With assistance from Merior!

Late one morning, A and B went testing.
Having lost track of time while empesting.
It felt very good,
As she ground on his wood,
So they missed the red moon while cresting!

News soon went 'round the 'hood.
That they played with their pud.
And they were investing
In materials for nesting,
As A did what a responsible man should.

The Prince and the Maiden

With assistance from both Merior, and Rosemary Howell!

 
For the beauty and power in his blood,
Many desired the prince as a stud.

His royal sire sought perfected progeny.
Long days spent, selecting who he’d marry.

Seeking to complete his matchmaking quest,
The king found a maiden whose mind was the best.

Deciding to trade his years for his coffers,
He extended a very generous offer.

A geas to obey her lord,
For supplies, room, and board.

Locked into a life-long career,
Chained to the search, year after year.

Wise of thought, she crafted an aide of her own:
A thinking machine of magic, water, and stone.

Gathering princely knowledge, finding his fit.
She was filled in well, swapping words and spit.

Falling in love, while searching for mates,
She cursed her career while going on dates.

Sadly, the search succeeded, "I approve!", the king said.
Even as chance would make them all dead.

The maid told the prince of the odds.
They came together and prayed to their gods.

A godly thief from outside their lands,
Heard their cries and lended a hand.

Stolen away on a moonlit night,
wishing their kingdom a future so bright,

The spare rose to rule, sparing much pain,
One kingdom’s loss was another world’s gain.

And as the prophecies did foretell,
The king’s whole family ended up doing well.

With assistance from Merior!

His wishes granted,
By contract, reviewed and read,
For a blessed bed.

Leavening his bread,
Set the plate to gift his stead,
Fiancé unwed.

Soon he’d be jiggled,
And one who never fiddled,
Uniquely riddled.

The body rested,
Soon, divinely regifted,
Reincarnated.

And acclimated.
Two bodies respirited,
Deal, consummated!

The history of our modern world began long, long, ago, in the Ice Age of what was an unnamed land, where men were entombed in ice, with their big mother watching over them.

The age was named by those living in it, as a reflection of the cold of their world. Although, in their language, it was the Frigid Age. The age of Preservation. In both languages, the one of the past, and that of the present, it also reflected the state of the men that were living in it. *They* were preserved.

But, men were still men, and such was the purpose of the machine named Mater.

She was a static installation of no small size, in fact, she was the creator of the whole society that was the foundation of all the ones that came after it, stretching far and wide across history, to us, here, in the land of Ai’Ren, utterly detached from the land of Ice.

Mater’s purpose, was reflected in her name, which, in their language, meant "Mother", and as can been seen, was one of the words that travelled down to us, pretty cleanly. However, her name in our language, also reflected her purpose. To mate. She was artificial product of the old humans, made to preserve humanity from whatever had come before her, and turned the world into a land of Ice.

While she was granted great intelligence and knowledge, which she passed down to us, as part of her purpose, time, corruption, mutation, and distortion have rendered history moot, even if we could ask her right now.

And the reason can't ask her now, is that she shut down long ago, when her purpose was fulfilled, when she was ensured that we humans could survive without her, but also have the ability to create a copy of her if the need arose.

But that's skipping forward in the story. At the beginning of our new world, she was there, and she created what would become us. She started with the First Few. They have many names, but we'll call them Lif and his Lifthrasir. They were not copies of the old humans, but new humans, made by Mater to life fast, long, and multiply.

Mater created their souls in a world of her creation, basically her Womb, where they learned about the wider world, their purpose and other such things, learning at the fastest pace, while their bodies were being prepared. Those bodies, were, as said, better than that of the old humans, but those improvements were drawn from the strange beings that wandered the ice outside, who shimmered in the sunlight with their diamond skin, and summoned in the moonlight even stranger beings to feast on.

Those "vampires", a name meaning "monsters of the night", appeared to have been created from the corpses of the old humans, which lay under the ice. The vampires said they were created by something called "Pater", meaning "Father" in the old language.

While "Pater" was named like just a male version of Mater, he wasn't. Not exactly.

