Disclaimer:

Mr. Brown, Inspiration is a bitch. When the mind is blank, you read other stories to get some new ideas. Then you realize writing in another language is bloody hard. You start to compare your stories with others and realize you are at the bottom line of passable. It gives you an inferiority complex… But, I do this for free so fuck the critics, I do this for free after all.

Previous:

It was confirmed that another son of Gaia is killed, she is going to be pissed at us… again.

We were beginning to hurt Loki's forces, spreading the range of our actions, leaving close range to the griffons. Luka had a visit from two dragons, his formation of three airships took care of them, adding them to the provisions. Our ships patrolled the sea, aiding towns, the fishing ships were having a good time, unlike our world, where there was still plenty of fish to catch.

Still, I have a feeling this is just a prelude to something big.

25 Gaia strikes back.

I spent an hour adjusting the armors and weapons of the nobles I put a little crown motive on the breastplate of the prince forces and a superman S for Solveigh. The armor color was changed to green, to keep mine and theirs apart. The weapons were a weak version of our guns, but still powerful enough to do the job. Everything is powered on ambient magic. A full-powered gun could fire non-stop for twenty minutes, while reloading takes only three hours.

Susanna connected them to a power stone and ordered a thousand each to her aids who started their production immediately.

Xxxxx

Kozalin was buzzing with rumors about our artillery, while not as loud as the ones from Earth, it was noticed to be synchronous with the explosions at the horizon. The hunting party was having a good time harvesting the dino's, regularly delivering loaded skimmers, and leaving with empty ones. Hrodir hired extra men from the shelters to help butcher the animals. He got plenty of volunteers with the promise of warm clothing and extra meat for their shelter. The storehouses that could keep meat were fully loaded, so we promised to keep the meat in the freezer skimmers apart for the people of Kozalin.

When Luka returned with a dead dragon hanging under his airship, he made certain everyone in Kozalin had a good look at it. The second airship with another dead dragon made the city burst into cheering, the dragons were dropped on the roof next to the airport. The butchering went on well after dark, with portable lights and the headlights of the skimmers.

That night we and the city celebrated our victory way into the morning.

Xxxxx

At breakfast, Demetrius summed it up: "Yesterday was a turning point, we definitively have the attention of the gods now. I can predict two ways Gaia will act: one is to attack the surrounding countries first and deal with us later, two is to personally attack us and try to destroy the keep. I hope you can take an attack from a god My lord, if not, we are in deep trouble."

I thought for a moment: "I have an idea to take an attack from her, I will work on it after breakfast in here. I need a few volunteers with Time or Space magic, that is the closest magic that I can teach portals too, if we don't have them, Earth magic is the next best option."

Susanne: "My Lord, the armor and weapons for the Prince and Lord Solveigh are ready. A thousand each. Can General Marcus ask both how many troops they have? And maybe the other Nobles need armor too?"

I nodded: "Good work Susanne, Marcus can you deliver the weapons to the prince and ask which noble is he granting weapons to. Bella, you deliver the weapons to your uncle, as with Marcus, ask how many troops need weapons and armor." Bella smiled and nodded, the chances for her brother to become a knight went from possible to reality, especially when Ulla donated forty pounds of Mithrill she conjured herself with my permission.

Hrodir asked: "My Lord, the harvest is going well, the skimmers with stasis enchants are the best. We have no food that can spoil this way. Can we buy some more chickens, rabbits and pigs? With the harvest, there is a lot of greenery that is perfect for animal feed. We can trade them for meat and fish after the coven sisters enhance them, they will be a prime source of fresh meat, the dinosaurs and fell wolves attacking us will end someday, so now is the time to increase our life stock."

I looked at Avilla and nodded: "Avilla, arrange it with Hrodir. You can also offer a cooking unit for a couple of pigs. Cooking without firewood is worth it, and we can create them without costs, so win-win for us."

Bjorn reported: "The raiding parties are doing great, we have yet to lose a soldier, and are decimating the enemies. We have recruited several soldiers, but they need Lady Elin's or your healing My Lord." Elin smiled at me and said she will do it with her best students.

Cerise: "Last night I have upgraded My Lady Dark Hecate's Temple. My Goddess was very pleased with the result. Berri, I was told to thank you and ask what reward you want. This power boost counts for twenty normal temples, so you can understand the impact it has on My Goddess.

She advised me to tell you to start on Lady Bast's Temple as soon as possible. My lord, if possible can you change more women into Catwomen? There are a lot among the maids that want the change. They can help with the temple. Tina will select them for you." Tina was glowing, her own Temple was not a faraway dream anymore.

