I knew I'd be able to convince Lili to willingly join us even if she was given the full truth. She was already pretty far down the path to being a villain, she just needed someone like me to push her further down it rather than someone like Bell who would pull her back.

I just didn't expect it to be this effective.

"Lili thinks that Hephaestus would be the best choice to kidnap and enslave," she explained with a smile. "Her ability to make magic weapons and armor is unmatched and will help you defeat many adventurers!"

Even accounting for the fact that I had picked up Alluring Whisper and had used it strategically to help convince her, her enthusiasm for our mission was definitely more than I expected. I thought there would be a bit of guilt and hesitance that would take at least a little while to work through, but instead she just seemed like an excited puppy. I suspected it was due to the extra Resonance that we supplied to the ritual.

Which was a fact that Asuna wasn't taking well. I had Ed fetch her for this conversation so she could be included. Keeping watch wasn't actually that important, I just hadn't wanted to get her too worked up and horny by watching or participating in the ritual. I would need her focused later.

But she hadn't participated in the conversation so far. She had been annoyed after I convinced Lili, and seeing just how on board she was after the capture ritual had only worsened Asuna's mood. She was sulking over by the wall, sitting on the ground.

"Hephy is pretty cute," I allowed. "Well protected though, they're a big Familia. Well, not that that matters much with our plan."

"Hephaestus is a woman in this world?" Maria commented, perking up.

Lili frowned. "Is she not in other worlds?" We had explained the whole multiverse and Company thing to her while waiting for Asuna to join us again. She didn't seem to fully understand it, but she was rolling with it for now, and she understood the important things, such as the fact that whoever we grabbed would be able to use their full powers without being sent back to Heaven.

"Typically Hephaestus is seen as male," I explained. "Though in the wider omniverse things like gender are pretty malleable, especially for mythological figures like gods and heroes." I shrugged. "So long as they're a girl here, that's all that matters though. I know about the big players. Freya, Loki, and Ishtar. Tell me about the smaller ones."

When the portal had opened to Danmachi I had taken a few minutes just to sit down and plan things out. Orario contained a veritable treasure trove of potential recruits and resources, but it also contained dangers. I enjoyed taking risks, but trying to do something like raiding the Loki Familia mansion to kidnap her wasn't a risk, it was downright suicidal considering the glut of high level Adventurers they had.

Sadly, I would have to wait before I could dominate Aiz by force. But I was looking forward to the day that it was viable.

But even so, the chance at grabbing a Goddess was far too juicy for me to pass up. I wanted to be able to give me and my future members Falnas, which were a great way to power up.

I didn't have any particular Goddess in mind though. Or rather, there were too many to choose from. One of the reasons I grabbed Lili, after confirming that we were still pretty early in the main canon timeline, which was easily done by finding a poster on a newsboard advertising the upcoming Monster Festival, was so she could tell me about the Goddesses I didn't know about. Giving myself more options seemed counter productive, but I was hoping that one of them would stand out more.

"Well, there's also Aphrodite," Lili continued. "Her Familia is moderately big, though she only has a few level 2 members. They could be stronger, but they're known for not spending much time in the Dungeon and instead indulging in pleasure at their home."

"Oooh, she sounds fun!" Maria commented.

"A literal sex goddess isn't a bad choice, no," I agreed. I pulled out my phone and looked her up in the Catalog to see what she looked like. "She's pretty cute too. But keep going."

"There's also Demeter. They're the largest agricultural Familia in Orario, providing the city with most of its high quality crops. They're not a combatant Familia, but they're large."

I kept scrolling through the officially listed Gods while she talked and I pulled up Demeters picture as well. "Speaking of large, look at those plots of land," I commented.

Maria looked over my shoulder. "Wow, her boobs are huge! She's a total MILF."

"Not sure a farmer is a good pick for us though," Ed pointed out. "We don't exactly have a lot of soil. Or sunlight."

"It would be kind of funny to bring her to the Stoneblock anyway, make her a parallel to her daughter," I mused. At least in my world's version of events, her daughter Persephone had been spirited away to the Underworld where she had to spend half of her days.

Asuna pulled herself out of her sulking and glared at me. "Don't you dare."

"That only makes me want to do it more, you know?" I replied easily with a smile. She grimaced and clamped her mouth shut. I chuckled and turned my attention back to my phone, closing the entry for her. "I'm not convinced though. She can apply a Falna, which is all we really need, but I'm not interested in starting a farm on the Stoneblock."

I scrolled another line down and my eye caught an unfamiliar face. Black hair with bangs that covered one eye, green eyes, and a slim and dainty figure only concealed by partially translucent green clothes.

"How about this one?" I asked Lili, turning the phone to show her. "Do you know anything about Dia?"

Lili's brow furrowed. "A little. If Lili remembers right, Dia has a small Familia that runs a cafe in the north-west section of the city. Lili doesn't know more than that…" Her shoulders slumped and her expression grew worried.

"If she's that small then that's understandable," I assured my newest member. I frowned as I looked back at her. "I don't recognize the name though. She must be pretty minor, or from an obscure pantheon."

"That's not her popular name," Asuna said. We all looked at her again. She had gone back to sulking, but now she was speaking up. "She's more commonly known as Hebe. She's the daughter of Zeus and Hera."

