"Hmm."

Kose thinks for a moment.

"One way windows sound really useful, for sure. For actually building the walls, it's not that hard to set up a palisade — we don't have a complete one because the previous one burned down and we haven't harvested enough wood to put it back up — so maybe we could bring in the wood and you could enchant it as we build it."

She turns to stare thoughtfully out of Aestrix's entrance.

"I guess one thing I'm worried about with all these are durability. Items with constant effects instead of activated effects wear down really quickly, and I don't see how you could make the one-way windows work as an activated effect. Maybe you have more insight though, given everything else you've figured out about items."

"I might be able to manage it, but yeah, it'd be tricky. What I also don't want to happen is - when the magic frays off entirely, you get sent back to square one? That's why I also want to teach you how to make gunpowder, because if I die I don't want you all to be screwed. ... Hm, but one easy thing I can do is you bring me wood and I, uh, transmute it to something stronger and less flammable than wood. The problem there is that it'll be lossy, it'd be less like a thick wall and more like a thin and strong coating. .... But we can probably work with that. With a magic item for moving dirt to dig trenches and solidify the walls themselves."

"So, dig a trench and build up a mound on the inside, and then coat it with something strong? I can see that working. Do you know how much wood you'd need?" she asks.

"Not yet, sorry. I'll need to experiment with things to rearrange it into. The item for moving the dirt should come first, probably. ... Heh, I suppose I could also make little monsters to dig your trenches for you, but that's probably impractical."

Kose shakes her head. "Monsters pop immediately upon exiting the dungeon; we're not quite sure why. I think it's because they loose their connection to the earth."

"Huh. I wonder why. I will probably poke at that at some point, but the gleeful search for the answers to various magical mysteries should wait until after we've got you better defended. And possibly until that other dungeon's dead."

"Unfortunately yes," Kose agrees. "So: getting some people to bring up wood — are there other materials you'll want for the initial set of defenses? Will you want glass for the windows?"

"They'll actually probably be metal frames, more than literal glass. Glass doesn't hold magic very well, in my experience. So... people bringing me metal things, or coming in to play arcade games so I can just directly make it."

"Sounds good!"

Kose peers in the direction of Aestrix's core.

"So should I tell people you're ready for company again? I don't want you to get overwhelmed. Dungeons normally don't have so many people in them at once when their domain is still so limited, so I don't really know if it's uncomfortable or anything like that."

"It's not, hm, physically uncomfortable? I guess there's the psychological element of too many people near my relatively unprotected core, but I've been aware that I'm on dungeon probation from about ten minutes after I woke up. I'm just an introvert. People are great, just. Also a lot. But I've built a lot of my games and puzzles to be very hands off, so. Yeah, ready for company. Ish."

"Alright. Let me know if it becomes too much again. Managing who comes into the dungeon when is absolutely a traditional dungeon-fairy responsibility," she asserts.

She uses a communication pendant to send word down to the village, and a handful of people start showing up over the next few minutes.

"Mhm! Thank you."

She welcomes people as they file in, and then something occurs to her.

"... Hey, Kose, can you not actually fly?"

She startles.

"Oh, uh, no. Not actually. I have a dagger that helps me jump further, although I don't normally wear it," she offers. "Why do you ask?"

"It just occurred to me that if you could have, you would have. But screw that, my dungeon fairy's going to get to fly..."

It'll need to be two magic items - one for flight itself, and another for the equivalent of an emergency parachute, for in case the flight artifact breaks. Hmmm, what parameters should she set for the safety artifact...?

Kose leans against Aestrix's wall, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Flying would be ... that would be amazing, actually. There are stories about flying cities, you know? They're probably just myths, but ..."

"...... Hm! That's probably doable, with interchangeable artifacts that provide the lift and a cooperative dungeon willing to make more and renew them, to let them all swap out. But there'd need to be a lot in place to make sure it fails gracefully if it does fail, otherwise you get, you know. Splat. I suppose it could be without magic, but then it's harder to have it be large scale. I guess something zeppelin based? But then that would be very vulnerable to.... ack, no. Bad dungeon. Assure the safety of the squishies, then begin mad scientist quest to make flying cities. ... After flying fairies. Safety of squishies, flying fairies, then stretch goal is flying cities eventually. At some point. I am going to go try to make something that'll work for digging ditches now, okay? Okay."

