“Welcome home, Demigoddess Emily,” a woman in my room greets me. She has light brown eyes and long, reddish hair.

“’Home’ is an interesting word to use for this place, Arielle,” I reply. Arielle is like an artificial intelligence, or ‘A.I.’ as it is called in Everencia. An A.I. is a robot made of electrical and mechanical parts, but not Arielle. Arielle is made of flesh, bone, and real, human blood. She is not animated, and I definitely did not use someone else’s body to make her. Everything about her is synthetic, something my mother found the key to many, many years ago with Ysella. Arielle has a human brain with a magically-created perception system, personality, and conscience. I made her the way she is and I gave her the hidden flaws she has so that I could, essentially, create a whole new human being. I like to think I did a good job.

“You don’t think of this place as your home? Where is home then, Emily?”

“I told you a few days ago that I still think of Ridgewood as my true home.”

“That’s right, you did. I apologize.” Don’t apologize to me, Arielle. I have given you a limited memory system, one with conscious, subconscious, and unconscious sections. Because of that, you tend to forget things like any real Human or Elf would. I’m not going to tell her that, though.

“Is your mind on something else today, Arielle?”

“It is indeed. I overheard your conversation with Mademoiselle Lucey, Emily.”

“Mm, what part of it, if I may ask?” I check to make sure the doors are closed and locked before I begin to undress. To my delight, Arielle turns away with a small blush.

“Pardon me, Lady, but I am still in the room.”

“My apologies, Arielle, I’ll be more conscious of that in the future.” I make her see a curtain from my neck down with illusions. “You can look now.”

She turns and her face returns to a light color. “I heard there was a party that you would be attending. I wish to accompany you. After all, these rooms confine me so.” I love the accent I gave her, which is modeled after a mad alchemist my mother associated with, Nimor. I hated the man, but his punctuality and language was quite pristine.

“Are you sure that is a good idea, Arielle? What if someone tries to harm you?”

“I am quite capable of defending myself, you will find.”

“Do you have something to wear?” She is currently in a casual gown, one that I wore to one of Ascentia’s many gatherings in the past.

“We have the same body type, so I was thinking, if you don’t mind, I would like to wear something of yours there.” Not completely true. Her curves are slightly bigger than my own, which is something I don’t like much about myself, how I’m rather… small. I tend to get jealous, sometimes, of how Yhanna is so… that’s unimportant right now.

“Now, I can’t tell you that you have to stay here, although… you are a very special woman, Arielle. If something were to happen and we were separated, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.”

“I-I have something for that!” she exclaims. She takes out a small item from her pocket that has a red glow in the center.

“Where did you get that?”

“I made it… in the workshop.” Remarkable, she is so much more intelligent than I initially thought.

“Tell me what it does and how it works.”

She lifts it up, then walks to me. As she gets closer, the red light glows brighter. “It is attuned to your very essence, Emily. I can use it to make sure I can always find you.”

Now, that is actually amazing. However, it could bite me in the rear should it leave her hands. I drop the curtain illusion, now dressed in a dark blue, long-sleeved sundress. After I step over, I take the item in my hands and put it down on the desk nearby. “Tell you what, Arielle. Don’t make any more devices that can track me down and you are permitted to go to the festi- party with me tonight.”

She nods, but frowns. “Did I do bad?”

I shake my head. “No, not at all… I just can’t have my enemies knowing how to find me. You are brilliant, Arielle. Stay that way for me.”

Arielle smiles. “Thank you, Emily. May I be alone to prepare myself?”

I return the smile. “You may be alone to freshen up, of course. Meet us in the foyer when you are ready to go.” I step out of my room and go towards the bathroom. Inside, I slip out of the dress and start the water faucet. I don’t mind what the temperature is since I can change it with Pyromancy or Aquamancy, which is one of my favorite perks. My bathwater and drinks are never too hot, never too cold. Let’s see some technology do that kind of magic in just a few seconds.

After I settle into the tub, I let my hair down and soak it in the water. I just recently bought some serums for my hair called ‘shampoo’ and ‘conditioner’ from Everencia. Apparently, they are supposed to thoroughly clean it and make it silky smooth, which is what I usually go for. There is so much in this world that is advancing, I can hardly keep up. Anytime I visit my Rescued (former) workers, many children who came to my fortress for refuge that I employed and took care of, they tell me how I’m getting old, yet I still look so young. Thank you, Mother, for this blessing of a body. Sadly, though, my mind continues to age. As long as this body doesn’t fail me, however, I can continue on as long as I want to. Well, as long as I can before I’m dragged to Ascentia, scraping at the ground with my nails to find just one more Descentian god to defeat.

“Emily, too hot!” I hear Luce call from the door. I open my eyes and see that the entire bathroom is extremely foggy from the hot water. My magic does many things passively for me, one of which is moderate the amount of heated energy I am taking in. The water could be boiling, which it damn near is, and I would still feel like it is lukewarm, which is how I like it.

