Luni begs me to linger in her embrace as we wake up, and I can’t say I even want to resist her charms. The warmth of the soft curves of her pleasant figure pressed up against me are exquisite to feel through such thin clothes, after having spent so long on Rayileklia, sleeping in armor, or fully clothed. Hell, I’m tempted to beg her in return, to do a cuddle pile, as bare as we used to on Can’Z’aas.
Of course, back then, most of the time, her features weren’t quite so human, so it wouldn’t have evoked the same feeling of weird social discouragement from my Fakeworld memories. Memories that say the way the world is supposed to work. Humans on Fakeworld don’t spend their lives naked, only throwing on clothes to go adventuring. Humans wear shoes, and pants, or dresses, and shirts, and spend nearly all their lives in at least most of those clothes, often simply going to work, going home, and if they’re one of the lucky ones, spending time with a romantic partner. Most of them shower, and that’s about the only period they ever spend naked, and I could kill for a warm bath, but at least we’ve got magic that instantly cleans us.
Fakeworld memories also say most people frown on multi-partner relationships, but most of them don’t understand the compassion of polyamorous love, the joy that nestles into your chest upon seeing your partner or partners happy, no matter what is bringing that happiness. Well, within reason. If you found your partner smiling while kicking puppies, that’s a whole different ball of worms, can of wax, thing. I roll my eyes at myself, chuckling at my obviously failed mixed metaphor. I can’t even remember where I was going with thi— oh.
Luni’s smooth, full curves remain pressed tightly up against me, the soft suppleness gives way to a tender firmness with how close she’s squeezing us together, and she’s grinning mischievously, since she’s been riding my thought train as usual. Before she can enact her plan however, Teuila pops into our shared thinkspace, and tries to locate us. Luni grumps and pouts, but relents, telling Teuila where we are. Lil and Lucky aren’t far behind, ending with us all in thinkspace together as everyone congregates towards our position. Luni squeezes out every last second of snuggling she can get while we’re still in private. She also intentionally flusters me by going after my ears with her lips and teeth. The cheeky butt.
When we’re all gathered, I begin describing the plan, but first thing’s first, I roughhouse with Lucky in thinkspace, and kiss his skull ferociously, before addressing him, “I love you Lucky. I know you spent a long time doing it on Can’Z’aas, but would you be willing to dig for us again, here?”
Lucky, barking and wagging his tail as if he were any other dog signals his affirmative response. I mutter, “Thank you. I love you. I love you so much. You saved us. You deserve so much love that I never knew to give you.”
I’m about to wipe tears from my eyes, in meatspace and thinkspace, when Lucky bowls me over in both. He starts lapping at my face with his enormous tongue, wiping away the tears, sort of. Chuckling, I shove the big lug off of me.
I ask, “Lucky, can you dig as good, without deleting the rock you dig through? Or do you have to delete it?”
Lucky cocks his head at me curiously, forcing me to realize I didn’t give him a chance to respond yes or no. He then surprises me by, in thinkspace, drawing lines in the dirt. One line, and then further apart, two lines. He steps on the one, and barks a single time, wagging his tail. He steps towards the two, sits on it, his tail still, as he barks twice.
Lil says, “Told ya he was smart.”
Loosing half a chuckle, I joke, “Yeah no kidding. That’s great news Lucky. I’ve got a big project, and I want your help most of all. I know your digging magic can help support the area you dig out, but I really, really don’t want to cave in the mountain, so I want us to tunnel slightly west into the mountain range, and excavate almost the entire interior of the base of the nearest mountain. Does that sound okay boy?”
Lucky wags his tail and barks once. I don’t deserve such a loyal, helpful response from him, yet he gives it freely. I wrap my arms around his big neck and shoulders in meatspace, and lean our heads together for a long while. He paws me once, signaling to get on with things. So, chuckling in response, I do.
