Gloria snuggles into Sable on the loungiere and settles a controller in her lap. It's just menus right now, so she doesn't need to set up the pleaser, though she is nude.

Flicking through the menus, she comes to the fruitgirl origin and pauses, then grins. "Looks like they had someone into being eaten on whatever design team too. I really like the fruitgirls in this. What do you think, lemon? Maybe strawberry?"

"Oooh. Yes please. Strawberry, I think."

Sable snuggles in and starts setting up characters for her and her headmates, and pauses when selecting a species for herself. She pulls up the preview for demons, watches the animation, and then bumps her shoulder against Gloria's.

The prototypical demon girl is displayed sensuously sticking out her tongue, which is easily at least a foot long and black along the front half, with soft little spiky nubs along the surface, especially the edges. After swishing it back and forth for a moment, the demon girl flexes her tongue in a particular way, and the little nubs suddenly extend, becoming hard, sharp spines, each at least half an inch long.

"That looks like an argument for me to be a demon girl, don't you think?"

"That is super an argument for you to be a demon girl, wow." Gloria blushes deeply and smiles at Sable. "They didn't do any half measures on the aesthetics for this one." 

She selects a strawberry-girl with blonde hair like her own, and the preview animation comes up. It shows the strawberry-girl standing in front of a cutting board with a cleaver in one hand and her own arm on the cutting-board. She slices it, and it falls apart into circles of gleaming strawberry flesh, shot through with white veins. Pale pink strawberry juice stains the cutting board.

As Gloria watches, the strawberry-girl finishes cutting apart her left forearm, regrows it from the elbow, and plates the slices of her forearm to be served on a white ceramic dish. Then another fruit-woman in a waitress's uniform walks by and takes the plate of cut strawberries out of the shot, and the animation loops. 

She looks over at Sable. "And that looks like a strong argument for strawberry-girl for me." 

"Goodness." Sable licks her lips. "Yes, that is absolutely an argument for you to be a strawberry-girl. Wow. Okay."

She takes a breath and shakes her head. 

"Right. Need to finish customizing me and then make the others."

She imports her saved facial tweaks from previous games, makes a few refinements, and sets her eye and hair colors to violet, and customizes her horns (smoothly sweeping back over the top of her head, with a little notched barb in the right one).

And then Maya slips into front, resting her head on Gloria's shoulder and flipping through options for herself. She hums thoughtfully, looking at the preview of the "liftfruit girl". The prototype avatar skips lightly about, seemingly able to float at will. When she cuts off an arm, her flesh seems to be very reminiscent of mango. A note explains that liftfruit girls are very rare, and the pits of liftfruits (which can be found rarely on trees), are used as the cores of airships, and to float sky islands.

"This looks promising. It would let me be the heart of our airship."

Gloria loads her saved data for her character as well, configuring their gender and facial features. She's playing as herself but as a cis girl, as usual. She still hasn't quite saved enough to get the surgery in real life herself, but it's fun to pretend. 

She sets up Hyacinth with her usual character, then starts going into the kinks and drawbacks section. 

"Chastised," she reads. "Your sex has been locked into a magical chastity device that only lets you come or be touched when you have permission from the keyholder. Your cage key is lost and will be the objective of your starter quest. You gain benefits for having another character control the activation of your pleaser and your crewmate's availability for sex moves..."

Gloria grins. "Cute. I think Hyacinth would love it. I can designate another of my characters as her keyholder using the crewmate system or we can have one of you hold the key. I know it's not hugely your cup of tea, but...?"

Sable jumps back in, and giggles and smirks. "I'm always down to domme Sin harder. I'll hold the key."

Then she lets Maya finish customizing her character.

Gloria sets up Lilian's character too, a gothy-looking vampiress with nice sharp fangs and a big smile. 

"That's all of ours," she says, and kisses Sable's cheek. "Do you wanna set up the whole crew now or dive right in?"

"I think set up everyone. Hailey's done too, she jumped right on having raven wings, but we're still deciding what captures Ruby and Neo's vibes properly. Ruby does have her eye on a dash skill that she really likes, but hasn't picked species yet."

She hums and smiles and snuggles close. "Any suggestions?"

"Let me look at the particle trails..."

She flicks through. "Aww, the cherry girls rain sakura petals when they use movement abilities! Do you think that works for Ruby?"

"Oooh! Ooh ooh ooh ooh yes! And cherries go well with red and black themes!"

Ruby switches in immediately and is wiggling excitedly.

"That sounds like a hit for sure. Hmm, Neo... I'm not sure what she wants for species. Maybe elf? But I'm pretty sure she wants to take Monster Bait from the kink drawback section."

Ruby leans over and kisses Gloria's cheek with a blushy smile, and then lets Sable switch back in.

"You're right about that," Sable nods. "She definitely wants Monster Bait, and Muteness, and ideally some kind of hardlight to go with the illusion magic she's picking from the general abilities."

