“Well, your smarter side is totally boring. Blah blah spellcraft checks, blah blah alchemy, blah blah theurgic pan-elemental parapsionic resonance fluctuations, blah blah Causality Manipulation For Dummies, blah blah,” Sama rolled her heavens-blue eyes at me.

“Are we going to start comparing Weird Science thoughtstreams now?” I popped open one at her, catching her smirk. “You know those thoughtstreams would be canoodling and having sex with how often they snicker together, right?”

They were guiding Material Comparisons For Better Machinery in Magic Universe, You Goobs, in the labs right now, whispering all sorts of sweet things into the ears of Briggs’ Engineering thoughtstream and making him shudder with joy at all the fell possibilities. We just had to make the shit faster than we could think it all up!

Oh, and I needed to become an Archmage, but that was something else.

“I wondered how I managed to stay on such good terms with an overpowered magical goddess, Forsaken bitch and all that I am,” she grinned back. “You would never stay awake long enough to enjoy proper sex with me.”

“Blame yourself for being tied for the safest pair of arms to fall asleep in in the world.”

“I still don’t know how he keeps his hands off you,” she promptly fobbed back.

“He’s got some peery Hag giving him the Evil Eye any time he thinks about it, my Liege is not so crude as to take advantage of his Vassal, and he’s got a much better sense of humor about our relationship than you.”

The last time I sat down for a talk with him in person he put his Sun up and I was done in five minutes. I woke up three hours later sandwiched between him and her, Sama murmuring sweet vile curses into my ear for drooling into her man’s shoulder while they watched Gojira, King of the Kaiju reruns.

Then I fell asleep again.

“Seriously, have you been to see Fire Phoenix Emperor, too?”

Her eyes shifted away instantly. “Maaaaaybe...”

“Uh-huh?” I sighed.

“Briggs and I gave him a couple Drake-head Baneskull Anklets for His delicate tarsals. He has a lot of Dragon problems, so we figured He could use them, or loan them out to his Vassals.”

“And you never thought to make up a set for Thunderbird?”

“Like He needs them,” she scoffed. “He’d never wear a set.” He was indeed a proud Eagle. His trophies were just trophies and symbols of his status to Him.

“After seeing High Emperor Flowing Silver with an Emperor Shade Dreadskull tied up in His beard?”

Her lips pursed in thought. “Well, that does change matters. But that was from an Emperor!”

“Thunderbird’s got skulls from at least three Dragon Emperors scattered throughout His Nest.”

Her eyes got very intense suddenly. “Self-empowering Dragon Dreadskulls?!” she exclaimed in delight. “For sure I’d make Him up a set!”

“Also, I asked for an introduction to Fire Phoenix Emperor when I am done with making His Pyramid. He went a step further and invited Fire Phoenix up to see what I am doing and listen to our discussions. I’ll probably be talking with both of them tomorrow!”

Sama blinked. “Well, that was fast. No rivalry there?”

“Completely different spheres of power. Fire Phoenix is Fire, Healing, Blessing, and Chaos Magic, I believe, and Thunderbird is the stronger of the two. Although Humans might laud the Phoenix more, their Bloodlines are basically equal in the eyes of Beasts.” Confirmed by both Reynard and the Mighty Turk!

“A point of fact.” I popped an eye open at her. “The Pyramid Title is probably still in play. After all, those twats had to mobilize their nations and had tons of help building their Pyramids, right? You, on the other hand, are building your Magical Device by yourself, with just skill and power.

“They just built a massive magical monument to their own egos. You are actually building a Pyramid, an integrated magical device. From what I could tell, their Pyramids are just hodgepodges of different Formations cobbled together with the stone holding them in some sort of order,” she sniffed.

“Do I want to ask how you got close enough to tell that?” I had to ask.

Her eight canines gleamed. “I admit I was moving VERY fast at the time!”

I just snorted, clearly able to picture her taking the dare to race up to the top of the place, pose for a picture, and then run away while all the Pharoah’s Snakes and all the Pharoah’s Undead could not catch her, again and again. “Send me the selfie.”

She snickered as she pulled out her phone and proceeded to do just that.

My phone beeped, and I pulled it out and looked at it.

Yep, there she and Briggs were, sharing a kiss as the Pyramid sloped away below them, nasty things were gathering at the base behind them, massive Snakes were crawling up it towards them, bus-sized Scorpions were waving pincers and tails, and all in all it looked like a lovely time.

“So, exactly how far did they chase you?” I had to ask.

“All the way out into the Sahara!” she grinned even more. “Then they got lost in the Desert Maze Domain out there, and we ditched them. I’m sure something came along and wiped them away, if the sun didn’t just beat them down.”

“Desert Maze Domain?” I repeated.

“Oh, the High Emperor of the Sahara put up a Maze effect over His entire Domain of the Sahara. Any outsiders who come in get hopelessly lost and can’t find their way back out. Really nasty to unprepared Humans. They can create visible relay points to orient on with one another, but other than that, they get lost.”

