"Not the instruction manual - well, yes the instruction manual, if at some point I wrote one, after which I can produce it in any format you care to name, but I can't generate information de novo."

"Aw. It's like this magic was made so we couldn't abuse it too much. That makes me sad..."

"But if you have blueprints or it was invented by someone else, that's completely fine? You couldn't make immortality serum without someone else inventing it first, but if it is invented, by someone else, could you do that even if you don't personally know all of the specifics?"

"Yeah. I have to be able to sort of - locate it. Like, I can produce a book I haven't read by knowing title and author, and I can sometimes do it with title and first few words or publication date and author or whatever, but I can't do 'the book you're thinking of and haven't told me', or 'the best version of immortality serum invented somewhere in the multiverse I've never heard of'."

"Okay. So you could very definitively create the materials my wife needs for resurrection, but our bottleneck is still the number of witches available. Still useful, but - apparently we seriously need to throw more things at research and development. How do you feel about putting research facilities with your level of technology in various planes so we can research methods whose bottleneck are not witches?" He makes a 'hmm' sound. "And I'm going to bet that you don't want daemons, so asking the alethiometer for help will be difficult. How much information about your technology can you pack into an easily-transportable box or something? Ice and I are rich, we can replicate instructions if given them and sufficient time."

"I don't want a daemon. But I will happily set up labs and fancy futuristic computers for you, and data storage does keep getting more efficient, I can get you most of the world's accumulated knowledge and media on stuff small enough to carry."

"Then we do that, and ask the alethiometer very nicely for ways to use that to make a medical solution for immortality so that it's more easily scaleable. And also make research facilities and hire lots of very smart people to outdo the technology you gave us, and other smart people to use the things that you did give us to improve life for people in general and also make us even more absurdly rich."

"How are we going to explain turning up with technological advantages? Magic I can invent in my backyard, but a hundred fifty years of medicine and computing and whatnot...?"

"Uhh... Hm. We could finally drop the masquerade and say I borrowed it from my world?"

"Someone might visit your world," she points out. "It has only recently heard the phrase 'germ theory'."

"How likely are they to visit my world? We don't even have a portal to it, anymore. But - we could hand it to the colony instead? With the caveat that most of them don't have the education background people from Earth do, what with only recently learning about germ theory."

"Absolutely let's outfit the colony. The colony can even know where it came from, more or less. Maybe we can distill it to something streamlined enough to look like magic and I can act all proprietary about it."

"Sure," he agrees, happily. "I wasn't going to suggest not outfitting the colony, that would be insane, I just - sort of want Earth to get nice things, too. I like my home."

"You have gone so native."

"Are you complaining?"

"Not a bit."

"We make a very cute interdimensional genderswapped soul-bird-having couple, don't we," comments Cam to his angel.

"Absolutely adorable," agrees Adana with a giggle.

"Is that a roundabout way of saying that you two are cute together, too?"

"Maybe. Because we are."

"We belong on some sort of very forward-thinking elementary school poster," says Cam.

That causes his angel to break down into helpless giggles.

"Phix and I belong in a coloring book in our fullforms," defends Max. "Kitty and deer snuggles are adorable, I'll have you know."

"I may require visual proof."

"Ah yes. This is where it begins. It starts at adorable kitty and deer snuggles, and then later you will want pictures of me prancing. Well I won't have it, mister!"

"Awwwwww!"

"Awww," agrees Cam. "Very cute. Does she like having a tail as much as I do? I wouldn't have expected to find it so pleasant to have, but it was fashionable and I thought I might as well and I love it."

"Certainly. I'll be sure to mark it on my calendar."

"The local or yours or his or the Pantheon hub's calendar?" wonders Spring.

"All of them," says Prime in a deadpan.

"Fourfold ruin to befall you for showing Cam a cute illusion. I don't know, Max, that seems harsh to me."

"Bwuahahaha. It will teach the other Adarin where his place is."

