Griffons are great!

Charles calls a Griffon: A majestic beast that has the body of a lion, the head and forelegs of a great bald eagle, and a massive pair of feathered wings. She is as big as a horse… and no saddle. They can't speak… but she understands common, and that Limited Telepathy Graft I can add via Instant Upgrade works fine as she has a brain… and she's effectively a fourteenth level Druid's companion (three times Charles level then minus four)… which means twelve hit dice, a base attack bonus of nine, a strength twenty-two, dexterity nineteen, fourteen points of natural armor, and four attacks on a charge.

And there's no particular reason to stop with just mind speech. Grant Spirit and Nature's Caraprice from Spheres of Power wraps the creature in iron, qualifying the magical beast for Eternal Steel so she has Regeneration… and then the Effortless Armor spell removes the downsides of Nature's Caraprice, because I have a caster level of twenty five (twenty seven for Inspired Spell) thanks to buffs. For feats, I set the creature up as a Spheres caster: Advanced Magic training grants a caster level of half her hit dice (so six) and Practiced Spellcaster brings that up another four (to ten). And of course, Extra Magic Talent gets her every Talent for which she qualifies (certain Spheres are restricted for subordinate creatures, so she can't have Conjuration or Mana for instance). Open Minded gives her all the skills at full ranks, Karmic Blessing makes them all class skills, the Transformation feat and the various add-ons give her a human form she can take on whenever, Evolved Companion (on Charles…) gives her all the single-point Eidolon Evolutions (with lots of duplicates: Bleed, Push, and Pull apply once per attack form; Improved Damage and Reach are once per attack; Skilled is once per skill; she qualifies for Improved Natural Armor three times; and there's no limit to how many times she can take the Tail, Tentacle, Tail slap, and Sting add-ons: Her ‘natural’ form is quite the meatgrinder) and on and on. By the time we're done, she's a tank, a meat grinder, a blaster caster, a utility caster, a healer, and a skill monkey all rolled into one (plus an archer thanks to the Blood Wind spell). I mean… all of us are, really, but she has the hit dice and so can support the buffs better than almost anyone else in the party.

I also figure out to get (and hand out) ninth level spells. Magical Training grants Sorcerer cantrips (and Transformation and Human Guise can make anyone qualify). Heighten Spell makes a spell count as a level higher for all purposes, and Versatile Spellcaster can turn two of those 0 level slots into a first level slot to power it. Earth Spell makes that a second level spell, and the Extra Slot feat grants a spell slot one level lower than the highest you can cast… thus going from cantrip slots only to first level spell slots. Extra Slot again for a second first level slot, and Versatile Spellcaster can then cast a second level spell, which Earth Spell makes into a third. Rinse & repeat until my target has ninth level spell slots; the Bloodline feats from Dragon Compendium fill in spells known, and I have enough buffing capability to add nineteen to a person's caster level… which means I can give a lesser version of twentieth level Sorcerer casting out to anyone… and if someone already has a spontaneous casting class, Expanded Arcana repeatedly gives them all the spells from their list. And of course, when I do that for myself, I can then cast spells of those levels, and get them from Inspired Spell to bypass casting times.

I'm quite the Muenster.

But of course, having ninth level spells means it's time.

“So… are we ready to return to give the king his comeuppance?” Alice grins.

“I think so…” Brian also smiles.

“Can do,” Charles confirms.

“What specifically should we do to him?” I consider… I mean, declaring us traitors when we left qualifies as not treating us woth respect. I did promise him he'd die in pain.

“I think I know…” Alice chuckles as she looks at her animal companion, currently in human form.

She shares her plan, and we all chuckle as we head back to the palace….