Mater had captured some vampires, and interrogated them, as they had retained the ability to speak due to their human origins, and they revealed that Pater was their god.

But, even though Pater was a god, and Mater was an artifice, Pater, like Mater, had the goal of creating a society, but his was dedicated to his creations serving him, as a kind of immortal army of worshippers, powering him with their prayers, and possibly serving as an actual army.

However, the most important thing to Mater, was the vampires' prophecy, that, if they had enough worshippers, Pater would arrive to restore the world.

Mater had only one goal, ensure the continuation of humanity, and that they could make a copy of her. In Pater, she believed she had found the fastest way to make it happen. The vampires were human enough, that they would count as humans, to her, and that's what mattered.

---

By this point, Mater had been growing Lif and the Lifthrasir for a while, and wanted to stop devoting resources to her womb. Also, she had learned about the vampires' reliance on Pater to create more of them.

Given Mater's ability to make human bodies, provided she had the material, and the vampires' summoning abilities, Mater enacted a plan.

She made human bodies for Lif and the Lifthrasir, enhanced with the supernatural secrets of the vampires, letting them be stronger, faster, and age faster than the old humans.

Although, such improvements were not without their downsides, such as increased skin sensitivity due to enhanced senses, making things like old human towels and clothes, feel rougher than they did in the womb. However, the artificial maids that Mater created out of the non-organic materials she had to work with, were very good with needle and thread, even if metaphorically, making clothing and other goods, suitable for the new humans, along with the classical black and white maid uniform, granting them some magical ability, and wielding magical staves that looked like feather dusters.

Mater's plans were aided by the vampire oracles, who guided the creation of the magical maids, and such, and also, using Mater's fabrication technology, created a line of nanotechnology that allowed female vampires to breed again, by basically transforming them into the new humans.

In further aid of Mater and Pater's plans to repopulate the land, the magical mechanical maids were given wombs of their own, and a compulsion to breed, which could be turned off when no longer needed.

And so, as Mater shut down, as the oracles assured her of the brightness of the future, the age of Ice came to an end.

And the age of Glass began.

---

The history of our modern societies began long, long ago, in the Glass Age of what we would call "the Countless Kingdoms", where men were men who had big families and followed other men.

The age was named by those living after it, or possibly during it, as there was no precise time of its end, unlike its start, and reflected the dangerousness of the land, being like walking on glass. Although, it was also known as the Fragil Age, in the old language, as a reflection of the state of society, easily broken, nothing constant, compared to the age of Preservation right before. It was the age of Fragmentation.

But men were still men, making wishes for a better future.

Those wishes made them vulnerable to the seductive promises of Technodyne Technologies, a multiversal shopping network that had a knack for fulfilling wishes. They had sent emissaries to Pater's vampires before, in the Ice Age, hitching a ride with their nightly summons of food, and were fed upon, following Pater's commandments, and also because they were just hungry.

But, after Mater freed vampire society from Pater's grasp, no longer needing him to grow their society, instead breeding them with the new humans and maids, and Mater's technologies provided more food so they would no longer hunger every night, vampire culture changed.

At first, they stuck with worshipping Pater, but the more and more worshippers there were, and the more and more maids were worshipping as well, impatience with Pater grew. How much worship would he need, to restore the world?

With impatience came defiance, and everyone had heard about Technodyne's promises. After all, the emissaries came every night.

The end of subsistence living, gave people free nights to think, and experiment more with the magic available to them, and that included what happened when they prayed.

When they discovered that their magics could not reveal the truth of Pater, while Technodyne allowed free rein to explore their technologies, and free samples as well.

And so, the world fragmented. The ice thawed, through Technodyne Technologies that restored the world, not through the power of Pater.

But, there was no such thing as a free lunch, especially with Technodyne.

As more people began to use their technologies, the constant downsides became apparent. The land that Technodyne restored, while initially appearing to match the world that was in Mater's memory banks, soon revealed large differences, when Technodyne's animals were introduced. While the first generation were the regular birds, fish, insects and things, the second generation revealed massive magical mutations.