Kose giggles, and covers her smile with a hand.

"Squishies, really? You're ... not wrong, but it's bold of you to just come out and say it."

She shakes her head.

"Plans for a flying city are all well and good, but I do think ditch-digging is a more achievable goal for now," she continues. "I won't distract you any more while you put it together, though; perhaps I'll try out another game."

"I say it affectionately! Promise! You're my precious and delicate little squishies that I must keep safe! .... That totally makes me sound like a possessive megalomaniac, doesn't it, damn it. This is why I sat on my personality while I was in probation. Ahem. Yes. Ditch-digging."

Okay, so... first, dirt is hard to define. It's not exactly as easily defined as, say, that specific composition of diamond she used. It's more a various vague amalgamation of substances. So, probably she should be thinking less 'dirt moving artifact' and more 'construction artifact.' Moving heavy things that the humans (squishies) can't. Ideally she'd want to make something mostly physically real, but just operated by magic, but she doesn't think she has the spare extent to start making something. Instead, she'll see if she can put something scoop-like together by sifting through her available elements in the stone and copious amounts of dirt she contains. She knows there was some spare bits of iron, what about aluminum...?

Pure aluminum, almost none. But looking closely, the stone she has excavated is nearly 8% aluminum — it is bonded to a bunch of silicon and oxygen, but that's easy enough for her to peel off with a bit of thought.

The dirt and miscellaneous organic matter has some too, but not nearly as much as the various silicates.

She knew it! Okay, time for carefully peeling aluminum off of other elements. Probably if she were clever, she would make a magic item to do this for her; that would be very efficient. But on the other hand, carefully picking things apart to make tidy and discrete little piles makes her happy inside. Wheeeeee, sorting!!!!

The aluminum gets arranged with (also copious and carefully sorted) iron to make a ferroaluminum sheet that will, eventually, be shaped into a gigantic scoop. Mostly right now it's just slooooooowly becoming bigger, as she systematically sorts through materials available to her. While humming a tune she vaguely remembers. Being a dungeon turns out to have done wonders for her ability to carry a tune! She's pretty sure she was garbage at this before. Also, she's not constrained to human vocal chords! Or only making one sound at a time! Truly, her ability to be a one dungeon band is unmatched. By everyone except, presumably, other dungeons. Who probably wouldn't, because they suck, and she doesn't.

Kose briefly glances up from where she is aiming a little abstract representation of a ballista of some kind at slowly advancing hordes of enemies.

"Are you ..."

She has no idea how to finish that sentence. The sounds Aestrix is making are quite unlike anything she's heard a dungeon produce before. Heck, they are like nothing she's heard before, although there is a certain recognizable metric quality to it.

"Singing?"

"Mm?" wonders Aestrix, finishing the music up tidily before she properly replies. "Yeah, sort of! I'd liken it closer to humming, but, uh. Dungeons are incredibly bullshit. It's great. Sorry, should I scootch it to the secret lab? This isn't very brain intensive work, and I like working to disproportionately dramatic music. I didn't think I'd remember all of the layers to it, but I did better than I thought."

Kose facepalms, still fiddling with the joystick with her other hand.

"Of course you've put in a secret lab. Normally I do so much micro-managing of what space is used for to avoid that kind of thing, but then we just went ahead and dumped a bunch of extent on you. I thought you'd spent it on making those drones."

She straightens up.

"No, I don't mind it. I just ... I've never heard anything like it before. But you're certainly right that it's quite stirring."

"Heh. Yeah, sorry. Not so secret lab now, I guess. But isn't it! I see why I can remember it at all! There are lyrics to it, the talk about flight is what reminded me of this song, I'm just, um. ... Too shy to sing them. I'd need to go practice first. I can probably sing beautifully now that I'm a dungeon and complete bullshit, but I think I was not very good at it before, so there's still a flinch reaction."

Kose pauses, turning away from her game and letting it end.

"We didn't really talk about it, before. How much do you remember? Before being a dungeon I mean?"