It was a long trip of gate hopping and a ferry ride to get back to Bramble but once at the city of Camelot the party could finally truly relax. With four new residents in tow as soon as the Mashers were inside the outer walls Racknar gestured to the city that was populated with what most people would consider monsters. Goblins and kobolds roamed freely using black iron spiders like horses. There were a few Shatterkin walking through the city and Racknar couldn't help but notice a few drow and orks had arrived at the city while the party was out and settled themselves in. It seemed news of the city had somehow gotten out.

  Ariagoria whistled. “At this rate we might have to expand. I'm betting some dryads have moved into the garden by now. Maybe other nymphs too. I imagine that a floral dragon would draw in nature spirits.” Racknar nodded. “Maybe they can help boost crop yields while they are here. This city will be a living example of what we strive for. Observable proof that we can coexist.” Bella looked over the city in awe. “I've visited a few cities but nothing like this. I bet your party doesn't have to use their illusions here.” Racknar chuckled. “Not really, Davy’s true face does still make most people nervous but we make a point to take off the rings of illusion when inside the walls. We have nothing to hide.”

  The party makes their way to the inner walls that lead to the castle grounds and out of the general area of the city. They take the four living dolls to the castle and welcome them in. “Welcome to Camelot Castle. I'll get the city manager to see where we can place you.” Racknar said before moving deeper into the castle ahead of the rest of the group. He then comes back and waves the four dolls in. He leads them to an office where Leonardo Da Vinci is doing paperwork. Racknar addressed him to get his attention. “Hey Leo, I've got four new residents.”

  Leonardo looked up and Donna reacted quickly to seeing his face. “Well hello handsome~” Leonardo blinked a few times before pulling out a map. “Are you four going to live in one building?” Bella looked at her sister's and brother. “Well us three girls will at least.” Gallows shuffled around nervously. “I'd like my own place, somewhere close to them if possible.” Leonardo checked the map before pulling out a copy and marking two buildings. “Here for the ladies, here for the gentlemen. I'll send someone over with a rental agreement because unfortunately this city still has to pay taxes.”

  Racknar chuckled. “Sorry for putting city management on your lap Leo, but you were the only one with any experience in this sort of thing we could trust.” Leonardo waves off Racknar. “It's fine, really. It beats schmoozing nobles and businessmen who know nothing of art.” Racknar perked up a bit. “Speaking of, I'm going to assume your sister is in her workshop.” Leonardo nods. Bella bows and offers her thanks before her and her siblings make their leave and the Monster Mashers make their way to Lisa's workshop.

  Lisa was in the middle of building a tank based on a design from her previous life plus upgrades thanks to magic and notes she got from Racknar. “Hey Lisa, I know you've got your own thing but my swords and shields got destroyed so I'm here for replacements and if possible upgrades for other members of the party. I'll pay you in dungeon loot taken from someone with a similar love for alchemy and magitech.” Lisa puts down her equipment. “Sure, this can wait.”

  Racknar opens his dimension door and starts bringing out all the equipment and various materials taken from the lab of the Machanicus. Plus the dead body of the guy himself. “Is that thing made out of Adamantine? How did it take so much damage?” Lisa gestured to the damaged robot in shock. Racknar chuckled. “Remember my notes on sudden temp change fractures? Adamantine may have a high melting point but you don't need to heat it enough to melt it for the trick to work. Anyway, melt his body down and use the Adamantine for my weapons and shields. If any is left over we can upgrade Davy's armor since he can wear medium and Ariagoria already has the armor of Arachne.”

  Lisa ran over to the robot in awe, touching it. “Will you marry me?” Racknar coughed. “Lisa, I'm engaged. Also I know you're excited but I highly doubt you'd be happy with me as your husband.” Lisa gestured to her workshop. “I may have been ahead of my time but none of this would be possible without you and that brilliant mind about f yours. The mind and personality is what I'm after. Physically speaking well… I suppose there are things I'd have to get used to in the face area but I'd definitely be happy sexually assuming you know how to use that heat you're packing.”

  Davy shouts from the background. “For fucks sake!” Racknar sighs. “I'm always away on dangerous missions that can get me killed and you spend half the day in your workshop. Think practically Lisa. When would we even have the time for a relationship? Besides, you can pick my brain whenever without anything like that.” Lisa chuckled. “Yeah yeah, I was mostly messing with you anyway. Oh and Davy, you definitely ain't slacking either.” Davy blushed. “Damn it Lisa, stop being so damn horny. My being a horny bastard is bad enough.”

  Lisa chuckled. “Alright alright. I've got work to do so I'll let you know when the weapons are ready. It'll take a few days so don't take any missions that are above your pay grade until Ivory and I can restock you.” Racknar bowed. “I guess I don't have much of a choice.” The party gets ready to leave when Lisa interrupts one last time. “Oh, I almost forgot. You have two visitors, both waiting in the garden you made for Morning Glory.” Racknar waves without turning around. “Thanks for the heads-up, I'll head right there.”

