It had been several days since Zatanna's mom came back home to Shadowcrest, and while her parents were busy being gross and kissy faced, the girl herself was still struggling over her newest attempt at a letter. "This makes me sound stupid."

It was not going well.

Another draft was crumpled and tossed. "Right. Don't rant, just stay cool… Thank John for his help, without rambling this time…"

She went back to scribbling on her notebook paper. "And I guess I should ask him to visit again, but um… Oh! I can just invite him to dinner or something! That wouldn't sound weird, right?"

Plus, she hadn't had much time to 'teach magic' in the first place, which means he needed to come by some time for lessons and… "Eugh, how am I supposed to teach anyone? Half of my lessons were boring facts and stuff to be able to do all those rituals and whatever safely…"

The point wasn't even to MEMORIZE all that junk either, just to shove it into her brain so that she'd be able to find future situations 'familiar' enough to then come back home and look them up when needed.

She glared at her new attempt at sounding totally normal in a letter… And wanted to scream! "[[Esare lla taht!]] Sheesh, what was I thinking!? Keep this simple, short, and NOT crazy, please brain?"

Right um… 'Hey John, this is Zatanna.'

…Wait, was that too stuffy?

In the middle of a rewrite, she flinched as the rock-like 'mailbox' on her desk suddenly glowed bright green! "Eep!"

…And that's all it did.

No beeping, nothing she could feel magically was going on, and the box itself was just sitting there.

Which made her feel a bit stupid, having scuttled across her room away from the thing like it was about to bite her.

It SHOULDN'T, at least not without some sort of Soul or magical spell or something, but the change had just… Caught her off guard, alright? A bit of unexpected startlement.

Sheesh… Still, she wasn't stupid enough to just go over there and TOUCH the glowing stone box. "[[Nepo.]]"

…Inside was a non-magical letter. Huh.

That box HAD been empty earlier, she'd checked of course… So how did this thing work if no technology or magic was involved?

Curious, she summoned the paper over and… "What the heck? 'Hey Zatanna, do magic girls here have familiars?' What sort of question is that?"

Too confused to feel awkward, she just scribbled on the paper. "Uh… We can bond with animal companions with a willing or very young animal, yes, but it tends to be a bit of a commitment. Why?"

….Now what?

With few other options, she placed the document back in the stone box, closed it… And near instantly it was glowing again.

Far less worried about being eaten, she opened it and… Yep, a new note. Too short for a letter, that was for sure!

Looking it over, she blinked. "'Are there limits to how many you can have, or how big they can be?' I mean, I'm not going to go make bonds with an army of cats or whatever. Having a familiar requires a low but constant magical commitment, and of course it's hard to build a meaningful emotional bond if you have so many connections like that…"

Right, this paper scrap was too small for an actual response, back to her notebook. "Physical size of familiars isn't as important compared to the magical potency innately bound to specific species, as the bond itself is related more towards the Soul than to the bodies themselves. And uh… Better include the issue with how more bonds require more energy and emotional investment and stuff, maybe some talk about how both sides of the bond can influence each halve of the connections… Wait, hang on!"

She marked a heavy line at the bottom of her note. "WHY are you asking all this!?"

Zatanna huffed as she slammed the stone box close with her response inside.

Then she stared at the box, waiting for it to do something.

…Um.

The girl checked the time… Had she been too harsh in the last reply? Or maybe too demanding… Wait, she hadn't offended John, had she!? Or sounded like a spoiled brat or something!? What if…

Then the box glowed, and eagerly pulled out the paper within… "'Found a nest with a surviving egg, parents were eaten, my Sister won't let me keep it and I thought…' So what, you just want me to raise some random bird you found? Wait, no, John asked about size specifically."

New note: "How big would this familiar be?"

Send, and… New response received! Sweet, let's see: "'The Parvicursor Remotus is supposed to grow up to be around 15 inches long and around the size of a chicken, but everything is bigger here so…' Wait, where the hell is John if everything is bigger? Um: '...so we think it is going to end up being as big as a really large dog or so.' What even… And what kind of name is that?"

Maybe something magical? At the very least, it felt like something related to latin… "I think that translates to 'Small Runner'? So what, an ostrich or something? No, those are normally MUCH larger than a chicken… Good grief."

Zatanna blinked however when the box glowed once more before she could respond… Um, pull out the note and… "NO! You can NOT just eat the egg if I don't want it! Good grief, John! Why even ASK me if you were just planning on turning this thing into an omelet!? Damn it, where'd my pen go!?"

