The New Chimera

Hey, Lilith, we have a bit of a…situation. Nuwa said. You’re probably gonna wanna head to our room ASAP.

Lilith paused the game she was playing, standing up and beginning to make her way to the room she shared with Kali. What’s going on?

I didn’t get a great glimpse, but I think another Administrator is over, and he’s having an argument with Kali? I can only hear bits and pieces of their conversation leaking into the dungeon, and even then, I can only hear if I really listen for it, but apparently Kali told him not to come by, and he did anyway? I don’t know, just thought we should…do something.

Lilith nodded. Yeah. Let’s see what this is about. Travel between anywhere in the dungeon was rather quick for Lilith, so she found herself exiting the dungeon and approaching the open doorway of her room within only twenty or so seconds.

“Look, I’ve said it a thousand times already, and I’ll say it a thousand more, you really don’t need to come here.” Kali said. “It’s fine.”

“What’s going on?” Lilith asked, stepping into the room. Waiting therein was Kali and a tall, pale man, a vampire if the fangs and ears were any indication. He was dressed in rather casual clothing, and had a sort of…chagrined air about him that made it clear he knew that this was coming when he chose to come here.

That changed the moment he spotted Lilith. He gave Lilith a wide smile and spread his arms out grandly. “You must be the Lilith I’ve heard so much about!” He said. “Perhaps you can help me out with my little conundrum here!”

“You are not bringing my girlfriend into this!” Kali said. “This is between you and me!”

“Seriously, what’s going on?” Lilith asked, narrowing her eyes and looking at the man. “Nuwa was saying something about you being told not to come here and coming here anyway?”

“That is exactly correct!” The man said. “But first, let me introduce myself. I’m one of the Administrators in Amy’s faction, by the name of Jeryl. But I prefer to go by Jerry, so, please, just call me that.”

“He’s the Administrator who gave me Haven.” Kali said, rolling her eyes. “And I’ve told him we’re square, but he won’t take no for an answer!”

“Which leads me to why I’m here today.” Jerry said, ignoring Kali. “A couple of years back, I ran into some…issues with one of the world systems I’m running.”

“One of?” Lilith asked, raising an eyebrow. “And what kind of issues?”

Kali sighed. “Jerry likes to keep his planes isolated and run different systems to see what produces the best results. It has, admittedly, resulted in some advancements in system tech that a lot of us in Amy’s faction use, but it’s also a lot of maintenance and can be…unstable.”

Jerry shrugged. “Risks of the craft, I’m afraid. Basically, the system in this set of planes assigns everyone a Class when they’re born, which almost entirely determines the Skills they can get. I run a Monster Lord system in most of my planes, and for this set in particular, I directly oppose that with capital-H “Heroes”.

“At birth, when giving someone a Class, the system can decide that person is a Hero, and use up some Worship to give them an extra powerful Heroic Class, subject to all the normal randomization Classes have. This randomization and strict limiting of Skills allows for stats in those planes to be worth a lot more than they would otherwise be, but, uh…”

Jerry scratched his cheek in embarrassment. “Well, I made a mistake when I was constructing the system. I forgot to limit the amount of Worship that could be put into a single person’s Class. The system did what it did, and made a Hero, but it tried to use more Worship than I had allotted to it, didn’t know what to do, and tapped into the Worship that was used to make it and keep it running.

“The whole thing nearly crashed, so I had to pull a bunch out of the emergency and maintenance reserves of other systems I run, and I was basically super, super strapped for Worship, so I borrowed some from other people in the faction, including Kali. Things have stabilized more now, and I have some Worship saved up, so I’ve been running around trying to pay my debts, and no one will take the stuff!”

Jerry gave Lilith an imploring look. “You’re a Higher Being, right? Will you take this off of my hands? Or can you convince Kali to take back what I borrowed? I really don’t like not paying people back, and everyone I borrowed from is too nice to take it back!”

Lilith blinked. “Uh…no, sorry. I’m not gonna take that without Kali’s permission.”

Kali nodded in approval. “Good. Jerry, you gave me a decent-size plane and one of your pet projects. The few thousand Worship I gave you doesn’t even come close to that. If anything, I’m still in your debt.”

“I told you that was a freebie, it doesn’t count!” Jerry said. “It’s my job as your senior to help you out when you have issues!”

