The Nexus

[Thunderhead District- Harmacy] Sandels saunters in at Lia's heels. He stops to poke the reinforced glass. "How charmingly old-fashioned..." , he mutters, before walking to Lia. "Yeah, enough bandages to completely wrap an adult human. While you're at it, throw in a tourist brochure....

[Thunderhead district - (P)harmacy]

"Aspirin", Sandels corrects, slowly catching up to Lia, holding his hands up as he approaches the guard. "Or any other painkillers. Just a quick supply run, nothing special."

[Sapling Cabin] "Oh, right, I didn't have a name" , Alto mutters... then something occurs to it and its pupils go wide. "I don't know my mother's name. No-one here knows my mother's name... " It seems like a very obvious thing. Surely, on some level, Alto already knew that. But ...

[Thunderhead District] Sandels narrows his eyes. "Little princess, some humans would say my lot exist to take everything away from you." He steps out after Lia and lets the elevator return back to the ground. He settles for walking a few steps behind her, hands in his pockets, a hood pull...

[The Little Mew Who Could] LB-M freezes when she turns to look at the bird, every hair on her body standing to an end. If mew fur wasn't microscopically fine, she'd look like a freaked-out cat. But, as startling as its sudden reappearance is, what comes next is worse. She literally runs up the wall...

[Going up from Groundtown] "Would going back be that much of a bad thing?" , Sandels asks, looking the girl gripping his arm in her eyes. "Calling your mother 'the living afterlife' for mycoids makes it sound that's where you belong, and, maybe, where I ought to take you. I understan...

[The Little Mew That Could] When the stench trail leads nowhere, the little mew huffs indignantly and jumps off the cabinet. She sneezes to get the bad smell out of her nostrils and thinks. Could a bird just cease to exist? Maybe? She dimly recalls a discussion between herself, Geneva and... what w...

[Sapling Cabin] It might occur to either Miranda or Sophie that while Alto had an intuitive concept of a mother, it did not, before coming to GLoG, have good experience of having one. It did not really know being a mother is something you can do , or how one ought to do it. So, many motherly things...

[Going up from Groundtown] Hyphaelia letting go causes the lift to sway a bit more. There's no danger of it tipping or anyone falling off, but it might make her more scared. Sandels grips the bar closest to himself to keep balanced. He considers telling her to not rock the boat, but decides against...

[Going up from Groundtown] Sandels slams the elevator gate shut behind them and hits the controls. There's a beep, a short hum, and then the thing jerks into motion. "You remember that praying thing we did?" , he says laconically, "now would be a good moment to pray a little." T...

[Groundtown] Lia is lucky to accompany Sandels on this trip. He might not be in the best of shapes right now, but he can sense evil intent targeted at himself and various other horrible things even before they happen. So, her unobservant attitude is mildly less dangerous than it would normally be. ...

[Groundtown] There are weirder things than either of them in this city. A glowing mushroon girl will fit right in. Sadly, under current standards of the place, "fitting in" might mean being captured and sold as a slave. "First, we'll be looking for a lift" , he answers her quest...

[The Little Mew That Could] Well of course there is a door. It would be silly to have a room without a door! . . . The door is made for human-sized people and not a teeny tiny mew. LB-M tries pushing it. It doesn'y budge. She tries pulling it. It doesn't budge. She jumps and grabs the handle. She i...

[Sapling Cabin] Alto stares wide-eyed at Sophie for a moment. "It's possible to have two mothers?" Alto states it like it's some revolutionary new thesis in physics. "That's so unfair!" Then, Miranda pulls Alto aside. The massive creature looks at her like a startled child. &quo...

[Groundtown] Turns out, "Colonel Sandels's" idea of "catching something to eat" on the way, was going through several trashbins by the roadside and at least one unfortunate dog's bowl, in search of scraps. Dog food tends to be both humanly edible and nutritious, if a bit bland, ...

