As I hug Teuila, and kiss her temple softly, she beams a smile my way, focusing on the present, like Illy said. She squeezes Iylynila who happens to be caught between her legs at the moment, with Te’s arms and legs wrapped around her waist from behind. It’s childish, cute, silly, but it’s making her happy, and Illy doesn’t truly mind. I’m sure Kinzul would be upset, and let us know that she was upset, if we’d done anything to upset her daughter.
Lady Kinzul telepathically offers, “Quite. I’ve more than a great deal of faith in the two of you. My Sun has spoken of you more often than not, and my Muse sings tales of praise. I don’t expect you’ll disappoint me. I would like you to come to my den at the moment, if you can make it here.”
I gnaw on my lip. I definitely want to acquiesce to any request by our Lady, our Administrator, but I told Lu I’d spend alone time with her sometime tonight, and it’s sometime in the evening by this point, I think. Still, Kinzul knows this already, and made the request anyway, so hopefully she’s taken Luni’s feelings, and our desires into account.
I wave to the two gals as they begin to return to idle gossip about lesser known people under Kinzul’s protection, or lesser known members of the Onyx Dawn. Both smile my way, but Teuila refuses to wave so that she doesn’t have to let go of her grip around Illy. Iylynila waves while chuckling, very aware of Teuila being clingy.
I sigh contentedly at the thought that My Wings can find little joys, happiness, the ability to live in the moment. She was devastated when—. Let’s not bring it up while she’s within telepathic range. She deserves to be able to experience the now, and I know how hard she’s struggling against the literal stormy seas of moving emotions within her. Her mindscape is an ocean, and each emotion is a wave that stretches from the sea floor all the way up to the horizon line. I’ll try to make sure we get an assignment we can share soon, so that I can be there for her for a longer period.
I telekinetically surf my way through the halls, passing more and more Draconiacs and kobolds and human-form dragons who are going to the feasting hall. Apparently they’ve been shuffling in and out all day, so that no one misses out on the celebration of the lives of those we’ve lost. There are so, so, so many who aren’t fighters, or who aren’t necessarily part of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, but rather simply under Kinzul’s protection, and banner. To think that Terrorzin has eight times this many people, and they’re all conscripted to combat, with the majority being brainwashed, or otherwise zealously devoted.
Kinzul was right. I wish for peace for every one of these people. It would break my heart to even have to ask any that haven’t already volunteered, to fight in the coming battles. I’m so very glad that she nurtures compassion, empathy, and kindness within her followers. I understand completely, the love Lil feels for his mother. I feel it too in a way. I love everything I’ve learned about Kinzul, and wish in the utmost that her vision of a peaceful future comes to pass.
Arriving in the Den, Kinzul is lounging in human form, appearing weary from the day’s events, from having had to remain poised while reliving hurts and losses. I speed towards her, but she sits up and waves dismissively about my concern. My heart aches just that slight bit more for the regal, statuesque woman who guides us. To hide the pain, and spurn the comfort in order to move on to matters at hand, and to have had to do that for centuries, I’m not sure I’d have the fortitude.
Getting straight down to business, Kinzul starts, “Schism, after we’ve exhausted your magic on the day you acquire your spell to delve into our enemy’s mind, say the following day, how many of our Order can you bring into these psychic bonds? You’ve mentioned networks and subnetworks.”
Nodding, I attempt to explain, “If it was just bonding each individual with you and me, I could do approximately twenty four in a single day, and it would take almost all day, and all of my safe Sorcerous Potential. It would take about eight minutes to set the permanency on each individual, and twenty four minutes to cast the bond in the first place, so thirty two minutes at that rate, plus an additional eight minutes setting the permanency for their bond into one of our bonds, or another sixteen for both of our bonds, bringing it up to forty or forty-eight minutes per, so around nineteen hours of activity.”
Offering my analysis of ways to reduce the total time sink, I state, “The safest bet to reduce the most time per subnetwork, or bond, is if I quicken its casting, though that doubles its cost, but brings the twenty four minutes down to under one minute, possibly a few seconds.”
I ruminate so as to explain why I suggest one course over the other, “If I tried to say, cut down the casting time of the permanency enhancement enchantment, it would vastly cut into the number of Sorcerous Potential that I use, leaving us able to do less than a third as many, maybe a sixth as many, while not shaving off much time at all. If I try to cut down on the casting time of the psychic bond spell itself, it will bring it down to less than ten minutes per between spell and permanency on the individuals, plus an additional eight minutes setting the permanency of their bond into our bond, or sixteen for both of ours, but I’ll only be able to accomplish twelve, maybe thirteen without pushing myself.”
