Tess stood with her wives, waiting to see who else was going to be in their little group. She felt quite lucky to have the privilege of getting to stay with her loved ones for dinner, as the quick glimpses of the other groups had shown her that the other polycules that seemed to make up the attendees for this party had been split up.
She hadn’t really thought of it like that before, but the group she had become accustomed to meeting up with at these parties was indeed made of distinct polycules; Lia and her lovers, and…well, maybe whatever was going on with Lilith, Kali, and Eve didn’t count? Regardless, polycules weren’t exactly common, so it was kind of interesting that she had not only found herself in one, but the others here had as well.
“Um, hey guys.” Connie said, walking up to them. “I guess I’m with you all today?”
“Nice to have you, Connie!” Ellie said. “Uh, which time are you from?”
“Same time as Rose.” Connie said. “Past me is off with Jerry.”
“Oh, not here with the rest of us?” Maven asked, raising an eyebrow.
“To be honest, he wouldn’t have much to talk about with us.” Connie admitted. “Ever since the whole swarm thing, I’ve become a lot more…in touch with normal people, less stuffy and focused on godly business all the time, you know?”
“I know exactly what you mean.” Maven said. “I’m not sure how well my past self will be able to keep up, but hopefully she doesn’t have too hard a time.”
“We saw her heading over to my future self.” The past version of Lilith said, walking up to the group with Kali. “Hopefully she’ll be able to keep her at least somewhat engaged with the conversation.”
“I hope so.” Maven said. “Allow me to introduce the three of us; I’m Maven, and these are my wives Tess and Ellie.”
“I know who you three are.” Lilith giggled. “Kali’s told me a lot about you in my time.” She turned to Connie, giving her a smile. “I’m afraid this is my first time meeting you, though.”
“Ah, um, I’m Connie, a Higher Being from Jerry’s planes.” Connie said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you as well!” Lilith said brightly.
“I think this is probably everyone for our group, do you all want to go get some food?” Kali suggested.
“Sounds good.” Tess replied. “Did anyone see the tables?”
“They’re to our left.” Connie volunteered.
“Right. Lilith, are you going to leave a body there, or…” Tess trailed off, frowning as she saw the look of confusion on Lilith’s face. “Oh, right, you probably can’t do that yet. Uh…how are we going to save the table?”
“Just leaving something on it will do the trick.” Kali said. “Lots of people like to leave some materialized Mana on it.”
“You can materialize Mana?” Tess asked.
“Yes, but it’s not very useful in combat, which is probably why you don’t know about it yet.” Kali explained. “I believe Arenas use that to make it work.”
“I can do the Mana thing.” Connie said.
“Perfect. Let’s go grab a table, then.” Kali said, beginning to walk over towards the tables.
The group followed her over, and once they had reached the table, Connie put her hand out over it, a small greyish globe dropping from her palm onto the table. “There we go.” She said. “That should keep our spot safe.”
“We’re going to go grab our food, we’ll meet you back here.” Ellie said.
“Sounds like a plan.” Lilith replied. “See you in a few minutes.”
As they left, Tess couldn’t help but ask her wives a question. “What did you think of your past selves?”
“I mean…she was about what I expected?” Ellie said. “I don’t know, maybe she was a tiny bit more restrained than I thought she would be? I might just be seeing things that aren’t there, though, since she’s still closeted.”
“Speaking of, you didn’t have to go quite so far with that little prank,” Tess said reproachfully, “that was a little mean. I could handle something like that now, but I don’t think the me from back then is mentally resilient enough for that sort of thing.”
Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Have you really changed that much?”
“Of course.” Tess replied. “After my body changed, I went through a lot of stuff, and grew a lot mentally. He’s still that same boy who doesn’t quite know what life is like outside of his hometown.”
“It’s probably just hard to tell because you’ve been with Tess this whole time, save during the period she first met me.” Maven said. “It’s hard to notice changes in people who you’re always around.”
“Well, what about your past self?” Ellie asked as they arrived at the serving tables. “What are your thoughts on her?”
