Chapter 73 - And The Pantheon Increases
"Oh. Another Founder's Night?"
Zen issues a snort of amusement from her spot on the bed between their frequent teenaged lovers. "Nah. Too early, yet. Maybe later, though. First, I've got something amazing to show you."
"Uh... alright?" Joanne gently closes their door and engages the lock before sachaying over to the other femmes. "Is this gonna be like the time you thought combining a sandwich with a soup would turn out well?"
"Damn you. It tasted fine."
"Those flavours were contradictory."
"Whatever. Sit down."
"Where?"
"There."
The red-headed healer glances to an indicated pair of over-stuffed recliners against the wall, then blinks twice before returning her attention to the grinning feline. "Didn't we leave those in Jozejemi?"
"Leave what?"
"Those-" after Joanne looks back over to the chairs, she abruptly cuts herself off. They were gone. Which meant... "You're MEDDLING!"
"Yeah. Ain't it awesome?"
"D-did you just..." Jessie rotates her head away from the space the recliners had been and raises her brows in expectation. "Teleport them?"
"See for yourself." Zen reaches behind her back to produce a small, heavily-scratched hand-mirror. "Force a little power into it while concentrating on our room at Kuro and Shiro in Jozejemi."
The ginger healer softly clears her throat. "Mizuki-"
"They need to know." The small Scout offers a little shrug to show her level of concern. "I found this at the same time as my little clay jar. It holds a clairvoyant charm that allows the user to look at any location or person remotely."
The chestnut-haired mage snaps a look of horror up to their leader. "Y-you're not spying on me and Mish, are you?!"
"Why would I need to spy on you? I already hear what you to do to one another through just a coupla walls."
Jessie blinks twice, then glances to her frequent lover's super-cute ears before looking to the hand-mirror again. "T... true..." With a sigh of resignation, she pours in a small amount of arcane power, and thinks of the layout inside the other wives' room at their primary hotel.
In just a few seconds, her reflection melts away, and finds that the image is readily replaced by a view of a stone floor.
Without any further instruction, though, she lifts the mirror and shifts it to the left, watching in fascination as the mirror adjusts the image in tune with her motions.
But as soon as she sees the pair of recliners sitting in the middle of the room, they vanish once more...
And a glance towards the wall tells her what had just happened. They'd been magicked through space and time. Again. "Ho-ly shite."
Joanne simply continues to scowl towards her wife. "Stop. Meddling."
"Sure. Mish?"
"Oh. This'll be interesting." The white-furred Husky-kin reaches across the amazing kitten to snag the mirror, then settles back down and begins to perform the steps that she'd been taught in the morning. Within two minutes she feels ready, then sends the proper mental-command to exchange the places of her bubbles. "Heh. That's awesome."
"D-did you seriously..." Jessie crowds against the cute feline's side in order to catch a glimpse at the mirror, then snorts out a breath of amusement as she sees that the chairs were again back in Jozejemi.
"You taught Mishone."
"Yeah. In less than two minutes."
The red-headed healer continues to glare at the prideful grin on her wife's lips. "You learned it from that stupid book, didn't you."
"Yeah."
"The one I said I was gonna burn when you were done."
"Yeah."
Joanne clenches her hands into tight fists while struggling to come to terms with the catastrophic events that might happen, now that her wife had been poking holes through space and time.
"Jo? Despite what it looks like... it's nothing more than pulling stuff outta our bags."
The ginger-healer slides her stare towards the puppy at her mate's left side. "Whut."
"You make two bubbles, connect them with a string of matter, then swap places."
"Swap?!"
Mishone looks to the astonished feline at her flank before offering a little shrug. "Yeah. By swapping, you don't have to vaccuum and cast a wind-spell."
"Seriously?!"
"Mm. And you don't have to worry about flux-principles or melding-mishaps."
Zen innocently blinks twice, then decides to nod as if she knew what those things were. "Ri~ght. I was worried about those."
"Liar. I just made them up."
"Stupid Dog!"
The white-furred Husky snickers as she takes a punch in the shoulder for her subterfuge. "S-seriously, though. Swap them. It's easier, an' you don't have to worry about fusing with anything."
"Bubbles..." Jessie hurriedly looks around the room, then spies a likely candidate for a trial. Besides, she really didn't like the large, cast-gold statue in the corner. Despite Zen's insistance that it was art, the thing was just far too ostentatious. Seriously. Who needed a six-foot tall, naked golden woman lounging in their room?
"Think again."
"Tch. Fine. Can I try it with the night-stand?"
"Yeah."
"'Kay." The chestnut-haired human tilts her head a little to the side as she rapidly creates a bubble of control around the pilfered bed-side table, then glances to the opposite side of the room and makes another of the same scope. Then, with barely more than a thought, she connects the two with a tether made of oxygen, and simply commands the two separate spaces to switch locations. "Whoa!"
Joanne holds her breath while waiting for something to explode, but the only thing that happens is the night-table disappearing and reappearing once more. Yet... "Why is there a delay?"
"Huh?"
"It's supposed to be instantaneous. So why does it take a half-second just to move across the room?" The red-headed healer looks to the solid floor beneath her feet and thinks back to the times when she'd used a professional service. "And there was no flash of light..."
"Oh. That's true."
"Yeah."
"Light... photons..." Joanne tilts her head a little to the side as she feels right on the cusp of figuring something out.
Unfortunately, she's robbed of the opportunity for self-discovery. And by the non-mage. "Does light move faster than other junk? Or would other crap slow the process down?"
