>>5395431“We’re going to find your peer, Karma. I promise you that.” You inform your revolver-bound friend before sending out a fleet of stealthed Rooks and Knights to serve as your vanguard, fanning out to cover as much ground as possible and keep your westward pace…but you’re certainly not one to leave prospective guests in the lurch, either. Summoning a handful of FuzzBuzzes from the plush pit at your abode, you merge them into a unit large enough to communicate and sent it as your envoy to speak with the young woman’s who you find patiently waiting near one of the huts that comprise the ramshackle town just outside the Dragon’s Roost.
You send out a fleet of cloaked Rooks from your position at the lodge as you approach the messenger countless miles away, leaning up against a pitiful sheet of metal that could barely be called a wall. The teen’s skin is a pale, sickly white, but as your FuzzBuzz envoy draws closer you see her flesh for what it truly is; irregular sheafs of waxy paper, layered on top of each other and held together by what you can only assume to be sheer force of will. Her arms are folded, white lips mouthing what you realize is a countdown, now at five, four, three, two, one-
-and as it turns out, she’s not waiting for you.
“Zero!” The young woman calls out with a grin that sends a ripple of fluttering papers around her head, her scalp of short-cropped silver hair rustling like a field of reeds. “Ready or not, here I co-oh! Hello there, ‘lil guy!”
She turns a pair of pure white eyes towards your FuzzBuzz, the pure, startling whites of her eyes going wide with excitement at your construct’s approach.
“Hello there. I’m Shu, the one you’ve been sent to meet with.” You say, taking the girl completely off-guard as her jaw drops to reveal a mouth lined with paper-thin teeth.
“Oh shit, for real?” She stammers for a half-second before swiftly collecting herself. “Sorry! I’m Paige. Sorry, I just thought you’d be, uh…?”
“Human?” You supply, prompting a hasty nod from the girl. “No worries, Paige; I am. This is a Hive Mistress construct I’m speaking with.”
“Huh? Oh! Wait, is that another class? Like Flesh Artisan?” She asks, raising her right arm and flaring out the individual sheafs into rigid blades of artificial dermis.
“Yes indeed…I’m actually pretty far away and in the middle of something at the moment, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting.” You quickly explain, trying to cover as much ground as possible before your search for the Hexane AI begins in earnest. “In the meantime, though, is there anything we could do to make you feel more comfortable or secure while you wait?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, I’m good. I guess? I’ve just been playing hide and seek with this littleEEP!” Paige yelps when a Joyous materializes behind her, giving her an impatient poke in the small of her back before ducking back into the scarlet-tinged shadows.
(Continued)
