Vigor Mortis

Chapter 168: Smooth

“Wow,” my mouth says, entirely of its own accord. “This is… unbelievably fucking wild.”

Right? I think. My life is so messed up I didn’t even realize how messed up it was until recently.

“Yeah, this is… a lot,” my voice agrees. “I can definitely see why you broke up with me. And here I thought you’d just forgotten all the good times we’ve had.”

Nope, I remember a lot of them. They’re just… recontextualized.

“No kidding. This Penta chick seems like a real piece of work. I wonder how your island knew the name ‘Nawra.’ I guess there was a failed invasion and we all went non-sapient?”

I’ll look into it when I run the place.

“Ha! That’s the spirit, Malrosa.”

I try to smile, but of course it doesn’t work, since my body isn’t currently my own. I’m chatting with Bahregar, as letting them slurp up all my memories was the fastest way to get them up to speed. It’s weirdly nostalgic, but also weirdly uncomfortable in that frustratingly sexy way I always hate. I have such a weird fucking kink. Or is it had? I guess I’m still into it, I just very firmly don’t want to be. Being two people is hard.

“Yeah, it seems like a mess,”Bahregar agrees. “You’re a pretty different person from my Malrosa. But you’re still in there, to some extent. So that’s… some kind of reassuring, I suppose.”

It actually is reassuring. It’s been a tenday since Malrosa and Vita merged into whoever the fuck I am now, and Malrosa is still a significant enough part of me to not be uncomfortable calling myself that. It’s comforting to not die when I am killed.

“Yeah, that poor Melik bastard, though,”Bahregar sighs. “He’s pretty much gone, yeah?”

Pretty much, barring some memories and knowledge. But even the spells and stuff he knows are primitive and somewhat useless by Athanatos standards, so that’s kind of redundant now.

“Eh, he was gonna die anyway,” Bahregar shrugs with my shoulders. “It’s not that big of a loss.”

Ha! I laugh at them.You shrug now! My savage habits have infected you.

“Ah, f… damn it!” Bahregar swears, and I mentally laugh even harder.

Anyway, now that you know the story, I continue, expertly changing the subject, do you want to come with Tala and I to the Tear Basin colony? You can take my body or yours, I don’t really mind either way.

“Yeah, I think I’m done with your body forever, to be honest,” Bahregar says, causing my body to shudder slightly. “Like no offense, I love what we had, but you’re technically my aunt now, Malrosa.”

Wh-what? I ask.

“Nawra is my mom, remember?” Bahregar reminds me. “Vita is Nawra’s sister. You’re Vita. That makes you my aunt.”

Oh. Uh. Huh. I mean, I’m only like… half your aunt.

“That makes you no less creepy to be inside of,” Bahregar grumbles. “Not to mention terrifying.”

They reach out to touch their vacant shell of a male body before swimming back inside. He stretches a bit, brushing himself off as I do more or less the same. Reestablishing bodily autonomy always has a short adjustment period.

“What’s she like, anyway?” I ask him, standing up and rolling all four of my shoulders. “Nawra, I mean. I’ve only talked to her once. Do you know her any better?”

“Yeah, I’m first-generation,” Bahregar confirms with a sigh. “Nawra crafted me personally. She’s…”

They get silent for a while, twitching nervously a bit.

“She’s dangerous,” they conclude. “You’ve talked to her enough to know that. She makes sapient bioweapons for fun. I’m one of only a few of my siblings that she didn’t eat. I live here in Liriope because it’s one of the only places that’s more or less safe from her. She and the Progenitor… I mean, I wouldn’t call them ‘friends’ in any sense of the word, but they meet each other for tea and stuff. Old lady shit.”

“I’ve never had tea before,” I mention idly.

“Your life is so fucking sad now, Malrosa,” Bahregar sighs.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” I agree, grimacing a bit… or at least performing the Athanatos equivalent. “So like, are we still friends? Or is this too weird for you?”

“I know you already ended the whole sex part of the relationship, but I agree on that, that’s a big no from me,” Bahregar insists. “I’m not into it if you’re not into it anyway. But are we friends? Fuck yeah, if you wanna be. Like, come on Mal, you think I’m going to judge you about suddenly having another person’s memories shoved into your soul? Really?”

I chuckle at that.

“Okay, silly question I guess.”

“You’re damn right. That said, no, I don’t wanna go to the Tear Basin colony. If I head out there, Queen Dalakana will probably order me to infiltrate rebel groups for her. I’ll stick with the safety and security of Liriope, thank you.”

