Back in time, a short while

"Right, probably shouldn't wear something covered in dust and dirt," Rory muttered to himself as he moved about his room. "Got to make a good first impression."

Scrounging about, Rory finally settled upon a pair of tan breeches fastened just above his ankles and a black justacorps-style coat atop a white poet shirt.

I either look like I'm off to sign the Declaration of Independence or sail the high seas. One of the two.

The clothes weren't anything he'd owned before; they had been in a box alongside some other things just outside his doorway, something he'd discovered after exiting from his basement 'lab.'

Casual wear was still largely just pants and regular shirts, not all that different from what modern wear had been on Earth. Yet, without the advent of marketing or advertising, Rory had begun to notice signs of slippage, as the fashion choices of the early Enlightenment period on Earth were starting to break through once more. It was only slight traces, a handkerchief here or there, but as he'd slunk around Ehkorrus, he had seen minor signs of it. The biggest indicators were when he saw people wearing 'formal' attire, which resembled a reimagination of the sorts of trends he expected from a history book.

Funny how that all plays out.

Not much of a historian, which was to say he wasn't a historian at all, Rory didn't question the organic, albeit slow, reemergence of archaic fashion choices. For the time being, they were mostly just flair.

But who knows? Maybe in fifty years, everyone will be walking around with cloaks and canes.

Fully dressed and ready to leave, Rory paused as something occurred to him.

Isn't it considered rude to arrive somewhere without bringing a present?

With that, Rory began scrambling about, looking for something to give.

No… no… definitely no.

Pausing, Rory held up an item, examining it for a second.

Den Mother's Nuclei. I totally forgot about this thing. Anyway, no.

Feeling as if he'd looked at everything at least once, Rory's frown deepened. With a bit more lead time, he could have made something nice, but he really had to be leaving soon.

Hmmmm. I wonder.

Having a new idea, Rory grabbed a glass jar and jogged his way down the winding stairs back into his basement.

"And I'm back," Rory announced, the Scourge Mites turning to look in his direction.

One, two, three, four, five. Five?

A fifth mite had been born in the time since he'd left the basement prior, and he had scrounged his room for a present and clothes to wear.

"Alright, here is the deal," Rory said, speaking out loud. "One of you is coming with me. It's not going to be the Empress or Queen, so that leaves one of you four."

Rory was reasonably sure that they had no idea what he was saying, so instead he slashed his palm and flicked the droplets of blood at the monsters, each drop containing the meaning of his intent.

Instantly, two of the drones turned on the third, a smaller drone than the original two.

Well, at least they've got the picture.

Reaching inside the ring, the smaller mite attempted to evade his reaching hand, but it was pinned in place by the two original drones.

"Wonderful," Rory said as he grabbed the flailing drone. Thankfully, while the Queen and Empress mites looked like facehuggers, the drones were closer to an amalgamation of an isopod and a cricket.

Given they were the size of a medium-sized cat, it was enough to be nightmare fuel for most. Still, Rory saw the tier one monsters as hardly more dangerous than a pestering gnat.

"Hey, relax," Rory said, flaring his aura for a single instant as he held the monster up level with his gaze. "You're going to a new colony, all right? So, behave."

Not waiting for a response from the monster, Rory proceeded to stuff it into a jar, where Rory could have sworn it was glaring at him in indignation.

Having secured a present, Rory straightened himself out once more before nodding to himself.

Time to make an appearance.

"… and then everything ended safe and sound," Rory said, finishing his story to the look of faces enraptured by the tale. Everyone except Violet and Apostolos, who was looking resigned, as Violet occasionally glared at her husband.

See, this is why you don't hide things.

Entertained at the thought that he'd landed Apostolos in, if not hot water, at least lukewarm, Rory leaned back and finished recounting the recent adventure.

That was until someone tapped him on the shoulder. Looking up, he noticed Violet had moved on from Apostolos to frowning lightly at him, tilting her head as she ushered him away.

Oh, am I in trouble now?

Curious, Rory got up and followed, the Apostolos clan chattering amongst themselves.

Apostolos clan? You know, now that I think about it, do people use last names here? The population has grown sufficiently that a first-name basis probably doesn't suffice as much.

Putting the random thought aside, Rory came to a stop as Violet leaned up against a wall, her arms folded.

"Am I in trouble?" Rory asked, cutting to the chase.

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Is this about how I dragged your husband into the Blight Khan's territory?"

"No, he's an adult, he can make his own choices, even if he made it a point to not mention it to me," Violet huffed. "No, what I want to know about is that little 'present' of yours. Is it going to endanger my family?"

"Oh, the Scourge Mite? It shouldn't, I gave it a very stern talking to."

