Blackthorne quickly chose to acquire the talents Improved Draconic Soul and Improved Draconic senses. The upgrade did not come as a painless bit of growth, however. He cried out and slung his head wildly as his senses expanded greatly. The core of his being burned with a powerful new inner light that threatened to shine forth without cessation. In truth, he thought for a moment that he might explode.

Eventually, however, the raging light inside of him began to settle and his senses began to make sense to him once more. His eyelids slid open to reveal that the world was no visible in far greater detail. Much like a man who might be half-blind in one moment, but have perfect vision the moment he put on his prescription eyeglasses, Blackthorne now saw with great clarity.

Something was strange inside of him, however. A whisper inside his head, no deeper than that. Used to such things, he braced for a tirade of epic proportions but what he eventually intuited was but a single word. "Remember..."

The little dragon cried out as a sudden searing pain assaulted him behind the eyes. He immediately lost all sense of his current surroundings. Instead, when he opened his eyes again he stood in a great void of darkness. Points of light nearby all radiated outward from still images similar to a movie, each a scene frozen in time.

Most of those images were far away, indistinct. Some, however were close enough that they appeared to be the size of a movie theater screen.

"What is...?" he asked softly. His words carried across the void. The closest image shuddered and began to move. Sounds echoed outward to match the drama that unfolded onscreen. Three people sat around a small table while drinking herbal tea that he somehow realized would help them to relax and think clearly. It seemed he could also sense a bit of their thoughts and emotions for some reason. In a way it was truly like watching a movie, or perhaps reading a book.

Fascinated, he watched as the threesome began to speak their final piece.

"The problem is those assholes on the board," said the blue haired man. He frowned darkly down into the depths of his tea cup. "I know that everyone born into this world came here through a contract. The souls live here by choice, even knowing what can happen."

He took a breath then continued, "Still, that's no different than building a new town, and then telling everyone that came to live there that you're going to gas them in their sleep because they don't earn enough money."

The blue haired man looked at what appeared to be an elf woman and an incredibly pregnant fairy. "I love you both dearly. Nothing would make me happier than having children with you ladies. But if you want my vote..."

The man took another breath then looked into the eyes of each of his lovers and said, "I vote no on children until after the board is settled. We need to safe guard this world so our kids have a future."

The fairy bit her lower lip then nodded. It was her turn to speak. "I was happy, afraid, and then really sad when it turned out that I wasn't going to have a baby."

"I really want to have your child, Scott." Ero looked into his eyes, and smiled in a sad way. "We could have taken her to the park, and gotten ice cream. You'd be a great dad..."

The image slowed to a crawl as Blackthorne backpedaled in place briefly. This guy was named Scott as well? He also seemed strangely familiar. Once he managed to collect himself, the scene continued.

The fairy girl, Ero, slipped a bit of hair over her ear and sighed. "You're right, though. As long as this world is in danger, it would be selfish to bring children into it. I vote no on the children," she looked up again, her cheeks bright red, "for now..."

They both looked to the elf maiden. It was not a simple majority vote. Everyone needed to agree.

She nodded softly then turned her tea cup around in her hand. She took a sip then said, "You're both right, but I have to point out a few things."

"We could have children, but raise them on Earth with little trouble," said the elf. "We could even abandon ARS altogether to do that."

Neither Scott nor Ero took her words to mean that she offered a legitimate choice. She was merely stating possibilities.

"The truth is, as much as I would love to have children as well, it causes complications. I'm a goddess. If I have a child in this avatar form, the child will be born as either a Lunarian or an elf."

She looked to Scott in the hopes that he would understand. "At best they might hope to ascend to planetary deity status, but there are no slots available for now. They'll live the life of an ordinary citizen of this world." She closed her eyes and sighed loudly. "I'd either need to abandon them completely, which would never happen, or lie to them most of their life."

The elf girl frowned, her soft pink lips showed her thoughts on the matter just as eloquently as the words she soon spoke, "I don't want my child to grow up worshipping me as a goddess. I want to be mom, not Origin. Plus, I want a real child..."

"Rhea..." whispered Ero softly, before fluttering over to sit on her shoulder. She leaned against the elf girl's cheek and snuggled close.