"Hmmm... Hardlight magic, hardlight magic... I saw something about that..."

Gloria scrolls through the menu and opens another species, which displays a butterfly-girl with pink luminous wings and a glowing pussy and nipples, as well as glowing spots behind her toe and fingernails. Luminous patterns wander across her body.

"Here. Vanessae. It says they have hardlight magic based on intense emotions."

An intrigued grin crosses her face as Neo slips into front. She nods excitedly.

Then she tilts her head to the side, reading about the mechanics a bit more. Apparently the glows represent her supply of emotional energy, gathered from her own intense feelings and experiences, and also make her more sensitive to touch? 

She flushes and grins and locks it in, customizing her face and hair, picking skills, and locking in Monster Bait and Mute as her drawbacks.

And then Sable blinks and shakes her head as she's suddenly back in front.

"Well, that was a hit. I think that's everything then. We've got a pretty wide spread of abilities and species. This should work well."

"Alright, let's go!"

Gloria navigates over to the start button. "Last chance to make any tweaks. I loaded the world settings from our last game but if you've got edits you want me to make I'm interested."

Sable shakes her head with a smile and gets ready. "No changes. Let's go."

Gloria settles her pleaser in place, and hits start.

The screen flickers and stutters, and a loud squeal of feedback comes over the system's speakers. The screen flashes bright pink, and then a flare of light encompasses the room —

And suddenly they're in the center of a grand amphitheater, with a cathedral looming in the distance. The ground falls away beyond the edges of the arena, descending into deep, shadowy clouds that hide the ground from sight. There's a smell of sulfur in the air, and there's a bunch of people standing around —

"Sable! Are you alright?" Hyacinth lunges to Sable's side —

And almost runs directly into a pale-looking girl with red eyes. 

"— That's my girlfriend, get out of the —" 

Lillian looks up into Hyacinth's eyes, and her jaw drops open. 

In the same instant, a petite girl with silver eyes and red-tipped black hair dashes to Gloria's side in a flurry of sakura petals. "Gloria, Gloria! Are you okay?", Ruby asks anxiously.

Neo is glancing between Lillian and Hyacinth in puzzlement, then turns to look at everyone in amazement.

Maya is caressing Sable's shoulder, a concerned look on her face. "Are you all right, beloved?"

Sable just looks utterly shocked.

And a girl with black-feathered wings, black hair, and piercing green eyes steps back and assesses the scene.

"Well," Hailey remarks, "this is certainly a surprise. Are all of you okay?"

Gloria looks around at the assembled crew of everyone and breaks out in laughter. 

"Yeah, I think I'm better than okay! I think we just got isekaied!" 

She prods at her own hand, and easily scoops out a chunk of her own skin. The flesh beneath is just like the skin of her preview character — red strawberry flesh shot through with white veins. The damage stings, but it also heals, the strawberry flesh beneath growing back and the membrane of skin atop it reforming even as she watches. 

"I think we're in the game. Don't ask me how, 'cause I haven't got a clue, but do you have a better explanation for me being made of strawberries?" 

She extends the scoop of her strawberry flesh over to Sable. "Here, taste that."

"Okay, it's kind of weird to see you scoop out part of your own hand and offer it to Sable." Hyacinth blushes. "And kind of hot."

"We all seem to be here," Lilian notes. "In separate bodies, too. It would seem someone's looking out for us at least a little."

Sable shakes herself out of her daze just in time to watch Gloria scoop out a chunk of her own hand, and flushes a vivid purple-violet. She holds out her hand, accepts the handful of of Gloria's flesh, and brings it to her lips. A faint moan escapes her lips as she chews and swallows, and soon enough she's licking her hand clean.

"Um. Yes, you definitely taste like strawberries. Easily the best strawberries I've ever had."

Her tail swishes back and forth nervously, but eagerly, and her smile turns hopeful.

Hailey nods. "Isekai is the best fit for what we're seeing, given that we got split and wound up in a different world that looks like the tutorial island from the screenshots."

Ruby is leaning against Gloria, stunned and blushing, after the display of Gloria offering a piece of herself to Sable like that.

Neo grins and starts bounding around the island, her butterfly wings catching the air and letting her easily soar for extended leaps as she inspects everything around them excitedly.

"I suspect our next steps are to explore, as Neo is doing, acquire tools, and find a ship."

"Yeah. If this is the game I bet there'll be a tutorial NPC..."

She pauses. 

She looks over at Hyacinth. 

"What?"

Gloria's gaze slides down Hycainth's nude body and settles on the chastity cage wrapped around her cock. 

"You, ah, seem to have inherited your character's sidequest."

Hyacinth looks down, then startles. "Wait, that means —"

"I guess we had better really focus on getting the tutorial quest, if I'm not going to get to come until we finish the whole first quest chain —"

A soft, melodic female voice speaks from nowhere. 

Travellers...

Travellers, the Cathedral...

I am weak... 

"That sure sounds like a plot hook to me."

Ruby looks around quickly. "Who said that!?"

