Harlan was moving things around in his room and woke Adina up.

“What are you doing so early in the morning?”

“I got a bad feeling, so I’m checking it.”

“You couldn’t have put up a veil?”

“What if I needed you to move quickly?”

“Is this just you being anxious about Magruder?”

“No. A chill ran down my spine, like something had happened, but I gated around everywhere and nothing was wrong, so I’m checking the house.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Something bad, something bad that I did.”

“Did you do anything bad?”

“No, but I could’ve without knowing it.”

“Did you talk with The Darkness?”

“Yes, and she said I hadn’t done anything, but-”

“Stop, stop right now. Get in bed, and help me get back to sleep until the sun is at least out.”

“Alright.”

Harlan wasn’t somebody who wouldn’t call out a friend, not anymore, so he felt no anxiety as he approached the Lillyplate mansion and knocked on the door, sending signals through arrays that stretched throughout the home and alerted Magruder.

“Ah, I didn’t know that you’d come today, we’ve already run through the experiments and are just waiting.”

“Let’s talk inside.”

“Oh, ah, alright.”

Once in the lab, Harlan couldn’t help but examine the crystal.

“It’s stable.”

“Yes, I’m very happy that it might be working.”

“Right, can’t get distracted. Do you have a crush on Adina?”

“Ah, uh, no no no, I wouldn't do that.”

“It’s fine. I’m not upset, Adina is a wonderful woman, but I want you to know that obsessions which can’t ever go anywhere are not healthy.”

“Ah, alright. I’m sorry that I made her uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s why she wanted you to talk to me.”

“That isn’t the case.”

“It’s because she pities me then?”

“No.”

He nervously rubbed his hands together.

“Hmm…”

“Worrying isn’t good, I know that far too well. She just doesn’t want you to be in love with her because that can get in the way of you finding a woman who loves you back.”

“Oh I’m not sure, what if they just want my money? You knew her before you were that famous.”

“It’s good that you stopped being naive, when we first met you mentioned that you would finally have friends and a wife when you became an archmage. I didn’t want to pop that bubble at the time, but yes, you are going to need to watch out, and it is going to be harder, but I think you can do it.”

“I’m ugly, I know.”

“Not all of us can have a blind girl fall for them.”

Magruder awkwardly chuckled.

“Ah, well, I did want to ask, if I give you this research, let you take the credit, would you make me handsome?”

“I didn’t want to bring it up because I thought I’d offend you, but I’ll do it. But by participating in your research I’ve learned how to make artificial mana gems, and that is worth more than I would ask for a sculpting.”

“Thank you.”

“Since we don’t have anything to do here, why don’t we go through the interview process.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Harlan decided to sit down in the lab, it was already the most secure room in the house.

“Height?”

“6 foot.”

“Eye color?”

“Blue, but slightly deeper than now.”

“Hair?”

“Brown.”

“Penis size?”

“10 inches.”

“No hesitation.”

“I’ve been unhappy with my body for a very long time. It feels unreal to be here, maybe it’s just a dream.”

“Telling someone they aren’t in a dream isn’t exactly a confirmation.”

They went down the entire list, but he said what everyone who got shifted said.

He wanted to be tall, toned, and any imperfections, real or perceived, were to be eliminated while anything that he liked about himself was to be enhanced.

“Alright, now we need to set up an appointment with Queen Yggdra.”

“What? Why?”

“If anyone saw you after shifting they wouldn’t possibly recognize you. We need to see her to say that you are going to be changed, that you are who you say you are, and that she doesn’t mind you getting this gift.”

“Why does she get to decide anything? I’M THE ONE WHO-”

“Don’t raise your voice. She just needs to say yes because publicly I’ve said that anyone in the kingdom who wants to be sculpted or enhanced must get her approval.

This takes the responsibility of picking who is sculpted away from me and people who would possibly have turned traitor will stay on her side so that they could regain their youth and a few more years of their life.

Unless she has some reason to think that you are an anti-royalist, she’s not going to say no to me directly asking her, and you becoming an archmage that is in Ragne and is a noble is a good thing for her.”

“What if she found something?”

“Is there something to find?”

“My father, he… I think he was killed by Yggdra the 15th for planning against him, and that’s why nobody ever found his body.”

“Are you planning anything against her?”

“Well, of course not. I’ve stayed away from the conflict, I don’t care who rules.”