Found it! "'DO NOT EAT THE EGG BABY!', that should be clear enough, right!? Ack, I better send it right away!"

~~~Pocket System~~~

John blinked as he felt the new message… "Sorry Temptation, it looks like Zatanna wants to raise this one."

He carefully moved the egg to his new Crafted padded backpack (Conceptually warmed for all your egg hatching needs!) and then [[Stepped]]...

…Back up to the tree branch where he had set up camp. "Can't we just grab one of the other eggs? Most of them are huge anyway, a single unfertilized egg could make a bazillion omelets or something."

[[Temptation: I was just messing with Zatanna, I wasn't actually going to eat it… Though now that you mentioned it, COULD you go grab a couple of those other massive eggs for later? I'm very curious about how dino eggs taste when scrambled.]]

[[Grace: Scans only please, we can Craft new ones after that without issue and not distress any dino parents.]]

[[Temptation: Meh, that's fine too I guess. Plus I could just Craft a single bucket worth of egg yolk and white without cracking open one of those massive things and having to use it all up before it goes bad.]]

John hummed as he carefully pressed his ear against the egg. "Don't forget we can just store the leftover stuff in my Pocket and choose to not let it degrade due to time or corruption or whatever."

[[Temptation: Yes, but habits like that are how you end up with a whole bunch of partially used onions and tomatoes and stuff… I like to just use ingredients entirely when cooking, it feels better than having to save a fifth of a potato or something.]]

Fair enough. "I tend to cheat… Either by eating everything or by just Crafting the finished meal and skipping the preparation steps all together." The egg felt warmer than he had expected.

Neat!

[[Jessica: Hey bro, just an update: The teams are still dismantling that Hadrosauridae that you hunted… And it is a whole complicated mess. I've had to have workers INSIDE the carcass to ensure proper dismantling of the body, which means specially Crafted sanitized outfits and tools to prevent contamination…]]

John carefully ensured the egg was wrapped up. "I could just do some partial Collection using my Pocket, I think? Like, if I just pocket the skin, then the layers of connective tissue…"

[[Jessica: No, it's fine. And my agents need practice handling materials of this scale, the worlds can be pretty crazy places sometimes.]]

Meh, fair enough. "Anyway, just one should be enough for us to test how the materials change when being cooked, right? I'm fine with killing the random dinosaurs that try to eat us, and we have more samples than I expected because of it, but most of the vegetarian ones just defend a territory at most."

True, they could kill a person by accident if they stepped on them, but a good chunk of these massive creatures were just super chill. Almost absurdly chill, if you were as small as John and therefore 'not a threat'.

[[Jessica: Yeah, we got what we needed. Still making sure to check the materials for primorial parasites and viruses and stuff though… Sure, you wouldn't notice or get affected, but I'm sure you will want to share this with less impossible people at some point.]]

John hummed happily. "Didn't get a chance to scan the massive barbeque ribs that Bamm-Bamm told me about while we were visiting them, so I'm looking forward to cooking something so super silly large like that in a reality like this one that doesn't feel like it is about to fall apart."

Sure, making massive food like that HERE required more work due to logic and thermodynamics existing, but that just made the finished product more impressive! "Most cooking time is about carefully raising the temperature of the entire product despite how long it takes for heat to work its way into the material, combined with a bit of near burning to cause some delicious changes to the surface."

The (currently still a boy but technically a young) man stood and carefully moved his backpack egg carrier to his back as he walked along the bridge-like branch. "Meat transfers heat differently than bone, which can cause problems where one bit cooks faster or slower than another. If the material is heated too slowly it can 'dry out' or toughen the entire muscle. We need to control the movement of seasoning into the meat and the moisture that comes OUT of it at the same time…"

Cooking something edible was easy. Cooking something tasty could be tricky… Trying to make an out of the world dish? That was a never ending quest! "And that's only for NORMAL food, where we ignore how Concepts, Magic, Potential, and other such stuff can alter the taste! And I mean, you have people like me who enjoy a bit of poisonous or inedible additives to a meal or two, that just adds even more complexity to it all."

[[Jessica: Not to mention the sauces and seasonings themselves… Some people like dry rub barbeque, others like a sweet or savory or even SOUR coating that can caramelize on the surface… I've had some amazing chicken wings before with lemon pepper seasoning on it before, it was pretty awesome!]]

John grinned! "From my point of view? We need to scan ALL the dinosaurs, now that we have reference samples and stuff, and break down the problem into smaller delicious chunks! Select which one has the best tasting meat; decide between the specific muscle or groups of muscles which ones will be the best choice to work with; and finally what flavor profile would accent it to something legendary!"

[[Grace: …Am I the only one who just enjoys watching the dinosaurs wander around? Why is everyone else so focused on EATING them all!?]]

[[Temptation: I mean, we aren't allowed to pop over there and actually RIDE them due to John testing out the last of his security modules, so all we can do is grab samples. Delicious, delicious samples!]]

Which was a fair point. "I personally just love the idea of a rack of ribs large enough to tip over a car. I know for normal people, that much food would be nearly impossible to properly prepare, season, cook, or consume… But I mean, the Concept itself is a man's romance, you know?"

[[Jessica: I mean, there's always been a love for giant food in human nature. Don't remember that video we saw where they surprised those children with their favorite dishes, but upscaled to silly proportions? This is sort of like that, basically. Except the food is dinosaurs.]]

[[Grace: But who would want to eat such an amazing animal!?]]

John blinked. "You know animal crackers? I'm pretty sure they made a dinosaur themed version. And I KNOW kids like to eat animal crackers. Trust me, I've been a kid."

Feeling his angel huff in frustration, he adjusted his backpack and tried to find some sort of distraction for the exasperated woman… Oh! "Hey Grace? While we are looking around for more Scans, would you like to come up with some sort of 'Happy getting out of the hospital' gift for Zatanna's mom? I mean, since we will be visiting anyway to leave little Zatanna junior here with her to hatch."

[[Grace: …Yes, my Lord. That sounds… Relaxing. Maybe I can Craft something pretty? Nothing like candy or anything else edible, though. I'm sure my sister is going to insist we bring over a banquet of barbeque when we visit before this is all over.]]

There was a palpable pause when Grace realized that John, Jessica, AND Temptation had all froze in shock at such a glorious thought!

[[Grace: Now hold on!]]

Nope! "Girls! Plan Dino Buffet is on the way!" HA!

Now how many styles of delicious dino meats could they come up with before dropping off the baby egg to a magical girl on a different continent!? His Soul demanded to know!