One moment, Lia was dozing off, the next she was wide-awake, standing up in formal party attire.

  “Ah, I see you four are still from the past.” The female version of Jerry said. “Interesting.”

  “I thought you said all times were equally the present?” Connie asked.

  “Recent events have proven that to be incorrect, for a given value of incorrect.” Jerry said. “Lilith can explain more, but my advice would be to not think about it too hard. It delves rather significantly into the eldritch and our understanding of time begins to break down a bit. Still, I’m reasonably confident that the time Lilith and I are from is almost certainly the true present. In fact…”

  Jerry trailed off, mouth agape. Lia turned to find three unfamiliar women looking rather lost. As Lia looked, Jerry nearly shoved her aside to rush over to the women, a pained expression on her face. Not sure what to do, Lia and her group followed, and were able to barely catch up to Jerry before she started talking.

  “Aira, Nia…” Jerry said, voice hitching slightly as she caught two of the women in a hug. “This won’t make sense, but…I’m sorry. I…” Jerry paused, seemingly noticing the third woman for the first time, a look of pure hatred crossing her face as she let go of the hug and stormed over to her. “Katrina. Get out of my sight.”

  “Um…sorry, who are you?” One of the women asked. “And this isn’t Katrina, it’s a long story.”

  “Ah, right, right. I’m Jerry. I recently changed sex for Worship purposes.” Jerry said, visibly relaxing as she extended her hand to the girl she had called Katrina. “Sorry, my girl, Katrina’s done a lot of very bad things, and I fully intend to kill her the moment I have the opportunity.”

  The woman Jerry had mistaken for Katrina, an angel with blue hair, gave Jerry a bewildered look, but shook her hand. “I…see? Uh, apology accepted, she’s not exactly been kind to us either.”

  The other two women seemed to suddenly understand, giving Jerry melancholic looks. “Oh.” One said. “Um…it’s okay, Jerry, you did your best. And…we understand, we’re postwar. We’ve lost track of time due to Katrina’s meddling, but it’s been at least fifty thousand years since then. You’ll probably see us soon, though; Katrina’s said that if we win her game this time, she’s going to make us fight in the battle for planes. Just…no revivals.”

  Jerry visibly recoiled at that. “You’re alive?!” She exclaimed. “I…I can’t…don’t worry. Help is on the way.”

  The other woman gave Jerry a sad smile. “You know you’ll just forget, right?”

  Jerry shook her head emphatically. “No, we’ve found a way to remember. I’ll see to it that you make it back to us.”

  “What do you mean make it back?” The angel woman said. “I mean…what even is any of this? I’m kind of freaking out here.”

  “Please tell.” Amelia said dryly. “You did nearly knock Lia over back there.”

  “Sorry.” Jerry said, giving them an apologetic look. “These are my old comrades from the war. I thought they had died when the Administrator who took over their universe conducted a purge for fun, but…evidently not.”

  “I almost wish we had.” One of the women, a human with bright red hair, said. “She’s used us as her playthings ever since.”

  “Administrator? War? You’re talking about Katrina, right?” The angel asked.

  “Oh. I didn’t realize you didn’t know, yet.” Jerry replied. “Odd that you’re here, then…”

  The last woman, another human with light blue hair, sighed. “Sorry, Maia. It’s…complicated. Nia and I were from another universe before, but Katrina conquered the universe we were originally gods in, which is what she was referring to when she first revealed herself and talked about destroying everything we loved. Jerry, this is Maia, our latest champion.” She said, motioning at the angel. “And for you four, my name is Aira, and this is my sister Nia.” She said, this time motioning at the red-haired woman.

  “Ah. Aira, Nia, these are my newest Higher Beings, Lia, Amelia, and Rose, as well as one of my older Higher Beings, Connie.” Jerry said, motioning at each of them in turn.

  “But we’re not Higher Beings, though?” Rose reminded Jerry.

  Jerry frowned. “Sorry.” She said. “I’m all out of sorts. In my time, you are. Aira, Nia…war is on the horizon again. And…please, please, tell me you feel like you should be with these four for the party.”

