You are Charlotte Fawkins, dashing heroine, detective, adventuress, heiress, sorceress, etcetera. Three years ago, you drowned yourself in a quest to find a long-lost family heirloom; nowadays, you're just nobly c̶a̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g solving problems with the help of trusty retainer Gil and snake/maybe-father Richard. Inexplicably, many people tend to "dislike" you, though you've never done anything wrong in your life.

Right now, you have healed the injured shoulder of your acquaintance Earl, at the cost of temporarily turning him into a unintelligent, overgrown half-monster. Also, you are in the underground base of the local Wyrm cult with its leader, Henry, where you were brought after blacking out and likely murdering your mysterious/obnoxious heist sponsor, Wayne. (In fairness, he was trying to murder somebody else.) Suffice it to say there's been a lot going on.

But when isn't there a lot going on? When hasn't your life been one thing after another after another— when it rains it pours, they say, and it started raining three weeks ago, or maybe longer, you can't remember, and there's no signs of it letting up soon. Really, it would've been more unusual if Earl wasn't hunched before you, arms the size of treetrunks, eyeballs eclipsed by pupil, mouth wide as his head and part-open. If he'd just made it out unscathed— if you'd made it out unscathed— if Wayne had made it out unscathed (which you guess he could've, but you're guessing he's more than a little scathed)— would that have been right and proper? Heroic, you mean? One isn't much of a storied heroine without trials and tribulations and suchforth, and also stealing the seal sounded like kind of a bad thing overall, so it's practically destined it went sideways. It was meant to be, the murder and everything. Potential murder. It was good and proper, and it's good and proper that your gracious host has turned into a slavering man-hulk, because his shoulder is fixed now, isn't it? You fixed his shoulder? Which is what you meant to do? So it's all according to plan. All according to plan. Positive thinking!

You presume that Henry is undergoing a similarly complex thought process, because his face has kind of curled up into itself. He hasn't lunged for his knives or anything, though, so you admire his restraint. (Well, not <span class="mu-i">admire.</span> You'd never admire him. You recognize his restraint.) For his own part, Earl isn't doing much but looming. He doesn't seem especially jovial, which stirs something in the pit of your stomach, but then again he doesn't seem much of anything. He has no appreciable expression. You think the teeth get in the way. He's also the only one making a noise— not really a growl or purr, but in the vicinity of those, way down in his throat.

You clear your own throat. "Earl?"

Rrrrrrrr.

"Um... how are you doing?"

Rrrrrrrrrrrrr.

"If I had to guess," Henry says studiously, "speech is past him."

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