“And then two Forsaken decided to really yank the chain of the locals who didn’t think Humans could be a threat?”

“They definitely weren’t prepared for a couple of sneaky Forsaken ignoring their whole Maze and making off with their valuables!” she agreed cheerfully. “And, it turns out that the natives don’t like leaving the Maze. Anything could happen to them outside of the desert!”

I snickered and closed my eyes again. “So you just ran for the borders, shocking the piss out of them when you made it. You two scoundrels...” A thought struck me. “Have you two been to Antarctica?”

She rolled her better eye at me. “Nobody goes to Antarctica. You should know that.”

I just looked at her, the way she wanted to smile so, so badly and was fighting it down. “You better have pictures.”

“Well of course I do!” She hopped over the desk and sat down next to me, teeth all agleam again.

“The land where Archmages and Sages fear to tread, and Briggs and Sama have been there.” I had to shake my head.

“With Global Divination Coordinates to boot!” she laughed as she started bringing up pictures of the cold and desolate landscape. Briggs posing while flexing. Briggs windmilling comically as he fell off a basalt boulder. Briggs waddling along in a line with colorful Penguins taller than he was...

Briggs beating the goddamn shit out of some icy krill-thing ten times his size with gusto, Endure smashing it happily. It was threatening the three-story snowman they’d built, see...

“Heckuva winter vacation,” I had to say. The later pics were obviously sent to her from Briggs’ phone. Sama ice-skating across a very blue frozen shoreline in bare feet while being chased by a forty-foot Rimefang Leopard Seal. Sama on the ocean skiing off a Seabreaker Orca whose thirty-foot dorsal fin she was holding onto, icebergs everywhere. Sama in a cluster of baby Penguins, keeping them warm. Sama riding a glacial iceberg down as it flipped, launching her into a really big arching dive.

Sama getting into a tussle with a very large tentacled something-or-other after that dive, out in the ocean. Tremble was out and tentacles were flying in all directions.

Sama and Briggs enjoying some kind of familiar tentacled stuff in a stew with great gusto over a Floating Forge.

“You are such a bad influence on him,” I judged.

“I know, right? He’d be such a boring, dependable, stalwart butcher of Aquatics without me around to prod him into doing stupid stuff!”

“Just how high is that Stupidity Stat of yours?”

“Oh, it gets pretty damn high if I don’t do something not acceptable in polite company for too long,” she nodded seriously. “I can be reliable and dependable and disciplined for just so long, and then I just gotta go out there and deliver unto things that which they’ve delivered unto others, or I just go crazy.” Said with a completely straight face and total lack of shame.

“That sounds about right.” Sama at home was high-energy, high-maintenance, too. Not too interested in being a leader, per se, but totally comfortable being the Tip of the Spear. “Any reactions from anything important?”

“Well, something put up a white-out so hard and fast I couldn’t see my hands.” She waved them out in front of her for emphasis. “I think it was a bunch of Yeti-types, as we killed a couple to show how much we appreciated their blizzard, and then ran away across the Strait back to Argentina.”

“Poor widdle no-magic Humans not freeze up against us? Say it ain’t so, Sama!” I leaned into her shoulder, eying more photos.

“You’re the first ones we’ve ever shown these to. The Synod would get so pissed we stirred up things down there. Nobody messes with Antarctica.” She leaned her head onto mine.

“Hag gotta do what da Hag gotta do. And yeah, I’m pretty sure that was a Floestalker Octopus you turned into stew, so they’d be pissed at you.” They were only found around Antarctica, the snow-white tentacles with the deep blue suckers were kind of a giveaway.

“So tender once boiled. Basically slurped them down,” she nodded quickly.

“Did you actually let that Leopard Seal go?” I had to ask. So unlike her.

“Oh, HELL no. Briggs split that sucker’s skull and we skinned its blubbery ass for the hide. Then that Seabreaker Orca came up from below in an explosion of ice and ate it on us. Didn’t even get the chance to sample it ourselves.

“Snickered the whole time about the free meal, but he was totally cool about letting us ski off him. Orca don’t generally bother Humans.”

“What’d you do with the hide?”

“Sold it to the Buenos Aires Hunter’s Guild, of course. They’ve got it hanging in their greeting hall. They never get them as intact as ours, not a burn or blasting mark on it, and no real holes.”

I just snorted. “I’m probably going to have to go down there at some point.”

“Yeah? Why? If something needs to talk to The Ice Emperor, The Thunderbird can probably do it.”

“Just confirming, is the Ice Phoenix Emperor down there?”

“Supposed to be. She’s been seen flying around the area. Never leaves it, however.”

“Well, if I see the Fire Phoenix Emperor, I’ll ask to experience his Flames at some point. That’ll probably elevate my Firefrost Seed to a new level, and I’ll need an Ice Magic opposite to balance things out. So, I’ll have to go visit her.”

“Oh, that makes total sense. Sure!” Sama agreed, totally on board with that. Most hostile land to Humans in the world, irrelevant, needed magical upgrade!