Issue 1 Downtime

"Alright," Captain Britain said as she stood across from Victoria in the caverns beneath the Manor, "what do we have to show for all that?"

"That might be helpful, darling," Victoria said, stretching as her dagger, again unneeded, slithered into a band of shadow that ran up her arm.

A holographic image of the crystal caverns fills the room and slowly an extension is being rendered in real-time, the crystals 'growing' out towards the Point while a tall, somewhat bulky but mostly featureless tower rises up overlooking the cliffs.

"Well. That's... rather a bit more ordinary."

"Mmmm, serviceable enough, but really, I think we can... improve on it a bit."

"You want to adjust the design?"

The lighthouse and parts of the supporting structure turn a light blue.

"Those seem to be flexible in design and material to some degree."

"Well I guess it's... how it used to be. Makes sense, really."

"Well, recall, this is supposed to be a seat of power. So the more we do to shore up its abilities to defend itself, and defend this place, the better for all of reality." She smirked. "Plus, really, do we want all those other realities to show us up?"

Sean walked into the area where the others were talking.

"So you finally found a dimension willing to share a cup of sugar," Sean said looking at the holographic display, "We could just make modifications to the tower after it has been raised."

"Well no, the plans wouldn't indicate that, but the plans also didn't take into account anyone helping with the construction," she pointed out.

"Well I guess if it doesn't hurt anything..."

"Well, we do also have somebody with in depth knowledge of the design," Sean said, "So we can always clear modifications with her first if we're concerned about breaking something."

"I suppose it depends on how complex we want to make the tower's new defenses," Sean said, "Working basic wards and barriers into the lighthouse shouldn't require major alterations to the structure itself just time. Unless we're meaning to create a fortress of solitude here on campus."

"Are we?" She asked while looking to Victoria.

"Trying to create something flashy to get solitude in this place is rather counterproductive, I'd think," Victoria mused.

"Well if we want plain, it rather already is."

"We could modify the design to make the structure less obvious," Sean said holding out his hand to project an image constructed of starlight. The structure he projected was rather mundane and for all intents and purposes appeared to be a normal lighthouse coming out of a base that appeared to be a home. "We could still add wards, barriers, and other magical defenses to the design. This just allows us to limit how much we advertise our presence."

"Though I suppose one way or another, putting it back is going to show that something has happened."

"I mean, does anyone else know about the hole we're trying to plug, here? Maybe we want a bit of a 'piss off' sign."

Sean shrugged at Janice's statement.

"We don't really want to bring more attention to this school than it already gets, right?" Sean asked. "We don't need to just concern ourselves with what the rest of the network we're connecting to thinks, but also our own world. There are other ways to make them piss off. We could reinforce the towers integrated defenses, so that the other realms can see we aren't to be trifled with. Maybe it's not as flashy as a crystal tower of arcane power and perhaps I'm thinking a bit too cautiously about the whole thing."

Victoria glanced at Janice. "Did you ever wonder, before today, why wizards say that apprentices should be seen and not heard?" she mused.

"Well we're all just spitballing here, right? No wrong answers just yet."

Sean simply sighed at the barb.

One wonders when another apprentice got so bloody sure of herself.

"Then share your perspective," Sean said.

"That's an accurate word, I suppose, when magical theory being put out is just blatantly wrong," Victoria mused to Janice. "Magical defenses are just like physical defenses, you need structure to build them off of. As a mortal spellcaster, at least... when you transcend into something godlike you can pull off the 'this nondescript little hut is actually a magical fission bomb of power' thing. More to the point, we've learned on our little travels, and I'm sure that examples are recorded from here, as well, that this place already grabs the attention of mystics just because of its nature. Leaving it an open target and hoping for it to be overlooked is like trying to cover a tank with leaves to hide it from a search team that's using metal detectors and looking right at you."

"Well I'll be honest here, I don't know the theory so I'm relying on you two and ASHLIE."

"I am the one who's going to be defending it, though."

"And I'm not going to do that by yourself, dear. But stacking the deck in our favor is always a benefit," Victoria told Janice. "I'll be completely honest, the function of the Wheel, beyond just the conceptual part, is so far beyond me that I'm not even trying to figure it out. I'm just looking at what I, personally, know how to add to the defenses or methods I and mine know to strengthen what's already there."

"I didn't say we could hide it completely," Sean said, "Breaking up the silhouette of a tank by using camouflage is still an effective tactic on the battlefield otherwise all tanks would be painted neon pink. Essentially the exterior is camouflage it breaks up the silhouette allowing us to avoid anybody who isn't purposefully looking for it. In situations where you need to fight that's why you still have a tank underneath the camouflage."

"I wouldn't think to have you protect it by yourself either. We pool our resources and talents in order to better defend it."

"So okay, what's our middle ground, here?"

"We turn the lantern into a concealed laser emitter!" Ashlie suggests maybe a bit too cheerfully.

Sean smiled at Ashlie's idea.

"There's always that," Sean said, "We could use the original design, modernize it and expand the structure to allow for other uses."

"I... know even less about technology than I do about magic, at least where giant doom lasers are concerned."

Victoria rubbed at her temples. "No. Just... no. I would make this statement as an arguement, but I'm sure anyone can come up with reasons that that's just a bad idea. So I'm just going to say 'no' and let you fill in your own reasons."

"Might not be a good thing to mix, yeah."

"Look... the best bet here..." She looked at Janice. "You're the one who 'has' to protect this. So what do you want the place to be able to do?"

"Well... ideally we want it so that crazy nastiness from other worlds isn't treating us like a lorry stop, yes?"