Taross locked away a small control disc into the little secret compartment inside hir collar, the same that hid a handy D-ring that hir denmates had engineered to be there. With everything properly set in place it would function as the controlling unit to the wondrous gemlike item in hir hand.
The stone was a Snowflake Obsidian; the same kind as the one set in the center of hir collar.

"So you're saying that you managed to combine our own technology and some, well, ancient Etheyric storing magic to embue this particular gem with the ability to store away large volumes of matter in just that tiny space?" Niko asked, watching Taross fiddle away with the two items -the gem and the collar- and making sure that all the last details were correct.

"Yes, I got the idea from Eric during our outings. You know, his magick to bind huge creatures into a small cell of extradimensional space?" Taross answered "I had some help from back home to engineer an obsidian that is basically artificially dense, but light and then got someone from back in Elpis to cast the magic on it."
Niko shared a glance with Doni, the latter shrugging a moment "To what end exactly?"

Taross smiled, beaming a moment "My shapeshifting works on a conservation of mass. I can become bigger if I hollow out bits to grow or just... add more mass. I can only become smaller if I compress. And there's only so much I can do before it becomes uncomfortable. Both for myself or the person trying to deal with a, for example, hundreds of pounds heavy tiny fox." Shi held up the gemstone again and tapped it with a finger. "With this I can 'remove' mass from myself without actually removing it. It's stored in the gaol space inside here and not be a part of outhere."

Doni nodded to that "Because you can't reduce your mass without going the hard route and diet it off, right. So what are you going to try it out on first?"

Taross gave hir denmates a wink and mmm-ed "Oh, I used the opportunity to also get a little genetic material to copycat off of a creature that actually had some back then, but only remains as a mathematical aetheric construct now."

"Wait, a whatnow?" Niko asked just as Taross held the gemstone to hirself with one hand and activated the control on the collar with the other.
There was a flash and moment or two of fluidic uncertainty in the taurs body before shi settled.

Hir long, pointed ears flicked a moment while shi steadied hirself on hir paws. A much lighter patter as shi moved about and trotted a tight circle to inspect hirself. A three-pronged, or tipped, tail flicked in hir wake and for a moment or two actually seemed to stir up motes of aether in a glow around its ends. Taross flexed hir hands and arms a bit before shi turned to face the other two with a wink of hir now almost solid green eyes; a two-foot-five black and white Carbuncle taur stood in front of them and tapped a small pawpad capped finger on the gemstone now set firmly in the center of hir forehead. "So... what do you think? Success?"

There were a few moments of silence as some errants, tiny motes of magic settled on the fur of the small figure before the larger of hir denmates chuckled and gave a foxy grin, licking hir lips "Oh... I'd say that there may be a success in there, but we'd have to give it a good close inspection first."
Taross squinted and then smiled "Well, for a sort test this worked well enough, we can inspect later. I'll just use the controls to end the... spell..." shi trailed off, noticing that hir collar wasn't quite where shi had it.
"Oh right, I wasn't wearing it so... yeah... the spell would've helped shrink it too so it'd still fit and everything. It's, um." Taross frowned, looking up...

There it was, the now in comparison comically oversized mateship collar. Sitting on top of a pile of books where it landed when shi let it go mid-change. And also rather well out of reach to the oh-so-small taur. Even clambering up the pile Taross couldn't seem to reach it.

"So, Taross dear..." Niko started again while Doni softly chuckled "You think you can still access your monk stone like this?" The big fox tapping the side of hir chin for a second or two before reaching back and fetching an ornate tome with a green gemstone of sorts resting on top of it.
"I think so, yes." Taross answered between little grunts of exertion "But could you give me a hand?" Shi continued before stopping and looking over when shi heard the flash of magics of activating an attuned jobstone.

Niko smiled, hir heterochromic eyes sparkling with mischief "Come over here for a bit then so I can mark your gem with my Aether signature and take our new 'melee based carbuncle' out for a spin... or two. Afterwards, we can see about removing your collar from the high shelf Doni just put it on while you were distracted."

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Taross is mine.
Art by :iconmangobird: and :iconshuryashish:
Artists submission: TBA
Carbuncles, FFXIV, belong to Square-Enix.