Groggily coming to, my eyes roll around in their sockets, and I’m dismayed to sense that Yisstendahl’s dragonforce is already half or less the size it was when I received it. I’ll have to be careful in the upcoming fights. I pass a sigh past puffed cheeks out barely open lips, and this apparently calls attention to the fact that I’m okay. I’m apparently being cradled across several laps, with my head— of course it is. My head is resting on heavenly pillows that themselves rest upon a perfectly sculpted midnight-sky human form, draped in dragon-scalesilk. Kinzul smirks, and I groan in embarrassment.

I mutter, “I’m up, I’m up. Sorry to worry you everyone. Lucky, are you nearby? Come here buddy. I love you. Shrink down so I can love on you, please? Thank you boy.”

I grip Lucky about his lanky-yet-firm neck and shoulders in a gentle hug as I rest my head against his. After a few moments, I give his neck and cranium a quick firm rub before roughly smooching the top of his skull. As I roll off of the trio of laps that had made for an impromptu bed, I flash everyone a genuine half smile while I work on reconnecting the rest of my psychic enchantment within my mind.

When I succeed, I’m bombarded in our shared thinkspace by Luni and Teuila, with Lil and Lucky not far behind. My telepathic avatar crumples under the weight of the various lunging bodies that rush to hug it, or slug it playfully, or pepper it with kisses.

After a moment, Teuila complains, “You big jerk. The whole telepathy went down while you were out of it. I didn’t have anyone in my head. It’s so lonely in my head without anyone else’s brain commenting on stuff. You’re lucky you were okay, and we were together, or I’d beat you senseless for leaving me like that for the whole day. Okay, not really. I’m glad you’re okay babe. You are okay, right Airhead?”

As I’m about to answer, Luni interrupts, “They’re okay, and they’re excited to figure out what some of the stuff that showed up is. They’re really hoping for things that will protect the rest of us. They’re also trying to stop thinking about Lil’s mama’s tatas with little success.”

I’m smiling and nodding along with Luni who’s handling describing my mental state quite well right up until the end there. Dangit Lu. I blush furiously, and Lil’s telepathic avatar looks disturbed, as if he’d just bit into a lemon. I glare at Luni who smirks mischievously at me.

Luni winks and whispers, “Had a whole day of teasing to catch up on. It’s going to be *so* fun together tonight. All of us in one bed.”

I gulp and try to not make note of Luni’s elongated emphasis on her words, or her salaciously waggling brow. Teuila’s telepathic avatar bowls over backwards with laughter, and rolls around on the grassy ground of our shared thinkspace. Dangit Te, it’s not *that* funny, is it?

I grump, “Okay, okay, tease me later, can we at least try to figure out some of this stuff?”

With enough murmurs of assent, I drop out of thinkspace, while trying to do exactly what Luni said I was trying to do, because she reminded me of—. I growl in semi-joking frustration at Luni, but can’t help but to laugh after a moment as she puts on an innocent act. I’m pretty sure at least that Kinzul can’t see into our shared thinkspace normally, passively, but I am aware that she had made her way into it to check on me. Even if she isn’t aware of what transpired in our private thinkspace in the last few moments, Kinzul is very aware of where my attention had drifted, and who put my mind there. I’m grateful for her discretion, and lack of desire to tease me in such a fashion, about such topics.

Anyway, trying to distance my thoughts from anything not applicable towards my current goals, I take stock of the masses of items in four smaller private chambers lined up in this hallway that Lucky had dug for us. There’s equipment, clothing, jewelry, bottles, jars, packets, small wooden boxes, velvety pouches, and a whole host more. Cranking up my aura vision enhancement spell is blinding. There is so much magic in these rooms, that it’s utterly ridiculous. This is loot we’d gotten from slaying a boss-class monster over and over, and rare loot we’d gotten from hordes of creatures, and loot we’d earned on our final day on Can’Z’aas, fighting our way down to the Temple of Time.

