More women, more problems, more opportunity

When Patrick gets close you create a zone of indifference, a tricky spell that will cause almost anyone to forget what they saw this night. The spell takes a great deal of effort and leaves you wiping spots from your vision. It's proof that you're still not at your best. When Patrick parks the wagon inside you eagerly end the zone and dismantle the illusion on the wagon, reclaiming what little energy you can.

"That's a pretty good haul" says Sandra.

"Yeah," Patrick replies, "proves you should send me out more often."

"You do bring back the best girls" you say as he hefts one of the twin barmaids out of the wagon.

"How's Emilie doing?"

Sandra wheels in a large cart and answers him. "She seems to be alright, mostly. Some crying, lots of loneliness. Maybe a little moping."

"That's 'alright'?"

"Most of the time she's just keeping busy, reading, sewing, trying some different tricks with spices we gave her. So she's not crying all day or anything. I've seen people in worse states, believe me. She'll bounce back the minute you walk through that door."

"Can't wait for that."

"I can give you two good reasons to wait three days." you say as you help him lift the second twin barmaid onto the cart. "The next few days will be hectic while we work out just how we're going to deal with all this," you motion toward the wagon, "and also in about three days your 'niece' is going to drop an egg."

"Oh? You've been keeping a really close eye on her."

"No, I haven't had the time recently. But Sandra did suggest that I check that almost a month ago when you first began seducing her."

Sandra grins. "I read somewhere that some mages think women are at their least wise, their most impulsive, when their bellies are ready for a man's seed."

Patrick laughs. "Well thank you. I will take any advantage I can get."

With a fresh lesson about the need to recuperate your powers the unloading takes a long time. Sandra can't help, you're not using your magic to levitate the girls, so it's hours of hefting and wheeling **** bodies out of the wagon and into a variety of rooms you've set aside for the purpose. Every room that is separated from the main portion of the manor has been set to this purpose. Despite that you are unlikely to have enough space to hold this many captives comfortably.

"So before I left, you mentioned we can't just keep blasting them with the wand" says Patrick as you take a break for some water and food.

"Indeed. Wands need to be recharged eventually, but more importantly a body need to move, eat and excrete. At some point it becomes much more work to keep them asleep than it is to keep them locked up and quiet. Sandra thought of a great idea to keep most of them busy, hopefully it works out."

Sandra smiles. "We have so much work to do copying things. If we can convince them that we're just keeping them for a short while - until something blows over, then offer to pay them for their trouble... well, some might refuse but I bet a lot of them will go for it. Especially some of the mercenaries. Getting other people to help us create the notes and papers we need is a great way to fake other styles of handwriting."

"I bet the noblewomen won't go for it, but it's worth a shot."

"Actually," you say, "if we play it just right they might be easiest to convince. Best to see how it goes, but nobles are always aware of the possibility of being held for ransom."

"So how long is this going to take?" asks Patrick. "I don't have much to go by, but I know you can't change too many people in a day."

"Quite. And after overstretching myself for the wedding it will take even longer. We've got forty 'guests' to transform, without counting the people slavers might bring me in the meantime. That would normally take about a month and a half. With additional arrivals, recuperation and whatever time I need to take for the upcoming civil war... it's entirely possible some of these girls will be 'guests' for as much as six months at the outside."

"Wow," says Sandra. "That's even longer than I thought. So we'd better think about how to keep them happy and how they might try to escape."

"Yeah," says Patrick. "And you've got a ton of magic defenses, but only one warden." He smirks and in a terrible fake accent says "Ahl do me best ta keep 'em in guvna!"

You sigh. "We are going to have to deal with all sorts of things, even how we are going to prepare the extra food. But first I've got to take care of a few women in particular. Two of the noblewomen, the senior nun and the leader of the mercenaries. There are various people who are going to hire diviners to look into their whereabouts. That won't happen today, but I plan to change them sooner rather than later."

Many hours later and you finally have the women divided up to your satisfaction. The barmaids and family are together in one room, the six younger nuns are divided into two rooms of three each and the mercenaries are spread across five rooms (with the five most dangerous of them stuffed into your most guarded room on the lowest level). In all cases you and Sandra have moved anything that could be dangerous into storage while Patrick was away.

You've had to use three small rooms for the nobles because you suspect there would be trouble if Lady Emira were put in the same room as the others. You're sure that in their current tense circumstances the other noblewomen would get catty. That might be appropriate, given what you have in mind for them, but Lady Emira has already demonstrated a willingness and ability to attack her problems head on. You really don't want the other nobles to be permanently damaged because they said the wrong thing.

Having run out of places to put people you steel yourself and decide to change the two women that diviners are most likely to look for. There's little point in interrogating them since their current circumstances are entirely your doing. That leaves just one concern, which Sandra brings up.

"So, are you ready to plant your seed? Or have your wives drawn out every drop already?"

It's quite the question. You've fathered every catfolk child so far, but you weren't married when you did. Do you plan to stay faithful to your own wives and marriages now or do you intend to ensure that almost all catfolk are connected to you by blood?

You could start using Patrick's sperm and perhaps the seed of other men to fertilize these women. Perhaps men chosen for their cunning or their intellect, their charm or their agility? On the other hand you could continue to act as father to the catfolk race, increasing the chance of some rare problems but also increasing the chances of magical ability taking root in their veins.