I sat up. "Wait, really? Lili, do you know if that's true here?" Zeus and Hera were big important names in Orario's relatively recent history, though they were defeated and run out of the city around fifteen years ago.

Lili shook her head. "Lili doesn't know. Lili only barely knows who she is. But she's pretty sure that Dia only descended recently, long after those two Familias were deposed."

"Hmm. Wait, Asuna, how did you recognize the name?"

"...once ALO started pulling more from real life mythology to generate new content, I did some research. Hebe came up then."

"Ah, after the Excalibur thing?" I recalled an event where the system controlling ALO's quests got a little out of hand and made a quest that drew heavily from Nordic myth that would have wiped out the map if they had failed it. "What else can you tell me about her?"

Asuna looked like she regretted speaking up as she sighed. "Not much. She's a relatively minor goddess. She's the cupbearer for the Olympian gods, the one who served them ambrosia. She's also the goddess of eternal youth and forgiveness, and is said to be the one responsible for keeping the gods young."

"Eternal youth, huh?" I said, a smile growing on my lips. "I like the sound of that. I've decided then, we're grabbing Dia."

"Wait, why?!" Asuna said, perking up in annoyance. "You can literally get everlasting youth for ten Credits! Why would you pick her over anyone else? Over the literal divine blacksmith!"

"Hey Lili, what happens to an Adventurer with a Falna that relies on over powered weaponry?" I asked.

She thought about it for a moment. "They would grow slower. A Falna grows faster the more effort you put in and the harder the tasks you accomplish. Lili has heard that Adventurers who rely on magic swords often struggle to grow stronger and end up dying when their sword breaks. They're best used as emergency weapons. Lili has one in her bag for that purpose."

"That's why I'm not grabbing Hephaestus," I said to Asuna. "It would hurt our growth."

"Bullshit! You could tell her to make weapons appropriate for our strength!"

"Okay, fair, you got me." I shrugged. "I was just trying to give you a practical reason, because you won't like my actual reason, which is just that I think that Dia is cuter. I don't want her to gain eternal youth, as you said I can get that easily. But I like the idea of owning a goddess of eternal youth. It appeals to me."

Asuna glared at me for a moment longer before sighing and letting her head droop. "Why am I still surprised? Whatever, do what you want."

"I will, thanks. But don't think I missed the fact that you wanted me to kidnap a goddess with hundreds of people depending on her that would have a devastating long term impact on the economy of the city and their ability to delve into the Dungeon if I took her. That's some very promising development on your part."

Asuna groaned. "I hate you. I hate you so much."

"Love you too Asuna," I replied with a grin. Then I turned to Lili. "There we go. That's your job then. I need you to track down Dia and grab something personal of hers, something conceptually tied to her. It's needed for the rituals I want to do."

Lili tilted her head. "Like… her comb or something?"

"Sure, that would work. Or a piece of her clothing, or something she uses every day. The more personal it is to her, the better. And I need you to be quick. Can you do that?"

Lili frowned, considering it, but nodded. "The cafe they run should be open. Lili isn't sure what she'll get, but she'll do her best."

I put a hand on her head, which was at about chest level for me. I wasn't used to being taller than others my age, but as a pallum, Lili was very short at a measly 110 cm despite her developed figure. I didn't hate it though. She seemed happy at my touch, pushing her head higher against my hand.

"I know you will. Also grab any personal possessions that you own that you want to take away from here with us. Once you come back with Dia's item, there won't be any time for detours."

"Lili doesn't have much besides what she carries. And the gems she was saving up. Lili will grab those."

"Good girl. Now go, and be quick."

Lili nodded and rushed out of the room. I turned to the others. "Alright. Asuna and Maria, you have until she gets back to do our shopping. Check back every hour. Ed, me and you need to expand the room a bit and make another ritual site. Capturing a goddess isn't easy, and there's some extra steps we need to take ahead of time."

Asuna sighed again, but she dutifully stood up and accepted the bag of local money I gave her for her shopping.

"Grab some raw metal and ores if you can," Ed added before they left. "Obviously food comes first, but if you have time or if you see some."

"Okay! I'll be back soon Master!" Maria said cheerfully before the two of them also left.

"Not sure if they'll come across any, but it's worth a look," I said with a shrug. "Now… let's come up with a ritual site for sealing Dia's divine power."

It took Ed and me about 45 minutes to finish the new ritual room, Maria and Asuna about an hour and a half to do the shopping, and Lili two hours before she returned. But when she did return, she was flushed and panting, but smiling.

"I- I've got it!" she said, holding up her objective in her hand.

"...is that a porn magazine?" I asked.

"It is!" Maria said excitedly.

Lili blushed and nodded. "Lili snuck into their house. All of them were already in the cafe so it was empty. When Lili was searching the goddess' room she found this under her bed. It's very used."

I took it from her and saw that she was right. The cover was creased along several lines and the edges of the page were frayed. I opened it up and started flipping through it. It was mostly nude pinup shots of various races. And, more surprisingly, both genders. A busty catgirl pawing at her tits was on the same page as a bulky dwarf handling his rod.

Of course, both were drawings rather than pictures, but they were fairly realistic considering they were porn. Or maybe I was just too used to hentai. I flipped through it some more, noting that a few pages were more creased than others, but none of it showed any actual sex, just nudes.