“And I told you this was a freebie!” Kali replied, putting her hands on her hips.

“Yeah, but you were in the middle of prepping for a giant system change, and I just had that stuff lying around half-finished. It’s not the same!” Jerry protested. “A penny from the penniless is worth more than a dollar from the rich man and all that, you know?”

“Are you calling me poor?” Kali asked, eyes narrowing. “How rude. I might be willing to forgive you if you just…I don’t know, forgot about this whole matter, though.”

“In fairness, you were running out of Worship right around when we made the swap.” Lilith pointed out.

“Hush, you!” Kali said, wheeling and pointing a finger at Lilith. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“I dunno, I’m just sorta a bystander here.” Lilith said. “Seems to me like you both are too stubborn to admit the other’s got a bit of a point. Look…let’s just compromise and have Jerry give you a reduced amount of Worship, sound good?”

“I suppose that’s acceptable.” Jerry said. “I’ll cut it down to half, then.”

“Fine.” Kali huffed. “I still think it’s unnecessary, though.”

Jerry beamed. “Excellent, give me one moment here…” He began interacting with a menu that was invisible to Lilith, then nodded. “All done.”

“Jerry.” Kali said flatly.

“What?”

“This is not half of what I gave you.”

“It’s half of what I was going to give back!” Jerry protested. “Look, I have to offload this somewhere, so just call it interest!”

“No.” Kali said firmly. “I will take exactly half of what I gave you.” She pulled up a menu of her own and made a couple of taps. “Use the rest to help with that plane that was giving you troubles.”

“How…did that turn out for you?” Lilith asked curiously.

“Oh, excellent, actually!” Jerry said enthusiastically. “Honestly…it might be the next big thing for me. I’m going to have to play around with it a lot.”

“What happened?”

“Well, the girl who got that super Class ended up being turned into a sort of…pseudo-Higher Being, and…long story short, she unintentionally made a bunch of changes to the system, handed over much of that power to the girl she loved, and things are sort of in flux right now, but it’s looking like the end result is going to be that plane having all its people become partial monsters, provided nothing too unexpected happens.”

He paused, looking Lilith over. “The…partial monster thing isn’t actually that far removed from what you are, come to think of it. It’s quite a bit less…broad and powerful, but…anyway, yeah, given the already rather…narrow, focused nature of magic and progression on that plane, allowing people to progress in the same way monsters do is likely to be an increase in power long-term.

“That being said, growth is probably going to stagnate once she takes everything over, so I’m going to have to constantly keep challenging them with new things, so it’s going to be higher maintenance than normal.”

“Didn’t you say you were using a Monster Lord system?” Lilith asked, frowning.

“Yes, but that’s quickly becoming…untenable. A Monster Lord isn’t nearly as effective when all the monsters have been taken out of the picture. But that won’t become an issue for another few years, so I have time to make my preparations.”

“How are those side effects you mentioned?” Kali asked. “Have they been giving you any trouble, or do you have it under control?”

“Connie’s taken a bit to get used to things, but she finds the Blood Money well worth the change.” He paused, looking over at Lilith. “One of my gods got herself a bit too entwined with everything, and her base form got altered as a result. It’s a bit troublesome when she has to appear to her church, but that’s a pretty rare occurrence, so it’s not a big deal. We’ll work on changing her perception in the other planes over time, but for now she just uses illusions to appear as her old self.

“Aside from that, so long as I don’t try and use too much Blood Money at once, nothing happens. Not that I really have that much need for Blood Money, so it’s just sort of…a bonus.”

Kali nodded. “Makes sense.”

“And this Blood Money is…?” Lilith prompted.

“Warped and diluted Worship that only functions in my planes.” Jerry said. “The girl who got the Class I mentioned managed to make a Skill that sort of forcibly extracts Worship from a target, mixes it with a bunch of Mana, Stamina, and other stuff, then packages it for reuse. Unfortunately, as with everything she made, it has a bit of a…corruptive influence if the intended target isn’t the one using it.

“Still, it sees some minor use, and, more importantly, can be extracted from non-sapient beings, provided they’re strong enough!” Jerry said, excitement entering his tone. “In my free time these past couple of years I’ve been working on separating the stuff into its component parts, and I’m slowly inching towards a solution.