“Oh yeah. I keep forgetting I can order anybody to do anything I want without having to kill them first. That’s so weird.”

“Yep that’s the weird thing here, you got it,” Bahregar sighs. “You’re heading out tomorrow, right Princess? Make sure you’re ready. Tear Basin is pretty much safe, but it was conquered traditionally, before we domesticated the vrothizo. There’s still a bunch of hidden savages acting as petty terrorists.”

I snort at that.

“I mean, I assume we slaughtered them and took their land, so yeah. Why wouldn’t there be?”

He shrugs, then notices he just shrugged again and scowls furiously at me.

“Damn your weird human body instincts,” he grumbles. “Anyway, there’s not enough of them. The obarian population remaining on that island has gotta be like… quadruple digits at most. Dalakana was thorough, and when there is an attack the perpetrators don’t tend to survive the reprisal. There’s no way they can win, and even if they do win they wouldn’t have the population to use the vast majority of what we’d leave behind. They just attack out of spite.”

“Good to know, I guess,” I sigh. “I’ll prepare accordingly.”

I glance longingly in the direction of my work room. I still haven’t finished refining the enchantments on my custom armor, and I had to cannibalize most of my allotted recreation metal as well as my red dragonscale armor to make it work as well as it does now. Which is… not terrible, but not impressive. I suppose I’ll bring the armor anyway, but just to work on it in my spare time, not to wear it. I’ll use my day-to-day set for general wear. Though if I do make a breakthrough and get my custom armor working, I’d love to try it out.

“You look like you want to head back to your workshop,” Bahregar chuckles. “Should I leave you to it?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, thanks Bahregar. I appreciate you being cool with it.”

“Why wouldn’t I be cool with it? Even ignoring all the great times we’ve had together, I’m not going to say no to being friends with someone like you. You’re just a few steps short of divinity now, girl. I’d be a fool to cut you out of my life just for being a little different in the head. The Progenitor obviously feels the same way, what with her offer to train you next month. She doesn’t do that for anybody.”

“Yeah, I figured she had largely selfish motivations,” I sigh, leading Bahregar out of my room and into the hall. “I don’t have the slightest problem with that, though. That was… most of my relationships for most of my life, really? Hell, I got my girlfriend by accidentally being convenient for her evil scheme.”

“Yeah, uh, good luck with her,” Bahregar grimaces. “That’s one fucking traumatic breakup you two had.”

“We didn’t break up,” I protest.

“She had her love for you scraped out of her soul by an abusive sociopath, and then she escaped by fucking up her soul even worse after turning herself into a Progenitor-damn dragon.”

“And during no part of that did we break up,” I point out calmly. “We’re just… y’know. Going through a rocky patch. I’m gonna go meet back up with her and we’re gonna take over an island and if there’s one thing Penelope wants on a good date it’s unrestrained conquest. It’ll be fine! I’ll woo her scaly tail off.”

“You’re going to woo her,” Bahregar repeats flatly. “You, Ms. Vita ‘you were much less naggy before you got a crush on me’ Malrosa, are going to woo someone.“

“Yes, that’s basically the plan,” I confirm.

Bahregar shakes their head.

“Girl, you couldn’t woo the horniest man on the island,” he protests.

I give him a confused look.

“Why the fuck would I want to woo the horniest man on the island?” I ask, dumbfounded. “I don’t need to know how to woo some gross breeder. I just need to woo Penelope.”

Bahregar snorts with amusement and waves goodbye, heading walking to the exit as I turn towards my workshop.

“See ya, Princess,” he says. “And good luck. I think you’ll need it.”

I wave him off, stepping halfway into my workshop before I stop and turn to a nearby servant.

“I’d like to add someone to my retinue for the trip,” I inform him. “A translator. Someone who speaks Obarian.”

“Yes, Princess,” the man says. He bows and I know it will be done. Now then… I have enchantment refinements to test, and human-taught spells to fix. Gleefully drumming my fingers together, I sit down at my desk and get to work. The next thing I know, my neck is sore and I’m regretfully becoming conscious thanks to my irritated-sounding sister shaking me awake.

“Mal-Mal!” Talanika whines. “Wake up! Did you spend all night in your workshop? We’re scheduled to use the teleporter! You know it can’t hold a full charge for long, we gotta go!”

“Uhbuhguh?” I respond eloquently, slowly opening my eye hexes one after the other so I’m not blinded by the tyranny of morning.