"And where is that?"

"Not making adorable illusions, that's what!"

"But it so improved my quality of life," chirps Cam.

"And we like improving the quality of people's lives, don't we?"

"... Yes."

"So I'm absolved. Hurray."

"Anyway. What I can definitely do for you is remodel the hub however you like it, possibly after Adana clears away whatever nondemonic architecture you're currently using."

"Please don't clear away the portals, but - yes, please, remodeling the hub would be wonderful. Ideally it should have a lot of room for the portal network to expand to, and probably also living quarters. Or meeting rooms."

"And research labs."

"And you may as well improve on my house while you're at it, it was built kind of abruptly after I was revived from the dead."

"Sure, no problem."

"And, we should see if it's possible for you to make mirror pairs."

"And even if it isn't, I bet we can rig up some sort of technology thing to let us get by with a more elegant mirror system, something that keeps one half of several mirror pairs there and has them facing each other when we're talking to people from other planes."

"Something tells me you are not going to lack for work," says Adana to her boyfriend, amused.

"Oh no. Copious amounts of productive work. My least favorite thing."

She giggles, and hugs him. "We'll get through it, sweetie! Together!"

"I don't know if I have the strength, angel darling. Whatever happened to my century and a half near-useless vacaaaation? It seems like only yesterday I could while away entire months without accomplishing anything other than reading and playing video games!"

"That's what happens, dating me. I drag you out of near-useless vacation to meet all of the male versions of myself so you can make portal hubs and create super advanced technology for them. Should have read the contract, it's there in large, bold letters."

"When will I learn to read things before signing?" sighs Cam. And then he kisses his angel.

His angel kisses him back! Happily!

"Look out, Ice and Cypress. Competition for the adorableness award."

Cypress snorts.

"Is there a contest? Should we be preparing an adorable skit for the convention?"

"Ha, no. But that would be kind of entertaining."

"And possibly upsetting for Rain and Katydid. You should probably hold off on conventions and skits, however adorable," says Prime, gently.

"Yes, we do try - not particularly effectively, sometimes - to avoid upsetting Rain and Katydid."

"Poor Rain and Katydid."

"Yeah," sighs Cypress.

"I think they're doing all right," observes Prime. "Not fantastically, obviously, but decent enough under the circumstances. Rain's the problematic one, and he's not waffling between hermithood and extreme efficiency, so he's not particularly upset anymore."

"They're in a very awkward catch-22, though. Maybe they're making a lot of progress and it's just not obvious..."

"Maybe. But it seems extremely rude to ask."

"...Now I'm contemplating the situation where Adana had, ah, any of several possible experiences with demons before she met me in particular. I don't think I like the sound of that."

Adana shudders a bit. "Oh wow, that would be terrible, no, let's not think about that."

Cam snugs his wing around her.

"...What would be the...?"

"Demons are, ah, harder to pay in material goods than other daeva are, for obvious reasons..."

Adana snuggles her Cam.

"... So you pay in other methods. Aha. Understood."

"Other-?"

Max eeps.

"It's not that there aren't reasonably nice demons, it's that mostly reasonably nice demons don't bother to answer summons."

Cypress makes a bit of a face. "Of course. Ugh. And there's no easy solution there to present with a-" Pause. "... They can't usually make magic things. Right?"

"Right."

"Max. What are the sort of magic things you can make?"

"Luck charms, for now, but Phix and I are going to be able to start making other things, too."

"Charms that give literal lu- do you have any, can Cam make them?"

Cam looks at it, and makes something that looks just like it. "How do you tell if it works?" he inquires.

"Well. I'd know if it worked if I made it because it wouldn't have exploded in my face or turned it pink or anything, but - putting it on, seeing if you get just a little bit luckier after. There's probably a way to figure out through magic, but I'm not that good yet."

