Undine and Sylph continued to put out fires while John listened to what the three powerful elementals had to say. For one, it was obvious they were there without a proper reason. They had seen an opening to switch over to this Guild Hall they had heard so much about and taken it. It was raw curiosity, nothing more. It also turned out that both Juniel and Hemklia were actually corrupted elementals. In other words, they were elementals who had previously been under contract, evolved in a bad way and became tainted in the process. The Lorylim hadn’t permanently sunken their claws into them, they hadn’t even gotten infected, it was just proximity that had left some mental scars.

While Hemklia seemed rather content with her state and wore her foul character on her sleeve, Juniel appeared to have more conflicting feelings of the matter. Regardless, neither were open to tell him more than just the basics and weren’t willing to look at themselves as damaged goods.

John wasn’t about to start a counselling session, so he let them believe what they wanted. Him bothering to try fixing them depended entirely on whether he found the time and whether they would stay. Mending what had been broken by Lorylim corruption was a difficult task at the best of times. It could be possible, as long as there was nothing physically wrong with them, but John had more than enough issues to deal with already.

As for Gragoth, he simply loved to fight, wasn’t the smartest, simultaneously stubborn and had a short temper on top of it all. He wasn’t too dissimilar to Salamander in that way, although all the negative traits were upped to the annoying extreme. A fact doubly difficult to forgive because he lacked the two round, bouncy arguments that made most things that Salamander did bearable.

Equal rights were a thing the Gamer whole-heartedly believed in. Equal treatment was something he couldn’t do no matter how hard he tried. No one could say he wasn’t treating his girls fairly or he failed to give them a scolding when they deserved it, but his relationship with them, and just attractive women in general, would always be different from his relationship with Maximillian and other guys.

The problem at hand went deeper than just those three elementals. John had barely finished inquiring about their backstories when he noticed a literal tidal wave rise out of nowhere and crash onto the Fire Island. The water dispersed into three parts, in order of biggest to smallest: there was a whole bunch of just regular water, flowing back into the Hudson or vanishing into the ground, then there were tiny water elementals that fled from the area, giggling like children, and then there were big water elementals who themselves split into two factions. Those that retreated with their smaller brethren and those that did not. The latter were soon challenged by the disturbed fire elementals, who now had a genuine reason to get a bit heated. With the rain still going on, the water elementals stood their ground, even though they were on foreign turf.

John sent Salamander to disperse that whole situation, and she did establish who was boss fairly quickly. A few thrown punches and valid threats and the water elementals retreated back to their peninsula. The problem at hand remained, however.

The Elemental Shrines had now become so powerful that their ranges extended far beyond the locations John had provided them with. Fundamentally, this wouldn’t have been a problem if the elementals that could come over were still of low or moderate strength. Even if they wanted to cause havoc, they weren’t really strong enough to do a lot. Adding more powerful elementals into the mix made everything more complicated.

‘I can somewhat understand,’ John thought. ‘On their home plane, there is pretty little to do except for lavishing around with their kin. Here they can have some play fights with nothing on the line except a corporeal presence that can be reclaimed after some days or weeks. I still can’t have it though, at least not so openly.’

“What do we do with them?” Rave asked, just as John pondered over the same question. Salamander, Undine and Sylph returned to where they were, and he put the Weather Tower back to sunny before answering. Even Nia and Eliza were around now, albeit that they really didn’t have to be.

“Well, we can’t leave things like this,” he started with the obvious and looked over the sea that separated the islands. They were currently at the connecting bit of the Fire Island, where the ground went from green grass to yellow sand, and both to the south and the north there were movements. Even the generally more pacifistic nature of earth elementals could be compromised with enough boredom and agitators, it seemed. “For the moment, we have to establish a pecking order.”

“A pecking order?” Gnome asked. Obviously, she understood the concept, but she wasn’t quite as sure what he meant in this specific moment.

