The First Harem Tournament 27 – The Formation of Imperial Houses Part 1

Multitudes of steps echoed on the marble floor. Roman-style pillars sat equally spaced out within the walls, segmenting the perimeter of the long chamber. The inspiration from ancient architecture continued beneath the gently curved ceiling, forming the bones of a room that was otherwise decorated in an Art Deco style. Silver lines through deep blue plaster formed the foundations on which various screens were mounted. Silken drapes extended from the intricate fresco depicting the entirety of the harem in an allusion to angelic hosts. Nothing so overt as giving them wings and halos – it was the composition and the preference for blues and whites that evoked the imagery.

“I hate this. I hate this so much…” Eliana hissed.

“You say that about all of your works.” John remarked.

“And I am always right!”

“Ya even took the time to add Layla,” Jane weighed in. “Do ya always keep working on things ya hate?”

“I keep kissing you and you are a fudging fudge-up of a cat-eared cardboard muncher.”

“So, ya love doing things ya hate, that it?”

“Flip off!” Eliana snapped back. “Why are we even doing this here?! We have a perfectly good Couch in a non-awkward place!”

“This room was designed exactly for meetings of the Imperial Choir.” The Gamer stopped by the head of the table, where a single throne stood. One chair, broad enough to easily accommodate up to five people.

The other seats around the table were similar. Few of the harem were known for modesty, none for chastity. John was the primary recipient of group attention but rarely ever the only one.

“Be seated,” he instructed, to some irreverent giggling. All the same, the entirety of the harem, Lu Zhi included, each took a spot along the table. There was no set order, but the Imperial Choir assorted itself as it usually did. Spots closest to John were taken by those that had joined the ranks of his lovers earliest, with some variations based on group affiliation (such as Siena being with the other elementals).

One screen was set behind each other of the thrones. More screens were integrated into the thick stone slab that served as the polished surface of the table, all of it to maximize meeting efficiency. John sat down on his own throne and cleared his throat. “Test, test.” John’s casual tone carried through the entire length of the chamber, the enchantments built into the seat working exactly as intended. “Great! Everyone’s here, everyone is… hopefully ready.”

“Nope,” Sylph chirped immediately. “Not ready in the slightest and I will never be ready because this is a huge thing and I am the first air elemental to have to deal with it and it’s pretty overwhelming when I think about it and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Keep the internal screaming inside!” Salamander snapped at the bunny-eared greenette.

“Audible gasp – is that why it’s called ‘internal’?”

“You fucking- Ooooooh, you are getting me!” The apocalypse elemental wagged her finger. “Bad bunny.”

Jane tapped around on her terminal. “Soooo, ya wanna explain to me what this program is I am seeing?”

“An experimental fusion of an LLM with image data compiled from Eliana’s various logo designs,” Scarlett boasted.

“The heck’s an LLM?” Jane asked.

“A large language model… a sophisticated algorithm that lets computers interpret plain text into probabilistic connections that inform the output about the weighting for…” Scarlett stopped herself when she received a number of vacant stares. “It’s a program that takes your text and turns it into images.”

“So… it’s an art AI?”

Scarlett snorted. “I suppose you could call it that, though that evokes the idea that this is actually intelligent. Just like my AM robot was, this is just a very large flowchart with some randomness involved. It doesn’t think.”

“Isn’t all intelligent life just a very large flowchart?” Delicia threw in.

“Let’s not get bogged down with an argument on the nature of intelligence,” John intervened. “The purpose of this program is to let everyone make base designs of their individual house logo that Eliana can then turn into proper emblems.”

“Question,” Beatrice spoke up, tapping steadily on the button to generate pictures, “Why do we not use the created symbol itself?”

“I suppose you can, but Eliana can actually listen to you.”

“Also, it’s all my fucking image data in there!” The pretty little psycho crossed her arms. “If you’re going to use something that’s made in my image, at least let me touch it up so I don’t want to blow my brains out more than I already do when I look at my stuff.”

“Response: this is fair.”

John looked at the program with a degree of interest himself. For some reason, pictures were a thing he had never imagined would get to the point of full automatization, but here they were. For now, this was something Scarlett had put together with considerable research effort. It had many issues but every technology with sufficient draw developed past the point of awkwardness eventually.

‘Magic was able to do similar things already, but this is going to be a lot more available and shareable,’ he thought. ‘Lots of moral implications to be ironed out when it hits the public…’

He left that whole debate for another day.

“Here are the three things each of you will want to consider, at a minimum,” the Emperor of Fusion continued his explanation. “First, the name of your house. You can just use your maiden name, but many of you don’t have one and we can’t call them all a version of ‘Newman’, for obvious reasons. Secondly, you have the logo. Thirdly, all of you should have some house creed or motto.”

