Luni seems to be caught between trying to figure out if she should be excited, or downtrodden. As I’m about to ask, she offers up, “Nothing big, My Hero, just missing our accelerated thinkspace, like you said. But yeah, we found some more stuff. This gauntlety thing does vibration stuff, sound attacks, boosted a lot by my Latent. I— I’m not a fighter though. I don’t know how to feel about it. I’m not brave. I don’t even want to be out there, but I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t there when you all needed me. I don’t even really want offensive options, but it wouldn’t really do much for anyone else. Maybe Lucky could bark louder? Ugh. I’m sorry. I’ll stop complaining.”
Teuila and I gaze sadly at Luni as we approach her to wrap her up in a hug from two sides. Illy stands nearby awkwardly, avoiding gazing at our group hug. I flash her a glance, but she shakes her head. She’s still not ready to really interact with multiple people at the same time when there are actual romantic ideas floating around. She was fine teasing two people, and setting them up, riling them up, but actually being involved is daunting for her. Plus, this is more than two. There’s three of us here alone, then there’s also Lil, and Lil is courting Ixeyla, and I don’t know if Luni has fallen in love with anyone here, and Teuila is probably going to taste the lips of every willing person in the mountain if we live here long enough.
Teuila almost has the temerity to look insulted before she ends up beaming with pride at the realization that I’d basically insinuated that she was guaranteed to succeed with anyone she courted, for even short dalliances. Iylynila looks uncomfortable to the extreme, as she imagines her little romantic webs having to encompass the entirety of Mount Solace’s population. I think I understand why she’s apprehensive, filled with trepidation. If she’d, um, formed a web with a monogamuggle, her internal self web wouldn’t be exciting enough for her to be obsessive about it, and wouldn’t even be a web, just two points.
Illy’s excited by the prospects of people branching off and having multiple partners, maybe the drama if some of those aren’t from entirely open relationships. She likes to guess at, and poke at them, insinuate them, and maybe even feel like she’s behind some of them, like her prodding gets some people to act on impulses they might not have thought about as much. Even so, those were webs that were removed from her, and she was generally only keeping track of one person, and their potential partners, at any single given moment.
Now, Illy feels like she’s linked by proxy to any spot on the web of the person she happens to be involved with, so she draws lines between herself, and everyone I’m involved with, but then, because those lines exist, she sees herself as involved with them, and has to keep track of who they’re involved with, but then she feels involved by proxy, and on and on. Poor Illy. That’s going to be a tough issue to crack, if she even wants to. I don’t want to pressure her though. I just want her to enjoy herself, and her life, in whatever way she wants to approach it.
Grumpily, Illy teases, “I bet you say that about all the girls stuck obsessing over your gremlin munchkin ass.”
Snirking, unable to help myself, I lean into what’s becoming a running gag for us at this point, “There you go again with that fixation on posteriors. Tsk tsk. I think we’ll have to go see Sponge about hel—“
Illy playfully swats my shoulder repeatedly as she’s caught between fuming, and blushing while trying not to laugh. I can’t help smiling her way as I lean my face towards one of her swats, causing her to pause. I’m glad she realizes that, while I can take roughhousing, I’ve got some signals for when it’s time to stop, even if it is mostly gentle. It endears her to me all the more that she held back, no questions asked. It’s a matter of recognizing consent and consent withdrawal. Similarly, right now, I’m holding my arms wide for her, offering her a hug, without wrapping her up in one with Luni and Teuila right next to her. She’s hesitant about affection and relationships, and I don’t want to force her to cross steps on her path she’s not ready for yet. Illy’s shoulders and neck tense. That’s signal enough for me to not follow through.
A flickering smile flashes across Illy’s face towards me, grateful for the opportunity to back out, signaling she still isn’t ready, so I nod her way. I try to smile warmly towards her, which sets her tensed muscles to rest, and a smile spreads across her beautiful smooth, full, sable lips. I lean over to Teuila, and waggle my eyebrows at her, and she leans her cheek my way, instantly understanding my signal, so I kiss her cheek playfully, pretending to be sly about it, as if it were the most tawdry act ever. It’s just a very mild tease to Illy, poking slight fun at her hesitancy without making fun of *her* for it, to also signal to her that we won’t go overboard on affection while she’s near.