[Forest] The horse... accepts the pet, nickering as Lia touches it. It is very far from the helpful creature she thinks it is... but it can pretend. It is what it does. "Technically, the horse there killed you" , Sandels says, just as Lia's finished getting on it, "but clearly, that ...

[The Little Mew Who Could] LB-M tries to hiss when the bird comes closer, which results in rather unimpressing "pshhh!" sound. A thought occurs to her: maybe, this bird is fake - artificial. A bit like she used to be, but dumber. A dumb fake bird. Why would someone send a dumb fake bird t...

[Forest] By morning, the horse has lain down to take a nap and appears to be dreaming, if such a creature ever actually sleeps. The horse notices changes in Lia's corpse first, standing up and going to sniff her questioningly. The shade in the trees observes this and returns to the man's worn body....

[Sapling Cabin] Alto looks at Sophie, then back at Bertin. "Oh? You are his mother?" Alto squints, looking at Sophie again, then back at Bertin again. "You don't look much alike." Then Miranda announces her plan. Alto glances at her worriedly. Not because of content of her words...

[Forest] The man could just leave. But, it would seem like a wasted opportunity. If the girl does die, maybe he can make her into a weapon? If she doesn't... well. He doesn't really know what to do about that. But he doesn't need to. Plus, he's awfully tired. He digs a little hole in the ground and...

[Sapling Cabin] Alto gives Miranda a puzzled look. As a creature that's relied more on hearing than sight for most of its existence, the change in Miranda's voice has not gone unnoticed. But the reason is obscure. Is it the situation? Or this new person she is talking to? Alto may have seen Sophie ...

[Forest] Sandels nods. "All you have is a brain, eh? Well, hope you don't need all of it." He gestures at the horse, which suddenly rears and delivers a swift kick to Hyphaelia's head. It's a good thing she closed her eyes. Saves her half of a second of terror. The man, for his part, just...

[Sapling cabin] Alto is indeed hard to miss, being a near-literal 800 pound gorilla. Yet, somehow, it still tries to hide behind Miranda like a scared kid. Alto does not know or at least does not understand all that well why they are going to Sophie, but Alto can sense Miranda is nervous. On the pl...

[Forest] Sandels shrugs. "Not much of a death if you quickly come back. But fine." He beckons for his horse to come closer. "Just checking before I do anything... you do die to all the same things a human would, right? 'Cause if you don't, now would be a good time to tell. I mean, I ...

[Forest]

Sandels puts his gathered pieces of firewood down and looks at the girl. "You can trust me to send your spirit to afterlife if you die on me now", he says with utter lack of humour, "but I take it you do not wish to. So what's the matter? Spit it out."

[The Little Mew Who Could] LB-M does not have experience, as such. What she has, are in-built schemas of how minds are meant to work. But those mostly concern human minds, and her new telepathic abilities don't give her nearly enough feedback to make much use of them anyway. So, all she can deduce ...

[The little mew who could] LB-M tilts her head, first left, then right, staring at the bird. This is her first time seeing any kind of bird. "Miu?" Some genetic instinct informs her which part of it is head and which is tail, while her inborn vocabulary links these to human words such as ...

[Forest] "Most spirits I deal with are stuck for some reason or another. For some, any kind of deal that allows them to move on is an improvement. Others... well, they aren't too keen to go where they're headed. A chance to make amends is sometimes what they need. Even if it means becoming a w...

[The little mew who could] Somewhere inside the VIGIL base, a tiny Pokemon yawns and wakes up from sleep. It floats the ground, rubbing its nose and eyes to shake off remnants of sleep. Then it puts its front paws on the ground and stretches like a little cat, even though at the moment, it is more ...

[Dancing Fox Inn] "Oh, but I did tell" , the Colonel remarks as he jumps on the saddle, "warding off evil spirits." Such a wonderfully specific and helpful explanation, that is. If Hyphaelia wants, he will help her to get on the horse as well, otherwise he'll just direct the hor...