley in on all the magic practice in memory form and how it looked like when Riveria used it and freezing and how the jellies looked and how everyone ate them deliciously, in the end, he did use the magic in cooking the most - making gelatos and two ambrosia types and freezing and cooling and making aether infused ice for drinks, and providing his magic for Kenneth's flash freeze potions. Most of those memories had Kenneth in them.
When their lips parted, the information exchange seemed to have completed its course and Lorelei asked - "Didn't Ian just let himself be seduced?"
"I thought those rumors must have been of knowing him, but--" Penelope added, "it was to THIS level?"
Brielle smiled, "Girl, didn't you figure Chilli and Nelly were ruining his rep on purpose? What else did you think that message was about?"
That message?
Aubrey chuckled-- "A wisp came during our move with a barrel of basilisk curry and a message of [Boss, I made this thinking of the curry you taught me to make. P.S. I know you schemed with those two, so don't use that excuse anymore. Love you~]"
Oh-- Ian now learned about one embarrassing message he sent. "Sorry, I had too much to drink--"
"Oh, that's not the worst one," Aubrey said with a smile, "We figured you were drinking for ten days after, but you sure sent Kenneth and Knox delicious things, we were lucky they shared, there was only one dish Knox ate all by himself, but it was stinky and he was foaming at the mouth, so we didn't want to try that one."
Haah-- great. Ian was red.
"Oh, the poisonous one," Paxton recalled, "It was glorious, Purple got Ian to make a pile of that."
"Waste you didn't try," Christine said, "if you drink some ambrosia along with it, it was quite the experience, I presume as long as you are hero rank, though."
"Mhm, yeah, back then only Kenneth and Knox were that level," Brielle said, "We got so frustrated about them discussing the taste and casting those pitying looks at us--"
That was a thing Ian had noticed but didn't pay that much attention to, all 'missing pets' team except Lorelei had hit hero rank, so of course, they'd be able to reach Platinum rank if they wished. That was the case with the men Christine mentioned from investigations too.
Brielle let out a breath-- "We trained really hard and now we cast pitying looks at the poor suckers."
"Right--" Paxton noted, "In case you didn't know if you seduce Bermont, he can help with burning in aether circuits."
"It's not very efficient unless they are already hero rank at another skill," Bermont said, "it took ten hours to bring a mythical rank skill to legendary and that's only because Ian lusted for me and greedily took everything for ten hours straight and I didn't need to stop and retrail the circuit."
Ian was red-- and the table offered him a ginger ice tea Nelly had made-- he took it. This table was-- [You are very good at this,] he conveyed with his hand on the table. [Let me know if there is some food or drink type you feel would be needed with any sort of effect.] And the table had a card appear - [diners are often out of aether] so it did talk to him properly, Ian smiled and asked if a selection similar to those dark aligned drinks would work and the table said [yes].
And, meanwhile, Bermont and Paxton had a short conversation on skills and came to a conclusion that it was easier for most people to just drive up one skill on their own, aether manipulation being the easiest and most useful if one had no idea what else to pursue because that one could be used almost anywhere and it had the same circuit tree as crafting - Paxton, who had pursued crafting got aether manipulation as a default included bonus, but it wasn't too hard to drive up crafting after as well.
"Ian is driving up crafting, not just manipulation right?" Paxton checked.
All alchemists nodded at that. The difference was that manipulation happened more after the aether had left the hand, crafting was happening directly at skin level and using hands as a whole, not just fingertips. And then they started a pretty embarrassing conversation about reasons why Ian is lagging at appraisal.
"Gaining a female shape helped him raise it, but he's still not that good with being on the receiving end, he should switch places with Nelly and sit on Nelly's lap and get petted," Valerie said.
Nelly took it seriously, changed into male form and patted her lap, inviting Ian to sit.
Uhh-- well, if Valerie said it, then Ian switched to be a girl and climbed on Nelly's lap. This was-- actually nice and it got even nicer when Nelly started stroking Ian's hair and ruffling it and -- ahh, Ian snuggled up, why hadn't they tried this before? Being small and snuggled reminded of childhood, but Nelly was hot-- and there were a lot of clothes in the way.
"Let's do this later," Ian said, looking up with another complicated realization that his own face and body were really tempting, not to mention those cat ears Nelly just kept as his default feature, being dark-haired also added a bit-- meaner seeming streak, which went perfectly with those cat ears.
Nelly nodded. "I'm also getting turned on. We need someone not-hot to snuggle with."
"Everyone here is kind of hot," Ian said with a sigh and the three people who started raising their hands to offer help, turned red and lowered them, including Penelope, who got a few chuckles and 'don't be so insecure' lines in a teasing manner.
This was-- totally not the kind of conversation anyone should be having by lunch, but they were done eating so--
"We still need to sort out the beast meat," Kenneth said and that's what they ended up doing up till dinner, also getting skin, claws, bones and other materials as they sorted out and separated all remaining dungeon beast material, snuggly fitting all meat in one cooling artifact which conveniently listed everything within it, chunk types and weight of each meat type and also a 'best before' day count added. Well, beast meat was something, or the artifact was something because the shortest 'best before' day count added up to thirty years. The stronger the beast, the longer the meat would last, Roelim would stay fresh for more than nine centuries still.
Ian had already managed to forget he even had half of these-- he'd be able to make far more varied dishes had he remembered and Ian realized he had been foolish in thinking a workshop might not be that necessary. Having everything out in the open like this, visible, listed and in open sight made him see his options clearer than ever. There were so many ingredients he had plenty of he had not even explored, the odd-tasting ones might be amusing to play around with.
