There is more pain in this process than the other times I’d used Can’Z’aasian powers under Kinzul’s guidance, as she has much more to manage. Worse, that pain is shared amongst all of us, Kinzul, Lil, Illy, Prinny, Luni, Teuila, and myself. I don’t want them to experience this, but they’d beat the crap out of me if I backed out now after all this buildup. Well, not really, they’d just be disappointed that I stopped this because of or for them.

As the process goes on, Prinrin and Illy clasp my torso more tightly, or my torso grows larger in their embraces, or both, it’s hard to tell. Figuring out how to work a breath weapon organ into my natural biology is more of a challenge than I thought, because I can really only safely use cold, but I include the fire, lightning, and acid elements under a rotational organ as well, just in case.

For a while there, I was tempted to make up new powers, based on things I’ve seen, like Rock Dragons’ ability to harden as they stay still, but I wanted to only use things that I have a baseline set of powers and skills already dedicated to. I don’t know how much my Can’Z’aasian digital nature can take by possibly adding or creating even more new skills, which is part of why I’m creating the forms as sub-forms in the first place, and more or less locking skills behind each form.

In some ways, this is just like setting up several internal spells that I’m creating on the fly from accessing my Can’Z’aasian powers, setting them into permanent mental subroutines to be accessed as needed. I’m still puzzling out the downsides and drawbacks though. I think there’s a mixture of a sliding scale, sort of how my quickening of runic spellcasting works with my S P. The more runes I need to quicken in the shorter time, the worse the tradeoff is for having a higher multiplier to the S P cost. Several of these subforms could, would, definitely take minutes to hours to swap into, and then be locked out as some internal part of me that keeps them powered from Can’Z’aas, recharges. The quicker I try to force the form change, the shorter they can last, and the worse the multiplier on the refraction period is. Or, the slower the recharge, basically.

Under Kinzul’s guidance, I’m basically setting up entirely separate permanent pools of the approximately fifty five hundred mana I should have, that can only function for one specific spell each, and they recharge at different rates based on how many of those pools are empty, and so on. It does mean I’m given some leeway in the power capacity of the forms, due to the exponential nature of adding more mana into a single activation of an ability, but if I tried to go all out and use the whole pool up to turn into the form, the form would just blink in then fizzle out, completely spent instantly. It’s going to be a hell of a balancing act keeping track of these.

Almost all of my downtime is going to be spent going into and out of my myconid form, trying to set up more enchantments and crafting more things around here. If I spend three hours entering the form, I could keep it up for about fifteen hours, and have a five hour cooldown recharge period on it. I’m not sure if that would be the only recharge, or if it’s five hours in addition to an equal amount of time spent in the form. Or if I spent five hours I could do the fifteen hours with a three hour cooldown recharge. I’m more likely to try to do only a one hour or half hour shapeshifting time, and a three to five hour lasting time, probably ending with a fifteen hour recharge or so. It might be eighteen to twenty hours, with the way I’m thinking it might possibly work where the duration spent in the form is always a part of the cooldown, in addition to the multiplier.

I’m working an ability to speed-read into the myconid form too. Between multiple tendrils, multi-layered glowing compound eyes with built in aura vision, and a whole lot more, I should be able to actually read several books simultaneously, without the downside I suffered on the way to the Sisters Hidden in the Mist compound. I can also give the form a special swarm-brain hivemind thing that can actually handle all the multitasking my brain tries to do. The more willing people nearby on my psychic network that are willing to pick up the slack for me, the easier the multitasking will be, the lighter the load, and so on.

I’ll actually be able to add people into a temporary psychic bond in that form, by releasing psychic spores. It’ll only last for the duration of the form, which probably will never be more than a few hours, but it’d let me have access to volunteers who don’t want to be permanently tied to my insane brain.

I’m also trying to bake a regenerative factor into most of the forms, since I’m somewhat familiar with the biology of hydras at this point. The lowest one will be my base form, but it will mean that I can still regrow physiology, over a long period of time, even in my base form. Frostfire Salamanderian form won’t have regeneration, while the lycan form will have far more than the others. The tradeoff to giving any form this regeneration is that each form will basically have its own health and damage pool, and not heal while outside of those forms, so when I swap back, I’ll still be in as rough of shape as I originally was. The upside is, I might possibly live through a really near death experience if my form drops when I’m more or less slain, but then I could never go back to that form.

Since some of the combat forms are hardier, or would have a worse time trying to regenerate, I’m leaving the option off of them entirely, so that every time I swap to them, they’re a fresh copy of that form. Mostly the elementals. Kinzul is aiding me, each time I conjecture about maybes, if she can picture them, she ends up pointing out possibilities as she sees them within my grasp.

We do have to use some physical material, thankfully, between the paper pets, and my telekinesis, I can get some extra matter hauled into my vault by volunteers, so that I’m able to actually have the mass to generate these separate sub-forms as their own bodies. Wood and glow-lichen for the myconid, easy enough.