There are dark metal gauntlets with etchings depicting their own creation with the heart of a fire-salamander with a fairly potent evocation aura about them, with a tiny hint of conjuration. There are plenty of runes involving fire upon it, and two that involve weapons, something like swords and spears. I think these could be nice to give Teuila or Luni some elemental energy options. They might also be able to reshape to fit Lil or Lucky’s claws, providing much needed protection, and perhaps a boost to their fire capabilities. Depending on what else we find in here, I’m leaning towards Lil or Lucky to take these salamander gauntlets. They provide armor pretty high up the arm, well past the forearm, so having Lucky’s or Lil’s forelimbs protected by armor that high would be quite beneficial.

There’s a gilded tome that is bound with a dragon wing's leather. Lil is mildly affronted, but Kinzul shrugs undeterred. It seems to have some sort of hyperdimensionality to it, but I can’t guess any further than that.

Two dice in a velvet bag have odd mixtures of transmutative magics on them, with regenerating runic archetypes on both them, and the bag itself. I take it that rolling them produces an effect, and they return to the bag after, possibly after a set period of time, like a day. Based on having twelve completely random effects, I’d call them wildcard dice. Those are the sorts of gambles you only take when really desperate.

I place the pouch in Kinzul’s hands, and kiss her on her hand that I wrap around the velvet pouch as I mutter, “I never, ever want it to come down to this, but if it does, you’re too important to all of us to not have at least one final trick up your sleeves. Please. Please take this.”

Kinzul frowns at me momentarily, her emotions muddied. She relents and wraps an arm around me as the bag disappears somewhere, either within her clothing, or within her shapechanging ability to hide it somewhere in her form.

An incredibly fashioned raven-feathered trenchcoat that screams the type of stylishness that appeals to my sense of aesthetic is couched in a strange mixture of evocation and conjuration and transmutative magics. The runes indicate motion, and reformation. I’m fairly certain I know what that does. I wonder how frequently it can be used. We can probably call this the raven-feather coat, or raven coat, and I’m pretty sure that for a few seconds at a time, you can turn into a raven, or maybe flock of ravens. It might possibly even negate an attack, depending on which version of transmutation is used, though the blow would revert you to your original form. Luni is the one of us with the least defensive options besides Lil, but Lil has powerful draconic scales.

I’m about to ask her, but Luni interrupts to say, “Keep it Hero. You’re as squishy as me. We all want you safe.”

I flash Luni half a frown, but I’ll leave the matter alone for now as I move on to another nearby item. There’s a small pouch that has a particular type of conjuration aura that immediately lets me know it is some form of dimensional pouch, that it’s able to link together other transdimensional or hyperdimensional spaces. A dimensional pouch could be quite handy, letting one of us in the party have access to each other’s storage spaces.

A golden sandy cloak seems to billow sand outward in a never-ending torrent, but the sand doesn’t build up. The sand instead appears to be an illusion. However, there are other magics within the cloak, it’s similar to my archsorc staff, though far less versatile, and has far less Sorcerous Potential per day. It does have the same runes indicating ability to draw in, filter, and purify ambient mana in order to recharge its stores of potential over the course of a good rest. Less quickly than the archsorc staff, but that’s okay. Let’s see, runes for lightning for one spell, runes for water for another. The spells seem to call down lightning for a time, or create water as if from nothing. Those are quite handy.

There’s an enchanted belt with a semi-potent transmutative aura that has twenty hoops that I’m fairly certain magically resize any kind of bottle to be able to be stored for quick access and release, safely beneath its sturdy enchanted leather flaps.

There’s a massive cauldron with extremely potent transmutative magic, and minor conjuration magic about it. Lesser runes for water repeat within its runic architecture as a base, an input, while greater runes for comestibles are found along the further edge of the spellwork enchanted into the cauldron. I’m pretty certain that means it turns different types of water into food, whether brackish, or pure. It seems like all of the food output is pure.

Hell, if we had Tiktik here, with her bottle of everpure, we could literally have infinite food with just these two items alone, not even needing to set up all the Can’Z’aas shenanigans. If I’m right about the sandy cloak, it can produce a fair amount of water per day magically, as odd as it is for a cloak of golden sand to produce water. Still, this halfway solves the siege problem right here. For some reason, I want to call the cauldron, “Dagda’s Cauldron.”