“Don’t say that to her, when we see her you are going to be cordial, kneel, and let me do most of the talking. When she asks you a direct question, answer back with as little hesitation as you can.

And please, avoid the ahs, and ums, and wells, I have empathy and I find you hard to read, so anything that makes her think that you are lying will be bad.”

“Ah, I’m too nervous, can’t you just talk to her for me.”

“When you are looking for a wife, you are going to want to be confident, don’t be someone who is going to fold. If you can manage talking to the queen, then I think you’ll be fine.”

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“I don’t do good with tests like this.”

“Hey, I’m going to be with you the entire time.”

Rosewell said to come in 9 hours, she had a half hour time slot that was free.

Harlan tried to coach him as well as he could before the meeting by bringing Magruder home and having him talk with Adina, but he also needed to gather a few things, so he was away at the moment.

“When is he getting back?”

“Can you not speak without Sir Fomoria?”

“Ah, well-”

“Stop, let’s try this again. Sir Lillyplate, why do you believe I should give you the privilege of turning to a form that you would rather? Do you honestly believe that you could change anything about yourself just because your body changes?”

“Ah-”

He cleared his throat.

“I have always been loyal, my taxes are always collected, my people are happy, I have never shown signs of rebellion, nor have my allies.”

“My reports say very little of you, not even a single visit to another noble’s party in months, unless of course you’ve been going to parties that you don’t want others to know about.”

“Baseless speculation.”

“Do you think that my spies' reports are baseless? Perhaps you should be leading them if you think you know so much about what they say.”

“Ah, no, that, that isn’t what I-”

“Magruder, you failed again.”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t like it when you raise your voice or sound angry, and it’s hard to look at your eyes.”

“Try looking at my nose, or between my eyes.”

Adina suddenly groaned and rubbed her stomach.

“Are you alright? Let me get somebody.”

“It’s just the baby. Now, again.”

“Sir Lillyplate, why do you think that- Please stop staring at my breasts.”

“No, no, I was staring at your stomach.”

“I’m not mad, but please, don’t lie, and keep your eyes above my neck.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, but Rosewell would have Safira or Harlan break your fingers if you-”

She saw how fearful he became, his stance became stockstill and his eyes opened wide, staring at her nose.

“That isn’t what I meant, I was just joking.”

Harlan came back smelling of ink and paper after some time.

“How are things going?”

“He’s improving, give me a week and I’ll have him ready to face anything she can say to him.”

“Well, we have six hours.”

“We’ve been at this for three hours already?”

“No, we got moved up and I had to draw out these designs.”

“You didn’t already have them drawn?”

“I destroy everything whenever we both leave the house, and I never keep old designs filed away anywhere.”

“So you do it all again from memory?”

“I might forget names and faces, but this? I remember every line and measurement.”

“Huh.”

“Ah, Harlan, can you stay here for the rest of-”

“You said ah again. And I’m going to prepare some food, but I’ll be right in the kitchen.”

After a meal and many more hours, they had to go.

“Do you think I can do this?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Magruder had never been to the castle, and was awestruck even just by the gate room.

“Sir Fomoria, Sir Lillyplate.”

“Yes, that is us.”

“Show me your rings to confirm your identities.”

The guard checked them both and then led them to the throne room.

When Harlan entered the room he walked up to Rosewell and gave her the plans for airplanes.

“And these are?”

“A new mode of transport. But I have made plenty of marks for why I think it would be a bad idea to make more than a few of these things.”

“Anything else?”

“I’d like to shift my friend here.”

She glanced at Magruder and shugged.

“I need to take these to Lilly and prepare for more meetings, I will take your words to heart and we will make sure that these are safe to introduce, if not, we’ll burn the designs.

“Thank you. And I am sorry about how things went with the Fomorian village.”

“Not at all, being overzealous in the destruction of a people is a terrible thing, and appropriate punishment has been meted out. I’ve kept you away from this issue because many are fearful of you being involved, but I may call upon you for more things of this nature.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting the chance to save those who deserve it and destroy those who deserve it.”

“Then it shall be done, but I won’t hear any complaints from you when I call you for these things.”

“So long as Adina doesn’t need me, I don’t mind at all, I can cross all of Ragne in minutes with gates.”

Rosewell waved him away and went out a side door to a windowless room where she could more securely look at the designs and wait for Lilly.