"Okay." Cam makes it a little clip thing and attaches it to the edge of his wing, just above a joint so it doesn't slip down. "We'll see if I get lucky. ...Literally."

Adana giggles, and kisses Cam.

"This would be a lot easier if we'd figured out how to make a tail ring of Gyges," sighs Max. "Seriously thinking of just dropping out of college and taking up learning magic full time and living off of handouts from generous alts."

"Trade you routine grocery delivery and never having to assemble an IKEA anything for your notes."

"... Yes. I was going to give all Bell alts access to my notes anyway, but no taking that back, I like eating food."

"Make me regret it and you get nothing but potatoes and Swiss cheese for a month."

"Cypress will save me from that fate. I think. If I ply him with luck charms and magic notes."

"I promise nothing," says Cypress, brightly.

"I hope you weren't banking on your ability to give me cause to rue my generosity with impunity."

"Awww, actual consequences to my actions..."

"You poor soul."

Cam makes him a small slice of Swiss cheese and hands it over. "Let that be a lesson to you."

"Nooooo," laughs Max. "Not swiss cheese!"

"Gouda? Edam? Case Ness?"

"At least I wouldn't be living off of ramen?" he snorts.

"Potatoes and cheese, much classier than ramen," says Cam.

"Was that Monty Python?"

"Some things stick."

"Damn it," mutters Cypress. "I didn't get that reference. I am not yet fully native, love, we have to go on another movie binge."

"That's not movies, that's sketch comedy. Cam, can I get a box set, DVDs?"

"You sure you don't want a flash drive?"

"Oh, that makes more sense, if fancy future flash drives will fit it." She accepts one. "Thanks."

"Yay, more culture for me to absorb! Thank you."

"I'm not sure how much of it you'll get. It's old and British and - Cam, is this my version or yours?"

"...Mine. Do you want the one with daemons? That didn't even occur to me, that's hilarious."

"Yes, I'd rather not be distracted by the members of Monty Python being zombies. We like my gone-native husband how he is."

Cam hands the first one to Adana to get rid of and makes a replacement.

"I've never seen this," observes Adana. "I'm kind of curious now. Is it any good?"

"Yes. But if you want to watch it you probably want a better format than that. And I'm not sure how well it's aged."

"All right, then, zero guilt for making it go poof if it can be seen in a better format." And lo, it becomes air.

"I was quoting the Cheese Sketch, for reference."

"I'll watch that one first," she promises.

"This could be an alt bonding exercise. Get together and watch Monty Python."

"It would be weird to watch something without daemons in it. I could, I don't mind, but I feel like half of the storytelling would just be conspicuously absent."

"You've had one for how long?"

"Two years," snorts Cypress. "I went native very quickly, it helps that I didn't actually like my culture."

"I guess that might help, yes."

"It has its nice qualities," muses Prime. "Once you spend a couple centuries driving morality into the metaphorical culture's skull."

"Meh. I'm just stealing all of the people away from the mages and giving them nice things. They might figure out it's me eventually, but I bet they won't figure out where I'm putting them."

"Witch-wards," singsongs Ice.

"Witches can set up places that are impossible - or at least really difficult to scry."

"... Interesting," says Prime, and it sounds like he's already started coming up with things to make impossible to scry.

"I am principally applying the time of witches who owe me favors to the resurrection and immortality projects, so ideally if you want more done than I can handle alone in an afternoon, you would get witches to owe you favors your own self," says Ice.

"The problem with that is that it's hard to talk to them, since I can't actually enter the plane without getting an animal soul."

"Yes. But some of them know about the other planes and I could give, say, my queen, a mirror."

"That would be fine," agrees Prime. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Speaking of," says Cypress, looking at Cam. "We should see if you can make the mirrors."

"Do you have a complete pair on hand for me to look at?"

"... Technically. But they're our wedding rings, and I'm concerned about the effects of making a new pair on the original pair. So, we'll have to check later."

