What Comes Next

I retrieve the portable monitor I own and use it to unlock my home as the dolls, my new pets, and I approach it. At the same time I turn and focus on the carriage I have just exited. I study it for a few moments and then will the thing to vanish, which it promptly does. I sense it enter my inventory and smile before I turn and open the door leading into the estate.

I am followed by my servants and pets, and I ask Raquel to try and figure out how to best house the beasts that have become our newest companions. She looks a bit concerned upon being asked to do this, which is understandable.

I freed multiple animals during my adventures in Oceanos. During Sophia's ill-fated assault on the amazonian city she commanded multiple humans who had begun to walk down the path to power that allows humans and other sufficiently powerful and wise beings to tame monsters and less intelligent animals. Their forces had subjugated multiple animals, one gigantic tiger, two powerful wolves, and multiple, seven in total, massive birds. I freed those animals from their control and the animals have since joined me as rather unusual, if potentially quite useful, allies.

"I know it's not the funnest job, in fact I know it might be difficult, but… it's worth it. I've begun to walk down the tamer's path, and even the tamer abilities I already have are worth getting and worth using." I tell her, which surprises her. This is the first time I've explicitly talked about being a tamer.

"At the moment, in addition to having the standard tamer abilities, ones that let me simply tame animals and monsters, I can do more. I can awaken them, and give them the ability to speak." I explain, which not only surprises Raquel it also surprises Beth, who turns to me and responds before her sister can speak.

"You can awaken animals?" She asks, awe and gravity in her tone as she questions me. I smile and nod at her.

This powerful ability eats up arcane power but the thing about me is that I can regain arcane energy with somewhat frightening ease. I can replenish my stores of arcane energy by eating, drinking water, or even doing some heavy breathing. Until now I haven't expended much of my arcane power due to the relative peacefulness of my time in this world, though even before I went to Oceanos I used some of my eldritch energy to enchant a few of the products my dolls sold when we opened our shop in the amazon city as well as to occasionally experiment with basic spellcasting. I always regained whatever arcane power was spent doing those things in minutes.

In all honesty only some of my abilities have had time to shine so far. I, somewhat unexpectedly, have had plenty of chances to cook and so the powers I have due to my nature as a culinary warrior have had many chances to shine but I haven't yet used my more active hedge mage abilities… One way or another I know that will be changing soon, but it's definitely interesting to look back and think about which of my powers have been the most central to my new life.

"I can. I figured that this was a rare power, it's something people in my homeland have speculated about, so I wanted to wait until we got back home to begin to experiment with it… And here we are." I say, teasingly. And that's not all I can do, either.

"But there's actually more. If I want, animals and monsters I train can become human-like, and eventually even human, when they want to be at least, over time. I'm an anthropomorphizer." I explain, and this time both sisters are stunned into silence.

"That's why I want the animals to stay with us. My abilities are incredible, but to get the most out of my tamer powers I need to actually… tame and train monsters and animals." I state, brightly. My words don't seem to delight Raquel but she accepts the basic logic behind them.

"Okay, I'll go and try and figure… SOMETHING out." She exclaims, clearly not loving the idea of having to try and house ten fairly large animals. At the moment the beasts are still in their miniaturized forms, which is helpful, but the tiger and the wolves are still large animals. She then raises a fair point.

"If we take in more creatures, even if we use your… shrinking ability, it will still require us to expand at some point. We, currently, don't have appropriate spaces for these creatures. Not to mention that we don't have enough renewable resources to feed a whole community of animals every day." She says, correctly, and I pause as I consider these remarks. I take a beat to consider how to address this before coming up with a tentative plan.

"Okay, so you aren't wrong and I want to take a beat to acknowledge that. I love you sharing your insights and thoughts with me. You are correct, these animals deserve proper, dedicated care and a true space for themselves. Sadly, creating that sort of space would take time… Thankfully, there is a solution to that." I state, with a smile on my face.

"So for now I want our central goal to be preparing to go to the observatory where we can, hopefully, find a clue as to Amy's whereabouts. That said, we can take a day or so to do other things. In the short term we can work on creating space for our new friends and we can create special gear to help us with them. I can also work on creating some special friends that can be used to begin to build a real space for our animal companions, and afterwards for other vital projects that need labor. Golems." I explain, which intrigues both of my dolls.

"You can create golems, already?" Raquel asks, smiling in delight as she asks the question. I nod at her confidently.