There’s a familiar dress of hidden pockets. I can’t remember how well Teuila’s previous one had survived our trip across Rayileklia. Teuila simply beams a smile at me, and Luni smiles proudly at her.

A small platinum ring, with what look to be tiny platinum flaps, like individual compartments on it, has a massive conjuration aura upon it. I can sense that that conjuration aura is currently tethered from each of those metallic compartments to several other items around the area, pieces of clothing and armor. It’s pretty easy to guess what that does. It might even be able to add more, or swap out which articles of clothing and armor are in its tether. All in all, being able to instantly equip something, sending the equipment that you’re wearing into a shrunken state within the compartments of the ring, is an incredible power. I’m fairly positive I’ve surmised correctly, and we can call it the quick-change ring.

The quick-change ring seems tied to the ravenfeather coat, so if I’m going to be keeping the one, I might as well put on the other. I slide the quick-change ring on, and suddenly gain awareness of several other pieces of equipment in the piles. I'll have to get around to them eventually, but I'm not quite certain what they are, only that the tether to the other equipment exists.

There’s a cross-chest bandolier that has a dazzling display of rotating elemental runes with a strong charge of conjuration magic in each of its six sheathes. I’m positive that throwing a dagger will either imbue the dagger with an elemental effect, or produce something like throwing a bolt of that element. The knives likely return to their sheathes after a day or so, based on the recharge runostructure’s similarities to other objects that take about a day to regain potency. It doesn’t need any fancy name, it’s a bandolier of elements, or an elemental bandolier.

One of the pieces of armor tethered to the quick-change ring is a dark half-plate chest-piece. It’s as if the metal was smelted in blood, and there’s a thick necrotic aura hanging about it. It seems to repel light, and even quells the aura of my holy halefire double-barreled wrist crossbow. The runes regarding the necrotic energy that abound it are confusing, but seem to indicate two different single use abilities, and each one takes about a day to recharge. There are also spells baked into it, similar to the archsorc staff, and several other items. Oo, one of those spells is like a greater version of the minor history spell! Oh, but it takes weeks, or at least a week, to build up the charge to use it, if I’m reading this runostructure correctly. It would have to be used with judicial applications towards things we believe might be high priority to understand. I guess we could call it the necro chestplate. Necrometal? Sure, the necrometal chestplate.

There’s an intricate silver ring with what looks like a tiny, shining orb of blue moonlight in place of any gemstones, it has various flowing designs that are both entropic and patterned in nature, which seem to be etched in an inlay of moonstone. The runes are all about gravity, and improved gravitational control! This is so very, very, very much for Teuila. Te is grinning like a loon, and beaming with pride as she telepathically sends, “Gimme gimme!” as she makes grabby hands gestures.

I happily toss the lunar ring to Teuila, figuring we might as well refer to it as that.

There’s a pair of golden gauntlets that radiate force from a gem at the wrists, the metal is of a godlike quality, something similar to our orichalcum or better, and the runes on it are all about force, and multiplication. I can’t fight the smile that flashes across my face as I imagine Teuila, with her force multiplied, smashing through a battlefield. Teuila repeats, “Gimme gimme!” as she makes grabby hands gestures once again.

Chuckling, I toss what I’d probably call the goldforce gauntlets to Teuila, and she barely restrains herself from testing them out on the nearby walls. I mutter, “Thank gods. Thank you for the restraint Te.”

The assembled group laughs heartily as I continue absorbing runostructure from things in our various piles. It’s starting to wear on me, but we’ve already found some incredible items. There’s a runic stone wand, of a rigid, carved stone. The wand doesn’t so much have spells in it, as it has temporary runic empowerment. One rune, Algiz increases a nearby creature’s resistance to fire damage for an hour. That’s pretty darn handy by itself.

