PL IC Thread IX++ //Oddsbodikins & Atomic Kittens//

[Fvaarniimar]

<It wasn't revenge in the story, just consequences from messing stuff up... Apparently a lot of "myths" are true. Giovenith (Image of said party) recently implied that the Greek ones are..> Nick began to lick the paw on Calle's arm. He'd miss a few times, licking said arm instead.

<(Images of Greek pantheon, as imagined by Nick.) I laughed at some myths, and hope they aren't too upset. For that matter, I'm worried about offending the others... That's probably just silly, though.> He seemed to decide that the paw was in fact clean enough, and glanced up at the provider of a warm lap and pleasant company.

"Anyone strong enough to possess the power of the Gods, or the Gods themselves, shouldn't take offense to someone poking a little fun at them." Calle replied. "If Humans hold them as deities, then why would they care about a little humor?" She shrugged, reaching a gloved hand over to Nick, stroking the top of his head as she looked at the images in her vision. "Mmm, the Greeks? I've never been much into them." She said neutrally.

<You have a point.> Calle would still feel the cat's nervousness. Something occurred to him then. <Crud! I almost forgot about a gift - it's some homemade paper for Giovenith and should be dry by now. Would you be willing to help me retrieve it? We don't need to right away, but I don't want to leave it on the island by accident... Btw, I have a little story of my own if anyone is interested. If you're interested...> Calle would see an image of the island, as it had been immediately following the storm which had struck in 2013.

[Monfrox]

Brit looked down at the food she was now slowly munching on. Would a vacation from this place really fix her? She somehow highly doubted it would, unless she could get near some kind of distraction. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad...she'd never been to Maine before, let alone at least 25 of the other states. She'd never even been out of the country. Well, that is, until now. She looked over to Willow. "I 'unno...I don' exactly wanna go alone...other than that, it doesn't sound half bad."

[Giovenith]

"Well you'll be with Arthur," Willow pointed to the doctor next to him. "And if you ask me, he seems like a good companion to be bringing along since he got you the vacation in the first place, and I assume on decent information that he knows what he's talking about when he means to ease you out of your current stress. Plus, you'll be back in no time at all, just a break for a little nostalgia is all. It'll be great."

[Monfrox]

"I think it'll be more like a break from all this insanity aroun' here. I don' know how I did it last time..." Brit said, murmuring the last part under her breath. This attitude may seem to be a bit foreign and out of character for Brit, who should be happy she was getting a break, but this was the norm for her. She started wondering about if she really could just suck it up and deal with it, and trying to fool herself into thinking she could. She was getting cold feet and she hadn't even gotten started. She was indecisive and unsure, and naturally paranoid.

[The New Velociraptor Empire]

"Last time?" Arthur asked Brit a bit confused by the statement. "In any case you can bring along anyone willing to go." He said and sipped some more champagne.

[Monfrox]

"Yeah, uhhh....las' time....heh....las' time I really went with the flow and ended up getting involved in a lotta things that...well, I'll just leave it at that." Brit really didn't recognize Arthur from her last time here, but that wasn't his fault. She didn't really have the best memory when it came to medial things. That was partly why she was so good at keeping secrets. By the next morning, she'd probably have forgotten it. As such, she didn't remember meeting with Arthur much, so she wasn't as guarded of her past around him and Willow like she was with people like Giovenith, Mon, Tsu, Kei, Dora, and the rest that she inexplicably knew. Though her new look did help to hide her very effectively. She just had to keep her big mouth shut, and everything would be fine.

[Torsiedelle]

"I understand Torii," the godling nodded. "Don't worry about if something is too girly, or not girly enough. Just do what you want to do."

"I guess I won't.", Torii giggled. "I just feel like I can't appear too girly. I got a tomboy image to keep up, and I like it that way."

She observed the rest of her friends, who seemed quiet all of a sudden. "Well, don't everybody speak up at once."

[Giovenith]

Suddenly, Giovenith was hit with an idea. It filled her up, returning her fully to her usual excited state, as she sat up and waved her hands frantically.

"Oh, oh, I've got it!" she said excitedly. "Why don't we all make one big story together? I'll tell the first part, then Torii can go, then Yuna can go, then Toscha can go, then Kale can go, and, and, and, and, YEAH!!!" Her eyes were bright with the thought.

