- Ilk, Kintani, and Dalkantyr consider the hole into the reality engine promontory. - Elsewhere, progress is slower on the second Fringe Dragon because Professor Eagleton wants it to be unique and still a dragon. The local dragons participating now consider Eagleton to be a dragon mother, since only dragon mothers create new dragons. Of course, -traditionally- mothers use eggs, so Eagleton starts thinking about how to create a crystal dragon in an egg that can absorb the appropriate bits and become unique on its own. This is much more complicated, but more honorable, so Eagleton starts looking into this. The dragons suggest the second dragon be female, so that there is a breeding pair. Early maturity is not an issue, since dragons live a very long time. - Eagleton sketches out some ideas for having a protodragon in an egg, and learns more about draconic development. Eagleton is taken on a field trip to observe dragon eggs and egg materials. The dragon eggs seem to have a calming effect (almost stasis), almost impervious to Eagleton's sampling techniques, and very very real. Eagleton takes some of the discarded shell for later examination and to build protection for Orpheus. Eagleton determines he can use a piece of one shell to crack another shell. The dragons can talk to the en-egged dragons, but Eagleton cannot. They also cannot explain why they can do it (although it takes some four hours of draconic discussion to determine this). The fringe crystal can't affect the shell, but the shell doesn't affect the fringe crystal. - Kintani decides to stay outside the gwen's lab promontory and relay information. Kintani suggests the use of minions for exploration. - Johnny4 decides to build up a small crystal backlog, then sleep for the first time in days. - Johnny1 and Johnny2 are still working on the requirements phase of the reality engine virus. - Johnny3 is no longer needed to pass crystals through, and switches to mapping, sleeping, eating, and checking email. - Eagleton continues to experiment, starting with supersaturated Fringe crystal liquid ("Fringe juice") and moving to lasers. - At the assembly point, a dragon asks Cagliostro about his experiences using Fringe crystals as part of a laser. Cagliostro admits that he did experiment, and it failed disastrously. He further says that he could not predict the order of magnitude of the explosion, nor reliably control when it triggered. - Eagleton takes the information from Cagliostro, and views it as confirmation of the potential power. He carefully sets up an experiment. There is a moment of discontinuity. - Elsewhere in reality, Caelin realizes a massive debacle has happened, and it wasn't his fault. He makes a note in his diary. - Eagleton regains consciousness in a dragon's mouth (it's not the first time he's been knocked out by one of his experiments, but the first time he's woken up in a dragon's mouth). He's a bit crispy, has all his limbs, but he and Orpheus are highly irradiated. The outside of the dragon shell used as shielding for Orpheus is a bit cooked. Eagleton is feeling unwell, and recognizes the signs of radiation sickness. - Eagleton gets spit out of the dragon. Eagleton starts trying to address his radiation sickness, but the nanites report that every cell is sparking. He does what he can, then looks aorund and realizes he's in a tower room in a very advanced city. Eagleton decides to use a Maxwell's Demon approach to isolate out the radiation. He realizes that the environment is deserted, and stops worrying about irradiating the city. Eagleton checks Orpheus's log files - the dragons moved the second before the shell was injected, but if that had happened then Eagleton wouldn't have been irradiated. There is a continuity problem, because the dragons apparently left before the inception but Eagleton is still irradiated. Eagleton finds that the radiation is very permeating, but does seem to have been mitigated a great deal by Orpheus's new egg shell. - Elsewhere, a dragon casually continues a conversation with Cagliostro - "Nor dragon shell." Cagliostro creates a vial of hell radiation-eating nanites, and passes it off to the dragon with directions to apply liberally to the affected area, and to any survivors. The dragon swallows the vial and flies off. At the tower, the dragon arrives, gives the vial to Eagleton, tells him they're a salve for the problem and asks him for more. Eagleton examines the vial and recognizes nanites - although these are smaller than his, as if they're built on a different set of fundamental particles. He decides they're well designed, but awfully generic. He sets his nanofab to creating more, and creates another nanofab to hand over to the dragon. - After a short while, Eagleton and Orpheus are both decontaminated. - Caelin continues working on the mail and house business, and his house second returns. Caelin compliments his second on how well he's handled house business. The archivist says he was trained by the best - King Laetatio. (Caelin winces.) - Caelin announces his intention to tie off his magic - so that other people can't tap him. The archivist concurs, but strongly suggests that he not