The wand has a few other runes, some of them are similar to spells, or produce spells, allowing the wielder to cast that spell almost innately for a few seconds. There are some minor offensive spells, but the best one is temporary geokinesis and metallokinesis in a short radius, with slow transmtutative effect. I think I want Luni to have this. She’s more likely to need aid shaping stone or metal than the rest of us who can bulldoze our way through it, or who already have spells to do so, like me. Let’s call it the runestone wand, so she can have a way to refer to it.

Luni demurely accepts the wand and kisses my cheek in reciprocation, as if I’d given her a present. I’m mildly embarrassed because I really wish I could give Luni presents, and just spend so much time showering her with love, and praise, and—. And everyone can hear my brain, which is embarrassing Luni. Sorry Lu. I’ll get back to work.

There’s a wide necklace adorned with what appear to be forever-cold icicles that hang from it. Wow, it toughens flesh by cooling nearby air to a closely-packed density, like my thermokinesis could on Can’Z’aas. It also boosts the effect of powers related to the cold side of thermokinetic abilities by quite a bit. Defensively though, I want this on Lu, Lil, or Lucky. Let’s call it the glacier-amulet.

Well that’s adorable. As I approach this desk, folded paper springs to life, and follows me like a loyal pet. It looks like it’s capable of learning basic commands. I try to make certain it’s not all going to stay bound to me, as I set various origami creatures on my assembled loved ones’ heads. I place a paper wyvern upon Kinzul’s head, a paper unicorn on Luni’s head, and a paper lizard on Lil’s head. I place a paper gorilla upon Teuila’s head, which gets me a, “Hey!” followed by a bunch of giggling from everyone, Teuila included. I set a paper hawk on Lucky’s snout, and he stares at it.

I whistle a low note of appreciation as I already have a name for the next item that I approach. I’d call it Frostburn. This sword's blade is made entirely of some kind of unbreakable, unmeltable ice. A single flame suspended in an opening at the bottom of the blade licks at the ice from above the weapon's hilt. It’s literally the embodiment of the main set of powers I used on Can’Z’aas. Hm, based on runic structures, on a swing, once per day, it can produce a cone of cold or heat. My thermal abilities would amplify it to ridiculous levels. I raise my eyebrow at the rest of the party, and they all motion for me to take it, so I sheathe it in one of the long-empty enchanted sheathes on my belt.

There’s a chestplate made of a metal I believe to be called wyverium. That half plate armor seems to have access to the feather fall spell, but only if you’re holding your breath. It appears to be tied to the quick-change ring. Testing it out, I leap into the air, focus on quick-changing into it, and hold my breath. Sure enough, it immediately appears on my torso, and I float gently down. I let out a, “Huh.”

Over there is another velvety bag of dice. They’re crystalline, luminescent dice. Holy crap. These dies are weakly connected to the tides of fate. They’re sort of like the prescient moment spell. Once per day, when they’re rolled, the person who rolled them will be able to adjust fate in some tiny way, slightly increasing or decreasing the odds of something as it’s happening. That is insane. I feel like an idiot for giving Kinzul multiple packs of dice, but of all of us, she’s the most important to be able to manipulate chances of outcomes. Even if it’s only one act, once per day, and a tiny fraction, it’s quite possibly world-changing for someone whose power is as wide-ranging as someone with the Alias Administrator.

Kinzul’s emotions are once again muddied as she accepts the magical items from me. There are hints of appreciation, dismay, affection, quiet contemplation, and quite a bit more. I try to assuage the parts of her that are most negatively affected by being on the receiving end of boons as best I can before returning to look through more items.

There are several sets of spectacles, including one with the appearance of an owl’s half-lidded eyes. Oh these would be cute on Nala, and great for her! They’d be capable of creating a ghostly Nala to aid in sorting. It can only point, gesture, and so on, since it’s semi-illusory, and incorporeal, but it’s an extension of Nala’s will and Latent. I hope she doesn’t feel upset if I try to present them to her. I like that we get along.

Ugh, my eyes are starting to blur at trying to read runes on miscellaneous stuff like magical silverware and cups, packets of dusts and powders that don’t seem edible.