  Davy turns a corner separating from the party with a wave. “I need to have a long talk with Ivory.” Krys'tal starts to follow him. “I'll come with you since I have an idea what it's about.” Racknar, Ariagoria, and Marionette continued to the garden without them. The garden was even more beautiful than before with a number of dryads roaming around and tending to the garden and its large bees. There were now two hives rather than just one. In front of Morning Glory stood another draconic figure.

  This dragon was white with bird-like wings, a single horn on its head, and a rainbow main making it look like a fusion of a unicorn, pegasus, and a dragon. Racknar stopped for a second when he saw it. “Holy crap it's an alicorn dragon.” Ariagoria gave him a perplexed look. “And that's special how?” Racknar sighed. “Right, I forgot. It's a dragon from the feywild. Extremely rare even if it's in its home plane. They can be intense, as like the unicorn, they care a lot about purity. However, they are far more capable of doing stuff about the impure.”

  Ariagoria took a step back. “I may be chaste but as a demon-blood I'm not taking any chances.” The dragon spoke but it wasn't draconic. Racknar sighed. “I don't have my translator with me, so if you could speak Imperial Common, that would be great.” The pure white dragon did a light bow. “I will do no harm to one who has pulled the sword of selection or their allies.” Racknar made a single nod. “I see. I was told we had two guests.” Out from a flower bush came Elizabeth with one of the large bees on her shoulder. “This is so cool. I never thought I'd see an alicorn dragon in person and this garden is absolutely beautiful.”

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  Racknar sighed. “Although there's a chance Elizabeth has come for a social call despite having a phone she can call me on I'm guessing the alicorn dragon isn't here for a casual visit.” The dragon shook its head. “There was an incursion, but rather than flee to its home realm the devils came here.” Racknar lets out an exasperated sigh. “Devil's of the infinite abyss are loose in this world and you can't deal with it yourself for some reason I'm guessing.”

  The alicorn dragon shook its head. “I took care of most of the incursion myself and what was left was within the capabilities of the natives of this realm. My issue was finding a way back home. Realm shift isn't something I can do on my own. I can't go to just anyone but when I saw this garden I knew whoever made it could be trusted. Then I met the Princess here who has been quite helpful and forthcoming with useful information.”

  Racknar blinked a few times. “Okay…” he looks over at Ariagoria. “Banishment is a fourth tier magic and both you and Davy should be able to access it. Normally the issue with it is the creature you cast it on gets a chance to resist the spell. However, if the creature wants to be banished that's not a worry. It sends creatures to a harness demi plane or if the creature is from someplace else it sends them back. It's fairly low level magic and is better then what the Empire would likely do to this dragon. You're well aware how valuable dragon parts are, but a unicorn horn is also extremely valuable.”

  Ariagoria sighed. “Don't tell me the old story about granting immortality is real here.” Racknar chuckled. “It will extend a lifespan by a lot but not make you immortal. If you turn it into powder and snort it you trip magical cosmic balls according to the book. I'd never try it but you can easily see why someone else would. If I wanted to get absolutely fucked over I'd drink coffee because of how it effects spiders is closer to alcohol.” Ariagoria blinked a few times. “Wait, is that why you only drink one cup before switching to tea or juice whenever we're hanging out and having tea with Lisa?”

  Racknar nodded and gestured to the dragon. “Banishment.” Ariagoria nodded. “Right, right. I'll use ritual casting so it might take awhile. You can take Elizabeth someplace else in the garden to see what she wants while I work.” Racknar looked over at the princess and nodded. He then gestured for her to follow him and the two mostly had privacy minus the occasional nymph tending the garden. “Alright, so whatever it is must be important if you came in person. Because we do have magic phones now. By the way Lisa is already making an update with facetime using a scrying orb.”

  Elizabeth blinked a few times. “Da Vinci is going to create a magic smartphone basically. All we are missing are mobile game apps with gacha mechanics, a camera function, and toxic social media.” Racknar sighed. “Yeah, the camera I can see happening but everything else can stay right where it is in the old world. Anyway, what was so important it couldn't be said over the phone or letter?” Elizabeth used magic to create a chair out of earth and placed a cloth on it before sitting. “Father is… ill. Has been for a long time. Potions don't work, even the most powerful healing magic doesn't work. He's tried everything shy of intentionally dying to use true resurrection. Something tells me that wouldn't work.”

  Racknar sat hard on the ground. “Cancer. Damn.” Elizabeth looked up from the ground. “How do you know…” Racknar sighed. “It's rouge cells, but still your cells. So traditional healing doesn't work.” Racknar had a long pause. “We live in a fantasy world where even death can be undone and there's still no cure for cancer. Any idea how long he has?” Elizabeth shook her head. “I've been using my knowledge of modern technology to slow its progress with some improvisation. Basically makeshift chemo. At best he's got a year.”

