"I don't really need any weapons, personally," he shrugs. "What would I even do with them, right?"

"Some of them could probably double as fireworks or could be used to see how deep the dirt layer goes but otherwise nothing much."

"I think the dirt goes on forever but I guess we could blow out a big crater and irrigate it from the ocean and have a salt lake?"

"That would make sense. I do actually have vehicles designed to do excavation though."

"Oh, neat, like a bobcat or whatever?"

"I'm not sure what a bobcat is. What I have is called the Drill Containment Unit. It's a flying vehicle with mining lasers that can convert stuff in their path into a compacted form. It wouldn't work on people or other indestructible stuff but it could work on some other things people have made and it would definitely work on the dirt."

"Wow, fancy. The dirt's not already as compact as it gets?"

"It's magically compacted. A cubic meter of dirt becomes something you can hold on the palm of your hand and expand at will."

"Whoa! Does it make better buildings that way than just doing the mud thing?"

"I wouldn't suggest using the compacted form as a building material. Expanding the dirt into the shape of walls would work a little better than using mud bricks but not by a lot and I don't think it would work that well for roofs. I can just give people the ability to make wood, stone and metal. Those work better as building materials. I could also give out my full ability to build things but that's a bit more abusable since it can make indestructible boxes someone could be trapped in."

"Oh, yeah, that does sound bad. I think current state of the art for people who are awful nuisances is to shove them into a pit but then they can get out eventually, faster with help."

"Yeah, what I gave out is the ability to make raw materials that can then be reshaped by mundane means. It's certainly possible to use that to trap people but you don't need magic tools to free them. The way I have to make things like that into indestructible structures anchors them into place even if they're floating in midair."

"Whoa. That actually sounds really cool but I don't want anyone to be stuck there forever."

"It is people back home make some really pretty and exotic things. It's just everyone back home has the ability to remove things so being trapped isn't a risk."

"Can you give that ability out too?"

She starts to speak then pauses. "I was about to say I can give out abilities but not the ability to give out abilities, but that particular ability is tied to magic items so I could give people the ability to make those magic items."

"The removal one? Then you could let people make stuff in midair and it'd still be possible to rescue anyone who somebody boxed up."

"Yeah, it would be. I'm trying to decide if I should setup a self-sustaining system or just hope that a bunch of people with the ability to make pickaxes is sufficient. I don't think I can make something truly infinite but it still might scale better. The disadvantage is I lose some control of what exactly people can make. None of the really dangerous stuff should be available as long as I'm careful but it puts some more constraints on what's safe."

"Pickaxes? Like, special magic pickaxes?"

"Yeah they would work like I said the DCU does though less efficiently it would only compact cubes about a third of a meter on each side."

"DCU? Oh, the drill thing with the lasers?"

"Yeah, that."

"Big improvement on most people needing to use our bare hands."

"Yeah, giving people raw materials they can use to make tools that aren't indestructible would hopefully also have done that just slower. I thought about things a little more and as long as I don't give out the ability to make inherently magic metals it shouldn't cause any issues if I give out the ability to make magic tables."

"What's magic about the tables?"