"I haven't had to do so just yet, obviously, but I can do it. I want to spend today and maybe tomorrow creating basic gear that will help us feed our new pets and keep them cared for, and I want to use some of that time to create very basic golems. We can have them do some of the initial work needed for us to create real housing for our animal friends. Plus I can improve them using food since I'm a culinary warrior!" I remark, and this news delights my doll.

"After that I want to create special gear for Beth and for you, before we head on our journey. If possible I'd like for us to go and reunite you two with Amy before we return home, but I don't know. It's possible that we could find Amy extremely easily, or that we could just be beginning a long, challenging journey. Still, I want the two of you to be ready either way. What do you think of that plan?" I ask, and I am delighted to see both dolls be highly receptive to the plan. Once both of my companions voice their support for this tentative course of action we begin the plan.

Raquel is quick to take the animals with her and begin to search for an appropriate place to let them live for the time being. I turn to Beth and smile at the bubbly figure.

"So I actually have some special tasks I need you to do for me, Beth." I state, somewhat cryptically. She smiles at me and waits for me to assign her duties.

"I need you to go throughout the estate and pick up every empty notebook you can get your hands on. I can create… well, my people know them as 'Skill Books', but you probably wouldn't. They are fantastic devices that allow me to instantly teach someone a skill of mine and impart to them as much knowledge as I could confer in one year of one-on-one tutoring. I want to create them for… well, all of you. Ra quel, the animals, and you." I reveal, which thoroughly delights Beth who eagerly runs off, happy to have both any mission and one this deeply personal since it's effectively allowing me to teach her for a year in an instant.

If skill books are as effective as they should be then in my hands the things would be terrifying. I have multiple perks that make me a skilled teacher, including perks from every pathway to power I started off as a master of, other than that of a merchant, so if this takes that into account my skill books could be worth millions. I shudder at the thought of what might happen if a foe got a hold of one of the skill books I could, and plan to make…

When I find myself alone I consider where to go for a second. Today will be all about the animal friends we've made, so it only takes me a beat to decide to begin by focusing on how to feed the animals. I quickly head to the room containing the forge I used to make my personalized sword and in minutes I get a chance to retrieve the enchanted bag Ophelia gave me and am finally about to open the thing.

I sit down in a small corner of the forge and I open up the bag. The instant that I do so I am delighted to see an amount of space much bigger on the inside than the outside, and I gasp in joy when I see a plethora of simple resources. The bag is filled with coins of all sorts, and after I spend a few moments thoroughly studying the contents of the bag I realize that Ophelia might well have given me all of the direct monetary compensation that she could!

"What a beauty…" I audibly exclaim as I stare at thousands of coins. This was actually the perfect, the absolute best, thing she could have given me.

My powers as a merchant are more than just that I am good at selling and buying things. I can directly spend money, erasing it from existence, as fuel for several powerful abilities. I can expend currency to create raw materials or to boost something's abilities. I could even invest in myself, in a literal sense, to improve myself directly! What Ophelia just gave me is… spectacular since before I went to Oceanos I had no currency even if I could have changed that with proper creative usage of some of my perks.

If she had given me objects that weren't currency I'd have to decide whether or not it was worth keeping them to activate "Collector", a perk that gives me thematic luck boosts based on what's in my possession, or use "Reclamation" on them to destroy them and turn them into money. She saved me the time that'd have taken, and I'll have to repay her for that kindness at some point.

Plus this is… a lot of money. The coins are different from the ones used by the amazons but even with a glance and with some small touches to individual coins here and there to allow me to learn the histories of the loot, which fills a small portion of my mind with basic knowledge regarding other nations and the activities of Sophia's pirates, I can tell this is no small fortune. I could use even portions of it in vital and remarkably handy ways, from upgrading my gear to instantly acquiring new food for my allies and I to consume.

I get up after taking a minute to study the bag and as I do I teleport the bag to my inventory. The coins are fantastic and with them, if nothing else, I can purchase all sorts of raw materials for future creations. For now, though, I should go ahead and start working.

As I get up I begin to wonder if I can create something simple: a way to either reduce or eliminate the bodily needs of my animal companions. I personally possess numerous perks that significantly reduce my bodily needs, primarily due to my nature as both a hedge mage and culinary warrior (among other things). Technically with "Arcanovore", an expensive hedge mage perk, I don't need to eat, sleep, breathe, or drink water at all, but I do so anyway both to help keep people unaware of my true strength and also to power some of my other perks more easily.

I decide, for now, to try and create a feed bag and then enchant it to see if by doing that I can get anywhere meaningful. Creating the bag, thanks to the resources that abound throughout the house, and my knowledge of crafting methods and styles, as well as vital perks only takes a few minutes, primarily due to the "Fast Food" perk I possess which allows me to make things near-instantly. The longest part of the process was actually finding the materials I needed, but when I had everything I needed all I did was will the object to come into being.

