Why are you special?

I occasionally stop time during the meeting just to rant… and then carefully compose myself and get right back into the spot I left.  It’s just… the same questions.  Over and over.

“How can we be sure you CAN deliver?”  Gee, look around.  Take a bite.  Not that I say it that way.

“How can we be sure you WILL deliver?”  At least a little more sensible, but simple enough; if I don’t, I’m stuck with the same problem you all have now. Plus, of course, as I clearly can produce food, I will want to sell it… for less than the Thatchers do, because otherwise nobody will buy, and I'll make no money. I don't tell them I literally make money, though.

"What’s it worth to you?" Oh, gee, not much actually. Just, you know, your freedom. No, I'm not going to be bribing you more than I already have.

"How do we know you're not going to simply replace the Thatchers and do the same things?" They're still going to be around - it's not like I'm going to be able to get rid of them - so if I start to do such things, you can always go back.

Then of course, there’s the various flavors of "Where did you come from?" "Why here?" "Why now?" and such. I let them know I'm the new champion of The Blessed Mother, that I am following up on a request from members of the pantheon, that this is part of it, and that when I've done what I came to do I'll leave a proxy behind to actually run everything.

Downside of this approach is that I'm basically telling them Fred is gone. Oh well.

After several hours of eating and drinking, they all go back to their masters, loaded down with fresh foodstuffs and smiling about how kind, generous, and charming I am. Mostly because I didn't speak my actual mind.

And I made sure to stick to the truth, for when they start using Commune and Contact Other Plane to verify with their deities or powerful extraplanar entities… of which I expect about a third to come to me, because I'm currently Life, the most popular in the pantheon. So I'll get to verify myself. Won't that be fun?

When I get back to the inn, I find Wanda passed out on the milking bench, the line finally gone because I stopped refilling her tanks, and quite the pool of body fluids around her… but not on her: The Fastidiousness spell I left keeps her squeaky clean. David is also passed out on top of her… and still inside her, he gave himself quite the meat member with Shapechange. Oscar still stands watch - he's a construct, and simply doesn't sleep.

I summon an Unseen Servant and create a mop and bucket, complete with soapy water, directing it to clean up.  I also have the me at my bungalow check if the books have a law section… they do… cool, I can start construction outside the city wall without issues, as long as it's not someone else's farmland or something.  And it's going to be a very short build time, thanks to the Resplendent Mansion spell, which allows a basically arbitrary building within certain limits. Three hundred feet on a side, and up to five stories tall… or a hindred story skyscraper if I make use of Time Clones to boost my caster level (the Coven hex is a special use of Aid Another, and there’s a Mythic ability I grabbed via Borrowed Power - namely Perfect Aid - that adds my tier to the bonus granted… so that +1 from the Coven hex gets another +12 (ten ranks plus another two points from the Mythic Paragon feat), meaning each time clone I use adds thirteen to my caster level… and I can squeeze quite a few copies into a thirty foot radius of myself… but a hundred story building would be overkill, you know? Five floors at ninety thousand square feet each is fine. It comes with a few Alarm spell effects, foodstock, and Unseen Servants, but is otherwise mundane inside.

Or rather, non-magical… and I have access to Craft(Electronics).

So when I go a half-mile from the city walls and cast? The roof is covered in high-efficiency solar panels, the place is stuffed with lithium ion batteries in the walls, I drop a basic radioactive decay nuclear generator in a fully sealed lead room, place a bunch of assembly line robots, and I have a nice factory ready to go.  Why? One of my backup plans is to put EVERYONE out of business… and maybe hire all the workers.  Raw materials go in one end, arbitrary goods come out the other.  And of course, the factory floor robots all need controllers, so I have a data room and why wouldn't I include a cell tower so I can access it later from miles away? Of course, with just me providing content, it's kind of pointless. Well, I suppose I can take pictures and things.  Regardless… those are contingencies. My main plan is to get them to fix most things themselves.

After that comes the curtain wall - Move Earth to dig down ten feet or so, Fabricate for some seed stones, Wall of Stone and Wall of Iron spells for the actual walls (Wall of Stone requires that the new creation merge with existing stones, hence the need for seed), and Move Earth again to bury the lowest ten feet of the wall.  Gates and guard towers I create by way of more Resplendent Mansion spells. Overkill, but it does the job, and lets me do more fun things with tech, like install high powered maser turrets (bullets aren't an option, as things from the Resplendent Mansion spell vanish if they leave… but energy isn't an object). I staff the walls with Summons - Storm Giants (with a few buffs so they don't eat or sleep) handle watch at the curtain wall, and I staff the masers with Trumpet Archons (and add a buff to let them actually use the weapons).  I also put infrared cameras, floodlights, radar, and sonar on the watchtowers, which use radio to send all the data to (and take orders from) the main building. Via encrypted channels, of course, not that I expect anyone else to have radio any time soon, much less digital processing.

When I'm done, I have one square mile so fenced off… and with my action economy boosts and low profile casting, it looks like everything simply spontaneously appears as I walk the perimeter of my new district.

I haven't technically joined it to the existing city as of yet. There's still a good ten feet of space between the "city side" of my outer curtain wall and the existing city (my wall is twenty feet higher, incidentally). I'll bridge that once I have official approval.

And if I don't get official approval… well, they're going to want a treaty with me after this.

The instance of me assigned to Wanda’s pregnancy can see that my companions aren't up yet (except Oscar, but he doesn't sleep). So I concentrate for a while to update my Spheres talents known, picking up things from the Mana sphere (specifically Ranged Mana twice as a requirement, Flow so I don't need to think about it to power Oscar's casting, and Infinite Bond so that range doesn't matter). I'm going to need to put Oscar to work making usable farmland… his caster level is better with Spheres. About the time I’m done, the sun is rising, so I head back to the Loose Lady

I wake Wanda, David, and Alfred, "Come on… we have some new digs for while we're here."

Wanda wakes with a smile as she stands and stretches, "Aww, bit I like this place… so many helpers…."

David a bit less so as he rolls off Wanda and hits the floor, "Could use some softer floors…”

I chuckle, “I have a special pump set up just for you, Wanda.” Proper power permits fun things, like vibrating pumps and pistons. Heated, of course, and computer controlled so they're not just stuck at one speed, and can be set to vary somewhat randomly or in patterns.

Wanda perks up at that, “You always do make the best toys. Let's go!”

She grabs her things and tosses them in a bag, not bothering to dress. And as much fun as it is to watch Wanda wiggle and jiggle… “Forgetting something?”

She pauses, “Oh, right,” and casts Disguise Self, making it look like she's wearing a barely legal blouse and skirt. Her taps are covered, but the plates behind them show, and she looks like the slightest breeze will expose her nethers. And it's also the lowest level illusion that will do the job… and while she does have a decent casting stat, that still leaves maybe one out of ten folks who examine or interact with her able to see through it. Which of course includes everyone in this party.

Eh. Good enough of a compromise for me. We won't be outside too long, and I think the only one of us that doesn't like the view is Oscar, who doesn't care.

So we head out, taking one last glance at the Loose Lady as we do.