GLoG 93: Something something something babies

[Murkus]

[Workshop]

"Jillian I'm sorry, I was only joking around," she tries to lean forward and hug the little ladybug. She rubs her friend's shoulder companionably. "We'll talk to your mom right away after we finish getting all the clues!"

[Gullara]

[Workshop]

Jillian's expression remains irate for a moment, but softens soon enough. She drops the edge of her skirt and hugs her friend back. "Okay, I guess we can keep playing..." There's nothing she can do about her skirt now anyway.

[Recaiden]

"It, uh, belongs to an enemy of a friend." Sekhmet isn't really sure of anything beyond that. What would it have done again? she thinks to the Hive, hoping she didn't just smash something harmless.

They are mostly spies, that would have brought more of the enemy to this place. Though as you noticed it was perfectly capable of inflicting injury. It was mostly harmless, though.

"Right." The ghost drawls at the very vague answer. "Well, you're safe at least. I should...get back to work." He says unsteadily, and he seems to grow more transparent as he speaks.

[Purple Eagle]

[Sophie's Office]

"Everything you say here is entirely confidential," Sophie assures Zara. "I will not mention it to anyone. And as I said, it's your choice how you present yourself to people. It's not an easy situation and you're doing your best to navigate it. That said... before, when I judged your trainers, you grew upset with me. Wouldn't you say that was emotion?"

[Sophie's Office]

"Good." Zara says, then quickly corrects herself for appearances, despite not needing to in front of Sophie. "Thank you, Miss Sophie, for understanding. You're very kind." When Sophie asks her next question, Zara just smiles wider. "Zara never claimed to be emotionless, even if big sister did. We just have shallow emotions. We have a girlfriend, you know? And we like her."

[bc56]

Out in the Woods

"Okay, uh, bye?" Sekhmet heads back to the other room and starts squeezing up the chimney. It's a bit harder than going down, she thinks. Her ribs still hurt a little.

[Morty]

[Workshop]

Tuskfang's tail wags as the tension between the two girls is eased off. He really had no idea what he was going to do if they'd kept arguing.

"We gotta find some way to get up there. Maybe a ladder or a stool. Or ask someone bigger to help us."

[Sophie's Office]

"Hmm. Yes, indeed." Sophie makes a note of something in her notebook. "I do feel as though I understand both of you better now, Zara. Thank you for being forthcoming. Do you have any concerns you'd like to talk to me about?"

[Murkus]

[Workshop]

"We don't need no big person! Let's go and get a ladder from in there." And now Lucy's going to look for a way to break into the workshop. Oh no.

[Gullara]

[Workshop]

Jillian follows a short ways, but then stops. "I don't think we're allowed in there, Lucy." She warns.

[UncleWolf]

Moonwell

Pathfinder nods, agreeing with Domhnall's assessment of the choice of an owl as well as being generally appreciative of knowing a bit more of what they were dealing with. He's about to talk when Sophie points out the demons and his hand raises up in front of her to try and ward off her shooting. "Not next to the Well. We don't want their blood or corruption seeping in as collateral damage. Plus we need to make sure those are the type of demons you're looking to keep away. Could just be odd looking fae for all I know." He points out, voice low before getting to his bag. "I've a better idea anyway." He offers, pulling out a pair of wineskins and heading towards the imps. Once he judges that they're likely to notice him, he'll hold up the skins and give a whistle while shaking them, clearly an offering of booze.

Of course, his optimistic disposition could easily land him in hot water if these were hostile but that was a risk he was willing to take.

"Working hard or hardly working?" He asks, raising his voice and sounding cheerful despite the intrusion. "This mead isn't going to drink itself!"

[Deathkeeper]

Moonwell

Domhnall is intent on his task until he realizes that people are suddenly looking at something else. Oh, boy. Though...these guys don't seem the same as that demon-dog-drone at all.
Domhnall sets down the firewood and follows a few meters behind Pathfinder. His hands stay squarely at his sides and away from his sword, his lackadaisical smile not fading as the wolfen addresses the imps.

[Morty]

[Workshop]

"Yeah, mom says kids aren't allowed in there! And I've never seen anyone except her go in," Tuskfang says as he follows the two girls. Lucy will unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps) find that Reelshka is very thorough in locking the place up after leaving. The door is padlocked and all the windows are both high up and closed.

