With name and housing both settled, Dewdrop let itself continue to be played with by the kids, not objecting like Ben worried it would. Through possession of a body native to the universe it was inhabiting, it felt no pain like before and didn’t fear getting any either, instead letting it get to know a more pleasant sort of touch it hadn’t experienced previously as it let itself be pet, hands running down its fur leaving it to purr as it stretched out while the three adults watched.

Ben materialized a soft ball, tossing it their way to create a small game of catch between it and the two kids before whispering to Thera from the side, questions about the creature still worth asking.

“Ah, so, any chance there’s anything in its status worth knowing besides the bits I can see?”

“Mmh, check for yourself if you want,” she told him, making it clear that there were no real problems, even if he still used her eyes to take in the rest of its system information, capturing his interest as he looked it over.

Obviously it had taken no jobs, but unlike Ben himself, being exposed to the chaos had granted it no blessings either, that difference either from a stroke of luck as the sheer randomness held within that space between worlds didn’t create the correct conditions for such a thing to appear, or else the lack of system that had been on it originally had meant there was nothing to try to give shape to what chaos exposure it had experienced in its long journey out. Whatever the reason though, it seemed that the primordial chaos wasn’t filled to the brim with blessed beings.

Which is probably for the best, Ben acknowledged, with Dewdrop’s memories of encountering beings beyond itself out there and the damage it received implying that they were likely just as powerful as itself, if not more so. I need to try and treat any other outsiders with an open mind if I can, but that doesn’t change the fact that their experience is going to be completely alien to my own. Even if conflict arises from a misunderstanding, I’d still prefer to be on the more powerful end of things before it gets resolved.

… Of course, considering how infinitesimally small the odds of ever running into an outsider again are, I probably don’t actually need to worry about things like that too much.

Rather than concern himself about such an improbable meeting happening a second time, he focused on the more interesting parts of Dewdrop’s status. It seemed it hadn’t claimed any titles either, since there were no notifications of such in its memories, Ben had been fairly confident of that from the start despite some fears that its mind simply hadn’t been able to interpret the system messages at the time, but what it did have were affinities and resistances, and eye-catching ones at that.

While surprisingly, its light and dark affinities were both good enough that it could learn either magic if it so chose, having them at twenty and twenty-one respectively, the real standouts for it were both space and time, having both affinities at eighty-five and both resistances at fifty-eight, making it shocking compatible with both controlling and rejecting those branches if need be, to a point that Ben briefly considered teaching it the information on all of those magics before rejecting the idea, at least for the time. Better to let it adapt to the world for a while before helping it become too powerful, lest he have the gods breathing down his throat even more than he was already sure to for the choice of taking such a thing in.

At the same time, help it get the magics, let it take some mage jobs, and it might be able to become pretty powerful in the next few months… minus the part where it doesn’t want that. Yeah, I’ll at least discuss the prospect of learning some magic in the future, but otherwise, it’s its choice.

Other than that, its attributes were interesting, yet at the same time, nothing spectacular either. Compared to when it had been thrashing about in its old body and destroying the world around it, it seemed like it should have been in the tens of thousands at least, but it held nothing over two thousand. Values that still would have been enough to stun the world; at least, before Ben’s global soul modification, but at the same time, shockingly humble for the damage it had done.

Of course, it wasn’t like it was breaking the universe with strength or magic or intelligence; it was doing it with its nature as an outsider, its third tier skill seems unrelated to the workings of this reality, at least, largely so. The fact that it’s still going to be powerful in that regard besides that is already plenty for it.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Really, it felt like Dewdrop was giving him endless things to think about, but Ben pushed most of it to the back of his thoughts. As interesting as it was, the black cat-like scrungle was now a part of his ever-growing family; nothing else mattered more than that.

After walking Delair home, everyone else was in bed by the time he got back. Dewdrop sleeping on the couch comfortably, the body it was using forcing the need on it, same as Mora’s did for him, and with a bit of will, Ben used his calming to make sure that its first dreams would be good ones before slipping into bed himself, getting a few more words from Thera about not surprising them by moving god-like beings into their home so casually before she went to sleep as well, letting him send part of himself up for the night, his god already waiting.

“See?” Ben grinned. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“I’d personally disagree because it was already noticed, even if by a friendly face. Anailia’s already asked me about it, and unless you’re planning on taking it everywhere with you, more are going to find out, eventually.”

“Well, first off, what was her reaction?”

“Ugh, to my disgust, it seems she holds you in high enough regard to trust your judgment. The others will be far less so when word gets out, though.”

“Mmh, not gonna lie, I’m not really in the mood to worry about any divine complaints. It’s your believer now, just don’t let anyone mistreat it. Oh, and don’t know if you saw, but it got a name. Dewdrop the scrungle.”

“Scrungle?”

“It didn’t want to think of itself as a cat, and the system didn’t just name it an outsider so we gave it something new,” he shrugged. “Well, the kids gave it something new; it still rejected all of my options, which was just so rude. Even if I was trying to come up with name names instead of race names, I had way better suggestions than that… but it doesn’t matter, it and the kids are happy and the fact that it accepted those names helped smooth the introduction with Thera and Sonya a bit. Anyway, if you’re worried about the other gods reacting, should we mention it to Phixth? Give the guy some warning about what’s sure to be your next big meeting?”

“Ugh, is it going to be our next one, though, or are you going to have a new third-tier skill by then?”

“... I’ve decided I’m going to make my next attempt tomorrow,” Ben told his god, the sight of the devastation others were dealing with enough to quell some of the conflict within himself. “As for if it will work… well, I’ll let you know afterwards.”

“A third-tier connect,” Myriad sighed. “If I weren’t so terrified about what you could be doing that’s worse than connecting to an outsider, I’d be genuinely curious about what that was going to look like.”

“Hopefully, it looks like me connecting to all of the third tiers in the world to get their skills on rings. From there, I’ll make a few simple doomsday weapons and pray it’ll be enough.”

“You rushing so much to try to awaken this doesn’t all stem from a desire to make weapons of mass destruction, does it?”

“No, that’s what we in the biz just call a fun little bonus. Don’t worry though, judging how things have gone, there’s really no need to worry about my designs getting leaked because nobody is ever going to be able to recreate the things I make by this point.”

“Mmh, true enough, I suppose. I really should get you to make some non-violent, non-psychotic works for my church to hold onto. Too much of what you’ve already made is going to hold value for millennia to come; it would be good to have some exclusives to show off from back when you were my apostle.”

“Your ever humble, ever devout apostle?”

“If pretending that isn’t a ridiculous stretch means you’ll do it, then sure.” 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

“I’ll see what I can manage,” he shrugged. “The issue is, anything worth making is usually worth spreading. Keeping things exclusive just makes the world worse off. I suppose I could make some things that could be comfortably described as interesting, though. Stuff that would be neat to see or experience just once, but not handy in a way that it would make sense to mass produce. It’s an interesting topic; I’ll think on it a bit. Hmm, after what I just went through, maybe I could make something that temporarily scrambles the user’s mind, making them live hundreds of separate, fragmented, confusing, and brief lives before finally being reunited into a greater whole.”

“That sounds like something one would use as a torture device, so no,” Myriad told him, already regretting his request.

“Mmh, I’ll workshop it a bit. I’m sure I could make you something interesting that would fall under any of my domains. At the very least, there’s gotta be a potential mind tool in me worth making.”

“Well, if you find one, then run it by me first.”