“And how does this connect with the car?” I asked, smiling.
Amanda shrugged. “I went to see Queen Viera. She’s pleased with my work. She gave me a bonus. I figured I’d treat myself, so I went and bought my dream car.”
“We’re going to need a bigger garage,” I commented.
“Hell yes!” said Selena and Belinda together. I looked at them in surprise.
“Eh?” I said. “What’s all this about?”
The two women laughed.
“I’ve been meaning to say something to you about that since I got here,” said Belinda. “That garage is a fucking disgrace. I’m almost ashamed to put my Harley in there.”
I laughed and turned to Kyrine, who was grinning at the two women. “My apologies,” she said smoothly. “What would you like instead?”
It was true that the garage was not really worthy of the collection of lovely vehicles we now had at the mansion. Kyrine had created it to fit with the run-down, haunted house look of the mansion, but now she went over to it and listened as Belinda, Selena, and Amanda excitedly brainstormed all the things they would like in a new garage.
Smiling and turning her magic on the garage, she began to make changes.
After about an hour, Kyrine had altered the run-down structure to suit their needs better. The model for the mansion, the grounds, and the garage, I was interested to learn, came from the building that had been here when Kyrine’s core had first been hidden, over a hundred years ago.
“My former Keeper, who heroically brought my core through the portal, placed me here, on the site of an old abandoned house that sat on the top of this hill,” Kyrine explained. We all listened with interest. “Using the last of his powers, he took the abandoned mansion that was here and melded its fabric to mine. That, I’m afraid, is why this garage is not to your liking. It’s all that remains of the converted stable block from the old house. I’ve never thought of it before now, but I suppose it must look rather drab to outsiders.”
Kyrine looked a bit sad when she mentioned her old Keeper, and Belinda came forward and touched her on the arm. “Sorry, Kyrine, I didn’t mean to be cruel about it… I didn’t know…”
Kyrine smiled wearily. “It’s okay. Let’s just finish making it nice for you now.”
It was amazing once it was finished.
“My uncle Phil would love this,” I said, as I looked around the clean, roomy space. There was a workbench with some old-fashioned tools in a box next to it, and I could just see Phil tinkering away at some project here. I’d love to have him visit some time.
The thought of inviting my Uncle to visit an Eosorean legendary dungeon for dinner and a look at the garage made me smile.
When we were outside, I looked back at the garage, surprised to see that it looked clean and new. “It looks a bit out of place,” I commented.
“You’re right,” said Kyrine. “I’ll reapply the standard glamor… hold on…”
She turned her attention to the garage again, and before our eyes it took on the outward appearance of a dilapidated, run-down building. Inside, it was as clean and new as ever.
“Shit!” Amanda exclaimed. “That was amazing!”
“I didn’t know you could do that!” I exclaimed.
Kyrine looked at us and laughed. “You didn’t? But that’s one of the dungeon’s most basic powers! I can cast glamors over lots of things, even over the whole mansion. That’s how we’re protected from outside eyes, and how the mansion looks so abandoned from the outside even though it’s lovely inside.”
“You…. glamors? But…” I stammered. This was entirely new to me. “I never… Show me!”
Kyrine smiled and shrugged, then extended her hands toward the mansion. The whole image rippled as she lifted the glamor from it, and my jaw nearly dropped with surprise.
The mansion was beautiful, clean, and well-kept. Light glowed in the windows, and every bit of it looked as if it’d been given a fresh coat of paint that very morning. The gutters were clear, and even the cracking on the marble steps was gone. Huge potted climbing plants flowered on either side of the doorway.
“How about this one,” said Kyrine, laughing at my amazement.
She twisted her hands in the air, and the mansion vanished, replaced with a big gothic castle, all bristling towers and threatening battlements.
“Or this?”
Another twist, another change. In front of us there was a homely cottage, with a turf roof and smoke coming from the chimney.
She dropped her hands, and the familiar haunted house glamor reappeared.
“That was amazing!” I said. “How is it that you’ve never mentioned this before?”
She frowned, thinking about it. “At first, I don’t think I remembered. Then after that first time that I left the mansion and walked in the grounds, more memories came back to me and I remembered that I could do this, and that the outside of the mansion is just a glamor. I like this one, though, and it’s easiest to maintain since it’s the original one, so I just left it in place.”
“Wow, I’ll need to think about this. This power has loads of potential. We could do all kinds of things with it.”
“Oh yes,” said Kyrine. “It’s useful to be able to present many different faces to the outside