“Gosh, your eyes are so pretty now,” Tala sighs. “I’m really jealous. You are a very lovely color.”

I stiffen up with embarrassment.

“I… thanks,” I mutter. “You can probably bio… I mean, use Life to make yourself look the same, you know.”

“I’m genuinely tempted,” she admits. “Now seriously, get up! The servants are waiting for us!”

I groan and rise to my feet, stretching out my sore wings and thrumming them a bit as I scratch my armpits with my soul-tendrils. I can’t believe I passed out on my chair again. It’s such a waste of my ultra-comfy bed! Still, I let Tala push me out of my house and down the road to the teleportation platforms. It’s not really a huge deal if we miss our scheduled ‘port; they take about a day to charge up for max-range movement, so we’d just have to go tomorrow. Right now the islands are too far away to do bulk water and resource teleportation, so we can use them for personal reasons, but that won’t be the case fairly soon. More importantly, it’d be very rude to all the workers we roped along to come with us to just ditch them because my sleeping schedule is garbage. Said workers are why I don’t have to worry about luggage or anything; I’m carrying my custom armor set, but everything else was already packed for us.

Since the teleportation platforms are mostly used to ship goods, they’re a bit outside Liriope proper. It’s not a long walk, but once I finish waking up Tala and I lift into the air and take the fast way: flight. I will never stop loving this.The first spell I tweaked was the flight propulsion art, making one redesigned for constant uptime and finer control over my momentum. It’s amazing. No gross body parts dictating how I move, just me. We land at the teleportation platforms, meeting up with the group of men that have been waiting there with our stuff.

“Wait,” Tala says. “Why’s there one extra of you?”

“Ah, I did that,” I tell her. “I’m bringing a translator.”

“…An Obarian translator?” Tala asks. “Why?”

“To talk with obarians, obviously. Which one of you is the translator?”

“I am, my Princess,” one of the workers says, clasping his hands together in a gesture of respect.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” I tell him. “What’s your name?”

“I am Go-Speak-With-Those-Savages-So-I-Don’t-Have-To, my Princess.”

Uh. Wow. I turn to Tala and give her a look.

“What?” she yelps defensively. “I didn’t name him! I’m sure the title has a… a deep and honored history.”

“It’s not very respectful,” I mutter.

“Mal-Mal, you’re gonna have to let some of this whole ‘savage’ obsession go, it’s not gonna disappear from language overnight.”

“I meant it’s not very respectful to him,” I hiss quietly.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

I groan. Yeah, this isn’t gonna get anywhere. I wave her off and get into position on the teleportation platform, and everyone else does the same. A worker at the platform checks and double-checks everything to make sure we’re safe to travel, then activates the setup. Faster than a blink, we’re on an identical-looking platform in a very, very different building.

Liriope’s stone walls are mostly brownish rock, carved by workers in a very straight, geometric style and lit with the artificial glow of God’s Avarice. We’re very clearly not in Liriope anymore, the pale stone curving gradually with the smoothness of molten glass. The floor simply inclines slowly upwards into walls, which gingerly curve into ceilings, utterly devoid of any kind of edge. There isn’t much stone in the ceiling, most of it having been replaced by pristine, clear glass, lighting the room with nothing but the brilliant yellow glow of the upper mists. The whole building is a work of art crafted by an alien, and it takes my breath away.

“Woah,” Tala whispers. “No offense, but this is way prettier than your city, Mal-Mal.”

“No arguments here,” I sigh. “Skyhope was a shithole before The One Below All ripped it a literal new asshole.”

Tala manages to peel her eyes off the architecture long enough to give me an incredulous look.

“Literal new asshole?”

“The center city is used for waste disposal now,” I inform her. “So our island now has a giant hole that all our shit drops out of. Anyone suffering nighttime thanks to Verdantop will have to learn to fear looking up.”

“Pfft, oh fuck, that’s so gross,” Tala laughs.

“Princesses,” a stern and tired-sounding woman intones. “It’s so lovely to have you here.”

A Queen approaches us, and I can only assume it’s Queen Dalakana, the ruler of the Tear Basin. Her work in this place supplies Liriope with just over half its total water consumption, which obviously makes her one of the most important Queens in the colony. Despite this, I hardly know anything about her. I’ve never met her in this body, so I don’t have any memories of the woman. She wears a long, purple dress that splits apart into long ribbons just below her waist and glitters in the light. Tall and lithe, she regards us with the kind of empty, purely diplomatic expression that could mean just about anything.