"...I don't see how making a brand new pair of rings based on having looked at yours would affect the originals, but you're the expert on how your magic works."

"Well, the problem is that they are tied to each other, specifically. So if you make another pair, it's possible that with two copies that read as the same thing, the magic might be confused. And I am very protective of our wedding rings."

"Okay, fair. I'll play with a regular set."

"Thank you."

"... Mirror pair wedding rings?" says Adana. "That's adorable."

"It really is. Angel, we have to step up our game."

"We do. Even better, it's easier now, because I can actually get you gifts. As long as they're magic gifts. I couldn't before, because you can make literally anything."

"You could have got me ideas! Or, I don't know, nonmaterial things. Tickets to Broadway. Is Broadway still a thing?"

"Uhh... Maybe? I don't know, dear, I lived on the moon, it didn't have Broadway."

"Right. Well, anyway, tickets, I can't make valid tickets to things."

"I will keep that in mind, I'm sorry I didn't think of it before," giggles Adana.

"It's okay. I didn't know you were particularly itching to shower me with gifts." He snugs her with his wing.

"I kind of was, yeah. I want to get you things that make you happy and are actually useful to you!"

"You're sweet."

"Thank you," giggles Adana, snuggling her boyfriend.

And he makes a tidy landing in Wyoming.

"Mmm, there?" suggests Cam. "Not far from the tree but not so close that if people are making noise when we come through we'll wake him?"

"I don't actually have proper plumbing in my house, I just make water as needed," he muses. "I'll copy your station's circulator, and yeah, I can do a generator no problem." In he goes to accomplish that.

His alts supervise with interest.

As do his angel's alts. Ooooo, magic.

Adana starts adding finishing touches, turning the walls to a nice color, changing the floor to carpeting and a hardwood flooring in the dining room and kitchen. She's going to leave the technological things to Cam, but she can do the wiring herself. Electrical outlets (shaped differently than Max, Ice, and Cypress are used to) are put on the walls, along with light switches (but no light yet) and plumbing.

Electronics, you say? Sure. Vernon can have the works.

"We'll want to sit down and draw up plans, and maybe wait a bit to let Katydid and Rain and Phix weigh in too for a more comprehensive survey of relevant aesthetics," says Ice.

"Just as a recommendation, knowing my sister and her alts - at least one room for liaisons. Soundproofed. Also easy to clean blood off of."

"Do they clean up after themselves?" asks Spring dryly.

"If they don't, I will invite them to a delightful party where they might make the acquaintance of Lord Bucket of Soapy Water and Lady Mop. Because I'm not doing it."

"Ick. I may have magic powers that makes me good at cleaning things, but - no. Just - no. I would have to personally turn everything there to air or something, and - no."

"Offhand I can't think of any materials to make the walls out of that will completely obviate the need for someone to occasionally clean it. Little wall-climbing scrubber robot, if the Zevs don't handle it?" he suggests.

"... Trial period, to see if they will clean up after themselves. And if that doesn't work, wall-climbing scrubber robot."

"Or, cleanse it with fire. No? Just me?"

"Messy. Teleporting the contents of the room into space would be better."

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense. That can be our backup plan."

"Sounds mana-inefficient."

"It does, doesn't it. And time is actually an issue now, I'd forgotten. Hm. I suppose we could pay other people to do it, but that seems unnecessarily cruel..."

"I can make a little scrubber robot, guys, it'll take like a minute."

"They're joking, sweetie," giggles Adana. "They were not, at any point in time, planning to burn the place to cinders or teleport its contents into space."

"Okay. Anything else we should do here before we go make ourselves a - what are we, Bells - a Belfry?"

That causes Max -

- Adana -

- and Cypress to start laughing.

Spring elbows Prime. "I think everyone is for naming it that, Cam, nicely done."

Prime allows himself a smile. "Only if we put a literal belfry on the top of it. So everyone knows what it's called."