Usually, it was an increase in size, but also an increase in intelligence. Mining the ground in locations where Technodyne Technology had been used to restore the land, revealed strange gem deposits, supernaturally warm rubies, supernaturally cool sapphires, and so on.

Such complaints and treasures were provided to the emissaries, known as Terminals, who looked like women of average height, but strange matching hair and eye coloration, such as emerald green, or bright pink.

Their most distinctive feature, however, were their wings. Extending from their backs were four planes of magical force, symmetrical from left to right, with larger ones at the top, and the colors of those wings matched their hair and eyes.

While the world population was fairly numerous, although historians do not have any precise numbers, what was important was that children were still highly valued, and with Terminals basically looking like human women, it was soon discovered that they could breed like them as well.

And with these new children, came a new form of magic, more versatile than any known before, matching the possibilities of the maids, but not requiring long charging times, specialized clothing nor tools. Not restricted in function and time, like the vampires' nightly food summonings, and not as personalized as the vampires' abilities. It was also not as weak as the Terminals’ own very weak elemental magical abilities.

While these new magic children could use the new minerals in Technodyne territory to enhance their magic, they did not need them to do the simplest tricks, and those tricks could also be taught to anyone who had the same type of magic.

In any case, once Technodyne was informed of this new development in their creatures, the provided a solution. They sold multiple methods to remove the monsters, mainly weapons and containment.

And, there were no problems with these solutions, until people started turning the weapons on other people, and exploiting timing the release of monsters from containment, to turn the monsters into weapons.

This created even more chaos in the world, until someone decided to remake Mater for her advice, since she was devoted to keeping humanity alive, while the current state of things, was going against that goal.

Mater began negotiations with Technodyne Technologies, and returned with a new magical item, Kingdom Gems, made to enforce peace and order whereever they were placed.

And so, the Glass Age coalesced into the Gem Age.

---

The history of modern globalization began long, long, ago, in the Gem Age of the Gem Kingdoms, where men were valued based on the size of their coffers.

The age was named by the historians of later ages, as the ones of the time were focused on the histories of their own local areas, not the world as a whole. But, the importance of Kingdom Gems was obvious to everyone alive. In the old language, the Gem Age would be called the Gemma Age, which basically means the same thing, but it adds a hint of how the Kingdom Gems were the seeds that kingdoms grew from. The age of Fragmentation settled down into the age of Competition.

But, men were still men, and such was how Hulkegunia rose to dominate the world.

Hulkegunia was the kingdom that ended up dominating the world after the Gem Wars that erupted once Kingdom Gems were made.

While Mater's oracles assured her of humanity's survival again, and she was recreated by a single group, other groups had their own oracles, and didn't want to submit to the group that created the Kingdom Gems.

So, groups across the world, requested Kingdom Gems from Technodyne, and who took the money and delivered, as usual.

Kingdom Gems used magic to monitor the kingdom they were used to found, and Technodyne created a very simple base version of the product, but also had upgrades, that they gave for a cost, to enhance the amount of control and power available for a Kingdom Gem.

And so, the world was sent into competition, and war, but, war was expensive, and it was usually found that exploiting the citizens for products to sell, and going into a slow war of attrition, with precisely made weapons, was cheaper than trying to buy weapons and destroying a competitor with as much brute force as possible.

Rebellion became progressively more and more difficult, until only one kingdom, now an Empire, remained, the Empire of Hulkegunia, whose unbreakable fist was the core of the Diamond Age.

---

The history of modern global peace was long, long, ago, in the Diamond Age of the land of Hulkegunia, where men were onto gods with their big guns.

The age was named by those living in it, as a reflection of the heights of their magi-technology. Although, in their language, it was the Adamant Age. In both languages, the one of the past, and that of the present, it also reflected the state of the men that were living in it. *They* were unbreakable. The age of Unbreakablility had been forged from humanity in the fires of Competition.

But, men were still men, and such was the problem of the man named Malleus Alvarez.

