Fred kept track of Kumbanaka as he slipped through the crowded night and into the Glass Citadel. But other things caught his attention, too. The bear and boar were on the move.

　　They moved together and with purpose toward the Lined Hallway Zone. There they moved into the first lair on the left. Fred looked with his magic, and they were yellow again. He could see that they wanted grass under their feet. Paws? Hooves? "Easy enough, sure," thought Fred. He quickly turned the floor of that lair into soft dirt, and covered it with grass, making it as soft and inviting as he could. Both creatures turned green, and lay down snuggled against each other.

　　Fred internally shrugged. He didn`t know why the bear and boar needed a home upgrade, but it wasn`t unreasonable, so he had no objection. He did have a thought, and proceeded to move and copy several herb plants (like the ones they`d had in their old lair) into the new lair. This didn`t seem to bother the inhabitants at all. "Easy job," thought Fred.

　　Perhaps one reason the bear and boar changed rooms was to make space for something new. This was a huge scorpion, two spans long (claws to stinger tail), who had just wandered into the lair through the tree shaft. It didn`t really have a good wall-climbing ability, so (like the mummy did many days ago) it just launched itself down the shaft, landing with a crash near Kumbanaka`s lair entrance.

　　The fairies were frightened and scandalized by the sudden commotion. After they calmed down a bit, they scolded and jeered at the (apparently unharmed) scorpion, as it scuttled past the tree. It climbed the ramp, entered the Front Zone, went to the empty room that the bear and boar had just vacated, and plopped down in the center.

　　Fred used his magic to see what it wanted; sand. Like the Beetle Brothers, or the Naga, it wanted a sandy floor. Fred assumed that sand was its native habitat. The sand floor took only a moment, and the scorpion was happy and green.

　　"Sorry, Fred. This is taking a while. This demon is clever and suspicious of me, and won`t easily follow me anywhere. I`m going to have to get the prince to tell the demon where to go, and it`s not easy when the prince is so drunk." Kumbana said to him, with clear frustration in his voice.

　　"Just be careful, Kumbanaka. That building has no windows that open, so demon smoke would be extra bad, I think."

　　"I agree, and the building is quite populous now. The humans keep coming. Is it time for another tower?" Kumbanaka asked.

　　"Great idea!" Fred looked out into the town. He could indeed see that more humans than ever lived in it, and had completely filled the Glass Citadel and the tower. He could do something about that.

　　Fred picked a spot about 30 spans from the tower, and drew a circle on the ground. His intention was to simply make another tower, same as the last one. He really liked the design, after all. Looking again, he decided that two would be even better, so he made another circle on the opposite side of the existing tower. Now he planned on two new towers. He got to work.

　　First, he pushed the circles downward, creating the two huge pits that would become the bottom halves of his new towers. In doing so, he marveled that he was simultaneously pushing two separate holes, working on both towers at once. He didn`t think he`d ever tried juggling multiple constructions at once before. He felt that now familiar feeling of awe (and a little disquiet) at his power.

　　While he worked, he could see that the humans were excited for the spectacle. "It doesn`t take a genius to figure out I`m building new towers," Fred thought. The humans gathered around the holes, talking and cheering and pointing.

　　"Good job, Fred!" Kumbanaka told him.

　　"What?"

　　This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

　　"The prince wants to get a close look at what you`re building, so everyone`s leaving the Citadel, including our target. I wager that soon we`ll have him right where we want him." Kumbanaka said smugly.

　　"Okay, let me know when he`s in position, on flat ground."

　　Fred turned back to his construction project. He`d done it all before, and there were two towers to build. And he tended to get very focused when he was building. So he quickly got into a groove, carefully building the towers floor by floor, paying attention to nothing else.

　　"Fred! Fred! Are you listening?!?" Kumbanaka shouted at him. Fred "looked up", feeling surprised and a bit guilty.

　　"Okay, I`m here. What?"

　　"Now! I`ve been telling you now, for minutes!" Kumbanaka was exasperated.

　　"Okay, then." Fred looked around, trying to find Kumbanaka and the demon. After a few moments he spotted Kumbanaka strolling around the edge of the crowd that had gathered. From that reference point, he could see the demon, walking away from the crowd, into the darkness. It was hurrying, almost like it wanted to get out of the town. "Oh no you dont!" said Fred.

