Lasair was starting to despise boredom. As a human, she had always been bouncing a leg, drumming her fingers, and just generally fidgeting. It never felt right to just wait. But now, more and more that was what she ended up doing.

When she had told elf boy to head back to the town, she had completely forgotten a small little detail. That he was not, in fact, a magic bird who could make a days journey in a few minutes. He probably hadn't even reached the town yet, let alone talked to his trader or the Guild. So, boredom was what ailed her.

Mirage and Apollo were both magic, but they were still a bit more mortal than a sentient crystal. They were both sleeping in Mirage's nest, with Apollo in the center and Mirage curled around him in a ball. It was honestly incredibly fucking adorable. But sleeping meant no interaction, which meant that not even those two could starve off her current predicament. The normal wisps and birds nowhere near interesting enough to entice her either.

So Lasair decided that if The Adventurer's Forge was going to start up soon, it may as well look the part. The last time she had used [SHAPE SELF] had been after that Sullivan guy left, to smooth out the floor of the Aviary. It was still littered with the occasional pothole, and the walls hadn't even gotten a basic fixer-upper. The monotonous gray that made up just about everything in the cave wasn't helping either.

I can work with this. Step one: basic shape.

Over the next two hours, Lasair slowly rounded out the walls of the aviary. Except for any crevice that contained a [FIRE-BIRD] nest or the one containing the [CHEST], the room was now an almost perfect cylinder. The walls met the floor in a smooth curve, the stone flowing into place without a single flaw or seam. There were only seventeen crevices left in the wall, with fifteen being used for normal birds, while Mirage and the [CHEST] took the last two.

Step two: the floor.

It took barely ten minutes to smooth out the floor, but Lasair wanted more than that. She slowly set about making a very basic mural by using [MINOR PYROMANCY] to blacken certain sections of stone. The mural's main structure was a set of five rings, each centered in the middle of the room. Each one was a bit smaller than the one that came before it, cutting the floor space into separate rings.

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In the very center of the smallest ring, she drew a spark. And then another, and another, and another. The further she got from the middle, the more ferocious the flames she drew appeared, with the finished product being quite the sight. Visitors would be met with the visual of a monochrome fire desperately reaching for the center of the room. Lasair was proud of the art. She found herself very good at drawing fire, at representing its greed. Its hunger. With that impromptu art session done, it was time to move on.

Step three: the entrance.

Lasair had a very limited reach into the entrance tunnel, but it would be enough. She made the tunnel suddenly narrow just a bit at the end. She then formed the protruding stone into an archway. Inscribed was a simple message, in what she hoped would be understandable writing. Everything had been magically translated up to this point, but that was all talking. Anyway, the message: Welcome to the Aviary. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Step four: plants.

Lasair would hate to cover up all her hard work on the mural, so she resolved to just liven up the walls for now. The [MANAVINE] that she created crept up the walls like the threads in a spider's web, colored a radiant white with veins of a deep blue. Those veins began to pulse gently, and she watched as the strands of mana in the room seemed to flock to them, swirly gently as if caught in orbit.

She placed a few [BAR-BULBS] at the edge of the crevice housing the [CHEST]. They were shaped kinda like onions, but seemed to have the color and durability of obsidian. They were poking of small clusters of leaves like flowers, which provided a nice contrast to the dark forms of the bulbs themselves.

Finally, the [FLAMING FERN]. The plant seemed to have the same general shape of a normal fern, but its leaves were a deep gold. These gilded leaves were shot through with lines of pulsing orange, glowing with a fiery light. Lasair could sense fire mana flowing through it like sap, and decided that this was her new favorite plant. She wove them around the [MANAVINE] in the walls, ensuring that the whole room was lit by their glow.

Done

The room looked far, far better than it had just a few hours ago.

Wait, just a few hours? Elf boy is going to take at least another two days to get back!

God she was bored.