Hill immersed himself in spell research. Only when the lake on the other side was nearly full did he release a great many live fish into the cave's waterways. He had no idea whether the fish from his pendant could adapt to the outside world, so he could only release more of them.
They were ordinary cold-water fish, of course. Killing Vines needed meat, after all.
The silverfish Hill had received from Lynn's father had grown up, but they showed no signs of breeding. Hill suspected the conditions inside the pendant weren't quite right for them.
Once his Demiplane was fully developed, he could reproduce the little stream in Alessio's orchard exactly. For now, there wasn't enough room inside the pendant.
That sounded lovely, but what he really wanted was a chime of his own, preferably combined with a harp. Lately, he had been calculating whether he could turn the harp's pillars into lockpicks like the chime.
Just thinking about it delighted Hill. Most of the time it would be an instrument for singing songs, but when needed, he could flip a switch and pluck the strings to open any chest or door.
Come on—what homebody had never dreamed of being a dashing Bond?
The more useless but cool something was, the more it appealed to a homebody. Formal spell experiments couldn't begin for another month anyway, so Hill threw himself into the resonance between musical notes.
The homebody Mage lord had once again plunged into an inexplicable burst of experimental fervor, leaving poor city administrator Lynn to take charge of the chaotic territory.
Although the two dragons told him the threat from the other dragons had passed, Lynn still cautiously led patrols through the territory every day.
Fortunately, the Dwarves and Gnomes in University City had buried themselves in