Nexxa was pretty sure being Hydra-souled was supposed to put her above the situation she was dealing with.

She supposed, if she didn’t have principles, it really would be that easy. Just wave a hand, and lightning would scour her problems from the face of Ro’an.

Squinting, she inspected said problems. A group of motley dressed people wearing… was that monstrous cat fur turned into rough cloaks?

Yeah, the big guy leading them still had most of the cat’s teeth still stuck in the malformed head.

Had they even skinned them properly?

Nexxa was drawn out of her thoughts by the big man repeating what he’d already tried to sell her, his thick accent making the words borderline indecipherable. “You are trespassing upon our ancestral land. You must leave.”

“Funny how you didn’t mention any claim on this ‘ancestral land’ until after I killed the Phase Ant hive,” Nexxa snapped back, glaring at the pack of ‘locals’. Real convenient how they’d been absent from the region for the last ten years, according to Vaserra, then shown up hours after she slaughtered the hive.

Her excitement at getting so many Worlds materials for Perry had been dashed when she’d returned with her harvesting crew to find this lot picking through the bodies.

It wasn’t even that they were stealing her kills. For all they knew, she’d abandoned everything.

But they were so bad at it.

When she’d politely demanded they stop ruining the materials, they’d started spewing some drivel about the city she’d just cleared being their ancestral homeland.

At least, she was pretty sure that’s what they’d said. The big guy’s accent was thicker than most she’d had to deal with.

Even worse than that one village where every single villager had an underbite and a lisp cause of a local curse.

It’d taken her longer for them to tell her that some sort of magic had caused the problem than it did for her to find the busted enchantment.

Did she really have to put up with this?

Huh…

“You know what,” Nexxa said, cutting the big man off in the middle of another of his heavily accented rants. “No. Simple as that. This belongs to me. This land is mine now. You’re welcome to live here, alongside everyone else, but none of this belongs to you. And you’re sure as heck not processing any of this without training.”

The big man seemed confused, looking down at her as if she was the one who didn’t understand the circumstances. He even went so far as to flex his muscles. Then he looked at the dozen men with him.

When he looked back to her five foot two frame, he squinted his eyes in confusion. then looked to the side, at a much scrawnier man.

The man just barely failed to hide his scowl before turning it into a dopey looking smile.

“Nope,” Nexxa said as the man opened his mouth.

He blinked in surprise. Once more, he went to speak, but Nexxa simply flexed her lightning muscle, and the air around her started crackling ominously, sparks filling the air.

“I said, nope,” Nexxa repeated, unable to keep the grin off her face. “If you want food, we’ll have plenty available in a few hours. You’re not getting a single pound of this though. It’s far too valuable for you to keep ruining.”

She was pretty sure that even the flesh would be useful, if they could just get it preserved in time. Wasn’t often that they had access to Worlds flesh.

Someone had to be able to do something useful with that, right?

“No take loot?” the big man asked, his accent suddenly much better.

Nexxa narrowed her eyes. Despite the fact she’d never do it, there were times it was oh so tempting to reduce certain people to so much ash.

One of the nearby phase ants twitched, and without so much as a conscious thought, she used it to vent her frustrations, a bolt of Lightning shooting out.

“Oops,” Nexxa said, pasting a smile on to hide her self-recrimination. That was probably ten thousand Thorns worth of material she’d just incinerated. Waves. The locals used Waves. “No loot. You can go now. Or wait around for dinner.”

The big guy looked towards the scrawny one again. But scrawny seemed to have gotten the message, cause he kept his mouth firmly closed.

Without instructions, the big one started walking away. The rest of the tribe or clan or whatever turned to follow him, several quickly outpacing him while glancing back at her.

“Not you,” Nexxa said, pointing out the scrawny guy.

The rest of the tribe peeled away from him as if she’d just dumped a load of wyvern scat on his head.

“You’re an idea guy, aren’t you?” Nexxa asked, waving him closer.

He pressed a hand to his chest as if he was confused that she was even talking to him.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. The whole ‘Who me? I’m just an ignorant savage, I couldn’t possibly have a shrewd bone in my body,’ shtick,” Nexxa said, rolling her wrist to hopefully hurry him along. His type was better at being hurried along than most. “You have no idea how common it is for your type to prop up some idiot strong man. At least one in twelve villages has something similar, I swear.”

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He blinked, his mouth hanging open.

Oh fun. She’d broken his world a little. Well, hopefully, that’d make the next part easier. “Look, you get things done. That’s obvious. I was gone for three hours, tops. I like that. Productive. We need a lot of that, with what’s coming.”

If he’d been a bit broken before, it was clear he was shocked now. Still, he was keeping his mouth closed, and his eyes were focused. It’d do.

“Been a while since you had someone else around who’s half as smart as you, hasn’t it?” Nexxa asked, despite herself. “Well, good news is that’s over. Bad news, you’re not the smartest one in the room anymore.”

At this, the man finally seemed to find his wits. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but a quick glance at the ash where the ten foot tall phase ant had been was enough for him to snap it shut.

He did raise his hand though.

“You can speak,” Nexxa said, feeling much better about this exchange.

“Uh, beggin’ your pardon, oh great and magiconical goddess, you want ol’ Jeffer to help?” He didn’t hesitate to prostrate himself, throwing himself into the dirt at her feet.

Nexxa had really thought that when men started calling her a goddess, she’d enjoy it more.

Seriously. Oh Nexxa the great and mighty, goddess of storms, most beautiful and gracious in all the lands…

Back when she’d been a teenager, she’d actually wanted that sort of praise. And despite realizing how incredibly corny it’d be as an adult, there was part of her that’d still enjoyed the idea.