---

Willow slid back in his with a confused look that mirrored Arthur's, but he quickly rejected the thought of trying to squeeze the extra information behind Brit's mumbles out of her. It really didn't matter, and it was clear the young woman didn't feel like going into detail. She'd already told him she'd been here before, and that she'd come back after falling onto a gravel road... though she had also told him she had a son despite being 20, so either her past was stickier than she let on, or Brit was possibly embellishing some details. He didn't care what the truth is. Willow was a pony who believed the present and future took precedence to the past, and presently, it was clear that Brit was a tightly wound up little spring, and needed something to ease her forward.

"Uh-mare-ick-uh is the place you grew up in," he added, with more reassurance. "If you ask me, there's fewer places where going with the flow is safer than in your home. Usually, anyway." There was a pause, as he racked his mind for careful encouragement, something that didn't always come quite as naturally to him as say, Giovenith, or Sterling. "If it's not too much of a burden on Arthur, maybe you could ask one of your friends to go with you and him. That might help you feel safe, and give a nice balance to the familiar, and the escape."

[The BranRiech]

<You have a point.> Calle would still feel the cat's nervousness. Something occurred to him then. <Crud! I almost forgot about a gift - it's some homemade paper for Giovenith and should be dry by now. Would you be willing to help me retrieve it? We don't need to right away, but I don't want to leave it on the island by accident... Btw, I have a little story of my own if anyone is interested. If you're interested...> Calle would see an image of the island, as it had been immediately following the storm which had struck in 2013.

"Of course, Gods should be strong and able to take a joke once in a while." Calle nodded, finishing her point as her boosters whirred to life, blasting little whirlwinds of sand as she hovered to her feet, or a few feet off the ground at least. "Homemade paper gift? Interesting, but what's the location where it is?" She asked, looking over a small map of the island in the corner of her vision. "I can help you retrieve it." She nodded, this time without any emotion, almost slipping into her default state, human mind suppressed for the time-being as she was given a mission, however simple it was.

--

"Well for me at least, 300 is pretty young, but many nations don't even last that long. I remember nations that seemed unstoppable, that conquered half of their known world, but the chopping block that is History shows no mercy." Kei shrugged. "But for a country, 300 is a good run, you know?" She nodded, smiling at Qeno as she raised another shot. "Well, I guess here's to your country." She smiled, downing the shot, feeling that much more woozy.

--

"So, Gio, you're saying that we pick a role in the story, and play it out?" Yuna asked, nodding her head at the idea. She took a few seconds to speak though, having been listening in on Torii chatting about her dance with Drova. She grinned, assuming in her mind that the girl had a crush on her brother, which if it were true, would have been adorable.

[Giovenith]

"I was more thinking that there just be one narrative each person picks up on," Giovenith said, stealing the marshmallow bag from Marcus and popping a white fluffball into her mouth. "Y'see, like, there was this game we once did in my summer activity group back home, where you wrote part of a story on a piece of paper for a few seconds, then passed it to the next person to right on when time ran out, and you got a new paper too. At the end, lots of people made one big silly story."

[Monfrox]

"Wull th' only other person I know well enough to ask is....uhhh...." Brit's gaze fell onto Willow. She cleared her throat accusingly towards him before she continued eating, hoping he'd catch her drift. Willow seemed adept at catching onto things like that. He could read people, and she liked that. It meant she didn't have to beat around the bush with him, which would be a fruitless endeavor.

[Giovenith]

"Wull th' only other person I know well enough to ask is....uhhh...." Brit's gaze fell onto Willow. She cleared her throat accusingly towards him before she continued eating, hoping he'd catch her drift. Willow seemed adept at catching onto things like that. He could read people, and she liked that. It meant she didn't have to beat around the bush with him, which would be a fruitless endeavor.

Willow slowly raised an eye, and then rolled them both with an exasperated huff. He didn't like it when people danced around something they wanted to say; if the same reaction was coming regardless, why not save time and take the shorter route?

"Briiiiiiit," he said in a clearly false-nicey tone, with an exaggerated smile. "I can come with you if you waaaaaaaant." Giovenith might have put up some fuss about it, but she wasn't the boss of him.