There’s several quills whose tips seem wet with ink and don’t appear to be drying out, they likely have endless ink. There’s an object I can only describe as a glowing tennis ball, and I can’t resist. I chuck it out into the wider cavern, and Lucky goes tearing off after it. The rest of us have a good chuckle, and take turns throwing it for him for a while. It has some sort of runic structure, but my brain is going to mush trying to parse them.

Well, that object is obvious over there. A trident that crackles with lightning is definitely going to Teuila. The trident has a chain attached to its handle, and has runes similar to things that recharge about once a day, as well as a vast similarity to the lightning bolt spell.

There's a ring that looks a bit like as if stonehenge were smooshed together. By that, I mean it’s made from tiny, moss-covered stones. I can sense somehow that this ring is enchanted with ancient Fae magic, but I can’t tell quite what that magic is. I’m the only Fae in the party as far as I’m aware, which I’m not pleased about. Mostly because it makes me feel like I’m taking more equipment for myself.

Teuila jokes, “You get to take more dingus, you had like a hundred times more stuff in your inventory.”

I blush and rub the back of my head, chuckling as the rest of my loved ones nod their agreement. There are pills, salves, bottles with various things that look ingestible, and non-ingestible, there are pouches and small boxes of things like scales, or beetles, slices of what looks like a kraken tentacle, or any number of things.

Friggin’ hell. We’re going to need Nala to examine and curate all this stuff. I literally can’t decipher runes any more, my aura vision is giving me such a headache that all the runes are blurring together.

If I survive the upcoming first offensive, the skirmish against Astridus, Olashax, Vanathar, and Xinthoz, I’m going to need downtime to create new lists of assets. Plus, we might start seeing signs of resource node growth by then, and I should start working on placing permanency enhancement enchantments to invest in their continued renewal. We have to leave Lu’s shop here, but we don’t have to leave the tunnel itself into here open. Even with the tunnel sealed off completely by stone, it’ll need to be guarded. There’s far too much value in the stuff we’re leaving here already that we know about, and far too much danger with the possibility of what we *don’t* know about if it ends up being taken.

Our party seals up our private vaults, using stoneshaping magic to make the entryways completely identical to the surrounding walls. Luni hides her shop in the lumber warren for now, until we can get people to fill out each of the warrens to specifications with the materials we have. We seal up the path to the lumber warren as well, leaving no trace of the tunnel. As we leave Mount Verdimenn, we seal the tunnel leading to it as well. It’s quite near midnight at this point, and all of us are exhausted, Kinzul included.

Rather than traipsing anywhere, since we will be back here in the morning, Kinzul takes on her dragon form, and lays amidst the resources, as several Draconiacs still work to begin setting up the supplies in a way that will facilitate setting everything into motion tomorrow. I unabashedly divest and disrobe from everything save my Valkyrie under-armor suit, and Teuila follows suit. Lil takes on his dragon form, and curls up against his mother’s form. Lucky takes on a size that lets him fit in the crescent made by Lil. That ends up leaving me, Luni, and Teuila, to cuddle up against one another within the warmth of the crescent created by Lucky. I couldn’t be happier to do exactly that.

As I’m drifting off to sleep, Luni teases, “Poo, was hoping Lil’s momma would stay human form for snuggles to really get Reggie to blush. Te, think I should ask her to transform back, get us back in that same position?”

Teuila snickers sleepily, yawning and stretching as she does.

I send a disgruntled telepathic message towards Luni, “The transformation to human form wouldn’t even be necessary to make me blush since you said that Lu. You’re a butt, an utter butt.”

Luni giggles unabashedly and pulls me closer to *her* curves, playfully fighting with Teuila until we’re a tangle of limbs, the three of us so tightly bound up against each other, it’s hard to tell where one of us ends, and another begins. I begin to drift off to sleep, picturing making use of those flawless pillows upon the immaculate form of Kinzul’s statuesque, perfect physique once more, my face more warm by the moment, blaming Luni the entire time.