He was a travelling gunsmith of no small renown, serving as one of the best in Hulkegunia, and so, he was working for the Gallian Face, Faces being the collections of Facets, a.k.a Kingdoms, that made up the Empire.

But, the important thing was, that Malleus was such a good gunsmith, that he was the *creator* of the big guns that were the foundation of Hulkegunia, and, even though he had trained apprentices, and retired to just doing repairs and maintenance, he was constantly magically messaged with requests for his services, requests coming from royals who wanted to upgrade their arsenal. Meaning all of them, all the time, and since he did repair work for them, he did add in a few upgrades from time to time, just to shut them up.

The quality of his work and strength of his reputation led to his possession of great wealth, but he never got to spend any of it, as he was constantly working, and could only afford the barest of rests, due to quirks of the magic that defined him as a worker of the Empire.

He yearned for the finer things in life, and so strong was his wish, that he drew the attention of the wishgranters at Technodyne Technologies. In Malleus's case, he bought a great quantity of what they called Auxilla-class gynoids, a.k.a the maids of the type that Mater crafted a long, long, long, time ago. But, now also enhanced with chest-cannons, to fit the big gun nature of the modern world, and also provided with blueprints so he could repair and alter his new maids at need.

Those gynoid maids, granted him both freedom from his work, and some of those finer things he was wanting, being beautiful maidens who equaled him in skill and creativity, dressed in the ancient maid fashion.

Technodyne Technologies also sold Malleus a form of better form of immortality. Something called they called "daemon-blood", so his durability would match that of his robotic maids. But, Malleus was surprised when the form that new immortality took, turning him into a diamond-skinned vampire, the kind made by Pater, in the old, old stories. That was not the expected result of the daemonblood, according to Technodyne, especially since it wasn't close to the immortality that the daemonblood had promised, and attached an annoying bloodlust. But, thankfully, for Malleus, Technodyne had a solution that should give him the previously promised immortality, and more. Malleus had caught onto the trend of Technodyne's products, but still bought it anyway, having no better option. And so, on the desolate mountaintop of Mount Ren'Py, Malleus planted a Kingdom Seed, basically an organic version of the Kingdom Gems, which tied his life to that of his new kingdom, and set up the magical Castle Alba. No longer was Malleus drifting from kingdom to kingdom as his jobs took him, he instead had a central office, that were connected to smaller offices set up in the kingdoms he worked in, through techno-magical portals.

Finally, in exchange for monitoring all of Malleus’s upgrades and alterations to his maids and such, Technnodyne gave him a magical endless wallet, with a Black Card of Infinite Credit inside, for immediate access to the wealth of his kingdom, and infinite wealth otherwise. Although, the Black Card had a cooldown before it could be reused, it could be used again. The last thing Malleus received was a strange gift. A magical pumpkin carriage summonable by any Princess of his line.

But, even though the new Kingdom of Albion, promised peace to the surrounding kingdoms, that Malleus was the same worker they always had, and just moved to better accommodations, the real issue was that Albion was not beholden to the Empire of Hulkegunia like all the other kingdoms in the world.

The "Unbreakability" of the Hulkegunian Empire was very effective propaganda, and they worked hard to keep it that way. Each kingdom of the Empire was but a facet of the greater whole. The Emperor exerting total control of every citizen had been achieved in the past, and established his control over the world, but it was an open secret that the Empire didn't have the funds for it anymore.

As with all Empires, a police force of sorts emerged. In this case, it was the Lace, the magical collection of the original Maids of Mater and the women and girls that had the strongest ties to their type of magic, and, as was basically every magic not from Pater and Mater, a result of Technodyne Technologies.

Given all the breeding that had happened from their Maids' creation long, long, long ago, the power was spread across basically every woman in the Empire, so it was really less of a police force, and more of a public order initiative, that just worked really well.

However, Malleus's kingdom had copies of the very first generation of Mater's maids, making them separate from that network. With no information and basically no control over Albion, the kingdoms were freaking out, and didn't trust their oracles saying that things would be alright, as they had learned from history, and were well aware of the fallibility of prophecies of peace and prosperity.

