As Ayla logged out, her first instinct was to look for Elora. Her wife had logged in from the guest bedroom, just in case the proximity would cause issues or their bodies moved around in their sleep or something. She stood, taking a moment to stretch, and a bolt of panic ran through her as she realized that her tail and wings were missing.

  Then she stopped, abruptly remembering that this was her original body, and she shouldn’t have wings or a tail. Yet…she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable without them, as if she was missing part of herself. It was odd; she had only been in her other body for less than an hour, yet she felt more comfortable in it than she did in the body she had had her entire life.

  This couldn’t have been what Fae was feeling, right? She had described feeling perfectly fine in whichever body and it just being the sheer difference in specs and the memory of feeling so good in it that made her prefer it. But this was on a subconscious level, she had almost expected to still be in her other body, despite knowing she wouldn’t be.

  And, come to think of it, it seemed that any resistance to thinking of her daughter as a woman had likewise vanished, and picturing her as she was now came more naturally than picturing her as she was just months ago. She almost felt like she could picture Fae as a little girl, griffinkin and all.

  Yet, as much as her state of mind was clearly different, it also wasn’t as intense as when she was in her other body; when she thought about the Swarm, she felt…about the same as she had before, maybe a bit more positive. Even then, it was hard to tell whether or not it was a result of the good experience she had had with the Queen and the capital in general.

  After a moment, she snapped herself out of her thoughts and moved towards the door. To her surprise, there was a small note stuck to it, written in neat handwriting.

  “If you or anyone else is worried, I’m keeping other gods from analyzing your mental state in the same way I kept them from analyzing Fae’s mental state. If they even attempt to do so, all information on World Saviors will be made public to the Swarm with no repercussions, which, in my eyes, is worth far more than knowing what sort of mental changes carry over when logged out. They won’t be reaping a benefit from me allowing your family to stay together.

  – The Goddess of Hearth.”

  Ayla paused. She hadn’t considered that possibility, but she was glad that keeping her family together wouldn’t be causing any problems. And, just as she reached out to open the door, it began to open, giving Ayla ample time to step back as her wife opened the door entirely. “I thought you might’ve been reading still.” Elora said, stepping into the room. “I got a note too.”

  The sight gave Ayla pause. For a fleeting moment, it felt almost like what she imagined she would feel if a teenaged version of her wife had stepped into the room. Just a brief sense that she was looking at someone from the past. But that, too, faded quickly. “Uh, yes.” Ayla stammered. “I’m still getting my bearings again.”

  “You too?” Elora asked. “I’m shocked by the sheer strength of conversion; to be able to affect us even through a layer of abstraction like World Saviors, it would need to make changes on a level closer to the soul than we had thought possible.”

  “Really?” Ayla asked. Mental magic wasn’t her forte, she was much more of an elementalist, but Elora was rather adept with it.

  “Yeah.” Elora said. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was messing with the soul, but that’s something only the gods can do.”

  “Didn’t Izumi mention something like this?” Ayla said. “She said her patron goddess described Amelia’s power as near godlike.”

  “You’re right, come to think of it.” Elora replied. “Then…perhaps our souls were changed?”

  “The more I think about it, the more likely it seems.” Ayla agreed. “Amelia made a new system, and that’s something that interacts with the soul, right? And if she’s to be believed, the system used for World Saviors is just her system, but with the swarm-y parts covered up.”

  There was a brief silence as the two pondered that. “Well…I think I’m glad we’re on her side.” Elora said. “And, to be honest, I’m already missing being in my other body. Let’s go message info on tapping into transmission spells to Fae, then get back.”

  Ayla nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Hector, God of Heroes, waited impatiently for the rest of the gods he had called to file into the room. Fortunately, they seemed to have sensed his urgency, and he didn’t have to wait long before almost all of the gods that opposed the Swarm were there, the singular exception having business that needed her immediate attention.

  “I’ve called you all here because we have a choice to make.” He said flatly. “We’ve been given an opportunity with Fae’s mothers that I believe we can’t ignore.”

  “Oh?” Seth, God of Space, said, raising an eyebrow. “But, if we do anything with them, information about World Saviors will leak to the Swarm. Jerry himself said so.”

  “Exactly.” Hector replied. “That’s why this is a choice. We have the opportunity to study the mental contamination converted Players will undergo. By all accounts we have a couple of years to prepare, and this data could be used to fortify our safeguards against said contamination. I’m assuming we’ll write off any people who choose to defect as a lost cause, continual exposure to the Swarm’s conditioning will likely erode our safeguards no matter what we do, but we might be able to save those who are converted and choose not to defect.