I spell it out for everyone, most of what I’d said to Kinzul yesterday evening, and Luni is ecstatic at the idea of deploying her shop again. She’s cagey on why she didn’t deploy it before now, but at least now we can be sure to put it in a well-guarded location. While Lucky’s working on excavating the main bulk of things, Lil is going to direct him, and help excavate, so that we have a central area, and separate spawning warrens for different resources. I know we can get wood and clay with no problem. We absolutely have the resources for that, and the build style for getting them to respawn was remarkably simple. I’m not as confident about getting harder minerals, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that we could get orichalcum to spawn, if we invest enough.
We got a lot of sheets of orichalcum, mithril, and adamantite in our final days, hunting. I think that the build style would require someone working them into the shapes of scales though, and planting those in walls, layered together almost as if the wall were a living dragon of orichalcum. Thankfully, Lil knows some of the untitled, un-Aliased members that work in smithing, and similar things.
I’m a bit tense about the whole process, because for the rarer, more valuable materials, it could take anywhere from a day to a week, to a month or more, to start seeing signs of expansive spawns that indicate regeneration has gotten to the point that the materials will return when harvested, and still continue to fill out the particular warren that they were set into. And if we harvest before those signs, it might just not respawn at all.
Essentially, assume we plant resource nodes A, B, C, and D. Until a node E shows up, or preferably an E, an F, and a G, we can’t disturb nodes A, B, C, or D, or the cycle doesn’t even start. Also, the longer we wait before the first harvest, the more the respawn rate flourishes, producing more material per harvest with each respawn, more quickly, by generating more nodes, more speedily. I might have been the only one in the party to talk with Spice and Teodora about this stuff as much as was necessary. I also personally dug a majority of the first lumber warren at the Miracle Oak settlement, and the bathroom irrigation drainfield, a massive moat, a canal all the way to the sea, oh, and a lava reservoir, and a lava pipeline, a lot of things honestly. Between Lucky, Lil, and me, we did a lot of digging in those last months.
Lil’s going to go get a couple of Draconiacs, and a dragon that he knows, to help set up a forge down in one of the subterranean levels there, and we’ll make the biggest cavern down there that’s available to us a staging ground. We’ll start summoning resources from our Can’Z’aasian inventories, first, stuff that we know, stuff that’s safe, in bulk. Lumber and clay first, metals second, wealth after that.
When Lucky finishes with the tunnel into the western mountain, and the first, large, central chamber, we’ll go over there, and start summoning our inventories en-masse, emptying them out, to figure out what the hell we still have in them. Only once he’s safely in the beginnings of a side warren though. I’ve got no idea what all the hell I have in my inventory. I think I have an Octorochi head in there for starters.
We quickly set out together, Luni and Teuila know that I could possibly die if I’m not extremely careful with my Can’Z’aasian mana related usage. It’s far less likely, now that I have a dragonforce protecting my inner self, but I’m hoping that it doesn’t disintegrate that dragonforce by too great an influx of mana. Hopefully, having the dragonforce of an archmage specifically will lend me a bit of aid in that department, and having my cored-out nerve channels being used to filter out mana residue, it might even be safe to use.
Make the best of a bad situation. Quite possibly permanent nervous system damage? Use it to funnel bad stuff out of the body. Hah. Teuila and Luni both give me grumpy glares and playful swats. They care too much about me to let me not take this seriously. We all know that I’m at the greatest risk for tapping into the powers from Can’Z’aas. Teuila’s the next most at risk, because of how I tethered her with extreme values of mana for that hurricane shot on our final day. I spread my mana residue sickness into her slightly. I curse myself for my folly in having done that, but Teuila needed the exponential amplification of her power to be able to burst through an entire boss monster, and ninety five percent of another in a single shot.
Lil is the next most at risk, because Lil, like me, has over thirty two thousand capacity in his inventory. Te’s only got a couple of thousand, unless she picked up more bags on the last day, on our way towards heading into the Temple of Time. Linti only had about thirteen hundred, she’d hit one of the capacity caps. I don’t recall if Lu ever bothered gaining any inventory capacity other than maybe enough for her shop stall.
