Teleportation rocks, by the way. One quick casting of Dimension Door and I'm out in one of the undeveloped sections within the town wall with the infant in my arms. Two more of Greater Invisibility and I can be reasonably confident we won't be disturbed.

  Hmm… this feels nice. Some of that is certainly my highly sensitive body… but holding a peaceful infant seems to do something for me. I spend a little time just holding the little one, letting… huh. Him or her? I'll need to check at some point… try to suck milk out of my dry tap. Of course, this child isn't weaned yet, so I know who's watching.

  “Hey Mom,” I greet in a whisper, seemingly to empty air.

  “Hey Alex,” my mother manifests, and I see her; naked as always in this form, her oversized melons making milk, which drips off her taps and vanishes before it reaches the ground… she is after all, a fertility goddess for now, and is stuck eternally becoming her own vision of what that looks like. “Blew quite the secret by switching to your other form.” She says it with a smile… wait, is that respect in her eyes? Maybe pride? Huh.

  “Yeah, well…” I consider, “There was probably a way to do it without that, but… eh. I didn't want to leave…” I pause and check between the little kid’s legs, “...her in that rather nasty neglectful situation any longer than I had to.”

  “Good,” my mother nods, “but you realize feeding her with magic…”

  “...is a failure long-term, yes. She needs…” I pause, what did she call them? Ah, “...‘antibodies’ from real mother's milk. I'm aware. But she needs at least sustenance now.”

  “There's other important things in there too, but yes,” My mother chuckles, “Dare I ask your long term pns for her?”

  “When your predecessor gets here,” I'm not worried about her spilling, especially when the pn is good for the baby, “I pn to hire her to run the orphanage that's going to be needed for all of that rat's innocent children.” I consider, “I'm surprised Uncle C hasn't talked to you about that… it was his idea.”

  “He did… but I wanted to hear it from you. Also…” she pauses, “just because you're setting up an orphanage doesn't mean all the children will go there. Oh, and you do have other options for feeding her than casting spells on her.”

  Hmm… she can't just give me the answer… there's no spells I know of specifically for this… “Let me guess: A custom curse?”

  “That's one way, yes,” my mother responds, “although as you have a baby trying to nurse, your body will eventually respond… and I can speed that up so it happens immediately if you like.”

  “It is part of your domain, isn't it?” I consider, “How long of an effect would we be talking?”

  “Like normal for any mother,” she's smiling, “your milk would continue as long as the demand sts, and stop shortly after you stop nursing.”

  Weird… no, not the milk thing. That I am seriously considering it. As I sit there… the little girl gets upset again… because she's not getting any. And that makes up my mind for me, “Sure. Thank you.”

  “It's part of my job.” Her eyes twinkle, my chest feels a little heavier, I feel something leaving me, and the little baby girl settles down to eat in earnest.

  “Speaking of…” I'm not sure how to ask this… “do you know what happens when the prior Life's leave is done? She's starting to look old.”

  My mother just shakes her head, “No.”

  I nod, “Uncle C mentioned everyone has saved her life… does that…”

  “Include me? Yes.” She chuckles, “A couple of times. I send people her way who need what she can provide. They keep her fed and sheltered while she feeds and cares for their kids.”

  “So what happens if…” how do I say this….

  “She dies before she's learned her lesson?” My mother shrugs, “Dad tells us she'll go into the cycle of souls for eventual scrubbing… and He doesn't lie.”

  “So you're the one with the single biggest reason to…” I can't say it.

  “Let her die? Kill her?” The current Life shakes her head, “That wouldn't make anything better. Also… my adoptive Father isn't going to just abandon me. I don't know what will happen to me when I no longer need to cover… but He isn't going to simply throw me away. While I don't know what comes next… I trust Him.”

  The baby stirs a bit, I switch sides, and she calms back down, “Hungry little dy….”

  “Give her a break, she hasn't eaten in…” my mother pauses, “...too long. Sometimes these rules are a bit eccentric. But… she has reason to be hungry. Let her feed.”