She’s accompanied by ten soldiers, all heavily armed and armored. It’s a stark contrast to her casual dress, a concession to her safety on a woman that otherwise doesn’t seem very worried about an attack. I can hardly blame her for her confidence; she conquered this island, after all. I’m sure that the War Queen knows exactly what her limits are… and that her enemies here are far, far below those limits.

“It’s lovely to see you as well, Queen Dalakana!” Tala answers chipperly. “It’s been… what, twenty-two years?”

“Indeed it has, Princess Talanika,” the Queen nods, a bare hint of a smile reaching her eyes. “You were still on your first cycle then. It reminded me of my own daughter. And Princess Malrosa, it’s good to see you again as well, although I’m told you likely no longer remember me.”

“I’m sorry, Queen Dalakana, but I’m afraid that is correct,” I confirm, bringing my palms together apologetically. “From my perspective, this is our first meeting.”

“It’s fine, I hold no illusions of being memorable,” the woman replies sardonically. “You may have lost much, but losses are how we grow, little Princess. You’ll be a stronger War Queen for having tasted the mistake. And that is, I’m told, something you still wish to be…?”

“Yes, Queen Dalakana,” I confirm. “I’m interested in seeing the Tear Basin firsthand for that reason.”

“Well, my island is open to the both of you,” Queen Dalakana says. “I don’t often get visitors—and frankly, I like it that way—but I can be a graceful host from time to time. Let me show you to the quarters I’ve had prepared for you, and then you can explore to your heart’s content.”

“Thank you, Queen Dalakana,” Tala and I both answer.

“Please, dearies, just Dalakana is fine. I was friends with your mother before… well, that whole debacle happened. Forgive me, isolation has apparently made me overly talkative. Come along.”

Tala and I share an awkward glance before doing just that, following Dalakana out of the building and into the just-as stunning city that it is a part of. Rolling waves of pale stone dominate the space in front of us, while behind us lies the largest mass of water I have ever seen in my life. Crystal-clear and deep, the impossibly large lake from which the Tear Basin gets its name extends so far into the horizon that neither my eyes nor my soul sense can feel the end of it. Nor, for that matter, the bottom of it. There’s no gradual incline into the depths like I’d expect from a lake; instead, below the edge of the water is just a sheer drop into the cold, wet gloom. All of it is teeming with life, from the surface to the deepest depths I can feel, and many of the souls down there are the sort of massive meals that must belong to unfathomable leviathans. I wonder if we can swim down there at some point during the trip.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Dalakana asks. “We conquered this place for the resources here, but it pleases me to know that the basin is so large we’d fail to drain it even if our civilization lives a hundred times longer than it already has. And that’s without accounting for the replenishment rate. Whether by natural coincidence or machination by The One Below All, it rains far more often here than nearly any other island. Do you like the rain, Princesses?”

“Can’t say I do,” I answer idly, most of my attention still focused on the beautiful view. “Cold, wet, dangerous… I’ve always hated rain.”

“I’ve, uh, only seen rain the one time it happened when I was here last,” Tala says. “I thought it was pretty.”

“I assume, therefore, you’re giving the opinion of your second set of memories, Malrosa?” Dalakana muses. “I’d be surprised if you remembered the experience.”

“They’re all my memories,” I dismiss. “I’m not going to pretend they’re segregated when they’re not. As a human child, I would often get close to freezing to death on rainy days. Or starving. People stay inside during rain when they can, so there wasn’t much food to beg off of people or steal either.”

“That sounds utterly wretched,” Dalakana says after a brief pause.

“It was, yes,” I confirm. Not much else to say other than that. I sure as fuck don’t intend to defend Skyhope’s reputation.

Dalakana’s expression is once again blank, so I take the opportunity to practice reading her soul. Her core is mostly the same purple color as her dress (which, given her skill at Pneuma, may very well be intentional) but there’s a tension to it, an underlying pain that infects the color until it’s no longer beautiful. That’s a mystery for deeper investigation, though; her more immediate emotions are primarily… calculating. Is she judging me? Hmm, I suppose the Progenitor was upfront about the fact that she’d have me watched. I suppose I have no problem with that; I have nothing to hide anymore.

As if due to some unspoken agreement, the three of us turn away from the grand lake and head deeper into the city. The many, many teleportation platforms are right next to the water for obvious reasons, as are the multiple water packaging and storage facilities for easy teleportation. The platforms themselves are spaced apart around the circumference of the lake, however, to make sure there isn’t too much metal in one place. Not even the opulent wealth of the Athanatos is immune to the hunger of the Mistwatcher.