  “We’ll lose our window if we don’t act before Fae’s mothers choose to permanently join the Swarm. I took the liberty of asking Jerry to gather data for us until we decide so we don’t lose data to bureaucracy, but he wants us to decide before the end of the day. We might be able to get an extension, but we’ll need to have a good reason for it. So, thoughts?”

  Terrence, God of Tradition, frowned. “Are you sure this is worth the tradeoff?” He asked. “We’re hoping that the surprise factor will allow us to stop them before they get a good foothold in Yasato, right?”

  “I think it just might be.” Dana, Goddess of Dreams, mused. “One of the biggest threats to the plan has always been mental contamination from conversion impacting people who don’t defect. And, to be honest, the more I see of the Swarm, the less I’m convinced we’ll be able to stop them before they make that foothold. If we try anything too big and flashy, we run the risk of unbinding Rose and Amelia, and I think we can all agree that that would be a disaster.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “We’re also going to completely and utterly alienate Heather.” Seth, God of Space, pointed out. “I think there’s still a chance that we can sway her back to neutrality instead of supporting the Swarm.”

  “That ship has sailed, I tried to convince to go neutral myself a few days ago.” Liza, Goddess of Law, said bitterly. “She thinks we’re compromising our integrity too much, says that as long as the Swarm is playing fair and we’re playing dirty, the two negatives cancel out and their ‘greater good’ outweighs ours. Connie and Willow have really brought her around on the subject.”

  “Unfortunate, but expected.” Hector said.

  “I suppose the real question is how much we think we can do with this data.” Thalia, Goddess of Time, said. “Personally, I think there’s a lot of potential.”

  “As do I.” Dana said. “And even if it turns out that we can’t prevent the mental contamination, we can use these results to help convince people that it’s not worth even messing around with joining the Swarm.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.” Sadie, Goddess of the Sun, said. “I think that might help a lot. People don’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation.”

  “I told you all that we shouldn’t have marketed it as a game.” Liza said. “It may have attracted a lot more people, but even with all our urgings there are still people who don’t take it seriously enough. If we can get them to take it seriously, then it’s worth it.”

  “I suppose you have a point…” Terrence said. “But I have a concern. Amelia already knows that we’ve coopted her system, if she learns more that runs a serious risk of her somehow dismantling things or abusing weak points in the system that we don’t even know about.”

  “I don’t think it’s that much more of a risk.” Hector said. “She already knows the important bit, that people from other planes are somehow visiting Yasato and using her system, she can extrapolate everything else from there.”

  “They are expecting stiff resistance already.” Liza mused. “How will this differ from expecting regular armies?”

  “Propaganda.” Seth said. “They can make their propaganda more effective, and Fae can help bridge culture gaps that might otherwise cripple their efforts.”

  “I think that’d be a bit much for what Fae is allowed to do.” Hector pointed out. “They’d have to use Izumi for that, and I think we can all agree that she isn’t nearly as good with people as Fae is.”

  “Well, if Jerry confirms that Fae can’t actively shape their PR until they’re ready to actually start invading Yasato, it’s…better, but I’m concerned about the optics.” Seth said. “More neutral gods may see this and turn away from our cause. I mean…what Heather’s done with Fae’s parents is purely altruistic, and it doesn’t actually give the Swarm any real advantage; we’ve already been burned by abusing her trust in us, I worry continuing to do so will end poorly.”

  “We’ve already burned that bridge.” Dana said. “And, let’s be honest, how many neutral gods are even left? At this point everyone seems to have gravitated towards one of the camps.”

  “Yes, but not everyone is strongly in one of the camps.” Seth pointed out. “Ariel, for example.”

  Ariel, the Goddess of Art, had tentatively sided against the Swarm because she hated their methods, but had wavered as of late; Connie’s argument for at the very least not dismissing the Swarm out of hand had been far more effective on her than Hector would have liked. Connie said that the gods had all done many distasteful things “for the greater good” and that it was hypocritical to completely ignore the end state that the Swarm wished to create when the gods had near-guarantees that they could keep the Swarm’s vision on track.

  Hector didn’t believe that; you couldn’t just do anything for the greater good, there were limits, and this was obviously one such limit. If this wasn’t off-limits, then…what was? Slavery? Genocide? Were even those fine if the end goal was noble? No, this was an unbelievably slippery slope, and he refused to set foot on it.