"Looks like our target goddess has a pretty wide taste," Ed commented as she looked over my shoulder.

"Dia is going to be more fun than I thought she would," I agreed with a grin.

"Another pervert," Asuna said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Fantastic."

I ignored her. "Good job Lili. This will work perfectly." It was too well used not to be a very important item for her.

Lili smiled. "Lili did her best!"

"That you did." I turned to the others. "Alright, so here's the plan. We have two rituals to do. First, we need to use Art of the Leash to compel her to come here to us. Then, as she's on the way here, we need to seal her Divine powers using the Art of Shackles."

Ed frowned. "Why that order? What happens if she arrives before we finish?"

"Because the Leash one is cheap, but the Shackle one isn't, and I'll need to destroy the Arcane Link during the Shackle one to get that extra boost in resonance," I answered.

"Wait, we're going to destroy the porn?" Maria said, alarmed. "But that's blasphemy!"

"It's simply the price we have to pay to make her mine," I replied. "I know it's hard. But we'll have to be strong and make sacrifices to achieve our goals."

"I'll always remember you, fantasy porno magazine," Maria said as she pretended to wipe a tear from her eye.

"Why are you sealing her powers?" Lili asked, bringing us back on track. "She can't use them."

"She's not allowed to use them," I corrected her. "But I don't think she'll be as willing as you were, and she might decide that being forced back to Heaven is better than letting me take her. And I have no interest in being smited."

Lili's eyes opened in realization and she nodded. "Neither does Lili."

"As for why we're not just capturing her from afar, two reasons," I continued. "First, she's too high level. We simply cannot get enough resonance in time to capture her without her physically being part of the ritual. Second, the Art of Enslavement is the only ritual that's not subtle. She'll feel it as soon as we start casting. She might not understand it, but if she gets even an inkling of what we're doing, she might choose to return to Heaven rather than allow us to finish. It would cost even more Resonance to target her from there."

"It's kind of crazy that we can still target her even if she does leave," Ed commented.

"Functionally, we can't. Not anytime soon anyway." We could summon her to us using the Arcane Link, even from the Stoneblock, but that was also very expensive in terms of resonance and came with its own issues. "Anyway, if she arrives early, that's fine. Asuna will be on guard duty again and can stop her."

"I'm sorry, you want me to stop her before you seal her powers?" Asuna asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Just delay her without threatening her. Her using her powers is a last ditch resort, so long as she doesn't feel like that's her only option, you'll be fine. Without her powers, her strength is that of an average mortal."

Asuna sighed. "Fine, fine."

"Once she is here and we're ready, we'll bind her up and then we'll do the Art of Enslavement, a slightly different version than the one we did with Lili." I continued. Of all the rituals I had unlocked, the Art of Enslavement definitely had the most variations depending on the Arcane Link, the duration, and the willingness of the target. Though those variations were all fairly similar in the broad strokes, being a three step process of baring them, cleansing them, and marking them as mine.

"Everyone know what they're doing?" I asked.

"Umm. Is Lili helping with the rituals?" she asked, raising her hand.

"The first one, yes. I won't be participating in that one so we'll need you to fill out our numbers. But the other one would require you to expend too much of your strength, and we'll need that later."

"You know, you still haven't told us what you have planned that has us in a rush like this," Asuna commented, sending me a flat stare.

"Isn't it more fun if it's a surprise?" I replied with a grin. Her expression didn't change. "You'll find out soon enough. Now, go ahead and go to your lookout spot. It should take us a bit less than a couple of hours to get through both rituals, including setup."

Asuna sighed and then turned around and left without saying anything further.

"She sighs a lot, doesn't she?" Lili commented.

"She's actually become a lot more cooperative lately," Maria says.

"Even protagonist level stubbornness can be broken down eventually," I commented. "But we'll worry about Asuna later. For now, let's get started on the luring ritual. Everyone strip down, you'll have to be naked for it."

Not a single one of them hesitated, which brought a smile to my face. I watched them undress, enjoying the show. The ritual requiring nudity meant that I couldn't do it without expending the charge that my Love Spot had been building up over the past several days, and I was saving that for Dia.

Thankfully it was a pretty simple and straightforward ritual and I had gone over it with Ed a few times while we were preparing. I was confident that she could handle it without me being involved.

I handed the porno magazine to Ed and sat back and watched as she placed it on the pedestal in the spiral section of the room. A bit of transmutation created a stone cage around it with three attached rings. Ed then took three lengths of coarse string, tied them to the rings, and then handed two of the lengths to Maria and Lili, giving them one each and keeping one for herself.

"The ritual is easy," Ed explained. "We just have to hold these taut and then walk in a circle around the pedestal. The string will wrap around the cage, meaning we'll be drawn closer to it as the string gets shorter. Once we reach the pedestal, we turn around and unwind it, and once it's unwound, we turn around and do it again, repeating that until it's done. We can go at whatever speed, but we have to move in sync."

Lili frowned. "What happens if we aren't in sync?"

"The ritual fails and we have to start over. We lose some time, and that's it."