Avilla added: "Lady Hestia is pleased too, Berri, You being with us is a blessing for all of us. You can ask Lady Hestia for a boon too. You certainly deserved it."

Berri blushed: "Thank you Cerise and Avilla, please thank Lady Hecate and Lady Hestia for their favor, I will have to think about it, I can't honestly imagine what I can ask."

Aria: "Our leaders will arrive after lunch, the agreement is going to be a formality. I reported the environment you created for us and our baby, and am certain when other clans hear of this, they will be begging to join your community like I know we are going to do." It seems Aria is on our side now.

The rest of the meeting was routine about daily tasks.

Xxxxx

After breakfast, I took a turn in the Time Chamber with my Coven cats and the first group Tina selected to be changed into Catwomen. Surprisingly most were older women, from twenty-five to forty. After talking to them, several lost their husband and children, a few were barren, but everyone had been through hard times and felt helpless. With this change, they will be stronger than three men and be masters of their own fate again.

They heard the stories of the ritual from Tina and her coven sisters, and expected nothing less… Meh, I'll just humor them with a light show. Five hours later, there were fifteen kitties more in the litter.

While they were getting used to their new body, I researched ways to counter Gaia. Soon I had a solution, but to try it out I had to be outside the Chamber. To fill my time I created an airship to collect the night elves from Norway, I started with the standard setup, only half shorter as normal, with extra force nodes for extra speed. At the sides and top, I installed nodes that sprayed flames, any frost wraith in a twenty-foot range will die from the heat. The pocket dimensions are all with rooms, a kitchen, storage space, and an airlock to allow access inside mid-flight, while the airco and heating will allow it to rise above the clouds in case of a storm. The guns were our standard ones, all in all, it is a fast ship designed for people transport and fast rescue missions.

By now I diverted too much from the story to predict the future, I have two major goals, they are to kill the Andregi in their homeworld, and get the elves on my side.

At night a herd of twenty-one cats in heat needed my full attention, my healing bracer did overtime fixing the scratches on my back. It sure was hard to fall asleep with twenty-one cats purring around me.

Xxxxx

We left the Chamber to meet Tina and deliver her new kitty-cats, they will help Berri and Tina, with our six Coven-cats to create a temple for Bast/Bastet. With Tina and her six magic cat sisters providing their feline signature, Berri and I created a magic stone for their Temple. With the help of the entire Keep, I let them do it for themselves. On Pelagia's' advice, married women and females that wanted big families should help out for the Bastet aspect, soldiers and boys that wanted to be warriors for the Bast aspect.

Once we arranged the start-up, the senior magicians and I discussed the Gaia problem. I started: "The Keep is fortified to the max below ground against normal and even Divine monsters, but I doubt it can stand a direct attack from a Primal goddess like Gaia. The only thing I can come up with is to absorb the attack with a power drain, but into what?"

Mira: "Frank, your power-stones convert matter into energy, can you create something that does the opposite? I would think to connect it to the shield, so any excess power is drained and converted to matter."

Cerise smiled: "That is a great idea Mira, but instead of connecting it to produce matter, we could connect it to the Altars of our Temples and sacrifice the excess energy to our Gods, every time a God attacks our Keep will give our Gods a free meal."

Elin: "That is a perfect solution, create absorption points, guide them to a collector, and divide them equally to the Altars. Cerise, we can expand it to the City through the new wall, we only need permission from the Prince and Red Conclave to install it."

Mara: "The prince will not be a problem, the Conclave however is going to view it as a hostile takeover. We can do our keep and give the idea to the conclave or offer to install it for them with the drain going to the Red Tower."

Avilla nodded: "We already took the seat of power from the priests, if we do it with the wizards as well… Even with the best intentions from us it will be viewed as a power grab. We can only suggest it to the Conclave, nothing more. In the worst-case Frank can rebuild the buildings, in that way he will own half the city after an earthquake."

"Alright, after lunch I do the Keep, Cerise shall inform the Red conclave of our offer or solution, I'll do it tomorrow if they want it done. Next on the list is God slaying weapons and defense against experienced magicians like the Faye for example. I will focus on the weapons but need ideas."

Elin responded: "We will research the anti-magic Frank, the Keep is well managed by our civilian leaders, so we can focus on the magic problems."

Avilla added: "Elin is right, remember the Night-Elves coming today to see if Aria is indeed pregnant. When they confirm the pregnancy you have a whole new block to rebuild to the composition of their native world, after they swear to you that is. I suggest you focus on the God shield for today, I will handle the Elves and call you when they are ready to swear in."

Xxxxx

The Night-Elves joined us at lunch, two of them took Aria for an examination of her and her quarters. Well...By the time lunch was done the Elves were jumping to swear fealty to me.