[Fvaarniimar]

<You have a point.> Calle would still feel the cat's nervousness. Something occurred to him then. <Crud! I almost forgot about a gift - it's some homemade paper for Giovenith and should be dry by now. Would you be willing to help me retrieve it? We don't need to right away, but I don't want to leave it on the island by accident... Btw, I have a little story of my own if anyone is interested. If you're interested...> Calle would see an image of the island, as it had been immediately following the storm which had struck in 2013.

"Of course, Gods should be strong and able to take a joke once in a while." Calle nodded, finishing her point as her boosters whirred to life, blasting little whirlwinds of sand as she hovered to her feet, or a few feet off the ground at least. "Homemade paper gift? Interesting, but what's the location where it is?" She asked, looking over a small map of the island in the corner of her vision. "I can help you retrieve it." She nodded, this time without any emotion, almost slipping into her default state, human mind suppressed for the time-being as she was given a mission, however simple it was.

Nick - who had clung to Calle for dear life as she rose, among other things wrapping his front legs around her shoulder, and who hopefully hadn't put his claws or paws anywhere sensitive or awkward - sent several images: one of the edge of the forest as seen from halfway down the beach with two trees circled, one of the view from between those trees with two more trees circled, and one of a small clearing with a rack fashioned of branches suspended between two other trees. All, for obvious reasons, were from a perspective around a foot off the ground. <Do those work?>

[Cerillium]

[collab w/Swith]

Ceril’s hands, folded so tightly that the knuckles of his organic right fist blanched, pressed against his mouth. Naomi had every right to take him to task , and she was doing so now - with much fervor – as she paced back and forth in front of the kitchen table. He listened. He made up his mind to sit down and hear her out. Had he a tail, it would be firmly tucked between his legs. He focused on the oranges tucked into a bowl on the table as she bitched and complained. There was no way he could make eye contact without feeling guilt.

“-because it’s nothing but machines and gears and bullshit,” the godling kicked out at the waterbear’s fleece bed, sending it across the kitchen, “and every time I turn around, you’re not here. You’re never here! You leave for days on end and when you remember to come home, you go right to your shop and work. What the hell are you building, a new universe?”

My how mundane life had become. You’d think gods and cyborgs would lead adventurous lives. Yet here they were, quarreling about something so typical to a marriage that it could have been read off a universal script. Ceril sighed.

“And then there’s Marcus. Your own son, Ceril! Have you looked at him lately? He wants to badly to be like you, but he’s terrified of becoming like you. He’s eighteen now. He’s not some little child you can drop off with a nanny while you occupy yourself. This isn’t fair to him. Plus you never said goodbye to Eva.”

Ceril’s eye widened. “She’s off in her own world, Naomi. I doubt she knows I exist.”

“That’s bullshit, too. And it’s bullshit that you walked away and left me to deal with her alone. I had no choice but to send her to Maize. I couldn’t do anything to break her form her spell.”

“You sent her to Maize? When was this?”

Naomi rolled her eyes. “A week before Argus arrived.”

“Argus?”

This was the final straw. Naomi’s hands slapped down upon the table and she leaned over to glower at him. “Your son, Ceril. Did you think I’d stay pregnant until you were ready to put aside your projects?”

Now the dread set in. Its cold fingers scrabbled at his brain, piercing it so tightly that he couldn’t see beyond a few feet. His mouth futilely worked to form words that refused to surface. He gibbered vowel sounds at her instead.

Naomi pushed off the table. Her eyes sought the toaster and she stared at it as he grunted at her. “Fuck you, tech priest, and fuck your Deus Mechanicus. I want a divorce.”

There. She’d said it. It felt good, too.

The table groaned as his hands grasped it, and for a moment Naomi was sure he’d flip it, but he drew a ragged breath instead. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“What?!”

“You heard me!”

“Naomi, look-“

“Fuck you. Get your shit out of my house!” She folded her arms and turned her back on him. “Go back to the observatory. Slap some more tech crap on your body and, while you’re at it, look into getting a god damned heart. Marcus stays with me. I won’t have my stepson growing up to become some cold cyborg bastard. Get out and don’t come back until you figure out a way to cure your damn addition!”