That didn't seem to reassure Lili, judging from the way she looked at me. No doubt the time limit I had repeatedly mentioned was prominent in her thoughts. "Is there a way we can make sure we don't do that?"

"Oh, I've got an idea," I cut in. "I'll play a song from my phone. That will give you a rhythm to follow, which should help."

Ed nodded. "Great idea. Alright, everyone get in position. Just pull your string tight and make it straight, I've already measured everything out so that should put you in the right spot. We'll start when Morgan starts the music."

I gave them a few minutes to arrange themselves and confirm that they were ready before I pulled up Midnight Blue by Megumi Hayashibara and hit play.

Unfortunately none of them recognized the music and therefore didn't so much as bat an eye at it. Well, except for Lili, who had no notion of the technology of my era and was amazed by the music coming from my phone. But she started moving when the others did, only a half step behind them.

It took a second for them to actually sync up, but I felt the now familiar charge of resonance building in the air once they did. The footsteps were quiet, the music drowning out the sound of flesh against stone. The floor, grooved in spirals as it was, wasn't smooth enough for their steps to make much sound anyway.

Honestly it was kind of a boring ritual. As much as I enjoyed seeing them naked, even that got old when all they were doing was walking in a spiral motion. The most exciting moment was when their strings wrapped around the cage that was holding Dia's porn became fully wrapped around the cage and then had to turn around.

The resonance in the air continued to build as they walked though. There were a few moments where it stuttered as someone stumbled or moved too slowly, but thankfully the ritual seemed robust enough to have a bit of flexibility in it for mistakes that were quickly corrected. It was actually useful feedback, to know when something went wrong.

It reached a crescendo after about half an hour. No chants were needed for this one, no spoken instructions. This ritual did one thing and one thing only, draw its target to a location, which was the pedestal in this case, which was technically acting as a second Arcane Link for the location. We could have attached it to a person as well, or targetted a different location that we had an Arcane Link to, but there was no need in this instance.

Just like the ritual I had done with Ed to mess with Asuna's arousal, something that hadn't shown results yet, the resonance in the air was funneled into the Arcane Link, and through it to the distant Dia. I wasn't quite as connected to the ritual, so I didn't get that sense of it settling into her, but judging from the satisfied nod that Ed gave me, it went off without a hitch.

"Alright people, we don't have any time to waste," I said, stopping the music that had been looping. "Ed, move the Link over to the other ritual site. Lili, you won't be participating directly, but we do need your help getting it set up."

"Lili will help as best as she can!" Lili said, eager to follow my orders.

Ed undid the cage around the porno magazine and grabbed it, bringing it to the small extension we had made in the room. There she placed it on a different pedestal, one with a very different design.

The spiral pedestal had been just that, a cylinder of stone with a spiral pattern etched into it. Its simple shape was important to the Art of the Leash ritual. For the Art of Shackles ritual, we needed a different shape.

This one was a stack of cylinders, three of them that were slightly smaller than the one they stood on, topped with a triangular platform. Thin columns rose from the three points of the triangle to support the mirrored ceiling of the platform's floor.

Ed placed the magazine inside of it. We could all clearly see it through the open flat edges of the semi-framework prism, and facing each of those open edges was a stone chair growing from the floor. Ed and I each sat in one, and Maria followed suit.

"Okay, Lili, what you need to do is to take these handcuffs and attach our ankles to the chair," I told her, pointing at the handcuffs on the ground next to mine. "And I need you to hold on to the key. We can't be able to free ourselves."

Lili frowned a little, brow furrowing due to lack of understanding, but she didn't question me and she did what I said. She took the handcuffs and attached one end to my ankle, which I had to take my boots off to accommodate, and the other end to the chair. Then she did the same for Ed and Maria, who were both still naked.

"Now what?" she asked when she finished.

"Now you get dressed and tell Asuna that we've finished the lure ritual. We need one hour to do the next one. Come back once you've told her, we'll need you to release us once we're done."

"Okay!" She hesitated for a moment and then quickly started putting her clothes back on.

While she did, I turned to the others. "This ritual is also very straightforward. We want to restrict Dia from using her godly powers, her Arcanum. We can't seal them directly, but what we can do is place a mental block on her to prevent her from reaching for them."

"The Art of Shackles has two versions. We can require an action, or forbid it. For the forbidding one, we need to set up the Arcane Link where we all have a clear line of sight on it. Then we need to, while restrained in a way that we can't escape from, we need to perform something similar to the action we want forbidden. Doesn't have to match exactly, just so long as it's in the same broad strokes. Maria, just shift to your Magic Key form and stay there. Ed, grab something you can repeatedly transmute. I'll use a cheap spell. Endurance is key here. Unfortunately, we'll need to perform it for an hour."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Ed said.

Maria nodded in agreement. "I'll probably be tired afterward, but the ritual for capturing Dia will probably bring me back to full."

"Alright then. Let's get started."

The ritual to seal Dia's powers was somehow even more boring than the one to lure her here. Ed repeatedly clapped and transmuted a chunk of stone she grabbed into different shapes. Maria just shifted into her bigger and bustier form and idly touched herself, playing with her own boobs. I used a simple spell, without the aid of the Tome, to make my own chunk of stone float in a circle around me.

