“How much prote do I want to include in the build?” I mused, thinking aloud as I zily floated a few hundred metres off the ground. Beh me a sea of gree over the horizon, c rolling hills and valleys. Somewhere in that thick o of trees aation, some of the most dangerous wildlife ience warred with orkish tribes and warbands. “A lot, I think. Deg to popute my moon with hostile flora and fauna might not have been among my greatest decisions.”

  In my defence, I had assumed I’d have a few more ps under my trol by the time I had my first fragile, needy little citizen. I had made my pns with orks in mind, not humans.

  “Oh well, it shouldn't be too hard.” I rolled my shoulders and spun around in the air, turning towards the colossal structure extending up from the green jungle like a monolith.

  It towered over the ndscape in all its pearly white majesty, breaking the natural sery surrounding it. For now, it looked mostly like a slim pyramid with rounded edges and a cupo at the very top of it. I nning to build in massive windows to let some natural light seep in and maybe even some outer balies once I could be bothered to modify my shield tech to cover them.

  For now, the building’s primary defence was its dozens of metre thick armour, which I’d made mixing together the carapace of bioships and that of a hierophant bio-titan. Nothing short of a focused, stituent psma barrage would get through it.

  “Unless I added artificial points of vulnerability to it,” I muttered. “Like windows and balies. It’ll do for now, this is just the initial version.”

  The interior was already done. Residential ses, unal halls, office spaces, workshops, parks, agricultural sectors and gover buildings. I also went through with my water heist and stole some water from Vallia. Not much, just a tiion off the ice caps.

  Now, I had a gigantiderground water reservoir, from which I funneled some water to run water in every building of the arcology. Every type of edible pnt I had temptes for was growing in the greenhouses, and I had already set up a very basiunication system between most buildings, something like an SMS service, which also ected the main gover building with other arcologies.

  It was, from a purely logical standpoint, now perfectly suitable for human habitation. All their essential needs would be met and even some of their societal needs could be provided for with what I’d set up like unities, opportunities for work, and adding in stuff so they could add in art in as many forms as they like would barely require any effort.

  The problems didn’t e up when I looked at my creation from the practical perspective of my mind-cores and the one I was susceptible to default to when I was alone. No, the gring issues reared their ugly heads when I looked at the arcology like somewhere I’d have to live in as a regur human, when I put myself in the shoes of my citizens.

  It was a soulless cage curated by a mysterious puppeteer they wouldn’t know, nor would they uand. What would they think when I herded them inside, and told them leaving the building would be near impossible ‘for their safety’?

  “Be not afraid mortals,” I muttered mogly to myself. “Your habitatioers, which are totally not oversized prisons, have been pleted. The design is very human. Please cooperate and proceed into the cage you and the hundred geions of your desdants will live and die in. You are wele, you may now offer my your praises.”

  Yeah, that was not going to fly, not if I didn’t want to go for the eldritch tyrannical overlimmick. Which I didn’t, I really didn’t. I was eldritough as I was for my tastes, o lean even further into it.

  So how does one make a soulless arcology look more habitable? … or, well, ‘humane’?

  Individuality and self expression. I had to allow the people to somehow do those things, but how? I had their homes pre-built, painted and polished, along with every building and primary infrastructure by y.

  Or was it really necessary? Could I maybe just provide them with more spad materials where they could build whatever and however they wanted?

  I should also make most of their buildings that are non-essential for the arcology’s structure able to be rebuilt or modified.

  For now, that would have to do when bined with the workshops I’d left behind. I didn’t need my citizens to pay taxes or to serve in my military, for all I cared they could spend their days sculpting and painting, or writing steamy erotica. Actually, I preferred that they did that, instead of plotting some idiotic rebellion.

  “Defences, you were thinking about defences,” I muttered, refog my attention. “Meh. I’ll not waste void shields on this, some automatic bio-turrets and some dormant bat drones will have to do.”