However, they did trust the predictions that told of the ineffectiveness of attempting an assault on Albion.

And so, when Technodyne Technologies offered up a better solution, they jumped at it.

Technodyne offered to banish Malleus, in exchange for rulership over Malleus's old territory, along with peace treaties with the kingdoms, backed by magic.

The Gallian kingdoms readily agreed, even as it put them into enormous debt, but they regarded that as the devil they knew, over the devil they didn't.

With the banishment contract signed, sealed, and delivered, Malleus's kingdom of Albion was now totally separate from the Hulkegunian Empire, and replaced by a large body of water in a crater.

And so, for that Kingdom of Albion, the end of the Diamond Age happened in an instant.

---

But, as we're here, in this land that started from the Kingdom of Albion, its banishment from Hulkegunia was clearly not the end. In fact, it was its beginning, having only had its first royal family. But, now, it was free of neighboring kingdoms, and could expand as far as it wanted, led by the great gunsmith, King Malleus Alvarez.

Malleus was the best gunsmith in the Hulkegunian Empire, which, given that magi-technological long-range weaponry was the foundation of that nation, meant he was the best magi-technologist they had, as well, although chronically overworked.

And now, he was as immortal as ever, and "trapped" in a place without anyone but him and his maidens.

Meaning he was free from any obligations and free to revel in his power, without anyone to stop him.

And so, discovered that he still had some limitations, or as he thought of it, a new frontier, in the turbulent sea that surrounded his new kingdom, and gave its name to the times. That sea inspired the name that later historians would call this period. The Chaotic Sea Era.

Malleus didn't think about expansion immediately after being "banished", since Technodyne had, as part of contacting him, given him a wife. She was a blue Terminal named Melissa. And for a while, they lived in marital bliss in their new kingdom and had a daughter, Mia, while Melissa slowly expanded their small kingdom with ice floes crafted from her natural water magic, enhanced with upgrades purchased from Technodyne.

Terminals' children, in addition to the magical abilities discussed previously, also shared the coloration of their mothers, and the according elemental affiliation, unless there was some Terminal lineage in the father, then the colorations and elements can mix. But, the Terminals' ability to connect with Technodyne, was only passed down the female line, although they don't have the wings.

In this case, Mia was as blue as her mother was, and had the signature Terminal magic, which, as usual for Terminals' descendants, unlocked at puberty. But she also had the typical new human durability, and inherited Malleus's personal inventiveness.

What really changed in the household, upon Mia's birth, was Malleus's sense of Melissa's fragility. As a first-generation Terminal, she didn't have the immortality that was engineered into humanity by Mater, so long, long, long ago, and was part of both her husband and her daughter.

As was the usual solution to their problems, they went to Technodyne, who provided multiple solutions, mainly copies of what Malleus himself had used, and they decided on more Daemonblood. Unfortunately for them, it still didn't work as expected.

Which is to say, it sent the fledgling kingdom into immediate ruin, sending the Chaotic Sea Era, into the Great Flood Era.

---

As implied by its name, the Great Flood Era of Albion's history was typified by a Great Flood. It was caused by Daemonblood reacting with Melissa's blue-colored self, turning her into some kind of water demon.

In the end, Mia was the only survivor of the Great Flood, as her parents were banished in a last minute purchase from Technodyne, and she ended the Era living on a iceberg floating on an endless sea.

So marked the beginning of the Iceberg Era.

---

While Mia was only living being in the endless sea following her parents' banishment, she wasn't alone. She had the maids, which weren't technically alive, and it was a very large iceberg.

Lastly, she had a Kingdom Seed of her own, although, it wouldn't work very well without actual soil to plant it in, unlike a Kingdom Gem. But it was what she had.

And she wasn't even the only living being for a whole day. Although she wasn't old enough to be a Terminal, she could still get one. When night fell, and the moon rose, as it did every night on this new world, not like she had known any other...

In any case, with the coming of the moon, Mia invoked one of the oldest rituals known to new humanity. The one given by Pater to summon food. And as expected, it came with a Terminal ride-along.