Now it was his turn to become irate. “It’s not an addiction. It’s a form of worship!”

“Don’t you talk to me about worship. If you gave two pennies about your god you wouldn’t have run to Charumati to seek perfection. So there. Your addiction ensnared you as a slave, and bound you to Chaos, and now it’s caused you to lose us.”

That was the heart of the matter and they both knew it. Naomi cringed as the table struck the wall. The kitchen door slammed, leaving her to contemplate the oranges through watery eyes as they rolled past her feet.


The workshop door collided with the jamb hard enough to bend its hinges. It suffered further indignity as his fist bore into it. Titanium yielded to the stronger metal of his composition. It became the target of his rage and he purged it with every brutal punch; each sickening blow bowled the metal inwards. A sigil snapped. Then another. Then another. He kept going, shattering each one in turn, uncaring and outright ignoring his systems protesting the damage to his augmented arm.

The workbench became his wrath’s next victim. His wife eternally pushed aside important projects to leave stupid presents. Scarves. A hat. A pair of purple gloves. She knitted all this shit for him.

“Genetors don’t need scarves!” he thundered. And they don’t need bitchy, meat sack wives, either.

He snatched a picture from the bench to throw it but the wink of light glinting off glass caught his attention. Naomi’s image was frozen in time, her beautiful neck exposed as she threw her head back in laughter. She wore a restaurant tee shit and the logo was taut across her perfect breasts. When was this picture taken? How long ago?

He studied it, scrutinizing his memory until he located the correct record, but his eyes adjusted to see his own hazy reflection in the glass. His reflection. The twisted image of a machine emerging from what little was left of the man. Just one more part. Just add one more piece. Just a little more, praise the Omnissiah and pass the dinner rolls.

“What have I done?”

For the first time in his unnaturally long existence, the old cyborg saw himself through the eyes of others; his mind normally blocked out the flesh in favor of the metal.


The shower had been running but now the cascading water was trapped in frozen jets that emerged from the head to arch down to the frozen ice coating the stall floor. Naomi’s raw emotions chewed up her sensibility, rendering her into a hollow core filled with nothing but despair. It had happened once before, but this time there was no Bones or Totenopf to shake her from her present state. A shadow loomed over her but she didn’t respond.

Ceril beheld his wife where she sat, her arms hugging her drawn up knees in a bid to comfort herself. Flesh was weak, but her flesh was a matrix. His foolish addiction had shattered a god.

“Naomi,” he squatted before her then knelt to tenderly clasp her shoulders. The ice traveled across the backs of his hands to assail his wrists yet he didn’t pull away. How ironic. The only person able to reach her in this state was the one that had stripped away his humanity. Love personified and machine manifested. They were a fucked up pair.

Her chin quivered as she raised her head to peer at his face. “I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to be a god. I want to be a normal person and have normal things. I want to hug the velociraptor. I want to sing jazz while you play the piano. You don’t play the piano for me anymore.”

It wasn’t a zinger. He realized that. Their relationship blossomed due to a mutual love for music, she the notes and he the math. Two years had passed since they made melody together.

“I know, Naomi,” he drew her into his arms. “I know. I’ve neglected a lot of things. No more. Do you hear? No more.”

Naomi nodded and her hand sought his, but she found herself grasping only two digits. She stared at the mutilated appendage, distressed by the loss of pinky and ring finger. The whatsits and gizmos had taken a beating.

“Ceril, you have to fix this,” she insisted.

“I will. Not today. No more means no more.”

“No more,” she whispered in reply before burying her face against his chest.

[Highfort]

WARNING: SYSTEM FAILURE
........................................................
CLEARING SYSTEM CACHE
.......................................... 22%
................. 55%
........................................................
........................................................
UNKNOWN ERROR: CACHE NOT CLEARED
................
TRACING ERROR SOURCE
.............................................
.......................
SOURCE UNKNOWN
............
BEGINNING SYSTEM REBOOT
..
REBOOTING ORGANS
............................ 100%
REBOOTING SENSORS
........................ 42%
.............................. 100%
REBOOTING COGNITION
................... 25%
....................... 75%
.... 100%
WAKING ORGANIC ORGANISM
......... 75%
... 100%

Septimus' eyes flew open as he sucked in a deep breath. The emergency reboot screen flashed before his augmented eye before disappearing, archiving itself somewhere in the back of his mind for later perusal and analysis. He stayed still, only the shallow rising and falling of his chest betraying that he'd awoken. Something was wrong, he knew it. But what?