  Racknar sighed. “And when he passes you'll be forced to ascend to the throne.” Elizabeth nodded. “We'll have to accelerate our plan if you want to be ready by the time my dad passes.” Racknar lets out an exasperated sigh. “I've been having others do some ground work like Lisa has been in contact with the Dwarven kingdom and we have some Dokkalfar in the city. However, most of the diplomacy will depend on you as queen. It may be happening sooner than anticipated but we don't need to necessarily speed things up because of this but it does allow us to speed things up if we wanted to.”

  Elizabeth nodded sadly, she knew to expect a practical, logical, mission focused response with little emotional input. This is how Racknar always was, even in his past life it seemed the only thing he was capable of feeling was self loathing. Something that got in the way of Racknar ever being happy. “Yeah, I figured you'd say something like that. But what about… you know…” She gestured between the two of them. Racknar chuckled. “Do you want to be stuck married to someone that can't give you an heir? Even if I could think of the long term implications of that.”

  Elizabeth shook her head with a slight smile. “I don't care about that. All that matters is that I am with someone that makes me happy, right? Someone I love and who loves me back. Everything else is secondary.” Racknar nodded. “I suppose. I mean we'll probably establish a democratic government later down the line anyway so the royal bloodline isn't really important.” Then much to Elizabeth's surprise Racknar reached out and gently grabbed her hand. “So what do you want to do, Eli?” He then curled his fangs into a smile.

  Elizabeth hesitated to answer. Racknar was being uncharacteristically sensitive and emotional. However, this was Racknar. No doubt. Something must have happened in the time since they last met that affected him greatly. He seemed more in touch with his emotions than before. Elizabeth searched her heart for what she wanted before grabbing his hand back. “I'd like… to give us a chance. I have these feelings but I don't fully understand them or if they're romantic or not. I'd like to be sure.”

  Racknar’s smile grew slightly. “Okay then Eli, if that's what you want I'll do my best. But I can't promise anything. I mean even if your feelings were romantic it wouldn't do us much good if they weren't mutual. Right?” Elizabeth did a little leap. “(No excuses? He's not trying to find a way to back out and distance himself. Whatever he's been through he's finally grown. He's still the same stubborn fool but now he seems more emotionally inclined. I wonder what happened, but I guess what doesn't matter as much as the fact that after all this time he's finally ready. He finally let go of that self targeted rage. Wait…)”

  A sudden realization hit Elizabeth like a ton of bricks. “Have you been having trouble with using your rage abilities?” Racknar did a so-so gesture. “I was for a while but I've managed to find a way around it. It's still not perfect or easy, but I'll eventually get the handle on things. Thankfully anger isn't the only emotion I can use to tap into the powers of the Nine Hells.” Elizabeth tried her best to remember details about Creatures and Catacombs from when Racknar taught her the game in her last life. She vaguely remembered a detail about how the subclass let the user tap into different circles of hell for different damage types.

  Elizabeth blinked a few times as she mentally sorted through the different circles. “I'm going to not ask what circle you've been drawing from while sorting through your emotions. I trust you to be able to control yourself and not give into the sinful desires you'd have to draw on for some of the circles.” Racknar nodded before looking around the garden that definitely had magic keeping it in a spring like state as it was lightly snowing outside of it. “Late fall is a particularly difficult time for me emotionally speaking due to a combination of teenage hormones and Iron Spider instincts.”

  Elizabeth blushed lightly as she knew exactly what Racknar was talking about. O-oh. Oh my.” She paused for a while before talking again. “Anyway, I just felt it best to talk in person about how you wanted to move forward. I think if we are going to try and actually be a couple that would mean trying to spend time together.” Racknar shrugged. “Unless you want to go on missions with us, that'll be kinda hard. Also Marionette has a big time crush on me so expect some jealousy.”

  Elizabeth sat with a perplexed expression for a moment, eventually shrugging and saying. “Eh, what's a little competition?” Racknar sighed. “Honestly I don't know what I've done to receive the attention I get. I'm as ugly on the outside as I once felt on the inside in my previous life. Certified eight legged geek.” Elizabeth started bobbing her head. “Eight legged geek, certified freak, packing eight inches, monster in the sheets.” Racknar gave her a deadpan stare. “Have you been spending time with Davy behind my back? Because that's the kinda cringe thing he'd come up with.”

  Elizabeth giggled. “Sorry, it popped in my head and I thought you might find it funny.” Racknar chuckled. “It was a little bit funny. Anyway, I'm not even sure what our next mission will be because it's not like I can check my level and stats and know if I'm ready to take on something or not. Plus I have to sit still for a few days as Lisa rebuilds my weapons.” Elizabeth nodded. “You'll think of something. You always do.”