“Kami, do you want to do the honors?”
“Of course.” Another wave of her hand opened two small Steps from which milk bottles came out, making Lith groan. “You already had some quality time with the twins, mister. Now stop pouting and make up for the lost time with the babies.”
Elysia and Valeron exchanged a confused look, wondering if they had rivals or new siblings they weren’t aware of. They had both learned how another baby could appear out of nowhere at any time.
For Elysia, it had happened with Surin and then with Shargein and Valeron the second. One moment she was alone, and the next she had to share her crib with another baby.
For Valeron, it was less confusing since he was aware that Lith wasn’t his biological parent but he had no idea as well why the number of his siblings seemed to change every day.
According to their mutual understanding, either parent could make a baby at will. Their chittering in Dragontongue, as they discussed the matter, was instantly silenced by the bottles’ approach.
They were both hungry. Food always took priority over mere words. They could always resume the conversation later, assuming their young brains retained a memory of the issue, of course.
The two babies sucked avidly, only taking a few breaks to check on Lith with Dragon scales. They both needed a lot of reassurance before they stopped fearing he might disappear again.
Valeron because he hadn’t seen Lith for days and even though he hadn’t witnessed the Void Demon Dragon’s fury, his trauma from losing both his parents made him wary of any prolonged absence.
Elysia, instead, had seen Lith twice already since his rescue, but it only made her more scared. The first time she had failed to recognize her father in the brute in front of her and the second time she had been taken away mere minutes after reuniting with him.
To her, it was much worse than not seeing him at all.
A few bottles and lots of scales later, they felt relaxed enough to empty their bowels to make space for the scrumptious meal they had just consumed.
“Good gods!” The foul stench emanating from the cloth diapers ravaged Lith’s enhanced sense of smell and destroyed any romantic feeling still lingering in his mind after the heart-to-heart with Kamila.
“I went through a lot during the last few days but I’m pretty sure I haven’t missed this aspect of fatherhood one bit.”
“Liar.” She chuckled at his disgusted expression and the expectant look on the babies’ faces, waiting for a prompt cleanup. “I did and I’m sure you did too.”
Before she finished talking, a sprout emerged from the wall in front of Lith and bloomed into a changing table.
“What the?” He examined the room with Life Vision, discovering that even though Baba Yaga’s tower was no cursed object, it was the closest thing to a living being he had ever seen.
“It’s no Solus’ tower.” Kamila answered Lith’s silent question. “It can’t materialize stuff out of nothing but it can grow anything you need at a moment’s notice. With a bit of luck, we’ll have no need to get used to it.”
Lith nodded, putting the babies down and exploiting the contact to study the mystical wood with Invigoration.
‘Oops, busted!’ The moment his mana flowed inside the changing table, he felt the presence of Baba Yaga’s mana scowling at him for the intrusion.
The mana formed a disgruntled face that made the Red Mother’s feelings on the matter clear to him before fading away.
‘I’d better not overstep her boundaries and trust.’ Lith sighed, limiting his inspection to the room inside of which he was. ‘It’s not like I can crack Baba Yaga’s cloaking runes in a few minutes but I guess it was still rude of me to peek at her workings without asking for permission first.’
Lith was of course right, but his curiosity still got the better of him. He took her leaving as a yes and examined the materials from which the tower had been crafted all the while changing the babies.
“They drink only milk!” He said in amazement. “Where the heck do the colors come from?”
“It’s anybody’s guess.” Kamila laughed, knocking on the wall and making a washing basin appear.
Lith removed the diapers, cleaned and washed the babies, and then used water and darkness magic to remove every trace of the diapers’ foul content before putting them back.
As for Baba Yaga’s tower, it was finally clear to him why she had chosen wood as the base material instead of stone or any other sturdier magical material. Wood was much more easily accessible and had one perk that most building materials lacked.
Its biological origin made it possible for the wood not only to be constantly refined by the energy of the mana geyser below like it happened in the Crucible, but also to grow.
Even at first glance, Lith could tell that Baba Yaga’s hut had been crafted from mystical wood belonging to various kinds of Fae with Yggdrasill wood at its core.
By using a mix of healing magic and necromancy, she had removed the energy signatures of the original owners without affecting the different properties of each type of wood.
She had nurtured and grown them over time while also turning them into an amalgam that mimicked the Yggdrasill wood’s physical properties. The final result was a tower that had bloodline abilities that empowered its enchantments without adding to the tower core’s complexity.
Every room granted to its guest the mind-focusing abilities of the Yggdrasill wood, allowed to combine different spells that would not mix under normal circumstances, and had a durability second only to Davross.
As icing on the cake, the constant flow of world energy refined the tower non-stop, improving its physical and magical properties permanently. The tower never stopped growing, storing the extra mass as density until Baba Yaga needed otherwise and used it to increase the tower’s size.
‘Damn, this is pure genius!’ Lith thought in astonishment. ‘I have no idea what this tower can do, but using wood as the main material is not as desperate as I thought. Sure, it’s no Davross and its starting properties are worse than Orichalcum, but its potential is infinite.
‘Baba Yaga’s hut is like a millennia-old white core who never stopped refining his body. On top of that, even though Baba Yaga only had the equivalent amount of a Sage Staff to begin with, the Yggdrasill wood is now spread throughout the entire structure.
‘The other kinds of wood have simply rearranged their structure, gaining the Yggdrasill physical properties while retaining their individual magical abilities. Even though this place is famous for being a giant nursery, it’s actually a sleeping beast.
‘Which begs the question, Solus. Why is your mother’s tower considered better even though it’s made of “just” gold-veined marble?’ The silence in his mind worried him. ‘Solus?’
The marvel of the discovery was blown away by the returning awareness that she wasn’t with him anymore.
Lith’s heart clenched and his expression turned sour, but it lasted only for a second.
Elysia giggled as he dried her with a warm towel, reminding him of his duty.