Sable grins and ruffles Hyacinth's hair. "Poor Sin, trapped in her cage," she teases.

Hailey tilts her head thoughtfully. "Cathedral, eh? Let's finish scouting the clearing and then go investigate it. Obvious quest hook is obvious," she suggest, nodding in agreement at Gloria.

Sin flushes and lets out a quiet eep.

The ampitheatre they're in is deserted; there's no-one to be seen. To one side there's an extended dock jutting out into the air, but there's no ships waiting at it. 

On the left side from facing the cathedral, there's what looks like a shipyard to the west, empty of anyone in it. And to the right there's a large grove of trees, which seem to be growing liftfruit. 

The ampitheatre itself is cut of white marble, and looks like it must have been ruinously expensive to build. 

Of whoever spoke, there is no sign.

Gloria looks over at the shipyard. There's the bones of a vessel there, but it looks incomplete.

"It looks like this island used to be some kind of important place. Maybe it's... a cradle for making new ships? With magical and industrial resources?"

"Or it could just be a religious site that happens to have a shipyard."

"Yeah, maybe. It's definitely important, whatever it is."

Hailey shares a look with Sable for a moment, then nods. "Want me to overfly it and then catch up while you're on your way up to the cathedral?"

"That would be lovely. You could maybe take Neo with you?" 

Hailey gives Neo a considering look. "Wanna go scouting?"

She nods and bounds into the air, fluttering swiftly toward the shipyard.

"Well, that answers that." She kicks off the ground as well and wings lazily after her. With a quick hand-sign, they split apart as they approach the shipyard, starting their coverage of it from opposite sides.

Meanwhile, Sable tugs Sin into her side as they walk up toward the Cathedral, teasing little caresses playing across her skin. She leans down with a smirk and presses a soft kiss between her fuzzy ears.

Sin blushes deeper and leans into Sable's side. There's not a lot she can do about this situation, so... best not to panic...

The shipyard is dominated by a three-quarters built ship. It has long wooden spines to each side of its body, seemingly intended to form wings with some form of membrane, but there doesn't seem to be an engine in place to drive it. 

There are still tools on some of the workbenches, and the area is somewhat in disarray; it would seem whoever lived here evacuated in a hurry.

There's a small bunkhouse along the right side of the shipyard, where Hailey is flying; and on the left side where Neo is flying there's a deep pool, seemingly meant for bathing. 

Gloria leads the way toward the cathedral. There's a smaller fountain courtyard outside, and then the archway of the main cathedral. The doors are slightly ajar.

Gloria stops just outside the door, and listens.

Travellers... 

"You know, if we're in the game, there's totally going to be a cutscene as soon as we enter the cathedral, right?"

"Seems plausible. Though I'm not sure we should trust the world to be polite enough to wait for us."

"I bet exposition's gonna start but it won't be a big whole cutscene experience so we better wait for—oh! Hailey! Neo!"

Ruby looks up to the sky.

Sable lightly pinches one of Sin's nipples as she looks up as well.

Neo flutters down, Hailey gliding behind her.

"Welcome back, girls," Maya greets the pair. "What did you find?"

"Living quarters, bathing pool, and a three-quarters-built skyship without an engine core," Hailey replies. "Good thing we have a liftfruit girlfriend."

"Indeed," she agrees with a smile.

Hyacinth blushes as her nipple is pinched and leans a little more against Sable.

"Glad to see you two back unmolested." Gloria winks at Neo.

Neo waggles her eyebrows, nods, and walks toward the cathedral with a playful shimmy of her hips. If she teases the other girls long enough, probably at least one of them will pounce her and take advantage.

"Ooooh we maybe get to repair and finish building a ship! That's really cool. Are we gonna go hear about our quest now?"

Ruby vibrates in place a bit with excitement.

"Yeah, let's!"

And Gloria follows Neo into the cathedral. 

The cathedral is many, many stories high, with a high vaulted ceiling inset with stained glass. Scenes of mangoes are portrayed in the panels; being eaten, being picked, the seeds being used to cast spells...

In the center of the hall is a large altar hewn from a single block of rose quartz, and atop it is a blue dish holding the scarred and scorched pit of a mango. 

Help... 

The voice is slightly stronger, here. A little less quiet. It seems to emanante from the altar.

"Mango? Why mango?"

Maya hums thoughtfully and then holds her left hand out to Sable, index finger extended toward her mouth, cheeks very faintly flushed.

Sable blushes faintly and takes a bite, sighing hotly. After a moment to chew and swallow, she nods. "Mango. Good guess, Maya."

Gloria blushes and looks away.

She approaches the altar and looks at the... offering bowl? 

The pit in the center doesn't look healthy at all...

"Do you think we need to replace this?" She asks the group.

"Seems likely."

Lilian's gaze slides over to Maya.

Hailey hums for a moment. "Is the pit we put in the offering bowl likely to be stuck there? Or is that temporary, and we can take Maya's pit back out to be the core of our future ship?"