Okay, we’re down here, I’ll go first, because I may very well fill the entire place up. Go ahead Lucky, this stone is okay to delete, but shuffle the stone around once you get to the other mountain base. There, as long as no one else is in the room with me, I can begin. First, I’m going to figure out if I can produce the effect of my honoris causa for the solid eight minutes that it takes to manifest a Can’Z’aasian power. Alright, attempt numero uno, here goes.
I’m terrified, and my inner circle is similarly terrified for me. It’s been a while since I’ve tried to manifest anything from Can’Z’aas. Every instant, I need to be imagining both what I’ll be imagining in the next instant, as well as the exact event that will occur at the end of the eight minutes. It’s nerve wracking, but I can definitely tell I’ve called out to Can’Z’aas.
My honoris causa is flaring, pushing out my nerve channels, and I’m using it to guide excess Can’Z’aasian mana residue out those channels. Surprisingly, I’m not bleeding light and life while I do this. It is causing my dragonforce to leak faster though, so I’m not sure if it’s worth any more than just taking the projectile bleeding injury, and relying on my dragonforce to speed my recovery.
Every moment, every instant, the focus must remain on maintaining the control and the thought of what thought comes in the next instant, on the way to the manifestation of the effect after the eight minute mark. I want to fill that space with wood, that one right there, specifically lumber-warrens wood, the kind of half-logs we used to line the walls that would respawn. I want them stacked nicely, the circumferences resting in between two other half logs, flat surfaces meeting where available. Come on. Come on. You can do this. Huff. Keep breathing. Remember to breathe air, breathe. Nosebleed, pain behind the eyes, but we’re still okay. Still okay. Another minute and a half.
A minute left, and sweat is streaming down my forehead into my eyes, stinging them badly. I’ve gotta, huff, maintain the focus. Thirty more seconds. Huff. Vision’s getting blurry. Panting, trying to keep breathing, twenty seconds. Focus, wood, there, stacked. Just enough for a lumber warren to reach critical mass. Nine seconds. Eight. Al-glk-almost. Five, four. I’m swaying, toppling, losing consciousness. Three, two. An intense pressure builds up within all of my nerve channels, I realize it’s the blood that wasn’t escaping through cracks in my skin. One. I explode into a fountain of gore as hundreds of tons of lumber appear out of thin air, stacked exactly where I wanted them. Every pore on my body unleashes a cascading torrent of my vital fluids.
Someone’s screaming, somewhere in this darkness. Get it off? Clean them up? Too much? I feel irritable. Why all the shouting? It’s dark, it should be peaceful, quiet, pleasant. A sensation like being lifted reaches my mind. Only, I think I am actually being lifted. There’s plenty of crying, and pleading going on very near me now. I gurgle. Oh, fluid. Fluid in a throat? My throat. I can breathe around the fluid. Thanks to the neckchain of the ever breathing.
Oh, my eyes are closed. I struggle to open my eyes, finding the lids caked with a sticky, soon to dry substance. Ah, my blood. That’s right. I don’t think a body should be able to produce this much. I have other senses. That’s right. My silent sonar says that the floor is slick with my gore in its entire thirty foot radius. That’s pretty disgusting, and voluminous.
Ah, there we go, magic is cleansing me, and it’s going quicker, the more times it’s used. Finally I can open my eyes. I blink rapidly, trying to take in the sights around me. Three concerned faces. Shouldn’t there be another way to communicate? Ah, crap. My brain is broke for the moment. No wonder they’re so scared. I must have dropped out of telepathic bonding temporarily. How do I reactivate that? I can sense the spell is still wrapped around my mind, thankfully.
Groaning, I ask, “Any of you get the number of that bus?”
I’m being slapped while people chuckle. I ask, “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to slap someone that’s injured? Ow. Also, why is my brain broke? How do I turn it back on?”