“I don’t think I can properly put that to words.” Maven sighed, grabbing a plate. “I can’t help but pity her a little for her life as it is at this very moment; she’s repressing her feelings, but she feels trapped and like no one listens to her. She just needs a little more love, and she doesn’t even know it.”
They got their food and returned to the table to find that they were the last ones to arrive, and that the others were already in the middle of a conversation. “We talked about it, it’s fine. Lilith, uh, the present Lilith, made it clear that I can act however I want with this Lilith.” Kali said, leaning over and giving the past Lilith a peck on the cheek. “After all, she’ll be getting those memories at the end of the night anyway.”
“Uh, didn’t Lilith take a snapshot of the memories as they were at the beginning of the party?” Connie pointed out.
Kali froze. “Uh…yeah, now that you mention it.” She said. “We’re just too used to them getting live updates, I guess.”
“I think she left a channel open for me?” Lilith said questioningly. “I can feel something odd in the back of my mind, and I’m pretty sure I can just funnel tonight’s memories through there?”
“You know how to do that?” Kali asked.
“It’s just sort of a feeling I’m getting.” Lilith said, shrugging. “I’m not gonna think about it too hard, though. Worst case scenario you try and grab a copy of my memories to give to her.”
“I’m not good at that.” Kali admitted. “That’s more the wheelhouse of, well, future you, what with the eldritch stuff and all.”
“If that’s the case, then past Lilith probably has some part of that skill.” Tess said, taking a seat. “And if our Lilith did leave a path open for her, it’s probably not that hard for her to do.”
“I can go find her and talk to her, if you’d like.” Lilith offered.
“Would you? I don’t want to do anything that even feels kind of like cheating.” Kali asked guiltily.
Lilith stood and gave Kali a smile. “And that’s part of the reason I love you. I’m sure the future me is at one of these tables, I’ll be as quick as I can.”
She left, and Connie chuckled. “I almost feel like calling this a love triangle, but I don’t think that’s quite accurate, is it?”
“If it is a love triangle, it’s the strangest one I’ve ever seen.” Ellie said. “Two of the sides are the same person and seem totally chill with the other having the third side, who is also in love with both other sides.”If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
“I don’t think it’s a love triangle.” Kali chuckled. “I just…feel strange about it, I had made my peace with her memories being gone, then tonight happens and I find out that she’s getting them back, and I also suddenly have one night with the her from way back when…it just really reminds me of my own shortcomings. Anyway, you three are from after your wedding, right?”
“Yeah.” Tess said. “We just finished our honeymoon a little bit ago.”
Kali smiled fondly at them. “And so the legend of the faction’s biggest power throuple begins.” She said. “What’s next on your agenda?”
“You’re exaggerating.” Tess said, blushing. “We’re sort of playing it by ear. We recently did an interview on some sort of ghost-hunting show, so we’re going to be keeping an eye on the reception of that while we continue running some of the higher-level dungeons in the City.”
“She’s not exaggerating.” Connie said. “You three are the strongest Higher Beings in the faction until Lilith comes along, remember? If it came down to it, I’m sure some of you could individually take down some of the weaker Administrators provided you had the support of your gods, and as a unit I think you’d be able to topple some of the medium-to-high power Administrators, and that’s with their access to the full suite of Administrator benefits.”
“Which are…?” Tess prompted.
“Mostly increased resistance to your magic, their magic is more effective on you, and they have access to a lot more Worship than regular Higher Beings. Think of it like the difference between Higher Beings and mortals, except a little less steep.”
“Is it really possible to punch up like that?” Tess asked. “The gulf in power seems rather large, you know.”
“Amelia took me out without breaking a sweat.” Connie said. “Granted, she’s basically halfway to being a Higher Being as is, and I’m not exactly a fighter, but she did it. Regardless, mortals with a certain amount of Worship-fueled abilities and who are exceptional combatants do it all the time. The Appointed were known to often be able take out Higher Beings without Descent in the battles for planes before they became Higher Beings, and they’ve become even scarier now that they are Higher Beings. We’ve only had one of those battles between that point and my time, but you and the rest of the Appointed dominated the battlefield.”
