-Break-
Together with the rest of the children, Orb sits with a significant dent in his head and says, "You know violence isn't good, Pine."
She grips her fist, and Orb puts as many children as he can between them, and says, "How cowardly to strike all these rosy-cheeked children."
Oren starts to laugh and then picks up Pine and spins her around.
With a shaken and red face, she says, "Put me down."
Oren ignores her words and says, "No, a chance, I am going to be using this newfound strength to spoil you every chance I get."
Covering their cheeky faces, the kids look a Pine, and say, "EWWWWW!"
"SHUT UP!"
As Orb looks at all of them he notices the decay still on Oren, and then Fois says, "We have given ourselves far more time than before, be patient and we will find a way out of this."
Gripping his fist, Orb says, "You're right, but it still stings knowing this is all I can do for everybody."
A hand lands on Orb's back, and a woman's voice says, "Who says that's all you can do for everybody?"
Turning around, Orb sees Aoibheann, who is smiling and says, "I am happy you could make it."
Grabbing Orb, she drags him out of the room with a giant smile on her face.
-Break-
Sitting on a bed, Aoibheann and a group of other druids place a ball that looks like candy in front of Orb, then they all run as far away as they can. Then Aoibheann says, "Ok, you can eat it now!"
Orb stares at them with cream hair and an annoyed look. Then he shrugs his shoulder and throws it into his mouth, Orb says, "This is so sweet, it tastes amazin-." Orb's words are brought to a halt as fire bursts out of his mouth along with blood.
Aoibheann, looking at Orb, says, "Looks like increasing the body's temperature is as rather annoying issue. It was only meant to warm you up enough to kill all infections in your body. Clara, right that down."
With a pen, Clara writes, "Flame breathing, immense pain, sweat taste, and-." Looking at Orb, who is enjoying seeing his blood split on the ground, she says, "Neurological degeneracy."
Aoibheann says, "Cross that last one out, it is probably just something with this freak, not my medicine."
One of the other druids says, "You're experimenting on a child, and he is the freak?"
"WHAT WAS THAT!"
"NOTHING!"
"Good, now let's continue."
Bringing a giant blow of different concoctions in front of Orb, she says, "I can't wait to try this all out."
-Break-
Walking out of the room with blood pouring out of his eyeballs, red and rashy skin, a swollen tongue, and blurred vision, Orb hear Aoibheann say, "Come back tomorrow!"
He raises his hand to wave at her and continues to hobble forward. But soon his regeneration cannot keep up with the degradation going on across his body, and he collapses.
But he is quickly caught and lies snuggly in this presence.
ΦIt feels like a cloud that I could just disappear into, how nice. This smell is also mesmerising, far better than even Lugh's flower gardens, I feel like I could fall asleep here every night, and my body regenerates quickly now at peace from this.
I reach out my hands and grab at this existence, but then I start to hear a giggle, and as the voice hits my ears, I pull back, stand up and open my eyes in front of me to see. "ATALANTA!"
Φ With a big smile on her face, she says, "The one and only. But I guess to you, I was the comfiest bed to ever exist, just judging by that look."
"FORGET ABOUT THAT!"
"I have had people tell me so many things about my body before, but I have never truly seen someone so at peace with lying on me, just like an adorable little dog."
"SHHHHHHH!" Orb says as he tries to spit out words to deny what she says, but his emotions fluctuate far too intensely for coherent words to reach her.
"Now it looks like I broke his little brain, truly a mind cracking beauty I am."
"SHUT UP!"
Ivana, Gheorge and Wadim ask, "What's wrong?"
Atalanta turns to them and says, "Orb just committed to being my dog."
"NO I HAVE NOT!" he says as his hair colour changes again, and again.
Φ Calming down and looking at the three idiots, I notice they are all holding different things in their arms, so I say, "What's that?"
"Just some prosthetics," Ivana adds.
"They are advanced down here, even more so than Elpída," Wadim adds.
"Using machinery to mimic all the complex movements of humans is a rather hard task, but with plants, that becomes a lot easier," Gheorghe says.
The three of them continue to talk with just excitement that I can barely hold back from smiling at them.
Φ Atalanta says, "My adorable little child, if you're so tired, why don't you come and hang out with me? Don't you want to spend some time hanging out with mommy?"
Orb's hair turns blue, and he says, "No, and I am not your son."
"Don't keep lying to yourself, girls don't like that."
Orb hits her with the back of his head and says, "Leave me alone."
But she falls to the ground and holds her chest. Orb's hair turns pitch black as he sees this, then he rushes to her side, and says, "Atalanta are you ok!?"
Holding her chest, she says, "My heart, my heart."
Orb moves closer with yellow hair and says, "I-I-I am so sorry."
"I need ice, I need ice, right here."