The resonance in the air built slowly, but it had a direction to it this time. Rather than filling the air and space around us there was a sense of it flowing from us and into the space within the triangular prism, where it collected and condensed. It didn't flow into the arcane link though. Not yet.

Lili came back a few minutes after we started and quietly sat a short distance away, watching us curiously. Her eyes widened as she got her first example of our abilities. My magic, Maria's changed appearance, and Ed's transmutation.

The time ticked by slowly. Thankfully the Float spell was the cheapest spell I had, and using it was no different from just walking around. It wasn't restful, but it would barely drain my stamina, which I would need later.

As we approached the hour mark I felt the resonance reach a critical point, and I noticed that the Arcane Link, the pornography magazine, was starting to smoke slightly. As I watched, the resonance started to pour into it as the ritual began to finish. But doing so burned the magazine further, the edges of it turning into ash that floated away and dissipated into nothing.

Soon, after just a few moments, all of the resonance had passed through the book, which had disintegrated entirely, leaving not a trace of it behind. The ritual ended, and I felt that internal confirmation that it had correctly settled into the target.

"It's done," I announced, dropping my magic and grabbing my levitated bit of stone before it could fall out of the air.

Maria shifted back to her smaller form, her features shrinking, as she sighed tiredly. "Rest in peace, beloved porn."

Ed rolled her eyes. The final shape of the stone she was playing with was actually a series of interconnected rings. It looked like one of those metal puzzle toys, though more complicated than any that I had ever seen. "We don't really need porn, do we?" she pointed out. "You're getting laid on the regular after all."

"Porn is still something to be respected and treasured," Maria asserted. "It's not about getting off. It's about the beauty of sexuality."

I ignored them and turned to Lili. "Come let us out now," I instructed her. "We need to get ready for Dia's arrival."

After Lili freed us I sent her to go tell Asuna to let Dia pass and Ed and Maria started getting dressed again. But less than a minute later the door slammed open again.

"She's here!" Lili announced.

Ed and Maria, still half naked, froze before they frantically started throwing their clothes on faster. I, still dressed, turned to Lili. "Did you tell Asuna to let her through?"

Lili nodded. "She was holding her up, but when she saw me she let her go. I think she's staying up there. Dia will be here-"

Before Lili could even finish her sentence, Dia appeared behind her. "Excuse me, will you let me in, please?" she said to Lili standing in the door.

"Move aside," I ordered Lili. "Ed, the door."

Lili stepped into the room and to the side. Dia immediately stopped paying any attention to her and also entered the room. Ed, still pulling her jacket back on, closed the door behind her and used a bit of transmutation to turn it back into a normal wall. That sealed us in, but also hid us from anyone that might have been following Dia that might have gotten past Asuna.

I kept my focus on Dia though. The Art of the Leash was a pretty cheap ritual so I had gone a bit above and beyond to perform a ritual that had a bit of extra resonance to make the effect stronger. I wasn't sure how well it worked, or even the specifics of how people reacted to the compulsion to travel to a certain place. I hadn't had time to test it. So I made it a little stronger, just to be safe.

I didn't have long to observe her, but from the way she asked Lili to move, she seemed fully cognizant of her surroundings. She was just laser focused on getting to where she felt compelled to go, which was the pedestal in the middle of the spiral ritual site. She didn't so much as glance at any of us, or anything else in the room, until she reached the pedestal.

Once she did, she came to a stop in front of it, staring down at it. Then she blinked and looked around. "Oh. Oh my. Where is this place? Why did I come here?"

Despite the circumstances, her voice didn't sound overly concerned. Confused, for sure, but more to the degree that you would expect from someone who entered a room only to forget what they wanted there.

"Greetings, honored Goddess," I said with a smile. "I was the one to invite you here. I hope you'll forgive me for the strange method I used to do so."

"That was you? I see. I wish you would have chosen a better time for it. The cafe was very busy when I left. But oh well. What is it that you called me here for?" She looked around, taking note of the multiple ritual sites. "This is a rather strange place."

I exchanged glances with the others. She was much more calm than expected. I thought she'd get angry or scared once the compulsion ran its course, but she wasn't, at all. And as far as I could tell, that had nothing to do with either of the rituals we had done. I could feel that the block on her using her power was there, but I also instinctively knew that it didn't have any other effects, and the Leash effect had faded. Her reactions were all natural.

"My apologies, time is short for us and we couldn't afford to wait," I replied. I was going to give her a chance to join willingly, so I figured that I might as well be polite. "I called you here for a simple reason. I want you to be mine."

She tilted her head. "Yours? What do you mean?"

"I mean I've come to Orario looking for a goddess to capture. I need someone who can give Falnas to all of my minions. And you're the one that I decided that I wanted the most."

"Ah. I'm afraid I'll have to decline. I'm not interested in expanding my Familia at this time. I'm very flattered that you would choose me out of all of the deities in Orario though. If I ever change my mind, I'll be sure to let you know." She gave me a kind smile.

But I shook my head. "You misunderstand me. I do not wish to join your Familia. I want you to join mine, under my control, as my loyal slave." I summoned my Tome to my hand, ready to cast.

She frowned, the friendly expression slipping from her face. It was the strongest negative emotion that she had displayed so far. She looked around the room again, eyes stopping on the ritual altars, on the other individuals, and the spot on the wall that used to be a door. Finally, she looked back at me, disappointed.