More laughter, and hugging. Oh, there’s hugging. That’s nice. How’d I end up like this again? Ah, I tried to prevent myself from projectile bleeding, and almost did, but my internals built up too much pressure for my meager body. I actually have a solution for that. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Checking my pouch, I have iron filings on hand. I flash a grin at my concerned friends, and wave them away as I stand, hopping up almost happily.
I’ll take it slow, so as not to waste S P, but I’ll pull out my Steely Body spell. I don’t think I even have blood in that form. That should work, right? Well, we’ll see in half an hour. I really hope I don’t just become metal projectiles. That’d be awkward, and dangerous for everyone around me.
Why can’t I hear any talking? I can only hear things like laughs, or screams. Ugh, checking my balance, I’m pretty sure my eardrums exploded. No wonder things are a bit messed up. I yawn for a while, and look about for a body to lean on. My senses are all muddled, I can barely determine what’s what, and who’s who. This one’s soft, that’ll do. I can be content with that.
Hm? Lil’s going to get a lot more help, realizing just how much material I summoned for only one part of the plan? That makes sense. It’s absolutely tons of material to start critical mass for a respawning warren. Can you guys make sure he takes at least half an hour, maybe more like forty or so minutes before he gets back with extra bodies? I don’t need them being down here in case I explode again, even in Steely Body form. I pantomime numbers after tapping on my iron shavings. I’m pretty sure Teuila understands. I give a thumbs up, and get one in return.
Flexing my jaw, I virtually vibrate as I’m wracked with a familiar pain, dehydration of my muscles. I start to chuckle. Yeah, that makes sense. I don’t know how I’m even alive, because this much fluid should not come out of someone’s body. My friends understand why I’m asking Lucky to make such a big central chamber now though at least. That was a small fraction of my inventory.
Somewhere near the end of Can’Z’aas, I started to realize that, up to a point, a unit of inventory space was whatever I designated for a size or quantity of material. I couldn’t just say, a million tons of stone is one unit or something stupid, there were limits. I think it may have been an effect of my space skill, or perhaps my Latent, that as I approached the final days, I kept finding that the quantity of material in my inventory was taking less and less total inventory units. Like, a single half-log would have been a hundred units based on weight at one point, but it worked its way down to a single unit. Then, over time, several cord of lumber became the standard single unit. I’d picked up enough to be able to erect emergency scaffolding for the miles-high structure we were trying to build to encase the settlement in the shield of lacrimosa trifecta. Anyway, point being, I’ve got a *lot* of stuff to get out of this inventory, and I’d prefer to not have to go through this a bunch of times. Preferably no more than four or five’ish times.
Ah, thank you soft body, I’m assuming Luni. Oh, yes, fluids, definitely, yes please. Gulp. Holy hell my body needed that. Oh hey, recovery is starting. Ack, did it have to start with tinnitus first thing for my hearing? Sonnova. Oh well, hopefully that tones down a bit after more recovery. I wonder if I should wait for recovery before I finish the Steely Body spell. It could be an interesting experiment to find out, but it could also be disastrous.
Oh, hey, I hear Luni’s voice as she’s asking, “Can you hear me now?”
Smiling her way, I nod and respond, “Can almost hear you over the tinnitus, but don’t shout, it won’t help.”
Luni gives me a playful shove before hugging me tightly once again. I declare, “I’m going to try it again, just with a Steely Body instead of my squishy bleedy body this time, so I’ll need everyone to clear out, in case I projectile bleed metal. If this doesn’t work, I’ve got one or two other ideas, but I’ll probably just go back to letting myself bleed light and life through the mana lacerations that show up.”
Luni squeezes me more tightly, almost in protest as she grunts a grumpy noise my way. I’m feeling really lightheaded, so even the minor squeeze of her soft arms throws me off balance, resulting in me leaning even more into her embrace. Luni shakes her head incredulously and sighs while chuckling resignedly.
