Six hours into the math, Wesley takes a deep breath, “Okay, I understand why nobody has figured this out.”

  I chuckle, “Yeah. Grandpa wrote the original, and Mom copied it out for me. She didn't copy the pre-calcuted charts, however, as it would be MORE work to use them without the search functionality built into the books Grandpa gave her.”

  The elf considers a moment, “Okay, yes, given how much territory this covers… I can believe that. Seriously, just five miles or two weeks changes what we get? We need to keep it within three miles of the town and do this within a month…”

  After another day of number crunching, we have our options… four of them that we can actually do, better than I expected. We end up going with an Arcane dungeon; it will have oozes, constructs, elementals, and the like in the dungeon, and it will produce rocky terrain around itself… another mountain, which is fine for miners. We just need to wait another three days, get it done three miles South of town, and have a sixteen day window to get the desired choice… and the next one up at the spot will have undead and make a swamp, while too early and we get demons and a desert… so we need to hit our window.

  I let Wesley handle expining everything to the other two… I may have had more than one reason to bring him in on it. If he actually does the work, he'll believe the results, and they're going to believe him.

  We set out with a bunch of borrowed digging tools (it's a mining colony: Everyone has them), go to our chosen spot… and then promptly ignore the tools as I spam Expeditious Excavation until I'm too deep for that spell to do the job (it doesn't destroy the ground, it scatters it in Close range, so when I get too deep, it stops working, as the dirt just falls back on top of me… but I get a good forty feet down that way). At that point, I switch to a slower method: Summoned minions. Small Air elementals (Summon Monster II) are good at getting material back up the shaft (they can't carry much, but they go the entire length we need in six seconds), and an actual Summon Minion III spell for miners (it's one of those spells that I can only access by way of Mom's choices through Uncle C's blessing: It summons a person that meets certain criteria to do the job).

  So I have a couple guys pounding at the rock at the bottom of the shaft with picks while a few air elementals shuffle the broken rocks and dirt up to the surface. It's not super fast… but we have over two weeks to get it done; it's fast enough… and when the summons get tired, I simply dismiss them and summon others: We can dig full time. As I only need to repce the summons every several hours, I'm spending most of my time simply sitting at the top of the shaft watching the crew work. It's slow going… about six inches an hour. It's funny… the first forty feet take a few minutes, the st sixty take five days.

  Roger asks me about the workers, “Ah… is this svery?”

  I shake my head, “Not really, because those aren't actually people.”

  At the halflings heightened eyebrows, the party wizard expins, “Most summoning spells don't really bring a specific creature to you… they fill an archetype with extrapnar matter and link it to the will of the caster… which is why they'll go unflinchingly into the jaws of certain death. Now, some schools of magic do grab specific creatures, but those types are contracted and agree to it, and if they die in your service… they're perfectly fine a day ter: The manner of their summoning accounts for it, they just slowly reform wherever they were when the caster cast the spell. This has advantages in that you can find and equip them, but obviously it also means that if they die in your service, they're not avaible for a while. Which is better depends on how they're used.”

  As the party leader nods, the elf continues, “I'm more curious about why I can't recognize your magic as magic anymore, and how you're keeping it going for so long.”

  “Oh, that… it's something I recently grew into,” which is true. Leveling is growing, after a fashion, after all. “Anything I cast now sts until I or someone else gets rid of it and isn't recognizable as magic anymore.”

  “Everything you cast sts forever?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, do you mind applying a specific list of spells to me?”

  “Sure. What do you want?”

  “A lot of things, and I want them for everyone else on our team too. Let me make you a list….”

  He asks for literally every beneficial spell he can think of in my range that fits certain criteria: One, I can apply them to others (although he does have me apply the personal spells he mentions to myself - so I get Find Traps and Trapfinder's Focus, but nobody else does). Two, they have no obvious visual effect (so for example Ironskin is not on the list, as it makes someone look like a moving iron statue). Three: They're not inconvenient if they are running constantly (this has a lot of overp with two, admittedly, but Boyancy and a few others trip this one on their own). Four: They aren't redundant with another spell on the list (so Bless is out because Heroism does it better). Five: Don't conflict with other spells (so all of the Aspect of… spells are out, due to being Polymorph spells). That works out to a very long list. In the end… we can fly, swim, and dig through the ground, all very quickly; we all treat all skills as css skills and all know how to use everyone else's weapons; have a host of immunities (including vs. drowning); have a lot of “numbers boosting”; and on and on. Oh yes, and they won't change until I dismiss the Countermoon spell.

  Which, at least in Wesley's case, is every night in my guest wing.

  Fortunately, the curses appear to have survived the Disjunction. I have no idea why they did, but I'm greatful. I do end up having a chat with Wesley, about his new habits, though. “Okay, so… I don't really mind turning you all female, but I do have to ask: Why so often?”

  She chuckles as she puts her robe back on after a night of fun with Bearcw, “Have you ever watched a child learn to walk?”

  “Not really. Why?”

  “That expins it,” she pauses, “okay, so: A child learns to walk by falling down. A lot. I am… doing the same thing. I mean… you're in your male form, I'm conscious, I'm female, and I haven't jumped your bones.”

  “You're licking your lips and not meeting my eyes.”

  “See prior comment about falling down… but I can still talk to you. That's because I've been practicing.” She takes a breath and closes her eyes, turns her head up, and opens her eyes again, looking into mine, “I remember everything I do as Wilma now, and can keep a lid on my desire for a good five minutes even after our barbarian friend gets his pants off. I'm wearing away the drawbacks of this form…” she pulls out an iron dagger, and runs it across her skin to no effect, “so that I can take advantage of the good parts of it.”

  I nod, “Like the damage reduction and being able to shed hostile Polymorph spells. Yes, it's all upsides for me, but I grew up with it. Tell me: Have you tried the hybrid form yet?”

  “I briefly managed it… but didn't like it,” she sighs, “while it was nice having my Big Johnson back, being unable to talk is a killer for a Wizard: It cuts off far too many spells, and makes me defenseless.”

  “You do have cws and teeth in that form…” I start.

  “...and my thin noodly arms can't use them well,” she rolls her eyes, “I'm a Wizard. Spells are how I do things. If I can't cast, I'm dead weight.”

  I nod, “fair. Still… it's nice to see you embracing the gift.”

  “Bearcw could certainly have some fun with the mixed form,” Wilma considers, “He'd get actual cws to py with.”

  I shrug, “You can tell him that… I doubt he'd hear it if I said it.”

  The elf considers a moment, “I suppose I might. In the meantime…” the elf focuses for a minute, and shifts back to his male form under his robe, “I want to try managing myself today. Please have the spell ready if I slip in public.”

  I nod, “Not a problem at all.”

  I walk over to Bearcw as Wesley leaves the room, and cast Lesser Restoration on the half-orc a few times to clear out his fatigue. He slowly gets up off the floor, still nude, and looks at me, “Huh, She won again? That woman is insatiable.”

  I chuckle, “Oh, he's getting a handle on it. Anyway, I should get back to work.”

  The barbarian whispers as I leave the room, “and she always enjoys it so much….”

  I head down the shaft... finally, we have the depth, and start carving the pattern and filling it with power until it starts pushing power back at me....