The feedbag is a large object designed to fit around the mouths of many different kinds of animals. I study it and scan my mind for helpful enchantments that I could apply to the thing.

The process of enchanting something, at least the way that I do it (thanks to perks), is pretty simple. Perks simplify the process, allowing me to enchant something by simply etching a spell matrix, a series of symbols which serve as a roadmap for spellwork, onto the object. This simple method results in predictable but powerful enchantments that can be understood by anyone with sufficient mystical knowledge. While there are other ways to enchant objects that tend to be more complex and create more complex results, this is the method I'm the most familiar with as it's the one I've done before. One of my special items is a simple-looking pen specifically designed and mildly enchanted to help with this process and I've used the item before.

I've done the process a handful of times now and each time I've done it it's been fairly easy, partially due to the fact that I've only done extremely simple enchantments. I have deliberately ensorcelled items in such a way that they seem to merely be fantastic but mundane items, such as armor that I've enchanted to be even more protective than it'd otherwise be. I have yet to create complex enchanted items, and it's kind of funny that one of my first unique items might well end up being an unlimited feed bag.

I wrack my brain for spells that could be modified in ways that would allow them to be helpful for feeding something. In order to do this I'm taking advantage of a handful of different perks, most notably "Magic Weaver" which gives me multiple trains of thought, and also "Spellmaker" which helps me modify magic in a stunning breadth of ways and could even allow me to construct wholly original spells if need be.

I begin to contemplate how to best weave magic into the feed bag for several moments before deciding to let my secondary train of thought handle this. I shunt the bag into my vault, causing the thing to disappear, as I make use of the party system to ask my companions to open their minds. When they inform me that they have done so I grin and reach out to them over the mental connection we share.

"Hey, so I have created a feed bag for the animals. I plan to find a way to make it capable of producing unlimited food eventually, and am currently trying to think of a way to enchant it to enhance the food placed in it in a range of ways. That will be one of the central ways I work to help the animals for today. I'm going to go and work on creating the golems I mentioned earlier, but I have an important question for the two of you to consider." I telepathically explain even as I leave the room I'm in and begin to head to the art studio where I plan to construct the golems.

"I want the two of you to think about the sort of combatants you want to be. I will be making you armor and weapons for our journey to the observatory, but I want you to tell me what sort of weapons and armor you want. I will make you anything from heavy armor and axes to light armor and throwing knives, but I need you to tell me what you want. There's no rush or anything, it'll definitely be days before I make your armor, but I do want you to think about it." I reveal, while stepping into the large art studio.

The art studio is a massive room. I haven't used it much, but it's a large workshop-like space complete with all sorts of furniture and tools for creating art. I walk to the middle of the room and as I do I silently cast a spell that causes a perfectly spherical gale of wind to emanate from me. This is a simple manifestation of "Ultimancy" a particular school of magic known to some spellcasters that specializes in quality of life magic that can accomplish a range of objectives ranging from battle to cleaning one's gear, when in properly deft hands.This sends assorted pieces of furniture and other tools sailing away from me and clears a space in the middle of the room for me to get to work.

I shut my eyes and activate "Universal Bartering" for the first time. Upon activation the perk causes a large menu to appear behind my shut eyelids and to fill the darkness that would normally be all I can see. The menu is filled with options for me to pick from, ranging from things like food and wood to other things like sand and fur, and the costs of the available goods are listed next to the names of the things.

The costs are significant, and not for the first time I speculate about just going and getting my materials myself. Thankfully, even as inflated as the costs happen to be, I have enough funds that I could purchase more than I need right now and I still wouldn't need to dip into the funds I earned from helping Oceanos defeat the pirates. Still, it's over half of what I made from selling my products… I'll just have to have one of the golems work on gathering resources so I don't have to pay these costs again.

I take a deep breath and select a handful of hunks of stone. When I select the things a small window appears and asks me if I want to go to check out, basically asking me if I want to go and pay. I go through the payment process and I am surprised when the stones suddenly materialize in front of me, something I faintly realize even without opening my eyes. When I open my eyes I find myself looking at five slender stone pillars, each of which is a bit taller than I am.

"Okay, neat!" I exclaim as I study the white blocks. The things are imposing looking, and need to be shaped carefully, but even as I glance at them I feel my muscles tensing in anticipation of what I'm about to go and create. These blocks of stone are minutes, maybe hours, from becoming my first golems, arcane lifeforms, in a manner speaking, that I created from scratch… Amazing.

