“We should look into some mobile prison.” Scarlett looked over to Hailey. “Think we can construct something like that?”

The enigma engineer opened her mouth in what John assumed was going to be denial at first. A flash of inspiration made her fall silent. “Maybe with the Rose?” she mumbled to herself and grabbed a nearby piece of paper.

Momo squawked and tore it away from her before Hailey could start scribbling things down. “Get your own research papers to doodle on!”

“Here.” Ehtra pulled a notebook out of her inventory and the country gal began to sketch things. Scarlett looked over the blonde’s shoulder, trying and, as per usual, failing to decipher what the enigma engineer was drawing.

John fully supported their attempts to make something of the like. Going forwards, this situation would be a lot easier if they had the ability to actually constrain someone like Liakan. Maybe Nahua could become that something, watching over people while keeping them weakened with her diseases… quite the inhumane way to keep someone out of the game, but there were situations that may call for that.

Beyond that, the Gamer was currently occupied by hammering Rave against the wall. The fun he had ‘promised’ her was being made manifest via a thorough stretching of both of her insides. Two cocks for two holes, he was slamming against her perfect ass with enough force to make the screams of the chain-orgasming Lightbearer the second loudest sound in the room.

“Yes! YES!” Rave managed to press out the same word twice, before another set of spasms emptied her lungs. Pussy juice ran down the inside of her quivering thighs. John had to hold her by the hips to keep her upright. Having become taller over time meant that she had to get on her toes when they were fucking upright like this and her legs were really, really weak at the moment.

John had a nice view of her face. Upside down, tilted backwards, she was all sweat and heat. Combat and the climate had put a nice sheen on her that the current intensity of lovemaking continued despite the pleasant climatization inside the plane. “God, why’re you just getting more gorgeous every second I get to be with you?”

Rave’s lips twitched into a short-lived smile, before she went cross-eyed and O-mouthed. The thrusts never stopped. Muscles clenched folds and the walls of her backdoor shifted with every deep penetration.

“Cum,” John growled in Rave’s ear, just to add that little bit more to the delight of his insatiable first fiancée. Weak legs quivered. Practically all of her weight was on his hands now. She was gushing with every orgasm. Then, he came, she squirted all over the wall and floor. Each pump of fresh, hot cum into her depths made her eyes roll up that little bit further, until he could barely see her irises behind the fluttering lids.

Pinning her against the wall, he dwelled in the bliss of filling her up for as long as it lasted. Once it faded, he pulled out, but remained in a cuddling position for as long as Rave needed to feel her legs again. “Next round?” she asked, still panting.

“Move it to the shower!” Momo ordered them. “Go!”

John and Rave obliged. Several of the haremettes followed. The Creator Puppet, however, stayed behind, alongside with all of the members of the Crafting Crew sans Lorelei. Currently, their group was split in three. Those in the showers, those in the room, and those that were doing the final rounds to make sure none of the brood had survived. Nahua had insisted on it.

Nahua herself was in another room of the plane, doing some reading.

“Lee, y’think ya could do that?” Hailey asked, causing the Fateweaver to come over.

“I have no idea what ‘that’ is,” Lee said. Now John also had to take a gander.

On the paper was a hypercube created out of interlocking runes that John vaguely recognized as part of enchantment patterns. Even this simplified, he only really got that energy was flowing around the outer cube and away from the inner cube. Everything else was a mystery.

“Gonna reinforce your Innate Ability to do compressed spaces with the Rose of Artifice to let ye create a pocket dimension cell.” Hailey added a bunch more lines, as if that would clean up anything for anyone. Then she stared up into space, as if calculating something. “Could pro’ly key it into… 10 different combinations of the Rose as the trigger. Ain’t gonna be easy tho.”

“How long would that lock someone up for?” John asked through the Creator Puppet. His real body was now firmly in the process of getting his dick washed by the lips of Rave and the two Metracanas.

“If it worked? Depends on how much Lee puts into it. It’d basically be an Illusion Barrier she can keep control of from the outside.”

“Can you maybe not just casually sketch something up that breaks our current understanding of the laws of Illusion Barriers?” Lee asked.

“It’d work because it’s you, if that helps ya.”

“…Right, I am powerful,” Lee scratched the back of her head, “keep forgettin’ that.”

“On the topic of powerful.” John used the kind of tone that caught everyone’s attention to him. He glanced over to Delicia, who was seated on a nearby chair, to make sure all of the present Crafting Crew were listening. “I know things were pretty dicey so far, but we are now guaranteed to head into the jaws of the beast. Best case, this is going to end without combat, but either way, you aren’t safe here.”

“We aren’t needed, not even in the potential,” Scarlett put it bluntly.

“I’d like for Lee to stay because she can keep the plane on lockdown, but for the rest of you… yes,” John answered. “However, before you decide to go, I will remind you: you are all powerful. I wouldn’t throw you individually at someone of your equal level or even 100 to 200 below yours, but if you all stick together, I’m pretty sure you at the very least won’t be a burden. You could even be the factor that tips the scales.” The Gamer looked them over. “I’ll protect you if you stay.”