The city itself shares the same design philosophy as the building the teleportation platform was housed in; it’s slightly hilly but overall fairly flat, and all of it is smooth. Even in the few spots where the hills get steep, there are no staircases, only switchback ramps artfully carved into the earth. Surprisingly, despite how everything is made of smooth, often wet stone, nothing feels particularly slippery. Some kind of varnish seems to coat the roads, giving everything plenty of grip. It’s all so beautiful and interesting. It’s all so… empty.

Nearly the entire city is devoid of intelligent life. Men work in large numbers by the water, but between there and what I assume is around the area Dalakana lives… nothing. There are birds, there are cats, there are rats and bugs and all kinds of other animals I can’t identify… but no people. This place is almost as big as Skyhope, yet it’s almost entirely empty. Presumably, of course, because most people who used to live here died.

Not all, though. I feel a collection of sapients deep under the city, their souls all slowly rotating like spirals. I suppose that’s probably a group of rebels… or possibly just people trying to stay alive. Tala talked to me about about obarians, reminding me what the fuck they even are. Apparently they’re mostly flat, and have four tentacles (which made me really excited until I learned they were merely flesh tentacles) with one eye on the end of each. What makes obarians interesting is how they have a giant mouth-like bit on their underside that they use to wrap halfway around rocks and sand them down into spheres with a combination of natural acid and specialized movement organs that can rapidly rotate said rocks. Once they have a stone ball, they mount it and spin it around to move from place to place, somehow staying on top of it the whole time.

They sound absolutely wild, but more relevantly their wacky biology explains the design sensibilities of this place. There aren’t any stairs because obarians don’t have legs. Everything is smooth and slanted to prevent hard hits against walls; if someone going too fast takes an upwards curve instead, they won’t be as badly injured and their stone is less likely to break, an occurrence that they doubtlessly try to avoid if at all possible. It would be like being unable to walk without shoes. Care and attention is put everywhere to make simply moving around nice and easy.

It’s all much more… orderly than Skyhope. There’s a level of forethought and empathy to every part of the design which shocks me. I can only imagine what this civilization would have been like at its peak, but now I’m just walking through its bones. We killed the people who made all this, we took it from them, and now we’re leaving every part of it that isn’t immediately useful to slowly rot away.

This was the plan for Verdantop. The one I need to change, or else my family will suffer this fate, too. It’s not like Valka is just going to roll over and happily accept me as their new ruler, though. Some people are going to have to die.

“How’d you manage to keep so much of the city intact when you were taking over?” I ask.

“Combat Pneuma,” Dalakana answers simply. “Soul-seeking arts don’t deal damage to structures.”

“Oooh,” I coo. “That’s exciting. I don’t know a lot about that whole category of art, but—”

“Of course you don’t,” Dalakana cuts me off. “You’re a Princess. Fifty-five going on fifteen. These are not the kind of arts we teach children.”

I’m a bit taken aback by the snappy reply, but I form a politely apologetic expression with my eyes.

“I understand,” I tell her. “It’s just of particular interest to me, for reasons I expect are self-evident.”

I start to extend a few tentacles out of my soul, which I watch various hexes of Dalakana’s eyes focus on immediately. Ah, so she’s been watching my soul this whole time. Interesting. Not that I blame her, of course.

“Simply by manipulating my own nature, I can attack souls directly via a few methods,” I explain. “This is not something I was taught. It is not an art I weave. It is simply part of what I am, due to my nature as an animavore. And… well, recent events have made me more desperate than usual to truly understand what that means. What am I? Who am I? How do I work? My limited knowledge of Pneuma is no longer sufficient to self-investigate these questions, as my soul no longer conforms to the standard the Progenitor crafted at our inception. To look deeper, I must know more.”

Dalakana doesn’t answer for a while, seeming lost in thought. I let the silence happen, walking slightly behind her as she continues leading the way to our rooms.

“…The only thing that can truly kill us is destruction of the soul,” she muses slowly. “And the only form of permanent damage we can take is, again, damage to the soul. Of course, I am alone here, so I would likely be taken by The One Below All if my body were to die. But on Liriope? The other Queens would come to you in an instant, cradle your spirit, and birth a new body for you in a month. Thus, we do not give children the only weapon they could use to slay themselves. It is prudent. I know neither of you are fools, but you are still young. You do not know what immortality means. You do not know real loss.”

There’s another pause, and Dalakana shuffles her arms with discomfort.

