Well, now we know that cooking the razorvine fruit doesn’t turn it toxic, much to the delight of my party.

Also, we have a growing forest of the plant monsters surrounding the town. The only reason they haven’t occupied every bit of free space in town is that I’ve established a specialty task force of wraiths to handle them by finding and Consuming every single razorvine they can detect within its borders. They’re not strong enough to reduce them to dust, so dried husks are everywhere.

Izahne has continued her slow recovery. I continue to be baffled by just how much this one event wore her down, but I’m not going to let it repeat itself.

We’re out for an evening stroll at the moment, something that Pearl insisted we make a habit for my death knight’s continued progress. A normal walking pace isn’t outside of the realm of possibility, but we’re moving slowly anyway.

Recently, I had the idea to instruct my swarm to seek the remains of other towns. I highly doubt this is the only one, considering that this plane was supposedly once a mecca of civilization in some way. This description is unquestionably exaggerated, though I only have one guess as to why I feel that way.

And as we walk, several of them stumble across a large ruin.

I turn to my death knight. “My kin have found another town. It seems big, bigger than Darkwell.”

“Did they? We’re going to have to make a plan with the others to investigate it then,” she replies.

I nod and we continue our circuit in comfortable silence.

***

“We absolutely have to investigate it,” my party mage insists to the surprise of exactly nobody, which is convenient considering exactly nobody present disagrees with him.

The plan we organize has several steps, the first of which involves me instructing my swarm to clear a path to it. In addition, I unilaterally decided to have my remaining searchers relocate to the new location to clear it entirely of razorvines, which appear to have just begun gaining a foothold there.

After that, we’ll simply travel there. Several of the other steps are things the humans need to do to prepare, such as preparing containers for water.

Until I demonstrated it was unnecessary.

“{create water permanent},” I say while projecting my will, causing water to materialize above an empty jug and rolling downward to fill the container.

“Incredible,” Abaris mutters.

Pearl stares with glittering eyes. “This can save so many lives...”

I cut off the spell and lock eyes with her. “Can you cast it? Or is this a god thing?”

“I can’t even pronounce those words,” she says while slowly shaking her head.

“Nor can I,” Abaris echoes. “One of them, yes, but not the others.”

I shrug. “God things, then. I’m not going to travel to every single plane and douse dehydrated... dehydrating? Un-watering? Whatever. I’m not going everywhere just to play divine water jug. Get some other god. Is there maybe a god of water-providing? Bother them.”

And sighs all around. Even Nyx sighs, for the first time in a while now.

You okay over there? No snarky comments or random mockery you want to level at me or anything?

A tired look is all she offers in response.

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Huh.

“I guess they’re basically done now. My kin, I mean. The path should be clear.”

Abaris is practically hopping up and down with glee, I assume at the thought of exploring the ruin of an ancient culture. Or something like that, probably.

“Oh, good! Good! We should hurry to finish our preparations!” he babbles. I’m shocked he spoke slowly enough to be comprehensible.

I sit on my instant ash chair – that's what I’ve come to call it – and shrug. “Why don’t we just leave now? You’ve all got plenty of room in your dimensional storages to take anything else you’ve left loose in the house. I’m not sure why we’re still preparing. There’s plenty of fruit along the way and I can make more water if we need it.”

They look startled, but not startled enough to... wait.

I have another good idea.

…

Still no response from Nyx. She doesn’t even move, continuing to stare absently at a spot on the ground.

Well, that doesn’t mean I won’t move.

“Omorth, get Philip,” I say. “Now. The house is probably going to disappear in a minute.”

The large eldra looks at me confused for a moment before frantically running for the door, barging in and audibly rummaging for a few minutes before returning with His Highness, freshly boxed and thoroughly displeased.

I take a deep breath and then release it, and then focus on organizing my thoughts to get what I’m visualizing to happen. After a moment, I take the apartment portal key I’d looted in the hive and hold it toward the house.

I begin speaking while focusing my will on the shape of the building. “{create interstitial contents specified}.”

The house vanishes, replaced by a hazy surface floating in front of where the door had been. Gasps resound around me.

“This is just the beginning,” I say, shifting my focus to the portal key. “{bind interstitial entry specified}.” The portal key briefly flares with orange light as the haze dims.

The progress so far is satisfying, I won’t pretend that it isn’t. The next step is something I’m not even sure is possible, but I’m going to try it anyway. I can tell at least how to try it, at least.

I take a breath, and continue focusing on the key. “{bind interstitial location object}.” And the haze entirely disappears.

If my party could gasp any harder, I assume their internal organs would be exiting their bodies.

“Im...” Abaris splutters.

“Im?”

“Im... im... impossible!?” he finally finishes. “How? HOW!?”

I shrug and activate the portal key, causing the haze to reappear immediately in front of me. “Behold, portable house. I'm guessing from your reaction that this isn’t normal?”

Pearl is already at point blank, staring at the key. “Of course it’s not normal! Everybody knows that interstitial spaces are at a fixed location! You can’t just move them around! Everybody knows that!”

I hand her the portal key. “Well, it’s normal for me. Channel mana through it while focusing where you want the entry and will it to open.”

She gingerly takes the object from me as though it was a priceless artifact – maybe it is now? – and attempts what I told her. Struggling at first, she finally manages to open the portal, and stares dumbfoundedly at it.

I notice out of the corner of my eye that even my Assistant is paying attention, though not as much as she had to every stupid little thing I did in the past.

And she quietly mutters, (What a waste.)

Whatever.

Izahne loops her arm around mine and says, “I think you just made dimensional storage obsolete. At least for us.”

“Unquestionably!” Abaris squeals. “This, this needs to be studied, it must be studied! Oh, this has so many implications!”

“I don’t care,” I flatly say, retrieving the house key from Pearl, who reluctantly lets me take it.

And then I snatch them all from the ground with feelers and take off in the direction of the new ruin at a speed that they’ll definitely survive.

***

And they definitely did.

Around nine hours of continuous travel later, we arrive at the ruin.

Or rather, the incredibly huge walled city. Huh.

And empty, other than the swell of mana rising from it. I don’t feel the slightest hint of a will anywhere inside.

Wait, how can I... oh. I wasn’t even paying attention, but I’d apparently spread my Will Detection through the host of wraiths still flitting around it, hunting stray razorvines. I’ll have to experiment with this too... does spreading my will through my swarm tax me as much as instructing them to use it without any direct action from me?

That can wait for later though. My party is visibly tired, especially Izahne who has yet to fully recover. I set them down and activate the house key in the middle of the path; it’s not like we’re blocking anyone else’s passage or anything.

Aside from muttering about the journey or commentary on the city, the humans are quiet as we all enter our dwelling to rest. I’m not concerned about security since I specifically set entry to require the key itself, so I lead Izahne to our room and promptly flop down on the bed. I don’t particularly feel like I need to rest but it still feels relaxing somehow. My death knight carefully lowers herself next to me before laying down and a few moments later drifts off to sleep.

Meanwhile, I stare at the ceiling.

Nyx remains on the edge of my vision, standing impassively in one corner of the room.

And that’s when I have another idea.

My Assistant has commented a number of times about how she exists as I perceive her.

I focus my will and try to perceive her like she was before, until she interrupts me.

(Don’t you dare try to change me! I’ve already been forcefully changed enough!) she snaps. (Gods, you’re no different from her!)

I know exactly who she’s referring to, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t sting.