Even after the basic prototype I keep working, and soon enough I’m alone in my ‘lab’. I barely notice Hilde checking in on me a couple times as I improve the design. The problem is pretty simple, but actually making it is not, at least with the materials I have. It needs to limit how much mana it gets and freely channel more mana to the core on demand.

What I really need is a material which doesn’t conduct mana at all, or at least very poorly. In general materials that conduct heat and or electricity well conduct mana well, but like those two it’s hardly a physical law. Eventually I have a version which will drop by gravity unless I actively channel mana to the crystal via an adjustable input.

The only problem is that it involves surrounding the crystal, which is about the size of two fists, with a device consisting of multiple layers of mostly metal but also some cloth and string. In the end it’s about as big as a desktop computer, and as heavy, too. The only reason it doesn’t slowly hover or fall is because of all that extra weight, but at least it’s reliable.

Added to todo list: Gather more materials for experimentation, specifically rubber and a couple types of plastics. But for now, a very satisfying stretch-and-yawn. Right. Adding the extra mana crystals here to those in my apartment I have… too many. Well, not really, I can always find ways to use them, I just don’t want to vaporize a city (especially if i’m in it) in the process.

On the way out I lock the door. It’s not actually that secure, but I also don’t have anything particularly valuable inside. It would still sting if someone robbed it, though, so I guess I’ll put up a sign on the inside so that if someone ‘figured out the puzzle’ they hopefully won’t ‘loot the treasure room’.

Oh, it’s that late. Should I eat? Hmm, no probably don’t need to until some time tomorrow. Let’s inspect the main chamber, then. I levitate myself halfway up the room and spread out my mana.

Huh, some of the wolves’ mana signatures are getting pretty strong, and the Human aspect in the wolfkin seems to be… refined? There’s something I don’t recognize, too. Hmm, no, not all of them have that, I wonder what gives them that affinity.

The pillars and roof seems to be structurally sound, yeah. The pillars are hardened to actual rock, though only the central pillar I enchanted has further reinforcement. I guess I’ll fix that. If I insert mana crystals into them and hook those into the local mana network they should have a buffer in case mana levels drop, too.

That should look cool, too, as they grow out of the pillars. Will need to ensure they grow outwards, though, or at least make sure they have as much structural strength as the stone. Speaking of looking cool, let’s smooth the pillars and maybe add some decorative-

Oooh, why limit myself to purely aesthetic when I can properly inscribe magic onto them? The priority should be structural integrity of course, but I should be able to enhance that, and I can make them softly glow as well.

Well, that’s one way to use up some mana crystals. This place is really starting to look like some underground fantasy village. Looks a bit boring with no colors, but I can add those another time. Oh wait, colored lights! If I tactically change a few of the light enchantments, that should help.

Next up… The outer chamber is boring, but that’s fine, but if I do a few changes I can make an oven or two as well as a firepit, and have a functional chimney even without magic, but just add a little enchantment to pull smoke in, up and out.

And then there’s the water rooms. If I smooth and harden the closest one, and maybe expand it a bit, add a minor enchantment to keep it from freezing, then they’ll have a pretty good cistern. Hmm, sanitation might be an issue, since the water will likely become stale…

Boiling the water would fix most of that, so let’s make a heater of sorts in the nearby room. No, two heaters, one for the caves and one specifically to boil water. It will need a bucket or cookpot, but that should be easy enough to get or make. Oh, I can combine the heater with the cookpot.

I’ll need to teach the wolfkin to use them, but if I make them similar to their technological versions, and maybe add a little how-to on the wall, humans should be able to use them no problem.

“…Lars?” asks Hilde in an uncertain voice.

“Yeah?” I answer without turning around.

“Are you- have you been here overnight?”

“Huh? Well, shit. I might have -yaaawn- gotten… a bit…. Carried away.”

“You haven’t slept‽”

“Just a little bit more, just a little bit-” another yawn “-more. I don’t think I need as much sleep any more, but I guess I’ll find some puppies or wolves to snuggle up with and take a nap.”