His limbs flailed as they checked themselves, fresh off of the reboot. His robotic arm flew out at a perfect right angle as it calibrated, the extraneous limbs sprouting from his back doing the same. He stiffened. Though subject to these sorts of quirks many times - 1,200 years had a tendency to drop you in hard-reset situations - he didn't enjoy one moment of it. He didn't feel human.

Well, he reasoned to himself, it's not like you are. For most of your life, you've been a machine man, a hybrid. No sense in feeling self-pity over that now, of all times.

Clicks and hums rang out as he checked himself for any permanent damage. He turned to each body part, scanning it with his mechanized eye for any external damage before running numerous system scans that cluttered his vision to check for internal breaches, viruses, and other unpleasantness. He paid special attention to his left shoulder, where his primary cores were located. Reaching with his organic hand, he depressed the cover and rolled it to the side, revealing a glowing, spinning motor within.

Gently tugging on it, he pulled it out, careful to not tear its vital connections to his body. It smelled atrocious, like rotting eggs. He smiled. That meant it was processing the protein just fine. Letting out a sigh of relief, he replaced it in its little niche and slid the rusting cover over it, letting it compress back into place. He was whole, at the very least, even if he was very, very lost.

Pulling himself up with his numerous appendages, he proceeded to look around the room. It appeared to be a lobby for some sort of apartment building. But why was he here? Last he remembered, he was in the expansive, minimalist laboratories of Lazarus LLC, doing some routine tests on a dummy body. Was this the Infinity Circuit? Had he... died?

Scanning the room with his eye, he found it reflected perplexing information. Despite clearly being a lobby for the average 21st century Earth apartment, his structural scans showed that the building itself was anything but average. Foreign, possibly hostile organisms littered the upper floors, the exterior appeared not to match the interior, and his location appeared not to be archived on any Agymnum map. According to his databases, he was on Earth, but his positional locator was triangulating him to several different locations at once, several in the US and several more abroad.

Surely this could not be the Infinity Circuit that he worked on. Such bugs and errors would be unacceptable. Where then, was he?

Approaching the reception desk, he decided to get some sort of opinion from the locals. Perhaps they could tell him why his equipment, loyal and steadfast to him for over a millennia - was now failing to report accurate data.

The desk was empty. On it lay a folded piece of paper with his name on it. Atop the paper, perhaps to keep it from flying away, lay a simple key.

What fresh hell was this?

[Cerillium]

CHANGE OF VENUE

Cultists scrambled here and there, ferrying baggage (and the occasional Resident) from huts and into the transport ships. It was time to go home. Seriously. Oh I know, it may seem a cold, cruel thing to leave such a wonderful place behind. It isn't. The Island was the equivalent of a Disney theme trap. Adults, weary of their inane surroundings, ply their children with cheap merchandise and food while they flash all-too-familiar grins to the other, equally enslaved parents: Please, make it stop. When will the hurting stop? Such was the burden of the Island, and the older people were really fucking sick of sand and sunshine.

It was an hour later when the transports touched down on the Building's roof. Residents traipsed down the gangway and through the roof access door. The cultists fist pumped as the last Resident vanished down the stairwell. Free at last, thank God, we are free at last.

---

The Building was beginning to awaken now that Residents had return. The lobby's interior shifted to adopt to Septimus' ideal concept.

"Brother Septimus Itum, ja?" the man behind the desk lowered his copy of The Underworld Times and adjusted his spectacles. He wore an outdated Nazi uniform (although the swastikas had been replaced with odd symbols) and smelled of moth balls.

"Mr. Demens was expecting you. Don't ask. I can't explain it. You're in 4J."

[Highfort]

Septimus gasped and nearly jumped back - or would have, had his two ton metal-and-flesh frame been capable of doing that - as a man appeared behind the previously-empty desk. The interior had changed as well, now reflecting the white walls, sharp corners, and minimalistic design of Lazarus LLC. Waves of comfort washed over him as the environment reminded him of the place he'd left behind, but he was even more confused. What in the name of the Board was going on here?!'

