"It's not my usual line, but it's possible I could help out with the ensouling," says Chris. "Freeform spell design is my other specialty."

"Given who's after you, it might be prudent for you to stay in my house until you're done with the ensouling," says Liesel. "Thoughts?"

"... I'm pretty up for it, really. I'd want to go get my stuff - the magical supplies and books in particular - but otherwise, yes, I would love to live in a fortress for a while. And I'd appreciate any help offered with it."

"Do you want to go get your stuff or do you want us to go get your stuff? Again, given who's after you. I may be being excessively paranoid, but from what I've heard, I don't think so."

"She's not after me yet, but - no, you're. You're not being excessively paranoid. I do think I want it to be me, though. I'd want to quickly wrap up some of my affairs, write a convincing note to her to try and buy us time, and I think she'd notice if someone else packed up my stuff for me, as opposed to me packing up my stuff. She knows me very well."

"Yeah, that's fair. In which case, I think Chris should cast a protection or two on you before you head out."

"Wholeheartedly agreed."

"For maximum effectiveness... Yvette, if you were a chess piece, which one would you be?"

"Depends on the board," she says, seriously. "And the opponent. Uh. Bishop, queen, or knight, maybe? ... Bishop and queen over knight, I think. Long range and highly specialized versus most powerful but therefore most vulnerable. Both are rather fitting."

"Liesel, what's your take?"

"...Pretty accurate," she says. "I'd say a little more knight and a little more king than she thinks."

Chris nods thoughtfully. "I can work with that."

Yvette smiles. "Honestly I hadn't considered the king an option - they'd be as a stand in for the player making the strategies? .... Yeah, okay. Fair enough."

"I base my magic on chess metaphors. I am a rook," Chris explains. "Rook-as-tower, to be specific. Solid, protective. Fortresslike. Liesel can do knight, king, or queen, but she works most naturally as king and queen at the same time and since that's a powerful and versatile combination it's how I most often use her."

"I'm not actually a spellcaster myself, but you don't have to be to sit for a chess spell, it's all about... the way your presence interacts with the metaphor."

"Huh. That's interesting. Does being a spellcaster help strengthen the magic?"

"It can, if you choose to participate in the casting directly. Otherwise it's usually irrelevant."

She nods.

"... I'll probably opt out on participating in casting, actually. I uh. Ensouled two people yesterday and was for a little while high as a kite and should take it easy."

"That's reasonable. Well, would you like to come upstairs to my workroom?"

"Certainly."

Up they go!

The workroom has a floor laid out with a fascinatingly complex geometric pattern of different woods. Against the far wall, below a huge window, there is a long counter with assorted boxes and containers on it. There are also two armchairs, pushed against opposite sides of the room. Apart from that it is empty.

Oh, this is fascinating.

"How long did it take you to assemble all of this?"

"Designing the floor took about a year," she says. "Installing it took about a month. I can achieve most of the same effect with chalk or masking tape if I need to work away from home, but the advantage of the floor is that I can just put down the layout directly and the lines are already there, almost no matter what layout I'm trying for."

She nods.

"Clever. The layouts I usually need to use are less predictable. Do the chess metaphors make it - at a guess I'd say more geometric, following the ways pieces on a board move?"

"Chess magic does work with geometry a lot but the movement of pieces doesn't usually come into it. I suspect all my layouts are heavily rook-influenced anyway. Hmm."

She gazes contemplatively at the floor for a few seconds, then goes to the counter under the window.

"Square within a square within a square," she says to Liesel, giving her a double handful of chess pieces. "Black rooks east/west, white rooks north/south, then you and me and queen and king, then knight and bishop and king and queen. I'll do the decoration."