Luni decides to continue filling me in on their findings, “So, there’s a thingy that I think might make lava, definitely wasn’t going to try it in here, especially without you around. I don’t think we should ever use it, or move it though. It looks risky to move. There are some single use crystals and stuff, again, wasn’t going to test them out in here, or at all, ‘cause, single use. I mean, duh, right?”
We all chuckle for a moment before Luni continues, “There’s a lot of weapons. A lot a lot of weapons, and tons of suits of Valkyrie armor. I thought we’d only had a dozen or two maybe, but I forgot that Te was hunting with Lin for, I dunno, weeks or months, making two to three new suits a day or more. I buried all the Gae Buidhe’s in stone somewhere secret, because I know how much those scare you. I shrunk them down first, so they’d be even harder to find.”
As I’m about to ask if there’s anything else, Luni pauses only a beat before continuing, “There’s some weird pants that have like, a ceramic type plating or something on the front of the thighs, and shins, and a strip across the knees, with another strip along the outer thighs, there’s padding under and around all those plates, and extra padding around the butt. Basically if you were riding something fast,” she pauses, trying to be coy about something before continuing, “like a horse, and took a spill off of it somehow, the most likely places your legs would hit the ground. I think they have some kind of warding enchantment, but also maybe a curse? The curse might be okay for you, maybe. I think it attracts nearby lightning. But this is Rayileklia. There’s a lot of nearby lightning. Maybe put them in your quick-change ring, so you don’t have to keep them on?”
I nod along with Luni. I was pretty much thinking the exact same thing. I could swap into them to divert lightning breath towards me to save friends, or if I’m caught in a tail or a grasp, to shock the hell out of my attacker. I could use it to charge up if I go a little too far unleashing my internal electrokinesis. I wonder what the warding enchantment is like? I’ve got a feeling it’s like some reverse magnetism. It probably repels ferrous material. The ionic charge of the lightning would keep that reverse magnetic field operating. Just a guess, but genre senses are giving it seventy thirty odds that I’m in the ballpark.
While I’m here, let’s work with Luni and Lucky’s stoneshaping abilities to clear out enough area for the door as the Draconiacs set it down. Now, with careful application of stoneshaping, we’ll slowly form a ramp and angle it up into place, using my telekinesis to provide the extra bit of lift necessary to slide the door to keep it in place while Teuila does most of the heavy lifting. Or the light lifting, to her. I’m always agog to see Teuila work her muscular magic. She’s ridiculously strong, and able to reduce something’s gravity by incredible degrees, though less than completely with something this massive.
The adamantite door is almost a full wall, which is exactly what I wanted. I’m burying most of the frame in hyper-dense stone on all sides, so that only the door itself opens to my vault. If we get enough respawning resources, I’ll have Lu, Te, and Lil, stoneshape our vaults, and get some Draconiacs to help weld adamantite plate in every location, then bury the new adamantite walls, ceilings, and floors, making it all the harder to break in. I’m also going to have a second, thicker door placed, one that’s six feet thick, so that a bypassed-wall spell can’t get through it. Overly cautious? Maybe. Better safe than sorry. I close, and use the arcane locking spell on, my vault door as I leave my vault.
I follow Luni to the pants she described. Huh. They’re motorcycle armor. I flash Luni a glance, and she averts her gaze immediately. More Fakeworld stuff that she’ll deny. Well, they’ll be a big help regardless. I lean in to smooch her cheek in thanks for pointing them out. They won’t look too bad beneath the ravenfeather coat either. Dark leathers with dark ceramic plates beneath a dark leather-like coat. It gives me a very anti-hero protagonist vibe. It’s easy enough to get the quick-change ring to swap one of the tendrils from one of its empty chambers to the pants. I’m not sure what the other gear was, and because I didn’t know what it was, I wasn’t going to try to summon it onto myself.