"Sure. One bell for the whole thing or one per, with an addition every time we welcome somebody new?"

"Just the one, I think. Additional ones could get very messy if we give it, say, a century and have an army of ourselves. Architecturally messy, you understand, the place would still be rather neat."

"Eh, I could give it tiers, but sure. One big bell."

"And then all of the littler Bells inside?" giggles Cypress.

"I wasn't thinking big as in bigger than any extant person-Bell, but I guess I'd want to see the landscape I'm putting it on before I start making decisions about scale."

"Well, there isn't anything left for us to do here, so - I think we should head back so you can look at the landscape. Possibly also find some method to disguise the portal tree before we go."

"I could give it an extra layer of bark that also includes a hidden door?"

"That, do that."

"With the caveat that you should please be very careful about adding things to the portal. Please don't disturb the tree it's in too much, especially not around the portal itself."

"How careful is careful?"

"Mmm - don't touch anything within three inches of the portal at all, but the area outside of that is fine."

"In that case I'm not sure I can do a layer of bark that doesn't look bizarre."

"I'm pretty sure we can manage an illusion, but the problem with illusions are that they aren't actually protective. It just looks like an ordinary tree." He sighs. "Essentially, we're having this problem because we had a Zev make the portal and I couldn't make it fancy and protective."

"Bizarre bark layer plus illusion?"

"... Sure. Bizarre bark layer plus illusion."

"I can probably also tweak things to make the bark layer less bizarre. Just - not around the portal."

"Yeah." Cam walks around the tree speculatively, and then makes - a bark layer. It sort of bulges, since it has to be three inches away from a portal that reaches down to ground level and then blend in with the tree's roots, but it actually looks okay, considering. He reaches for a nook in the bark and tugs and displays a cunningly-hinged door. "Bark."

"Oo, nice," praises Adana, and then she looks speculatively at the tree. "Hey, Prime, it's fine if I mess with the other side of the tree, right?"

"... Yes. Tentatively. Same 'three inches of do not touch' apply here, though."

"Nice. We might not need an illusion."

"We might not. I bet we definitely wouldn't if I tweaked it a bit more, but - I don't want to break a fragile portal."

"Cool. We just walk through? No weird caveats about having to move at a continuous rate lest we be bisected or something?"

"What? No. No weird caveats, just walk on through."

"I do not want to find that I am not indestructible with respect to otherworldly magic by not checking. No offense." Cam takes Prime at his word, and steps through the door and the portal behind.

"Eeeeee, magic!" giggles Adana, and she follows Cam, excited.

"Welcome to Pantheon," says Spring when they reach Pantheon. "This is my hastily assembled little house, which has been serving as portal hub, soon to be replaced - both in its capacity as portal hub and as my house, separately, please."

"Sure. Let's talk Belfry architecture."

"Instead of a - liaisons room, how about just a floor or three of bedrooms? In case we find somebody while they're in the middle of being harrowed and they need a place to crash. Phix, like, actively has a dragon after her, for instance."

"Actually, it might be better if we made little apartments, it's entirely possible Phix and I might decide here's safer than home. Also, her mom's probably going to get resurrected, and might need a place to stay. So like, tiny kitchens, bathrooms, a washer and dryer, plumbing..."

"Okay, so a few apartments, like - four? I can always add more if Adana poofs the top off the tower whenever I have to make adjustments."

"I will happily poof away the top off the tower for adjustments for you."

"Four apartments should work. And we can add magic things."

"Four apartments, a nice big first floor for - meetings, congregating for planning of shenanigans? With its own bathroom so we don't have to invade people's apartments, and one for the portals to be installed in... I'll start it without any furniture, and a couple floors with nothing in them except for the stairs between the portals floor and the apartments, and as we use it - I will make a labelmaker. You can label parts of the Belfry with what you think ought to go there and when the labels have accumulated I will cruise through and make the requested additions."