  “I feel like I should be with you.” Nia said.

  “As do I.” Aira added. “Maia?”

  Maia blinked. “I do sort of feel like I should stick with these four, but…how did you know? And why does it matter?”

  Jerry broke into a relieved smile. “It’s how the party works, you just sort of get a feeling about who you should be with. And it’s important because it means that you’re important in the upcoming conflict, and, hopefully, will be fighting for us. Aira, Nia, I know you won’t remember this after the party, but next time the battle for planes rolls around, and that should be any month now…we’re coming for you, okay? Just hang tight. It’s almost over.”

  “But…Katrina…” Aira stammered. “She’ll never let us go.”

  Jerry smiled darkly. “Oh, she will. Believe me, she will. I’ve wanted revenge on her for a long time, and now I have an excuse. I know exactly how to provoke her into giving you two up, and hopefully whatever plane Maia comes from as well. We’ll integrate you…not into my planes, the situation there is…strange, but we’ll get you settled with either Amy or our rising star, Kali. Whatever the case, we’ll make sure you and that plane are treated well.”

  “But…what?” Maia said. “I’m still confused.”

  Nia gave Jerry a shaky smile and placed a hand on Maia’s shoulder. “She says she’s going to get us out from underneath Katrina.” She explained. “And…well, believe me, life is a lot better with them.”

  “Who’s this Katrina?” Lilith asked, walking up to them with Eve in tow. “The name sounds familiar, but it’s not exactly uncommon.”

  “Remember that Administrator who I told you wiped out a universe for fun? That’s her.” Jerry replied. “She has, apparently, kept two of the Higher Beings from that universe to use as playthings.”

  Lilith’s face hardened. “I see.” She said. “I assume you’re working on a plan?”

  “I am.” Jerry replied, nodding at Lilith and then Eve. “Aira, Nia, Maia, these are Lilith and Eve, our faction’s strongest at this point in time. They’ll be instrumental in getting you back.”

  “Pleasure meeting you.” Lilith said. “And well done hanging in there.”

  “Do you think you can tell what time they’re from?” Jerry asked. “I know Pandora’s talked about potentially being able to after the whole thing with your past self last party.”

  Lilith paused, looking the three up and down. “Our time, if I had to guess.”

  Jerry’s eyes gleamed. “Excellent.” She said. “I’ll begin making preparations the moment I get back. I know just how to bait her into giving up these three and the plane they’re from. I’m assuming it’s a small one, right?”

  “Yeah.” Aira said. “She calls it a ‘junk’ plane, something she just uses to blow off steam. She hasn’t invested any Worship into it or anything, just told the two of us to do whatever we want to it.”

  “What’s this about?” Tess asked, walking up to them, Ellie and Maven close behind. “Are these new people friends of yours?”

  “Sort of.” Lilith replied. “It seems like they’re going to be with us tonight, but they’re not from Jerry’s planes.”

  “They’re essentially prisoners of war.” Jerry offered. “We’ll be mounting a rescue mission ASAP, but it’ll be some time before we have the opportunity. Aira, Nia, come with me, let’s go discuss details of your rescue with Amy. Maia, once again, sorry for the rough introduction, but if you’ve had interactions with Katrina, you can probably imagine why I reacted the way I did.”

  “I have.” Maia confirmed. “Not many, but…I’ve seen enough of her to know that she’s probably done something to warrant that reaction.”

  “Warrant that and much, much more.” Jerry said darkly. “She won’t be making it out of the coming conflicts alive, I guarantee it. But you don’t need to worry about that for now. For now, you just get to know the rest of these fine women, and have a nice evening.”

  With that, Jerry left with Aira and Nia, leaving only the usual group and Maia. Rose almost immediately took the opportunity to walk over to Maia and offer a hand. “This is your first party, right?” She asked.

  “Um…yeah.” Maia said, grabbing the hand and gingerly shaking it. “Sorry, I’m a little overwhelmed right now.”

  “We all were at our first party.” Rose laughed. “Why don’t we go grab a table and we can all introduce ourselves? We can get food after you’re a bit more settled.”