"I see. You're a very naughty child, you know?"

"I'm quite aware. Now, are you going to agree? Or are we doing this the hard way?"

"I'm afraid that I shall be resisting. I cannot leave my children behind, nor give up my freedom."

"A shame. Wire Lock."

A magic circle appeared beneath Dia's feet and conjured strands of magic wires shot up from it to wrap around her. She didn't even have a chance to resist before she was bound completely. She probably would have fallen over if I hadn't kept her propped up using the wires.

"I implore you not to do this," she said as I dragged her over to the capture ritual site. "I don't know how you mean to do what you said, but taking action against a goddess like this will not go unnoticed. If you stop now, I shall act as if it never happened."

"I'm willing to take that risk," I said. "Maria, get in position. Ed, shackle her up. Lili, just sit back and watch."

I positioned Dia up against the pole in the center of the ritual altar and then shifted the wires around her to free her arms. Ed approached her a little nervously, but she still grabbed Dia's wrists and handcuffed them together. Then she lifted Dia's hands up as high as she could reach, which wasn't very but I pretended not to notice, and transmuted the handcuffs into the pole.

"What exactly is it that you intend to do?" Dia asked, looking nervous. "It appears to be some kind of magic, but I know of no mortal magic that can affect a god, even one suppressing their power."

"It's magic alright," I replied as Ed then transmuted shackles around Dia's ankles to secure her feet against the ground, legs slightly spread, and room for them to spread further. "I'm not sure it's mortal in origin though. It's complicated."

Ed finished securing her and then stepped back into position. I took up my spot as well, the three of us in the same spots. Lili quietly watched from outside of the circle. The ritual site had been set up specifically for the three of us performing it, and there wasn't a way to add her into it without completely redesigning it, and it wouldn't have given much of a benefit anyway.

"I… can't convince you not to do this, can I?" Dia asked.

"You could agree," I said. "We still have to do a ritual, but it'd be a lot nicer and easier."

She was quiet for a moment, and I thought that maybe she would give in. But then she shook her head. "No. I will not allow myself to be enslaved." She looked up at me with determination.

Determination that quickly shifted into confusion. "...what? What's going…" She sounded dazed and confused.

I smiled. "See, I was afraid you might try to use your Arcanum. So I sealed your power before you arrived. There's no escaping my clutches now, Goddess. It's far too late for that."

She still looked confused, but the most prevalent emotion in her expression was fear. "How could you do that?" she breathed. "That's… that shouldn't be possible."

My smile widened. The harder she tried to fight the compulsion to not use her divine powers, the stronger it grew. It wouldn't last forever, but it would last more than long enough for us to complete the capture ritual.

"Let's get started," I declare. And with that, with just my intention, resonance started building in the air.

The first two steps of this version of the ritual were essentially identical to the one we used on Lili. So I approached the bound Dia and used a small knife that Ed had prepared for me to cut her top off of her.

It was a strange garment. The core of it seemed to be a bikini-like top that supported and concealed her breasts. From it hung a section of sheer green fabric that stopped above her midriff, and that same fabric actually went up all the way to a collar on her neck and in long sleeves down to her wrists. Technically speaking, she was pretty well covered aside from the exposed stomach, but since the fabric was so see-through, she wasn't actually very concealed at all.

The fabric was easy to cut though, which was good because I had to carefully cut long lines down the sleeves so I could pull the garment off of her while she was still bound. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach high enough. Ed might not be very tall, but I was even shorter.

Dia tensed as the knife ran so close to her skin and tore her clothes, but I was careful not to let the blade touch her. I wasn't into knife play or unnecessarily hurting my own toys. And just like I had with Lili, I took one article of clothing off before taking it outside of the circle.

Once I took my position again, I took a moment to appreciate Dia's exposed chest. Her boobs were on the smaller side, about proportionally as big as Maria's were, maybe a little bigger, and smaller than Ed's, who was closer to her in height. The way her body curved though was strange, a halfway point between an adult woman and a girl that was still developing. But that was to be expected of a goddess of eternal youth. She was beautiful either way.

Dia frowned slowly as she looked down at her state of undress… but she didn't seem much more concerned than she had been before. Then again, she was a Greek goddess. A bit of nudity probably didn't mean much to her, especially compared to the larger concerns she likely had at the moment.

Ed was next, and she once again decided to go for the least sexy option of removing her shoes. Well, least sexy if you didn't have a foot fetish, which I didn't think any of us had. Dia's sandals were thin, though they traveled up her ankle a bit, and Ed had to work around the shackles to get them off.

Once she did, it was Maria's turn. Maria walked up to Dia and looked her over, clearly trying to decide which article of clothing she wanted to go for next. After a moment of deliberation, she used her own knife to cut her skirt, which was largely composed of that same sheer fabric of her top and also concealed very little, and took it off of her.

"My clothes…" Dia mourned as she watched Maria take away her ruined skirt.

"We can fix them later," I assured her as I approached. I also took a moment to contemplate my choices. Then I shrugged and went for her panties, which were a dark green color, but otherwise fairly plain. A quick cut with my knife cut the side of it and I pulled them off to reveal her hairless snatch.