As they walked back to the gate room, Magruder seemed upset, but lacked the confidence to speak out.

“You seem upset.”

“That was all? I did all of that and I didn’t need to say a word to her? Was that all just bullshit?”

“You seem more confident already, you wouldn’t have said something like that before.

Besides, you spent half a day, it isn’t like I’ve taken weeks of your time.”

“Was that your plan?”

“Yes, but it gave you a reason to sit there and train your confidence.”

Magruder went quiet.

“Thank you, I think.”

“You’re welcome.”

Harlan led him down to the room he dedicated to enhancing or otherwise fleshsculpting people.

It was an ominous place with no windows and low light.

“Can you make it brighter?”

“Oh, right, my eyes work in lowlight like this so I don’t think about it much if it is a room only I use.”

“How long will this take?”

“As I explained before, within 15 minutes of an hour. Sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, but since we’ve already drawn out exactly how you want to look, you are still young, and it is just a sculpt rather than an enhancement, probably closer to half an hour. But again, I have to say, this is going to hurt, though not as much as it once did, so take a few shots of whiskey.”

“Oh, and the… other way it will make me feel.”

“There is a brothel I know of in Borden that I send people to, unless there is one that you would rather visit. But, as I said before, fleshsculpting has the same side effects, but it is much shorter. I’d say to spend a day at least, and if you don’t develop these feelings or if you feel that you’ve worked past them already, then you can go out.”

He rubbed his hands and made himself small.

“In Lillyplate, the city, not my home, there is one.”

“Do you trust it? And do you trust yourself? Because if you aren’t careful then you risk hurting somebody.”

“I’ve never been. How is the one in Borden different?”

“I enhanced a few of the women, and while you are still going to be inside of what I consider to be human ranges of strength, you will be gaining a significant amount of muscle going from less than 5’7 to 6 foot.”

“Oh? That doesn’t seem like you.”

“I find brothels unsavory, but for those without wives or some other woman who wants to spend days mostly in bed they are the best option, and I know that the one in Borden treats the women well and defends them against rough customers.”

“How did you find this place?”

“Alright, are you ready?”

“Yes, I’ll go there.”

Harlan always answered the same way when questioned about it, making others think that he had visited it before, but that was to hide that through proxies it was actually owned by Balor.

One of the things that Balor had done by Harlan’s request was to find unsavory brothels and take them over through whatever means were needed in a case by case basis.

Harlan’s position was always that Balor was the lesser evil and crime wasn’t something that could be stopped, only directed.

Harlan dropped him off at the brothel, but not before giving them a call to forewarn them and to prepare one of the women.

Was it a smart idea to tell them that the woman should change her hair to brown and her eyes to green like Adina? Maybe not, but Harlan believed that Magruder would be passive and it was generally a bad idea to let those feelings fester when someone has gone through sculpting.

Two days into the recovery, Magruder was back to normal.

“How do you feel?”

Magruder stretched and admired his body.

“I’ll need a new wardrobe. These clothes don’t fit right.”

“You’ve grown a lot, just wear this.”

Harlan handed him a shifting suit. Outwardly it seemed like plate armor, but it moved like cloth.

“I can’t possibly wear this, these are expensive and-”

“This one is made from low-grade stonesteel, it isn’t that expensive, and in an ideal world everyone would have one.”

“This is… thank you.”

Harlan patted him on the back.

“Change and then we should go look at that bloodgem.”

Harlan and Magruder checked on the gem as they said, and it was still perfectly stable.

“Now we should put the spells in.”

“Oh, I put one in it.”

“Which one?”

“It’s called discharge, it simply outputs mana in a non-destructive manner.”

“Oh, the basis for mana clearing arrays.”

“Exactly, it will let us release the mana to stress the gem so we can test the stability and degradation.”

“Smart.”

“Thank you.”

When activated, the gem simply released the mana over half an hour and then began to recharge with no signs of breaking down.

“It worked, it really… it really worked.”

Harlan placed his hand on Magruder’s shoulder.

“It’s alright to cry, you’ve made a leap in soulsmithing, you’ve finished a great achievement, this is the culmination of years of work.”

“My father said a man shouldn’t cry.”

“Make your choice, this is what you did, not him.”

Magruder cried, but tried not to.

Harlan didn’t say a word, he just stood by his friend.