GLoG 92: Generosity, Love, Opportunity, Growth

[Purple Eagle]

Romantic Lake Boating

"I don't use mana. I either pull, or push through leylines. I can shape leylines, too, but that's more draining. All the energy comes from the leylines, and all of it goes back when I'm done. Shaping them, to make wormholes, portals or what have you, needs more energy so I hold more energy, and that's what's draining. Summoning creatures is a little different. Most of the leylines I use when I'm teleporting things use the ecks, why and zed axis, in three-dimensional space. The creatures I summon need me to pull on leylines in the lemon, apple or strawberry axis, which is trickier in some ways, easier in others. Mass doesn't matter as much in those directions, but those leylines are too weak to pull from ordinarily. I need to gather power from the other leylines, the x, y and z ones, and push it through the apple, lemon and strawberry axis to get what I want." Which makes a lot of sense to Natalie, no doubt. Probably not as much sense for Karasu, though. "Dunn? Isn't that a little plain? Because there's nothing plain about you, Karasu."

[Romantic Lake Boating]

Karasu listens attentively, but Natalie has her until 'lemon', after which she can't hide her confusion. She thinks she gets the gist of it, but at the end she has more questions than she did at the start. "Uh... lemon?" She asks, failing to stifle a series of chuckles. "Okay, lemme try and explain my powers to you, and you'll see how little of that I got. We have nervous systems, muscular systems like you, but also a spiritual system that allows us to use our powers. It's why the average user is called a conduit in Wakodi, our world. Everyone can use it, everyone manifests their weakest ability by 10, but I'm as skilled as I am due to training. That's not getting into our organite stem cells, organic nanites that improve our performance and can be programmed via implants for a variety of purposes. So what exactly are the apple, lemon and strawberry axes?"

She grins at Natalie's last statement and kisses her on the nose. "That's the idea, something plain is better for keeping a low profile."

Off to see the DORFS!

As Scout lumbers out Ator and Bab's eyes follow him closely, before nattering in satisfaction as he leaves. "Safety!" "Mum saved us!" "Fruit!" Asher will hear, and he might start to understand that when they talk about their mother they're talking about both Endok and Olon, whoever's closer.

Olon hears Asher's explanation and knows immediately what to do, giving the pair of animals a hug. They just want more food. Taguz says that they'll eat whenever we give them food so we have to be super careful how much we give them so they don't get fat. After they calm down a little she'll proffer them back out, letting Asher give them whatever scritches they want. These are some very friendly animals when it's only humanoids they're dealing with.

If they get too fat they won't be able to fly so dad got us some paper and we make a lil mark every time we feed them and then cross them off when we go to bed. It's vitally important to Endok that they know the filing system for how they feed the animals.

[Off to see the DORFS!]

"Oooh, that's smart." Tuskfang's tail wags. "My cousins give their molerat Kip snacks all the time and he's fat. But he doesn't need to fly. He digs sometimes if he finds soil and not rock."

[Off to see the DORFS!]

"M-Momma says all b-babies are like t-that." Asher declares, eagerly rushing forward to scritch and pet the cute little animals, telling them that their safe and they're the cutest. Then he tells them if they eat too much they won't be able to fly, like his mom told him, and Endok just said too!

Then a molerat is mentioned! Another animal to meet! His wings flap happily, as happily as a wing movement can be, and calls out to his friends, old and new. "C-Can I meet Kip, t-too?"

[Earl of Purple]

Romantic Lake Boating

Natalie doesn't understand what at least half those words mean! She's nodding and agreeing, though. Trying to look like she knows what a 'stem cell', 'nanite', 'implant' and 'programmed' are.

"Right, so. Imagine a graph, yes? It's got two axis, one at the bottom and one going up. The bottom axis is the y axis, so that's how far away things are ahead or behind me- my axis point is 0,0. The z axis is the one going up, and that's how high up they are. The x axis is because this is a three-dimensional graph, that's how far things are to my left and right. Got that so far?" Before Karasu can reply, Natalie continues. "Well, the lemon, apple and strawberry axis are like those ones, except they aren't going anywhere and don't appear on the graph. They're the ones that plunge through the porous medium of meta-objective reality and enter parallel, invisible and intangible sub-realities that theoretically only exist when they are required and which don't obey all the same rules of temporal mechanics, spatial cohesion or runic geometry." And that's about as simple as Natalie can make it.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Dragon Therapy]

"I-it's, um, it's different when you're the only one." Sylvie lets that sentence just sort of...hang there.

