"That is why I asked if you included our help. Which you didn't answer."

"I was including your help in my estimates, yes," he says, sounding amused, "but all I had in mind was a ceiling."

Thomas eyes his surroundings with a calculating look. "Do you want to, like, take a day's rest while I do that?"

"I absolutely do not, if you can speed that up I want your help to build the rest of the base." He gestures towards the barely-built bridge. "I want to finish that bridge and extend some more platforms over the rest of the ruins, and eventually build some actual stairs. I was also thinking of finding a good place for a water well but your magic seems like it will obviate that."

    "He is a workaholic," Sendhei stage-whispers to Gabe.

"I am used to the type." He waves at Henry.

Henry apparently takes that as a compliment and pats Gabe's hair.

"I am not complaining about the opportunity to build your base." Grin. "Can you explain what you have planned in depth? It might take a while to get enough water for all uses, but drinking water should be easy enough."

He starts forming drawing utensils out of crystals.

Well he can draw what he has in mind, then: the platform they're on is just a temporary balcony of sorts that he's starting from, and he wanted to then have two different platforms with small houses on each, at different elevation levels. The idea is that to get from the ground to the first level you would need to go up the stairs, and so there's a bottleneck to protect; and from there to the next floor with another bottleneck higher up. And good visibility from both places so he can shoot arrows from them.

Cool. Thomas starts drafting how they can go about building that with the additions they bring to the table. While the base itself is not hidden, does he want it to be visibly not normal? Being externally made of unfamiliar materials? They can make structures that look normal from the outside but are from this really advanced building material that Thomas loves because it's so convenient.

Meanwhile, if they don't mind, Henry will get on creating a solar panel - with a side explanation that their phones need those to keep working. But he is willing to help once their planning stage is done.

Gabe works on creating the water-producing crystals. Easy enough. He can even do that while helping with construction, or talking to Sendhei.

Taharqi didn't have any specific plans and really only wants this base because he is planning on storming the base of the Witch Queen. "Oh, right, that, I should explain about what I'm doing here in the first place shouldn't I..."

"We got distracted, yes. Please, explain?"

"These bracelets," he says, lifting his left wrist, "were created by the giant-kings and the humans, a long time ago, to allow for cooperation and communication. I thought all they were originally meant to do was let us understand the language of the giant-kings, but given that I can understand you and you can understand me the effect must be broader than that."

    "—oh, they were speaking a different language, now that I think about it..." says Sendhei.

"Yes. But the giant-kings included other elements to their sorcery, in secret. They have a kill switch, and an in-built distance limitation which kills anyone who goes beyond the cursewall. They are also what lets me use the map-room to teleport to obelisks like that one," he says, pointing in the direction he and Sendhei came from, "and, presumably, they are what lets me come back to life afterwards.

"The relevant part is the cursewall. Although I would prefer to stay immortal, I would give this up to return home. And I found a magical staff inhabited by a demon. He used to be an advisor, way back when, and he knew about the bracelets. He said I should look for the Archivist, one of the three rulers of the giant-kings, in the Unnamed City, to the west. I did, and I found his ghost. He said it is possible to destroy the bracelets, but only if we reassemble the artefacts that were used in their creation. One of these artefacts is the Mask of the Witch Queen, which should be in the ancient ruins of her city—but it seems to be filled with ancient magicks and apes that walk like humans. So I have decided to build this base to prepare, before going in."

"Is destruction the only option here? No way to tweak the effect? Also did I mention my antimagic crystals?"

"No way to tweak the effect that he knew of, and no you did not."

"My bad. Too many things to keep track of. Each person can make a kind of crystal with a specific power. Mine - and any Henry's - is antimagic. I doubt it can get past the cursewall or destroy the bracelet, but it can be useful."

"Could it disable the bracelet for long enough that I would be able to remove it without dying?"

"Maybe? But I would like to test it with other forms of local magic in case it fails catastrophically or something. It might just have no effect. It sounds like a powerful artifact that might need a huge pile of anti-magic crystals to counter."

"They have additive effects, like that? I guess it makes sense. So much for hoping for a quick and easy solution." Sigh.

"It might be an easy solution. But if it can do so much and last so long it probably isn't. And it might explode in our faces."

"You're such a ray of sunshine."

"Maybe not explode. But I would want to test with a weaker and less essential sort of magic item before doing anything with the bracelets."

"We have those. ...I suppose technically the food is those," he adds, contemplatively.

Blink. "What do you mean?"