"Computer system complete with all known technological knowledge and various schematics, and information on all known magic we have available."

"... Taking mine back, that sounds way better. Go Adana."

"Same," snickers Cypress. "Though maybe a library with that computer system in it?"

"Okay, ground floor, portals, library, empty space, apartments - unless the apartments should be lower down? I am imagining a tower, stop me if I should not be imagining a tower."

"We do have space to spread out inside the mountain, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a tower."

"If we build partially inside the mountain, I vote for secret passages on the grounds of they are useful if we get attacked. Actually we should probably have secret passages anyway, for that same reason." Pause. "Also, they're cool."

"But we do need a steeple-y thing to put a bell in, which should be outside."

"Yes, the steeple-y thing is required."

"We should probably start drawing up blueprints, this would be way easier to talk about if we had blueprints..."

Cam finds a table in Spring's house and puts a large piece of paper and enough (blue-leaded) pencils for everybody on it.

Prime is helpful enough to draw out the current portal room, and starts adding necessary adjustments to it for expansion. He's practiced in this kind of thing, after all. He's made his fair share of portal hubs.

"A mini-medical bay would be great, too, with harrowing experiences and all. Should I start working on that, I think I have the most experience, but I might be wrong..."

"I can stock it with some basic magical herb mixes. Spring knows her stuff, but at a lower tech level - though she both lives here and can insta-heal infectious diseases by poking people."

"Sweet. Spring, want to talk medical bay in case of harrowing?"

"Sure. I'll go get my relevant notes."

"I have notes at home, but -" She looks at Cam. "... Sweeeetie. Will you re-make me my notes? Please?"

Cam kisses her on the temple and provides.

And Spring hovers and makes comments.

Adana giggles at this, and flies over to kiss her boyfriend for a job well done. Teamwork!

"Ooo. Sure! I need to work on the mirror thing anyway, so I'll be hanging around here a lot. Might as well live here. Want to grab one of the provided apartments, or go make our own house somewhere?"

"Detached house, I think, these are designed for nondaeva and have, like... kitchen cupboards."

"Ah yes. Kitchen cupboards. The bane of demons everywhere," she snickers. "Yeah, sure, let's go build a house."

"Spring!" calls Cam. "You don't mind if we park a house on your mountain, do you?"

"Go ahead. Come fix my house too, and see if Idania wants to wheedle you into doing hers, while you're at it."

"I have no idea who that is, but we can go find her and renovate her house, along with yours. I'm pretty fine with being Cam's architecture buddy."

"Idania's my friend, she ushered me into this world from my original. She's Rae's acolyte. And also lives on this mountain." Out they go, as other Bells and Adarins and Zevs return to their respective homes.

"Aha. And she, unlike just about everyone else I've met, is not an alt of myself, my brother, or my boyfriend?"

"Right. If there are more of her we haven't found any yet. Idania, you home?" calls Spring when they're near the relevant house.

"No," snorts Idania. "I can fly, it's awesome, I don't need wings."

"Because she's Rae's acolyte," explains Spring to the daeva. "If you spot me flying it's because of this necklace Prime made me. Anyway. Idania, the winged people do magic architecture, how do you feel about the architectural decisions you made when you had to cajole people into hauling the relevant objects up a mountain?"

That sentence and the implications of it actually causes her to briefly drop out of the sky and land slightly less than gracefully. And then, after a brief stumbly correction, she says intensely, "No. Not at all, magic architecture, what do you mean by magic architecture, what are the exact limits of what you magical winged people can do? Because I have ideas."

"... Uh? I can change anything to anything else, and he can make anything. We are good at being a team."

"Do you, by any chance, like testing things out? Trying new things?"

"Sometimes? If it gets me things that I want?"

Idania floats closer, grinning. "We are going to have fun together."

"It is also," mentions Cam, "possible to, effectively, hire any of billions of other people with abilities identical to ours, if you nip into our world first and draw something. But maybe you'll come up with experiments that haven't been done, who knows."