Wait, maybe that's not a good sentence to just leave on it's own! A moment later and she's practically tripping over herself to correct herself.

"N-n-not that I don't think dragons o-other than me don't exist, I-I-I mean I'm dating one! Th-that would just be crazy, right! No, uh, I-I mean I'm the only one o-of my bloodline and, uh, I-" She pauses and falters, her voice fading out.

[Morty]

[Dragon Therapy]

"I understand," Sophie says, deciding not to dig too deep into this particular subject yet. She feels she understands it, more or less. "You were afraid for your safety and you took other forms. In time, those forms started to acquire personalities of their own."

[Chaotic Bob]

Spoiler: Woods Spoils

Show

[Memory Woods]

And then Magtok gets back up again.

"Oh yes, don't worry, he's definitely still alive. He's just taking a nap. He'll be fine. Well, relatively speaking anyway." Presumably it's quite apparent to Needs what has happened here, but if the sudden shift in speech isn't enough, the subtle alteration in posture and the smug grin of a man who possesses all the self-confidence Magtok wishes he has really ought to give it away.

Not that he's trying to hide what's going on here.

Looking to Needs, "I hope he explained what he'd done at some point to you before now, otherwise, my apologies if this is all coming as a bit of a shock to you, Needs. For what it's worth, I have no real desire to cause any harm to Magtok, but I can't really pretend that I'm not, mmm, taking advantage of the situation." The "possessed" Magtok leans forward to stare intently at Delilah. "There are a lot of things Miss Libitina did not account for. There are, I suspect, a lot of flaws in her plan. But it is definitely worth checking to see her current status if we are able to. And maybe letting Magtok sleep through all this doesn't seem quite so wise now, hmm? Ah, but don't worry, I'm not going to put him in danger. I'll take him home to sleep after this. I need him alive."

Memory Woods

Needs stares blankly at Affidavit for a moment or so, before conjuring up a glass of water and swallowing three of his placebos in one go. He is nowhere near sane enough for this kind of thing right now. Poor Delilah's going to be completely bald when this is all over, the accumulated stress making her wring every last strand of hair out.

"This is the Professor briefly spoken of earlier, Delilah. In the borrowed flesh of my brother, as you can see. He was downloaded into Magtok's skull some time ago, so my sibling's unconsciousness is but a mild setback. It simply means Affidavit has temporary and uncontested control over Magtok's body until the sleep passes, which is far less threatening than it sounds. I can understand why this arrangement may appear to be grotesquely unacceptable, but this is the way of things. Magtok felt this was a necessary sacrifice."

Needs pauses for a moment, to give Delilah a moment to process the explanation that Affidavit himself obviously wasn't going to volunteer. Once that moment has passed, he clears his throat, strides over to one of the many trees he marked with strange runes earlier, and waits patiently as the bountiful life and warmth in these woods is drained little by little, a faint chill cutting through the air as Needs recharges his arcane batteries, so to speak. This doesn't take long; we can begin to trace Libitina in just a few moments.

"Name your favorite mortal, phantom. Focus your thoughts and feelings upon it, embrace your memories together, letting the rest of the world fade away from your mind as you Scorn me for what I must do," Needs commands the Maggydavit, voice returning to its usual unnatural cadence as he begins to channel the spell, hands held aloft towards the heavens. An unseen frost consumes the orange-robed arcanist's right arm, the flesh withering and blackening as hypothermia shrivels it away more swiftly than any open flame ever could. There was flesh on that bone moments ago, but now Needs' arm is hardly any thicker than the slenderest tree branches above him.

[Memory Woods]

Huh. Yeah, Delilah pretty clearly was not expecting this.
That look of shock on her face is a brief one though, swiftly swept away in her typical look of irritable contempt. Apparently that awkwardness from earlier was something reserved for Magtok himself.
A fabrication, perhaps? Or did she genuinely feel uncomfortable about what was being done to the cyborg?