　　Fred dropped the demon into a hole, like he`d done it a hundred times. Covered the hole. He dug deep. He squished as hard as he could. The demon exploded. And that was that. Fred had done it all without hesitation. But he still felt gross and dirty, and a bit stung from the acid. "Martin was right. I should be glad I don`t have hands, or I`d have to wash them now. A lot."

　　To Kumbanaka, he said, "It`s done. The demon is squished."

　　"Jaya, a successful hunt. I normally prefer to see the eyes of my prey, as the life leaves them. But in this case, it`s good to be sanitary. Hmm, the humans are all wondering about the thump they all felt just now. The consensus is that you do strange magic while you build things."

　　"It is strange magic, isn`t it? And I just keep getting better at it&" Fred mused, as he got back to work on the new towers. He also noticed something behind him. Martin had climbed the tree shaft, enough to stick his head and neck outside, almost like a periscope. "Where did the word periscope come from?" Fred idly wondered to himself.

　　To Martin, Fred said, "I`m building two new towers. The humans need more room."

　　Martin replied, "The humans need only pig barns, I`ve told you. But your skill at building is improving." Fred chose to take this weird backhanded compliment in the best way possible.

　　"Do you have any suggestions? I was just gonna make two more towers, just like the first." In the darkness of the night, the humans hadn`t seen Martin`s head sticking up, so Fred decided not to complain about it.

　　"Yes. Don`t make each tower the same. Make them different heights, if even a little bit. And change the roof color for each new tower. Give the humans reasons to choose one over the other."

　　"Are you trying to start fights between the humans, Martin?" Fred asked.

　　"Bhagh. Humans fight each other over the silliest things, and we can`t affect that with architecture. I`m simply saying that, if you differentiate the buildings, you`ll be helping the humans order themselves."

　　"Okay. I agree, let`s help the humans find their way home." Fred said.

　　"If they`re all as drunk as this prince, it`ll take more than a colored roof to help him find his bed." Kumbanaka complained. Fred looked for Kumbanaka again, and saw him helping another human drag a well-dressed man back into the Citadel. "The things I do to curry favor with these humans. But I might have that sword for you soon."

　　"Awesome, thanks, Kumbanaka!"

　　Fred continued to build the floors of each tower. He decided to make the new towers one floor shorter than the original one. When he got to the roofs, he changed the stone of each; one was a reddish stone, shot through with iron ore. The other he transformed into a white marble, though in the daylight, it would be more grayish. And right now, in the nighttime, it looked as black as the other roofs. Fred didn`t really like that, so he adjusted the light properties of the white roof, and it began to glow with a warm light. The humans on the ground all shouted and oohed at the new light.

　　"Fred, humans need to sleep at night. Do you think they`ll be able to, if they live in the top of the original tower?" Martin asked.

　　"Well, now that you mention it, yeah, I could see that could be a problem." Fred replied. He turned off the light of the roof. The humans below all collectively gasped and booed. Fred added light back to the very top of the white-roofed tower. Remembering how he`d made the spotlight in the center of the healing temple, he changed the roof light to focus upward. The night sky was clear, but it was still visible, and (Fred thought) that during rain or fog, the light would be a distinctive beacon. The crowd yelled and cheered and clapped. "Glad you like it, folks".

　　Martin said, "Your towers are quite close together. Yet they have only entrances on the ground floor. Did you want them to be more connected?"

　　"What, like I could make tunnels between them? That`s not a bad idea."

　　"And sky bridges. The city-state of Kesl Djenarag was very proud of their ornate sky wallways." Martin opined.

　　"Yeah, that`s cool too." So Fred set about making connections between each new tower and the original tower it was next to. He made them every three floors, so there were three tunnels in the earth, and three walkways above the ground, stretching between the towers. He felt the underground tunnels were kind of closed and oppressive, so he made their ceilings shine with bright light. He also made the two walkways very open, in contrast. They weren`t simple platforms that people could easily fall from; they had roofs and railings. But the side walls were arches, as wide and open as Fred could make them.

　　Now the three towers had six visible connections between them, and the humans again gasped and cheered. "So easy to please, these humans. I still say they`d have been happy with pig barns." Martin cracked.