“All set!” Alexander said as he set down several bags of a product called TerraSahara made by a reptile enthusiast in Houston, Texas. He had purchased them and several other products to make a bioactive terrarium, or vivarium as they called it, that Alexander had been researching recently. It eliminated the need for a lot of cleaning, which was his least favorite part of his brothers lizard keeping. He could even plant and grow herbs and such inside it.

  The lizard was already paying close attention to the stuff Alexander had purchased. It did exude higher intelligence than any pet he had experience with. So he found himself speaking plainly to it.

  "I'm going to pull you out for a bit so you will be safe when I upgrade your terrarium today. Alright?" The lizard spun a circle in acknowledgment. Alexander pulled the Pogona out but before he put him down he looked at the tiny little wings that the lizard could now ambulate. They had a thin leathery membrane that stretched as the wings extended. Additionally a ridge was forming on its back to the base of its tail. The tail was getting longer with thicker muscle he noted.

  Setting him down Alexander pulled out his phone to take additional pictures to post to the reddit herpetology board.

  “You can follow me upstairs if you want.” Alexander said as he started up the steps to what was becoming his favorite room.

  He had completely filled the first table with crystals. He was organizing them by type and was planning to feed them into the pedestal as he needed them. His second table he had scattered and noted with a sampling of random objects. A hat sat next to a baseball helmet, each with sticky notes on them that discussed the suggestion spell. There was a plastic toy screw driver that sat next to a metal one. The notes compared differing upgrade options of a toy replica to a real tool. His microscope, a bottle of syrup, a hair brush... looking around he felt he needed a bookshelf in this room, so he added it to the shopping list.

  "Maybe I could buy a cheap one and upgrade it?"

  Alexander's findings had been wondrous. Enchanting an item, then attempting upgrades gave him options that varied by intent of the original object. Was this a projection of the perceived purpose of the object? Or was the material making it a classification of object that suited a function? Alexander couldn't be a hundred percent sure, but he was getting closer at his predictions when he made an object.

  When it came to the crystals there were, as he suspected, three new types of resources he had obtained from Ms. Ridley. All of them came in the form of inferior and common magic stones. The first type he looked at was the one he was most delighted to discover, the light resource. He was ecstatic Ridley had managed to find the equivalent of twenty-four light resources which was enough for the light resources required for his Encyclopedia and the one he needed to upgrade the terrarium. Now he had all three types of resources he needed, he simply had to gather more unattributed. Which seemed like the most common resource so far, so he felt very close to having his new Encyclopedia.

  The second type was fire, there were twelve of them, and the third type was lightning, which he assumed came from the giant encounter based on Ridleys description. A total of ten lightning resources he now owned. The rest were unattributed. Alexander had loaded all of the light and unattributed resources into the pedestal, but only bothered to load one of each of the fire and lightning as they would be necessary for the repair quest.

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  Alexander cracked his knuckles, something he only used to do before a piano recital. He opened up the option to manage his dominion and scrolled to his terrarium. As before he chose the option to upgrade the size to 120 gallons.

  ^

  To upgrade size of Terrarium+ the following resources will be consumed:

  2 Unattributed

  2 Earth

  1 Light

  He confirmed his selection and ran halfway down the stairs, giggling in anticipation, as he watched the transformation. The terrarium began to glow brightly before it started to expand. The wooden wall it was embedded in, like a living thing, moved out of its way and reformed around the glass. When it finished growing, the glow faded and the terrarium seemed as if it had been there the whole time.

  “Neat.” He exclaimed.

  Satisfied with the results he went back upstairs to grab the lizard, but as he hit the top of the stairs he heard a high pitched coughing and wheezing. Scanning the room for the noise, he saw the pogona had climbed on his table of crystals and was choking on something. It's little body began spasming in pain. Alexander rushed up to help it, quickly looking about the table to see what it could have choked on. Where there were once neat rows of crystals, he now saw scattered contents, but he was certain that there were several missing magic stones.

  “No! Spit it out!” Alexander exclaimed but wasn’t sure what to do as he didn’t know the Heimlich maneuver equivalent for a lizard.

  Trying vainly to pat its back, the lizard finally settled down and stretched it's arms and belly, before burping a tiny plum of smoke. Alexander relaxed, but he was a bit premature, as the lizard's entire body started to shake so quickly that it was vibrating. Not knowing what to do, Alexander set the lizard down on the table. The wood started buzzing like a vibrating phone was going off. Watching closely the pogona's scales started to turn white, and Alexander realized it was shedding. However, instead of just one thin translucent layer of skin, it was shedding multiple thick layers. The process took several minutes, but finally stopped. The shed layers of skin congealed around the lizard before once again hardening.

  Alexander was initially concerned as shedding that much would surely kill a lizard. Looking at the now formed shell, he couldn't be certain what state it was in. He lifted the lizard, now encased in the hard shell and placed it on the pedestal.

  ^

  Species Identified.

  Demi-Dragon

  Attributes: in transition

  Alexander was unsure if this was a good sign that it was alive, or a bad omen, as he had to finally admit that it had indeed changed into a sub-species of dragon. He brought the encased lizard, or demi-dragon he supposed, downstairs and delicately placed it on his desk near the new terrarium.

  He decided to treat it as if it was a cocoon and just wait for it to finish doing whatever process it was undergoing.

  “Maybe this is a natural process for dragons?”

  Pulling out his cell phone he snapped a few more shots for reddit.

  He decided to finish out his terrarium with the supplies he had purchased. First he cleaned it well with vinegar and water, rinsed and let it air dry. Then he added some clay balls for irrigation, a mesh layer, the TerraSahara and plants. A few finishing touches and he decorated with some cork wood and of course a pile of gold and silver coins.

  After a few investigative sessions on reddit, he decided to lightly mist the cage once a day to keep a light humidity in the space.

  Sighing, as these events kept popping up to keep him on his toes. His checklist was ever growing and he began to feel overwhelmed. Feeling the need to relax for a minute, he took the hat off the enchanting table and sat on a comfortable desk chair he had brought upstairs. After settling in a relaxing position, he placed the hat on his head and sighed in relief.

  The sticky note on it read: Suggestion Glyph, imagine yourself walking through Ikea.