"I would like a titanoboa, to start."

"...A what."

"A type of snake! A really old type of snake. I've seen one of the fossils before. The skull was as large as I am."

"That sounds unlikely."

"I'll show you the skeleton someday, then."

"Might be nice. Where is it?"

"In the mountains near my house, along the wall of a river gorge. It's a rather beautiful area, in general."

"Well, I suppose I'll need a vacation eventually."

"After our first few raids, maybe. It wouldn't be a bad place to leave those we free, anyways. It's not too densely populated, but the soil is good and there's good forage in the forest."

"A good consideration. Places to leave freed slaves - good places, at least - aren't always easy to come by."

"I'd figured that'd be the case."

She nods. "Speaking of, I want to do our first raid soon."

"Do you have a target in mind?"

"There's a few potential ones..."

"Then let's get to work."

The next few months go rather excitingly, between the raids on slave caravans and getting people settled and learning how their powers work together. Over time, they end up needing to do a lot of management work just protecting the people they've rescued, and the slavers are getting smart, aware there's someone hunting them.

Sira, unfortunately for them, is coming into her own as a magical girl, steadily developing an army of her own. Animal bones only, so far - more reputable than legions of human skeletons, and reputation works wonders, here.

There's something viscerally terrifying about bone legions, even 'just' animal bones. As Sira's reputation grows, the slavers have a harder and harder time fielding guards who won't just flee when she shows up.

Good.

She works on their craft.

Starts hitting them harder.

Figures out how to wrest fossils from the canyon walls, eventually.

That is terrifying!

People stop taking slave caravans through her space entirely, no matter how heavily guarded, and a feeling of tension grows on the horizon.

Her titanoboa curls around her, protectively, as she and Jessin expand their operations.

They'll be ready for whatever comes.