Scanning frantically as he looked around the room, his sensors reported new data that didn't match his initial scans of the interior. Was the building hiding its true form from him? Or, perhaps even more sinister, did it not have a true form? Perhaps its true form was the user's fancy. That would explain the imitation of Lazarus LLC, down to even the style of furniture and the now-oblong, spherical glass reception desk. He wondered if it would feel like glass rather than the aging wood he'd just seen.

He touched an organic hand on it, running it over the surface and leaving a greasy print where his fingers traced. It was glass.

"I uh," he squinted with his organic eye at the man, sizing up his stylish uniform - though for some reason it reminded him of some unpleasantness he'd studied in Terra history class, "Yes, that's me. Where am I? What... Who is Mr. Demens? 4J?"

Looking between the man and the letter with a key on the table, he slowly raised his mechanical arm to grab it. The cannon at its end began glowing softly, and a holographic projection of a hand appeared, swiping both the letter and the key. He looked down at the welcoming letter, which revealed nothing except to tell him how welcome he was and when rent was due. Rent? How did whoever set this up - presumably Mr. Demens - know him? This was a strange place, indeed.

[Cerillium]

The cultist (for that's what he was) grinned like a Cheshire chat. "Mr. Demens is the landlord. This Building - The Building - sits in the City of Bielefeld. He is clever, our Mr. Demens. He always knows when this strange place will draw in a new Resident. We get all shapes and sizes here. You'll find getting home somewhat difficult, too. It's not your fault. The Universe has a strange sense of humor."

He nudged two pamphlets towards Septimus. One was labeled Welcome to Buildfeld and the other was a xerox copy containing building information.

"There's a communal kitchen and dining room on the second floor. You can take the stairs or the elevators. Your residence is on the fourth floor, apartment J. Don't shoot the raptors. Look out for the Chaos gods. Pay your rent in the little box on the wall behind me."

[The New Velociraptor Empire]

5 minutes after arriving back in Bielefeld, a crash came as Arthur drove his car into the lobby, the black '65 Imperial Crown sedan. He got out and surveyed the damage. "Dammit, parallel parking!" He cursed and backed back out onto the street to park, perpendicular to the other cars. This time walking back inside, he passed Septimus and the cultist stuck an IOU in the drop box. "Good day... I'll be leaving now," the lanky man in the tweed suit and sunglasses greeted, then went upstairs to gather Brit and Willow for the road trip

[Swith Witherward]

Neste lowered her playing cards and sniffed the air. Did she hear that right? Really?! It was a human hand that brushed aside fern fronds to so she could better snoop in the direction of the reception desk, but it was a reptilian hand that knocked the fern completely over as she scrambled over the back of the couch.

Don't assume human form. Don't ask too many questions. Don't fidget. Don't-

The tiny construct reminded herself of all the proper things to do and say, a mental checklist meant to keep her from looking foolish, but most of these things drifted out of her mind as she rounded the two wingback chairs to stand behind the new arrival.

His scent was Agymnum. The ozone and egg tastes radiating off him were too distinct to be otherwise. He was the right build. He even wore the correct cloak. The stupid universe was being exceptionally cruel today, tricking her this way.

A soft cough. She tilted her reptilian head.

"Brother Itum?"

[Highfort]

The grin unsettled Septimus, but he shrugged as he pocketed the key in a little compartment in his chest. The universe was rarely so kind to individuals, and so he'd have to make do with what he got. Looking over the two pamphlets, he scanned the information and saved it in a new directory in his memory core, specifically created for this "Bielefeld". Perhaps this little anomaly of a trip wouldn't be a total waste of time. He did need to find some way home, though, or at least some way to contact home so he could get his research data transferred over and continue his experiments. He wondered if the landlord would mind him allocating some of his apartment space for his work.

Mr. Demens probably wouldn't, he mused, given that he knew I was coming and probably knows a lot about me. Rather disturbing, I must say.