Golems are staples of fantasy video games and literature. They tend to begin as fascinating sculptures of various sorts, constructed from a range of materials, that are magically brought to life by powerful sorcery and bound to serve their creators. The fact that I can create them is fantastic.

The process by which I plan to make them is simple. I will shape the stone pillars into the appropriate shapes, sculptures of humans in this case, enchant them (which will turn them into enchanted objects rather than mere sculptures) and then bring them to life by using an enchanter perk named "Awakening". The enchanter version of "Awakening" differs from the tamer version of the perk of the same name, because the enchanter version is not meant to be used animals it's meant to be used on enchanted objects and magical constructs, and can be used on things that are already golems to boost their intelligence.

I select one of the pillars at random and will one of my items into existence on my hand right as I move it into position to carry the object: my "Tools of the trade". This item is actually multiple items, specifically assorted bunches of tools associated with various trades and crafts all of which are handy for skilled enchanters, such as tools for blacksmithing, tools for carpentry, tools for alchemy, and other trades and crafts. In this case the tool that appears on my hand is a tray containing a complete set of instruments for chiseling stone.

I set the tray on the ground and grab a pair of the objects, a chisel and a mallet, even as I approach the block. I am vaguely reminded of the episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Squidward and Spongebob interact with and try to make art using marble. As I move closer to the stone pillar I begin to clearly visualize what I plan to create, a big smile spreading across my face as I take my first steps down the road to creating something truly special.

I gingerly test how the chisel feels striking the stone and smile when I experience the solidity of the object I created through the supernatural abilities at my disposal. Even the one hit fills me with experience and insights related to both the specific stone pillar I just struck as well as experience and insight related to what I am doing broadly.

Back on Earth I never indulged in any artistic hobbies like stone carving or any sort of sculpting but powerful perks have filled me with a basic understanding of what I am doing and I possess even stronger perks that enhance my ability to learn. Some of these perks boost my ability to learn broadly, but in this context my most useful perk is an enchanter perk named "Crafting Savant" which gives me a basic floor of knowledge with every type of crafting skill and greatly boosts my learning speed with regard to the vital task of making all sorts of crafts.

I lightly experiment and strike the stone pillar again and am delighted to feel even more observations and data fills my mind. I shut my eyes and lightly hit an area that I know will be fairly safe to strike, and this time when I next experience the solidity of the stone as my blow subtly shapes the pillar my remaining senses are keen enough to pick up on things that I previously missed.

I allow myself to begin to have fun with what I'm doing here. I possess keen instincts and trust in the power of the perks I possess, so I allow myself to be guided by instinct as I work on what I plan to make into my first golem. As I relax and begin to work guided by muscle memories I didn't make, I ruminate about something mildly amusing.

The pathway to power known as enchanting isn't the only pathway that allows me to bring something that isn't alive to life. A perk from the culinary warrior path confers especially talented culinary warriors the ability to bring dishes to life. It seems from the description of the perk itself that the main purpose of the ability is to give culinary warriors extra help on adventures, but the ability itself "Living Kitchen" is highly unusual. I'm halfway tempted to try it out someday, just to see what I can create.

Minutes begin to pass as I get into a certain rhythm. Beth joins me partway through my introspective journey as I continue to contemplate various odd perks in my possession. She gives me a plethora of books, paper, and even the bindings needed for me to actually sit down and make books if I combine them with paper and make use of my "Fast Food" perk.

Beth also commentates on what she's seeing, and reveals a passing interest in seeing me walk down the path of her creator: that of a lifeshaper. That term refers to enchanters who used a potent set of skills to create life in a range of ways, from doing what I'm doing and making golems out of simple materials, to what he did and using complex materials, processes, and sorcery to create critically powerful lifeforms like the dolls.

Even with the subtle aid of some perks that make it easier for me to do stuff like this and my superhuman physique it still takes me almost two hours to successfully carve the stone pillar into an acceptable shape and state. When it is ready I admire the sexless humanoid form I have chiseled and I use subtle wind magic to gather all of the discarded stone chips and leftover bits that I inadvertently created while shaping the stone to one area. I have ideas about what to do with the bits and pieces that'll be leftover when I've brought all five pillars to life. I turn to Beth and smile.

"Okay, are you ready to see something pretty cool?" I ask, grinning at the doll. I'm pretty excited to have an audience, and I hear Beth tell me she's excited before I turn back and study what I have created: a stunningly beautiful work of art, one empowered by a range of perks and that is about to become even more empowered by even more perks in the minutes to come.