“Uhm, did you make all these changes? Enchantments and the entrance room and smoothing everything?”

“Yeah, well, I got some of the wolves and wolfkin to assist. Did you know Sandy is amazing with earth magic?”

“The bitch with beige scales and a litter of four?”

“Yeah, her. Well, she’s amazing with earth magic. If you’ve looked at her aspects lately, she seems to have lost her affinity with Mist and gained one with Earth instead.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Oh, but she doesn’t let anyone near her, or at least not near her puppies…”

“Huh? Nah, she’s just a bit shy and protective. Show that you mean no harm and she opens up to you.”

“I- could you help me with that later?”

“I guess?”

“Great! I gotta go to school now.” She fidgets a little and turns to the exit, which reminds me we really should add some emergency exits.

“If you haven’t gotten some sleep when I get back… I’m gonna be angry!”

“Haha, sure. I can sleepiness creeping up on me now that I’m no longer concentrating so much, so I’ll just say bye to you and find some snuggle buddies.”

She actually starts laughing out loud at that. “Snuggle buddies?”

“Yeah, you don’t fuggle with the snuggle!”

“Pfft, ahhahahahaha!”

…I’ll just ensure I’ve packed my stuff while she gets that out of her system.

When she starts complaining about her stomach hurting and something about breaking her mental picture of me, I point out that maybe she should get going, and even as she hurriedly leaves I hear her snorting laughter.

Well then.

It’s not like the den lacks groups of wolves to snuggle up to, but I have to try a couple cave homes before I found a family with puppies which will let me stay there. If I’m not mistaken, the adult are both from that first pack I met, which might be why.

I make a small shelf, far enough off the ground that it’s not in danger of being territorially marked and put most of my stuff there. The most expensive/important stuff goes in smaller pockets on my belt. While the floor is intentionally not hard rock, it’s also not very soft, so I put down a thick fabric to lie on, and after taking on the form of a very big wolf and putting on the belt as a collar, I’m almost immediately gone.

I wake a couple times as the original inhabitants of the room move about, snuggle in with me, or, in the case of the puppies, climb all over me, but I don’t mind, it’s just pleasing to interact with them, and interesting to see how they usually act.

When I wake up and feel fully awake two of the puppies have managed to fall asleep on top of me and another is sleeping between me and the wall, so I’m kinda stuck here for now.

Speaking of being between me and the wall, it seems like their natural instincts is to lie themselves in smallish alcoves and whatnot, with the parents between the puppies and the outside, so I should include that in the design. For now I’ll just add a dog-house-sized… box in this room.

Some time later I hear Hilde calling out my name and open a mind bond with her while pointing her in my direction with an intentionally obvious strand of mana.

｢Where are you?｣

｢Up here｣ I send where I am in my mental map and a mental image of this room. ｢Just chilling with my snuggle buddies.｣

This time I very much feel her amusement through the bond, and shortly thereafter her pain and the sound of a person hitting rock floor. “Oww!”

｢Insert something about karma here.｣

｢Not funny, that hurt!｣

｢Oh? But I thought you fell because it was funny…?｣

Her response to that is the mental equivalent of sending a single ‘angry’ emoji, so of course I reply with one of those goofy grin emoji. She just stays silent after that, but soon stomp the ground twice outside this ‘home cave’. It means the same as knocking on a door, since neither the stone walls nor the curtain in the entrance lets you do that.

In place of words I send an image of the puppies sleeping on and around me and the concept of moving past something combined with quietness.

Despite her being careful, or perhaps completely unrelated, the male lying on top of me moves a little bit, just enough to roll down and hit one of his sisters, causing them both to cry out and soon they’re all awake.

｢I blame you for this.｣ I transmit with no emotions attached as I magically lift the remaining puppy off my back and stand up.

“No-no-no!” she almost whispers. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you! Shhh, it’s okay.”