“If the smaller elementals get pulled along by the actions of the largest ones, then we just need to get the largest ones to submit to us or, more specifically, you,” he looked at all of his elementals. “Force is the ultimate authority. Before we can establish a more intricate system, we need to make clear that we’re in charge. To that end, Gnome, Salamander, Sylph, Siena, you four should go to the islands affiliated with your elements right now and calm whatever stupidity the spirits are up with. I’ll first go help Undine and Stirwin, and then, when everything is pacified, come back south to pick you up one by one and look at the situation. Alright?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Salamander nodded and looked over to Gragoth. “You’re tagging along with me. Try to keep up.” With those words, the endflame elemental took off and flew westwards.

“I WILL!” Gragoth displayed his rather dull nature with that return and went after her as quickly as he could. Although he was still missing part of his shell and his horn, his legs had healed at least. Salamander was still quicker by a noticeable margin, but Gragoth could follow her shadow.

“Been a while since I dealt with my kind,” Siena hummed, as she faded into invisibility. “This should prove to be entertaining.”

“I-I’ll do my best!” Gnome exclaimed and turned west. After a couple of steps, she looked over her shoulder. “Hemklia, uhm, could you please help me? I think you might know names and all that…”

“You’re nothing if not polite, aren’t you?” the tainted mud elemental teased and remained still for a few seconds. Surrounded by so many superior individuals and feeling their stares, she eventually shifted uncomfortably. One pair of blue eyes attached to a certain blonde did certainly help motivate her to move along. Nia’s presence was one of two things John had access to that could put a genuine end to an elemental, the other being Tiemarath, Aclysia’s massive cleaver.

“I will go then, see if anything is up north. I mean north-north, double north from where we are, two islands up!” Sylph blabbered. “Can’t wait to see my relatives, hope they don’t do anything stupid… hope Sullyvan isn’t there. Later!” Turning into a bolt of lightning, the thunderstorm elemental dashed off into the distance.

“Alright then, you’ll tag along with us,” John told Juniel, who let out a cold giggle from behind her sleeve and nodded. The Gamer didn’t exactly trust that, but he reckoned that he was safe as long as he kept enough mana around. Getting ready to move to the Water Island, he was distracted when Nia softly pulled at his sleeve.

“Do you need me?” she asked.

“In general? Absolutely,” he responded swiftly and got himself the tiniest of amused noises in response. Recharging his stress batteries by leaning over and giving her pale pink lips a quick peck, he added, “For this situation as it has developed, I don’t, no. If you want to head back, feel free to. Sorry for calling you over in the first place.”

“It is good to be safe, darling,” Nia responded and stared at him, looking for some sort of reaction.

“Darling… I like that,” John let her know and kissed her again, longer this time. “Later, then, my lovely Nia.”

“Mmmh,” she hummed in a pleased tone and then turned around. Eliza crossed her arms behind her head after waving and just stomped along back. “I don’t appreciate you calling my ass flat.”

“In the name of whatever non-existent god is not out there, can you EVER react to insults in less than thirty fucking seconds?!” Eliza wanted to know and then pointed out, “That aside, you do have the flattest ass around in the New-ass-man harem, so get squatting!”

“You hurt my feelings.”

“Get used to it!”

“I don’t think I can. You’re scary and small.”

“Fuck you!”

John scratched his temple with one finger as he listened to the conversation fade with distance. There were many weird relationship dynamics in his harem, but that those two did get along in any fashion was a miracle in and of itself. ‘This is likely one instance where two of my girls could never have become friends if they didn’t bond over me,’ he thought and looked over to Beatrice. “You’re not going to head back with them?”

“Statement: Master is about to head into potentially dangerous territory. My mission is to protect you from unnecessary harm,” the passive maid responded. In the background, Tilgun laid down inside the bay that was formed between the Green Greens and the Fire Island.

“And what about you?” the Gamer asked, just to avoid further surprises. “Will you just keep lying there?”

“As long as the presence of fire elementals heats this water, I think I will,” the higher dragon answered and stretched. Some joints in his large arms cracked so loudly John mistook it for another piece of ruined forest breaking under its own soggy weight. “I love what you did with your place. Is this final expansion?”