experiment while in the house. - Caelin discusses the reality-jumpers who have filed house applications. - Caelin finds out from his archivist that Rainbow and Snarsht have been attesting that Caelin is the reason Shadow went away. Caelin makes some injudicious comments to the Archivist. - Caelin opens a gate to Natasha and asks her for advice on where to carry out a major working. Caelin also asks about Zorro, who has apparently left after carrying out his tasks. Natasha asks Caelin to thank Flora for her assistance in the recent unpleasantness, to distract Flora from the annoyances of continually postponing the wedding. - Natasha tells Cagliostro that Caelin is going to try to fix the power that he radiates - but he's doing it himself. Cagliostro warns the group that Caelin is going to experiment, so he highly recommends that people who require a magical working for their survival to go somewhere isolated and ensure they have their own power source. Various people take precautions. - Caelin decides to go to Faythe's tower. Jean greets Caelin, informs him that Faythe is unconscious and was injured. Caelin decides to go somewhere else. Caelin decides to gate to the old Egg Place, and the gate fails. This is the first time it's happened to Caelin. Caelin tries again, with more power, and it opens onto a grassy green knoll. - Caelin opens a gate from the OEP back, and then steps through. A toadstool hops up and knocks on Caelin's boot. Caelin leans down. "Momma!" More toadstools appear - literally appear. There is a *paf*, and a small winged woman, reminiscent of a dragon fly, trailing a bit of dust, is next to Caelin's head. Caelin decides to go up and see if things stop appearing. There isn't much 'up', and there are now six or seven naked tiny flying dragonfly women hovering around him. Two of them start chittering at each other. Caelin decides to leave, so he cages himself and checks for potential gate-hoppers inside the cage. He finds kobolds crawling up the back of his legs, and the cage turns to vines. A pudgy cherub bamfs into existence in front of Caelin, wielding a bow and arrow. He shoots at Caelin, who dodges. Caelin gates out back to his house and immolates any gate hoppers. The archivist is curious. Caelin sits down, and narrowly avoids pieces of the chair that seem to be engineered to jab into Caelin when he sits down. Caelin decides to apologize to the Dancer's Guild and Beastmaster's Guild for his earlier remarks. The archivist produces forms that are already almost completely written, and fills in a few blanks ("Dancer's Guild" and "Beastmaster's Guild") before Caelin signs it. - Caelin follows the archivist's suggestion and goes to Zorro's lab to cogitate upon the spellwork that he plans. - Elsewhere, Count Cagliostro informs Natasha that something has happened, but he's not sure what. Natasha tries to contact Caelin, but encounters faeries that are acting as a confused answering service. Neither is sure whether this counts as success or failure. Natasha says that her indicator reads that he is both home and not home. - Natasha says that she's going to talk with Caelin's grandmother, and speaks briefly to Princess Chandra. Princess Chandra sighs, waves her hand, speaks briefly to the two gentleman who appear, and returns to her original project. - An assassin arrives at House Moonlight, and Zorro's assistant brings the note to Caelin. Caelin meets with the assassin, who is waiting in his office and sitting in a new chair. Caelin is told about his bilocation, and realizes that he can no longer turn into a yeti. Caelin compares notes with the assassin, who speculates that the place Caelin was spontaneously conjuring faeries demanded that he remain, and absorbed enough of his energy and name to do so. - Professor Eagleton finishes cleaning the radiation, and decides to explore the city. It was abandoned quickly, but without panic. Eagleton tries to open a jump point to someplace interesting, but can't do it without two sets of coordinates. Eagleton starts to scan around the local environment, and once he gets about two hundred miles away he starts finding life forms, humanoid and at roughly Earth-tech level with no magic. Their largest transportation hub seems to be built around steam-engine train tech. Eagleton sees no signs of interdimensional commerce, so he summons his plane. And waits. - The assassin suggests that Caelin contact an ally to explore the bilocated Caelin. Caelin attemps to contact Darkstar, and fails. (Darkstar is in Kintani's nose, outside the Reality Engine promontory.) - Cagliostro's Ifrit-pumping operation is going well. - Caelin opens up a gate back to the former Egg Place, and sees hundreds of thousands of faeries milling around... Caelin. A Caelin with his arms open, feeding power to the masses. Caelin closes the gate and checks his power level - creating a single gate took a good portion of his power. Caelin's never noticed this before. Caelin also notices that the assassin is missing from his office. - In the intestinal assembly point shadow, Princess Chandra exclaims "He did WHAT?" while talking with one of the people she had dispatched earlier.