Either way, now she's looking very annoyed by the shift from plan. There has been a lot of this lately and she's getting a little fed up with it.
But Needs is already moving into the spell-casting, so she doesn't have the luxury of ranting about this. While she hates pretty much everything happening right now, she still has a part to play in it that...she isn't looking forward to, but may be important to surviving down the road.
Hopefully Affidavit-as-Magtok doesn't mind her inserting herself into his personal space, so she can reach down and grab the chain of the necklace he still holds.
"Do not screw with this, parasite, or your stay is going to be a brief one."
No time to rant, but plenty of time to mutter threats.

Not that it seems to be doing much for him.
Maybe the Cloak is actively avoiding Affidavit, or it's only actively accessible to a single individual at a time.
Nestled within the unconscious recesses of the true Magtok's mind, she lurks and whispers, fabricating together a clarity of the memories of Libitina that exists only in video and reality.
Pleasant dreams for the cyborg, or maybe melancholy ones.

[Purple Eagle]

Romantic Lake Boating

Natalie doesn't understand what at least half those words mean! She's nodding and agreeing, though. Trying to look like she knows what a 'stem cell', 'nanite', 'implant' and 'programmed' are.

"Right, so. Imagine a graph, yes? It's got two axis, one at the bottom and one going up. The bottom axis is the y axis, so that's how far away things are ahead or behind me- my axis point is 0,0. The z axis is the one going up, and that's how high up they are. The x axis is because this is a three-dimensional graph, that's how far things are to my left and right. Got that so far?" Before Karasu can reply, Natalie continues. "Well, the lemon, apple and strawberry axis are like those ones, except they aren't going anywhere and don't appear on the graph. They're the ones that plunge through the porous medium of meta-objective reality and enter parallel, invisible and intangible sub-realities that theoretically only exist when they are required and which don't obey all the same rules of temporal mechanics, spatial cohesion or runic geometry." And that's about as simple as Natalie can make it.

Romantic Lake Boating

Karasu sees right through her girlfriend, but only fails to hide her smile at the end. "Riiight." She doesn't blame Natalie, though, that wasn't the simplest way to describe stuff. That smile falls off her face when Natalie starts using big words, and the best way to put it is that she understands, and also doesn't fully. "You get your powers from another plane with different x, y and z axes that's in ours but can't be accessed by mundane physical means? That's how my powers work, too. Only, the base cosmology affects powers, I notice. Mine means I have a specific domain, in this case shadows, and since it's more energy-efficient to use it in the dark, I've trained so I can use it during the day and have more reserves, increased my 'mana amount' so to speak I channel power to generate and manipulate. Yours means you use ley lines and planar-based magic to move things from place to place, and you don't use 'mana' but concentration, and you also practice a lot. Right?" Each time she says mana, she uses the hand holding Natalie's at this point to make air quotes. "Though, people in the Nexus have called me 'video gamey' so maybe that's part of the difference..." She ponders, rubbing her chin.

[Earl of Purple]

Romantic Lake Boating

"No, I summon creatures from another plane with different x, y and zed axis. My powers get energy from the standard set of axis, pulling on the leylines to get the power to pull from outside this reality. But... Yeah, that's only slightly wrong." Which is better than Natalie was expecting, quite frankly. She still doesn't understand how Karasu's powers work, but that's OK. She can't use Karasu's powers, so she's not the one who needs to know how they work.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Dragon Therapy]

"Uh, s-sort of? You, um, you can't really be sneaky as a dragon, a-and I'm meant to be sneaky. I'm not safe as myself, and I can't- I couldn't do the things I needed to do as myself." Does that clear anything up?

Does anything clear any of this up?

It's all rather confusing, isn't it?

Sylvie certainly looks confused. She might not have really sat down and thought this through before. "But you're basically right."