  I hid both under scale-like bits along the bumpy surface of the building, making them almost uable. If any threat came close, those scales would pop open like trapdoors and reveal rapid-firing turrets or murderous drones.

  ‘Programming’ what ted as a threat into the brains I’d made to trol the defences was the most challenging part. I could have just added a psychoactive telepathy node a a mind-core do it, but that would have meant leaving the building defenceless when this specific Avatar of mine was out e.

  There was o add in weaknesses like that.

  I could fix all that up when I got my other Avatar back from that kleptomaniac, or when I mao make a third. I felt like my soul was strengthening ever so slightly week by week, day by day. The ge was nearly imperceptible, but I had a near perfect memory and caught even just the 0.001% increase.

  My current guess was that some of the dense soul energy surrounding my soul in the core of my little realm was slowly seeping into it.

  Not that it mattered beyond whether making my third Avatar would be something I’d have to put off for a few thousand years or just a tury or two. I couldn’t even project a fra of its full strength into realspace with my current Avatar, even with my improvements it was still far tile to el that much power.

  Suitably satisfied with the first arcology, I went about replig it another fifty times. Each should have been enough to house about two million people, so I had plenty of extra space feion or two in case I .

  It took a few days, some minor terraf and remaking the earth underh to support the titanic structures without letting them sink into the dirt, but it was dohankfully, my citizens had been told the space voyage could take as much as a month, so there was only an insignifit amount of u by the time I got back.

  Sadly, not once had I been pleasantly interrupted by Selene over the days, despite my earlier attempts to tempt her into doing so. She really was too serious about her duties sometimes, even if she put forward a pleasant and easygoing front for me most of the time.

  Well, I deserve a pleasant break. Those citizens wait a few more hours. I grinned in anticipation as I Blinked over to my lover, just onto the border of the small gde she was located in.

  She wasn’t aloher, voices mixed together as they argued, four by my t. Selene’s voice was inquisitive and curious, but the other three were a bit more heated.

  Valenith, Fae and Zara were arguing about something … no, debating. It was just that the Eldar and the Human Psykers had very different interpretations about the nature and nuances of their powers.

  I’d have loved to stay hidden and just listen in, curious what the three would be talking about, and more importantly, how they behaved without me breathing down their necks.

  As, I’d missed the opportunity. My Blink had gotten subtler, but not nearly enough for any of the three to miss it from this close. There was little I could have doo hide from Valenith, the Eldar had me beat in teiques like that by a wide margin, but the other two would have been easy enough to yself from.

  “Hi,” I said, smiling as four pairs of eyes turo me, their versatioering out. “Sorry to interrupt, I’d like to borrow Selene for a bit. If you don’t mind?”

  I tilted my head as I said the st part, gng at my lover with a ‘look’. She gave me a ile and nodded.

  “Sure,” Selene said, sauntering over to my side. She gave a little wave to the other three. “I’ll leave the three of you to your discussion.”

  The three nosy Psykers returheir attention to each other, but the versation was merely surface deep. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. There were probably preschoolers who could eavesdrop with more tact than those three.

  “Let’s head somewhere more private?” I asked with a flirtatious smile, which Selene answered with an easygoing shrug and a smile mirr my own. “I know just the pce! Portal or flying?”

  “I’ve been practig flight,” Selene said, sounding equal parts excited aant. “It’s … a work in progress. Catch me if I fall?”

  “Always,” I said, my smile softening, then taking on a teasing edge as I tinued. “Though with the enhas I’ve made to your body, a mountain is likely to break before you do, even if you pnt your fato it at hypersonic speeds.”

  “Well, I don’t want to experience kissing a mountain at those speeds.” She huffed, gng at me impatiently. “e ohe way.”

  I smiled and kicked off the ground, ung myself dozens of metres into the air where I grabbed myself with some telekinesis and waited for Seleo follow. The ground exploded beh her feet as she stomped down, ung herself after me and soared past like a missile.