"That is - I'm - I am going to need specifics on the drawing I would have to do and what it's common to pay people with. But I want that."

"Fairies you can get to do relatively brief things for, like, food or trinkets. Angels haggle more but they're still in the market for material goods, especially complicated ones. Us demons are tricky to pay but you can get nice ones to do things for you with book recommendations."

"I do know a lot of books, but - you're under Cypress's fancy translation spell, right? I bet the demons I summon wouldn't be, and it's not like I know that many foreign books." She tilts her head. "What do the non-nice ones want people to pay with? Do they just not make deals, or is it more like, 'Bwuahahaha, let me have two continents and an island and enslave all of the people on them, and you can have a pretty house," or something?"

"... Not quite. More - uh. 'The oldest profession' kind of - deals."

"The oldest...? Hunter? Gatherer? Holder of the burny thing that brings light and also ouch when touched...?" Idania pauses. "Oh. That oldest profession. Bleh, pass, I've got a boyfriend."

"The language won't be a problem, though, you summon a daeva and they get all your languages free."

"Ooooo," says Idania, grinning again. "How does that work? If I only know half of a language does it only get my vocabulary, is it only the same vocabulary?"

"They get about your facility with the language but not an identical vocabulary."

"Sweet. What about if I - invent a language, before I summon them, but don't finish the vocabulary for it. Do they get part of the unmade vocabulary? Or just all that exists?"

"Don't know, I never tried it. Angel, is there research I'm in the dark on about conlangs and summons?"

"Probably somewhere, but I don't think I've heard of it. Sorry."

"Then," declares the acolyte, "I am going to test that." Pause. "After the magical architecture, please, I would love the magical architecture."

"Sure. What-all do you look for in a house?"

"It's really tempting to say, 'giant freaking house with lots of absurdities,' but if I'm honest, something smaller and more personal's better. Nice bedroom with a large and fluffy bed, spare bedroom for a friend, kitchen, dining room, living room that is secretly trying to be a library when it grows up big and strong, nice view, big windows, bathrooms that are kind of huge for the size of the house and also in comparison to normal houses in general. Oo, ooh, and a workshop, with - tons of equipment, how high tech can you go?"

"Arbitrarily, but you have to tell me more specifically than 'equipment' what you're looking for. Also you should tell me if you have a layout in mind for all this or want me to make it up."

"Not picky on the floor plan, but - arbitrarily? Okay, narrow down 'arbitrarily' for me, I already know I'm ages behind everybody else, but like, I am skeptical about literally arbitrary levels of technology."

"Our - plane? Group of planes? Whatever - has the highest technology we've discovered so far. But not literally arbitrary."

"I want that. I want instruction manuals for that, I want - I want things that are progressively more complicated for me to take apart and understand and then put back together again, I'm not picky on what I'm aiming at but I want to be on the cutting edge, damn it, and just because I have the rest of forever doesn't mean I am going to slack on getting started. I want to learn it, I want to have learned it yesterday, and I would like lots of equipment to learn all of it as fast as possible."

"You're still going to have to be more specific. What I meant by arbitrarily was that the limits on what I can make, tech-wise, are limits on what I can suggest and you can ask for, not limits on what the magic'll do. As far as I know."

"Okay, um - uh - crap, I don't know anything about any of your technology - what is a useful thing that involves doing cool things?"

"That's... very... vague. What cool things do you want to do?"

"I - don't know? Anything I do know is dwarfed in comparison to your technology levels, so I am considering myself a glorified baseline, except for the things I've figured out about how mage-magic works with acolytehood. But I can really only cajole my boyfriend into testing things so often, because, stupid mana regeneration. Uh - quick, what's a thing that you do not know a lot about but want to learn about?"

"I have gotten all my serious priorities on that front handled. I think next on my list was, ah, updating my astrogation knowhow."