  Hmm… “Sure….” I just watch the little baby as she eats and goes to sleep. I'll need to inquire after her name… at some point my mother stops manifesting… I'm not paying much attention to her. She hasn't actually left: Her ‘charge’ is still right here in my arms. She's just no longer choosing to be visible to a Prophet.

  Eventually I take a contented breath and think at my party mates, “Okay, so… I recently picked up some reasonably ranged telepathy, and with it, the ability to see where people's minds are… which is how I found Richard quickly. Anyway… I'm taking care of the baby right now… I'll head to the pace and set my mansion door up in the usual pce.”

  I get back a jumble of overpping mental voices.

  “Ah. You can reply, but you can't tell that anyone else is replying, so all I get over here is a jumble when you all ‘talk’ at once. Well… I'll see you soon.” I roll my eyes as I walk that way… there's no rush right now.

  I find the party is there before I am. I wave… then dismiss both mine and the baby's Invisibility, and try again.

  “Ah, there you are…” Roger speaks up first, “and you're still…” he licks his lips.

  Oh, right… I switch back to male form and cover up, “Sorry about that; I couldn't stand to see the baby neglected like that and….”

  “...you switched to better care for the little girl, then forgot which form you were in because it truly does not matter to you,” Bearcw shakes his head.

  “Right.” I set up the door and put my Key back in storage, “From my perspective, it's weird that peiple care so much… but I also understand my perspective is because I have been this way from birth.”

  “So this telepathy of yours…” Wesley begins, “how good is it?”

  “It's good for a mile,” I consider, “and works both ways… but I need to initiate contact, can't actually read minds,” that way, but there's spells for it if I'm close, “and I'm still limited in how well I can process things. I can send to as many people as I like, but can effectively only get responses from one person at a time,” which I just found out, “I can use it to tell where people are to within a few feet. I'll also see animals and things that way, but not mindless creatures.”

  “You know where everyone is at all times within a mile?” Wesley is looking at me a little incredulously.

  “Eh…” I scratch my chin while working out how I'm going to answer that, “...not really. I can constantly ‘see’ a lot of people that way, so recognizing individuals can sometimes be tricky… like picking out a single face in a rge crowd. Also, it won't work from inside my portable pace as that's on another pne. So I can get you a map of where there are people and animals and stuff, but unless I'm actively watching a specific individual…” I shake my head, “I'm not going to ‘just know’ where they are or where they've been, any more than anyone would when they're gncing at a crowd.”

  I watch our party leader subtly rex at that, “but it sounds like it will work fine for tactical chatter.”

  “Yeah, it's fine for that,” I nod, “it takes rather specialized spells or creatures to intercept telepathic communication.”

  “Great… we need to clean the dungeon anyway, so let's go take care of that,” Roger nods, “And practice while we do.”

  I look at the baby in my arms, thinking, “This little one is going to need milk rather often, and as of now I'm the only person in town that can feed her.”

  Bearcw rolls his eyes, “So bring her with. Drop her off in your mansion - the hallway, specifically - with one of your servants and check on her every other room.”

  Hmm… “I suppose we have been keeping the dungeon heavily trimmed… that could work. All right….” I set up the scenario as described, close the Keyhome, and we set out, The trip doesn't take very long: It's only a few miles, and we fly quite quickly.

  As we descend the stairs, I ask, “So… what will the guild be doing, exactly?”

  Wesley takes the question, “Well with an official presence, they'll talk to the rulers, setup some taxation, and pay adventures to clean the dungeon out.”

  We're the only adventures in town… “So… it's a way for us to collect taxes from the town without officially taking over?”

  “That it is,” Roger smiles, “we could take over properly, but this will be less likely to get the bigger fish annoyed; we bought the nd, we invited the guild, and we're following all of the guild rules. We'll need to have Aldamen make the call on how often to clean the dungeon from here on out, but…” he shrugs, “that's no big deal, as it means we'll get paid for something we were doing for free before.”

  I nod as we brace ourselves at the first door….