Let’s see, six compartments, and I’ve already got four used up. I might just keep the ravenfeather coat on at all times if I can trust my Can’Z’aasian resistances to protect it. I’ll have to do some testing later. That’s if I find seven or more total things that I need to use the ring’s compartments on. I notice Luni wearing a Tiara that’s almost entirely hidden beneath her bangs and bob while I’m thinking about clothing and armor.
Lu answers my unasked question, “It’s um, sort of a stone bubble tiara? Nearby rock, stone, maybe mud will zoom towards me, and stack up in a way that starts building a wall around a five foot diameter bubble around me, or something. Basically protecting me, but burying me, and maybe one or two people standing real close. Not a lot of air in there, and the stone stays in place for like, five or ten minutes, unless it’s destroyed. I can hold my breath long enough if I started to breathe inside, but I wouldn’t enjoy it. It’d be better if I took a deep breath before activating it. I think there’s a limit on uses in a given day too.”
Nodding along with Luni, I flash her a smile, glad she found something else defensive that she’d be able, and willing, to use. Illy chimes in, “You all just happen to have a trove of insanely powerful magical artifacts that you never even knew what they did?”
Teasingly, I ask in reply, “What, and you don’t?”
At first, Illy looks like she’s about to argue that of course she doesn’t, instead however, looking chagrined, she answers, “Ah, well, actually I guess you’re right. Mother has some things that she’s never told us about. I’m sure she’d tell us if they’d be helpful though. The Dormir has one or two trinkets apiece, as do the Vivvies. I’ll talk it over with my goons and try to get you a rundown later in case you need it for strategery or something. You can probably ask Prinny about the Vivvies’ things.”
I try to keep my smirk as light and playful as possible as I give her a gentle shoulder-check, signifying gratitude at the honesty of the answer. Her heart flutters at the contact. Then her pulse races at apprehension of the fact that my brain took notice of her heart’s fluttering, while within telepathic range of others, especially while simultaneously in their visual range. I flash her an apologetic expression for the always-on nature of my brain’s monologue.
As I’m about to ask if there’s anything else, Teuila chimes in, “So, this one’s kind of gross, I’d call it the belt buckle of bone burst. Like, if you’re really injured, and got bones sticking out, it could maybe be a last ditch effort to finish off a foe or two. Like really last ditch. Like those exposed bones grow or something, and those growths shoot out. I think. Maybe even all your bones. I’m really not sure. Not even sure how I got that sense. I think it was something to do with whatever song stuff Luni was doing to help her look through things. Basically Lu said something about picking up where Scholar and Seer left off. Aint that right my little Lu?”
Teuila grips Luni across the shoulders and squeezes her neck playfully with her left elbow. Luni has an odd reaction that she shoots me a glance about, warning me to not broadcast it, so I make sure not to. I wonder if that belt buckle is triggered automatically on a bad injury, or if it takes some activation. If it’s triggered automatically, I wouldn’t want it on all the time, in case I had a really bad break just from falling or something dumb. I guess we’ll leave it here until we know a bit more about it.
I think it has to be five, six, maybe seven in the evening at this point. I’ve gotten some bug meat and sashimi platters from our new larder in my hyperdimensional haversack, so I pull out a few meals worth of food for the five of us to share, making sure Lucky gets his pick too. He looks dashing in his new wolfium armor, and has a touch of style with the glacial necklace with the dangling icicles on a seemingly leather cord.
Illy doesn’t seem bothered by the offer of insect meat, but opts for a sashimi platter all the same. It’s so weird to see a biological being consume them by masticating and swallowing. It feels so weird that I can buy actual produce from a stall and consume it the way biologics do all their food. When I go to eat this sort of Can’Z’aasian digital food, it just gets consumed, and sent to my digital stomach. None of this makes any sense. How can these things coincide? Yet they do. Huff. I sigh, take a deep breath, and sigh again.
Trying to collect my thoughts, I ask, “Oh, can you three check out Illy’s shop quality? If you haven’t already. I figure she’ll probably be on the same scale of impeccable quality as Luni and Kinzul. While you’re doing that, or at some point this eve, can you snag some sturdy pouches from the shop system, and deliver them to the Draconiacs at our forgeworks? They know to be expecting them, but please just remind them that I need the shavings and filings of the legendary ores to be kept sorted by material, so each pouch only gets one type of the metal.”