Violet seemed somewhat unconvinced, as Rory sighed.

"Alright, do you want something a little more concrete?"

"I do."

"Alright, well, I had an idea as I was talking, so if you would gather your grandkids."

Raising an eyebrow at Rory, Rory just smiled, keeping his lips sealed for the show.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Should we be inside or outside for this? At least answer me that."

"Outside is probably better," Rory said, without a hint of hesitation.

It shouldn't matter, but she probably wouldn't want me getting blood stains in her house.

"Kids, Grandkids, and my wonderful husband," Violet spoke with extra volume as she strode into the center of the gathering. "Our favorite Uncle Rory has something to show you all."

Uncle Rory? Honestly? Better than Lord Founder.

Fetching the jar filled by a rather irritated-looking Scourge Mite Drone, Rory followed the family outside to their yard, a surprisingly small space given that Apostolos was the literal chief of Ehkorrus.

"Alright, folks, gather round," Rory announced as he waited until they had wrapped around to watch him. "We're about to do a live demonstration."

Unsealing the jar, Rory let the Scourge Mite Drone onto the ground, where it remained next to him.

Good, it knows better than to do something stupid.

Having felt the pressure of a tier seven, the tier one monster wasn't so mindless as to attack mindlessly.

"Apostolos, you remember Eia and what I did with her once, right?"

"Uhh, depends on what you mean by that, and when."

"When she was still freshly hatched."

"Oh, the Living Rune?"

"Bingo," Rory said, snapping his fingers before looking at the rest of the Apostolos clan. "Who wants to see some high-level inscription?"

"Me!" One of the youngest grandkids raised her hand, jumping excitedly. Rory doubted the girl even knew what inscription was at this point, but he was happy for the enthusiasm.

Slashing his hand, something he didn't technically need to do, but the act of physically slashing himself seemed to enhance the 'concept' of his blood essence, an orb of blood formed next to him, floating in the air.

"Don't try this at home, folks; this isn't your ordinary level of inscription."

Kneeling, Rory gestured the Scourge Mite Drone closer to him, so that it was directly before him. A single drop of blood shot forward, carrying his intent as the scourge mite seemed to bow its head.

Man, I should have been using Ghost Message like this sooner; it works damn well for communicating with non-verbal things.

Summoning forth an item from his inventory, a stylus made of red metal and a blood red crystal appeared in his hand. It was an item he'd explicitly made for inscriptions that he intended to ink out with his blood; it would reduce the effectiveness of any other inscriptions. The only reason he could use his blood in such a fashion to begin with was the fact that his version of the inscription skill had long ago merged with his essence projection skill.

Alright, here we go.

Dipping the stylus into the blood orb, Rory began to directly apply the runes to the mite, the small monster showing no signs of discomfort even as the stylus cut through its shell and into the softer inner flesh.

Seconds passed into minutes as the entirety of the mite was cut into. Yet, it remained still, obeying the command it had been given from his earlier blood droplet.

For a mindless drone, the promise of a reward to its colony sure worked well.

His runes were three levels deep, when most inscriptionists could only manage one. First were the obvious meanings and intents of the runes used, akin to the basic grammatical structure and meaning of a spoken or written sentence. The second layer was derived from his ability to alter the 'base' of any individual rune, twisting it by accenting it with essence, like using wordplay to modify the apparent meaning of a sentence into something else. Finally, the third layer was possible only because of a combination of his blood affinity and skills, such as Ghost Message. Each droplet of blood used to ink into the mite's flesh also carried an entire 'lexicon' of instructions and directions, something that had no equivalent in regular language.

Once nearly half an hour had passed, Rory dismissed his stylus into his inventory, instead turning to Apostolos.

"Come here for a second, would you?"

Curious, the other man did as much, kneeling across from Rory and the scourge mite.

"Present your palm to me."

Apostolos did as much as Rory twisted his fingers, a blade of blood-red crystal slowly forming in place. As the knife formed, runes seemed to etch themselves into the crystal, which was half the reason it took as long as it did.

"This might sting a little," Rory said after the knife finally formed, casting a quick glance at Apostolos's palm.

"It's just a little knife?" Apostolos questioned, seeming confused.

"Oh, well, if that's what you think. You'll see."

With that ominous phrasing, Rory brought the knife down to begin carving into Apostolos's palm, who visibly shuddered, only the strength of a well-trained mind preventing him from leaping back from the pain.

"Told you," Rory said, still carefully carving the symbol into his palm.

"What exactly are you doing?" Apostolos asked through clenched teeth.

"Marking your bloodline with a rune."

"Marking my what? You can do that?"

"I'll be honest, a bit of a 'if it works, it works' situation," Rory said, feeling Apostolos's glare burning into his skull.