Kinzul tallies up my math, beginning to comprehend exactly what I’m about to suggest, since she realizes that even the quickest is probably almost half an hour per individual. As that would still lead to being only able to manage twelve individuals that day, then what about groups instead?
Nodding with what I’m sure her keen intellect has surmised, I offer, “I’d like to suggest that we have Miraina, Pawn, present as a secondary subnetwork backbone for all subpartied telepathic bonds, so that you can access them through her, or me, at any time, and for both you and I to maintain a passive presence in each bond, that could be switched on or off in our own minds, at our leisure. Having Miraina present for every bond does increase the time per bond by eight minutes, but I think it’s a worthwhile investment. Supposing we have groups that I know of whom already have their own cliques, we could—.”
Kinzul interrupts to ask, “Could you manage the Dormir and the Vivant at the same time?”
Gnawing on my lip, I respond, “It would cost leaving out either me, you, or Miraina, but I believe I could swing ten targets total on a subnetwork, or well, any bond in general. I think.”
My Lady requests, “Let me think on this a moment. Does it greatly change your capability to plan for the day if I do not make this decision immediately?”
Pondering, I try to answer, ending up rambling as solidly long as Nala when she gets into technical details, “I—, think I can swing about the same number whether we do them as one group or two, as long as almost everyone else is in at least groups of two, plus you, me, and Miraina. Since the bond only costs twenty four S P, for up to ten people at once, or forty eight if I quicken it. I might suggest that Nala and Miraina be the first group, and then we excuse Nala to her duties, removing the need for her to remain for the day. Twenty four or forty eight there. Then the Dormir and the Vivant, we’ll say another forty eight if doing them at once, quickly, or separately, slowly, one way or another, bringing me to ninety six used S P we’ll say. If we can get Revinth, Gresog, and Kagired at once, another twenty four to forty eight. The Queens, another twenty four to forty eight. That’s a hundred ninety two, Boetah and Shaylon, another twenty four to forty eight, bringing us up to two hundred forty. The untitled, un-Aliased we could get all at once quickly, the eight of them, or in two groups slowly, for another forty eight, bringing us to two hundred eighty eight, if we do decide to prioritize Ixeyla and Xayla, we’d still be in the low three hundreds safely, leaving only—.”
I gulp, blushing heatedly as I request, “Lady Kinzul? Errissa, erm, Spymaster requested that I be her sole link to the network, the backbone that supports her telepathic bond. Would this be permissible?”
Kinzul’s surprise at my having had such specific words with Spymaster is evident, but her answer, and any other hint of her emotions is restrained as she asks, “Do you think that wise? Considering your—. Let me simply ask if you are capable of performing the task.”
I nod apprehensively, agreeing, “I, yes, no, I don’t think it’s necessarily wise or unwise. It’s some small part of my way of apologizing to her, by acquiescing to her request. I’m certain I’m able to provide the necessary focus and concentration. It’s—, I might even have a difficult time having anyone else in the room during the period in which I set up the telepathic bond. It might not even be possible. I know I can grant her this much at least.”
Checking the spell, I facepalm, groaning, “I’m sorry Lady Kinzul, the spell only supports up to eight individuals at a time. I could connect the Dormir and the Vivant, but their network would be entirely private, with no link to the rest of us. We could then choose one of them or have one of them volunteer to be the relay, bearing two networks, one with their whole group, then just one with you, me, and Pawn. I’m not sure that’s worth it.”
Kinzul frowns and admonishes me, “You’re correct. You would do well to remember your limitations before something as important as deciding how much time you request of the entire Order in a day. It is good that you caught this now. Fine, we settle for groups of no more than four or five at the most. Boetah, Shaylon, Revinth, Gresog, and Kagired all get along well enough, they can be a single group. Please, write these out in a format that affords us an estimate of the time require of everyone.”
I begin jotting everything down, trying to organize it into a table:
MRK Total: VV BSRGK Vivant Dormir EPBN AAGS Nala 360 40 64 56 56 56 56 32 Miraina(Every) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 Reggie(Every) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 Kinzul(Every) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 Vylon 8 Vyela 8 Boetah 8 Shaylon 8 Revinth 8 Gresog 8 Kagired 8 Orthral 8 Prinrin 8 Gilmeshtu 8 Fenric 8 Iylynila 8 Farzhis 8 Induul 8 Veril 8 Elshont 8 Prent 8 Burshis 8 Nietru 8 Aaront 8 Geskae 8 Shrulniz 8 Aktixas 8 Nala 8 Additional Nets XX Spy Reggie Total: 40 24 16 Reggie 8 8 Ixeyla 8 Xayla 8 Errissa 8
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Hm, with this, we could also include one other person in every subnet except the Boetah, Shaylon, Revinth, Gresog, and Kagired subnet. I wonder if—
Kinzul offers, “If you could add my Sun to all of those networks, exchanging him for Miraina in that group of five, I believe it would be to the benefit of all. Pawn is young, and could do with a break in the middle of the activity. We could make that the third or fourth of the day. Please make the appropriate changes, and prioritize it in the order in which you’d like to accomplish it, from morn’ to eve.”