  Laughing, I raced after her, overtaking the small white dot in the distand flipping about to face her. I observed her flight and grio myself. She was still a bit uneven, her armour- was unstable and appeared to be dragged about by the air currents every other sed before she jerkily corrected her course.

  She was more like a primitive missile than a graceful raptor of the skies. It seemed like she had resorted to usielekinesis as a manner of propulsion. She rojeg momentum into the soles of her feet and into the palms of her hands. It wasn’t all that different from just duct-taping a miniature jet eo eao wonder her movements were a bit jerky.

  Still, it was magnitudes better than any of her prior attempts at flight — those gigantic leaps — and I felt a sense of pride well up in my chest. Selene had been practising a lot while I wasn’t paying attention. I knew she adored the idea of self-propelled flight, but I didn’t notice just how muergy and time she utting into it.

  Seeing that I caught up with her, I felt a faint sense of disappoi ihen a rebellious sense of defiance overtake it ihan a sed. Power surged in her body, reag the ceiling of what her body could handle, and then she sped up, overtaking me again. A soni thundered in my ears as I ughed happily and turo chase after her again.

  Past me might have taken that as an ho challeo race her, and likely would have earned herself a grumpy girlfriend and a bucketful of gres for handily winning said race. My body was build from the cellur level up for the express purpose of speed, agility and psychiductivity. I doubted even Harlequin Solitaires could move faster than me when I really put my mind to it.

  Selene wasn’t a solitaire though, she was justly proud of her new flight and wao show off. Who was I to rain on her parades and sour her sense of aplishment? I wouldn’t be much good as a partner if I did that.

  So I raced after her at a leisurely pace, just enough to couch up with her about ten seds ter and leave behind a wave of sonis of my own. I could feel her etion, the sheer joy that came from flying under her own power and going faster than some fighter jets.

  Ever so slowly overtaking her over the course of the en seds, I led her around on a merry chase, giving her a tour of some of the nicer parts of Vallia Prime I’d found on my stru spree around the globe. Not that I thought she aying all that much attention to anything beyond the wind on her fad the tour of my body flutteriens of metres ahead of her.

  Only when I felt her strength fgging atention waning, causing her jittery flight to bee increasingly untrolled, did I finally lead us towards the little spot I’d found. I arced towards a verdant valley led between a trio of snow-tipped mountains and slowed my speed as I found the pretty little spring surrounded by a picturesque grove.

  I touched down a moment ter, my feet nding as soft as feathers on the grassy ground as I fully devoured my momentum with a surge of soul energy. Turning, I held out my hands and grabbed Selene who came after me with her previous supersonic speed, having been incapable of, or unwilling to slow down.

  Like with myself, I nullified her momentum with another surge of energy, sending only a bst of wind washing over our surroundings as she came to a stop instead of a meteoric explosion. Had I just stepped aside a her fat into the dirt, she’d have likely made a crater at least a hundred metres across.

  It would have also earned me a night on the coud would have most decidedly meant I was getting zero returns on my earlier promise. Not that I needed either iive to save her from having to crawl out of a Selene-shaped hole in the ground.

  Her armour melted off her, and only then could I finally make eye tact with her. She was wheezing in exhaustion, sweat coating her body like a sed's skin, but she had a tired yet very pleased smile on her lips. I tugged a lock of hair stig to her sweaty cheeks and fixed it behind her ears.

  “Had fun?” I asked with a smile and she reciprocated, ling into the nook of my shoulder as she made no move to leave my arms.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Thank you.”

  I just gave her a smile and pced a kiss on her forehead, then turowards the thermal spring just a few metres away. Steaming water streamed down the rocky hill-side and gathered in a tub made of ser stohe overflowing water draining away between a mass of smaller stones and ending up in a tiny river rag down the valley some odd hundred metres away.

  P3t1