Family council.

"What the fuck?" said Brenda before putting a hand in front of her mouth. Her son had been telling her about impossible things and performed an impossible trick to convince her, but this was a whole new level. In the blink of an eye, she passed from her living room to what looked like a medieval castle.

"Mom, welcome to Arcadia!" announced John. Turning around to take her bearings, Brenda saw that it was night outside, but under the moonlight, she could see some strange shapes in the sky and weird flying creatures. In the other direction was what could only be a throne room with an ornate purple and gold coat of arms above the throne.

"What is this place, how did we get there? Is this... in our house? And what are these?" she asked pointing at the flying orbs.

"This is Arcadia, a small kingdom. You could call it a pocket dimension. I have a magic stone and a ring that let me access it, since I own it. These are elemental essences, they grant certains aspects to the place, but we should go down for now and discuss this around dessert, don't you think?"

"Dessert? You have food here?"

"Well, the queen of this kingdom is the best cook I know. Follow me."

Taking the stairs to the first underground level, Brenda was welcomed by Anna, wearing a rather tight t-shirt and a skirt. She recognized it as one of John's t-shirts, and despite having slimmed down a bit recently, it was leaving little to the imagination around her breasts.

There were pies, pastries and various fruit assortments on the table in the center of the room, and after a hug from who would soon be her daughter in law, Brenda sat down.

"You... You have your own place... And you can come here as you want. I guess that explains why you didn't insist on having Anna spend the night at home, you were meeting here, can she come here on her own too?" she asked her son.

"Yes, she can. She has a ring to let her access the place. There's something more about this place though. First we can access it from wherever we are and meet here no matter how far we are from each other. But most importantly, we have more time here, 66% more to be precise. One hour in the outside world is one hour and forty minutes here. More time to do homework, work on things, spend time together," explained John.

"And you took Miss Summers here too? Are you three lovers? Or is it just you sleeping around?" asked his mom, looking at Anna's reaction to her question. She was happy for her son to find love, be it in such strange circumstances, but she didn't raise him to treat girls without consideration.

"Mrs Newman, John was really conflicted about this and truly afraid that he would lose me over this. It was I who convinced him to invite her to this place. The truth is that as much as I love him, and I love him a lot, I like girls too, and she's not easy to reject. And well, there were other considerations in bringing both you and her here, it is not as simple as it seems," confessed Anna.

"You... Ohhh, I get it. But not as simple as it seems? It seems insane already. What else could there be? My son, his girlfriend and their art teacher are having sex in a magical kingdom, I had sex with my own son because I'm a pervert and he misjudged my feelings for him... What else?" ranted Brenda. She only stopped her rant to take another bite of a doughnut filled with a sweet, nearly neon green jam that she couldn't identify, or stop eating.

"Well, I guess we should explain some other things first. You see, it wouldn't be much of a kingdom if it was only two or three people..." John began to explain some of the things he lived through during the last week, leaving out some of his less glorious acts and the more horrible stuff like his encounter with the Outsider spawn or his trip to Chicago (actually all of his **** on Frank and Vanessa, no need to linger on this now that he closed that chapter of his life).

He watched as the expression on his mom's face changed, he could feel the fear and concern of a mother each time he talked about the risks he took. When he first talked about Sylvia and the existence of non human creatures in the Abyss, Brenda looked startled. When he recalled his expedition in the jungle he could see tears in her eyes as she looked at his bare arm, trying to see some traces of him having lost his hand. She had barely interrupted him so far but couldn't hold it anymore. She got from her seat, slapped him on his right cheek and then hugged him tight, crying on his shoulder.

"Mom, it's OK, I'm alright!"

"No, it's not OK. You could have died there, away from earth, and I would have never known what happened to you. You would have just vanished from the surface of the earth without a trace or any clues of what happened. Did you think about what I would have felt? Why did you have to take such risks in the first place?" she sobbed.

"Yes, of course I thought about it. It is not like I had many choices. They took her; when I found her, she was barely alive, she suffered unspeakable things, and I know that being sure that I was coming for her is the only thing that allowed her to survive. I had ****, I couldn't let her die..." replied John, who was now crying too, remembering the horror of finding her burnt, mutilated, branded in this dreadful place.