"This is a strange ritual," Dia commented as I walked away. "I've never felt magic like this. Nor have I seen a ritualistic undressing before."

"You're taking this pretty calmly," Ed commented as she approached and started removing her light green thigh high socks.

"Am I?" Dia replied. "I'm worried and scared, but I don't know how I should be acting. I don't think there's anything I can do to stop you, either. Bound and without my Arcanum, I am at your mercy."

Ed didn't reply to that as she finished taking off Dia's socks and returned to her position. There wasn't any despair in Dia's voice, nor would I call her tone apathetic. But there was a sense of acceptance. She wasn't giving in, but she wasn't fighting either. She was just experiencing it as it happened.

Now that she was completely undressed, I moved the ritual to the next step. "You have been bared to us, your entire being exposed to us by our hand. We see you. Now we wash away your previous connections."

For a willing capture, the cleansing step only required a bit of ceremonial washing. But for someone who was unwilling, more was needed.

I didn't go to the trough of water that we had prepared earlier and used for Lili. Instead I lifted the Tome and used one of the spells I had stolen from Montmorency. "Create Water."

A large globe of water appeared above Dia's head. She looked up at it, brow furrowing, and then I let it drop on her, instantly soaking her with water. She gasped as it washed over her, glistening over her nude body and dripping onto the ground. Her long black hair clung to her, a mess from the rush of water.

"I can't say I expected that," she commented as she shivered. "Is there more?"

"Yes," Ed said as she walked over to the trough. She opted for a simple bucket that she dipped into it to fill, and then flung it at the bound Goddess. She braced herself that time, though there wasn't much she could do besides avoid breathing any of it in.

Water covered the ground, a good chunk of Ed's bucket having missed Dia, but that was fine. We felt the resonance tick up. It still counted.

Ed handed the bucket to Maria before taking her place once more, and Maria repeated what Ed had done. Neither had fancy water magic to conjure it like I did. Dia looked at me, wet bangs still covering one of her eyes. Even with Communication Talent bolstering my already good ability to read expressions, reading hers was difficult. I had expected more fighting, more fear, more protest.

But I wasn't going to complain. Apparently I got lucky and chose a docile Goddess. That suited me just fine. Once Maria stepped back into her position after putting the bucket away, I continued the ritual.

"You have been cleansed of your past connections," I declared. "Now, we form your new ones, to us, where you belong."

Dia maintained eye contact with me as the three of us approached her. The feeling in the air changed as the resonance shifted to the next part of the ritual. This part was the same as Lili's capture in essence, but not in practice, and not in a duration.

She needed to be marked as mine much more thoroughly.

So I pulled up my skirt, as the skirt of my Barrier Jacket was tighter and harder to just flip upward, and pulled down my panties, revealing my cock that had built up its Love Spot charge for four entire days.

The effect was similar to the combo of Maria's Succubus Baptism and the default Love Spot, but with the power of Love Spot alone, even when used against literal divinity. Dia's eyes were immediately drawn downward to it as they widened. Her jaw literally dropped, and for several seconds all she could do was stare at it.

"That's… an actual penis?" she breathed. "On you? Why? Why is it so magnificent?"

"I'm actually a boy," I said with a grin. "And this is what I'm going to use to make you mine."

She didn't seem to get it at first, the haze of Love Spot making it hard for her to think properly, but it only took a moment for a look of realization to appear on her face. "O-oh!" she stammered. "Umm. You… I've never-"

I didn't let her finish, and instead grabbed her legs, spread them apart some more, and then lined myself up before I thrust into her. Sexual Calibration ensured it slid in painlessly despite the lack of foreplay, and judging from the strangled cry of pleasure that forced its way out of her throat, it ensured that it still felt good for her as well.

"Aaaaah! Ah! You-!" she wrangled her voice into something akin to words before giving up and panting.

"Me," I agreed. And then I started thrusting.

She pulled at her restraints, the chains rattling, but whether she was tensing up from pleasure, trying to get away from me, or just trying to escape in general, I couldn't tell. But a goddess without her divine powers was weak, and Ed's restraints easily held.

Dia slowly grew more and more wet as I fucked her, but she remained impossibly tight the entire time. I had never fucked a pussy like hers. It wasn't necessarily the most amazing experience, but it was different in a way that was hard to put into words.

I didn't worry too much about it. I would have plenty of time to experience it and figure it out. I just focused on making the two of us feel as good as possible.

Something Maria and Ed helped with. While it was my part that was the most important, they needed to be at least a little involved as well. Maria reached between me and Dia and cupped the goddess' petite boobs. Ed ran her non-metallic hand down the goddess's ass and thigh while she leaned in and planted a kiss on Dia's shoulder.

"This- this is- aaaaah!" Dia cried out, her exclamation echoing in the small stone room as she climaxed. The resonance in the air built up even further. Strictly speaking, her enjoyment wasn't necessary, but I was pretty sure this was her first time having sex, at least in a mortal body. Her porn magazine indicated that she was interested in sex, but how heavily it was used implied that most, if not all, of her experience was solo. Her cut off words from earlier only confirmed that fact.

Dia's climax caused her insides to tighten even further, and a few more thrusts had me reach my orgasm as well. I let it happen, encouraging it to occur even faster, as I leaned forward to kiss her.

