You take your time in the ruins of the Sharlayan colony, which does not yet deserve the name Idyllshire. Gobbiebooms play havoc around you occasionally; you ignore them and focus on your task.
Occasionally some wildlife has a go at you. You usually trade back and forth with Zero on it, get her used to working as part of a team. As your partner.
Aethernet shards and even aetherytes don't actually be open to the sky to function; it's just preferable. You tuck your slyly reestablished network into the shells of buildings, under the shelves of the cliffs.
Last of all, you put one just shy of directly outside Matoya's door. It's at the limit for how far you can put one aethernet shard from another and still have them connect up - and it is connecting up, as you stashed the other one away on the upper side of the cavern's landmass, where Matoya would have no reason to think it was related to her specifically even if she did notice.
And you're certain that she's noticed. She's probably been keeping half an eye on you the entire time.
Once you're certain that you've gotten it hooked into the network, you unroll a woolen Steppe blanket and take a seat, folding your knees up like you're a Doman lord awaiting supplicants. Though neither Kaien nor Hien probably has to deal with frogs attempting to sabotage their complicated works of magick on behalf of their hermitic mistress. Not on any kind of regular basis.
A frog appears, before too long. Without getting up, you raise your eyebrows to it and say, "I'm not following you into her cave to meet with her so that the rest of her minions can blow it up behind my back."
It blinks its big eyes at you. There is wobbling. You are unmoved.
You add, "You can also inform her that I know about the Antitower, the source of the Forum's dumbassery, and what her apprentice has been up to lately."
The frog wobbles its eyes at you one more time before hopping away.
no subject
Occasionally some wildlife has a go at you. You usually trade back and forth with Zero on it, get her used to working as part of a team. As your partner.
Aethernet shards and even aetherytes don't actually be open to the sky to function; it's just preferable. You tuck your slyly reestablished network into the shells of buildings, under the shelves of the cliffs.
Last of all, you put one just shy of directly outside Matoya's door. It's at the limit for how far you can put one aethernet shard from another and still have them connect up - and it is connecting up, as you stashed the other one away on the upper side of the cavern's landmass, where Matoya would have no reason to think it was related to her specifically even if she did notice.
And you're certain that she's noticed. She's probably been keeping half an eye on you the entire time.
Once you're certain that you've gotten it hooked into the network, you unroll a woolen Steppe blanket and take a seat, folding your knees up like you're a Doman lord awaiting supplicants. Though neither Kaien nor Hien probably has to deal with frogs attempting to sabotage their complicated works of magick on behalf of their hermitic mistress. Not on any kind of regular basis.
A frog appears, before too long. Without getting up, you raise your eyebrows to it and say, "I'm not following you into her cave to meet with her so that the rest of her minions can blow it up behind my back."
It blinks its big eyes at you. There is wobbling. You are unmoved.
You add, "You can also inform her that I know about the Antitower, the source of the Forum's dumbassery, and what her apprentice has been up to lately."
The frog wobbles its eyes at you one more time before hopping away.