^^ Medea's Wall ^^

"So, you're telling me that Rhea stopped a literal Civil War with a mom glare?!?" Medea asked incredulously, and Rhea blushed, sitting at the bar in a pair of comfy sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

I nodded and set the book and staff on the table. "That is what happened, yes. And I kept my promise and brought you some souvenirs."

She grinned and snagged the staff, examining the carved wood. The top was a falcon, carved to perfect lifelike stillness, and the bones of a falcon hung from its talons, each one inscribed with a different Rune. She hummed and twisted it in her hands, nodding slowly as she apparently could tell something about it. "This is a Focusing Rod... it has a little power of its own, but it's full of magic crystals, and any magic directed through it would become stronger by osmosis..."

"And the book?" I pushed it toward her, and watched as she flipped it open, and muttered a bit in Latin, examining every page in less than five minutes, then closed it and tossed it to the side.

"Worthless, really; based on faulty premises and bad science, incredibly outdated ideas. The equations are good though, the math is there, the problem is it's 'Math+Premise=Effect!' And this is 'Math+Pseudoscience=...Effect?' It's guesswork, directed by the basic intention of the soul, instead of proper, ironclad, geometric precision!" She huffed at it childishly.

"Medea Townsend!" Rhea snapped from her seat at the bar, and Medea cringed.

She lowered her head morosely. "Sorry, Theo, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful..."

"That's alright. I also brought you a few dozen more grimoires, from other mages." I nodded to a small bookshelf on wheels that Kindle suddenly filled with books: the grimoires of the mages from the Mercenary group, and the Grimoires from all the mages who'd been present at the Forum in support of Avaldi; they'd all surrendered rather meekly when Rhea had singlehandedly and effortlessly flipped their trump card, their Arch-Mage. They now awaited the 'Hearing' which would decide all of their fates.

Medea gasped, seeing what had to be 45 new books, and grabbed the cart, throwing the Arch-Mage's grimoire and staff on top and wheeling it towards her room. She stopped as she passed me again, and smiled. "Thanks for the souvenirs, Theo!" She kissed my cheek happily, and trotted off towards her room with her prizes.

"Smart, giving her those... she'll be kept busy for years with all that knowledge, and she'll be a better mage for it." Kindle nodded.

"Years? I give it a week before she masters everything in those cute little books and asks for more." Helen scoffed sarcastically, and sipped her tea, nudging James and Clark to sit back down so she could place her legs over theirs again. The three of them were together in some sort of... something, and it made them happy, so I didn't question it.

"Those books contain decades of research into the various aspects of magic!" Luna protested.

"And how long did it take her to teach you a thing or two about magic? Without those decades of chasing your tails and calling it research?" Helen responded archly, silencing Luna and Kindle both.

"We do have to do some research into why me singing the Beatles makes me able to cast magic, though. That requires us to requisition some R&D time." I frowned.

"Yeah, that is pretty much the awesomest power to have, dude." James grinned, before casually singing a few lines of 'Here Comes the Sun' out loud. His voice was nice, a smooth and tender tenor I hadn't expected from the Buff, wide-chested hunk of man. "Little Darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter; Little Darlin', it feels like years since it's been here... Here Comes the Sun, do do do do; Here Comes the Sun, and I say, it's alright..."

"Oooh, James can sing? Do WonderWall!" Sam giggled mischievously while we all groaned.

"Oi, fuck off ya mouthy brat!!!" He snapped at them, clearing his throat and rubbing his lightly-bearded cheeks. "Anyway, what did you promise in the way of our work? Did we get any orders or commissions yet? I'm finished with the map, so I'm working on lightning rods, currently, but if there's anything specific you need, I can work on that as well?"

"Lightning rods, huh? Connected to?" I asked.

"Oh, I've been helping Medea attempt to recreate the Bag of Holding. Needs a lot of energy, so I figured why not lightning in a bottle?" He shrugged.

"You're storing it in Acrylic?" I asked incredulously.

"What? No, no, it's just an expression! It's being stored in a vat of Slime, firstly because I want to see what prolonged exposure to lightning does to the Silica, and secondly because it's capable of trapping triple its weight in electrons without destabilizing." He explained.

"Huh... Interesting. Alright, well, let me know when she succeeds, that'll be an important item for our work, when she manages it." I nodded, confidant she'd do it soon.

"I don't doubt it'll be soon, if you guys aren't exaggerating her smarts, seeing as she has the grimoire of Arch-Mage Danis, whose speciality is Spacial-Attribute Magic." Kindle muttered.

"Hey, guys!!!" Medea called through the communicator in Clark's hand.

"No fucking way was it that quick... right?" Kindle stared at us, eyes wide.

"Might be." I shrugged, walking towards Medea's door. "Yes, dear?" I tapped the door with my knuckle. No answer... and then her voice came through the communicator again.

"Guys?!? Can I get a hand, here? Now?!?" She yelped and crashed into something, and I frowned, opening her door. She was not present, but the door of her shower stall was open... and a blank void.