[Moonwell]

Sophie isn't a "shoot first, ask questions later" kind of person in any even, so she doesn't raise her shotgun. Offering alcohol is a pretty universal language, so maybe this will work. She can step in and lend her negotiating expertise if it's necessary.

[Murkus]

[Workshop]

"Well then... we just... need to borrow a bucket!" Lucy looks around. There must be a bucket sitting on the outside of the workshop somewhere. Or another thing to stand on. She will promptly grab that and toddle it back to the window.

[Recaiden]

[Out in the Woods]

The ghost is tenuous, only weakly tethered to the physical world, in a haze of memories of being alive.
Rynalf lacks the will to find a way to move on by himself. It was only when the half-fiend stumbled in and woke up the golem that the changing circumstances forced him to notice what had happened.
Without Sekhmet to disturb him, he slips back into being an echo of the forge.

Above the chimney, Ellie is eagerly waiting for Sekhmet. Hounds aren't actually as warm and friendly as dogs, but it must surely be reassuring to see Sekhmet again.

Osa remains worried. How did the spy golem get here? Was in an intrusion from another reality, or was it really in the past of this world? Either way, are their more of the Strongest out there? If so, was the golem able to signal them before it was burnt out? The danger could be anywhere from nonexistent to catastrophic.

The mother Sekhmet bonded to is still going through its accelerated growth. The growth rate has been falling all this time, but the amount getting done is still substantially faster than normal. The sudden extension of her roots all at once has twisted the nearby landscape and drained the soil. At this very moment she has spun her third cocoon, and is almost awake at last.

[Shadowcaller]

[Moonwell]

The imps doesn't seem to notice Pathfinder until he let's out a whistle which causes them all to freeze until it's clear he doesn't mean any hard.

"Well, that-" One of the imp starts while starting to to walk towards Pathfinder with a smile.

But before they can say anything else a round magical screen appear out of thin air showing the head of a important-looking imp draped in black robe. "No! Don't you dare slack off again!" The imp declares while pointing right at the "fourth wall" of the screen. It appears far larger than the other imps as the screen it's using is alone bigger than any imp.

All the imps in the hard-hats start to squirm uncomfortably at this point. "Oh, boss-"

"And spare me your excuses too. I know what you did last time." The 'boss' imp glances at Pathfinder who they seem to see at the very edge of its screen. "Hey, are you trying to make the workers slack off? Their job isn't to drink..." It narrows it's insect-like eyes at him. "...wine?"

"Why they hell would he offer them wine you bad guy? Wine sucks ass." Anika declares as she suddenly moves up towards the well. Apparently just having spotted the imps.
"Just like I'm gonna kick your ass if you don't get it out of my well."

The boss imp stares at her with a raised eyebrow that seems to be made of the same carapace as the rest of its body. "First of all, that sentence didn't work nearly as well as you think it did, and second of all I didn't know anyone owned this well." They look around. "But apparently I now have a whole party of adventurers roaming around it." The imp points its thumb backwards. "I'm just going to take a wild guess here and say you're going to kill all my employees, lot their bodies, and then turn in their heads to the nearest old dude in a weird hat. Does that sound about right?"

[bc56]

Out in the Woods

Sekhmet looks at the mother. It's almost awake. She sits down to watch to see what happens. She's not been very involved in the Hive's processes before, and she's curious.

[FireFox]

[Lake]

Toby Druid has been carrying logs out of the woods and arranging them halfway out on the frozen lake. He has been assisted by his son Hadrian, a short and skinny teenager, who foraged for fallen branches and sticks and is setting them in a neat pile next to the logs. The father is cheerfully--some might say manically, if they were rude--extemporizing a lesson on fieldcraft or wilderness survival or the finer points of magically turning water to ice or about the importance of lying to one's mother when she asks what you did today. He's rather all over the place. Anyone who sees them on the lake is welcome to find out what they're up to. But, knowing Toby, they might regret asking.

[Rebonack]

[Something Something Something Cubs]

"It's definitely exciting. And a little scary," Geneva admits. "I really have no idea what I'm doing, but that's probably true of all mothers down through history."

She waves her tail at Gilda, who's wandering a little too far afield.

The cub, spying the moving object pounces on it with great ferocity!

Rawr!

"My offer to help however I can with your mother still stands. I know it would be dangerous, but dealing with dangerous situations is something I have plenty of experience with," Geneva admits.

It's true!

She has done many dangerous things in her life.