This one was a fiery red, named Anise. And so, Mia could start selling off her maids for something useful, as the Black Card of her family’s magical wallet was still cooling down, and the fall of the Kingdom meant she couldn’t access the treasury at the bottom of the sea.

While there normally would have been a depreciation in value due to wear and tear, Malleus's upgrades made the maids worth more on resale than on initial purchase.

But, Mia didn’t have to sell off her the longest companions she’d had just to survive, because as luck, or fate, would have it, Technodyne was willing to provide Mia with land, and a husband, at no cost.

Seeing no reason to not take such a generous offer, she took it, and, when the forest arrived, the Whitewood Era had started.

---

The Whitewood Era was defined, like all the Eras of Ai'Ren are, by location, location, location. This location, was a snowy wood, all covered in white.

When Mia took the deal, her iceberg ended up floating on a frozen lake, in the aforementioned wood. And looking right at her, was her future husband, Chisel Maleficar, ruler of the castle that she eventually saw in the distance.

Chisel, was a werewolf, and apparently, one of their magical abilities was to be able to recognize their true love on sight. But, he had to find her first.

So he had a wish, and since the lake on his lands was magical, it provided Technodyne with an opportunity to satisfy his wish.

And satisfy it they did.

But, the tale of Albion's fall started repeating itself, this time with Sylvania, Chisel's forest kingdom.

After Chisel and Mia's son was born, the red-haired, red eyed, Malus Maleficar, Mia was worried about Chisel's impending death.

Thankfully, Mia had saved her Kingdom Seed, since she didn't need to grow her own Kingdom when she had Chisel's. But, that allowed Chisel to use it, to become as immortal as his kingdom.

Unfortunately, Chisel's shapeshifting nature created some adverse effects on his kingdom.

When he shifted, everything in his kingdom did too.

And that shift changed the Whitewood Era, into the Hungry Jungle Era.

----

From the name, I think you can guess that the Hungry Jungle Era wasn't exactly a ray of goodness and light. And you'd be right in that guess.

However, unlike Albion's own fall, Sylvania's was a little bit better, because that kingdom wasn't actually the whole continent. Malleus sending the land to his wife was a favor paid for with help from the forest fairies, so they could all escape plan from some nebulous threat scried on the pond that Mia ended up in.

Also, when Malus was born, he got blessings from all the forest fairies.

All those differences from Albion, meant that when Chisel shifted into a wolf, and Sylvania shifted with him, Malus stayed human, and with the power of taming animals, given by one of his blessings, and a few other blessings for success in love and life, he became the de-facto ruler of a new, alien Sylvania, where plants were like animals, the former king was stuck as a wolf, and the former queen was stuck watering her forest kingdom with her water magic.

The blessings also seemed to have influenced Malus's lady love, which, following in the footsteps of his father, was bought from Technodyne Technologies.

That lady love, was Prime Hulkegunia, the Princess and heir to the Empire of Hulkegunia.

When Malus learned of his new wife's claim to that Empire, he felt compelled to take his family back to their ancestral homeland, and install himself as Emperor.

But, the costs to do that were prohibitive, and, like his father before him, he needed the help of the forest fairies to make such a teleport possible, as Malleus didn't want to give up any of his kingdom, even if he could possibly summon it back after he had taken the throne.

By that time, the forest fairies had not only learned and disapproved of Malus's plans, they had a counter-plan. As both a measure to prevent Malus from taking their wealth, and as a way to fight back against his plan, they spent all of it on Technodyne Technologies, to summon a hero to save them, and the royal family of Sylvania from the strange compulsions that they seemed to have been afflicted with.

And so, they received their savior, Apple Snow, along with a starter set of maids, and the Kingdom Seed that was used to grow Castle Whitewood.

To the fairies' surprise, they had summoned a commoner female version of Malus, born to what was technically the same mother, but whose father was someone called Silas Snow.

On arriving, Apple, due to her werewolf heritage, immediately fell in love with the fairies' head wizard, Magnus.