"Well, we did see more liftfruit trees on the way here, so we have an alternative if need be."

"I think an alternative liftfruit would probably be wise. But I don't like the look of that pit. I think we should replace it as soon as we can, because if it's keeping the island up..."

"Agreed," Sable says with a frown.

"Hey Neo! Race ya to the liftfruit trees!" Ruby grins, then blurs into a dash, sakura petals falling behind her as she goes.

After a moment of shock, Neo grins and sprints off as well, taking flight as soon as she's clear of the door.

"Looks like we've got liftfruit retrieval handled. Does it look like there's any kinda procedure to replacing it, or do we just need t'swap 'em? Let's double-check these windows."

"I think the smart thing to do would be to just place the second lift-fruit in the bowl before taking the old one out?"

Heroes... I am... failing...

The light around the altar flickers for a moment, and the whole island shudders.

"Uh, Maya - "

"Oh no." She digs her hands into her chest, about where the sternum would be on a human, and pulls, tearing herself open. "Sable, help," she gasps out.

Sable blinks in shock, then plunges her hands into Maya's gaping chest, reaching past sticky mango flesh to wrap her fingers around a hard pit. Normally she'd make more a scene out of this, but not falling takes priority. She yanks, tearing the pit free from Maya's chest and quickly nibbling any remaining bits of flesh off as she strides over to the altar, then swaps the pits.

The altar flickers and falters for a moment, and the island lurches about a foot - then stops. 

Heroes!  

The voice is far brighter now. 

You've saved the island, at least for now! The blight has not taken the heart of your lover, it is safe and stable. You are so, so, so welcome for your aid!

I am Anima. I am the spirit of this Cathedral, guardian of the heart of a once-great realm. I called all of you here with the last of my power, to re-assemble the broken shards of this failing world.

I am sorry for the inconvenience. Rest assured, once the blight has been resolved I'll be able to send you back. It's simply a matter of enough liftfruits. But I am afraid you will be stuck for some time until then.

I can explain more, now, if you wish.

Gloria jumps a little at the renewed voice, then exhales. "Oh! It's you, the altar. You're a... spirit?"

I am an ASI, an Artificial Soul Integrate. The techniques to make those like me were a high magic... But it has been largely lost over the course of the past two decades as the republic has fallen to the blight. 

I will explain more once you are all here. I'm calling the rest of you to the Cathedral now.

Ruby dashes in, petals swirling everywhere, a pair of liftfruit in her arms.

Neo lands just after her, holding a pair as well. Her markings are glowing a bit with the exhilaration of the race and the concern of the island shaking.

"Okay, everyone's here. Explanations would be great, Anima, along with answers about whether we can safely swap one of these liftfruit pits out for Maya's heart now that you're not falling, among other things."

Hyacinth comes in as well and sits on one of the pews at the front of the cathedral, nodding along firmly.

Let me explain. Twenty years ago, this world was safe and prosperous. There was a great trading alliance of dozens of tribes, each with their own lift-fruit groves that kept their islands safe and their ships aloft. There were many great clans - the Vixens, the Talons, the Nightfallen, the Firebearers, the Sweethearts, the Mothwinged - and they all lived in harmony. This was the heart of their alliance, a great island where they came to trade, to give thanks to the gods, and to undertake the building of new ships and the raising of new islands. 

But then the plague came. A cursed blight, withering the hearts of the Sweethearts and spreading to the liftfruit groves. They fought, valiantly, but islands and ships began to fall from the sky as the liftfruits at their core became too corrupt and lifeless to support their charges. The people of the alliance began to withdraw, setting in place quarantines and banning any non-essential trade, yet still the plague spread. The clans became paranoid, blamed each other for the unnatural spread of the plague, and trade withered still further - and with it the supply of foreign lift-fruit to those tribes that depended on them to keep themselves above the poisonous fog of the land below. Some perished. Some planted their own liftfruit groves and withdrew. A few who still believed in the alliance sought desperately for a cure to the corruption - a cure that lives, now, in a single grove of liftfruit on this island that are free of the taint, their mana modified to withstand the corruption. 

That grove of liftfruit, though, was not yet mature when very little was left to keep this island safe. The people who lived here - the Last Vow of Sisterhood - took the last few wholesome fruits they could spare to power their ships and fled with a few immature fruit to continue their work from, as this island was believed to no longer have the strength to remain in the air. They took the knowledge of the cure's propogation with them: I know not where. All communication between isles had been lost by the time that that desperate extreme was reached. 

But the few remaining liftfruit on the isle, the blessed ones, were just enough extra buoyancy that this isle has survived the loss of its people. I used the last of the strength of the central liftfruit on a desperate gamble - to call people from another world to save this place, in the hopes that they would discover the now-ripe grove and replace the heart of the isle before it gave way. 

That gamble has now succeeded. So it now falls to you to find the fled members of the Vow, spread the holy lift-fruit, re-weave the broken diplomacy, and root out whomever it was that spread the plague deliberately. 