“It’s perfect!” I call back, though I still lower the temperature. Why was I allowing it to become so hot? There was still quite a bit I needed to learn about regarding my mind, body, and magic. I wasn’t thinking of men or other things that make me angry… so I’m not sure what got it so heated. Either way, I guess it’s time to actually get myself ready for the party. I let the water drain and when done, I get up to dry myself off. My body is irregularly redder because of the hot water, but that happens more often than I should allow it to, so I don’t mind much. I get out of the tub and step in front of the mirror, getting a good look at myself. I'm not big or overly small, just… petite.

I guess my body isn’t all bad. The worst of it all is my eye, which is completely black. The only white in it is from light shining off it, and it has veins around it that are blackening as well. What Lucey said earlier about me further corrupting myself was about me reverting back to a Void creature. Something I should mention is that I live in the body of Allu’s, who used to be Ulla, old body. He (before was ‘she’) went into a coma after an accident and I lost my original body when I was a commander in my mother’s army. She transferred my consciousness into Ulla’s body with Lucelle’s blessing since she was her sister. I lived on with Ulla’s spirit until she was taken from me by a Descentian god. I defeated him, took her back, and requested that Goddess Yhannason create a new body for her. She ended up coming out as Allu, a handsome Ascentian man who now loves me, go figure. That, along with how every spirit has a ‘carnal’ form, a form that the spirit is drawn to upon achieving certain spikes of power, is how I can revert to a Void creature if I wanted to. However, I see no need to have world-breaking power at time.

“Jeez, what took you so long?” Lucelle asks as I walk into the foyer all dolled up in the dress and makeup. My hair is up in a side ponytail with a decent lock covering my right eye, the black one. I thought I’d hide it if I wanted any chance of having conversations with strangers tonight.

“What, a girl can’t make sure she’s perfect?” I reply.

Allu, gazing at me, says, “You definitely nailed it, Emily.” He is dressed in a shirt and tie with a coat over his arm. Lucelle is wearing some rather fancy-looking robes with her hair up in a messy bun. Arielle, to my side, has my bright red empire dress on with her hair in a long-and-wavy style. Perfect, I will be able to pick her out of the crowd easily.

“Emily, are you sure she’s fine coming?” Lucelle asks me, looking to Arielle.

“I’m sure. Don’t worry,” I add as I put a hand on Arielle’s shoulder. “She won’t leave my sight, right, missy?”

She is giddy about finally leaving the Void home. “Yes, of course, Demigoddess. I can’t wait to see all the different people and sights.”

“Good. I’m going to go open the Beacon,” I say before turning. “Don’t rush yourselves!” I get back to the planning room and set the Beacon to connect to Elyse’s kingdom. It looks like a small triangle on a tall pedestal, rising to about my waistline. I put in the instructions and the rift opens. The rift looks like a wide doorway made of swirling gray stars, like the background (or sky) of the Void. I’m not super excited about going to see Elyse. She is a Fairy who rules as the Empress over her empire that spans a good portion of Mercelon. I saved her once before and she has definitely helped me a bit in the past, but we haven’t exactly been talking lately. I don’t know why, but I think it has something to do with the unopened letters on the desk in my bedroom.

“Ready,” I say as they all walk in. I take Arielle’s hand and pull her to the side. “Remember,” I whisper, “you will stay within sight of one of us the whole time.”

She nods, “Yes, I understand well.”

“Wonderful.” I smile at her and nudge her to the rift. The four go through and I follow right after, stepping out onto the wooden floor of Elyse’s castle. I shut the rift behind us and look around. “Looks the same as always.”

“Some places don’t get with the times as quickly,” Lucelle says.

Iyo speaks up, “I wouldn’t be so sure. Hear that?” She steps over to the door. She’s right, there was some loud, unfamiliar music playing somewhere in the castle. It was like if you had drums and some kind of robot making a bunch of noise, though it was pleasantly rhythmic.

“Let’s not keep them waiting, then,” I say. We get out of the beacon room and go down the halls to the ballroom, which has all colors of lights shining in it. Other than that, it is dark and the music makes it feel like some kind of Fairy seance. We are immediately greeted by some guards disguised as partygoers with their black suits and ties.

One, which has a cord going from the breast of his coat to his ear, puts two fingers to that ear and says something out loud, though I can’t hear because of how loud the music is. He gestures for us to go out into the… what would you call it, ‘party grounds’? No, ‘dancefloor’ since everyone is dancing on it. I let the other four go off on their own and I curl around the side of the floor in search of someone: Elyse. Elysehwyr gets to me quite often, right in the nerves. She and I are sort of opposites, but like a negative and positive charge created by a conjoining effort between Aeromancy and Pyromancy, opposites tend to attract… figuratively in the sense of the two of us. A nemesis, of sorts, of mine stole Elyse’s life essence- her spirit- from her a few years ago before I started my god-hunting campaign. I saved her from a slow, painful death and she helped me keep my fortress functioning with my abandonment of it. We work together and she likes to think of us as friends, so I like to keep that relationship up. After all, if I ever needed serious help, her father is very powerful; it's nice to have friends in high places.