Of course I start with hiring a counselor… or rather, Summoning a minion to go hire one. No, I'm not going to use a summon for the actual counselor… my summons are not ‘whole’, and I expect that would cause issues. I can effectively do that part in like a minute, so of course that's first. It's going to be a couple of days before I get an actual counselor, but that's okay.

  I do my enchantment next: I turn my starship into an Animated Object. A Small Starship is comfortably in the range of the Colossal scale… and it's an object, and there's ways to turn those into creatures. That takes nineteen days and a bit over nine thousand crowns worth of materials… not too bad. My main benefit from doing so is that I can thereafter include the ship in my Soul Vault: If anything happens to her, I'll get her back in a day. The secondary benefits are also considerable: As she's now a creature, I can use spells on her. I can give her a Shapechanger's Gift (I go with a common dog so I can take her basically everywhere with little consequence), a mind (Bestow Intelligence from Spheres of Power), Mythic Fly, Mythic Haste, feats via Enable Function, skills via Code Skill, Regeneration via Eternal Steel from Spheres, and more… she's going to be able to adequately fly herself if needed.

  I then take a day to talk to Mom, officially, about the hatching dates of the eggs… which is a simple matter: Visit the orphanage, say hi to my aunt, switch to a female form, nurse one of the growing number of little babies hosted here, say hi to Mom unofficially, and cast Contact Other Pne to talk to her officially at the same time, using her deliberately telegraphed reactions to identify when she's having to give me the wrong answers: Piece of cake. I do find that I have exactly enough milk for the baby I'm holding… and when I pick another up to give Betty a break so she can stretch her legs, I find I have exactly enough milk for him, too. Ditto for the third child when he's hungry. Mom may have understated the blessing a bit… but it's never given me any trouble: My chest doesn't leak or arche or anything, so it's strictly a good thing…

  After that, I spend time on research… fourteen days to craft a War spell, an upgraded version of Summon Monstrous Horde. Instead of getting a very rge number of creatures from the Summon Monster II list as a third level spell… I'll be getting a very rge number of creatures from the Summon Monster V list as a sixth level spell for a much higher quality instant army of monsters… I also spend another two weeks each to make the same type of spell based off of Summon Minion V (for an instant army of sixth and seventh level humanoids,be those Fighters, Padins, Druids, Rogues, Rangers, or something else) and Summon Nature's Ally V (for an instant army of Giants, Animals, Fey, or Pnts).

  When the day for the hatching of Last Shadow's eggs roll around… my calendar is clear: The gnome's egg is still incubating, and has another few weeks… humanoids mature comparatively slowly. I hang out on the false cliff…

  …to the point where my Companion tilts her head at me, “You don't normally spend much time here.”

  I chuckle, “The eggs are due to hatch today, and I'm sure they're going to be hungry.”

  A beak can't frown, but she does pull her head back and tilt it the other way, “You can't possibly know that.”

  “Magic is useful for quite a lot of things,” even though what I'm using isn't technically magic anymore, “including getting knowledge of future events. Plus I can effectively see…”

  Before I can say, “inside the shells,” my griffon jumps up off the nest and shuffles to the side… because one of the eggs is starting to wiggle and tap. A tiny little tooth soon breaks a hole in the shell, and the other eggs join in with the events. I watch as each pokes a hole in the side, and then starts working their way around. Last Shadow sits back down over them to shelter the chicks as they come out… but I can see through her just fine, so I get to watch as they poke holes in their shells. I find I'm quite excited.

  An hour ter, not so much.

  Our babies are not very strong at this point: They hit the shell a few times… and then stop to rest. They hit the shell a few times… and then stop to rest. Over and over. It's a good ten hours before they're done hatching… at which point they're exhausted, and settle down to sleep.

  To my Touchsight, they all look like perfectly healthy Griffon hatchlings, not a trace of their humanoid ancestry. Which is… kind of disappointing, honestly. When Last Shadow gets up to feed and I give her a Banquet, however, True Seeing gives me a different picture:

  Each has three forms.

  They have the visible form they hatched with: That of griffons of their VERY young age (three males and one female). Each also has a perfectly normal female human baby form, and a hybrid form (bipeds with an eagle's head and wings, human hands with talons, lion-like feet, and a lion's tail). In the case of the male griffons, the hybrid form has both sets of gear between their legs; for the fourth, she's a full-time girl.