“…Or at least you didn’t. And more importantly, you now have the very blades we try to keep from you by withholding this. You could kill me, couldn’t you, child?”

I’m taken back a bit by the question, not really having thought about it. I take a brief, more critical glance at her soul.

“It’d be difficult,” I admit. “But yeah, I could. Assuming I got the jump on you, at least.”

She gives me an odd look.

“Does… relative altitude matter?” she asks, clearly confused.

I stare at her a moment. Why? Why is this happening to me? When did my life become so backwards?

“…I mean I would need to ambush you, because in an even fight you would easily defeat me,” I explain.

“Ah. Yes, that was my assessment as well. To that end, I suppose there is wisdom in bending the rules for you. More knowledge will make you more controlled, which is of far greater value than merely making you less dangerous. I will, however, likely be too busy to give you any substantial tutoring. You are only here for a tenday, are you not?”

“Or two, if we’re having fun and it’s alright with you,” Tala supplies.

“It is no trouble at all,” Dalakana confirms, a tired smile creeping up her eyes. “You two are, as always, an utter delight to us old women. The gems of our colony, regardless of any recent changes. Just try not to cause too much trouble, if you please?”

“I’ll see if I can hold Mal-Mal back,” Tala chuckles.

“Me!?” I protest. “Like you’re not a troublemaker. Remember Naga’s last rebirth ceremony where, before she could move herself, you insisted that we—”

“That wasn’t me!” Tala chirps fearfully. “That wasn’t us! We didn’t do that! Queen Dalakana, you heard nothing!”

I start to laugh and the Queen chuckles softly. Even Tala seems a little relieved by that exchange. She’s still a bit uncomfortable with my situation, and reminders that I’m still her sister tend to be reassuring to her. It’s… difficult. I was there. I did those things with her. I remember. But despite all that, I’m still a different person now. I love Tala, but she’s still adjusting to the fact that she loves someone who isn’t quite me. It hurts sometimes. And it’s scary.

Who am I, really? A Lich made of stolen lives? A Princess, granted new perspective and power? Regardless of how I choose to see myself, I am a thief of experiences. The entity that I consider to be myself—Vita, Malrosa, and the combination thereof—is not a naturally-made person. I’m a horrific cobbling of two strangers, a mix of memory and monster, simultaneously belonging more and belonging less than I ever have at any other home. It’s existentially terrifying, which on one hand is a new and highly unpleasant emotion but on the other hand is much preferable to the just regular sort of terrifying that I’m used to dealing with. I’m happier than half of me is used to being, so that’s a good thing, right? …Right?

Naturally, I don’t find answers to my questions over the course of the walk. Once we arrive at our destination, it doesn’t take long for Tala and I to get our rooms set up, what with our retinue around to do it all for us. Dalakana leaves us with a pair of men that can escort us anywhere we choose, then wanders off to presumably go do Queen shit or whatever.

“Well,” Tala asks, leaning against the wall of my room. “It’s your vacation. Where do you wanna go first?”

“Uhh… well I haven’t eaten today yet,” I remind her. “So let’s start with breakfast.”

“It’s lunchtime now, but sure. Then what?”

I point down below our feet.

“Wanna go meet the rebels living in the sewers?”

She gives me a dumbfounded look for a while, realizes I’m serious, and then immediately starts groaning in despair for some reason.

“Mal-Maaaaal!” she whines. “You just got killed by rebels! Do you really want to go looking for more?”

“What other obarians am I gonna talk to?” I counter defensively. “Come on, it’ll be fun. They’re less then a mile below our feet. One quick jaunt and we’ll have a friendly conversation. It’ll be culturally enriching!”

She walks up to me with a glower on her face, planting a finger right on the chitin between my eyes.

“Don’t you dare end up turning into an obarian,” she orders. “Don’t even think about it. If anything happens, if anything even kind of looks like it might happen, we teleport out of there.”

“Deal,” I agree. “You bring any armor?”

I’m dressed in one of my sets, of course, but Tala has yet to adopt my supremely practical fashion sense.

“Yeah, I’ll go put it on while you eat,” she sighs. “Just… I mean it, okay? I’m not gonna let you get hurt again. No matter what.”

“We won’t get hurt,” I promise her. “They aren’t very strong. They’d be idiots to fight us, and I just wanna talk.”

“This is not gonna go smoothly,” Tala mutters to herself, heading for her room as I order myself breakfast.

She’s just being silly, of course. Of course it’s going to go smoothly! Everything on the whole damn island is smooth.