Folding up both pamphlets and pocketing them with his key, he offered the man a nod and a smile - lost, unfortunately, behind the veneer of his breathing mask. Oh well, it was the thought that counted. Turning to look down the hallways extending out from the lobby, he found the stairs next to what appeared to be a gymnasium, clinic, and a pool. A shame that he wasn't one for exercise, as he figured the rather expensive rent was probably due to those and the other amenities listed in the building pamphlet. He supposed the pool would do well for his experiments at some point, even if he couldn't enjoy it himself.

"I'll be off then," he paused for a moment before deciding that it wouldn't hurt to scan the man. As the cultist went back to his paper, a beam of light emanated from Septimus' mechanical eye and ran over the cultist, top to bottom, before disappearing. A click indicated the information had been sourced and recorded, "You mind giving me a name to match your face and biological data, cultist?"

As he asked, a car came careening through the lobby, ruining its minimalist atmosphere and calm as it smashed through the front windows and screeched to a halt in the middle, on top of the white carpet. Septimus frowned. The stains would take forever to get out.

A thin man in a tweed suit with what appeared to be a velociraptor claw for one hand and one foot briskly exited the car and walked right past him, offering a greeting before speeding down the hallway and up the stairs. The cultist, for his part, merely shoved what appeared to be an IOU notice into the payment box. Septimus shrugged. Stranger things have happened, though this might land on the stranger side of the spectrum.

He turned back to the cultist and was about to ask his name before he heard a familiar voice. Her? No, it couldn't be. The fallout from the diplomatic mission to establish relations with Swith Witherward had been enormous.

"Neste?" he gulped audibly, turning to the source of the voice.

[Cerillium]

The cultist nodded in return and unfolded his newspaper again. There were a few more names on the arrival list. These people would eventually find their way downstairs.

Perhaps.

He made a mental note to send cultists out to find them.

[Swith Witherward]

Yes, here I am! Hello there! How in the hell did you get here? Where did you come from? Are you for real? These would have been perfectly sensible things to say to a friend that turned up in the lest expected place. Neste said none of them, of course. Neste was still Neste.

"Eeee," she warbled, and then "Oh" as she wrung her hands and slammed her mental shielding into place lest she assault him with her thoughts. Overwhelmed by reality, the former ambassador found herself enduring several emotions at once. She couldn't settle on any of them, and so her bottom lip quivered, she laughed, and then she buried her snout against his augmented arm in customary greeting.

"I am s-so glad you're h-here," she hiccuped.

This was true enough. She'd arrived on a lark several months ago, and had been trapped ever since. There was only the Tilktep and Rodney to talk to, and both of them were boring. Even the raptors were different here, and not anything like the beloved New Velociraptor Empire leaders.

[Giovenith]

"I still don't see why you couldn't have at least asked me!"

He knew it. He knew she was going to react like this. Willow only groaned in response, his teeth occupied by pulling the wheel suitcase along with him through the lobby doors. It was an excuse to ignore Giovenith for a little while and avoid repeating himself.

"How do you expect to know your way around things?!" the godling demanded, holding the door open. "Do you even know how far away America is, or what it's like? It isn't the same as Bielefeld, you know! Nobody's used to odd things there, how do you think they're going to react to a pony like you? They might try to kidnap you and dissect you! Or exorcise a demon from you! Or shoot you! Or turn you into a traveling circus act! THEY MIGHT TRY TO FEED YOU PEANUT BUTTER!"

Willow spit out the handle. "I told you about forty million times now, I don't have trouble eating peanut butter. I don't know why you think I do."

"That's not the point of this conversation!" Giovenith let the door shut and waved Pippa-Michelle off to return their things to their room, so she could focus on glowering down at the stubborn little pegasus and lecture him. "Bielefeld, and the island, are all you know about Earth, Willow! ALL. And suddenly you think you're just ready to go traveling across the planet? Without me?"

"Just how different can it be?" retorted Willow, who was feeling just a little patronized at Giovenith's insinuation that he was some crippled infant on this planet without her assistance. "I'm twenty years old, if I want to go traveling with a small group of companions, I can handle it."

"What if something tries to eat you?"

"You know, some many ponies keep saying that some shit out there is just ready to eat me at any moment, and I still have yet to see any evidence of this."

"Where did you learn that word?!"

"What word? Evidence?"