After everything she’d seen since coming to the Frigid Peaks, such praise felt more like the ash she’d turned that Phase Spider into.

Still, none of that was what she thought in that moment.

“Jeffer? Really?” Nexxa asked, holding up a hand when it looked like he was about to answer. “No, don’t explain. Just seemed more like a name for the big dumb one, that’s all.”

“As you say, magicalifical one,” Ol’ Jeffer said, not raising his head.

“Oh for… what’s the point of being the guy who gets things done if you’re throwing your face in the dirt. Get up already. And knock off the worshipfulness crap,” Nexxa said, not waiting for him to figure himself out and using the current his body naturally produced to help him spring to his feet.

Then she hit him with a Restore Form, just in case she’d done damage with that little trick.

“I don’t know…” he trailed off as the slight lisp he’d had disappeared. He reached up to discover his missing teeth had suddenly been filled in. Which seemed to set off the revelation that he’d just been healed of any lingering aches and pains too.

That part was always fun. Restore Form was mana intensive for what it did, yet it was still far better for healing others than most of the magic that had been available back home.

And their family had been considered skilled healers. Nexxa was pretty sure they kept the best spells in the main family though.

While Ol’ Jeffer was still marveling at the sudden health of his body, Nexxa heard something crunch a few hundred feet away.

An unexpected benefit of that tree-skeleton’s little forest trials was that Nexxa had gained several of the benefits of infusing a sacrifice at Hydra souled without actually having absorbed one of those sacrifices. Like augmented senses. Which included hearing.

The metal skeleton’s trials had made her much better at sorting those sounds for the relevant bits.

Nexxa turned and glared at the tribe ‘sneaking’ towards her. All twelve of them were there.

They had the good sense to look guilty when she caught them attempting to grab one of the Phase Ants.

“Put it back you fools!” Jeffer called when he saw them.

That was a good sign. Meant he cared for them. Nexxa patted him on the shoulder. The action seemed to terrify the man more than anything else she’d done so far.

“It’s fine. After all, you work for me now,” Nexxa said, smiling.

“We does?” the big guy asked, looking towards Jeffer.

“We does,” Jeffer confirmed, swallowing hard, his eyes shifting between me and his friends.

The other tribe members looked back and forth, as if unsure what to do next.

The big one didn’t have any such concerns. “Okay, boss. Uh… what’re we doing?”

“You’re prepping these Phase Ants for harvesting. Which means grabbing them and stacking them in mostly neat piles where people with training can process them.”

To her surprise, Jeffer seemed relieved at her pronouncment.

His relief vanished as the Tethered arrived on their gliders, most of them dropping to the ground with only faint thuds around the perimeter.

“Perfect timing,” Nexxa said as Tanis swooped down in front of her.

He landed with a smoothness that felt unnatural considering his size. Once he’d bled his speed, he straightened out to tower over even the big guy from the tribe.

“Hey Tanis, glad you could make it. Turns out some of the locals wanted to volunteer. Make sure they feel welcome, please.”

“Sure thing, boss lady,” Tanis said, nodding at her. “You heard the boss lady. Let’s start with introductions. I’m Tanis. I like salads and am terrified I’m not going to be a good father. Your turns.”

Nexxa nodded, dismissing the conversation from her thoughts and getting back to her real work.

She floated upwards out of the area of the jungle she’d cleared. The city she was moving into had been completely overgrown when she’d started. Most of it still was, but she’d cleared out a couple square miles.

It was in rough shape. Despite the number of stone buildings, the jungle had managed to tear a lot of it apart.

Still, she’d discovered a Water affinity mana-well near the river that cut through the city, which would make restoring the area around it fairly simple for Perry.

Her eyes drifted towards the most unexpected landmark she’d found as she burned the jungle away.

A pair of giant arms protruded upwards, each of them easily a hundred feet in length. They had a pair of shackles wrapped around their wrists. There was no sign of the head or torso, even under the ground. It was like they’d been ripped off of a giant then planted there.

A giant Forgeborn, based on the design and pure quantity of metal.

She was willing to bet Perry’d flip out about that too.

Once she was certain the Tethered were secure, Nexxa took to the sky to deal with her other obligations.

A few dozen Lightning Transfers later and she was floating above the outpost where Hash was dealing with the latest batch of refugees.

She narrowed her eyes as she looked down at the highroad. There were some sort of wagons on the road. Massive ones with huge crowds of people clambering all over them.

Something strange was going on.

When she floated down to Hash, she realized she recognized the man he was talking to.

“Books?” Nexxa asked, barely managing to hide her shock.

“Ah. Lenexxa, it is good to see you. I hope this day finds you well,” Books replied, nodding to her.

“I… forget that, what’re you doing here? Who are all these people? What about Althon? You said he needed you more than ever?” Nexxa asked, the questions pouring out of her.

“Althon did not agree with my assessment,” Books replied. To Nexxa’s surprise, he seemed more wistful than upset, his gaze going slightly distant for a second before refocusing on her. “He thought my greatest value would come from escorting all I could to join you and your brother.”

“You’ve certainly collected a lot,” Nexxa said, glancing down at the teeming mass below. It got hard to judge exact numbers after the first thousand or so, but she was pretty sure he had at least twenty times that amount.

Then again, a bunch of those people were probably late arrivals from her own efforts.

“And I’m certain there will be more,” Books said, shaking his head. “Althon has closed the borders, raised a wall. The City on the Water is under siege.”

“And I’m not sure when it will break free.”