Ryssa caught Manohar from under the shoulders and brought him away from the Byk. Just like the old Manohar, the baby reacted to the meddling with his experiments by throwing a tantrum.
“I know how you feel, sister.” Selia sighed, drawing Brinja’s curious look as the huntress put the seemingly normal baby boy on the ground.
The Marchioness was about to open her mouth and ask for an explanation when Solkar became covered in soft red fur and started running on all fours, yapping at those present while sniffing at their clothes.
Brinja instinctively took a step back, putting herself between Solkar and the playpen when he came close to Milla.
Manohar the Second stopped crying, focusing on the other hybrid.
“Don’t worry. He’s excited, not dangerous.” Elina put Surin, the only other fully human baby, sitting on the ground in front of the puppy.
Solkar sniffed and licked her, making Surin giggle and fall to a side. The Skoll tried to help her sit, but the baby girl was more interested in his soft fur and waggling tail.
After a while, Brinja felt safe enough to let Milla out of the playpen. The baby girl had inherited her light brown hair streaked blue from the late Mirim and had been named after her.
Milla crawled forward and Solkar welcomed her with a good sniff. The puppy yelped when she grabbed his tail but did nothing aside from barking in annoyance.
“Here we go. Let’s set loose the heavy weights.” Salaark gently dropped Shargein to the ground. “Be good and help the little ones.”
The Wyrmling looked like a human so Brinja gasped in surprise when she saw him nod in reply. When Shargein shapeshifted back into his real form, her knees buckled and she needed Elina’s help to keep standing.
He had the snout and the tail of a Dragon, scaled arms, bird feet, and two sets of wings on his back. The black feathers covering his body shined like obsidian under the sun but what scared Brinja the most was his size.
Shargein was younger than Milla but he was already as big as an adult man. Manohar the Second giggled like crazy and it was with no little reluctance that Ryssa let him go as well.
He used the tendrils to run where the other babies were assembled, drawing Solkar’s growls. The Skoll didn’t know the newcomer and it moved too quickly for his taste.
Elysia and Valeron exchanged a quick look, neither of them liked that mess. They shapeshifted into their respective Divine Beast form, flapping their small wings and taking flight.
They circled the other children, studying the situation from above while discussing in Dragontongue whether to join the weird bunch on the ground or not.
“They can fly?” Brinja went pale.
She was no mage and the idea of Milla going away in a direction where she couldn’t follow scared her to death.
“Yes, but so can we.” Kamila pointed at herself, Solus, and Lith. “You don’t have to worry. This place is safe.”
She wasn’t referring to the complex array system protecting the place so much as the two Guardians.
“Still, it’s the nightmare of every parent.” Ryssa pointed at the flying babies. “In your shoes, I would never let them do that. One moment of distraction and they are gone.”
“Now, now. Don’t be dramatic.” Lith shrugged. “I put trackers in all of the clothes I make.”
“Exactly.” Kamila nodded. “He- You did what?”
“You heard me, woman.” Lith replied.
“Are you telling me I have trackers in my clothes?” Kamila was flabbergasted.
“No.” His answer made her sigh in relief. “Grandma made your armor so I had to put trackers in your jewelry.”
“You did what?”
While Kamila reproached him for the breach of her privacy, Ryssa and Brinja were still staring at Valeron and Elysia.
“Trackers or not, I’m glad that my baby girl can’t fly.” The Marchioness said.
“You and me both.” Ryssa regretted those words the moment they came out of her mouth.
Manohar the Second had been staring at the Wyrmlings as well. A rustling of leaves and snapping of vines made the Dryad look down just in time to see Dhiral’s extra limbs shapeshift into what looked like wings with vines for bones and leaves instead of feathers.
“Gods, no!” Ryssa said in terror as the baby tried and failed to lift himself in the air.
“There’s no need to worry.” Salaark raised her hand to calm the Dryad down. “A human’s body is too heavy and those wings are too small to fly.”
The Overlord’s true identity was public knowledge so Ryssa trusted her. The Dryad didn’t grab Manohar and kept watching. She sighed in relief when all of his attempts failed, leaving him pouting and exhausted on the ground.
“What did I tell you? He’s just a baby.” Salaark regretted those words the moment they came out of her mouth.
While catching his breath, the baby boy had studied the shape and size of Shargein’s wings. It took Manohar the Second but a few modifications to his wings and a gust of wind from chore magic to take flight.
“I stand corrected. He’s a very smart baby.” Salaark said while using tendrils of Spirit Magic to fetch the runaway.
The rest of the playdate went great. Mostly because the parents moved indoors and put the babies inside a huge playpen sealed from every side, up included.
***
Jiera continent, Griffon Kingdom’s Outpost.
With the completion of the Transoceanic Gate, people and materials had been coming non-stop from Garlen.
Under the protection of the Wayfinder in its village form, the builders had started their work by fortifying the Gate first and then erecting solid walls capable of channelling the permanent arrays necessary to protect the future city of Darmoq.
Healers from the six great academies came to help Quylla to catalogue the most common illnesses of Jiera, each bringing with them Alchemical tools to store and analyse the biological samples collected.
After a quarantine to ensure that none of the newcomers required the medical care that only an Awakened could provide, the Ernas were finally free to go back home. Orion had taught Amyla Farg everything she needed to operate the Wayfinder.
She had volunteered to stay behind and help the Empire’s expedition to find the perfect site for their own outpost, but that would have to wait until the array system of Darmoq was completed.
Quylla couldn’t wait to go back to her husband, Friya to plan her own marriage, and Orion to get the full check-up he so desperately needed.
After Kelia had infused him with Life Maelstrom to empower his Blade Spell, Orion had discovered that although his impurities still held, the practice of any kind of magic brought him dangerously close to Awakening.
If before his training had focused on trying to feel the world energy and make the mana inside his body move, now he had to learn how to suppress the flow that naturally originated every time he cast a spell.
He needed to use darkness fusion to stop the pain, light fusion to keep the impurities anchored to their positions, and the other elements to create a counterflow that kept his mana core under constant pressure.
