Liz appeared at the entrance of her tent, holding the flap open with the back of one hand, then froze, staring at me.
“Oh, hi Liz!” I called. “Good morning!”
“Why...,” she gesticulated in my direction, “when...?”
I paused, paintbrush raised. “My front door was a bit boring so I made a few improvements.”
I was standing on using Karma’s head as a stable platform to paint the words “Abyss Tower” in a simple blocky text on the entrance of the tower, which I had redesigned and expanded. It was now in the style of a large arched doorway, 10 metres high, with gently curling semi-organic decoration round it, all built out from the tower with obsidian, with gold inlay in the decoration causing the arch to stand out clearly against the identically coloured background. The doors themselves were missing, only a blank wall of obsidian with a shallow groove down the middle where they would normally join. I was using Shadow Paint to write words onto that wall. Shadow paint causes light to vanish into it completely, leaving the blackest black you will ever see, standing out clearly on the black-purple obsidian. If anything, I would compare its appearance to the layered carbon microstructure coating the military used alongside ‘normal’ black for disruptive patterning in space, the spiritual successor to ‘Black 3.0’ and ‘Vantablack’. You couldn’t even tell the paintbrush I was using was 2D or 3D!
I’d also remade the opening mechanism; now two hidden switches wired into a logic gate both needed to be flipped to open the doors, with a single switch inside to deactuate them.
“How long has he been here?” I heard Liz whisper to Thora.
“He’s only been ‘ere ‘alf an hour,” the stocky dwarf replied wonderingly.
I turned my attention away from their conversation, focusing completely on the door in front of me. I lifted the paintbrush and wrote the next letter perfectly, my hand not allowing a single deviation. Letter complete, I lifted the brush and took another centring breath, then started on the next.
Breakfast was a smorgasbord of just about everything. I think I may have cooked a little much, but oh well, it’ll last forever in my world storage. I helped myself to a reasonably sized portion and took a seat to wait for the other two. Eventually Lupia appeared at the door and advanced across the floor, giving me a strange look as she did so.
“Lyte, you do know all of the safes in the guest rooms contain subspaces right?” she asked as she reached me.
“Wait, they do?! I’d completely forgotten about that!” I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in my chair. “If that’s the case, there’s no need to have a combination lock on them then; I’ll have to remove them at some point.”
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“Why?”
“The subspace should be unique to the person who opens it. Here,” I said, pulling my safe out of my inventory and setting it on the floor, “try putting something in here.”
Lupia gave me a dubious look but opened the safe door, placed a fork inside, then closed it.
My own various subspaces had been merged into my world storage so my safe was currently empty, but I still opened the door to reveal that it was in fact empty. No sign of any fork. I tossed my spoon in and closed the door, then indicated that Lupia should open it again. She did, and there was here fork. “Voila! Oh! And if it works as it should...,” I pulled out a second safe and placed it next to the first, nudging the door of the first closed as I did so, “try opening this one.”
Lupia did do, and gaped as it opened onto her fork. She pulled the first safe’s door open; there too was her fork. She pulled it out, and it disappeared from the second safe too.
“Lyte- this- this is an interconnected subspace! Do you know how amazing this is?!”
“Eh~ it’s not that big of a deal. Not counting my two personal subspaces, I have 4 individual interconnected ones and hundreds of the subspace connectors to access each one, as well as the materials to make thousands more.”
The wolfgirl’s jaw dropped and ears stuck straight up. She make a slight squeaking noise. The fork clattered to the floor.
“Hellooo~ anyone in there?” I waved a hand in front of her face.
Tear chose that exact moment to make her entrance. “Oh great, you broke her,” she snarked, “why did I expect you not to?”
“Good morning to you too Tear. Ah, that reminds me; here, catch.”
The catgirl deftly snatched the grapefruit-sized object out of the air.
“It’s a void bag. Point the opening at an object and will it to store it and it’ll suck it in. Like this.” I pointed the closed opening of my own pouch at the safes, which were sucked through the tiny gap in a blatant violation of physics. “Open it up with the drawstrings and you’ll be able to get the object out again.” I did so, a diamond-shaped opening, 2 dimensional from whatever angle it was viewed, was projected out of the bag, through which I stuck my hand and pulled out a safe before dropping it back into my inventory and repeating it with the other safe.
“Why- why are you giving me this? Aren’t item boxes really expensive?” the catgirl queried hesitantly.
“I have lots of them, and you’re one of the few people I trust, like, and know well enough to give one to. Also it means you can carry your own stuff next time you buy it.”
Tear looked down, a slight flush appearing on her cheeks. “T-thank you,” the young catgirl murmured.
“Think of it as me apologising for tying you up yesterday, I really am sorry for that, I just wasn’t thinking how you would feel.”
“It-its ok, I knew you weren’t going to hurt me. I- think I trust you.” The teenager looked slightly surprised with herself. “Trust… that’s a strange feeling.”
I pulled her into a gentle hug. She stiffened for a moment, but then relaxed and returned it. It didn’t take long for her to start squirming impatiently though, so I released her and helped her attach the Void Bag to her belt. Once it was secured in place, I gave her hair an affectionate ruffle. “Now then, eat up, long walk again today.”
She immediately escaped towards the buffet spread and began loading up several plates.
I sat back down at the table and eyeballed my own plate for half a second before reaching through my world storage to my safe and retrieving my spoon.