Okay, wowsers, I’m beyond lightheaded at this point. Still, Steely Body is almost ready. I spin myself around a bit to kiss Luni on the cheek, and she realizes I’ll need her to back up. She releases me and I head back to my spot in the middle of the floor. I’ll have to make up for these thirty three S P by dipping a bit into my unsafe S P tonight but it’s not really that bad, just muscle stiffness, and weakness. The Steely Body spell manifests, and I suddenly feel a fair bit less woozy. I can see somewhat straight, and I’m even moving fairly decently.
Well now, eight more minutes of honoris causa, and manifesting Can’Z’aasian inventory manipulation magic. This time, imagine clay, in that corner, from the bank of the river. Huh, both of the things I know that I can for certain set up in a respawning warren were from the river. The beavers’ lumber warrens lumber, and the clay. Too bad we don’t have a bread golem in anyone’s inventory. It would have been fun to set up a carbohydrate colossus to farm. Maybe I can swing that with some of the baking supplies we actually have, using one of the mana construct spells, and a permanency enchantment enhancement. The missing key! Bwahaha. I was being silly about the bread golem, but still, it lead to a clue.
Well, I mean, not for a bread golem, probably anyway. The permanency enchantment enhancement in conjunction with the proper form for the materials to take, should guarantee respawn of the original nodes, if properly placed, within an area of effect of a constant source of Can’Z’aasian digital reality. It’ll be a lot of gems though. A lot, a lot of gems. Thankfully, we’re going to be manifesting hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of gems, and not just tiny things either, many of them are at least the size of a knuckle, or even a finger.
Alright, another few minutes of honoris causa, and picturing the clay over there. Woah my— my jaw feels slack, and is hanging loose. My vision is blurring and swimming. Am I even going to make it? What happens if I pass out before the inventory manifestation occurs?
Lady Kinzul’s voice calls out, “Child, I’d come as quickly as I’d heard. Please. Stop. I had no idea your miracle would so greatly risk your life. I cannot condone it. I wish to see none of the Onyx Dawn as a corpse, ever. Your mind, it is closed off to me, and a pool of blood spread across the floor is as vast as an ocean. However great the miracle, this cannot be worth the risk. You are precious to us. To me. Please, instead, let me see this egg of yours, let me share my essence with it. Let me do something for you, instead of you sacrificing for us.”
Tears wet my eyes at the compassion in Kinzul’s voice, but it’s too late to turn back already. I flash her a weak, sad smile as I respond, “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I just broke my brain a little. I’ll fix it soon. Please stand back, I can’t stop this one, and I worry that this time it’ll be metal exploding. Please. I’ll make it through this, but I don’t want you to risk your life for—.”
Kinzul refuses to budge, and the sentiment is clear. If I’m going through with this, and risking my life, she’s putting it all on the line and risking hers as well. I shake my head sadly. Hesitantly, my inner circle joins her, save for Lucky, who might be nearing the other mountain by now. They link hands, and come to take my hands in turn. Kinzul grabs my left hand from slightly behind and to my side. She holds Lil’s hand in her right. Lil hold’s Luni’s hand, and Luni holds Teuila’s, who of course holds my right hand. They form a semicircle behind me.
I’ve only got about forty-five seconds. Okay Reggie, quick, think, what else can you do to minimize the risk while your mind is focusing every moment on the next moment in the line, and the end product simultaneously. I—, I need a moment to think. Then take one! Dive into a moment between moments! Right. Right.
I enter the non, the space between moments, stretching out the time between moments, diving therein. In my mindscape, I see Kinzul, seemingly paused while apparently having been seeking out my telepathic avatar. What else can I do to ensure her safety, their safety? Calculate, electricity and mana, a closed circuit, a currently metal body. Don’t laugh at the accidental wordplay.
Is— is Kinzul moving in my time-paused mindscape? I know that as long as I don’t try to completely pause time, that this is more like accelerated thinkspace, in which everyone else is slowed down, but even Teuila, my beloved, lightning-fast Teuila, barely flickered with movement over vast periods of time.