He would soon become her king, and decided to stay and fight against her half-brother to save her new land, and rescue the version of their mother who had turned into some kind of strange butterfly creature, watering and empowering the plants of Malus's kingdom.

Such was the war between her and Malus, that historians named a new Era after it, the Apple Orchard Era.

---

The Apple Orchard Era, was defined by the war of the same name, the Apple Orchard War. And, when it ended, we moved to our current era, the Soft Snow Era. From the name, and how Castle Whitewood is the capital of our nation, I think you can figure out who won.

---

You have questions? "Why is the world called Ai'Ren? Why are we living on the Patchwork Continent, and how did the world get bigger than Sylvania?"

Well, those are very good questions, and they're all related to the massive upheavals of the war, and how, unlike all the other wars of our long, long, long, history, the Apple Orchard War was fought without much oracular support.

I'll give you a quick summary, then you can come back tomorrow for more story, okay?

Technodyne Technologies had a lot of things for sale, and the wars of the Hulkegunian Empire and its past, had deliberately stuck to the safer ones for its populace, because mutually assured destruction was very, very mutual and immediate, given the predictive power of their many oracles, plus it wasn't used that much, since back in the Glass Age, every kingdom had many rivals, and taking out one, just meant another got stronger while you weren't paying attention.

But, the Whitewoods and Sylvania weren't fighting like that, because while Malus didn't want to lose any of his kingdom, he didn't really care about its *state*, so long as its borders didn't shrink.

Technically, he was empowered by the massive war effort turning his kingdom into a wasteland, as it let him use Technodyne's land restoration to get the materials for the recipes stored inside his maids to craft things like Homing Bullet guns.

In contrast, Apple’s territory surrounded Malus’s, and she wanted to keep it nice, so it was slightly more of a containment operation for her, and having to fend off Malus’s attempts to corrupt her land.

While Malus could’ve used the Black Card to leave at any time, he wanted all the land he could get, and that hunger was his downfall. Never giving up trying to expand, wasted his resources.

All the while, Apple knew he would never be satisfied until he got everything, so she kept expanding her land, summoning in more kingdoms, and using up her resources to take risks like EyeCandy Glasses. Eyeglasses made of sugar glass, that, when eaten, give eye-based effects, like oracular sight, beams of magical force, or other effects, but also had side-effects, usually involving temporary loss of eyesight.

Yes, yes, there’s tons of holes in how that precisely led Apple to victory, but that’s why there’s a whole ‘nother section on the Apple Orchard War.

Have a good day!

It was the first of September, Prince Obsidian's 16th birthday, and he was unable to enjoy any of it.

First, his twin sister, Princess Amethyst, went missing, so he had to help find her. Then, he got caught in an explosion. So now, he's unconscious, bruised, scratched up, and infected with some magic that was working to turn him into a girl.

And after all that injury, Princess Amethyst was still missing.

Worse still, Princess Amethyst was determined to be the only cure for her brother's magical infection, because it was not just trying to turn him into a girl, it was specifically turning him into Amethyst's replacement.

The royal mages had come up with a stopgap measure, to buy time until Amethyst could be retrieved.

Encase the Prince inside a giant obsidian crystal, and send the only other person with a deep connection to the missing princess to get her back.

That is, Princess Amethyst's lady-in-waiting, Mint Schwartzwald. Unfortunately, as the second of only two people with a deep connection to the missing princess, she was involved in the first plan to retrieve Princess Amethyst. And so, subsequently injured in the same explosion that infected Obsidian with magic.

But, a more important consideration for this second plan, the plan to send someone to bring Amethyst back, instead magically pulling her back, was that Mint was another 16-year-old, and utterly untrained for the task at hand. So, the royal mages gave her as much help as they could:

A magical hooded robe, to protect her on her journey, a wand to create magically nutritious sweets, a magical credit card to buy anything else she needed, a magical staff of the deepest black wood, to create the path to wherever Princess Amethyst had gone, and lastly, Bianca, Princess Amethyst's cat, to find Princess Amethyst in the world that she had disappeared to.