I sighed. "I'll fetch her..." I called over to them, and reached into the void, grabbing her collar.

"EEK! Oh, hi Theo." She recovered quickly as I pulled her out and raised an eyebrow at her disapprovingly.

"What did I say about experimenting with Spacial Distortion without another mage present?" I barked at her, frowning down at her severely.

"Uhm... I forgot?"

I narrowed my eyes slowly, and she gulped.

"Sorry..."

"Hmph... well, you certainly succeeded... is it your entire stall? What did you smack into?" I hummed, distracted from her disobedience.

"Oh, a whole bunch of books!!! There's books everywhere in there!!! I did one of the spells, and it gave me access to a Pocket inside the book, but it was too small, so I transferred it to my door, and WOW!!!" She grinned.

"And you forgot that there was no light or air in there." I concluded.

"No, there's air, when I opened the door some air went in, I could breath fine, I just couldn't see." She shrugged.

I nodded slowly, looking at the sigils scribbled on the door of her shower. "So, again... is it the entire shower stall? Do you need a new one?" I asked.

"I think I can turn it off, actually." She closed the door and swiped a finger across one line, then opened it again, revealing her shower... and the four massive prehensile tentacles she'd attached to the walls of said shower, dangling from the middle of the walls to the floor, four (very meaty) feet below. She squealed and slammed it shut, pressing her back to it. "Yeah it works!"

I laughed and patted her head. "Good, that's good... experiment with how light diffuses in there... if you can make a proper floor and organize it a little, you've got your own Private Library and Study! Very nifty, dear."

She grinned, forgetting her embarrassment instantly. "Yeah! Actually..." she opened the door again and swiftly removed the four toys, tossing them onto her bed, then began scribbling on the walls, full circles and symbols I was just barely beginning to grasp the meanings of, before replacing the line she'd removed to deactivate it, and closing the door again.

When she opened it, I gasped at the view of a vast twilight sky, glowing softly with a violet light, like a permanent Blacklight.

Helen, who'd appeared in the doorway, tilted her head and took a step forward, examining the runes on the door. "Interesting... I really need to figure out how these 'Runes' interact with mana... so how'd you do this so quickly? It's been maybe five minutes, max."

"I just expanded a spell that was already there, placing runes on the interior as well as the door, which allowed me a greater control of the conditions inside... though I'll still need wood to make some floors..." Medea hummed, looking down into the seemingly endless violet abyss below the door.

I reached through and attempted to push my hand beyond the door, to the right, and was met with a wall of perfectly solid resistance. "It does have walls... good."

Medea hummed, and nodded, closing the door and removing the same line as before, breaking the spell. "Okay... then I can do this..." she drew out her soldering pen with the crystal torch, and began drawing symbols on a piece of wood, which she had me mold to the right dimensions to fit perfectly into the shower. A few more boards, and we had a floor of sorts, built from simple wood and covered in runes and sigils. "Let's see if this worked..." she drew the line again, and then opened the door, revealing that violet expanse.

I held the back of her collar as she took a tentative step out, and then chuckled and followed her as she began walking across an invisible floor. With a wave of her hand, all the books scattered across the space organized at once into a bookshelf-like space, only it was about thirty feet tall and three times as wide.

She grinned and pulled in the cart of other books, alphabetizing the entire collection and then adding her physics textbooks and such as well. "Now all I need to do is change the Location of this Pocket, so he can't get at it..." she muttered, her fingers weaving a spell, and suddenly there was a heaving shift in the space, but the door didn't close, and after that it seemed fine.

"Make sure you go through all of those books and find all the rest of his little pockets... they might contain a large volume of nifty little books or magic things you can study." I suggested, stepping out and studying the sigils one last time, in order to memorize them.

She nodded vaguely, and then waved a hand, as a wall seemed to materialize, then a stone fireplace, and some black oak hardwood floors. She touched the fireplace, and hummed, pulling a piece of the stone off and carrying it out, or attempting to; the stone disappeared in a puff of light as soon as it exited. "Hard Light Constructs... Interesting... and that fire is creating heat, which means the hard light is capable of producing heat as well..." she muttered, sitting at her desk and scribbling down some notes.

"You don't mind if I steal your idea and make another of these, do you?" I asked, tapping a knuckle against the door.

"Hmm? Go wild." She waved a hand disinterestedly, and then waved a hand again, creating a ball of light that shaped itself into a dagger. It spun freely over her hand, and she hummed, muttering a few more things in Latin about 'Ethereal Tethers'.

I nodded and closed her door, returning to the lounge with Helen. "Well, she managed to create an entire Demiplane, it looks like... curious, but very educational." I grinned at Luna, and finished my coffee, which had started to get cold. "Hey, by the way, what are the requirements to be considered an Arch-Mage or Arch-Hunter? Is it just a title of recognition?"

"She really managed that quickly?" Luna asked, staring at me.

"Hmm? Yeah, no hesitation at all. She just solved the problem of the item bags. Anyway, I'm going to go see if I can solve a different problem... you're welcome to join me, but it'll be boring." I kissed Luna's cheek, smiling at her happily, and took off towards my room to get my tools.