Serfina: "My Lord, we swear fealty to you, the conditions you demand are far less than the boons you grant to our Clan. We examined Aria and her quarters, both are far above what we expected, the magic is fine-tuned to our race, and the environment in her rooms is like in the homeworld. To solidify this however we need our Clan leader to do the swearing, I can only do this for my branch of the Clan, he currently is in the North fending off an attack from frost giants and winter wraiths."

"I designed a ship for such rescue actions, it needs to be equipped before we can fly it north. If we depart after dinner we can fly all night and arrive in the morning, depending we have a guide who knows the way and a crew to fly the ship. Ulla and her team will explain the spells and their functions we done on the ships, so you won't add conflicting spells on it. Besides that, there is time until after dinner to do some spell work of your own, Aria and Oromis will show the place."

Avilla: "When Berry is done with the temple and not too tired, will make the factory stones for your quarters, she can use the quarters of Aria for templates. Our lord needs to concentrate on Gaia's wrath for now."

Serfina: "We heard the rumors of the 'White Army' killing several Andregi army troops without losing a single soldier, even killing two of Gaia's children. Very impressive, although She will retaliate without a doubt."

"We are preparing for it as we speak. Select a crew and candidates for pilots to fly there, our best pilot is going to instruct them on the way there, I hear the Clan has a lot of wind mages, flying the ships is not that complicated, in return some of you can teach him to navigate on the stars and the weather patterns. It is also an opportunity to measure the range of the communicators."

Bjorn: "I informed Luka, he is on his way back right now, he needs at least an hour for a test flight of the new ship. Also My lord, Luka requested an enchanted pebble for a portal, that way the clan will arrive directly in the keep. If something happens on the way back, any decisions he makes won't risk the Clan."

"Luka is a smart kid, make it so, that is a worry less so prepare the pocket dimension we used last time. Warn me when Berri and Tina are done with their Temple, connecting the Altars needs to be done at the same time."

Xxxxx

I went outside to the wall, creating connecting points for absorbing all kinds of energies and forces that went above the stress level of the shield, each one is connected to a collector with eight outlets. The scary part of preparing is not knowing it will be enough or too much. Is Gaia use an earthquake or come in person? Send calamity monsters? Anyway, so far we are doing well, kicking ass all over the country without one casualty. This will not last I know but it is nice while it lasts.

The word came in that the cats were almost done with the Temple, while I was waiting for it I filled my time tinkering with my personal shield. Adding safeties against dispelling, poisoning through air, and most of all against illusions and mind attacks. I'll compare my solution against the ideas the girls come up with.

When the Temple of Bast/Bastet was ready, I asked the four girls to stand at their Goddess Altar to connect the Altars to the collector as a Sacrificial feed. With the connection done, Cerise informed me of the rejection from the Conclave to do the same with the city. Well… we can't save everyone, politics and egos can be the cause of the worst damage to humankind.

Xxxxx

Luka finished his test flight and listened to my final instructions.

"Luka, on the way back Loki is not going to be happy, he probably will send a storm in your path. If he does, beware of where he is guiding you to. When you think they are forcing you to land, instead go above the clouds to a high altitude and wait it out. Controlling storms takes a lot of power to maintain, so I guess it will last one or two days at most. You can use the time to learn from the night-elves and they will learn from you about the ship. Here are tree pebbles, the green one is for the mission, the red ones are for when you see towns or cities under attack. Have a safe flight and have fun."

Luka smiled at me: "Thank you my Lord, I will. The modifications the elves made are great, the ship flies smoother and handles better than before. If possible they can do the rest of our ships too."

Xxxxx

Once they left, I paid a visit to the Temple of … my daughter. It is weird to be a father of an Egyptian Goddess, my perception of what is normal crossed a lot of boundaries. I have no problem sending troops to fight other armies, I do not care much if people are getting killed as long they are not mine. We can not save them all, as a matter of fact, I already do too much, as the Japanese people say: a nail that stands out gets hammered down. And I stand out big time while the Gods have big hammers, Thor especially has a nasty one.

Tina was glowing when she showed me around, the Temple was next to Berri's and quite big too. It was divided into two sections, Bastet, the female side, focused on wives, consorts, concubines, fertility and babies. Bast's side was for the military, war and protection of our people. Our four Gods complemented each other in their aspects.

When I reached the altar, I felt my daughter's presence, letting me know how happy she was with her temple and us.

Tina: "She can not give us a blessing yet, but she marked everyone that helped and will do it once she is back in power. I can give the normal blessings though, the soldiers that got one said they can feel the difference already. We made her very happy today my love."

Xxxxx

That night we woke up with a terrible shaking of the Keep. Gaia arrived.