  “Sure, I guess.” Maia said slowly. “But…what is this place?”

  “I’ll send a body to go look for a table.” Lilith said, making another body and sending it off. “As for this place, it’s hard to explain. It’s…well, consider it to be outside of normal reality. People here are from different times and different universes, but broadly speaking you can consider them to be some of the most important people in existence. Yes, you included.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Maia frowned. “But I’m…what did Katrina call it…a Lesser Being. That doesn’t sound important.”

  Connie gasped. “That’s a slur, she was just trying to make you mad. Just because you’re not a Higher Being or Administrator doesn’t mean you’re somehow lesser.”

  “Higher Being? Administrator?” Maia asked. “And if there are Higher Beings, doesn’t that mean the rest are lesser, or…lower, by definition?”

  “No.” Connie said firmly. “It’s a catch-all term used to refer to a specific category of being that wields power beyond mortal means, such as gods. And while Higher Beings are stronger and are much, much harder to permanently kill, by no means are we inherently better or more valuable than mortals. About half of all Higher Beings were mortal at one point, and at the very basest of levels our souls are no different from that of mortals.”

  “That sounds like others are less to me.” Maia replied. “I’m not equal to the goddesses, and I can’t imagine being their equal.”

  “We’ll probably end up making you a Higher Being once we rescue you.” Lilith said. “It seems prudent, given what’s coming.”

  “What’s…coming?” Maia asked hesitantly.

  “War between Administrators.” Eve said bluntly. “The three factions are probably going to end up embroiled in another war, like the kind that originally led Katrina to have control over those goddesses. It’s going to be very, very ugly, but, hopefully, in the end our faction will come out on top and we can go about making some reforms.”

  “I still don’t know what an Administrator is.” Maia said. “Is that what Katrina is?”

  “Yes.” Eve said. “You can consider them to be the chief god. Anyway, we’ve found a table, wanna go?”

  Maia frowned. “Didn’t Lilith go do that?” She pointed out.

  “We’re the same person.” Eve said. “It’s complicated. We share our senses, and, at the end of the day, our memory. If you say something to any of us, you say it to all of us.”

  “Any? Are there more?”

  “Five of us, in total.” Lilith replied. “Myself, Eve, Mae, Nuwa, and Pandora.”

  “I see.” Maia said.

  Lilith raised an eyebrow. “No further questions?” She asked. “People are usually more surprised.”

  “I’ve seen similar before.” Maia replied. “Or, at least, I’m pretty sure something similar was happening; it was a monster so I couldn’t exactly ask.”

  “You’ll have to tell us all about your life.” Lilith said, motioning for the others to follow as she began to walk away. “I’m really curious to know what life is like outside of our faction.”

  Everyone but Maia chatted a bit as they walked, catching up with each other and learning what they had been doing in the time between parties. Tess and her wives had been turning their focus more towards the integration of their home plane with the rest of their universe, and Lilith had been doing little but study and experiment.

  Once they sat, Rose addressed everyone. “Okay, since Maia’s new here, I think the rest of us should introduce ourselves and give a little explanation about our lives and what we’re about. I’ll start; I’m Rose, Lia’s wife. I was formerly a man named Reuben before I was reincarnated into their time, and we’re currently in the process of making an empire of sorts. We’re gearing up for war with the other planes in our universe because the gods want us to expand, but we’re focusing on our home plane at the moment before we go elsewhere.”

  Following her lead, everyone else introduced themselves, and finally it was Maia’s turn. “Um…I’m Maia, and I’m also at war with the rest of my world. Katrina’s spread a sort of virus that makes everyone act like her, and she made it so the only way to cure it was to turn people from humans into monster girls, because that’d make Aira and Nia upset. I’m still, um…coming to grips with everything, but I’m going to do my best to win against her.

  “I was a hunter named Michael before this, I lived in a village next to the most dangerous place in our world. It’s been a bit of a shock going to the rest of the world, because everything is so…tame in comparison, but at least my time near the Deepwood has prepared me for the fight.”

  “How’s that going?” Tess asked. “Are you confident in your victory or are things dicey?”