Luni looks incredibly bright and cheerful to have a job having to do with the shop again, and Te shrugs. Illy hesitantly nods agreement, but I can tell she’s eyeing up Teuila, trying to see what Te’s going to do over the course of the eve. I could probably guess that Te’s going to try to convince Illy to go with her towards one of the emptier warrens, and spar, or at least guide her through some katas or something. The winning smile that morphs into her derpy grin a mile wide across Teuila’s face is proof enough for me that I’m on relatively the right track.
I’m getting sleepy, but I’ve got to find Ixeyla and Xayla. I’m pretty sure that Kinzul told them to be somewhere I could find them in the mid to late evening, and I’d guess that would be the larder, since Xayla said it was their second favorite place. Though I’m loathe to eat and run, or even just leave these three amazing women behind, I offer them each an individually tailored, telepathic, private, “See you later.” I kiss Lu and Te softly on their cheeks on my way out, and Illy sends a furtive wave my way. I stop to roughhouse with Lucky for a short while, give him loving scritches, and kisses on the snoot and skull, around his new armor.
Hopefully they’ll keep digging around. Every last little bit helps. Even if that little bit is being cursed to be struck by all nearby lightning. It’s not like I haven’t done that to myself before. Hah. Still, more defensive options for Lu and Lucky, that’s fantastic! And an offensive option for Lu that really works for her, but, well, she’s so down on herself about not being brave or heroic, or cut out for combat. She still joins us all the same. She’s braver than she gives herself credit for. It’s not that she hates the idea of hurting others either. I’m sure as a general rule she does, but she wants to protect her loved ones just as much of the rest of us, so she won’t shy away from putting down a charging horde, if she has the ability at hand.
Hm, what else did I say I needed to remember, to keep track of today? Oh! While I’m here, I can stock up on some gems, and use some of the sap I’d been able to manage to recover to make a high quality gem paste of the appropriate type. I’ll slowly cast another layer of telekinesis on myself, to get myself a third telekinetic grip, and a third square square of telekinetic force. I need someone’s help to come up with the proper formula for a fourth layer of the spell though. Four could give me a very nice diamond configuration for a quickly placed telekinetic shield. Six would be better, so that I could reinforce the most likely areas that might be struck within that diamond shield. Six could be incredibly hard to reach as our resources dwindle, if we don’t see dividends from the respawning resource warrens.
I suppose, I could take some time off of certain activities, to perform some crafting myself, with high quality materials, in order to generate more wealth if needbe. I think it’s pretty easy to get the shop system to understand to pay oneself in gems instead of the green paper, or coins. Or the other type of paper money, what was it, rands? The type they used in Eimsas. It has been a hell of a long while.
Now to T K Surf my way up towards the larder. There’s quite a few miles of tunnel in Mount Solace, so it does take a good half hour to an hour to get between places sometimes, though my T K Surfing is slightly faster than walking, and maybe jogging. Part of the problem is that my vault is basically five miles away from even the normal bottom tunnels of Mount Solace, through the long tunnel we had Lucky create.
I do feel a bit dumb for unloading all the resources that were going into the warrens of Mount Verdimenn here in the bottom of Mount Solace instead, but I wanted to accomplish something while Lucky was digging, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take him. It does at least let the Draconiacs of Mount Solace who want to work in the forgeworks, and materials processing, not have to actually leave their mountain to do it though. That’s a nice benefit.
Anyway, up we go. Is it bad that I’m kinda really looking forward to both of the psychic networks I’m about to establish? I’m excited as heck for some reason. Maybe it’s because Xayla is a dragon of few words, and Errissa is a Draconiac of no words, whereas this might be different, allowing them to talk?
Arriving near the larder, I hear a voice from within that I’ve never heard before, or, at least not at this volume, proclaim, “I said no!”
I’m pretty certain that was Xayla’s voice, but because they’d never spoken above a hissed whisper, I never knew the tonality of their voice. This wasn’t exactly a shout, but it’s definitely a sign that Xayla is upset. Whomever just upset them had better make their peace.