“I’m sure you three in particular scared the other factions half to death.” Kali chuckled. “You were new to the battles and still were on par with or better than the rest of the Appointed. If I were them, I’d be quaking in my boots at the prospect of my enemies being able to raise such potent fighters in only a century or so.”
“Only a century?” Ellie asked, raising an eyebrow.
“The time scale of Administrators is pretty different than that of mortals.” Lilith said, sitting back down at the table. “And, real quick, yes I asked her, she said it should work, and that even if it didn’t you be fine to do whatever with me. Also, she says you’re cute. Anyway, what were we talking about?”
“The gap between Administrators, Higher Beings, and regular people when it comes to combat prowess.” Kali replied.
“Oh, yeah, that.” Lilith said, grabbing a piece of chicken from her plate and popping it into her mouth. “Yeah, it usually works to assume that Administrators beat Higher Beings and Higher Beings beat mortals, but sometimes that just doesn’t work. So, don’t get too comfy just because your opponent is ostensibly lower on the totem pole than you are.”
“Yeah, learned that lesson the hard way.” Connie said, shaking her head in embarrassment.
“What happened?” Lilith asked.
“Amelia happened.” Connie said. “I don’t know if you interacted with her much tonight, but she’s basically a pseudo-Higher Being formed as the result of a bug in the system she was born in. She’s a genius with magic, she completely revamped and improved one of Jerry’s systems, and for a bit we had her unconscious while we tried to figure out how to deal with the damage such unrestrained usage of Worship as a non-Higher Being did to her.
“The mechanism that was keeping her unconscious was tied to the new system she had made, and we didn’t realize that she had a failsafe put in place in case she was unconscious longer than expected. She woke up, and when I came into the room to see what was going on, she captured me in the same thing that was keeping her unconscious, and I had to be bailed out by Jerry. I didn’t even get a chance to process what was going on before it was all over.”
“Sheesh.” Lilith said. “Scary stuff.”
“By the way, those two are dating now.” Kali said mischievously. “I think that’s a meet cute for the ages.”
“I don’t think assault counts as a meet cute.” Lilith chuckled.
“I thought I made a poor first impression on my future wife, but I think Amelia’s one-upped me on that.” Maven said.
“Remind me.” Connie said. “I’m not as familiar with your story, sorry.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be.” Maven said. “Basically, I mouthed off at her for taking a hotel room that I hadn’t reserved because we hadn’t thought it necessary. Eyfura came out and scared me straight, and we ended up running a dungeon together the next day.”
The conversation moved on from there, the group animatedly talking about whatever topic came to mind. Tess had to admit that, while having everyone together was fun, there was something nice about this smaller gathering as well; it felt like each person had more opportunity to be involved in the conversation, and the others were good conversation partners.
Once everyone seemed just about done with their food, Tess decided to bring up the topic of their next activity. “So…what now?” She asked.
“If it’s alright with you four, I’d like to do whatever Lilith wants.” Kali said. “She doesn’t often get to be corporeal, so this is a good opportunity for her to try things.”
“You really don’t have to.” Lilith protested. “I’m more than happy just eating again and trying whatever things you all think are fun.”
“Well, I don’t see a problem with you picking the activity.” Ellie said. “I think we’d likely just end up playing laser tag or something, that’s kind of what’s happened before.”
“I have always wanted to try laser tag.” Lilith admitted. “Mini-golf too, they look like fun.”
“Why don’t we start with a round of mini golf and then go to laser tag, then?” Connie asked. “Uh, provided Tess and Maven are fine with it.”
“I don’t see why not.” Tess said. “Maven?”
“I don’t have any issues with it either.” Maven confirmed.
With their course of action set, they set off in a random direction, in search of whatever sort of mini-golf the party would provide. When they found it and began playing, one thing became abundantly clear; Lilith was terrible at it. While she generally had the right idea as to what shot she should take, she was constantly misjudging the power behind her shots.
