"Well," says Prime, present for obvious reasons, "there are a few methods we could go with. Something that gives off a magical signal's the most obvious, but hardly the only one. I could key it to let only us through, no one else, or I could have it let people in who are holding certain unique items, or only open from the side of Pantheon so you'd have to mirror ahead to have someone else open it."

"Having somebody have to be on call all the time to get to and from has obvious drawbacks. And physical keys could probably be stolen, unless I, like, make them come to exist subcutaneously in everybody who we want to have regular access or something?"

"That would be fine. The downside to that it would be difficult to easily remove them from people we don't like, but that's hardly a problem with all of us."

"Microchips. Microchips for all."

"This won't, of course, help if we ever make portals to Hell, or Heaven. But I suppose that they're not urgent. I do want to go to Limbo, but I'm not exactly expected for lunch on Tuesday... As for removal, Adana can turn them into saline if need be."

"Yes, but if someone were, say, attacking us and they had one of those in them and we needed to get it out of them as quickly as possible, how easily could she manage that under pressure?"

"... Good point."

"But! On the bright side," chimes in Cypress, who is here for the same reason Prime is, "If we are really specific about what we put in the microchip, to the point where there is nothing else like it in all of the multiverse, scrying each other becomes a breeze."

"I could wreck a chip under pressure, but I can't promise I wouldn't injure the person in so doing."

"Same. It's easy to wreck it, but wrecking it harmlessly's difficult under pressure."

"It's a good idea anyway, the dragon would never have qualified for a chip."

"Yeah."

"Technically," offers Prime, "We can also put magical markers on the chips - that's bad for large-scale, because of the mana and mage requirement, but that might be good for your set of planes just so you can go there yourself."

"That'd be very nice, yes. Prevent invading demons and angels. And fairies, for that matter."

"Yeah. Uh - are there any problems we could have with having microchips in us?"

"If we make them easily-scryable, that doesn't just apply to Prime and I, that's all mages. So if they know we have them, and know what to look for, they can easily find us."

"Get Ice to ward them? I don't know if she can do that if I materialize them inside people's abdominal cavities though. Or if she can make it selective as to who it hedges out."

"Yes, but just barely, the accountant'll show up for the appointment any minute, what is it, love?"

"We are thinking of putting easily-scryable microchips in us that would also work as keys to portals. The problem, there, is that if mages found out they could easily scry for any of us. Do you have a witchy solution?"

"Consulting alethiometer... Wards not discriminate watcher. That sounds like a no, no best of both worlds. Sorry."

"Damn. Oh, well. Thank you, dear."

"You're welcome. Love you."

"How likely are you guys to need to be able to scry on us when you can't find us just from having met us?"

"Not very likely, but it could still happen."

"Well, I could go either way on that..."

"I think being findable to help is more important than being slightly harder to find for people who probably won't even know how to find us in the first place."

"I'm inclined to agree, especially if we make whatever it is obscure and really specific. We can have certain locations warded, if that helps?"

"The Belfry's already handled, where else?"

"Homes? Mine is on the list for warding, but we can do others, too."

Cam makes a whiteboard attached to an empty area of wall. "We can make Ice a to-do list."

"Our house and shop, my dad's house, Phix's dad's house..."

"My dad's house in Wyoming?"

These items appear on the whiteboard. "And I can microchip everybody once we have a design and the portals can be modified to make it worthwhile."

"Yeah. All portals, for safety?"

"Yeah. It'll slow us down, but... yeah."

"Hurray, paranoia."

"It's not paranoia if there are actually people out to get you."

"There aren't people out to get all of us. Are there?"

Cypress and Prime look at each other.

"Not anymore, with me," volunteers Adana. "Because I'm legally dead."

"There's the lady who killed you, who has to be able to guess now that you're a daeva, but I guess she's not likely actively out to get us."

"True. But I would really rather she did not show up for tea time."

"Yeah. All the portals." Cam sighs.

"It'll take a while," says Prime, "since portals can't actually be tweaked. They're too fragile. Only destroyed and then remade. So, priority list, please?"

"...Medallion because dragon, Inferno because if somebody found it they could bring daeva, Chamomile because questionably okay mages are aware of the plane, Hex because spellbinders could be trouble and we have to be especially careful not to kill them if they show up since familiars, yours last?"

"Mine should be last," he agrees. "It's in my house. My house is already absurdly safe."

"Exactly. Do you want a physical list or can you remember it?"

"I can remember it. While we're working on it, is there anyone that would like their portal moved?"

"Well, the disguised tree outside Vernon's house in Inferno is probably not ideal."

"And we might not want ours to be in our house anymore," volunteers Max.

"Okay. I can move both, I just need to know where I'll be putting the new portal."

"Where else would ours go? We don't have a campus yet, and I don't think we can pay for it in cash - the old Chamomile bills Ice turned up have daemons posing next to the presidents and I don't think we'd better have Cam counterfeit big stacks of it."

"I'm not sure, honestly. You just mentioned that you might not want it in our house anymore?"

"Yeah, I just - am quite lacking in better ideas. Unless you know where we can buy some land cheap to put a campus on in the next few days."

"No, sorry."

"You have a few days to talk about it. Or you can put your campus in space or something, we have Cam."

"A space campus would be cool, but the shuttle would be noticed. I guess we could hide it under the Avalon, if Adana knows how to hollow out space under a small town without it collapsing?"

"I can, but I'm worried about plumbing or electrical wiring."

"Go deep before you go sideways."

Adana giggles. "Thanks, Cam, but I'd still want a map of plumbing and wiring and sewage and such."

"It's probably available, I'll look into it. Anyway, our portal is on a door. We can unhinge it and put it in the underground campus with its revisions when the campus exists."

"That works. Let me know when you want an underground campus, then."

"Will do."