“’Course ya will,” Hailey purred. The certainty she had in him was the only reason he ever needed to keep proving himself. Women were just magical creatures in that regard. “Can I be selfish?”

“As long as you keep drawling, you could ask me to disable the sun,” John answered.

“You’re sooo simpl’.” The country gal laughed.

“Correct, he’s so simpin’,” Lee added.

“Lee, I am cutting your allowance by 99,9%,” John threatened her. “Good luck buying new games without your money.”

“He said, like I don’t have 200 games that I still need to play lying around.”

“I’d like to stay,” Hailey revealed her perspective. “And I’d like to get out a bit more. Since we’re all gonna stick togth’r now, it’s gonna be safer, right?”

The logic was flawed but she wasn’t inherently incorrect. All of them would continue to stick together until they had seen this through, now that they had a guide and a certain goal. Taking the crafters with them into the field was absolutely an option. It was a risk, but all of this was a risk and he did not want to shelter them.

Hailey craved an adventurer. So far, he had given her a business trip in a mobile hotel. Maybe it was unwise to seek the frontline, but how would she find out if she didn’t try it?

“If she’s staying, I’m staying,” Delicia decided on a whim. “I want more samples!”

“Hmm… if we’re actually taking the field, might as fucking well. John, take your double to my apartment and get me the gold-purple briefcase from the shelf in the left storage room.”

“Can I get a please?”

“No,” Scarlett answered. “You can get a kiss if you’re that desperate.”

John was that desperate and bowed down to receive his reward for services about to be rendered. Getting paid in advance by the technomancer was always wonderful. “Do I dare ask what’s inside it?”

“It is exactly what you think it is. I did some coding while you were out and about and it should be about ready for an overseen deployment.”

“Great… please do not use it before we confirm they’re the enemy.”

“I’m not a fucking idiot, just a bit of a sociopath,” Scarlett answered.

“Just a bit,” Lee weighed in. “I don’t get a choice on staying, right?”

“I need you to watch the plane, so no.”

The ultimate verdict was, therefore, that all of the Crafting Crew would remain on-site. That had its headaches associated, but John was fine with the outcome. What mattered the most was that everyone was ready and prepared for what came next. Well, as prepared as they could be without knowing what exactly came next.

____________________________________________________________________

They spent the better part of a day and a half cleaning out the remaining tunnels until Nahua was satisfied and told everyone to gather up. “Now that you have rendered a service to my people, I will keep up my end of the bargain,” she told them. “We will now be heading to the Glory Road.”

“Anything we should expect?” John asked.

“You should expect to invest a little bit of time,” Nahua told him. “The Glory Road cannot be crossed in anything less than seven days.”

John raised an eyebrow at that bit of news. ‘We’ll see how that works when we get there,’ he thought to himself. “Alright, there’s one more thing we should do in preparation.”

“R-right…” Gnome muttered and stood up.

“We’ll be back in a moment, hopefully,” the Gamer said and stood up. He and the stone elemental moved just one room over and sat down on a rolled out piece of wallpaper. John had drawn the required ritual circle on it hours ago.

They had been patient waiting for the Mother of Earth to let them know what to do to get Gnome that last bit of power, very patient. Now that there was a true lull in their operations and with the finale of this whole expedition looming over the horizon, waiting without answers was no longer an option John was willing to entertain. They would need all the power they could get if they wanted to stand up to the Grim Reaper.

Gnome was nervous, for reasons simply fundamental to her character. Pushing someone, her very own mother no less, for answers just went against her highly agreeable nature. John was more than happy to confront anyone or anything these days. An advantage and drawback of immense power.

The circle activated at the slightest touch of John’s vast reservoir of mana. Essential earth enveloped them, then they sank with it into the elemental plane.

John and Gnome found themselves in a gorgeous valley. Sloped hillsides turned into tall mountains. Grass transitioned to rock and rock to salt, rather than snow. A way to keep the aesthetic without stepping onto the turf of another element. A river of flowing sand meandered down the middle of the valley, bringing grains from a tower of gold to a distant desert.

Five giants wandered in the distance, their heads peeking over the mountaintops. John wasn’t clear on whether they were elementals in and of themselves or animated constructs. Their segmented shape implied the latter. Observe did not work on this side, so he could not know without approaching.

“Uhm… M-mother?” Gnome stammered, as loudly as she dared.

No answer.

The Gamer raised an eyebrow. Far from him was it to suggest that the Mother of Earth was a more forward person than her daughter, but both Gnome and Tecta had in common that they talked when it mattered. They were shy but they were also bold. Why then were they not being pulled towards the absolute ruler of this plane?

Walking in any direction in search of her would have been meaningless. If an elemental ruler did not want to be found, they wouldn’t be found. It was an absolute that no visitor could change.

“…John?” Gnome pointed at their feet.

The Gamer lowered his gaze to find a simple phrase written in the grass. “It will happen when it happens...” he read out, incapable of keeping the disappointment from his voice. He hated it when he did not have control over something, but if the Mother of Earth made this decision, then her decision was made.

And so they left the plane again.