With Roger's departure and the Vesalius empire's immediate future secured, Arthur thought things would finally slow down. Unfortunately, he still had a few meetings left to get through. The vampires, for starters, wanted his permission to grow certain plants they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to, thanks to the benefits his Soul Splinter brought.

  He’d been pleasantly surprised that they’d consulted him for something they could have easily gotten away with. Still, he wasn’t so foolish that he was blind to the political intent behind the decision. The elder vampires had been shocked by his Soul Splinter, and he’d quickly risen in status from a necessary evil to a golden goose they wanted to be kept well-fed and happy. By consulting him on such a trivial matter, they got to stroke his ego and inflate his sense of self-worth.

  Or maybe he was reading into things too much, and the vampires were just good neighbours. He remembered how they'd broken his house to build theirs. Arthur snorted. Fat chance of that. Iris looked up at him from the document she was reading through.

  “What’s got you in such a funny mood?”

  “Nothing,” Arthur replied. “How are those reports going?”

  Iris groaned and pulled at her hair. “It's the last time I’m going to let Ayesha sweet-talk me into things,” she cursed. “It’s been her dream forever to establish her own faction on Earth, but if I knew it involved so much paperwork, I would’ve tried to talk her out of it.”

  “I still don’t get that, to be honest,” Arthur said. “How exactly does all this faction stuff work? And why is Earth so important? Unique people aside, it's only just become tier 1.”

  Iris shrugged. “It’s all really simple. In the end, it all boils down to a game of benefits and the basest of all emotions, greed and desire. Ayesha’s father is a businessman through and through. He isn’t evil or anything, but he made for a terrible father, at least in her early years of life.”

  “As wealthy as he was, he didn’t have the kind of money to buy power, the faction-establishing kind, not on a tier 2 planet, or even a tier 1 world that wasn’t completely trash. From there, he turned his attention to his greatest chance, planets like Earth, that were on the cusp of evolving to tier 1.”

  Learning about how the wider universe operated was always interesting, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t like what came next.

  “That brings us to the Seedling program, something that costs 25 billion credits a year to join. It gives you the opportunity to sire offspring with the natives of those unranked worlds, so long as certain rules are followed. Consent must, of course, be explicitly given, and any pregnancies that do occur must be planned and not left up to happenstance. Parents from unranked worlds are given a watered-down version of what’s going on with the wider universe and are taught about the existence of magic. They remain on their worlds until their child is born, which is when they’re taken off-world to live with their partner.”

  Arthur digested all of this information and tried his best to not let his distaste show on his face. He must have done a pretty poor job of it.

  Iris chuckled. “It is a pretty dated tradition, and it’s gone through a lot of reforms over the last few centuries. People have been calling to abolish it altogether for a while, though I doubt that will ever happen. Because of the nature of how pregnancies work, the Seedling program is, of course, much more popular with men than it is with women. Over 95% of sapient women only possess one womb, after all, and wealthy ladies aren't too fond of spending so much time pregnant. Even with chronomancy magic, people don’t like to rush the creation of life.”

  "The Seedling program allows you to sire ten children. You can concentrate them all in one world to increase your chances of successful faction establishment there, or spread them across multiple worlds. Most choose a combination of both. Ayesha’s father ended up having two children with her mother, though her brother has no taste for anything remotely political.”

  “No politics. He sounds like my kind of guy,” Arthur said.

  Iris narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, you two would definitely have got on well. Maybe too well.”

  “So the Seedling program is just a bunch of wealthy people going over to less fortunate people to have babies. I think we have a word for them here on Earth.”

  Iris rolled her eyes. “I’ll never defend the people who take part in the Seedling program. It’s a shady business, no two ways about it, but the creeps you’re talking about go abroad because they can’t find someone in their own wealth and social circle who’ll date them. With the Seedling program, the bastard’s partners are often the ones who encourage them to join.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Birds of a feather flock together, I guess,” Arthur deadpanned. "Misery loves company, and creeps are gonna… Hmm, I can’t think of anything suitable. Have suitably creepy co-conspirators," Arthur finished lamely.

  Iris laughed. “That was terrible.”

  Arthur shrugged. “I never claimed to be a poet.”

  “Back to the topic at hand, Ayesha’s dad’s not all bad. Uncle Lupis might have been an ambitious man in the past, but he mellowed out after Ayesha was born. He was never married before any of this, and he genuinely loved Ayesha’s mother. It's part of the reason why Aish’s brother has no political ambitions to speak of. His father's had long since dried up before he was born.”

  “Then this faction establishment. Why is Ayesha so obsessed with it then?”