The ginger-healer stares towards her wife for a few moments, then looks to either of the teens, who only shrug in tandem.
"Since you've got exceptional command of light, why not give it a shot?"
"Here."
Joanne frowns at the hand mirror being held out towards her, but finally steps foward and accepts the precious item. So, after bringing up a view of her shared room in Jozejemi's Kuro and Shiro, she remotely creates a bubble of control around the pair of recliners, then gives a mental command to swap positions with a spot at her side after travelling along a path of photons.
Zen twitches as a sudden, bright flash of pure-white light summarily blinds her, though when she finally rubs the dancing orbs from her eyes, all she can do is grin.
"Shut it. Not a word."
The short Cat-woman grunts, since she wasn't allowed to speak.
The red-headed healer uses her foot to poke the closest chair to herself, simple to ensure that it was real and solid. It is, so she takes a step over and flops into seat, then closes her eyes in order to work out her complicated thoughts.
"Hey, let's hurry and send them back."
"Yah. Jo's the first test-subject."
"Oi. That's my wife. So I'll send her."
Joanne cracks open an eye to find each of the idiots grinning and staring at her. "No-one's punching more holes through space and time today."
"Just today, huh?"
The ginger-healer ignores her mate's prodding in favour of bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "How is this even possible. The professionals have to train for ten years in order t' do this kinda thing..."
"Makes sense, though, doesn't it?"
"How?!"
Jessie offers an unseen shrug before glancing to the pair of cute Beastkin. "It's their jobs to do it as safely as possible, right? So of course they'd train that long. Until it's second nature."
"Is that why the price is so high?" Zen looks from the human mage to the puppy and back again. "They've also got those bullshite gold and silver circles, right? Just to drive up the costs even more? An' I bet they don't even use the cores of Dungeon-beasts. So that's a fallicy, too."
"For the power it took, I could cast that kinda thing all day and still not feel tired." Mishone gives a snort of derision at the thought of how easy it was to shift matter from one spot to another. "I can't believe they charge that much for such a miniscule amount of effort."
"It's a sham."
"Total racket. An' they've got absolute control over it."
Joanne finally blinks open her eyes and lets out a heavy sigh. "If they can do this sort of thing on a whim, though... why haven't they attempted to take over a nation? With their talents, that kinda thing would be easy."
"Where's th' fun in looking after a whole bunch 'f whinging idiots, though?"
"What?"
The small Cat-woman offers her wife a shrug. "Like I said. You control a nation, you've got a responsibility t' look after everyone in your domain. Most of them are un-educated, destitute, starving, and borderline psychotic. So why would you even try to oversee them? No. Better to just carve out a highly-lucrative market an' live a life of modest luxury."
The red-headed healer takes a few moments to absorb her kitten's point of view, then absently begins to nod as she finds her own feelings mimicking those thoughts. "I-I guess so... I mean, I'd change a bunch of laws... but you're right. Trying to control a nation would just be exhausting."
"Especially if you've got to hob-nose with a buncha snobby nobles. Feck that." Zen rolls her eyes at the notion of treating those types of people with civility. "Besides, we've got something we're focused on, already."
"Sweetie... I was asking why the teleportation mages hadn't done that. I wasn't suggesting that we should."
"Oh. Well... whatever."
"So you were thinking that."
"Earlier, sure." The small Scout gives another shrug as she fails to conceal a grin. "I was also thinkin' of a bunch more stuff we could do."
"Like?"
"Nothin' good."
"Like?"
"Slaughtering the highest nobilities just fer shites an' giggles. See what happens after."
Joanne lets out a heavy sigh. "Sorry I asked."
"Yeah, well. I also toyed with the notion of busting into the Church and re-writing a bunch of their scriptures."
"Why would you do that?"
"To get married. Properly."
The ginger-healer finds her breath stalled inside of her lungs, and by the time she finally breaks free of her thoughts, her cheeks are fully flushed. "O-oh."
"I promised you, right? That if the Church allowed it, I'd walk hand in hand with you down one 'f their aisles."
"I-I know."
"So?"
"So.."
"Wanna do that?" Zen's grin grows infinitely wider and more wicked. "Break into the Church and make some scribbles?"
"No! I-I mean... yes, but no, we're not going to do that!"
"Tch. Spoil-sport."
Mishone issues a musical giggle at how well their beautiful healer was getting teased. So, naturally, she wants to join in. "We could be your best woman and maid of honour."
"Dibs on maid of honour."
"Fine. But I wanna wear one of those fancy man-suits. With the velvet pants?"
The short Cat-woman blinks twice at the mention, then quickly shakes her head. "Velvet pants are out."
"Why?"
"'Cause they'll just turn you on. They're evil things, they are."
"Hmph. Just 'cause you get-"
"They're out. Anyways, if we're not gonna play around with some thousand year-old scriptures, I vote for a Founder's Night."
"Woo!"
"Nice."
"Damnit... I was lookin' forward to sleeping well." Joanne lets out a heavy sigh, but if she had a tail, it'd probably be wagging. "Fine. Let's just... start in the bath."
Zen hurriedly pops up from the mattress and grabs her enchanted hip-pouch before storing her super-awesome hand-mirror. "Tomorrow I'm buying a goat."
The red-headed healer pauses in rising up from the well-travelled chair to treat her wife to an expression that questions her sanity.
"Whut. I won't feel bad while practicing on one of those things."
"You'd better be talking about teleportation... or we're seriously going to have a conversation."