And thus equipped, the poisoned Prince's girlfriend, went off to find her best friend, still injured, and travelling off to parts unknown, with only a rushed plan to guide her.

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Author's Note:

Hi, my readers! Lucky for you, if you're reading this, because this is totally different from what it started as!

If you're reading this after Chapter 2 launches and you didn't know this existed. Well, it didn't, until an hour after it originally posted.

The explanation? I forgot how bookmaking worked. As you have the "The Reluctant Princess: A Tale of Seven Sisters" Book. You know I figured it out!

Hope you're enjoying the story!

It was the first of September, Mint Schwartzwald's 16th birthday, and like her father before her, she was cut up, leaving home, and following a strangely visible dirt path in the lightless void between universes.

Fortunately, *she* wasn't fleeing monsters, with only a magical staff to her name, and never expecting to return.

Unfortunately, her love life was on a timelimit, she didn't know where she was going, and she didn't know how to return home.

But, she had a path to walk on, a guarantee of safety, and a plan, and that changed everything.

Armed with her cat at her side, a magical staff, a credit card, and supply of sweets, not to mention the clothes on her back, she was well on her way to finding her missing twin, once she arrived at whereever the path was taking her.

At least the magical bond she had with her twin, was steadily growing stronger, as she walked down the path.

Having always had someone to talk to until being constantly alone for the first time in her 16 years, Mint had been struck by loneliness, and started talking aloud, and to her cat, Bianca, in turns.

"Okay, let's remember the plan. Walk to the end, and you, my kitty, will lead us to Amethyst, then we can walk back home together and wake Obsidian up. Easy. Easy. ... Actually, make sure to eat something before walking back home..."

"Oh, I wish I knew when this path would end! I'm sure I've been walking for hours!"

Suddenly, Mint's skin flashed a soft pink, and a transparent pink rectangle appeared in front of her face. Using purple writing, it said: "Remaining Distance: 362 Meters".

"AH!"

Mint hadn't noticed her skin flash in the excitement, but when she jumped back from the sign's sudden appearance, she could very well tell that it was deliberately staying a little bit in front of her face.

"Wha... What is this? ... Why am I asking? It's not like you could talk, Bianca..."

The startling appearance of the pane of information, broke Mint's calm facade, shattered by the flaws in her plan.

"Oh, how I wish you could talk! I'm walking to who knows where to find someone who ran away, and so, doesn't want to be found, and I'm trusting in magic to fix all this! Magic! Magic that was given by a drunk woman, to a baby, and is now corrupting Obsidian into some thing! Daddy tried to hide it, bless him, but I could feel it! Obsidian is dying, and Amethyst is not what's going to come out of that black coffin!"

As Mint sat on the path and cried into her red cloak, Bianca walked back to Mint and nuzzled her.

"There, there..."

Mint's head shot up.

"Who's there?"

A soft "Me, Bianca.", came out of Bianca's mouth.

"What... How...", Mint struggled to parse this new development, and then, "Hahaha... Ha...ha... Haaa..."

And then Mint stuck her arm in her robe, pulled out her black credit card, and intoned. "I wish to buy information, on what in the world is going on!"

And so, Mint's skin flashed a third time. And her credit card glowed white.

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Mint's Quest Log:

Cure Obsidian:

Cure Obsidian from the corrupted Amethyst magic that's turning him into Amethyst something.

[X]: Get on the dirt path between worlds.
[ ]: Exit the dirt path to a new world.
[ ]: Use Bianca to get Amethyst's location.
[ ]: Travel to Amethyst.
[ ]: Get back on the dirt path, with Amethyst.
[ ]: Walk back home with Amethyst.
[ ]: Have Amethyst take her corrupted magic out of Obsidian.

[First Person] [Second Person] [Third Person]
[Rough] [Coarse] [1:1] [Fine] [Very Fine]


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Hi again, readers! I'm back, with a new story, for a new contest!

This might actually become a pattern... Only writing for contests... Hope not, and I don't think it will be, if I finish writing the first chapter of the Apple Orchard War, before I learn about yet another contest I want to enter...