She made a muffled noise of surprise as my tongue pushed past her lips and entered her mouth as my cum filled her womb. Her body jerked slightly, as if she was trying to react to both simultaneously, and instead she just went limp against me.

The third part of the capture ritual could be done in multiple ways, but the important aspect that connected all of them was introducing my bodily fluids to the Arcane Link or target. Kissing worked with my saliva, but filling or covering them with my cum worked even better. And of course, I could easily do both.

The ritual didn't end there though. For many targets, that would be enough. Quite a bit of resonance had been built up through our actions, but this was a goddess that we were trying to capture. Even more was needed.

So even as I came, I didn't stop thrusting my hips. I kept kissing her, kept fucking her, kept cumming inside of her. And over the next twenty or so minutes, her reaction shifted. Her struggles died down and ceased, and then she started truly enjoying it, not just physically, but emotionally as well. She kissed back when I kissed her. She gyrated her hips, one of the few movements she could make while restrained, as I pounded into her tight core. She moaned when Maria played with her nipples, or when Ed kissed her neck. She panted as I fucked her, and she looked at me with clouded eyes filled with arousal and love.

Finally, after her seventh creampie, the ritual reached a crescendo. Dia's eyes flew open as the built up energy was channeled through me, flowing from my core and into her through my dick, where we were connected. She orgasmed as it did, throwing her head back as she let out the loudest and sweetest moan yet. Her body shuddered within her restraints, and when it passed, her body fell limp, held up only by her restraints.

The ritual was done, the energy settling into her. Just like it had with Lili, though I wasn't sure the pallum had noticed, it all focused on a point on her lower stomach, just above her womb, and formed the shape of my icon, a witch's hat, as a tattoo there.

I pulled out of her, causing her to shiver slightly, and tucked my cock away as I stepped back and gave her a chance to recover. Maria and Ed let go of her as well, moving away a bit. She was panting, her modest chest heaving as she caught her breath. Cum dripped from between her legs and started slowly traveling down her thigh.

Once she seemed to have recovered her breath somewhat I stepped up to her again and lifted her head up. Her one uncovered eye focused on me, her wet hair still clinging to her. "How do you feel?" I asked.

She stared at me for a couple moments, collecting her thoughts. And then she smiled. "Sex is even better than I imagined."

I let out a laugh. "I made the right choice picking you, didn't I? Well, how do you feel about leaving your 'children' behind and coming with us?"

Her smile turned a little sad. "It's a shame, but they'll be able to manage without me. The cafe is doing well, and they're good kids. But I came down to this world to enjoy myself, and I think I will enjoy myself much more by your side."

"I can promise you that much," I said with a grin. "Ed, let her out and then go open the door again so Lili can go fetch Asuna. We've got things to do."

Maria sidled up to me as Ed released Dia. "What are we doing? It's still the afternoon right? You said there are a lot of cute girls here, so are we going after them? Or maybe doing a mission?"

"A mission is precisely what we're doing," I explained. I watched as Ed quickly repaired Dia's clothes with a flash of transmutation and then handed them to the now freed Goddess. She then went over to the wall to let Lili out. "We'll take a quick break to eat and have Dia give me and Asuna a Falna, and I'll update Lili's as well."

I was pretty sure I could have Dia overwrite Soma's Falna and replace it with her own, since Lili was now mine and not Soma's, so we didn't need his permission. But we only had a bit over ten hours left in this world, and I needed every minute of that.

"Then you and Ed will bring her back to the Stoneblock while I take Asuna and Lili to do a very important mission."

Delving the Dungeon
Description: Your time may be limited, but there's a trove of inspiration for your dungeon right underneath your feet. Why don't you explore it as much as you can? Reach Floor 13 of the Orario Dungeon.
Reward: Dungeon perk
Bonus Objective #1: Kill the Goliath of Floor 17, with only your retinue members participating in the fight.
Bonus Reward #1: Spawner perk
Bonus Objective #2: Reach Floor 18 of the Orario Dungeon
Bonus Reward #2: Unique Orario Dungeon Theme

"We're going to speedrun the Dungeon."

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AN: I'm sure some people are going to be annoyed at my choice of goddess. To be clear, Dia isn't an OC. She's just a side character from a mobile game that was not very popular, never got translated, and was shut down pretty quickly. Why'd I pick her? Because I'm a sucker for unexplored side characters I guess, and since I can't find any archives of the game, she's pretty much a blank slate that I can do whatever I want with. It's certainly not the first time I've done that. But also her domains genuinely felt like the best match for Morgan, and she'll be fun, I promise.

Three rituals in one chapter was perhaps a lot, but that's what Tantric Arts is about. If you want to capture a goddess, you gotta put in the work, even if the work means multiple setup rituals to make it safe/viable. I hope you all found them as interesting to read about as I did in coming up with them. I put a lot of thought into the symbolism and 'logic' behind them. I promise not every ritual will get this level of detail. Just the new ones.

One more chapter in this world. Nope, we're not getting more captures. They're not a priority when we can open a Dungeon Entrance to the world at any time we want and lure in the people we want. The priority is definitely on the limited time mission that gives us the rewards we want, including a unique one. Dungeon Themes are new to my rules and will be explained later.