  “And is potentially losing her support worth losing this advantage?” Dana pressed. “If she’s wavering now, she’ll only continue to waver as the Swarm becomes the status quo on Ratha and it becomes easier to ignore the methods for the result.”

  “You say that like you’re sure the result will be good.” Seth accused. “I thought you denounced all of this.”

  Dana rolled her eyes. “Look, the society they’re building is better than the feudalistic societies Ratha has seen in the past. And, with the rapid technological advancements the Swarm will facilitate, the people there will have their quality of life improve dramatically in a relatively short time. The optics will be great for them, but that’s just due to the nature of society on Ratha. With that in mind, if this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, then I think that Ratha’s state would break anyone wavering even if we didn’t do anything now.”

  “We can easily point this fact out to them.” Seth said.

  “Connie already kinda has.” Liza snorted. “Except she’s trying to tell people that it’s not going to be just a bonus for feudal societies and technologies, she’s really emphasizing the advantages that easy access to biotechnology will give.”

  “How do you know that?” Hector asked curiously.

  “I asked Ariel and a couple other people about what Connie’s told them.” Liza explained.

  “We’re absolutely sure that Connie hasn’t been affected mentally by her use of Blood Money, right?” Thalia asked. “She’s cast her lot in with the Swarm pretty hard, I mean, she’s dating the leadership…”

  “Yes.” Liza and Dana said simultaneously. They paused, looked at each other, then after a moment, Dana continued. “I’ve asked Jerry about it, and it seems like Liza has too. He’s been monitoring her closely and this is all of her own volition. He also…recommended that we don’t be too rude to them personally; if they succeed, he plans to make them Higher Beings and would prefer there to be as little friction between us as possible given the circumstances.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Hector asked. “Does he really think we can just drop all of this and be buddy-buddy with them?”

  “No.” Dana said. “No, I’m not joking, and no he doesn’t think we can just drop all of this. He just doesn’t want overt hostility. And…if I may be frank, I don’t think they deserve overt hostility either. Lia and Rose are making the best of the situation they’re in, and do seem like good people. They believe that the ends justify the means, and we don’t.

  “As much as some of you may scoff at her arguments, Connie is right to an extent; this is simply a matter of our tolerance for ‘the greater good’, and I don’t they deserve to be treated as monsters for having a greater tolerance than ours. Now, if they begin faltering in their ideals then I think that treatment might be justified, but until then we should show at least a modicum of respect.”

  “That’s a dangerous line of thinking.” Hector warned her. “It’s a slippery slope.”

  “No, it’s a realistic one.” Dana replied calmly. “For the sake of argument, let’s pretend there’s some fantasy world where we could get all the benefits of the Swarm with none of the downsides, and the only cost would be the conversion of one person? Could you look me in the eyes and say you wouldn’t do it? We did something similar with the Urge, and you were fine with that.”

  Hector paused. “I suppose I’d do it.” He admitted. “I’m not sure how much that hypothetical matters, though; this is the real world.”

  Dana rolled her eyes. “It’s just to illustrate my point.” She said. “You have admitted that only having a singular conversion would make the ends justify the means. Therefore, it’s just a matter of at what point that no longer holds true, or, what your tolerance is. It’s fine to not tolerate the Swarm under current conditions, and I don’t either, but I also don’t think we should treat Lia and Rose like they’re the root of all evil because they’re on the other side. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “This meeting has got off-track.” Seth said. “Jerry wanted us to be fast about this decision, right? Does anyone have anything more to add, or should we put it to a vote?”

  Everyone signaled that they didn’t, so Seth nodded. “Let’s do this one by one. I think…tentatively, that we should go ahead and study Fae’s parents.”

  “For the record, Ariel has voted to look at the data.” Hector said. “But she said she’s also fine with not looking at it, so if she’s a tiebreaker then her vote should be nullified until she can hear the arguments properly. And, obviously, I think we should look at the data as well.”

  “I’m for it.” Dana said.

  “As am I.” Liza added.

  “I think…I’m going to vote in favor.” Thalia said.

  The rest of the gods there chimed in as well, and with only two voting to not examine Fae’s parents further, it was decided. So, Hector adjourned the meeting, and headed off to tell Jerry about their decision.

  right call? Hard to say. My gut is saying no, they're not going to get enough information on mental states and how to circumvent conversion to make the advanced warning to the Swarm and the potential burning of bridges worth it, but that's from an authorial perspective. In their minds, it's worth a shot.