Just how powerful is Kinzul? I know that she risked a decade or more of her own life essence to move quickly enough to save my life as I lay dying when we first reunited with Lil, is she doing that again? I need to get her to stop. She’s ethereal though, in a version of my mindscape that I’m not quite connected to, the one with our telepathic bond. Heck, I didn’t even set her up with access to the shared mindscape. The fact that she has managed to pierce the veil, to go so far in search of my mind is almost unbelievable.
Can I repair the damage inside my mind, to reconnect to my bond and other mental enchantments, while in nearly-frozen time? The principal is mostly the same, my internal electrokinesis still operates, and I can use it to guide my dragonforce. My honoris causa is activated, so my dragonforce is already in motion, on display. Let’s trace the inside of my brain.
There’s definitely intra-cranial scarring, from the many times I’ve damaged it. That’s not surprising. Ah, this might be the damage. There’s a section with a whole series of nodes, networked neurons, that are writhing, unable to maintain steady connections, unable to close necessary circuits. If I can just still them with my dragonforce, by guiding it here, and holding them into place—.
There. Was that the damage? Lady Kinzul looks much less ethereal now. I tentatively reach out a hand, placing my palm on her abdomen, and find a solid connection. I haven’t finished accomplishing what I need to in paused time, but for the moment, I want to reassure her. I want her to stop spending her life-essence, her dragonforce to try to move at speeds beyond comprehension. I wrap my arms around the mental avatar of the woman, and bury my face in her abdomen, pleading with her to let go of the power she’s wielding in search of me.
However slowly, Kinzul’s avatar closes its arms around mine, placing her hands upon my back and skull, before ceasing to move entirely. She got my message. I’m so glad. Now I can at least focus on preventing catastrophic levels of damage. Ugh, I think I’m going to have to risk hurting them, to remove the risk of killing them. Can I allow myself to do it? Kinzul is a conduit for immense power, capable of maintaining and administrating the flow of power, and she’s currently nearly empty, with her dragonforce spread so thin. I could pass much of the flow of the Can’Z’aasian power onto her, and it wouldn’t even remotely near filling her to bursting like it does with me.
If it were only me and Kinzul, I’m not sure if it would be better or worse, because my Latent is expressed in my Alias, Schism. I’m a void that tugs on light and energy around me. It would just result in me reabsorbing the same energy I’m trying to allow to pass through Kinzul. But we have Luni, whose Latent involves waveforms, and Teuila, whose Latent involves the forces of attraction. If Teuila is capable, and willing, she could reverse the attraction of my honoris causa, my void, so that instead of containing and building up pressure of this mana within me, it is spread out equally in those connected to me. Luni could help regulate it being a constant flow, Lil could provide the energy to keep the Latents around him going at maximum efficiency, and Kinzul could administrate all the necessary operations of the powers that are the expressions of our Aliases.
Were you somehow able to hear all of my thoughts, in this infinitesimally short period of time Kinzul? Will you be able to make sense of them? Okay Reggie, let’s go. Try to get the message out as quickly as possible. Release your grasp on the moment between moments, rejoin the flow of time. Breathe carefully, slowly, deeply. Call out to them when you return.
As I resume my place in the flow of time, I quickly call out, “All of you, if you’re willing, it’ll hurt, but, Teuila, reverse the attraction on my Latent, my honoris causa. Luni, waves, flow, regulate. Lil, Sun, energy. Kinzul, administrate, please? Thirty seconds.”
Other than Kinzul, there’s a brief period of confusion, in which I worry the others won’t react quickly enough, but Kinzul guides them telepathically. Either she was able to parse all the information I’d been thinking in nearly-paused time, or she simply caught on quickly enough. Either one is a testament to the marvel that is her intellect. I begin shedding tears of joy, mingled with sorrowful tears of apprehension as those beloved to me share in a bit of the pain I would have experienced. We did it though. We accessed Can’Z’aasian powers, *my* Can’Z’aasian powers without me exploding or passing out. If they’re willing, we can do it again. We can do this. We finally have access to what we’d left behind.