Like that one time she lobbed a giant bomb away from a VIGIL airship and her Substitute got exploded.

That one really hurt.

[bc56]

Something Something Something Cubs

"Oh, uh," Sekhmet looks a bit awkward. "I ran into her again at the Thanksmas party. She didn't hurt me, but..." She did alter Sekhmet's appearance to be in line with what she considers proper for a fiendish princess. Even though Geneva hasn't commented on it, there's no way she hasn't noticed Sekhmet's new figure, one she still wears rather awkwardly.

[Recaiden]

The cocoon is stretched to the bursting point, a thin shell stretched over the mother's tails and tentacles, already cracked around the base where her shield-arms will -Sekhmet willing- one day grow in.

And then the cocoon splits along the five lines scored into it, and the nameless hive-thing unfolds, tails crashing to the ground, tentacles reaching out, stretching up to full height and taking a first breath since metamorphosis, and she stands as one of the hive's living castles.

There are some oddities. Some of them are because of being newly hatched: skin not yet toughened into armor-plate hardness, the ten lines of translucent green shell that run down her body mostly covered and no more than pinpricks, and relatively small at only 5 or 6 times Sekhmet's height.

Others are more unusual: the horns that ring the top are not the usual pincer shape but rather just like Sekhmet's own front horns, the colors are all brighter than they should be, there are five extra tentacles that end in familiar toxic stingers, and she's radiating heat as if they were in an arctic area. There are commonalities of form between hive creatures, of course. Just as the mantis and the marquess have wings of the same shape, the tail of a queen is much like that of a mantis or a mother, the mother's horns are much like a princess's guards, and so on. But those commonalities are designed, while the degree to which this creature resembles Sekhmet seems to have been a response to the magic.

As the mother hatches and awakes, Sekhmet's mind expands - she is linked to this creation more tightly than to Ellie, and a mother is aware in a way a hound is not. They can themselves control the hive's creatures, especially workers and hive's lesser symbiotes. The half-fiend can feel the earth through the mother's roots; the lay of the land, the condition of the soil. She can feel the hiveling's alien drive and curiosity, and the much more familiar sensation of hunger, and other thoughts for which she probably has no reference yet. And the mother, for her part, senses Sekhmet, her leader, her source of information, and something more - given the magical bond.

The creature continues to grow, though now very slowly indeed. The living carpet which covers the hives begins to flow out from under the walls, creeping millimeter by millimeter. Within, various cells are edited and thrown into a frenzy of division, starting to become cleaners, twiners, other symbiotes, and a very few will be incubated to become full larval hivelings.

[Morty]

[Lake]

Sophie's insatiable curiosity and busybody nature get the better of her once again as she heads out to find out what Tobias and his son are doing. The therapist is bundled up warmly - she's notably poorly-adjusted to cold weather. She waves to the two as she walks across the ice.

[bc56]

Out in the Woods

Sekhmet basks in the sudden warmth, shedding her coat as she approaches the new Mother. Wow, uh, wow... She can feel its... Everything. She reaches out to the power she accidentally invested in it, and it flows to her. And just as she feels the creature spreading, the aura of power spreads along with it. Is this what her mother feels, sitting on her throne? This sense of perfect mastery over what she surveys?

[Gullara]

[Workshop]

"Yeah, mom says kids aren't allowed in there! And I've never seen anyone except her go in," Tuskfang says as he follows the two girls. Lucy will unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps) find that Reelshka is very thorough in locking the place up after leaving. The door is padlocked and all the windows are both high up and closed.

[Workshop]

"Well then... we just... need to borrow a bucket!" Lucy looks around. There must be a bucket sitting on the outside of the workshop somewhere. Or another thing to stand on. She will promptly grab that and toddle it back to the window.

[Workshop]

"I don't think a bucket's going to be tall enough, Lucy." Jillian follows after her friend. If that's all they needed they could jump for it probably. "We need a ladder."

[UncleWolf]

Moonwell

Well, that exchange easily answered all of Pathfinder's questions. Or most of them at the very least. "Mead, not wine. Fermented honey instead of fruit." He clarifies. Perhaps this was neither the time nor place to explain it, but given that he was proud of its quality, he wasn't going to have people snub his hard work. "I don't know about what the others plan, but I myself would prefer to talk this over before any violence happens." He gives a broad toothfilled smile, whom at least Sophie will recognize as a very clear threat from Wolfen in general given he's showing his fangs. To others it might just look mirthful however. "I find imps somewhat darling, so I truly don't wish to damage or disturb them overly much, but we can't really let you have this place either. Not without particularly good reason. My given name is Pathfinder, and as it implies, I search for routes all may take to their destinations. Let us find one."