We’ve got some odds and ends in the miscellaneous warren, which nets me some onyx, some obsidian, some black-opal, and some mite-hulk carapaces for the draconoid portion of my lycan form, and the cosmic king form. We get shark, and predator-cat meat from the shops for my lycan form’s sub-forms, eugh. Phosphorous for some of the elemental forms, orichalcum for the lightning elemental oddly enough seems like it’ll be the best base. I get some pumice, and ice, for the Frostfire Salamanderian, that’s pretty easy, ice from the shops, and pumice I’d had laying around in my inventory.

We require, and easily get, cloth for my giant plushy form, some of it is dragonscale silk clothing offered up by Prinrin, which, um, leaves her bare, but gives me the tiniest bit of extra durability in critical locations. Illy, not to be outdone, requests a volunteer to get her own spare dragonscale silk clothing from her quarters, and Kinzul requests a— platinum scarf, from hers. I almost cry at the implications. We use a bit of adamantite for a large zipper along its chest.

I’m being influenced towards otter for the plushy sub-form’s shape, a giant, strong, bipedal otter plushy, which, yeah, makes senes. We’re Shellcrackers. The form is still probably not going to be a combat form, despite the additional durability provided by dragon scalesilk to parts of its exterior. I can’t bear to integrate the platinum scarf, removing it from reality, so instead the form comes equipped with that scarf. Naked except a scarf? That’s a pretty Reggie Shellcracker way to be too.

The shadow elemental is one of the most curious though. It takes Nothing. Literally. Compared to other forms, I can swap into it basically almost-instantly, like, a minute to ten max, for free, with little cooldown or duration limit. But it also can’t do or affect anything. Sort of. I think I can still find ways to make use of it, and turn it into an advantage. With practice, I could get the ability to shapeshift into it down further and further in amount of time it takes.

If I’m lucky, I might be able to make transforming into the shadow elemental fast enough to use reactionarily like the number one in my Q C R, getting out of harms way almost instantly. It does have the downside of having no access to any of my spells, enchantments, abilities, equipment, or anything else, which means I can’t fly, so it’s probably best not to use it in the air, and so on. There’s another weird restriction that neither me nor Kinzul can figure out about it, so we’re winging it, hoping it isn’t devastating.

This is really happening. Cherubic Reggie is dying, the knots are coming undone, the ties that bind are being severed clean through. I do weep at the loss. Stage two Reggie has massively wide-open channels where it should have a nervous-system, and the nervous-system is in the same nebulous space that contains its gastric system, and other assorted odds and ends and organs.

I can’t *repair* the multitasking portion of the destroyed digital brain, but at least, thank heavens, I didn’t destroy my physical brain trying to defend The Brook. I can at least add a tiny side-lobe in that digital brain area to get it to allow me to cast conjuration spells again, without my brain bleeding at the mere thought. I’ll be limited to one though, and for only ten minutes at a time, when they should last an hour or more. That’s the price I pay for my hubris or whatnot, I guess.

Being able to conjure a friggin’ army of elementals to throw at the hordes of Terrorzin for hours at a time would have been really friggin’ nice. I wish I could figure out a form that could share my magical capabilities with everyone else. Having everyone else be a temporary archmage would be devastatingly powerful for our side. For something like that, I might have to sacrifice this form and all its subforms, and tether up to my third stage evolution as a baseline, reducing my maximum mana by a lot more, making sub-forms harder to create or wield. Severing cherubic Reggie basically let me keep almost all of my maximum mana, since it didn’t have any of it tied up in anything.

As time is almost up, a curious person reaches across a personal private telepathic wavelength, Farzee, to ask, in her delightful accent that skips the dees and tees near the ends of words, “Schism? Are ye down here? Pawn’s runnin’ roun’ spoutin’ Kinzul said, ‘my love needs volunteers for the morrow,’ which I could only guess means you need volunteers. She’d have explained if I listened longer, or asked, but, I wanted to get it from you. I—. I think I feel you, since, well, since I chose the intimate version of this bond as a selfish ploy. It feels like, like you’re hurting, but also happy. Can I see ye?”

I don’t want to turn Farzee away, since we need every volunteer we can get. I do want to see her though too, because she seems like such an earnest person now that she’s trying. I never didn’t like her, but I like her so much more now. The fact that she’s amazingly beautiful, crazily gorgeous, and sexy as hell never really played into it. The fact that I’m sitting here this way though, with me as vulnerable as I am during this spell, probably looks really bad. Seeing me naked except a tattered cloak, with a naked Prinrin in my lap, surrounded by my inner circle, Illy, and Kinzul, on my bed, would probably be really, really, really hard to explain, after we went through the whole trouble of breaking off her attempts to seduce me. Oh crap. I don’t have my walls up, because we’re working so hard to administrate this spellcrafting. I can feel Farzee’s rush of emotions at the knowledge I’d just accidentally shared.