  “Well, we haven’t really started the war proper, but…I think it’s all going to depend on how much Katrina intervenes. If she does basically nothing, and I know that won’t happen, then there’s simply no way for us to lose. If she really wanted to she could end us at any time, but this is some sort of game for her, and I don’t think she’d just ‘cheat’ like that, it wouldn’t be fun for her.”

  “Even I wouldn’t have considered doing something like that, and I was incapable of feeling a lot of feelings before.” Amelia said. “She sounds like a real piece of work.”

  “She’s the person Jerry hates most.” Connie said. “If Jerry gets his…her hands on Katrina, then you can guarantee that Katrina won’t be making it out alive.”

  “Do you have a system or anything?” Maven asked. “Or is all magic done without systems?”

  “A system?” Maia asked. “What do you mean?”

  “A construct put in place by the gods that helps enable people to use magic.” Tess said. “Usually, everyone has access to the system and it helps guide your growth.”

  “Nothing like that, I don’t think.” Maia said. “People need to use magic tomes to cast magic unless they spend a long time learning a spell.”

  “Definitely systemless, though maybe there’s a proto-system in place via those tomes?” Connie mused.

  “Systems are a thing our faction does, right?” Ellie asked. “What does Katrina’s faction use?”

  “They generally use what they call ‘cultivation’.” Connie explained. “It’s another way of internalizing Mana, and it’s usually done with the aid of a bunch of medicines and items synthesized from monster materials and plants rich in Mana. Unlike systems, it’s a very individual sort of thing, and the result is usually that there are very few people with high cultivation.

  “As people progress through the ‘stages’ of cultivation, they grow stronger and stronger, and someone even one major step of cultivation above someone else is basically untouchable. The methods to cultivate are kept secretive and competition for resources is fierce, so the worlds are very cutthroat.”

  “To be honest, I don’t see the appeal.” Eve said. “At the highest end of things there’s only a medium to small difference in power between system users and cultivators, and in the lower ends of things you have way less people that actually have any sort of strength.”

  “I think that might be the point.” Maia said. “Katrina is all about power and trampling over those weaker than you. It sounds like the kind of world she would love, where the strong get to do whatever they want with the weak and no one would dare to say anything to stop them.”

  “But how would they protect themselves in the case of a war with other factions?” Maven asked. “I’m not super familiar with Administrator politics, but their faction isn’t well-liked, right?”

  “It’s the combat power of the Higher Beings, Administrators, and most powerful mortals that act as a deterrent.” Connie said. “They don’t necessarily have to win, they just have to make it so anyone fighting with them would be weak enough for the other factions to pick them off.”

  “That doesn’t seem right.” Maia says. “I don’t know her well, but I have a hard time thinking Katrina would accept a scenario in which she wouldn’t have a chance in a war.”

  “It’s not her choice.” Amelia said smugly. “She can’t exactly outcompete us without knowing how to build better stuff, and I doubt she does.”

  “I think it’s more that their faction has been left behind in terms of size.” Connie said. “They were always the smallest, and they’ve gained very, very few new members since the war. Their best can go toe to toe with our best, and are often even better, but the numbers of their best generally remain static, and us and the other faction have gradually increased the number of our best.”

  “That doesn’t mean they won’t be a threat in the upcoming war, though.” Lilith said darkly. “We were apparently given the worst odds of winning the war, so we got a head start. I think it’s likely that they’ve been holding back to an extent, and their…gifts will be much more…confrontational than ours.”

  Lilith sighed, shaking her head. “But that’s not a pleasant subject, why don’t we go get some food and discuss what we’ll do for the rest of the evening? Maia, since it’s your first time here, why don’t you come with me and I can explain how things work?”

  “Um…okay.” Maia said.

  And with that, everyone dispersed, Lilith leaving a body at their table so no one took it. As Lia and her lovers got to one of the food tables, she Lia cast her gaze about to make sure Maia wasn’t in sight, then spoke. “So…what do you make of Maia?” She asked.