*****

[Memory Woods]

"Who was that directed at, Needs? Sleeping beauty or the specter possessing his body?" the MagPuppet asks, ignoring Delilah for the moment. "Both of us, perhaps? There's a number of problems with your directions anyway. I don't have a favourite mortal, I have no particular fond memories to embrace, and I'm utterly incapable of focusing on a single thought. Still, I can devote some time to thinking about a person of value to me. Perhaps that will suffice for your needs, hmm?"

And think he does.

It's made somewhat harder by the rather rude woman getting all up in his personal space.

"Screw with this? Me? I'm only out right now because your plan was put together by a cluster of incompetents who seem determined to avoid keeping Magtok properly informed! If anything goes wrong right now, it's your fault for deciding that Magtok needed a nap! And of course your whole plan is a disaster waiting to happen when you have people whose minds have been compromised by Feia involved in it!"

Take a lesson from the master, Delilah. There is always time for ranting.

"I am no parasite, madam. I am actually helpful, unlike you, Venmaunt, and the other Feia. In fact, all of you are risks, particularly there being any version of Feia left alive at the end of this. So before you make any more threats, consider this: push me too far and I will get rid of all of you. All that's needed is Magtok, Needs, and Libitina. Now, why don't we all play nice and let Needs do his spell so we can learn all about the adventures of Miss Libitina? And afterwards Magtok here will pack his bags and be off on his way, leaving this farce behind so we can go and do something actually useful."

[Lord Magtok]

Memory Woods

"Like talking to myselves," Needs scowls, in a voice not his own. What a fantastic time for debating each other's incompetence and value to the cause. They're both irritants, really. The most useful of all of them was probably the old hag, and not even for anything she did or said intentionally. Most of Magtok's battle plan was based off it, even. His brother had a certain unique perspective, a way of looking at the world that was at once the height of folly and the epitome of genius. Time would tell which half would win out in the conflict ahead.

"Please stand clear of the blowhard I will be casting upon, Delilah." Draken Frosthand's voice insists, as pale blue reptilian scales sprout along Needs' withered arm, and a thick fog of frigid air surrounds the spellcaster. The cryohydra's signature spell pulses and swells, a spell perfectly suited for harming the mighty via the pitiful spell resistance of the mortals that adore them. Needs did not anticipate being asked to harm Libitina with such a spell, but there's a great many things about this day that Needs did not expect. The moment Delilah chooses to step aside, a bolt of ice and carefully sculpted magicka tears an ugly wound across the forest. Each tree Needs prepared earlier is frozen solid, killed instantly, as the spell sheds much of its excess energy murdering a handful of useless plants and carving shallow wounds into the fabric of the material plane itself, before coursing down Needs's arm and firing itself at Affytok. Needs has done everything he can to nerf the spell, murdering a bunch of trees and deliberately being extremely sloppy and wasteful with his magicka, but oh man, that's still going to sting Magtok and Affidavit's most beloved quite a bit.

[Purple Eagle]

Romantic Lake Boating

"No, I summon creatures from another plane with different x, y and zed axis. My powers get energy from the standard set of axis, pulling on the leylines to get the power to pull from outside this reality. But... Yeah, that's only slightly wrong." Which is better than Natalie was expecting, quite frankly. She still doesn't understand how Karasu's powers work, but that's OK. She can't use Karasu's powers, so she's not the one who needs to know how they work.

[Romantic Lake Boating]

Karasu nods, she still doesn't understand all of the intricacies, but that's enough for now. She just spends some time looking at Natalie's face. "I'm glad we're back. Speaking of, maybe we should go back? After a short nap, of course. It's GLoG right? It should be safe?" Natalie's the expert, so she's asking her.

[Morty]

[Dragon Therapy]

"And why is it that you need to be sneaky?" Sophie asks, gently probing a little further. Sylvess seems largely comfortable with this line of questioning.

[Earl of Purple]

Romantic Lake Boating

"Should be safe, but I don't want anyone to worry about the apparently abandoned boat drifting on the lake and come investigate. Besides, it might rain, and we've got no cover." The sky's mostly clear now, but Natalie's English. It's not hard rain weather, but it might still drizzle- or cloud up suddenly and produce heavy rain.