It will not be an easy task, but you will not be alone. I have faith in the good nature of the remaining members of the Alliance. They will see sense, if you can but contact them and convince them of the truth of your cause. 

Please, heroes. Rebuild this failing world, before it is too late for the remaining isles and their quarantines.

And yes, please, fill the bowl with as many liftfruit as you can spare! The more there are the safer this isle will be.

Hyacinth looks over at Sable. "I think we know why we were summoned. That sounds an awful lot like what of the plot summary of Skybound I recall." 

She nods. "Getting paid in individual embodiments definitely is the icing on the cake, and this is a task we'd already want to help with."

"Agreed. We will need to complete that skeletal ship, and bring as many liftfruit as we can carry to other islands."

"How many cores in the altar does it take to keep this island afloat on its own, and how long do they last, and how quick do they grow back?"

Only one is needed to keep the island floating, thanks to the efficiency of the enchantments, and each one would last about a month, but more mana is needed to run the facilities such as the shipyard and myself. I can put myself into a mana saving mode and drain less charge, but to be fully active I would need a second liftfruit. To run all the remaining facilities on the island at full capacity you would need another hundred or so per month. The current grove produces about a dozen serviceable fruits a month, which would be enough to run any one facility at minimum capacity while leaving space for me and the island's support.

You will want to bring the agriculture facilities online to grow more liftfruit, then finish the ship and begin scouting. There is space on the island that can be turned over to cultivation yet. 

"Sounds like we might be stuck here for a little while..."

Hyacinth is clearly trying not to focus on the cage between her legs. 

"Are you certain of that estimate of how many liftfruit the grove grows per month?"

I am not yet entirely sure. It is a new breed, and may have unusual characteristics.

"Sounds kind of messy..."

"It does. We'll have to err on the side of caution. Everyone, chow down on a fruit while we learn more. Anima, can you determine that more precisely if we keep you topped off while we get things up and running?"

Hailey follows her own advice and grabs a liftfruit from Ruby, biting into it.

Neo does the same with one of the ones she's carrying.

If you can provide me enough fruits to bring the agricultural facilities online again then I should be able to give better numbers. 

"And I think there's really no substitute for going out to the grove and just counting all the lift-fruit that are fully grown." 

(Hyacinth, meanwhile, is chowing down on a liftfruit.)

Along with Lily, who seems to be partially drinking hers through her fangs.

"I believe Hailey meant the usage rate, Anima. Growth rates will be easy enough to determine just through cultivation, though we will not refuse your assistance with faster and more accurate calculations there."

My analysis of these fruits says they're every bit as potent as the usual breed, perhaps more so, so they should if anything overperform. Usage rates will depend on how much machinery and spellwork is used, but I have good historical data on that so it should not be difficult to estimate for each facility in turn depending on its uses. Ask me more specifically about what you wish to do and I will be able to give more precise numbers. 

"I believe our main concerns will be your continued operation, agriculture, living quarters, and the shipyard, in that order, Anima, but a full listing of all available facilities would be useful in making a proper decision."

Sable nods, pulling Ruby into her arms and caressing her gently as she listens.

Ruby blushes and squirms a bit, nestling against Sable.

As I said, I only need one liftfruit a month to continue to operate. To run the living quarters for all of you should also be only a single fruit more per month; I was not including it as a 'facility' in my reckoning. Agriculture requires more mana; I would estimate around six lift-fruit a month would be needed to spread the grove further, though at a slow rate. Another half-dozen lift-fruit could enable me to create mana-rich fertilizer that would make the existing liftfruit crops turn out faster, or alternately shed more fruit in each crop. No lift-fruit would be needed to allow it to simply grow naturally at its usual rate.

To run the shipyard at full capacity perhaps twenty-five fruit a month would be needed, but it would be functional to complete the existing ship on ten, if you ran the respective facilities in order.

As for additional facilities, there is the amphitheater, which has many comforts and luxuries to keep visiting dignitaries in comfort and pleasure; the lab beneath this cathedral, where the new breed of lift-fruit was developed, and other holy magic might be researched; the church itself, which is a potent channel to heal and repair that which is injured or broken when the power of the lift-fruit is passed through it; and the great anchors and engines of the island, which prevent this place from being blown about in storms, allow the island to move under its own power, and allow other islands and ships to safely dock without fear of crashing into this one. There are also certain refineries for steel, glass and so on in the ship-yard that might be operated separately from their ship-building purpose to produce other components, which we may need in the coming months. 

This island's moorings have been torn out by a great storm I could not shelter against; it once was in the center of the republic, but now I do not know how far it has drifted. I know that the right direction to search in is southwest, but the speed this island's engines can make on less than a dozen lift-fruits is not at all enviable. Better to finish the existing ship. 

Lily looks over at Hyacinth and flushes slightly.

Hyacinth ducks her head in a nod.