  They wake up a few hours after hatching, quite hungry, and then it's my turn… Bountiful Banquet gets them plenty to eat. As Last Shadow feeds them, picking up roasts and dropping them into the little kids’ mouths, I pick up my daughter and watch as she morphs into a human baby .. and starts crying. I take the hint, switch to female form, and nurse her… and I have exactly enough milk. When she finishes, I set her down back into her nest, then watch her shift to griffon form and go to sleep… by which point Last Shadow has fed the other three enough meat (cooked rather than raw, simply due to the spell) for them to fall asleep as well. I hang around until they wake again, hungry, and feed them again, putting one of my sons on my chest this time while Last Shadow feeds the others meat… and off they go back to sleep… but now I have a rough idea of the time interval.

  Thinking, I chat with Last Shadow, “Have you given any thoughts to their names?”

  “Why would they need…” she pauses, “oh, right. Two-legger society. Not really, no. Call them anything you'd like.”

  Hmm… “Okay. I'd like to name the female after my aunt: Wanda. The males… Boston, Cameron, and Dakota.” I point to them as I name them. They look really simir at this point: Their eagle portions are big gray balls of fluffy down feathers with cute little beaks, tiny talons, and currently-useless wings while their lion portions are light tan balls of fluff with tails and some tiny cws in their fat paws. Thankfully, Mindsight helps there: Each has a slightly different mental fvor… I'm not really sure what those fvors mean, exactly, but I can at least tell them apart easily enough.

  “Okay,” Last Shadow replies telepathically. Yeah… she doesn't care. Griffons don't have their own nguage or any significant society, and don't have the equipment to speak other races’ nguages, thus have very little use for names themselves.

  As I'm enjoying the moment and thinking about what to do next, I see a few humanoids walking into the range of my Mindsight… which is unusual; we don't get foot traffic this far from the rest of civilization.

  I figure out what's up when “a few” turns into dozens, then hundreds, then thousands: We got on someone's bad side… and they're starting by surrounding the town. They seem to be setting up a good half mile out… given that about the farthest a bow can fire is still less than half a mile (and that takes enchantments on the bow), while an enchanted seige engine can make that range, it makes sense… they want to be able to attack without reprisals.

  Apparently they don't know I'm the one running the circle of Teleportation Circles.

  Hmm… well, I can start by talking. Most of the time people will have actual demands and things. “I have to go take care of something… back in a while, I'll fg you if I need anything big killed.”

  “Take your time my mate,” she acknowledges as I cast a Greater Invisibility spell and go to survey the aggressors.

  I'm very fast when I want to be, so it doesn't take long: I'm dealing with a proper army this time. There's the same banner everywhere (a green dragon on a red background), standard issue gear for the general purpose grunts (light crossbows, longspears, shortswords, and breastptes). They have simir setups for their light cavalry (shortbows and nces instead of crossbows and longspears), dedicated archery units (longbows and chain shirts, with shortswords backing them up), and even some heavy cavalry (full pte, heavy shields, and nces)... plus about a dozen siege engine crews (all heavy catapults), and of course a huge supply train. The small hippogriff calvary (cross between a horse and a hawk; Last Shadow will be thrilled if I bring a few of those in for her to eat) is interesting… basically the light cavalry again, but the equipment is lightly enchanted). They're basically all chaff in a fight, but there's a lot of them… just as well I have my own instant army spell now.

  I keep looking until I find the generals… even with my current summons, this army outnumbers the town… and find a very rge, very fancy tent with four guys pouring over a map on a table with a bunch of little pewter figures that they're shuffling around: That's going to be them. I get close enough for a look, trusting in my Mythic ring to keep me unseen.

  All four of these guys are elves… one in green leathers with a longbow and two shortswords, one in green robes holding a staff, one in green dragonscale full pte (that must have been a ‘fun’ day, as it pretty much takes a Great Wyrm's death to get that much dragonscale… or good luck in a dungeon, or me…) with a matching heavy shield… no obvious weapons… and the fourth in green dragonscale full pte with a greatsword and longbow on his back. All four of them have cloaks, headbands, belts, and other gear that shows a magical aura. I take the time to identify everything they're wearing and probe their magic… they're decked out very well. The guy in leathers has fourth level divine spells per Arcane Sight… I'm guessing Ranger, based on his gear choices. The guy with the robes is Arcane, and has eighth level spells… although his Mind Bnk doesn't stop MY divinations. I'm not seeing a spellbook, but I'm guessing ‘wizard’ due to him NOT sharing that Mind Bnk with his companions. The guy without obvious weapons has eighth level Divine spells avaible, and is under the effects of Barkskin… I'm guessing Druid, especially as he's carrying one of Aunt Green's symbols. The st guy has no magic of his own, so I'm calling, “fighter” due to his armor until proven otherwise.

  Thinking for a bit, I use Summon Minion and a Greater Magic Aura spell to create a proxy with some suitable magical auras, then begin speaking telepathically to the four, “Might I ask what you're doing this far out?”