After I grabbed a leftover sandwich from the fridge and made us a cup of coffee, Liz and I went down to business. Dusk had managed to procure a tiny cup, sized for small folk, from one of the brownies, and used that to fix herself a miniature cup of her own.

The cream and eggs that I set out each night for the small folk was starting to feel like not nearly enough for the help that they gave me, and I had barely interacted with the fungal folk at all… I mentally reminded myself to see about getting the small folk something else, and talking to the fungal folk as well, then returned my attention to Liz.

“...the biggest problems with the Idyll-Flume,” she was saying, “is that there’s a limit on what can be brought in, and what can be taken out. Some of the richest people will enter with some pretty huge storage spaces, or multiple smaller ones, all full of magical items and stuff to trade.”

“Trade?” I asked.

“The Idyll-Flume is open for four weeks,” Liz said. “At the end of each week, there’s usually an auction, hosted by the delegation from Delitone. They’re a neutral party, after all, and as a wild city-state… They need the help. But it’s good for everyone – the auction is great for trading specific materials easier than on the open market. The rich people who come in with money get to use it to gather specific powers they need, and the normal guilders and other people get a chance to trade it for what they want, or sell it for other useful materials or cash.”

“I see how that could be helpful,” I said. “But I think I see the issue. Since supplies are also only restocked once a week, and since there’s not guaranteed to be enough for everyone, everyone tries to stock up on food, nutrient potions, and water.”

“Exactly!” Liz said.

Dusk tapped her chin and made a wind-in-trees noise, saying that she was far larger than pretty much anything on the market.

Liz pointed at her and nodded emphatically.

“If you’re willing, Dusk, then I’d like to store a lot of stuff inside of your pocket space.”

“Astral plane,” I interjected.

“Astral plane,” Liz said. “It’ll free me and my partner’s spatial rings up. Anyways, Dusk, you’re sure you’re okay with that?”

Dusk nodded her agreement, and Liz waved one hand. A half-dozen crates, made of thick planks of wood, appeared on the kitchen floor, and Dusk hopped down to begin absorbing them one at a time.

I eyed Liz, curious. Her spatial ring had to be pretty large, if she could fit all of those in. A fourth gate ring, maybe? It would make sense – her grandfather would have the connections for a powerful ring like that.

“Who are you bringing?” I asked, not dwelling on it. “I’m bringing Kene. The golden elixir in the Idyll-Flume can be used to improve their tattoos and their condition.”

She let out a snort and nodded.

“I had an idea you were, Eddy told me.”

Eddy? Ed hated the nickname Eddy. Was she teasing him? Or was she just the only person who he’d accept the term from?

“I’m bringing a guy named Travis… Something,” Liz continued. “He’s about as interesting to talk to as a rock, but he’s strong, flexible, and most importantly, he doesn’t question orders from me. He’s pretty deeply indebted to my family in his mind, and plans to use the Idyll-Flume to burn through third and fourth gate.”

“Impressive,” I commented, my eyebrows raising somewhat at that.

“Yeah,” Liz said. “This actually segways well into the other thing I was going to ask you about. Are you interested in teaming up for the competition? Either partially, or fully. Kene’s going to be quite popular, so I figured I’d ask now.”

“Cuz they’re a healer,” I asked, and Liz nodded her agreement. I frowned at her. “I can’t promise anything with Kene, not without them present. But if they want us to work together, I’m open to it.”

I wondered if they’d be open to healing people in exchange for the golden elixir… That would be a good way for them to gather a fair bit, but it would also mean they weren’t getting to explore and find other resources as freely.

“Oh, yeah,” Liz said, nodding agreeably. “It’s not my goal to strongarm you all into doing something against your will. I just wanted to make the offer. I’m going to be trying to climb the tower until at least the third floor – growth items are worth a heck of a lot, and I’d love to be able to get my hands on one for free, to say nothing of the other rewards.”

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Dusk finished absorbing the boxes and began climbing my pant leg.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, though a part of my mind definitely was interested in climbing that high too. It would depend on just how resource rich the astral plane was, and how long the climbing of the tower floors took. Maybe we could gather a lot initially, then as things got more and more picked over, we could climb the tower?

I didn’t know when or if I’d get another shot at a growth item. My first one had turned into an entire person, after all. I scooped up said person, who’d reached my lap, and deposited her onto my shoulder.

Liz took a long drain from her decaf, and put the mug down.

“What sort of shape is your mana-garden in for the competition?” she asked.

Again, I was hit by the annoyance of having sealed off my second gate death magic, because that would be the perfect time to cast Analyze Mana-Garden and allow us both to just look and see.