Fuuuuuuu—, Farzee, in that delicious few-stop-consonants accent, comments on my thought train, “I meant what I said Schism, I’ll follow through. No seduction, even hearing the flattery. Or hearing the um, koff, strange spellwork. If you’re crafting magics, me and Veril can go back to our quarters, or we can wait, it’s up to you. It’s just me and Veril of the Dormir wanting to volunteer. Indy, he, he’s upset with me, because I said I was going to stop piping, stop seeing my supplier. I wasn’t doing it to hold over his head though, and he’ll be better off in the long run. Poisons, Greens, they’re more easily addicted to the stuff. I— was downright horrible introducing him to it.”

Whew, well, that’s, way, way better than I’d hoped. I feel like a bit of an ass for feeling like I seemingly had such a low opinion of her, bu—, Farzee, as always, skipping the dees and tees at the ends of words, offers, “No, no, I deserved it. My dad was right, I’ve been a brat, abusive, manipulative, ‘cause he’s been ill so long. That doesn’t excuse it, and I knew it even before I got scared. Guess I felt I deserved it, was okay to be selfish, like I was something special. Like, because my dad was The Blue before me, and I picked it up, and he’s so hurt, and sick, that the world owed me. I’m still selfish, but that’s why I want to volunteer. Maybe give back a little, figure myself out. Who I am without the games. The Broke One’s helping me out. Gave me the nudge when I was mulling it over.”

Argh, why do these amazing people keep further endearing themselves to me? Also, I can’t help giggling a bit at Veril’s nickname, the poor guy. Friggin’ hell I want to comfort Farzee and show appreciation to her for her personal growth and support her on her journey. Gorrammit.

I mumble telepathically to Veril and Farzee, “If um, you guys can handle maybe forgiving the extremely awkward conditions of the spell that’s going on, you could come to my private vault, we can talk stuff over in person, as a group. This is an incredibly, delicate, sensitive spell, so none of us can take any shocks. If, um, if you don’t think you can handle that, please wait until we’re done, it could take up to another half an hour, with the changes we’re making as we work the spells.”

Veril chirps a reply, seemingly feeling a bit more like his usual self, “Be right over Schism, I wouldn’t mind an eyeful of Prinny or, oh wait, crap, can she hear this? We’re on different networks, right? She can’t hear this. Right? She’s on the Vivant, a different network, right? Schism? Schism please tell me she couldn’t hear this.”

I bite my lips and try not to burst into laughter. I don’t have the heart to tell him that, like he’s experiencing with hearing what I’m thinking, and hearing, Prinrin can do the same. Though that just informed him. The sudden mortified embarrassment that passes along the intimate emotional wavelength we share is something I’m trying not to find humorous. Prinny is grinning almost maliciously with her face buried in my chest. I can also feel Farzee fuming just a little bit jealously at Veril’s voiced desires, since they’d been apparently starting to hit it off somewhat.

The two take their time arriving, walking incredibly slowly from the edge of the telepathic network, which happens to give us time to finish the spellwork. I probably could have thought to clothe us earlier, but I personally couldn’t move during the spellwork. Prinrin was the one who had to clamber out of my lap and disrobe and snag the resources that were brought in. She’s deceptively strong, like Teuila. I have to remember she’s an ancient dragon, not just a cute waifish lady. When she picks up and hauls multi-ton logs with bad leverage, without using gravity powers, it reinforces my remembering her immense total force capabilities.

I float a suit of Valkyrie under-armor clothing to Prinrin, and try not to gawp as she dresses herself in it. The way it fits her form, ahem, yes, anyway. I telepathically hear Veril grumble about missing out, and then hear him mentally facepalm. I can also sense Farzee’s desire to smack him a good one, and her desire to point out her own luscious form standing right next to him. I think she might have even done an angry flick of her wrists while pointing her hands from her bust downward.

Trying not to chuckle as the pair approach, I stand and ask my inner circle, my wife, our? Her daughter, all these people so beloved to me, “So, um, how do I look?”

Lil’s the first to quip while giggling, “You look different pal, but kinda the same? Yeah, you basically look the same. You got all mega worked up, mega mega mega worked up for nothing, hehe.”

There are some nods of confirmation, though Luni is hiding a train of thought from me. I raise an eyebrow at her but I know that she has her reasons for anything she hides. I sigh as I wish beyond wishing that I could finally break through all the things she needs to hide from us for our safety, to keep her from having to put herself through all that pain. Lu, my wonderful, beloved Lu. How do I ever get to that point for you? I’m so sorry. Err, I forgot I’ve got all my walls down. Thank all of you for having the grace to not intrude on this line of thought.

Trying to distract from the awkwardness, as she arrives, in her delightful accent, Farzhis requests, “So Hero, let’s see the effect of this spellwork then. Yeah?”