[Purple Eagle]

[Romantic Lake Boating]

"Yeah, you're right... let's go back, then. Wanna row?" Natalie probably won't be able to do it for very long, but she seemed interested, so Karasu offers her the chance.

[Earl of Purple]

Romantic Lake Boating

"I'll give it a go, sure." Natalie grins and gets to work, taking advice from Karasu on how she's doing. She'll go until she's tired and then try keeping on; she wants to try and impress Karasu.

[Purple Eagle]

[Romantic Lake Boating]

Karasu'd advise Natalie based on how she's doing, but otherwise watch, or look at the scenery. When Natalie starts to get tired, the ninja girl would wait until it gets too obvious, after which she'd gently grip and tug on the oars, willing her to let go and rest her arms. At some point Natalie'd have to concede, after which she rows them back to land, docking the boat. "Next time I'm choosing our date, and as fun and romantic as this one is, I wonder how it'd be in the sea that is outer space, in a cruise shuttle or something." She suggests, for later!

[Earl of Purple]

Romantic Lake Boating

"That sounds pretty expensive, a shuttle. I don't want you to spend a lot of money just on me, Karasu." Because Natalie's got some money- a hidden inheritance, concealed for her by her father- but that money is expected to last all of Natalie's life. So she's not really going to waste a lot on frivolous purposes like very expensive dates because that money is supposed to pay for her education, housing and any bill that comes up whilst she's getting herself sorted as an adult.

[Purple Eagle]

[Romantic Lake Boating]

"Yeah I know, you keep saying that, luv." Karasu replies, taking Natalie's hand as they walk back to the latter's cabin. "In that case, we can explore Raptor Island, there's more to it than Little Wakodi, you know. That's the place I showed you last time, it's more of a training school city, you'll get to see practice matches and powers but no danger, promise. We can stay at the safe section of the beach and just enjoy our time together." She says excitedly, hugging Natalie with one hand.

[Earl of Purple]

Romantic Lake Boating

"Visiting a tropical paradise sounds great." And it involves a portal, Natalie thinks, so it shouldn't be too expensive to get there. Natalie's smiling, and will hug Karasu back.

I'm pretty sure the scene's over when they reach Natalie's room in the cabin, whichever cabin that may be.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Dragon Therapy]

"O-oh, right! Yes!" Sylvie leans forward slightly, smiling. "It's what copper dragons do! I-it's what we're good at! A-and as the only copper dragon left, uh, back where I come from I mean, I-I guess there might be others here, but as the only one left I kinda had to do a lot of sneaking?"

That's a good enough explanation, right?

"Uh, well, sneaking miiight sort of be the wrong word? Lots of, uh, spying? Y-y'know, taking other forms and going places where a dragon couldn't a-and finding out stuff people proooobably didn't want me knowing."

Better, but she can't help feel like she's missing something...

"Oh, right! That last dragon thing's prooobably kind of important, isn't it?"

There we go.

[Morty]

[Dragon Therapy]

"It seems so," Sophie says calmly, then continues on. As before, she shows no surprise or any hint of judgement about what Sylvess is saying. She is simply here to listen. "What happened to the other copper dragons?"

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Dragon Therapy]

It takes quite a while for Sylvie to answer. Not that she's trying to evade answering, it's more like the words are just getting stuck in her throat, and she can't quite figure out how to say it. Lots of half-starts, awkward pausing, trailing of in a vague "um" that doesn't really answer anything.

"I was born alone." Is her eventual quiet, tentative answer.

[Morty]

[Dragon Therapy]

"I understand that it's a difficult topic for you." Sophie's tone gets warmer and Sylvess might feel a sense of safety. The therapist backs away, in a sense, not wishing to test his boundaries. "I don't want to force an answer out of you. Tell me as much as you're comfortable with, at your own pace."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Memory Woods]

Delilah sort of gets out of the way? She shimmies off to the side, but retains her grip on that necklace in Affytok's hand, as it is somewhat necessary to the situation at hand.

On the bright side: she doesn't really need to respond to anything Affidavit has said here, because it doesn't really matter.
On the less-than-bright-side: pain.

Almost everything Needs couldn't mitigate, it's going straight to her. She's not going to be able to remain standing through this, but that's why humans evolved knees to fall onto. Probably.