"Hmmm. What baseline does that require to get a helpful understanding of it? How useful is it to do? Actually - is anything in magic undiscovered, I can do magic, that probably requires me to learn less about the mechanisms behind things happening in order to make actual breakthroughs for stuff. But I'll be doing that, too, bet I can combine things," she half-mutters. "I can keep doing the mage thing by proxy, the multi-portal necklace thing was my idea, obviously I can manage things there, even if the wait time's a pain..."

"I know Max and - uh, I forget his Bell's name. Her, anyway - have a magic system that's transferable but requires a lot of study and they're working from self-teaching?"

"I'll mention it to Phix next time I talk to her."

"Also, do you understand what the words 'too vague' mean, what in the world do you think I'm going to conjure up for you when you say 'basic technology'...?"

"I - don't know? I have zero baseline to work off of, you realize. Basic technology that you have that is normal and ordinary for you to have around, like - like - I looked up things on Wikipedia, like a toaster? Or something? And either the promise that it is definitely safe for me to take apart or books on how it works. I need to understand what level I am working with, I am literally just sort of - floating off of the idea that everything is run off of magic and that is so not true, I know it, there's magic and then there's technology that looks like magic, and I need to build some sort of comparison point to figure out which is which and work from there. I like understanding how things work. And I don't, I am absurdly far behind through no fault of my own, and I don't know where to start."

"Okay, look, if you're working from Wikipedia you're thinking - early twenty-first century stuff. How about I outfit you with toasterlike kitchen appliances when I make your house, and as long as they aren't plugged in you can pretty much take those apart however you like, and I'll give you their instruction and spec manuals too? And from there you can make more informed requests and we can ratchet you up to our time."

"Sure. That, let's do that. Uh - copies of all of the toasterlike appliances so I don't lose out on useful things while I'm taking them apart for their secrets like some kind of freaky electronic torturer technician?"

"Yeah, I'll give you a slew of them to actually use and put dupes in a closet?"

"Sure. Actually, just - a room for them, instead of a closet. So I don't have to mess with the ones I'm using and break them."

"Basement workshop? And I'll give you a computer. Nice intuitive 2050 model, I think, they did good UI in 2050 even for people who didn't know what they were picking up and it got more abstruse from there."

"Basement workshop sounds good. Along with the computer. Thank you, you are a wonderful - wait, are you a human being? You are a wonderful whatever you are."

"I no longer consider myself a human, but thanks."

"You're welcome." Pause. "... Iiii need to start planning a house, do you mind if I take like - an hour to go do that?"

"Have fun."

Cam and Aya work out what kind of house she wants while she collects things she wants to keep in their current forms out of her existing residence and Adana gets rid of it, and then Cam puts the new house for her in place, and then he and Adana go and make one elsewhere on the mountainside for themselves. All this takes more than an hour, after which they do Idania's too.

Cam tolerates the hug with grace.

"I've never seen her quite that excited, actually."

"Really? Was it the architecture, or the access to 'toaster-equivalents'?"

"Definitely the toaster-equivalents. I mean, she was excited about the house too, but within normal tolerances."

"Huh. Well, I'm - glad the toaster equivalents could make her happy."

"She'll probably talk my ear off about them. I'll have to see if I can aim her once she can do anything useful with 'em."

"She did seem pretty amenable to being aimed," snickers Adana.

"Yeah. I'll look over her shoulder and read some Wikipedia and send Cam a shopping list, she'll probably not get more coherent about what she wants very fast."

"I have the mental visual of her being in a - dessert shop. Surrounded by treats with no idea of where to start."

"That seemed about the size of it, yeah. I'll do my best to guide her to the metaphorical chocolate creams and that should be win-win."

Adana giggles. "And then, industrial revolution. With chocolate creams."

Cam makes a chocolate cream for both girls and then eats one himself.

"I love you," laughs Adana, and then - nom nom. Chocolate cream.