"I'll go get you some." Orb gets up and turns his head looking for ice, but then stops and manifests his legacy. Moving his hand towards her chest, he started to create a little bit of ice.
And in that moment, Atalanta grabs and puts Orb in a headlock, saying, "You really enjoyed looking down on me, didn't you, brat, but now I've got you where I want you."
With bloody red hair, Orb says, "YOU IDIOT!" and fights back within the headlock to the amusement of the three idiots.
Wadim says, "I bet tomorrow's lunch on Orb."
Ivana says, "I bet the next two days lunch on Atalanta."
Gheorghe says, "I bet the next three week's lunch on a draw."
Location: Díoltas Plains
Standing in front of the Fabithre company and Síofra, Arend, who is nearly shaking out of his clothes, turns to Orb, and says, "I don't want to speak with her."
"Why, you don't like bugs?"
"No it's because she is an attractive bug, and it makes me feel all weird."
"Don't worry, despite how she looks, she is actually a hag. So nothing to feel weird about."
Abbán says, "You going to let him talk about you like that?"
"If a classy woman like myself got up in arms about everything lower-class rubbish like Orb says, I wouldn't be able to call myself a Fanalis."
"You seem to love throwing around the existence of being a Fanalis now that it is popular."
"No one would call themselves a king if people didn't respect the name."
"What a pest."
"I think that makes me a true Fanalis after all."
Arend, walking forward with a slightly nervous posture, says with a crooked smile. "According to Orb all of you will be building the houses down here for the humans, and I thank you for the effort you have all chosen to put in before we have even started."
Handing Síofra a scroll, Arend says, "This is my initial design."
Opening it up, Síofra says, "You plan on using a giant tree as the base for a different house, and then building around it with organic material. But the design of these houses is rather strange overall, with many of them connecting to form a giant web, and having a bunch of empty space."
"It's because I made it in a way used as a community centre after all?"
"Community centre?"
"Yeah, back when I used to be a nomad with my father, it is something I came across it. Kind of like a giant market made by people to serve the people, a more personal government in a certain way.
And while the humans are down here I am sure many of the beastkin would want to talk with them, which we can see has already started to happen. So I think this place will turn into a form of community centre anyway."
These houses are only going to be temporary, since we humans will move back up ground due to our distaste of being trapped underground. But until then, I would like for this place to be a bridge between humans and beastkin."
Arend, noticing how much he was talking, tries to relax the mood, by saying, "Or it will just be cool."
Smiling Abbán says, "I find it to be a rather kind idea, thank you."
"Looks like you're popular, Arend."
"I wish I were popular with some woman instead of the big bug beside me."
Síofra says, "While this is a nice idea, I have some practical concerns, making a building out of plants is quite the endeavour, as a single mistake costs us materials."
Orb says, "For the materials leave it to us!"
Orb whistles, and then Senán in the distance says, "Beast blood battle arts; Fas." Making many different little trees around.
"I guess this will be easy enough then."
Arend giving her another scroll, says, "I do too. Now here is the inside."
Opening the scroll, Síofra looks like she is one moment away from violently screaming, and says, "What the hell is this?"
Pointing the scroll at Arend, Orb sees an incredibly detailed internal setup for the houses, and he says, "Why are all the rooms so chaotic it feels like dungeon from a story book with all the different areas?"
"All these different beastkin have different physical requirements, so I thought I should accommodate for everyone's differences, as best I could. I broke it up mainly by animal families. It is similar to the way Anucroí has different habits for all the different wonderbeasts within it, but on a smaller scale."
"Did you know how long it took them to build Anucroí from the inside?"
"Sorry, in all honesty, I thought this was already a bit too extreme, but judging by your attitude, I guess you guys aren't skilled enough, forgive me for asking such a task, I will dumb it down for you."
Soon the temperature in the area rises, and Síofra says, "When did I say we couldn't build it?"
With a smile Arend says, "In the middle of all the bitching."
Grabbing him by the collar and lifting him up into the air, Síofra says, "If that's how you want to be then fine, I will show you the best goddamn building you have ever seen!"
"I hope to see it."
Turning around, Síofra holds her heart, and then looks at the scrolls, then says, "Begin!"
In that moment a shock moves through all of the Fanalis behind her, and they move forward. Each and every one of them starts to work together with each other without missing a beat, and Orb says, "What's going on?"
Abbán, walking up to him, says, "The MatriAnt, is a particular wonderbeast that derives its body through reproduction. Everyone who shares blood with the ant up to three generations can share a mind with the queen. This allows them to function as a high mind, but it uses the queen minds as a base to host all of the others, which drops an incredible strain on the queen, but a strong queen like Síofra is capable of handling it all on her own."
Staring at Arend, Síofra says, "You're going to eat those words."
"I doubt that, but let's see."