Latched onto Magtok's being, the cloaked aspect of divinity is devoting a not-inconsiderable amount of its attention to splitting the spell in two, as it takes effect. The damaging, pain portion is being lanced away and pushed on further down the line towards Delilah. Meanwhile, the important part of the spell, that traces that bond of affection towards its target, is encouraged on its way with a scrying spell tacked onto the side of it.
Performing a task like this usually isn't great with spells of this magnitude, and even less so while the spell is actively running its course, but Needs did make it a bit simpler.

And onwards it travels, the Cloak watching with interest. Attached as they are, Magtok and Affidavit get similar views.

Spoiler: Elsewhere

Show

The tower’s groaning almost covers up hers. Neither does much to cover up the rabid snarling of the thing some distance to her left.

Libby is pressed face-first against the wall of a gray stone hallway, clearly trying and failing to pry herself through whatever is crushing her against it with the one arm not pinned beneath her. A little further down the hallway, a creature most closely described as a flayed wolf combined with an octopus, is matching her attempts to pull itself away from the wall in an equally futile but substantially more psychotic fervor.

There is another warning groan from the surrounding tower before it abruptly quiets and both Libby and the horror are dumped onto the floor. Neither wastes any time getting their bearings, the former running down the hall clutching the pinned arm to herself and the latter howling its way in chase.

“10 and 30, frequency and intensity up again.”
“Left side, head.”

She mutters to herself at first, but a second voice with no notable source pipes up a warning a moment later, as a blob of multi-colored goo is spat from her pursuer in her general direction. Libby jerks her head to the right, away from the projectile’s path, and carries herself around a corner.

As the monster scrabbles across the floor and slams into the wall, its haste too much to cleanly navigate the corner, Libby heads further down towards a door against the wall. A few moments are wasted yanking and jiggling the handle, before the resumed approach of her adversary draws out a frustrated cry of her own.

“Augh! Are you sure this is the correct room?”
“Yes.”
A very brief moment of painfully frustrated consideration.
“Same arrangement, open and seal!”
“Agreed.”

Something with a smoke-like visual indistinction flows out from her clutched arm and into the door. An audible clicking noise later and she throws the door open, leaps through it, and slams it back shut behind her. Seconds later, snarling and slamming begins on the other side, but the door remains closed.

Not paying attention to this further, Libby has moved further into what appears to be an alchemist’s laboratory. Tables and arranged all of the walls, covered in equipment ranging from metal containers to glass tubes. In the middle of the room, rising up to the ceiling like a pillar, are a series of bookshelves harboring presumably relevant literature. Her interest lies in these shelves, disregarding the equipment and its implications entirely, in favor of quickly panning through the books she can reach.
There are a lot of books. Several minutes are spent looking through them, before that second voice speaks again, this time from over by the door and raised slightly to be heard over the raging thing beyond it.

“I should warn you, this room was insulated before I opened it and an event is approaching, by the current pattern.”

It’s a comment that gives her pause, halfway through pulling a book from the shelf, drawing her eyes to all the instruments lining the walls and then to the books in front of her. She very nearly has time to pocket the book (“Psychotropics & Extranatural Metabolisms”) into her robe and get around the bookcase’s side, before gravity seems to rotate ninety degrees, tearing her from her footing and sending her sailing towards the wall instead. Herself, most of the books, and every other unsecured object in the room.

Not that what immediately follows is something visible to the spectators here. The scrying sensor that has been following Libby is promptly jerked through and out the wall, out the tower, and off towards the horizon as some greater force seizes the magic. The outside seems to be faring no better, as enormous quantities of sand, debris, and at least a few flailing creatures like the one inside seems to be similarly soaring through the air parallel to the desert ground below.

Passing through another tower (briefly passing what appears to be a small squad of modern-esque military soldiers similarly pinned to a wall inside of an enormous spiraling staircase of a chamber), and then skirting past a few more towers reveals the source of the disturbances:
A blank spot in the air, about the size of a beach ball, that everything seems to be falling into. All of the nearby towers and ground itself seem weirdly warped and bent towards it, like someone took a drawing on a piece of rubber and s t r e t c h e d it out. Large quantities of sand are flowing into it, simply vanishing as they approach whatever event horizon exists around the nothing there.