Blackthorne, viewing carefully, was momentarily confused. He then realized that the girl before him had two names like he did. In one form she was Rhea, the elf maiden. In the other form she was actually a goddess! What an unexpected thing, truly. The scene continued while he mused, and he nearly missed out on things.

Scott noticed something that Rhea said quite keenly, "Real child?"

She nodded softly then reached up to lightly stroke the back of Ero's head. "Our little Ero here, she can have a real child with you. Her spiritual essence and yours merge to create an entirely new being, known as an elemental fey. So, sort of like a new soul."

"Oh, is that how it works?" asked Ero in an intrigued tone of voice.

"Yes, you're a special class of being that arises naturally out of the primordial magic. When we try to create new souls, we rarely even create something that is half as sophisticated as a fey soul," said Rhea.

"Wow," said Ero, her eyes wide and a happy smile rising up on her lips. It was nice to know that she was special in some way.

Rhea looked to Scott again. "If we have children, I want our child to be divine. We'd give birth to a little boy or girl who would live as long as we would, and who could be with us no matter what world we traveled to from then on."

"I get that," said Scott, before reaching across the table to take Rhea's hands in his. "Let's not rush this. We'll do our best for this world and start a family once everything is set."

Rhea sighed softly then nodded, a slight smile coming to her lips. "Yes. That is for the best."

Ero fluttered over and sat atop their clasped hands. "I like family meetings. But what I want to know is if it's OK with everyone if we still practice..."

"Practice?" asked Scott.

The fairy's voice become deeper and more resonant. It took on a sultry, overly adult, quality. "Oh yes, Scott. We should practice for the sake of our beautiful future."

Rhea laughed a little then reached down and whapped Ero on the rear with her index finger. She then looked at Scott, her cheeks burning hotly with the embarrassment of her coming admission. "She's right, you know."

Ero rubbed her back end while giggling. Scott for his part, merely shook his head. "If nothing else, my vitality stat will start going up quite a bit soon..."

His admission brought a round of much needed laughter to them all. Each of them was saddened by the fact that building a family together would need to wait, but they still had each other. That was the important thing.

Blackthorne waited for a time, but the scene refused to continue from that point. He did not know where it had come from, or why, but it was nice to see someone with his name actually having a chance at a happy family life.

"I wonder if I can ever have something like that?" he asked softly. The simple joy and laughter of a small family that chose to make plans for the future. There were no tears, no arguments. They simply chose to love each other and walk forward together in life.

"Some guys named Scott are luckier than others, huh?" he asked softly. A moment later he laughed in a self-deprecating manner, though there was humor in his voice.

The same warm masculine voice that whispered inside his soul earlier chose that moment to whisper once more. "Remember..."

Blackthorne gasped as a pulse of electricity surged through his body. The void disappeared and was replaced by a rapid series of images, of scenes that he did not recognize but did see as familiar in some ways. One showed him the image of a truly gigantic tree that sat at the center of a heavenly landscape. Another image was darker in nature. It featured winged beings that gave off a brilliant light while they fought tentacled abominations which tried to surge through obscene cracks in the sky.

The final image that he could truly take note of was an extraordinarily massive gold dragon who slept near the huge tree. Innumerable small children were piled up next to the dragon, each of them sleeping peacefully. Other dragons resided in other places, each of them proving to be either red, blue, or gold in color. None were quite as large as that first gold dragon, however. In fact, they seemed to form a circle around him as though he were a figure of great reverence.

Blackthorne noted something odd about the dragon just before he was drawn away from the scene. Near the center of his mighty chest, there was a single black scale. Also, in the membrane of one of his wings there was a small but noticeable hole. The edges of that hole were rough, ragged, as though the flesh had been torn away violently.

The surge of electrical energy came again. Blackthorne awoke gasping for air as the unbidden images fled from his conscious mind. Soon, he forgot all that he had seen save for the briefest of hints of a memory. It was the image of one black scale, and a hole in that dragon's wing. Even that memory soon began to fade. For a time he was at a loss as to what he had been doing, but eventually he decided that he must have had a brain fart and spaced out.

"Right... I was going to do something with my stats and skills," he said quietly to himself. His voice trembled slightly, however. There was a certain sense of disquiet within him, as though he had forgotten to do something of great importance. In many ways it was a worse sensation than what one might feel if they forgot whether or not they had turned off the stove at their house.