Instead, I just told her about the progress I was making, as well as my recent complications with my staff breaking. She listened attentively, nodding along, and then told me about the state of her own progress.

She was a lot further than I was – no surprise there, she was two years older than I was – and was ready to ascend the instant we stepped into the Idyll-Flume. She’d also finally constructed a domain weapon of her own, which she was happy to show me.

It flowed out of her spirit like a shadow, swirling up into the shape of a sword. The entire blade was as black as night, but oddly shiny, as if it had been made from obsidian,. There were inscriptions made of ice running along the blade and hilt; strange runes that made no sense to me. I wasn’t sure if they were actually magical, or if they were simply aesthetic, or a bit of both. Set into the pommel, where Ikki had kept his Temporal Basin, there was a jagged shard of ice that seemed to glow with lunar power to my mana senses.

I thought that the sword was shaped like a cutlass, or maybe a cavalry sword, I wasn’t sure – I wasn’t much of a sword person.

“It doesn’t improve my mana at all, like your staff did, but it is pretty good,” Liz said. “It makes shadow strikes with each cut, almost like my legacy, or your echo spells, and it’s got all the force of a spell behind it. Hits hard.”

“I believe it,” I said, nodding. “I wouldn’t want to test myself against it, that’s for sure.”

Liz suddenly looked sheepish and absorbed the blade back into her spirit.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just realized, I’m basically rubbing salt in the wound of you losing your staff.”

“It’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s better for me to know.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for any materials that can be used in the building of your staff during the Idyll-Flume,” Liz said. “Unless you want to switch over to a domain weapon or try something else.”

“I’m tempted to try a domain weapon, just to see what I get, and how effective it is with my style,” I said. “And once I’m third gate, I’m thinking about building a grand array. But those are just… So expensive. To build one as I am now, I’d need, what…”

I quickly did some mental math.

“Thirty-six mana sources?” I asked. “Something like that, at least.”

Liz shook her head, but smiled.

“You’re crazy,” she said. “But I wish you luck if you do.”

I thanked her, and then we spent a while going over Dusk’s mana-garden and her capabilities, before Liz finally called it a night and headed home, and Dusk and I cleaned up the kitchen. Before I headed in as well, I stopped into Dusk’s realm.

While she checked on the hidden estragon eggs, I went around visiting the smallfolk.

The naiads were quite happy with the expansion and growth of the river, but when I asked them if there was anything they wanted, they expressed that the river didn’t have much mineral content.

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do anything about that, but I promised that I’d ask about it and see what I could do.

The pixies were doing alright, but they were interested in having a bit more light in the spring and summer areas of the garden. They spent a lot of time there, and they thought it would actually help the plants too – Dusk may have modulated the climate to work, but the middling light was still limiting their growth some.

That was a bit easier to work on, but I added it to my mental list.

Next up was the bwbatches. They wanted one thing, and only one – alcohol. It was apparently an important part of bwbatch culture, and without it, their advancement actually slowed. That sounded odd to me, but I wasn’t going to argue.

That was probably the easiest request so far. I could get fairly cheap liquor from the Ghost Market, after all, and even if I just went to a liquor store, it wasn’t like there weren’t cheap alcohols. I didn’t need anything like Orykson’s imported Elohian spirit-whiskey.

The brownies were totally fine, which didn’t surprise me, but did make me feel a bit guilty – I’d been leaving out cream and eggs, treating the small folk as if they were a monoculture, but they weren’t. The cream and eggs were good for the brownies, but not for everyone.

Finally I stopped in with the fungal folk, who’d taken up residence near the blademoss and the soultoad’s seat. They were okay, and had expanded their number, but they weren’t happy with how few magical mushrooms I had.

I told them I’d do my best to remedy that, within the bounds of the law.

Finally, I checked on the seeds from the plants that Kene and I had found in the ruins – the mist-larkspur and vigor-camas. They were, to my surprise, actually starting to sprout. It had taken a while, since they were dormant behind wards for so long, but before too terribly long I’d have a few more potions to add to my arsenal.

With my new list of things I could do to improve the lives of those who lived within Dusk, I wrote them down to ensure I wouldn’t forget, and then turned in for bed. It was late, after all, but I swore that I’d get them at least some solutions before the Idyll-Flume.

The next morning, I had training with Meadow. There wasn’t a whole lot for me to do with plant magic at the moment, so instead she suggested she train me to either improve my veils, or my mana sense. I had a decent grasp on both, but I wasn’t a master with either one. I intended to tell her about the eggs, and ask about help with my problems... Right after I chose.