[Purple Eagle]

[Sophie's Office]

"Hmm. Yes, indeed." Sophie makes a note of something in her notebook. "I do feel as though I understand both of you better now, Zara. Thank you for being forthcoming. Do you have any concerns you'd like to talk to me about?"

[Sophie's Office]

Zara flashes a big smile and bobs her head forwards in a cute manner. "And thank you for understanding!" She tilts her head to the side as she thinks, playing with one end of her thick hair. "Hmm... concerns... nope!" She snaps back to a standing position, still smiling so widely. "Does Miss Sophie have any concerns to share? Maybe about work, or something?"

[Deathkeeper]

Moonwell

"Now, properly speakin' Sophie and I live here, so we ain't here as adventurers in any capacity. I guess Anika might. But point is, we're walking around in our yards, not goin' after anyone." Domhnall squints at the tools the imps are using. Considering the only things he's wearing are a small bag and a sword-belt he probably can't fault them for making some wrong opinions.
"But either way we ain't here to start smacking around...uh...cartographers?" he hazards a guess at the purpose of their tools.

[Recaiden]

Sekhmet basks in the sudden warmth, shedding her coat as she approaches the new Mother. Wow, uh, wow... She can feel its... Everything. She reaches out to the power she accidentally invested in it, and it flows to her. And just as she feels the creature spreading, the aura of power spreads along with it. Is this what her mother feels, sitting on her throne? This sense of perfect mastery over what she surveys?

Does Sekhmet sympathize any more with Sapphira for feeling this way?
Or perhaps with the princesses? Surely they must feel the same way in their hives.

The mother lifts a tentacle toward Sekhmet, seeing herself through the half-fiend's eyes as the seat of power in this new dominion.

A frivolous thought reaches Sekhmet through the hive's link. Sophia suggests that She needs a name. The human thing to do is to name divisions of the hive after mythological creatures, but the Queen just goes with geographic designations. How boring, right?

Osa is more practical. What a strange hive cluster already. That power - what can you do with it?

[Morty]

[Workshop]

Unfortunately, it seems the bucket is indeed not quite enough to reach the note.

"But where are we going to find a ladder?" Tuskfang wonders aloud. "Or... a bigger bucket, maybe."

[Sophie's Office]

Sophie taps her pencil against the notebook in thought.

"No, I think I've learned all I needed for now. I'll have to think about this and I encourage you to do the same."

[Moonwell]

"I'm a therapist, not an adventurer, thank you very much. I'm simply concerned with the safety of my workplace and the people who live there." Sophie sounds very offended about the assumption made by the imp. Her righteous indignation is intense enough the imp might feel embarrassed and put off, in spite of all better judgment. "We have no use for this well, but we won't let anyone exploit it for dangerous purposes. Can you prove what your intentions are?"

[bc56]

Out in the Woods

Sekhmet wouldn't sympathize with her mother! They're nothing alike, really!

Oh, uh... Sekhmet doesn't know much about mythology, and she's really not sure what to name this cluster. I, uh, don't know. About either." But there is a lot of power here, she could probably do anything she could normally do. Maybe more. With practice directing her newfound strength, she could be very powerful as long as she stays close to this place.

[Murkus]

[Workshop]

"Hang on, I've got it!" says Lucy, again harkening trouble. She looks around for a long, sturdy stick. She'll try to break one end at the tip so it's sharp, and then climb up on the bucket. If she can, she'll poke it through the paper (which is presumably stuck there somehow) and pull it off the sill.

[Rebonack]

[Something Something Something Cubs]

"But she did something traumatizing to- ow- to you," Geneva replies, glancing back at Gilda who just bit on her tail a little too hard.

Gilda is on thin ice.

If she keeps that up it'll be back in the bab-holster for her.

"You definitely LOOK... different?" Geneva says, glancing Sekhmet up and down. She really doesn't consider herself an expert on humanoid standards of attractiveness, but she's PRETTY sure that Sekhmet would count as more beautiful. A quick poke at Pink to get her attention confirms this. Definitely.

"Did she do that to you? I imagine being altered would feel violating."

Less violating?

Gabriel continuing to assault Sekhmet's dress.