While she gently talks to them, I follow a feeling and shake my body. Ho, that does feel good. Stretch. Aww yeah, well rested and ready to go.

Hmm, I need a proper harness if I want to carry all my stuff in this form, but all I need for that is a strap around the lower ribs and to connect it to the belt… no, it would be better to make one from the ground up. I pull my bag down from the shelf. Hmm, yeah, I should have enough materials.

Hilde seems interesting in what I’m doing but even more so in playing with the puppies, so I just sit down and pull out the things I need, some I merely want, and accidentally some I neither need nor want. A couple of my friends have or have had dogs in their family, so I know how those harnesses look, so all I have to do is to design one which fits my needs/wants better.

For one, it’s not supposed to restrain me, but instead work more like a backpack, in that it should hold and distribute weight. That means it should have more substance on the back and maybe sides, rather than in front, and have thick straps. I should use a mechanical mechanism to connect the left and right straps, so that even a non-magical kid could open it.

So if I start with a thick piece of fabric over my back, hmm, should be bigger, yeah, this size should work. Mark the area around the legs with lingering mana to cut off later, and I should probably tighten this part here for a snugger fit. Two long, thick, and wide straps, and they should be attached here, here… and here and here.

I hold it all together with magic and move my canine body a bit to get a feel for whether it will restrict movement or not, make some improvements, rinse and repeat. I slowly make more choices permanent, first by attaching the rear straps, then the front straps, which are soon augmented by adding a supporting strap higher up, around the neck.

By the time the main harness is done, Hilde has shifted into a very wolf-like wolfkin form, and is happily playing around with the puppies. I have to point out that the mind bond is still active a couple times, and her connecting to the puppies doesn’t help.

For fastening mechanism, hooks are the simplest and easiest way to go, and it doesn’t take long until I have my gear all attached. The weight is a bit skewed to one side, but I just have to move a couple things between my two main storage bags. Or are they pouches? They’re not that big on the outside…

｢{Impressed}You’re really good at that. How did you attach the pieces to each other?｣

“Waaashik.” I fumble through wolf lungs and mouth.

｢Magic.｣ I clarify, before actually clarifying by sharing the method.

After a quick discussion I join her in playing with the little ones for a while, before heading out to the main chamber with a happily wagging tail. ｢It’s difficult to control, okay!｣

｢By the way, where are you going (in wolf form)?｣

｢Nowhere in particular? I want to make some emergency exits, but really I just planned to find an empty room so I could change back and put on my clothes.｣

As opposed to me, she just kept her clothes on while shifting, minus shoes and she sends a weak ‘oh’ kinda feeling in response to that. She doesn’t follow me, though, so I enter an empty room among the top row and shift to a wolfkin form. With hands and glorious opposable digits available, I take off the harness and put on my clothes and move my bags from the harness to the belt.

“So what now?” she asks when I hop back down to her.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Huh? But you should know what you’re going to do?”

“Well yeah, but not what you are going to do. And also, I’m still undecided.”

“Oh, okay.”

So tomorrow I will meet with the space guys again, to kick of the last spurt before the hop into the stratosphere. With the suspendium grains and suspendite crystal, along with the new magics I’ve learnt recently, we should easily be able to accomplish that first goal.

“Hey, can we… can we do something together?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, what do you usually do?”

“Do when?”

“When you do stuff like that?”

“…I don’t follow?”

“In your free time?”

“Honestly, most of the time is basically free for me, especially since it’s interesting to meet new people, and aside from that I’m almost always experimenting or exploring is some way or another. But take away that and what little time is left I play games or browse the net.”

“Explore? Do you like fly around and stuff?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

“Is there anywhere you wanna go?”

The place that comes to mind is the caves in the mountains, but honestly I don’t dare to go deeper into them. I guess I can continue exploring the mountains themselves, I kinda stopped when i found the caves. “Hmm, yeah, the mountains.”

“Okay! Want to fly there together?”

“Sure, I guess?”