  “That's all her,” Iris replied. “If her father had been the one pushing her to this, I would’ve stopped her a long time ago. As ambitious as Uncle Lupis might be, he has nothing on his daughter, though. I swear that girl wants to conquer the universe or something. Hell, with you and me at her side now, she might actually think it’s possible.”

  “So the faction establishment,” Arthur said. “Last time Ayesha was here, she told me I scared off all her competitors. Things should be easier now, right, except the way you’ve been huffing and puffing for the last hour tells me they aren’t.”

  Iris exhaled loudly.

  “See, you did it again,” he helpfully pointed out.

  Iris mock-glared at him. “The Seedling war’s over and done with. That’s the process where all children like Aish, people with at least one parent from the planet, fight for dominance. It's got a whole bunch of rules to it and usually takes a few years, sometimes taking up to a decade before a victor is declared.”

  “Because you exist, and your connection with Aish, that battle never even got to start. It’s one of the shortest Seedling wars in history, but it’s left us in a bit of an impasse."

  "Let me guess, the seedling war is only the prelude to a bigger fight.”

  Iris shot two finger-guns at him. “Got it in one,” she pressed. “With the seedling war technically concluded, bigger fish are finally allowed to make their move, and we haven't had time to establish ourselves properly. While System law prevents any actual combat from happening after the Seedling war, dealing with the established powers is a whole other minefield, hence all the paperwork. Take the worst bureaucracy you’ve ever seen and multiply it by ten. That’s what my life's become now. That and trying not to die of embarrassment every time I see our new faction's name.”

  “That bad. What is it?”

  Iris covered her face with her hands. “Murkiris & Co.”

  Arthur exhaled loudly. “I’m the Co part, aren’t I?”

  Iris nodded, still not showing her face.

  “You’re telling me this has been her dream her entire life, and the best faction name Aish could think of was merging your names together.”

  Iris groaned, finally lowering her hands. “She came up with it when we were kids, made a whole damn promise about how we’d go on to conquer the universe. It was some childish fantasy. I thought she’d long since forgotten about it.”

  “Evidently, that’s not true. Do you think she wasn’t joking about conquering the universe part either?”

  Iris pulled at her hair. “I don’t even know. Imagine if she actually manages to pull it off and our new alien overlords are called Murkiris & Co. Freaking, Murkiris & Co. My mom’s going to disown me,” she joked.

  At least, Arthur hoped she was joking. "Well, if she grows the faction enough, I'll dump the Vesalius empire on her. Let her manage the damn thing."

  "Not the faction," Iris said. "Our faction. She wants you to be an honorary elder."

  "Really? What role do you play in the faction?"

  "I'm listed as the co-creator and advisor. I'm tied in for the long haul."

  "And if I accept and become an honorary elder. Will I be tied in for the long haul, too?"

  "Iris looked at him hopefully. "Not exactly, no, but also yes. Honorary elder isn't a position tied to any responsibility. They're normally there to show that the faction has connections with people you don't want to mess with, basically nuclear deterrents. Aish managed to persuade Kazi to put his name down. She would've put my dad on it too, but you can't own a faction and be an honorary elder of another at the same time."

  "And what happens when the time inevitably comes that these nuclear deterrents have to be used?" Arthur asked.

  Iris' hopeful expression died. "I'll let Aish know you won't be joining," she sighed.

  Arthur raised his hand. "I didn't say that, Iris. Don't put words in my mouth. With my luck and all the scrutiny I'm under, problems will come for Murkiris & Co if I'm a member. Me joining might do more harm than good."

  Iris smiled, some of the hope returning to her face. "The problems will come anyway. The question is, will you help us when they arrive?"

  "Always."

  "Then you might as well become an honorary elder and make it official." Iris beamed.

  "Is this position permanent?" Arthur asked.

  "You can always leave, but stubborn enemies we make might still go after you anyway."

  Arthur carefully considered things. What had started as a fun little conversation had grown into a massive commitment. Was he willing to do it? He thought of Ayesha and Iris, everything that had happened over the past few months, the dragon core that had saved his life. The budding romance he had with the fae princess.

  "Fuck it," Arthur declared. "I'm probably going to join a faction sooner or later. It might as well be yours. Just promise me you'll keep me out of your politics."

  "Deal," Iris said, grinning. "I'm leaving all the important stuff to Aish, anyway. I'll make sure she consults you before starting any wars, at least."

  "I hope I don't regret this," he mumbled. "You can put me down as an honorary elder."

  Iris cheered, and the work desk between them disappeared in a puff of smoke. His girlfriend jumped through the now-empty space and hugged him. She smelt of cinnamon and something sweet he couldn't place.

  I think I could get used to being an honorary elder.

  Links to the audiobooks.

  Etherious: Originator

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  Here

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  Patreon is available with access to 8 advanced chapters.