Ian looked at Bermont-- "Can I drain you a bit?" The table had enough ambrosia for Bermont to recover the aether Ian drains and Bermont could drink quite a lot without any signs of getting drunk appearing. Bermont smiled with a 'do you even need to ask?' look on her face and Nelly merged in for a very good meal, barely refraining from taking it a few steps further.
And cooking together in a big team was incredibly fun, they could join in to help each other, split and share work, make five-course meal sets, and talk with the table about what it liked more - if they gave him a salad barrel it could serve or a pile of servings - table liked to serve things itself - it always preferred barrels or huge containers where possible, because different people and different beings had different needs and desires. And they learned to work with it - it couldn't pour over things neatly, but it said people liked to pour their own dressings, for drinks too - table said it would like to add ice itself and if it was just adding stuff in it could do that. Details like that.
When Ian asked for its name, it wrote up - [I'm a table artifact, if you really want to name me something you can think of a name yourself.]
[How about Spencer? That used to be my surname before I joined the Willow witch clan,] Ian asked because a part of him was attached to the surname of his grandparent he sadly didn't remember.
[I'm Spencer then.] the card told.
"The table is now Spencer! It said I could name it," Ian let Bermont, Paisley and other cooks know and got warm looks again. At times they looked at him like he was a kid, and compared to them he was, so he didn't linger on it.
And at dinner, Kenneth said- "Ian named the table Spencer," and he got even more warm looks. Ian figured he had done something they considered cute, but he had no idea what was so cute about it, so he asked and Kenneth replied - "Spencer is still a part of your name even if no longer officially, it's a cute way to mark ownership."
Okay, now he got it and turned red, he might have as well named the table - 'Ian's table' and to a red-cheeked question of [Why did you go along with it?] the table, too, replied - [It's cute.] And served him a perfectly portioned five-course meal making Ian realize how loved it made you feel when someone did that to you - watched out for your needs and offered a perfect amount of just the right thing and Spencer did that to everyone, there was no way Ian could have done that to now eighty-two people and that's when it hit him-- there were exactly that amount of chairs and the table matched up to be a perfect fit for that size.
A reply to [How much can you expand?] was - [as much as needed, but it takes some time to grow or shrink, I can grow to fit 300 in two days.]
[Dragon collection items are something--] Ian noted in amazement.
[Aren't you one yourself?] Spenser asked.
Ian nodded, then figured-- [Could you see that?]
[Would you like to synchronize?] Was the question, a familiar one-- Grisham had done that with his artifacts.
[I haven't done that before, how do I do that?] Ian asked.
[Accept the connection,] was the reply and Ian felt a similar sort of resonance running over his soul as when Nelly experienced strong emotions and he let their feelings connect and he experienced the table as part of his body - like hands elbows, dishes were all placed on top of his now solid and slick body and he heard whispers of all voices resonating in his head, but they weren't annoying, he could pick them out, they were mostly thoughts of pleasure of how delicious things were and some people felt a bit fatigued or like they lacked focus and Spencer offered them things, Spencer got a vague sense of all bodies sitting by the table, Bermont was a being of bright light with a huge appetite compared to others, but Spencer did not 'see' anyone per se - he got a sense of people like they were human-shaped blobs of needs, desires, preferences, and thoughts and he got a sense of agreement or disagreement regardless if anyone said anything to him or not.
[You are a living human being, no, your vision is a bit,] Ian now heard a voice, it was a soft spoken, gentle, yet certainly male voice. It sounded alluring, like a voice one wouldn't get tired of listening to. Synchronization meant that the same way Ian could feel Spencer's body, Spencer could feel his.
[I'm a feral,] Ian replied, and Spencer asked what those were and Ian replied with some memories he had.
Spencer asked for some little details like everyone's names, saying those were hard to pick out, he knew them by patterns, as some noticed Ian's gaze-- uhm, Penelope' heart skipped a beat, huh? Not like Ian would do anything with information like that, though, so there was no meaning in feeling guilty for 'eavesdropping' through Spencer.
"Ian, why are you looking at everyone like that?" Juniper asked, as Ian's eyes met her's.
"I'm synchronizing with Spencer and telling him your names," and a few details, like, that Juniper was a half-elf and half-dwarf and that there was Lysander in her belly. Most people were either focusing on their food or having a conversation and didn't notice his gaze and it wasn't a long one, mostly just a glance.
But feeling fatigue in some people through Spencer, Ian got out a barrel of Quicksleep and placed it on the table, that got some attention on him, but not for long and Ian got to experience how Spencer appraised - he got taste information and that it was a haste-sleeping potion, got a feeling for portion size and a sense for appearance, matching it up with a glass mug to display the blue shimmering the drink had.
Ian said he called it 'Quicksleep' - [You can ask if they have an hour to nap if they feel fatigued,] Ian said.
"Fay, I'll go nap for an hour," Matias said at one of the oracles, then looked over at Ian and shook his head with a smile, then he took the mug of the drink with him and went upstairs, the other two fatigued ones did the same soon after.
Right-- Ian hadn't been upstairs.
[Let's synchronize another time, you can't focus on your dessert otherwise,] and after a [Sure!] from Ian, Ian felt his body become a lot smaller. It hadn't been a bad feeling at all - to be that aware of everyone all at the same time. Being a table had its issues, but the same was true with having a human body - it wasn't bad being a table at all and Spencer did make him feel cared for, he was a very lovely thing, preciously crafted and cared for those he served. He was undoubtedly loved by the dragon who crafted him into his heart.
Paisley looked at Ian, while having a coffee. "Do you fall in love with something new every day?"
Ian thought about the question. "No, I usually fall more in love with those I already love," he said, the question too, if asked like that - "I loved you before yesterday too."
Paisley turned red.