"Oh, relax, if it didn't work, all I would have needed was your blood; it would have still been fine."

"I can't bleed unless- never mind," Apostolos sighed, his words silenced as blood began to seep from the wound as if it had taken it several moments to realize it was supposed to bleed.

"Using my affinity for blood essence, I'm able to draw your blood essence from you, but only because I already have a rather intimate connection to you and your family by extension. I can't just freely take from others like this. That said, it needed to be freely offered from the top of the pyramid, or the roots of this bloodline tree, whatever analogy you prefer. Concepts, am I right?"

"Sure," Apostolos said, still gritting his teeth.

"As for the rune I'm carving into you, it's the Rune of the Architect, overlaid atop a Living Rune. That's two Evolved Runes."

"You made a second evolved rune, and you named it after yourself?" Violet asked.

"I'm not that egotistical. The concept of an Architect, uppercase A, is what the rune represents: expansive and all-encompassing webs. You can probably see why that would correlate with the idea of connecting to a branching bloodline."

"Uh-huh, so now what?" Apostolos asked as Rory finished, the knife capable of bleeding someone with an anima body vanishing.

"Press your palm to the Scourge Mite."

Trusting Rory with his life, Apostolos didn't even hesitate as he pressed his palm to the mite.

In unison, Rory saw as the entire family –minus the young kids who were still not fully integrated with Eon, given they weren't even a proper tier one yet– flinched, the obvious indication they'd received some form of notification or update.

Interesting. I didn't expect Eon to officially recognize this.

"Here," Apostolos said after a moment of reading, flicking over an interface that made itself visible as he did.

Bloodline Guardianship Formed

Scourge Mite Common Drone (15) has been officially integrated into the ____ Clan Bloodline. Due to the formation of a symbiotic bond, common monster restrictions have been lifted. If all clan members should perish, the Guardian Beast shall also perish.

Huh. Now that's novel.

"Did you know this would happen?" Apostolos asked quietly.

"Not really," Rory said honestly. "I figured you'd form some sort of connection, but I thought it would be something closer to what Eia and I have, and not like a fully Eon-recognized bond."

Whatever Apostolos was about to say was silenced as the scourge mite shuddered, before turning around to face Apostolos, a sense of curiosity visible even from its blank insect-like face. Taking a moment to study Apostolos, it suddenly shot forward, skittering up Apostolos's arm before parking itself upon his head.

Where it sat like it was a perch meant solely for it.

Had it been something like a bird or a rabbit, or any other cute animal, it would have been rather adorable.

Instead, if someone didn't know any better, it looked like Apostolos was a second away from being the victim of a horror movie.

"Tadah?" Rory said, spreading his arms as Apostolos glared at him.

"Did you tell it to do this?"

"No, it apparently decided the best place to be a Guardian Beast from was perched atop your head."

"I'll be honest, how exactly is a tier one monster meant to be a Guardian Beast?" Isaac asked, arms folded as he stared at his father.

"It will grow with time is my assumption," Rory said. "Typically, monsters have an upper cap that their species is limited to, based on their environmental factors as well. Some can break through that wall, but it's generally not something you'd expect from anything other than from monsters that will go on to become Alpha variant monsters."

"And how exactly will it grow?" Apostolos asked.

"My guess? It will draw concepts and significance from your entire bloodline, even without the changes I plan to breed out of the other mites-"

"You've got more of these?" Apostolos interrupted, sounding vaguely alarmed.

"Oh yeah, a breeding empress and queen in my basement," Rory answered.

"And that… won't backfire if they escape?" Violet asked what was likely on the rest of the family's mind.

"They know better," Rory said, doing his best to sound vague and mysterious.

It worked on most of the family, who looked upon Rory as if he were an enigma. Apostolos, meanwhile, rolled his eyes.

"Back to the subject," Susanna said, sounding interested. "So, this thing is bound to our family, and will just grow naturally?"

"It will probably grow faster the faster your family grows, both in strength and size. It can probably also be nurtured from literally doing the usual monster business of eating other monsters. However, at the current state, I would advise against that; it's currently nothing more than a common-class drone-type monster, meaning its overall attributes are lesser than most regular monsters."

"And what will it become?" Apostolos asked.

"No idea, never seen a monster of the 'scourge' variety before these guys. I wouldn't even say you could look at other blight monsters for an educated guess, as I specifically incorporated heavenly energies to neuter the influence of the Blight Khan on their evolution and instincts."

One of the young grandkids suddenly raised her hand, as Rory smiled at the young girl.

"Yes?"

Asking the most important question of all, the little girl stared Rory straight in the face.

"Can I put a dress on it?"

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.