“If this works, it could be the beginning of an entirely new era for Administrators, much like when the techniques for easily manipulating Mana and creating systems were made! Imagine what we could do with that much Worship!”

He stopped and gave an embarrassed cough. “Sorry, I get a little worked up thinking about it. I’m still trying to make sense of this all, since what that girl did was so far outside of the norm for how systems are constructed, and she did it all on Worship-aided instinct, so I can’t even ask her, but I’m confident that, given a few millennia, I’ll figure it out.

“That, uh, being said, I do have a few other Administrators I need to go meet with, so I should really be going. Thanks for your time, I’ll…well, I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Yup.” Kali said. “We’ll see you around. Take care, Jerry!”

“Nice meeting you.” Lilith said. “Let me know if you figure out that Worship thing, I’m sure Nuwa would love to make use of it.”

“Believe me, when I figure it out, everyone is gonna know.” Jerry said. “It’s too much of a gamechanger to keep to myself.” He winked, gave a little wave, and then he was gone, like he had never been there.

“That…was not what I expected when Nuwa called me in here.” Lilith admitted. “I was half expecting to have to try and physically restrain Jerry.”

Kali smiled and waved a hand. “Nah, you shouldn’t ever have to worry about that. It’s not exactly easy to just stop by another Administrator’s planes, you have to know…well, think of it like this: you need to both know where the house is, and you have to get past the locks. We can usually feel when someone from outside our planes is trying to get in, and most allied Administrators will do the equivalent of knocking first.

“If someone’s knock is ignored or turned away, and they don’t…well, go away, then we call in other people from our faction, and that’s when things get ugly. Something like that hasn’t happened in a really, really long time, though, and the only thing we have that’s worth taking is Haven, so don’t worry. Anyone who’d want to take Haven is also weak enough that my wards will keep them out for long enough for Amy to get here, and believe me, she’d make short work of that poor, foolish person.”

“That’s reassuring.” Lilith said. “But…when was the last time something like that did happen? And what happened after?”

Kali made a face. “A thousand or so years ago? There was a new Administrator in one of the other factions that thought she could start sneakily taking over the planes of some of the more isolated Administrators, and…” Kali shook her head. “Well, according to Administrator law, that Administrator becomes fair game for anyone else to target, and she didn’t last more than a couple of days after her deceptions were uncovered. It was ugly.”

“When’s your next Administrator meeting?”

“I like to pop by and talk with some of the others every month or two. Why?”

Lilith shrugged. “I was…kind of wondering if I could come.” She said. “I’m kinda interested in seeing what everyone else is like.”

“I’ll have to ask Amy.” Kali said. “But I’m sure they’ll give you permission, it’s not too uncommon for Higher Beings to stop by.”

“Good.” Lilith said. “Where do you usually hold these meetings?”

Kali smirked, sidling up to Lilith and creeping a hand up her side. “You’re awfully inquisitive today.” She said. “Any particular reason?”

“No, Jerry’s visit just had me curious about Administrator stuff.” Lilith said. “I’d sorta been wondering for a while but it hadn’t been important–” She let out a yelp of surprise as Kali traced a hand down the length of her tail and fingered the spade tip.

“Well, I’m sure there’s some Administrator stuff I could teach you.” Kali purred. She flicked her free hand and the door to their room shut. “Care to find out?”

“W-what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” Lilith asked, a blush rising to her cheeks. “This is so…sudden!”

“Do I need a reason?” Kali asked, still stroking the tail.

“Well…you just sorta pounced on me, yeah.” Lilith said. “I’m just wondering why.”

Kali stood on her tiptoes so she could whisper into Lilith’s ears. “Because I think it’s hot when you come in ready to do your best to help me out, even if it’s against someone you probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance against.”

“I…I wasn’t thinking about it like that.” Lilith said. “I just thought there was trouble,  so I needed to help.”

Kali began gently tugging Lilith towards their bed. “Would it have changed anything if you were thinking about it like that?”

“I probably wouldn’t have been so brazen, but I…would have still come, yeah.”

“And that’s what matters. So…you want to do this or hold off for later? I can wait if you’re not in the mood.”

Lilith paused, then nodded, face reddening further. “Y-yeah, I want to.”

Kali smiled, pulling Lilith down onto the bed. “Let’s get started, then!”