—

The cave that would eventually become the Story Room/Church-thing was almost finished, in terms of being carved out, but the curving labyrinth up the mountain was nearly impossible, just in terms of structural integrity; anything more than a six-foot wide spiraling staircase would destabilize the entire mountain.

So, solution; build said staircase, and turn it into an Item Box, or a Demiplane, where I could use Hard Light to replicate all the crazy things I planned on putting in there.

But, my current project was a little different; I planned on getting rid of the trains, at some point, which means we'd need new living quarters, ones that would meet our needs in the same way or better than the current accommodations did.

So I was currently digging out a pair of ten foot squared storage rooms, off to the side of the same wall as the tunnel entrance, meaning you'd have to turn around in the middle of the room to even see them. The first was finished in record time, and the second followed not very long after, maybe two hours of work total, which was ridiculous to me. Without my ability to carve things assisting, I didn't think I'd finish even one of these in a full day.

Luna sat off to the side, on the bench in front of the stone piano, and laid her hands on the keys. "What is this? It looks like these move..." she pressed a key, and I paused when it moved, but no sound came out.

"That's a stone replica of a piano, or more specifically an Organ... and I didn't know it moved. It shouldn't move yet... but then again, I carved it, maybe I turned it into a golem on accident?" I hummed, and walked over, inspecting it's pipes, which I hadn't bothered to carve out. They were indeed solid stone, and I frowned, shaking my head. "It wouldn't work, not yet... it needs the pipes, and they'll be all over this back wall, fifty feet tall and gleaming and beautiful, but this? It's a replica. Non-functional. I could maybe give it strings and make it a piano, for now, if you want?"

"Strings? Like a Harp?" She asked.

"Yes, actually. Here, I'll show you." I smiled, distracted from my main task by her curiosity, but it was very much worth every second that I spent molding the strings from steel and attaching them, forgoing the internal components and instead using its golem nature to my advantage.

The first cord, as the hammer dropped onto the string when the key was pressed, was inexplicably breathtaking. The stone instrument Vibrated unnaturally, subtly, and instead of the stone eating the sound and resulting in a dull thunder, the entire room sang with the high note, like a perfectly harmonized choir.

Luna gasped, and pressed another key, at the other end, creating a deep, bassy groan. "It's beautiful!" She sighed happily, hugging me. "Can you play it?"

I smiled at her and laid my hands on the keys, breathing deeply before I began, centering myself. The keys came back to me, years spent listening to the only music I'd had, the Beatles, from an old record played on a jury-rugged scratcher, one I'd made from scrap metal and an old bike for a crank. 'Let it be' came to mind most clearly, so I played the opening notes, and let it ride. I noticed James in the mouth of the cave, curiously looking for the source of the sound which was audible within a dozen yards or so of the entrance, but upon seeing Luna snuggled up to my shoulder he chuckled and left us to our little mini-date.

The song ended, and I smiled serenely as the sound faded. "That's a beautiful tune." Luna sighed.

"Mm... the Beatles were a Beautiful thing. They helped a lot of people see the world through the rose-colored glass." I chuckled at the pun, and kissed her nose, standing up. "I'll teach you to play sometime, when you teach me how to summon stuff from thin air."

"Alright... it's a date!" She smiled slyly.

"Why are you acting like you pulled one over on me? We're already partners, Luna." I sighed at her, and began crafting the doors to my two new rooms.

"Well... True... does that mean that we're... what's the word..." she hummed seriously, halting.

"Yes?" I prompted, and then let her think, not really sure what she meant.

I was finishing the stone door to the first room when she figured out what she wanted to ask. "Does that mean we're 'exclusive', as Helen puts it? We shouldn't be with anyone else?"

I considered my answer carefully, crafting it in my mind the same way I would a statue. "Well... I will not be with anyone else regardless, but if I were, I would ask your consent... and I'd hope for the same considerations from you? I'm aware you're a grown woman with needs, and I'd like you to be comfortable enough with me to share them, but I'm again aware that some of those needs are beyond me. You are free to do as you like, I'd never dream of restricting you from any little spot of happiness you can acquire, and in fact I encourage you to seek out happiness, but... for the things I can do, I'd like to be your first consideration for that... need."

She hugged me gently, laying her cheek between my shoulder blades. "I think I understand. Do you have any needs I can help with?" She asked curiously, seeming more interested than aroused.

"At the moment? Not really, though your breasts against my back is very pleasantly distracting... I think I'm becoming a little sexually attracted to you, instead of brief moments of libido, which is a good sign... maybe tonight we'll share some toys or even skin, but for now, I've got a very sharp chisel in my hands and I don't want to stab myself, so give me a kiss and then go sit on the piano bench, please?" I chuckled.

She went to kiss my cheek, but I mischievously turned and caught her lips, freezing her up. "Ooh... you're rude..." she shivered, recovering slowly.

"Go on." I spanked her ass gently, and she hopped up, walking demurely over to the bench and sitting there all blushing and smiling contentedly. Brat.