Nodding, I quickly make a new table, in order to make the necessary changes:
MRKL Total: Nala VV Vivant BSRGK AAGS EPBN Dormir 408 40 48 64 64 64 64 64 Miraina 8 8 8 8 8 8 Lil 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 Reggie(Every) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 Kinzul(Every) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 Vylon 8 Vyela 8 Boetah 8 Shaylon 8 Revinth 8 Gresog 8 Kagired 8 Orthral 8 Prinrin 8 Gilmeshtu 8 Fenric 8 Iylynila 8 Farzhis 8 Induul 8 Veril 8 Elshont 8 Prent 8 Burshis 8 Nietru 8 Aaront 8 Geskae 8 Shrulniz 8 Aktixas 8 Nala 8 Evening: Additional Nets XX Spy Reggie Total: 40 24 16 Reggie 8 8 Ixeyla 8 Xayla 8 Errissa 8
There will of course be lag time, travel time, resource and material gathering and manipulation. We’ll be needing a lot of gems, but Kinzul okayed the investment in these projects, and I have a way to make it up to her, when we get the respawning resource center up. I’ll start work on that tomorrow if I can borrow Lucky and Luni tomorrow. Okay, so if we assume about an hour each for the smaller two parties, that would be Nala with us from seven to eight AM, the Queens from eight to nine am. Then we should probably assume about an hour and a quarter for the larger groups. That puts us at about ten fifteen am when we finish up with the Paradox Vivant. Miraina can go have lunch and relax until eleven thirty at that point, when we should be done with Boetah, Shaylon, Revinth, Gresog, and Kagired.
We’ll take Aaront, Aktixas, Geskae, and Shrulniz from eleven thirty to twelve forty five. Then we’ll take Elshon, Prent, Burshis, and Nietru until two pm. The Dormir can take from two til about three fifteen pm, leaving the evening open for me to try to find Lil’s crush Ixeyla, and her sibling Xayla, and eventually Spymaster Errissa. Even if we added another quarter hour of lag time between every group, it would only be about an hour and a half later, so four forty-five pm, by the end of the project. I may have to nap to be able to craft the runes for Ixeyla, Xayla, and Errissa. Hm, no, I should still be around only the mid four hundreds in number of S P used for the day by the end of all of the networks.
Kinzul comments, “Remarkable, efficient, truly, all of our most powerful members networked psychically in barely more than the span of a morning? My investment in your titling already shows dividends Schism. I enjoy that you’ve chosen Nala first. I take it you’re getting along well enough with her, and know that she won’t object to operating early in the day. Similarly, the Queens are morning people in a fashion. Yes, yes I shall arrange this for the day after you’ve finished mastering the other psychic spell. You will have some of your Sorcerous Potential left on that day I take it, will you not? You’d mentioned only the better part of three days.”
I try to keep pace with Kinzul’s rapid comment, her excitement seems palpable, and, in fact, it virtually is as it radiates across our telepathic bond. She has an almost childlike sense of wonder about her in terms of this plan, and opportunity. I haven’t even gotten around to the best part about tomorrow. I nod in response to her question however, responding, “Yes, yes I believe I should have something like half of my safe Sorcerous Potential left that day, or near it. So, mid-day or evening to interrogate the prisoner, two days from now.”
I try to piece the times together in my head. Interrogation on September twentieth, telepathic bond project on the twenty first. If I want to be able to offer Kinzul the scrying tools I was thinking of, we’ll need to get the respawning resource area created sooner rather than later. I just hope that between Lu, Lil, Te, and me, that we have enough resources from Can’Z’aas to get a critical reaction going. I’d be rather surprised if we didn’t, knowing how large our inventories were by the end, and they were jam packed with things from the constant insect hordes, and mite-hulk hordes, not to mention building supplies, and so on. I’m pretty sure I have a few hundred gallons of lava in my inventory. I’m going to need to be super careful with that. No, wait, I cooled it. It’s pumice in my inventory.