“What do I get for answering that question?” John wanted to know and crossed his arms. Not that the Gamer wasn’t known for teasing his fellow intellectuals, or anyone else, but getting something from TIlgun was basically tradition at this point. The Maw of Souls had made it a point to continuously be a dick over what he knew and what John didn’t, so the Gamer repaid it in kind.

“Hmm, a hint of your future for a hint of your future, equally small, would that be an acceptable trade?”

Given how tiny the information was, John couldn’t complain about that deal. “One more expansion. No idea how big it will be, but I would take a wild guess and say the Guild Hall will increase to ten kilometres across. About double what it is right now.”

“I see, I see,” Tilgun hummed in an amused fashion and looked north for a moment. “As per my end of the bargain, you will find that your shadow spirit will have an unpleasant time during her task.” The serpentine dragon raised a hand in a calming gesture when John’s eyebrows pulled together upon hearing that. “Relax, I mean in the purely nagging fashion of unpleasant. She won’t be in any physical harm. Her mother is present, is all.”

John had barely been informed about that when he felt some kind of darkness muddle up his mental connection with the moonshade elemental. Even with the assurance he had just gotten, he felt a moment of panic. His thoughts consolidated into a spear and thrust into the blackness. He got through and felt his shadow spirit again. ‘Siena, are you in danger?’

‘To kill myself, if anything,’ a nonchalant answer came moments before the darkness pulled around her thoughts and shut John out again.

A voice like nails on a chalkboard whispered with the sweetness of hot chocolate into his mind, ‘You’ve gotten powerful, but you should respect family meetings.’ The Mother of Shadow doubled up on her defences around her daughter’s mind; John would not break through a second time. ‘Come only once I call you and I shall give you a reward.’

“That’s not a nice position to be in,” John mumbled and pinched the bridge of his nose. Fundamentally, he was someone who put the wellbeing of his girls above what would be the smartest decision. Given that this was an elemental mother, waltzing over there to interrupt a situation that wasn’t even threatening would be quite stupid, however. He already had a feud with one of them, he didn’t need to get more of them against him. Especially not the one that seemed to have the easiest time influencing the real world. ‘Fine, just promise me you won’t harm her.’

‘My daughter will be safer nowhere more than with me,’ the Mother of Shadow responded and then vanished from his thoughts.

“Well, that is happening,” he sighed and scratched his chin. “A bit short-term of an information, don’t you think, Tilgun?”

“The next second is still the future,” the massive lizard mused and settled down his chin on the shore. “Let this be a lesson in dealing with certain foes, king-candidate of Tiamat’s high-priestess. You clearly lack experience in that field.”

John’s left eye twitched and he rapidly went through a number of ways he could formulate his apologies to Nathalia for nuking her brother into oblivion. ‘Is ‘I’m really sorry, but he was a giant, noodly dick about it,’ too direct… no, I think that works,’ the Gamer thought as he turned away from the water and went on his way to deal with things that were more important. Whatever he actually did with TIlgun had to wait until he could overpower the Maw of Souls.

Which would still take a while. ‘Maybe if I find him a girlfriend he’ll be less of a cunt about things?’ John theorized. It was unlikely. When they first met, Tilgun actually hadn’t been horny, despite sleeping for a long time and having a considerable Libido, and still had been a teasing annoyance. However, as John could say from experience, there was a big difference between ‘not horny’ and ‘satisfied’.

In a way, John now felt a moment of pity for the dragon. The guy was several thousand years old, about as horny as John would be if Source of Satisfaction wasn’t active and yet had sex less times than John had over the past year. With any single one of his girls. Humanoids were a bit easier to find than higher dragons, to be fair.

‘If I can get him either a way to transform into a humanoid or convince another higher dragon to couple up with him, I might just gain myself some valuable information.’ The Gamer was now adding this to the many projects he would look into at the side. ‘Wonder if there is a way to track where higher dragons are on the Abyss Auction… Anyway, one problem at a time.’