"I know this baby, you did good to her," she consoled him. "But why go on such dangerous adventures in the first place?"

"Power. I need to gain experience to get stronger. This hidden world is filled with unsavory characters feeding upon the weak and enslaving them to drain their energy, or worse. There are authorities that try to protect normal people and the weakest among the special ones from such fates, but they are not numerous enough. The only way to be safe is to be strong enough, to have allies, to become someone that is not to be trifled with. There are people in my life now, not just you and dad, but others that I love and care for, and I need to be strong enough to protect them. This event was a disaster, even if it ended up being fruitful despite huge sacrifices. I don't regret what I did; if I had fled, Sylvia would have died, and if I had not gone, Cali would have died trying to save her sister and Vesta would have suffered something worse than ****."

Brenda looked at the determination in the eyes of her son and wondered how he had matured so quickly. Was he really more confident, or had he been so traumatized by what happened to him that he could no longer feel the danger of these things?

"I would like to meet them, these women you risked your life for. I think I understand your reasoning, and it might be the right one. But you were my little boy not long ago; a month ago, you were spending all of your time time in your room with your games, and the idea of you doing some exercise or fighting would have been a joke. You changed so fast, you are now a young man, and you are brave and responsible... I just wish that you won't end up doing things that you regret or take risks too great for you," she explained.

"They are here, but you must understand that, well... Sylvia is technically a plant, the two elves are from a primitive tribe living in a jungle, and none of them are used to wearing much if anything... You can come out, girls!" he shouted after his explanation. He wondered if Anna had told them to wear something to meet his mother.

Sylvia, Cali, Vesta and Daphne entered the dining room from the bedroom where they were hiding. Sylvia was naked, but a vine on her belly had grown a few leaves that almost hid her crotch; she had bloomed a couple of flowers in her hair. Cali wore the stuck on loincloth and the top that seemed to be magically held in place thanks to a small strip of slime material on the back of the lizardmen hide. Vesta was wearing some diaphanous white fabric wrapped around her waist like a pareo and nothing else; her alabaster skin and light hair made her look otherworldly, especially side by side with her caramel skinned sister. Daphne was not wearing anything, obviously, but had not made any visible genitals on her body; the fact that it was not differentiated and didn't possess any organs meant that anything that she displayed was purely cosmetic.

The two elves fell to their knees in front of Brenda and kissed her hand.

"Revered elder," they muttered in the same voice. "We are honored to meet you. We owe our lives and fates to your son. He bled for us, with us; he offered us asylum; he gave us a new clan after our old one forsake us, helped my sister with the curse put upon her. You raised a brave warrior and a wise king. Your blood is strong, and you can be proud of him, " concluded Cali.

"Get up, no need to kneel. Wait, king?" she realized. John on the other hand remembered that these elves’ society was matriarchal and that they would obviously revere his mother for having birthed their savior.

"I didn't explain that? I told you that it was a kingdom and that I owned it, I even told you that Anna was the queen of the place. I am King John Newman the first, king of Arcadia. It is not a joke, this is a real title that would be recognized in the Abyss. It is part of what I explained about having allies and being important enough not to be attacked. Which makes me think about it. The kingdom gets upgrades the more people live in it or are part of it. Would you like to become part of it officially? We don't have many laws except against killing or harming other inhabitants of the kingdom so far, and respecting the laws is the only requirement for residents, subjects are fully part of it but are under the authority of the throne."

"And you would like to order your mother around, right? If you are such a wise king, I guess that I will join, but I will have to have time to process all of this before we get things further. Add me as a subject," she answered.

John opened the interface, but instead of the usual option, a new pop-up opened.

Royal choice, adding Brenda Newman.
Pick a rank:
-Subject: standard subject, no special role or privilege.
-Queen Mother: honorific title, reduced authority over her, honorific ring (access/exit only).
-Queen: monarch's wife, shared power over state, one crown.