Novaris. Sax (June). 905. AGC.

  Nodel. Waning Gibbous??. Day 22.

  Tesilim decided to leave further telepathy experiments for later, and after throwing on some basic clothes, he and Drex left their room. They went down to get some food in the dining hall before heading to the lobby. In the lobby, they met with the always-present Grover, who happily greeted them.

  “How are you two on this fine day!?”

  “Doing good, Grover, how about yourself?” Tesilim responded, Drex just giving a half grunt and growl of acknowledgment.

  “Good to hear! I am doing great, as always. Do you guys need help with anything?”

  “Actually, yes, I am wondering if I can go in and speak with Jolly?”

  Hearing him, Grover's soft smile turned into a huge grin, and he gave Tesilim a knowing look, letting Tesilim know the satyr was aware of everything happening.

  “Of course, of course! She informed me that you might be passing by to discuss some matters. So, by all means, go in.” The satyr responded while motioning at the blank wooden wall.

  Walking into the inner realm of the dryad, Tesilim was greeted by the usual green sky and picture-perfect forest. This time around, when he found Jolly, she wasn’t half-naked while bathing in a pond. Instead, she was back to the original state Tesilim had first seen her in. She wore a long, leafy dress that sprawled around her as she sat atop a fallen tree trunk. Her eyes glowed green, and he could see the tips of her pointy ears as her beautiful green hair shuffled about. Seeing the dryad in this picturesque condition made Tesilim wonder if she ever did anything other than relax in her realm.

  “Tesilim! Drex! Glad to see you. I hope you come with good news.” Jolly greeted him with surprised excitement. Tesilim knew the excitement was genuine, but the surprise factor wasn’t. The dryad was aware of what happened in her inn, so she knew he was coming to see her.

  “It can be considered good news. It just depends on how you feel about contracts,” Tesilim replied, and to his surprise, the dryad didn’t lose her smile at all. Instead, it just widened.

  “So, does this mean you have decided to go forward with my proposal? What about Drex? Will he be available as well?”

  Drex, who had dropped down on the floor and was relaxing, perked up after hearing his name.

  “Yes, Drex will be added to the contract. However, I have to admit that the formality of this whole thing has made it feel less exciting than it otherwise should be.”

  “Well, that’s on you. This would have been much easier if you had just gone with the flow. Still, I have to commend you for using your brains. Also, don’t worry; it may all seem a bit dull now, but you won’t be complaining when you are having fun later.”

  “I really hope so,” Tesilim answered, feeling a bit dejected.

  “Look, let's get a move on. The faster we get you to the fun part, the better. Now, tell me about this contract.”

  Agreeing with the dryad, Tesilim began his explanation of the contract. Starting with his idea for mental manipulation so he wouldn’t have to worry about being a bad dad even if, by this world and dryad standards, he wasn’t. Then he moved on to discuss the aspect of making sure everyone taking part in the fun signed the contract of their free will and without manipulation. He also added the fact that he wanted to limit the number of children, a clause that surprisingly became a topic of argument.

  “No, no, no, you see, it's not guaranteed they will inherit your power. And we won’t know if they did until after the soul is fully created, which varies from child to child. So, I need you to keep making babies until one is born with your powers.”

  “What! That’s ridiculous! How many dryads do you even have willing to do this!?”

  “A couple hundred have already agreed.” An answer that caused Tesilim to pale as he realized how daunting the task ahead of him was.

  “Uh, no. I do not plan to be trapped for days on end with this. I think we need to change the strategy here. We still have the contract but changed some of its clauses.”

  “Okay, what are you thinking?”

  “Let's make this simple. I donate my seed, and from there, you can artificially get the various dryads pregnant. This lets you have thousands of kids until you find the chosen one, as you say. Then that will make me feel much less responsible for the whole thing since it will be like a donation clinic back on my planet. Since I will feel less responsible for it, I don’t need to mentally wipe myself. I also don’t have to worry about consent since I won't be directly involved in the process.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “That would work, but wouldn’t that be less fun for you? After all, part of the fun is making the baby.”

  “Eh, I will get the magic item. Drex will have fun as well, though only when he is available. Plus, nothing in the contract says I must stop visiting the bath. Also, I wasn’t done. For putting me through all of this and teasing me the other day, you can’t get pregnant from my dotation. Additionally, you will be part of the reward, oh and you have to let Lili in on this. Apparently, she wants to have her own fun, and she said she might let me watch, so, yeah, I don’t have to explain that.”