“To which I add,” Nightingale raised her voice, “to treat this with proper seriousness. Though that sentence may feel superficial to us, it will be the creed by which our descendants are raised.”

“We agree. Such traditions have a habit of embedding themselves deeply,” Lu Zhi added.

“Yeah, sure, just add another bit of pressure…” Lee muttered.

The room turned silent for about five seconds, then those bordering each other began to murmur and soon to chat. It was the standard degradation of silence in any large-scale gathering of people. Lots of ‘doesn’t this look terrible?’ and ‘this is neat, isn’t it?’ were flying around.

That Lydia was the first to finish was the least surprising thing imaginable.

“House Hohenzollern-Neumann,” she stoically named her branch of John’s lineage – though in this case it was more accurate to say that he was going to sire a cadet branch with her. “As per previously agreed terms, this shall be a matrilinear house – at a minimum until I have abdicated, likely beyond that. Thus, my dynasty’s name comes first and John’s last name is Germanised.”

“Ewwww, you are infecting it?” Eliana asked. “Always knew you didn’t actually like it clean.”

Lydia shot the interrupting artist a poisonous glare. “My house’s motto shall be: ‘Forge your path with tempered will’.” That got some respectful mumbles around the table, several of the Harmonia double-checked their own drafts, some even deleting them outright. “As for the emblem, the machine produced this.”

Lydia presented them with a fusion of the Prussian Eagle with the colours most commonly associated with John – black and dark blue.

[Hohenzollern-Neumann AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/d24ebfd10d0e.png ]

“Why isn’t the colouring symmetrical?” Beatrice asked, so disgusted that she failed to add her usual prefix. “I expected better from you, Lydia.”

“And why does it look like a poorly made cutout?” Eliana drawled.

“That is what the machine gave me,” Lydia reiterated.

“Urgh.” Scarlett pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ll say this once again and if I have to keep repeating myself, I will take the fucking toys away from you: it’s a program, not a person. It doesn’t actually know what you want. It just calculates based on given inputs using a provided database and references. This is an assembly line product, not a piece of human art. Do we understand that? Can we treat these like the mass-producible references they are?”

Salamander raised an eyebrow. “You are getting even more angry about this than you get about everything else.”

“My partner made the program,” Nathalia reminded. “You are criticizing her handiwork. Does it surprise you that she would defend it?”

“…Fair enough,” Salamander said. “Honestly surprised you didn’t throw any mention of metal into your motto, Lylytina.”

It amused John that the royal didn’t even react to the nickname anymore. “I considered it, but found just saying ‘metal’ clunky and the mention of specific ones to be distractingly narrow. Further, though it is so much more likely than any of my ancestors benefitted from it, my children may not necessarily have powers related to metals.”

‘If we’re going to talk about each and every one of them in this detail, we’ll be here for a while,’ John thought. ‘Eh, we got nowhere to be.’

“If you’re finished, I will reveal myself next,” Siena declared. The screen behind her came to live, projecting her chosen generation. It vaguely had the same outline as the simplified Fusion logo, six diamond shapes assorted hexagonally. The colours had been changed to purple and black and sharp shapes added to imply blades, claws or both. “House Midnight.”

[Midnight AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/b65ee9d658f9.png ]

“Midnight?” John asked.

“W-we, uhm, agreed previously to just use our elemental titles for the house names,” Gnome spoke up. “Is that a problem?”

“A mild one,” Nightingale confessed. Reclined in her chair, the harpy tapped the tablet before her with a claw. “I had considered the same name.”

“I can change it,” Siena offered.

“No, no,” the goddess of the night was swift to deny. “I have an alternative that fits me just as well and ‘Midnight’ suits you perfectly.”

“What’s the motto?” Jane wanted to know.

Siena bashfully shifted in her chair. “Consider second chances,” she divulged.

A little smile played on John’s lips. “It’s a good motto,” he encouraged her. He left it at that. “Who is next?”

Nahoa raised her hand. “Stupid little me should get it over with already,” she said, all sweet, before drawing in a breath. All mirth drained from her features, leaving behind a determined visage. “House Huitzilopochtli. Motto: ‘Endure’.”

The logo that appeared behind her also had similarity to the Fusion emblem in its broad layout, though that could also have been John’s mind finding patterns where there were none. It was a black-white-purple emblem made of interconnected lines that were clearly of Mesoamerican design. In the middle of it all was the face of a smiling Axolotl.