Floating next to this, wreathed in a purple aura that seems similarly struggling to warp in this seemingly catastrophic undertow, Feia is arguing with herself.
“This won’t work! It can’t work! Stop hiding from me!”

The scene is rapidly becoming indistinct, between the massive quantities of debris flying around the captured scrying sensor and some form of interference that is rapidly unraveling the spell’s fabric. Feia can be faintly seen with her arms raised towards the blank spot, yelling something that could have been either “stop lying!” or “stop trying!” before the sensor is pulled too close to the blank spot.

For a brief moment, everything is a hideously vast spray of colors and sounds with no clear basis in reality before the spell completely fails and terminates.

Lurking around the borders of Magtok's consciousness, The Cloak seems displeased.
Per the agreement, he was given a view of everything she was and now that it is concluded, she will begin the process of detaching herself.

[Morty]

[Campgrounds]

Tuskfang is leading Asher in search of Cheasadh, after having been asked to. The little woblin remembers that she and Brinika are visiting from Underside, but he seems to be mostly wandering at random... before he hears the music. A pair of drums and a high-pitched voice.

"Oooh. That must be Brinika! I'm sure Cheasadh is with her!" he squeaks, before scurrying in that direction. The two boys will indeed see the two older kids, with Brinika playing the drums and singing.

[Purple Eagle]

[Campgrounds]

Asher scurries after Tuskfang, excited to see Brinika again, especially so they can play music together and she can see how much bigger he's gotten. He's a bit wary of Cheasadh, she says what she's thinking even if it's not nice, but Reelshka's said she's calmed down, so it must be true.

"Brinika!" The boy exclaims when he sees her, giggling with glee when he sights her playing music. "H-Hi, K-K-Cheasadh." He says, less enthusiastically, looking a bit wary. He's not seen her since the time they went with Lami to buy ice-cream.

[Earl of Purple]

Campgrounds

Cheasadh's sitting nearby, listening to Brinika's music. Pookie's also present, sitting with his back to Cheasadh so they're leaning against each other and dips a paw into a big pot of honey and sucks on it.

Pookie notices the newcomers first, and waves his sticky paw, before elbowing Cheasadh until she turns around and looks. "Oh! Hi, Tuskfang."

[Morty]

[Campgrounds]

Brinika looks up from her drums and grins toothily.

"Hi Tuskfang! And you're back, Asher!"

"He is! And he wanted to see you," Tuskfang says cheerfully. "Cheasadh is Brinika's sister and my cousin now!" He told Asher that already, but he's so excited he might repeat it a few more times.

[Purple Eagle]

Campgrounds

Cheasadh's sitting nearby, listening to Brinika's music. Pookie's also present, sitting with his back to Cheasadh so they're leaning against each other and dips a paw into a big pot of honey and sucks on it.

Pookie notices the newcomers first, and waves his sticky paw, before elbowing Cheasadh until she turns around and looks. "Oh! Hi, Tuskfang."

Brinika looks up from her drums and grins toothily.

"Hi Tuskfang! And you're back, Asher!"

"He is! And he wanted to see you," Tuskfang says cheerfully. "Cheasadh is Brinika's sister and my cousin now!" He told Asher that already, but he's so excited he might repeat it a few more times.

[Campgrounds]

"Yes, I am!" Asher parrots along, running over to the older musician and sitting by her side. "Congra-too-lations, C-Cheasadh. I hope you'll be n-nice like Tuskfang and B-Brinika now." He addresses the little gnome. "B-Brinika, c-can I play, too?"

[Earl of Purple]

Campground

"Hi, Asher. Thank you, though. And I've always been nice, I just... Didn't realise how young you were." Because Asher's bigger than Cheasadh was at his age, she assumed he was older than he really was.

[Morty]

[Campgrounds]

Tuskfang flops down on the grass himself but actually stays silent for a moment. Meanwhile, Brinika's ears twitch.

"Sure! What are you going to play, though?"