She nods, finishing off her liftfruit. "Gotcha. Prioritize agriculture and living quarters for now, we'll bring you as many liftfruit cores as we can and see about upgrading the agriculture and then adding on more capacity. I assume accurate numbers on the comparative efficiency of speed vs yield in terms of overall production will take fresh data? We'll probably split the grove between both methods for the first crop, to see which lets us exponentiate faster. And do you have details on any advanced capabilities of the agriculture facilities, or are those best investigated on-site?"

Sable tilts her head curiously at Lily and Sin.

"It, um. Is sounding like we'd need to wait for another liftfruit crop, with higher-yield fertilizer, to run the shipbuilding facilities. Which would mean I'd be stuck in chastity for at least a month. Straight. Which is. A while." 

"A little much for my sweet fox?" Sable teases with a grin, before turning to the altar. "Anima, do you have any clues toward the location of a key that matches Hyacinth's cage?"

A key...?

There's a pause for a long moment, then - 

My analysis suggests the lock matches the lock on the Sealed Archives. Those tomes that could not be taken from the lab aboard-ship due to time pressure were instead locked away in a sealed archive, lest they fall into the wrong hands. The key that locked them away... Was on the last ship out, in the possession of the most senior researcher. 

Find that researcher, and you'll find your key.

"Ah. Oh dear."

Hyacinth blushes a deep, deep pink.

Sable smirks at Sin. "Well, it looks like we don't have a quick fix there, unless we wanna try to make lockpicks at the shipyard. I'll try to pace myself on tormenting you, love."

"Please." It seems Hyacinth is already feeling a little desperate given the news she's just gotten.

"Awww, how cute.~" Gloria shoofs Sin's hair and grins.

Meanwhile, Lily finishes her lift-fruit and puts the pit in the bowl. "I don't know what you girls are doing standing around chatting when the island's still pretty compromised. Let's focus on getting cores in the bowl, shall we?"

Hailey nods, putting her pit in the bowl as well. "Everybody, let's go harvest the whole crop. Everything beyond max agriculture accel gets saved to plant."

She strides toward the entrance, wings rustling, ready to take off.

Neo places her pit as well and follows.

"Fruit-picking race!" Ruby dashes out the door. 

Sable and Maya follow at a more casual jog.

"Fruit picking race!" 

Gloria quickly finishes her lift-fruit, then runs after Ruby at a fast clip. 

Lily just gives Sin a firm hug. "You'll be okay. I believe in you. And we'll be gentle." 

"A-alright..." 

Sin finishes her fruit and puts it in the bowl.

After a moment, Lilian leads Sin after Hailey and the rest of them, at a more sedate pace.

Ruby and Neo and Hailey continue on ahead and get a head-start on picking liftfruit, Ruby using dashes to reach higher branches periodically.

Along the way there, Sable drifts back a bit to check on Sin and Lily, and scritches Sin's ears softly. "You doing okay, sweetie?"

She ducks her head. "I... I'm managing. It's just a lot to take in all at once even without the, uh, month's chastity sentence. Keeping moving helps."

"That makes sense. You're a good girl, and you're ours, and we're going to keep you and protect you. No matter what."

Hyacinth blushes and meets Sable's gaze. "Okay," she says. "I believe you."

Lily shoofs Sin's hair a little. "Good Sin."

Sin blushes deeper and manages a small smile.

And then Sable's smile stretches into a teasing grin. "And that 'no matter what' includes if a month of chastity turns you into a squirming, mewling pet halfway through."

"H-hey!!!" 

Sin flushes so hard it reaches to her eartips.

At which point Lily gently bites one of her eartips.

To which Sin lets out a pitiful little whimper and hangs her head. 

"Lilyyyyyy...."

"You did kind of ask for this."

Sin just blushes and hangs her head.

"There are enough of us who'll still be functional that if it comes to that, you can just be the morale officer. Keep all our moods up by being a wriggly fucktoy, your constant neediness reminding us to take time out for pleasure."

Hyacinth's blush reaches an incandescent furor at that, and she ducks her head with a little "eep." 

Lily keeps running her hands through Sin's hair. "Good girl. Good, good, good girl. We'll take care of you, don't worry. Don't you worry at all." She smiles, a little too pointily.

Meanwhile, Gloria is flitting to and fro on her butterfly wings, taking the advice of Anima to harvest only the ripe fruits from the lift-fruit trees. 

Hailey and Neo are doing the same, and have switched to throwing their picks down to the ground.

While Ruby dashes across to catch each one, gradually carpeting the ground in cherry blossom petals.

They're doing this as much for fun of making Ruby bounce all over the place as they are the efficiency of not having to focus on anything but finding ripe liftfruit.

Ruby's gradually making a somewhat pyramid-shaped stack of liftfruit as this continues.

Lily comes over to the small stack and pauses. "I'm going to go see if I can get a basket or something from the living quarters, then it'll be easier to transport all these at once." 