"Shit!"

"I have ears, Giovenith. I'm not as damn innocuous as you seem to think I am." He frowned deeply, nipping the strap on his saddlebag and tightening it as if to make a point. "Look, Geo-puzzle, you've got points. You do. And I am really, really, really am grateful that you've been so defensive of me the time I've been here..."

"Mhmm," Giovenith narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, but didn't interrupt.

"But I am not helpless," Willow continued, with audible conviction. "I'm not going to be jumped on the street, nopony's going to steal me, nopony's going to push me into the dirt and make me cry, I'm not going to explode into friggin' pink bubbles the single moment somepony raises a hand to me."

"But what if-"

"No."

"But-"

"No but's!" Willow snapped out a hoof in front of him. "I'm going to Maine because a friend asked me to. I'll be back in about a week, maybe later, maybe less. If I can find a method and the time frame suits, I will find a way to give you a heads up on my condition, if it makes you feel better. I'll even try to bring you back a pretty little snowglobe. And there you have it, that's the end of it."

The taller but younger roommate stared down at the pegasus artist, after first seething beneath her skin, but then slowly and surely chewing up the fire and swallowing it whole as she began to accept the circumstance. It was true; Willow tended get pulled into Giovenith's tiny but none-the-less existing "selfish bubble"--the things in her life that she felt an insistence to be her's, and lord help those who broke or interfered with them. It was the kind of mental construct that lead other deities to frying someone with lightning for someone trying to chop down a tree they were fond of, or something equally petty. But Giovenith was a young, insignificant thing in that scheme, so when it came down to it, there was absolutely nothing she could do to act on it. It wasn't like she could restrain Willow, or lock him up, and the good thing of her being so young was that she could still easily realize when it was time to count your losses and get over it. Willow was right. He could do whatever he wanted.

"Okaaaaaaaay," the teen groaned, glancing to the side in defeat. "Just be careful, okay? It's a big world, and bad stuff can happen."

Willow raised an eye, assessing if she was sincere, and then smiled genuinely when he found the results satisfying. "Of course. Don't worry, nothing bad's going to happen, I'll be people to trust. Just have fun while I'm gone, and I'll be back before you know it, alright?"

"Okay."

He flew up and gave her a quick but meaningful hug, knowing those always comforted her when she was distressed, then flew out of the lobby to find Arthur and/or Brit.

"Ohhhhh," Giovenith huffed to herself, looking down sadly. "My little pony's flying away."

[Fvaarniimar]

It had been done by the skin of their teeth, but Nick and Calle had managed to retrieve Giovenith's paper before leaving. <Thank you so much! See you later - actually, stop by if you'd like. Mine's 7B. Bit of a mess though -> He jumped in Giovenith's general direction. Following a quick catching of his balance and a short walk, he nosed the girl. <Hey sorry this is so late...> Along with that, he sent an image of an unadorned squarish package, appearing to have been hastily wrapped in bark; were she to look down, Giovenith would find the package being gently held in Nick's mouth. Were she to grab it, Nick would release it into her hand so that she could open it. Upon doing so, she would find that it contained four dry sheets of paper, which were very roughly square, variegated green, not quite even in thickness, and flecked both with dirt and the occasional shiny bit or piece of charcoal. Sides were, roughly, 2-3 inches.

---

Rmwtyliin was feeling somewhat better, although she had taken along an entire roll of toilet paper from the Island for nose-blowing and it had already visibly shrunk. Her gown (along with Kwa'a's) was draped over an arm, and the "R" bracelet adorned one wrist. Blinking sleepily, she looked around. "We...have returned?" A snoozing Duncan did not translate, but Kwa'a had retained enough Fvaa to comprehend some Fvaarniimarn.

"Yes." Her Fvaa wasn't quite her ward's Fvaarniimarn, but "yes" had remained similar over the years, the older version merely sounding oddly accented. The same was true of other common words. "You will sleep? You will eat?"

"Yes. I will sleep now, will eat in a fifth of a day." A confused Kwa'a considered waking Duncan and requesting that the girl repeat herself. Of course, that would raise the question of just how she knew the language, and that... Well, she felt fortunate that her charge seemed to have been too sleepy to have noticed.