I find being a quadrupled isn't too bad for me. My front legs end in talons, and those can grip pretty well; they're even opposed, so I can mostly manipute things okay… and when I can't, I have humanoid summons to do the work for me. I can't speak with this beak… but I still have telepathy that stretches for a mile. I can even effectively remote-pilot a summon, dressing it up as my human form with an illusion, directing it with telepathy, and watching through its eyes and ears from nearby via the Witness spell, speaking directly with whoever via my long range telepathy. Not bad, really.

  And Mom brings me good news, “So… you hit level ten. There's the basics, of course - hit points, skill progression, saves, continuing casting - native fifth level spells now - and so on.”

  “Of course,” mind-speech is convenient.

  Mom continues, “For the others, you have immunities and feats. First up, you have full magic immunity now…”

  I'd frown, but a beak isn't that expressive, “Aren't I already magic immune?”

  “That was only vs. things that allow spell resistance.” She pauses, “This gets the rest, including things like a dragon's breath or a Medusa's gaze, because of the dragonbone golem.”

  From another one of the exotic bestiaries, of course. “Ah… so true magic immunity.” I get it.

  “At least when there aren't divine or diabolic shenanigans going on, yes,” she agrees, “Next up is immunity to temporal magic - which, despite the name, is all time bending effects, from the Time Fyer.”

  “Why?” I don't get the choice, “is that common?”

  “No… but it can be deadly. It's going to keep you from being stuck from, say, making an erratic time demipne, tricking you into walking in, and then finding out when you leave that a few thousand years have passed.” She pauses, “It's also going to keep you safe if I have my material avatar mess with time, meaning I can roll things back further now if I need to.”

  “That's…” I consider, “...so you've been keeping a very useful tool on the back burner to keep me safe, and this lets you use it again?”

  “Yes. Time travel is fun, but it's VERY dangerous,” she smiles, “this keeps you safe while I py hardball with certain folks.”

  That's… umm… “Good to know.”

  “The other three items…” she begins.

  Umm… “how did you get me that many?”

  “Ah, well, you get three items from the css itself, and a feat at this level like all the others…”

  “Of course.”

  “...and the oath system buys you another feat at this level, and I've been assigning the favored css bonus to the Freencer specific one, which finally is bearing fruit.”

  “Makes sense… continue.”

  “Thanks… anyway, you now have Invisible Spell to hide the effects of your spells, Share Spells to give personal spells to allies with Bonded Mind, and the requirement for that: Bonded Mind itself. Obviously you need to use the Shared Training spell on any ally you wish to help.”

  “So I can make basically anyone work as a familiar, then…” I consider that.

  “Pretty much, yes,” She agrees, “Oh, and Attuned Mysticism advances; you should be able to affect humanoids with type-specific spells now. So if you want to give other people strange new abilities via the Enable Function spell, now you can.”

  Hmm… I'm going to need to look that one up. “Thank you.”

  “No problem Alex.” Mom pauses, “you know, that one and all the other keystone spells are listed pinly in….”

  “Ugh, Mom….”

  “Fine, fine. I'll talk to you ter,” she fades out.

  I find over the next few days that telling Chard to stay in that room was ridiculously effective. He doesn't want to leave, even after he turns back… which is good, as if he finds a suitable priest in time, he could get the lycanthropy cleansed. Another of the ex-sves gives birth, I have a wizard handle cleaning off the old Polymorph, and then my aunt has a second little baby to tend. I fetch accumuted wealth from my minions keeping the dungeon trimmed periodically, and deliver a few orders for Mithril breastptes, chain shirts, and bucklers… via proxy, of course. I also pce a few orders for magical staves the same way… Aldamen fingered me as a prophet by the ck of magical aura and my unidentifiable spells; a spell from a staff will be identifiable and have a magical aura. I just need to cast Invisibility on a few and keep them in my Warp Storage until I need them. I do keep up with the building: I don't need any specific form to cast my spells (I don't use components, so my ck of skilled hands doesn't matter).

  When it's time to y the egg… I just know. I get to the nest, sit down, and… wait. Last Shadow comes to watch, sitting a good twenty feet away. I end up sitting up slightly, a little bow legged. It takes a good ten minutes to pass the egg, and feels mildly painful, like passing an overly thick bowel movement. Once I'm sure it's out… I take a moment to step aside and take a look; it's light brown with dark patches… blends in with the wood of the nest pretty well.

  And then Last Shadow charges in and smashes it with her beak, spttering egg everywhere.

  Then the world blinks, and I'm sitting on the egg again. What?

  I start to get up, and hear Mom cough, “Not quite yet; I had to bend the rules a little there.”

  I stay seated, and telepathically talk to her, making sure to stay still, “What just happened?”

  “I turned the clock back six seconds,” she pauses, “Defending infants is my job, my avatar can do that, and because you'll know it happened, rolling back a little will actually help this time, so I did it. It's up to you how to sort it out, though.”

  With Mom here… “okay, so… why did she murder the little thing?”

  “You have to ask?” Mom raises an eyebrow, “Who wants to raise someone else's kid?” The goddess in front of me shakes her head, “She's a magical beast, not a humanoid, and can't be held to the same standards. Despite being able to talk, she's a wild animal, and wants you to focus on her chicks, not anyone else's. That's just how she handles it.”

  Hmm… “So the kid can't be raised safely near her, then.”

  “Correct,” she pauses, “You'd have had the same problem, just messier, with a live birth… and this way it's easier for me to intervene. You'll need to figure it out.”

  Hmm. “If I get rid of the egg, it doesn't need to be destructive….” I consider, and switch to addressing Last Shadow… it's nice being able to pick exactly who hears me, “And that's it… I'll get rid of the egg now. Back shortly…”

  I grip the egg in one talon, as I stand up, making sure she can see, then cast Greater Teleport, taking myself to the wilds outside of Eastgate. There, I make a quick portable nest via Major Creation (basically an insuted and padded basket), Summon a priest and a female griffon, instruct them to care for the egg and whatever hatches out of it, use Telepathic Bond on them both so I can keep an eye on them, and then head back the same way I came; I'm gone for less than a dozen seconds.

  The beast I have as my Companion looks at me when I return, “So what'd you do with it?”

  “I dropped it off in the wilderness,” I answer with a partial truth as I shift to a male griffon form, “as a reminder of being forced, I'm not really comfortable seeing it… but it was still my egg, so I don't want to see it die. So now… I've sent it away.” I'll need to set up the cleric with some seed money and some support, but I've patched the present problem… and I'm not quite lying to Last Shadow. Just… omitting a few things.

  The flying lioness pauses, “I can understand that. Are you ready to put some eggs in me?”

  I smile, and speak the nonsense phrase aloud, “Yes, I love you, and I will make children with you,” followed by casting Conception.

  “Come catch me then, my love….” she dives off the side of the roost, and I follow.

  We do another mating flight; a good hour of loops, ariel summersault, and other acrobatics. We race, we swoop, we dive, we scare a few miners… but it's all good. Soon enough I'm going through some mental exercises to stay ‘excited’ and pumping into my mate in mid air. We then nd, and I cast Bountiful Banquet repeatedly while she eats her own body weight in magically summoned horseflesh… it takes a lot of energy to make an egg. And then she settles down on the nest to go to sleep. It's going to be my job to keep her fed, and then the chicks as well when they hatch and start growing… but I have the spells to make that a snap.

  I wonder what the kids will look like?