Hyacinth nods and plonks herself down next to the liftfruit pile, picks one up, and takes a bite out of it.

Anima chimes in. That's ten ripe fruit so far. I think we're going to have a few more than I estimated, given that there's still about a third of the orchard left.

"Good to hear," Sable replies as she sits down next to Sin and helps eat liftfruit, scritching the foxgirl idly as she does.

Maya sits down as well. "Will we need to manually plant pits to grow new trees in the grove, or will the agricultural facilities handle that automatically?" she asks Anima.

She picks up a liftfruit and examines it thoughtfully. "Is this cannibalism?" She takes a bite with a slight flush and a smile.

The agricultural facilities will handle that automatically. While liftfruit trees can propagate through cuttings, yields will be faster if you grow them from the pit. Incidentally, immature lift-fruit and lift-fruit planted in the soil help me to keep the island floating; while I cannot draw on their mana directly without the pits being placed on the altar, there is a kind of natural buoyancy, and the lift-fruit grove here provided enough marginal lift to survive longer than the Vow expected. Islands with extensive lift-fruit groves have remained floating with no deliberate spellwork to support them before.

Technically, yes, but I do not think that word fully translates. The Sweetheart Tribe far from bans the practice; rather, it is heart to their customs to partake of each other's flesh.

"Lovely, thank you."

She watches for when they reach fourteen liftfruit, and then starts a new pile for any further harvests.

A few more trickle in, and at last Gloria comes flitting back with a pair of ripe lift-fruit, one in each hand. 

"I think these are the last ones, I checked the grove pretty thoroughly." 

She places them into the second stack, which has only two fruit in it right now.

Eighteen fruit in all. A good harvest, for such a small grove. This breed seems quite bountiful.

Lily smiles. "That might even be enough to run the shipyard at skeleton capacity. We'll have to discuss." 

"We will, yes, but hm. When the agricultural systems are fully operational, can they harvest unattended? How much can you be self-sufficient if we give you sufficiently many initial liftfruit, Anima?"

They can harvest unattended, but there's currently no infrastructure in place for automatically moving harvested fruit to the core in the chapel, or I wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. That could be fixed, but as it stands currently you'll need to make sure to have someone here to tend the core.

"Good thinking, Maya. If there's no way to keep the facilities operational without someone tending things, we'll have to fix that if we want everyone to be able to leave together. Okay, everyone sit down and eat while we scheme." She picks up another fruit and digs in. "Do you know anything about what it would take to construct that infrastructure, or what it would look like?"

Hailey paces nearby and grabs a fruit as well. "Probably that'll be done at the shipyard, using some of equipment there, so Lily's instincts may well be right."

Neo and Ruby sit down and dig in as well, listening curiously.

A runic circle would have to be added to the Church, blazoned in brass and powered by the cores. The other ones can be seen in the Lab beneath the church, so you can see what you'd be working with. It's delicate work; you'd need a proper artisan to do it well.

"Is there anything we could do that would be... less onerous?"

You could construct a more temporary circle, of, say, salt, but it would be less stable and more prone to faults. Not what you'd like in a critical system, I'd assume.

"Um?" Ruby raises her hand, then scratches the back of her head sheepishly. "I think I could do it? When you mentioned a runic circle, some stuff... clicked for me? Back when we thought this was gonna be a game I picked artisan skills, and I did some metalwork outside of games before all this, so if we get the foundries going in the shipyard I can make one. I'll need to study the existing circles like Anima said so I can figure out how it links up to everything, though."

Then I think you should be safe to cast a new circle. It'll be a laborious process, but it should still take less time than a full month. You'll need the foundry in the shipyards, yes, and some of the workshops. But it should be doable.

"Oooh yay!" She bounces in place.

"So that suggests a plan with an optional modification. We rush the foundry and workshops, lay in the circle, then build the ship and head out so we minimize how much time Sin spends as an empty-headed fuckpet, optionally doing a round of exponentiation on the fields first to give us more slack in our mana budget for facilities. Suggestions?"

Sounds solid to me!

Sin nods eagerly, not really concealing her eagerness to minimize the time very well.

Lily shoofs Sin's hair a little more and smiles.

"Sounds like a plan. I don't want to split the party this early either." 

"It's a good plan, but d'we wanna exponentiate first? Can we afford not to?"

"Good question. It would just take more time to exponentiate. Perhaps the sinny sin can wait two months?"

"Eeeeeeeeeep."

Gloria giggles and pats Hyacinth on the forehead. "Just teasing."

"Anima, how many cores would it take to run enough of the shipyard to build and integrate the new circle, and would the new circle increase operating costs once it was built?"

Probably you'd need the metalworks as a whole... Eight cores. As for the circle for transportation to the core - it's a simple levitation enchantment, and doesn't have to be particularly smart with me to check it. If you did it as a single task, bring fruit from grove to core, that would probably only require one core to power; if you built something more elaborate to give me, effectively, a pair of "hands", that would take correspondingly more power but be more flexible. 