Kinzul motions for me to sit nearer to her, drawing her hands towards herself, and pats me gently on the head as she offers me a grateful embrace. She then queries, “What is this other project, or these other projects you speak of?”
Scratching the back of my head, slightly embarrassed at what be my first contact with Kinzul that wasn’t laying my hands upon her bare body for runic crafting, I try to explain, “I’d dearly like to have access to Muse and Hunter’s time tomorrow, possibly Sun and Tenith as well. If you will it, if you allow, we will excavate a vast subterranean cavern, and fill it with things from our world. First and foremost, we have an incredible sum of wealth in terms of precious metals, and gems, and, well, green useless paper. Secondly, Luni has a shop stall that, in turn for wealth, can spontaneously generate items from its catalogue. We’d use up the paper first. We’ll have to be operating blind due to not having access to the catalogue, but that’s fine. Thirdly, if we’re lucky, we can cause lumber, clay, rich mineral or ore veins, or possibly even pockets of gemstones, to spontaneously regrow every single day after being harvested, if we invest enough of those selfsame resources to start a critical reaction.”
Kinzul’s eyes widen fit to bursting as she takes in the implications. She holds her left hand to her breast, her heart, and states, “Yes, yes of course you shall have freedom to ask of their time. These are the sorts of miracles Lil alluded to that I never quite understood. He didn’t have quite the clarity of words you do, for what you mean to accomplish. My beloved son praises you above all else save his beloved Luni, and I see it is not unwarranted. Not that I had any doubts, but I’ve no higher praise I can fathom at the moment. Truly, minerals and lumber regrowing? I’ve seen summoning magic, but I’ve been told that it’s either shaped mana, or conjured from some other location. Few and far between are effects that seem capable of such—. I’m fumbling for words, and rambling, talking your ear off.”
I flash a genuinely happy smile as I loose a brief half chuckle towards Lady Kinzul. My response is, “I am beyond honored to have any of your words and any of your time, my Lady. Think nothing of it. Oh, and the shop stall that Luni, Muse can run, it can also produce wealth technically more than is invested in it. One can buy crafting supplies from the shop, craft something skillfully enough with them, and then sell them back to the shop, where they enter some ethereal space, and are replaced by more wealth than was originally used to obtain them.”
Continuing to beam in a moderate amount of glee at Kinzul, I add, “If any craftsfolk, or idle dragonkin under your care would like to, they could become their own source of wealth, or nutrients basically. Oh, but I must caution. I do not have the magical equipment to repair or replace the shop stall. Above all else, it must be guarded from harm. I don’t know if we can purchase duplicates of the magical equipment required to construct a new shop stall, or repair the one we have.”
Remembering a key detail, I continue, “The catalogue is different for every person who stands behind it as a shopkeep, so we may want to have several days where we rotate people through, attempting to buy esoteric ideas and items from the shops, seeing what pops up. If we’re really lucky, there might be those magical tools, or even something that allows us to see the shop catalogues.”
I don’t want to get Kinzul’s hopes up too far, because all of this might bomb out if we don’t reach critical mass on the respawning resources. Still, there’s one more thing that I want to offer Kinzul, “You know that I can create physical scrying locations. I plan to buy mirrors, and place them about the domain. My scrying is temporary, unless I know the location well, have been there, and have a physical object that also has the scrying enchantment on it, in the location. When I’ve met those criteria, I can make a permanent scrying sensor.”
I let the thought linger, and Lady Kinzul seems to catch where I’m going with this, but I continue, just in case, “I don’t know if you’d rather have the receiving mirrors here, or in another room, or if I am to be given a quarters, in which case I could put them in my quarters. I might also put a few sending sensors in whatever room that is, to be able to view this essentially security center, from other rooms as needbe.”
Kinzul blinks, silent, astonished. I wonder if I should tell her that I got the idea from security cameras on Fakeworld. One thing I never got was why they didn’t have a camera facing their viewing bay, that someone could check in on from other key locations, so they could see all of the rest of the rooms at once, even if it was incredibly miniature. Plus, just being able to check in on your security center from time to time would be reassuring, or let you know that something has happened.
Hell, if you had a smartphone and the camera in the security center had an IP address you could network to, you could look in on it anywhere you were, while you were walking around. I intend to do just that, get a tiny hand mirror, and have it set with the destination being the control bay. Hell, if we’re lucky, one of the shop catalogues will have electronics, computers, and battery bays that can handle lightning bolts, then I could literally just wire up security cameras instead.
I sense Kinzul’s utter confusion at my rambling, and I feel a bit abashed. I’ve certainly offered up a lot of projects to her. I really hope I can follow through.