It was a bit of a shock, because her future self was pretty good at this sort of thing. Still, good or not, Lilith really looked like she was having the time of her life, and when the game was over, she was all smiles. “Man, that was great!” She said enthusiastically. “I’d forgotten what holding something like that felt like!”
“You had?” Maven asked. “Surely you’ve picked up something roughly similar recently.”
“Well, I’ve picked up a couple of things, but when I’m corporeal, long and hard things are the furthest thing from my mind.” Lilith said, winking and grabbing Kali’s thigh suggestively. “Being dead for a few thousand years sorta makes you forget what using tools is like. I barely managed eating like a civilized person, and that’s only because whenever I’m corporeal the two of us have dinner together.”
Tess had forgotten that this Lilith was dead. “Um…so…this may be a little insensitive, but…what’s being dead like? You’ve got me curious.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Lilith laughed. “I’ve made my peace with it, and you’ve seen my future self, it looks like I’ll soon be living enough lives to make up for all this lost time! Jokes aside, it’s…different. There’s a very small plane that serves as our afterlife, where we can mill around and talk with other dead people.
“We can’t interact with anything physically, but the plane is set up to make our souls project an illusion of what we looked like in life and to let us talk with magic. A few of us have figured out how to manipulate the illusion somewhat, but we mostly use it to make dice and playing cards, so we can do something other than watch the mortal world. We actually have a rather active tabletop role-playing game group, if you know what those are.”
“We have a couple of those on Mael.” Ellie said.
“Great, then you know what I’m getting at. But, yeah, there’s that, we can watch the mortal world using those terminal thingies, we often use them to watch television from the mortal plane, and…that’s about it. Occasionally we’ll ‘sleep’, we’ll go unconscious and the projections of our bodies will disappear, but other than that we just relax unless Kali comes to visit or we decide we want to be reincarnated.
“As for me, I spend most of my time with Kali in her Administrator plane. We do our best to make the relationship work with my lack of a proper body, and I’m rather fulfilled. Though, at the moment I was plucked from, I was literally seconds away from being reincarnated into Lucas, so it looks like I’ll be starting another adventure soon.”
“Sorry.” Kali mumbled, looking down. “I really wish I had done better.”
Lilith grabbed her in a hug. “Well, I was absolutely prepared for that outcome, and look at us now! It may be thirtyish years delayed, but all the memories will be back and it’ll be like nothing ever happened! I may act ever so slightly differently, but I think I would have anyway, growing up a second time will do that to you. Anyway, are you all still fine with doing laser tag?”
They were, so they went and played a few games. Lilith was much better at it than she was at mini-golf, probably because she didn’t have to gauge how much strength to use like she did with mini golf. She seemed to have just as much of a blast with laser tag as she did with mini-golf, and by the time they finished, she was practically glowing with enthusiasm. “Well, I’ll be glad to be able to do this more often in my next life!” She said brightly. “But that’s all I could really ask for from this night, does anyone else have anything they want to do?”
“I have a few card games from my universe that I think you might like.” Connie volunteered.
The group thought that sounded great, so they found another table and spent the rest of their time that night playing cards. The time flew by, and it seemed like only a moment later Tess felt that feeling that meant it was time to go home. “Uh, seems like it’s about time for me to go.” Tess said. “I’ll see you all…whenever the next one of these parties is or whenever I remember this, whichever comes first.”
“Uh, it’ll kinda be both.” Kali said. “In real time, you’ll remember this event first, since the future parties haven’t happened yet, but in party-time, if the next party is still with a you from before you remember, you’ll remember the other parties but not the memories of your present self. And then your present self will get the memories of you from now…it’s very complicated and…uh, well, probably best not to get into it now. I’ll see you real soon!”
Tess blinked, mentally chiding herself for losing focus. She was out on a dungeon run with her wives, and a moment’s inattention could be all the difference between them getting hurt and being safe. So, she focused back in on the dungeon, and continued to carefully scan the place for enemies or traps.