  “That’s acceptable, and just to be clear, I will only be part of the reward or unable to use the donation until you officially leave the city,” Jolly answered calmly, though her smile showed how happy she was with the whole thing.

  “Sure, that’s fair.”

  “Great! Do you have this contract ready!?”

  “No, it will probably be ready later today. I mainly just came by to ensure we had some understanding.”

  “Lovely.”

  After the chat with Jolly, Tesilim had left the inn and headed to Lili’s place.

  “That’s a much better way of going about this,” Lili said as Tesilim explained the conversation with Jolly.

  “Yeah, honestly, I don’t know why we didn’t think of it first,” Tesilim replied as he waited for Lili to finish cleaning up so they could go speak with Alyx and have him stop preparations on the mental wiping part of the operation.

  “We were probably caught up in the moment. After all, the whole thing came out of nowhere. One moment, you were having some fun, and the next, they wanted your babies.”

  “When you put it like that, then yeah, it is kind of crazy. You know what’s crazier, though?”

  “What?” Lili asked.

  “I brought up the part of adding you to the contract, and she agreed,” Tesilim replied with a huge grin.

  “Seriously?” Lili said, her face the perfect picture of surprised puzzlement.

  “Yeah, she didn’t even flinch. Honestly, I think she has been checking you out.”

  “I-, uh, yeah, that is crazy. Huh.” Lili said, giving Tesilim the utterly opposite reaction he had been expecting.

  “What was that!? I thought you would be excited.”

  “I don’t know, Tesilim, it's just shocking. For one, I didn’t think you would actually do it, and I honestly didn’t think she would agree even if you asked. I am honestly not sure what to do.”

  “Well, I guess I won’t add you then,” Tesilim said seriously. He didn’t want to make Lili uncomfortable, so he figured that was the best course of action.

  “No!” Lili blurted, turning to look at him, and Tesilim gave her a raised eyebrow.

  “I know what I said, but that was more of a like, I don’t know what to do with myself as in, like right now, cause of the shock of the situation. Not that I don’t want to do the dryad.” Lili answered, and for the first time ever, Tesilim saw the dark skin elf blush.

  Grinning at Lili, Tesilim nodded, and the alchemist returned to clean up her alchemy mess.

  After Lili had changed into yet another of her summer dresses that made Tesilim work hard to keep from ogling her, the two headed to the Temple of Knowledge and Magic. At that point in time, it was rather late in the morning, and they hoped to find the gnome within. There was little chance Alyx had gone out since he liked to spend his time researching, but you never knew.

  The temple felt like a library with its books and scholarly energy. Inside the temple, they spoke with the cleric attending the front desk and were quickly taken to Alyx’s room. Or, more accurately, they were taken to the room that held Alyx’s room. Since inside they found the door that led to the gnome’s dimensional room.

  Walking into the dimensional room, they found the gnome looking like a disheveled rat. His hair was a mess, and he had bags under his eyes, though even more astonishing, his usual pristine robes were loose and disheveled. Also not surprising was that the room looked just as bad as the gnome. Papers were strewn about the entire place, almost like a storm had passed.

  The gnome himself had looked at them for a second before his vision had shifted back to a contraption on his desk. This contraption was divided into two pieces. One was a small glass globe with a small version of the cheese elemental within, though it was in its first state, which was just the blob of cheese form.

  The second piece was a metal contraption with a bunch of glowing runes engraved into it. These runes glowed and shifted in multicolor lights as their brightness increased or decreased, almost as if they were breathing. The contraption itself was very simple in shape and looked like a desk lamp. It had a round plate at the bottom where the glass globe sat. Then, a metal arm sprang from one of its sides and curved upwards until it ended on a ring whose center was directly above the globe.

  Actually, the more Tesilim stared at it, the more he felt it was supposed to be some sort of magical microscope. Either way, he and Lili approached the crazed-looking gnome as Tesilim attempted to start a conversation.

  “Hey buddy, how is it going? Whatcha got there? Is that the elemental?”

  “Yes, Tesilim. That’s the elemental, but that’s not important. What is important is trying to figure out how it came to be made out of cheese!”

  “Well, it’s a cheese elemental. It's meant to be made out of cheese,” Tesilim said, his voice still low and calm.

  Alyx, upon hearing him, just threw him a “yeah, no shit” look before replying, “Yes, Tesilim, I know that, but I am not talking about its body. I am talking about its soul.”

  “What!? It's soul is made out of cheese!?”