[Huitzilopochtli AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/fd37afc124ba.png ]

An awkward silence filled the hall. Everyone was thinking something but no one wanted to say it in the face of the determined demigoddess. How could one crack a joke when a daughter gave her deceased father a final honour?

“I know,” Nahoa drawled very slowly. “The axolotl is too cute for the tone I am going for here. It’s the best the machine gave me.”

“It is-“

“Scarlett, I am not attacking you,” Nahoa was swift to interrupt. “I’ll trust Eliana to get it right whenever she has time to make it a proper emblem.”

Appeased, the redhead shut her mouth.

“Is this alright with you, Master?” Nahoa asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” the Gamer asked, confused.

“I know you have misgivings about my father. In my time, a ruler would have buried the name of the civilization he integrated. He certainly wouldn’t have let their name stand for all eternity as part of his lineage.”

“Well, this isn’t your time,” John answered. “And… yes, I do not have any love for your father, but I love you and he raised you right. I can say that much for certain. If you want to honour him this way, you have my approval.” He almost added ‘not that you need it’, but that was untrue. He very much had the right to protest the names that his children would carry.

Nahoa’s shoulders slumped, an overthinking tension leaving her body. “Okay, that’s… good… that’s good.”

“Is just ‘Endure’ good enough for a motto?” Jane questioned.

“Considerin’ what our ax’l’tl went through. I think it fits just right,” Hailey drawled.

“True,” the feline Lightbearer gave immediately, then looked down at the monitor in front of herself. Whatever had just been generated, it was not good enough for her. With a frown, she pressed the button to try again.

“Blessed Warden,” Lorelei whispered loud enough that everyone around the table heard. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t think I will ever be ready,” Moira muttered.

John raised an eyebrow. He had thought her family crest would be the easiest to make. She effectively had one already and reusing all of its elements (or just copying it outright) was absolutely valid.

“Then, if I may lead the way?” the seer asked.

Moira sighed. “If you must…”

The seer rose to her feet and clasped her hands in prayer. “Blessed are we, who have or will receive the Saint’s seed,” she declared. “It is my great honour to look into the future and to know that inside me quickens holy progeny. House Varnik is elevated by this union and thus remade as house Sanct-Varnik. Our motto is: Saint’s seed multiplied.”

John was something beyond aroused and yet a bit embarrassed by the depth of veneration. By Lorelei’s worldview, it made complete sense. The Gamer was a saint as far as the Shield Branch of the Order of the Golden Rose was concerned. Lorelei also could reform her family quite easily, since she was the last living member of a long lineage of powerful seers… a lineage that was definitely going to be secured over the next decade.

“And they say I have a fudging breeding fetish…” Eliana muttered.

Hailey tilted her head, looking behind Lorelei. The screen was still off. “Wanna show your house embl’m?”

“Ah, yes, my apologies,” Lorelei stopped in her prayer to press the required button. Displayed was a blue and gold shield, on it a rose and a pair of closed eyes. The symbolism was clear and effective. “If I may make the request, the rose should be diminished once the proper artwork is made. It is improper for it to feature so prominently in the heraldry of a simple servant of the Warden.”

[Sanct-Varnik AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/65710d0da61f.png ]

“You are far more than a simple servant,” Moira chastised her friend, before sighing. “What simple servant could drag me to this depth of humiliation?”

“If I may, honoured Warden-“

“Moira!”

“…If I may, Moira,” Lorelei surrendered. “This is no humiliation.”

“It’s an enormous humiliation,” Moira grumbled, all blushy, “to imply that my lineage is elevated because I… l-love that guy…!”

“Stop being all tsun and show us, Moimoi!” Jane demanded.

“F-f-fine!” the redhead exclaimed and shot up herself. Her hands were bunched into fists at her sides following the swift press of a button. As expected, her house symbol was a golden rose on a red shield. “House Sanct-Brighton!” she declared, a little too loudly.

[Sanct-Brighton AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/68b403dc69d3.png ]

“What are you so embarrassed about?” Aclysia asked, genuinely confused. “It is a fact of mechanics and of observable reality that your line will be elevated. Master is a Saint in all ways that matter.”

“M-maybe, b-b-but… still!” Moira had no argument besides stomping her foot. “Urgh! ‘Lady’s duty fulfilled’! That’s the house motto! All my children and my children’s children will use the power this imperial business grants me to make sure the world is cleansed of the warlock and all other forms of wickedness!”

‘As a side benefit of this whole imperial business, I don’t have to worry about the legal headaches that produces anymore,’ John thought.

The wider Imperial Choir spared Moira further teasing. She was allowed to drop back down and squirm in peace until her face was no longer red. No one else immediately spoke up.

A short lull in the presentations.