  “In a way, she kind of reminds me of how you were at the beginning.” Rose said. “She’s anxious and confused, and she still seems like she’s finding her place in the world. Other than that, I pity her; living under Katrina’s thumb seems like an absolutely awful prospect. I really hope that, when the time comes, we can rescue her, but I suppose that will depend on what Jerry has planned.”

  “I feel much the same.” Connie added. “I’m more shocked to learn that people from those planes still live, we’ve assumed them dead for a very long time.”

  “Eh, I don’t really have the emotional capacity to care much at the moment.” Amelia said. “If you all want to make friends with her, then fine, if not, that’s fine too.”

  “Well, I think we should try to make friends.” Lia said. “And it sounds like she has a tough couple of years ahead of her, so I really hope we can at least let her have a nice evening tonight.”

  They got their food then headed back to the table, where Tess and her wives were already seated. “Welcome back.” Tess said. “We were just talking about you.”

  “You were?” Lia asked, sitting down. “What about?”

  “We were saying that you and Maia are actually in kind of similar positions right now.” Ellie said. “In that you’re both working on taking over your world right now.”

  “Sounds like her motives are a bit purer, though.” Lia said. “Like…some sort of virus she’s trying to cure or something?”

  “Yes, assuming you’re talking about me.” Maia said, taking a seat next to Lilith’s empty body and placing down a small plate of food. “It…removes inhibitions, and makes it so people are unable to see right from wrong. People will do literally anything they think they can get away with, and they’re really, really forward about propositioning people or even…forcing themselves on them, it’s chaos.”

  “Sounds like a normal one of her planes, at least from what I’ve heard.” Connie said. “Aside from being overly sexual, that is. I don’t know them so I can’t say for sure, but I’d wager Katrina did that bit to mess with Aira and Nia.”

  “That seems…probable.” Maia said. “Katrina said something about the cure method being their ‘barely disguised fetishes’, and they said that Aira only likes women and Nia prefers nonhumans over human so…seems about right?”

  “Disgusting behavior from her.” Lilith said, returning and taking the place of the body she had left behind, with Eve sitting next to her. “Real petty stuff. You’d think it’d get old after…however long she’s been tormenting them, though. Either they’d break or she’d get bored.”

  “They can’t break, they said she resets their mental states so that they can’t give into despair or go insane.” Maia replied. “And it seems she takes breaks of a few hundred years between sessions, judging by the timeline I’ve heard.”

  “Even better.” Eve said dryly. “Each time I hear about her I hate her more and more.”

  “As do I.” Maia said. “I can tell by the way she talks that she thinks nothing of the lives of the people of my world. We hold value to her only as entertainment.”

  “Well, that’s just about the exact opposite of our perspective.” Lilith replied. “You’ll see, once we rescue you.”

  Maia nodded shyly, then began to eat. “So, um…after dinner, what do we do then? Just talk?”

  “There are activities we can go and do.” Lia said. “Do you have anything in particular you like to do for fun or sport?”

  “Um…does hunting count?” Maia asked. “It’s what I’m best at.”

  “There’ll be some sort of hunting simulator if we look.” Lilith replied. “You could lead us all on a hunt in an exact replica of your old environment if that sounds exciting.”

  “Aren’t you all…Higher Beings or whatever?” Maia pointed out. “I don’t think hunting stuff that I can handle will be very stimulating for you.”

  “Don’t worry about that, we can adjust the parameters as need be.” Lilith replied. “We can all get brought to your level, you can get brought to ours, and everything in-between. If you’ve ever wanted to, say, do a hunt with the world’s best or something, then this is your opportunity. Obviously we’re not your world’s best, but I think we’d scratch the same itch.”

  “Um…yeah, let’s do that.” Maia said. “I’ll think about what I want it to be like.”

  With their course decided, the group ended up just chatting while they ate. They often had to explain things to Maia, be it technology, system concepts, or just stuff about how the world worked, but they didn’t mind. Maia was pleasant enough to talk with, and Lia was interested to hear snippets of Maia’s life. As for the hunting…well, she was interested to see how people like Lilith would hunt. So, she just let herself relax and enjoy the evening.

  uncaring, even the protagonists are often borderline evil.