Hailey hums. "Can you generate a reduced amount of fertilizer with fewer cores?"

Yes, but it's more efficient the more cores you dedicate because of economies of scale.

"How much fertilizer can you do with four or five rather than six? We have enough liftfruit to run enough shipyard to build the new circle, run agriculture, run the island, and run living quarters, plus either four or five for fertilizer, depending on whether Maya wants to tie her core up here."

"Speaking of which, how much does letting her core contribute to running things here, or being the core of a ship, drain her in any lasting way?"

With four I can do about a third as much fertilizer, with five about two thirds as much as with six. The hearts of the Sweetheart tribe are like common liftfruit - and subject to the blight - but never run dry of mana so long as they are appropriately and moderately tapped, which I am presently doing. But if you tried to have her leave the island she'd be unable to with her core in my core. 

Maya flushes. "We will keep my core in the altar for now, then, only taking it out when it is time to fire up the ship. This will get us more exponentiation without taking additional time. Does the fertilizer need manual application? How is the focus, speed versus yield, specified?"

Manual application is not necessary, the systems are set up to handle that. There are two different formulations of the fertilizer but they're mutually incompatible.

Maya gives the others a contemplative look.

"Yield, then."

Hyacinth cracks up completely.

"Alright then, alright then, I can see which way the bread is buttered, huh, huhhhhhhh?" She giggles and wriggles and tacklehugs Sable. "You're evil and I love you!" 

"Awwwwwww, her true colours show so easily."

"Adorable." Lillian giggles and runs a hand through her own hair.

Sable laughs and squeezes Sin close, scritching her softly. "I mean, it's not like having another crop sooner would help us build the ship any faster, little love, unless there's something you've thought of that I haven't?"

"Um, no, but I was... kind of hoping..."

"Even more adorable."

Sable just giggles more, peppering Sin's face and forehead with kisses. "So cute. Adorkable little cutie."

Her hands slip down and grope Sin's ass, squeezing warmly, and then her right hand strokes the base of her tail softly.

Hyacinth flushes deeply, her cock visibly twitching in her cage, and leans into Sable a little. 

"Please take care of me..."

Hailey smirks wryly at Sin. "By 'take care of you', d'you mean 'domme you into a squirming puddle'?"

Sable keeps caressing Sin, teasing her softly.

Hyacinth grins and nods. "Something like that, yeah. Since I'm stuck with it anyway..." She closes her eyes and shivers, pressing against Sable's hand. "Might as well try and enjoy it."

"Something tells me she'll be just fine." Gloria giggles and shoofs Hyacinth's hair.

"I think you're right." She leans over and pinches Sin's nipples. "Any thoughts on what we need to do next, other than eat a lot of liftfruit to get things running?"

"Probably we should go take a look at the forge and the shipyard too. But that can wait a little; I bet running everything won't be onerous with Anima's help, and I mean, you girls should get to enjoy your new bodies some too, you know?"

She scoots over to Gloria and straddles her lap. "Y'know, you might be onto something there." Then she kisses her hard.

Neo flutters close to Lily and tilts her head to the side a bit, exposing the pale, soft skin of her neck.

And Maya presses against Sin from behind, groping her breasts while Sable gropes her ass.

Ooh, that looks tasty. 

Lily nibbles Neo's neck. 

Sin, meanwhile, is super doomed and making soft flushy whimpers as she's felt up.

And Gloria is taking her time to kiss and nibble the Hailey in return.

Hailey presses closer, sighing warmly at the little nips, then drags her claws along Gloria's skin, teasing against her waist and the side of her right breast, not quite enough pressure to break skin.

Maya runs her hands slowly down Sin's body, caressing her all over, adoring every inch of the little fox.

Sable nips Sin's neck teasingly, pinching her left nipple and continuing to stroke her tail playfully.

Neo pouts and leans in closer to Lily, running her hands up her back, hoping for a harder bite than that.

While Ruby nestles shyly up against Lily's other side. "Or maybe you wanna try a different flavor?"

"Sounds fun. Why not try both?~" 

And Lily bites Neo's neck firmly and starts to draw blood. 

Meanwhile, Sin is getting more and more flustered as she's felt up and down...

And Gloria's gotten into an enthusiastic necking session with Hailey. 

Neo gasps, the pink glow flaring brighter in her wings, nipples, and cunt. She shudders and leans limply into Lily.

Ruby blushes and leans in as well, one hand pinching Neo's nipple, the other cupping Lily's cheek as she leans in to press soft kisses to her face while she drinks Neo.

Neo shudders and squirms and leans further into the gorgeous vampire with fangs in her neck.

Maya runs her hands up and down Sin's inner thighs, fingers brushing ever so lightly against the bars of her cage.

Sable squishes and squeezes Sin's breasts, and nips the tip of her right ear.

And Hailey digs her claws ever so lightly into the outer curve of Gloria's breasts, strawberry juice welling up, kissing her fiercely all the while.