Dunno

“Some kind of coup d'état,” the old king shrugs, making his big boobies bounce, “We didn't discuss details. He said it'd be quick, though.”

Alice considers for a moment, “High level caster, knows Simulacrum, Teleport and Scrying… probably the Greater version of those last two. We've seen his copy try Scry & Fry… so that's probably his game. Simulacrums don't work long term…”

“Why not?” Brian questions.

“There's two ways to see through them: Perception (vs. Disguise) or Sense Motive.” Alice begins, “Charisma is a dump stat for most Wizards, and Disguise isn't a class skill. There's some buffing they can do, so that part isn't too bad… but the Sense Motive check is a flat DC 20. A random commoner will make that five percent of the time, but a noble?” Alice shakes her head, “a little wisdom, the class skill bonus, and even a first level aristocrat is making the check better than a quarter of the time. A few levels and skill focus? Suddenly it's within ‘take ten’ range for an auto-pass… and the skill allows retries. Everyone working with the fake is going to know it within a day or two, unless contact is kept to a minimum… which is its own red flag, and they can't do all that much if they don't. Simulacrum infiltration is a house of cards.”

“Ah, thank you,” Brian nods, “please, continue.”

Alice continues, “However, they don't have a control limit, and they don't spoil: You can have as many Simulacrums as you can afford, and there's ways to reduce the costs considerably. What do you think would happen if the wizard behind this made a few dozen self-copies, maybe some monsters as well, and they suddenly popped into the throne room and started blasting away?”

“We could ward the place against Scrying and Teleportation…” Charles begins.

“And he would find out about it when they first try to teleport, and then have them arrive just a little to the side,” Alice shrugs, “Same effect, but they need to Disintegrate a few walls first.”

“And we're going to be out of play…” Brian rubs his still-flat belly, “...unless we're not.’

“Ah, I wouldn't trust any of the surgeons around here,” Charles cringes, “even if it wasn't **** to kill the baby.”

“That requires that the fetus be a person,” Brian rolls his eyes, “but I'm not talking about abortion, because I don't trust the doctors here either, so we don't even need to touch that debate. We just need to make time. If we speed up a demiplane, we can have the babies in four or five months of prime material plane time.”

“Better,” Alice considers, “if we make it timeless with respect to magic only, and all cast Time Stop… with a way to get out, Fleeting Spell or Plane Shift… then it's just the time to set it all up.”

“It's still a full nine months from our perspectives…” I cringe. The old king is frowning at us like we're speaking Greek… which is pretty close, as we're definitely talking Geek.

“We're facing that down regardless,” Charles shrugs, “...unless you're up for making us all sleep through it, maybe Dan?”

Alice smiles and nods, “We don't need to eat thanks to Veil of Undeath, Sustain, and One with the Cosmos; a summoned creature with orders to wake us up when it's time… we'd need to bring the summon inside the Time Stop with us, but that's easily doable.”

“Let's hope we don't get stuck in a nightmare…” I shudder.

“Polypurpose Panacea has us covered there with the Lucid Dream option,” Brian shrugs, “Easy answer there.”

“So… a magically induced hyper speed coma with happy **** to bypass the pregnancy pains… umm…” I'm not into this.

“Well… it's not like we're going to **** you,” Alice shrugs, then pauses, “Hey, do you think telepathy works while lucid dreaming?

“We could do a shared dream reality via Create Greater Mindscape,” Brian considers, “Comes with a built-in exit clause, even, for anyone who wants out.”

I consider, “I still don't want to dream my life away… but the rest of the plan works for me. Let's set it up…”

I give Slut some safety orders, make the Demiplane (transporting us all there in the process), pull out as many summons as I will be able to manage, and cast a Time Stop spell, using my ring to pile on metamagic: Reach is valid thanks to the Share Spells teamwork feat, Chain Spell is valid thanks to Reach, and Fleeting Spell makes it dismissable so we can easily end it whenever. That works out to my two familiars, my three party mates, fifteen of my Conjuration Companions, and myself. Alice gets the Create Greater Mindscape spell running, and they all go to sleep… while I get to work. The actual work is straightforward: I make sure the summons and my familiars are fully buffed up, then have them all make profession checks to earn a living. The specific choice? Profession(Magical Supplies gathering). I also tune the demiplane to support it, adding mines to dig and plants to harvest. If I’m going to have eight or nine months on my hands… may as well work on my projects. Seventeen workers with check results in the sixties gets me over five hundred crowns in crafting supplies per week. Eight months of that gets me about seventeen grand… not enough for my project, even with the money from the network for the queen… but this is taking no real time, and I’ll be able to repeat it as often as desired.

Of course, I also have a pregnancy to deal with….